Growth Hero 2

by Brent Tyman

“Then…” Kesara mused, as her brows drew down in confusion, “who made this hole?”

  That question was left unanswered as the soldiers sent to scout the entrance came back through the opening and signaled it was free of danger on the other side.

  “Do you sense anything, Anny?” Clarissa asked. “The sooner we reach my comfy bed in the Academy, the better.”

  “Yes,” Anny nodded. “There are a few auras beyond this opening, but I believe I can navigate our way around them,”

  “Then, by all means,” Juliana said, and waved Anny forward. “Please, lead the way.”

  We stepped through the opening, one by one, and waited on the other side as the soldiers brought through the packhorse, which proved to be a tight fit.

  As soon as I had stepped through, I could instantly feel a change in the air. The gentle breeze I had enjoyed from the Beastkin town onwards had morphed back into hot, humid air.

  It almost had a tangible quality to it, with the air feeling a lot heavier than before. It felt like I was wading through jelly, of all things.

  Once the pack horse was finally through, we followed Anny as she led us deeper into the Dungeon.

  Other than the air, it didn’t seem to be too different from a typical cave.

  The walls were caked in some type of wet substance, however, that gave off a subtle green glow. There were also miniature green lines along the walls that almost looked like tiny veins in appearance. The green veins emitted enough light for us to see a fair distance, which was a plus.

  It was all quite strange, but I was most peeved about the heat. If we had to camp in this part of the Dungeon, it would definitely be uncomfortable.

  Not as bad as the Beastkin town, fortunately. Those darn furnaces were almost too good at their job.

  Anny led us through a Dungeon floor that alternated between narrow tunnels and wide-open caverns. Despite knowing Anny was leading us around any potential monsters, the silence here was… eerie.

  The only sounds I could hear was the heavy tread of the soldiers behind us and Daiver’s rather heavy stomps in front of us.

  Anny suddenly stopped and pointed down the tunnel.

  “We have to go down this tunnel, but there is no way for us to avoid the shallow orange aura I see there. It’s… It’s really big,” she said, with a shudder.

  “Finally, some action,” Daiver jeered, drawing his sword. “Watch as I make short work of this monster.”

  “Remember,” Juliana said, “This could be a very deep Dungeon floor. We can’t afford to be reckless.”

  “Reckless is my middle name!” Daiver shouted, drawing the ire of everyone around him.

  “Keep it down,” Vencia hissed, but it was already too late.

  “It’s coming this way,” Anny said, panic in her tone. “And the aura is moving really fast!”

  The soldiers took up positions next to Daiver in the front line. Since I had spent a long and painful amount of time developing my Defense stat, I naturally took a spot up front as well.

  “Be careful, Alex,” Juliana said, worry evident in both her tone and her expression as she stepped back for her ranged magic.

  “Don’t fret so much,” Clarissa said, giving me a sly wink. “I’m sure our handsome Alex can handle himself, just like in bed.”

  I shook my head as the soldiers gave me curious looks. That was just Clarissa being Clarissa, yet again.

  I drew my sword and examined this tunnel in front of us. The opening wasn’t all that wide, which made me confident that whatever was coming wouldn’t have much room to maneuver. It should make for an easy fight.

  That was until I saw the glow of red reptilian eyes in the distance, accompanied by a serpentine hiss.

  “Oh, shit!” a soldier shouted.

  “It’s a Glower Serpent!”

  “Get out of the way!”

  The line we had formed crumbled instantly as this Glower Serpent emerged from the tunnel. It jerked its head to the side, punishing the soldiers who didn’t back away in time, causing them to go flying through the air.

  This snake-like monster had green reptilian scales, with two giant fangs jutting out from its mouth. What I found most interesting was that its scales matched the colors of the walls here, down to small, green veins that ran along its length. No doubt it could blend into its environment quite easily.

  In terms of size, it towered over us, easily reaching the height of a two-story house.

  Swaths of magic surged through the air as Juliana and Karl let loose with their spells. Fireballs and lightning struck the Serpent, causing it to stagger back.

