11. Vesper
VESPER
Light flares to life in front of us and then trails around the room as lanterns illuminate in a large ring.
We hadn’t even realized we were near a cavern, but I don’t have time to think about it.
I can’t even focus on the rushing river cutting through the middle of the cavern, the sound finally reaching my ears.
Instead, I’m focused on the large creature in front of us in the center of the room.
“What the actual fuck is that?” Locke croaks, staring at it in horror.
A menu pops open in the air above the creature that Cipher reads out loud in that same sexy voice.
Boiúna: Minor Boss
Medium difficulty
You thought you knew snakes? False! This snake knows you. It’s not the bite you need to be worried about from this water goddess. It’s the squeeze . . .
“Words,” I whisper. “These are all just words to us.”
Cipher laughs, as if our fear is amusing to him. “Don’t let it wrap around you, Vespera. Anacondas crush their prey with their coils before they consume them to make them easier to swallow.”
My eyes widen. “Fuck. Don’t let it wrap around you,” I tell Locke.
“I don’t want anything to do with that thing,” Locke grunts. “Maybe we can just run away?”
“Once a boss battle is initiated, you cannot cancel it unless you defeat it, or it defeats you. Defeat is categorized as death or the inability to continue. Some bosses may be trapped within a certain zone, and therefore, you could cancel a battle by leaving the current zone. As you are too far from the edges of any other zone, this is not possible. The boss will pursue you until the battle is complete,” Cipher chips in. “Cowards do not prosper in the Harrow.”
Locke scowls and pulls his sword. “Self-preservation isn’t cowardice when all you have is a rusty ass sword to fight with.”
I pull my own blunted dagger out, wincing at how dull it is. This isn’t going to be an easy fight, not when the two of us don’t even have good weapons. At least we have more than a rock this time, though.
The Boiúna coils around itself as it rises fully out of the water, a long slithering tongue darting out to taste the air as it looks between the two of us.
The snake itself is black in color, but as it moves through the light, I can see the hidden pattern of spots along it’s back.
It’s eyes flash gold, and I blink to clear a sudden fog in my head.
It doesn’t help. My jaw goes slack as the snake focuses entirely on me and starts to come closer.
“Move!” Locke snarls, shoving me. The movement breaks my eye contact with the snake and my brain fog suddenly disappears.
I shake my head gently and rub at my eyes. “I think it has some sort of power. Don’t look it in the eyes.”
Locke bares his teeth at the creature and holds his blunt, rusty sword up. “Come on, motherfucker. Let’s do this.”
He focuses just above the snake’s head, avoiding direct eye contact, as he screams and rushes forward.
“Coward and idiotic,” Cipher mocks in my head. “Consider me unsurprised.”
“Watch out for—” I start, rushing forward to help. “Shit. That’s going to hurt.”
The Boiúna whips its tail around and catches Locke across the middle. He flies across the cavern and into the wall with a crack that makes me wince. He slides down the wall, out cold. The giant snake doesn’t even bother turning to check where he lands, focusing entirely on me.
“Well . . . shit,” I breathe and dive just before the thing can strike. It’s head barely misses my arm as it strikes at where I’d been standing only seconds before. I’m rolling back to my feet when it strikes again, and I’m not fast enough the second time.
Fangs sink into my bicep and clamp down. Just as quickly as it bites, it releases me, springing back to prepare itself. I scream at the burning pain in my arm and raise the dagger. This time, when it strikes again, I’m prepared. I slam the dagger down into it . . .
. . . only for it to glance off its skin harmlessly.
The Boiúna gets me right in the chest and I fly backward with the force of it.
My chest burns from the fang wounds left behind, but I do my best to ignore it as I struggle back to my feet.
My movements are frantic as I drag myself up and hold out my very small, very useless dagger.
The snake advances on me, the hissing sound coming from its throat terrifying even if it didn’t echo around me.
