Chapter 345: Five Heads Are Not Always Better Than One

Maveith’s deep voice boomed behind me, “Harpies’ tits? That is definitely not a harpy, Konstantin.” Maveith knew the legionnaire slang term and was trying to be funny. I couldn’t find the humor in it, as the gargantuan creature inside the chamber just looked too lethal.

We all watched as a serpentine neck submerged in the pool. That thick neck was attached to a massive, mottled, dark-green body. Four other serpentine necks were attached to the massive body, watching the single submerged neck intently. A twenty-foot-long tail whipped energetically behind the body.

When a head breached the water in a spray, it had a large flopping fish clamped in its jaws; the other mouths snapped at the fish, and a tangle of necks and snake-like heads fought for it. Hisses, growls, and snips occurred as they all wrestled for the prize. The head that successfully pulled the fish ended up with only a small portion of its catch.

“A hydra,” I whispered. I knew they could be found deep in the jungle swamps of Tsinga, but seeing one here and in person was surreal. An apex predator from Greek mythology. This one looked small compared to the descriptions I remembered from my reading—small, with twenty-foot-long necks, a twenty-foot body, and a twenty-foot tail—giving it an impressive length of sixty feet.

Konstantin didn’t look happy and got a little pragmatic. “I don’t think it will give us a channeling essence; maybe it is time to return to Eternis.” Shit, that was right. What essence would a monstrous Hydra yield? Did we even have enough channeling essences for Castile?

“I have a reference book with this creature in the dreamscape. Watch over me while I reread the passage,” I said, producing the dreamscape amulet. The others nodded, but the hydra had finally noticed us. All five serpentine necks turned to face the corridor we sheltered in. The good news was that the massive body would not fit into the corridor, so I backed up sufficiently before reclining against the wall and entering the dreamscape.

I was in the scorpion room, pulling a book from the shelf, when I noticed a new addition to the dreamscape. I shook my head in amusement—my twin was playing cards at the poker table. I was wearing a bath toga and had wet hair as if I had just bathed. My twin saluted me with a mug of ale. Why did Konstantin have the constructs drinking? I sensed this was some attempt at humor on his part or revenge for making a copy of him. I didn’t have time to investigate Konstantin’s machinations.

I sat in my chair as Oscar hopped up while I flipped through the bestiary to find the entry for the Tsinga Hydra. Its habitat consisted of warm water swamps. Although they were omnivores, they preferred flesh, with giant frogs, large fish, and alligators making up the rest of their primary diet. Five heads were considered a juvenile, and they grew another head roughly every decade. The leathery hide on the body was extremely thick, but their fleshy necks were much more susceptible to attacks, even that thickened with age. The largest hydra on record was a twelve-headed monster that was as big as a dragon. It was slain after being lured out of the water, its bulky body unable to move effectively on land. The hydra’s greatest weakness was its stupidity, which the book attributed to having multiple uncooperative brains.

Unlike in Greek mythology, they did not regrow two heads if you cut one off, but they could regrow a severed head after several weeks, so they had excellent regenerative ability. They had two sets of almost every organ, including hearts, making it difficult to use my dimensional kill ability, not that I could get close enough to the torso to try with those long necks.

A thought occurred to me. This was essentially one creature—could I cut off all five heads with my dimensional space? They would have to be close enough to do it in one go, but it was an idea. I had already used my dimensional kill once in the dungeon, and I don’t think the dungeon realized what I did. If I did this, the dungeon would definitely be aware of what I was doing this time.

I exited the dreamscape to find the others staring at the hydra. One head twitched on the ground. “It tried to stick its head in here, and only that head spasmed and fell limp,” Maveith informed me. We all watched as that head eventually recovered, and it was smart enough not to try again, but two other heads tried the same thing before the group of five understood the danger.

I informed the group about what I had just read before revealing my intention to try to kill the beast. “I’m not sure what essence it might produce, but I suspect it could be healing because of its regenerative ability, since trolls provide healing essences. I have a plan, but we’ll need to wait until it moves away from the entrance.”

