Bloom

The recent investigation team formed from Ruven city moved rapidly on their way home. Whoever had decimated the Blood Forest, and crushed the Threek Hive nearby left no traces. In order to give a personal report to the higher ups, everyone had decided to race back at top speed.

“Someone is following us, Sir.”

“Are you certain, Mark?” said Sir Williams, lead investigator on the team.

“The traces are faint. They are practically invisible to all intents, I’m only able to track them from the complete lack of beasts. As you know, normally we would have suffered at least one magical beast attack by now.” Mark said, his eyes peering forward while sweat beaded on his forehead. Whatever was stalking them was so far above their group in power rating, it was causing the surrounding animals to avoid them. There were several possibilities that could account for this, however, all of them were fatally bad.

“Runes?” Mark asked, hoping the leader would agree.

“No. We can’t be sure there isn’t more than one of them. Besides, burning the Runes to increase our speed isn’t a garuntee of safety. We could attract something far worse.” Sir Williams said, looking worried.

Mark agreed with his reasoning, yet felt there was little that could be more threatening. Although he wasn’t the strongest member, his perception was the highest. Since they had split from the other teams, it had been screaming at him.

Something is coming, something old, ancient, and inhuman. Mark thought, turning his focus back to the trail.

***T***

These people are just weird. I mean, really weird. I may be a human-turned-tree now, and I still am more normal than them.

I can practically smell their fear.

I mean, if it wasn’t for me warning off the surrounding creatures with my Chaos Aura…

These folks probably would have been slaughtered by now, it’s that bad.

Honestly, who allows themselves to stink of fear in the middle of a monster infested forest.

That’s like throwing out a sign for all you can eat buffet, with icing on top to starving lepoards.

Seventeen times.

That’s the number of times so far I’ve had to intervene and save their sorry asses.

Naturally I haven’t left any traces though!

These poor saps probably don’t even know they are being followed.

Of more importance though is the recent investigation I’ve made of all the things they are carrying.

I mean, the least they can do is let me look through their stuff since I’m guarding them from painful death.

That’s how I discovered those sparkly rune talismans they are carrying around.

Whoever wrote those things was obviously drunk, or high, or insane, possibly all three.

There were so many mistakes made in the production process I couldn’t help, except to make corrections.

I also copied a single enchanted book on Rune crafting to memory.

Sure there were security measures on it but, seriously? They weren’t that good.

While the work done on those talismans is amateur hour, the symbols are completely new.

Completely new symbols means a new method of utilizing power.

I think I can experiment effectively working my way up from the basics and craft a decent artifact that makes utilizing Chaos magic far easier.

Of course…

I could also make something that vaporizes half the continent by accident…

That’s why I’m starting from the basics!