What would you like to call the new breed of horse?

Congratulations!

You have created two new Discovery Magics!

Discovery Magic: Breed Transformation.

The ability to transform a creature’s breed.

Discovery Magic: Breed Creation.

The ability to create a new breed.

Rewards

+20 points to Intelligence.

New Active Skill: Breed Inspection

Breed Transformation Rank F and Breed Creation Rank F have been combined into Breed Manipulation Rank F.

Breed Inspection

Can see the stats of a creature’s breed.

Note: Due to the vast differences between a creature’s breed and their individual abilities, the Stats shown using this ability will use a unique scale of 1 to 5 stars.

Unnamed Breed

Speed: 4

Strength: 3

Endurance: 2

Intelligence: 2

Dexterity: 1

Special Trait: Adaptive

Alden brimmed with prideful energy as he reviewed the screens once more, now that the distraction calling itself Edric was gone. He mourned the absence of Amice, of course, but his victory over nature was of greater importance; and, he reasoned, she would be back, and when she was she would see how this new breed fared against the likes of a cwicwrot and a storocc.

The cwicwrot, in particular, he wanted to test it against.

Cwicwrot

Speed: 4

Strength: 2

Endurance: 2

Intelligence: 3

Dexterity: 3

According to their stats, the new breed was on par in speed and stamina. Not the overwhelming creature of legends he’d wanted to make, but sacrifices were a necessity at this stage. Perfection could be achieved at another time.

He dismissed the screens without a thought towards the new breed’s name; what good was a name for something that had yet to prove its mettle?

Wind roared against the stable’s walls. The day’s storm had finally come, darkening the world outside. The walls creaked suspiciously as the wind wailed, as if the solid beams of hardwood were threatening to snap in two. But the walls of the stable was of no issue, at least not so much as his ‘sight’. Alden’s ‘sight’ of the outside world had become of flurry of half-formed images clouded by the wind. A distance away was a pair of footsteps walking away. A distance further, a single set approached.

It is her, said the brother.

She comes to ask something of you, said the sister.

No racing today, his second self surmised.

He opened the door before Edith could knock, the shock of which sent her back a step.

“Ah, um, greetings, my lord,” she said.

“Couldn’t see that?” Alden asked.

Edith blushed bright red and avoided his gaze.

“Come in,” Alden said. “Out of the wind.”

Shutting the door behind her, Alden was keenly aware of how it all might have looked from the eyes of an observer. A young woman joining a young man, alone, in the stables where only the Baron’s men were allowed. He wondered if anyone noticed, or if anyone even cared. Edric didn’t seem to, despite Baron Gildynaepple’s purpose in sending him here.

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Edith stood by the stable’s doors, eyes downcast, shuffling from one foot to the other. Embarrassment, Alden assumed. He waited until she had the conviction to speak.

“A thousand nooses wait, dangling in the heavens. Not to be used.” She paused. “A different thing. The sky and earth are one.”

“Are these the visions you’ve have?” Alden asked.

Edith nodded. “I see much,” she said.

But understand little, said the brother.

“Why have you come here?”

Before she could answer there was a loud bang off to the right, along with a flurry of wind. A shuttered window hung open, clanging against the wall. Alden crossed the room to shut it, saw that the iron latch meant to hold it closed had broken off the wall, and sighed. The horses’ll be fine, he thought. The wind might spook them, but it wouldn’t kill them.

“Let’s go to the manor,” he suggested, half-yelling over the wind. Edith nodded.

Inside the manor, Alden brought her to the tea room on the second floor and brewed them both a cup. Despite his efforts, however, Edith fidgeted about in her chair, obviously uncomfortable.

He handed her a cup of steaming tea. “Now, I ask you again. Why come to meet with me?”

Edith took the cup with both hands, fixated on the liquid within. Inside her chest Alden could hear the faint thump thump thump of her quickening heart, and upon her cheeks he saw the beginnings of a rosy complexion. Her lips curled ever so slightly at the edges into a sort of quarter-smile.

