Untitled Goose Game

They barely got a moment to register what they were seeing before it was upon them. Two of the hydra-goose's heads came down, snapping at them in an attempt to eat them, while the other four were dragged along behind screeching. Chiara dodged into the water, dashing on mirrors across the surface of the artificial river like a master figure-skater.

Palmira, unfortunately, could not do the same. Instead she screamed and raised Morte between her and the approaching head and with a blast of undirected magic set off a blinding flashbang, causing the unprepared hydra-goose to rear back with a screech of anguish.

Unfortunately, Palmira hadn't been prepared for the shock either and stumbled back as well, blinking spots out of her eyes.

Chiara, luckily, was far enough away that she was the only one unaffected. Capitalizing on the distraction she raised her rapier with a flourish and jabbed it forward. The thin blade suddenly exploded forward, quintupling in length in an instant and piercing one of the heads straight through the eye. The head let out a shriek of agony, flailing around to dislodge the blade but only digging it in deeper in the attempt. After a few mere moments of panicked flailing the head finally slumped, dead.

Chiara huffed smugly, lowering the blade a bit to look at her work, before a shuddering along the neck of the dead head made her face drop.

A massive bulge seemed to travel up from the base of the dead neck. It convulsed and bulged, jerking back up into the air, before its orange beak opened up wide, wide enough that the old bill tore apart and twin feathery bulges erupted from the deceased neck.

Two new goose heads rose from the mouth of the dead one, letting out twin honks of rage.

Chiara swore and continued running.

Palmira by this point had recovered enough to see again, and seeing the goose distracted with its new heads she raised Morte for another attack. She conjured a fire-whip at his skull and lashed out at the giant goose, leaving a thick line of charred feathers along its chest. She tried to hit it with another pass, but one of the heads lunged at her and forced her to drop the attack to dodge.

Two other heads snapped to her, while the other four followed Chiara, snapping and biting at her as she ran back and forth along the water. Unfortunately the goose was big enough and the aqueduct just small enough that the goose barely needed to move its body to engage with both of them at once, and Palmira could barely even begin to cast her magic before she found herself nearly dying to one of the many heads attacking her.

"Back up!" Morte screamed at her. "Back the fuck up! Just turn around and put some distance between you and it! Its heads are only so long!"

"But what about Chiara!?"

"She'll be fine!" he snapped at her. "But you won't! So move your ass! You're a mage, hit it from range!"

Palmira's mouth twisted guiltily, but she followed his order and slammed her foot on the ground, launching herself backwards with repeated blasts of fire. The heads following her reared back in shock, and within seconds she was far out of its ability to hit her.

She stared at the giant hydra for a moment, watching the seven heads writhe angrily at Chiara. The other girl danced between them elegantly, slashing at any that got too close. Palmira held up her staff to help but froze. No matter how long she tried to think of something to do her mind kept turning up blank. All she could do was stare in awe and horror as her body refused to move and her mind refused to think.

"What am I supposed to do against that thing?" she whispered, the pounding in her skull consuming all her thoughts. "It won't even die if we kill it."

"Setting it on fire would be considered a good start."

"I did! But it shrugged off my attack like it was nothing!"

"Well, then hit it again! Don't just give up just because you didn't instantly kill it. I'd say the angry half-elf over there would certainly appreciate the—oop, never mind, there she goes."

Palmira's head snapped back to Chiara, and she could only watch in horror as one of the heads got a lucky hit in, slamming into her from the side and launching her clear off the side of the aqueduct.

Then the giant goose turned to her, and with a deafening 'HONK' charged her down as well.

And all she could do was stare, frozen on the spot.

"DO SOMETHING!" Morte screamed in her mind. "HIT IT! SET IT ON FIRE! SOMETHING! I'M NOT SITTING IN THE STOMACH OF A GOOSE FOR THE NEXT CENTURY BECAUSE YOU FROZE UP IN YOUR FIRST REAL FIGHT!"

His shouting shocked her back into action, and she let out a scream that was both rage and terror and raised the staff between them, letting off a massive explosion of fire that sent the goose reeling back from the sheer force of the blast.

Unfortunately, she hadn't been prepared for it herself, and the force of the explosion sent her hurtling towards the edge of the aqueduct. She bounced once but managed to scramble back onto her feet, mere inches from the edge, waving her arms wildly to try and regain her balance. She barely managed to keep on the stone, her legs tensed up so tight they hurt—when she felt something snap and squelch, and sheer agony erupted in her knee, and suddenly she was in the air, falling.

