“I hate swamps,” he growled to himself. “I hate swamps so damn much.”
He cursed himself for not taking one of Marcy’s boats. At the time, he’d chosen to leave them behind because he wanted to be ready for anything that might attack him. However, after trudging through the questionably murky water, with the swamp muck oozing between his scaly toes, Elijah regretted that decision. But it was too late to go back. He’d come too far, by that point.
So, as eerie darkness enveloped the hellish marsh, he continued along. In the distance, Elijah saw a series of tiny flickering lights, though he ignored them. They were what many Cajuns native to the Louisiana Bayou referred to as feu follet, and in their mythology, they were seen as supernatural in nature. Some people thought they represented the last vestiges of passing loved ones, while others attributed the flickering lights to evil spirits.
In reality, they were simply the result of volatile gases released from decomposing organic matter that had briefly caught fire. Though, if Elijah was honest with himself, he preferred the first explanation. It would be nice to think that those tiny, flickering lights – so visible in the deep dark of the swamp – were the spirits of his parents who just wanted one last opportunity to say goodbye.
He sighed, trudging along.
Fortunately, his thick scales proved a good deterrent to the biting insects that pervaded the environment, so he was only uncomfortable, rather than subject to whatever diseases they inevitably carried. As he slowly pushed deeper into the swamp, Elijah could feel everything via One with Nature. Snakes, monstrous catfish that lived in the tangled roots of cypress trees, and reptiles of every sort were the most common, but Elijah felt plenty of frogs swimming to and fro as well as birds nesting in the tops of the trees.
There were even quite a few fiddler crabs, with their single oversized claw, skittering along beneath the surface of the murky water, unseen despite growing to sizes that would’ve dwarfed a black bear.
Most of the beasts in the swamp left him alone, but every now and then, one would dart close to inspect the large predator in their midst. That never lasted long. The moment they caught a whiff of him – or rather, his lamellar ape form – they ran away. Elijah wondered if any had originally intended to attack, or if they were simply curious.
There was no way to know for sure, but it was a good question that occupied one facet of his mind for a little while. Like that, hours passed, and night truly enveloped the swamp. If he hadn’t been mired in muck and filthy, stagnant water, Elijah might’ve considered the landscape beautiful. There had always been something mystical and evocative about swamps, a trait that was only exacerbated by unique traits like the swamp lights.
Or perhaps it was the simple mystery characteristic to truly wild places that had remained untouched by human hands even before the world had been transformed by the touch of the World Tree. Swamps had always been dangerous – partially because of the native wildlife, which trended towards the deadly, but also because of how easy it was to lose oneself within that watery maze of cypress trees – and Elijah was well aware of just how true that still was.
One bite from one of the obviously venomous snakes that slithered nearby, and most people would die in minutes. The same was true if they fell afoul of the alligators poised to ambush any prey that wandered nearby. Or the giant spiders whose gossamer webs blanketed the entire canopy for whole acres.
It was a deadly dangerous place, and Elijah suspected he was one of the few people on Earth who could traverse it with any real expectation of survival.
So, he continued on, keeping his senses trained on his surroundings as he searched for a sign of Konnie the Alchemist or the man’s daughter, Bryce. But as he waded through the swamp, he caught the scent of something else.
Something reptilian.
But also alien. Elijah was busy trying to figure out what was different about it when he finally felt his quarry on a small island amidst the stagnant water. Konnie was huddled beneath a boat that had been overturned. Normally, the flat-bottomed vessel wouldn’t have offered much protection, but against something as large as the enormous fiddler crab snapping its single, overlarge claw against the metal hull, the makeshift defense was just enough to stymie it.
The crab was only a little smaller than the ones on Elijah’s island, though even from a distance, he could intuit that it was much more dangerous. Size wasn’t the only measure of a creature’s lethality, after all. In fact, it probably wasn’t even the best way to judge any given opponent.
In any case, Elijah knew he had to step in, or the overgrown crustacean would figure out how to flip the comparatively light boat over. So, without any further rumination, Elijah charged forward, propelling himself through the stagnant water with his massive Strength. The crab was so determined to tear its way through the boat’s hull that it never even saw Elijah coming. With a grunt, he hit the beast with a shoulder charge, flipping it end over end as it skipped across the water.
A moment later, it hit a cypress tree, then fell into the water with a splash. Elijah spread his arms wide and declared his dominance via a massive roar. It was a challenge, and one the crab had no interest in meeting. After the creature righted itself, it skittered away, disappearing beneath the surface to bury itself in the muck.
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Elijah didn’t relax until the thing passed the outer boundary of his senses, disappearing from One with Nature.
Only then did he let himself shift back to his human form. With one hand, he reached down, grabbed the edge of the boat, and flipped it over. Konnie, who turned out to be an incredibly thin, pale-skinned man wearing a straw hat and a great, bushy, and grey beard thanked him by trying to stab him with a trident.
Or was it a pitchfork?
Elijah slapped the weak attack aside, saying, “Stop that. I’m here to help.”
“Who are you?” the man asked, his voice carrying an accent that belonged to the American deep south.
“Name’s Elijah. Marcy asked me to help, Konnie.”
It only took a cursory look to see that Konnie was grievously wounded. Not only were his clothes stained red with blood, but he smelled of decay and disease. Couple that with the deep, black bags beneath his eyes and his pallid complexion, and Elijah could intuit an infection of some sort.
“What got you?” Elijah asked.
“Giant nutria,” Konnie grunted, referring to a breed of semi-aquatic and invasive rodents originally native to South America; they’d long since spread far beyond their original ecosystems. “Shoulda brought Bessy with me. Nothin’ messes with me when she’s ‘round.”
