It took me the better part of the day to travel to the location of the job for goblin cheese-thieves. Chooka was downtrodden and worried to see me go on my first job that was for intelligent creatures too far away to be a day trip. I made promises that I would do my best to return and that I would not take unnecessary risks. She had accepted these words with uncertainty, and she had been more tender that night before I left than she was normally inclined to be. By virtue of my Skills from my Blessing, I do have a slight healing factor, enough at least to heal any wounds overnight left by her fingernails in my back, but that night required no such Ability. I liked seeing that side of her, one that was vulnerable instead of confident. I still felt a little bit like a bastard for putting her through such worry that I would never return, but such is the life of an Adventurer.

My travels had taken me to the base of the northern mountains where flat farmland gave way to forested hills. No one lived in those parts in those days, and so near sundown, I had made use of my dragon form to scout the area. I had reliable intel of where my quarry made their hives and I found a suitable location for my ambush, so perhaps fortune smiled upon me. I made camp with the supplies I had stowed away in my pocket dimension. I picked a location on top of a hill, one that was hard to see from anywhere downhill, and after scouting it out, I felt secure in the wisdom behind my choice. I knew a few warding spells to keep away weaker monsters and to alert me of intrusion, so I would not need to keep watch. I also made no campfire to give away my position. Trail rations did not need to be cooked, and I would not risk a blade in the back because I wanted a cozy campfire.

I had not slept often in the woods by that point in my life. I lay there restless as the sounds of nature flooded into my tent: songbirds chirping about how much of a stud they are to all the lady birds, the death cry of some poor critter that found itself being horked down the gullet of a predator, and some sort of strange flower that makes a popping sound as it launches seeds out of what is essentially a cannon fashioned from its petals. Sleep eluded me only for so long, and in my dreams, I saw visions of giant cheese monsters sweeping over the city with their cheese breath attacks laying waste to all below. Giant goblins ate the cheese monsters as the cheese monsters ate back in return, the battle raging until the only one left standing was one of those alpacas from the mountains, which I am pretty sure do not eat cheese, but dream logic is special like that.

Morning came, as it is inclined to do, and satisfied that I had not died during the night, I ate breakfast and packed up my camp. With reckless abandon, I flung camp supplies into my pocket dimension, unconcerned about damage as things inside somehow don’t touch or interact with each other, presumably based around the owner’s concept about what a thing is. A handful of rocks are separate things, but if you put them in a bag, suddenly that is one thing, so I am not entirely sure how that is handled. All I know is my stuff is not broken when I take it out, so that is good enough for me.

I made good time in traveling to the location I had selected for the ambush. I had seen quite clearly the day before what was the goblin hive. Goblins marked their territory with bone totems and other macabre décor to warn off predators and rivals, so it was a rather inescapable observation. Two short but steep hills made a narrow pass at the base between them, and it was long enough for my purposes. Rather clear of trees and well-trodden with all manner of tracks, no doubt that fact combined with the lack of sunlight created a hostile environment for any saplings to reach maturity. The trees around here looked similar to ginkgos, and not being an expert on them, I did not know if that also contributed to it. The soil seemed to be of the desired quality to support life as various grasses and wildflowers made this trail their home.

I deposited my cheese wheel on a crude platform I hastily built from fallen branches, just enough to keep it off the ground so it could be seen. Using a little bit of Air magic, I created a light breeze to push the scent in the direction of my quarry. I took position up high on the hill behind a boulder, and thus the waiting game began.

Minutes passed. I had wards in place to warn me if I were to be flanked by one thing or another, so I kept my eye on the cheese. The sun crept lazily into the sky, apparently in no rush to provide me with better light or to heat up the cheese to enhance its stench. An hour passed, and still nothing, and I started to wonder if maybe this would not work.

As I pondered what my next move would be, a large serpentine head popped into view down in the ravine. Then another, and another. In total, five such heads, each bigger than my own body, bobbed and weaved as they sized up the cheese. Well, they could have been focusing on the wildflowers, but I am pretty sure the cheese was the prize. Fortunately, at least I think it was fortunate, the heads were not disembodied and floating, and as they moved closer, I saw they were attached to long necks, and those necks to one central body with stubby legs and a short tail.

“Ah, fuck!” I muttered under my breath.

I don’t know what a hydra was doing that deep in the mountains. They typically live near water, and I did not see any large bodies of water around these parts. Do they migrate in mating season like turtles? Is it even hydra mating season? I knew not the answers, not that they really mattered, but now I was faced with a problem. Do I cut and run, or stand and fight to save my bait? Would I really die out here, alone, over some stinky cheese wheel? It was not even good cheese, or so a dozen snobs had told me as I tried to purchase it, each one of which named several cheeses that were better. Lesson learned, always carry backup cheese wheels.

I decided to fight, but I considered my options carefully. I watched its movements to see how it behaved and how quickly it would react. The heads sniffed around at the cheese, not with snake tongues like I expected, but with their nostrils. Heads nipped at each other, not close enough to sink into flesh, but enough to intimidate one another. I knew not if they had a social hierarchy amongst themselves or how well they would cooperate, but they did appear too distracted to notice me.

