The next morning she awoke and quickly prepared to go out on a request. She figured that she had gotten enough of a handle on the Chaos Mana and it was time to get back to normal. The group left for the League after a quick breakfast and when they arrived went to the reception desk. They couldn’t find Freya and instead talked to the nearest receptionist which was a dwarf woman named Brunhilde. She was around three and a half feet tall, burly and had a magnificent braided brown beard.

“Are ya’ll here for your requests?” She asked in a gruff almost Russian accent.

“Yes. We are.” Fergus replied politely.

“Alright. Here you go.” Brunhilde replied as she set two papers on the desk.

Fergus read them out for the group. They were standard requests for a group of grass elementals and a plains giant. Both were in the plains region west of the city. The grass elementals would be annoying as they were made from numerous blades of grass and could separate before returning together and were a group of nine monsters with a level of thirty Plains Giant would be annoying because it was ridiculously sturdy and strong. It was also just a single level thirty monster.

Grass elementals wouldn’t be too difficult to defeat as they could be killed by anything that would normally kill grass like poison. The Plains Giant would be a bit more difficult. It was extremely strong and ridiculously sturdy, but very dumb. They had two heads but each one almost never agreed with each other allowing people to be able to pass it while the heads argued. They took all of this into account and discussed it.

They decided to go ahead and take both since they were both in the same area. After that, they started heading straight out of the city. When they reached the western gate Gaia climbed on Malachite's shell and they all took off at top speed. Gaia used the travel time to again train her ability to control the Chaos pathways. Liv was working on the spider silk armor for Griff and Fergus as she sat in Gaia’s lap. They had around a dozen small golems Liv had brought with them to scout when they got closer.

Shadow ran alongside the other three as they raced into the plains. They arrived near the specified area and Liv sent her small golems out to scout and find the requests’ monsters. It took them nearly an hour to find the Plains Giant and the party moved closer to see the area for themselves. The Plains Giant was around twenty-five feet tall and carried a tree in its hands. It appeared to use the fifteen foot tree as a club and was standing by the main road that cut through the plains. This was the main road used to trade with the cities within the Kingdoms land.

They waited for a bit and noticed the heads were arguing over something. They took that as a sign to attack while it was distracted. They took their Shield formation and went in for the fight. Gaia already had her Mana Field up when they started running and soon the Giant was within it. She could tell her field poisoned it almost immediately and they had the time to get a few attacks in before the monster’s heads stopped arguing. Griff had gotten in a flurry of punches, Malachite got a shell bash, Shadow a few bites and scratches, and Fergus landed a few arrows in its torso. Gaia ran in close and used her barbed vines to slash it a few times. It finally noticed them after the attacks and swung the tree towards them.

The tree still had most of its branches and appeared to have just been ripped out of the ground. It covered a large area but the party was able to dodge most of it. Griff was guarded by Shadow when he couldn’t quite make it out of range of the club’s branches while Gaia’s barrier blocked some from scratching her. Her barrier rebounded with some radiation that caused the Giant to only wince. The slamming of the tree into the ground caused a small crater to be formed where the top hit. The ground shook from the strength of it. The party knew if one of them took a direct hit, none of them would likely survive it. The fight continued in this fashion with the party running around the giant’s legs and getting in hits while it slammed the tree down towards them causing scratches and scrapes when they couldn’t fully dodge it.

Eventually, the Giant had slammed the tree it used as a club down enough that all the branches had broken off. This made the fight easier for them as it made the club easier to dodge without taking any damage. They slowly whittled the giant down with Gaia’s conditions and stacking damage as it waved its club around futilely. Gaia’s conditions made the fight go by quickly as she bled and poisoned the monster continually. It wasn’t until the end that she had an idea for her chaos mana.

She tried to make the chaos mana go through her vines. It didn’t work very well as it didn’t have a pathway to follow but she was able to make it enter them slightly giving them a burst of power that caused a deeper gash. A few minutes later the monster was dead and quickly dissolved. Infusing the vines with chaos mana was exhausting. When she checked the area she noticed a small offshoot in the pathways towards where she had forced it. She figured this meant she could create new pathways for the mana to pass through. The new one allowing for stronger and faster slashes with her vines.

