The Lionheart

by Stevie Collier

  “Try to cut it off!” I yelled, but Bataar was already on it. He hoisted himself up and brought his snout close to the tentacle, ready to take a big bite out of his capturer.

  His jaws opened but it was too late.

  The tentacle yanked hard at both of us and continued to pull us to an unknown destination. I pulled my head upwards to see where we were going. I gasped out loud.

  “Hold your breath!” I cried.

  Bataar’s eyes widened and he tried to look behind him but couldn’t. He and I took a deep breath before the tentacled beast tugged us into the moss-covered swamp.

  Opening my eyes was a difficult task in and of itself. And even then, I could barely see through the murky, brown water. We were pulled a ways down before the thing stopped. I was able to observe that it had let go of my friend.

  Air Capacity: 92%

  A thin tentacle smacked me across the face sending white explosions in my vision.

  You’ve been struck by Swamp Serpent.

  Health: 83%

  I tried to target the beast but couldn’t. Bataar was thrashing around trying to do the same but all he was succeeding at was losing air. I grabbed him by the head and made him look at me, trying my best to calm him down. He must have realized what I was trying to get across because he nodded and stopped his thrashing.

  A tentacle whipped my back hitting my plate armor which transferred the slapping pain into more of a punch. I let go of Bataar and arched my back in pain. It was he who grabbed me now, shaking me by my shoulders and pointing downward. I nodded my head and we started diving deeper.

  This time, I was ready for the slimy bastard. The Swamp Serpent’s tentacle came from the left and I blocked it with the palm of my hand. I tried gripping on to it but it was far too slimy and slipped through my fingers.

  Air capacity: 66%

  Bataar must have just checked his air because his face looked worried.

  My body fought me with every swimming stroke deeper into the swamp. It begged me to change direction and head to air but I knew the beast would never let me make it.

  I sensed another strike coming but it wasn’t targeted at me but at Bataar. This was the first time I saw him draw his weapons. He held a double-edged greataxe in both hands. The tentacle whipped at him and he chopped at it at just the right moment. Purple blood filled the water as one of the edges of his axe stuck into the serpent’s meat. The scream of the beast was so loud that it was audible under the water.

  The axe held true and Bataar was pulled deeper at a much faster rate as the tentacle was pulled back to its owner. I grabbed on to Bataar’s ankle and, again, we went for a ride. This time, it was on our own terms.

  23

  The Swamp Serpent was a truly hideous beast and unlike anything I had ever seen. It was a snake all right, but not by any means a common-looking one. The body was covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of eyeballs that blinked rapidly in random succession. It had about ten tentacles on each side of its body that whipped ferociously in the water. This was how it now propelled itself around us making damned sure we didn’t escape.

  None of these aspects of the beast were near as bad as the gaping dagger-filled mouths on both ends of its body. However, I was finally able to target the disturbing beast.

  Swamp Serpent Level 21 (Demi-Boss)

  I checked my air.

  Air Capacity 44%

  With no time to lose and no plan at all, we began our attack. It was a pathetic assault, really. Bataar and I were swimming around the thing in an awkward fashion trying our best to strike at its sticky tentacles. But we would usually fail and get whipped in the back which not only decreased our health but also forced us to lose air as well due to our flailing around.

  I tried to grab Bataar’s attention by motioning with my hands out in front of me like a flapping bird. But he either couldn’t see me through the murk or was too obsessed with hitting his target. I would have to swim closer to him.

  I unequipped my sword and shield and used all of my limbs to swim closer to him. I found that by doing so I was able to preserve more stamina. I was just about to reach him when a tentacle wrapped itself around my waist and brought me face to face with three of its many eyes. It studied me and I studied him… or her? Realizing I wasn’t attacking AND I was losing breath, I re-equipped my sword and shield and chose the ability Lion’s Impact.

