Following the revelation about Leon and Maia’s power, Helen seemed to relax a great deal during the next half hour or so, but no one said much more that wasn’t business related.  Helen gave Maia more detailed directions, and after they’d traveled about forty miles, they finally reached an end of the swamp.  They disembarked from the boat and pushed into drier parts of the Wetlands.  The basilisk, and if they were lucky, Helen’s sister, laid somewhere ahead, but they’d have to search more thoroughly to find them.

During their overland trek, the quartet fell into something of an awkward silence now that Helen didn’t need to continuously relay directions, and Leon, to his surprise, found himself breaking it.

“So, Helen,” he said, almost surprising himself, “are you a local of these parts?”

Helen gave him a curious look, mild suspicion flashing through her pale blue eyes.  But Leon didn’t mean anything untoward, he was just curious about their companion, and found her power to be exactly what he was looking for in a new retainer.  He just needed to sound her out more personally to decide if he wanted to make her a recruitment offer.

It seemed that Helen decided to trust him enough to answer, for after a moments of thought, she replied, “No.  My sister and I moved here about ten years ago.”

“Ah,” Leon responded.  “I ask because your sister is a sixth-tier mage, correct?”

Helen went quiet for a moment as she stared out into the forest.  “If she’s still alive… yes,” she murmured.

Leon cringed slightly and hurriedly replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up anything painful.  We’ll find your sister if she’s out there.”

“It’s fine,” Helen shot back with a wave of her hand.  “I’m a little out of sorts with finally finding myself out here with some capable mages, but I made my peace when Anna didn’t come home after her hunt.”

Leon nodded, then turned his head and grimaced.  He happened to make eye contact with Valeria, who silently scolded him for his insensitivity with a quick slightly exasperated glare.

Turning back to his reason for bringing this up, Leon continued, “I ask because, with your fifth-tier power, I just thought it a bit strange that you two would be here, of all places.  Surely those with your power could’ve found employment in a more lucrative place?  Or at least a more comfortable location?  Did you two just like it here?”

Helen gave her answer quite a bit of thought, her eyes staring out into the wet forest they were slowly picking their way through as they made their way toward higher and drier ground.

“… We came here for me,” she eventually stated.  “My sister is one of the best hunters on all of Aeterna.  She could’ve, as you said, found employment anywhere.  I’m not the sort that enjoys hunting, but I had some interest in alchemy.  The Ilumerian Wetlands are dangerous, but they’re replete with all kinds of wild herbs and monster parts that can be made into various potions.”

“What kind of alchemy do you specialize in?” Valeria politely inquired.

“I’ve an interest in all fields of alchemy,” Helen answered, a smile of pride slowly making its way across her face, “but if I had to say what I’m most practiced in, I’d say that would be brewing antidotes.  Just given what kind of place the Wetlands are, I’ve no shortage of poisons and venoms to synthesize antidotes from, and my most frequent patients are hunters who ate something strange or got bitten by some crazy bug.  Speaking of which…”

Helen began rooting around in her pockets beneath her brigandine, eventually pulling out a vial containing about five or six mouthfuls of some foul dark green liquid and holding it up for the other three to admire.  It looked kind of like bottled swamp water, but it was both far too thick and too chock-full of magic power for Leon to mistake it for that.

“I’ve been waiting for someone to head out in search of my sister for a while,” she explained.  “Long enough to make something that ought to help us when we find that basilisk.”

“Is that some kind of anti-basilisk poison?” Leon asked.

“No,” Helen replied with a sharp smile.  “Basilisks are nearly impossible to poison.  But they have extremely potent venom of their own.  I just wanted everyone to know that should they get bitten by this monster and they don’t immediately die from its huge fucking fangs, I can neutralize its venom with this stuff.  Just apply it to the wound, or ingest it if that’s not feasible, and the venom will no longer be a problem!”

“That’s incredible,” Valeria praised.

Helen’s smile grew wider, and then her cheeks reddened, and she put the vial back into her pocket.  “It’s nothing, and might not even work.  I haven’t had any victims of basilisk venom come into my apothecary, so it’s extremely hard to test.  But I’m confident that I got it right!”

Leon smiled in appreciation, but he had his doubts, too.  He’d been told that this basilisk’s venom could kill seventh-tier mages, and if that was true, then it was potent stuff.

“If everything goes well,” Leon said, “then we’ll return to Attica with that stuff still untested.”

Helen shrugged.  “I might want to test it if we can get our hands on one of its venom glands, but I get your meaning.  Best not to let it actually bite any of us.”

Pressing on into the forest, they finally started to reach parts of the Wetlands that were more forest than swamp, with actual reliably dry ground beneath their feet.  They remained focused on their task, but their conversation didn’t die down that much.  In fact, as Helen got more used to their presence, she revealed herself more and more to be a rather chatty person, more than willing to share parts of her life.

