I was told it was for my own good.
An old acquaintance had invited him, there was also the mention of a promising child. Edgar Lukaaran was always keen on traveling the world but only if he had an apprentice. Was this child worth his effort, maybe not, but he would have a look anyways.
The call to adventure was always within Edgar, but why travel alone and as old as his body felt he would need the help at times, not that he did not have the funds to hire a servant that is. For his short travels around to meet some Lordlings son or daughter he could make a trip with his coachman without problem. After all, if he was invited, he would be privy to some fine beds and hearty meals, nothing wrong with that.
The old acquaintance is no old acquaintance at all but a man he had befriended when said man was but a child. The child was then about ten years old. Passing through the town the boy’s father asked Edgar to read the boy. The boy had a few blessed Talents and therefore the father asked Edgar to seal the Talents.
As it gets progressively harder to increase one’s capabilities, a method was found to seal the Talents that one was blessed with. The bestowed Talents are bound to one’s soul and effect the body in a real manner. Innate Talents on the other hand are also called earned Talents, though that is just to distinguish each other, they are just what the person is capable of and put to word. The bestowed Talents are always additive, though the effects are sometimes exponential.
What also sets bestowed and innate Talents apart is that innate Talents can both be improved or neglected. Though there are also cases of where innate Talents had a form of permanence, those are the real innate Talents while the earned one degrade but some of the scholars never tried to differentiate those for simplicities purpose.
The bestowed Talent Strong will increase Strength by one numeral but to earn another increase in Strength the body has to accomplish the increase not from 10 to 11 but from 11 to 12, and that is harder. So, some very blessed individuals ask wizards to seal the bestowed Talents so they may grow through their own efforts and then experience greater growth once the bestowed Talents are added back again.
Arriving at the keep of Collias Edgar looked out his carriage as they passed the house infront of the keep. A cozy and not quite small house under an impressive willow. A beautiful woman had a child bound to her chest in linen while she was hanging out laundry.
The guardsmen waved the coachman to cross the bridge to the keep. Coming to a halt, Edgar donned his wide brimmed conical hat and waited for Lorian, his coachman, to open his door. That left him waiting, they probably sent a guard to fetch the Lord to receive him. The carriage always felt so, so small and restricting, he could feel it in the stiffness of his back crawl down to his legs, he just wanted to stand and stretch, and they kept him waiting, the wizard felt some outrage creeping up from his stomach and just as he was about to complain, the door was opened, and his mood improved at once.
Stepping out he was greeted with the sight of another beauty of a woman but his one had a young girl at her side, no older than three Edgar thought to himself. Ripping his eyes from the blessing of a woman to a proud looking man at her hand, he scanned to people gathered and saw another tall and well put together man with a boy at his side.
“We welcome the great wizard Edgar Lukaaran as guest to the house of Treadol. Blessed he is and long may he live.” The gathered people called, as Edgar stepped out.
“Thank you, thank you” Edgar chimed as he held his hand up to receive the greeting of the people.
The wizard had a warm and rolling voice and as he strode towards the Lord and his wife, he reached out the pat Robs on the shoulder he used his voice for greetings of his own “Blessed day to you Robs, and all the folk that have gathered to receive me.” After a short pause with a satisfied expression and a bit nodding Edgar continued “Seeing you as a grown man makes me feel old Robs! Stop that would you.”
“Thank you, Edgar, but I must say you have not aged at all since last we saw each other. You look just as dry and old as then.” Robs reciprocated the gesture.
Robs gestured to Lorilia and the girl at her side “These are my spouse Lorilia, should you recall and my daughter Maria.”
“I would not miss two stunning women, they were the first to catch my eyes. And also, are you sure I could recall your wife? She looks half your age, you scoundrel!”
With a chuckle hidden behind her hand Lorilia said “That is very kind of you Edgar. It is always a pleasure to have you.”
Robs scanned the welcome party of guards and voiced “Edgar, I would like to talk to you within my hall, this spring is rather cold. Let’s move inside, shall we?”