“What is this plan of yours?” Konstantin asked skeptically as his eyes drifted to the five heads swaying just beyond the entrance. After I told him, he nodded, indicating it was not completely stupid and might work.

It took two hours for the hydra to give up and wander back to the pool to drink. Each head eagerly took long pulls in the water, likely trying to catch another fish.

When they caught a fish and started fighting over it, Raelia and I walked in, immediately drawing the attention of the hydra. One, then two, then all five snake-like heads focused on us as Raelia formed a fireball. The heads seemed mesmerized or confused by the small sphere of fire between her hands and didn’t attack just yet. That was until Raelia released the spell. It darted forward, and the flame exploded amid the heads.

They were only momentarily stunned but looked mostly unharmed by the wash of fire. One looked like it had failed to close its eyes and was blinded, but the other necks strained to attack us, the body obeying the collective will and plodding after us. I turned with Raelia and raced up the corridor, the stone floor beneath our feet trembling from the pursuing hydra. One thought that occurred to me too late was that the dungeon could have sealed both Raelia and me in the chamber. This was the last room of the dungeon, but it hadn’t taken this action when we fought the manticores, but dungeons liked this tactic to avoid delvers from running away from monsters.

As the first hydra head snaked into the corridor, we raced toward our companions. I had been worried that it had learned to fear the tunnel and wouldn’t pursue us, but its anger had clouded its judgment. Soon, a second and then a third head joined the first, with fetid breath and snapping jaws well out of the reach of us. I smiled in victory at Raelia, who was breathing heavily from the adrenaline rush.

A fourth head squeezed into the corridor, and I didn’t see the fifth as a possibility of joining the party. “Do it before it gets wise and pulls out,” Konstantin encouraged from farther down the corridor.

I walked forward, within five feet of the nearest straining head, and its bloodshot eyes widened, and its tongue slithered out, but still couldn’t reach me. Its intensity increased, stretching and straining, just to close a few more inches. I activated my dimensional space, moving a thin plane in the corridor to my dimensional space. I was half-expecting failure and backlash, but instead I encountered strong resistance before my aether bottomed out. The four aggressive snake-like heads all seemed to freeze at once.

They all fell to the ground in unison, leaving clean, severed stumps that immediately began spurring four streams of hot hydra blood at me. The neck stumps flailed in confusion, which caused an inescapable shower of blood. The floor became slick and difficult to walk on, but I noticed my companions backing away unscathed, leaving me to my bloody fate.

“Abandoning me in my hour of need!” I yelled half-jokingly as I suddenly realized the corridor sloped down slightly, and I was sliding toward the hydra. I wouldn’t have been concerned, but one head remained, and those sharp teeth could make quick work of me.

Although my balance was perfect, and I could have surfed the blood-slick floor, I didn’t want to be on the hydra’s menu. I sat down to slow my slide. The hydra's body blocked the exit, but it convulsed in shock at losing most of its brainpower.

I used the decapitated heads to halt my slide completely as the severed necks pulled away from me and out of the corridor; light flooded in from the room beyond. This was a good thing because that body had been blocking access to the room. The lone head appeared at the entrance, studying me sitting among the other heads. I could see the bleeding had already stopped on the others’ necks, and they had stopped flailing but looked odd as headless, swaying necks. The lone remaining head had furious, feral, yellow eyes with red, branching blood vessels.

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“Good work, just one more to go!” Konstantin cheered from safety.

I gave him the middle finger before remembering the gesture didn’t carry the same weight in this world. I kicked one of the heads down the corridor, and it slid like a curling stone, spinning slowly. The remaining head ignored me as it snapped at the head and began to pull chunks of flesh off of it. “Cannibalism at its finest,” I muttered.