After some conversation about what brought Leon and his family to Attica, she spoke a bit about where she was from.

“It’s not that exciting,” she nervously prefaced.  “I’m not a general or the bodyguard of a Princess.  I’ve not fought in any wars or participated in dynastic struggles.  My family was fairly well off, but I’m just a simple girl from the Sacred Golden Empire who had an interest in alchemy.  I don’t think I would’ve gotten as far as I have in my magical journey if not for my sister constantly prodding me in my training or providing me with magic-rich materials.”

“So you’ve used potions to reach the fifth-tier?” Valeria asked with some distaste in her tone.

“As training enhancers, not as training replacements,” Helen explained.  “There’s a crucial difference there.  Many people want their training to be fast, and they’re more than willing to cheat to get there.  But they’ll usually throw caution to the wind or slack off on their actual training in the course of doing so.  Obviously, this leaves those who take such measures with a less robust magical foundation and weaknesses in their adaptations.  Their lungs only pulling ninety percent of magic out of the air they breathe rather than one hundred percent, for example, or more seriously, some of their bone marrow remaining un-adapted despite flooding their body with magic power with potions.

“This is not what I did.  I kept my alchemic enhancements light, which helped to make my journey easier, without also completely sabotaging me.”

“That sounds like a very fine line to walk,” Leon observed, frowning slightly.  He didn’t exactly take the hard road in his magical journey, either, but much of his journey had still involved a lot of pain and effort.  Still, it had culminated in him now being stuck at the eighth-tier, and he had no earthly idea just how long it would take for his soul realm to heal enough to begin advancing again.

“It is,” Helen admitted.  “Oftentimes, I forwent my potions because I was too nervous to take them, for fear of creating imperfections.  I can’t stand the thought of doing something as serious as ascending through the tiers and leaving imperfections behind…”

“If you’re worried about such imperfections, wouldn’t it have been better to stay in Imperial territory, then?” Valeria wondered.  “I’d imagine that such a place would be much better equipped to elevate young, talented mages than a much poorer place like Attica…”

“If you’d think that, you’d be wrong,” Helen practically spat as she glared eastward.  She seemed like she was about to continue, but Leon then noticed something as they trudged up a shallow incline.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing to a bush a couple hundred feet away that had been crushed by a gigantic pile of animal waste.  Fortunately, the wind was at their backs, but even from so far away, he was catching a few stomach-churning whiffs of that foul substance.  “What do you want to bet that only something like our basilisk would make something that big?”

“That’s definitely basilisk poop!” Helen shouted as she started running for the dung heap, completely disregarding the nose-burning odor that only grew more intense with every passing step.  “And it’s fresh!”

Leon was used enough to hunting and using animal feces to track his prey that he wasn’t quite as disgusted as he otherwise might have been, and Maia hardly seemed to care, but Valeria looked a little green as they edged closer, following Helen.  Out of consideration, Leon summoned a weak cyclone to blow about them, lessening but not quite relieving entirely the terrible miasma emanating from that foul pile.

Helen, however, didn’t even hesitate to get right up close to it.  The poop stack came up to her chest, though it was propped up slightly by the crushed bush beneath it.  More leavings were above, caught in the leafy canopy of the forest, where the defecation had come crashing through.  It seemed the basilisk didn’t stop to release its waste and had dropped it while flying.

“We’re definitely in the right area,” she said with excitement, and a hint of dread crawling into her voice.  “Basilisks don’t usually take that long to hunt and remain near their lairs for long stretches of the day.  They also mark their territory with waste, keeping other predators at bay.”

“How big is the territory they usually claim?” Leon asked as he projected his magic senses.  He contemplated transforming into his avian form to keep watch from above, but he wasn’t yet confident in his ability to fight other airborne creatures like that, yet.  His power might be enough to carry him through, but it still carried quite a bit of risk for something as poisonous as a basilisk.

“A few dozen square miles,” Helen answered.  “It’s lair has to be close.”

Leon concentrated on the slope they were steadily climbing.  It remained completely covered in forest as far as he could see, but there were a few clearings here and there.  Nowhere did he see any open-air lairs that a basilisk might be using.

But then he turned his magic senses upon the dung heap.  It had until fairly recently been within the basilisk, but even though it had been out in the damp forest for hours, if not longer, it was seemingly untouched by the insects of the swamp.

The reason for that became clear enough: he detected a faint trace of magic within the fetid clump of waste.  Leon concentrated on that spark of magic and then turned his attention outward again.  With an example of just what the basilisk’s aura felt like, he thought he’d be able to—

And there it was.  Near a clearing close to the top of a hill about two miles away, he felt a stronger aura that matched what he could feel coming from the heinous waste in front of him softly emanating from a small cave.  The mouth of the cave was barely large enough for a full grown man to pass through, though, let alone a basilisk of the size they were hunting, not to mention the sheer fact that it was in stark contrast to what he’d been told about basilisk lairs being open-air.