“I could see how that would be the case. You mind if I heal you?” Elijah asked, already summoning Healing Rain. “Or do you have a potion or something you’re waiting to use?”
“Heals. Please.”
Elijah raised his hand and approached slowly. He didn’t want to get a pitchfork in the stomach, after all. Fortunately, Konnie was lucid enough to distinguish friend from foe, so he only flinched a little when Elijah placed his hand on the man’s neck. And he almost recoiled at what he felt.
“How are you still alive?” Elijah wondered, already pulsing Touch of Nature. He also used Essence of the Boar and Aura of Renewal to augment the man’s natural healing and defenses. “You’ve got more poison than blood in you.”
“Leeches,” Konnie said.
“You use leeches?”
“No.”
“I’m confused…”
“No. Leeches got me when the boat got flipped,” the Alchemist explained. “They’re not normal leeches. They got a bitta venom in ‘em. And there was a lot of ‘em.”
“Huh,” Elijah muttered as he continued to heal Konnie.
“How ain’t you the just as bad off?” he asked, obviously wondering why Elijah had been assailed by the same leeches.
“Special Druid secret,” Elijah answered. “Now, Marcy sent me out here to find you and a girl. You’re the first part. Where’s the other?”
“Why’re you helpin’?”
“I’m a helpful guy.”
“Most ain’t.”
“I’m not most,” Elijah stated. “Listen, I don’t think it’s smart for you to be out here right now. There’s something around here that doesn’t really belong. I don’t know what it is, but it’s different. Alien.”
At first, Elijah had thought there was a guardian around, but he felt that it was something else. At least it wasn’t a Voxx.
“That’s the hydra.”
“Hydra?”
“A mutated beast, I think. Buncha heads. Like a blend between a gator and a python. Or maybe a viper, considerin’ its poison.”
“A hydra…”
“That’s what I said.”
“How big is it?”
“Bigger’n Bessy. At least twice her size. We don’t normally go anywhere near its territory, but…”
“But what?”
“It’s gettin’ bigger,” Konnie said.
“The hydra is growing?” asked Elijah.
“No – its territory. I’m scared it’s gonna attack the house. We got kids there.”
“Move,” Elijah suggested.
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
“We was here first!” Konnie growled. “Them kids need this.”
“Explain,” Elijah said, still healing the man.
Konnie took a deep breath, then said, “Them ain’t our kids. Not by blood…”
After that, he went on to explain the situation. Soon after the world’s transformation, Konnie – who insisted on being called Konstantino – stumbled upon a half-submerged church van. The driver was already dead, but the children inside were still alive.
“I done what anybody would’ve,” he said. “Rescued ‘em. Loaded ‘em up in the boat. But their time in the swamp had changed ‘em. That’s why I took the Alchemist class. I wanted to help ‘em. And I figured it out.”
Then, he explained the solution. As it turned out, the children were only healthy so long as they got a very specific potion twice a day. Otherwise, they would quickly grow ill and die.
“I’m just tryin’ to keep ‘em goin’ until they can get an archetype. A class, maybe. If they get enough Constitution, they can survive. I know it. ‘til then…”
“And the ingredients are native to this swamp, aren’t they?” Elijah asked.
Konstantinos nodded.
“Well, shit.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Clearly, Konstantinos couldn’t move his family. But if he was right about the hydra, they couldn’t stay, either. Not so long as the hydra remained. The solution seemed simple. Killing the hydra would solve the problem. Yet, Elijah was conflicted.
Still, he was a human first, and a Druid second. Besides, the lives of those children were at stake. Sure, he intended to approach the situation with as much tact as possible, but if it came down to a choice between the hydra and Konstantinos’ family, he knew which one he’d choose.
But first, he needed to find the girl, Bryce. So, he asked, “Your daughter. Do you know where she might have gone?”
“South. I can show you.”
“No,” Elijah said. “You need to go back to your compound.”
He had a feeling it was going to end in a fight, and one Konstantinos was ill-suited to confront. Of course, the Alchemist argued. It was his daughter out there, and he had no intention of abandoning her. Yet, when Elijah pointed out that, even after being healed, he was in no condition for a trek through the swamp, Konstantinos backed down.
After that, Konstantinos seemed to accept his limitations and described the area where Elijah might find the girl. He did add that Bryce might not actually be there, saying, “But that’s where the herbs we need are located, and she knows that. It’s the best lead we got as to where she went.”
“I’ll find her,” Elijah promised.
“What about the hydra?” asked Konstantinos.
Elijah shrugged. “I’ll deal with it,” he said. Then, after getting the Alchemist back in the boat and sending him off, Elijah shifted back into his lamellar ape form and once again set off across the swamp. And as he did, that reptilian smell – he couldn’t describe it any other way – grew stronger until, at last, he caught sight of the hydra.
The monster was much as Konstantinos had described it. Its three heads were like giant boa constrictors, though with a few extra ridges around the eyes, and its body was distinctly crocodilian, with green-brown scales and a thick, ridged tail.
The moment Elijah laid eyes on it, he knew it was no natural creature. Not to Earth, at least. In retrospect, he’d felt the same about the sovereign spider that had guarded the pass through the mountains, though he’d been incapable of understanding what it meant. To a lesser extent, he recognized it from the people of Ironshore, as well.
Clearly, the hydra hadn’t originated on Earth.
Neither had the panther on his island. Or the bear. But while those creatures had felt like they belonged, the hydra did not. To him, that confirmed that the hydra wasn’t a guardian, either. Instead, it was something else.
It was alien.
It was a monster.
Still, as distressing as that realization was, Elijah was more concerned with the girl who’d climbed one of the cypress trees in an attempt to escape the monster.