Upon arriving in the pine forest on foot, as Raven thought it best to leave the mounts well away from that region, her justification was that we cannot take the risk of denouncing our arrival as being ambushed by two different forces would be quite deadly for the team.
Obviously, Raven, Mia and Sean and Volkan would make it out of this situation alive, but the rest of the team, including myself, doesn't have such a high chance of survival. So, no one thought to complain about Raven's cautious strategy, I particularly appreciate it a lot mainly because she was right to assume the cult and the slaves were here.
As we crept into the pine forest at dawn, I saw something completely new, my reaction was to throw myself to the ground and tell everyone to stop advancing. My desperate reaction was followed by every member of the team, I even felt Volkan preparing his magic to bury the entire team with a layer of earth in case I gave the signal to him.
As I stand there admiring and analyzing something I never expected to see, Raven was a little nervous not being able to detect the threat. After nearly two minutes she could no longer keep her curiosity in check.
"What's up?"
"Wraith, very wraith."
"The fog around the forest is too small for it to be home to so many wraiths, Wolf, the shallow fog is not much more than a strong serene."
"Yes, but that's because the wraith isn't at the base of the trees or traveling between them. The Wraith are traveling and watching from the tops of the pines or the air above them."
"That should be impossible, wraith is greatly affected by their surroundings, Wolf. They have to sneak between the trees because the strong winds that pass over the forest are strong enough to move them in a chaotic way, they have to stay still for a long period of time or they are not able to keep watch."
"Yes, everything you said is true, but reality proves you wrong. With more than a dozen wraith scattered in the tops of the pines, they don't seem anything special apart from the fact that they shouldn't be there and seem to be quite interested in what's going on around the forest."
"But you said they were moving up there."
"Some of them are, but most of them are standing at the top of the pines or on top of them, if they were just flying around and around, I wouldn't have stopped the group. Without being positioned, a shadow element cloak covering us would be able to hide us, but now before we enter the forest the necromancers who have summoned these wraiths will know that we have entered the forest."
"That's a big problem, Earth. Check the ground around the forest, if we can't enter the forest normally, maybe we can enter it through an underground tunnel."
Volkan started to swim across the land looking for some sort of alarm or hint that the land had been altered under the forest, luckily for us that didn't happen and I just had to take a look at the terrain to make sure the land under the trees is clear, but let's let Volkan have some fun.
My attention turned to the dead animal wraith above the pines, Raven is absolutely right when she found this situation very strange. I can see from the speed that the mana travels around the wraith that the wind up there is normal, the force of the wind should be affecting the wraith body, but it isn't.
I thought maybe the necromancers would have set up a barrier to stop the wind from hitting the wraith, but it's not like that. I think the troublesome necromancer emerged in this cult, it's never good when your enemy manages to hone their tactics.
When Volkan returned he confirmed my analysis, the land is clear, well at least the land at the beginning of the forest. Neither one of us is able to verify that the rest of the forest is clear without going into it first, but I doubt there aren't countless rune arrangements strewn across the forests both below and above the ground.
I'm not being pessimistic; I'm being realistic on the basis of the cult and here and taking into account the abnormal wraith this is not a small base. If we're lucky this could be the main base of the cult in this realm, but a very important point that I can't help but take into account as Raven seems to be very interested in invading the forest and that they are not our target this time.
"Isn't raiding this forest unnecessary?"
"What do you mean by that, Wolf?"
"Our aim is to find the swordsman and not the cultists, shouldn't we go into the mines rather than risk accurately locating the cult's base?"
It doesn't take long for Raven to get my point, especially when she looks my way and sees Little Flame staring at my back, her gaze burning and really uncomfortable.
"That may be the case, but I still don't think we can miss the chance to recognition the cult's base hidden in the pine forest. But maybe we should leave that for later, let's locate the slaves first."
Doing this little drama in front of Little Flame is really stressful, but to make it feel real it's necessary to talk about the plan in front of her and no time to arrange the story beforehand. But with the help of the rest of the team's reaction, the temple that interrogates Little Flame later won't even find a hole in our story as it's going to be 'real'.
The only weak point would be the moment she blacked out, but I doubt she'll tell her superiors as in that case she was wrong to show hostility towards Raven.
Our group walked away from the forest where the cult had its base and headed towards the small mountain valley in the region, the mine was not made on a large mountain but on a small one. It was very lucky that a group of adventurers found the mine here so many decades ago.
According to Volkan, the adventurers were fleeing from another group of adventurers who tried to kill them within the forest that had dominated this entire area for many years, the pine forest and what was left of that forest now. The party found a cave where there were some wild magic beasts, but they were weak and the wounded adventurers party were still able to kill them.
But after so much bad luck the group and adventurers found themselves in an unexplored iron mine. The metal here wasn't the best, but there was a lot of tier two ores and later they even discovered a bit of tier three closer to the heart of the mine.
The group of lucky adventurers after realizing they had the location of an iron mine ended up partnering with a group of merchants and a low-level noble from the kingdom, according to Volkan it was a very good plan as all the group members and adventurers got rich by mining ore and became nobles, but I found this story a little strange.
Such an unlucky group was very lucky not to end up dead and have their fortune stolen before they managed to exploit the mine, if the story ended up with them dead and someone else profiting from the mine, I wouldn't suspect the story is badly told.
But that's not important now, as I got close to the mine, I moved away from the group so I could get a good view of the area around the mine. Upon seeing the lack of dead smarts around the mine and seeing the few runic arrangements near the mine entrance, I was sure the slaves are hiding in the mine and away from the cultists.
It seems that the scenario is in our favor, which is very good, but considering that a situation like this can turn into a catastrophe if handled poorly, I think it will be difficult to complete Raven's plan.
Using the cultists as a target for the templars and bishop of the church of the goddess Helena is easy, but convincing the swordsman to become an ally of our realm and go into hiding for a short time to prevent the church from being able to accuse him of being allied with the cultists. and much more complicated.
And doing this in secret from the little flame and the cultists only makes it more complicated. I turn back to the group only to feel the penetrating and furious gaze of the Little Flame that seems to be trying to set fire to me.
"Did you find something?"
"Yes, low level defenses and full of openings, but they all look new so the new residents of that mine are still settling in."
"Well, you, Earth and Lightning will infiltrate and try to confirm the target's location. Don't look at me like that little girl, I won't send you with them, the fewer people move underground the better our chances, if the light of destruction wasn't so dangerous, I wouldn't be sending Lightning, as an addition to keep them safe in case the worst happens."
Raven is really taking her time to tease Little Flame, but it's a great tactic to be able to confuse her and maintain Mia's real reason for coming with me and Volkan.
"Go on, we still have many hours before nightfall, but it's best for all of us to finish our mission as soon as possible. The bishop's templars will soon enter the realm, and when that happens the cultists will become very vigilant and perhaps even flee the realm."
Following Volkan, Mia and I went underground.