I would travel only by horse if I had the choice.

Pre-Fall musician.

“You want us to do what?” Johanna blurted.

“Nothing is faster than horses,” Katia Michaelson replied. “I’ll have to leave a bunch of agents here to make their way back by slower means, but time is of the essence. The Warden isn’t going to wait for us to move.”

The previous day had been spent trying to set up everything. Ulrich, upon learning of the events, had immediately decided to accompany them. You could tell that Katia Michaelson was not pleased with the thirster’s presence. Not just because it meant one more of her dozen agents left behind to make their way back with regular merchant caravans.

“They’re good ones. The best breed from the top of the three equestrian centers of Independence. Their biggest customer is the Postal Service, and they even sell to other States. You’ll learn… on the saddle, as they say. Even with novice riders like you, that’s speeding the trip by at least fifty percent. We should be in Vernon in ten days, tops. It took me eight to come.”

She looked pointedly at the Wood Master.

“I’ve ridden a lot when I was a kid. Donkeys aren’t uncommon in the Marches north, unlike horses,” Ulrich said.

“Speaking of which…” Guard Captain Flores interrupted.

“Yes?” Katia asked.

“You’re sure they’re safe?”

“Uh, why?”

“Because… it feels weird. But they have a level.”

“A what?” both Katia, Johanna, and Peter managed to exclaim simultaneously.

“They register for a level of power. Well, except for those two there,” Flores said.

Katia looked at the mounts and turned back to the captain.

“Pure Mustangs, or so they call them. Rare breed, difficult to raise. But then all horses are finicky. They were supposed to be easier to breed before the fall, but the species almost got extinct. What does this mean, they all have levels except our Mustangs? Isn’t that something for people?”

“Well, everyone’s got a level, that’s true, but Changed beasts also do have one. Last month, there was one nasty Felid prowling north, close to the Mirak farmplex and not too far from the lakes. Our team of Talented guards went to track and deal with it. Easy mode for Talented like us. But that beast registered on my Gauge Endurance sense at around level 6. Mrs. Milton said it was something they’d noticed west when they went with a Hero that had that Talent. All Changed Beasts seem to have a level. I never looked at the horses of the mail, but those…” Flores stopped.

Katia completed his thought.

“So, you are saying our horses are actually Changed monsters?”

“That…”

Johanna realized she’d been slowly backing away from what Captain Flores had just announced as potential monsters. She couldn’t see any sign of Changed stuff, but then, she’d never gotten close to horses. She’d seen them very distantly and occasionally in Valetta. All she knew was that they were hard to breed and, yes, fast, which is why the mail system used them.

Hard to breed.

“Oh shit,” she blurted.

All the others looked at her. She looked back at Flores.

“You say two of them don’t have levels, right?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“And you say they’re difficult to breed, right?” she asked Katia.

“I’m not a horse fan, although a lot of the upper class in Vernon like to ride just for the principle. I just insist all my office agents keep training, in case, well, in case they need to travel fast. But yes, Mustangs are hard. All of the horse farms will tell you they need purebreds only. That’s a status thing and a practical one at the same time.”

“Changed can’t interbreed,” Johanna simply stated.

“…”

“Even in the case of Ulrich’s people,” she pointed at the thirster, “who looks very close to an unchanged human, it’s impossible.”

“You can’t breed a Mustang with one of the… Changed horses?” Katia replied before her eyes grew wide.

“I wouldn’t be surprised. There might even be different breeds of Changed horses, and none wouldn’t be fertile with the rest of them. Or maybe they’re like all Changed Beasts. They seem to originate mostly from mana zones, so maybe they do need more mana to reproduce well.”

“I can assure you we Changed do not,” Ulrich injected. “I have enough siblings, nephews, and nieces – of which I am regularly reminded of – to confirm we do not need a mana zone to reproduce. If anything, we’re more fertile than unchanged humans.”

“I’m just speculating,” Johanna said defensively.

Katia Michaelson looked speculatively at the horses, who obviously ignored the argument and were merely waiting for the humans to decide what they wanted to do.

“Every time I think I’m getting a handle on this, there’s another surprise laying in ambush,” she finally sighed.

“Look, it doesn’t matter if they’re monsters or something else. We came here on those, and they didn’t try to bite our heads off or something. Now, let’s try to put you on the saddle,” she added.

Moore was taken aback too. He realized he’d never seen horses close by, even if his imagination conjured all sorts of wild rides in this technology-hamstrung world. So far, donkeys, oxen, many. But no real horses.

Or fake ones, like the Level 2 and 3 Equoids that they had brought up with saddles and everything equestrian.

He realized that he was automatically associating level-bearing creatures with monsters. He’d seen lots of them, from the small, aggressive but not too-dangerous wildcats in the forests surrounding the ruins where his skeleton was to the many elites they’d fought in various mana zones.