  My body rushed out of the tight grip and pounded the snake in the face in an upward motion. The beast was far too heavy to move but it did recoil a bit. My sword moved like an extension of my arm as I shoved it straight into one of the eyes. The beast writhed and screamed as purple blood squirted from the edges of my sword. It retreated a ways away but not too far for me to have lost my target on it.

  Swamp Serpent’s Health: 86%

  Damn, I actually hurt the thing!

  I checked my air with reluctance, afraid of what I might see.

  Air Capacity: 18%

  Yup, I was going to die for sure if I didn’t make it to the top. I looked over at Bataar. I hadn’t even had to get his attention because he was already making his way to the surface.

  I started to follow but that’s when I noticed around eight bubbles floating in the water. The weird thing was that these bubbles did not float to the surface. That was an odd thing for them not to do given how physics worked.

  An idea popped in my head.

  I swam over to one of the bubbles and found that my head could easily fit inside of it. So, that’s what I did. I shoved my head inside and released the tension around my lips. I took one careful sip of air and…

  Air Capacity: 70%

  I started gasping, taking in all the air that I could. Never before had I been so relieved to breathe in whatever air this was. Had it come from the snake thing? If so, then I had never before been so happy to breathe in snake farts.

  Air Capacity: 86%

  Air Capacity: 100%

  I pulled my head out of the bubble just in time to take another tentacle around my waist. I was, yet again, being brought eye to eye with this thing. Then it came to me that this beast was much like the other beasts I had encountered. There was a pattern to its attacks!

  Now that it had been hit, however, I could feel that it was tightening its grip even more so! Blood rushed to my neck, and then to the top of my head. It felt as though my eyes were going to burst out of their sockets! Now more than ever, I wanted to let out a gasp of air. The tentacles were putting so much pressure on my lungs that they were pleading for me to release the tension myself, but I refused.

  I felt a tap on my head and looked up to see Bataar giving me the thumbs up. He started to hack away at the tentacle, each strike relieving an ounce of pressure. Purple blood filled the murky water around us.

  I was able to think now that there was less pressure in my head. I tried to Lion’s Impact again but the cooldown hadn’t completed yet. I had to choose another ability and so I pierced at its eye which burst it easily. It looked like a deflating balloon of gore as blood oozed out of the hole I had just made.

  The serpent released me and swam down into the depths leaving the gas bubbles behind.

  I palmed my forehead once I realized that I’d forgotten all about being able to speak to Bataar through chat. I concentrated and opened up my chat window. There, I wrote:

  Tharis: Bataar, stick your head in one of those bubbles! It’s breathable air!”

  Bataar gave me a crazed and disgusted look.

  Bataar: Swamp air is one thing but this… this is just wrong.

  Bataar swam to the nearest bubble and placed his head inside. I watched as his chest heaved as he took in a deep breath. His face, however, still had a look of utter disgust.

  Tharis: I told you!

  Bataar: Not sure if breathing is even worth it.

  The serpent was back. This time, its body’s color was tinted red hot, all of its eyes looked angry with veins protruding from the irises.

  Bataar: He doesn’t seem too happy.
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br />   Swamp Serpent’s Health: 65%

  I was about to swim towards it when I noticed that the beasts health was slowly dropping. Below its name was a debuff.

  Bleeding Out: This enemy has suffered wounds that cannot heal themselves. It will slowly reduce in health until it has been healed or has consumed any type of food.

  I was really hoping that I wasn’t going to be that source of nourishment but, sadly, I was wrong.

  Although I figured most beasts had patterns, never did I think that their patterns could change the more their health dropped. This serpent was not only looking meaner but now it was much faster, circling around Bataar and me in such a fast pace that it quickly turned into a blur. We could no longer spin ourselves around fast enough to catch a glimpse of it.

  Bataar: What do we do?

  Tharis: IDK, why are you asking me?

  Then there was no more blur. In fact, there was no more beast! I turned left and right but saw nothing. Bataar was doing the same, his greataxe gripped tightly in both hands.

  Tharis: Below us!

