“Got something,” Lia called out, making Luna and me move over to the area where she had been investigating the trail I had found and its surroundings. We had no idea what might have made this path, and my scrying constructs could only do so much thanks to the fairly dense trees all around us, meaning we needed to track using traditional methods. Silva and Sasha were looking for scent markings, Lia for physical tracks, Luna for magical traces, while I kept an eye out for everything, to the best of my ability.

“Not sure what these are, but they look familiar,” Lia added when we got close, nodding towards some crude carvings in one of the numerous pine trees. They were a little above my head and wrapped half-way around the tree, easily visible from the path. The carvings themself were nothing overly special, it looked as if a child with a rock had hacked into the tree, leaving some deep, jarring marks in its bark.

However, when looking at the markings, crude as they were, from another perspective, I recognised some familiar shapes and forms. Parts of the structure looked very much like the Ice Runes I used habitually, which made little sense, but the carving was as if somebody who might have seen an image of them a while back had tried to carve them without really knowing what to do while making up for the lack of knowledge, skill and tools by using overwhelming force. There was nothing actually magical about these markings, but the attempt might have been made.

Or I might be suffering from pareidolia, which was always a possibility.

“They look like your runes, Mom,” Luna remarked after looking at the markings for a bit, her eyebrows scrunched together. Apparently, it wasn’t just me who recognised the similarities, meaning it was less likely that it was a coincidence.

“Strange,” I admitted, “I agree, they look like my Ice Runes, but that shouldn’t be possible.” I shrugged, already considering how this ‘impossibility’ had come about. The Runes of Ice, Darkness and Blood I used weren’t the Terran runes representing those domains; they were Mundian in origin. Unless some legacy had studied Ice Runes in detail and reconnected with the discipline like I had, it was unlikely that they would have learned these runes here. But for that to be the case, I would think that the user could, well, use the runes, not just bash them into a tree with the finesse and precision of a sledgehammer.

“Might be a cargo-cult,” I muttered, remembering a somewhat humorous episode of our history, “Whoever made these might have seen the runes in some video or on some stream and kept the vague shapes in mind, before carving them into the tree here. However, they have no actual knowledge on how to use them, or what they are supposed to do, so they just go through the motions, playing at using the runes without knowing what they are doing.”

“Out here?” Lia asked, looking at me with disbelief written all over her face, “Didn’t you just say that there’s no civilisation as far as your birds can see?”

“Nothing that the Change hasn’t swallowed up, but yeah, even before the Change, this area wasn’t all that populated. Still, we can see that the runes are there and unless you have a better theory, I’d say somebody carved them,” I snarked back, causing Lia to nod in acceptance as that simple, fundamental point was fairly hard to refute. Somebody had carved the runes into the tree, or at least something too similar to runes to be a coincidence.

“What do these runes say?” Luna asked, looking somewhat confused at the markings, “Or try to say, maybe if we figure that out, we have a better chance at finding who carved the.”

“I don’t think so,” I shook my head, looking at the runes again, trying to discern what they might have been supposed to say. Which, quite frankly, wasn’t easy, if it was possible at all. The markings weren’t coherent; they weren’t even completed runes. Parts of them were recognisable, but they were like a child’s drawing, only bashed into the tree with a sharp rock. There was no cohesion, nothing indicating that the person who had made them knew what they were doing, or had an idea what it might mean. Trying to find meaning in them was, as far as I could see, impossible.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Shrugging, I decided to look at this from another direction and opened my eyes to any potential magic, only to come up empty once more. Either these markings had been carved a while back, giving any magic they might have held enough time to fully dissipate or they had never been magical in the first place. Though given their rough shape, I wouldn’t be confident in estimating how long it would take for magic to dissipate from them, as there were various factors influencing that process.

Blinking once more, I shut off my magical sight and looked at the tree through my Soul Sight, curious if that changed anything. After mentally shunting the tree’s innate healthy emerald glow to the side, I looked for anything that could indicate what had happened here. However, the only thing I managed to find was a few insects, parasites, and the like, which were merely visible due to my high Intuition and the various traits that further improved my senses.

Hel, these markings could have been carved before the Change. Nothing suggested that the person who had done this knew what they were doing. And a few that indicated the exact opposite.

Shaking my head, I told my daughters just that. This was a clue somebody had been here, that much was clear, but trying to discern what these badly-made markings might mean was a path to certain madness.

“Well, I guess that means we have to look for physical clues if trying to find meaning in these markings won’t work,” Lia suggested, “Sister, can you figure out how long ago these markings were made by studying the way the tree has healed? If the markings weren’t magical, the tree’s healing should be fairly easy to estimate, right?”

“Maybe, I don’t know all that much about this sort of tree,” Luna admitted, studying the damaged bark intently, “I don’t think it’s completely fresh, look how the bark has dried out here? A month, maybe two, I’d say, somewhere in that time frame,” she explained, poking and prodding the tree just a little.

“Good to know, but not all that helpful,” I accepted her words with a shrug, still uncertain what this particular set of markings might indicate. They might have nothing to do with runes in the first place; the person who used them might simply have chosen these markings they had seen on video because they liked the way they looked. “We should look around, trying to see if there’s something in the area, just in case these markings are some sort of weird sign, telling those in the know that this spot has something special about it.”

“Sure, I’ll check from above,” Lia accepted, leaping into the nearest tree, making it sway for a moment as she landed in its branches. Similarly, Silva and Sasha put their noses to the ground, searching for any traces we might have missed while Luna widened her search for magic or other markings.

In the meantime, I grounded myself, focusing my awareness downwards and into my Earth Magic. There might be something below us we couldn’t see, some hidden stash and the markings could tell the one who carved them where to look.

With my eyes closed, I let my mind scan the earth, my magic pinging against the various roots, rocks and dirt below me, giving me a fair idea of what was down there.

“Got something!” Once again, Lia’s voice pulled me from my investigation, making me sigh in relief as I hadn’t been able to find anything, only what I would have expected to be underground in an area like this. The most exciting find had been a small tunnel, possibly made by a mouse, rat, or something similar.

“So?” I asked, once we all converged on Lia’s position, carefully making our way through the dense underbrush she had avoided by going through the trees.

“There’s another path, it’s a lot smaller and leads away from the main path,” she gestured, showing us what she had found.

“Looks like the runic markings were just some sort of sign.” Luna mused, “Not sure why they wouldn’t just use letters.”

“Concealment, possibly. The runic markings don’t tell us anything, and finding this path wasn’t as easy as Lia made it look,” I reasoned, though I was curious as well. It wasn’t as if this area had high traffic and people needed to hide away; I’d be willing to bet that we were the first people since the change to travel this far.

“We’ll find out,” Lia simply stated, letting herself drop right beside us, “Now let’s go and find out where this thing leads.”