  While it hissed its annoyance, I darted forward and ran my sword along its green scales.

  I was relieved to find my sword cut through the scales easily, resulting in a wide gash from which green blood spilled out. The Serpent’s hiss turned into a howl as it bent down to retaliate.

  Daiver struck the Serpent’s other side, resulting in a narrow, yet still potent gash. This distracted it enough for me to dodge out of the way as it struck where I had just been.

  Crash!

  The Serpent shrieked as it recoiled from its own attack. I looked back to see that most of the soldiers had begun to attack the monster’s body, with mixed results. While it seemed easy for me and Daiver, the rest of the soldiers were having a tough time breaking through its scaly exterior.

  The Serpent slithered forward to reveal that its tail had still been in the tunnel. It turned to the side and flicked its tail forward, causing even more soldiers to fly through the air as it struck them.

  A fireball crashed into the Serpent’s eye, and it recoiled back in surprise, its head cracking into a nearby wall. Stunned, it took a moment to recover before letting out a screeching hiss before striking forward.

  I had worried it would go after the rest of the party, but instead, it seemed to have struck nothing.

  That was when I saw it could dig through the hard stone ground and in but a moment, it had all but disappeared, leaving only a large hole in the floor.

  “No way!” I shouted, “It can dig?”

  “Ha!” Daiver laughed. “It ran off as soon as I attacked it. No doubt, it took my measure and was easily spooked by my power.”

  “Is it over?” Clarissa asked as she moved toward the soldiers that had been struck by the Serpent’s swipes.

  “No… wait,” I said, feeling a slight vibration under my feet.

  “Spread out!” I ordered.

  Everyone did so, and I watched as the Serpent burst out of the ground, swallowing an unlucky Hogannan soldier who hadn’t moved quick enough.

  “Karl, use your ice,” Juliana ordered.

  “Understood,” he replied. Karl clasped his hands together and a mist of cold air formed above us. It pooled into a vortex, slowly solidifying into ice shards before striking the Serpent.

  At first, I didn’t think the attack had done anything, but then I noticed that there were now thin sheets of ice attaching the Serpent to the floor, rendering it unable to move.

  We didn’t need any further orders to know that this was our best chance to deal the Glower Serpent some serious damage.

  I rushed forward, sword in hand, and sliced the Serpent’s body next to where I had originally damaged it. My sword cut deep into its flesh, causing it to hiss in defiance. As the others struck, I could tell it was desperately trying to free itself from Karl’s magic.

  “I can’t hold this forever!” Karl shouted, and I looked back to see that his magic needed to be channeled continuously. He stared at the Serpent, his hands held before him enveloped in the same frost that held the monster fast.

  After another strike, leaving another heavy gash along the Serpent’s front, it suddenly stilled.

  I looked up to see that its eyes had turned a pure, glowing white, with its focus directed at Karl.

  “Karl, watch out!” I yelled.

  He had been looking at the Serpent’s lower body, but as the Serpent lowered its head to match Karl’s sta
re, I knew this could only mean trouble.

  “I can’t!” Karl hissed as his eyes met the Serpents. His limbs suddenly froze in place.

  “Its… got… me,” he drawled as the magic in his hands winked out.

  If my knowledge of RPG’s held true, this Serpent was clearly capable of doing some kind of ranged attack. No doubt, part of that attack included making its target stare into its eyes.

  Karl seemed to be frozen in place, so I could only assume the monster was preparing to attack him with magical power that required precision.

  I saw Juliana rush towards Karl, likely to push him away in order to break the gaze trapping him, but I just knew she wouldn’t be fast enough.

  I had to do something. Now!

  The Serpent didn’t seem to be fazed by the soldiers wailing on it, or even Daiver’s strikes, though they did decent damage to its body.

  It had recoiled significantly when Juliana had struck its eye with a fireball, though. I wasn’t getting much traction, striking its body, but maybe it was weaker up around its head—which was beyond my reach.

  While I didn’t have any ranged abilities, I did have my sword.

