Dragonheart Core

"A week left," Ealdhere said. "Hard to believe, isn't it? It feels as though it has been both years and minutes."

The sapling, perhaps unsurprisingly, didn't respond.

It was growing well, arranged in a new window; he had searched and found a mostly appropriate pot, one wide and sprawling with holes he had plugged up so the water would stay within it. He would need to design a proper one for this wonderful plant, one with a carved inner channel so he could stimulate a proper blend of sandy soil and open canals; but that was for later.

For now, the unknown mangrove grew, delicate white leaves unfurling and crimson trunk rising.

Growing unbelievably well, perhaps fed by some strand of mana still from the dungeon; there had been a week where it had almost seemed to… shrink in on itself, dormant and unmoving, and then an explosion of growth afterward. From the length of his arm it was nearly four feet tall now, growing broader with threading branches, thorns unfurling from its scarlet bark. An utterly fascinating plant.

His only true companion, now. He didn't know what had come of all his other possessions, nor any of the others who had come out of that dungeon alive—now it was just him and the mangrove.

Ealdhere sighed, sitting in the chair by the window. The wood was a new thing, freshly made and lacquered, and he did appreciate it. At least this new room had some form of comfort, though all of it was unfamiliar.

A pretty place while he was in—well, he wasn't in captivity, not under the laws he knew, but he didn't know any other term to describe it. He'd been freed from the cavern, from the poor boy's corpse and the towering Dread Crew members, taken back to quarters in some fine building expanse high on Calarata's hill. Given food, warm water, a bed to lay down—he'd taken it with relief, of course. Still was Neus' splayed body, crimson spreading from her mossy hair, behind his eyes, and any moment away from the memories were welcome.

But then he'd woken up, and wondered where he was, and realized he didn't know what had happened. The building was a well-furnished one, with tall ceilings and marble floors and gleaming windows inlaid with gold dust so the sunlight caught them like a wildfire. His room was warm and soft and comforting, and the food was delicious, and the amenities even beyond that of the Darlington Manor back in dear Abhalón, and then Ealdhere had been more distracted by exploring the mighty keep than wondering. There had been servants, but they were skittish, keeping their head down and scurrying like shadows so that he wouldn't see them. Curious.

Less curious, when he discovered he had been housed in an outpost of the Dread Crew.

Several things had begun to make sense, then.

Ealdhere had never been one for the politicking of his house, of the fussing around in great sprawling petticoats and simpering expressions and giving someone one too few sugar cubes alongside tea in order to publicly humiliate them at a social gathering. But as the third son, he had still had to know it, and he could understand double entendre better than most.

So when Lluc had returned to the outpost and told him of the great honour of becoming the Adventuring Guild's Scholar, Ealdhere had understood. He'd understood quite a lot, really.

While he wouldn't be killed, he would not be returning to Abhalón.

So he'd been taken from that room at the outpost and to this new building, broad and squat and situated on a dock overlooking the cove. A quick tour, full of a broad welcoming room with many seats, a nascent healing room, many side storage rooms, and two rooms for him; one bedroom, with much less amenities than his last but still good, and another. One with desks and shelves and spaces for an alchemist's set, as well as Viejabran lettering over the door.

The Scholar of the Adventuring Guild.

His new role.

In all wonder, it could have been a dream—he would be paid well here, given all the luxuries he could want, and best of all; free reign to research and marvel at flora and fauna maybe never seen before. When he had left Abhalón, this had been the life he wanted.

He'd gotten it, and now it was bitter.

Ealdhere sighed, rubbing at his face. His red hair hung unkempt and untied before his eyes; it had almost wilted, growing less bright. He was in Calaratan clothes, no more of his dyed cloaks and elaborate tunics. His feather-filled hat had survived, but he had discarded it himself; he couldn't bear anything that had gone into the dungeon. His poor family would hardly recognize him.

