When Mistletoe Bagman said he wanted to go on a quest, this wasn't what he had in mind.

For one thing, the renowned councilman hadn't been expecting his questing partner to be so... He couldn't find the words he needed.

It was hard to describe Lakelet. He had seen plenty of adventurers in his time as a part of the City Council, and they were always a weird collection of individuals-- especially the younger ones-- but it was different talking to her.

More concerning than Lakelet Dalael, though, was the monster in front of them. It was large, larger than anything he had ever seen. Sure, he may have never left the city in his one-hundred-twenty-four years, but that didn't change anything about the absolute stature of this thing. It was some sort of hydra, he thought, with five heads and a writhing, serpentine body. Some parts of it were scaly, as one would expect, but the rest of it was covered in collected animal pelts and bones from the surrounding lake and community. There, in between the fourth and fifth heads, was a sheep, dripping gore from its severed heads and exposed ribs. There were bits of wolf, bear, and (Mistletoe Bagman didn't want to think about it) person on it. The way that it whipped up the water around it didn't make it any cleaner.

"Miss Dalael," he said, his voice trembling pathetically as he handed her the binoculars he borrowed, "you didn't mention that we would be slaying a hydra."

She grinned. "Didn't I, Bagman?"

"You didn't."

"Could have sworn I did. Doesn't matter, anyway, we're here already." Lakelet put the binoculars back into their pouch and pulled out her sword and hammer. "And we're not slaying it, so don't go getting any ideas."

She set the hammer, which was gigantic in its own right, on the ground and pulled out a small vial of a powerful sleeping potion. The potion was an odd magenta color, and in a spherical bottle with a cork to seal it. Mistletoe knew this one; when ingested or introduced to the blood, it would put a creature to sleep for at least a week, if not more. She checked it, to make sure it was sealed, then moved it to a front pocket of her vest so she could reach it more easily.

Lakelet Dalael was a young half-orc woman with blue-tinted skin, small tusks jutting out of her bottom lip, and an affinity for knocking the lights out of whatever disagreed with her. She tended to wear clothes with many pockets so she could hide whatever she needed on her person. That meant she wore a fishing-style vest and cargo shorts. The only bright side to being around her was that, thanks to her status as a descendant of some water elemental, you never went without something to drink. While Mistletoe didn't think that it was morally correct, it was better to stay on her good side than to display his personal prejudices.

Mistletoe, on the other hand, was slight, elven, and entirely unprepared for this. He also had many moles on his dry skin, and was wearing the most anti-adventuring clothing one could think of: a pair of dark gray trousers, a light gray vest, and once-clean dress shirt. The few spells he knew didn't seem as powerful as they needed to be when he looked at the hydra.

"We'll leave our stuff here," Lakelet said. "Then we'll go around to the other side of it, where it can't quite see us. You'll drive it into the cave, and I'll seal it in. Then we'll take care of it."

It didn't seem like a good plan to Mistletoe. He didn't want to be the bait. Still, he supposed that she knew more about this than he did. She was, after all, more acclimated to this kind of thing. His preferred form of strategy leaned more toward diplomacy.

"What's the vial for?" he asked. "Are we putting it to sleep?"

"That would be the easiest way to get the scales."

"And what if we lose the potion?"

She grinned darkly. "Do you know any spells?"

"Shouldn't we kill it, though? It's terrorizing that town, surely."

Lakelet shook her head. "It's not. The town actually uses it as a tourist point, and there's a temple that reveres it. We have a contract that says we can put it to sleep, though."

He set his heavy pack on the hill next to hers. He hadn't packed as much as he would have liked, but it was still heavy enough that he was stooping to carry it.

The two of them made their way around the lake. The ground was wet and marshy, so much so that, while Lakelet could easily traverse the terrain without breaking the many toppled bits of giant cane and bulrush, Mistletoe kept misstepping and landing ankle-deep in tepid water. Even when he stepped where Lakelet had, the only thing he could succeed in doing was getting his feet wet.

What made his stomach drop more than every time he stepped somewhere wet was the crying, wailing, and thrashing of the hydra. It was loud and ferocious, but there was a sense of loss to it. If he weren't scared enough to suddenly develop a severe case of incontinence, he probably would have found some sense of art to it. He could imagine pretentious nobles dancing and nodding their heads to this at charity galas. Art is pain, he supposed, as he kept walking behind Lakelet.

They were near the cave now. Lakelet located a tree to partially hide behind (though it was much smaller around than she was).

