A/N I just wanted to thank you all again for reading my work. I put my best effort into every word that comes out onto the page and I feel downright honored you've given me the privilege to present my work to your eyes. But enough poetry out of me, you'd be doing me a huge favor by boosting this story to at least one hundred reads. That's all I'm asking for, one hundred. So if you wouldn't mind continuing to read as I publish my next chapters and hey, maybe spread the word to your friends. I mean, I'm not going to beg you, it doesn't bother me in any way. But if you did, you'd be doing me a big favor and you'd have my deepest gratitude by putting my work out deeper into the world. Thanks again for reading, and especially if you read these. I honestly wonder how many people actually do. That's enough out of me, enjoy the chapter.

When Ascanor woke in the morning, he found himself to be the only one awake. Across from the fire, Ereven's head had slumped onto his breastplate. He snored heavily, amplified as his armor rattled along with it. Ascanor noted, appalled, he'd managed to sleep through the night with that racket. Sharyas lay curled up next to the smoldering coals, while Alandil had perched up in a tree, bow at ready. Ascanor frowned, quietly hissing up towards the sleeping elf. He opened his eyes at once and yawned. "Morning."

Ascanor nodded to the bow. "What's that for?"

He looked down, puzzled. "Shooting things, I'd expect you of all people to have seen a bow before."

Ascanor sighed, suppressing an annoyed groan. "Why do you have it out?"

"Oh, I decided to stand guard."

"Don't you need sleep?"

"Mmm, little at most."

"Is that what you were doing right now?"

The elf didn't respond.

Ascanor shrugged and sat down to open his pack. He rustled around, pulling out a stale piece of bread and apple. The bread was as tough as leather, and the apple's flesh had gone supple, but Ascanor didn't have enough money to be picky. As he took his first bite, Sharyas' nose twitched and she promptly woke. She shuffled over to him and smiled weakly. Ascanor returned the smile and rolled his eyes, tossing her half of the bread. She began to nibble, resting her head on his shoulder. Ascanor blushed, brick red against his crimson skin. He looked to Alandil, who chuckled softly but said nothing. Ascanor frowned. She's...attracted to me now? He blushed further as he felt his tail stir at strange feelings. And why does he act like he knows something? He sighed. This is getting more frustrating than rewarding. He sighed again, deciding to hold his tongue, but let his mind go wild. Gently, he stretched an arm around the kitsune and held her close. She shifted, sighed, but didn't protest. Ascanor's smile broadened. If only his father could see him now.

Ereven stirred, groaning as he stretched his creaking joints. As he rose, a flask clattered onto the ground. Ereven shuffled into the woods. "I gotta take a leak."

Ascanor snorted, the ripeness from his armor quickly drifting across the camp. He grunted. "Does he ever wash that stuff?"

Sharyas looked up at him, her eyes shockingly orange in the rising sun. "Never when we're watching."

"What's with the booze?"

She sniffed the air. "Frostwine, something rare from Neverwinter or somewhere up there. He always has some stored somewhere."

"You can tell from here?"

She turned up her nose. "Of course."

"Oh, um, sorry, I didn't-"

She giggled, and walked off towards the forest. "I'm off. It's breakfast time." She vanished.

Ascanor blushed again, checking quickly if the elf had noticed any of that, but his slender face bore no emotion. He looked in the direction of the north, upstream into the forest. Ascanor shifted between normal and darkvision, but couldn't make out any differences between the two. Whatever Alandil did or didn't see, only he'd be able to alert them. He stared idly at the flask. Why would the fighter need booze? Now he'd begun to think about it he'd seen the man drinking when they first tied him up back in their camp. Ascanor's stomach churned. Did the man fight drunk?

Ereven stumbled back into the camp, grabbing his things. "Come on, let's get going already."

Alandil dropped to the ground. "Sharyas is not back."

"Yes I am." She came out, gnawing on an unidentifiable type of meat.

"Very well then. Let's find our way in."

He strode over to the gaping maw of the entrance. Ascanor twisted a ball of light into existence and let its light shine into the roughly hewn tunnel, however it stopped twenty feet in by overgrown rubble. Alandil pursed his lips. "We were told they'd excavated this place." He bent down to examine some dark gouges in the walls. "It appears this could be how they knew of a hydra. The shapes of these specify the claws of a hydra. Quite a one of a kind marking, but also quite old. It's been here quite a while."

Ereven smiled. "Perfect."

