I rolled to the right, barely avoiding the scimitar. It rammed into the dirt where my head was seconds ago, burying itself up to the hilt with such ease I wouldn’t be surprised if it was secretly a lightsaber.

‘What the fuck is THIS now?!’ I frantically cried. Of course, not having a voice box, what I actually did was make a panicked gurgling noise.

Thane pulled his blade free with a flick of his wrist and an annoyed expression. Like my continued survival was nothing more than a mild inconvenience. And I twitched at the sight. He didn’t draw the sword up vertically. He literally lifted it horizontally with his wrist. It tore out of the ground with no more difficulty than one might experience drawing a spoon through pudding.

Wow. I cannot get hit by that. I mean, fuck I know I’m probably more durable than a normal guy, but not that much more durable.

Resolving myself to the inevitable aftermath, I set my feet and opened my maw wide, willing my Hydra Tongue forward into the fray. I let loose a garbled hiss as I did so and Thane quickly drew his blade in front of himself like he was a god damn grandmaster of the blade.

This fucking guy had better not have a final form or some shit.

I strain, every muscle in my body tensing as I await the coming discomfort of the Hydra Tongue, and remembering the ungodly pain the stupid thing forced on me the last time it reared its ugly heads.

There was a comical moment where Thane and I both waited for something to happen. I reacted to the stillness a moment before Thane did, lurching backwards out of the tent and dropping to the ground faster than I would have thought possible.

Also faster than I thought would have been possible was Thane’s strike, his blade raking through the air over my head with such force I could practically feel the vacuum it made as air rushed to fill the cleared space.

The feeling of ignition was still present, so strong it was almost overloading all my other senses, and I realized that if I focused on it I could loosely tell where Thane was even when I couldn’t see him. A technique I was immediately forced to put to use when he followed me.out the hole in his tent he had just made.

I was moving well before I saw him, and was halfway past the next tent over in my mad dash to escape. The entire time I ran, I was inwardly cursing. The stupid hyper murderous appendage I’d taken to calling my Hydra Tongue was certainly fickle, but it usually showed up if I was planning on actually letting it eat something. Hell it usually showed up even when I had no goddamn intention at all of eating something.

I seriously fucking hate this place. Can't trust other people. Fine. Fair. People suck, nothing new. But can’t trust my own body? Fuck you Murderworld. And if there's a God of murderworld fuck him too.

I jumped into a nearby tent as I felt Thane rocketing toward me, and tumbled to stop in front of a completely normal soldier in his nightclothes, his sword and already pointed at me.

Before I could react, the familiar discomfort of my Hydra Tongue reared its ugly head, or rather heads. They launched from my throat like missiles, three distinct heads slamming into three separate parts of the bewildered soldier. His sword fell to the ground in a clatter and almost as fast as they had appeared, the eel like heads ripped the man apart and dragged the parts back down my gullet.

I felt like I was choking to death for a few moments, and then the pain subsided. I paused to make another attempt at calling back my unwanted tenant but too late felt Thane moving.

No. Not moving. Leaping. He was practically directly above me, descending at a pace I’d generally describe as ‘meteoric’.

‘mOvE .’ spoke a voice in my head that I unfortunately recognized. Even more unfortunate, the sudden communication was much more of a distraction than a help and the moment I spend frozen because of it was one moment too long.

Instead of quickly dodging, or running, I instead got through the first half of a bewildered hop to the right. Then the world was torn asunder.

Or at least, the tent, the ground and my left fucking leg were. I didn’t even see what happened - one moment I was in a tent, next I was flailing for balance because I was missing a fuckin leg.

Thane rose from the crouch he’d landed in, a distinct look of smug superiority on his face as he twirled his weapon in a little flourish that looked more habitual than anything else.

‘uSE ThE-’ continued grinding my thoughts to a halt again with how alien it was.

‘Listen, I appreciate that we can talk now and all, but shut the fuck up for a minute.’ I winced, hoping that thinking clearly would work as far as communication went. At the same time I winced, knowing I should probably shoot for a more polite tone when conversing with what was - knowing my luck - probably an eldritch horror or some equally insane bullshit.

Thane was stalking toward me again, clearly on the lookout for any sign I might actually fight back. Give this to him, he didn’t seem likely to fall victim to suicidal overconfidence. I hadn't really hurt him once since this began and he was still treating me like a threat. Hell the only reason he hadn’t shredded me with a horizontal version of that big cutting attack just now was probably because he didn’t want to kill anyone in the adjacent tents.

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‘...tHaT is because he knows what we are.’ the voice hissed at me again - this time quickly twisting itself into an older man's voice that I recognized but couldn’t quite place.

Knowing I couldn’t fight him head on, I let loose the warbling battlecry of my people, and promptly half hopped half crawled into another tent. I was lucky, or rather the soldier halfway through hurriedly donning his armor inside was unlucky. He seemed completely unprepared to see me hobbling towards him and was momentarily stunned as I leapt the remaining distance between us.

Instead of biting him, which my jaws instinctively opened to do, I continued past the man, yanking his sword from its place on his belt a holding it firmly against his neck from behind. I tried to keep my weight off the side of my body that was missing a foot which resulted in leaning heavily on the confused guy I now held hostage.

Thane’s sword entered the room before he did, and he seemed shocked to find me holding random asshole A in place with a sword to his throat when he finally moved into the tent himself.

“You are entirely too smart to be left alone.” complained Thane as he eyed the solder between us who was slowly beginning to shake with fear. I didn’t really think taking a hostage when I knew it would keep me alive longer was ‘too smart’ but I guess they didn’t have day time television and about a million examples of tense situations like this to draw from so-

‘Why do you ignore us. Do you not have quEsTIOns?’ came the voice again. It cracked at the end, devolving back into the same painful primal noise that it had started in. I will never be able to accurately explain the sheer wrongness of that voice. Like a shard of glass being dragged across your skin. Or like someone trying to using the tearing of flash to formulate words.