"I'm not meant for this world, I'm afraid," he said. The sapling's many leaves caught the sunlight; it didn't need it, he knew, with its pure white leaves and its propriety to feed on something other than the sun. He didn't know what yet, but he'd been substituting it with pure mana in slivers of quartz embedded into the surrounding soil. But he'd have time to figure it out, wouldn't he?

Scholar of the Adventuring Guild indeed.

"But, well, there's nothing else for it." He looked to the sapling, at a new leaf on its highest branch he'd noticed opening from bud this morning. "You and I will be of a new sort, here—I'll find you a name and me a purpose, and we will survive this."

The sapling shivered.

Ealdhere reached back to his desk, where rolls of parchment sat; he'd been drafting maps of the first floor, piecing together his own memories and knowledge of the habits of the creatures he'd seen there. In a week, when adventurers could begin delving under careful watch of Guildmaster Lluc, he could assemble more proper maps. And guides, for the creatures found there; and identification, for those that weren't known; and strategies, for the floors and their dangers; and uses, for materials pulled from its caverns.

Ealdhere would not leave Calarata, he knew; Lluc hadn't had to threaten him. He knew he was trapped here.

And still, looking at all the maps and half-finished drawings of arĝentkapuloj and blankkapaj fungoj, he felt a familiar stir of excitement in his stomach.

"Well, no sense in complaining," he said to the unnamed mangrove. "It won't fix nor change anything, and we've discoveries to make."

Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought the sapling shifted, leaning a little closer to him.

Ealdhere smiled; a slight thing, but for the first time in weeks. He took up his quill, dipped it in his inkwell, and began to draw again.

-

"Never," the man hissed, just as venomous and frothing as the first eleven times he'd delivered this monologue. "Never in all our years have we allied with another—the Silent Market is not some frettering fool to dance to another's command–"

Gonçal, as he'd since learned over the years, stayed quiet and let the words rush over him.

Miquel was a tall, waspish man, silver threaded around temples that often blushed red with the force of his shouting. Not one that lived up to the Silent Market's epithet, though you wouldn't know that when you were a trader looking to buy; sly and clever he could be, twisting prices higher and higher until you left half-way convinced you'd bought yourself one of the divine treasures needed to start your journey towards becoming a god.

You hadn't, of course, because the Silent Market hadn't had treasures on that scale in years, and both Gonçal and Miquel knew that. They hadn't since their founder died.

An elf already old and ancient, arrived on a cockleshell boat to a Calarata uncaring of laws and regulations, banished from far-off Ter Asla for crimes he didn't name but were easy to guess.

Old Master Kerätä.

There had, perhaps, never been a more proficient collector in the world. Not a nightmarketer, for he didn't bother going around and fighting things himself; instead they came to him, and he kept and polished and hoarded them to gleaming perfection. First lesser things, to satiate his curiosity; but immortals have forever to grow more curious, and soon mere commodities weren't enough. He wanted more.

And more he got. And when Ter Asla rejected his ways, he went in search of somewhere that would care less, and he found it, and more he continued to collect.

Gonçal wasn't from the Old World, but he was close, and as a young, stumbling boy with scales on his face and claws on his hands, he had been just another prize for Kerätä to take and display. He wasn't even the first humanoid, let alone sapient; he had joined glistening halls of others who no longer had freedom.

But Gonçal had been quiet, and clever, and willing to learn, and over time Kerätä had made use of his innate analysis skill to make him a nightmarketer. Still a treasure, still a piece of his hoard, but with some give to his chains.

And then, as if from nowhere, Kerätä had fallen sick. Fallen dreadfully, irreversibly sick, the kind that lingered and hurt. He had spent much of his collection searching far and wide for a cure.

He hadn't found one. Gonçal had made sure.

Hundreds of years of life, fallen in a gasping, frothing mess of poison he hadn't known existed. The end of an elf.

And now the Silent Market was this.