When I had the aether, the black spear appeared in my hand. I used it to send the other three heads sliding down the corridor. I was finding that fresh, hot blood on polished stone was slipperier than ice. I had the dungeon rope from the caterpillar room reward but was hesitant to get it soaked with blood. As I waited, my body began to break out in a rash from where the blood had come into contact with it. It was uncomfortable and required constant healing to keep the rash at bay.

Maveith tried to help me first, thinking he could walk on the blood. He began sliding toward me and was forced to sit, using the wall to slow himself. Konstantin yelled at us, “I think Raelia and I will wait until the blood dries.”

Maveith had his hammer ready, and I patted him on his back for the attempted assistance. At least he had tried, unlike Raelia and Konstantin. “I just need a few more minutes before I can take care of the hydra,” I told him. Maveith began scratching where the hydra’s blood touched his skin. We both needed to wash the blood away soon. I used the spear to push myself in a controlled manner toward the room.

The remaining head was busy feasting on its other heads as I approached. I didn’t take a chance to kill it with the spear, instead severing the last head when I was in range. The head fell, and shortly after, the massive body keeled over slowly, and the impact caused the floor to shudder underneath us.

As I reached the rocky floor of the manticore chamber, I was able to stand normally. A bloodstained Maveith quickly appeared beside me. I sensed a heavy pressure on my mental defenses—it's as if the dungeon was angry or displeased with my tactics. That didn't bode well and left me feeling uneasy.

“We will wait till the blood dries!” Raelia yelled at us in support of Konstantin’s plan, causing me to look back at them.

“No problem! Maveith and I will take care of the dungeon rewards!” The collector was out, pulling the thickest aetheric smoke I had seen in a while. I was confused about how the dungeon had created a hydra. As I understood it, a dungeon needed to assimilate creatures in some way before it could produce them in a room. Where or when did it find a hydra?

As the apex essence formed, I asked Maveith, “Have hydras ever existed on Stone Mountain Island?”

He nodded slowly. “In the ancient tales, yes. But they are steeped in mythos from thousands of years ago.” This creature’s appearance here at least made some sense now. So perhaps in the distant past, the dungeon may have gained access to a hydra or maybe the bones of a hydra. I rolled the apex healing essence in my hand once before I placed it in my mouth. I closed my eyes and followed the essence as it spread through my body, then pulled together toward the healing facet on my aether core.

I opened my eyes to see Maveith pacing around the unfamiliar creature with his runic skinning knife, assessing if there was anything worth harvesting. I pointed to the chest, but Maveith waved me off, showing he wasn’t interested.

Raelia emerged from the corridor with determination. She had navigated the blood without difficulty and was determined to be here when we opened the chest. I smirked at being able to manipulate her so easily.

“The hydra gave an apex healing essence, and I already consumed it,” I said with a grin. She shot me an indignant look as she stalked toward the chest. I moved to meet her there. Konstantin appeared as we reached the chest. Technically, I had killed the hydra by myself without any help. However, I was a generous leader.

The chest was larger than we had typically seen in this room. Raelia opened it unhesitatingly, revealing a much greater mound of silver coins and two apex essences: one was a pale translucent purple, and the other was a pale translucent orange. Raelia was trying to remember what they were, so I told her. “Intellect and Reasoning.” Her expression changed to wanting.

Konstantin soon stood with us. “Two apex essences? But neither of them is channeling.”

“Still both useful for a mage,” Raelia said eagerly, and with a bright smile.

“You can choose one,” I conceded to my lover. Her furrowed brow suggested that this was a life-or-death decision for her. Or, more likely, she was trying to convince me to give her both. It would take more than a single apex essence to influence her potential, yet she acted as if it were a significant boon. Eventually, she reached for the reasoning essence.

I motioned for Konstantin to take the intellect essence, but he grunted dismissively, “You need it more than me.” I knew that grunt, though. He was actually saying, You did the work, you deserve to reap the rewards.

“We are leaving,” I announced aloud to the group. All eyes turned to me. “Not just the room but the dungeon.”