I had a small pool of magical Abilities at my disposal, and a generous amount of mana to power them. I took a special metal pipe out of my pocket dimension along with a pointed metal slug. The pipe itself had a spiral groove on the interior, which when sufficient Air magic was applied to the pipe, would force the slug to rotate as it accelerated forward at high speeds. I took aim at the heads with the pipe over one shoulder and pointing towards my targets, channeling my power into the pipe until it was ready for release.

In a sudden burst, I released the control of the air pressure within, and with violent fury, the slug shot forward with lethal ramifications to anything foolish enough to be in its way. The slug hit true in the neck of one of the heads on the hydra. I wasted no time in readying another shot as the beast lurched in pain and crashed onto its side. I remember tales that advised against cutting off heads, and to my satisfaction, my shot had avoided such a blunder. The beast righted itself, but one head hung limp and lifeless.

“One down, four to go.” I whispered to myself in smug satisfaction. “This should be a cakewalk.”

Fun fact, no. To my horror, the other heads ripped and tore at their fallen comrade, decapitating the useless head. Black ooze bubbled out of the stub, and within but a few seconds, two more heads shot forth into the world from that terrible wound.

“Okay, none down, six to go. Bunch of cheaters!” I cursed under my breath at such ingenuity. Such tactics were not in any tales I had ever heard.

For my next shot, I aimed at the general squat body, hoping I would hit a vital organ and take it out. My aim was true, but it failed to penetrate. It did succeed in pissing it off and alerting it exactly as to my whereabouts. Enraged, the four original heads reared back, each taking a massive breath. Doubting they were about to break out into a barbershop quartet of some popular song, and with no haste spared, I took cover behind the boulder and channeled forth a defensive shield around myself. With a great roar, blue streams of icy smoke scoured the boulder and the terrain around me, freezing all that it touched. I huddled there helplessly for several seconds as I watched cracks form in my barrier, and in the moment I wondered if I would be entombed in a bubble of ice or frozen solid when the shield failed.

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Their attack ceased before either happened, and sparing no time to write them a strongly-worded letter or some other such foolishness, I ran up and over the top of the hill. With few options left, I calmed myself, reaching down into my very being, relaxing my muscles and my restraint on my true nature. Clothing and equipment merged into flesh, and flesh swelled and warped, twisting and writhing into shapes unnatural for my current form. With controlled fury, I embraced that which I always was, that which I will always be, and assumed the form and power of a dragon. Not a big dragon, certainly quite small compared to the hydra, but a dragon nonetheless, the kind that walks on all fours with a long tail, a long neck, wings, claws, the works.

I crouched down low, and with a mighty leap, I shot myself upwards and forwards into the air, my wings set about their designed purpose to take me aloft. I circled first away and then back, lining up for my bombing run as I had planned, albeit with one very angry hydra instead of a gang of confused goblins. Unsure what element would work best, I unleashed a downpour of acidic goo which covered it. I hoped to melt it away such that it could not regenerate or to scorch its lungs as it breathed in the foulness I had spewed onto it. It did have some sort of effect, not so much in it melting away, but rather more of it roaring in pain and getting somehow angrier than before, as if such could be possible.

I turned around for another pass, this time trying elemental Lightning, but it was ready for me. In an all too familiar stance, it readied its own breath attack back at me. Not favoring the one against four odds I had against it, I took evasive action, but not well enough. With great pain, I made the stunning observation that the beast had raked my left side, the telltale signs of its deed made extra apparent by the ice forming on my wounds. I probably would have fared much worse if the two new heads were capable of such breath attacks. I did manage to recover and return fire before passing it. Lightning worked better than Acid, stunning the creature, but not turning it black while its bones glowed white. Perhaps I would have to wait for a higher tier of breath attack for such to be possible.

Wounded, and not wanting to play another game of chicken, I decided on a gamble. Closing into melee with it sounded suicidal, as it dwarfed me by comparison to its massive form. Landing up on a hill, I dumped everything out of my pocket dimension, and finding the biggest boulder that I felt would fit inside, I sucked it up into said pocket dimension. It took a few seconds and more mana than I would have liked to spare, but the beast lay stunned and otherwise very much alive on the ground down the hill, compliments to my last attack.

Taking wing once more, I readied for another sortie. The beast did not change tactics, but I did, and I juked backwards and out of reach of its breath attacks as it wasted them in vain. I knew I had a few seconds before it could recharge, and flying directly above it, I turned straight down into a dive. Enraged heads lunged up to meet me. If I dodged too soon, I would probably miss my next attack, and if I tried too late, I would end up as a snack.

The center maw from the original necks was but ten lengths of my body away. Jaws opened wide as nightmarish teeth too numerous to count raced to meet me. At the last second I wheeled to the side, taking care to turn my body so my wings would not get clipped. Successfully past that head, the remainder crashed into one another in a mad dash to snatch me up. This time, I was not so lucky, as one or two teeth found purchase in my yet good side and ripped a shallow but bloody cut along its length.

