“Meep!”

Braveheart covered her face with her tail and laid extra flat against the top of Rai’s head.

“Does that creature have a prismatic gem embedded in its forehead?” demanded Sedi. A manic look entered his eyes. “I want it!”

“That’s not happening,” Rai said firmly. “This is Braveheart, my familiar… and my friend. I’m her guardian and caretaker, and I’ll not hand her over to you.”

“Well, at least pry out the gem. I’ll pay you handsomely!”

“I’m pretty sure that would kill her, and even if it wouldn’t, it would be mutilation. No way.”

Sedi bared his teeth. “I am a rock collector. I am rich. I get rocks when I want them. Give it to me!”

“Master Sedi! What’s gotten into you?” the woman said, distressed. “This isn’t like you at all!”

Sedi jumped off the table, hand curling around the star fragment. “Shut up, stupid wench!” She flinched as though slapped. “Give me the gem!”

He charged forward. Rai sidestepped, then touched the top of the gnome’s head, sending nonlethal lightning coursing through the gnome’s body. The gnome collapsed, hitting the floor face first. The star fragment rolled out of his grasp. The woman shrieked, and the escort stepped up to confront Rai.

“Relax. I only knocked him out.”

Isa bent down and picked up the star fragment.

“You saw what had happened to him, all because of that stone,” Rai continued. “That… insanity. Honestly, I don’t know if he’ll return to normal or not, but if he isn’t separated from the stone, he’ll get worse.” I really didn’t think that a shard this small would be so dangerous, Rai thought. It must have been made more active by the demons’ ritual. “That rock has the power to turn people mad.”

“You can’t just attack people like that!” the escort protested.

“He tried to attack me first. I was defending myself.”

“You said it yourself! He wasn’t in his right mind!”

“Exactly. He needed to be subdued. There was no way he was going to let go of the stone – or stop trying to steal Braveheart’s gem. For his own sake as much as ours, I did what I had to do. Without the influence of the stone, it’s possible he might come back to his senses… I don’t know for sure. But if he’d been left to keep that stone, he would have eventually gone completely insane.”

“You didn’t hurt him? He’s just unconscious?” the old woman said hopefully.

“That’s right. I can control whether my magic is truly damaging or not.”

“Then… please, take the stone. I’ve watched over him since we were both young. I don’t want not see Master Sedi lost to madness.”

“Thank you. And for what it’s worth… I hope that he recovers.”

After they were in the air again, the escort said, “Where to next?”

“The God of Medicine’s temple,” Rai said. “We need to report in about our progress and see what information on monsters the Archpriest has for us.”

“I don’t think she’ll just drop everything to see you without an appointment…”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

They landed near horseless carriages in front of the temple, which looked more like Rai expected a temple to look, albeit rather much larger and with extra wings on the sides that the escort told him were for the treatment and study of patients, as well as laboratories for medicinal research and gardens for medicinal plants. They climbed the large marble staircase and entered the temple. The first chamber was large, filled with pews, with an altar and several giant statues at the back. A priest was in the middle of giving a sermon, and many people in the pews listened raptly, but young priests and priestesses moved up and down the outer aisles, quietly speaking to those seated at the edges and taking them out through doors on the sides of the chamber in ones, twos, and threes.

Rai, Isa, and the escort sat down on the left edge and waited. Nearly an hour passed before a young priest in his late teens approached and quietly asked if they needed treatment.

“The Archpriest gave us a divine mission a little less than a week ago, and we’ve come to report on our progress,” Rai replied just as quietly.

“A divine mission from the Archpriest?”

“If you could deliver the message that Rai and Isa are here to give a progress report, we’ll wait until she’s ready to see us.”

“Very well.”

More hours passed, and it was midafternoon before the priest returned to them, though they saw him attend to other templegoers in the meantime. Braveheart had started complaining – mentally, not aloud – about how hungry she was, so Rai had been surreptitiously feeding her grapes from the cornucopia. When the priest finally returned, he told them that the Archpriest wished to see them now and asked for them to follow.

“Not you, though,” the priest told the escort. “She was quite clear that only the beast and these two were invited to see her.”

The escort sighed and nodded his understanding and stayed behind as the others were taken through the temples halls to the Archpriest’s office. The young priest left, closing the door behind himself.

“I apologize for the wait, but I am a rather busy woman,” Igra said. “You’ve found a shard already?”

Rai removed it from his pouch and held it up. “Yes, earlier today. It appears to be much more potent than the one in the Tower’s possession, and therefore much more dangerous. It was already in the process of driving a man insane.” He put it away again. “That’s one of six. But…” Rai hesitated. “The God of Knowledge wants to have one, and I wanted to make sure that the God of Medicine was all right with that. The God of Knowledge is helping us find them through the Temple of Knowledge, but has demanded one of the shards as payment.”

