In this world, Magic is Everything. All people, all races, are granted with the power to perform mystical and magical feats via grimories, mystical tomes granted to each and every child on their 15th birthday. Those blessed by the mana can have their names written down in legend.
Shattered Grimoires is the work of the mind(s) of Ardere & Shattered Grimoire's staff. All characters and content are copyright their creators, and may not be replicated without their creators' permission. Black Clover is owned by Yuki Tabata and published by Viz Shonen Jump. All images belong to their original owners. The theme you are currently viewing was made by Eliza of ElizaCodes exclusively for Shattered Grimoires.
When will people learn to stop experimenting on their gardens? Like listen lady, I understand that you want bigger tomatoes, but HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO GIME THE TOMATOES HAVE TEETH? And why do they have these weird appendages? Where are those screams coming from? Wasn’t there are person on the other side of the garden? HELP!
[attr="class","shadowsSub"]Details
Minimum Number of Players: 1 (Max none) [break]Minimum Word Count: 3000 per person [break]Location: Aristaeus Basin [break]Special Requirements: NA
[attr="class","shadowsSub"]NPC Information
[break][break] Name of NPC: Man-Eating Tomato Plant x 6 per person
[break] [break]Health Limit: Senior [break]Physical Speed: 20m/s [break]Physical Damage: Senior [break]Magic Element and Types: NA [break]Combat Style: Up to player [break]Additional Information: Large red tomatoes with jaws and appendages! They make loud NOMNOMNOM noises when they actually manage to bite into someone.
[break] [break]Health Limit: Senior [break]Physical Speed: 15m/s [break]Physical Damage: Intermediate [break]Magic Element and Types: Plant [break]Combat Style: Up to player [break]Additional Information: Giant burrowing carrots that grab a person and pull him underground before devouring them. Their appendages are also tentacle-like. They can only be killed if a person is underground with them or of they come up above ground.
Every once in a while, a magic knight would be confronted by a request so silly, it made them look at it twice to make sure it wasn’t a weird fever dream, followed by a third time just to be completely sure. This was very much one of them.
When Gawain had woken up that morning and prepared himself to pick up either a mission or a chore, which was what he called the missions no one else wanted to do and he himself honestly did not wish to do either, his eyes fell upon a peculiar one that wasn’t even that far from the farmland he had come to own. With the majordomo looking after it until he came of age, whenever there were issues surrounding lake Sivert or the Aristaeus basin, part of him felt like he needed to look into it personally. After all, looking after the people of the realm was one thing, but making sure no odd threats reached his own home was a thing in and of itself. Unlike his forebears, he was selfish like that. But at the end of the day, he felt like that bit of self-serving personality had at this point been earned.
It wasn’t easy doing the things he did, the things he had done and the things he would undoubtedly still need to do in the future. The idea of having a home to go back to once it was all said and done was strangely comforting, as it was the kind of thing he had never had before. Right now, the places he spent the night varied greatly between taverns and inns across the country, as well as the silver eagles headquarters. Every once in a while, when he was far enough north, he would get to spend the night within the comforts of his own home. Cherry Orchard had gradually been growing into quite the place. Where it had once been a rundown old farmhouse with some smaller, mostly collapsed wooden buildings surrounding it, a real effort had been made to restore the place to something one would not look away from in shame.
The main farmhouse had truly been restored into a state of glory and worthy of praise, while the lands had been worked properly and were now producing vegetables, fruit and made for an ideal range within which to raise cattle, chickens and even crayfish. Sivert lake and the river running away for it was great for such things, as it made the entire area lively and perfect for nature to thrive, even if it was an artificial kind of life that had grown there because people willed it to do so. Speaking of artificial life, the mission he was to be taking part in was not that far from his home, and the thing that had gone oh so wrong over there was in relation to ‘artificially made life’. According to the mission details, someone had been trying to grow a special sort of vegetables using magic, for reasons that honestly seemed to elude just about everyone that had been looking into the case.
Gawain did not know what the deal was, why these vegetables had turned to violence, what kind of offensive means they held about them and how quickly they could manage to reproduce. But in the worst possible case, the issue itself just might spread itself to the lands where the boy had been trying to build a life for himself and those that chose to live with him. The thought of all of the work he, the majordomo and the farmers had been doing being for nought was absolutely unacceptable. So if there was something he could do for himself and for the rest of the country, it meant that it just had to happen. As time went on, that was more or less a role he was starting to take upon himself. To focus less on purely improving himself while placing a more heavy emphasis on bettering the country and the squad he found himself in at this time.
