Rune ward

It took nearly 30 minutes for them to find 4 rocks around the size I wanted…..30 minutes to find some rocks with like 40 people....I don't want to comment on that...anyways with the rocks in hand and a blood donor, who turned out to be Winston funnily enough, i began to start thinking about what runes to inscribe, there's a couple ways I can go about this...I'll ask them to chime in on it I guess…

Knox " so I'll give you 2 options here…..first I can inscribe a cleansing rune which will slowly cleanse poisons, curses, curable rots, ect, and the rune will last roughly a year…..and option two, I can cast the same rune but with a minor regeneration rune as well which would slowly heal most wounds, it won't heal a life threatening wound, but anything else should be fine…..it would take a good 4-5 days to heal the bad ones though...but anyways it will last roughly 7 months with this little add on...so what do you think?"

Most "runecarvers" handiwork would fade fast on shitty materials such as these normal stones…..but I'm not in the "most" category, I would be one of the best in existence….. but that's like that for a lot of my skills I've had time to practice, I think it may have been my "gift" coming to this world besides my flaroonian heritage…

Anyways i can at max extend it to 1 years with 1 rune or 7 months with 2, these are pretty basic runes so the stone won't explode on activation even if I somehow fuck it up….which I won't…

Winston seems to contemplate what I told him, and normally the 2nd option would be best 100% but that's if you have something coming to help during or after the runes expire….I doubt these cursed wolves are going to be going away any time soon, and these villagers won't be able to wipe them out….no way in hell….. so the longer the cleansing rune lasts the better….minor wounds heal quickly enough, but curses don't ….and I'm not going to help them with their wolf problem…..not because it's hard…..but because I don't want to….

People might think that's cold hearted, but there's one thing I've learned in my nearly 80 years of life in this new world…..and that's the power of clichés... see a tower in the distance? There is definitely a maiden trapped there for one reason or another… a narrow pass between two settlements or towns?….. there's definitely bandits waiting for an ambush there 100%, it took me a quiet a few years of travel to find these facts…..but I'm rarely wrong…..my old "companions" even thought I had some sort of prophetic ability….

And it just never ends….. and that twit of a paladin magnus used to love to soak up the "glory" of those little quests…. And probably 60% of the time I had to do ALL the hard lifting….like one of the cliché tower "events" it was guarded by a flame wyvern…..they call them wyverns….but they are so fragile compared to the frost wyverns in the north….anyways, I watched for 30 minutes as he tried to insult the "wyvern" down, telling it how it could never stand the power of his goddess atherix… it just kept up its fiery drive byes as the whole "group" tried to bring it down…..except me, I wanted to see how they faired, the answer was not well….

I had to look like I was helping, I didn't want to hurt their pride but I was getting bored, our snobby ranger Alice unleashed arrows powered by wind magic, which were visually stunning….but harmlessly tinked against its scales…..

Our mage Hugo could have brought it down with a well placed spell….but his magic is more or less useless against a moving target and took a little while to activate….

Everyone else just kinda did nothing, the "holy maiden" healed their burns after every drive by but it was pretty useless, strous was the only almost useful one by blocking most of the flames even being as short as he was….

The flames didn't actually burn me….a light tan maybe? Not enough to burn any hair though….. it I eventually got sick of it and flicked a rock at its wing as Alice launched an arrow near that general direction…..it's wing broke, and Magnus "heroically" charged it and killed it after a good 30 minutes of combat while I hung back and made sure none of them died….

How the fuck did they almost kill me...thinking back on how useless they actually were is making me feel pathetic for almost going down to em….

I'm off topic….. long story short, no I'm not going to solve their wolf problem….because there's always another one around the corner and if I helped everyone every time I would never get anywhere, they should be thankful I'm doing this much for practically free

It seemed Winston's finally found his answer as he looked to have made up his mind and responds to my question.

Winston " we'll take the cleansing and regeneration runes…. Hopefully in 7 months someone will come by to help us with our plight or our leaders send some warriors to exterminate this infestation"

I wouldn't count on your leaders there buddy, a useless bunch of selfish cunts the lot of the flea ridden pickle smoochers…..and as for someone coming by to help? Honestly it could happen….I used to be that someone, but not anymore…. But someone would probably take my place….

