The Hydra raised a single sinuous neck to behold the surroundings. A verdant green forest surrounded it. Towering black trees erupted from the earth in all directions, shading the environment with their prickly fronds. Looking lower, a dirty green grass sprouted from the ground and rose halfway up the hydra's chest.

The Hydra stumbled to its four stumpy feet, getting used to the serpentine balance between its long tail and neck. It felt a thrumming in its heart as its amalgamated soul settled more firmly into the corporeal. Threads of shivering strangeness tickled across the hydra's thick hide, dancing and eventually coalescing into a single spot on its chest.

The brand on its chest sizzled. The hydra opened its mouth in a feral snarl as the Brand of Discord expanded. It resonated with a single facet of the conglomerated soul, carving bleeding lines that stung and burned. Two bleeding runes took shape with agonizing slowness.

The first: Control.

The second: Status.

The hydra knew no language, and yet it instinctively comprehended these runes. The brand was indelibly carved directly onto the hydra's soul. Sure, it had a physical component, but there was no chance that the single waking soul wouldn't understand how it worked.

The Runes weren't mere symbols of a mortal language. They were fundamental symbols of reality. A piece of infinite.

God Runes.

The hydra gingerly reached for the brand with its mind, drew out the power within, and directed it at a nearby tree.

//Control Status//

A holographic blue box manifested before the tree. The hydra flexed its new skill, and the blue square rose toward the sky. Then it fell, spinning around playfully before settling before the hydra.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Letters and words were written on the box. They spoke of a tree. A [[Blackburr Spire]]. Hard. Immensely Tough. And yet stationary. The tree had no skills that mattered. Only sharp, hooked leaves that had given the monolith its namesake.

The Hydra perused this new information but ultimately dismissed it. The tree was of no danger to it.

Instead, the hydra turned its attention outward. It raised its sinuous neck as high as it possibly could take in the world around it. The [[Forest]] was green and expansive, with numerous clicking chirps of invisible animals high in the canopy. Sticks and stones covered the ground. In places, flowers struggled to force their way through the dense, root-covered soil. Sometimes, they succeeded. Mostly, they failed. It lent the forest a monochrome coloring. Not depressing...more...ponderous.

Where the elements had shifted the topsoil, the hydra could see black holes leading into a [[Darkness Below]]. It was as if one of the [[Blackburr Spire]] had vanished, leaving voids where its roots had existed before. Strange...But everything was strange to a newborn soul.

Turning toward the glimmering star illuminating the sky, the wary hydra could see two distant phenomena. The [[City]] of stone walls and tiled roofs was distinctly visible at the base of an expansive [[Mountain Range]].

This world was vast.

A crunch of a hoof alerted the hydra to a new entity. A creature. It was covered in dark brown fur with splotches of sickly red. Its four legs were capped in sharp, split hooves. A thick, powerful neck supported a set of branching antlers atop a shrewd face. Between which was a thick bony plate that granted the creature a perpetual frown.

Oh. and it was massive. Easily ten times as tall as the small nascent hydra.

Said hydra froze as the giant creature turned its attention toward it. On instinct, the hydra activated its ability.

//Control Status//

[[Briarblood Charger]]. A common carnivore. Known for its ability to trap its prey between its antlers and drain them of lifeforce. It is tough and reasonably fast, though its hide is notoriously fragile to puncture attacks.

Before the hydra could even fully process that information. The monster charged through the hovering hologram with its horns directed at the young hydra.

What do you do?

[[Action: lets slow it down by changing it's status from "and reasonably fast" to "and reasonably slow", get away from it but stay within sight like on the other side of a tree or two, then try to change it's desire to attack me as in "a common carnivore" to "a common herbivore"]]