If all went according to plan, the way in which he utilized the help of other people, that was also the way in which he would help make the Silver Eagles better than they were now. Because to truly change something, you need to become part of something and acquire the help of other likeminded individuals. It was for that same reason that Griswold had ceased to be a magic knight and left the country, believing his kind of justice and reformations would never carry enough favor in a country where corruption ran as deep as it did. To Gawain, this had always seemed a bit dramatic, though the fact of the matter remained that Griswold had taught him a thing or two and took him under his wing when he needed someone to do so the most. And as such, he would never be able to fully denounce the words of his former mentor.
Slowly but surely, the boy was starting to do what Griswold could not. In spite of his age and being a mage for a very short amount of time, he was looking towards others for help. Not because he couldn’t do all of the things he wanted to get done on his own, but because doing everything alone would not do anything to give back to the world. It had become abundantly clear to him that when Griswold had disappeared, it just created a massive gap within the magic knight squads as a whole due to the amount of weight he had been carrying by himself. There was no doubt in his mind that if he had been here today, he would have carried the Black Bulls in terms of golden stars to a level no other squad could have ever rivaled. But he was no longer here, though the vacuum he had left behind remained to this day.
For as hard as he had been trying, the boy still felt like he was nowhere near the level of what Griswold had supposedly been capable of. Not that he would know, the man had never gone at him full force, or he’d have died before he could even get a spell out. But that moment in which he had gone at the swordsman one on one had been one of the times in which he had been humbled sufficiently for some time. It was what had been pushing him to become smarter, stronger, faster and more decisive in his actions. All of these things were incredibly important when going around fighting dangerous beasts, monsters, demons and enemy mages. But after going through some of the magic dungeons, one of which with Hania and another with Valo, both of which were high seated archmage level combatants, he had been humbled again and again.
While such a thing would keep some people down while making them believe that they would never be able to catch up to people who were as strong as them, on Gawain, it had the opposite effect. He was a commoner, sure, but so was Griswold at the time. And compared to Griswold, Gawain had an advantage right from the start. The golden grimoire that gave him a kind of magic similar to the one of his mentor, air pressure, one of the most offensively powerful elements in the known world. Something the other man had been fighting and training for for a very long time, yet the same thing Gawain had apparently just been born with. And if the black swordsman was to be believed, that was not the end for him either, as there was yet more latent potential that was just waiting to be awakened. But exactly how and when that would happen, that was anybody’s guess at this point.
So as he picked up his broom and started flying towards his destination, he just thought about the next logical way in which to improve himself. Seeing as there was no clear path towards unlocking his latent potential, the only logical choice was to keep improving the various aspects of his character in as many different ways as possible. Being a well rounded and versatile combatant was just as important as just having an arsenal worth of blasting power. As such, he thought up several ways in which to challenge himself once he got to the site of the mission, as there would undoubtedly be plenty of fighting to do once he set foot on the ground there. With plenty of time passing him by as he just pondered on what he should be doing, the magically infused vegetable garden was rapidly entering into his line of sight. And with it came the sight of the carnage that had been going on at the place.
Arriving at the scene, the sights he was witnessing were quite odd, though it wasn’t entirely unheard of either. What made it somewhat more special was the fact that all of these things existed outside of a magic dungeon, as places that were as highly saturated with condensated mana could cause some rather radical changes within its confines. Speaking of confines however, he had been made aware of the fact that the basin had been some kind of a magic region as well, but different from the grand magic regions that existed throughout the continent. Looking at the building that stood amid the gardens, he saw how the place had been boarded up from the inside, leaving only a few peeping holes for them to see the outside world through. Right now, Gawain figured it would be best to get to one of the nearest windows and call out to see if anyone was still alive within the building before the vegetable monsters that had been described to him would come out to play.
Looking at how the vegetation, or rather, the vegetables had turned the entire garden upside down and had begun spreading beyond the boundaries set by their initial garden home, it was clear that they had been magically tampered with. To what end, he did not know, though he did not intend to figure that out until after he had dealt with them properly. Stepping into the perimeter of the garden, the boy slowly but surely made his way over towards the nearest window. Tapping against the wooden barricade placed against the broken window from the inside, he made sure to tap in certain odd patterns. With a bit of luck, that would rouse those inside to answer him, rather than thinking it was some kind of odd vegetable monster trying to force its way in, or force them out. So with a few swift taps, the boy waited for a reply from within.
When after the first series of taps, a reply was not given, he repeated the exact same manner of knocking a second time before doing it a third time. Whether those inside had already been forced outside somewhere, had been killed or refused to answer out of fear of discovery, Gawain gave up on trying to reach them for the time being. For now, the best he could do would be to focus on finding and eliminating the threat posed by the odd vegetable anomalies. As he went out into the back yard, the first thing that was made abundantly clear was the manner in which these things had utterly and completely torn apart the landscape and made it so that they were the only ones who could realistically thrive here. All other plants and vegetables had been uprooted and partially eaten from what he could see. It was fairly difficult to tell, but since he worked on and off on the family farm, he got a bit of an eye for it these days.