So I start carving the rocks with just a decent knife I kept in my inventory while channeling magic power through the blade, and as I'm doing so, Winston's bleeding himself into a mid sized wooden bowl…. Again the blood isn't unnecessary but I can use it to enchant a blood red glow in the runes to throw off any potential follow up from the church or leave any clues of who I might be...I'm not known for blood magic... while I can use them well enough I've just never had a reason too….

The church frowns on blood magic the same as other magics and would hunt blood mages down most of the time, but never going overboard….I'd rather a few potential bounty hunters after me rather than the combined army of the 4 kingdoms...that would go against my new tavern dream….

One of Winston's men handed me the blood and i coat the blade in the red liquid and continue carving out the stones….I have to be super careful not to fuck up the runes with this method, I'm kinda eyeballing this whole thing but it should be fine, if I was using even a half decent material I could have these runes down in 40 seconds a pop….

But I'm about 20 minutes in and I'm just finishing my first rune ward….. ugggh this so so inefficient, the bed better be soft and the women better be perky....

So it takes over an hour to finish all 4 rune wards as I line them up in each corner of the make shift hospital, and walk into the centre in between all the moaning patients...ooooo I should probably warn them...

Knox " hey Winston's would it be safe to assume you have given all these miserable people laying around here pain killers yeah?"

Winston " yes, you would be safe to assume that…..why?"

Knox " well you might want to give them some more before I active these wards...these curses are semi sentient and the wards will be pulling them out of the body to cleanse them….and the curses will try to dig in deeper…..long story short it's gonna hurt like a bitch, so juice em up with some more pain killers to keep 'em sedate…. The regeneration rune….should…..keep them alive through the pain…..but the pain killers will help….."

Winston got the message and sent for some more meds, and they were brought in fairly quickly as i watched them dope these people up with what looks like milk poppy…..heroin….

So it takes a few minutes for all the curse affected to be on cloud nine and I return to the centre of the room and send a small pulse of mana to all 4 stones at one as they light up an eerie red colour and the room starts to glow a pale blue…

Normally you would have to keep applying mana to those rune wards, but being the master runecrafter that I was, I was able to add a small rune on the bottom to absorb ambient mana in the air to keep it working….

Almost immediately everyone on the floor starts moaning in pain as small gusts of black smoke starts oozing out of their bandages and fades into nothing…

Winston and his crew of rubbernecking children he calls "men" all gasp as it's quiet a sight if you aren't used to it…..which I am…. I spend the next 30 minutes just watching the wards to see if I fucked them up somehow…..seems I haven't….good…

To be honest I could have cured everyone in the room with a flick of my wrist and brought them all up to perfect health…. But again I want the world to think "nickoli the druidic berserker" is dead, so can't leave a trail…..I also could have made a small one time use charm to heal all these people….but I went out of my way to set up a ward to help their wounds for the months to come... I'm still soft hearted…..I really need to change that….

Knox " alright buddy, I've held up my end of our bargain... I want a place to take my load off for a few days and a couple willing women to keep company while I'm here…..I'm not looking for just fair maidens either…..mid 30s widows and down work for me as well and I'm after at least 3 but if more are keen to join I'm all for it…..so point me to where I'm sleeping because I wanna bathe and get some rest"

I look around 27….and I will continue to look this age for the next few thousand years thanks to my race…..

Winston seemed to get me loud and clear as he personally leads me to an abandoned house near the centre of the village.. as he leads me inside I see it hasn't been lived in for awhile, everything is covered in dust but it's workable…. I'd say a conscript of the war lived here and didn't make it back….

Winston " this was Jamal addlestone's house…..he was conscripted 6 years ago….we haven't heard from him since….and we have more houses than we know what to do with so no one ever claimed it…..and we rarely get any visitors outside small merchant convoys, who normally have a place to stay organised already…..it's not much but it will keep the weather off you while you rest….I'll send someone to clean up the dust…."

