dryskies_btb - Greater Wyrm 7.x

[One Hearth]

— Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth —

She tended the flames. They crackled forevermore, fed by the eternal fuel of her divinity. Their warmth was absolute, offering comfort and familiarity, a sense of Home. She would never let them wane or waver; so long as she drew breath, the Hearth would remain lit.

Hestia let a sigh escape her lips. It was fond, quite frankly full of anticipation and admiration. Her Dragon had outdone himself here, with this Dungeon of his.

It was a marvel of Draconic ambition, masterfully applying the magicks of every Mystery he’d seen throughout his Turning Ages. Ancalagon, even now, tended to defy her every expectation. Magic, as he understood it, pierced to the ever-underlying core of Mystery. Hestia knew of no one, not deity nor mortal, that saw creation in the same way.

Hestia’s own magicks, comparatively, were divine, but conventional: based solely in her own Nature — in faith, concept, and domain. There was power there, to be certain, and Ancalagon had mastered it during the Age they’d shared. It simply wasn’t the only outlet of Magic, of Mystery, he claimed.

Authority from his First Age, Nature from his Second, and now, Hestia saw, Spirit from his Third. He put all of them to work creating his Dungeon. As a result, this recreation of her own Age was almost indistinguishable from reality, even to her divine senses.

Hestia was in awe of her Dragon and all he proved himself capable of. She knew her brothers would be beside themselves in envy and jealousy.

Not that she would ever share even the sight of what Ancalagon had accomplished here, what he’d grasped and mastered and now, created wholly anew. Love them as she did, they would undoubtedly ruin her Dragon’s work by trying to overreach and overinvest. No, the Dungeon was Ancalagon’s, and if he allowed it, hers to take part in, too.

He had, of course; offering her a place as the Hearth of his Dungeon so readily that Hestia couldn’t have hoped to refuse, not that she wished to in the first place. She had missed her Dragon’s presence at her Hearth.

He was an Age apart from her now, but here, through the Dungeon, they could sit together around her fires once more. She didn’t wish to be a leech, however, so she added to Ancalagon’s creation as best she could.

It was recompense that he would surely say wasn’t needed, but Hestia did it for herself, too. She was being selfish — a rare thing, indeed, for the Hearth was the very opposite conceptually, never hoarding its warmth.

With her family, she seldom got the chance to act in her own interests. She loved them, truly, but they looked at her and saw the Hearth that held Olympus together; when Ancalagon looked at her, he saw the Hearth and the woman who actually sat to tend it. So, selfishly and selflessly, for herself and for her Dragon, she added her Hearth’s flames to the Dungeon.

Her Hearth would be a sanctuary for the Dungeon’s adventuring souls — a safe place to rest and recuperate around soothing, revitalizing, conceptually familiar flames. Adventurers would delve deep into the Dungeon — experiencing, exploring, and establishing their legends — and when they were most weary, when they most needed rest, Hestia and her Hearth would be there.

Already, her contribution to the Dungeon was being tested, and hopefully, vindicated. Hestia had her first visitors.

They were dressed the part, not like some of the ‘capes’ Hestia had seen scattered amongst Ancalagon’s new adventurers. Three maidens and a young man. All but one of the maidens looked related, and the last still walked with a certain familiarity to the other three, as if they’d grown up together in the same Home.

From just a glance, Hestia could see that the last was the one driving their current adventure, their current quest. She was a pale-skinned girl with wavy reddish-brown hair; pretty in a striking fashion. Hestia could sense strife of the Home in her past. The other three adventurers were blonde and more classically beautiful; the two maidens could’ve wooed any knight, and the young man wouldn’t have done badly with any lady.

Most interestingly, all four of them moved by hovering over the ground. It was an impressive showing. If Hestia didn’t know better, she would’ve named them all accomplished Mages. But with Ancalagon bringing a whole other world into this recreated Age within the Dungeon, Hestia would actually bet they were ‘capes’, even if they didn’t dress the part.

She watched them for a few moments before calling out. They didn’t notice her or her Hearth right in front of them.

The leading maiden practically ranted to herself and her companions, pulling her cloak tighter around herself for comfort.

“-God, what even was that thing?! Balthazar has a lot to answer for! Like, sure! Just send a new apprentice to treat with some twisted Fae god of the forest! That’s a good first quest for someone who has no clue what they’re doing, right?! Why not?! What could go wrong?!”

“It wasn’t-…” The second of the maidens, one with the impractical look of a true princess about her, began only to sigh in defeat. “No, go off, Ames. That thing was fucked up. I can’t defend Mr. Goldy-Pants here.”

“It was just… alien,” The third maiden, already dressed as a proper monster hunter of Inceptium, shuddered. “I’d bet anything and everything that that thing wasn’t of this world.”

“Did you see how the whole forest seemed to shy away from it, like it was unnatural, only to be bent to its will?” The young man asked.

“Fae bullshit,” The leading maiden grumbled. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll take Draconic bullshit any day of the week.”

Hestia smiled. She’d seen enough. These rattled adventurers could rather use a moment of respite.