Ascanor snorted. "Creep." He muttered, examining the entangled magic of the rubble. "Everyone stand back. I don't know what happens when I do this." He realigned the order of the magical field, awaiting the pent up repercussions, but nothing happened. He sighed, not noticing he'd been holding his breath.

Ereven laughed. "Oh, stand back guys. Pff, clear it aside like a normal person, tiefling." He started to pull rocks from the pile and toss them out behind him. He swore, his fingers stopped by a thick vine. Taking his axe, he took a few testing swings into the vine, but its skin didn't break.

"It's a good try, Ereven, but that type of vine is as strong as iron. We need some way to burn it." Alandil noted.

Ereven nodded. "I'll go get some tinder."

Ascanor smiled. "No need." He clasped his hands together, and collapsed the air within into a small ball of fire. Holding the ball, he brought it close to the vine and began to work at the thick vine. With a small sizzle, the vine caught fire and smoldered in a sudden burst of fire. Without the support, rocks quickly began to crumble off the pile. Ereven huffed in approval, but said nothing before continuing to work.

After about an hour, Ascanor brought work to a halt. Scrambling halfway up the pile, he pressed his face to a small cranny in the rocks. He sighed, feeling the cool cavern air beyond. "We're almost through."

Ereven climbed up and pressed the tiefling aside. Taking the butt of his axe he began to knock out a hole in the wall. With little work, a decent sized opening had formed. He held his hand out to the tiefling. "After you."

Ascanor snorted. "Amusing." He dropped to the floor, the first boots to echo off this passageway in centuries. He took a deep breath, coughing as the choking dust stirred up. He pulled out a handkerchief and tied it across his mouth as the others came in behind him.

Ereven hacked. "It's like breathing in a skeleton wrapped in silverfish." He noticed Ascanor's mask. "You don't have any more of those by any chance?"

Ascanor shook his head.

Ereven grumbled and slapped a helm on his head. "Better than anything." His friends had donned similar items, a tied cloak for Alandil and a silken scarf for Sharyas. Ascanor brought his light from behind the rubble and sent it down the passageway. Fifty feet down the walls lifted away into some type of room. Ascanor crept down and peered out. The passage ended in a massive square room. He could faintly see a small rail across a small catwalk and beyond a drop to a floor below. Along the rails, three pillars supported the ceiling and rail. Ascanor shut his eyes, focusing into his hearing. A faint movement of air could be heard below.

He looked back to the group. "I believe it's downstairs."

"Do you have any idea what's down there?" Alandil asked.

"Well, I can't be certain, but I believe the main purpose of the temple is down there."

"Being?"

"I think the hydra is resting on the planar gate."

"The planar gate?"

"What my ancestors used to contact the Nine Hells. And now the hydra is nesting on it."

"I can't imagine what the magical discharge could be doing to that creature."

Ascanor nodded. "We're not going up against anything recorded before."

Sharyas frowned. "Any ideas?"

"We'll need to go in quietly." Alandil said. "Get bearings before we make any movements."

Ereven scoffed. "Come on, how hard could it be?" He passed through the group. "I'll take point."

Ascanor watched as the other passed into the chamber. His heart raced, he could go no further without answers. His hand shot out, grabbing Sharyas as she passed. "Sharyas, wait." She turned, looking at him. His confidence wilted at the mix of hatred and anguish in her waiting gaze. "What?"

"I...I don't know how to put this...well...when I'm around you I feel something I've never felt before. And...well I don't want that feeling to ever go away. Look, I've made some real mistakes, I know that, and I'm...well I'm sorry. I just don't want you to hate me, because part of me feels dead if you do."

Her brow furrowed. A second passed and her eyes widened in understanding. She drew back, a deep crimson spreading across her face. She turned away from him. "The others need us. We'd better get going."

Ascanor's head drooped, but he nodded. His eyes followed the kitsune's hustling footsteps, not daring to hold his head up. He didn't deserve to. A hole had opened up within him. He should have known she wouldn't feel the same. How could he have been dumb enough to believe someone else, let alone her, would feel the same? He sighed, letting the dejected notes echo off the stone walls as the two of them met up with the waiting others.

Ascanor came up beside the two men, resting his hands on the stone railing. He snapped out his light, letting his eyes slip into darkvision. A massive hulking shape breathed soft snores from a tangle below. Ascanor could make out no more than the soft grey shape of the hydra, but he could make out the signs of the infernal beginning to manifest in the creature. He leaned over to Alandil. "Any ideas?"

He hummed. "We'll need to get down there first. I don't know how long it's been sealed up in here, but it'd have to sleep to conserve energy. My guess would be we could get in some vital strikes before it fully awakens."

