Loran was trapped. Not only was he trapped in cursed armor but also in an unknown layer of mud.
He had stopped counting as random thoughts made him lose count. He did remember passing the 500000 mark, but that was all.
Loran was never able to do much, but he did have stimuli. There were none now. No sight and no hearing. The few things he still had were reduced o just his thoughts.
Trying to take over the cursed armor was tiring. Sleeping was impossible, as he never managed in the 2 years he had been trapped.
It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, but he might be already dead. He wasn't aware of any being that could do without food and sleep for over 2 years. What if leaving the armor would spell the end of him?
Many longed for immortality and this might be one form but… what’s the point?
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“Loran, what would you do if you were immortal?”
“I would…” Loran didn’t dare to finish his sentence. He would sound like Wild Claw if he did.
Loran was sitting with Reia near a campfire. There was no particular reason for their outing as spending time in nature was something that was encouraged in their village. Loran had gotten lucky and got paired with Reia.
“If I were immortal, I would travel the world! Not just Kaledon! What about you?” Was his answer. He couldn't possibly tell Reia that he would spend an eternity with her.
“I want to become a village elder and oversee how our village progresses.”
“For an eternity?”
“Yes! For an eternity! I could then finally tell someone ‘back in my time…’ and amaze everyone!”
Reia rocked her body enthusiastically while thinking of what the young wolf beast kin would do and say to that.
“I see, not very compatible, eh?”
“Mm, did you say something, Loran?”
“Uhh, nothing. That’s a wonderful dream!”
“Thank you! Yours is too but…” Reia’s enthusiasm died down. “The outside world is dangerous, you know… There are many places that think that we’re freaks…”
Loran threw some seeds into the fire to make them pop. “I know but… I want to see the world. I feel confined. Don’t get me wrong, I like the jungle, but it’s jungle day in day out. I want to see something new, something exciting.”
A brief silence fell.
Reia adjusted her posture and leaned forward. “Then why don’t you go? Nobody is keeping you here.”
“I…” Loran glanced at Reia. “I’m not ready to leave everything behind yet…”
“You mean my brother? I’m sure he would go with you if you ask him often enough.”
“I guess… I didn’t mean him though…”
“Hmm, either way, ask him or her often enough, and I’m sure they would consider. I fully support your dream! I will make sure there is always a place for you to stay, may you come back!”
Loran exhaled audibly, unable to find a way to communicate his feelings.
There was an element that included fear of rejection and an element that would change their dynamic when he would express his feelings.
Reia was quite simple on the surface, but it was difficult for Loran to reach to her deeper feelings.
Was it the lack of questions that cut deeper, or was she just great at hiding hem? Loran couldn’t tell. All he knew that it was all on him. Nothing would change if he didn’t take the first step.
“So what will your top 5 places be to visit first?!”
Loran fell over backwards as Reia’s face was close, too close.
“Uhm… I want to start close and visit the Aquini delta in the south. It might not be too different from the jungle, but it will be the best place to start getting used to the change.”
“You will tell us all about your travels when you return, right?!” Reia said while getting closer but not in the kind Loran hoped.
“Uh, of course.”
“And then? What’s next?!”
Loran pushed the excited face of Reia to the side to get some space.
“Probably the plains of Hjuva. Rumor has it that they’re empty but… that can’t be right, there must be something there. Maybe hop by its capital city, Gittrian. I heard they had a city block made out of gold. There is no way that’s true, but I want to see with my own eyes.”
“Ooh, you always talk to travelers, is that why you know all this?!”
Loran nodded.
Loran never missed a beat when travelers visited the village, and he always asked questions. Most had been beast kin, but Loran had the luck to hear the perspective of a human he had found in the jungle, not too long ago.
“Then… the mountain ranges. I forgot how they were named though but they split the continent in half! Can you believe that?!”
“But we have mountains nearby.” Reia pointed west at the mountains that marked the natural border between Lopahz and Hjuva.
“I know, but these are supposed to be waay bigger!” Loran said as he spread out his arms. “I don’t know how big this continent is though… maybe it’s not much bigger than those…”
The two beast kin looked at the mountain range in the distance.
The furthest they had traveled was beyond the southern elven forest, which was about 2 weeks of running on full speed and 3 weeks at a comfortable tempo. That was the size of their world.
“So instead of needing a week to reach it you need 3?”
“I think I need 4!” Loran said as he held up his fingers.
“So your trip around the continent will take how long? 2 months?”
“I think so. How big can this continent be? After the mountain range I want to visit the desert, but I heard there was nothing, just like the plains. I will then visit the ocean in the south, which… also seem to have nothing…”
“The continent seems to have a whole lot of nothing… can’t you just stay here if that’s the case?”