“Adventurers,” She called out to them. “Come rest your weary heads and hearts around my Hearth.”

Her invitation was heard, and surprise immediately gripped her prospective guests. They reacted as adventurers should when startled, closing ranks around each other and scanning for the source.

The young man spawned a shield of light before himself and his companions, as enduring as a legendary tortoise. A spear of tightly corralled physical light, similar to the young man’s showing, appeared in the third maiden’s hands; it shone with the light of war, and Hestia recognized the source. The second maiden set herself alight with reviving flames, an aura of ever-persisting life playing across her impractical fashions. The leading maiden brought a ghostly figure to life at her back, the spirit indistinct but tinted with the spiritually divine.

Hestia just smiled and waved at the small group of adventurers from beside her Hearth.

“Who are-? Wait… I recognize you,” The third maiden said. “You were the prize of Ancalagon’s Dragon-Level Dive!”

“Huh,” The second maiden blinked. “Hestia, right?”

“We’re… cool, then?” The young man asked, still wary.

“Maybe,” The leading maiden scowled. “We’ll see. No way forward but forward.”

She maintained the ghostly, indistinct deity at her back as she stepped forward, entering the domain of Hestia’s Hearth. Immediately, she felt the shift, pausing as her companions joined her and did the same.

“Sanctuary in the hospitality of my Hearth,” Hestia explained, smiling gently. “I am, indeed, Hestia, though I was unaware my recent reunion with Ancalagon was witnessed.”

“Only the first bits,” The third maiden said absently. “He cut the stream shortly after sitting down with you in Olympus. Which was a shame, ‘cause I know I wanted to see more. What’s your relationship with Ancalagon anyway?”

“Patience,” Hestia chuckled. “Come sit and introduce yourselves first; I don’t mind sharing the information you seek, but there is an order to be respected here. Place yourselves in my hospitality, and I shall entertain you while you rest.”

“… Okay,” The second maiden just shrugged in agreement. “You don’t seem at all sinister or anything. I’ll trust you.”

Hestia shook her head, “I would never betray my own domain. You are safe around my Hearth, adventurers; this I swear on my very divine being.”

She beckoned them to sit. They did so, readily, and the Hearth accepted them just as readily. Soothing flames surged to match the new guests around them, always perfectly tuned to give the right amount of warmth and familiarity — a conceptually ideal recreation of Home everywhere Hestia went.

“Now, you know me, it seems,” Hestia began. “I am Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth and good friend to Ancalagon the White.”

“Good friend, eh~? Sure, let’s roll with that! I’m Victoria!” The second maiden introduced herself.

“Eric,” The young man followed her lead. “Nice to meet you.”

“Crystal,” The third maiden smiled. “Any friend of Ancalagon is a friend of mine. He keeps good company.”

“… Amy-… Amelia,” The leading maiden said, nodding to herself. “Yeah, Amelia the Adventurer, no Panacea in sight… So, what’s up with all of this? Why are you here? How? Are you part of Ancalagon’s Hoard?”

“I am not,” Hestia answered honestly. “We are old companions, from what he’s come to know as his Second Age, but I am independent of his Draconic Authority. He offered to claim me for his Hoard. In another life, another aspect of myself, I may have taken him up on the offer. As I am, however, I could never abandon Hearth and Home.

“His place is Turning through the Ages, and mine is somewhere much more steady. I hold Olympus together, the constant of constants in our pantheon’s shared divinities. I wait and tend the Hearth, stoking the fires until those I hold dear can return to me. Joining him through his Turning Ages… It was not to be.”

“What changed, then?” Crystal asked.

Victoria added to the question, nodding, “Yeah, you’re here now, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Hestia confirmed. “But not with the whole of my divine being. Much of me is still tending the Hearth within Olympus. However, when Ancalagon embarked on his ‘Dragon-Level Dive’, we all took notice of our memories being called upon to someplace foreign. He recreated us in his Dungeon. Deities are bound to notice such an invoking of their beings.

“Then, he came to me in all but truth at the end of it, and allowed the embers of Home I left in his heart to be rekindled. Thus, I alone amongst my siblings and pantheon was given a connection to what he has built here, reaching across Ages.

“In a way, I am an artifact of the Dungeon, this marvel that Ancalagon has created. But unlike the other artifacts that populate it and make it so close to real, I have been invited more thoroughly. I recreated myself here, with Ancalagon’s invitation and the connection he has given me.”

“… I don’t get it,” Victoria admitted frankly. “Like, whoosh! Does that make me dumb?”

“Nah, whoosh for me, too,” Eric agreed.

“I… get a bit of it, I think…?” Crystal said. “Aphrodite was nodding along to all the divine bits, and she knows Hestia, but after that, yeah: whoosh.”

Amelia furrowed her brow so deeply that it must’ve hurt, “… Fuck. Ancalagon is so far beyond us that it’s ridiculous…! How the fu-?! How did he make the Dungeon so real?!”

“That, I’m afraid, is something of a mystery to me, too,” Hestia commiserated.

