Elena’s report, continued…

The first of the multi-headed snake’s eight heads comes for me so fast like a speeding bullet. I barely get out of the way as it crashes into where I had been just a heartbeat ago, leaving behind a crater the size of a miniature pond.

Without so much as a kindness of giving me a breather, three of its other seven heads come for me as well, two of them trying the same shtick (and failing) while the third opened up wide, reaching in to try and catch me in its jaws. And it got me good, that damned thing.

But it’s also here, my Lady, that I do something extremely awesome. And extremely cool, of course! I made its head blow up from within its jaws with a nice big explosion of arcane and fire magic. Just as its jaws tried to close shut on me, too!

Next thing I remember, I’m falling to the floor while a discordant chorus of shrieks deafen my poor old ears. Right into the sludge, drenched with splatters of snake guts and eldritch blood. I want to say back there that I land on my feet like a true hero of Arcadia. But I don’t, and I end up with my back soaking in the sludge.

Still, I’m back on my feet like any responsible Vizier would, everything else be damned. As I stare across at the decapitated snake head that’s now dead and smouldering upon the floor, I’m thinking that I’ve only got seven more of these accursed things to deal with, and that I’m doing just fine. Even if my longcoat no longer feels good upon my back, even if this multi-headed Hellbourne is still giving me fourteen eyes’ worth of fury.

Without further ado, we have a go at each other again. This time the fiend is keeping its distance, seven heads’ worth of fireballs and venom missiles coming down upon me like rain. I return the favour, and I’m keeping a nice pace, running circles around the broken pews as I pelt each and all of its seven heads with blasts of fire and necrotic death. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m way too slippery and fast for this huge eldritch fiend who could easily reach up and shatter the ceiling above with any one of its skulls if it cared to.

Yes indeed my Lady, my spell-slinging is doing good work. Every direct hit I land explodes upon its scales, sending flesh and blood splattering upon the sludge-covered floor. It left another two more of its heads dead and smouldering, and I’m thinking that there are five more to go. Five more heads, that come crashing down for me with fangs bared and jaws open. I dodge three of them, but the fourth’s headbutt trips me by the side of my leg just as the fifth comes in fast to bathe me in a gout of hellfire before I can turn around and bring up a barrier.

I won’t lie. The hellfire hurt. A lot. And it stank of stuff that I can’t even put to words. And it felt like I was melting in there, like the magical energies holding my physical form together were going away with every passing second I remained in it. Quite literally, because I could feel my flesh melding with my coat, and that’s definitely no good. But, I muster up enough strength to send an arcane barrage forth into the fire, right into its gaping maw.

It’s a direct hit. That hellfire-breathing head doesn’t take it too good. It crashes dead to the floor, and I get out of the way and sear the stump with a fireball as a precaution. Now that there are four dead and four left to go, I’m looking up at half a job well done.

Without wasting any time, two of its remaining four heads smash into the ground. It’s an old trick by now, and I jump up upon the top of one of its heads just as it comes crashing into the cratered floor, steadying myself as it tries to throw me off. I use my sigils to conjure a sword of fire in one hand and a buckler of arcane magic in the other, and I stab the fiery blade deep into the top of its skull. Right through its tongue, and I slash the top of its head a couple more times for good measure to make its eldritch flesh ignite into a fiery blaze. Two more of its heads come for me, and I get them the same way.

And here, get this, is where I do another awesome thing. Before this burning head I had been standing on crashes dead upon the floor with the others, as the last of its living heads sends a giant blast of acid my way, I throw the conjured buckler right into its trajectory and leap off the burning mess. Right into the resulting explosion of poison and arcane energy, right into the way of its serpentine maw, where I strike it dead with my conjured sword slashing through its opened mouth, splattering a shower of eldritch blood and guts in all directions.

Unfortunately, this also sends me crashing into the floor. Right into the sludge, once more. Except this time, face-first into it all. With my face bathed in the poison and blood, I feel the urge to get up, but it felt really comfortable lying down like that, like I’m dead upon the floor with everyone else in this once clean place of worship to Elicia. That, and the fact that I feel like I’ve been shoved into a furnace and then ironed out on a bed of spikes. It’s something I would not recommend to anyone, really.

Still, I get up. Or not, because all I do is roll over so that my back is once more upon the filthy floor, soaked in the coldness of it all. I remain like this for a while with my eyes wide open as I look up towards the stained glass display of dear old Elicia. It’s smeared with the Hellbourne’s remains, blood and guts with all the works. And as I look at it, I’m thinking about the emptied town, the razed buildings and the corpses of humans and Hellbourne strewn upon the burning streets. I suppose there won’t be a Harvest Festival this year. Or the next, probably.

But at least, bless my wretched soul, it’s over. The burning pit blocking my way is finally gone, and my eight-headed enemy remains unmoving and all burnt up. It’s with that and a whole lot of happy thoughts that I force myself up upon my feet, and towards the door leading into the cloister that the elven devata had fled into. By following the bloody trail left in her wake, I found her once more. And from the way she shivered in place, she was doing her very best against whatever evil was compelling her to do all that had been done.

She looked at me with tears in her eyes as I approached. We exchanged no words, like we both knew what had to be done. And dare I say it, she welcomed it with a relish.

I put her out of her misery. Or at least, that’s how I wanted to it end. My dagger cuts nothing but air as she vanishes in a flash of silver light, alongside the jewelled sceptre held in her hands.

I went back to the prayer hall. The massive Hellbourne is still dead, thankfully. All eight of its heads.

I’ll say it here, though, that I’ve never seen anything like that. Nothing of the sort in the Akashic Records, and their occultists have entries on all known variants of Hellbourne serving in every Archon’s army. Even the newly-made Hybrid like Anna de la Lune, though that’s a rather recent entry.

So, just what the hell was that thing? When I envision its eight heads and its serpentine visage in my mind, I can’t help but think back to the three-headed hydras that once lived in the swamps and marshes until the adventurers and the Alyssian Empire of old hunted them to extinction. I should know, my Lady, because I slew one alongside Grinnaux and my father’s men when I was twelve years old. It was a great and ancient beast, a monster that the people of Eldia took to calling ‘Vectus’. Lord of the Swamp, Devourer of Elves. It’s from fighting that great beast all those centuries ago, that I thought to burn the Hellbourne’s heads when I killed them, and it worked here just as it did back then.

Perhaps this thing, whatever it is, is some kind of nightmarish reflection of what once was once in Melodia. Or not, and that I’m simply overthinking it. Regardless, in the annals of the Akashic Records, that’s what I’ll name this eight-headed Hellbourne, and all of its kind that await us in the realm of Chaos.

Vectus.

The elven devata. I have her name now, my Lady. Alyssa de Aintree. Found it amidst her personal effects, in a diary and some unsent letters in the living quarters where the devatas of this abbey used to live in.

Her diary, its entries tell me that she’s excited to be in this place that once was, and of the Harvest Festival that’ll never come. But also, of her doubts and fears of a man who spoke fearfully to her of a prophecy fulfilled. That she plans to find out what he’s on about, if only to still the questions in her mind.

It stops there, abruptly enough. Whatever happened between then and now, I can only wonder. But, at least it’s over. At least, I want to say it is, that her souls may fly free in death and find peace in oblivion when the Veil claims it. And yet, I don’t think it is.

I don’t think I’ve seen the last of Alyssa de Aintree.