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A Soldier's Life - 438 - Two Heads Are Better Than One (edit 8-16-25 fixed mistakes)

Added 2025-08-15 01:58:00 +0000 UTC

Chapter 438: Two Heads Are Better Than One

“The entry describing the room was a hundred years old, and dungeons can evolve—the mimic room was completely new, too. I should be able to handle one creature easily,” I said with confidence and broke the plane of the archway. The naga would now be free to pursue us if it wanted.

“How deep is the water?” Bharok said uncertainly, remaining in the corridor.

“Not very, but just stay on the mossy islands. The naga is twenty feet long, its body is as thick as a man’s torso, and shouldn’t be hard to spot,” I said as Baelira joined me on the stone ledge. You could move across the swamp room using the small mossy islands and the thick tree roots.

“Don’t you have a potion that can take care of it?” the dwarf grumbled at the elf, still not entering the room. Baelira huffed a little indignantly.

“You can wait there, and we will handle it and split the reward,” I said, not taking my eyes off the water. A few ripples in the still water were the bullfrogs submerging, but we didn’t see any sign of the naga. I hoped the dungeon had not changed it for another creature.

“Why hasn’t it attacked?” Baelira hissed with her spell weave forming between her hands.

“Maybe it doesn’t know we are here yet…” I trailed off as a larger ripple formed among the roots of one of the trees. Baelira noticed as well, and she stepped onto a mossy island to our right. I moved forward onto another moss island, causing ripples to spread from my island. One of the mosquitoes stung my neck, and I slapped it. Then the entire swamp erupted.

Two serpent heads emerged forty feet away in a spray of water, and the crack of thunder sounded in the room. Baelira yelled something, but I couldn’t hear as my ears were ringing. My head erupted into pain as the naga attacked with a magical mental assault that I withstood, but I couldn’t check on Baelira. All these spells were expected. I had to admit, the thunder wave was more intense than I expected, but it was only intended to deafen opponents.

The naga could also blind weak-willed individuals and muddle their thoughts, but I was not concerned with my mind fortress spell form brushing off the spell attacks. We read that the naga could also ensnare a victim in a charm spell, but only if it was close and made eye contact.

These beasts also had a strong affinity for water magic. The archives noted its water spells involved freezing water, creating modest waves to knock delvers into the water, and creating a thick fog. It was the last one that one of the heads was now casting. I had not realized how fast the creature would be able to use its spell forms, with each head acting independently.

Wisps of fog were rising from the swamp water and quickly thickening. The fog gave a chill to the humid air and created doubt in my mind about being able to win this fight if we fought on the naga’s home turf. I was worried of being blinded by the fog.

I jumped to Baelira’s island. She looked like she had succumbed to the enfeeblement spell, her eyes trying hard to focus and gibbering something unintelligible. I grabbed her and retreated with her back into the corridor. Bharok was also caught in the enfeeblement spell attack as he stood there with a blank stare.

I had to drop my shield, sheath my sword, in order to drag both my companions back twenty feet. I released both of them onto the black sand before I turned to face the naga. I was sending out earth pulses and had already overlaid my dimensional space, just waiting for the right moment. The fog thickened and started to roll into the corridor. This creature was clever, as one of the features of this fog was that the mage who summoned it could see normally through it. My own aether sight couldn’t penetrate the fog, as it appeared solid in my vision.

“I got sand in my ass crack,” Bharok’s grumpy voice sounded in the fog behind me as he regained his senses.

“You can take a bath in a minute,” I hissed, trying to remain focused.

Finally, I detected the front of the naga using my earth speak. It was tentatively testing its ability to leave the swamp room. Soon, both heads were on the black sand as the thick, serpentine body followed. Magebane was tightly gripped in my hand, my only worry being that the creature with two heads might count as two individual beings.

To give myself the best chance, I targeted a section of the naga where the two necks joined the body. I could hear the black sand on the scales as it slithered toward us. Baelira was stirring as well but I couldn’t respond to her at the moment. I pulsed earth speak quickly until I was certain. The sound of both heads thudding into the sand was a relief as my aether bottomed out. “I got it, but remain on guard!” I shouted back at my companions. We were encapsulated entirely in the dense fog.

