Water spirits were cleaning the armor. Mud, grime and blood had made the Moorland menace almost unrecognizable.
The spirits didn't complain and cleaned diligently while bathing in the spectral fire that was being released.
The army that the Moorland Menace had fought the day prior was still on Loran’s mind.
It might have been his imagination, but it appeared as if they had no answers to deal with the spectral fire and otherworldly toughness of the armor.
There were no dents in the armor for as far he could tell. But it wasn’t impossible to dent this armor.
Was it possible that only spirits could dent the armor? In that case, the humans needed to send spirit mages to defeat him, but the Moorland Menace also hunted those down.
Loran got lost in thoughts again.
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‘Loran! Pay attention!”
A [Stone] hit Loran’s head, and he fell over after an ‘yeouch.’
“Teacher! Stop throwing [Stones] at me!”
“Pesky little pup! Then pay attention! How would you defeat a mountain troll?”
Young Loran rubbed his head and got up. “You [Stone] it!”
He dodged the incoming [Stone] that his teacher flung at him. “You think you’re funny eh?”
A young Wild Claw raised his hand. “You go for the jugular!”
A [Stone] landed a hit on his forehead, knocking him out.
“Reia, take care of your silly brother and remind him next time that this is magic class! Only solutions involving magic!”
“What about jugular magic?”
Reia evaded the [Stone] that her response earned and hid behind her unconscious brother.
“Listen here pups. There are many strange beings in this world. Some tougher than others. There is no such thing as an invincible being.”
“Besides gods!”
“Yes, besides gods… hey, Loran. Why would you bring that up?”
Loran started to sweat as he felt another [Stone] incoming, but it didn’t to his relief.
“Let’s ignore the obvious. Beings like mountain trolls are resistant to many if not all types of magic. Either bring an unusual element or hit it’s weakness, which is water magic. A weak magic skill will deal more damage than an [Explosion] or [Lightning Charge]!”
A hand appeared from behind the unconscious Wild Claw. “What do you mean with unusual magic?”
“Well most individuals are only limited to water, earth, fire, lightning and wind magic. Dark and light magic could be classified as unusual. It’s not rare, but uncommon enough to land one in a special spot. There are many more elements but these are rare.”
“Like ghost magic!”
Loran evaded another [Stone].
“That’s spirit magic! Not ghost magic. But about that… only spirit mages can use that. If you somehow find a being that’s weak to only spirit magic… run. There is nothing you can do about it. There is also a high chance you won’t be able to see spirit magic. This counts for any magic that falls within the ‘Lost Magic’ category”
Loran furrowed his brow. “How are you supposed to run if you can’t see the magic? And what is Lost Magic?’
“You can still feel it. Our senses as beast kin are keen. If you don’t smell, hear, or see anything and don’t detect mana, but get hit by anything that deals damage or status effects. Run, and don’t look back. Spirits might often be weak and docile, but they are regarded on the same tier as legendary and mythical beings, as you don’t want to get on their bad side or mess with them. Lost magic is magic that behaves a bit different from magic we know. Spirit magic is an example of it. Nature energy could also be considered Lost magic as it isn’t magic but behaves like magic.”
The group went quiet and the teacher clapped her hands.
“Anyway, it seems a student has already fallen asleep.” The teacher glared at Wild Claw. “So we will resume this class another time. Don’t forget to practice your magic whenever you can!”
Loran got up and helped Reia drag Wild Claw away.
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A loud pop startled Loran, but he got put to ease when he noticed that it was just the spirits messing around with bubbles again.
‘These beings are on par with the mythical and legendary?’
He tried to imagine these spirits take on a dragon but couldn’t imagine them winning.
Maybe these weren’t battle spirits? Not every wolf beast kin in his village was suited for battle. It could be the same for spirits. Moreover, these were lesser spirits. They could be compared with the infants in his village.
What would stronger spirits be like? Maybe like the Moorland Menace?
Loran was still unsure if the Moorland Menace could be categorized as a spirit as for something that doesn’t interact with anything else besides spirits, elves and spirit mages, it interacts with awfully many races.
Humans, trolls and witches, all had died by the Moorland Menace. Or could spirits choose who and what to interact with?
Studying bubble blowing and armor polishing lesser water spirits might not get him the knowledge and results he wants. He didn’t have much of a choice, however.
The armor was cleaned and polished, but the Moorland Menace didn’t move, even though the presences of the army hadn’t completely left the moorlands yet.
Was it waiting for something, or did it prioritize feeding these spirits spectral fire? It was giving off a massive amount, nothing like it had done before.
As if responding to Loran’s thoughts, the moorland menace got up and started walking.
No running this time, just walking.
An hour went by, two hours went by and the Moorland menace st next to a large boulder, surrounded and overgrown by foliage.
Nature and earth spirits popped out and started bathing in the spectral fire.
There was nothing to repair, so all they did was play around, played pranks on each other and on a rabbit who had no idea what was going on.
The rabbit was freaking out as it was clear it couldn't perceive the spirits. It couldn't figure out how leaves kept covering its eyes and where those pebbles under its feet came from.
