Chapter 24: Chapter 24: The Crown

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Crown

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My imminent demise was at hand—a plunge down to hard earth from over forty feet in the air. I’d missed the giant target that was the maenad queen’s head by just a few inches, and yet those inches felt like a mile-long stretch.

“Vargr!” I screamed in frustration.

Anyone else would have been scared to death at the possibility of dying from such a foolish mistake, but I was more embarrassed really. Not only did I fail myself for the second time this night, but the raid group would watch from below as I plummeted to zero health. It was an epic failure.

No! My brain screamed. I will not die twice over this freaking queen that Divah could kill in her sleep!

Inspired by desperation, I kicked out against the air with what little mana remained to me and turned the not-so-Volcanic Step’s weaker non-lava flame into a thruster that shoved me sideward.

Yes!

My free hand jerked forward, reaching out across the gap and brushing against the crown’s slimy scale. Desperately, my fingers latched onto it, and I was able to swing to safety right on top of the snake crown’s body. It rumbled beneath me, but I barely paid it any attention as the after-effects of Haste followed up by two other spells had made me too fatigued to notice much else.

No, I didn’t notice the two pairs of yellow eyes staring at me from above. My blurred vision—another side effect of using Haste—made that impossible. I didn’t hear the hissing either, although I would later wonder how I ever missed it. They were that loud. It was the saliva falling in huge droplets just an inch away from my shoulder that finally caught my eye.

“Frigid Hel...” I sighed.

I rolled to the right, my feet falling into the air while the rest of me hung desperately onto the serpent’s scales. I was just in time, too, because two sword-sized fangs slashed through the space I was in just a moment earlier, and an ugly snake head nearly as big as my own body dipped into my line of sight with its reptilian eyes fixed on me.

Quick as lightning, the snake head darted forward, but the effort of holding onto the scales took all I had. My fatigue had yet to settle and I had too little energy in my tank for dodging sword-sized fangs. As for Haste, well, that wasn’t a spell I could use more than once without at least a short rest. Yet at that moment between life and excruciatingly painful death, my brain worked overtime to figure out an escape, which was when I realized that I wasn’t fighting this thing solo.

As I predicted, a red-feathered bolt flew into the snake’s eye, causing it to pull back suddenly. A second, and then a third red-feathered bolt pierced its face, and the snake’s head dove for cover within the maenad queen’s mess of wiry hair.

“Appreciate the assist!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

With danger momentarily averted, I figured it was time to do my job. I climbed up the snake’s body, grasping at every nook and cranny in its scales, and made my way toward its injured head. It was slow going because the monster kept tossing and turning, adding to the dizzy spell I was already getting from the queen’s head bobbing up and down and sideways. I’d barely reached the injured snake’s head when its other head appeared in the corner of my left eye with jaws wide open and its forked tongue darting out.

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As this snake’s second head lunged for me, another red-feathered bolt flew into its open mouth. The bolt exploded on contact and released a cloud of black vapor which smelled heavily of burnt rubber.

Trick arrows, I realized. That’s damn groovy.

Interestingly enough, both the heads were coughing over Delphine’s trick arrows. It was a lucky break, one I planned to take full advantage of.

I called on the last bit of magic inside me—that reserved stuff meant for these clutch moments—and cast an enchantment on my glaive’s blade.

“Spirits of flame, lend me your will of fire,” I chanted. “Breathe life into my blade so my foes can taste my all-consuming ire!”

With Elemental Weapon activating, flames licked to life at the edge of my glaive’s blade, turning it into a white-hot tool of death.

I wanted to say something groovy like “Hasta la vista, baby,” but my mind was drawing a blank. I was going to have to workshop a battle cry. For now, I went with, “Die, die, die~~e!”

It might have been a little too on the nose, but the phrase got the job done. It encouraged me to plunge my glaive blade-first into the snake crown’s flesh, which was somewhere by the base of the snake’s first head’s flailing neck. It was an action I spammed repeatedly, and was made much easier by the elemental coating I’d cast on my glaive.

The snake’s first head thrashed while dark ichor oozed out of its many stab wounds. Then it let out one final hiss before finally succumbing to my savagery. The head dipped down the maenad queen’s fluff of wiry, unkempt hair, dragging me along with it.

I heard a hiss, and I rolled to the side out of instinct so that the snake’s second head drove its fangs into its dead half instead. And, in the time it took to bite into its own body’s flesh, I swung my glaive upward. I used all of my remaining strength to drive my blade across scale and flesh while screaming, “Die, die, die~~e!”

Yep, I should workshop that war cry soon, or I was going to be stuck with that last one and be known as some kind of edge-lord wannabee.  

Anyway, my frenzied slash was a critical hit that decapitated the monster, and with a final writhing and thrashing, the serpent crown crumbled in a shower of sparks and miasma as if it had been nothing more than an illusion all along.

The maenad queen unleashed an ear-splitting roar. She was angry, hurt, and ripe for the pickings.

“I’ve done my part. Time to do yours, guys,” I whispered.

The maenad queen tumbled forward while I grabbed as many strands of her oily hair as I could and strapped in. It was like being on a rollercoaster, the kind where you plummet straight down in a flash while your insides got left behind.

At the same time, I heard a ping coming from my pocket, and a quick inspection of my bar showed me something that made me grin widely despite my fatigue.

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