We all listened intently for sound as the fog slowly cleared. A bullfrog covered in black sand hopped out of the dissipating fog, and I killed it with magebane just to be certain it was not a trick. When the fog was almost completely cleared, we viewed our victory. The black sand was wet with blood from the bisected naga. The emerald scales had a luster to them in the light, and I know they made excellent scale mail.

It made me recall that I had not tried to gather any of the mimic blood. Mimic blood was useful in advanced transfiguration potions. That alchemy was currently beyond my skill set, but maybe one day it would be within reach. The adhesive on the tongues was also valuable, but you needed a solvent to harvest it. The mimic hide was useful in making heavy leather armor, but the downside was that it was much heavier than standard leather. I planned to harvest this naga to its fullest.

“The other naga room would have been much easier,” I commented as I inspected the oddly beautiful scaled serpent.

Baelira looked guilty. “Sorry, I was confident I could resist.” She then looked more introspective, seeing I didn’t blame her. “Maybe the other naga room changed, too. We read every book, and the tavern mimic room wasn’t in any of them.”

“How was the other naga room different?” Bharok grumbled as we were clearly rubbing it in that he hadn’t studied with us.

The room is a lake with a stone pyramid temple in the center. It has entrances on all four sides to a large central. The two-headed naga is in there among three statues of nagas, but is camouflaged to look like them,” I answered.

“Yeah, definitely easier,” Bharok grumbled sarcastically. “Well, if you have had your fun, can we head back to the safe room and rest?” the dwarf said, kicking a naga head.

“We still have not found the center of the maze and the minotaur,” Baelira teased the dwarf.

“I don’t think we will. We have been keeping the wall to our right, so we are circling the outside of the maze.” The collector was in my hand since I had recovered enough aether to use it. I placed the collector at the v where the heads joined the body. The aetheric smoke was pulled from both the body and severed heads a few feet away as it worked. The naga had shown no signs of being corrupted by nether essence, so I assumed the soulless had killed it recently. If they were as average warriors as we encountered on the beach, then I was curious how they had been able to kill this powerful creature with just five of them. The naga was much stronger than we had anticipated.

The apex essence that formed was not surprising due to the magical nature of the nagas. Baelira was not educated enough to be covetous of the large sphere. “Do you want the chest or this essence?” I asked her. I didn’t think I could lose either way.

“What essence is it?” She asked prudently.

“Aether tolerance,” I said, turning over the glass-like sphere. In complete darkness, it would have had a light blue glow to it, but right now it looked like cheap glass.

“You can choose,” Baelira said after a moment. She was trying to rub it in, as the dwarf was trying to hide his jealousy.

Aether tolerance was one of my best magical attributes. It felt like choosing between a mystery box and a known asset. Apex essences for magical attributes were just too rare. I nodded and slid the clear sphere into my belt. “Let's go see what's behind door number two.”

“There is another room?” Bharok said, exasperated.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little as he reminded me of Maveith when I used Earth colloquiums. “I am just referring to the reward chest as a second prize. It is most likely in the center of the swamp. Just give me a second…” I took each of the naga’s heads into my dimensional space. The fangs and poison glands were valuable. Baelira was watching, and her eyes narrowed slightly. I think she might be figuring out that my “void” magic was actual space magic because of the size of my dimensional space. “We can come back for the naga scales after we find the chest.”

Bharok grumbled but followed us into the room. “There were some suits of this scale armor in some of the warehouses,” Bharok commented while tapping on them with his hammer.

The mosquitoes swarmed me as we hopped from moss island to island to search. The bodies of the bloodsuckers were as big as my thumb, and their enormous wings created a mind-numbing buzz. “Can one of you handle these?” I griped. I suddenly realized the two were, as I was the only one under attack by the mosquitoes.