Igra frowned in concern. “I haven’t heard anything about that. I will contact the God of Medicine to ask right away. This will take a few minutes.”

The Archpriest gathered up some objects and some incense and made a circle out of them, lighting the incense and sitting inside the circle. Then she began to pray under her breath, speaking nonstop for almost ten minutes straight. The circle suddenly flashed, and her eyes open wide, revealing pools of silver in the sockets instead of eyeballs.

“Great God of Medicine, the Temple of Knowledge claims the God of Knowledge has demanded a star shard in payment for assisting the pebbles in finding the shards. Are you aware of this?”

“Yes.”

“And do you approve of this?”

“Partially.”

“Do you mean that you have agreed, despite concerns?”

“Yes.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“So they should comply?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, My God.”

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were normal.

“There you have it. Now, I’m sure you want to ask whether I have any news for you, since you have been holding up your end of the deal. Here’s what I have for you so far: there’s a rather dangerous, but very highly sought-after, magical beast that would be perfect for making qi medicine for you. With the medicine Savon could make for you from it, you would easily reach fifth tier within a few weeks, assuming your projections were accurate. One month instead of four. Note, however, that due to the diminishing returns on taking qi medicine from the same source, you would still need another source to reach sixth tier quickly. That monster is the hydra. What you want is a full-grown hydra, not a young hydra.”

“What’s a hydra?” Isa asked.

“It’s a serpentine monster with many heads. Young hydras can have as few as five heads, but a fully mature hydra has at least ten heads; some even have as many as eleven or twelve. Hydras are so valuable because, in addition to qi medicine, all sorts of other medicines can be made from their organs and blood. They are filled with overflowing vitality and are nearly impossible to kill through ordinary attacks because of how quickly they regenerate. Even if you chop off their heads, they regrow them doubled if you don’t also sear the stumps with acid or fire. I normally wouldn’t recommend that a pair of fourth tiers or fourth circles take one on without assistance, but I’ll leave that decision up to you.”

“Would you happen to know where we could find one?” Rai asked. “You said they’re highly sought after, so I imagine they’re somewhat hard to come by.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Some hydras are venomous, and just yesterday we had an adventure-seeker come here to be treated after facing against a hydra. My healers managed to convince him to tell us the location. I have it marked on a map for you.”

Instead of handing Rai a paper map or scroll, she gave him a two-inch diameter, half-inch thick blue-black disc made of the same material as the record tetras. “All you have to do is press the top and it will display the map, showing both your current location and any marked locations as glowing points.”

“Is this expensive?”

“It isn’t cheap, but no, it’s not particularly expensive. In return, though, I’d like for you to sell the excess hydra materials to this temple.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Now, as should be obvious, the hydra is outside the city, so you’ll need someone to take you to the general location. If you dally too long, someone else will likely find and kill it.”

“Thank you for the advice.”

“Now, I do have other things I need to be doing, so I will need to have you leave.”

“Of course. Thank you again.”

-x-

Several days later, their escort – who still refused to give them his name – flew them out about an hour and a half out from the city to a lake surrounded by marshy terrain nestled in a valley in the middle of a ring of short mountains. According to him, the flyer couldn’t function for longer than four hours without being inside the limits of a city or other high-mana-concentration area, but time spent not running didn’t count against that. He landed it on the inside slope of one the mountains and stayed back while they hiked down to the marsh surrounding the lake, which was where the adventurer had faced the hydra. They waded through the knee-deep marsh toward the lake. Most creatures they spotted – snakes, reptiles, and amphibians – avoided them.

Then Isa noticed something she had at first taken for a log was slowly moving toward them.

“Incoming beast!” she shouted, pointing. As though it had heard and recognized her cry, the crocodile suddenly shot forward, lunging up out of the water at her. She slammed her halberd down, splitting its head open.

“Oh. That was easy.”

“I would hope so. Crocodiles may be a threat to civilians, but if we had trouble with that, we’d be in a world of trouble facing against a hydra.”

“Meep! Meep!”

Rai swept his gaze around but didn’t spot anything at first. Then he looked further out into the lake. An absolutely enormous crocodile some forty-five feet long swam at the surface toward what appeared at first to be five giant snakes rearing up out of the water until Rai realized that they were likely all connected to the same body – a juvenile hydra. Hydra struck first, all five heads snapping forward, but the crocodile appeared entirely unaffected. The larger beast bit off one of the hydra’s heads, along with part of the associated neck. The remaining four heads tried to inflict damage but barely scratched the larger reptile.

It ripped two more heads off before the first neck sprouted a pair of heads. The crocodile and hydra continued their back and forth, tearing both new heads off at once before moving on to the next head. The hydra’s regeneration was impressive, but the sheer power (and ability to consume more than one head at once) of the crocodile led to the hydra losing consciousness and being devoured while it was unable to resist.

