“How old the legend of the Guardian of the Forest is? Nobody knows for certain, honestly. My grandfather was the one who passed it down to my father, and later to me, and he claimed he learned of it from his grandfather, who in turn learnt it from his own. Take an average of two and a half to three centuries for one of our generations, and you have a history of at least fifteen hundred to two thousand years right there. I’m not sure anyone today knows when the legends first came to be, though.” - Deana’lise Medriyl, shamaness for a small elven tribe in Greenmeadow Isle, circa 673 FP.

“A- A Three-headed Hydrake!” shouted Tal with bewilderment and excitement clear in his voice as he saw the figure of the beast that had tackled and then devoured the flying serpent. “I never imagined I’d see one in the flesh! All we ever saw were stuffed specimens of the lesser kind back at campus!”

“I don’t know about you, kid, but it doesn’t look too friendly to me,” said Vark from beside him, both him and Krystal shielding Ilena from the gruesome sight of one beast devouring another. “Must be all those teeth it got.”

“Well… it is a vicious predator. Usually they only come in one or two-headed variants. The single-headed ones only grow about as large as a duck or so, while the two-headed ones can grow as large as a wyvern,” explained Tal almost as if he forgot that the beast in question was not far away, and given how fast it moved, could likely reach them in mere moments. “We only had stories and legends of the three-headed ones, but this one definitely seemed larger than even what the tales spoke of.”

“And it’s headed our way,” pointed Elaina out as she pointed at the distant beast with her finger. The beast was indeed headed their way, though it had not flown over, and instead walked slowly with a pronounced waddle in its gait. Most of the group had readied their weapons in alarm, as they had seen how fast the beast flew earlier, knowing that escape would be pointless.

Cal however noticed how Kyara and Ashani looked relaxed at its sight, and so was Kino, and almost immediately put two and two together. She recalled that Kino had mentioned that the Champions of Nature lived on the same island as Kyara, namely Greenmeadow Isle, and had also mentioned their pet before.

Sure enough, as the beast waddled closer to the group, Cal saw the two figures seated on its back, seemingly unaffected by the swaying gait of the massive beast as they chatted with each other, occasionally throwing glances and looks at Cal’s party.

Both figures had similar wolfish features much like Willa, but also the tall and gangly figure mostly associated with elves, likely a hybrid of both. One of them also had an impressive rack of antlers on his head, which hinted at further mixed lineage.

Before long, the massive beast had waddled over to the nervous party, and stopped less than ten meters away from them. The rest of the group quickly noticed the presence of the two figures on the beast’s back by then, and were less nervous when the beast lowered its middle head and the couple walked down its neck.

“Been a while, you two~” greeted Kino as she walked over and hugged the pair of wolfish figures warmly, a gesture they returned in kind with wolfish smiles on their features. Kyara and Ashani also gave respectful bows to the couple, before Kino led them over to the rest of the group.

“Folks, these two are old friends of mine, Dalorian and Rosalind of the Zircon tribe,” said Kino as she introduced the two. The couple looked to be in their middle ages at a glance, with the man sporting a long, smooth beard that reached all the way down to his waist, and with the way they dressed and moved, looked the part of wizened old druids, which Cal suspected they were. “Pay no heed to Bertha there, she’s big and cranky, but she won’t bite unless commanded to.”

“M-May I pet her?” asked Tal nervously, which caused a few members of the group to glare at him and others to shake their heads at his behavior.

“Sure, you could, young one,” replied Rosalind with a chuckle which she hid behind one lanky hand. She gestured with her other hand, which held a long staff of gnarled wood as tall as she was, and pointed at the large Hydrake behind her. “Bertha, lower yourself a bit, let the young one have a good look.”

“Honored Guardians,” said Kyara with a respectful tone of voice. Clearly, she had met the couple before, which was not strange given how they were fellow Champions and lived on the same island. “What brought your august presence so far out from the center?”

“Oh, nothing too serious, Chieftess of the Hidden Ones,” replied Dalorian with a gentle voice. While he spoke gently, his voice was low and gravelly, not unlike those of dwarves. “We were just… removing some pests that had wandered to our little island and made a mess. That one you ran into was the last one of the pit.”

“I see that you have all helped in taking care of the beast as well,” continued the old druid as he glanced at the severed hindquarter of the serpent that was still left on the ground, the blood already forming a shallow pool beneath it. “For that you have our gratitude, and apologies that such pests bothered your journey.”

“I’d say it’s just another part of the journey, sir,” replied Cal with a polite nod to the old druid couple, the Champions of Nature Kino had mentioned before. “After all, it would be a boring trip if everything always went as planned.”

“Wise words indeed, young one,” said Rosalind with a smile in turn. She looked around at the group, then at the sun, which was beginning to drop from the sky above as the day grew late. “Why don’t you all come and rest at our humble abode for the night? It’s growing late, and we just happen to have some good meat lying around right there.”