Settled into the dining hall of Collias’ keep Edgar remained standing studying a piece of parchment. “Seems I thought myself too important to receive such information! Why was I not privy to this?! A Sun-Child named crown prince? I have secluded myself for too long, I should have paid attention to such matters with a more keen eye. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, even though this is already old news.”
The small outrage confused the lot gathered in the hall. A wizard not involved with the world happenings, a rare sight.
“You are welcome” Robs chimed.
With a deep breath and sigh Edgar finally reclined into an open seat at the table. While entranced by his thoughts Edgar scanned the room and was thrown out of his stupor at a realization. As his eyes looked upon a pair of commoners, they wandered to Robs and back to the father and son duo at the side.
A question formed in Edgar’s mind and voiced it “Who are they?”
“The child I wrote about. Joen is a good friend, and his son needs my help, and I need yours for that purpose. Read both him and my daughter, I will compensate you for that of course.” Robs proclaimed.
Thoughtfully the great wizard nodded to himself and turned to look at the boy once more.
“Reading them is no effort to me. Show me hospitality and I demand no price.” Edgar claimed.
After a rather wordless drink and lunch the great wizard stood up and said “I need a private room. I will do the reading there.”
“That is not necessary, we will hold no secrets in this matter.” Robs cleared up.
“No! I do not care how you and they think of this. I will permit each one parent to accompany them. The reading will reveal every strength and weakness. Any one of these lines may be used against them. You may share among each other what you want but the reading will occur as I say it will. Even then there may be things you won’t even want you next of kin to know.” The great wizard spoke, and each word bore into the men and woman present.
There are inner thoughts, sometimes dark thoughts that are never spoken, similar are the makeup of a person. The reading will reveal everything that may occur within them.
Edgar was shown to his quarters and both Lorilia and Maria found themselves a seat within. The wizard shut the door and took his seat across the girl. He held out his hands “Your hands, if you may.” She put her hands in his and flashed her teeth into a lovely smile.
“Close your eyes and remain still, it will hurt not. I was told it felt even quite nice.”
The girl nodded and closed her eyes and so did Edgar. Maria felt a warmth spread within her. As Edgar felt his mind’s eye being filled with a large picture of an orb of silver light. The Orb spread thin streaks silver in all directions. As they spread, a skeleton formed, and a body of silver light was created. What the lines of silver touched, where it went and how it twisted Edgar analyzed the uses of them and their origin. What is a blessing, what is innate, what has she learned.
Edgar let go of one hand and reached for his feather and qull and started writing down what he could read. The process took time and Edgar had to deeply look within his mind’s library to find the names for these Talents and understand what is happening within the girl.
After that was done, Edgar read to them what he found and spelled things once questions arose.
Edgar told the leaving girls that he would send for the boy once he gathered himself. They left him to his own and went to share the findings Lorilia and Edgar agreed were worth sharing.
The men and boy lounged about when Lorilia and Maria entered.
“So? What did he read?” Robs jumped at them and Joen and Dawn perked up, not wanting to miss what Maria might be capable of.
“She has inherited my Talent and your mother’s. She can share her vigor and she can innately channel vigor to heal others.”
“That is amazing!” Robs voiced and the father-son duo also gasped from the shocking news. Inheriting Talents from both bloodlines was not unheard of, especially with rare Talents like Share Vigor and Healing. Both Talents are feminine Talents and not overly rare among noble families but a character having both is boon to the town and the world alike. With these two Talents Maria also has a considerable leg up in trying to learn Channelling, which would result her in becoming a wizard. By pure talent she is a sorcerer.
Over the last year Dawn has spent quite some time within the walls of the keep, learning reading and decorum. The idea was to develop Dawnovins intellect as soon as possible, if he could reason with himself and understand more of the world or more easily interact with it, he would be able to avoid a situation would bring his bloodlust into motion. Also doing minor disciplining would help him suppress minor flaring of that Trait. The time spent has led to Dawnovin being closely involved with House Treadol, and so it was not out of line for him to embrace Maria in a hug and share his congratulations.
