Chương 543: 573 - Hydra

Leon felt the cloth of his shirt start to stick to his back as he broke out into a cold sweat. The pools in this chamber had contained seven huge serpent-like monsters, each of different colors, and each with at least ninth-tier strength. They weren't overtly hostile yet, but given just how far they were above anything that Leon could possibly do—even Xaphan wouldn't be of much help in this situation—he couldn't help but imagine that it was only a matter of time before they started attacking.

When they did, he, Gaius, and Maia would likely be torn to shreds. Each of the serpents was a different color, though none were any less spectacular than the others. The first serpent that had appeared was a dark sea green, while the second was a gorgeous dark blue, its scales the color of the deep ocean. The remaining five were red, white, black, gold, and brown, and each one had remarkably different facial features and horn structures despite the largely uniform shape of their heads.

The gold serpent-dragon-thing even had whiskers poking out of its snout just above its upper lip. What was even stranger about the gold serpent, however, was the fact that its face was horribly scarred, and what looked like a long thin rock had been lodged in its head just behind its horns. It was clearly injured and not exactly all there, for its topaz-colored eyes were dull and it didn't seem to be focusing on anything. Even the tiny micromovements it made were slow and dull compared to those of its comrades.

"Have you no anssswer to give, human?" the green head asked, its ploddingly slow speaking cadence not seeming to change at all even as its head started to bob and move about with more energy, its neck-body or whatever it had lifting its head even higher in the chamber until it was looking down at Leon. Even with dozens of feet of neck poking out of the pool, Leon couldn't see the end of this creature; its neck-body just vanished down into the pool it had arrived from.

Leon took a deep breath to steady himself as much as he could. Then, he asked, "What indulgence are all of you looking for? What would you indulge me with in return?" The green head froze for a second, then all of the other serpentine heads lifted out of the water to stare down at Leon in an eerie and deeply unsettling manner.

"All are one, human," the green serpent stated.

"Not all, but one… One will, one mind, many eyessss, many headsssss…" One of Leon's eyebrows shot so far up his brow that it almost vanished into his hair.

'Is this thing saying that all of them are one creature?!' he thought in alarm.

'A hydra? Or some kind of hive mind? It is being puppeted by something else entirely?!' Several other increasingly dire scenarios played out in Leon's head, but he managed to shake himself back to reality by quickly sending word to Xaphan and Nestor about what was happening. [That's definitely a hydra,] Nestor stated once Leon was finished. [Vicious beasts, and viciously smart, too. They have a fondness for speech and live terribly long lives—easily living five or six cycles of the Nexus if they have access to plentiful food and a safe home. Don't piss this one off, Leon, they also tend to be extremely eccentric and extremely powerful.] [Wasn't planning on getting on its bad side…] Leon murmured in response, his voice a little shaky as he wondered just how large this thing's body was if its heads alone were larger than he was, while their necks were long enough to be lost entirely beneath the surface of the pools. [Good. This one's a runt, by the looks of it. Looks like it got stuck down in those little pools somehow. These things are usually much larger…] [A wonderful thought…] Leon sarcastically replied.

When he collected himself, he straightened up and said to the hydra, "Let's speak straightly: what do you want and what can you provide in return? My party wishes to find our way through this maze to the very end. Are directions something you can give us?"

"Pathsss onward," the blue head whispered.

"Guardianssss are I… Anssswer well, move on…"

"Indulge us with anssswersss, and indulge you with anssswersss shall I," the green head added with a quick and insistent nod. Leon mirrored the nod, though with much less enthusiasm and significantly more caution.

"Who goes first?" he asked.

"Hossst," the brown head said, speaking for the first time. Its voice was so deep Leon was almost surprised it wasn't shaking apart the maze floor.

"I suppose we can live with that," Leon said as he glanced back at Gaius and Maia, searching for any sign of disagreement. When none came, he turned back toward the green central hydra head and continued, "Ask us whatever questions you want, and we'll answer to the best of our ability." The green head nodded, but it didn't immediately respond.

Instead, the black head, all the way on the left end of the half-circle, spoke first, though not without snapping its jaws together a few times in what Leon assumed to be the hydra equivalent of clearing its throat.

"Tall am I when young," it said, "but ssshort when old… Give name to me…" Leon blinked in surprise and confusion, momentarily wondering just what in the hells the thing was talking about. He glanced back at the green head, and then at all the other heads, all of whom were staring at him with great interest—save for the gold head, which was still just staring at nothing in particular with a dazed look and dull eyes.

"This is a riddle?" Gaius quietly asked.

"Not what I was expecting, to be honest…"

"Yeah," Leon hesitantly agreed.

"I thought this would be more like telling hard secrets or something else of that… nature…"

"Sssuch thingsss don't interessst me," the green head explained.

"Give anssswer, and receive anssswer…" Leon nodded in understanding, getting a better feel for how this was going to work, now. The hydra would ask a riddle, and if he got it correct, then he'd be able to ask a question of it. If he didn't get the answer correct, then… Well, he didn't want to think about that.

"Ok, then," he whispered.