He didn't want to do this. There was a lump in his throat and he tried to swallow it, but that thing must have been a master of clinging, because it stayed right where it was. When he looked back at Lakelet, trying to convey how much he did not want to do this, he was scared enough that he did not stop to marvel at how the scene was objectively pretty. The contrast of the yellow flowers growing at the base of the tree with her blue skin would have made an excellent painting.

Mistletoe Bagman took a deep breath, and, without thinking about what came next, walked in front of the cave and began to scream. It surprised him, how high-pitched he could be, but it got the hydra's attention and that was what mattered.

One of the heads turned toward him. He, in quick succession, fired a bolt of fire, and, immediately following it, a bolt of frost at it. The fire hit it in the face, but knocked the head back enough that the ray of frost went straight over it and hit a tree in the distance. That blast of fire was enough to get the attention of the rest of the heads, though, and, more quickly than he could react, the whole body turned to attack him.

Mistletoe could see, in his peripheral vision, that Lakelet was beginning to creep out from behind the tree. He was more focused on the five heads that were beginning to snap at him. The head that hit him came down and took a chunk of excruciating flesh out of his arm; another head came down and ripped a chunk out of his leg like a suburban dad attacking some barbeque ribs. He was bleeding all from both wounds and fell over from the shock. It felt impossible to get back up. Blood began to pool under him. It was all happening so fast. He was feeling woozy. Was that his bone under all that blood?

With everything in him, he began to scoot back into the cave. It took the bait, and left the water to follow him, snapping constantly. Before he knew it, Mistletoe was up against the back of the cave, trapped in a shirt bottleneck with a pissed-off hydra. One head snaked its way toward him, rose up to take another bite of this delicious, premium elven meat, and--

The head fell to the floor and Lakelet jumped down after it. The large blade of her sword was dripping with green blood and gore, but she didn't seem to notice. As soon as the head fell, she took her hammer and whacked another. (Mistletoe would have been lying if he said that he wasn't impressed and grateful.)

Inspired by this turning of the tide, he shot another ray of fire past her at the stump where a head was regrowing. It missed, and hit the top of the cavern, scorching the stone like a burned piece of bread. He shot another quickly, and it hit. The smell of burning scales and flesh-- and was that hair?-- filled the area.

Lakelet and the hydra continued to go at it in an intricate dance of snapping and hacking. Mistletoe didn't think that there was much of anything that he could do, so he dragged himself with his good arm toward the fallen head and began to collect what scales he could. This was what they were there for, after all. This was the whole point. He began to scrape them into his coin purse, which was an absolutely disgusting decision, but it was all that he had.

Lakelet, while fighting with her hammer in one hand, began to slip the potion vial out of her pocket. She hit one long, writhing neck with her hammer, and began to uncork the potion. A head came from her right, she hit it with the hammer in her left, and--

The potion spilled onto the cave floor, where it immediately began to, along with red and green blood and cold, murky water, seep into the stone.

Lakelet cursed, then yelled, with her back to him, "Mistletoe! I need a sleep spell!"

"I don't know any!" he yelled back.
"What? I thought you said--" She hit another oncoming head. "I thought you said you did?"

He shook his head, even though he knew she couldn't see him. "I don't, I don't!"

She cursed again, and continued fighting. "We're stuck, then!"

But, then again, maybe not. Mistletoe began wracking his brain while working faster than before. He knew frost and fire spells, he knew how to conjure acid, and he knew how to push things away from him with a thunderous force. None of that would help, though. He needed something to freeze it in place, to hold it there until they could escape.

Then it hit him. He knew a spell that would do just that. Of course, the only time he had done it before, he used it on a cat he was taking care of for his across-the-hall neighbor. The principle was the same, though. With this spell, he could hold a creature-- a creature such as a hydra-- in place for a full minute. Hopefully, that would be enough time for the two of them to get out of there.

"Hold on, Miss Dalael! I think I know what to do!"

"Then do it, you idiot!" She whacked another head with her hammer.

Mistletoe began to search his own pockets-- god, these pants were ruined-- for a piece of iron, which he found in the form of a ring he had stashed away after breaking it. He said the verbal incantation while holding this piece of iron (which stung his hands a little, but was less uncomfortable than the gaping holes in his body), and, just like magic (which it was), the hydra froze in place.

"Go!" he yelled at Lakelet. "We only have a minute!"

She turned, looked at him, and, before he could protest, hoisted him over her shoulder. Lakelet ran, with Mistletoe urging her on. It was amazing, he thought, hw fast she could run while losing so much blood herself.

Together, the two of them left the cave- and the hydra-- behind.