Hydra Zero strode over to the arrangement of tables, desks and shelves that formed the masters’ work area and looked around. He was not sure where to begin. Most of the items that covered the various surfaces were papers, books and the various detritus that they used in their spell casting. In short they were completely useless to him. He needed food. He strode over to the cupboard where he had seen the masters retrieve their meals. He threw it open and frowned. It was empty. Where were the breads, cheeses and meats that he knew occupied this particular cupboard? With a growl of disappointment, Hydra Zero closed the cupboard doors and stepped back. Oh well, he would look for something else.

Hydra Zero stepped back and eyed the desks where the masters had spent hours poring over books. A gleam entered his golden reptilian eyes as they landed on the drawers of one desk. He felt the first stirring of excitement as he moved over and opened the second drawer down on the left. Inside he found two scrolls bound in silver string and a silver canister. Hydra Zero had seen similar canisters before. The masters often used these canisters to store their more important scrolls.

Hydra Zero frowned. He was not sure which of these was the rare and valuable healing scroll. He pulled one out and hesitated as he fingered one of the silver strings. His understanding as to how magic scrolls worked was limited. He had seen the masters simply open the parchments and the magic would activate. Which meant that he would be wasting them if he opened them now. Besides he had no idea which of the scrolls was the healing scroll or if they all were healing scrolls. What if one ended up being a scroll of fireball that detonated when he opened it? That would be a serious problem for him. After a moment of deliberation, Hydra Zero scoop both scrolls and the canister up and tucked them into his newly acquired bag.

As he did, something cold and wet greeted his fingers. Startled Hydra Zero yanked his hand out. The bag he had slung over his shoulder began to squirm and he heard little snuffling sounds coming from it with the occasional yip. Cautiously, Hydra Zero opened the bag and peered in. A tiny jet black bark clambered out and unceremoniously plopped onto the ground. With a happy bark it sauntered up to Hydra Zero’s brown leather boots and began to sniff them as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

Hydra Zero froze in place and eyed the pup with suspicion. It was only about a foot tall and had a body shape and face reminiscent of the wolf he had fought earlier. Hydra Zero felt that it would be a simple thing to kick its nose with one foot to distract it long enough for him to set up for a more powerful kick that could launch it across the vast cavern. After that he could draw the new scimitar and finish the job. Two things held him back from that course of action. First the dog showed no signs of hostility, only an intense curiosity with his boots and now pant legs. Second, its fur had the same color and feel and the black furred bag that Hydra Zero had found earlier. That clearly indicated a connection.

Hesitantly, Hydra Zero knelt slowly down and reached out to stroke the black fur. The dog’s black coat was warm, long and luxurious as Hydra Zero’s rough and calloused hands glided along the creature's spine. The dog’s focus of attention instantly shifted from Hydra Zero’s boot to the offending limb. Hydra Zero froze as the cold, wet nose snuffled up and down the length of his hand. This must be what I felt earlier when I reached into the bag, Hydra Zero thought to himself. Slowly the small dog began to sniff along the length of Hydra Zero’s arms and paused at a small clump of white fur that had been caught in a buckle of his armor.

The sight of the white fur prompted Hydra Zero to glance over at the magic circle where he had killed the wolf earlier. With a frown, he realized that the corpse of the wolf was no longer anywhere to be seen. The masters had probably removed it during his absence. A small scratching sound drew Hydra Zero’s attention. The dog had abandoned its examination and was now clawing at the bottom most of the desk drawers. Hydra Zero leaned over, opened it and was promptly blasted back by a bolt of lightning.

Hydra Zero felt every single one his muscles spasm uncontrollably while his lungs and heart stopped working. His vision was gone, obliterated by the flash of the lightning spell and his ears rang from the sound. With an internal sigh, he lay on the cold stone and waited for his body to repair itself. It would probably take a minute, lightning magic tended to linger. That was annoying, but at least it was not a fireball spell.

After a while he felt sensations returning and something cold was pressed into his eye. Then something warm and wet scraped across the still sensitive skin of his face. Hydra Zero flinched slightly and officially moved the dog from the unknown threat category to the probably not a threat category. After all, it had not tried to eat him while he had been helpless and that was generally a good indication. With a groan Hydra Zero sat up and took stock of his situation. The lightning bolt had burned a hole in his leather chest piece and the flesh beneath was an angry red. He watched as the skin slowly regained its normal shade of yellow and small patches of black scales began to pop up across the rapidly healing wound.

