My dragon’s eye lit up the room with a ferocious aura explosion which came from the hydra, and lot of things happened simultaneously.

  Grabbing Jack by the back of his collar I threw him, like a baseball, back out of the room and down the corridor of the maze we had entered from. I then dropped to the floor like a ton of bricks, covering my head with my arms.

  Rex jumped up to attack the main head but was caught by one of the newly reformed ones which he had only severed a few moments before. It gripped him with its teeth, his blood dripped from his torso, breaking the mirage from the magic scroll Jack had given him and revealing his white fur, drenched with scarlet ichor.

  It shook him vigorously like a dog with a chew toy and I heard myself screaming his name as he went limp in its mouth.

  Bell fired off a few fireballs in quick succession towards the main head but they were intercepted by two of the other heads who tanked the damage and shot a jet of water at her. It hit her squarely in the chest, throwing her to the floor and mixing with the blood which covered it. She slid into the back wall with a hard bang like a protestor being hit by a fire truck’s water cannon.

  Pulling a healing potion out of my inventory and into my hand, I threw it at Rex from my prone position. It smashed on his back and I hoped that it would work. I didn’t know when he had last taken one, or if they could even be used that way, but it was all I could think of in the moment.

  Then it happened.

  A swirling ball of red and black energy cycled in the centre hydra’s mouth. My dragon’s eye went wild, sending shooting pains through my skull, like someone had electrocuted my brain. All the oxygen in the room seemed to get sucked into the ball of energy, I felt the gravitational pull threatening to drag me into it too and I crawled towards the exit as fast as I could.

  Then, it fired.

  A ball of pure, powerful energy shot out of the centre head’s mouth in a beam. It hit the floor behind me and I went flying through the air. The hydra moved its head and the stone floor ripped up like an earthquake as the beam moved across it. As it approached Bell, she scrambled for the exit and was lifted into the air with me.

  Flying, I landed with a crash in a dark corridor, dazed and gasping for breath. My health was almost completely depleted and my HUD flashed red. I couldn’t move, my bones felt like powder and something stabbed into my chest.

  “Kaleb, fuck that’s not good,” Jack’s voice spoke somewhere in the distance. He sounded like he was miles away. “Bell, Jesus. Fuck. Where’s Rex?”

  Rex? Was he not with us? I thought dreamily as my mind struggled to keep up. Oh wait, he was being made into a chew toy. I hope he’s… REX.

  I startled, pulled out of my reverie by the sudden remembrance of Rex’s dilemma. Sitting bolt upright with a sudden gasp, my abdominal muscles contracted hard. My vision was blurred and my health had jumped up by about fifty points. The stabbing pain in my chest had gone, but as I looked down I saw a blood-stained hole in my armour.

  Why hasn’t it repaired itself yet?

  Bell leaned against the wall next to me, she seemed to be conscious but her legs were broken, bones sticking out through the flesh at odd angles. It was hard to tell if she was bleeding from her torso, due to her red cloak, but from the grim expression on Jack’s face I assumed she probably was.

  “Good, you’re finally stabilised,” Jack said in a tone void of all emotion. “Stay here, I’m going to grab Rex. I’ll be right back.”

  I tried to reach out to him, tried to speak, but my voice wouldn’t work and I couldn’t move my arm. Looking down I saw it hanging limply from my side. No protruding bones, but I was pretty sure it was dislocated. They both were.

  Desperately I turned to Bell. Her eyes were closed and I could see the broken bones protruding from her legs moving ever so slowly back into place. With no other option available to me, I dived into my soul view. I needed to heal and meditation was my best option.

  ***

  Marquess Tabitha cackled like an evil witch from one of those children’s stories as the head recruiter watched anxiously.

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  “Brilliant work, just marvellous,” she laughed. “I knew there was no way they could defeat the hydra. What a superb creature, the perfect failsafe really. Those stupid adventurers will die down here just like the rest and I stand to make even more money than we’d originally forecasted.”

  “Y-yes ma’am,” he replied, shuffling his feet as he glanced fearfully over the side at the nobles below. They were chatting happily amongst themselves, placing bets and having a grand old time as the cameras on the screen flashed between the half dead adventuring party and the cowering civilians. They had stayed back at the starting point at the behest of the adventurers, but they’d have to get moving eventually or they’d all starve.

  Besides, there were back up monsters to make them move if needs be.

  “Perhaps we should start bringing in adventurers on purpose,” The Marquess said, mostly to herself as she played with her ringleted hair. “Maybe just the lower ranks for now, a few at a time, just to liven things up.”

