You have chosen the Lion as the animal for your Cherubin. Cherubin has now become Leonine Cherubin and has been granted a unique skill and trait. All Medics have been upgraded into the Unique Unit Leonine Cherubin.

Unique Skill Acquired - Leonine Vigor

Unique Trait Acquired - Pride Defender

Leonine Vigor - All Leonine Cherubin extend a Psionic Field unique to their unit type to encompass multiple units increasing their defensive capabilities by five points. An additional bonus of increasing their coordination.

Pride Defender - All units actively healed by the Leonine Cherubin will have a temporary increase in their defense by two points. This may only stack five times for a total of ten points. The effect lasts one hour.

Congratulations on discovering your first Unique Unit for biological origins that incorporate an aspect of your House Symbol. You have been granted one House Symbol Card as a reward.

House Symbol Card - This card will allow you to either create a Symbol for your Royal House or grant a unit type under your command an aspect of your House Symbol to further increase their abilities. This card is a three month cool down, choose wisely.

My mind boggled at the information. My Medics, Leonine Cherubin, just became the single most important unit in an active firefight with this little boost. I wondered what else would be learned as time went by and Green studied that book more. The House Symbol Card would be useful as well, and I knew precisely where that damn thing was going. My Imperial Guard would be given that little boost, and if it gave me the same option as it had with the Medics, I’d go ahead and choose the bear. Mostly because Trenton’s armor already had the bear vibe going with it. I smiled, closing those prompts.

When I looked back at where Green had been, she was gone. What the fuck? I caught her retreating form inside the Facility and smiled ruefully at her. She had been all gung-ho about ensuring I wasn’t being stupid and the first old book she sees takes her far away. I no longer regretted my choice of gifting it to her.

Another Medic came out a moment later looking confused. I just smiled at him before saying “Take me to the Barracks and Fernando.”

I waved the man off when we arrived at the Barracks and forced one of the Marines at the entrance to take over rolling me. It wasn’t anything against the medically inclined individual, just that he hit way more bumps than anyone else had. It made the trip very uncomfortable.

The fact the Marine moved me with barely any complications while wearing that armor made me laugh a bit. He asked if I was alright and I waved him off, still chuckling. He stopped outside of the quarters section of the Barracks. I’d been paying far too little attention because I hadn’t even noticed the paths we had taken.

Shrugging it off and accepting the fact I’d likely be assaulted by Fernando’s stalkers later for information I had the Marine leave and entered the room. What I saw had me laughing even harder. The image of my stoic General all but ruined for a moment as I took in everything.

The Monster of monsters sat there on a bunk in casual dress. His tongue was sticking out of the side of his mouth, and an incredible amount of concentration was being used on the project in his hands. The project in question looked like a ball of yarn and crochet needles. The big man who all but lived on battle and practically ran everything dealing with management within and without the military was currently muttering while trying to make a chain of yarn.

I lost it, I mean I just straight up busted a gut. Laughing, long and hard, I saw Fernando jump in surprise, losing the little progress he made. The sheer look of complete loss that he displayed, followed by a loud ‘nooooooooo,’ made me laugh all the more as well. He’d finally fully humanized himself, and given me a significant bit of blackmail material.

When I finally stopped laughing, I asked Fernando what the hell he had been doing. The man looked a bit embarrassed but responded quickly enough. “Trying to learn this skill, sir. I found watching a few of the women around Bastion doing this relaxing and wished to learn myself” he paused a bit before continuing. “I cannot easily approach any of them because of their odd obsession with me, so I have been attempting to imitate their actions from memory. It has proven very...difficult.”

Chuckling at the answer and had him hand over the yarn and crochet needle. “I’ll teach you. My Mother taught me when I was a kid. I found it relaxing then. Right, so this is how you start the chain and make the single stitch pattern…”

Twenty minutes later he had it down. Single stitch, double stitch, half double stitch, triple stitch and even the afghan stitch. Basic stuff really but he absorbed it like a champ. I was more surprised I remembered how to do it at all. I ignored the increase in personal relationship prompts I got from the action and got down to business.

“Before I get started on those papers you sent to me, anything I need to know now?” I’d rather get anything pressing out of the way, the fact it kept me from paperwork only increased that motivation. To my immense satisfaction, there was nothing though.

“No, sir. Everything is well in hand at this time. Repairs to the wall are progressing without complication, as are the recovered Battlecruisers. Duke requested a few more people to fill out the bare minimum requirements to crew them, but otherwise, all is well for the time being.” He finished three rows of a single stitch and then began doing some funky combining of the stitches that boggled my mind. I chose to ignore the talented bastard and told him to inform me of any changes.

Waving me off, I left the room and damn near rolled over Trenton and a huffing Green. I couldn’t see Trenton's eyes, but I knew the man was a little miffed that he had been left behind, Green looked chagrined though. As for me, I just sighed and stroked Leo’s ears. I decided to get the whole House Symbol Card thing out of the way and activated the damn thing on Trenton before I forgot.

Congratulations Player! You have used a House Symbol Card on the Unique Unit - Imperial Guard!

Attention! You have already allocated your Lion setting to the Leonine Cherubin and may only use Bear or Wolf for selection at this time. Please make your choice.

Congratulations Player! You have selected the Bear for your Imperial Guard. This has changed them from a Unique Unit into a Specialized Unique Unit - Ursine Guard

All Imperial Guard have become Ursine Guard, and their primary specialization has altered to Defense. All future Imperial Guard may now only have one chosen specialty while the prime defaults to Defense.

Ursine Guard - Marine Unit that has bonded with the very essence of a bear, becoming unstoppable juggernauts in combat.

Ursine Guard have combined all present skills into a single Legendary Skill - Ursines Wrath

Ursines Wrath - Legendary Skill that cannot be improved. It sends the Ursine Guard into a form of battle rage that increases all attack, defense, and healing by two hundred percent for ten minutes. After use, the Ursine Guard will become helplessly exhausted for two hours.

I blinked in horror at that. What the actual fuck? Where was my shield wall? Where did that all go? I double checked his status and saw he had indeed lost all of his skills and they had turned into the Ursines Wrath ability. Yeah, it was a Legendary Skill or whatever but son of a bitch!

Right, these cards were not always fantastic. At least it still had benefits. During quick engagements, they would be unstoppable with some healing. The two hour exhausted state after made it so using that skill would be pointless otherwise, maybe in clutch moments but that’s it.

A cool thing did happen though, Trentons' armor became more Ursine. The helmet became a full-on bears head with the visor turning into something that looked like a faceplate. His chest armor grew thicker, and the gauntlets grew massive with claws at the end of each finger. The shield had also increased in size, though it maintained the Chimera Symbol rather than becoming a bear.

Accepting it for what it was and hoping nothing awful would come of it later I went ahead and had them take me back toward my quarters. I had, ugh, paperwork to do. The mere thought of it made me want to roll away as fast as my arms could take me.