"We took you in," Miquel snapped. "After your master's death, when you had nothing—took you in and gave you a purpose, gave you a job, and now you go gallivanting off with– with Lluc Cardena Ferré like he's some commoner hiring you for a useless mission–"

Telling, that he was only daring to say something like that in the safety of the Silent Market's headquarters. Gonçal said nothing, because he knew this song and dance, especially when it had been going on for weeks. It had been his life on the line—death or becoming the Silent Market's liaison to the dungeon's Adventuring Guild. Not much of a question, and Miquel could shout all he wanted, but Gonçal would not be trotting merrily up to Lluc and asking for death instead of alliance. He'd gotten much too far in life to fall to this.

And the dungeon would be good for them. The Silent Market was one of Calarata's most prized things, their legacy spreading far and wide; and that was because they used to have Kerätä's arm guiding their collection. Easy to find treasures when you had the expertise of an elf who had spent hundreds of years doing nothing else.

But then Kerätä had died, and suddenly the Silent Market was led by silver-haired men who had a greater love of infighting than searching, and their stores were running dry. Too much pride to take in anyone who wasn't already a part of their cabal, and too much face to save to hire lesser adventurers to build their treasuries. Though to the outside world they were just as fierce as ever, that was no longer the case.

Piece by piece, they were making their way through Kerätä's collection, selling a new one right when the mystique around the Silent Market fell, every time that people began to speak of them as common nightmarketers instead of finders of unbelievable treasures. And it worked, because Kerätä had wonders above wonders, but, well.

There was only so much he had in his collection. They were selling at a much faster rate than they could collect, and their storage was drying out.

Soon, they wouldn't have anything, and the Silent Market would crumble under its own reputation.

With a dungeon, especially a dungeon that had made the bony-fanged beast of the Old World, they could fill their coffers with wonders unclaimed and pick right back up where Kerätä had left them. The wolf-wisp enclosed in quartz around Gonçal's neck was proof enough.

As if sensing his thoughts, Miquel's rant thundered to the next point he had been building towards. "And the disrespect to need alliance for a dungeon—we will, of course, be delving it, claiming all its prizes, but for Lluc to say we need a liaison, then surely he will be demanding greater taxes. Maybe even limiting what we can take out of it. If he thinks he has any power over us, then he'll force concessions out of us– concessions he wouldn't have been able to make if you hadn't sworn to him like a traitorous fool–"

And Gonçal blinked.

Miquel was staring at him, red-faced and furious, and he–

Without meaning to, Gonçal's eyes picked up that faint itch, his analysis mana spilling forth in faint luminosity; the world lit up in brilliant colours, eddies and whorls of mana, and data raced over his mind. Things like the scuffs in the larch-wood that made up the doorframe, the imperfections caused by age and weathering over the edge of the desk, the flawless gold in Miquel's cloak-brooch. The things that allowed him to perfectly discern the price of whatever he had just captured.

And the thing that allowed him to see that Miquel's heartbeat raced, that sweat beaded over his brow, that his eyes flicked from side to side.

He was nervous. Not necessarily of Gonçal, because he had worked long and hard to make himself seem relatively unassuming, never the type of man that could have done anything to Old Master Kerätä.

But nervous of what he would do.

Gonçal had gone right from childhood to Kerätä, and once he had escaped the endless collection halls and started learning, the things he found went to his master's market. And upon Kerätä's death, he had started to work directly for them. That was some ten, fifteen years where they had access to him; him, the youngest nightmarketer to join their cabal, a man on the ground to do the gathering that their aging selves couldn't.

And now, through no action of theirs, Gonçal suddenly had another master.

Miquel was worried he would leave them.

Gonçal had no intention of leaving. For all the Silent Market was an undead, crumbling thing, the public didn't know that, and the prestige that came from its name was well beyond anything he could have at any other nightmarketer's group. And, well.

Kerätä had taken him.

So Gonçal would take everything he'd ever had and make it his.

No, he would not be leaving the Silent Market.

But Miquel didn't know that.

Something bright and alert and altogether vicious curled through his stomach, in the part of him that echoed with things unknown and Old. Something alive.

"Is that all?" He asked.