  I was too late in warning Bataar and the beast was far too fast. The last things I saw before being swallowed were hundreds of pearly white fangs and the tendons of a stretched mouth.

  I was crammed against Bataar’s body, both of us lucky enough not to get pierced or scratched by any of the teeth. We were still for a moment, then the serpent outstretched his head and we slid further down its throat. My sword and shield were pressed too close to my body for me to attack with and I innately knew that none of my abilities would work at the moment. I would just have to enjoy the ride.

  A couple more swallows and Bataar and I slid down the thing’s slimy throat. First, I could feel that my feet could move more freely, and then there was space for me to move my arms. Finally, Bataar and I both fell from the serpent’s throat and into its belly right into a pond of sludge, some of which found its way into my mouth. It was sour and tasted of death, if death had a taste.

  “Oh my God!” Bataar yelled, his eyes closed and covered in slime.

  “Wipe your face, hurry!” I yelled, looking around for any way to get out of this pond of stomach acid. I doubted Bataar had Dark Vision like I did.

  “There!” I said, but realized that Bataar couldn’t see at the moment. I grabbed one of his flailing arms and pulled him in the direction of a bank made entirely out of thousands of the serpent’s tiny rib bones. I pushed him up first before pulling myself up.

  Since I could see, I unequipped my shield and sword and used my fingers to pull the slime out of his eyes which had already begun to swell and redden. Our armor had kept us from taking any damage but it was our exposed areas that were getting the brunt of it.

  “How do we get this stuff off?” I asked out loud, hoping Bataar had a solution. But all he could do to answer me was yell. The stuff had gotten underneath his eyelids and being Enlightened only made that pain worse.

  “Get it off! Get it off!”

  With quick thinking, I pulled out the sweet nectar I had received from the Grandfather Tree Sage and poured it over his eyes. I knew it was working because he calmed down and started to actually breathe. I then did the same to both of my hands, pouring the sweet nectar over both of them. They had already grown to near double their normal size.

  Once Bataar had caught his breath, he said, “That’s some nasty stuff.”

  I heard a gushing noise and looked at the inner walls of the serpent’s belly. Green liquid was oozing out of slits all around us and flowing straight into the pool.

  “Do you see that?” I asked him, pointing at the pink, fleshy walls.

  “See what?” Bataar asked, looking around blindly. “I can’t see anything in this dark abyss!”

  “Oh, right. I forgot you can’t see in the dark. Is there any way we can get some light in here?”

  I saw Bataar shrug and wipe more goo off his scaly cheek. “Not unless you have flint, matches, or sticks.”

  I let out a breath of air. “No, I sure don’t. Guess I’ll just have to be your eyes.”

  The pool of stomach acid was growing by the second. This beast did not mess around when it came to digesting its food. I looked down at either end of the stomach. Each end was also an entrance and there was no way Bataar and I were going to squeeze ourselves through one of those mouths without getting punctured by teeth. There had to be a way to get out of here!

  I equipped just my sword and plunged it directly between the ribs of the platform we were standing on. Not only did my blade just sink about an inch or two but the serpent didn’t even seem to be bothered.

  “Try using your axe,” I said quietly. For some reason, I felt it best to keep my voice down, thinking perhaps this thing could actually hear our plans.

  Bataar pulled out his axe and was just about to bring it down straight upon my head.

  “Hold it!” I cried. “Turn around! You’re facing me!”

  Bataar let go of the axe with one hand and scratched his nose. “Right, sorry. I knew that.” He turned and brought it down upon the flesh. Nothing.

  “Did that work?” he asked me over his shoulder.

  “No, but there has to be another way.”

  “Sorry, I’m no help in that department,” Bataar said, putting the axe back on his back and sitting down. “We escape our cell behind bars just to find ourselves in yet ANOTHER damned cell. But, this time, the bars aren’t iron.”

  “They’re bone,” I said.

