Chapter 46: Heads

We get through the rat maze and the Bifork boss fight with overwhelming gunfire. At this point we're all much stronger than we were even when we started the dungeon.

While attempting to make Barbatos useful, I hit level 30 of Synergist and I got a new ability.

Double Down - Choose one of your subclass abilities and enhance its effects.

Most of my subclass abilities can't be upgraded at all. So I'm left with two real options.

Barrage Caster - You focus on small spells that can be used in quick succession. Basic attack spells cost 1 AP less, to a minimum of 1 AP.

Upgraded: Onslaught Caster - The AP reduction is instead 50%, with no minimum AP cost. Costs may now include decimal places.

Burning Chimerablood Sorcerer - Your fire spell damage increases by 25%. While in negative AP your body takes on aspects of the elemental magic you use.

Upgraded: Frost Burn Chimerablood Sorcerer - Ice spell damage also increases by 25%.

Fascinating. Maybe the system doesn't want to stack bonuses too high on a single element, or maybe the Sorcerer is supposed to be more multifaceted? I do have three ice spells, so sure, why not? I'm now a level 3 Frost Burn Chimerablood Sorcerer. Woo.

We make our way through to the 4th floor and it feels... Different.

“These used to be smaller,” Jose points at the clothes piles of the 4th floor. They used to be 15 to 30 feet tall. Now they're 30 to maybe 50 feet tall. The 50 footers hit the ceiling making them more pillars than hills.

I check my radar and I detect something in the closest clothes dune. But there's only one thing in there. “I think this place probably changed the most because we spent the most time here,” I say. “Those dunes used to have a dozen or more shoe snakes in them each, but now I'm only picking up-” I cast Ping quickly to check other dunes. “Yeah there's only one monster per dune in there. And I think it's big.”

My team exchange looks, take deep breaths, then lock and load weapons. They're ready for this. They're ready for anything.

Except for Barbatos. She's not ready for anything. I put her down and she curls up on a pile of socks and immediately goes to sleep.

Static Snap worked before so I'll give it another shot. It doesn't, however, work with my knives so I get five fingers sparking and run towards the nearest clothes dune. I'm about 10 feet from the dune when I hear multiple roars and the dune explodes from within, sending clothes in every direction.

A five headed snake is inside the clothes dune. It is about 20 feet tall, each head made of a dozen shoes. Each individual head is about as big as the boss shoe snake from our last visit. This particular shoe snake's heads are all made of one type of red high heels, so it looks especially pointy. I swipe at the clothes pile and the Static Snaps discharge but clearly do nothing.

Shoe Hydra. You remember how Hercules killed this thing, right?

Uh, no, I don't.

“Cut off ze heads and then treat ze necks with fire!” comes Gwen's analysis from behind me. This is all moot because in a flash I become a snack for the high heel Hydra. It bites into my midsection and I feel high heels punch into my guts. I've been working on my Toughness stat so this won't kill me. I swing my SCAR around and fire into the fleshy neck. It bleeds and the monster releases me.

“Ignore the shoe parts!” I yell. “Hit the snake flesh!” I get on my feet and dash a short distance away.

Once I'm clear my team opens up on the beast. A hundred rounds instantly burst open the mythical snake's exposed belly and the thing collapses.

Grant comes over and does an invocation that seals up my wounds. Afterwards, he says “You know my medical training isn't wasted. These spells let me mend flesh but don't tell me the best way to do it. I think having at least some medical knowledge is essential for healing magic.” He stops typing, thinks a minute, then continues. “Otherwise you could end up sealing the surface wound but ignore bleeding inside.”

I grimace. “Then I'm glad you're on the team, buddy.” He smiles and I notice the scars on his face are much smaller than they used to be. They were ragged and gross. Now they look like clean straight lines. It's actually pretty badass now. “Hey, uh quick question,” and I whisper the next part, “you been putting points into Charisma?”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

He nods and types. “Charisma just treats your skin conditions, basically. I was hoping they'd help. My wife divorced me a couple years ago, so I'm single again.”

“Oh shit man, I'm so sorry.”

“Not your fault.” I look away guiltily and he types again. “I mean it, not your fault. None of it.” He taps my shoulder with the back of his fist and I look up at him. He doesn't blame me for R-32. Maybe... Maybe I shouldn't blame myself anymore either.

I take a deep breath inside my brightly lit former workplace. The air is a cool 78 degrees. The nearby clothes are splattered with Hydra blood. And I'm here with comrades.

The dozens of roars that break the quiet moment shocks us. We all look around and raise weapons. Every damn clothes dune is collapsing all at once, each one disgorging its hydra. All of the hydras are making their ways to us. We open fire.