Miquel puffed up with self-righteous fury again, but Gonçal stood from his chair with slow precision; his ancestry made him tall and he towered above this man, all brawn and scales and power. Silver-ranked he was, and that was mostly his analysis mana—his strength in the field came from his ancestry alone. Claws tapped, dagger sharp, on his sides.

Against Miquel, who hadn't seen the field in decades, there was no competition.

"If that is all," Gonçal said, measuring his words. "Then I must go. I have a meeting with the Scholar of the Adventuring Guild to discuss when I will be allowed to delve."

He did not, in fact, have a meeting. But Baron Ealdhere Darlington was the type of fellow who could be easily convinced to work with Gonçal, especially considering he had no one else in his boat. It would be easy for Gonçal to fake friendship and earn brighter deals from him.

And to the Silent Market, it would give him both a great power in the dungeon and standing elsewhere. Enough status that they couldn't risk just assassinating him, and enough they would truly fear he was leaving them.

And the more scared they were, the more power he had over them.

Gonçal brushed his hands over the necklace he wore, heavy on his throat; a bite of mana surged through his fingers, the wisp within raging as always. A symbol of what the dungeon had already given him.

Miquel's eyes snapped to it. On his heartbeat raced.

His lecture did not continue.

Gonçal smiled, fangs biting at the air, and swept from the room.

-

The night curled around him, late summer heat and the buzz of distant biting-flies. Calarata's white stone, still ash-dusted with storm-symbols, tiled roofs sloping down in cascading waves to the pebbled shore far below. Over the beach, a night-dark dock snaked through its wavering coast, arms extending outward like fangs.

Along the wood, boots clicking their heels against the salt-sprayed lacquer, Lluc Cardena Ferré strode.

In his crow-wing coat, he was near invisible, aided by the air-attuned mana that wavered and hissed around him until he was little more than indiscernible shadow. No trace of him would linger in this place, not with the task he was carrying out.

In the day, he spread his name as the Guildmaster, overseeing construction and building reputation. People looked at him and instead of casting their eyes down as they did in the presence of any of the Dread Crew, they now watched him with hunger, with curiosity; they wanted to claim the core.

They watched him.

Lluc looked to the velveted horizon, teeth set.

A week left.

To Varcís, it had been business as normal; gathering construction mages, building the Guild, hiring those loyal to the Dread Pirate who would serve in positions. Ealdhere had settled in as the new Scholar, Gonçal had agreed to be liaison, Callick had died a necessary and bloody death. All as planned.

And at night, over dark waters, he walked to the end of the dock and stared over the cove. The Alómbra Mountains wrapped around her, towering things of white-red, green lacing up their mighty backs. On one side, the jungle; on the other, the cliffs.

From behind those cliffs, sails grey and ragged, prow slicing through the water, a ship small and unassuming crept from the shadows. No lanterns reflected off the drifting waves, no mana-call to announce their presence; on they slithered, quiet as snakes, towards the dock.

Towards where Lluc waited.

A hand emerged from the stern, mana flashing over the nails; a coil of rope, magically awoken, sprung from the prow and lashed itself to the dock, tugging the rest of the ship after. More ropes, guided by invisible hands, pulled it closer, drawing the sails high upon the mast, scrubbing any trace of suspicion from the ship until it appeared as if it had been at the dock for days. With how many others cluttered against the wood, it would go wholly unnoticed; small enough not to need to be moored out in the cove, no labels, no engraved showings of wealth. Something to be looked at and forgotten.

Lluc would know. That was what he had purchased it for.

Varcís was a clever man, one beyond reckoning; but he did not deal in gold. He took his taxes in rare creatures and artefacts, to do what he would with them; the gold he tossed in the Dread Crew's coffers after paying for his lifestyle. Explicit numbers were not his forte.

And to him, the amount Lluc had used to pay for the Adventuring Guild was what it should be. It would line up perfectly; because he didn't know about the sleepless nights where Lluc did the construction himself, where he bought half the workers and threatened the rest into servitude. He didn't know about that, because if he did, Lluc would be dead, and he wasn't. Thus it had gone unnoticed.

And the money had gone elsewhere.