She shook her head and proudly continued, “He has grown so much since I last saw him. Then, in his Second Age alongside me, he already rivaled any deity I knew of. Now, he has deepened his power so greatly that he can call upon recreations of my pantheon as true to domain and true to power, even if not true to life. I can see that he does not do all of the heavy lifting alone; there is more Mystery at play here than I can hope to grasp — combining Authority, Nature, and Spirit to become more than the sum of their parts, and leaving Creation itself to evoke the product and carry the weight. The end result is… truly, truly awesome.”

“Right… Metaphysical shenaniganery,” Victoria nodded. “Cool, cool, I’m going to do my best to forget how utterly fucking outclassed everything and everyone we know are by Ancalagon, thank you very much.”

“I probably made it sound worse than it actually is,” Hestia chortled. “As I said, Creation itself is doing much of the real lifting here, the product of combining Mysteries.”

Victoria shook her head nonchalantly, “Nope, that absolutely doesn’t make it any better…! So no more of that, please.”

“Wait, but-!” Amelia sputtered.

“Ames,” Victoria deadpanned. “Let it go. Leave the Dragon to his bullshit.”

“You said Ancalagon invited you into the Dungeon?” Eric asked.

“He did, and I took him up on the offer, adding what I can to this marvel,” Hestia nodded. “He will provide the Adventure, and I will provide the peaceful moments in between. Here at my Hearth, wherever it is needed, the Dungeon’s adventurers will have moments to recover and consolidate themselves. I will lend them my silent ear or my familiar chatter; they will enjoy the revitalizing warmth of my Hearth. It is not Home, not truly, but it can be a much-needed slice of it in deep waters.”

“Furthermore,” She smiled. “He has given me access to his system of power invested by Authority. At these Hearths, adventurers may integrate the system’s Growth without having to completely exit the Dungeon.”

“Safe area!” Crystal chimed excitedly. “Oh, that’s great! Good for you, Hestia! I know I could certainly use a few moments of guaranteed peace after… that thing…”

She finished with a shudder that sparked Hestia’s curiosity; she asked, “Oh? What have you encountered already, adventurers? Please feel free to share. There are no stories quite like the ones told over a steady Hearth.”

“Heh, I suppose we can regale you with the tale,” Victoria smirked, proudly puffing out her chest. “Take it away, Ames!”

“Take yourself away…” Amelia grumbled but did turn to tell Hestia the tale of their adventures so far. “Right, we’ve already had some experience in the Dungeon. This time, I wanted the chance to explore and expand my magical repertoire. When we went to the Mage College in the city, we were lucky enough to stumble upon an Archmage: Balthazar, the Golden Bastard.”

“A formidable practitioner, if mostly mortal,” Hestia nodded her understanding. “Even the gods have heard his name. You must be in good hands.”

Amelia scoffed, “So far, all he’s done is make me ‘DODGE!’ and send me on this cursed fucking quest.”

“He promised to actually tutor you when you return, though,” Crystal reminded.

“If, I think,” Eric half-joked.

Victoria joined in, shaking her fist at the sky, “Damned golden mages guarding all their magical secrets behind dangerous quests to prove yourself…!”

“Yeah, that,” Amelia snorted a laugh, her companions’ joking raising her mood. “Balthazar tasked me with finding something he called an ‘Ancient Leshen’. Nothing more than that; just needed to find it, apparently.”

Hestia winced sympathetically, “Yes, further objectives would almost certainly be rendered moot after encountering the Leshen, especially an ancient one. You succeeded, then?”

“Unfortunately,” Amelia nodded, shuddering. “That thing… It isn’t right. All wood and bone and nature itself, but alien…”

“They are beings from twisted greenspaces of the Faewyld,” Hestia explained. “Alien is the right word to describe them. When they arrive through cracks between the realms, they do so in lands that mirror their homes and inevitably set about turning those lands even closer to what they know.

“Beasts and monsters will fall under their sway, as will the very land they claim given enough time. They are not necessarily pests, but most reasonable minds deem it rightfully prudent to exterminate them when they emerge.”

“We saw it through the trees…” Eric said, his voice haunted. “I thought it was just another tree at first. Then, it moved. Like-! Like some kind of puppet, but there were no strings!”

“It knew we were there,” Victoria continued. “The deer skull it calls a head snapped towards us with the sound of breaking wood and bone. It screamed like birdsong. We… might have panicked.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Hestia consoled. “And you made it here, didn’t you? Here to my safe Hearth? That panic must not have ruled you for long.”

“Nah, I chose fight,” Victoria snorted. “All ‘Kill it with fire!’, ya know?”

“It was more complicated than that, but yeah, essentially,” Crystal nodded. “We killed it with overwhelming firepower.”

“I was on tank duty,” Eric proudly puffed himself up. “Not a single one of its summons got past me! Big lizard-wolf things; I stopped ‘em dead!”

“Aphrodite lent me her spear and armor again,” Crystal proclaimed, grinning. “Lil bro stopped ‘em, and I skewered ‘em!”

“So I see,” Hestia nodded and smiled indulgently. “And may I say: the fact that you have another iteration of my fellow goddess partnered to your soul is just fascinating. She is not my Aphrodite, but she is just as welcome at my Hearth as mine would be.”