Loran got excited for a bit but calmed himself down. Eia wasn’t asking that for the reason he wanted to. She was just a concerned friend.
“I… I still want to see the world, get the feeling that I’m not trapped here, that I can go wherever I want to go. And then when I return, I will have the knowledge and experience to carry on, knowing what is out there. I might then either stay or continue traveling.”
Reia fidgeted before finding a rock and started to sharpen her nails on it. “I… I’ve heard about monsters. The jungle has jungle dragons but… there are mountain trolls, large beasts that they call behemoths and… humans… you still remember the lessons right? How they drove the beast kin into the jungle? You might not get in trouble with monsters, but humans are everywhere…”
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Loran lowered his head and looked at his hands. “Not all humans are bad, most are normal or good.”
“I know but… all that’s needed is one bad one. My brother… he encountered one a month ago. They had a long fight. My brother won of course, but he came home poisoned…”
“Poisoned? He told me he had a cold…”
Reia smiled. “He… sneezed and was suddenly cured. I would have wondered what race he was if he weren’t my brother.”
“Even poison can’t stay in the same room with him for long… what a guy.” Loran couldn’t help but smile at the strange and quirky behavior of Wild Claw.
“We will miss you when you go out to travel…”
“It will just be 2 months. 3 months if I’m unlucky or go sightseeing for too long.”
Silence fell and neither Loran nor Reia were aware that their estimates were far off. The world was bigger than they thought.
The individuals that were the most mobile on the continent were adventurers. These adventurers used teleport gate services from the Adventurer’s Association, which were expensive.
Loran’s estimate of 3 or 4 months was accurate for adventurers who had pockets deep enough to continuously use these teleport gates.
Technology was distributed strangely on the continent, and some countries could be behind significantly.
Some parts had electronium powered vehicles, while others used carts pulled by horses or monsters. Travel was unreliable, costly and took long.
A normal traveler like Loran would easily lose 3 to 4 years to his planned route.
The difficulty and unreliable nature of travel was a key component why certain threats, like the Moorland Menace could rampage for as long as they could.
Accurate information had to arrive first, the threat level needed to be assessed, parties with the required rank would have to be notified, these parties would have to then respond.
It could take days, weeks, months or even years for a team to respond because who would want to fight an invincible cursed armor who leaves no survivors?
When a party does accept, they will have to prepare and teleport to the nearest teleport gate.
The tension between the Aquini kingdom and the Igrini kingdom and the Igrini Kingdom’s disdain for non-humans makes the closest, logical destination unviable, as that’s the capital city of the Igrini kingdom and few adventurer parties are purely human.
Lopahz doesn’t possess any facilities with teleport gates, so the next closest would be the city of Nelfim, south of the southern elven forest.
The party would then have to travel for 4 to 6 weeks through the jungle while dodging elves, beast kin tribes and monsters to then reach the moorlands.
Loran who was from a wolf beast kin tribe living in a remote village didn’t know it but the whole country of Lopahz was trapped. Nobody in this country could go anywhere without encountering a lot of challenges.
Many beast kin knew this, which was why they didn’t bother leaving as the easiest route was north, through the Igrini kingdom, but it wasn’t the safest.
Loran and Reia spent 2 more days in the wilderness before returning to their village. He had tried but kept chickening out and failed Reia to tell her how he felt about it.
Loran thought that he had enough time. He wouldn’t leave the village before telling her. It was one of the few things keeping him in the village.
An opportunity would present itself, he would then wolf up and confess. The length of his stay would then depend on her answer. He would leave almost immediately on rejection or stay several months if she said yes.
He had it all planned out, all he needed was the right moment. That was what he believed. Never would he have expected to get trapped in such a way that this would never come to pass.
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A lot of time had passed. It was unclear how much.
There were only few events that reminded Loran that he was still ‘alive’ for a lack of better words.
Several tremors reminded him. The rare ‘zomp, zomp, zomp’ sounds above him.
There was very few Loran cared for. All he did was wish for death. His idea to go over his childhood and his life only served to depress him more, as he was certain that he could never return to those days.
Those days were far gone. Nothing would be the same even if he could get out.
How long had he been stuck? Months? Years? Decades? Loran couldn't tell and didn’t care.
‘Zomp, zomp, zomp’
The sound of mud moving. It had been a while since Loran had heard that sound.
At first it made him excited as he expected someone to dig him up but the fact that he was still trapped proved that wasn’t the case. It would be the same this time.
The ‘zomp, zomp, zomp’ stopped and time passed
How would he long for someone to talk to. Or for someone to talk to him like Eileen did.