But here, there were tamed monsters. Along with two more normal mounts.

There were silent discussions going around, and it was pretty apparent that none of the four were familiar with horse riding.

He wasn’t as well, but then he wasn’t the one who was going to ride those… things.

They finally got help to climb onto saddles, and with Johanna hanging on her mount, he discovered his first monster descriptor popping.

“Fiona”

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Female Equoid, 3 years, 3 months

Equoid

Level: 2

2 unallocated skill point

XP: 3444

STR: 15

AUT: 15

AGI: 15

PER: 15

DEX: 15

EMP: 15

He never had enough “grip” to pull out descriptors of the ones they had fought, but he could see that one. And it was interesting.

The first thing that struck him was the neutral stat spread. All of those stats were at the baseline 15 he was familiar with. Humans had a variable start, with a 91-point total, but the Equoid was perfectly balanced. Like children who hadn’t begun to develop, even if the horse-like creatures had levels and apparently even XP.

He wondered a bit about the name part. This particular horse was called Fiona, obviously. The other two were called Autumn for Laura and Hercules for Tom’s impressive Equoid specimen, respectively, with Peter being on one of the normal horses who, therefore, remained anonymous. He had no idea how the System pulled up those names. He did remember how Laura and Tom’s surnames had changed while they were being married by the pastor, so it was obviously tracked somehow. Did the animals have a name because they got named by people? Or did they get one… somehow?

Well, I don’t know why they tame monsters, but maybe they’re better than the normal horses they have? Even without skills?

Johanna had taken small rides on the oxen in Anasta, as her father had succumbed to her pleas to go “on top”. But that was an entirely different experience. The Postal Service, where Katia’s agents had stabled their mounts, had some “easy beginner” saddles. If they were easy, Johanna did not want to know about the non-easy ones. Each move by her or the horse made her feel like she was about to be ejected from that saddle.

Tom had it way worse, she realized. They’d put him on the largest horse, and while that horse was big enough, he looked even less stable on it than she did. The only one of all four who looked fine was Peter. He was on one of the Mustangs – the levelless horses – and seemed perfectly at ease on the saddle.

“I treat it as an attack. So I instinctively dodge most of the ‘attacks’. Seems to work.”

“Cheater,” both Johanna and Laura said simultaneously.

Katia was interested in the exchange, as it involved a Talent.

“I don’t think that’s how Deflect is supposed to work. If it does, and he’s not just taking advantage of his size,” Johanna told her.

“Believe me, it doesn’t matter how big your horse is for balance,” Katia replied.

“Maybe I got a new Talent?” Peter said.

“Flores would have noticed if you got a level,” Johanna countered.

“There you are,” Laura smirked at her husband, who shrugged back.

“We don’t have time to spare. We’ll go slowly until you get your legs. But we have to start. Now,” Katia interrupted.

Johanna didn’t know if she had found her horse legs yet, but she was sure she’d found some muscles in her calves she had not known existed.

Riding a horse was certainly not an experience she’d ever expected to have, and she was not quite sure it was one she should have wanted. But despite their complete inexperience, she had to admit they’d made some good time. Not much more than if they had walked, but certainly good enough to satisfy at least Katia.

“It will improve every day,” she reassured her.

Mid-way through the afternoon, Peter had started swearing, demonstrating that he was, in fact, using Deflect. That the Talent consumed some of his stamina was assumed, and once he ran out, he had to wait a bit to recover. The diminutive man finally gave up and simply concentrated on staying in the saddle rather than treat his mount’s movements as personal attacks on his balance, as the Talent turned on and off somewhat unpredictably.

“You’ll be sore tomorrow as well,” Katia promised them.

“We’ll see,” Laura replied, prompting an interrogative look.

“I can fix things. If this strain counts as some form of damage, I can probably fix it,” she said.

“…”

Katia Michaelson cursed a lot the next morning when the four of them showed little sign of soreness. The agents merely shook their heads and went on with the breakfast chores.

“I spent over a year riding when I was young before I stopped feeling sore with horses. That’s… cheating.”

“A lot of things a Fixer can do is cheating. I mean, I can now regrow lost parts,” Laura said.

“Why don’t I?” Katia asked.

“Different Talent set,” Johanna replied for Laura. “Yours seem more oriented on acting on persons rather than, well, bodies. Moore probably has assumed you don’t need to fix people with your job. There is a limit to the number of Talents people can have based on their level. Even at 8, you can’t do everything.”

“We need to talk more about those Talents. I will have to make a complete report to the Executive, and even if you’re there to explain things, I must understand as much as I can.”

