"Druid Emre?"
All the guards exchanged looks, their faces full of questions.
"Have you heard of priests of the Old Gods?"
"What's a Druid?"
One of the oldest guards turned to them and spoke.
"All of you, shut up! And you, you crazy old man, we don't have the time or energy to entertain you. Leave now, before I drive you to your death."
"Kind believers, you need not be hostile, but I understand. No one has heard of a priest of the Old Gods. If someone told me about one, I wouldn't believe it either."
"Let me prove it to you. Shoot your arrows. Try to shoot me down. I promise you, none of your arrows will hit me."
"I won't shoot a crazy old man. Go away."
It looked like I needed to be more dramatic, more grandiose.
"My children, the Old Gods have given me a mission. I must go inside, heal the sick, and then offer whatever help I can. Now open your eyes and behold the miracle the Old Gods have bestowed upon me."
I approached the hillside, which rose toward the sky like an endless stockade wall to the left of the road. A few trees stood at the foot of the steep slope. I stood before them, slowly raised my hands, and used "Promoheba" (Find Plant).
"Oh, great ancient god of nature, please grant me strength once more. This humble servant of yours cannot convince these kind people. Please reveal your power and enlighten those hearts."
The trees were about four meters tall, and they slowly began to bend and twist. Four trees began twisting and merging together. It was almost as though someone were weaving with trees. Each tree and its branches threaded through the others like strands of yarn, beginning to form an alcove about three to four meters across.
All the guards were dumbstruck. Some lowered their weapons and began praying fervently, while others grew nervous. Having finished my performance, I slowly sat down in the alcove and spoke.
"I'll wait here for your chief. He can come and talk to me whenever he wishes."
I could hear a commotion behind the palisade. Five to ten minutes later, the wooden gate opened, and Woer appeared before it with about twenty soldiers, all armed from head to toe.
"Chief Woer, the one standing before you is not an enemy, but a friend."
"I don't know you. Although I don't even know whether you're human, I still can't judge whether you're a friend or an enemy."
I nodded as I spoke.
"Fair enough."
"If I hadn't stood in front of this gate a few hours ago and seen that there was no structure like this here before, I wouldn't believe anything anyone told me. But to avoid an argument, let's accept that everything you say is true. Why are you here?"
"As you can see, the ancient gods have granted me some wondrous powers. With these powers comes my duty to help the kind people of the North."
"What sort of help?"
"Besides control over plants, the ancient gods have also given me limited healing abilities. As far as I know, many people of House Wull have come down with a fever."
"Who told you that?"
"I heard it from the gods in a dream. Now, Chief Woer, will you let me do something about this illness?"
After several rounds of back and forth, I finally convinced them that I was neither an enemy nor a mummy. Big Bucket wasn't as much of a buckethead as I had thought.
He even told me beforehand that they would offer nothing in return for my help, and that I shouldn't expect anything from them. After accepting all of this, I finally entered the settlement.
They took me to a single-story wooden building where the sick were staying. This was my first time practicing ritual magic and my first time seeing its effects. So I could safely say I was extremely excited. Unlike ordinary magic, ritual magic consisted of a mixture of my mana, the mana in the atmosphere, and the mana of the other substances and entities used in the ritual.
Offerings in Druid rituals were usually animals, along with candles, runes, and drawings. But ritual magic and sacrificial magic could be combined. Sacrificial magic had to have a point of balance, just as everything in nature had a point of balance.
If you began sacrificing innocents for magic, it was no longer Druid magic or order magic, but dark magic, whose price was greater than the sacrifice itself.
If innocents were killed for magic, the caster's soul would be tainted, and over time, it would turn black. After that, dark magic would turn the caster into something else.
Of course, you could also sacrifice humans for Druid magic, but there were strict rules. For example, you could never offer up the sacrifice's soul. That was absolutely forbidden, and the sacrifice had to be a sinner. In the eyes of nature, there was only one crime: taking an innocent life.
If a sinner's life was sacrificed in a Druid ritual, the sinner's body and remaining lifespan would be used as energy. The soul was free to go where it belonged, but in Blood Magic and dark magic, the primary offering was the soul itself. They did not distinguish between innocents and sinners. We could think of the soul as a nuclear power plant; using it in a spell would increase the spell's power tenfold or a hundredfold.
"I need to cast a spell to help them overcome the illness. I need a sheep. Don't worry, if you want payment for the sheep, I'll give it to you."
There were about 145 patients, and this ritual could only be performed on fifty people at most. In other words, I had to stay here for three days.
"I can't perform the ritual inside. As far as I know, not all the patients are here. I'll prepare everything in the clearing outside and let you know when I'm ready."
Many people still looked at me suspiciously, but I ignored them and set to work. Should I give them a scare? I began casting the Perzys (fire) spell, but this time was different. What streamed from my hands was not a fireball, but flames.
Its output was very low, with a range of only two meters, but it was enough to melt the snow. I could hear screams of fear and panic behind me. But some people were kneeling on the ground and praying.
After melting the snow on the ground, I used my staff to draw a circle three meters wide in the dirt and began drawing the necessary runes around it
" ."
The basic meaning of these runes was: "Heal minor illnesses, keep death at bay."
This ritual was the reason I had been able to decipher the "death" rune on the wall. It contained the exact wording.