"I'm tall when I'm young, and short when I'm old? That was it?" The black head nodded. Leon went quiet for a moment as he thought it over. Nearly every living thing he knew of grew at some point in their life, and many that would shrink down in their twilight years, but he somehow doubted that the hydra would consider a tall human the proper answer to its riddle. It was looking for something specific, but Leon didn't know what—"A candle," Gaius answered after only a couple seconds.

Leon's heart almost stopped at the unexpected answer, and his eyes locked onto the black hydra head. It stared back at him with blood red reptilian eyes, its horns curling viciously behind its head, its snout long and thick and unsettlingly dragon-like in shape. And it nodded once more.

"Good anssswer…" the green head said, sounding quite satisfied, and Leon breathed a sigh of relief. When he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw Gaius and Maia both do likewise. The green head continued, "You ssseek anssswersss? Give voiccce to one quessstion…" One question came to mind immediately, but Leon took a moment to think it over. He didn't want to just trample on Gaius for answering the question correctly, but it was a question that they needed an answer to. Love what you're reading?

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"Do you know the way out of this place?" The green head answered, "Yessss…" and said nothing more. Leon waited a moment, but once all the heads started turning toward the white head at the other end of the half-circle, he said with confusion, "Hang on, that's all you're going to say?"

"One quessstion you asked, one anssswer I give…" the blue head growled. A spike of anger wound its way through Leon's mind, directed mostly at the hydra, but more than a bit of it was for himself. He gave Gaius a quick apologetic look, which the noble responded to with a shrug and a look of resignation. At the very least, they now knew how the hydra was going to operate. They'd need some very specific questions, or questions with specific answers if they were going to get anything useful out of it.

"All right, then," Leon said.

"What's your next riddle?" The white head began to speak, its feminine voice smooth and motherly to match its face's gentler lines and curves.

"Find me beginning everything, you ssshall, and ending time and spaccce. Begin every end, I do, and end every placcce… What am I?" Leon's brow furled in thought. Taken literally, he assumed such a thing that began and ended everything like that would only be some kind of god, but it had to be something more specific to be the answer to a riddle, some kind of wordplay or misdirection obscuring an otherwise obvious answer.

Leon gritted his teeth; he'd never been that into riddles, and this was essentially why: there was almost no way to actually figure a riddle out unless it had been heard before. He thought that they were more of a way for the person asking the riddle to try and get one over the person being asked. The answer didn't immediately spring to his mind, so he turned toward Gaius and Maia, looking for some help. Maia's face was scrunched up in thought, while Gaius was quietly stroking the thin blond stubble on his chin.

"I've got nothing," Leon quietly stated as he tossed a worried glance over his shoulder at the hydra, hoping that this wasn't going to be taken as his answer. Fortunately, the hydra's heads largely didn't react, tacitly indicating that Leon's party could discuss these riddles amongst themselves. [Neither do I,] Maia replied.

"Yeah, this isn't the easiest thing to figure out," Gaius said.

"Whatever its describing has to be extremely powerful," Leon said, thinking out loud.

"Maybe some kind of god, maybe the Serpent itself?"

"I don't think that's what it's talking about," Gaius slowly responded.

"Riddles are, more often than not, wordplay—at least, in my experience. Maybe we ought to write this out?" Leon lightly scowled, but pulled out a piece of paper, a pen, and ink. He quickly scrawled the riddle out and the other two huddled around him so that they could all stare at it together.

'The beginning of everything…' Leon contemplated.

'Ending time and space… Begin every end… and end every place…' Leon read it over three or four times before something finally stuck out to him.

"The letter 'e' is where… look, it's the beginning of 'everything', it ends the words 'time' and 'space', it begins the word 'end', and is the final letter in 'place'…"

"That," Gaius with dawning comprehension and pride, "is exactly the kind of wordplay that I'd expect from these kinds of riddles…" Leon nodded, but didn't immediately address the hydra. It could just be a coincidence, but the more he stared at the riddle written out, the more he convinced himself that he'd stumbled upon the correct answer.

'I fucking hate riddles…' Leon thought to himself as he steeled himself to give his answer.

"The letter 'e'." The white head immediately nodded.

"Anssswered well," it muttered.

"One quessstion you have bought…" Leon took a deep breath and thought over his question. He didn't think there was a way that he could ask his question and get the hydra to commit to leading him and his party out of this maze—or at least, showing them the way—without it using the same trick that it did with his previous question and giving him essentially a non-answer. So, he decided to just be honest and up front.

"We need a way out of this maze as quickly as possible. A pirate has taken control of this temple, and we need to find and kill him, wherever he might be. Will you help us find our way to where we need to go?" The heads hissed and writhed in their pools, their eyes locked onto him in a rather unsettling way—the sole exception being the gold head, which still stared rather lifelessly at the wall behind Leon. But he didn't back down, he stood firm and returned as many of the hydra's gazes as he could.

It was a question that it could easily answer 'no' to, but his initial impression of the monster was that it wouldn't play that kind of game. If it were hostile or wanted to trap them here, there were far more efficient ways to go about it than challenging them to riddles. Of course, it was a hydra, so there was no real way that Leon could understand its thought process or its motives, but Leon trusted his gut instinct and his impression of the creature.

