“I think we might had gone a little too far here”

After calming down form their adrenaline rush the brothers finally decided to see the effects of the battle.

As most part of the fight was inside the protected walls of the hall, not much damage was done to the rest of the ruins outside, this of course was until the final part of the battle, when the Golem was brought outside and then smashed by Lucas in what resulted in a big explosion that rocked the entire region.

But apparently the luck of the brothers is very good, the golem landed more to the edge of the ruins making the effect of the after explosion not as drastic as initially thought, although some things had still crumbled because of it.

“We? There is no we, you are the one that smashed him through a wall, and as also you the one that decided to go all out on that last move” said Will to his brother with an amused look.

“I just was making sure he would not get up again, who knew it would make this big of a kaboom” Lucas sighed.

The Wolf looked back at the after effect of their battle “Yeah… I still feel that is surreal what we can do now in our new bodies”

“Yeah, me too” Lucas turned in the direction of where the swamp entrance was “I will go see how Valerie and the others are going, maybe even bring her here to see what inputs she has about this place”

“Good idea. In the mean time I will take another look around”

After nodding at his brother Lucas took off at the swamp entrance direction.

After the destruction of the purple crystal the ever present poisonous fog begin to vanish from the ruins, and without the fog the gloomy atmosphere of the place also started to vanish. Just like that after who knows how many years, the forgotten ruins finally once again became bathed in the warm light of the sun.

Lucas that returned with Valerie saw the scene of the ruins covered in sun light and could not help but marveled at it.

Now without the fog hovering around the scenery of the ruins became clear and many details that are once obscured started to come to light. Like the carvings in the buildings, simple looking at first look but exquisite and deep in meaning in other.

“How could know that such ruins existed in the swamp… “Valerie murmured in wonder at the sight before her, wonder that evolved into awe once she saw the many carvings in the buildings around them.

Lucas that was watching decided to give her a few more seconds to marvel at the carvings before saying “I would assume those carvings have some great meaning, considering that you are so entranced with them”

Valerie snapped out of her reverie “Indeed they have, these carvings are magic runes”

‘So these are runes…’ Nothing more needed to be said from there, magic runes are almost of a universal presence in any fantasy book or game back on Earth, making he have a somehow basic understanding of them. Whille walking through the ruins the two came to find many different runes all around them, some Valerie couldn’t recognize while others she could.

“Some of these runes appear to be very complex in concept, but you still ended up cracking them, really amazing” Lucas could not help but compliment her after seeing her display of knowledge about runes “I don’t have much knowledge about runes but even so I can see that what you just did was not easy, I wonder who was your teacher“

“You are flattering me Lord Lucas” She said that with smile at him, but after that, assumed a sad expression and she said “But you are wrong, as I never had the honor of having a teacher”

“Never had?” Said Lucas in mild confusion, he thought that being a wizard ogre would make her a rare student material “You never came across another wizard ogre or something?”

“Wizard Ogre are very rare and far apart from one another, as most of the time they are born do to luck” Valerie gazed at the sky, her tone soft as she explained her situation to the Dragon “My parents were just like any other normal ogre, not very smart, but by chance I was luck to be born as a wizard ogre. Using the basic knowledge about magic that I had inherited from my blood I slowly advanced in the path of a wizard, stumbling and falling many times but eventually succeeding in the end”

“One day when I was young a group of human adventurers with a wizard amongst them came to the area close to the tribe, becoming excited at the prospect of meeting another wizard I decided to approach them, hoping that with my more human friendly look I would be able strike a conversation with him, and maybe even getting to learn some new things about magic”

“How foolish I was” she gave a sad sigh “I didn’t even had the chance of saying anything before being attacked by them, but fortunately for me the group was not very strong. I managed to ditch them until the rest of the tribe arrived, after that all of the adventurers got killed and I got all of that wizard books and notes, and since them the only teachers you could say I had was those books” Valerie sighed in the end of her explanation.

Lucas stood there in silence as he digested what she had said. Valerie history was not very deep or complex but had still carried a certain meaning that touched the Dragon. Valerie on her hand start to get a little nervous seeing Lucas in silence for so long, the invisible pressure that she had forgot during her history came back again before been dispelled by the Dragon.

“You may have had a rough start but it also show that you are a rare talent, being able to learn all of this using some novice books” he looked at that wizard ogre that was gazing at him “Although I feel sorry for ending up forcing you in this situation, I’m also happy for having gaining such great talent like you. Like promised before, if you stay with us, I will make sure that will you be able to achieve heights that you never dreamed before”

Although simple, Lucas answer ranged deeply with Valerie, the promise that he made in what she thought to be the worst day of her life came back to her mind. Suddenly all of her worries about her tribe situation vanished, looking at the Dragon before her in a different light she smiled “Thank You”

“There is no need for that” said Lucas with a smile of his own.

…

As they walked through the ruins the two eventually came across the remains of one of the armors that protect the place, Valerie eyes basically glowed at the sight of the intricate magic circuit inside of it, seeing that Lucas asked “Are you able to recognize some of these?”