“I have none else to tell of what I see,” Edith said. Her quarter-smile faded into a thin, sad frown. Delicately, Edith put her cup down on the table, the tea within untouched. “Apologies, my lord. I find I do not have a thirst at the moment.”

“That’s perfectly fine. But if you’ve come to tell me of what you see, then I ask: what else do you see?”

She looked past him into the world beyond himself, as she’d done before, and her body shook. She wrapped her arms around herself in a tight hug, as one might during a cold day, then flinched back. Turning again to him, Edith continued staring, every moment growing more upset, more distraught. Tears came first, then more shaking. Then Edith’s lips parted into a half-panicked snarl, and she began to wail.

It wasn’t until Alden was knelt at her side that the panic left her, leaving her with wet streams down her face. He comforted her as best he could with quiet whispers and the patting of his hands against her shoulders, fearful she might see something more and lost herself once more in fear. But she didn’t lose herself, and instead wiped her face dry with a handkerchief.

“A g–great darkness,” she said, choking back sobs. “A coin with a g-golden castle on one side a-and a city in flames on the other.”

Alden rubbed her shoulders to ease her. These visions of hers would prove useful, if he could decipher them. But, as before, when the visions were targeted upon himself they brought about nothing but anguish for their beholder.

Great darkness–a long, moonless night, maybe? His second self broke down the vision into its constituent parts in an effort to discover their meaning, yet the truth still eluded him. The visions were vague and short, and there were too many happenings to wonder at which would lead to the path Edith foresaw. But, in the end, we will see either a glorious ascension or destruction.

As her sobs fell away, Edith clutched at the fabric of Alden’s shirt. Her head lolled to the side and she leaned over, resting her head against Alden’s shoulder. He made to move her from him, but her quiet sobs stilled him. He was not heartless. Merely uncomfortable.

When her sobs finally died away completely he pulled himself from her and sat in his own chair. Edith was frowning, he saw, and gazing in his direction, though, he noticed, not directly at him.

She loves, said the brother.

She hurts, said the sister.

I can do nothing for either. He would put a stop to it if she forced his hand, though Alden wasn’t certain she would. Edith was a shy woman, almost a girl in some ways. He hoped her feelings would not stray into the…overt.

“They will not,” Edith said.

“Come again?”

“My feelings,” Edith replied. “I–I will keep them in check, my lord.”

Alden leaned back in his chair. Did I speak aloud?

“The words of the mouth are as loud to me as the words of the skull,” Edith said. “I hear what is spoken and what was never meant to be spoken.”

She looked away then, her face downcast at having heard his next thought. Dangerous. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, a look of growing panic on her. Then she heard Alden’s next thoughts and eased. She trusted me enough to reveal it.

“I won’t do anything to you,” Alden said as a matter of formality. She could hear his thoughts. Therefore she would know what he was to say before he said it. Yet, in Alden’s mind, it was the act of it that mattered most. “But I cannot allow you in my presence, except on my own terms. You understand, I hope?”

“I do,” Edith said. “I understand. I–I expected as much.”

“Good.” Wind rattled the windows and he looked to them, imagining they might shatter into a thousand pieces. But the glass held even as the wind continued, his sense of the outside world disquietingly disturbed. He had grown so used to his senses that now, being unable to ‘see’ with more than his eyes, Alden felt as if his senses were being deprived.

“You are strange.” Edith spoke in the calm tone of a woman merely stating the obvious.

“I have heard that said to me countless times now.” Less than a hundred, his second self estimated. Definitely countable. Alden wondered if Edith could hear his second self, too, and when she scrunched up her face in confusion he expected she could.

She hears all, said the brother.

Testing…

It was almost childishly experimental, but it proved the point well enough.

All but…something, said the sister.

I’ll explain at another time.

“Do you keep a diary?” Alden asked. Edith shook her head. “As Baron, I cannot always be there to hear about your visions. A solution to this is for you to keep a diary, within which I ask you to record all that you see in these visions. If, of course, you are willing.”

“I find this arrangement acceptable,” Edith said.

Alden knitted his hands together and smiled. “Good. I look forward to reading it.”