Crystal laughed, “She just practically moaned, ‘Love Hestia, any Hestia, EVERY HESTIA!’ so I think she appreciates the offer.”

“Ames and I were on creepy alien Fae thing duty,” Victoria said. “I’m very glad I have Phoenix fire at my beck and call. Would you believe it tried to vine-tentacle me?!”

“Yeah, not just creepy, but weird, too,” Amelia frowned. “I’m happy I got to meteor strike that thing to bits and pieces.”

“You did this land a great service with that, and if Balthazar wished for you to prove yourself, I don’t think you could’ve made a better showing of it,” Hestia praised.

A vicious, expectant grin came over Amelia’s face, “He’d better spill all the magic now. I’m not above tattling to Belladonna Sensei if he keeps trying to string me along.”

“Honestly, I don’t mind that he’s keeping us busy,” Crystal said. “Anything to avoid going back to the main camp. It must be a complete mess after Eidolon’s trial.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Amelia groaned. “I’d almost forgotten that awful-… Man, fuck Eidolon. How many people have I been made to heal for his ego? How many didn’t even make it to me?”

“One would be too many, and it’s way, way more than that,” Victoria intoned, serious and scornful.

“Forget him!” Eric exclaimed. “C’mon, we’ve got adventure here, and magic to learn! Leave him to rot for his crimes as he deserves.”

“Thanks for this, Hestia. I think we needed this after that thing. I’m glad you’re part of the Dungeon now,” Crystal smiled at her, genuinely grateful.

Hestia smiled back, “As am I. Now, don’t let me keep you. Come and go from my Hearth as you please; it will always be here, open to you. Let me leave you with one last boon before you resume your adventure.”

She looked within herself, finding the Authority Ancalagon had given her a part of. Strings of it were wound around her guests, a beautiful spiral of potential. Hestia tweaked all four of the strings and let the system do the rest.

Growth from experience within the Dungeon was invested. It didn’t result in any ‘level-ups’, but there was still an effect. Growing Stats and Growing spiritual resonance, Hestia watched the Growth around her Hearth in awe. Such progression in the moments of peace she cultivated; it was beautiful.

The first investment of many; Hestia smiled to herself, and in her good mood, extended another parting gift to her guests, “Oh, and here, have a cookie, all of you.”

“Cookie~?!” Victoria gasped with stars in her eyes.

Hestia laughed and freely handed out the aforementioned treats, “Come now, you didn’t think my Hearth was just for show, did you?”

Revitalized and ready to resume with cookies in hand, the small party of adventurers continued on their way. Hestia saw them off with waves and the promise that she would be there when they needed her again.

She returned her gaze to the fire, the Hearth, considering her first instance of sanctuary a roaring success. The Dungeon called, its Spirit telling her where her Hearth was most needed. Smiling to herself at the chance to go again, Hestia allowed her Hearth to shift and create sanctuary anew in another space within the Dungeon.

IIIII

— Marissa ‘Mars’ Newland, Sundancer —

“We were not ready for this!” Mars cried.

“We are! We’ve got this, Mars! Just keep your sun moving; it fears the heat!” Noelle shouted back encouragement and orders, Bardic Inspiration bolstering the whole party’s determination.

Mars obeyed, swinging her power-summoned sun around behind the monster. It was a beautiful beast, a lilac and lavender fox-fish hybrid with fur and scales. It reminded Mars of a kitsune, and the bubbles it shook from its fur turned the sunlight peeking through the canopy into rainbows.

After a day of errands for the mages of the College (and the utter shock, grief, outrage, and odd acceptance of the Eidolon v. Simurgh trial…), Krouse and Noelle argued that they were more than ready to try their hands at the more serious, action-packed side of Inceptium’s adventuring scene: the bounties from the Monster Fighting teams that ruled the city.

“We might be new to the adventuring business, but we’ve still got our powers,” Krouse had said. “I think we’ll be able to punch well above our supposed weight class.”

“Yeah,” Noelle had agreed. “And as cool as it is to be official adventurers, it doesn’t mean much if we’re just running errands, right?”

Luke and Jess had been quick to agree, wanting to try their hands at the real action of adventuring. Mars and Oliver had been a bit more hesitant, but they ended up following along with the others.

Remembering some of the advice they’d gotten the day before, they sought out the ‘Brute Wyvern’ Monster Fighting team. Then, almost immediately after seeing the bounties Brute Wyvern were offering, they switched to Team ‘Leviathan’ instead. Even Krouse, for all his insistence that they were capable, didn’t want to hunt some variety of T-Rex for their first bounty.

Besides, they quickly found Team Leviathan to be more accommodating than Team Brute Wyvern. The latter were, almost to a member, loud and brutal — the kind of people who put heavy stock in brute strength. Leviathan’s members seemed more about finesse, creativity, and even trickery, and the bounties they offered had a ‘newcomer’ section instead of the Brute Wyvern way of throwing a challenge at the prospective adventurer and expecting them to prove their strength.

