“Why does it say 1 of 3 if it shows 2 mana types? Unless Nature and Life are interchangeable?” Eric thought out loud as he was setting up camp again for another night sleeping along the stream at the wood line.
The days since finding the Elder Elk were not as challenging as constantly fighting for his life but Eric had been able to find and hang a few more of the larger squirrels he had fought before. Luckily he got away with only minor scratches as he had rolled away from an attack and rolled into a tree trunk.
Sporting a good bruise on his right shoulder from the tumble. During his hunts, he slowly acquired more hide and turned them into rough clothing. He had spent more time learning and hunting in his surroundings but with no luck on the learning part. The last time he saw a creature with magic imbued into it was the Elder Elk and it gave him a name, more like made his nickname magically part of him.
“If only I was home..” Eric spoke out loud again, part of his bad habit of thinking out loud. It was something he developed due to watching too many tube videos of people crafting and playing various PVE and PVP games while growing up. He always wanted to be a tube content creator and make his own videos.
He remembers, vividly, his grandparents scolding him regularly for being too loud or constantly talking to the screen when no one else was in the room. He always was talking to someone, but no one was there.
Eventually, he grew out of the worst of it, but he still spoke his thoughts out loud too much, like some of the Anime he had watched in the past.
“I need to learn if the attributes I have are actually helping, I’ve only been doing what I can, but I think I feel stronger and faster, but not sure how to judge it,” Eric said puzzled at his situation. “I need to develop myself, but I’ve never been one of those ppl that exercise.”
Half laughing at his statement and half serious, Eric laid down and closed his eyes.
“Just another night of this nightmare, and soon I can get home.” A pause then a sigh before Eric finished his thought. “I hope.
———
The sound of crackling fire was thunderous to his ears as he sat up, immediately coughing. “What?” was all Eric could get out before coughing again as he realized the smoke was thick.
Looking around at his situation Eric was able to see that a large raccoon was jumping back and forth between burning bushes and Eric as it was unsure how to get out of its situation. Without spending any time looking around Eric was able to easily determine that the raccoon stole one of the sticks that still was hot like a cooling coal from the fire Eric had made and drugged the stick over to a bush where it caught fire.
It looked like it was on the way to steal another stick when the fire erupted behind the raccoon and caught it trapped in the situation it found itself in, even if it was its fault.
“Well, you can’t of been too smart have you?” Eric said jokingly as he got to his knees and maintained a low stance looking around and behind him, seeing the safe way was toward the stream.
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“Why not, you were the one…” Eric paused as he looked for who spoke up.
“Leave me alone!” the voice again. He heard some whimpering coming from the raccoon as he looked at it.
“Did you say something?” Eric asked, half confused and half impressed that the game developers created talking animals. Still thinking to himself he was stuck in a video game.
“Yes, the fire, I didn’t...I mean stick was warm and I wanted my night nest for now to be warm!”
Eric realized it was the raccoon and he was not looking at the creature that stood just shy of 3 feet tall on its hind legs as it was gesturing to the fire around him and looking rapidly behind Eric as if it never saw the safety of the stream.
“Um..” Eric didn’t get to finish the thought before he dove to his right as the raccoon sprinted towards him, running past him and into the cold waters of the stream.
“Oh safe, safe, safe, cold cold, COLD!” the raccoon said as it ran across the stream to the other side of the wood line.
Eric looking in surprise at the raccoon, stunned in surprise, felt the fire flicker at his back, smelling his pack start to cook as he was lying on it. Grabbing it up he ran for the stream and without stopping ran up next to the raccoon and looked back at the burning trees as they ignited.
“See Safe!” the raccoon stated excitedly as it looked at Eric and then back at the fire. “Oh..that not good, that not good at all.”
Eric confused at this point, what would be worse than the fire that this creature started, looked at the raccoon and saw fear starting to show on the face. Its eyes went wide as it stared at the fire as it danced and crackled.
Eric followed its gaze and saw the fire dancing and moving between the trees, catching more and more of them on fire as if eagerly searching for more kindle to burn.
“Fire life!” the raccoon half whispered pointing at the dancing fire.
Not even giving it a full view he saw the fire dancing and moving, like a living being, but staying away from the water, moving along the tree line and touching the brush and tall grass to consume it, leaving behind ash as it moved, slowly getting larger and larger.
If it wasn’t for the warning of the interface, Eric would have just thought the woods were very flammable.
Young Weak Fire Elemental
Level 1
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
You have witnessed the coming of life of a fire elemental as it took form from the embers of stolen sticks from your campfire. This fire elemental is new to this world and is only driven by hunger. As it consumes it will grow to become a full elemental.
Fire elementals consume to convert nature mana into fire mana. This elemental has not consumed enough to evolve into a full Lesser Fire Elemental.
Nature Mana Consumed - 38%&*#)$
“That's not good,” Eric said out loud, slowly repeating select parts of the message. “This is going to consume the woods until it grows up.”
“WHAT!” the raccoon exclaimed, half asking as it glanced at Eric. “We gotta run or put it out. If we stay it will grow to eat us!”
“I don’t want that but I can’t…what can I do to that?” Eric asked as he pointed to the fire consuming and growing on the other side of the stream.
“If it grows the waters will go away, water does not like a fire spirit.” Again the raccoon was half whispering.
Eric was thinking about what he could use but nothing was nearby to help him with the fire. He had no way to redirect the water to put out the burning brush and trees. It wasn’t like he wanted to get close, he could feel the heat from where he was. “This game is so cool!” Eric said out loud, startling the raccoon beside him.
