Quest For Atonement (Closed For BlondeAmbition4RP)

[BlondeAmbition4RP]

As the pillar she was standing on had lowered and locked down into place within the floor and the green mist had risen and begun to swirl before her, Myrina had drawn her weapons and crouched down into a defensive stance to prepare herself for whatever it was that would appear from it. Like Lucian, she'd guessed that another beast like the Minotaur was about to appear. Unlike before however, there was now no where to run. Their only choice would be to fight, and whatever it was she was determined that she would be ready!

Or at least she'd thought she would be.

As the hydra appeared the sight was fearful and imposing, yes, but as it had opened it's eyes she had suddenly felt a wave of fear like nothing she had ever experienced wash over her, freezing her into place like a statue with her raw terror. As the creatures heads twisted and turned, its eyes focusing in on her standing before it, the feeling only intensified. She had not been expecting such an aura and she had no defense against it, her eyes staring wide at the beast as it arched its head and she saw the fire rising up in its throats. She realized what was about to happen, but it was already too late.

This was it... this was the end.

Then suddenly she felt something crashing into her, pushing her out of the way of the blast just in the nick of time, the air growing hot in the room as she heard the fiery blast and was sent rolling across the floor, her eyes looking up to find Lucian on top of her, but only for a moment before he was bolting up, swearing as he removed his flaming cloak and charged at the beast.

She watched on in terror as he fought with the beast, her breathing quickened and her brow breaking forth with beads of sweat. She felt as if in a trance, watching him as he fought and hearing his shouts to her as if through a long tunnel, the aura of fear gripping her and keeping her from moving to his aid.

Then suddenly he was darting back towards her, right before her again, his clear blue eyes pleading as they looked into hers.

"I can't do this alone Myrina! I need your help!"

Somehow his words broke through the aura, reaching through to her mind for just long enough for her to push back against the fear. She had to try and fight it! She had to help him!

Nodding, she rose quickly from the ground, the fear still evident in her eyes but she was resisting it now, trying to keep it at bay as she looked at the hydra, tried to form a plan of attack. It's form was not so different from a dragon's, and Lucian had said he and his men had managed to kill one before...

"How did you kill the dragon?!" she questioned him quickly, "Where is their weak spot?!!"

 

[LucianDevine]

Lucian's heart jumped when he saw Myrina rise to her feet. That joy only lasted a moment though, the roaring of the hydra pulling at his attention. He heard her words, and his gaze moved back to the monstrosity, halted ever-so-briefly by the shock of the loss of one of it's heads. His mouth went dry as, before his very eyes, the writhing neck-like appendage that no longer had a head started to pulse and twitch. He watched as not one but two things started to grow from it. He could just stand in stunned shock as he watched two heads grow and form to replace the one that had been lost.

The roar of the hydra when all of it's heads were ready once more snapped Lucian out of his own head.

"U...um..." Lucian started, stuttering in this moment as he tried to focus both on her question and the hydra that was preparing to attack once more. "The belly between the leg is the softest, but that's suicide. Small scales are best. They're softer and more pliable. Look for the smaller scales, and tell me if you see any. I'll do the same."

As he finished speaking, Lucian turned to meet Myrina's gaze once more, silently willing some of his strength and bravery into her. Fighting such creatures was no easy task, though there wasn't time to say so now, he was both proud to have her standing beside him against this one.

 

[BlondeAmbition4RP]

Myrina could still feel the effects of the powerful aura of fear that the hydra was admitting from itself, but she did her best to push past the fear and focus on the task at hand, even as she felt a cold sweat break out across her skin at the horrifying sight of the beast’s head growing back from the bloodied and writhing stump of a neck, only this time there were two heads growing back. She felt herself tremble at the sound of its roar.

She turned at the sound of his voice, also struggling to focus on both him and the creature before them.

"The belly between the leg is the softest, but that's suicide. Small scales are best. They're softer and more pliable. Look for the smaller scales, and tell me if you see any. I'll do the same."

“Right,” she replies with a nod of understanding, her eyes meeting his as he looked at her.

It was only for a second, but in that moment as his intense sapphire gaze met her emerald one and she saw the meaning conveyed through his gaze it seemed to her as if time slowed for them. She nodded again. There was much that she wanted to say in that moment, but she wasn’t sure how, and there was no time to say it now anyways.

Her spine straightened a fraction. She could do this. She could push through the fear. They would defeat the creature together. They had to, not just for their own sake but for those that would be at the mercy of the demon hoards should they fail.