Ereven growled a soft chuckle. "Perfect. It will be dead before it knows what's happening."

"Now I wouldn't be so sure about that. They say while a hydra sleeps, one of its heads is always awake. In some way, I feel it already knows where here. Huh, this gets more fascinating as time goes on."

Ereven groaned. "Enough droning, elf, let's get to slaying." Slowly, they made their way around the catwalk until they reached an alcove Ascanor had faintly spotted. Upon inspection, they found a rudimentary set of stairs hewn from the same gritty stone as the temple. Ascanor sidled down the steps slowly, pressing himself against the wall at the bottom. Mere feet in, he could already begin to feel the heat radiating from the planar gate in the hydra's nest. Alandil sighed softly. "It must have thought the gate to be a source of heat." Fear poured through Ascanor's veins, he could see the gate had done damage to the hydra's body, but only waking the creature would reveal what it could really do. Within darkvision, he could see the tangle of the creature's nest. Decades of trees, rocks, and scattered bones forming a tangled wall six feet high around the hulking hydra.

Ereven stamped down the stairs, nearing the nest. He stopped, able to see the sheer height the creature stood at when resting. He slid his axe back into his belt. "I'm going to need something a bit stronger for this." He reached up behind his head between the plates of armor where his gorget met the back of his breastplate. With a rasp of metal, he pulled out a white steel longsword, gleaming bright despite the dimness of the temple.

The light danced in Ascanor's golden globes. "How did he do that?"

"When stored, the blade is transported into a pocket dimension within the sheath, thus allowing it to be stored anywhere the hilt will fit. Ereven had that hole in his armor for the longest time before he finally found that blade within a dragon's hoard." Alandil noted.

"You guys fought a dragon?"

Sharyas giggled. "No, he was challenged at a bar to steal something from the dragon who lived in a cave in the nearby mountains."

"And I did it." Ereven held the sword proudly.

"By almost being roasted within your armor."

"Not everything has ended up that way!" Ereven realized the mistake in his volume as a large, rippling column rose from within the nest. Like a burning wick a fiery orange sparked to life up the hydra's neck rising up to two glowing orbs of fire cleaved by two midnight black slits. The hydra leaned down, examining the adventurers. Its mouth parted into a very sharp grin. "Ah, it took a while but my food has finally arrived. I knew it was only a matter of time when they first began to come in here. Oh how I'll enjoy this meal."

Ascanor's eyes ran up the lithe body of the creature. The countless years of planar leakage had twisted the creature's form. Its scales had dyed to a deep red-orange, those that didn't shine with the fire of the Nine Hells. Its claws had elongated, twisting into ash black abominations. Horns sprouted along its body, and those in the right place had been shaped into into the horns of a demon. Its seven pairs of eyes burned with the fury of the demon plane, but within Ascanor could see deeper emotion. It almost looked like...fear? He couldn't help but feel pity for the hydra, as evil as it may be. The same pain and confusion of transformation his ancestors encountered centuries ago lived on in this beast.

"You can try beast!" Ereven raised the sword towards the hydra's lowered head. Ascanor's heart felt like it'd frozen within his chest. He wouldn't dare.

Alandil raised a hand. "Ereven, no!"

The warrior bellowed, driving his blade clean through the monster's neck until it sparked along the stone floor. The severed, dripping neck reared back, to Ereven's confusion.

Ascanor lunged in front of the dumbfounded warrior, grabbing him by his gorget. "My gods do you realize what you've done?"

Ereven brushed him aside. "Get off me, tiefling. I'm making our job easier. Now we only have to fight six."

Alandil sighed. "You really defy everything I know about you sometimes, Ereven. We went on researching, where were you?"

"I read it. I took it with me to the tavern."

"Uh huh. Well let me refresh your memory. When you cut off one head of a hydra-"

"Two more grow back." Ascanor whimpered. He felt his knees buckle beneath him as the hydra's neck began to split at its severed end. As the fork traveled towards the creature's body flesh knit around itself, the new necks growing to full size as small buds appeared at their ends. They continued to grow and grow, until splits for nostrils, a mouth, and eyes appeared. The creature's new eyes looked down at the quivering adventurers. The eight heads' mouths parted, a low growl slipping between rows of glittering teeth.

Sharyas whimpered, her tails visible and bristling from fear. Ascanor shared the emotion, his own tail curled against his body. If what Ereven did meant anything, they now knew the hydra had fully awakened. Ascanor felt numb, numb enough to not feel the sharp teeth begin to press against his torso.