Leon quickly filled in the others on what he could sense.  “… and stay on your toes.  This cave is clearly artificial, from the looks of it, and if it’s what we’re looking for, then this basilisk might be a bit more than we’ve bargained for…”

“Meaning it may have become an Ascended Beast?” Valeria asked, immediately picking up on the same thing that Leon had.

Leon grimly nodded.  Their intel said it was only sixth-tier, but that was the level at which some rare beasts might be able to take human form and assume human levels of intelligence.  Or the basilisk might’ve just reached the seventh-tier.  Or maybe its ability to use earth magic meant that it didn’t need to use standard cave entrances at all, though that left the question of why this cave entrance was there…

Whatever the case, Leon could sense the basilisk’s aura emanating from the cave just as he could sense it emanating from the creature’s waste.

He took the lead, with Helen at his side.  She’d fallen silent when Leon revealed his discovery, and he had the feeling that she both needed to see what was in the cave but dreaded it at the same time.  She’d relaxed as the group got to know each other, but now that they had a concrete location to work with, she’d tensed back up.

Leon wasn’t sure what to say, or if he ought to say anything at all.  He wasn’t her friend, and he didn’t think he was close enough to her to offer much comfort.  In the end, when they finally got within eyesight of the cave entrance, their group had moved almost entirely in silence.  Even then, though, Leon found himself quite impressed with how easily Helen moved through the forest—she was almost as quiet as he was.  She was clearly a skilled ranger and not just a ‘mere’ alchemist.

Calling their group to a halt, Leon projected his magic senses again, focusing all of his attention on the cave entrance.  It was plain enough to see that it was artificially made, with a tightly winding entrance preventing them from seeing directly into the cave from the outside, and from the smoothness of the walls.  It was about wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side comfortably.  Other than those details, however, Leon wasn’t able to sense much about the entrance itself.  There wasn’t any magic securing it, nor any doors preventing physical access, which made him quite paranoid.

He pushed his magic senses deeper into the cave and down a long staircase that bored into the earth, expecting them to be at some point scattered or at least blocked by a door, but instead, he found his magic power spilling out into a large, richly appointed room that seemed more like a hall within a small palace rather than the lair of a wild beast.  It was perhaps thirty or forty feet wide, and about a hundred feet long, with several doors on the right and left, and only one on the far wall.  The stone floor was covered in many mismatched rugs, some of which were rather simple and woven from cheap fabrics, while others were of rich furs and fine wool.  There were many pieces of furniture adorning the hall—which shared the same quick as the carpets, with almost every piece being of wildly different designs—which was illuminated by a combination of burning candles and a few magic lanterns roughly set into the ceiling.

It just looked like an underground palace thrown together with whatever was available to the builder, and if he’d noticed it without having noticed the aura, then while he might’ve been curious, he wouldn’t have thought much of it.  This was the Ilumerian Wetlands, and there were likely mages living out in the swamps taking advantage of the local alchemical resources, or just living off the grid for whatever reason.

“It looks clear,” Leon whispered, though his tone was strained and suspicious.  “Keep your guards up, anyway.”

He then led the way toward the cave, briefly contemplating the merits of announcing their arrival.  It would be polite, and if this weren’t the home of a basilisk, then it would be the right call.  But he decided against it, just in case.  He could always ask forgiveness and leave if he was mistaken.

With blade in hand, Leon pushed into the cave, the dark, winding tunnel proving no hazard at all, though he kept his eyes and magic senses open for any sign of magical defenses.  But he and his people found themselves in the underground hall after only a couple of minutes, none the worse for wear, and seemingly without having been detected.

One thing that Leon did notice, though, was that the hall’s central hearth—essentially just a fuel-less fire rune in a pit in the center of the hall—was going at full blast, one of the few enchantments in the place to be seen.  If any of them were mortal, then the heat in the hall might’ve been uncomfortable.

“This place is well made,” Valeria observed.  “Solid, non-porous stone.  I think it would flood, otherwise…”

Leon hummed in agreement, then ordered, “Let’s check the doors.  One at a time.”

They crept through the hall toward the closest door on their right.  The stone door was secured on stone hinges, which meant that Leon hesitated to even try to open it, for fear of making a racket—until he knew the palace’s owner wasn’t around, he was going to assume that they were.  Seeing his hesitation, Maia conjured a small pillar of water and splashed it onto the door.  The water seeped into the cracks between it and the walls, and she easily ripped the door out of its frame with hardly a sound.

