A Terrible Beast

With the chaos hydra closing in on them, Kuppies began to look for a place to set the ship down. Knowing full well that historically, most members of the party did not fair well when a roll against falling was involved. With moments to spare, he spotted a clearing and set the ship down.

With seconds till the creature landed, the party exited the ship and took up advantageous positions throughout the immediate area. When the hydra landed, the heroes unleashed a fury rarely seen, even by then. By the end of the first round, they had thrown everything they had the beast and in response, it grew a third head! To further complicate matters, giant shadow snakes slithered out of the nearby ruins and attacked Kuppies and Leenia.

Kuppies proved extremely slippery, avoiding the snake on several occasions, while still dishing out punishment to the hydra. Rudy, Ekeraath, and Alexander stayed close, hammering away, with Alexander dropping a wall of fire on top of the abomination. Once again, the beast roared in protest and sprouted a fourth head.

With ferocity never before seen by the heroes, the hydra hammered away on the melee combatants while still taking even more punishment, before finally, sprouting its fifth and final head. It managed to reduce Rudy to zero hit points, fortunately for him, Leenia immediately allowed him to spend a healing surge and recover enough to return to the fight.

Hoping the end was near, the stalwart adventurers dug deep and mustered another massive offensive effort, finally slaying the beast they were responsible for. Realizing their easy dinner was no more, the snakes retreated to the ruins, allowing the heroes a much needed rest.

I was really happy with this encounter. The ever changing hydra was a great opponent for the players and really hit hard. Halving monster HP and doubling their damage has really made for more exciting encounters.