Teuila knows it’s a hydra, but she hasn’t seen what it can do yet for herself, and I don’t have accelerated thinkspace to warn her. Te risks experimenting as she draws forth Essie, and leaps with a resounding burst of energy that leaves small craters in the muddy path where her boots were. In the blink of an eye, Te is sailing through a mess of hydra heads, tearing through them like butter. First one head falls, then she hops to one side, and assails it horizontally from another angle, and on her journey another head falls, as she lands, she makes a return trip, beheading it yet once more at another neck.
Now that Te’s added three heads in as many seconds, I’m forced to call out, “It heals stronger from every wound!”
That gives Teuila pause, and she facepalms before returning to my side as the hydra gets its bearings. Te grumbles, “Coulda told me Air.”
I grump, “I just did.”
We both loose half-chuckles as we measure our opponent. I’ve been measuring its movements, capturing every moment that I can. Speaking of, let’s make use of that. Focusing on a point between points, delving towards the non, I grasp a moment between moments, and stretch it, distort it, live in it. Analyze, measure, calculate. It’s been getting steadily quicker, just fractions at a time, with each new head, as if with each new cranium, the brain contained within makes it just that much sharper, more reactive—. Parallel processing!? That’s just unfair. I mean, okay, I’m one to talk, with the sorts of things that I can delegate to my subconscious to take control of, but still, yeesh. Hell’s bells, we really need to stop its regeneration. Didn’t Tiktik say she had some sort of necrotizing spell that prevents healing and regeneration? Gods I wish Kitten were healthy, and feeling well right now, and here.
Dropping out of my nearly-paused time, I groan, “Bad news Te.”
She flicks a raised eyebrow my way while gesturing towards the hydra, specifically at one of the new heads, “Worse than this already?”
I try not to laugh as I retort, “Yeah, it gets faster, and smarter too with each new head.”
Teuila groans as she drags her palm down her face. I nod in agreement. I don’t want to share the even worse news, that I believe the other cold spots I sensed in the swamp were more hydras.
Teuila’s mental avatar pops into my thinkspace, her mouth agape, “Excuse me, they were what?” She purposely heavily enunciates the aych before the double ewe for comic effect.
Right, telepathy, right. Crap. I chuckle as I apologize, “Sorry Te, I uh, I’ve been experimenting with my abilities, trying to expand my repertoire, make use of, or leverage every last tool in my toolbelt, you know? So uh, I was trying to figure out just how far my thermal senses stretched, what I could learn from them. It takes a good while to analyze, and paint a picture, but I’ve got that kind of time. Sort of. You know, paused time.”
Teuila’s telepathic avatar nods along, but crosses her arms and taps her foot impatiently before prompting, “So, what’s the plan?”
That my dear, is a very good question. I’m still working on it. Teuila’s mental avatar groans, and repeats the gesture she just did in meatspace, facepalming and dragging her hand down her face. I try not to chuckle at her expense.
I explain, “I do sort of have a plan, well, more of an idea really. The way I see it, we have two win conditions against these hydras, and they’re on opposite ends of the contingent. Tiktik with the injured up north, and the last two remaining Plains Colossi who still have their powers, far at the south end. Tiktik can enable fatal wounds with her magics, and the Colossi can literally just bury them if we buy them a few moments. If it comes down to it, we might have to use both of those conditions if there really are more hydra out to the west, just waiting for an opportunity. You’re better suited to inflicting the fatal wounds, and I’m just barely scrappy enough to avoid getting killed for a while while some Colossi dig a massive pit.”
I almost want to distract myself from how unlucky I feel by asking Teuila how things went, but since she’s riding my thought train, she just heard that. Blargh, stupid brain.
Te grumps, “Shush, it’s a good brain, and it’s all mine. Well, sort of. Right now anyway. Ugh, grr, I mean your brain is fine just the way it is. You were right though. Timbik actually had the cajones to yell at me. Out of all of them, the forgiveness, the waving it off, the uncertainty how to talk to me about it, out of everything else, that made me feel the most better.”