The fight with the Giant had taken about an hour which tired everyone out. They now understood why giants were known for their resilience and strength. The party rested for an hour before heading to the next request location. It only took about half an hour for them to reach the area and by the time they arrived Liv’s golems had already found the pack of elementals.

The elementals blended in with their surroundings as they were completely made from grass. Unless someone or something was near them and they noticed, they stayed spread out along the surrounding grass. Fergus and Griff only saw open plains of grass until one of Liv’s golems walked over one of the elementals and it quickly came together. It looked like the grass got kicked up by the wind and all of the loose blades were blown into a six foot tall tornado with arms and a head.

The grass spun and writhed together when it formed and Liv’s golem was quickly shredded as it was caught inside the elemental. Once Liv’s golem was destroyed the elemental stayed formed for a minute before spreading back out and vanishing into the surrounding grass. The request was for a group of nine of these elementals meaning there were at least nine such monsters spread around the area. This made them act more cautiously as they weren’t sure where the other ones were or if the elementals would all attack if one was injured.

They sent out more of the golems Liv had made to try and find the other ones. Sadly there were only six more golems that they’d brought so they found six more within about thirty feet of the first. This left two unaccounted for so they decided to head in and fight while Gaia used her Mana Field to try and locate the two missing elementals. They quickly took their sword formation and ran to where the first elemental was. Liv had already activated Gaia’s armor and formed some poison shots as they ran. The Grass elemental formed almost instantly so Griff and Malachite hit it with attacks. Griff dealt a strong blow with a mana charged palm strike while Malachite’s shell bash didn’t seem to deal quite as much damage as it normally did.

His attack did end up poisoning it though and Gaia started stacking her poison condition when her field encompassed the monster. It didn’t seem to be as effective but still dealt some damage. Her vines did nothing to the elemental so she stopped those attacks while Fergus was hitting it with multiple gale arrows that punched small holes through it. After the first group of attacks the other six elementals formed and started towards the party.

Gaia noticed two other monsters moving in towards Fergus at the back of the formation and quickly relayed the information. He was able to dodge one of the strikes a moment later while Shadow blocked the other and he hit them with a gust blade that cut straight through them. Shadow was able to bite and claw the monsters easily since she was able to deal magic damage. The elementals weren’t dead yet and quickly reformed but were slightly smaller than before. The group whittled the monsters down until they were about half their original size. The fight ended with Griff hitting the last one with a mana empowered fist that sent the grass, that formed the elemental, scattering and it floated to the ground.

This wasn’t much of a fight as the elementals were barely able to hit the party but Malachite had been encased within one of the elementals which caused his defensive barrier to weaken rapidly. Had it been Fergus of Griff their barrier would have likely dropped within about ten seconds of being engulfed. The fight only took about five minutes in its entirety as Griff and Fergus’ attacks were stronger against the elementals than Gaia and her bonds. They rested for a bit before heading back to the city. This time Malachite grew to his current max size and Fergus rode on his back with Gaia. She had her Mana Field up just covering Malachite's size to counteract her poison. Griff hopped on Shadows back as she’d gotten big enough for him to ride on her back and they raced back to the city.

Malachite stayed big until they arrived at the Hunter’s League which caused them to be stopped at the gate where they assumed he was a monster. Griff explained he wasn’t and they were let through after a few minutes of waiting. When they arrived at the League, Fergus hopped off and Malachite shrunk so only Gaia could fit and they went in. They went back to Brunhilde’s desk to turn in their requests.

“Back already? It’s barely two in the afternoon. Was something wrong?” She asked.

“Nope. We finished them both. The Giant was annoying but otherwise it wasn’t too bad and the elementals weren’t bad either.” Griff said.

Brunhilde was silent for a bit before checking the requests and they indeed showed the requests as being complete. “You guys are ridiculous, most people would take the entire day to do those but good job. Here’s your reward and enjoy the rest of your day I guess.” She said.

“Thanks, Brunhilde.” Gaia said as they started to leave.

