And we are back! I am feeling ready to lock in for some writing and get on the grind again. Hope you've all enjoyed the holidays. Happy New Year for tonight, and see you Saturday!
The space was barely large enough for the six of them. Shadows clung to the corners, pressed back only by the dim glow of Hump’s staff. They retreated up the tunnel until their backs were pressed against the words inscribed upon the wall, the ravenous hydra snapping and clawing at the tunnel entrance, the ground shaking from the force.
Bud swallowed. “We’re trapped.
“You’re very observant,” Celaine muttered.
Hump drew a breath, trying to think. “We broke into the prison of a god. There was only ever going to be one way in or out.”
“The hydra wasn’t part of that equation!” Dylan said.
“Could be worse,” Hump said grimly. “At least the spectres are leaving us alone.”
The desperate attempts to get inside stopped, the closest two heads backing away.
Emilia snuck forward to peer out of the tunnel. “It’s doing something.”
Hump moved up beside her, careful not to step out into eating range. Nisha snuck up warily beside him, but he nudged her back. “Back Nisha. This is too dangerous for you.”
The dragon grumbled but did as she was told. There was a nervousness to her that was unusual for a fight. It took him a moment to recognise the feeling—it was the essence in the air, slick and oily. To her sensitive connection to magic, it was even worse.
Hump needn’t have worried. The hydra’s heads were distracted. Three of them snapped at each other, hissing and spitting. Two more dipped low toward the tunnel, jaws half-open, drool hissing on the stone floor. The rest watched.
Then, like some unspoken order passed between them, the bickering stopped. All nine heads pulled back. From the tunnel, Hump saw the blackened and cracked walls that towered on all sides, scorched by countless years. At the far end stood a colossal doorway, half hidden behind the hydra’s body—with any luck, that would be where they found Loften.
Hump wondered how mad the creature must be, trapped her for so long. The creature’s limbs were chained by four enormous chains, thick links of polished silver that anchored it to the stone. Its body was withered—scaled skin stretched thin over bone and muscle, yet divine essence pulsed through its veins, glowing faintly in a swirl of colours. Nine blessings and a mad hydra… and somehow they had to defeat it.
Bones and mounds of carcases were scattered close by. The stench was strong even in the tunnel—it had been fed recently. Perhaps that was the purpose of the spectres, to keep it fed and alive, and to recover what scraps they could that weren’t too close to the beast. Sustaining it in this eternal prison so that it might guard the entrance.
A low groan rumbled from the creature. Its muscles tensed. Three heads moving as one, jaws yawning wide.
“Oh no,” Emilia breathed. “Hump—”
“Shield!” Hump snapped.
A barrier flared into existence just as fire erupted from the nearest head—Ordana’s flame, white-hot and screaming, laced with divinity. A heartbeat later, a second head unleased a blast of wind essence, the two combining into a roaring inferno that slammed into the tunnel.
Heat filled the space instantly.
Hump gritted his teeth, sweat bursting across his skin. He thickened his Shield but already the heat was scorching against his skin. There was nowhere for it to go. The stone walls reflected it back at them, turning the tunnel into an oven.
Then frost surged. Bud’s Heart of Frostfire aura exploded outward, filling the tunnel with cold mist. Ice crept along the walls, cracking and hissing as it fought the flames. The heat lessened.
“Think you can burrow us out?” Dylan shouted over the roar. “It’s stone.”
“I think whoever carved that message already tried,” Emilia said.
“I’ll try anyway.”
“I can hold back Ordana’s flame,” Bud said. “Gods help us, I never thought I’d say those words.”
Bud stepped forward, taking his place before Hump, frost blazing from him. He threw and arm forward, palm extended, a wall of ice forming over the mouth of the tunnel, absorbing the next blast. Bud’s defences held. Better than that, the heat returned to comfortable levels. Hump remained where he was long enough to confirm that Bud’s defences were solid and then let his Shield drop.
“I’ll be quick,” Hump said.
He rushed to the back of the tunnel, running a hand over the words inscribed in the wall.
“My Death for Loften.”
The words of a fanatic, but for them to have been selected to come down here, they were likely an impressive one. Hump pressed his intent into the wall, but it did not budge. It felt impermeable. He focused his will into a spear, directing it at a single point, yet he sensed nothing. Power laced these walls, and it was beyond him. So thick and heavy, he couldn’t even sense the distinct intent, only that it was there.
Yet someone must have carved out this passage. The smoothness and uniformity couldn’t have been natural.
But who possessed the strength to do this and leave it untouchable even to this day?
One answer came to mind, and it wasn’t a good one. Perhaps Osidium carved this tunnel with his own hands. It may have even been how they got the hydra into the dungeon in the first place, though it would have been a squeeze.
“Any luck?” Emilia asked as the hydra’s fire faded once more, leaving them in quiet.
“Not happening. I think Osidium forged this place. The intent in the stone is too strong for me to break through.”
“Good,” Celaine said with a grin. “Then we’ll have to hunt the hydra.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Dylan said. “We could get past it and go for the doors.”
“Too much risk of us being pincered between two powerful foes if there are more enemies beyond the door,” Emilia said. “We need to kill it.”
“Hydras are notoriously easy to kill,” Dylan said sarcastically.
Emilia gave him a sideways glance. “Any idea how to kill it?”
