Chapter 168: Chapter 168

As we stare at each other, its giant eyes each the length of my full body enveloping me. As I stand before its lowered gaze, I can’t help but wonder; how do we pay to feed this thing? I never knew hydras were so biii-IAAAH!

 

The hydra shifts, moving its body around to get into a different position for whatever reason. But as it does so, bits and pieces of the mountain beneath tumble down. Old broken cabinets, empty suits of armor, hundreds of bones and coins and swords and what appears to be a piano, all fly down my way as they are knocked loose. Spreading my wings I leap up high and take flight, only narrowly dodging the piano, whose lid I would swear snapped at me in mid-air as if it were a mouth; only barely just missing me and crashing into the wall behind where I stood together with all the rest of the junk.

 

  The hydra seems… unphased. Curious maybe, but it doesn’t really seem to care that I’m here. Papa would have been really mad about me entering into his lair unannounced. I guess hydra’s are more chilled out. Though I do wonder how it is that it’s still alive? Didn’t the hero party technically clear this floor already? I rise up into the air, higher, higher. This might be the biggest and highest floor of the dungeon that I’ve ever seen. It’s gigantic in all directions and no matter how far I fly, I never seem to reach the end of the long necks that stretch up along with me, the leviathan following me closely with its gazes. If papa was ten minotaurs big, so twice that much in humans; then this monstrosity must be four or five times that size.

 

  Soon enough though, I reach the top. My head nearly pressing against the ceiling where I find the answer to at least one of my questions. Behind the hydra, on the other side of the mountain of garbage lies a scene of absolute destruction. The stone floor is carved away, the walls are scorched. Half of the mountain of stuff is burned and pulverized, along with several gigantic skeletal heads that must have belonged to the hydra. No way.

 

A yellow eye brings me into focus again, pressing itself closer and blocking my view. Which is rather rude. But at the same time I’m as astounded by this monstrosity as I am with the sight behind it. The hydra is the only creature I know of that has ever survived the hero’s strike.

 

Not bad hydra. I nod to it in affirmation. It doesn’t respond. Kind of rude, but sure.

 

  The other heads circle around me. All of them gazing at me like a child staring at fireflies, thankfully none of them getting the idea of ripping my wings off. At least not yet. I loop down, flying beneath the head that was blocking me and continue my search. Knowing the dungeon-master, the secret exit is probably down beneath the literal mountain of garbage. Or maybe inside the hydra itself, which is plausible because it makes up a considerable portion of the space in this room.

 

  The giant serpentine heads follow me, each easily able to swallow me in a single instant if they were so inclined. It’s kind of a spooky feeling actually. They all wind around after me. All of them are always vying with each other to get the best view of me, which I suppose is a little flattering, but also terrifying as my whole body is maybe as big as one of its likely thousands of teeth.

 

Just between you and me though guy, I get the feeling I’m going to have to dig through the mountain of trash. I wish I had taken my skeleton friends with me. Uf.

 

Well. I look down to the mountain of random stuff. Hey, check it out, there’s a bunch of purple robes. Not like with people in them, just the robes. Weird. I fly down towards them to look, maybe it’s a hint?

 

  The world rumbles and even here in the air I feel a deep vibration shaking the bones of my body, as the hydra releases a throaty growl from each of its many necks. A head raises in-front of me again, facing sideways so that the large slit-lizard pupil looks straight my way. I scratch my head, I think it doesn’t want me to touch its garbage.

 

“I kind of need to look there,” I tell it, not even sure if it can understand me. But it just keeps growling. Pushing my luck, I float down a little lower, sinking closer to a black piece of thin fabric attached to an old spear. Cool. I look at it. I like spears, guy, you know?

 

  The hydra growls and I look back at it. Sorry, sheesh. The collection of purple robes from up here doesn’t look like anything special though. Just a pile of old clothes, one of hundreds likely. A long, protracted breath leaves the hydra’s flared nostrils. The winds billowing everything here around. Me. The clothes. The fabric on the spear.

