Don't Get Ahead of Yourself (Hydra-head tf) (Patreon)

I apologize for the pun, I was short title ideas.

An adventurer tracks down an untouched ruin brimming with treasure. But as she goes to loot it, she discoveres a monstrous woman making the ruin her den - a hydra, and she's not happy to have an intruder...

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The Southern Desert was a dangerous place. Bandits roamed, sacking caravans that tried to pass through if they weren’t adequately guarded. Monsters took lone travellers from the paths, never to be seen again. And that was before you took into account the melting heat and icy cold of the day and night. There were no roads, only well-trodden paths that carried enough caravans to stay relatively clear amongst the dunes. But, Sienna knew, there wouldn’t be anything of value to an adventurer on such paths.

The young woman had stocked up on what she was fairly sure was more water than was actually in her body, along with enough food to last her a month of wandering. With the other supplies, it was a bit of an expensive initial investment, but she had reason to expect returns.

Honestly, the map was probably worth nearly as much as the treasure to which it led. It had come into her possession recently and she’d had it verified almost as an afterthought; surely it was either fake or showed only previously known ruins. But she’d been shocked to discover it was not only real, but showed the location of an ancient ruin that had never been touched in the modern day. Nobody knew of it’s location except for herself, and so, she had a unique opportunity.

The ruins of the old world were sparse, but not too uncommon; civilizations that had risen and fallen long before Sienna’s grandmother’s grandmother had been born. But many were known, picked clean by what thieves or adventurers first found them and now home only to ghosts and monsters. But if she could find a ruin with it’s treasures still present, maybe even a working magical item, then it would be more than worth all the trouble she’d gone to.

And yet even this promise of great reward seemed rather poor compensation in the moment. Sienna had been trekking for days, faced several monsters, and was nearly half through her water supply. If she didn’t find her destination soon, she’d need to head back the way she came. The Southern Desert was indescribably vast, and there had been no scale on her map to tell her how far exactly the ruin was from her startpoint; she’d been lucky for it to show a recognizable landmark to start from at all. She didn’t want to hire anyone to carry more supplies, but she might have to if it turned out to be further away than one adventurer could range on her own… or at least, she’d have to see if a local knew any oases in the region, which might draw the wrong kind of question.

The prospect of giving up, of turning around and returning to civilization (and more importantly, some variation from the dunes) was a strong temptation. Sunk cost fallacy was strong, but not that strong. But just as she was about ready to give up, she crested a dune and saw it.

The ruin was right in front of her - it had been longer than she’d expected, but she found it, spires of strange material jutting out from the sands and walls in distinctly synthetic shapes. The desert had done its work over the years, scouring the surfaces of all identification, but for all it’s work it couldn’t begin to damage the old structure itself.

It was the treasure trove she’d been seeking, and Sienna felt the exhaustion vanish from her body as the sight gave her a second wind. She sprinted down the sand dune, towards the strange construct that loomed over the desert.

While the desert and the ages couldn’t seem to even noticeably wear it down, something in the past clearly had. There were great, gaping holes in the sides of the structure, internal supports visible through the craters. Something powerful had torn through it; Sienna shuddered to think what the wars of her forebears must have been like to involve such damage to otherwise impervious material.

Stepping into the structure, she saw that even with the holes to the outside, the interior was even less damaged than the exterior by time. Already the expedition showed that it would be worthwhile; just transcriptions of some of the writing would pay every expense so far incurred. Sienna was eager to press on, and see what else might await her.

Maybe a bit too eager. She didn’t notice the smell until it was too late.

She saw the monster about when it saw her. Sienna hadn’t realized that, being a large structure with high ceilings in the middle of the desert, meant it would be a perfect den for a big monster to keep out of the harsh heat of day and bitter cold of night.

One set of eyes opened, staring down at the intruder. Then another. Then another. The being rose, standing tall beneath the vaulted ceiling and looking down at Sienna. Blue scales glistened in the light from small holes across the structure, giving a shimmering glow to the hydra’s body up to where it transitioned to flesh around the bust. A long tail swayed lazily behind the bipedal monster as she stood.

