[Warpworld] Ch 9 – The Food fights Back

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            The alarm came when they lifted up a tent that didn’t look all that different from the others, but the man inside was clad in head-to-toe spiked armor that appeared to be melded to his skin. He was much bigger in size than most of the others, and spun around when his tent was abruptly lifted up, already battle-ready.

            The woman in his tent didn’t manage to scream before two heads took her out, and the remaining six went for the fully armored marauder.

            His scream of fury, edged in cold and iron, went off even as jaws closed on his skull, neck, and each of his arms and legs. The six heads tore and wrenched with wild savagery, but couldn’t mask his outraged and pained cries as he hung on for just a few seconds, more than enough time to alert the tents around him of his doom.

            “Kill, don’t eat!” Feature hissed, and the four stake-holders released their bites, looking in all directions as the eight grinding jaws twisted beyond the limits of flesh and Cursed Armor to hold on, and the armored knight was ripped limb from limb.

            They gobbled down the female with six heads working quickly, leaving the tough knight’s corpse to ignite from the vivic flames on their fangs, the other heads rising high to survey the area.

            Always in pairs. Stay in pairs, stay alive, the dragon had told them. #1 and #2 will watch out for you. They will protect you. One head strikes, the other protects it.

            They took the dragon’s words very seriously, and they had worked well. #1 could never remember being so incredibly full, and she was the most senior of all of them!

            A good hundred of these little humans, so much weaker than the silver-eyed terror that was the dragon’s master, had filled their common belly. It had been a wonderful feast!

            But now, instead of crawling off to sleep, it was time to defend their territory and show these puny things what they were dealing with!

            Also, they got to see the deadly dragon go on a killing rampage!

            Every part of the dragon seemed to be a weapon, and his limbs were even adorned with Tools gleaming Electrum with magic fell and deadly. They watched him bite right through entire human torsos without effort, not even needing to shake them. His claws ripped them open in streaks and waves of gore. His wings flashed out like scythes, and could slice through every neck in their way with a deadly crack of his wing muscles. The gleaming rattles on his tail could hit like a giant’s mace, pulping anything in the path, lash like a great whip that sent broken men flying like ants, or even pierce and impale if needed.

            The first cluster of them came howling up to meet their unknown attacker, and instinctively drew up short as Feature reared up, silver-edged jet wings snapped wide into the wind, and the maw streaming glowing mist opened before them.

            The fire that came out burned everything to cinders in its path. The only things that survived were drops of molten steel where had been weapons, armor, and shields. Tents and flesh became ash and dust, whipped away on the winds, and the blazing inferno lit up the whole camp with its brightness as three dozen marauders went away instantly.

            The eyes of the Ices gleamed as they looked after him and glided quickly in his wake, using their tail to speed along the steady motion of the Disks and not having to awkwardly hump their way along. As they moved, their heads snatched out poles and tore them up to catch the wind, sending the tents flying and scattering who or whatever was within with screams and more confusion.

            The dragon had instructed them patiently, and they had lapped up his lessons. #1 knew they could breathe frost, but it drained the magic within them, so they had to be careful, as it made them hungrier. The dragon, however, had them test to see if they could breathe frost independently, instead of all at the same time, and they had been happy to discover that they could indeed do so, although it lacked much of the power of their combined blast.

            That is absolutely fine, he had assured them. Use it to pick off single targets who are attacking you from a distance. One Ice should breathe, then the other if your target doesn’t die. At the very least, you can slow them down and disrupt their shooting at you. Ice #1 and #2 will use that attack if they don’t have to defend the rest of you, right?

            So that was what the eldest head and its partner were doing, finding targets who were throwing sticks or whirling axes at them and freezing them solid, maybe batting the sticks and axes out of the air so they wouldn’t hit the other heads.

            You are a team, the very best team! You are a hydra!, the dragon had told them, making them swell with pride. As long as you remember you are a team, you will be great! If you fight among yourselves, if you do not work together, your heads will die, and they will not learn this great lesson!

            The heads of weak hydras die! They forget they are a team! They snap at one another, they vie for dominance, they squabble, they do not help one another!

            Do not be weak! You are a strong hydra, the greatest of teams! Save your heads, save one another, and stay strong!

            The Ices would be a strong hydra! They would be a great team! They would not lose their heads, no, no! That was how hydras failed and died!

            They would make the mighty dragon who had taken them flying proud!

---

            Tents went flying into the night, often with body parts accompanying them. A dozen snapping heads struck like serpents in all directions, grabbing, ripping, tearing, and throwing screaming adherents of the Warp about with boundless enthusiasm. Lashing lines of frost struck out here and there at isolated targets, but mostly two heads of that hydra wove about in place, watching over the other heads, intercepting attacks that threatened them, defending them from decapitation.

            Sometimes they didn’t even kill those attackers, just throwing them away so they could intercept another attack. Maybe they would rip off an arm, surely nothing serious!

            “Throw them behind you and tail-mash them,” Feature called back to them when he saw #1 and #2 doing that.

            The Ices thought that was a wonderful idea, and soon screaming marauders once being tossed aside were instead being tossed up and over, and a large and thick tail was slamming down onto them to make sure they stayed down forever after they landed and things broke inside of them.

            Fire and ice rampaged through the marauder camp in the heart of a Warpstorm, offering no mercy, expecting none, and letting the corrupted humans know this was not their territory!