  I gazed around our new prison of flesh and bone, looking for any way we could escape. That’s when I noticed that above the slits producing the stomach acid were thick veins, veins that were the size of my forearms. I put my hand to one of them and could feel something being pumped through them.

  I put my ear to the vein, being careful not to get the acid on me. I tripped over Bataar in doing so.

  “What exactly is it that you’re doing?”

  “Shhh,” I hushed. “I’m trying to listen. And don’t move from where you are. There is acid all around us.”

  The stomach acid had reached our summit and was now slowly growing to reach our feet.

  Bataar didn’t respond. He just wrapped his arms around his shins and waited my next instructions. There was nothing he could do without his eyes. I took a second to thank who had ever created me for making me Half-Elvish.

  As I put my ear to the serpent’s stomach. I could hear a steady beat.

  Bump Bump, Bump Bump.

  “It’s got a heart!” I said. “We just have to find it!”

  “So are you saying we have to adventure through this thing?”

  “Yeah, it looks like it.”

  Bataar snickered. “I guess it’s better than getting disintegrated by snake stomach acid.” He stood up and flailed his arm around until he found his balance which was my shoulder. “Lead the way.”

  Along the serpent’s stomach walls was a small amount of room that a player could shimmy. I put Bataar’s face as close as I could to the flesh and had to force his head closer. The smell of this place was a mixture of the deaths of all this thing’s past dinners and, of course, a bit of bile rot.

  We started to move inch by inch with me in the front and Bataar’s hand wrapped around my side. The serpent must have been turning at this point because the body had turned into the shape of a capital L. We made the turn slowly but that’s when the beast started to go absolutely berserk.

  There was no chance of Bataar and me being able to stand our ground. The serpent flung itself in directions we no longer could figure out and we were thrown off the wall and slammed back first into the acid. I could feel the slimy liquid going straight to work on my ears, cheeks, eyes, and, well, basically my whole face. I joined Bataar this time in screaming at the top of my lungs.

  And then it was gone. The liquid shrank into the bottom linings of the stomach, leaving Bataar and me both shaking in pain. I pulled out my last bottle of nectar, poured it on myself first and then onto Bataar.

  “I hop
e this thing burns in hell!” Bataar cried, standing up and shaking his fist in the air.

  A sudden dim, pink light came from the top of the serpent’s body making Bataar gasp.

  “I can see!” he said. He looked around a bit before looking at me. “And now I’m not so sure that is a good thing.”

  The light would dim and light up, dim and light up for no apparent reason. I dropped to my knees and put my ear to the ground.

  “Ugh, what are you doing?”

  “Shh.”

  Bump Bump, Bump Bump.

  The pink light would lighten up with each bump and dim between each bump.

  “Bataar! That’s the heart!”

  “What? Our only light source is the heart of this damned thing?” He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Great, just great. You’d think an Archean could catch a single break but nooo. Here I am stuck in a serpent’s belly, after just escaping the first jail cell and, before that, barely surviving a Nectar Sucker ambush! I’m getting way too old for this shit.”

  I was just about to ask Bataar if being created old actually made you feel old when two more bodies slid into the middle of the serpent’s stomach. The slimy film slid these two new things directly at us. Bataar equipped his greataxe and raised it over his head.

  I targeted each one.

  Guud

  Chirosh

  “What are you two doing here?” I asked, my voice echoing throughout the serpent.

  Bataar lowered his greataxe and said, “I guess the same thing we are.”

  I scanned both of them. “Wait a minute,” I said, walking closer to Guud. “I think I know you.”

  Guud looked up at me, his hair still wet from the swamp. He shook his head and looked over at Chirosh who was still in a daze from being swallowed. Guud’s eyes went wide and he crawled towards me as fast as he could.

  “Please! Keep him away! He wants to take me back!”

  Bataar looked at Guud, who was now holding on to my shins, and back at me. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked.

  “This in Guud,” I said. “He’s a Blacksmithing apprentice for the Golden Alliance.”