Many monster were native to the desert, and hydras were uniquely vicious. She grinned, vicious fangs glinting in her mouth. “Oooh, what have we here? It’s so nice when snacks come to me~” she said.

Sienna drew a sword in a flash, raising her shield as well. “I’m not your breakfast!” she shouted. The monster was big, but that would mean she was slow, right? Sienna felt confident she could win this - or maybe that was the greed talking. She had definitely read about hydras in her research! Even if she hadn’t been the most attentive of students, she remembered it talked a lot about their multiple heads...

Sienna’s sword couldn’t hope to deflect the crushing claws of the hydra, and Sienna was sure her modest armor would do no better. But the issue with being big was it made the monster slow, and the adventurer dodged around the blows raining from above, both from claws and from her reptilian feet.

The adventurer was not the greatest magic user, but she was competent, especially in enhancement; she made herself fast and strong, giving herself the kind of edge she needed to properly fight the hydra. But this wasn’t a creature she could kill with a thousand small cuts; she needed a few big ones. She waited for one arm to crash down again, and this time, cast a conjuration spell - thick black tar bubbled out of the air and onto the clawed hand, trapping it in place and giving Sienna a path.

She ran up the monster’s arm, before putting all her strength into a sundering cleave to one of it’s necks. She might not remember the details, but Sienna figured if the books had gone on about their heads as long as they had, that would be a weakness.

The monster let out a bellow of pain from two of it’s mouths as the third head slid right off. It cut surprisingly easily, falling down to the ground with a wet thump. The ragged wound gaped, but the blood flow stopped far faster than it should have... it was Sienna’s turn to shout in pain as she suddenly found herself in the monster’s grasp, as one hand shot up to take her.

She tried to wriggle free as the monster brought her up to it’s central head. “That hurt, human.” It hissed. “...But not as much as you wanted it to. Thanks for clearing the dead weight - I think it was about time to split again anyway.”

Split? Sienna had a sudden flashback - the books hadn’t been talking about their weaknesses, it was talking about their strengths. “J-Just end it, alright?” she grunted - she was sure she had a spell, but she’d need it to let down it’s guard first…

“I’ll do just that, human.” The hydra said. She freed her stuck hand and brought her claw to Sienna’s chest. The adventurer closed her eyes as it pressed in… and sliced away something? When she opened them again, she wasn’t dead - but her gear had been torn away by the hydra’s huge hand, leaving her naked in it’s grasp. “Just not the way you want. You’re strong. I think I’ll take your magic for my own.”

Sienna didn’t have time to process the monster’s words as it pushed her back up towards the stump where it’s head used to be. While the wound was vicious, it wasn’t as vicious as it should have been; there had been a spurt of blood, and then nothing; the cut was jagged and irregular but smooth, in a way that didn’t make Sienna think it was her own skill that had brought such a result. There was a sizable hole in the middle of it, pulsating slightly.

“Have fun~” the hydra laughed, as she pushed Sienna into the hole.

The adventurer found herself buried to the hips in the aperture. It was uncomfortably warm and wet, she quickly learned. She tried to struggle, tried to free herself, but quickly found that that would be an impossible task even if it wouldn’t mean getting past the hydra again. Her legs were held tightly in place, and she was having more and more trouble getting herself to even wriggle.

Sienna fought as hard as she could, but there was only so much she could do; the warm hole seemed to gently suck on her body, pulling her slightly deeper as it locked it’s grip. It’s damp folds tightened around her legs, and she groaned at the strange feeling it elicited - she tried to close her legs to avoid it getting anywhere private, but that was a futile effort at best. It was sucking her in, and it was a matter of time before it got to anywhere and everywhere it wanted. The hydra groaned softly herself, but hers was a rather more pleased noise.