Teuila pauses only a moment before ranting, ”I don’t know what sort of screwed up sense that makes, but it was like, like—. Like this jerk, right? This cowardly, know-nothing jerk, who has tried to hurt you before, is the one person that thinks I deserve to be treated like crap? Like what the hell? Screw him! Right? Ugh, I don’t even know what I’m saying. Hey Air, dodge babe.”
My eyes flash wide as I barely react in time in meatspace to dodge the hydra, once again caught by a glancing blow from one of its flailing heads. This time, I’m not sent sailing very far at all, in fact, the Hydra looks like it would be rubbing its head in a daze. Thank you steely body spell.
Glancing about at the carnage leaves me feeling ill, like an anvil dropped into the pit of my stomach. I need to retain my focus, and stay concentrated. Keep it together Reggie. The hydra snaps up its fallen heads, and begins scarfing down on them, and for the first time so far this fight, it snatches up one of the people it has slain to eat them as well. Not counting the one that it tore apart. Ugh, it’s so grotesque, violent, feral, and brutal. Our lives could end inside a moment, though I suppose that’s hardly news, because that applies to everyone, all the time, and everybody knows it.
Te interrupts my thoughts, “She saved me, you know. Or, well, helped save me.”
I flash a curious glance Teuila’s direction, so she continues, “Tiki, she snuck a token of feather falling onto us in our pockets somewhere a long time ago. Even with Miza, Dippy, Zippy, Scrap, everyone helping, I’d have shattered if it weren’t for Tiktik’s token. It kicked in sometime during the fall, helped slow me down before I hit the ramp. It was one of the things I could sense, or feel when I was frozen, that little burst of magic that was kind of like my gravity power. Tiktik though—. She’s not doing so hot, and I hate it. I want her to be better, to be okay.”
I nod as my eyes mist up. I feel the same, and I owe Tiktik more than I realized. At least we have something here we can vent our frustrations on. To buy ourselves some breathing room, and time to really commit to a plan, how about an electro-wing assault Te? I can sense her agreement to my train of thoughts, so I reach my left arm out, and Teuila grips me by the hand.
We’re in the air, high over the hydra in an instant, with me below Teuila. Teuila spins a full three hundred sixty degrees and releases me, tossing me down with enough force to shatter bones. Thankfully, not mine in my current form. I aim downward with the balls of my feet leading my fall, while I coalesce internal electricity, and direct it to my feet. Teuila is at my side all of a sudden during my fall, as she drastically increases her own gravity in the direction of the ground. The hydra, for its part, rears back as it lashes its heads about like a flail, only succeeding at giving us a better angle of attack towards its collar area.
As we connect with as much force as we can possibly muster, I release the stored up extra electrical charge into the point of impact. Between the two of us, the hydra sinks over a meter into the ground upon impact, and we begin hammering away at the trunk of the cluster of necks. I’d find it odd that I no longer hear the whoosh of the hydra’s thrashing, or its hissing roars, but that would be Essie’s power at work. So we know it can be affected by magic abilities, and it doesn’t just shrug them off like an injury. Right jab, left jab, just keep hammering down while it’s dazed from our impact, add extra shock to each punch.
Teuila’s punches are thunderous in comparison to mine, but the volume of the blows is muted by Essie’s power. My own blows begin to carry less and less impact, and I almost worry that it’s the hydra’s regeneration making it tougher, but that seems to only apply when its flesh and scales are parted, slashed open or pierced. The real reason I’m packing less punch by the moment is that my steely body spell is wearing off. I really need to find some time to get a smith to shave off a bunch of orichalcum into pouches. Speaking of—. I reach out with my telekinesis and snag the orichalcum plate I’d abandoned nearby after jamming it into the hydra’s necks earlier. I simultaneously float the metal plate closer while doing a simultaneous double punch with a massive electric charge, blasting myself away from the hydra into a backflip.