  I figured that with my boosted Strength, it would be just as effective if I launched my sword at its eye.

  It would leave me weaponless afterwards, but to save Karl, it was worth a shot.

  I tipped my sword back over my shoulder, took a split second to aim, and threw it with all my might. I silently hoped that the sword didn’t flip round and smack the monster in the face with the hilt or along the flat of the blade, as I doubted that would be nearly as effective.

  My sword struck true, thankfully, and sliced cleanly through the Serpent’s left eye. The force of the blow blasted it backwards into the wall behind it. I watched as its head snapped backwards and then ripped free from the rest of its body, splattering green, oozy blood everywhere.

  Large cracks appeared in the wall as the massive weight of the Serpent’s head struck it. My sword disappeared into its flesh as it pinned the monster to the wall, leaving the head suspended in midair.

  Its glowing white eyes were still eerily alive as it looked around for a moment before they slowly winked out and dull, red reptilian eyes stared back at us, unmoving.

  “Jeez…” I hissed as adrenaline crested in my system. My heart pounded in my chest and a sudden wave of exhaustion rolled over me. I wanted nothing more than to lay down my suddenly heavy head.

  Preferably on one of my ladies’ soft chests, or maybe on both of them.

  Phew. I guess Glower Serpents were a lot weaker around their heads, but even I didn’t expect my desperate throw to snap its head off the rest of its body.

  I looked back to see Karl had indeed been pushed to the floor by Juliana. I rushed over to find that he was still alive and well, if a bit dazed.

  “Uhh,” he said, his glasses a good four feet away from him on the ground. “That was unpleasant.”

  “Are you injured, Karl?” Juliana asked, worry etched on her face as she crouched over her retainer. “Did the Glower Serpent harm you in any way?”

  Karl slowly examined himself where he lay sprawled on the floor. It seemed he was more interested in ensuring his writing implements and journals were still intact than in verifying his own wellbeing.

  Which honestly didn’t surprise me.

  “I believe so,” he eventually said, “But I do need my glasses for a more accurate assessment.”

  I walked over and picked up his glasses as both Clarissa and Anny came over to me, while the rest of Juliana’s retinue came over to fuss over Karl.

  I handed him his glasses as Vencia knelt at his other side and poured her healing into him.

  “What about you, Alex?” Clarissa asked, her eyes examining my body intently. “Did that overgrown snake bite you?”

  I was about to reply that I was fine, when Clarissa stepped forward and pushed her healing magic into me, anyway. Since I didn’t need any healing, the effect was soothing more than anything else.

  “There we go,” she said. “All healed up and ready for more. Maybe I should spend a little extra time running my hands over every inch of you, just to make sure.”

  Clarissa grinned at me, but the weirdest thing was that I noticed she hadn’t called me ‘handsome’, like she usually did. I could tell she had been really worried I might have gotten hurt from the way she was looking at me, even if she tried not to make it obvious.

  I pulled her close and pressed my lips to hers, opting to ease any worries she had built up with a pleasant distraction. She returned my efforts twofold with some tongue. We were both breathless when we parted.

  “Hmm,” she breathed, winking. “I could do with some more of that.”

  “Ahh…” Anny squeaked from in front of the big snake head pinned to the wall, drawing our attention. “That was horrifying! I’ve never seen a Glower Serpent up close before!”

  She studied the pinned head of the Serpent and shuddered. “Even looking at it gives me the chills, but the pattern on its scales is… really pretty.”

  “Is this entire floor filled with those snakes?” I asked. “That Serpent would be a real ordeal to fight with a small party; fortunately, we had the benefit of having so many soldiers with us.”

  “That’s a good question, handsome,” Clarissa said, as she frowned deep in thought. “I don’t think Glower Serpents should even be here, but who knows?”

  Juliana seemed comfortable that Karl was going to be okay and quickly hopped over to me.

  “Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Alex,” Juliana said, her eyes shining. “I couldn’t imagine what I would do if I lost you, or any of my retinue. The weight of all my fallen soldiers is already heavy enough on my heart.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, other than to rub absently at the back of my neck.

