Clover’s enormous hammer dropped onto the skull of yet another serpent as Greg assessed the tunnel. Where one massive snake was supposed to reside, all they’d found thus far was a horde of little ones. Their bodies were wire thin leading up to flat heads with barbed fangs that folded into their mouths. None of them had been more than three feet long, but the number was what concerned him.

  “I don’t get it.” Greg finally said, looking over at Ricard. “I know snakes can lay a lot of eggs, but this seems excessive. How long has this thing been down here?”

  “I am unsure.” Ricard unleashed another gout of flame from his hands, letting it unfurl along the underground path they and scorch a few snakes that slithered in their direction. “Perhaps it was not one snake they saw, but many?”

  Clover dropped a blue-skinned hand on top of Ricard’s perfectly smooth head and rubbed it. “It’s so cute when you’re optimistic.” She heaved the hammer off her shoulder again and slammed it into the grate that covered the channel of sewer water. “Dinner time!” She called out.

  The water beneath the grate rippled, but was otherwise still. Maybe Ricard was right. Maybe it had just been a group of snakes all twisted together, and someone had mistaken it for something larger. The water under the grate rippled again, this time a guttergrub popping out of the water with its signature flop. It was not alone.

  At least twenty of the wiry snakes clung to the panting worm. It rolled, attempting to squish its attackers, but to no avail. Clover and Ricard both lurched forward to help, but something else was coming. He could feel it. Greg blinked hard to try to make it go away, but the buzzing was back.

  “Wait!” Greg held out a hand to try to stop them, but it was too late. The static filter took over his vision as an immense snake head lurched from beneath the water, barely disturbing the surface, and swallowed the guttergrub and the snakes whole. Clover swung the hammer without hesitation, but the massive head was too fast. It collided with her, sending her flying into Ricard and both of them to the other side of the tunnel. That was the least of the problems, however.

  Greg grasped his head helplessly as imaginary bees laid waste to his brain. The serpent’s eyes locked on his, bright blue and glowing. A glow he’d seen before. The same glow that came from the frost kissed’s mouths. The beast shook like a wet dog, but instead of firing water in every which directions, tiny versions of itself flew off it. A spiny tongue flicked from its mouth, wiping at thin tentacle-like growths that hung from its jaws as it retreated into the water.

  Within moments the buzzing faded, and the static with it leaving Greg standing frozen in front of a horde of snakes. Greg backpedaled. This was too much. He had to get out of here. He glanced to his side. Ricard was trying to drag Clover’s unconscious body away with one hand, letting off bursts of fire with the other, but she was far too large for him to move alone.

  He was utterly out of his depth. He didn’t belong here. He’s not a monster hunter. A kraken had already almost fucking killed him, and now a horde of snakes? No, it was time to run.

  “That’s the problem. That’s always been the problem. You just let things happen to you.”

  Her voice echoed in his mind. He wanted to argue that running was the opposite of letting things happen to him, but looking over at Clover again, snakes starting to dig into her ankles, he realized that argument wasn’t going to hold much water.

  Greg let out a frustrated growl before stomping onto the head of the closest snake with his weighted boots. Swinging his sword it wide arcs and pouring in divine and flame strikes alike, he made his way across the grate until he got to Ricard. He wasn’t much larger than the teen, but he took hold of both Clover’s pauldrons and tugged.

  “Get the snakes off her. She’ll heal from a few burns.” Greg snapped.

  Ricard went to work, firing off jets of fire at snake after snake. He kept pulling Clover back until Ricard had thinned enough of the crowd that he could stop and remove the snakes that had already dug into her ankles. The swarm kept coming.

  “How long can you keep that up?” Greg called out to the young man as he pulled the emergency kit from his inventory and spread a putty over the wounds from a package that said ‘wound sealant’.

  Ricard shook his head. “Not long enough.”

  Greg started to pull Clover again, but her hand reached up to grab his wrist.

  “I’m alright, go help.” She grumbled out, rolling over to push herself up.

  He wasn’t sure exactly what help he was going to be, but he pushed forward anyway. He bashed a striking serpent with his shield and noticed something odd. Ricard fired a short blast at one, turning it to cinders, and all the snakes hissed and recoiled in pain.

  “The Borg!” Greg laughed.

  “What?” Ricard asked, still backing up as he fended them off.

  “A…uhh… A hivemind!” Greg finally found the word. “They’re all connected. We need to kill the big one.”

  “Oh yeah, kill the big one.” Ricard threw up two fingers, paired with the face he gave him Greg came to the safe assumption it was a particularly rude gesture.

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  The sewer tunnels did not provide much of a tactical advantage, except for the fact that the main snake seemed to prefer to stay below the water. Metal grates covered most of the five-foot-wide channel, but the snake was strong enough to burst through them, no doubt.

  “Can you two kill it if I can pin it down?” Greg asked, stomping another snake and swiping at several more that advanced.

  “How do you think you’re going to manage that?” Clover asked, rejoining them as the waves of serpents came thicker.

  “Can you kill it?” Greg snapped. His resource management hadn’t been perfect, but he’d been trying to keep ability usage to a minimum. When he did use them, he did his best to cycle, which now became the problem.

  Divine Resonance—10/100

  Demonic Resonance—10/100

  Volatility-30/100

  He needed more resonance. Greg gripped his sword a little tighter and pushed forward, laying in divine strike after divine strike. The smaller serpents attacked in uniform waves, but with each stab or slice, another fell. Once he’d pushed passed the forty resonance threshold, he fell back behind his allies.