She blinked up at the sky, blue and cloudless. She couldn't feel her legs and her arms were clenched so tight around Morte she could barely feel them either. For a moment she felt empty, like her body had already died and was just waiting for her mind to catch up.

Then the moment passed and she realized she was falling to her death.

She tried to scream but it was lost in the wind, and she flailed franticly, sending off gouts of fire that sent her tumbling through the air. After a few seconds of panicking she regained enough of her wits to aim the fire down to try and slow down her fall but by then it was too late and she'd nearly hit the water already—

Something grabbed her, and she was no longer falling.

"Idiot," Chiara's voice called out to her from above. Palmira glanced up, and saw herself grasped in the claws of a massive crystal eagle. "That's twice now you've caught yourself in your own attack. I should be shocked by your incompetence, but I'm more in awe that you made it this far in the first place."

Palmira could do nothing but stare up at her, eyes wide and a pounding thrumming in her ears. She could barely even register that she was still alive.

"Oh?" Chiara raised an eyebrow imperiously, as the crystal eagle began to ascend. "Are you not going to thank me for saving your life, newbie?"

"…I can't believe it," Palmira wheezed melodramatically, clutching Morte close to her chest. "Is this what hell truly is, Goddess? Being forced to listen to this wretch's voice for all eternity? Oh, Goddess, what have I done to deserve this?"

Chiara's brow twitched. "I should drop you."

"Please don't."

"HEY! BRATS!" Morte shouted, startling them. "Pay attention to the damn duck!"

"HONK"

Palmira jerked back to the giant goose, seeing all seven heads following them through the sky. Then, from its great white body, two titanic wings rose up to the sky. With a great and powerful flap, the giant goose shakily rose into the air.

"It can fly!?"

Chiara swore loud enough to hear over the winds. "We need to stop it! Try and hit its wings!"

"With what? And why can't you do that!?"

"What do you mean!? You're a fire mage! Hit it with fire, that's its weakness!"

Palmira's head snapped up to the other girl. "Its weakness is fire!? Why the hell didn't you say that sooner!?"

"It's a hydra!" she screamed back, sounding almost hysterical. "Everyone knows they're weak to fire! How did you not!?"

"I've never even heard of a hydra before today!"

"How have you never—!?" she shook her head. "No, that doesn't matter, just hit it with a fireball!"

"Why does everybody assume I know how to do that!?"

"You're a fire mage!?"

"My magic doesn't work like that!"

"Just set it on fucking fire!" Morte roared, and she felt something yank on her magic, not enough to do anything but enough to grab her attention.

"Okay!" she snapped back, shifting towards the goose as best she could within the crystal eagle's claws. "I'm doing it! Chiara, get me a bit closer!"

"Are we seriously not in range!?"

"My. Magic. Doesn't. Work. Like. That." Palmira ground out. "If you want me to actually hurt it, I need to be closer!"

"Focus on the feathers at the edge of its wings," Morte advised her, sounding calmer now that they weren't at risk of being eaten. "If you burn those it won't be able to control its flight anymore. Try and sweep your fire as much as possible while you do—we want to hit as many feathers as possible, and even superficial fire damage can ground it."

"Right," she hissed quietly, placing her forehead against the unnaturally cool skull of her staff. "Just hit it. It's simple. Stop messing up and prove to the snooty elf above you that you're not just some newbie that needs to be carried through every fight."

"You are currently being carried, though."

"Shut the fuck up, Morte."

Pulling her staff away from her she aimed at the oversized goose that was slowly but steadily gaining height. The heads were jerking closer to try and snap at them as they got closer, throwing off its wings and causing it to fall as much as it rose. She tried to hold the staff like she normally did, but clenched at she was in crystal talons all she could do was awkwardly hold it in front of her like an old lady batting away a cat with a broom.

"Good enough," She snarled down at the goose, and with a pulse of her magic she set Morte's skull on fire again. Feeding as much of her own magic as she was comfortable to the blaze, she began jerking the staff back and forth, raining down golden sparks on the goose from above.

The sparks fell slowly, fluttering almost beautifully to the ground. At least until they hit, at which point they ignited like thermite, creating small and swift yet incredibly hot flames which bore holes through the goose's feathers, the stone on the aqueduct, and even two of the goose's heads.