  “Wouldn’t that go against the purpose of the maze?” The head recruiter asked.

  “The purpose? Oh yes, cleaning the streets of the rabble, of course. Well then maybe we won’t purposefully bring in adventurers next year. However, accidents do happen, just like this time,” she smiled an evil grin and the head recruiter shuddered.

  ***

  Coming back out of soul view, I opened my eyes. Rex and Jack were sat against the opposite wall to me. When had they returned? I usually didn’t dive that deep. I had no external awareness at all; it was dangerous. Also, where was Panda?

  I dove into my familiars tab on my HUD and it said he was alive. I hadn’t even seen him after the first hydra attack. Did he retreat without me?

  “You’re awake,” Rex said in his deep, growling tones. He looked fine, completely unscathed with the exception of a deep, crusted blood stain on his abdomen.

  “How did you get out?” I asked. My mouth was dry and my throat cracked as I talked. It had been a while since I’d experienced dehydration. Was it because of the extent of my injuries? I pulled some water from my inventory and drank deeply.

  “I got off lightly compared to you,” he replied. “Being bitten wasn’t pleasant, but it did allow me relative safety from that aura attack. That being said I’d likely still have been there if Jack hadn’t shot the neck of the head which bit me. I ran away as soon as I hit the ground.”

  “You went limp,” I replied in a croaky, pained voice. “I thought you were dead.”

  “That was for the hydra’s sake. I had hoped that it would think me a goner and release me. It didn’t, but thankfully someone hit me with a healing potion and that kept me going long enough for Jack to intervene. My vitality is quite high you know, perks of being a melee specialist.” Rex grinned and glanced towards the entrance, “thankfully the beast didn’t pursue us.”

  He gestured lightly in the direction of the room which was barely twenty feet away from us. The lights had gone off, but the opening was right there. Reading my mind, Jack spoke.

  “It doesn’t seem to attack anything outside of that room. It reminds me of a boss battle from a video game, certainly not how monsters behave in the wild.”

  “It’s not a real monster,” I replied croakily. “The notification said it was created and not natural. Maybe it’s being controlled by the Marquess and her people.”

  He nodded.

  I felt something stir next to me and I looked towards it. Bell’s eyes opened slowly; her head rested on my shoulder. Her legs seemed healed but she looked exhausted, exactly the same as I felt.

  “How long have I been out?” She asked in an uncharacteristically serious tone.

  “A few hours,” Jack replied.

  “What’s the plan?” She asked, looking specifically at me.

  “I don’t know yet, I’m working on an idea though. We need to beat that thing or we’ll be trapped in here but... Has anyone seen Panda?”

  Looking between themselves, everyone shook their heads. Rex was the only one to speak. “I don’t think I’ve seen him since we first entered that room. He wasn’t caught up in the aura attack was he?”

  “I don’t think so, the familiars tab in my interface says he’s alive.”

  “Odd.”

  I nodded and opened up my messaging tab.

  Kaleb: Panda, where are you?

  Panda: I’m trapped. Can’t move.

  Kaleb: What do you mean, where are you?

  Panda: I’m stuck under the hydra.

  Kaleb: How did that happen?

  Panda: I rolled out of the way of that first attack and the fat bastard sat on me. It doesn’t actually weight all that much so I’m alright, but I can’t move without alerting it to my presence.

  Kaleb: Alright, sit tight. We’ll hatch a plan and come for you.

  Panda: Sit tight? Your bedside manner needs some work, kid.

  Kaleb: You’re not dying you’re just… in a bad situation.

  Panda: That’s putting it mildly, I’ve become a cushion to this monstrosity! Pandas are an endangered species, making me into a pillow is unconscionable.

  Exiting the chat I turned to the others. “He’s ok, he’s stuck underneath the hydra.” My mind was working in overdrive as I continued to formulate a plan. We needed to get to him before the beast realised he was there.

  “How did that happen?” Bell asked, her voice sounded concerned at first but then she seemed to be suppressing laughter.

  I relayed what he had told me in the chat.

  “That’s some dominatrix level shit right there,” Bell said with a quivering smile. “We’d better go and save him.”

  She moved to stand but I pulled her back down by the arm.

  “Not yet, we need a plan first.”

  “Do you have any ideas?” Jack asked, “because I’m fresh out. Unless we can all take out two heads, with Rex taking out three, and we can do it simultaneously, I don’t see how we’re going to beat that thing.”

  “Well, there might be one way,” I said looking towards Bell with a sly smile on my lips. “Did you ever hear they story of how Hercules defeated the hydra?”