  “Uhh, no problem,” I replied before Juliana dashed forward to embrace and then kiss me. Her lips were soft and I found myself getting lost in her embrace for a while.

  “Ohhh, look at them go,” Kesara commented just before we parted. “No, wait! Don’t stop on my account, this will make for juicy gossip.”

  “Karl, you shouldn’t push yourself,” Vencia said as Karl got to his feet, brushing off his long Academy coat.

  “I must admit, that experience was quite unpleasant,” he said solemnly before immediately perking up. “But now I have so much new information to process. To feel the effects of a Glower Serpent’s gaze firsthand will be invaluable to my research.”

  I could feel the collective eye rolls of everyone here at that remark.

  Karl was going to be okay.

  The Dungeon had proved to be far more dangerous than any of us had expected…

  4

  Clarissa insisted that I loot the Glower Serpent as quickly as I could. I could already see a gleam in her eye as she stared at it.

  “Are we safe here, Anny?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “I don’t see any other auras in the immediate vicinity, and the ones that had been close have scurried further away,” she replied as her eyes refocused.

  “Glower Serpents are from the forty-fifth floor,” Karl said as he examined the pinned Serpent’s head in detail. “As Lady Hoganna suggested earlier, it should not be here.”

  “Are you sure though?” I asked. “I mean, its markings plainly match the walls of this tunnel, down to the small green veins. This looks like its natural habitat, if I have it right.”

  “A fine conclusion, Alex,” Karl said, but then he shook his head. “You probably don’t know that Glower Serpents are able to change their markings to match their immediate environment. If we wait long enough, it should change back to its natural color.”

  We waited a moment in silence and, as if on cue, a dull white sheen gradually replaced the green hue of the scales on the Serpent’s body and head.

  “Huh,” Daiver said, scratching his head. “It was fairly convincing to my eyes. It even spewed out green blood from
my heroic blows.”

  “Glower Serpents are renowned for their slyness,” Karl said, staring at the Serpent’s head. “It seemed like my magic barely damaged it. I have to assume we aren’t deep enough for the forty-fifth level… why was it here? What an interesting, if unpleasant, conundrum.”

  “That’s not quite true,” I said, patting Karl on the shoulder. “That freezing spell you did was great.”

  “Perhaps, but it seems I still have a long way to go before I will be able to perform my research in relative safety,” he said.

  “Since Alex has quite the appealing skill,” Kesara said, drawing close to me. “Maybe we can convince him to join our Clan, so we can grow our stats even faster?”

  “Hey,” Clarissa said, whacking Kesara's hand as it reached for my arm. “Hands off my handsome Alex, and no, I’m afraid this little Clan of ours is a permanent arrangement.”

  “That’s a thought,” Vencia said absently. “Anyone in Alex’s clan would become extremely powerful in no time at all, never mind the benefits of having him in a party in the first place. Such benefits would outweigh the drawbacks of leaving another Clan.”

  I could tell from the look on everyone’s faces that they were thinking the exact same thing.

  Oh jeez…

  “In that case,” Kesara said, seeming to come to a decision. “Have you got any room in your Clan, Alex?” She winked for added effect. “Most of the Tasberg messages are just Juliana’s father holding boring conversations with the rest of our parents. Daiver’s father, no surprise, is just as ridiculous as he is.”

  Daiver opened his mouth to retort, but closed it after only a moment. I guess he agreed with Kesara’s statement about his father.

  “Hmm,” Karl mused. “Doubling this party’s already massive stat boost is an opportunity that rarely comes twice.”

  “Ahh, does this mean we will have a lot more Clan members?” Anny asked, and all eyes turned to Juliana and me.

  “Well, I would be happy to accept any of you,” I said honestly. “I’m actually looking for a tank right now, so… even Daiver would fit the bill.”

  “Me? Leave the esteemed Tasberg Clan to join… uhh… What was the name of your Clan again?” Daiver asked, earning a few glares from the women.