The mage stood over a squirming bird in his lab. The dark room screeched as crows shouted from cages around the room. A pig grunted in protest from a corner. The mage placed a large blood stone on the center table. He used his blood and magic to split the stone into fragments. Fragments of the stone where fed to all the animals in the room.
A flood of thoughts entered his mind as the beasts became connected to him. As the last mind linked to him hunger, fear, and anger. The mage sent his demand for obedience. The collection of animals resisted. Albie sent out his time touching the border until all the other minds in his head go quiet.
"I shall begin the experiments then," thought the mage.
His goal for the night was to fireproof the crows. Feathers to the best of his knowledge burned. Metal did not. The goal was then to turn the feathers into metal. The mage began channeling magic into the crow on the table. It had always been a difficult task to force change with nothing to work off. Whatever rules Moon used to determine feathers or hair eluded him. None of his books could explain it. He flooded the crow with magic.
The bird grew in size its beak grew pointier. A second pair of wings sprouted out of its back. The extra wings. Curious the mage ordered the bird to try to fly. It flapped its old wings fine. The new wings flapped erratically and threw off its balance. It took a moment to lay on the table as its second set of wings stretched and fluted. Its mind was confused and unaware of how to use its new wings.
"I'll give you some time to figure it out," declared the mage waiving to the next crow to get on the table.
Albie released the next crow that flew to the table as the other one hoped off. He channeled magic into the second and its feathers turned from black to red. A change in color was a change in the right direction. He tried to change the feathers color again and it changed from read to green. Hoping, he tried to focus his magic into what he thought was the feathers. They grew longer under his magics influence. He pulled a feather and held it above a candle. It caught fire to the mage's disappointment.
The mage retuned his attention to the bird and its feathers trying to change its shape and texture. After hours of work the feathers where metallic and would not burn. The crow however had weekend. Its wings had broken under the feathers weight. Every bone in its body was broken. Its suffering obvious. Albie killed the bird and striped it of its feathers before throwing the corpse to the pig in the corner.
"Sorry," said Albie as he freed the next bird.
The pig greedily ate the bird and its blood stones.
"Little bird make I stronger, thought the pig. "Want more master! Eat more birds!"
The crows all squawked in protest until the mage demanded silence so he could resume his work. The first crow had begun to glide around the room with a small wobble as it learned to use its new wings. The day grew on with experiments as crows changed color, size, shape, sound, smell, flexibility, hardness, softness, and intelligence. Many of the crows died but at the end of the experiment twenty-eight crows had survived.
They were creatures of differing shapes and sizes. A few unable to fly but with scales as hard as steal. Most wings had become membranous and half covered in scales. Most of the beasts had spilled out into the rest of the building unable to fit in the small lab. A few of the creatures had been changed to spit acid like the bees. An intelligence beyond simple birds shown in the off colored eyes. They had learned to speak the human language and chatted with each other and the rats.
Bags had made her way up the stair with some of her children to demand to be taught how to spit acid and not catch fire.
The mage looked at the fat pig in the corner and had it moved outside as it was ballooning to immense size. perhaps it was almost time.