The Crucible Campaign

29: Random Encounter

.^^ Bex The Were-Tiger ^^

— Cassidy —

When what I could only assume was the mother of the Hydra we'd just slaughtered stepped into the clearing, all Twelve heads slowly dripping fog and liquid venom, I had what felt like a split second to respond. Before I could even pull my rifle up to fire, it lashed out at me, one of its twelve heads clamping around my left shoulder.

I hissed in pain as it crushed my shoulder through the armor, (not penetrating, which I made a quick note to apologize to that dwarf for giving him such a hard time about,) then shoved my hand into the gas seeping out, letting my hand ignite it.

The hydra's head and neck exploded even more violently than its children had, knocking me away from it by sheer force.

I looked down, and saw that the hydra's fangs, each about a foot long, were embedded in the chain mail. "Wow... alrighty then. Tommy, you'll want the venom from this one!!! Seems more potent!"

She tossed a small crystal into the teeming mass of heads, and hissed a Command Word in Ignan. "Freeze!" A blast of fire followed, to my confusion, and many of the heads were obliterated, making the Hydra screech in pain.

"Foul Fire-Flingers! You dare attack my Brood?!? I will rip you apart and use your bones for decor in my new nest!" One of the heads hissed at us in surprisingly fluent common, with no extended 'Sss's, like I'd hoped.

"Well shit, she talks. Cool." Tommy grinned.

Glade rushed past us, drawing that shimmering white sword of his in a graceful, fluid motion, and slid under the Hydra as it snapped at him. His sword slit through the soft underside of two of its throats, not entirely cutting them off, and therefore preventing it from growing more heads.

Sandy and Karon joined in as well, this time, as Sandy took the form of a Fire Elemental, and Karon shot one of the heads in both eyes, making it droop just like Glade's chosen targets, dead and limp.

I drew my rifle, still sitting on the ground, and popped off a round at the head that had been speaking, catching it on the side of the head as it looked off at something. It now had only two heads, as that one whacked against a tree, then slammed into the ground.

"Karon, go see what it was just looking at, climb up the canopy real quick." I snapped out an order, and aimed at another head, firing.

The bullet caught its eye, but it shook off the impact, then reached down and ripped one of its own dead heads off. I gasped at the audacity of this creature, and it growled, spitting a piece of its own carcass at us contemptuously. Less than a second later, the stump swelled, and two heads burst forth from its body, then immediately spewed gas into the clearing.

Sandy grabbed me, and leapt into the lowest portion of the canopy, while Tommy dove for Glade, and pulled him out of the toxin and up into the trees as well. He was unconscious, and his skin was an unhealthy shade but he was visibly breathing. She pulled out her grimoire, and I looked away, assured that she would let me know if she needed help.

As the Hydra snarled at us, I let a hand ignite, and dipped it into the 5ft deep layer of fog. It might have been a bad idea, but damn it if the look on that hydra's three faces wasn't worth it. The resultant explosion shattered the trees all around us for about 80 yards, (luckily mostly directed outwards, not up towards us,) and sent us all tumbling to the ground.