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“Look, do you know anything about any secret-stairs, guy? I just want to find them and then I’ll be out of your uh… hair. Okay?”

 

The hydra’s lizard pupils grow wider as I speak, as its gargantuan heads float around me. I scratch my head again, really not sure what to do at this point. I need to look in his garbage. Yes. His. Don’t ask, just trust me on this one, guy, okay?

 

My eyes shift down nervously to the spear with the fabric, next to the purple robes. Surely this is a hint though? It’s too much of a coincidence not to be, isn’t it? Sensing my gaze, the hydra rumbles again as a new growl escapes it. I look back up to the hydra, raising my hands.

 

  “Okay. Okay!” I console it and watch as it loosens its tension. “Fine, I won’t touch your garbage, oka-“ I break off mid-sentence and make a mad dash for the spear, plummeting down towards the collection of items like a falling star, as I hear the world around me roar with a deafening cry that almost knocks me senseless just from the sonority of the sound itself. So loud as if a god were speaking to me in a hallow tongue. Hallow! The hydra lurches to action, slower than me, but giant enough that it can compensate for speed by the sheer fact that it takes me a good five seconds to fly past just one of its faces. My hand clutches the spear and I wrench it free, kicking off of the trash in one movement with another leap, as I propel myself into the air with weapon in hand. Just in time as one of the gigantic heads crashes down into the mound, flattening everything that is there into a broken jumble.

 

The serpentine necks sway around me as the seal has been broken, as the battle begins. Though I am sorely outmatched and I don’t even want to fight the hydra. I was just hoping that maybe.. I don’t know, some magical door would open if I took the spear. But uh…

 

  The hydra roars and I pull upwards just in time as a great maw lashes past where I just floated, slashing out like the crack of a swiping whip. The wind generated just by this single movement is enough to blow me off course and send my spiraling in an entirely different direction, which is lucky because another crack of thunder rings out from where I was. There where a maw of a head has pressed itself tightly shut. It would have swallowed me whole, guy.

 

  I fall, plummeting down. I’m faster if I let gravity help me, but the ground is coming closer and closer. The hydra roars, its necks still chasing me as I pull up, soaring just over the surface of the mountain. Claws. Teeth. Red. Swords. Bones. All of it juts out of the surface that rushes past me, as the world behind me is torn apart, as one of the great maws slides behind me with an open mouth, trying to swallow me whole but getting entire mouthfuls of the trash instead. Left, right. As I fly forward with frightening speed I dodge past all manner of obstructions, trying to stay as low to the ground as I can. Something moves before me and I pull up, just in time as a titanic head smashes down where I was going and the two run into each other with a loud, disgusting cracking sound.

 

  I look at the spear in my hand as I fly. Maybe it has a hint to offer me. Some secret to tell me. But as my eyes wash over it like the hungry eyes of the hydra follow me, I see that it’s just a spear. A random old, dinky spear like any other. Dark wooden handle. Steel pointed tip that’s gotten a bit rusted and janky over the years. The only unique thing about it is the piece of black cloth tha-

 

  I stop in mid-air. A great head wooshes just past me, aiming for the trajectory I was about to reach, hadn’t I stopped. Oh no. I laugh and fall back downwards, feeling the hydra's heads all turn around towards me as they make another attempt. As I fall backwards, flying through the air and feeling it rush all around me so hallow; I hold the spear underneath my arm and take hold of the black fabric with both hands, freeing it from the blade and stretching it between my fingers. My wings pressing against my back from the winds of my fall, my long hair blowing wildly up above me; I stare at my prize that I stretch out towards the skies to look at, obscuring my vision of the hydra’s head as I laugh more than I should, honestly. My gut compresses itself and kind of hurts.

 

Held in my fingers, displayed proudly to the dungeon-master above is an old, single pair of cute, black underwear with a collection of embroidered rat faces woven into it. I laugh as the hydra lunges to get me once and for all, as I look at the cute mousy faces, each of them staring down at me with their little rosy blushing cheeks woven with pink thread.

 

Another great mystery of the dungeon has been solved.

 

 

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