Ignoring the pain, I used the mana I had been channeling to tear open reality and unleash the boulder from my pocket dimension. Somehow, momentum was preserved, which I had not tested and thanked my lucky stars that it worked. A loud thump shook the branches of nearby trees, causing leaves to fall like rain, as the boulder crashed into the main body of the hydra near the necks, squishing it flat.

I veered away in time to avoid making myself a pancake on the ground below, but grace eluded me as landing ultimately resulted in a crash. Rocks, grass, and flowers found themselves ripped from their earthly purchases as my body carved a respectable divot in the earth. Upon stopping, I promptly reverted to my human form, unsure if the damage I had taken would transfer between forms. The ice fell away, but my wounds were all too real.

Blackness lingered at the edge of my vision as it both threatened to envelop me and promised me sweet release from the pain. Summoning up my last vestiges of willpower, I focused on a plan to survive this mess. I could very easily bleed out or be found by other monsters if I passed out, and such was not an option to me. To my astonishment, the hydra had been worth an astronomical amount of Experience Points, far more than the sum of all I have attained thus far. Not taking time to tarry, I grabbed every Healing and Durability Skill I could find available to me, burning through a generous portion of my Experience Points in hopes of finding something that would save me.

As I drew what could be my final breaths, I channeled the biggest and baddest healing magic that I could afford from my new list of such Skills. Flesh mended in seconds as my wounds closed. Not even a scar remained as a memento for this duel. Feeling much better, but still woozy from the blood loss, I sat upright and greedily gulped down water from a canteen I had on my person. Refreshed as much as I could be, I took the time to actually examine what new Skills I had acquired and what more was yet available. Half an hour passed before I had finished spending my remaining Experience Points and acquiring a whole new suite of Skills. I gobbled up every passive boost I could find like a fat kid at a pie-eating contest.

My mana reserves, as a percentage, were rather depleted, but thanks to the new Skills acquired, were actually higher than when I had started the fight. By my estimates, I now rivaled the top Gold or bottom Platinum ranked [Mages] for how much mana I had at my disposal when at full strength. I channeled a new Skill to help restore my stamina and wipe away the fatigue from the fight.

Feeling fit as a fiddle, I took a quick walk to scout the area to see if any scavengers, or indeed the goblins I was here for, had made their way to the hydra. I saw no signs, and decided it was safe to inspect my kill. The heads lay dead on the ground, their necks tangled over one another, sans the two heads that had grown back earlier, which were hastily rotting away before my very eyes. I watched patiently as I tested the air to ensure the vapors from its corpse would not be harmful. Other than smelling downright awful, they did not appear to be dangerous.

Unsure which parts of a hydra would be valuable, I set to work carving up the body, taking what pieces I thought were valuable. Teeth, eyes, internal organs, hide, scales, bones, cheese, more cheese… Wait a minute! Another casualty had been unaccounted for in this battle. In its death rattle, the hydra had smooshed my cheese wheel, one of its necks now coated in the stuff. Saddened that the very thing I had set out to protect had been lost to the world, I said a small prayer for the cheese wheel, that it may spend eternity in cheese paradise.

I had expanded the size of my pocket dimension, but it could not quite hold an entire hydra. Including my original kit, which I still had to go collect, I could hold about four fifths of it. With the hunt spoiled and the rest of the day spent carving my kill up into manageable pieces, the goblins would live yet another day. Well, a few more days, as I would be heading back to the city to try to pawn off all the bits I had collected. The Skills from my Blessing enabled me to harvest with supernatural technique, but the process was still time-consuming.

But wait, something odd was hidden deep inside the creature, something smooth and round, back behind where the boulder had smashed into it. Pulling it up out of its guts, I found an egg, intact, about half as big as me. Now on an egg hunt, I dove in, and found myself rewarded with a total of three eggs, each one leathery instead of made of whatever normal eggs are made of. I used my Skills to examine them. Two were devoid of life, but I could clearly see the silhouettes of baby hydras. But the remaining one, miraculously, was still alive. I took a moment to wonder why a mostly-aquatic creature that presumably lays eggs had fertilized eggs inside its body, but that was a mystery for another time. I used my magic to keep it as warm as I felt it should be considering what temperature the inside of its mother was, plus a little extra because it had been dead and cut open for a while. I set that one aside as I tossed the other two into my pocket dimension, as it was not rated to transport living things.

By sundown, I had collected my kit and had stuffed as much of the beast as I could fit into my pocket dimension. Carrying the living egg, I walked the rest of the day and half the night back towards the city, for I now only needed half as much sleep as normal thanks to my new Skills. But even my greatly upgraded body had its limits, and I soon needed to make camp. That night, I worried that every monster and demon that stalked the woods would make a beeline for me, but if any did, they gave up before reaching me.