The Monster Mage

1

^^ Medea ^^

I think I may have overestimated myself.

Diving into a Natural Dungeon alone may have been idiotic and reckless: maybe.

I dove out of the way as the ant-like creature the size of a medium-sized dog tried to bite me in half, and muttered a swift spell, summoning a dagger made of light and sending it into the creatures eye at full speed. I was only capable of throwing it with my full strength, which was decent, but thankfully it pierced, and the creature recoiled with an unholy screech.

This movement exposed its throat, and I lunged, stabbing into the tracheae and slashing sideways. It's head was nearly cut off, but it managed a last hurrah, swinging a claw at my chest as it died. I leaned back swiftly, avoiding most of the blow, but the claw managed to catch my left shoulder, tearing through some of the leather armor I wore there.

I jogged backward a few paces after retrieving my dagger, and examined the potential wound; I knew Adrenaline could make you numb to pain for a while, and these creatures were poisonous.

Finding no wound, I flung the dagger again at the next creature that rounded the corner, smelling the pheromones let off by its dead comrades corpse. The dagger struck true, and the creature's second set of armored eyelids wasn't down, so it pierced all the way to the brain, thankfully. The dagger dissolved, as it was too far away for me to retrieve, and I concentrated on making a new one, knowing I didn't have very long.

My blade slowly came into existence, one point of light at a time, connecting and freezing in place when it had formed a 1-photon thick polygon with the other points, filling in the space between. Each Triangular Polyhedron built itself from the light my hand was giving off, then connected to its fellows, forming a short double-edged broadsword with a simple yet comfortable handle, fitted to my hands. A One-Photon Thick Edge made it the sharpest blade in existence, though not nearly the strongest. It was useful, and also disposable.

A chittering sound from behind alerted me to another, and my reflexes allowed me to instantly roll forward, activating the spell I always kept prepared. Four points of light appeared behind me, then connected to create a 4ft by 2ft rectangle, which then filled in, creating a tower shield. This happened in less than a millisecond, but it had formed a bit late, so the ant's neck was caught in the shield, and severed instantly.

I stepped away from it swiftly, cautious of another after-death attack, and then threw my first sword at the ant that was coming up behind its now-dead ally. My weapon passed straight through the shield with no issue, being made of the same substance, and pierced the second ant in the mouth, wounding and enraging it but not killing it. I was quick to grab the hilt and shove it further in, severing it's brain-stem and ending it.

"Alright... four is good for one day... let's not get stupid." I sighed, and swiftly gathered all four heads of the ants for proof. Hearing more of them in the distance was a good motivator to work much faster, and I was soon sprinting towards the exit, my shield in front of me to ward off any that were in my way.

Once I was a bit away into the woods, the bloody, stinking sack disappeared into my bottomless bag, so they wouldn't be able to track me back to the village.

—

The Half Mountain: A monument to Yeera and Dream, the Twin Gods of Life and Death, of Magic and Art. The place I'd been born, the place I'd been raised. As I approached, people bowed to me, even as I tried to hide my face with my hood; they recognized me too easily for the hood to do much.

I took the stairs up to the Overlook, the flat portion atop the two back-to-back 160ft tall statues, and knocked on the door to Medea's cottage sharply.