“Cipher?” I rasp, my hand starting to shake. “This dagger isn’t sharp enough to do any damage.”
“Use something else,” Cipher says, and for the first time, I hear a hint of worry in his tone. “Quickly.”
I pop open my inventory and scan the full boxes, panicking as I realize I don’t have much in the way of weapons and I have too much to easily search through. Rocks, rocks, rocks, buttons, cotton fabric, fuck!
“Faster, Vespera,” Cipher pushes.
Panicking, I grab the bundle of arrows from the inventory, the only thing that counts as a sharp weapon I have.
The transparent menu disappears and I come face to face with the Boiúna again as it rises up, its large head wider than my shoulders before me.
Looking down, I have a split second to realize its body has circled me while I was focused on my menu before it tightens its coils and begins to squeeze.
I shout in surprise as the thick body of the snake tightens, my bones starting to ache immediately. The cold skin of the snake presses at my super-heated body, somehow comforting despite the situation I’m in.
“Locke!” I scream, struggling against the snake’s hold. The more I struggle, the tighter it becomes, so I stop, instead focusing on waking up the man still slumped in the corner. “Locke!”
The snake’s head hovers in front of me, moving back and forth as I struggle, trying to look me in the eyes.
I clamp mine shut in the hopes to avoid its powers, but that only makes me more aware of just how painful the squeeze is.
A breath leaves my body and the snake’s body tightens further, making my eyes pop open in pain.
Golden eyes meet mine so quickly, there’s no chance to combat it.
The brain fog returns, more powerful than before, slamming into my mind so hard, I can’t even hear the words Cipher is speaking to me.
My body goes slack. I stop fighting as the snake tightens its hold around me and I feel the first pop of bone.
My shoulder. I can’t scream in pain, my control gone.
All I can manage is a single tear that drips over my lashes and trails down my cheek.
Cipher . . . I croak inside my brain. Please . . .
I can’t speak out loud. I can’t call for help. This thing is going to crush me and swallow me whole and no one will know. That’s it. I won’t be here when Dox arrives. She won’t find any evidence of me. I failed. I knew I couldn’t do this without her.
A hollow scream echoes around the room, but I can’t turn to look. I can’t breathe. Oh Harrow, I can’t breathe. I’m going to die here. This is my grave. I survived Dross only to die being eaten by a giant fucking noodle creature.
Locke appears from my right, his blunt sword raised high.
With his muscles straining, he stabs the sword down into the body of the Boiúna.
His veins stand out in sharp relief as the sword hits, but doesn’t cut.
As if realizing the same thing I did, that the snake’s body is too tough to cut with the blunt weapons, he switches tactics and begins bludgeoning the Boiúna across the head with the sword instead.
“Let. Her. Go!” he shouts, beating the shit out of the snake.
The Boiúna turns from me, breaking the eye contact and letting all the pain back in.
I try to scream as the agony hits, my body alive now that I’m no longer locked in the snake’s mesmerizing gaze, but there’s no air in my lungs.
I can’t draw in air, can’t say anything.
I’m going to die anyway. A croak of a sound slips from my lips as my head falls back.
Locke moves around me, distracting the snake as much as he can.
It loosens its hold as it strikes at Locke, just enough for me to take a deep, gasping breath and free one arm.
The feeling of oxygen dragging into my lungs again is painful, my whole body a livewire of pain as I attempt to gather my senses.
Locke can’t cut it. I’m going to have to do something, or we’re both going to die.
But my body isn’t cooperating. My lungs burn worse than any Black Lung and my bones feel out of place.
My left shoulder is certainly out of socket and will need to be popped back in.
But I have one arm free. I can breathe a little.
My head rolls forward and my eyes find my loose hand, a hand that’s still wrapped tightly around the bunch of arrows I’d pulled from my inventory.
My fingers are screaming in pain where they’d been forced to hold them tighter during the worst of the squeeze, but they’re there. I hadn’t dropped them.
