NOVEL NEXT Chapter 25: The Developing Core
“Get that damn thing away from me!” screams the man, kicking his leg out and down in a frenzy as he clambers to the top of a pole. His boot strikes the side of a massively scaled face, snapping after him from the end of a long neck. He yelps in terror, drawing his body up and around the top of the pole with quite remarkable balance and body strength just in the instant before another massive, yellow-fanged maw snaps shut where he was a second ago as one of the hydra’s other heads misses.
“Take it easy!” calls a human woman down below, laughing at him. “It’s just a little hydra. He doesn’t mean bad!” she explains, resting a hand on the side of the three ton mass of meat and scales that is bashing its body against the pole, starting to break it over. “Isn’t that right?” she asks in a babying voice, her fingers scratching the side of the hydra. One of its heads lowers down toward her, nuzzling her side. She laughs, scratching it above its eyes. “Yes. Who’s my little baby boy?” she asks through puckered lips in a high-pitched voice. The hydra rumbles in a loud purr, nuzzling her with one head as the others all lunge and snap after the man on the pole. “It’s you! Yes, it’s you!” she praises.
“I think your pet has aggression problems,” remarks a voice from the side, from a bystander looking over the fence, which is really more of a suggestive architectural feature for a monster of this size than a real hindrance.
She narrows her eyes, looking at the viewer. “Excuse me?” she asks. “Jubbles is an angel,” she remarks, her hand rubbing the head.
“It’s a hydra. They’re naturally aggressive,” says the man by the fence. “It’s in its blood. It eats people,” he remarks plainly.
“Wow,” she says incredulously, rolling her eyes. “You’re one of those types, huh?” She waves him off. “Why don’t you go read a book sometime and educate yourself?” asks the caretaker. “Hydras are beautiful, peaceful animals that are greatly misunderstood by society,” she explains, rubbing the scaled, rumbling head. “People are only afraid of them because they only ever hear over-exaggerated stories about hydras with bad owners.”
— The man on top of the pole screams as the wooden beam snaps and begins to fall over as the hydra’s other heads finish chewing through it. Luckily for him, he’s catapulted away by the momentum of the motion and instead splats into a stone wall.
A team of fairies flies by, collecting the body and carrying it off to the medical station for resurrection.
“But they’re really beautiful, gentle animals,” she explains, as the other heads lower themselves down, pushing each other out of the way to get her attention. “Mommy’s big baby is ready for his big day in the arena, aren’t you?” she asks in her babying voice. The hydra rumbles. "Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” she exclaims, grabbing one of their faces and pinching it.
The man by the fence watches, raising an eyebrow.
One of the hydra’s heads lashes out toward him, barely reaching the fence and causing him to dive out of the way.
“No,” says a tired voice. “I can’t do that,” explains a ragged, overworked sorceress. Her head is leaned down on her hand, her elbow resting on the table. Her tired eyes look so heavy that they almost seem to be sagging with the angle of her face. “It’s not within the ethical guidelines of the arena. Children watch the games, remember?” She waves him away, as if she had answered this question a dozen times already today. “Why not just get a fire enchantment or -”
“I don’t want a fire enchantment!” replies the man across from the L-shaped series of tables she’s sitting behind, which are covered in all manner of books, crystals, and implements of the enchanting trade. He points to the side. “Every two-bit schmuck has one of those already,” he explains. “I need something that’ll help me stand out more for the crowd.”
She sighs a heavy, long, tired sigh. “Ice?” she asks. “Every person who thinks they’re too unique for fire gets ice magic.”
He slams his hands on the table, the crystals rattling. Her heavy face, however, remains as droopy and stuck in unimpressed exhaustion as ever. “I’ll pay double,” he barks.
Slowly, the sorceress lifts an arm, not bothering to lift her head from her other palm. Her free finger, not even having the energy to bend itself straight, points at a sheet of paper nailed to the shelf next to them. “Price and enchantment list are fixed,” she explains. “We don’t do special requests. Fire or ice, what’s it gonna be?”
“Neither!” barks the man. “I want -”
She groans.
“- Hey! Can we keep it moving?” interrupts a voice from behind the current customer, who turns his head around, looking back at the line behind him of close to ten people, who are all waiting in a varied state of agitation. “Just get the damn standard weapon enchantment like the rest of us,” he says.
The customer at the front of the line plants his hands on his hips. “That’s the point,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “I’m not like the rest you,” he explains, his eyes wandering the line behind him. “And the people of the colosseum have a right to s -”
“- Next!” calls an annoyed, tired voice from behind the counter, the sorceress almost seeming offended in her exhausted tone that she had to use the last of her energy to raise her voice.