“Game? This is no GAME!” The raccoon was no longer whispering Eric could hear the anger in its voice. “That will consume all the woods and become stronger!”
“It is just a young Fire Elemental, what can it do to us?” It was like he wanted to tempt fate.
Weak Fire Elemental
Level 5
This fire elemental, while consuming the nature around it, has grown to become a fully defined fire elemental. (@))*($J It will have a minor resistance to Weak & Lesser levels of water mana along with great resistance to nature mana up to Common levels.
It grew, and the interface was having glitches as well. Eric wasn’t sure what was happening but he had this increasingly annoying static-like noise in the back of his head that was getting his attention.
Quickly looking around the area, other than the Fire Elemental, the raccoon, and himself, Eric couldn’t pinpoint where the static noise was coming from.
“What are you doing we must run! Follow me I save you!” The voice of the raccoon shifted from fear to excitement.
Eric looked down at the raccoon as its smile grew wide, almost impossibly wide. “Why?” What was this feeling he was getting, like some of his tabletop games where the GM was saying something that was a hint of what was coming, is that what was happening here? Eric couldn’t pinpoint the driving desire to run, to turn and escape the approaching danger that was approaching, but the Fire Elemental was content with the fuel it was consuming, and the only thing that was near Eric was this creature that wanted to save it.
Yes, it caused the fire and caused this situation, but Eric couldn’t drop the feeling that something was wrong. “I’m not sure.” Eric gently said.
The smile dropped.
“You aren’t what?”
“I said, I’m not sure, something feels wrong.” Eric was still troubled but couldn’t point to the concern, but the static was getting stronger.
“We need to run.” The face of the raccoon looked worried as it glanced around as if the area itself was dangerous.
“Where we are safe here on this side of the stream.”
“No, we need to Run.” Run…that word came out like a hiss like it was angry.
“Naw, you caused this, just go on your way,” Eric said as he watched the fire elemental turn and face the pair.
“You….” The burning and scratchy voice of the elemental started saying, “Should… run.” The last words were almost a whisper as Eric swore he heard the last word twice, like surround sound headsets were on his head. Like the ones from his gaming setup.
“You! You are not running!” Half asked and half accused Eric.
“YOU…." a pause as the voice changes from anger to concern, "oh.." then understanding as the sound goes old as if an older man was speaking.
“I understand, you have resistance don’t you?” The raccoon said as it started to grow in size. Slowly shifting its stance as its arms grew, it bent over to fall onto all fours as the fur started changing colors to a dark purple hue but black fur.
Stunned and confused, Eric watched as the creature changed to more of a panther shape, slowly increasing the speed of the transformation as a pair of tentacle-like appendages extended from the shoulders and stopped to end at an ear-like opening with dark, impossibly large spikes extended from the tentacle ears.
“You!” Eric half excitedly steps back while getting a familiar understanding of what the creature is, yet still slipping his grasp of the name.
A pulsing feeling as Eric now identified the static noise as the interface attempting to get his attention. Taking a glance at the most imposing message, Eric understood what was happening.
Behind the creature in front of him, the fire elemental faded and disappeared and the woods returned to a non-burned state. The smell of fire and burnt leaves faded as the appendages with spiked ears shook, a small purple and red glow fading from the center of the ears.
You were under the influence of a nightmare beast.
Due to your mental resistance, the nightmare beast was unable to completely compel you.
Your mental state and stats are now visible within your profile.
The growling brought Eric’s attention to the creature as its mouth curled into an angry scowl. In his head, Eric heard the voice of the creature again.
“You should have just come with me and I would have been fed for days!”
Eric couldn’t react before the creature lunged towards him.
Faster than he thought a panther or panther-like creature could move as it tackled Eric down into the ground.
“You will taste delicious, I feel your muscles and energy.” The voice pounded into Eric’s head.
“Get off of me!” Eric said as he brought his feet up and kicked upwards into the torso of the creature he thanked his luck that the creature didn’t try to kill him immediately.
The kick was solid and stronger than he thought it would be as the creature was struck with intense pain as it stepped backward after being moved a few feet.
“You will FEED ME!” the pounding in Eric’s head was getting less and less.
“No..I’ll eat you,” Eric said, confused as to why he chose those words, causing a clack of laughter in his head by the beast.
Standing and lunging as fast as he could Eric was surprised again by how fast he was moving. It must have been those increased stats he got nearly a week ago when he leveled up.
The beast was surprised as Eric dove for it, normally its prey was scared and easy to kill, even the creatures that were in its hunting grounds couldn’t resist the illusions and mental charms of it, but somehow this human did just that.
And the worst part was hurting it. Unsure of how much more damage Eric could do, they both, the creature and Eric wanted the fight to end quickly. Luckily for Eric, the creature was more looking for easy prey and Eric was no longer easy prey, but more annoyance to the hunting grounds that it prowled.
Eric’s lunge ended in the creature attempting to bite it but Eric ducked at the last moment crashing into the chest and front legs of the beast causing it to crash down face first into the ground.
Eric continued his momentum past the beast and crawled out from underneath it. Turning and grabbing his dagger, Eric watches the beast pull its face out of the dirt and step away from Eric.
Turning its head it sent one last message before dashing away, almost melding into the surrounding as it faded from vision.
“I’ll watch you, and you will be mine!”
Eric watched as the dirt settled and listened.
Feeling confident the creature was gone, Eric dropped down, exhausted and pleased with himself.
“You’ll never eat me.”