Knox " don't worry about the dust, I'll take care of it….. just find those WILLING ladies I asked for, I emphasise the word willing because I'm not after crying farmers daughters….as I said choose a few who are keen for the experience….I'm no saint but I like to think myself above such things….if they aren't keen on a good fuckin, I don't want em, make sure they know why they're coming here"

Wilson just nods and takes off to fulfil my final request….. it's still afternoon, so I'll have a decent bath and get some food cooking… and work on my injuries a little…. Haven't healed much since I started my journey…..I need rest more than anything to let my body recover…..I've been on the move since I could stand again…..messing around with a few women won't be helping me much, but I could use a good fuck after all the shit that's happened to me lately…

I walk around the 2 bedroom house and see the "bed" I'm supposed to sleep in…..no thanks…. I just throw it in my inventory and pull out my own custom made rune inscribed bed to replace it…..it takes up a good chunk of the room but it's worth it….I leave to explore the rest of my temporary abode and find nothing of interest…

I'll get rid of this dust…. On my right hand my middle finger and thumb light up with a white glow and I snap them together and create a small outburst of a halo of white mana which scrubs the house clean…..holy magic...I could see the faces of those priest fuckers turning blue if they learned I used their "sacred" magic to clean dirt....god I hate the atherix church…..

Anyways I finish up and find a decent spot in the back yard as I take out an 8 foot wide by 4 foot deep tub made of a reddish copper with runes inscribed all over it and set it down as I fill it with water magic and let the runes heat the tub for me….

Mages are just as bad as the priests when it comes to magic….any sort of magic is seen as "sacred" and they won't use them for anything except war and flexing on non magic users normally….I still remember Hugo's face when I told him I learned "force" magic just to scratch and readjust my balls while in combat... he almost attacked me on the spot….. I had to tell him it was a joke so he wouldn't try and nuke me in my sleep....it was not, it's one of the most useful skills I have in combat to date….don't underestimate testicle comfort in melee combat, it saves lives….

So It will only take about 5 minutes for the water to heat up so I suppose I'll just wait…

But that's when I felt 3 beastkin approaching my new pad, so I made sure to move and meet them at the front door and when I opened the door I was pleasantly surprised by my "company" for the next few days

The first one was a cat beastkin around early 30s with black shoulder length black hair, blue eyes, around 5'8 quiet chubby with a friendly face that would feel out of place without a smile on it….. kind of like the cute chubby mother of one of your friends who was a bombshell when she was younger….she looks a little nervous.

I gotta say I like all types and I'm more than ready to pick up what she's throwing down…. Love me a chubby milf…

The second is looking like a late 20s brown haired dog beastkin, brown eyes, 5'11 very plain really, but looks like she would work the fields to keep herself fed…I can see callouses in her hands so I must be pretty close with the guess, again kind of nervous…

Hand working farmer girl? I can get with that…

And last but certainly not least, she looks to be just getting out of her teens, a fairly lovely red headed cat beastkin, blue eye,around 5'8 dynamite body a solid c cup with a nice booty to go with it….but you might have noticed I said "eye" and not "eyes", it wasn't a mistake…..she's missing an eye…..and a leg…..she's like a beautiful pirate with that peg leg and eyepatch….he leg seems to be missing from her knee down…

Strange I'll admit, but not a turn off for me….she's going to getting just as much dick as the other 2…I'll make sure of that….

She seems to notice my longer gaze at her as I feel her start to hesitate as she suddenly speaks up…

Sexy pirate " I'm sorry if my appearance offends you sir, it's just when the village chief mentioned you were looking for company for your brief stay in Newel, he mentioned you don't have to high of standards, and since you saved my older sister today I thought I would try and repay you anyway I can…..but if my appearance displeased I'll take my leave…."

She seems super sensitive about her leg and eyepatch…..not that I blame her, she would have been a 10/10 if she was whole and this would turn off a lot of people and I'm not some amputee fetish enthused maniac, but I'm over 80 years old...I've done a lot of shit...again not a problem for me though…..normally I'd offer to fix her up...but the man who can do that is dead…..so...ima fuck a pirate….

And as she was about to walk away with obvious sadness about being "rejected" due to her appearance I call out.

Knox " you misunderstood me my dear, I was just shocked at your injuries is all, in no way does it effect my situation….in fact I welcome it…..have you 3 eaten or bathed?"

She seemed to cheer up at that a bit….and all 3 just shook their heads at my question…..we haven't introduced ourselves yet, but that comes later…..I guess I'll start the night by inviting my lovely company in…..

Knox " well ladies…..come on inside, I'll have food ready soon and we can take a bath….and we can get our night started from there…."