“Aim for the heart?” Bud called.
“There’s a lot of scales and flesh to get through to even reach the heart,” Dylan said. “Regenerative abilities are often slowed by fire, though a hydra is famously not so bothered by that. It’ll be difficult to kill it fast enough, especially with all those heads targeting us. I suggest we at them.”
“Won’t it just grow more heads if we chop them off?” Bud asked.
“I don’t think so,” Emilia said. “Each of its heads is marked by a sigil of the Pantheon. With all the bones down here, someone must have chopped off a head once, yet it still only has the same number as the sigils.”
“That’s an interesting point,” Dylan said, thumbing his chin. “If that’s the case, then I’ve heard burning its wounds so deeply that they are blackened it can interfere with its healing ability. It’ll take a lot of power though, Hump.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Hump said. “What about frostfire?”
Dylan shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me if frostfire is similarly effective, if not more so.”
“Then we’ll start with that,” Hump said. “Chopping off heads and going from there seems smart. When I say so, Bud, lower your barrier. Celaine focus on taking out as many eyes as you can. Bud and Emilia, pick one head each and go for the neck. I’ll hold off the heads on the right, Dylan the left. I’ll burn the neck of the one Emilia targets, and with any luck, Bud’s frostfire will handle the other.”
“Just go easy on the fire,” Celaine said. “I don’t want to kill the hydra only to die choking on smoke.”
Hump frowned. “Good point. I suppose that takes my lava spells off the table.”
“What about the other heads?” Dylan said.
“If it works, we’ll do the same again.”
“And if more grow in its place?” Celaine asked.
“Then we’ll figure out something else,” Hump said. “Nothing has infinite regeneration. It all takes essence, even for a hydra. Burn through enough essence and anything dies. We just need to outlast it.”
Hump wasn’t sure who he favoured in a battle of attrition. The hydra possessed the blessings of nine gods, but it was emaciated and mad.
“Everyone ready?” Hump asked. A round of nods and a strained glance from Bud, still maintaining his blessing followed. Hump drew a breath then forced a grin. “Then let’s kill a hydra.”
Bud dropped his aegis, the air crackling as ice fell to pieces, glistening like stars before them. They didn’t waste a moment, Bud, Dylan, and Emilia shooting on ahead. Dylan to the left, Bud and Emilia down the centre. Behind them, Hump and Celaine followed, veering right.
Out of the shelter of the tunnel, Hump’s stomach dropped as he looked up at the towering necks. It was taller than most builders, and the snake-like necks thicker than trees. Could they really chop through it?
He supposed they’d find out.
Hump waited until the last moment to activate Accelerated Thought. Time felt slow, his mind fast. Yet even so, as the hydra’s eyes locked on them and it reacted, it didn’t feel slow enough. Its heads rose like cobras, twisting in unnatural coordination. Essence rose from it, so rich and complex that Hump struggled to comprehend it. He sensed each of the elements, only Rathlar, Loften, and Vesta missing from the Pantheon. Three moved to block Dylan, two focused on Bud and Emilia, and four swept toward Hump and Celaine, all of them shrouded in their own blessing.
Vines rose from Dylan on the left, exploding upward, almost as thick as the hydras necks, but there was a dozen of them, twisting to meet the three of the left. Hump prepared a Shield three times his height and just as wide—a sheet of blue essence forming in the air in the path of the charging heads. He almost fell from the force of the strike, but earth rose to his will at his back, holding him in place.
“Go!” Hump shouted.
Emilia was first to meet it. The lone head—marked by the flame of Ordana—charged her from the front, but she was faster. A crimson blur marked her path as she danced through the air, her body twisting like a ribbon of lightning as she launched upward, using the neck as a springboard to launch at the head targeting Bud. Her rapier flashed as she spun around the neck in a spiral of slashes, carving a long line around the neck before it could even close in on Bud. The head severed, it thudded to the ground.
The head dropped with a heavy thud. Its neck writhed wildly, blood spilling from the open wound, splattering to the stone floor.
Hump thrust his staff forward. He condensed his essence, focusing the fire into a smaller space. Filling it with the desire to consume anything it could touch, much like Hellfire. And then he sent it forward. “Fire Blast!”
Scarlet flames burst from the tip, racing toward the gaping wound. The fire engulfed the twitching neck, searing the stump. The screeches of the hydra filled the chamber, loud enough to make his bones rattle. But the bleeding stopped. Scorched flesh remained, black and charred.
Hump let out a breath. It’s working.
Another head turned, power building in the back of its throat—the sigil of Seres, the wind god shone on its head. White light built in its throat.
It didn’t attack them, but rather, sent a blade of wind straight for the burnt neck—a clean, perfect cut. Ichor spilled once more.
“Hit it again!” Bud shouted.
Hump already had a Fireblast on the way. A jet of water met his spell, steam exploded in the cavern in a scorching cloud that would have burned them all if not for Bud and Dylan’s blessings.
Green flames erupted from a third head. Emirai’s divine fire. The same healing flame that could restore lost limbs. The neck convulsed. Veins pulsed. Flesh twisted and bulged. Blood oozed and reformed, and then in a flash, a new head burst forward with a roar.
“No…” Bud muttered.
“Keep chopping them until its reserved run out,” Hump shouted. “Target the Emirai and Seres heads first.”