A magical bubble surrounds the bothersome customer, appearing out of nowhere. Like a soap bubble, it rises up into the air, taking him with it. The man fusses and fights, screaming in outrage as a pair of tired eyes watch him float away, collecting up at the ceiling together with the others who had been causing problems today. The man-filled bubble sticks to the roof, together with a dozen others.
She looks back down, sighing as the line moves forward. “Thanks,” says the next customer, placing his weapon down. “So I was wondering if you could do something dif-”
The sorceress points to the list, sighing, her head and body sagging lower in her seat than before.
“It will summon a cockatrice?” asks the hero, rubbing his chin.
The skeleton nods, sliding a palm-sized stone tablet his way. It’s cut into the shape of an octagon, and engraved into the surface on one side is a complicated magical sigil. The other side has an artistic depiction of a large, bird-like monster that vaguely resembles a rooster.
A creaky, groaning voice comes from the breathy words of the skeleton behind the counter, which is separated from the public by a row of iron bars. “Last in stock,” it explains, tapping the coin with a bony finger. “Five points.”
A priestess standing next to him nods. “It could be very useful, hero,” she says. “Cockatrices have petrifying powers,” explains the woman, nodding. The swarm of priestesses standing around him all nod.
“They’re very rare monsters in the wild,” says one, adjusting her vision aid.
“Very powerful! I’ve heard that they hunt small dragons,” remarks another.
All around him, the gaggle of bodies talks and murmurs as he thinks. The hero sighs. “I shouldn’t spend my points,” he says. “I need to get out before she does,” he explains, turning his head to look at the demon-queen, who is sitting in the arena quarters on a throne made out of a collection of chairs, stolen from the mess-hall. Down below her cultists, who have been traveling the world to serve under her, hush this way and that.
“But maybe it will help you get out quicker if it lets you win a fight,” suggests one of them from behind him. The others murmur in agreement, looking at each other. “And five points isn’t a lot.”
“Agreed,” says another one. “Five points is one slow day,” she explains, the others nodding in fervent agreement.
He thinks about it for a moment, unaware of the sharkish eyes watching him from all sides. After a second, he sighs and shakes his head, sliding the coin back to the vendor. “I shouldn’t,” he relents.
“— I’ll buy it for you!” chimes in a voice from next to him, reaching for the coin. The others of the group shoot her a truly venomous look that could cut the soul of an aware person into ribbons.
“No,” says the hero, grabbing her wrist. He looks down at her and shakes his head. “You shouldn’t suffer a minute longer in this place because of me,” he says, staring into her eyes. “I won’t allow it.”
“…Hero…” she mutters quietly, looking at him.
At this point, the others around her are ready to buy knives from the skeleton on the spot.
The hero looks back toward the skeleton. “I’ll take it then,” he says, pulling the coin toward himself with a finger and out from the skeleton’s. “Before someone else makes a mistake on my behalf.”
The bony figure nods, whispering in a raspy voice. “The pact is sealed,” it hisses as the hero takes the coin, examining it.
The hero tucks the coin away. “Excuse me,” he says to the priestesses. “I need to return to my training now,” he explains. “Thank you for your time.”
They stand there, watching him walk away by himself.
After he’s out of earshot, a few of them sigh in relief. “…That was close,” says one of them.
“He almost didn’t buy it,” mutters another.
One of them holds her face. “I just can’t stand the thought of him leaving,” she sighs, the others nodding. This is their collective scheme to keep the hero around longer so that they can take their shots at being the one to win him over. While there is certainly a rivalry amongst them all, there is a collective agreement amongst the priestesses that they’ll have to work together for one of them to make it.
“We bought ourselves another day today, sisters,” says the priestess, who had feigned to buy the coin. She knew that he wouldn’t let her do so to begin with. “It’s going to be me, though,” she explains, waving her fingers at them. “He touched my hand. You saw it.” She smiles. “You may as well quit now!” beams the priestess.
“Crazy snake,” hisses one of them at her from the side as the prior priestess holds the spot on her palm that the hero had touched for a second against her own face.
“This isn’t over yet,” explains the one with the seeing-aid. “Sisters. Let’s go,” she explains. “He’s training for the next fifty-nine minutes and thirty-two seconds before going to meditate.” She nods, scribbling in the dust on the floor as they kneel down, making a complicated battle-plan. She draws a line through the impromptu map of the quarters. “We’ll create a scene and intercept him here when he changes events,” she explains, tapping a spot on the ground.
“Let’s let a monster loose!” suggests one of them. “So he can save us!”
“I'm going to try to smell his hair today!” says one of them.
“We could pick a fight with the cultists?” suggests another one, raising a hand.
The others nod, and they excitedly scheme away, fighting their own battle within the confines of the underground colosseum.