Orichalcum Ring (Quality: 51)

- Enchantment: Comfort (Quality: 71)

- Enchantment: Fire resistance (Quality: 71)

- Enchantment: Odour suppression (Quality: 71)

- Enchantment: Mana efficiency (Quality: 71)

Weight: 3 grams

Grover didn't know if odour suppression would help, but was willing to give it a go. Even if it didn't defend against the hydra's poisonous breath, at least I could hide my autonomic sex signals from any downwind beastkin. Grover couldn't think of anything to defend against the sonic breath, so after some discussion, we put mana efficiency in the fourth slot. It was obvious in retrospect, given the strain of maintaining four limbs worth of [Superimpose]. Reducing the mana cost avoided the need for me to constantly funnel mana to keep the spells active.

Cluma had a matching ring with the same set of enchantments, despite the overlap with her earring. Because only a single item could hold skill enhancements, she intended to replace her earring with something that boosted more skills at some point. And speaking of boosting skills...

Cotton Briefs (Quality: 50)

- Enchantment: Comfort (Quality: 70)

- Enchantment: Durability (Quality: 70)

- Enchantment: Butchery enhancement (Quality: 71)

- Enchantment: Carpentry enhancement (Quality: 71)

Weight: 55 grams

Available skill enhancements that would aid me in a dungeon were few and far between. Clothing could basically only accept crafting enhancements, while a weapon was required for combat skills or a staff for magic skills. Still, I now had carpentry-boosting underwear, should I ever find any sort of practical application for it. Smithing might have made more sense, but between Grover, Remous and Hassok, my smithing needs were covered. I figured it might be useful if I ever followed through on my plans to build a house in the middle of nowhere.

"Are you planning to never change your underwear while delving?" asked Kari. "I think I prefer Cluma's fashion sense to your... gross maleness."

"Hey, this isn't my fashion sense," Cluma corrected. "This is the sort of thing Peter is into."

"But I only have one set of armour. I don't change that each day," I pointed out, ignoring Cluma.

"Yes, but that has a comfort enchantment on it. It's self cleaning."

"So does my underwear!"

Kari blinked, battling the incongruity between her years of magical experience insisting that enchanted underwear was an insane concept and the fact that she was, basically, telling me off for only having a single set of enchanted underwear.

"Well, it's still gross," she finished, despite offering no evidence whatsoever for her conclusion. Then again, I hardly had the right to complain about people making decisions based on dodgy common sense instead of logic, given my behaviour towards Cluma.

"Anything else we need before taking down the hydra?" asked Cluma, in a welcome change of subject. Albeit a premature one.

"Yes, I need to take Darren home!"

"Ah, yes, obviously. I meant apart from that," said Cluma, attempting to cover up the fact she'd blatantly just forgotten about him.

"I'm going to pop to Synklisi to pick up some buff potions, since they don't keep them in stock here, but I've got nothing apart from that. We could wait for the team here to come up with some sort of affinity containment setup, to see if we can make more materials and get some further equipment upgrades."

"That's going to take weeks, lad. More, if this Earth portal thing kicks off; that ice dragon keeps badgering me for help to set up the site. I'll certainly be making upgraded lightning gloves once we've checked for the existence of something better than lightning-touched steel, but you strike me as a bit impatient for that."

"Mmm. We have to beat Kikrizzik!" exclaimed Cluma.

"Right. Maybe when I'm doing a solo run, but we'll give it a go today with what we have."

By the time I'd run Darren back to the village and teleported first to Synklisi and then back to Dawnhold, Cluma was there and impatiently waiting for me, changed into her delver gear.

"You're rather enthusiastic there. We might lose, you know," I called to her as I equipped myself.

"Nu-uh. We're going to win."

"What makes you so sure?"

"If you didn't think we could, you wouldn't be willing to try."

"That's a lot of faith you have in me there," I commented, leaving my bedroom, now fully equipped.

"Obviously!" she exclaimed, jumping onto my back in an I'm-ready-to-fight hug, so I teleported her to the dungeon, following swiftly after myself.

"Still enjoying your home comforts, I see," commented a voice before I'd even finished my [Relocate].

"Oh? Did we lose our competition already?" I asked the [Brimstone Brawler], but [Eye of Judgement] showed no change to her [Novice Delver] title, so it appeared not.

"As much as I wish it were different, that's not a foe I can beat."

Should we ask her to join our attempt? She'd soloed the dungeon to the bottom floor, so she should be tough enough to join in.

"Want to join us? We're about to take a stab at it," punned Cluma, hugging the demon and not even consulting me before asking her to join us. I'd had exactly the same thought myself, but just because I thought it didn't mean I'd immediately vocalise it.

Kikrizzik raised an eye-ridge in surprise, before shaking her head. "Thanks for the offer, but nope. Not going in there at my level. I'll wait to see your outcome, though. Might even give you a shoulder to cry on when you lose."

"Not sure I could reach," I muttered. I could put on maybe five centimetres more before I was fully grown, if that. Even if I put on ten, I'd still be able to walk under her arms if she held them out horizontally.

"I'll give you special treatment and sit down for you, then."