A face, a face would also be nice. Reia’s face and maybe Wild Claw’s face. Varek’s face wasn’t anything special, but it wouldn’t hurt to see his face too.
Loran never found out what happened to his friends, did they look for him? He would have known if the Moorland menace had killed them. They should still be alive.
More time passed.
The longing for food awoke. It had been another sensation he had been deprived of. Tasty boar meat or fish from the Aquini river. Even food he hated was something he would be up for. Loran wasn’t in a position to be picky.
Moore time passed.
Loran was mad. He was mad at the elf that did this to him. Did he have to be a complete asshole and bury him in the mud? He was dealing damage to the armor, couldn't he have just killed him?
Death had always been scary to Loran. Not just him, but many beast kin in his village had been afraid of death. Wild Claw had been one of the few who wasn't.
Did Wild Claw know? That things worse than death exist? Loran was suer that he wouldn't have been as afraid of death if he knew what he knew now.
More time passed
A wave of acceptance came over Loran. Some stories have happy endings, some stories have bad endings, and some have no endings.
He had accepted that his story would be the one with no ending. He couldn't die as long as he was trapped, which meant a never ending mud imprisonment.
‘Zomp, zomp, zomp’
The sound of false hope.
‘Zomp, zomp, zomp’
‘False Hope’ was getting persistent.
‘Zomp, zomp, zomp’
“I think I found something!”
False hope started to talk. Did Loran go insane? He was sure he had gone insane.
‘Zomp, zomp, zomp.’
And something moved.
Darkness turned into dark brown, then turned into light brown, and then became blinding as the hole became larger and sunlight shone in.
This would have pleased the old Loran. The old Loran would have been happy to see the sunlight. The current Loran knew what this meant, however. His saviors would become the first victims of the Moorland Menace.
Being trapped had broken Loran. There was no way Loran would care for his saviors anyway.
The Moorland Menace started to move and got itself out of the mud.
“Whoa!”
‘I don’t care for my saviors’, ‘they are unrelated to me anyway’, ‘what could be worse than what I just went through’, were all assumptions Loran was running on.
The 3 faces in front of him proved that life was not yet done with him.
“Whohoo! Reia, look at the cool armor I dug up1”
In front of Loran were his 3 friends. They looked exactly as he remembered.
Beast kin live up to 300 years and can reach 400 years if they’re lucky. For more than half their lifespan they hardly age appearance wise.
This made it easy for Loran to recognize his friends. One thing was different, however.
Reia and Varek were holding hands.
Not only would he be forced to kill his friends, his love interested had someone else than him.
This was too much.
‘Thud, thud, thud
The familiar sound was back.
An armored arm swiped at the trio but got blocked by large [Wind Claws].
“Hah! My name isn’t Wild Claw for nothing!”
“You called yourself that though, brother…”
The Moorland Menace got pushed back and Wild Claw showed off his well refined [Wind Claws]. They were the best [Wind Claw] of the village, which was what prompted him to call himself Wild Claw.
The claws swiped and sharp [Wind Blades] shot at the Moorland Menace.
‘Thud, thud, thud.”
“Huh? What?!”
Normal magic was ineffective against the cursed armor, demonstrated by how the Moorland menace ran full speed through the [Wind Blades] and closed the distance in no time.
A claw swipe and streaks of blood indicated a hit.
Reia screamed and Varek came in action.
“Ugh, calm down sis, this will leave a cool scar.” Wild Claw said as he smiled through the 4 bloody claw marks that had been carved on his face.
Varek’s [Wind Wolves] got ignored and ‘thud, thud, thud’ filled the battlefield as did the growls of wolf beast kin.
“Wild Claw, Reia, we need to retreat! I think we got unlucky and dug up the Moorland Menace that had disappeared 6 years ago!”
Wild Claw pointed at the Moorland Menace after evading a claw swipe with a fancy backflip. “Wait?! So it’s not cool armor I dug up but a super bad killer? We will get super famous if we defeat it!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Look at your face! We need to go back and get it fixed!” Reia pulled on Wild Claw’s arm, but he didn’t budge.
“You 2 go without me. This asshole appeared the day Loran disappeared. I’m sure he killed him! I will defeat this thing, so Loran can rest in peace!”
Varek grabbed both Reia and Wild Claw. “We don’t know if that’s what happened, but I’m also not saying you’re wrong. Let's flee and return with a greater force.”
‘Thud, thud, thud.’
Varek pushed Wild Claw and Reia to the side, took a claw swipe to the chest and spurted blood. He collapsed to one knee and held his hand to his wound.
He was still alive, but it was unlikely he would be able to move or be a boon in a fight against the Moorland Menace.
Loran’s misery was unquantifiable. All he could do was wish that everything would end, that someone would end him.