Throughout the remnants of the garden, there were large holes in the ground, holes that were seemingly connected to one another in a way similar to how badgers and moles made their dens. What made things substantially worse was the size of these holes, as they were large enough for someone his size to just walk through upright, which went to show that these vegetables were about the size of the average cow. By itself this did not mean a whole lot as a cow was not the most massive terrestrial creature he had encountered. But when factoring in the idea that these had just been regular old tomatoes and carrots before, it made one wonder as to what exactly they were going to end up seeing if he went on down there. But still he went down. He had recently been inside of a vampire’s lair far more dangerous than some mutant plant freaks could ever be, so he would not be held down here.
As he made his way into the hole, he could already see several openings up ahead, as well as large things rooting through the ground making all sorts of odd noises. Through the use of his ki, he could even more or less map out some of the movement he could not see with the naked eye, which at the very least made it more easy for him to maneuver without being caught off guard. Not that these abominations were quiet enough for him to be caught like that. Keeping his ears on his surroundings and his eyes on the floor, he saw that the floor was littered with all sorts of dried up plant remains and large quantities of hay, which had likely been pulled out of the nearby barn and left here as a means of maintaining a certain temperature, which hay was generally great for. Though it wasn’t long before he came across different things altogether.
Torn clothing, bits and pieces of flesh, but also bones that had been picked clean. Judging by the bones and how they were shaped, he could not really tell if they were human or if they belonged to cattle from surrounding farms. Unless he found any fingers or skulls, he could not really be sure of either, nor could he really stop in his tracks to figure out what he was dealing with. The longer he waited, the bigger the chances were that one of these creatures got away and became an issue for others somewhere down the line. Right now, this was an eradication mission, nothing more and nothing less. And as such, everything he encountered down here had to die, lest they resurface elsewhere within the country. So when the first of the vegetable monsters showed up, after a moment of inspection, the battle was at hand and likely to draw in more foes in the process.
From the looks of it, the thing he was eyeing was once a carrot, now sporting various tentacled limbs from its body as it wandered through the freshly dug corridors. Before alerting it to Gawain’s presence, the boy leaped forth from the dark and attacked, striking it with his left before coming in with a powerful right hook that knocked it several meters back before throwing and collapsing. As it did, a gross orange-red ooze leaked out of it, a likely mixture of its own innards and the prey it had devoured. Along with it looking extremely filthy, the scent that came along with it was even more gross, and that was saying something. As someone who had recently unearthed a rot-centric magic dungeon and had grown up near Dagmar’s Mire and all of the smell it entailed, saying something smelled badly was to be taken at face value. Luckily he wouldn’t get to focus on the scent for long.
As if pulled to it by the scent alone, another of the strange carrot creatures came at him, slinging its tentacles at him like whips. Getting several good hits in, the boy might have been small in stature, but he was massive at heart. Tanking these hits as they were unavoidable at this close a range, he moved in close, ripping off one of the tentacles before punching it in what he assumed was its mouth. Causing it to reel backward, Gawain wasn’t certain as to whether or not this thing could feel pain, though the fact that it felt hunger meant that they were for all intents and purposes living creatures. This caused him to rethink his approach completely, as these beings were made through magic, though they were not like golems at all. With a slap following up its dismemberment and proper punching, he knocked it down to make sure it would stay down.
Maybe it was thanks to the way Griswold had tried to teach him right from wrong, but he instantly regretted dismembering the creature when he did. Because that was what these things were: creatures. They were not magical anomalies at all, they were vegetables that had been warped through magic into being living, likely also breathing creatures with very specific needs. But since they had completely taken their creators off-guard, and might have even killed some of them by taking them unprepared, they had been allowed to run amok. But that was over now. Making sure to limit his damage output as much as he possibly could, he tapped into the full totality of his speed as he raced through the underground corridors, taking down a third carrot creature with his bare hands before locating and knocking down a fourth. From what he could tell, these were the only creatures that were down here.
Once he had taken them down, the long trip began where he had to haul each one of them from the ground up and into the nearby barn. Believing the concrete floor would keep them from burrowing downward, he tossed enough hay on top of them to make sure they would stay warm if they remained in place. With the first of the creatures hauled up, he began pulling the second one towards the surface and tossed it into the barn as well. As he went on, he eventually managed to do the same for the third and fourth, ensuring that they would stay put by closing the barn door and locking it from the outside. But from the looks of it, the sound of the barn door closing shut had caused an altogether different kind of angry plant monster to come out from inside of the farmhouse. A total of six large red tomato creatures with large gaping maws and actual limbs, albeit small ones rushed out and surrounded him.