Once they got underway, Katia moved next to Johanna and started plumbing more on the details of Talents. She spotted the telltale non-light of mana on her eyes and immediately assumed she was using Detect Lies. Not that she intended to dissemble on that matter of Talents. If she didn’t know something, she didn’t know. The undersecretary seemed to have adapted well to her new Talents. Several times before, she’d spotted the mana regeneration indicating that a Talent had been used, even if she saw nothing obvious, and she assumed she was silently giving orders to her agents using Telepathy, if only to get used to that.

“So, because I’m older, I can have more Talents.”

“With Pr. Gomez, we tried to figure out how things worked. I know a bit more than then, but essentially, you gain what he called talent energy, or more accurately experience over time, when you use your Talents, and also when facing Changed beasts or people.”

“Meaning the Warden’s veterans will potentially be more dangerous than civilians would be.”

“You don’t need much to be dangerous. Last year, when we were still lower level, we were already pretty powerful, I realize now. Four-five of the right Talents make most of the difference.”

She thought back about the fights back in New Sandusky.

“You also need to figure out how to use your Talents, when not to go dry from lack of mana or stamina, and above all, how the others in your team work, use theirs.”

Katia turned to stare at Ulrich, who was riding slightly ahead of them, along with some of the Undersecretary’s agents. She knew the Wood Master was also level 8.

“And so, for me, it’s age, for him…”

“Age and a rough life. He’s faced a few Changed beasts. And for us, it’s all those fights and some cheating by the Ancient.”

In the days that followed, as they moved faster and faster along the roads that crossed Independence State, the Undersecretary kept on probing all sorts of aspects of the Talents' behavior.

“So, kids don’t have levels.”

“It seems to start just after puberty. That’s what all the Heroes with Gauge Stamina – which should be called Gauge Level, given what it does – told me. The kids do register on the Talent, unlike non-Changed beasts, but they are all at the lowest level possible, essentially zero. Then, one day, they get to level 1, and that’s when it becomes possible to get a specialization and potentially a Talent.”

“So, you could have sorcerers as young as, what? Fifteen?”

“Potentially, yes.”

“It’s a bit funny, that. Do you know about the Erlangs?” Katia asked.

“Not much. They’re three-eyed people, with many Sorcerers, and powerful. Way more than anyone else.”

“And relatively recluse – you rarely see any outsides of their continent. But one thing I know is that they have this idea that they can prepare their kids for the future. They obsessively collect Artifacts, like the ones I can now detect on most of you…” she waved at Laura and the rest, continuing, “and think if they have their children exposed to Artifacts, then later on, they will develop into proper ‘Lords’, as those with Talents call themselves. All the major families of Erlangs spend a lot of time and energy amassing such heirlooms to help their children along.

“Do you think it could be true?” she asked.

“I have no idea. I would probably say that shouldn’t work that way. In fact, Artifacts interfere with Talents.”

“How so?”

“If you have a Talent and an Artifact that does the same thing, you can’t activate your Talent as long as you’re holding the Artifact. Or use the Artifact itself at all.”

That prompted Johanna to think again about the realm of Moore, of which she had been a temporary visitor.

How does one gain Talents, she asked herself? Without him, that is.

The “dream of mana”, as Elena Worchester had told her, did match far too well what she’d experienced. It was way too bizarre, too out-of-this-world to be a mere coincidence.

Yet, she could not see Moore giving people who managed to get there random Talents. He was far too aware of what those did and far too specific in giving them when he directly intervened. What’s more, he even went out to override Petra’s original specialization-less Talent, for good reason as it turned out given how low her Empathy score had apparently been. So, why would he have given her it in the first time?

People assumed she had the answers, but for every question she’d found an answer to, three more mysteries had sprung.

“Yet, they have to have something going,” Katia interrupted her musings. “I remember a report from the Society of Sorcerers and Sorceress of America saying there is something like one sorcerer per hundred, hundred-fifty thousand people in the Union, but among the Erlang, it is more like one per five thousand.”

“I have no idea how that can be. Why do people gain levels over time, or not, even if they have way more experience than necessary? I mean, you had level 5 but enough experience for a level 8. Yet, you started like everyone else, at zero when you were a kid.”

“So, it is something different when you, Mr. Moore, interfere,” she said.

Johanna had no idea how Moore was supposed to answer. Sometimes people, once they’d gotten the idea that she had an invisible presence “behind” her, assumed she’d speak with Moore’s voice. Just because he could hear them didn’t mean he could answer. Even his dream sendings were costly.

“Pr. Gomez thought everyone operated by the same rules. Even us. All that distinguishes us from everyone else is that we have a dedicated help to change those. But everyone has the chance to be a Hero, a Sorceress, a Saint… with enough luck to stumble upon the right thing.”

“And now, with your intervention… luck is no longer a factor. I do not thank you, Mr. Moore. Sorry,” Katia added to Johanna.