From Team Leviathan, Krouse found them a bounty for a ‘teenage’ Mizutsune. It was no rampaging beast, according to the information that came with the bounty. That was another positive of Team Leviathan. They scouted their bounties and freely gave out that information to the adventurers who took them on.

The bounty board painted an awesomely complete picture of the Leviathan ecosystem surrounding Inceptium, with a wide range of examples: bounties that cataloged habitats, behaviors, and even inter-monster interactions so Team Leviathan could best manage the monsters they claimed responsibility for.

In fact, that seemed to be the whole point of Team Leviathan’s bounty system: preservation. The bounties were just as much to track noteworthy individual monsters as they were to contract their hunting, if necessary. Some, like the Mizutsune they’d chosen, were low-threat ‘mischief makers’, while others, in the section for experienced Team Leviathan hunters, were worryingly feral ‘manhunters’.

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting from a Monster Fighting team, if she was honest, but Team Leviathan’s focus on preservation did soothe her moral compass after seeing Team Brute Wyvern’s very, very different approach to the monsters around Inceptium. Mars didn’t think either was necessarily wrong or right, just different — she didn’t have much room to judge this foreign city’s culture, anyway. Still, she much preferred Team Leviathan herself.

They’d made the right choice switching Monster Fighting teams. The Mizutsune bounty wasn’t even to slay the monster, to Mars’ surprise, relief, and excitement! Team Leviathan wished for it to be tamed and protected, for a Mizutsune near Inceptium was apparently a rare sight.

Now that she’d seen the Mizutsune in person, Mars was even more relieved for Team Leviathan’s preserving approach to bounties. It’d been sleeping when they found it. Mars had barely contained her squeal at the sight. Sprawled out with its paws twitching in dreaming excitement, she fell in love with the purple kitsune instantly.

Unfortunately, they’d quickly woken the beautiful beast. It reacted as one might expect from a suddenly woken wild animal. Well, from anyone woken so suddenly by strangers in their home. Noelle reacted the same way, lashing out when stirred.

The Mizutsune reared back on powerful back legs, its body sleek and slender, and roared its discontent to the clouds above. It used its inherent abilities to shake strange soapy bubbles from its fur that coated the area with slick liquid. Then, it began to dash and slide around on that slickness, moving quickly around their party.

They were forced to defend themselves from its initial anger. With a yip, it had snapped at Noelle, only for Krouse to switch places with her and dive out of the way of those deceptively powerful jaws.

Mars had summoned her sun, and that seemed to spook the Mizutsune. It hurt her heart to make such a beauty so wary of her. The immense heat from her power kept the Mizutsune away, circling them in its den by practically gliding along its soapy secretions.

Then, seemingly, the Mizutsune had gotten serious.

Bubbles were blown from its mouth. They swept all of them off their feet and scattered them around the area. The Mizutsune leaped at Oliver. Oliver was no longer as helpless as he’d been before, though, stuck with a largely ineffective power. Now, he had sorcerous magic at his disposal, and his totem spirit as well.

A Lightning Lure leapt from his hands, made magically, [IMPOSSIBLY] physical. It tangled around the Mizutsune’s neck for just a moment, but the spell failed to take hold. Still, that seemed to be part of Oliver’s plan, and that moment stalled the charge long enough for Oliver to dash out of the danger zone.

Things devolved from there, with the whole party simply trying to keep up with the Mizutsune’s agility. It couldn’t land many blows on them in turn, but some stubbornness kept it from fleeing outright.

Understandable, Mars felt; she would be pretty pissed off too if the situation was reversed and a group of tiny fox-fish-things was invading her home and interrupting her sleep.

Mars didn’t know how they were supposed to tame this beautiful beast after such a rocky start…

Deep in her soul, Stonehenge thrummed an answer, if she was willing to take it. A ritual meeting of man and beast, a connecting of minds. She only needed to set it up and throw her mind into the vicious currents of wild magic.

“Wrangle it back towards me! I’m gonna break that bucking bronco! Yee-haw~!” Jess yelled.

“Since when are you a cowgirl?” Krouse snorted loud enough to be heard over the chaos.

“I’ve always been a cowgirl at heart!” Jess shouted back.

“Trying to break your legs all over again? You just got them, Jess!” Luke quipped.

“It was my spine, not my legs, jerk!”

“My point still stands! Just like you won’t if you mess this up!”

“Neh!”

With half of her focus directed inwardly, listening closely to hear what Stonehenge showed she needed, Mars heeded her friend’s request. The Mizutsune shied away from the burning mass of plasma under her control. It slid right into Jess’ cowgirl plan.

With a boost from her new satyr legs, Jess leaped onto the Mizutsune’s back. It squawked and yipped in surprise. She tried to glue herself to its back and ride out the bucking. The Mizutsune’s natural abilities, however, ensured she slid right off as soon as she landed.

Jess fell from the beast with an “Oof!” of air forced from her lungs.

“Do we have any better plans?” Krouse called to the rest of them.

“I-I may have something!” Mars called back. “Give me time!”

“That’ll be hard without your sun, Mars!” Luke said.

“We’ve got you! Do what you’re gonna do!” Noelle reassured.