  With significant effort, he wrenched free the grates that covered the center channel. After pulling up a few five foot sections, he turned them horizontally and stacked them on top of each other, leaving a gap behind him so he could drop into the water. Finally, Greg pushed Murray’s “indestructible” rope through the grates.

  Unsure of how much slack he would need, he allowed most of the rope to drift in the freezing water below as he fastened the rope over and over through the eye of the harpoon and around its shaft. Now he just needed to get the serpent to attack. It had come up to get the guttergrub, but only after several of its babies had latched onto it. Greg gnawed on the inside of his cheek before grumbling and shoving an arm into the water.

  The first bite took a second, two distinct fangs sunk deep into his forearm drawing out a hiss of pain. The next several arrived soon after. He pull his arm from the water now with no fewer than five wiry, thick headed snakes latched to him and hopped onto his makeshift platform. The buzzing started almost immediately.

  Greg blinked. A static veil fell over his eyes, but he squinted to see through it. It rose quickly, a dull blue glow at first, then two distinct orbs.

  One step back.

  Fangs erupted from the surface, water flying in every direction.

  Two steps.

  Its jaws, open wide enough to take in his torso, began to close as it flew at him.

  Ruin Edict.

  Divine Resonance drained—0/100

  Demonic Resonance drained—0/100

  Greg thrust the harpoon up into the open maw of the snake, feeling it pierce through as he dropped off the backside of his platform. Bright light shone through the wounds, and he could feel them start to freeze around the still embedded fangs. His fingers found the excess rope, and he quickly wrapped it around his forearms, completely disregarding the brood that still feasting on him. He activated the weighted boots and sunk to the bottom, pulling down as hard as he could.

  Impacts vibrated through the rope as the beast lashed back and forth. The rope had stopped the snakelets on his arms, but now that he was in their territory he’d been lit up by tiny bites. Between the light radiating from his wounds, the static and buzzing, and the lack of gills, Greg could feel consciousness fading. The healing effects of his Ruin Edict, as it turns out, did not allow him to breathe underwater.

  The thrashing stopped, and for a split second the water was calm. As far as Greg knew, snakes on earth did not make noises outside of hisses. The rope was pulled again, gently at first, and then with more vigor as the snakes’ screams made a sound no living being should have been able to project. It was wet, yet metallic, like trying to put a pipe through a woodchipper. The brood went feral.

  Something grabbed his hair. Then around his shoulder. Yanked upward by the rope and his torso, the weighted boots gave way. Clover ripped him out of the water and threw him across the channel. The dull lights of the tunnels were not his ability to see, but the buff duration icon at the top of his vision was perfectly visible as it blinked away.

  Volatility spike—70/100

  Volatility eclipsed 70 percent. Get to a designated safe area immediately. Increasing volatility further will create monster beacon effect.

  Snakes were being ripped off of him, tearing away hunks of flesh or leaving fangs behind.

  He was moments away from death.

  Again.

  The strangest part of that, though? He thought he was okay with that. The thought was disturbing, but was he starting to enjoy the risk? He looked up at the titanblood teen and grinned slightly through the pounding headache. “You kill it?”

  “You are one crazy son of a bitch.” She laughed wildly, ripping off the last snake and slamming its head against the ground.

  He coughed hard, a little water shooting out his nose as he sat up. Blood trickled from tiny holes that dotted his skin, but he was alive. Without its central brain, the horde of snakes was now nothing but wild invasive animals in the sewer. Nothing a little pest control couldn’t take care of.

  Clover helped him to his feet, and he walked over to the giant serpent. Ricard was blasting back piles of little snakes, leaving him free to inspect the beast.

  Scanning…

  Swarm Mother Serpent:

  Sea serpent which uses its young to hunt prey. Normally found within coral reefs and warm waters, the swarm mother serpent is known to be omniverous and cannibalistic. Luckily for you, neither it nor its brood is venomous.

  Auto-loot: Enabled

  Looting…

  Added 25 square feet Swarm Mother Serpent Skin to your inventory

  Added 10 Swarm Mother Serpent steaks to your inventory

  Added 2 Swarm Mother Serpent Fangs to your inventory

  Note: Post-mortem scan indicated alchemical contamination.

  New Quest!

  Find the contaminant

  The Swarm Mother Serpent suffered from an alchemical contamination. Figure out what substance contaminated the beast.

  Reward

  100 copper obols

  500 experience

  “What the hell? What did you do to it?” Clover asked from over his shoulder.

  Greg’s hand had rested on the beast’s head, but he had not noticed it slowly start to smoke and then burn from the inside out. “Huh, didn’t know it was going to do that. Not exactly inconspicuous.”

  “That didn’t answer the question.” Clover whispered to him.

  “Oh, Looted it. There’s a problem, though. It’s been drugged. Did you see its eyes?” Greg asked.

  “Yeah, bright blue.” Ricard called back before sending out another gout of flame. He’d cleared the remaining snakes from the path, leaving those that escaped into the water were the only that remained.

  “Hold on.” Clover held up a hand. “Looted it?”

  “Yeah, did you want to harvest it?” Greg asked and reached up into his inventory. He pulled out a neatly rolled bolt of snakeskin, offering it to her. “All yours.”

  Clover blinked slowly.

  “Okay…” Greg put the bolt back and looked away. “You want it, let me know. For now…I need to find some drugs.”