Fortunately, as the goose screamed in agony as it fell back to the aqueduct, they'd managed to ground it. Unfortunately, her imprecise bombing meant they now had nine heads to deal with.

"Can you do that again?" Chiara shouted down at her.

"Maybe!" she called back. "But I don't know if it would matter—the heads would just grow back regardless!"

"…I'm going to attack next," she shouted after a moment of thought. "We'll do it like how they did it in the ancient myths! I'll slice off one of its heads, and then you cauterize the wound before it can grow back."

"If you're sure that'll work!"

"Of course I'm—wait, who's that!?"

"Huh?"

Palmira turned back to the aqueduct, and her eyes widened as she saw another group approaching the goose at rapid speeds.

"It's the automata we passed earlier!"

Four bronze automata charged their way down the aqueduct in jerking, unnatural movements. Regardless, they were moving far faster than a human could, and within seconds they were within range of the goose. The one closest to the giant goose pulled out a gladius and stabbed into its feathery belly, drawing the attention of one of the heads.

It snapped down and grabbed the automata, swallowing it whole.

"Well, that's certainly a bad way to go," Morte mused. "Then again, if I was forced to work on a bridge for all eternity I think I'd be running to my death just as quickly."

"Someone just died," Palmira hissed at him, pale-faced at what she'd witnessed. "Have a little respect."

"He'll be fine~"

The other three automata barely seemed to notice their comrade's death. Instead they simply stopped a distance away from the beast, watching it coldly.

"I'm getting between them!" Chiara shouted at her. "Drop some more of your sparks to distract it!"

They flew in closer, and as she kept her eye on the automata she noticed that they began pulling off their hands(!?). They raised the stumps up to the giant goose, and from their bronze stumps blue beams of light started firing out, each tearing through the enraged hydra and leaving scorch marks in their wake.

With the beast thoroughly distracted by the newcomers, Palmira was able to easily line up her staff, dropping a few more thermite sparks on the middle head. The head seemed to melt in on itself, and once she saw it was dead she flipped her staff around and began jerking it down like a plunger, spitting out wider gouts of flame at the melting head. It didn't quite work how she thought it would—instead of cauterizing the wound, it just killed the two new heads that had begun raising under it, and it ended up growing four charred and misshapen heads which stared up at her with pure hate.

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"I don't think this is working!"

"Then allow me!"

There was a flash of not-light, where she swore for a moment the colors of the world inverted, and then two of the heads fell severed to the aqueduct below, leaving only spurting stumps in their place.

"NOW!" Chiara screamed, and Palmira didn't hesitate. She let out a gout of flame and managed to cauterize one of the necks quickly enough that only some bubbling flesh showed the attempted birth of a new head, but the other one managed to grow back quickly enough that the two new heads only got charred.

"I can't burn them fast enough!"

"You did one though! It looks like we'll have to do this one at a time instead—"

The giant goose stopped. The heads as one began letting out loud, agonized honks, almost like coughing. For a moment the two girls froze in the air, unsure what was going on.

Then the first automata burst out of the goose's stomach in an explosion of blood and gore. It landed unsteadily on the ground, splattered in red and yellow and who knows what else, before turning back to the goose.

The goose whose heads now glared down at it in hate. Both the heads on top of its body;

And the heads that now grew from the wound on its gut, sealing it up with a mass of long, feathery necks.

The automata raised up its bloody gladius again and hacked and slashed at the stomach-heads as the tried to devour it again, while the heads above it reached over to try and kill the automata behind it. Within seconds a half dozen heads had been killed, and a dozen more grew back to take their place.

"They're just making it worse!" Chiara growled, banking her eagle down for another pass. "I'm going to set up a barrier between them and it—you hit it with whatever you can when we go by!"

"Got it!"

They flew in close, almost close enough for the heads to reach out and tear them from the sky if they weren't so focused on the automata below. Chiara raised her rapier, preparing a spell—

—Only to nearly get knocked off when a beam of blue light slammed into the crystal eagle. It didn't harm it, thankfully, but the blue light refracted throughout its crystal body, exploding back out with much weaker beams in all angles. Palmira, being practically immune to fire, was fine, even if it was uncomfortable.

Chiara was not so lucky, and let out a hiss of pain as burn scars appeared all along her arms.

"What was that!?"

"The automata!" Chiara bit out, clutching her burned shoulder. With her other hand she banked their eagle away, putting some more distance between them and the aqueduct. "They just attacked us out of nowhere!"