I have little time to think it through. I don’t believe I could think clearly anyway.
The best I can do is let out a strangled scream of anger as I raise the bundle of four arrows up, the pain in the movement agonizing as I push through it.
Without waiting for confirmation or a better plan, I slam the arrows down into the snake’s body, the sharp points sinking into its flesh and finally making it bleed.
The sound it makes, somewhere between a scream and a yodel, makes my blood run cold, but I don’t stop. I lift my arm and I stab it again, and again, and again. Blood gushes up around my hand, as cold as its flesh, as I keep stabbing.
The Boiúna snaps out toward me, forgetting Locke is there while it focuses on the pain of my attack.
The fangs slam into my chest again, adding new puncture wound, stealing what little breath I’ve been able to drag inside my lungs.
I slump again, the pain too great, all but one arrow falling from my fist. I just manage to close it again around one of the arrows, the piece of wood solid in my fingers.
“Not today, motherfucker!” Locke shouts and rushes the snake while it’s focused on me.
He slams his short sword against the Boiúna’s head.
At first, it does nothing, but his rage seems to add to his strength.
He screams as he hits again and again, chopping at the snake, bludgeoning it despite the sword not cutting.
The snake screams and tries to face him, but each blow throws it more and more off balance, knocking its attention off kilter.
Locke’s next hit sends the snake’s head closer to me. It’s rattled, clearly confused after so many hits, and while I can barely breathe, I can act. I seize the only opportunity I’m going to have.
I’m weak, too weak to stab the arrow through the snake’s flesh, but there’s one part of its body that is soft.
Its eyes.
Without a sound, I jab the arrow into the great golden eye. It sinks inside as the creature screams, and when it tries to pull away, I manage to twist it and stab it deeper.
The coils still wrapped around me release me completely as the snake screams in agony, shaking its head from side to side.
The river water begins to swirl and splashes over its banks as if the snake controls it.
The cold water splashes over me, shocking my system enough to wake me up.
I’m drenched in seconds, my body growing more and more cold by the second.
I stumble after the Boiúna as it tries to get away, my legs not quite working like they should.
I trip over small rocks, and my left arm still hangs at my side, but I can at least continue to stab the creature.
Locke grabs one of the arrows I’d dropped and fists it.
With a guttural, desperate scream, he stabs the arrow deep into the other eye of the Boiúna, completely blinding it.
The creature gives one final terrifying scream as it jerks away from him, and then collapses with a massive thump.
I fall to my knees the second the threat is gone and then collapse entirely, my head using the slowly curling body of the snake as a pillow.
It continues to writhe around me, it’s death scream still echoing in the cavern.
I’m panting so hard, my heartbeat is in my ears, making it difficult to hear around the rushing of my blood and the rushing of the water.
My lungs scream at me, demanding vengeance for the lack of air for so long before I’d been allowed to breathe more in.
My body hurts all over, my skin tingling in a way I know I’ll be covered in bruises later.
My shoulder is tender and sore, clearly dislocated badly enough I’ll have to have Locke help me pop it back into socket.
The snake bites on my body burn like fire as they bleed.
So many snake bites. I’m not sure I even remember them all.
Locke appears over me, his eyes wide and worried. “Hey, hey, hey! Are you alive? Fuck, you are. Are you dying?” His voice is so far away, like he’s shouting at me from the other end of a tunnel.
I try to speak, but my lungs scream at me and then my chest is screaming at me, too. Laughter bubbles out of my lips despite the pain. After all that, I’m still going to die, aren’t I?
“No,” Cipher answers my unspoken question. “You will not.”
Locke smears something across my chest and then my shoulder. I can’t look down to see what it is, my body buzzing with failing adrenaline. My vision starts to fail, blackness closing in from the corners before falling inward, tunneling my sight until I only see Locke.
When she arrives, tell Dox I tried, I think, collapsing fully.
My vision goes first. My body goes next.
Cipher . . .tell her . . .