Freed from ‘sun’ duty, Mars turned her focus purely inward and listened. Not with her ears, but with her spirit; the magic came to her instinctively.

Stonehenge showed her visions of quiet moments in the deep wilderness, tense meetings of man and nature. It showed her wolves circling a fire in the night, inching forward to accept scraps from the strange two-legs. It showed her men, with all their cleverness, using the vicious beasts to hunt, to guard, and even, just to keep them company…

‘I don’t have the time to tame it the old-fashioned way!’ Mars exclaimed in her soul.

Stonehenge showed her one more vision: a magical ritual pioneered by bold shamans who dared venture into the very dens of beasts. They left their quintessentially human creations at the proverbial door, coming to the wolves as the animals humans had always been and would always be. There, beast to beast, accords were struck.

‘I-I have to get naked?!’

Stonehenge was confused. It didn’t understand her shame or embarrassment. How could it? To it, casting off human creations was just part of the ritual. Everything else was in place. Its partner just needed to take the final step and enact the magic.

A thrashing from the Mizutsune drew Mars’ attention back to the outside world. It sent all of her friends tumbling and groaning in pain where they landed. 

Then, she looked at the Mizutsune. It was scared and simply lashing out to defend itself. None of this was its fault. It’d committed no crime. They weren’t going to slay it, but it couldn’t know that fact. All it saw was harassment and danger brought into its home; it reacted accordingly.

“A-Alright, fine!” Mars exclaimed. “I-I need you guys to look away and don’t look back! Don’t, alright?!”

“What the-? What are you talking about, Mars?” Noelle groaned, trying to rise only to wince and clutch at her ribs. “Fuck, that smarts…”

“I have a ritual!” Mars explained. “B-But I have to get n-n-naked for it! So you guys can’t look, okay?!”

“… It’ll work?” Noelle asked.

“It will,” Mars replied, nodding. “I can feel it.”

“What the hell even are our lives-…?” Krouse stayed lying where he’d been thrown, just looking up at the sky.

“I trust you, Mars. I won’t look,” Oliver said.

“While I wouldn’t mind the show, I won’t look, either! Eyes closed, I promise!” Luke called out.

“This is ridiculous! I’m here for it! Go off, Mars!” Jess laughed.

“Here, this should help things,” Oliver offered, concentrating.

When Mars looked his way again, he was the only one on their feet. He cast a cantrip — Mold Earth — and shaped a bit of cover for the rest of the party to hide behind. The others made their way over to it, Noelle having to be half-carried by Krouse, and Mars breathed a sigh of relief.

Shakily, she began to cast off her ‘human creations’ for the ritual. Her sword, her armor, the clothes beneath, and even the one necklace from her mother that she rarely took off. As she did, magic began to stir in the air, suffusing the Mizutsune’s den. The beautiful beast took notice, stilling and simply watching her.

Even just those eyes on her made Mars blush from her cheeks to the top of her breasts. Still, she took a shaky breath to fortify herself and took a step forward. Then another, and another. The ritual magic rose with every step.

It was wild. The sounds of the forest were magnified: bird calls and shuffling leaves and distant roars. The ever-present hunger of existence came to rest upon her shoulders. Mars knew, somehow, that the Mizutsune felt the same. All it had ever known was hunger, to some degree or another. All it had ever known was survival. Mars stepped forward to offer it another way.

Eerily intelligent eyes tracked her approach. The Mizutsune didn’t move, though. It didn’t flee, magic communicating Mars’ intentions. A connection formed between them; the birth of a contract and a relationship between man and beast.

Mars crossed the distance between them, struck by awe at the beauty of the Mizutsune. Rainbow bubbles hung in the air all around them. They glistened in the light, and when they fell on her skin, they popped to glisten there, too.

Sleek scales shifted with the powerful muscles beneath. Petal-like frills stood up at attention around the Mizutsune’s head. A furred tail swept back and forth like a brush upon canvas.

She came to stand before it.

The Mizutsune dwarfed her, easily some 15 meters from head to tail and another 5 meters to the shoulder. It could’ve rent her in twain in moments, but it didn’t. It heard her unspoken call, beast to beast, and saw her extended hand, magic swirling to engulf them both.

Mars should’ve been afraid. The Mizutsune should’ve been afraid, too, or at least wary of the unknown. They weren’t, either of them. The ancient ritual placed them on even ground, extending sympathy beyond their differing species.

Mars, naked and caught in the midst of primeval magic, reached out. The Mizutsune bowed its head to meet her hand. The moment she touched the soft scales of its snout, the moment it snorted against her palm, they knew they would be together until the end of their days.

The bond of primal friendship stuck strong.

“H-Hello, there,” Mars greeted her new best friend (sorry, Noelle…) breathily.

A keening, crooning noise from the back of the Mizutsune’s throat answered her.

Mars couldn’t help the giddy laughter that bubbled up in her throat. It was just so… wonderful, humbling, so, so awesome…! Her and the Mizutsune against the whole world-!

Then, a gentle and praising voice rang out, “Bravo! That was well-done, indeed! What an adventure! Yes, bravo, bravo~!”