Robs and Lorilia were blatantly trying to tie the Sun-Child to their house, it was no secret and no one would object if Dawnovin would turn out to be the blessing his circumstances would indicate. There were still barriers that would have to be overcome, but they can be overcome by those worthy. Treadol has no qualms about grooming Dawnovin into a worthy being.
After the small celebration Robs and Lorilia were discussing plans for their daughter. She would need the chance to learn Channelling, she had a great chance to break past the bottleneck and transcend her family to that of wizardry. With the script flipped and Maria turning out to be a great blessing to Treadol, the question now was not which Talents Dawnovin had, but whether they were enough to be worthy of Maria.
Maria still being very young quickly lost interest in talking and urged Dawnovin to play some game with her, they settled for a dice game to pass the time, while Joen involved himself with Robs and Lorilia’s discussion.
About half an hour passed when a knock came and the guard entered to collect Joen and Dawnovin. Dawnovin looked to Joen and his father gave him a stern expression and nodded “Let’s go.”
Arriving at the doorstep of Edgar Lukaaran Dawn’s heart thumped hard in his chest, he could feel and hear his blood pumping. Dawn also felt the hand on his shoulder gripping tighter and their eyes locked on to each other.
With a thought Joen threw a look at the door and nodded to himself, he lowered himself to one knee and gazed into his sons eyes.
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“Son. I will not enter this room. I trust you to tell me what you want to tell me. I do not want to know your weaknesses. Training you, teaching you… I will help you with whatever you ask of me and will do what I think is best for you. I firmly believe that you will be an amazing individual. This is still the beginning, and your story is still at the starting line, but some of the things that you will find out about yourself should maybe never leave your lips. The wizard has integrity and will not betray those secrets to anyone, of that I am sure. I will see you in the dining hall.” During that short speech a frown formed on Dawn’s face, not knowing what to think. Joen stood up showed Dawnovin a confident smile and walked away, leaving the boy alone.
For some reason confidence bloomed in Dawn’s chest as he realized the trust his father had in him, his nervousness melted away, Dawn knocked on the door.
“Come inside!” the gravely warm voice called. As Dawn closed the door behind him Edgar continued “I am sorry for overhearing you and your fathers conversation, but I want to state that-, that you have a good father. Come.” Edgar gestured to the seat across for Dawnovin to sit down in.
“Now, young man. I’ve heard you name being spoken. Danovin, right?” Edgar initiated the conversation.
“Dawnovin.” He corrected the wizard who was already trying to write the name down. At the wizards confused expression, Dawn spelled his own name out.
“Folks mostly call me Dawn.” He added.
“That is a unique name, young Dawnovin. And being able to read and write and your age, and with your status, is rare as well.” Edgar mumbled. “Now, what is your age exactly?” hastily adding.
“I am five years since last Martius.”
At that sentence things fell into place for the wizard, and he gasped out loud.
“You are a Sun-Child!” laughing out loud.
“You should know… Ah no, I will keep that to myself. Let’s start that reading. I am now curious myself. Be warned, being a Sun-Child does not guarantee amazing Talents. So don’t be disappointed should you be…” he trailed off, and held his mouth, realizing he was about to bring down the mood.
“Hold out your hands and close your eyes.” Edgar continued.
The great wizard started the process and warmth spread through Dawnovin’s being.
Within Edgar’s mind’s eye he saw a golden orb, so far so normal. From the golden orb spread thinner and thicker streaks of gold, and as the picture grew, Edgar noticed a small white orb above the golden orb. This was the indication of a Blessing, in fact the orb was large enough to be classified as a Greater Blessing. And not far away there was another Minor Blessing. Certainly something related to him being a Sun-Child.
Since readings are not instantaneous the picture had yet to fully realizing within Edgar. There was quite a list of things to work through.
Some of the golden streaks intertwined with some of the white streaks, further enhancing the effects. The Greater Blessing had a red outline while the Minor Blessing had magenta outline. Remembering the identification Edgar noted that red was the color of the God of War and the magenta color was related to the Goddess of Love. The month one was born in greatly influences peoples Blessings, if they had been bestowed one. As the month of Martius was beside the moth of Aprilis such an arrangement of Blessings made sense to Edgar.
