The trip was pretty quick, but to my surprise I'm not entirely sure where I am right now. Raven said we were heading to the capital but I've been underground for a little over a week now.
After using the rune matrix to quickly come to the capital Raven disappeared leaving the group in isolation on this underground floor, I still feel like maybe we aren't in the capital. I'm quite suspicious because when looking at the ceiling I don't see the shapes and colors I would usually see in a city, even with a few layers of rune wards it wouldn't stop me from 'seeing' the city.
If there isn't a layer of insulation on top of us, I believe we're in a secret base that's located in an open field, and it wouldn't normally make me nervous anymore knowing that your superiors are blatantly lying to you for something that doesn't seem like a good reason. i feel nervous.
Am I being too paranoid? No, something going on here involves politics which makes this situation very dangerous for all of us.
During the isolation in this underground base, I was able to take a look at my different loot and ask Mia and Volkan for help in discovering their nature. Normally I would wait for Raven to give her the objects and explanation of what was recovered by my group during the operation, but as she disappeared, I decided to talk to Mia and Volkan as he is a dwarf who has a hobby of studying historical relics he comes. from a family that had several chroniclers.
The pride he has for having a great knowledge and experience in antiquities overflows when I told him that I found an ancient statue and that I cannot identify its properties and history, he accepted the challenge immediately and with Mia along I decided to remove the other items that I recovered from the mansion.
"I hope you have a good reason to call me here, Ulric, I have a huge pile of documents from the cultists to check. Damn Raven leaving this shit job for me to do!"
"Can't you pass this problem on to someone else?"
"No! It's our job, Ulric, only Raven and I have access to secret information about movements of cultists on the team. It was up to us to do this kind of work, not one other member of the group was allowed to see the full information on various cultists and traders in the realm, the much-privileged information that could be used for other purposes."
Mia's job is really difficult, having to go through so many piles of possibly useless information and managing to find a link to other reports and infamous cultists.
"Your work sucks, Ulric, take the statue down, I want to see where it was made and by whom. Even if it is a statue involving an evil god, it can still be a cultural treasure that will be of value to the realm."
This is good news; it would be great to sell this problem to the kingdom for a good amount of money.
"Statue?"
"Yeah, I kind of got one when I was exploring the mansion with the two assistants. The horns on the statue make me feel that if a templar sees it, if I carry it, I will end up in a fire to be burned as a heretic."
I placed the statue on the table and removed the cloth that covered it, it was easy to transport it because it is a small and very rudimentary statue. The sculptor who made it really did a good job with very little detail on the statue.
Volkan not only used his eyes to analyze the statue, he covered the statue with his mana to analyze it, but I was surprised that he didn't use his elemental energy. Wouldn't his earth element be very useful for analyzing the statue?
"Interesting, I understand why you thought this was a statue of a demon goddess or a common demon, but you're wrong, Ulric. This statue is not a reminiscent of them or a divine totem, this woman is a member of the dragon tribe, but this is somewhat hidden because the statue is very worn and the scales that should be on her forearm and her spine have almost completely disappeared. "
"Without using my mana to feel the rock I wouldn't have noticed the stone at these points were scales, the craftsman who made this statue is actually very good at making scales so small and shallow. This is a really old statue, but you weren't completely wrong, Ulric, this is a statue of an evil being."
"If I'm not completely wrong what could happen, this is a statue of a chaotic goddess Niferi. She is a really tricky goddess to classify she is terrible and kind depending on her mood, she is not focused on having a large number of believers but a lot of female dragon tribe members who have faith in her because she is extremely defensive of women, except the women of the fox, deer and snake tribe she dislikes these tribes to the point that even the women are spared."
"Niferi is a goddess associated with the elements of lightning, mind and illusion. Her legend says that she was a member of the Blue Dragon Tribe who has an affinity for the lightning element, but she had a mutation that gave her the ability to bring her dreams to reality which is a very deep and rare ability that is linked to the element of mind and illusion."
"As a close descendant of a royal dragon she was long-lived and treasure-loving, her rise to godhood was bloody and deadly and she ignited as a neutral goddess turned chaotic after fighting so much against good gods who persecuted her tribesmen and of bad gods who demanded sacrifices of virgin ladies and children. I can't tell you too much about her because legends of her are quite old and there's always someone who tries to screw with the image of chaotic gods, so don't rely too much on very old reports about her interfering with mortals or one of her apostles did."
"Normally you'd be in trouble for having a statue of her, but the goddess Niferi right now shouldn't have a problem with you at all, Ulric, in fact there's a good chance she'll like you a little bit. Like really little, but it's still enough for her to maybe consider you a possible member of her faith, I wouldn't advise you to devote your faith to her, but the chance to be on the good side of a goddess like Niferi might help you in the future."
"Even if there aren't many of her devotees, you can enlist the help of one of them in a difficult time, so I advise you to ask that this statue be returned to a temple or tribe that worships the goddess Niferi. The cultist who got this statue probably wanted to use it as an offering to his god, the relationship between the goddess Niferi and Whiro is not good at all, sacrificing an ancient totem like this to Whiro would be the same as giving him the opportunity to spit in the face of the goddess Niferi."
Great news, a problem turned into a good opportunity. I hope I never have to need the help of a believer of the goddess Niferi I still feel good to have a chance to save myself by returning this statue of the goddess Niferi to her faithful.
"Good for you, Ulric, but I hope you haven't distracted me from my task to witness your luck."
She's really in a bad mood, I hope Raven comes back soon to help Mia with the paperwork.
"The statue is just one of the things I recovered, I have two more items."
I remove the rune card and place it on the table for both of them to see it, Mia's eyes widen as she sees the runes carved into the card. It seems she knows what this card is for.
"Shit, where did you get that card? I and Raven have been looking for them all over Felix's lair, where is he exactly, Ulric?"
It sounds like this card is something high-profile for cultists, but that makes it even weirder that I found it.
"He is hiding in the vault on the second floor of the mission, there are some log books on top of him and some other property papers. Are you sure this was from Felix? From his face he looks important, but he was in a safe in his office that was not supposed to be used by Felix."
"Maybe he lent it to someone?"
"Impossible, Volkan, but maybe this isn't Felix's ID card, it's another member of that church but it would be pretty weird because this card is only used by important figures."
"What kind of card is this?"
"Must this be the first time you've seen a card like this, Ulric? It is not a normal ID card; it serves as an encryption key that can be used in a variety of ways.
Even though it is very difficult it is possible for someone's mana or aura to be faked, there is more than one way to do this but they are all difficult and complicated to get to use, but this makes many organizations need a key item like this."
"If you use this key in the right place you might be able to open a personal safe in a temple of wealth or in a warehouse of some trade alliance, you might enter a secret base, activate a magical tool that has a lock to countless uses for a card like this, Ulric."
"And since this card was found in a place full of cultists it is possible that it is a card used in something that belongs to the Whiro cult. This card will have to go to the analysis center to see how much information about the type of card it is, we thought Felix would have a card like this, but we ended up not finding it Raven thought Felix might have destroyed his card because It is very rare to lend this card to someone else."
"I'll take him to the higher ups, you're really lucky Ulric."
I don't know if I would say this is luck, as I doubt this is a Felix card.