‘First. Fuck off. If you do that to me one more time I’m going to die and then were both fucked.’ I shuddered trying to formulate a solution to my current slate of problems.

‘Second. Obviously I have questions - but unless you can answer the question of how to survive right now - in this moment - kindly shut the hell up like I told you the f-’ My little conversation was interrupted when Thane casually lifted his sword. Sensing something was wrong I let go of my hostage falling to my back but still somehow suffering a huge gash in my chest. The man I’d been holding hostage literally fell apart, his top and bottom halves falling in opposite directions in a shower of blood I was disgusted to note looked pretty appetizing.

Ofcourse, I was now on my back, missing a leg, bleeding from a chest wound, and so, so, so fucked.

Thane and my Hydra Tongue reacted at practically the same time, and I found the grotesque sensation of vomiting my organs out to be the most comforting thing I’d felt all day. The three eel heads sped out of me to encircle and bite at the arm Thane was holding his sword in. They each slammed their toothy jaws shut on the arm, which shook visibly as Thane tried to lever his arm down to kill me.

I was ending up laying on the ground under swords a lot recently.

With a grunt of effort, Thane lift his other arm to grasp the back of one serpentine neck. Then he began squeezing. The head in his grasp began screeching like a banshee, the sound likely waking the whole camp if it wasn’t already gearing up for a war.

‘dO SomETHInG!’ it cried in my head with a voice like a million babies screaming. I chanced a look at the other heads of the tongue and was terrified to note that they weren’t even breaking skin at this point. They might as well have just been hands holding back that freaky glowing sword.

I could barely think through the fear, and the unrelenting stench of something burning. What had Thane called it? The Spark? With a big capital S and a ‘The’ in front of it and everything.

Something only humans had, but that only monsters could fuel.

Something that only a demon would have both of.

Time felt slow and gelatinous. Like my mind was wading through a river of sludge to reach its final destination. I felt, or rather, groped around inwardly for a second, willing something - anything to happen.

I blinked and found myself in an bleak dark space full of brilliant stars. In the center of that space floated a ring inscribed with dozens of intricate runes spun around an ever growing cloud of pulsating energy. Every pulse illuminated the bleak realm of shadow, and I realized for the first time that it wasn’t empty space. The shadow flowed and moved like ink. It had currents, eddies and flows.

Unsure of what the stuff really was I brought my hovering awareness close to it, and reached a mental finger out to touch it. For a moment nothing happened. And then like the entire expanse had suddenly become magnetically charge and tongue of energy leapt from the ball at the center of my being, and sparked against the inky shadow. Instantly an aurora of color shot across the expanse - and then ignited.

I twitched and realized reality had reasserted itself over my sight. Thane had a deathly serious look on his face as he glared down at me. He was prying the last Hydra Tongue away from his arm, and would have probably skewered me on the spot - but that was when the magic finally kicked in.

I won’t lie here. I would have taken pretty much anything over the result I got. Not because it was bad. Just… uncomfortable. Even acid vomit would have been acceptable really.

But beggars can’t really be choosers, so when my chest buckled and cracked to reveal a grotesque humanoid arm of muscle with no skin, wielding what was probably a piece of my ribcage as a blade I just sort of accepted it.

The arm jabbed forward with its bone skewer, scoring a glancing blow against Thane that didn’t pierce his skin but nevertheless made him wary. He released his hold on the last head of my Hydra Tongue and jumped backwards, coldly examining the new appendage. He didn’t look overly impressed.

Until another hand with another boney blade tore itself from my side. And another. And another. Then came the faces. Two of them. A man’s and a woman’s. I couldn’t see them, because one was on my shoulder, and the other appeared on my back, but since the entire experience felt like there were people inside my body trying to physically hack and slash their way out, I was uncomfortably aware of their shape. And by uncomfortable, I mean, the only thing stopping me from writhing in agony was the legs that started to grow out of my at odd angles. I was literally growing into a freakish ball of limbs and eyes.

A soldier came rushing to Thane’s aid from behind me, and I realized with a start that I could see him from the woman’s face on my back. At the same time, it didn’t feel like my face. A sensation that was born out when, completely without my will, I half shuffled, have jumped backwards, the Hydra Tongue’s wounded neck dragging along the ground behind me. Two boney weapons rammed themselves into the mans collarbones before the mutant appendages holding them pulled them free - directly out of the hapless subordinates torso.

I experimentally willed myself to move, and found that though I didn’t really feel like the limbs were mine I could command them. Thane watched in stunned silence at the entire murderous display, for the first time showing a look of genuine dismay.

‘yeSsSSsS! wE ARe LEgiOn! wE ArE-’ cried the enigmatic voice I’d tentatively decided was whatever controlled my Hydra Tongue before I cut it off.

‘Holy shit your chatty today.’ I thought before freezing in shock. That voice hadn’t been in my head. It had come from both of my hellish extra faces at once, in a single cacophonous chorus.

I considered elaborating on my ‘shut the fuck up’ command but decided to let it go. It wasn’t as distracting coming from the extra mouth as it was bouncing around in my head.

“Round two fucker.” I said.

And was pleasantly surprised when that came out of the extra faces too. Thane was visibly disgusted at the abberant harmony my two voices created, and I laughed my first real laugh since coming to this world.

Hell, I was a grotesque abomination that defied all logic and divinity, but fuck me if I wasn’t going to appreciate having working vocal chords.

Now heres hoping these go away when I turn the magic off.