Fifteen years I spent cloistered. It was so fulfilling spiritually, my heart and soul now so much closer the His light than it had ever been. Yet something was missing, and it took me so long to figure out what exactly. Then it hit me. You see, I chose to go back to the states when I became a nun. I suppose I was feeling homesick. However, I knew my path did not lead back to my family. I needed to be somewhere that truly needed God's love. I chose a Catholic church near the southern border in Texas.

Thus the next fifteen years of my life was spent here praying and performing chores for the church. I took a trip into town one day and saw a young boy, no more than twelve selling drugs on the streets. A sad, but not uncommon sight in this area. What was strange was the fact he was getting pulled out of view by a trio of men.

I frowned. See people were often chatty at church in the name of absolution and you heard things. It appears that a gang war was brewing and the boy was selling on the edge of his gang's territory. Though I would likely perish, I knew I had to step in and at least buy time for the child to escape. I approached them and called out.

Now you may find it stupid for a little nun to face up against three gangsters, and you may be right. But giving my life for the life of another is only natural. However, once I turned the corner and saw the child bleeding from a split lip, my eyes widened when I recognized one of the men. He was a regular at the church, he even helped out at bake sales. Heavens above, I helped baptize his niece when the pastor caught the flu.

Oh boy did I give that young man a tongue lashing. After that day, I heard he took a backseat in his gang, doing less violent work. I wish he got out of that life altogether. Oh well, baby steps. That boy however, was another story. Little James was so grateful that he did leave his gang and took refuge in the church as an altar boy.

Rather than the men, it was James that revealed the true path the Lord meant for me to walk. I left the cloister and worked with at risk individuals, rehabilitating them and giving them a safe space. If they refused to lift themselves out of the grime they lived in, I at least gave them an ear to vent to, a shoulder to cry on, and a belly of warm food. I walked this path until I was sixty-three and Hell came upon the world. The dreadful day demons walked the Earth.

-Sister Rosewood

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Holy crap that took a long time. Shockingly, it wasn't even chopping up the Hydra that took so long. It was the Spatial Compression ritual. Asha kept grumbling about it, saying how inefficient of a ritual it was. It would barely last a minute with the amount of resources we had on hand. Thankfully, once we got into my storage space, we wouldn't have to worry about that time limit as time was frozen in my storage space.

Once the ritual was complete, the truck sized chunks of snake carcass were shrunk down to barely person sized. One of the benefits of the spell was that the density of the compressed material isn't increased. So they were heavy, but wouldn't be collapsing into a black hole anytime soon.

Once the gruesome cleanup was finished, I stretched, popping my back. "Finally, now can we discuss why I'm weirdly attracted to that tree?"

All three of the ladies looked at me like they touched gum on the underside of a table. Asha cocked a brow and said, "Want a minute to rephrase that boss or should we tell Eliara that she has some stiff competition?"

I rolled my eyes, "Haha, you're so funny. You know exactly what I mean. It's like someone baked the mother of all chocolate chip cookies, except energy instead of delicious smells."

Liara, who was the only one who legitimately thought I wanted to sleep with a tree dawned a look of understanding, "Ah, you speak of the natural treasure. Likely what the Hydra was guarding. You said it completely refused to leave the base of the tree, yes?"

I nodded and Asha replied, "Yeah, I'm curious what it is, can't be too special or something a lot more dangerous than a young Hydra would have claimed it."

April scratched her jaw in confusion, "Natural what now?"

I nodded and said, "Yeah you should explain more. You know, for April. Who doesn't know what it is."

Asha rolled her eyes but continued, "A natural treasure is an item that naturally absorbs and contains aspects of the Dao becoming a valuable cultivation resource. There are some cases where they even become aware and transform into a living Dao treasure. Though you'd have a better chance of catching smoke than finding one of those."

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I grinned, "If this is one of those you owe me fifty bucks."

I shot back, "If this is a living treasure, I'll give you a trillion, so long as I get to keep it." I chuckled and we followed the source of the energy to the epicenter. Obviously, it was in the trunk of the massive tree. There was an opening at the base of the tree similar to a cave opening in a mountain.

We peeked inside, doubtful there was anything dangerous inside due to the Hydra. I honestly don't know what I was expecting, but a garden was not one of them. Well, I say garden, but its more like a large grouping of wild crops. It was some type of leafy plant in a small grove about the size of a football field. It was kind of dizzying to think that this was inside the trunk of a tree, I felt like I was a termite.

I crouched and touched one of the plants, smelling the leaf. It smelled a little minty and sweet. "I don't think the energy is coming from the plants."

Asha shook her head and pointed to something on the roof of the alcove, it looked like sap the size of a beach ball. It was about ten feet above us. I turned to mist in order to get a closer look. Though it was tree sap, it was crystallized in an odd formation, it almost reminded me like amber colored bismuth. It was solid all the way through, but I could see a faint light in the center.