The hole sealed close around her waist, and despite her best efforts she could no longer budge an inch. Sienna gasped as she felt… something happening down there. It felt like her legs were… expanding, filling the space. The wetness in the hole had coated them, and now they grew and melded. She felt a shock of sensation as there was an abrupt change in her perception. She could no longer feel her legs. It hadn’t hurt; they hadn’t been ripped off or anything. Just… she could feel a lot more. She could feel everything from where her waist connected with the hydra on down to the hydra’s legs; those were her legs now, her human ones melded with the hydra, her spine connecting with the bone in the hole.

She barely had time to process that - the new glut of sensory information overloading her - when the transformation continued up. Her body began to grow, taller and taller, thicker and thicker. Her arms felt weak and useless, vestigial really, by this point, but using them she could feel at her changing size and how… soft, malleable, her flesh now felt. Like wet clay going into a mold, even as hard blue scales climbed up her body from where it met the hydra’s.

It was as she found she could no longer reach across her torso with one arm that she noticed something distressing. She wasn’t just growing bigger. She was… it felt like she was splitting down the middle. The process didn’t hurt, quite. But it was more than a little disconcerting - her loud shout of shock splitting into two, her thoughts in disarray as they too began to split apart. With a wet noise, the two halves separated, connected at the base where her waist had once been.

The Siennas could still feel each other’s thoughts, and themselves as their heads began to grow to fit their new necks - because that was what their original body had become; the thick necks of two new giant hydra’s heads. More, they could feel the thoughts of the other two hydra heads.

The hydra was old. It hadn’t been the strongest of it’s kind magically - that much was obvious with how an adventurer of only moderate strength had dealt noticeable damage. But it was older than the town Sienna had launched her expedition from, and had centuries of experience.

“That’s right,” it said in her minds. At first the Siennas thought it was one mind, but no - it was both of the hydra’s remaining heads, in perfect unison. “Look deep. Go deeper and deeper, see how you can’t compare.”

The heads had begun as Sienna’s, but they were still malleable, easy to change. As they grew into place, their features began to shift. Their pale skin began to take a deep tan, and their blonde hair gained traces of blue. The Siennas were unable to do anything to stop their transformation, feeling the razor teeth growing in their mouths.

The hydra pressed her united mind against the frazzled and scattered ones that had split from Sienna. The weight of years, the endless hunger for more power began to fill them. So few creatures were blessed with the ability to grow so quickly, one Sienna thought - or maybe that was the hydra. The other wondered how it had ever thought to challenge her… wait, had she planned to at all? Her memories were getting fuzzy, indistinct. “What?” said one, “N-No, not…” the other stammered. It was harder and harder to figure out where Sienna’s thoughts ended and the hydra’s began.

“We won’t need those anymore.” The hydra pressed. “We are not Sienna. She was simply material for our growth. Those memories are not ours.” The hydra pressed her own thoughts deeper; a disdain for humans, a need to grow. She pressed her will against Sienna’s, her monstrous desires against a fractured mind. “Sienna is the name of a human who no longer matters. Of one who doesn’t exist. She is human; any connection a rat like her has to a being such as us is of no consequence.”

It was no surprise when Sienna buckled under the pressure. She could nearly feel her mind break and fracture, her identity blown to the winds in little pieces. A vicious laugh ripped itself out of two throats as the transformation of the hydra’s new heads reached it’s climax - their facial features rearranging themselves into the mirror of her other two heads, with a smattering of scales over her tan skin and going well with her yellow reptillian eyes and deep blue hair. The two new additions no longer had to bend to the hydra’s will - there was no distinction between them and the other two.

The hydra kicked away the discarded gear of that annoying human that had interrupted her nap, and settled back down to sleep until the twilight hours. No further thoughts or worries from her new heads troubled her; she was a single, powerful being, moreso now than she had been when she’d first woken up. As unconsciousness took her, she promptly forgot all about the ill-fated adventurer that had fueled her growth.