-----

            Over half the camp of Klaw worshippers were dead before the two monstrous attackers pulled back into the psychedelic storm, the barely-organized cultists finally managing to form up into a group, grab shields, and present some sort of united threat against their attacks.

            Alas, the two monsters simply turned and vanished into the storm with serpentine grace and speed, hissing laughter spreading behind them as the wind seemed to blow them away and out of sight of the infuriated Klaw-blades hungry for revenge.

            The direction they retreated in was noted, but then there was the grim accounting of the dead, the way the camp was torn almost completely apart, what beasts of burden they had scattered or slain, and how the very corpses of the dead were Burned away or missing oddly.

            None of them had ever seen a dragon fight like that, nor a hydra display anything resembling the cunning this one had displayed as the two monsters fought together. The unnaturalness of it meant that another being was involved, one who had to have trained them to be so effective, and there were precious few beings who could tame the great monsters of this old world...

-------

            “Well done,” I said to the two of them, both of the serpentine monsters preening with pride, the thrill of victory, and in one case, a feast beyond anything it had experienced before.

            I watched the Ices lurch off and snuggle into a snowdrift, their mouths open to catch the wind and breathe deeply of vivus-infused air as they digested their great meal.

            -I took off at a right angle to the Pyramid here,- Feature /informed me calmly. -I do not think they could follow us here...-

            “Klaw really looks down on magic, but that doesn’t mean they can’t bring in another party to try to track you. I’ll have to put Scrywards upon you both. Mmm, maybe with a nice Kicker on them to let them know I disapprove of their curiosity.” Feature hissed along with me at the dry words. Nosy Diviners deserved such surprises, but that was the risk they took! “The fact is that they will look at the two of you as a challenge, and the fact you appeared together is unnatural, meaning they will believe a third party is around somewhere. You also fight like a trained combatant, and it appears Ices is taking your advice to heart. It’s quite obvious to a trained warrior.”

            Feature hadn’t considered that, but now he knew. How do you stay effective while trying to fight like a dumber monster? He truly didn’t know, and in the end just hissed it away. I patted his jaw.

            “Having Ices move around on the Disks is silly. I can’t help it fly without some major alchemical work and mutation, but I could raise it up to a bipedal or quadrupedal form instead of that stupid triple locomotion lurch that they have.” The single foot probably would have been okay if it had been in back, but with its body shape, putting it in front just made a hydra slow and ungainly. Truly an unnatural creature.

            Feature hissed agreement. Ices’ speed was their main weakness. Even if they couldn’t fly, giving them a decent means of locomotion would do much to help them.

            -Bipedal. They will be able to fall back on serpentine movement more easily if needed,- he /told me after a moment’s thought.

            “And they just got off a good meal to fuel all of this,” I noted smoothly. “Well, let’s see how they react when they wake up...”

------

            The Warp storm had blown past, the winds were back down to a ceaseless whine in the background instead of howls and shrieks, and there was a boom and crackle over by the snowdrift.

            Feature popped open one eye as Ices surged to their feet with a lot of wild hissing, arcs of strangely-colored energies playing over their white and gray scales as the air popped and crackled around them. Weaving serpentine heads looked in all directions for an enemy, but only Feature was there on a rock nearby, watching over them and clearly not alarmed or concerned in the slightest.

            The Ices all hissed in confusion and worry, but the strange energies all faded away, and oddly enough, seemed... protective, somehow?

            “The Warped humans last night were looking for you. Master prevented them from finding you,” Feature hissed to the cryohydra. “Did a strange pressure wake you up, just before the flash? That was them. The flash was the Master’s magic protecting you.”

            The Ices glanced at the human sending great blocks of stone that weighed more than the hydra did flying through the air, and wondered if this was what it meant to have a good master and ally, something they had certainly never experienced before. Those beasts #1 could remember meeting in the past accompanying humans had all been scarred by lashes, burns, and goaded on by the bipeds, plainly slaves or worse.

            Ices was feeling very good, their belly was still full, and they proudly hissed out a defiant challenge to those puny Warped humans it had fed so well on... quietly, as the Master didn’t want them roaring and giving away his lair’s location.

            If they did not know where your lair was, they cannot ambush you at it. It sounded wise enough, even if announcing their territory with a conjoined roar was far more instinctive.

            Ices trotted over to Feature eagerly, nuzzling the dragon fondly, wondering what fun things they would be doing today.

            “You need to run around and get used to your new legs,” Feature advised them. “Master worked hard on them for you.”

            The heads all stared at him, and then the full dozen of them turned around and arced down to look underneath themselves in astonishment.

            Their whole body had changed!

            Two mighty and powerful legs were now bearing the cryohydra aloft, and the bulk of its body was far more streamlined and less squat, with a long and massive tail extending out to counterbalance the weight of their extended heads.

            Ices raised one tree trunk of a leg, and then the other, first slowly, then with more and more speed, until they were thumping the ground as they jumped from one foot to the next, keeping their balance easily enough before hissing in wild glee as they broke off in a run down the snowy slopes in joyous exploration of how fast they could go.

            Feature glided after them, knowing what that felt like. Going from slithery awkwardness to flight was not much different.

            Ices wouldn’t be able to eat as much, as a good chunk of its squat main body was now in the form of the short-clawed, very strong legs keeping it in motion right now, but he doubted the hydra would mind that all that much. Hunting was going to be much easier for it now that it could outrun at least a few things.

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