A ramp was pushed forth from the rail, clattering down and latching in place with another coil of enchanted rope. And from the unassuming, quiet little ship, three dozen men took step onto the dock before Lluc.

He examined them, mana spiraling out to conceal them all. Tall, broad, the look of laborers about them; hair a blend of darker browns, eyes pinched at the corners, brows thick and pronounced. Similar to those of Calarata, enough to blend in.

The Wandering Empire was just that; both wandering, and an empire. All those in their path had the option to either join or flee, and those that fled needed to find lives elsewhere. For someone who offered protection, there was little they wouldn't do, and they could be trusted to be loyal.

And Lluc needed those loyal.

In slow fashion, they spread out before him, filling the dock as it creaked and groaned beneath. Some of them marveled at distant Calarata, at her white walls and gleaming torch-lights; some shrugged off their heavy patterned robes. They would need to get clothes more commonly found around Calarata if they wanted to blend in.

But for now, they looked at him, and Lluc smiled. For two weeks had he waited for them, and now they had only a week left to establish themselves; but it would be enough. It had to be.

Lluc Cardena Ferré would not disappear.

"Welcome," he said, with a curl of mana to his voice that hummed between them. A flashy show of power, to emphasize that while some of them were Golds, they were not nearly as high-ranked Gold as him, and he would win if they were to battle. A necessary lesson when you were hiring those explicitly to betray others. "To Calarata."

The men muttered amongst themselves in their native language; something thick and garbled, heavy in constants. Üchlaghan, he thought; not that it really mattered. They would be speaking Viejabran now.

They already knew the deal, but there was no harm in re-enforcing it. "You will be serving me," Lluc said. "Delving into the dungeon, building a reputation, and spreading my name. Do not reveal that you know me or that this is your mission. You will be teaching the people of Calarata to follow me instead of the Dread Pirate."

The words almost tasted sweet. He could imagine it even now; it would be a slow and insidious thing, piece by piece. But Varcís didn't care about the common people, only about the taxes they paid him and the sea-drakes he killed before them to make his points. He wouldn't notice three dozen new arrivals, speaking only of the Guildmaster Lluc and not of him.

But those words would echo, and build up into a storm; and one day Varcís would look over Calarata, and realize it wasn't his.

Lluc didn't count himself a fool. Varcís was more powerful than him, and would likely always be; but Lluc could make himself invaluable in other ways, and in a city that thrived on being free of the Leóro Kingdom, they cared about who was their leader. Varcís was a shadowy enigma who could only be trusted to be powerful and unpredictable.

But Lluc could be more.

One man stepped forward, with a cropped beard and black eyes. He was tall, and the mana within him swirled with the strength of a Gold. "I am Ghasavâlk," he said in laborious Viejabran, heavily accented and slow. "Leader of these men. We will honour our deal."

Lluc wrinkled his nose. They'd blend in as well as birds amongst fish. "Go by Calaratan names," he said. "People listen more to those they think are native."

Ghasavâlk inclined his head, a bit of a smile curling his lips. "Subtle as a hunting-cat we will be," he agreed, and his men echoed behind him, heads deepening into a bow. "Power and glory will be brought to your name."

Well, they could be flatterers where it counted. Lluc had put in the work to make the deal good for them; gold enough for a comfortable life, three buildings in separate corners of Calarata for them to space themselves out in, detailed plans of what to do. This deal would free them from a life of constantly running from the Wandering Empire, and they damn well knew it.

Ghasavâlk looked at him, and there was a hint of curiosity in his eyes, something mana-bright that sparked within. "Do you fear discovery?" He asked, accent hanging over the words. "I have heard of the Dread Pirate, even in far Üchlagh. Is this plan worth what could fall?"

Lluc had stood before Varcís' borwood desk, had seen the sea-drake fall, had looked into void-black eyes and felt power. He knew Varcís, knew his strength, knew the cost of failure.

And he knew the glory of success.

So he smiled, and mana dripped from his teeth. "I am not the kind of man that dies."