"I wouldn't say out of nowhere," Morte countered. "Between the two of you you've both done quite a number on the aqueduct. At this point I imagine they see you as just as much of a threat as the goose."

"What?" Palmira turned back to look at them incredulously. She then noticed the one in the back wasn't aiming at the goose, but instead at them. "How does that make any sense! We're just trying to stop the hydra as much as they are! Why would they attack us!?"

"You're giving them too much credit," Morte scoffed. "They aren't nearly smart enough to consider things like that. In their mind, there are only two types of people: those who don't harm the aqueduct, and those who must be removed, lest they harm the aqueduct."

"…Is it permanent?" Chiara asked, narrowing her eyes at them. "Will they still continue to attack us, even after we've dealt with the goose?"

"Who knows! I, for one, am curious to find out."

"You are useless!" Palmira huffed, before turning back to the monster. "Okay. So, we can't get close without the automata attacking us, but I also don't think I can do any real damage from this far away. What about you?"

"…It's out of my range too," Chiara admitted begrudgingly. "If the automata weren't here, I think we'd have a decent shot at finishing it off, but now…"

"Why not just leave and let the automata finish it? At this point I find it difficult to believe they'll lose."

"And report back to Ósma that I left a rampaging monster for a different group to deal with!?" Chiara scoffed angrily. "No. This is an easy, worthless mission. The kind of thing any half-decent adventurer could finish with their eyes closed. I'm more than capable of dealing with whatever happens today myself."

"…Ah, I'd forgotten what the pride of an adventurer was like. Very well, let's kill us a goose!"

Chiara nodded firmly, a determined scowl on her face. Palmira was less confident, but nodded along as well. They floated in the air determined, watching the battle raging below.

"…Um," Palmira said at last. "How are we supposed to do that?"

"I have no idea!" Morte admitted cheerfully. "But you're smart. I'm sure you can figure something out!"

"…The newbie's right," Chiara scowled down at them. "You are useless."

"I have my moments~"

Palmira sighed, before glaring back down at the goose. It flailed wildly on the aqueduct, each of its many heads snapping and honking at the automata before it. It had lost and regrown so many heads at this point that they must have numbered in the hundreds, obscuring the rest of its body almost like a huge mass of white, feathery spaghetti.

"Wait," she blinked. "I think I have an idea!"

"Let me guess," Chiara rolled her eyes. "Is it setting it on fire?"

"No! It's setting us on fire!"

"…What."

Palmira explained her idea further, and Chiara looked almost approving once she was done.

"What do you know," she scoffed. "You do have a brain in there. And to think I assumed it'd cooked from all that fire you keep throwing around."

"I don't have to do anything, you know."

"And I don't need your help, either."

"I can't believe I found you tolerable for a second there," Palmira scowled back. "Shows what I know."

Then she set them on fire.

Specifically, she set the eagle on fire. She repeated what she had witnessed earlier with the blue beam, pumping light and heat into the crystal eagle, where Chiara grabbed it with her own magic and refracted it. Not outward like the other light, but inward, bouncing every single particle of light and heat further and further together until there was what looked like a small sun burning within the crystal eagle.

Then she bounced it one last time, reflecting it straight out the back of the eagle.

And rocketing them forward in turn, so fast the wind scrapped at her face and the world around her blurred into nothing but misshapen colors.

She blinked, and the next second there was a giant mass of feathery heads and monstrous rage in front of her, and the next thing she knew the eagle dropped her and Chiara into the water. The cool water shocked her into full awareness, and she flailed to the surface even as she felt her limbs begin to clench up in pain.

The eagle, however, did not follow them into the water. Instead it slammed into the side of the giant goose with such power that it exploded into thousands of shards on impact, and the goose was launched in turn, nearly flying into the air as the force of the hit knocked it off the aqueduct.

Perhaps, at the beginning of the fight, the goose might have been able to save itself, and even if it couldn't it could've flown back up. But now that its wings were burned and it was more head than not, it could only let out thousands of shrieking honks as it fell off the stone aqueduct, plummeting to the waves below.

Palmira surfaced just in time to witness the last of the heads disappear over the side, and she almost launched herself onto the stone walkways to get out of the water.