With some fervor Edgar was writing down what he saw. The scratching and scribing noise made Dawnovin perk up. His curiosity prompted him to open his eyes. Before he actually did open his eyes, the wizards voice warned “Do not open your eyes without me telling you.”
Why that was important, Dawn did not know but he followed the wizard’s order, not opening his eyes.
The feeling of having the warmth focus on parts of his body and mind kept him up, otherwise, Dawnovin feared falling asleep, but he did not have the chance to.
Except for the constant scratching of the feather, some two dozen minutes passed in silence.
The wizard let go of Dawn’s right hand and proclaimed, “You can open your eyes again.”
Blinking away the brightness of the candle Dawn voiced a question “How long did that take?”
In a quite monotonous voice Edgar answered “I don’t know. But I have to clean this up. My notes were quite out of order, there was a lot to write down. And something I am unclear about. We will talk about it once I am done.”
Dawn again reclined in his seat and waited.
Suddenly the wizard cleared his throat, waking up the boy. “This is your reading, have a look.” He spun the parchments towards Dawn who was once more blinking away the bright light after waking up.
Dawnovin of Collias
Gender: Male
Age: 5 Birth Martius 29th
Height: 4’ 6” Weight: 100 lbs.
Strength: 8 Health: 8
Dexterity: 8 Reaction: 4.5 Reach: 6
Intellect: 5 Will: 5 Perception: 5
Endurance: 8 Vigor: 8
Innate Talents:
Acute Hearing I
Acute Vision I
Night Vision II
Flexibility
Strong II
Dexterous II
Intellect I
Enduring I
Reach I
Heat/Cold Tolerance I
Earned Talents:
Night Vision I
Heat/Cold Tolerance I
Bestowed Talents:
Minor Blessings of Aprilis
Acute Hearing I
Acute Vision I
Enduring I
Handsome
Honest Face
Penetrating Voice
Greater Blessings of Martius
Damage Resistance II
Danger Sense
Reaction II
Strong III
Dexterous III
Enduring III
Heat/Cold Tolerance II
Regeneration II
Reawakened
Weapon Master VI?
Innate Drawbacks:
Half-Giant
Increased Consumption I
Earned Drawbacks:
-
Bestowed Drawback:
Bloodlust II
Lecherousness II
Increased Consumption I
“I will answer any questions you may have, and I believe there to be a few.” Edgar offered.
Reading through the two sheets of parchment, the first question formed was “Is this good? Or bad? I would not know.”
As if just remembering that he was talking to a five-year-old, Edgar explained “Ah. Yes, your Talents are quite good. Alone your Innate Talents in this combination, you’d be hard pressed to find among the majority of nobles. Your bloodline would have a good chance of attaining nobility, if that was your goal.”
“Could you explain to me what these mean?” Dawnovin pointed to the values at the beginning of the parchment.
Just realizing that spelling everything out to this boy will take some time as Dawn probably will have to ask about everything as the boy’s father was not present, Edgar prepared himself with a sigh.
“The Strength value represents the strength of your entire body. Not just your arms or your legs but also the back, the belly, the neck and all the rest. A ten would represent the strength of a regular adult woman and an eleven, that of a man. Health is an extension of Strength, the stronger you are the more hits in general you can take and the better your body can carry you. As you are still in the midst of growing, it will stay even until about sixteen years of age. Similarly, Dexterity represents your ability to precisely control your limbs, but here men are on average at ten and women at eleven. With it your Reaction gets better and the faster you can move your limbs as well, that does affect your Reach. Reaction is how fast you can react, and Reach is how far you can move within a moment. Intellect is your capacity to process information and the ‘strength’ of your mind to create complex thoughts, and Will is your ability to resist things that affect your mind, like mental stress, anxiety or nervousness or an evil wizard trying to influence your mind. As with the other values, you are still growing so it will change quite a bit. Endurance is your ability to suffer through stress, like running for a long time or that in extreme heat or cold. At last, Vigor is your stamina, it represents how much or long you can exert yourself, like running or carrying heavy things or if you could channel how much or long you can channel.” He took a deep breath. “Any question surrounding that part, or should I just continue with the Talents?”