“Only two” Valerie nodded as she pointed at some runes “This rune here is for mana gathering and this other one is for mana distribution, the other ones are very advanced so I’m not very sure what they do. Sigh If I could have some books of advanced runes I would be able to tell more”

“I think I can help with that”

Walking from the shadows between two buildings the figure of Will appeared before the two “Hello Valerie”

“Lord Will” Valerie greeted back as she got up.

The Wolf looked at his brother “While walking around I found something interesting that might help us with these runes”

“Have you found a library or something?” asked Lucas.

“Yeah, something like that” Will turned and started to lead the other two back from where he came “I found it when I was looking at the fallen tower that we saw earlier, the place has surprisingly a good number of intact books lying around”

After a few seconds of the three walking in silence Will from his leading position turned his head to Valerie and asked “While walking back I heard your talk with my brother, and like him I’m very impressed. So I would like to ask, from what you had seen what can you say about this place?”

Valerie was mildly shocked at what Will said, but recovered after remembering about his supernatural senses ” I think it’s clear to all of us that this ruins should had been a type of research ground in the past, what they researched is the real question”

“Does that purple crystal ring any bells?”

Valerie thought a little before answering “I’m not very sure, but from what Lord Lucas had said that crystal most likely was a Mana Source Crystal. These mana crystals as they name suggest hold within them really big reserves of mana, and would almost always be used to power magic towers and other’s type of big magic constructs, but this one sure is strange” she frowned “I never heard of any mana source crystal acting like the one that was powering this place”

“The mana that the crystal radiated had been corrupted somehow making everything that powered by it, or that was in contact with it for a long period of time be corrupted as well” said Lucas.

“No question about that” said Will after his brother “I don’t know about the golem and the armors, but those swamp crawlers had been surely corrupted, they are not well on their heads”

“I read about many herbs that could make someone bloodthirsty, but never about a mana crystal” Valerie lowered her head as she murmured “Almost looks like a curse…”

Although she murmured the last past the brothers still heard her, hearing the word curse made their instincts jump a little. Both of them exchanged silent gazes before turning back forward, and after walking for a few more seconds the three came to face with their destination.

The fallen Tower

Built in some bronze color material now covered with vines with dimmed magic runes on its surface, the fallen tower although looking very simple radiated an ancient aura of a long forgotten time. After a few seconds contemplating the tower, the group of three walked through a big crack at the side of the building.

Inside they saw what once had been a library, the place became covered in rubble as consequence of the tower fall, sun light came down from cracks at the walls of tower in forms of beams, shelves ended up glued to the side of the building do to its fall, the books that they once held had been tossed to all sides alongside many other furniture and items.

After picking up a book from the rubbles Lucas saw that apart from some dust and a few scratches, the book was pretty much intact “Interesting, even after so much the book is still intact, could this be the effect of a rune or something?”

“Is quite simple actually” Valerie that was already used to the brothers lack of knowledge about certain thing walked forward and picked the book “The majority of books and scrolls holding important information are made using special ingredients like magic creature hide, and written using special ink. This insure that the book and its information would remain intact from an longer period of time, those with magic profession would also inscribe runes on their books making them even more resistant, some even say that a magic book from a master-rank mage could be even more resistant than many shields”

“This is really interesting, how much a book like this could last?” asked Lucas as he inspected another book.

“Depends on the materials and runes used, It could vary from hundreds of years to dozen of thousands years” She looked at the book on her hand “After reading some of them maybe I will be able to tell what happened here, and how long had it been”

“That would be helpful” Walking past some columns Will attention was grabbed by a stand made of some sort of golden material with a giant open book atop of it, walking close to it he saw that this was in fact a big map “Brother, I think we had find ourselves a map”

The Dragon walked close to his brother next to the map “This is a map of the swamp and its surrounding regions”

“Are you sure about that?” asked the Wolf to his brother.

“Our territory is marked on the map, I recognize it from what I saw when flying” Lucas turned to Valerie “I will assign some people to gather everything of value from here, and since you have the most knowledge about these things I will put you in the command”

Following what Valerie said any book that remained intact in this place after so much are of high value, just the map alone is worth a lot in the eyes of the brothers.

“Thank you” Thinking that Lucas had assigned her to take care of so many valuable books about magic made Valerie extremely happy, the image of tribe leader vanished giving way to that of earnest wizard as she thanked him with a smile.

Lucas gave the place another look “There must be some valuable things in the other areas of the ruins, but for now last return”

“Okay brother”

Is of common knowledge that the wild lands are places of great danger for normal people for two main reasons, the dangerous magic creatures and the not easy to travel terrain. For this reason most of the people that travel long distances are those with strength, or those with enough money to hire those with strength, to those with neither of these the only option left is to use the roads cleared by their kingdom and powers to travel around.

But sadly life never can be easy as even in those main roads built by the kingdoms and powers danger still would been found, as many people with dark and greed intentions would lurk in the far and least supervised areas, attacking and robing unprepared travelers.

These groups of bandits are considered by many to one of the most annoying problems, apart from magic creatures, that one would find while travelling, with some of these group’s even putting themselves above the threat of magical creatures.

One of those groups however will soon discover that this line of thought is not a good one.