That set Cluma giggling as we stepped through the portal and into the highest level fight either of us had experienced.

Maybe. I'd theoretically killed level fifty flame elementals, and been picked on by a level seventy slime-girl, but I was fairly sure those encounters didn't count.

The hydra reared up, staring at us intruders with all four heads, but not budging from its position. We weren't close enough to start the encounter. I had [Superimpose] active on all four limbs, the metal facsimiles safe at home. I had my new armour, with corpusclite reinforcement. I was wearing my lightning glove, for all the good it would do. Enchanted accessories hopefully offered protection from the worst of its attacks and enchanted weapons would hopefully damage it through the scales.

As I stared at the monster, a sudden impact knocked me a few paces sideways. "You're too tense!" exclaimed my assaulter, hugging tightly. "You didn't even spot me and dodge. Relax!"

"Right... You have to admit it's imposing, though."

"Mmm. For now. Won't be after we chop a few heads off."

I let her joviality wash over me and, as instructed, tried to calm down. She was right; I wouldn't be here if I didn't have confidence we could win. Our gear was far more advanced than what we should have for this floor of the dungeon. We had buff potions; stat and physical defence boosters. Our levels might be a tad low, but our biggest detriment was simply party size. With only the two of us, our tactics were limited. But we'd planned around that by talking to someone with firsthand experience and ensuring our gear fit the situation.

"Okay, we both know what we're doing," I said, not speaking the plan aloud, given the intelligent gaze the hydra was drilling us with. It may well be intelligent enough to understand language. We'd already given away the fact there were two of us, even if I was the only one visible.

No, it didn't need Cluma speaking or giving me side-hugs to figure that out. As she circled it, one head turned to track her rough direction. How? Despite our chat with Jared, it must have the mamba's vibration sense or similar. It certainly wasn't tracking her well, which matched his description of it making wide area attacks.

Taking a deep breath, I cast my buff spells on the two of us, activated [Weft Walk], then used [Far Reach] to stab it between a pair of heads. With the aid of my combat artes, my sword-staff sunk in deeply, the hydra immediately rearing up, all four heads raised five metres into the air and looking straight at me. All four mouths opened in perfect synchronisation.

Cluma stabbed her daggers into its side, running down the length of its tail.

I dived to the side as poison and fire breaths came at me, the ice head snapping its jaw shut and swinging around to see what was attacking it. The sonic head tried to twist, but couldn't rotate far enough to see its own tail. Perhaps the hydra wasn't as intelligent as I'd worried?

The first attack wasn't enough to find out if odour suppression protected against its poison breath, because the green cloud caught alight, sending extra clumps of flame at me. A few clipped me, but with my new ring of fire resistance, they felt like a warm breeze. Similarly, I saw an ice breath come at Cluma, but she disengaged and avoided the worst of it, the edges not seeming to bother her through her protection at all.

Attacking at the joint between the heads seemed to have avoided the worst of its regeneration, but the wound had already stopped bleeding, and was shrinking as I watched, an issue I rectified by stabbing again. This time, with the boss moving, it threatened to wrench my sword-staff from my hands, and I failed to penetrate as deeply.

With me making attacks through [Far Reach] and Cluma being invisible, the hydra seemed in great confusion over where the attacks were coming from, focusing on the one threat it could see. Making Cluma's job harder by lashing its tail from side to side, it sent another burst of flame at me. With my [Superimpose] reinforced legs, on top of [Weft Walk], I dodged easily, but while I'd overestimated the hydra's intelligence, it still had some keen instincts. A burst of ice was heading towards my landing point before I'd even landed, forcing me to take another space-magic enhanced step.

Straight into a sonic breath.

Clouds of dust were thrown up from the earth around me and my vision blurred, but having had experience with the roar attacks of orcs and ogres, I held on well. Unlike the ogre's attack, it didn't feel like I'd been hit by a physical blow, but my ears had been ruptured, the sounds of battle replaced by a painful ringing. My balance was off, too.

"It got my ears," I yelled out, to alert Cluma I wouldn't be able to hear her, my voice sounding distorted. How was I supposed to dodge three heads' worth of breath attacks at once? I could still see Cluma getting good hits in, so I only needed to hold on until she took it down.

Once again, it launched a lance of flame. Once again, I dodged, but the damn hydra anticipated me, launching a blast of poison straight at my landing site. I stepped once more, as if to dodge, but cancelled [Weft Walk], trusting in the odour suppression enchantment. As expected, it launched another sonic breath at the point I was aiming to land, this time missing me completely. I took the opportunity to get another stab in while grasping at the antidote at my waist. That turned out to be unnecessary; the enchantment cleared the poison from the air.

Or at least, it cleared the poison from a small distance around my body. The distinction turned out to be important when the fire head let loose another attack, igniting the green cloud of toxins. It exploded, and I was standing in the middle.

Once again, I was thankful for my enchanted ring. It had proven its worth multiple times over this fight, and we'd only been here a few minutes. I leapt from the fire, only mildly singed, circling away from the poison and sonic heads, trying to stay on the opposite side of the thing to Cluma. Of course, that just meant that it could no longer reach her with the ice head, and all four ended up pointing at me.

