"Hey, Faluel. Is everything alright?" It was a weird hour for a call and he hadn't heard from the Hydra since before his departure to Jiera.
"Hi, Lith. I'm fine, thank you. Just a bit annoyed with a friend of mine who disappears for long periods of ti and never calls unless he wants sothing." She replied with a playful tone.
"I'm sorry." Lith sighed.
Isolating himself was an old bad habit of his that resurfaced every ti he was engrossed in his work which happened very often.
"You'd better be." The Hydra grunted. "You could have at least called to tell about the fight with the lost city and that everyone was alright. Instead, I had to find out from the interlink first and then get the details from Friya's report."
"I know, but with everything that happened, it slipped my mind." Lith said. "Until the Warp Gate was finished, I was involved with the treaties between the rfolk and Grandma to create new cities in her Desert.
"Also, with the excuse to act as liaison with the local Awakened Council along with Raagu, I have spent most of my free ti scouring their archives for hints about the Ears of nadion."
"It's a nice excuse, but still an excuse." Faluel nodded. "That said, do you have plans for tomorrow? I have sothing I want to show you."
"I'm free tomorrow." Lith replied.
"Perfect. Co to my lair first thing in the morning. See you. Faluel out."
Lith put the amulet into his pocket and went back inside the room. Kamila and Solus were reading the story of the Ugly Sparrow, a bad-looking bird that turned out to be a mighty Phoenix and beca the ruler of the forest.
'This is not one of mine. I wonder if Grandma wrote it or if it's just based on her.' Lith thought.
The two won alternated reading, making the back and forth between the characters more vivid.
"Mind if I join?" He asked.
"Not at all." Kamila moved to make space for him. "There are lots of birds in this story and I'm running out of voices. By the way, have you noticed that the only friend of our ugly sparrow is a finch? Coincidence?"
"I think not!" Lith and Solus replied in unison, making the three of them burst into a laughter at the inside joke from his mories.
***
The following day, Lith and Solus left the babies at ho with Kamila and went to visit the Hydra.
The Beast Ruler of the Distar Marquisate had her ho built inside the Black Scar, one of the rare mountains in the south of the Griffon Kingdom which took its na from the obsidian covering most of its rocky surface.
The volcano had been active until Fyrwal, Faluel's mother had moved there. After becoming one of the four founding pillars of the Kingdom, the Hydra had grown weary of the intrigues of the Court and sought the solitude of her secret lab in the Black Scar.
She had diverted the magma flow of the mountain's fiery core to form a pool that fueled her Forgemastering experints and played a key role in slting and purifying magical tals.
The mountain also had a steaming hot spring that along with the warm climate of the south made it the perfect place to live for creatures like the Hydras who were weak to cold.
After Valeron's death, Fyrwal had no ties left with the Kingdom and gave her residence to Faluel as a coming-of-age gift.
Upon reaching the Hydra's lair, the stone walls opened, letting Lith and Solus in and revealing an enormous cave decorated with enough riches to put even the most ancient noble households to sha.
Piles of gold and precious gemstones were mixed with small mounds of magic crystals. The more precious a pile, the nearer to Faluel's living quarters it was.
The artifacts she had collected and Forgemastered over the centuries, instead, were carefully stored inside several crystal cases only she could open.
They ford the walls separating the different rooms of the lair, serving both as a testant to her guests of their host's skills and a silent warning of what she could unleash upon them if provoked.
"Man, if it's hot in here." Lith looked at the tal tubes running from the hot spring that covered the inside of the mountain's walls.
A complex system of arrays and magical stones spread and amplified the heat carried by the pipes, allowing the Hydra to regulate the temperature and humidity of her lair at will.
Ever since Lith had realized the air conditioning system for her as a thank you for saving Rena's son, Falco, from the Strangler disease, Faluel had used only two settings.
Scorching sumr day for when she was alone and warm sumr day for when she had guests.
"Thank you, but I'm not interested in a married man." Faluel said with a chuckle while she lowered the temperature.
She was in her human form, resembling a young woman in her mid-twenties, about 1.7 ters (5'7") tall. Her face had an oval shape, with rainbow-colored eyes and long hair that frad her fine features.
She was wearing a short-sleeved red shirt and what Lith could swear was a jeans overall.
"Very funny, but before I forget about this for the umpteenth ti, where did you get that cloth?" Lith asked.
"This?" She waved at her overall. "It's just cotton woven according to an old Hydra tradition to make it more durable."
"Can you teach how to do it?" Lith felt a pang of nostalgia from his life on Earth whenever he saw Faluel wearing clothes like that.
"Sure, but if you sell it and it becos a hit, I demand a huge cut. Now, to business." A snap of her fingers Warped them away from her lair and to a much bigger place.
The ceiling was over 40 ters (132') high, with no inner walls and so packed with lesser Dragons that Lith couldn't see the confines of what he could only assu be an underground cave.
Seven-headed Hydras stomped left and right as they moved, their heads talking with other Hydras as much as between themselves. Pillars of light were visible at regular intervals that were ford by a series of arrays stacked together.
The distance between the different sets of magical formations ensured that the spells didn't interact between themselves and that each pillar received enough world energy without hindering those nearby.
"What is this place?" Solus asked, feeling small and insignificant.
She could perceive with mana sense that every one of those present had a bright violet mana core and was at least 20 ters (66') tall. So, like Fyrwal, reached over 25 (82') ters of height, sothing in-between a Lesser and a Divine Beast.
Anyone who surpassed the 20 ters was considered an individual blessed with a thicker amount of Guardian blood than average. To give credit to this belief there was the fact that such people were often also gifted with great talent.
Their towering bodies and overflowing mana cores were no different from those of the Dragons and the Phoenixes that Solus was used to hang around with.
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