The first five hydras fall to gunfire, but then they're on us. The sudden influx of melee oriented monsters on our gun toting squad is immediately disastrous. I pull my knives and start torching everything nearby. It's not enough. I dodge out of the way as a Hydra tries to snap me in half with a bite. I see Jose leap high, but not high enough. He shoots an electric bolt down a hydra mouth and the thing drops but another hydra snaps onto his fake leg and tears the prosthetic off.

I hear a scream and turn to see Gwen with her legs in the mouth of a work boots hydra and another of its heads about to clamp around her upper body. I spin my knives around and torch that head, then spray the body with fire for good measure.

Henry and Odysseus are back to back firing relentlessly at hydra heads that are closing in on them. They take down one hydra just for another to take its place. Gallup pulls the pins on two of his smoke grenades and chucks them away. They cover the path the hydras are taking to get to us. None come through the smoke for a blessed few seconds as they're disoriented.

“Retreat!” I yell over the din. Jose is on his back, hip firing the rifle while charging electro shots in his pistol. I run over to him and throw him over my shoulder. He's facing behind me and keeps firing. “Diaz, get Gwen!”

I'm running for the stairs. A hydra pulls up in front of me and rears back its heads to attack. My knives bury themselves in three of the reptile's necks and my Flame Thrower fires inside of it, coming from the tips of my knives. I see the hydra glow from the inside out and smoke comes from all of its heads as it collapses. I make it to the door to the stairwell and throw Jose inside. He spins himself around so he can still shoot from the open doorway.

I head back out and immediately see a hydra coming towards our only escape route. I hear a human roar and a glowing axe blade chops off the central head of the hydra. The head falls and Diaz jumps through the empty space, briefly lands on the neck stump, then leaps off to the doorway. She's got a screaming Gwen attached to her, wrapping her arms around the badass woman's waist.

I torch the stump and am rewarded as the other heads writhe in agony and that hydra retreats. From the right side I see Grant and Gallup running over, their guns empty and dropped behind them. A hydra comes in from their right and snaps at them. I think they're okay, the bite missed. Then I notice Henry's right arm is just gone. They keep running. I use Flame Thrower to ward off the other hydras, my AP hits zero and I gain flame devil horns. That's when I really go at the damn creatures. Two hydras closing in get fully immolated. The one that ate Henry's arm gets two heads burned off, but it slithers away.

Henry falls to a knee as the spurting blood leaves him drained. I send a knife over to him and shout, “hold on to it!” He grabs the knife handle with his left and I pull. The force of my pull drags him up and forward until he recovers his feet and runs. Gwen gets shoved inside by Diaz, who forms her block shield and stands next to me. I try to torch as much of the clothes around us as possible, the heat hopefully keeping the hydras back. Henry and Odysseus finally make it to safety and we all scramble down the stairs, away from the door to the 4th floor.

We tumble out of the stairs, into the 3rd floor loading zone. We drag each other to the 3rd floor safe room. The former new employee training room is quickly stained with blood as we pull the bleeding Henry onto a folding table. Gwen's legs are messed up. Jose is missing a prosthetic but is mostly fine. I'm bleeding but can ignore it.

Grant gets to work immediately and uses a bandage to stop Henry's bleeding. Then he uses an incantation to seal the veins and muscles off, and the bleeding stops. It's still a gory stump. He turns to Gwen, whose legs are mangled. He uses a different incantation as he grabs a clearly broken leg and snaps it back into place. Gwen screams. He didn't even give her a warning. He goes to grab her other leg and she pulls her Sig Sauer on him.

We all freeze. The sound of six soldiers breathing heavily is the only noise in the room. Gwen's pistol hand shakes and she lowers the gun. She wipes away tears and cries. “Just do it quickly,” she says.

Odysseus nods and I hear the bone snap into place over the digital incantation. Then Odysseus switches to a different incantation which he plays at half speed. “We seek the respite of divine mercy.” I feel tension slip away and my cuts and stab wounds heal a bit.

Mercy. I wonder what she's doing now. I look up as I hear laughter. It's Henry, improbably. Barbatos is on top of his chest and licking his chin. He laughs and I smile. We're all alive. We're all alive. We are going to make it out of this damn dungeon alive. We are all-

“Oh shit!” says our future president as flesh begins to pull and stretch around his stump. The muscle extends and veins reach out to grab newly growing flesh. My cat's paws are glowing and it looks at the body horror with flat curiosity. The flesh stitches itself into an upper arm, then continues to swirl and stretch and twist until a limp, boneless arm flops by Henry's side. Then he screams and we hear the clicking of bones moving into place and his arm gains its proper shape.

He looks down at the new arm. It's a different color than the rest of his dark skin. It's... A little bit orange tinted. The orange fuzzball herself jumps down off Henry, goes to a nearby trashcan, jumps inside and I hear the cat peeing on some old paperwork.

Henry speaks for all of us, and for many issues when he asks “WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?”