Mars squeaked, startled, and moved to hide her body. The Mizutsune helped her as if they were of one mind. Its soft, fluffy, and gloriously covering tail came around to shield her. Mars whirled around in its embrace to find the source of the voice.

She found it in a gently smiling woman who sat by a fire that Mars was sure wasn’t there before. The woman was gorgeous and inviting, with no judgment at all in her eyes.

The others peeked their heads over Oliver’s dirt wall at the sound of the voice. They were on guard at first, but something about the woman made that wariness simply… drain away.

“‘Lo, adventurers,” She greeted. “I am Hestia, a new addition to Ancalagon’s Dungeon. Would you care to partake in the warmth of my Hearth? After such a quest, you’ve very much earned a few moments of sanctuary.

“And if you need more convincing… I have cookies, fresh from the Hearth. It would be such a shame to eat them alone…”

Strangely, the Mizutsune was the first to perk up at that offer.

“Yes, cookies for you, too, young monster,” Hestia laughed. “Come, come! I won’t force my Hearth upon you — never — but I would very much enjoy hosting you around it — always…”

Mars was stunned by both Hestia’s sudden appearance and such a friendly, unconditional invitation. It was her new Mizutsune’s pleading, puppy-dog eyes that brought her back to her senses.

“A-Ah… Thank you… for having us, then…? C-Can someone bring me my clothes first, though…?!”

IIIII

— Emily ‘Lady’ Piggot —

“Sir! Butcher’s lurking, sir! Garou is unaccounted for! Sir! Director Tagg seems to have found a fresh trail, sir, and Hookwolf charged off after him! Sir! Do we follow?”

The report came in as if Lady couldn’t see the same with her own eyes. It was bogged down with formality and procedure, too. Needless, time-and-breath-wasting formality and procedure in the field.

‘A transfer, green as they come,’ Lady scoffed to herself.

“~All veterans must start somewhere. Be glad for the fresh blood in your legion and the official support that brought them to you,” Mars sang in her soul; her war god totem’s voice was heavy with the sound of beating war drums.

‘Still a pain in my ass…’

“One ‘sir’ per report, trooper,” Lady outwardly replied to the green kid, one of many overawed by her reputation. “We’ll follow, alright, but we’ll march our own way. Tagg can waste his time tracking its every step and wingbeat; I already know where it’ll end up.”

“Sir!” The green trooper saluted, and Lady just about snapped at him before he scampered off to relay her orders to the rest of her platoon.

Mars laughed at her, his amusement booming like consistently firing artillery, “~He will improve once properly blooded. You merely need to give him the chance and ensure he survives to learn from it.”

‘Thankfully, that’s not a problem in the Dungeon. If he can’t learn, even with Ancalagon’s insurance, he isn’t worth cleaning latrines.’

She watched the temporary camp around her be packed up in short order. Everywhere her gaze fell, the troopers worked quicker and more thoroughly. They’d only stopped for a few hours to rest and recuperate, but Lady found herself more revitalized than she expected.

Her eyes passed over an out-of-place woman sitting around a fire that she definitely didn’t order started. The woman disappeared from her mind as soon as she looked away.

‘… It’s acceptable. I doubt we’ll be marching to war anytime soon, but in the Dungeon, I could very easily be wrong about that assumption,’ Lady thought to Mars.

“~Here’s hoping,” Mars chuffed back.

‘Here’s not,’ Lady retorted. ‘Training exercises are well and good, but I’m not looking to start an actual war inside the Dungeon or out of it. Not like Tagg is probably itching to. We’re making ourselves ready for future expeditions, not conquest, Mars.’

“Alright, greenies!” Lady shouted as soon as the camp was packed up. “The hunt is on! Are you gonna let Tagg’s boys and girls take the prize?! Are you gonna let the Hookwolf or the fucking Butcher?!”

Her troopers shouted back denials with a fighting enthusiasm that Lady and Mars could both approve of, even if all of them were still fresh as morning dew.

“I thought fucking not!” Lady roared back, answering their enthusiasm in kind. “The Dragon named our prey ‘King of the Skies’! Let’s show this beast what we think of kings in America!”

The platoon formed in their squads, each led by a sergeant Lady trusted; she’d rapidly promoted Maia, Luiz, and Xian after the Second Dive, and this would be their chance to prove they deserved the responsibilities of command.

All they had to do was lead greenies to hunt a bigger-than-Endbringer-sized wyvern while Hookwolf, the Butcher, Garou, and Tagg were out for the same prize.

Ancalagon had been open with information about the monsters that could be found in this instance of the Dungeon; all one had to do was ask him or any of the Dockworkers manning the information booths in the fairgrounds. Immediately, one monster had stood out to many as the ultimate prize: Rathalos, King of the Skies.

It was a ‘Flying Wyvern’ by the local categorization system, reportedly capable of surprisingly nimble flight and fire breath, and naturally equipped with viciously venomous claws, monstrous strength, and a tail like a morningstar. They had a size range of 11 meters at the lower end and some 22 meters at the upper end, even bigger than the ‘reasonable’ Dragon form Ancalagon used. By behavior, they were apparently territorial, aggressive, and lethally effective hunters.

