Now spectating team: ‘Royal Court of Cimbra’ engaging in quest: ‘Calamity Hydra-Goose’!

Harland and Cimbra were following Challi as she tracked the sparse evidence of the monster’s passing. Mostly, it seemed to be feathers and occasional massive two-metre-long webbed feet footprints in the forest earth.

“What’s a hydra-goose anyway?” asked Harland.

“Who cares, Harl,” Cimbra replied.

“I feel like it has to be strong if it’s worth so many coins. Although, I’ve never heard of Toaken as a currency.”

“I’ve got a proper track on it,” Challi told them. As a Ranger, she had a talent for finding the tracks of any beast, and their group, although reasonably new, had utilised her skills many times to find the monsters they made a job of hunting. They had previously slain a Fire Drake in the north, defeated a Mature Gryphon terrorising the city of Arlsmeadow, and successfully captured a Mirror Basilisk that’d made a nest in the ruins of an ancient city near the town they were based out of, Hekkenfelt.

Harland was fairly sure they were among the foremost experts on fighting monsters. Sure, there were other parties more renowned for their progress into the various dungeons on the continent, but the Royal Court of Cimbra had made quite a name for themselves already. After all, it was this reputation that had seen Earl Sharpee contact them in the first place to slay a strange new monster in this forest within his territory.

Seeing the uncharted town in the middle of the forest had been a surprise, but it had been a fortuitous event, given that they would now be paid twice for bringing justice to this Hydra-Goose.

Challi lifted a hand and unslung her crossbow, with Harland grasping his own Zweihander shortly after. They were close now.

After pushing past some heavy shrubbery, they came out into a clearing of sorts, where a massive pond lay. Its stagnant waters were littered with dead animals: toads, frogs, foxes, small birds, squirrels, rabbits, lizards, and many others that were either so decimated by decay or the feasting of the beast that they were impossible to discern.

Harland moved up in front of Challi. He was a Vanguard after all, so he was the one who always went in first. He hefted his heavy weapon up in front of himself and said a brief prayer to the Lord of Battle, Morrligt. Upon the opposite side of the pond, where the mud met with the grass and moss of the forest, there lay an enormous beast.

“So that’s a hydra-goose?” he mumbled. It looked bizarre, but its size alone made it fearsome.

“I ain’t never seen such a beastie,” Challi said. “Six wings, six legs, three heads?”

“Cimbra, Appraisal?”

“It’s too strong for me to identify it properly.”

“Stronger than the Basilisk?”

Cimbra Lightveil nodded, clutching her bell-staff a bit tighter.

They all shared a glance. “What do we think?” Harland asked.

“We slay it,” Challi answered arrogantly.

“It’s a lot of money,” Cimbra added.

Harland nodded. “We don’t give it a chance to retaliate. Start off with your strongest attacks.”

Challi got on her knees, lifting her crossbow up to her shoulder and sighting down its basic scope. “Critical Ambush,” she said, activating her first augmentation skill. Then she followed it with, “Hunter’s Quarry Sight. Strength Up. Piercing Bolt,” and a litany of other skills.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Elemental Protection,” Cimbra chanted, pinging the bell of her staff lightly and moving her hand across them. “Physical Protection,” she added, repeating the gesture. Then she nodded to Harland and he cast his own skills.

As he moved around the side of the pond through the sparse grass and weeds that grew along its edge, he mumbled: “Strength Up. Sharpen Blade. All Eyes On Me,” then he finished with his ultimate buff: “Morrligt’s Dance of Wroth.”

Power travelled down his body, flooding his mind with hyperfocus and making his muscle turn to unbreakable steel, while his blood felt like scalding lava in his veins. With a single kick from the ground, he strode forward with his Zweihander lifted high above his head, his body moving so fast that he seemed to let off a trail of smoke behind it.

“EXECUTION!” he yelled and chopped his blade through one of the slumbering beast’s three heads.

A jarring vibration shot up through his arms and his blade made a strange woooouaaang sound as it shook from the blunt impact against the impossible-tough feathers on the Hydra-Goose’s neck. It was unthinkable, but his strongest attack, imbued with the strength of many buffs had only managed to slightly ruffle one of the feathers on the Monster’s neck.

As it awoke from the disturbance, it stood up and towered over him by over seven metres. Its necks untangled themselves from each other and it prepared to chomp on him with its toothed beak, but he quickly swung his blade through a series of three follow-up swings, “ONSLAUGHT!”

Again, no real damage was inflicted on the beast, despite each hit striking true, though two feathers did fall from its body where he connected.

A moment later, a bolt with the force of a thunderstrike slammed into the neck of the nearest head, but aside from nudging it slightly, it had similarly no effect and the bolt, which Harland had seen tear their way through steel armour, broke apart into a hundred fragments.

More bolts followed, while Harland continued moving through his repertoire of skills, slashing away at its wings, legs, body, feet, anything that might be a weak-point, but nothing happened. He might as well be fighting with a wet towel in his hands.

Then a pillar of light enveloped the Hydra-Goose and he heard Cimbra yell in the distance:

“Purging Light!”

He was momentarily blinded, but when the light faded half a minute later, the Monster looked no worse for wear.

Harland was about to shout the command to retreat, but then it swung one of its wings at him and he found himself lifted off the ground, flying across the clearing back towards his team.

He regained consciousness momentarily, just in time to see Challi squished underneath a giant webbed foot and Cimbra torn into three separate pieces by the three heads that fought amongst themselves to get the biggest piece.

The last thing he saw was a glow build within the mouth of the central head, and then came the scalding fire that ended his life.

Spectating cancelled due to: Team Elimination

“Deathheim give me strength,” Imu muttered as the Scrying pond cleared and became reflective as a mirror again.

“You were right,” I told him. “It’s too strong.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“But!”

“What?”

“Look at all the stuff we got from their deaths!” I commented, peeking into the vault of the Guild Office. “I’m gonna give these items to three of my Adventurers.”

“You know when I said that it gets tiring when Cores have moral dilemmas? Yeah, I take that back. Please have a slight amount of remorse for getting people brutally murdered…”

“I’m putting up the quest again.”

“You’re not even listening to me…”

Quest: ‘Calamity Hydra-Goose’

Type: Extermination

Required Adventurer Rank: Silver

Reward: 12.500 Copper Toakens

Description: A Hydra-Goose has been harassing Toad Town for months. Locate its lair in or around the forest and slay it. Proof of successful kill required.

Warning: The Hydra-Goose has already slain one team attempting this quest!

“Hm, it requires a higher rank now, and the reward went up,” I commented, annoyed.

“It also has a warning now, huh? I suppose the System isn’t 100% bad…”

“I’m feeling restless.”

“Let’s get back to building,” Imu told me. “Too long without building or being active can be detrimental to a Core, especially the stronger you get.”

“I wanna build the Gentlewhomen’s Club.”

“Hell forbid we actually build something useful first…”