It was radiating powerful nature and life energy. "Hmm, well I don't think its alive. What do y'all think we should do with it?" We decided to leave it for now, it may draw in threats, but none so powerful they were a danger to us. Anything that's as big a threat as the Hydra likely have their own treasures to guard.

Some further testing is needed, but Asha believes the plants could be spiritually nourishing to our citizens. The stronger they get, the less I have to worry about them. I would feel a lot better if there was at least one powerhouse that I could rely on to defend our... colony? Town? Let's be honest, our refugee camp. To defend them when we venture out. I don't want to just sit here and wait for the Void cult to destroy our home again.

We left Liara and April to guard the tree from any scavengers that are drawn to the treasure. Well, we left Liara to guard the tree, Asha and I could speed through the forest quickly by ourselves and April seemed like she could use the rest. It took a fraction of the time since we could rush past any aggressive creatures.

Any that seemed intent on following us were dealt with easily. Not much later and we arrived outside the forest once again. I blinked and looked around, confused as to why the hundreds of people were no longer around. Asha poked my rib and pointed to the left, seems we popped out in a slightly different area, whoops.

I grinned and flew over, landing next to our folks. I called out, "Alrighty, we found a pretty nice spot for a treehouse and with careful consideration, we decided to forgo the 'no girls allowed sign'. We will, however, be keeping the 'cool people only' sign. Sorry Asha, but you'll have to sleep outside.

Asha quirked a brow and gestured at herself in her post-apocalyptic biker outfit. I shrugged, "Touche." There were a good amount of chuckles at the banter. After the various loose camps were packed up they followed us in the forest. Eliara made her way through the crowd and smiled. The budding young mage Ashley on her shoulders.

"Was there any trouble?"

I poked her cheek, "Aw, you worried about me?"

She teasingly snapped her teeth at my finger and replied, "No, I was merely concerned about April, what of poor Ashley if you got her mother hurt. Isn't that right, sweetie?"

Resting her chin on Eli's head she nodded, "Is Momma alright?"

I grinned at the little girl, "Absolutely, and guess what?"

Using our close proximity, Ashley climbed off of Eli's shoulders and onto mine, she hung her head over mine to look into my eyes, "Hmm?"

I chuckled at her antics, "Your mom took out a bunch of monsters all by herself!"

Her eyes widened, "With her new vampire powers?"

"Ye-up, she was all waw, wa-chah!" I mimed karate chops and knife attacks, careful not to buck the kid too much. She giggled excitedly.

Eliara bumped my shoulder with hers and asked, "So what did you find? Did the paladin give you much trouble?"

"Liara? Naw, she's alright once you get past the fire and brimstone speech. We didn't run into too much trouble, some baboons, a big toad monster, a Hydra, some squirrels that gave us the stink eye."

Eli and Ash widened both of their eyes. "A what?!" Eliara asked, incredulous.

I nodded gravely, "Yeah, I really didn't like the look of those squirrels. They looked nuts." Ashley giggled at my dad joke, but Eli remained concerned.

"No dummy, the Hydra. Are you okay?"

I tried not to melt at her genuine concern and cleared my throat. Ashley, decided to twist the knife of embarrassment, "Your face is red."

Changing the subject back to the snake I replied, "Yeah, I'm fine. It was a tough fight, but Asha and I managed to take out the Hydra."

"That thing Hercules fought?" Ashley tapped my head excitedly as if she would knock loose the story, "Did it have like, a bajillion heads? Did you smash it with a big rock?"

"I prefer Heracles myself, but yeah. Though this one only had one head. Turns out there's different types of Hydras out there. This one was... was..." I thought for a moment before snapping my fingers, "A Crested Forest Hydra. It was guarding a natural treasure that was inside one of those huge trees. That's actually where we're heading now."

Eliara gasped, "A natural treasure? That's incredible, what is it? Wait, no. Start from the beginning." I smiled warmly at her and kissed the adorable bean's forehead, much to Ash's disgust.

As we walked, I regaled them with our journey into the forest and our fight with the Hydra. It was completely unembellished. "So after I threw the Hydra into the air, I hit it with a round house kick that tore its head off in a single hit, finishing the fight and saving Asha from certain death."

Ashley oohed and aahed throughout the story and Eli's eyes were the size of dinner plates. Oh god, I can't with these two, I'm going to get diabetes from their cuteness. Wait, can vampires get diabetes? I'll have to asked Asha that later.

Ah, speak of the devil, Asha cleared her throat from behind us and immediately called bull on my story. "Yeah, no, this is what really happened." She then told the true story as we finished our trek to our new home.

I blew a raspberry at her, "Party pooper."