There were bigger monsters to be found, but the Rathalos’ title was what secured it as the target of adventurers out for glory. Lady was not out for glory. She would’ve ignored the beast and gotten her platoon blooded in another way… if Tagg hadn’t challenged her to keep up.

If the competition with Tagg wasn’t enough motivation, others were just as quick to declare their intentions to slay the King of the Skies, and Lady wasn’t about to let Hookwolf win anything if she could help it, much less the fucking Butcher…

The Rathalos Hunt began soon after the Dungeon opened, and it had taken all the participating parties far afield. Two days of trekking through the monster-filled wilderness made Lady even more loath to abandon the prize at this point, especially since they’d been skirmishing with their competition here and there along the way. Blood had been drawn on all sides. Lady had lost half a squad of troopers spread across her platoon, and she wasn’t about to ignore their sacrifice, even if the Dungeon’s insurance made it more a time-out than lasting death.

… Keeping up the hunt also kept her mind off the first day’s Eidolon bullshi-… business; Lady didn’t know if she’d have been able to stop Tagg from shooting the bastard were they present for it, or if she’d have been able to stop herself, either.

Other than the whole Dungeon being paused for that trial, the first day’s march had been uneventful. The monsters they’d encountered, strange as it was to say, were manageable. The other parties in the Rathalos Hunt were more of a threat, and they crossed paths often enough considering they were all headed for the same place.

Now, that destination was close at hand: the Ancient Forest giving way to Misty Peaks. Lady had been studying the information they had on the Rathalos, and she felt the possibility of it maintaining a cliffside nest was high.

While Tagg followed whatever trail he’d reportedly found, Hookwolf followed him, Garou disappeared to make himself known whenever most inconvenient, and Butcher inevitably tried to set whatever ambush would net her the most bloodshed, Lady would take her platoon straight to the heart of the hunt.

Her green platoon, led by trusted but untested sergeants, marched; Lady looked back to check they weren’t missing anything. She saw a healthy, inviting fire, and an out-of-place woman tending it.

The woman waved, “Go on, have your adventure. I’ll keep the Hearth lit for your return, as I always do.”

Lady looked away, only to instantly snap her eyes back towards the woman and her Hearth. Both were gone as if they were never there. The words, the promise of rest and sanctuary, remained in her mind.

“Fuck… Magic bullshit, Dragon bullshit, Dungeon bullshit,” She grumbled to herself before asking Mars. “Friend or foe?”

“~Friend,” Her totem assured her. “Vesta… Hestia is always a friend. She maintains the Hearth, the Home, the very core of Humanity. It is a good omen, indeed, to see her participating in the Dungeon. If she is here, trust that the fires will never go out. Adventurers will always have a Hearth to return to.”

“… Right,” Lady shook her head. “I’ll be sure to thank her for that when I see her again. For now, let’s go turn these greenies red and hunt a wannabe Dragon.”

She turned back to her marching troopers, then stopped and cocked her head. Driven by instinct, she drew her sidearm and shot twice before she consciously realized what she was aiming at. Garou, the sneaky bloodthirsty fucker, fell from the shadows of a nearby tree, sporting two new holes in his chest.

She didn’t look back, even as she heard the renewed crackling of a Hearth fire and the gentle words of its tender, “I think she got you good there, my new friend. Why don’t we take a moment to-…

“No, not like that. Don’t be a bad guest at my Hearth. Don’t. There you go, just let the warmth soothe your pains. Yes, even after that, you are welcome at my Hearth…

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be right back at it shortly, but do try to cherish the moments of peace while you can. I’m not going to stop you, of course. In the end, my Hearth is just the break between adventures. That said, I do enjoy the company. You wouldn’t abandon a simple firetender so rudely, would you…?

“That’s what I thought. Sit with me. Adventure will still be there when you are ready to venture forth once more. Until then… would you like a cookie?”

Lady put the situation behind her and continued on her way. Garou would make himself a nuisance again, undoubtedly, and she’d swat him like one when he did. Other than that, it wasn’t her business what the Goddess of the Dungeon’s Hearth did. She had troopers to bloody.

… She did kind of want a Hestia cookie, though. When one appeared in her hand almost immediately after thinking that, Lady figured it was better to be grateful than to ask too many questions about Ancalagon-adjacent bullshit.

“Thank you for the hospitality, Hestia. I’ll tell you all about my triumphant hunt here when I next need a rest.”

IIIII

[AN: Not sure I’m entirely happy with this chapter’s execution, but it’ll be what it’s going to be. I want to get back on the Dead End train more than I want to make this interlude chapter absolutely perfect, and I think Hestia still had a good showing that can be developed further when I return to this story.

So now, I’m going to be taking about a week (probably) off posting to reread, brainstorm, and plot out the Dead End. Kind of a momentous occasion, returning to one of my favorite stories after quite a hiatus. If you have any Dead End ideas you’ve been holding onto, here and the brainstorming channel of my rather neglected discord are the place to make ‘em known lol.