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Standing up, Hydra Zero turned back to the offending drawer. It was open now and he could now see a faded glyph etched into the top of the drawer so that it was only visible once the drawer was. Approaching cautiously, Hydra Zero peered into the drawer. Three pouches lay within. Hydra Zero twisted his head so he could see the ceiling of the open drawer. There he found a glowing rune that matched the rune on the top of the drawer that had hurled the deadly lightning bolt at him. When the drawer was closed the two identical runes would be perfectly aligned. The lightning bolt trap had evidently been triggered when the connection between the two runes had been broken.

With a snarl of annoyance Hydra Zero snatched one of the pouches out of the drawer. He tugged it open and peered in. For the briefest moment he saw something clear, white and crystalline. Then he fell backward onto the cavern’s cold, stone floor, howling in shock and pain. Hydra Zero desperately clawed at the long shard of ice that had penetrated clear through his left eye and into his brain. For nearly a minute Hydra Zero tried uselessly to pull the ice shard from his eye socket. The ice was slippery on its own and was only made more so as it was coated by Hydra Zero’s blood. Fortunately, his blood slowly dissolved the projectile and it soon slid free from the wound on its own.

Hydra Zero dragged himself up off the ground and felt relief as he felt his healing ability repairing the damage. To anyone else, an ice shard to the brain would have been fatal, just like the lightning bolt should have been. Once again, Hydra Zero thanked the Creator that it had not been a fireball.

He reached out and tried to grab the ice throwing pouch off the ground where he had dropped it. He missed anc heard a snort from off to one side. Hydra Zero turned and glared at the small black canine.

“You try grabbing something using only one eye,” Hydra Zero snapped at the mutt, “It throws off your depth perception.”

Hydra Zero’s second grab was successful and he grinned triumphantly.

“Actually you should just try grabbing anything,” Hydra Zero said slyly, “Let’s see how far you get without thumbs.”

The mutt scratched idly at a spot on its neck, completely unfazed by the sense of superiority that Hydra Zero felt toward it. Hydra Zero sighed at the ineffectiveness of his taunt and turned his attention to the ice pouch. He resisted the urge to scratch at his left eye as he felt it regenerate and sight blurrily returned to it. Cautiously, Hydra Zero peered into the pouch. The lightning bolt had only struck once and Hydra Zero hoped the same would be true of the ice shard trap.

With trepidation, Hydra Zero once more peered into the ice pouch and felt a sinking feeling. There was nothing inside. He stared and then desperately used two fingers to feel around inside and froze. His fingers had disappeared. He could still feel and move them around but they were no longer visible. Hydra Zero pulled them out of the pouch and they reappeared. He flexed them experimentally. They felt fine, if a little cold, like they had been immersed in the chilled pool at the back of the cavern, only they were not wet.

With more confidence, Hydra Zero reached once more into the pouch. The drawstrings on the pouch seemed to stretch as he managed to fit his entire hand into the pouch and he soon found his arm up to shoulder blindly reaching around a cold space that he felt no end to. Then his fingers found something cold, round and somewhat soft. Gripping it, Hydra Zero withdrew his arm. To his delight he found that he was holding a small round of cheese the size of his palm. His hunger had been creeping back after the lightning bolt and had returned with a vengeance after the ice shard.

The cheese promptly vanished into his belly then Hydra Zero was searching the ice pouch once more. He found four more rounds of cheese and quickly devoured them. With the worst of his hunger taken care of Hydra Zero turned his focus to the two remaining pouches. He pulled them out of the drawer and eyed them suspiciously. They were probably trapped like the drawer and the ice pouch. The problem was that Hydra Zero had no idea what kind of traps they had.

So far he had been lucky. The first two traps were painful and would have been deadly to most of the other humanoid races. Only his powerful regenerative abilities allowed him to shrug off the spells’ effects. Despite that advantage he knew there was magic out there that could truly hurt him. Even if he got lucky and neither of the pouches were trapped with one of those types of spells, the regenerative process was energy intensive and Hydra Zero did not know how much food was stored in the ice pouch. If he consumed it all now regenerating from these traps spells it could be problematic when he tried to leave.

There were supposed to be cities outside somewhere but Hydra Zero had no idea where or how far they might be. They could be a day or two away if he was unfortunate. He might be able to find something to hunt for his food. A deer would probably keep him fed for a couple days, provided he could catch it. Hydra Zero frowned as he realized that he only had his scimitar and a shield. Neither would be very effective for hunting and he had no idea where the practice weapons were kept. The masters had simply seemed to summon them from thin air. They were probably stored somewhere magical.

Hydra Zero’s eyes narrowed. Now that he thought about it the weapons were likely in one of the two unopened pouches. Which just brought him back to his dilemma. Did he risk opening the pouches or just leave them be? He hissed quietly to himself as he debated internally with himself. Off to one side, Mutt yawned and stretched out on the cool stone floor to take a nap.