Brent was still eyeing the location he'd assumed the rustling had come from, when he heard it--the distinct sound of hissing. It wasn't the hissing part that surprised him, though. He'd gathered a snake was coming all thanks to the runic message and his predictions about Africa. It'd been the fact that the hissing was coming from behind him that had taken him by surprise.

Brent turned around, his wand gripped tightly in his hands, and his breath held in anticipation. HOLY FREAKIN' MERLIN. Brent had almost yelled that part out loud, only...he couldn't find his voice at the moment. In all his years of studying the runespoor, he'd never anticipated exactly how large they were when you were staring one right in the eyes...all six of them. He'd thought he was ready for this, but what he was really ready to do was take three steps backward, turn around, and haul it out of here. Only, he was pretty sure the runespoor would chase after him, and he was equally sure it'd catch up to him. The door was the only way...

...the same door he couldn't open unless he managed to capture the snake.

Brent didn't think for a single second that he was expected to actually kill the snake. He was only meant to force the snake into a position where it could no longer roam free. That was literally all he had to do. Hopefully. He did a super quick inspection of the creature before him, noting that each head did indeed have a different personality and seem to want to do something different than the other two heads. He remembered reading about that once. Apparently, the left head was called the planner and decided what to do next, the middle head was a bit of a dreamer, and the right head simply critiqued the other two, which often ended up in it losing its head. It was this line of thinking that led Brent to devise a plan. If he could somehow force the heads to do exactly what they were meant to do best, he could either confuse them or pit them against one or two of the other heads.

He had a moment of hesitation when the snake began hissing and showing its fangs. Okay, this thing was out to kill, wasn't it? Well, not today, runespoor. He gave a slight jump when the middle head struck at his shield. Wasn't it supposed to be the daydreamer?! Striking at his shield was not daydreaming... That was it! Plan number one would be to put the middle head into its natural daydreaming state, and then he'd be left with the planner and the one that liked to critique, and maybe he could get the two of them angry with one another instead of him! Brent raised his wand and sent a Daydream Charm toward the middle head. "Sentio Somnium!" he called out. His second thought was to get the head on the left to plan something that would earn it a pretty harsh critique from the head on the right. Right now, it looked like the head on the left wanted the others to move along and explore their prey, aka Brent, a bit further, and that was just a big ole bag of NOPE. Brent shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he realized he didn't have an immediate plan. What could cause the head on the left, the planner, to make such a bad decision that the head on the right would become angry with it? Uhh... "Confundo!" he finally exclaimed, as he whipped his wand around the left head in a half circle sort of fashion. Finally, and just because he thought the head on the right would end up angry at him at some point and time no matter what, he sent a spell to deal with it, too. "Arresto Momentum!" he called out, casting on the snake as a whole.

After all, he still needed to actually capture the snake, so he didn't want that left head making any hasty decisions to make a run for it...err, a slither for it.