Flora of Spirits

Angela took out her bag and dumped the contents on the table. All the gnoll ears that they collected fell out of the bag. Most looked normal, one was a bit bigger, and quite a few looked somewhat melted. "We had a good haul," Angela proudly announces.

"Oh, well, let's see," Adam took out his monocle and looked at each of the ears. He mumbled a bit when looking over the ears, but when it came to the melted ones, he paused and glanced over to the party. Angela kept her innocent, eager smile, but Ezra began to sweat. The monocle acted as an autopsy, who knew what the guild master would say about the melted gnolls.

To Ezra's surprise, the guild master said nothing, but with every gnoll, his eyes kept shifting to Cyrus. Lastly, he picked up the gnoll leader's ear, and a smile crossed his lips, "now this is an impressive one. Alright, I've decided, Anglea Cyrus, hand me your tags you're getting a promotion."

"What about me?" Ezra protested, "this is discrimination against support magic."

"You need to take on more quests for me to consider you for a promotion," The guild master explained. Ezra became silent; she only started questing again to keep her friend safe.

Angela and Cyrus handed over their tags, letting the silver and bronze clang together in the guild master's hand. Once he put them in his pocket, he took three bags of coins and set them on the counter, "here you are, and come back tomorrow for your promotion tags."

"Let's see," Angela took her bag and Cyrus' as well, emptying half Cyrus'. After counting them, she poured most of them into hers and the rest back into Cyrus' "this is the repayment for the equipment." She reminded him. Before leaving, Angela glanced at the quest board. "Let's pick a quest, so when we get our tags, we can start the next one immediately," Angela eagerly suggests.

"How about not. We need to head back to the church and give a report after each quest," Ezra reminded.

"Oh, come on," Angela complains but relents. "See you tomorrow Cyrus," Angela waved before being dragged out by Ezra.

"Staying behind for some food?" Guild master Adam asked, pointing to the back of the guild, "should be an empty table if you want to."

Cyrus nodded and took up the offer. However, he didn't see Flora working, thinking she might have had the day off or something.

Cyrus would take a stroll around town after his meal, as he couldn't think of much else to do this evening. During his walk, he noticed Flora heading to the edge of town. A green glow appeared in front of Flora as her eyes shifted to Cyrus, somehow knowing he was there.

"Want to come with?" Flora asked with a soft smile.

Cyrus would pause for a moment, wondering how she knew where he was. Flora didn't look surprised to see him, so now he was curious about that and about that green glow. "Sure, I was just taking a walk anyway."

Flora led Cyrus to the edge of town as two guards turned to face them. There weren't guards here during the day since adventurers were coming and going, making patroling unnecessary. However, patrols are necessary at night to stop monsters from wandering close to town.

"Ah, you're here, be safe," one of the guards spoke, giving a friendly smile.

"Thank you, I'll be back soon," Flora smiled back as she walked by.

Once they were out of earshot of the guards, Cyrus turned to Flora with a confused look on his face, "they seemed to know you."

"I come through every day," Flora brushed her fingers through her hair as it slowly turned white. Two golden horns started to stick out from her hair as she smiled and looked up at the moon. "I'm the one who creates the quest list for the guild," She stated, turning her eyes to Cyrus.

"You do? I was curious where the quests came from, but how are you capable of such a thing?" Cyrus asked in bewilderment. He didn't pay much attention to Flora's eyes before but knew she didn't have such deep purple eyes, but now that he got a good look at them, those eyes looked familiar as if he'd seen them before.

As they approached the forest, Flora would extend her arms as multiple green lights came from her body. Some of the lights would stay in the air as others landed on the ground, turning into small animals, hawks, wolves, rabbits, among others. They all looked small, about half the size of their original forms.

"My friends tell me what's in the forest, and I create the quests based on their information," Flora would lean down and pet some of the animals, as a few of the birds that landed on her shoulders.

"Spirit magic, I've never seen someone with demon blood form such a pure connection," As Cyrus spoke, he realized something, "if you're the one who puts out quests, then you were aware of the dragon bones."

"The dragon is an older spirit from ages past, as someone long ago put its spirit to sleep. If the gnolls had continued to desecrate the bones, the dragon might've awoken, and powerful spirits could lead to powerful undead," Flora explained.

"So the other spirits told you about this dragon?" Cyrus asked.

Flora nodded, "these spirits kept me company when I was younger," her eyes shift to Cyrus, "you understand the feeling of having one of your parents as a demon. It gives you a sense of loneliness," Flora's smile faded as she stood up, causing the spirits to scatter into the forest.

Since Cyrus wasn't a demon-kin, he couldn't relate but understood what Flora meant. Demons don't care for their children or anything outside their interests. The raising of a demon-kin always fell to the human parent either from neglect, abandonment, or death.

"With such a pure form of spirit magic, I assume you don't perform necromancy," Cyrus stated while waiting for her spirits to return.

Flora shot a cold stare at Cyrus, "even as a joke, that's not funny. Necromancy hurts spirits, forcing them into bodies and turning them into slaves," she hissed.

"I didn't mean to offend," Cyrus pointed out.

"My friends are young animals that life cruelly took. Thinking that someone would hurt these spirits disgusts me."

The spirits would return and become little green lights, entering her body again. However, two of them returned bigger than they left, a wolf twice the size of a person, it had markings connecting the corner of its narrow eyes to the nose, the beast had long sharp fans and claws, looking nothing like the cute animals that left. The other was a hawk, bearing similar markings going from the eyes to its beak. The hawk didn't look much bigger than a human, but with its sharp talons, it could easily pierce through into the flesh and lift you into the air or use its sharp beak to tear into you.

"These don't look like the little animals that went out earlier," Cyrus pointed out.

Flora smiled and took out a large sack, noticing that the wolf and hawk were carrying boars, dropping them into the shrink bag. The wolf and hawk would then turn into small green lights.

"Thanks," She smiled while looking down, before looking over at Cyrus, "those two are my oldest friends, Lucian and Cyri."

"Can you feed the other spirits that much magic power?" Cyrus asked, impressed with how strong those two spirits looked.

"To an extent, but those two I've known the longest. Lucian was born sickly, so his mother put him down to protect the rest of the pack, and Cyri was shot down only a few days after learning to fly," Flora slowly picked up the bag after telling Cyrus her friends. "Here you can carry it," She spoke to lighten the mood and tossed the bag over as they headed back to town.