Herakles & the Twelve Labours: The Great Korásos Rescue
Sorry the Hydra lies in another chapter
The city of Lérnē was located far to the south-west of the city, and had long been a place of peace, renowned for its local beauty and for the fact that once upon a time they had their own Oracle. The Oracle of Lérnē was beloved by Apollo for a time, so that it once attracted as many as the eastern Oracle had. That time though was by the time of this tale long past, and belonged to the same age as when the likes of Lérnēan Mysteries first began. Brought there by the likes of Hera herself, when the world was still young and when she had first been crowned Queen of Olympos, she had gifted it first to the newly arrived Elves. Originally those mysteries were only for the women to know and were treated with a great deal of respect, with the Elves even going so far as to build her a great shrine in the heart of the forest that had once spanned the region.
As the Elves had in recent centuries retreated from Doria it seemed, they had left the care of the local shrine in the care of others, with most of them having departed from that part of Doria. In this way the shrine had continued to thrive long after those that had first built had disappeared from the region. Their preference for the mountains and forests had divided them from one another, all while they retreated almost entirely from any sort of contact with the races of Men.
By the sea to the west of the springs and river by which the shrine lay there was the city of Lacedaemon. This was the city that Herakles had been directed to as he made his way south-west, from the city of Thíva.
It was into this locality that Herakles journeyed. The journey had been a fraught one with a great many encounters with a number of halts, and had involved the youth having to wander off from his destination on account of his nephew. The youth seized by concern for him and eager to be reunited with him had set out with news that had stunned Herakles when it at last made its way to his ears. This only after he had been forced to rescue the six year old boy, who had had adventures of his own after he had run into troubles with some of the local bandits in the forest of Korásos.