The rabbit stopped trying to make sense of the situation and fled.
The nature spirits, being fine with the spectral fire, indicated that it wasn’t real fire. It did however behave like fire when used as an attack.
It didn't appear to be hot from Loran’s observations. Was that the secret? But heat was fire’s only and most important quality. What would it be doing if it didn’t burn?
The Moorland Menace passed by many different spots and gave out spectral fire to the spirits there. There were even spirits, of which the element he couldn't tell easily.
Spectral fire got handed out day in, day out. And something special happened on day 12.
A water spirit swelled and evolved. It looked like a humanoid reaching up to the Moorland Menace’s knees.
It flexed it’s watery arms, posed and got made fun of by the other spirits, after which they went back to benign silly, playing and pulling pranks on each other and animals.
The spectral fire ceased, the Moorland Menace, got up and waded through the water and started fishing trash out of the stream.
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The peaceful phase had started.
Any presence got ignored unless they attacked spirits or littered. Those who did get punished by death, but others got ignored.
Loran hoped that society had caught on to this, as people might start thinking again that ‘menace’ means ‘troublesome and risky’ and not ‘I will lose my life if I encounter this.’
Months of uneventful cleaning passed.
It was a day like any other. The moorland menace tried to take a bag out of a tree without taking down the tree when 6 presences appeared behind it.
The cursed armor paid them no heed, but Loran recognized this as yet another adventurer’s party.
It had a Golden Angel, an Iron Wall, the man in plated armor with an enormous hammer. A witch, which would most certainly be a Crimson Eagle, and 3 others which weren’t easily identifiable.
No Toxic Donkey’s or Hawkeye’s as they were easily recognizable and would have already hidden.
They would either have support roles or have strange specialties that encompass more than 1 role.
The man in armor spoke to the Moorland Menace, which didn’t respond.
The pesky bag got fished out of the tree and the cursed armor walked off to its next destination.
A [Firewall] got erected to block its path, but the Moorland Menace walked right through it.
A tree had fallen over, and the Moorland Menace used its claws to turn it into wooden scraps and cleaned up afterward.
Profanities and provocations got flung at the Moorland Menace, as did magic.
Something was up in the west. It was quite far. A day-long run revealed a large boat had gotten stuck in the river bank.
It looked old and abandoned, and the Moorland Menace broke it down while under the continuous attack of the party who had followed it.
Loran developed pity for the party but also wondered why they didn’t see this as a sign to flee as their attacks weren’t working.
The witch had discovered that blowing the Moorland Menace was effective, and cleaning the moorlands became arduous.
The bullying continued for another day until the Iron Wall knocked down a tree accidentally.
The Moorland Menace stopped, turned around and faced the Iron Wall.
A confident smile appeared on the Iron Wall’s face as he got ready for battle.
The confident smile appeared in between the cupped hands of the black armored hands, and a [Spectral Explosion] sent the man in his tin can flying.
The party came into action, but the trash had been taken out, the Moorland Menace continued with its task.
It was time to visit the spirits near the water stream, and Loran got worried that this party might do something to them.
The party sat down and rested as the Moorland menace fed spectral fire to the water spirits.
One of the party members had left. Loran’s guess was to retrieve the man that had got sent flying. Something told him that that Iron Wall wasn’t dead, but just had taken a stupid amount of damage before getting blasted away.
‘What is going on?’, ‘Did we make a mistake?’, ‘Is this really the Moorland menace?’, ‘wasn’t this thing supposed to be a merciless killer?’ were the questions the party asked themselves.
An injured Iron Wall appeared at the end of the day, who continued glaring at the cursed armor.
The water spirit that ha recently evolved waddled over to the party and killed their fire with water before flexing its watery arms.
The witch accused the Iron Wall for putting out the fire with his ‘stench’ and ‘unnecessary burliness’ and a fight broke out.
It then drenched the Iron Wall who then accused the witch of giving him an ‘unnecessary shower’.
The strange spirit kept flexing and waddled back to the water stream, where it got received like a hero by the other spirits.
A man with glasses pointed at the Moorland menace and accused it for these ‘spooky actions from a distance’.
The Iron Wall and witch were more interested in flinging insults at each other.
The man with glasses tried to calm them down, cleaned his glasses and tossed the cloth aside.
Loran’s body jerked, and the scenery flashed by and the man with the glasses appeared in front of him in a mare moment.
A black armored fist buried itself in the man’s face and sent him flying.
The amount of blood suggested that it was a one shot.
The party got into action and the magic spells got flung at him.
Loran got forced to move toward the cloth that had been tossed aside, picked it up and incinerated it before going back to the spirits to feed them spectral fire.
The healer of the group was yelling at her party to stop attacking and help out.
Loran was unsure if the healer could do anything for that man, but he also didn’t know much about Golden Angels.
Their role held that name, as some could perform miracles. The strongest healer ever, named the Golden Angel, had been rumored to bring the recently deceased back to life.
Whether this was truth or a fable was unknown to Loran, but it was possible that glasses man could recover from this.
A sob minutes later indicated that the man had passed away.
More magic got flung at the Moorland Menace and the spirits reacted.