"Can I?" the green hydra head hissed, speaking to itself in thought.

"Nooo, tisss beyond my capabilitiessss…"

"Why is that, if you don't mind me asking?" Leon inquired.

"Are you unable to leave? Or do you just not know the way out of this maze?" All of the hydra heads, save for the gold head, glanced at each other in a way that made Leon think it was debating something with itself. It didn't deliberate too long, though, and soon replied, "I guard thisss placccce, leave I cannot… But, the way I know…" Leon nodded.

"Is this guardianship permanent? Do you like staying here? Do you need any help getting out?"

"Thossse are three questionsss," the blue head stated, but a moment later, the green head snapped its jaws a few times and the blue head went quiet and bowed its head as if chastised.

"Your concccern, I can sssenssse," the green head said.

"From one ssso troubled, your concccern isss appreciated, but unneccccesssary…" A frown crossed Leon's face at the mention of him being 'troubled.' It was the second time in a matter of a couple of days that something inhuman had called him troubled, and he didn't know what they were… Actually, after his fight with Artorias, he was starting to get an idea of just what they might be talking about, but he thought they might be blowing these things completely out of proportion.

"Are my questions appreciated enough to be answered?" Leon asked with a wry smile.

"Anssswer me first, then anssswer you ssshall I," the green head stated before turning its gaze toward the red hydra head. The red head began to hiss identically to the others, but the magical voice that followed soon after had a quality that Leon found quite familiar: its voice crackled and popped like fire, much like how Xaphan's oftentimes did.

By this point, Leon had already gotten the impression that this hydra could probably command all seven of the magical elements, and he silently doubled down on his commitment to not piss this thing off to the point of having it attack him and his party.

"Neither guessst nor tressspassser am I, here in this placcce I resssside… Where am I?" As much as Leon didn't care for riddles, this one was almost painfully obvious given what he'd just asked a moment before.

"Home," he answered with a light smile. He dropped any questions he had about what the hydra felt like being here. It was home. It didn't want to leave.

"Do you wisssh to asssk the sssame quessstionsss?" the green head asked, its voice softening a bit in a clear invitation to change his questions. Leon sighed and glanced back over his shoulder at the open door. At this point, he wasn't sure if the hydra would stop him if he tried to leave, but in stark contrast to how he felt when the green head first showed itself, he didn't quite want to leave, yet.

If it was going to be this pleasant and answer his questions for only the price of answering a riddle, then he might as well see what else it might know.

"No," Leon said, "I think you answered those well enough with that riddle. I'd rather know how to get out of this maze—you said that you knew the way before and could tell me."

"Ssssaid that, did I?" the green head asked, its cocking to the side.

"I don't recall that…" Leon glared at the head, and then it did something he never would've thought it would do when he first laid his eyes upon it: it began to chortle with laughter, its tongue lashing out of its mouth as its head shook and lips quivered in delight.

"Pardon me, young mage," the hydra said. A moment later, the white head leaned forward and its eyes flashed with silver light. Leon almost reacted instinctively to draw his weapon and bring his power forth, but all the head did was conjure a light projection of what looked to be a map of the maze. It was exactly as enormous as Leon though, stretching for dozens of miles in every direction.

It was so large that even in the several long moments that the hydra gave them to study it, he still wasn't able to pinpoint their exact location on it. The green head, after giving them some time to examine the map, said, "You mussst reach the cccenter…" It pointed with its snout at the center of the square-shaped map.

"We are here…" Its head then pointed at a place near the edge of the map on the left side.

"I have enjoyed thisss exchange, take all the time you need to examine thisss map." Leon blinked in surprise and turned from the map to the green head.

"Really?" he couldn't quite stop himself from asking. The green head nodded.

"Next wassss…" It didn't finish its statement, but it glanced quickly at the gold head, with the long stone spike stuck in its head, its utterly blank expression not having so much as twitched since it had appeared.

"Ah," Leon grunted in understanding. He supposed if that spike was a debilitating enough injury, then the gold head might not be able to ask a riddle. He didn't know why the hydra wasn't going to just skip that head and finish with the blue, brown, and green heads, but he supposed that asking about it might be pressing his luck a bit. He just counted his lucky stars that the hydra had proven itself so reasonable and left it at that.

"Be careful, human," the green head said.

"Other thingssss here live, and care for you they will not. Many treasssuresss they guard, but all trapsss. Make for the ccccenter, tarry not." The green head indicated several more places on the map, fairly large chambers that were scattered all over the maze. It seemed they were more frequent closer to the center of the maze, and by following Leon's depth-first exploration strategy, his party had avoided several already and had practically walked around the entire perimeter of the maze. Leon nodded once more.

"Thank you for the warning. We won't be distracted." Leon continued examining the map, burning not just it, but the hydra's warning into his memory.

'This had better be it,' Leon thought to himself as he stared at the large chamber at the center.

'This has gone on too long already. It's time to face Jormun…'