The boy was trying to sneak up on me. It was good for him to get the practice, but I would be a terrible trainer letting him think he'd gone undetected. I picked up a rock and threw it at his hiding place. Giving up the game, Chase came running over.

  "Welcome back Cap."

  I reached over and pulled him into a hug, which he quickly slipped out of.

  "Any progress?" he asked.

  "I manged to sneak through the first two chambers this time. Cleaned the next one. Found a portal, but ..."

  "A portal! really, is it?"

  "Let me finish. I found a portal, but it goes down to level 7."

  "Oh," dejection flashed briefly over his face, but he was quick to hide it. Was he worried about keeping my mood up? I'm the adult here dammit!

  "Well, give me your report."

  "That hydra is definitely following us now. It wasn't before, but is now. I followed its trail backward, and it seems to lead to the same place we came in."

  "So it used the same entrance."

  "Must have. It's not acting like a mob. I'm also certain its alone."

  "Describe its combat abilities."

  The boy scratched his head staring up at the ceiling as he worked to gather his thoughts.

  "Its a little bit bigger than me but still smaller than you. Level 10 base class, level 8 regenative. It seems to..."

  "Hmph, a healing class on its primary. The smart ones usually try to improve their offense on the first class pick. Strange that the level is so high for its size though."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Hydras tend to level slowly but live long enough for it to accumulate. Considering the size, this one is barely out of the hatchling stage, so it being at level 18 already is odd.

  "So. As, I, was, saying. Its damage output is terrible but its healing is crazy."

  "That much is just standard hydra."

  "I think it has a wrestling specialization on the base class. It does more wrestling than biting. The bite doesn't do much damage, and I don't think it has much venom like you said it might. Every fight it gets into, it takes way more damage than it dishes out, but it always outlasts the mob."

  "Hydra are usually more about ambush and venom at the juvenile stage, but grappling makes sense as a tactic for something that slow. Notice any actives?"

  "Sometimes it heals faster than usual. Other than that, I didn't notice anything that stands out."

  "Probably rapid healing then. Basic."

  "Oh! also, the tag was weird too. It said uplifted instead of monster."

  "What? Dammit boy! Why didn't you start with that?!"

  "Eh. Well... is it important?"

  "Yes! This changes everything."

  We lost our two front-liners and healer all on the first day. I got impatient, underestimated my team's stealth, and lost three members to a pack of jaguar mobs. Since then, it's been just me and Chase, a support class and an archer. Needless to say, two rear-liners don't make for a balanced team.

  I had forbidden Chase from entering any jaguar chambers, even with me. That left all the exploration to me alone. Perhaps I was being too cautious, but I'd lost all confidence as a commander and couldn't bring myself to make proper use of the boy anymore. To lose three members on a tier 3 sector when we were aiming to go down to 5 was disgraceful.

  It's not that unusual for a adventure team to get stuck in a single chamber for over a month, and everyone knows someone who knows someone who went in only to emerge years later. The labyrinth had no dead ends, but there's no guarantee you won't get stuck with unreasonable portal placements, or portal limits which force you to split the team. In these cases, it's best to be patient and wait for something to come along and change the situation.

  "We need to recruit it."

  "Recruit a monster?"

  "Do you know what uplifted means, Chase?"

  His blank expression told me he didn't.

  "For a monster or beast to become uplifted, there are three requirements: One, it must be named. Two, it must be as smart as a person—not necessarily a particularly smart person— but smart enough to be able to act like a person. And three, someone with lots of money needs to get a ritualist to change its tag. And do you know what that means? It means that hydra has probably been around people plenty. It might even understand our language."

  "Wow! So we're going to have a hydra tank? You think we can clear the jaguar rooms?"

  "You got it."

  I put on a positive face, but in truth, it was a long shot. Regardless, if this didn't work, we would likely die here. Uplifts are usually either treasured mounts, or pets belonging to nobles. Making them sentient tends to alter their minds enough to take away the servile characteristic that made them likeable as pets to begin with.

  Considering the high level for its age, there was a good chance this hydra was combat trained. But that raised the question on how violent its life up to now had been, and how it viewed humans. The fact that it was here by itself was not a good sign.

  I'd been in a team with an uplifted direwolf once. It's hard to overstate the value diversity in abilities brings inside the labyrinth. I had to assume that this one was smart enough to know that it needed us too. I mulled over how we might recruit it.

  "Hey, what's it been eating?"

  "Just carrier swine."

  "Perfect. Go catch as many piranha as you can carry."