“How does one measure that?” Dawn asked.
The question put Edgar to formulate an answer but decided to avoid the question “Without being able to see it, it is close to impossible to explain. I am sorry I can not answer that question. Anything else?”
Dawn shrugged “Nothing comes to my mind.”
“Good! Next, Talents. Innate, Earned and Bestowed. Innate are inherited and combined Talents that are related to your parents and ancestors. Earned are those you have trained to acquire, like you could learn to channel. Lastly, Bestowed Talents are those received through a Blessing. Talents from different sources just add up. Like Strong, you have II Innate and III Bestowed, that adds up to V. Now, with the base values we talked about before if you earn a full point in Strength, a reader like myself would just adjust the value at the beginning. And before you ask, Night Vision does not let you see in the dark, it makes you better at seeing the world in less light, if there were no light, one would need Dark Vision to see anything. I think most are self-explanatory, so Danger Sense is an ability that may or may not give you a sense whether something dangerous is close or incoming. It is quite esoteric. Most spells for example could be sensed with this ‘sense’ but some people can avoid the sense. It can and probably will save your life, but I should never be relied on, one would just be tempting fate by trusting that Talent. Here are the big ones, Reawakened. You retain a Talent or Talents, or even skills or memories from a former life you have lived. From what I have seen you have not gotten any memories but a rather impressive Talent. To my observation it looks like Weapon Master, but it is much more complex than any form of the Talent that was ever found. Weapon Master generally is a skill threshold, that once reached signals one’s ability to deal more damage and is better at executing techniques. It is partially supernatural as the person is able to do more than their body is capable of. Being more precise than their Dexterity would allow and generate more force than that persons Strength would create. The complexity of the Talent does not mean the effect is stronger, it means it affects more weapons… normally. That is for you to find out. Anything else related to your Talents?” Edgar asked once more.
“How strong is Regeneration II?”
With a swift huff the wizard started “Yes, I missed to explain that. With Regeneration II you could be dying from wounds and within about one to two days you would be as healthy as you could be once more. To note, bleeding out, getting stabbed in the heart or getting decapitated does still result in death, it will not prevent your death, it will however let you recover from wounds and bone fractures within hours instead of days or weeks.”
“I see. Please continue.” Dawnovin gestured innocently.
“Drawbacks! Half-Giant has been influenced by the Greater Blessing but has formed to become Innate. Why is being tall a Drawback, despite it making it easier to gain Strength? Because it makes you a bigger target, because you need clothing and equipment that is normally not made and because you weigh more. Increased Consumption, it is a result of your Talents, they need power, so you need to eat more, that would also suggest that you have a chance to learn Channelling. Don’t get your hopes up, that Talent is rather rare and not many learn it. Bloodlust is your thirst to finish of your opponent and Lecherousness is your yearning to pursue a romantic relationship. That sums it up!”
“But why are they bestowed to people? Drawback why am I also cursed to hurt others? It is not fair.” Dawnovin voice wavered as his head low making an ugly face, tears flowing.
“I see, you have already been acquainted with your gift’s cost.” Edgar sighed.
“Young man, let me tell you, they are not curses.”
Wiping away his tears Dawnovin perked up.”
“You have amazing Talents, and with them struggle will become less, but without struggle you could never grow. These influences are there for you to encounter hardships so you may grow. With that power you have been granted, your character must be a strong one, to be worthy of your gifts... The more one has the more one must suffer. It is a balance to be kept. This is your trial.”
With reddened eyes and a pained expression Dawn looked up to the wizard across the table and said, “I think I understand.”
With a warm smile and the wizard stood up “Let’s go see your father, I believe we left him waiting long enough. What say you?”
“Yes! And… thank you, Ed.”
“Ha. It was no trouble at all, Dawn.”