Tail Rune Clan

“Papa! Mama!”

“My little Pup!”

Cor immediately took off as an older wolf demi-human female also rushed to her. They embraced as they once they reached each other with tears running down their faces. Leo finally relaxed his stance and put away his sword. Who would want to fight when a mother and daughter reunite?

“Is Cor in danger?”

Ah… Zen would. “No Zen, they are her family.” With a nod Zentella sheathed her blade.

“Dad! I had em!” The other wolf girl complained as she pointed at Leo.

“Lupa! That’s enough.” The older wolf man commanded earning him a humph for his discipline. “I must apologize. Greeting my name is Lucius chief of the Tail Rune Clan.” Then with the group around him they all bowed. “Thank you for returning our daughter.”

“It was no problem chief.” Sophia said walking in front of Noah and Zentella and bowed. Leo followed suit. He had to grab Zen’s head to get her to bow too. “I am Sophia. He is Leo and she is Zentella. We at the Adventurers’ Guild humbly apologize on our lack of swiftness and our lack of oversight for allowing such an incident to occur.”

Leo knew better than to speak and keep his mouth shut.

“How did they take Cor?”

Zentella however… did not. With her question both parties lifted their heads.

Lupa was the one who decided to answer, “It’s because those damn thieves entered the forest on our sacred ground. If I had been here none of them would have made it out alive.”

“The fact still remains that you were not here Lupa.” Lucius glades at Lupa who returned with one of her own before looking away with her arms crossed. Lucius cleared his throat, “Ahem, but yes. My oldest daughter is correct in that a group of thieves had gotten deep into the forest and had taken Cor. By the time we had realized her disappearance the trail had gone cold.”

“Mama! Papa! Can Zen-Zen and everyone stay for dinner?” Cor ask innocently. The fact that she was home for the first time in a while did not sway her desire to invite her friend over to her home.

Sophia was about to decline when Zen walked forward saying, “Please.”

“Zen!” Leo tried to reach for her.

Lucius chuckled and held up his hand. “It is no problem adventurers, we will be honored for you to join us. There is also the matter of payment. Come, follow us.”

In the inner section of the Forest of Spirit the Tail Rune Clan had claimed a section of their forest for a tribal village. Housing and structures made of wood. Some tents that Leo would recognized as “yurt” also seemed scattered about. Leo also believed that they would mostly use spears, but that felt like a stereotype of a tribe… he probably should have thought more of the “barbarian” stereotype. They carried weapons of many types and some even showing off if there maces or greatswords were bigger. They also didn’t particularly follow the same meat headed type of barbarians, well… most of them.

Leo had let Sophia take care of the talking so he could keep an eye on Zen who had been dragged by Cor forward and was walking near her mother and pointing at her favorite places in the village.

“Hey!” Lupa then punched Leo’s shoulder hard causing him pain, “You saved my sister right? Thanks for that. How did you beat those jerks? Did you use that weird move where you stick their heads in the ground? Or did you use your magic?”

Leo laughed trying to ignore the pain. Lupa seemed around his age but full of energy. She didn’t apologize for mistaken him for the one who took Cor or even the rest of the fight, but he figured she was never planning to. Amidst her barrage of questions Leo finally managed a, “You’re welcome.”

“When I see those creeps, they won’t know their heads from their asses.” She then ponded her fists together,

“That’ll be hard. Since they are kinda… dead.” Leo informed.

“No way, you killed them all?” Lupa asked her eyes dangerously shinning.

“No… well not me…” Leo then didn’t know what to say as he was just getting nervous being around her energy.

“Oh, you mean the little assassin right? Figures, I don’t personally go for the sneak route, but hey that’s fights for ya.” She then put her arms behind her head, “Still what the heck were your move back there. It was like your body changed with every movement. It was like your body wasn’t the one using those attacks, it was super weird.”

“Is that not common? I mean what you did back there with those markings.” Leo was curious at what caused her to negate magic and strengthen her body to diffract blades.

“You never heard of our tribes Blood Runes? Are you a new adventurer or something?”

“Yeah…” Leo answered awkwardly

Lupa eyes grew as wide as her smile, “And you held your own against me? We definitely need a rematch. I’m getting pumped just thinking about it. Ah! But the Blood Runes. It is part of our contract with the Spirit Lobos. Our clan protects their Sanctuary and Lobos grants us powers based off our deeds. Most just get strength, but I got the rune for magic nullification by beating a Tower Wizard. The skin hardening was because I wanted to see how long I could meditate in a furnace I could walk in. Thirty minutes by the way.”

Leo looked at her in surprise for both her admitting she willingly walked into a furnace and the other fact she just casually revealed about her tribe, “Wait, you can gain more runes by just… doing stuff?”

“Proving our mettle, pretty cool right? However not many people look for things to try Like I do. So no one gets anything truly unique like me.”

“But… how does a Spirit grant something like that?”

Lupa shrugged, “Dunno, they just like stories. You think it is a feeling thing?”

“Why are you asking me? You live here.”

“True, but I mainly travel now. When return home I talk to Lobos and sometimes they like my stories and experience and then I get a new rune.”

“And it is called Blood Runes because they can judge if you really did the things you claimed.” Leo inferred excited about learning a power system.

Lupa then looked at Leo in full surprise, “You think that’s the reason it is called that!?”

“This is your tribe! How would I know!?”