Once there were neighboring kingdoms that did not get along.  The Kings were, in large part, to blame for this.  Both were not very nice, especially towards one another.  They waged many a war between them, but neither land could gain the upper hand over the other.  They were locked in a long and bitter stalemate.

  This did not sit well with one of the Kings.  He demanded of his court that they send spies into his hated enemy's court to learn his strategies and gain victory.  But the neighboring King was not so daft and sent back all those who tried to infiltrate his court.. Well.. From the neck up, anyway.

  So it was that when the King called upon his nobles to go into the neighboring kingdom to get his vital information, the King ended up pointing at one noble and ordering him, as none of his court wanted to lose their heads.

  The drafted Noble did not want to lose his head, either.  He knew this mission was suicide, so he went deep into the library of this castle to find a patsy.  Any scroll pusher would do.

  The hapless sage could not refuse the order of the Noble.  If he did not go into the neighboring lands and return with vital intelligence, the King would have him beheaded.  If he did go, however, he would meet the same fate.  What did a scholar know of stealth and espionage?  He was wise enough to know he needed help.

  So the scholar went to the court wizard, for some aid in his endeavor to be more stealthy.  The wizard smiled when the scholar arrived, and offered a potent magic to aid him.  The great power of invisibility.

  The scholar happily agreed!  How could an invisible spy not succeed?  The spells were cast, and for a moon the scholar would not be seen.

  The scholar was brimming with confidence as he headed to the enemy lands to do his spying.  He arrived at the castle without incident, and tried to sneak  in through the busy castle gates.  Alas, there was a bazaar happening in the courtyard at the time, and as nobody could see him, the poor scholar was bumped and knocked around.  He eventually fell to the ground and was stepped on by the bustling mass of people, who thought little of the uneven terrain.

  The scholar crawled out of the courtyard and made his way to the throne room, surely the information he needed would be easily gleaned there.  After a few hours of listening to the king rant on and on about his hated enemy, the Scholar soon learned that such secrets as his lord required were not uttered so readily to the air.

  The Scholar tried searching the castle, but he kept bumping into guards and finding locked doors at every turn.  Things were not going well.  The scholar was at a loss.  Invisiblity, in theory, was absolute stealth!  Yet he constantly found himself completely useless.  It was time to do what he knew he was good at, it was time to think.

  A new plan came to the scholar as he lay crouched in a corner, desperately trying not to be trod upon.  An invisible spy might not work, but an assassin might!  He could easily drop some poison powder into the king's meal undetected!

  Come dinner time, the scholar had everything ready.  Finally his horror would pay off.  He snuck up to the king's place at the table and dropped in a pinch of deadly poison into the royal soup.

  The scholar decided to stay nearby so he could accurately describe the look on the King's dying face to his lord.  The King, however, did not eat his soup.  As per usual, the royal ire was flaring, and the royal soup was flung at an errant servant, who had the gall to set some dirty silverware.

  The flying soup did not hit its target.  For the Scholar was standing between the king and the servant.  The whole court stood in amazement for a moment as they stared at the soup outlined person standing in their midst.  Of course, it was not enough time for the Scholar to escape the royal guard, who ran the poor soul through.

  The invisible head was sent back to court from which it came, and perhaps they learned a valuable lesson from his death:

 There is more to stealth than just not being seen.