A Soldier's Life - 345 - Fresh Air

Chapter 345: Fresh Air

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. I 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 the fish. Hisses, growls, and snips occurred as they all wrestled for the prize. The head that successfully pulled the fish only ended up with a small portion of its catch in the end.

“A hydra,” I whispered. I knew they could be found deep in the jungle swamps of Tsinga. An apex predator from Greek mythology that I had hoped never to see in person. This one looked small compared to the descriptions I remembered from my reading—small being 20-foot necks, a 20-foot body, and a 20-foot tail—giving it an impressive length of 60 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 have enough channeling essences for Castile?

“I have a reference book with this creature in the dreamscape. Watch 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 like 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 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 necks were much more susceptible to attacks but 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 greatest weakness of the hydra was its stupidity, which the book thought was due 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 affect all five heads with my dimensional space? They would have to be close enough to do it in one go, but I had an idea. I had used my dimensional kill once in the dungeon already, and I don’t think the dungeon realized what I did. If I did this, it 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. If it was afraid to try again, that might have spoil my plan.

I informed the group about what I had just read before revealing my intention to try and kill the beast. “I’m not sure what essence it might produce, but I suspect it could be healing because of its regenerative ability, and 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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,” Konstantin encouraged from afar.

I walked forward, within five feet of the nearest straining head. 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 a failure and backlash, but instead, I just encountered a strong resistance before my aether bottomed out. The 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 spurting four streams of hot hydra blood at me. The necks flailed in confusion, which caused an inescapable shower of blood. The floor became slick and difficult to walk, 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. My balance was perfect, and I could have surfed the blood-slick floor, but I didn’t want to be on the hydra’s menu. I sat down, which slowed my slide to almost nothing. The hydra's body blocked the exit, but it convulsed in shock at losing most of its brain power.

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 necks. The lone remaining head had furious, feral, yellow eyes.

“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, fresh, hot blood on polished stone was slipperier than ice. I had the dungeon rope in 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 contacted 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 we 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.” Maveith began scratching where the hydra 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 itself as I approached. I didn’t take a chance to kill it with the spear, instead severing the head when I was in range. The head fell, and shortly after, the massive torso keeled over slowly, and the impact caused the floor to shudder underneath us. Reaching the rocky ground of the manticore room, I could stand without issue. A bloody Maveith soon arrived next to me. My mind fortress felt a strong push—it felt like it was angry or unhappy with me. That was not a good sign and made me uncomfortable.

“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.

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. I rolled the apex sphere of healing in my hand and placed it in my mouth. I closed my eyes and followed the essence as it spread through my body before focusing on enhancing my healing aspect in 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 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 typically seen in this room. Raelia opened it, 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 are channeling.”

“Still both useful for a mage,” Raelia said eagerly 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 and took 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 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 would leave and let the goliath council determine the dungeon’s fate.

Maveith tried to harvest the hydra 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-growing bundle. 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.

We paused long enough in the safe room to ensure the maze room had repopulated. The golden spheres on the tree looked much fewer when we looked down from above. At least the large goats had not turned in hydras or some other nasty creature. We took the time to clear the maze of the goats and earn the reward chest but were not disappointed with the reward.

Maveith had the honors of opening the large chest, thinking it would be another piece of gear 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 sheets of web were 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 to freedom. Raelia and Konstantin prepared meals and helped when it was warranted.

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 rays of sun shining in. 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 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 distance along the shore, but no settlements so we couldn’t orient ourselves. The others came and stood with me, clearly reveling in the clean air by their deep inhales.

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

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