I thought I didn’t need to explain myself further. The hydra corpse was enough of an explanation. We had tried to follow the rules, but the dungeon was getting angry with us. “We can always hunt more manticores on the island,” I explained.

“We should make sure the manticores don’t return after the dungeon restores the room,” Konstantin said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps…let me think on it.” I could see the logic in it, but the dungeon was clearly growing more and more upset with us and didn’t always play by the rules. Maybe it was Maveith’s people who had buried the entrance to the dungeon for this reason.

Maveith tried to harvest the hydra’s hide, but it was ridiculously thick and heavy. I was saving my space for a fourth run on the golden figs, so if he wanted the hide, he would have to add it to his already-massive pack. He eventually decided against carrying it out. He already had a bundle of hides, manticore quills, and horns that weighed two hundred pounds by my estimation.

Konstantin again suggested we check the manticore/hydra room before leaving. “We don’t have to enter it if the hydra is back, Eryk, but it will give us more information to give the council. And if it is the hydra, then we might have solved their manticore problem, and they might choose to keep the dungeon rather than destroy it.”

When Maveith agreed with Konstantin, I felt I had little choice but to check. We waited a full day before clearing the dungeon room of the shadow cat, with Raelia taking the healing potion and Maveith taking the invisibility potion in the reward chest. Konstantin was given the apex nature essence from the lone shadow hunter.

While Maveith was harvesting the pelt, I walked with Konstantin to the last room. We knew even before we arrived, as the stone was reverberating beneath our feet from the massive creature occupying the room. The hydra was circling the pool, five heads hovering over the water, watching the fish below.

We tried to see if we could trick the mammoth creature into paralyzing one of its heads by attacking us in the corridor, but the hydra wouldn’t bite. It was as if it remembered what had happened a day ago, and by the animosity in its eyes, I didn’t doubt it.

“We are leaving,” I said, and Konstantin didn’t argue. It was clear the dungeon was adapting and making things harder for us.

We collected the others and went to the maze room. The golden spheres on the tree looked much fewer when we looked down from above. At least the large goats had not turned into hydras or some other nasty creature. We took the time to clear the maze of the goats and earn the reward chest, and we were not disappointed with the reward.

Maveith had the honor of opening the large chest again, hoping it would be another piece of armor for a goliath. A large oval, matt-black shield was buried under silver coins. I thought the dungeon would be angry with us and give us something terrible, but this clearly runic shield was impressive. Maveith was unfamiliar with fighting with a shield, but he could wield his maul one-handed, so he could learn to utilize the shield.

After we collected the golden figs, we cleared the caterpillar room quickly. The webbing was practically saturated with water, so Raelia needed to cast multiple fireballs to clear the room. At least we didn’t have to worry about flash ignition of the webbing. The chest reward was disappointing, just more of the incredibly strong cordage.

Maveith and I worked to clear the tunnel, with me depositing loads of stone inside the dungeon and Maveith reinforcing the walls as we tunneled toward freedom. Raelia and Konstantin prepared meals and helped when needed.

Since I had so little free space, it took almost a day of running in and out of the dungeon, clearing a few feet at a time. We had one minor tunnel collapse, but nothing serious other than a few lung fulls of dust. When I finally reached the surface, I was relieved to see the rays of the sun. I had been worried the dungeon entrance was in the Endless Dark. “Maveith, get the others. We are leaving.”

I cleared enough space and stepped out into the sun. Although the dungeon had been well-lit, there was nothing like fresh air and the real warmth of the sun on your face.

I walked out onto a rocky ledge with a cliff face behind me. A few hundred feet below, the familiar jungles extended before me to the ocean. Some fishing boats could be seen in the far distance along the shore, but no settlements, so I couldn’t orient ourselves to determine where we were. The others came and stood with me, clearly reveling in the clean air by their deep inhales.

Maveith asked a simple question. “What are we going to do about Navek?” I guess it was time to bring the hunter back.

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