1 Jung the Magi
The tracks were clear. Well, calling them tracks was a bit of an understatement. It was more a path of destruction, marking a clear trail through the Territories' wetlands.
The scenery of the wetlands was marked by flowing streams, cool ponds, and groves of ancient river trees whose canopies hid diverse ecosystems of exotic and deadly beasts.
Following this path of destruction was a man, clothed in green poncho and muddy trousers.
Clutched in his left hand was a worn leather notebook, one you would see in any bookstores across the Territories. That being said, there were not nearly as many bookstores as there were armories, or scholars as there where mercenaries in the Territories.
The Territories was a demilitarized zone between the two kingdoms of Thasos and Kea. But what was intended to be a buffer between the two rival kingdoms quickly became a criminal state, divided by local feudal lords and uncontrolled magical beasts.
In his right hand, the man gripped a thin piece of wood, too short to be used as a walking stick, and not thick enough to be a bandit's club- the object was a plain wooden wand.
The man was young for a magi spell caster, he was far into his twenties with narrowed, almost black eyes and hair. As the young man followed the tracks, his brows seemed constantly furrowed and a disinterested expression was perpetually etched onto his face.
After a few more hours of walking, the trail stopped at an unremarkable pond, no different from the thousands of others in the wetlands. The only unusual thing about the pond was some very large lily pads, with bright flowers brimming with a shimmering sap.
Rubbing his hand along the unshaved stubble on his chin, the man took off his satchel and poncho, and flicked his wand at the notebook by his side. When nothing happened, he rapped his wand on the cover of the notebook, huffing a sigh of indignation.
"I really need to redraw this charm," the man muttered to himself.
After the third tap from the man's wand, previously invisible runic symbols blazed into existence on the notebooks cover. Complex blue lines centered around a blazing triangle on the grimoire's cover, which pulsed with a faint blue light. On the cover four symbols glowed with the name of the tome's owner - Jung.
Jung carelessly tossed his grimoire to the side, but instead of falling to the ground, the notebook floated in front of the man.
With the bottom of his boot, the magi began drawing a large circle in the mud in front of the pond, quickly forming complex runic equations with sweeping lines and expertly calculated arcs. Once he seemed satisfied, Jung drew a set of bones from his satchel and placed them in the middle of the circle.
Stepping back, Jung brandished his wand at the bones. The pages of his Grimoire flashed, lines angles, vertexes, areas, and perimeters pulsed from its pages, flowing into his wand.
The bones began to float, being pulled and manipulated with pale grey light emanating from Jung's wand. Organs and blood grew on the inanimate skeleton, followed by layers of flesh. Finally, a fur coat wrapped around the reanimated corpse. The newly created deer looked at Jung with hollow, lifeless eyes.
Tucking his wand into his pocket, Jung reached his fingers out at the deer. Dark grey lines shuddered into existence, connecting Jung's fingers with the limbs of the deer's body.
The puppet deer walked shakily toward the pond in front of it, lowering its head down to drink the cool water.
After a few seconds, the pond trembled, but the deer stayed put by the water, held in place by Jung's grey threads.
Suddenly, the previously still pond erupted with froth, waves crashed into the shore and a huge, green, webbed hand shot out of the pond, gripping the deer and attempting to pull it back into the murky body of water. The necrotic threads connecting Jung to the deer snapped with an audible twang.
"Here we go!" Jung shouted with a giddy smile, excitement building in his chest.
With a wave of his wand, the mud and stones of the wetland assembled and hardened into pointed chains, wrapping around the huge green hand. More chains snaked into the water, latching on to other parts of the submerged monster's body.
The pond grew still again, with the chains slowly pulling the beast out of the water.
The seconds slipped by as Jung fixed his eyes at the water, holding his breath in anticipation. The chains suddenly grew slack, losing their tension.
The next moment a massive figure burst from the water, towering over Jung.
Standing at over fifteen feet tall, the monster resembled a bloated frog, with bulging eyes and a long, barbed tongue hanging out of a fanged mouth. It was built more like some kind of ape, and its webbed feet and hands were clearly used more for ripping and tearing flesh than swimming.
'For a Polygrabber to get this big, it must be at least one hundred and eighty years old,' Jung thought.
The power of a magical beast came from its bloodline and its age, with the bloodline determining how fast it will gain power. So, it wouldn't be impossible for a goblin to become a god, it would just have to survive for many, many millennium. This was how a simple Polygrabber grew so enormous.
The Polygrabber released a deep, echoing croak, its eyes locked onto the human in front of it. The monster's barbed tongue flashed out at Jung, who leapt to the side with a burst of wind magic.
The Polygrabber chased Jung, lashing out at him with strikes from its tongue and clawed hands, but the young magi continue to evade with carefully timed bursts of wind.
Jung's grimoire flashed, its pages rapidly turning to accommodate for the magi's quick spell casting. With little popping sounds, dozens of small orange balls erupted from the tip of Jung's wand. As he continued dodging, Jung fired more and more of these balls, which stuck to the monster's body, enraging it further.
After a few minutes of this game of cat-and-mouse, the Polygrabber tensed its muscles and jumped at Jung, rapidly closing the distance between them.
While the monster was still airborne, soaring towards him, Jung fired off a weak, unassuming fire bolt- one so inconsequential that the Polygrabber didn't even bother to defend itself.
The bolt hit one of the sticky orange spheres, which burst in a fiery explosion. The sphere next to it exploded as well, setting off a chain reaction. Within seconds, the Polygrabber was eviscerated in a flaming blast. Chunks of roasted frog meat rained down into the wetlands below.
