Main Dinning Room

  While she finished her breakfast Veronique was hoping that the new teacher would show up today so they would finally get to the practical side of skills.

  The Duke didn’t want Miss Hawkings to even have then try anything other then theory without this teacher overseeing it and given what Veronique had heard of the possible side effects of a badly casted skill she can understand that.

  Going from what she learned there were two types of skills those that you get a birth that can be unique to the individual and others which can be obtained with studying.

  Those kind of obtainable skills Veronique would categorize them mostly as elemental magic, the majority of it was offensive in nature, but there were still weaker versions of it that were mostly harmless even if they were the bases to obtain the stronger version.

  Can’t learn the skill -Whirlwind- without knowing -Breeze- first, with the exception of being born with -Whirlwind- as a skill of course.

  -Hover- was also the base to learn -Leap- and ultimately -Flight-, even if the knowledge of this last skill was kept under lock and key in the Royal vault along with all the stronger light based skills other then -Light-

  Veronique did ask if there was any Dark based skill, but apparently such thing didn’t exist, which she found quite odd , and the only instance of something akin to teleportation was some old legend from back when they were still living in the Circles, which Miss Hawkings didn’t even remember the details about.

  She had noted to herself to go look it up at the Library…when the staff stopped looking at her with the evil eye.

  Mr Kepler was basically a god to the Library staff and they were quite pissed at her.

  Veronique didn’t want to cause any more trouble, so she had decided to avoid going where she wasn’t wanted.

  Going with Miss Hawkings’s explanations she would still able to find copies of the books she might need in rooms relative to the subject, like in the music room

  Meaning that she could work around not going to library…even if as far as the map Kain gave her there was no specific room where old legends would be kept at, but it was fine, she could wait to read about such thing and she had her hands full at the moment.

  Between the lessons with Miss Hawkings and the crushing pressure from the Hound Master’s ultimatum she wouldn’t even have time to go the library in the first place, so she had no reason to stir up drama by going there.

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  Speaking of drama, her hallucinations were acting weird again, it was as if something had been agitating them and they seemed quite worried about it.

  Yet Veronique couldn’t see anything unusual in the Dinning room that could warrant such reaction, the staff there had even dropped most of their hostility and everything seemed just normal

  Was she just going complete bananas from the stress? It could be.

  …or something was wrong.

  Inner Garden

  Veronique had been walking with Miss Hawkings and Rhea, today they were going to the pay a visit to their brewer because Rhea had expressed concerns about Veronique’s tea

  “How can Veronique drink it and not die? Isn’t it poison?” Rhea would ask frightened “look at her its killing her!” it was kind of sweet for the child to be that worried about her, but it was important to completely reassure her that the tea was safe, as a matter of fact they were also going to Doctor Copperfold to prove to the child that Veronique was perfectly fine.

  In truth Veronique was a bit apprehensive about the tea herself, but she wasn’t going to say it out aloud.

  They had reached about the middle point of the inner garden when Veronique took notice that Handstand had come from somewhere and reached Clashing Eyes, it struck her as weird because those two usually never interacted with each other so she stopped to pay more attention to it, and in that moment she noticed a weird cluster of what looked like crows but not quite.

  They had two tails instead a single one and a longer beak.

  She walked closer to look at those weird crows better, but she knew she was into something there because Hanging Jaw had stepped right in front of her as if to stop her from going forward, and so did all of her usual hallucinations.

  It did made her pause.

  “Lady Veronique where are you going?” Miss Hawkings had asked, no doubt wondering what the redhead was up to now.

  “I am just checking out those weird birds” Veronique responded as she frowned and stared at Hanging Jaw as if to demand some sort of explanation about what was going on…but the Dead couldn’t answer her for more reasons then one so it was kind of silly to even try.

  “Birds?” Miss Hawkings repeated sounding confused.

  “Whoa those birds look so silly” Rhea had said as went to Veronique’s side and then ran out towards the tree they were crowding to, so she could have a closer look at them

  “STOP!” Miss Hawkings yelled out, Veronique didn’t think twice about running after Rhea and caught the child by the shoulders just as the older woman had caught up with them.

  But it was too late.

  A few manicured brushes and the big branches of the tree had covered from view the ground right next to the roots where those crow like birds were feasting on something.

  Rhea and Veronique had only seen it for a few moments as Miss Hawkings had been quick to shield them from it.

  Those moments were far more then enough to sear the sight in their memory.

  It was an humanoid shape with their whole right shoulder and arm missing.

  It was something that unmistakably wore a ragged maid uniform belonging to the Aurelia household, as evident by the small silver pin with the family emblem.

  It didn’t seem to have gone cold by long, with reddish juices watering all around where it laid.

  It was being ripped apart by voracious beaks, but looked like it had gone through a beast with claws and fangs first.

  One day I am going to misspell Copperfold to Copperfield and not notice; I bet there must be a Kaine instead of Kain that I missed too.

  Hanging Jaw - the Dead with the jaw just barely attached

  Handstand - another Dead with just the top half, but instead of dragging its body it walks on its hands.