Then twelve heads reared up beside the crocodile’s midsection and tore into it, treating its hide like paper. The crocodile tried to flee after the heavy wound inflicted by the full-grown hydra’s surprise attack, but a second round of strikes was enough to leave it bleeding out. The hydra tore into the giant crocodile’s flesh until it had sated its hunger.

“That’s what we’re fighting?” Isa said. “This feels like a Death Worm situation.”

“…A little bit, yeah. And that thing’s venomous? How in the world did the guy who ran away even survive an encounter with it?”

“Maybe it wasn’t twelve-headed one he fought?”

“Yeah, probably. Now, the Archpriest did say they were almost impossible to kill, but I’m thinking if we shoot fireballs and lightning bolts at it…”

“We’ll try that first, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll cut its heads off – my acidic blood on the halberd should work to keep the heads from coming back.”

“Right. Hang on tight, Braveheart. Flight. Force Armor. Flight.”

“And of course… Enhance Scales. Armor of Blood.”

“Let’s go!”

Into the air they rose, rushing across marsh, then above the lake, until they were a solid sixty feet above the hydra, which looked up at them and let out a chorus of hisses.

“Fireball!”

“Dragonfire!”

The heads – and necks – ducked underneath the water at the sound of their voices. The top of the water bubbled when the flames of the fireball erupted (which only erupted above the waterline), but the dragonfire penetrated the surface, but they only singed the tangled necks of the hydra. The hydra raised its heads again and roared.

“What about a Lightning Bolt!”

“Take another blast of Dragonfire!”

This time, both spells injured the hydra, but its wounds were visibly healing.

“We’ll probably run out of spells before we take it down… and we need to get it out of the lake and onto the shore anyway! I’m going to lure it!”

Isa flew down, just out of what she estimated its reach to be, and shot toward the edge of the lake. The hydra chased after her, and Rai followed behind. It took a couple minutes to bring it to the marsh, where it clearly slithered on the bottom.

“Here we go!” Isa cried, spinning around and bracing herself.

The hydra arrived and lunged with all twelve heads. Only four heads made it through both her active defenses and her scales, and her body fought off the venom. She was coated in blood armor a moment later, and an instant after that went into Berserk Mode.

“Time to cut off some heads!”

With a pair of arcing swings, Isa removed two of the hydra’s heads, the stumps bubbling from her acidic blood before the necks fell. This time five heads tore into her, and the buildup of venom started to overwhelm her body’s defenses.

“Isa! Are you—”

“I’ve got this!” she yelled, beheading the hydra twice more. Two more heads punched through armor and scales. This time it evaded one of her swings, and she only cut off one head before it got her another two times. She laughed as she took off another head.

Even if I wanted to help, it heals way too fast from my magic attacks and I can’t actually interfere in that tangle of necks around her. She looks in a really bad way, though.

By the time that she reduced it to three heads, Isa was running up close to the limits of her ability to withstand damage. It was down to one head, and she was barely conscious, when its final hit against her amplified its venom in her body enough that she was knocked out. She fell to the marshy waters, her head falling underneath.

“MEEP!”

Rai shot forward, and the hydra’s head whipped around, biting him through his forcefield armor. He retaliated with a slash from his sword, but it pulled back, and the tip of his weapon just scraped along its armor, leaving a thin bloody line. Using the third-tier art Accelerate, he sped up and tried again, slashing madly at the hydra’s final neck and severing it. The neck continued to thrash, so he surmised that the flames on his sword weren’t enough to cauterize the wound. He blasted it with a flame fan. The final head slumped, and the creature lay still.

Rai landed next to Isa.

I can’t heal her… but I can remove the effects of the venom!

He got out the Recovery Rod, pulled Isa’s head out of the water, and used the rod on her. She coughed and vomited up filthy water.

“Almost lost you! I should have been helping…”

“No. If it had focused on you, you would have died,” she said once she was done retching. “Blood Elixir. Blood Elixir. Blood Elixir. Blood Elixir.” She lapped up all the blood, restoring herself to normal. “The venom’s still in my system. I dunno why it’s not doing anything…”

“It might be a slower-acting venom – an initial effect, and then more effect much later.”

“Mm. Oh, by the way, since you’re hurt…” Isa held out her hand and a blood marble appeared. “Drink up.”

“Ugh.”

Once he was healed, they both turned to the hydra.

“So… carrying this back…”

“I borrowed a top of the line dimensional storage container from Nara,” Rai said. “I’ll just slip this ring on, then hold out my hand and say, ‘Store.’”

The hydra’s body – minus its heads – vanished.

“Huh. I can even sense its presence inside the space connected to the ring.” Well, let’s get back to the city, shall we?”