Sneaks through Shattered Hoof

Movement through Shattered Hoof was proving swifter than I felt we had any right to expect. Our progress was partially due to keeping our hoofprints as small as possible -- no lining our saddlebags with items that could be missed. (I made an exception for the contents of the Lost & Found safe, justifying the theft with the reminder that the safe had not been opened since before the megaspells, and so no pony here would be suspicious if it was empty, so long as I closed and locked it again.)

But more than that, these ponies didn’t seem to consider that the fortress could be infiltrated; they weren’t on guard. I’m not a mistress of shadow, but I hardly needed the advanced tutelage from Zebra Infiltration Tactics to slip past ponies whom were being this oblivious. (I’d skimmed through the book while Calamity was fetching the mattress cover.) Calamity wasn’t quite as good and had nearly tipped a Shattered Hoof Raider to his presence twice now, but we’d managed to hide each time. I figured once we got back to the train-fort of Gawd, I’d pass him Zebra Infiltration Tactics to peruse himself. (It’s not as if books can only be read once, after all.)