Only to come face to face with one of the automata's stumps as it took aim to kill her. The blue light exploded from its arm and she saw her life flash before her eyes—

—But just in time Chiara stepped in front of her, rapier raised to block. The blue light was seemingly absorbed into the blade, and then she pointed it at the automata and shot it right back, hitting it right in the face and melting off its nose.

"Huh," Chiara gave a self-satisfied smirk. "I didn't know light could do that. I guess you really do learn something new everyday."

But that show of defiance didn't even slow down the other three automata, and the one with the gladius charged at them with its odd, jerking movements, uncaring that it was still drenched in the hydra-bile.

Unfortunately for it, that meant it wasn't prepared to get run over by a crystalline horse, who trampled it underfoot and then kicked it's head in for good measure.

"Cavalla," Chiara grinned, launching herself up onto the horse's back with practiced ease. "How nice of you to finally make it!" Then she looked down to raise an eyebrow at Palmira. "Are you not getting on?"

Palmira tried to move, but winced. "I can't feel my legs," she admitted.

Chiara frowned, and glanced back at the automata who'd nearly gotten back on their feet. "Hurry and grab my hand," she told her, reaching down.

Palmira did so, and winced as her arm was nearly yanked from its socket as she was practically thrown over the back of the horse. She winced again as the air was knocked out of her lungs when her stomach hit its hard, crystalline rear.

"Hold on!" Chiara shouted, the smile audible in her words, and then the crystal horse took off in a gallop, just barely moving in time to dodge more of the blue beams. Palmira yelped and held on for dear life with one hand and clenched Morte's staff with the other as they hurdled down the stone aqueduct, blasts of blue light dogging their heels.

"Are they following us?" Chiara shouted, and Palmira was focusing more on not hurling than paying attention, but Morte more than made up for that.

"Nope!" he called back. "They're just shooting at you from where they were standing before. Give it a bit longer and you might be able to slow down and get Palmira a bit more settled."

Palmira glanced up for barely a second before she was forced to close her eyes, but she saw that he was right. The automata did not follow them, instead turning soullessly to repair the aqueduct.

"Urk," she grunted, holding back bile after a particularly bad bump. "Ugh."

"You'd better not puke on dear Cavalla's back, newbie!"

Palmira almost let it all out there and then out of spite.

But by that point the beams had stopped firing after them and the automata were little more than dots on the horizon, so Chiara slowed down to a stop. Palmira let out a thankful wheeze and nearly fell off the horse before her guildmate caught her.

"You look awful," she told her.

"I feel awful."

Chiara rolled her eyes and helped drag her into a better position, now having her sitting on the horse instead of thrown over the back like a sack of grain. "Are you good to ride?"

"Probably not," she admitted. "But I don't think I can walk, either. I still can't feel my legs."

Chiara frowned, before sighing and got off the horse.

"What are you doing?"

"Hold on," she held up a hand, before drawing another circle in the air with her rapier. This time another one of those crystalline birds popped out, and it fluttered down to land on her hand. Leaning close, she spoke into to, "We dealt with the thing on the road, it was a hydra. It's no longer an issue, but the automata attacked us. I don't know it they're hostile to you, but check before the caravan arrives. We'll head on ahead to Riposa to make sure we don't drag them back to you, but send word if you need us back there."

With that she nodded and raised her hands up, launching the crystal bird into the sky. It flew away back in the direction they came, letting out a caw of shattering glass before it disappeared into the distance.

"We're not heading back to them?" Palmira asked, confused. "But aren't we supposed to be guarding the caravan?"

"We are," she nodded. "But sometimes that means we need to stay away from it so we don't attract more dangers to it. Now, scoot up."

"Huh?" Palmira blinked, before Chiara climbed back up on her horse, but this time behind her, wrapping her arms around her to grab the reigns. "What?!"

"I'm not risking you falling off behind me," she scoffed, shoving her forward a bit. "Now scoot up. I need more space."

Palmira did as she asked, curling in on herself as she did so. She laid Morte across her lap and hunched over, trying to take up as little room as possible, but that only made her more aware of how Chiara was sitting nearly flush with her back on the suddenly too-small horse, and she felt her hair begin catching fire again.

"What the—!?" Chiara leaned back, spluttering. "What are you doing!? Put out your hair!"

Palmira flushed, turning back to glare at her. "It's doing that on its own! I can't stop it!"

"The hell you can't—!?"

The crystal horse snorted, and began trotting down the stone walkways of the aqueduct.

And the two girls on its back argued all the way to Riposa.