They had gotten about forty stone cores for the two requests and they went back to the inn to relax. Gaia decided to try and make a new pathway that went through her vines. It was slow to make and took her until nightfall to make a rudimentary pathway that barely went through the vines roots. It was going to take a lot of work to fully create the pathways through the vines. She decided to work on them whenever they were traveling back to the city and on their days off while training.

That night they were telling stories about the legends of the world. Gaia soon realized most of the legends were similar to those from her world but most had the gods coming down to the world and doing things themselves. She asked about it and discovered that in this world gods quite literally descended to the world and interacted with its inhabitants. They talked to people directly and would come down to fix things within their clergy when needed. They were, however, revered and described as having no faults.

This made Gaia extremely wary of them. She didn’t believe anyone or anything could be perfect. Everything had a fault. This made her distrust the gods more as they seemed to believe it themselves. She decided to just put that aside for now and enjoyed the legends Griff and Fergus told her until they prepared for bed. The next few days went by quickly with the party taking their two allotted requests and training. After they’d been back and doing requests for about a week they invited Stephanie to join them like they’d promised.

“I thought ya’ll had forgotten.” Stephanie said when they met her in front of the League.

“No, just had a few things pop up right after each other and finally settled back into the usual rhythm.” Gaia stated as she hugged Stephanie.

“Alright. Well, shall we go get the requests?” Stephanie asked.

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Griff stated.

The group went in and saw Freya, so they went to her desk.

“Good to see you guys. Who’s the new companion?” She asked.

“This is Stephanie. She helped us out a few times. We wanted to do some requests together.” Fergus explained.

“Nice to meet you, Stephanie.” Freya stated as she took out the party’s requests for the day.

The requests were for some water-based monsters. There was a lake to the east of the city that had a merfolk village at the bottom. They used the rivers that flowed from it to travel and trade. The merfolk had some monsters that had spawned in the river blocking their trade and one that had started attacking anyone that left the village boundary.

The monsters were a large fish type monster that was by the village and a group of beaver like monsters. The large fish type monster was called an Arap-eel it was a creature with sharp teeth and had the head of an Arapaima and the body of an eel. They were normally around fifteen feet long and had an electric charge through its body that it used to paralyze its prey before it shreds them with its teeth. They are extremely aggressive even towards others of its own kind.

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The Beaver monsters were called Iron Tails. They looked like beavers but were around seven feet long and had a three foot tail that was hard as iron. Their fur was strong and resistant to cuts while their teeth were strong enough to bite through armor. They had created a dam that blocked the river and had started to lower the lakes water level, this in turn had caused the Arap-eel to become enraged.

The party took both requests and set out to the lake. Stephanie rode on Malachite’s shell with Gaia since she was slower than the others like Gaia was. They soon arrived at the lake and saw the riverbed to the north of it had a small creek flowing at only about a third of the size it should be. To the south was the Shimmering Forest and to the east were some grasslands. They went to the waters edge and looked into it. The water was completely clear, and they could see all the way to the bottom a hundred feet down.

They saw the Merfolk village but also saw the Arap-eel, it was around twenty feet long and had scales that caught the light making it look rainbow colored. Gaia could barely sense it as her field only reached a hundred feet out. It was swimming around the top of the village and the party was hesitant to try and enter the lake since they couldn’t swim or breathe underwater.

This was when Stephanie had an idea and pulled out something that looked like a stick of dynamite. Gaia couldn’t sense it so she didn’t realize what was about to happen. Griff thought about it and figured why not. The Merfolk village had some kind of barrier around it so he figured they’d be alright. All Gaia sensed was some mana making a flame and then Stephanie threw something into the water.

After about ten seconds a somewhat muffled boom and a large section of the lakes water was blown upwards. Gaia jumped and covered her ears before the entire party was drenched in water. It took Gaia a minute to realize what happened but sensed the Arap-eel floating to the surface. Stephanie then took out her boom-stick and started firing into the monster while it was paralyzed from the shockwave the dynamite had created. Fergus fired his arrows and Gaia had Liv help her pull the monster to the edge of the lake and out with Griff’s help. Then the party just piled attacks onto the defenseless monster. After about a minute the monster was dead. When it finished dissolving there was an item there. It was a stone core. As they thought about it, they heard a voice from the lake yelling in their direction.

