Emily’s blood pounds in her ears, as she strains to listen to the sounds of the forest. She can hear frantic movement and snapping branches out in the dark distance, the foliage all around her frantic and busied. The tell-tale, heart-stopping slithering noise growing louder and louder.

  “They’re all fleeing.” Nora provides, her head swivelling from side to side in order to track the movements all around her. A goblin breaks through the foliage nearby, stumbling for a moment before looking back in fear and continuing to run into the dark forest.

  “Should we do the same?”, Alastair asks, his hand tightening against the sword in his hand, holding his torch up into the air and looking for anything slithering towards them.

  Nora thinks to herself, biting her lip as she looks for a way out. “If we try to run, we might hit a swarm of them unprepared.” She thinks to herself for a moment, tracing the direction that the foliage is moving with her eyes. “They’re running out from where it’s coming from, so if we want to avoid it, we need to move with them.”

  As she’s looking around, she spots movement that has her blood turn cold. She lifts her bow, nocking one of her pilfered arrows and taking a deep breath.

  “Too late.”

  From out of the darkness slithers a thing straight from a nightmare. Alastair holds his torch up higher, catching sight of midnight black scales glittering in the torchlight. As wide as Alastair, and too long to see in the darkness, its body stretching off into the night, the Basilisk is a deadly threat to even experienced adventurer parties. A massive forked tongue snakes out past foot-long fangs, tasting the tantalizing scent of blood and death in the air. It detects the heartbeats of three still-living things, sensing the heat of their blood running through their veins and tasting the fear and adrenaline that they’re still producing. Its black eyes seem to sparkle with malice as it turns towards the three adventurers, before an arrow hits its scales and skitters harmlessly off of them, disappearing into the night.

  It rears its head back and up, looking down on the party as it lets out a blood-curdling hiss. Nora nocks back another arrow and lets it loose once again, hitting the inside of its mouth but failing to penetrate it deeply or hit anything vital. It lets out a frustrated yelp, trying to shake out the arrow as it lodges itself into the roof of its mouth.

  “Good shot!” Alastair shouts, as he steps in front of the group, placing himself in-between the angered snake and his team. “Can you hit its eyes?”

  Nora cocks her eyebrow at Alastair, looking back at the furiously thrashing snake with its tiny, beady eyes. “No, I don’t think I could.”

  “Would it even help?” Emily asks, as she considers if she can hit it herself with a fast enough wind bolt. Remembering why she prefers the wide-sweeping, easily-hitting blade of wind in the first place, she decides to save her one shot for when it counts.

  “It’s a snake. It has a whole bunch of senses to rely on besides sight.” Nora replies, as she watches it closely, a shiver running down her spine as it smashes through the foliage with ease. “But it’s worth a try. Maybe it’ll hurt it enough for it to decide we’re not worth the hassle.”

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  It gives up trying to shake out the arrow that seems stubbornly stuck in its maw and positioned in the perfect way to keep its mouth open. With some frustration, it squeezes its mouth shut, pressing the arrow deeper into the roof of its mouth but snapping the shaft off, allowing it to close its mouth once again. With that done, it turns back to the ones responsible for the irritating thing that’s stuck in its mouth, and the only three living things keeping it from enjoying a free buffet.

  Nora lets out a breath and releases another arrow, which flies straight and true, aimed right for the thing’s vulnerable eyes. She lets out a curse under her breath as the basilisk spots the arrow and tilts its head slightly to the side, allowing the arrowhead to clang against its scales again and disappear into the darkness.

  Alastair takes a step towards the snake and it turns to him, his knees shaking as it gives him its undivided attention. Alastair swipes at it with his sword, probing its reaction and almost getting his head bitten off for the trouble, just managing to dodge backwards from its lightning-fast bite.

  The basilisk slithers closer, its forked tongue flicking out in what sounds like a mirthful hiss. Alastair shuffles backwards, swinging his torch in front of himself in an attempt to scare the thing off. “Back! Back, demon!”

  He manages to hit the torch against its nose, eliciting no reaction whatsoever from the thing. It rears back its head and strikes, narrowly missing Alastair as he dodges once again. He raises his shortsword and slashes down at the thing, sparks flying off of the scales as it deflects the strike with ease.

  Arrow after arrow hits the basilisk in the face, each one bouncing or skittering off its tough scales. All the while the thing menaces Alastair, forcing him further and further back with each strike.

  Alastair can feel his heart pounding, the sweat dripping down his back with each near-miss. He knows that he’s barely hanging on, even though the thing is barely trying at all. Its sheer strength and speed allows it to bat him around without a care, its scales turning aside any attack that they give it, and it seems to know it.

  “Step left!” Nora shouts, and Alastair barely avoids backing into a tree. The basilisk strikes just a moment later, its powerful jaws just barely missing him and snapping the tree in half with the impact. No longer patient after missing the moment it was patiently waiting for, the basilisk dives towards Alastair once again, knocking into him and smacking him painfully into the floor. Alastair rolls with the hit, dropping his torch and narrowly avoiding the follow-up strike that it sends his way.

  Alastair scrambles across the floor as it opens its mouth and hisses in frustration, slithering after him with single-minded determination. Alastair stumbles and falls down once again, and the basilisk lifts its head up, readying itself for another strike.

  A wind bolt flies out from Emily’s dully glowing hands and hits the basilisk in the side of its face, narrowly missing its eye but violently knocking it into a tree, disorienting it for a precious few moments. Completely out of mana, and with a piercing headache that leaves white spots dancing in her vision, Emily drops to the floor as Alastair manages to scramble up to his feet, striking out with his sword once again.

  His sword skitters across its nose harmlessly, before catching the thing’s left eye and slicing deeply into it. The basilisk lets out a pained hiss, reeling away from Alastair and coiling its body in tightly, the fluid from its eye glinting in the torchlight.

  Alastair takes a deep breath, stilling his pounding heart. “Come on, you big bastard.” he says, as he shakes out the pang of pain from his shoulder after the impact it had against the ground. “Show me that other eye of yours. I’ll make it even.”

  The basilisk hisses back at Alastair, glaring out of its one still-working eye at the sword in his hand.

  Before it suddenly turns its head towards the sitting mage, leaning its head back for a strike.