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"Few have encountered them, and lived to speak of their

horrifying visage: a great skull as their head and scales like bleeding flesh,

and long enough to wrap around a group of five two times over."

Akalgan walked through the dark sewers

without a torch. He forced his eyes to adjust to the darkness that was sparsely

populated with sewer grates that filtered light into the tunnels. The sewers

were cold and wet, seemingly isolated from the world above as the faint whisper

of town life barely drifted through the grates to ease the atmosphere. Akalgan

carefully made his way through the tunnels, his hands at his sides but ready to

act. The sound of dripping water echoing everywhere became the pattern in his

mind, as Akalgan blocked out sounds coming from the over world. Every now and

again, he briefly recalled the words of The Euraiyan Bestiary he once read, but

only the ones that described his quarry.

"This can only be a nightmare among monsters, because it

lives not on meat nor blood, but rather the terrified screams of its victims."

Rats scuttled and distracted Akalgan

for a moment, he stopped and waited, watching as the squeaking rats passed. He

grunted at the annoyance and returned to his search, when something else

unusual could be heard. He froze and listened carefully, it was the sound of

water being disturbed rather than the sound of water dripping. Akalgan put his

hands to his blades and kept his feet planted on the mossy stone floor, the

sound grew louder and louder as his mark slithered closer.

"It follows warmth of life and smells the breath of fear,

and if it has you, then only Divines will save you then."

Within a moment it was behind him.

Akalgan leapt over the channel and dodged the serpentine lunge. The viper

hissed and coiled at its prey's defiance. The horrifying nightmarish form was

constantly moving as it reared back its ugly skull of a head. Akalgan grunted

with disgust and started into a run through the tunnel. The viper screeched

violently and chased after him through the waterways. The lengthy body of the

viper surged and kicked up splashes of sewer water.

Akalgan just smiled.

"Let's

see what you've got, you savage!" He shouted as he drew

blades before he planted a boot down and slid across the mossy floor. With a

great beat of his wings, Akalgan launched himself over the waterway and onto

the viper's body. His boots slipped on the slick surface of the fleshy scales

and Akalgan fell to his knees, but as he did he planted his shortblades in the

viper's body. The viper hissed and writhed in pain, and Akalgan pulled one

shortblade out after the other as he climbed up the fiend's flailing body. The

doom viper smashed into the wall of the tunnel, the sudden crushing force stole

Akalgan's grip away from him and dropped him to the floor with a groan.

Hissing, the doom viper wasted no time

in coiling up around its prey. Akalgan stifled any sudden utterances of agony

over the excruciating acid the viper sported from its flesh that touched his

own. The acid slowly burned and ate through his armour as he struggled against

the constricting grip of the doom viper. It hissed with triumph as it slid

along into a cistern. Akalgan opened his mouth and breathed a vicious jet of

fire all over the serpentine body that imprisoned him. For that moment, it

sounded as though the doom viper screamed in pain. It let go of Akalgan, but

only when it was above the water filling the cistern. The Dragonian fell into

the pool with a splash and tried to quickly move out of the water without

inhaling any of the foul liquid.

He broke the surface of the pool, and

wasted not a moment more to draw his sword as the viper dived upon him. Akalgan

took his deepest breath that he could before the viper's weight pushed him down

to the bottom of the cistern, before coiling up around him again. The acid did

not work well in the water, but Akalgan knew that the viper meant only to drown

him now as it coiled up around his struggling form. The viper raised its head

out of the water and hissed triumphantly again, as though taunting its victim

with its ability to breath.

The viper suddenly jerked and screeched

in pain. It lashed and thrashed in the pool as to bash the insolent Dragonian

and keep him down. It jerked again and seemingly gave up. Akalgan broke the

surface of the water coughing and spluttering as the viper slipped out of the

cistern and into the waterways once more. He shook his head with a smirk.

"Oh

no you don't." He muttered as he swum over to the

walkway and climbed up, before making chase after his quarry.

He followed the pitch-black blood that

the creature left in its wake, caused by a deep wound that Akalgan made within

the cistern. His longsword was ready in both his hands at his right side as he

hunted the fiend. He could hear it; slithering still in desperation to flee.

That feeling just made him run all the more faster. Rats scurried about and got

out of the way of the pursuit, and Akalgan could feel his quarry closer and

closer to him.

Akalgan turned the next corner, but

before his next foot landed, he was taken off his feet by a sudden force

tackling him. Akalgan tried to raise his sword, but in a sudden instant the

viper grabbed the blade in its fanged jaws and flicked it out of the

Dragonian's hands. Akalgan's heart pounded as he only had a vision in the next

instant of the viper ripping into him without hesitation. He rolled over

instantly and just missed the jaws of the viper that smashed into the mossy

stone floor.

Akalgan fell into the channel of the

waterway and he scrambled to climb out. The fiend shook its head angrily and

targeted its prey once more. Akalgan climbed onto the floor and rolled to the

left, narrowly dodging the fiend again. He searched for his longsword and found

it a small distance from him. A small distance, but still too far for the few

seconds he would have left to live as the viper reared up behind him. Akalgan

got up and turned around quickly to grapple with the fiend's face. He grunted

and groaned under the strength of the viper as it tried to push its jaws

towards him. He then saw the shortblades he planted in the beast's body from

the earlier struggle. If I can just... Get to them... Akalgan

thought strenuously as he saw the flick of the beasts tail and gritted his

teeth.

Akalgan let the fiend's pushing force

move right past him before leaping over the sweeping tail that was meant to

catch his feet. The fiend tried to move and curl around to get back at Akalgan,

but as it did, he pulled one short blade out and dragged the other by holding

onto it whilst the creature moved. It caused a severe wound in the creature's

body and the doom viper screeched deafeningly. Akalgan pulled his shortblade

free and ran under the viper's rearing upper body.

The fiend roared deeply in anger before

lunging at its annoying prey for the last time. Akalgan slid across the mossy

stone floor and when he was next to his longsword he turned tail to face the

viper. It was very close to reaching him, and Akalgan only had the split-second

to do something. He raised his shortblades and plunged them into the mouth of

the viper. The fiend screamed and pulled away from Akalgan, its mouth hanging

agape because of the two shortblades planted inside it. In those few moments,

Akalgan could pick up his sword safely and without delay he lunged up at the

viper with a draconic roar.

The screams of the viper were cut off

in an instant, and the fiend's skull-like head fell to the floor with a thud.

Black fluid gushed from the decapitated body of the doom viper, and Akalgan sat

down against the wall near it to catch his breath. After a few deep breaths, he

wiped the blood off his sword and then stood up. With a scowl, he kicked the

serpentine body into the channel of the waterway with disgust.

"If

I didn't need your head, it would go in as well where you belong, you trash." Akalgan

muttered as he planted a foot upon the skull. He grunted as he rolled the head

over, and kneeled down as he sheathed his longsword, Akalgan opened the jaws of

the fiend wide and pulled his shortblades out of its mouth. He wiped the blood

off them too before sheathing them with a sigh.

He laughed a little at the look on the dead viper's

face. "You think you're hungry? I'm

starving." Akalgan remarked with a smirk. He picked up the head of the doom

viper and carried it under his arm as he made his way out of the sewers. "Let's put you to good use and head back to

the inn for a nice bath." He murmured to the head.