"How long are you going to sleep there?"
I look at the direction of the voice that is criticizing me with a reprimanding voice. What I think is unnecessary, we should all have time to rest and enjoy the sun and the blue sky in the shade of a tree.
"Hi, did something happen Hilda?"
"Yes, but it doesn't affect your life. I came to see how your training is going, but it looks like you're lazy today."
"Lazy, that's a very strong word I'm just enjoying a beautiful day in Wulfgar's company. It's good to take some time to rest once in a while, Hilda."
When I stroke Wulfgar's fur to try to get some help from him, but the lazy wolf didn't even deign to open his eyes."
"I don't know who is the laziest, the owner or the wolf."
"What happened to make you free at this time of day?"
"Problems between noble families, I came from a meeting my mother was having with several allied families, the meeting ended early because of bad news, but there's no need to worry about it it won't affect you. "
"But if it affects you, it means that I care about this bad news, your problems and worries are also my problems and worries. So, what happened today, Hilda?
I think my answer was correct, as Hilda has a small smile on her face, but that soon disappears when she sits beside me and starts to caress Wulfgar who by the way opens his eyes, and his body trembles a little it's like his extinct had screamed for him to flee when Hilda touched his fur.
"Things then getting worse, the dispute for resources in the southern aria is getting more intense and now it seems that I attract the bad kind of problem."
"How bad?"
"Bad kind, on the level that the slave problem is considered no big deal. My mother received a message saying that she hears a sighting of a black priest in a disposal pit."
"Disposal ditch?"
"Yes, it is not always easy to transport the bodies of warriors who died during a conflict and in some places where several disputes the nobles decided to make a deep ditch near the place to dispose of the bodies after looting the equipment of the dead. And in one of these ditches, he hears the sighting of a person covered by a black cloak at night."
"So, we're not sure it was a black priest, it could have been just a ghoul or someone looking for some valuable item in the dead to get some cash, there are a lot of people who are broke right now and several of them might be desperate enough to try stealing the dead that have been stolen before."
"It would be great if that were the truth, but if we're wrong it will be a sea of shit and not only the southern region will be held responsible but the entire kingdom will be in shit. Because if one of the damned black priests picking up materials in the ditches, there will be several of them that we're not seeing they're like cockroaches if you only saw one of them it means that several of them hidden spreading across the entire southern region."
"In the worst-case scenario, a temple can be founded in our realm and the black gods will have influence in the entire realm, and this will make the realm the target of the inquisition of several different temples. Kingdoms that go through the purification of the Inquisition are in shit, the economy, the people, the nobles, the royal family all get screwed and many people die."
"Well, what did your mother do after getting the message?"
"She ended the meeting and grabbed the best trackers in the family and ran to the spot where the priest was seen. I hope nothing bad happens it would be great if there was only one priest and my mother captured him, that would be a great achievement for my mother."
"I thought you'd prefer it if the black priest was just an ordinary ghoul who was having fun and not a necromancer looking for material."
"I don't see anything wrong with wishing your mother succeed."
"How about moving to a different topic, I'm training with Captain Raven during the week to attend the next club meeting and Raziel has been pulled into training as well."
"I don't know how I feel about you training with another woman?"
I'm screwed.
"Serious?"
"Not! I'm just teasing you; I wish you could have seen her face now you went white out of nowhere. Were you terrified when I showed jealousy, are you so afraid?"
"No, and I'm just smart enough to know when my life is in danger."
"Do you really think I would attack you?"
"I don't doubt that you are able to attack me, my doubt and what is your limit for me never to cross to not be attacked by you."
"Do you think so badly of me, Ulric?"
"You've attacked me before."
"That time doesn't count."
"It wasn't just once."
"These don't count either.
Hilda rose and grabbed poor Wulfgar.
"I would prefer you to leave Wulfgar on the ground Hilda, I have to take him back to the woods for him to hunt a bit."
"I take him this time; I have nothing to do now."
"Ok, good luck Wulfgar, you will need."
With one of the few to-do items on my to-do list for today, I've decided to spend my time studying runes, I've been spending my time reading advanced books on runes, rune arrays and rune matrices.
If I'm going to help Raziel's family locate an ancient ruin, and I'd better prepare myself to be able to make the most of my trip, according to Professor Frey an ancient ruin is itself a treasure for a rune artisan to several runes and dies that can help a lot in learning ancient runes.
Normally only experts can profit in a correct way, when analyzing the old runes and matrices, but since I have a weird advantage over the rest of the people, I believe I can get a lot of arrest when using my eyes to analyze the ruins.
The matrices that are still working in the ruin can be an even greater gain than the Kelence family payment if I can copy the rune matrices in a way, I can sell them to Professor Frey for a large amount of money will also be useful in the future for me.
For my lasting abilities at the most I can try to improve the basic rune arrangements I've already learned, to increase the effect of my tools if I'm lucky and find some compatible runes.
When I read about runes and I started to learn about ruins in an indirect way. Ancient ruins are almost always ancient temples, they can be dedicated to gods as well as to nature.
Several thousands of years ago a cult that worshiped neither a god but nature itself, most cultists were magicians who wished to be able to dominate and become one with nature. It is clear that the end of them was tragic, the gods did not like this cult very much, especially the gods who portrayed themselves as gods of nature.
The book may try to disguise the gods' reasons a bit, the author tried to put it in a way that the cultists of nature were freaks who were so obsessed with nature that their main goal was to regress all advances that existed, for everyone to become wilder and if the cone is cleared, nature completes you.
I particularly think the author exaggerated on purpose not to be the target of even a temple, the churches of the gods must not like those who speak ill of them at all and I doubt that the churches will not make a move against anyone who dares to defend an old enemy from them. I think that even those who dry up the gods who are considered bad and evil are much less actively persecuted than someone who worships something other than the good or bad gods.
Temples are much more than an organization made to worship a god, they are an organization that uses the divine powers of a god underpinning their faith and promise to defend their god. And that the various alliances between the gods that don't always make sense, with the dogmas that are defended by the gods involved.
I don't particularly believe that mages who empty part of the cult of nature wanted to destroy the development of knowledge, if they were really like that the ruins would not be a treasure trove of knowledge for rune artisans but simply a place to find buried treasure.
The biggest danger of the ruins is not the animals and magical beasts that you can find in the ruins or near them, but the traps that exist in the temple. In the books I've read to several examples of runic matrices that wiped out entire teams of marauders, nature mages can be very cruel and creative with their deadly matrices.
They range from the direct attack type to indirect tactics like illusions, to more than one example of a matrix that made marauders fight each other thinking they were fighting golems left by the mages.
In summary, ruins are even more dangerous than dungeons, as there is no definite difficulty in them. I can only hope the ruin the Kelence family wants to explore is either deadly or big.