“All those heads are going to make it hard for us to get close enough once we find a weak spot. I’ll try to take out some of its eyes with my daggers. Hopefully it will help keep some of them from attacking.. since cutting them off is definitely out of the question.”

 

[LucianDevine]

"That's a good idea, Myrina..." Lucian started as he turned around to properly square up against the large and imposing beast. "But be careful. The heads are faster than they look and felt like they were made of solid muscle."

Lucian tried to sound as confident as he could. It was true that he'd fought and ultimately bested a dragon, but he'd also had thousands of men beside him when he did it. The creature in front of him was not only a completely different creature, but also had such unique traits that he could only speculate on strategies to use against it. He inched forward slowly, and while his head was still, his eyes were darting in every direction, trying to ignore the movements of the necks and just focus on the movements of the heads. He held his sword out in front of him as he stepped within range of it's heads, ready to try and dodge the heads he could and knock away the ones he couldn't. He did know that his armor was tougher than the beast's teeth were sharp, but that was not really something he wanted to rely on.

 

[BlondeAmbition4RP]

Seeing Lucian begin to inch forward, Myrina too rose and squared up against the hydra, preparing to fight. She withdrew one of her two swords from the harness on her back, wanting to leave her other arm free for throwing daggers at the creature's eyes when he got the chance...if she got the chance. No, she couldn't think like that. She would find a way.

She inched forward with him, her eyes studying the beast's movements, remembering how it had moved when it had attacked and fought with Lucian before, trying to anticipate how it might do so again. She knew though that if the hydra's jaws clamped around her as they had him though she would not likely be so lucky as to escape them as unharmed as he had, for she had no scaled armor to protect her.

"We'll keep moving," she told him quickly as the heads reared, "Cover me if you can and try to distract the heads. Ready?.. Go!"

She lunged forward, weaving back and forth as she ran to make it harder for the heads to focus and attack.

 

[LucianDevine]

When Lucian got within range of the heads, their reaction was instantaneous. They lunged and snapped, putting him immediately on the defensive. He had to dip and dodge without hesitation. He wanted to duck the heads as well, giving him a third dimension to work with, but lowering his eyes could be a fatal mistake.

Lucian dodged the lunging strikes when he could, but when they were too fast or too many to dodge, he used his sword to knock them away. They were slower pulling back than they were darting forward, and had no real power if they tried to come in from the side after missing a lunge. So it gave him a semblance of confidence, enough to take another couple steps forward. His eyes continued to study them, trying to find a pattern in the chaos. It was more or less wasted effort though. Some lunged several times in a row while others held back. The neck he'd severed once before, the one with two heads on it, was particularly annoying. It had double the teeth, posing double the danger.

The one tiny bit of progress that Lucian was able to make though, was slowly inching to the left. He was moving in Myrina's direction to try and keep the attention of more of the heads. His goal was to give her one or two heads to focus on and try and hit without having to worry about the other five. While the application wasn't perfect, he did the best he could to use his blade to push the two heads closest to her direction while "simply" dodging the other five or knocking them to his right.

 

[BlondeAmbition4RP]

Myrina was mainly just focusing her energy on dodging the heads and their snapping jaws at first. Unlike Lucian she had no armor to protect her, so even allowing one of the heads too get even a single bite in would have meant serious injury and very likely even death depending on which part of her body their jaws got a hold of. She dodged and weaved, avoiding the snapping jaws, slicing at their eyes and knocking them back with her swords when they got too close to deter them.

She noted the way Lucian kept most of them focused on him, and for this she was grateful, noticing how he was trying to focus just one or two of the heads at her at a time while trying to keep their focus on himself so that she could attack. She took full advantage of his tactic, stabbing the closest towards her in the eyes with her dual swords, then quickly jumping back and throwing two daggers at the eyes of the other.

 

[Lucian_Devine]

Hearing the creature roar in pain as first one pair of eyes was disabled and then another was true music to Lucian's ears. Anything that made it easier for him to dodge the constant barrage of teeth was a godsend at this point.

It was impossible to know how long the battle had been going on, but it felt like an eternity to Lucian. He almost couldn't remember a time when he wasn't try to dodge or deflect heads and teeth that would effortlessly rip him to pieces. So he was genuinely caught off guard when all six of them lifted into the air once more.

With just moments of peach, Lucian saw something, or at least thought he did. There was no time to wonder if it was just wishful thinking.

"Myrina!" Lucian shouted as he turned towards her and sucked in a big breath of air into his aching lungs. "When the heads start to lower get as close to it as you can! Try to sever the heads on the bottom row! I think the scales are smaller and weaker near the base!