Leon had to stifle his immediate alarm, but he didn’t stop Maia.  When the door was pulled away, he gave her a look that was both relieved at the result, and reproachful for giving him such a fright.  She just smiled confidently in response.

With a sigh, Leon glanced into the open room, and then sighed again when all that was revealed was a fairly threadbare kitchen.

He then had the group cross the hall to open the other door that was right next to the entrance.  He assumed that the door at the other end of the hall was where the hall’s owner slept, so he decided not only to save that one for last, but for the group to slowly work their way down to it.

Maia ripped the other door out of its frame just like the first, disappointing the group again when all it revealed was a storage room full of unsecured crates and barrels.  Leon found himself quite surprised at the goods they found, though, with several boxes full of spices, one box of silver coins minted in varying styles, and barrels of wine.  Luxury goods that he would’ve assumed would be kept in the soul realm of whoever owned them, not kept so unsecured as these were.

But for all his disappointment and surprise, Helen had nothing but growing anxiety and dread.  Leon could hear her breathing getting more and more frantic, and so he had them move on without taking too much time to check out the storage room.

The next couple of rooms were much like the second: storage rooms, but each one was for different materials.  The third held various unrefined ores and sparkling bullion, the fourth had Leon’s eyes widen in glee when they revealed hundreds of books, and the fifth had garments and fabrics of fine quality.

“I think these are goods that have been stolen from merchant ships that pass through the Wetlands,” Valeria whispered as they moved on to the sixth door.  Leon nodded, but he knew that whoever owned this hall could very well own all of these legitimately, too.  Still, he knew that the basilisk had been here for a few years and had attacked a few merchant ships, so all of these random goods being here was consistent with his hunt.

The sixth door was where they finally found something of real note.  Maia tore off the door, revealing a bedroom just as opulently appointed as the main hall, but with an unpleasant surprise.  As soon as the door was torn free, Leon found himself almost struck in the face with the stench of decay and rot, and when he stole a look inside, he immediately understood why.

The hearth was cold, the chairs and tables within covered in a fine layer of dust, and laying in the bed was the body of a woman that had been dead for quite a long while—months, at least.  The woman’s skin had turned a mottled gray, and her flesh had shriveled up beyond recognition, but that didn’t stop Helen from gasping in terror as she glanced in around Leon.

“No, no, no, no,” she began to murmur.  She pushed past Leon, utterly unconcerned with the possibility that this might be some kind of trap, and began inspecting the body.

Leon almost called after her, but he bit his tongue and just focused on their surroundings, waiting for anything to leap out from anywhere and attack.  Fortunately, nothing did, and a moment later, he heard a gasp of relief from Helen.

“Not Anna,” the young alchemist stated.  “My sister had a—has a tattoo of a wolf that covers her right shoulder and most of her upper arm…  Last I saw her, she’d also dyed her hair green…”

Leon glanced back into the room, and sure enough, the corpse’s hair was light brown, and her shoulder lacked any tattoos.  She was dressed quite well, though, in a fine red silk dress that left her arms bare, and only came down to about mid-thigh.  Given her figure, Leon thought she had probably been exceptionally beautiful in life.

“Looks like she succumbed to poison,” Helen continued, pointing at some blue discoloration around the woman’s sunken eyes.  “Can’t say for certain without my tools, but I’d say basilisk venom is the likely culprit.”

Leon nodded in understanding, and then turned back to the hall.  They still had two more doors to open before the one at the end of the hall, and he waved his group over to the closer of the two.

That door led into another bedroom, but this one was empty save for a bed and a hearth, neither of which seemed like they had ever been used recently.  Finally, they turned their attention to the eighth door, the last before what could only assume to be the underground palace's master bedroom.  Maia quickly ripped it off, revealing what was inside this final room.

It was yet another bedroom, and this was occupied.  And as soon as she saw the green-haired woman laying almost comatose in bed, Helen screamed, “Anna!” and rushed over without another thought.  Her voice echoed through the hall, not all that loud in an objective sense, but still hitting Leon’s ears like a hammer.  He and Valeria then turned, their weapons drawn, just in case something responded.

And something did.  A powerful aura suddenly exploded out through the cracks of the final door, sixth-tier but still strong enough to have Leon narrowing his eyes in wariness.

A moment later, the door was kicked open and torn from its frame much more violently than Maia had been doing, and a massive humanoid burst out into the hall, almost eight feet tall and built like an ox.  However, his darkly-tanned skin had patches of dark green scales, especially around his pale yellow reptilian eyes.  His long, smooth head had no hair at all, and his eyes glittered with intelligence.  His aura was laced with potent killing intent, and Leon could sense his magic spreading out through the floor, revealing him to be strong with earth magic.

With the reptilian features and the sixth-tier aura, Leon felt confident in assuming that they had found their basilisk.  And it was an Ascended Beast.

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