The Immortal Naturalist's Guide to Cryptic Creatures: Martha the Giant Snake

This post is part of the Immortal Naturalist's Guide series. The explanation for that series can be found in this post.

    Measuring nearly two hundred feet long is one of the largest residents of the Damp Plains, Martha the Giant Snake. Martha, like many snakes, is a predator who swallows her prey whole after subduing it. Unfortunately for the people of the Damp Plains, Martha's preferred food is them. The beast's preferred hunting method is to wait until nightfall, sneak into a village, and pick off anyone walking around by themselves. Despite her size, Martha only really needs to eat a few times a month, and she spreads her hunting out between villages, meaning very few people have any idea what the true reason for the disappearances is. While certain legends do describe giant horned snakes such as Martha, almost no one in the Damp Plains suspects the legends to have any real truth to them. Despite this, Martha was actually quite easy to track down. During the day, Martha has a particularly large rocky outcrop she likes to sun herself on, and I happened upon her while looking for a place to eat my lunch about a day after I began my search. The outcrop in question gives a great view of the surrounding plains and villages, which is why I had picked the spot, and evidently Martha appreciates a good view too.

    The few times I witnessed another creature attack Martha, she showed herself to be much faster than one would expect, and she preferred to use her horns as weapons. Without fail, every time she was able to get both horns in contact with her assailant, the unsuspecting creature would be electrocuted to death. This effective use of a magical ability seems to be purely for defense, however, as all of Martha's victims die from a potent venom in her fangs before being consumed. To avoid either fate, it seems like one needs to keep lots of wind chimes and bells around. Martha has sensitive hearing, which she uses to make sure nothing is sneaking up on her, and that also means she dislikes loud, high-pitched noises.

    Once, a group of drunks with bells happened to walk down a village street that Martha was hunting on. I do not know what these people were celebrating, but their activities caused Martha to leave the area with such haste that she actually knocked one of her horns against a building with enough force to gouge the building and chip her horn. After inspecting the piece of horn material, I found that it is able to convert other forms of energy into electricity, and I was even able to have a device made that uses the horn to launch lightning bolts at targets on command. I'm not really sure how one would go about getting a chip of Martha's horns on purpose, but it would be worth it.