No sooner were the words out of Lucian's mouth did the heads start to lower once more. He pushed himself into motion knowing that the fire breath that had almost burned Myrina alive earlier was coming once more. The distance between him and the giant creatures body was small, but in that moment, with the heads bearing down to eventually aim at them, it felt like forever. Each step brought him closer, but he could almost swear the creature got farther away with every step.

Lucian's legs burned with the effort as he ran as fast as he could. He darted to the right, drawing the attention of one of the heads before planting his foot and surging back towards the left. The motion caught the attention of another head. One final plant of his foot came as the first burst of heat surge to his right from the first head. He darted back towards the right as he tucked himself into a sideways roll. A second burst of heat hit where he'd been just moments before. He was close now, so close. and as he recovered from the roll, he gathered his feet beneath him as he jumped. A third blast of heat hit the ground moments after he jumped.

 

[BlondeAmbition4RP]

"Myrina!"

Her attention at once was brought to Lucian as he turned towards her, while still trying to not let her focus diminish too much from the movements of the beast as its heads moved together once more, presumably to blast them again with its fiery breath.

"When the heads start to lower get as close to it as you can! Try to sever the heads on the bottom row! I think the scales are smaller and weaker near the base!"

Her gaze darted to the base of the Hydra's combined throats as the heads started to lower. He was right! There! That was where she needed to strike!

She started to move towards the monster, doing her best to stay to the side of the vision of it's many heads and pairs of eyes, coming in from a side angle at it as as Lucian distracted with all of his movements to the front. He dodged, and darted, and rolled, making the beast fire blast after blast, the beast lowering its neck each time, but she was not close enough yet. Finally, when they lowered once more for the final blast she struck, charging forward at full speed and sliding beneath the monster upon her back as she trust both of her twin swords high to pierce and slash at the emerald green scales at the base of its throat.

 

[Lucian_Devine]

As much as Lucian worried for Myrina in that moment, and wanted to protect her, there was no room in his mind for it in that moment. His mind was utterly focused on the borderline impossible task before him. A single mistake now would lead to his death, and probably hers as well.

The intense blast of heat from the fire breath actually helped Lucian in that moment, propelling him as he jumped. His foot landed on the side of it's powerful front leg, and he had just enough time to bend his leg before kicking off once more, jumping back in the direction he'd come.

The task was harder than Lucian had anticipated, and even with all of his strength behind his jump, he only just barely it over the creature and on top of it. He landed on his side on top of it's broad back and rolled to his feet as gracefully as he could, the combination of his growing fatigue and the creature's ever-moving body making it harder by the second.

Just as any hope of steadying himself was fading, the creature roared and froze beneath him. Lucian knew exactly what had happened, and knew that the clock was now well and truly ticking. The only time he'd seen the creatures body motionless was in the moments after he'd cut one of it's heads off, and since he obviously hadn't cut another one off, clearly Myrina had been able to. He pushed himself to his feet at last, and lifted his blade.

"Avalanche of Blades!"

The words erupted from Lucian's mouth as he brought his blade down. It was the riskiest of maneuvers, but there wasn't time or stamina for anything else. His blade sang as it cut through the air, arcing down to connect with the small scales he'd pointed out. Gravity and leverage lent him strength in that moment, allowing his blade to strike with more force than was normally possible. The single strike actually cut deep and hard enough to sever the head cleanly. The speed and power of the maneuver filled him then, allowing him to recover and strike again in the blink of an eye.

Lucian's second attack landed as cleanly as the first, severing a second head. A fleeting thought occurred to him then as he recoiled and struck again. He wondered how much the full of the head and neck weighed and feared for Myrina's safety, knowing she was down there. It was this distraction that caused his third attack to falter. It landed clean, but lacked the power and precision to cut fully through the tough scales and bone. The maneuver was still coursing through him though, and he recoiled and struck again, finishing what he'd started as he severed the third head. He let out a roar as he lifted the blade and brought it down again, this time plunging it straight into the creatures back, hoping to stab it's heart.

The creature trembled beneath Lucian as he struck, and while it didn't stop his blade from thrusting down to the hilt, it did make him lose his balance. He stumbled to a knee and tried to rise, using his sword to help him. The creature trembled again though, and he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He saw what it was a split second before it hit him, the end of the creatures giant tail. It somehow arched up and around it's giant bulk and hit him square in the chest.

The world was a blur then, but only for a moment as he was swept from the creature's back, landed hard on the ground, and rolled until his back slammed into the wall. Then everything went dark...