“What were ya’ll thinkin? That was ridiculous. Don’t you know not to do that? If I could I’d come and hit you all but I don’t think it’d knock any sense into those thick skulls of yours!” The voice of a man yelled.

“Sorry. We figured you’d all be fine because of the barrier, and we could take care of the monster quicker.” Stephanie said apologetically.

“No one got hurt this time thankfully. But don’t do it again. Ever. You hear me?” The voice called.

“Yes sir. Sorry.” Stephanie replied.

“Well, get on with you!” The voice said as the group headed towards the river.

“Did you really think that would end well?” Fergus asked Stephanie once they’d left the lake.

“I didn’t think about it honestly. Just kinda had the idea and did it without thinking.” She replied.

“Next time consult us please.” Griff said.

“I will. Sorry though.”

“It’s fine. Just don’t do it again.” Gaia said.

They soon arrived at the dam the Iron Tails had created, and Gaia used her Mana Field to see how many there were. She could sense about twelve of them eight were in or around the dam while four were about fifty feet out cutting down more trees. The group started by taking their shield formation and had Stephanie with Fergus. They quickly ran towards the dam and Fergus fired a few arrows at the Iron Tails by the dam while Stephanie took out a large cylindrical barrel. She put some mana into the hilt and hit a switch on it.

Suddenly there was long stream of fire blazing in a fifty-foot line setting the dam and two of the beavers that were on it, on fire. The heat was scorching from the line of fire but it quickly stopped firing and went inert. The blaze caused the Iron Tails that were further away to start running back and when they saw their burning dam became enraged. The monsters that were inside the dam had tried swimming out but when they surfaced they were still burning.

Gaia could sense the monsters rushing towards the party and sent out her webs and bound the ones that hadn’t been set ablaze. The burning monsters started rush towards the group hoping to burn them along with themselves. Gaia blocked them as best she could and slashed them with her vines. Most of the monsters were now poisoned, bleeding, and burning.

The fight didn’t last for long as the monsters were slowly killed by the conditions. The monsters that hadn’t been set on fire slammed their tails into Gaia and Malachite as they desperately tried to harm the party but their attacks couldn’t get through the party’s defense. Those that attacked Gaia were being struck with radiation and yelping while slowly getting weaker the more they hit. Shadow was running around biting and clawing the monsters, Liv was sending poison shots, and Malachite was biting the monsters when they attacked. Griff was sending mana shots into the living monsters, while Fergus fired his arrows and bound a few in place. Stephanie fired and reloaded her rudimentary musket.

Within ten minutes the monsters were dead. Gaia had smelled the burning monsters and never wanted to smell it or hear the screeches of pain again. The rest of the group went and fully destroyed the dam which caused the river to flow again. There were also some more cores and what seemed to be one of the monsters' teeth. This was when Gaia realized how much Stephanie could do. She was extremely versatile. She had nearly killed both requests' monsters herself. She could cause a distraction, consistent damage, or massive damage in an area. She also seems to have a looting ability.

Stephanie was a great companion, and she wanted to invite her to join the party but wanted to get Griff and Fergus’ opinion first. The party moved back to the city the same way they’d come. They arrive back at the city before noon and when Freya saw them, she was worried.

“Was something different from the request? You’re back really early.” She asked.

“No. Both are finished already.” Griff explained.

“What?!” Freya exclaimed.

“They’re done already?” She asked.

“Yep.” Fergus replied.

“Ok. Let me confirm it and I’ll get your reward for you guys.” Freya said.

A few moments later she had confirmed that the requests were done and placed their reward in front of them. It was sixty stone cores for both requests as they were deemed more difficult due to the terrain the monsters inhabited. They split the cores as usual and they went to celebrate their first successful requests together. They travelled around the stalls and got a lot of food and drinks, except Gaia who had fruit juice, and eventually made it back to the inn. Stephanie went home when the celebrations were slowing down around midnight and Gaia decided to ask the guys opinion.

“What do you guys think about asking her to join our party permanently?” She asked.

“I’m fine with it.” Griff stated.

“So am I.” Fergus added.

“Awesome. So we all agree.” She said relieved.

“Yeah. She’s nice and a strong hunter. Why wouldn’t we agree?” Fergus asked.