Landing on the floating metal plate, I do several quick calculations, and begin surfing through the air telekinetically. This— this is kind of fun, really, really fun. More than just floating myself bobbing around telekinetically, and it offers me protection from below. Teuila’s telepathic avatar flashes a smile my way in my mindscape, and she whoops as I surf by her in the air over the hydra, blasting it with holy halefire bolts, testing various segments of its body. One of the hydra’s heads swings upwards to batter at the bottom of my plate, but I telekinetically metaphorically roll with its momentum, letting it nudge the plate higher into the air. I’m tempted to use my shield for this, or something similar, so that I could have foot straps that I could slide in and out of. The hydra’s smashing attack had me lose my footing for a moment, but falling on my belly on the plate doesn’t matter much. It’d be a bit easier if I weren’t having to micromanage internal electrokinesis to operate my muscles, but I’ll make do.
Hm, apparently its fangs don’t regenerate, or if they do, not nearly as quickly. Teuila is still crouched at the trunk of the hydra’s necks, hammering away. She’s shrugging off attempts to bite her by literally caving its teeth in, or braining heads that try to swing at her so hard, that the neck snaps back far enough to slam the head into the ground. That’s My Wings for ya. Gods she’s so impressive, I could watch her shatter teeth all day. How weird is that? Most of her is completely covered in our traveling clothes, and what isn’t covered by that, is covered in armor, so I don’t even get to appreciate the sinewy, graceful muscle motions that I’d normally see. Hell’s bells, she’s just smirking at me telepathically in my mindscape. Me and my goofy brain, getting distracted. I blush momentarily in both thinkspace and meatspace before I strafe another circle around the hydra to find a better angle of attack.
Let’s pause here a second, shall we? Play back the fight so far. I dive into a moment between moments, and rest there for a— moment. Huff. I sigh and chuckle at myself and my own thought train, and its redundancy. Okay, we’re a bit off center from the clearing, it’s closer to the south end of the clearing than the north end, by a few dozen meters, partially thanks to Teuila’s attack, partially due to its own recent rampage when it challenged me to drop out of the sky, by murdering innocents.
What other important information do I have? Cold seemed to do something to it. I can’t really test out fireballs right now, without dropping myself out of the sky, and leaving myself low on mobility, and vulnerable. The staff doesn’t like to operate multiple spells simultaneously, so if one effect is up, I can’t start another. One of its few limitations and drawbacks. Tiktik said she had a powerful staff too, didn’t she? I wonder if Teuila could borrow it, or one of her wands. I half expect it to be soulbound though.
Let’s go back a tick, cold was somewhat helpful. Cold is an absence of heat, the thing itself seems to draw in heat from nearby, making it its own absence of heat. What’s it doing with that energy? Is that what feeds its regeneration? Does it need to consume flesh and bones and so on to restore the mass that it uses up, or does it magically come from nowhere? If I start sapping its heat, how far can it go before it starts to really suffer? I could empower a cold rune, without a spelliform attached, which is hazardous to my health, but if I could encase it in ice, would it just die over time? I don’t think I can afford to risk it, even with Teuila here, because then she’d have to focus on evacuating my body, before going back into the fight, if the hydra isn’t finished off. Worse, the other two nearby thermal fluctuations could be hydras as well, leaving her alone to fend off three of them.
Hm, instead of going all out like that, in a way that I know incapacitates me, what if I alter the frost ray a bit? What if I make it spread rather than pierce on impact? Let’s see, which part of which rune would need to be adjusted? Hm, yeah, that one. Okay, that’s easy enough to figure out in paused time. Okay, I guess we’ll get back to it for a bit, and figure out more later. I’ll need to get back to the ground, and get steely body up and running again, using more metals from the surrounding clearing. Mildly annoying, but it’s what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to play everything cautiously, and try not to dip into Kozzurth’s dragonforce. I can’t afford a single debilitating injury right now.
Alright, back to meatspace, gather a few more data points, and decide whether we’re going to try to take this thing out ourselves, or take it north, or south.