The four heads stared at me for a second, but when Cluma once again stabbed into its tail, it seemed to make a decision. No breath attacks came, but instead it lunged forward, determined to take out the one enemy it could see, but acknowledging its breaths were failing.

I swore under my breath as I frantically dodged the twisting heads, each one snapping at me with a mouth large enough to swallow me whole. It should have been easy, given [Weft Walk], but with its remarkable ability to predict my landing spots and four heads coming at me at once, there was no leeway to make any further attacks, reducing me to a frenzied dance as I kicked off the floor, the walls and the hydra itself while avoiding the lightning-fast snaps.

"Why are you focusing on me instead of the one who's actually stabbing you?" I moaned, not that it could answer, or that I could hear it even if it did.

Just because it had started attacking physically didn't mean it completely forwent its breath attacks. It made another burst of poison, using it as a smokescreen, but my [Mana Sight] was more than enough to keep track of my opponent. Alas, it still had more tricks up its snouts, launching a blast of ice breath into the poison cloud. The mana imbued in the breath clouded my vision, and the poison itself froze out of the air, crystallising on my armour. The extra resistance slowed me down by just enough.

A head snapped closed around my torso, plunging me into a fetid darkness that I thankfully couldn't smell. Fangs stabbed into my armour, the pressure crushing my chest, but it held. Then the hydra's neck snapped upwards, and it released me from its bite, launching me into the air, a vantage point from which I saw Cluma get swatted away, the hydra finally landing a clean blow with its bleeding tail.

"Poo," I muttered as I fell towards the waiting maw beneath me, with no way of manoeuvring. This battle was going decidedly poorly.

With no way to avoid falling in, I didn't try, instead doing my best to avoid being swallowed. I fell in feet first, stabbing my sword-staff into the roof of its mouth the moment my arms were inside. The hydra responded by biting down, which on the bright side drove my staff deep through its flesh and probably through this head's brain. On the downside, I'd been using the staff to avoid falling further in, and its teeth were at my neck height.

I activated [Detach] as the jaws snapped shut.

I did my best to play dead as my head fell to the ground. My staff was sticking out through the top of the hydra's poison head, so that was a nice wound, but I'd feel better about it if my body wasn't stuck inside the mouth, hanging on to the other end of the staff for dear life. I fired a lightning bolt down the thing's throat to no effect, and then started slashing with my short sword. The poison head didn't much like that, but the other three heads were staring down at my immobile head with confusion. The fire head darted forward, so I activated [Redistribute] to send my head back to my body, managing to get it out of the way just in time.

Inside the mouth, I was very glad of the odour suppression, and also the fact my armour was self cleaning, given the mix of saliva and blood I was getting everywhere. The hydra was swinging its head around and chomping wildly, but my staff had pinned its tongue, and with [Superimpose] I had a literal iron grip. I was going nowhere. On the downside, I was no longer fulfilling my role as bait, keeping the hydra's attention away from Cluma.

Some bombs would have been handy. Were they a thing that existed? A potion I could toss down its throat, that would explode in its stomach?

And then it opened its mouth to blast me with poison, and I realised I did have a bomb. I timed a lightning bolt just as the green cloud filled its mouth, grinning a massive grin as it ignited, the fireball cascading down its throat.

The head exploded. I was propelled once more through the air, accompanied by a rain of flesh and blood, crashing into the floor as lumps of meat landed around me. The hydra reared and screeched, but I ignored it in favour of downing a healing potion. I'd avoided taking any serious wounds, but being caught by repeated breath attacks, two explosions and being half-eaten had taken its toll, and my status showed my health had been cut by more than half. Not that the number meant much on its own, but I was deaf, my body was feeling sluggish, and, of course, it hurt. Being bitten by a hydra was not on my list of pleasant recreational activities.

I saw Cluma attacking again, but now the hydra was utterly ignoring her. For better or worse, I had its full attention. Three heads lowered themselves to ground level, their eyes fixed on me, while the fourth was regrowing while I watched. The fire head acted first, and through [Mana Sight] I saw the build-up of mana as it prepared to fire. It had been faster the last time; it seemed I wasn't the only one tiring.

Taking the opportunity, I used [Far Step] to make a larger step to the side of the head, grabbing it with my magically reinforced strength and twisting. A breath of flame washed over the sonic head, which snapped at me in turn. I kicked the flame head, shoving it into the way of the attack, and the pair of heads collided.

The ice head was preparing to fire, but it was even slower than the fire head had been. And then it just... stopped, flopping to the floor like a puppet with cut strings. A thin wisp of vapour escaped the sides of its mouth, and then nothing.

ding

I looked down over the full length of the hydra's body, where barely a single scale was intact, and blood was oozing from a hundred stabs and gashes.

"Cluma," I called quietly to the cause of all those wounds, as the room tilted around me. Or perhaps I was swaying, and the room was staying still? "I think that, maybe, it wouldn't be an awful idea if, from now on, as well as the dangerous science (police), you took on the role of dungeon (police) too. This was a stupid idea."

"What are (police)?" she asked as I collapsed.