“I figured you would but you never know what someone else is thinking.” She said.

“Fair enough.” Griff replied.

She was mostly sure they all would agree but there was always the chance they didn’t. Hearing their answers made her breathe a sigh of relief. She visibly relaxed after the short conversation and they went into their usual story telling. She was telling them about the gods from her world since she was surprised to hear the ones in this world could and would just come down whenever they wanted.

She was explaining how no one had ever met the ones from her world and how she hadn’t really been a practitioner of any religion. They were fascinated by how her world dealt with this when they never showed themselves and were surprised to hear people just believed in them when they had no direct contact.

This was never really a subject she talked about as it would normally cause some arguments or worse. She only told them since they were interested when she’d told them the gods were different in her world. She did say that gods being faultless was something most larger religions believed. She preferred the polytheistic gods since they all had character flaws.

She could see they were interested in hearing more but she stopped as she still wasn’t comfortable talking about that kind of stuff. They relented and she went back to telling legends and myths since that was what Gaia knew the most from earth. She loved the old stories from mythology. She told some more before they slept.

The next morning after breakfast they went to talk to Stephanie. When they arrived they saw Fern and Douglas were there too and could hear them arguing in the back of the shop.

“No. She can’t be a hunter unless she joins our party. I can’t protect her unless she’s with us.” Douglas yelled.

“Yes she can. It’s what she wants. If you’re going to be overprotective how about if it’s a team you approve of?” Fern mediated.

“Why does it matter? I want to be a hunter. It’s fun and I found a party I want to join I just haven’t asked yet.” Stephanie yelled back.

“What?” Douglas snapped.

“You heard me. I went out on a request yesterday.” Stephanie replied.

“She did and she’s back fine. I told her she could.” Fern told Douglas.

“What party?” Douglas said after a long pause.

“The one we went with on the Matriarch hunt.” Stephanie said sheepishly.

This apparently made Douglas calm a bit as he sounded a bit calmer. “The stone rank group?” He asked.

“Yes. They’re pretty strong.” Stephanie replied.

Douglas turned to his wife and they whispered for a bit before Douglas turned back and spoke. “Fine. I can’t control your life and you’re old enough to make your own decisions. Just be safe.” He said resigned.

“Thanks dad!” Stephanie squealed before she ran out of the back room to see Fergus, Griff and Gaia standing just inside the door.

“Well, seems we don’t even need to ask.” Griff said.

“Welcome to the party.” Fergus said.

Gaia walked up and hugged Stephanie, who the others could see was best red from embarrassment, since they’d obviously heard everything. Fern came to the front of the shop after hearing the commotion and smiled when she saw Stephanie with her friends. Douglas was a bit more intimidating than before but just told them to keep her safe. They all agreed to do so, and he relaxed a bit.

The party quickly went to the Hunter’s League and accepted their requests. They started taking their allotted requests and finished them by about three in the afternoon most days. It was around a month after Stephanie joined that the party finally reached level forty. Their leveling speed had dropped due to the Mana Torrent, but they didn’t mind.

It was another week before the League put out a notice that a stampede was on its way to the city from the Shimmering Forest. The stampede consisted of about ten thousand monsters with one Iron ranked monster leading them. There were around a few hundred bronze rank monsters and a few thousand middle to high level stone rank. The rest were normal rank or extremely low-level stone rank.

It was all Hunters on deck until the horde was dealt with. The Iron rank monster would be dealt with by the one Iron rank party in the city. The bronze would be dealt with by the bronze and high-level stone rank parties. Everyone else was to deal with the thousands of stone and normal rank monsters. The stampede was believed to arrive within the next few days, so all requests were put on hold and the scouting team was evacuating the villages in the hordes path.

This was a great opportunity to gain some levels, but Gaia and her party were more focused on preparing so they wouldn’t get injured. They quickly ran to the shops and purchased the necessities. They went with Stephanie to her shop, and she repaired their equipment with the materials they’d bought. Then they trained for the next few days, so they were ready. Gaia had finally finished making the pathway for the Chaos mana to flow through the vines and everyone else was ready as well. Now they just had to wait until it was time for the battle.