Just by judging from their teeth, he could tell that these creatures were different from the carrots in the sense that they were entirely predatory, as no herbivore or omnivore needed such a set of chompers. It made him wonder whether or not killing these things was the right choice, or whether or not they might be potentially tamed. With the carrot creatures, he felt like the latter might have been possible, given they had likely been the ones that ate through every other plant in the garden. But with these things, he was not so sure. It seemed to him like it would be similar to trying to cage mountain lions and expect them to not try to escape before mauling and killing those that had imprisoned them. A cow could be tamed in a sense, but a wolf or a mountain lion would always remain a threat. As such, these things had to be put down so as to ensure the safety of everyone who still drew breath in these parts.
Drooling and snapping their large maws in excitement, Gawain assumed that these were the things that had eaten the people and cattle here, as their actions more or less gave rise to this assumption. Waiting with his decision to strike them dead until they actually made the first move, his prediction came true when the one closest to his back moved in to try and kill him. With its mouth wide open, it rushed him from behind in an attempt at devouring him on the spot. Having already assumed this kind of action to be taken against him, a quick string of hand gestures allowed him to generate a wide and powerful burst of compressed air that not only blew the attacker, but also those that surrounded him into a reddish pulp, revealing much of what they had eaten as their somewhat vulnerable exterior burst open onto the floor.
Responding to this loud burst erupting behind the barn, a door opened as one of the people who lived here rushed outside. Seeing the tomato monsters dead, they rushed back inside, likely to inform the other survivors that they were being saved before coming out with a rather large gathering of people. From the looks of it, some of them were ordinary farmhands, some were farmers while at least one of them was in charge of creating these monsters. This person, a woman in overalls, stepped towards him as soon as she took note of all of the destroyed tomato monster remnants.
“Thank you brave knight, if it hadn’t been for you, those abominations would have killed us all. If only you had been back in time to save our goats…”
Frowning as he looked at the tomato remains, he saw how some of the bones sticking out of their oozing remains were horned skulls, which more or less gave credence to the fact that no humans had been killed here today.
“You’re welcome. I’ve managed to save your uh…. Carrot squids or whatever they were and stored them in the barn. They didn’t seem entirely predatory, just frightened, so I assumed you might be able to keep those contained at least.”
“Did you now? Well that is a surprise. I would have assumed the average magic knight to come in, shoot first and ask questions later. Though I am glad that is not the case here, as these subjects were very important to us. And if I might say so, I’ve grown rather attached to those orange critters.”
Looking at the woman with a narrowed gaze, Gawain wondered if she was entirely right in the head. On the other hand, he figured humans in general had a tendency of getting attached to something, especially if it was something they had created or raised with their own two hands. Hoping that they would be able to keep the creatures contained in a way, he sighed deeply as he showed the way to the barn. Carefully opening the door, he saw how the carrots rushed towards the back of the barn, showing them to actually be rather afraid of the boy that had put them in here. Seemingly without thinking, the woman rushed in towards the injured one before gently stroking it over its back.
“Did those awful red bastards hurt you? Don’t worry, it should grow back in a few weeks!”
Asking the carrot as though it had the mental capacity to answer her, Gawain figured it best if the woman was allowed to believe that the carrots and the tomatoes had had a falling out, and that one of those ‘red bastards’ had bitten off one of its limbs. In a strange way, the boy did feel better knowing that the limb he had torn off was going to be coming back at some point. Because even if it were some kind of magical monstrosity, it was still a living being that hadn’t asked for this kind of treatment.
“Well, be sure to look after those guys, and make sure not to breed any more of those hostile monsters. I’d rather not have to come back here and clean up your remains next.”
With that, the boy made towards his broom and began the long journey back towards the capital. As he flew back, he just thought to himself about all of the strange things he had seen here on the continent since he had come back from the archipelago a few years ago. If someone had asked him at the time whether or not he would have expected to be fighting predatory tomatoes and carrot squids, he would likely have called them insane. But that just went to show the madness of human mages, and the mysteries of magic.
Name of Spell: Throw Elemental Type: Air Pressure Rank & Spell Type: Senior | Attack Creation Range & Speed: 65m AoE | 45 m/s Mana Cost: 30 | 15 Stats Effected: - Applicable Perks: Overpowered | Quick Shot | Area of Triumph Description: Releasing a burst of air pressure to aggressively push away threats, this spell moves into all directions with Gawain at the epicenter. Activated by holding the hand horizontally, the back of the hand facing downward while pushing the tips of his index finger, middle finger and thumb against one another, the burst follows up straight after. The attack itself is lethal on direct hits, capable of breaking bones and breaking most structures, dealing Senior rank damage. Utilizing a fairly powerful knockback effect to blow back the aforementioned by up to thirteen meters + an additional 5 meters for every 10 Power, those who do not possess at least 30 sensory will be unable to see the spell itself. Those that do will see a wispy green dome coming into their direction before forcefully shoving them back.