Small patches of ice appeared under the feet of the adventurer’s making them slip.
Mischievous wind spirit s flipped the skirts of the Golden Angel, the witch and another woman who had been quiet.
The tiny humanoid water spirit waddled over to the Iron Wall, flexed and had boiling water stream into the armor.
It took a while before he noticed and started jumping around while yelling ‘hot, hot, hot!’
Water poured out of every gap in his armor, as did steam.
The tiny spirit flexed, and the water turned into ice.
A strange yell drew the attention of the other party members as the Iron Wall fell over, dead.
The witch pulled back her party, warning them that his wasn’t the work of the Moorland Menace, but that the spirits were angry.
The spirit kept flexing as if he alone had been responsible for scaring the party off.
Loran remembered the lesson he had learned about spirits when he was a pup. These spirits looked weak, but they did make a party flee.
He had learned this lesson firsthand. A battle where one side can’t be damaged isn’t a fight at all, it’s a slaughter.
These spirits seemed nice and docile, but they could easily slaughter many, as there was nothing the other side could do.
All it took for him to learn this was a strange flexing spirit.
Now for the question that took over Loran’s every thought; what would this flexing spirit turn into if it evolved again?
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Only a week passed for the party to return. Their Iron wall and extra had been replaced.
Each of them held a plastic bag.
‘Surely they won’t’ was what Loran thought, but they did.
The adventurers dropped the bags to the ground, and it earned them the moorland menace’s full attention.
Enormous [Earthen Walls] got erected by the Iron Wall, and the witch flew up and started flinging fire spells that melted anything on impact.
The Moorland menace was fine, however. It dashed at the walls of dirt and clawed into it and scaled it.
An [Earth Pillar] shot out from the wall, launching him off the wall, back into the barrage the witch was sending at him.
The witch appeared between the cupped hands and a large blue and black [Special Explosion] went off.
The fire cleared, and the witch appeared unscathed, with a shell made of small hexagons around her.
The Moorland Menace tried again, but the witch got protected by the barrier yet again.
‘Thud, thud, thud.’ but it wasn’t the Moorland Menace
Giant [Obsidian Apes] appeared from behind the earthen wall and rushed the Moorland Menace.
An ape scratched its butt and flung something brown.Loran wanted to evade, and the moorland menace agreed with him.
The ape didn’t throw a turd, to Loran’s relief, just a strangely shaped boulder.
[Boulder Turds] had an interesting name, but their power shouldn't be underestimated. Loran was familiar with monkeys and apes and had been hit by the rocky versions before. It hurt for one, but also made Wild Claw laugh at him for weeks. It was something he never wanted to get hit by ever again.
A monkey slam missed, and the moorland menace used the arm as a bridge and slammed its arm into the neck of the [Obsidian Ape].
‘It’s not a real creature but a magic skill.’ was what Loran wanted to tell the armor, but the moorland menace kept treating these apes as real creatures until it noticed that the apes were still ‘alive’ after chipping away at their vitals.
A strange magic circle had appeared behind the witch who then swiftly flew away.
Loran’s attention went toward the sky as a massive fireball descended.
It wasn’t an ultimate skill, but [Meteor] came close to one.
‘Which lunatic would cast [Meteor] in a normal fight?!’ was what Loran wanted to complain, but this might not be a normal fight.
The [Earth Wall] turned into an [Earth Dome] and layers of obsidian started to cover it.
The air rumbled as the massive fireball descended, and all the moorland menace was doing was clawing at the obsidian dome.
Loran got lifted and flung away as the [Meteor] impacted.
Again no damage, but it did blast him away.
Loran sighed inwardly and wondered i the moorland menace had some sort of an ultimate skill.
The armor clapped its hands while in midair and pulled a [Spectral Sword] out of it’s palm and threw it into the sky.
‘That’s not going to do anything’ Loran thought, but he got proven wrong as a massive spectral sword appeared high in the sky and fell down on the obsidian dome and cracked it like an egg.
Loran’s momentum got killed as an invisible wall blocked him from flying further.
This invisible wall, however, was well past the moorlands. He was able to go in the jungle now!
Trees broke his fall and the ‘thud, thud, thud.’ started again as the Moorland menace returned to the moorlands.
The destination was easily identifiable as the spectral inferno was visible from far.
Loran’s arm raised, and a scream came from the inferno. His arm raised again, which got followed by another scream.
An [Obsidian Ape], missing half it’s face, raised out of the inferno and came for the Moorland Menace.
The ‘thud, thud, thud.’ sped up and turned into a continuous sound.
The Moorland Menace ran at a speed it had never done before and evaded the [Obsidian Ape] and ran into the inferno.
Loran’s vision got obscured by all the spectral fire, but voices of panic and screams of pain did make it through, guiding the Moorland Menaces.
The running and clawing stopped when the voices and screams stopped. The spectral fire was still going, but the moorland Menace abandoned the fight.
The area had been destroyed. [meteor] wasn’t environment friendly, and neither was the [Spectral Skyblade].
The Moorland Menace dropped to its knees and put its hands to it’s head.