“Well, if I am going to be useful, I should get something for my contribution,” Bharok smiled as his web of aether threads fell over me and the mosquitoes fell into the water. The silvery fish darted forward and got to them before any of the frogs. One of the large bullfrogs managed to snag two of the fish. It was a more elaborate ecosystem than most dungeon rooms I had entered. The swamp had to be almost a hundred yards across. I didn’t recognize any useful plants.

We found an ornate chest carved from bone inside the hollow of a tree near the center of the massive swamp. The intricate chest served as a reminder of the room’s guardian, carved to resemble a two-headed naga. Baelira opened the shoebox-sized chest on the ground with us watching over her shoulder. It clicked as the lid released, and I knocked the elf out of the way, thinking it was a trap.

We both tumbled off the mossy island into the water, leaving a confused Bharok alone standing over the chest. The water was about four feet deep, and we used the roots to climb back up. “Sorry, I thought it was a trap,” I said, spitting water.

Bharok was opening and closing the chest, clearly amused. “It just clicks shut to lock. The fangs of the nagas here make the sound.”

“What is inside?” the dripping elf said, giving me a side eye. We were still covered in dried mimic blood, so we needed a bath anyway.

“Two potions and a ring,” Bharok said, holding up the contents.

The elf bit her lip, uncertain of the value, so I took them from the dwarf. “This is a greater healing potion. And this one…” I read the runes three times to be sure. “Potion of jumping.”

“You can read dungeon script?” Baelira said, impressed.

“It is just a runic script. If you know the symbols, you can piece together their meaning,” I said, handing her the potions.

“And the ring?” Bharok asked.

I took the ring, and it responded to my aether probe. It was gold and silver braided together and I hadn’t seen its like before. “It is definitely an artifact as it responds to aether, but I would have to study it more to be certain. The runic script can only be seen in the heat of a fire, and you shouldn’t wear it until you know what it does.” I handed her the ring, but I was just as curious of its function as she was.

I returned to the naga corpse and began to fold the palm-sized emerald scales back and cut the connective tissue away. A scale took a few seconds to free, but there were thousands of scales. I even found some black necrotic tissue under some patches of scales. It meant this naga had been slowly succumbing to nether essence.

I paused to look inward myself, and I could feel the thickness of the anti-life essence in me. I took a moment to purge myself of it before continuing. The isle and dungeon were definitely more saturated with nether essence than Sanctuary, but it still would take years for it to consume me. Bharok had stripped enough to wash the sand out of his ass while Baelira stacked the scales as I freed them.

“Bharok is exhausted. How many are you harvesting?” She asked after I had descaled a third of the naga’s body. We had been away for hours, and her question was more to let me know we should head back soon.

“Let's explore a little further; the next room might be a safe room. If it is, we can sleep for a few hours and rejoin the others,” I offered.

“Are you doing this to irritate Lepidus?” she asked, thoughtfully.

“Possibly,” I said in a drawn-out slur, confirming it.

“Frogs are corrupted and not good to eat!” Bharok yelled over to us.

“We are going to the next room, are you in?” I yelled back.

“Do I have a choice?” he retorted, but sounded in good humor.

I selected two dozen more of the best scales and moved the stacks to my space. All three of us crossed the swamp to the corridor on the far side. Two sand spiders and one pit trap without a black ooze later, we reached another room exactly like the mimic tavern.

“Harpies’ tits,” Bharok grumbled. “Let's turn around,” he said assertively.

“Why?” I said, walking backward into the room. Shocked looks appeared on their faces as they followed me, readying spells and weapons. I had sent an earth pulse into the room, and it had not been obscured. My earth pulse had been able to tell me there was nothing in the room. The dining table still had five place settings, but no food. The fireplace had firewood, but was not lit.

Bharok was cautious of the shaggy carpet in front of the hearth as he entered. I sat at the table and relaxed into the wooden seat. “It is a safe room. Different from the accounts we read, but a safe room. You two can sleep on the carpet for a bit, and then we can head back to the others.” I chuckled at Bharok’s wince when I mentioned sleeping on the rug.

If we took a different route back to the others, we could possibly find the center of the maze and the minotaur room.