Dragonheart Core

Syçalia had hated this dungeon the entire time, but this was a particularly personal sort of hatred.

The fourth floor started bad and descended into terrible, dipping its toe into hellish whenever the fancy struck its mood. It was a choking nightmare of identical tunnels without stone walls but instead algae, an emerald green carpet crawling over every inch, drifting with bioluminescent spores as the only source of light.

In description, that wouldn't be much a threat to her, with Gold-sense at her beck and call—more wasted mana to avoid bashing her nose into the wall, but a waste she'd suffer to chase away the worst of the shadows in the curl of her attunement.

In truth, the walls were a touch more proactive than that.

Syçalia snarled, reaching out to bat away another whip of algae before slipping out of the world; its thorned embrace curled around where she had been, ridge-like blades woven through its emerald sheen, and unknotted itself in a fury at missing its prey. She coalesced further away, but her feet landed heavily on another section of algae, and the whip sprang for her with a hunger.

Overextended, enough she could sidestep with a second of dissolving into mana and slice her dagger through its knobbled base, and then have to spring back from another godsdamn whip.

Clearly they had some kind of intelligence, considering how Ghasavâlk had been bellowing khangûi at every new section to get them to freeze, but Syçalia honestly wouldn't mind even one extra thought for them to learn from their mistakes.

Or thought, perhaps, because she wasn't quite sure how this worked still. Calarata had its share of dryads, tribes bleeding over from the unnamed jungle around the Alómbra Mountains with their greenery sprawled through the streets and even sitting pretty in the Dread Crew, but those were beings, not plants—most those of the floral persuasion were content to be little more than food.

Not this algae, though. Or the mushroom on the first floor. Or the mangroves on the second.

All things within a dungeon have minds, Ghasavâlk had said.

She wondered, in the part she would never say aloud to reveal she didn't know everything, just how his attunement worked. Ukhân-analt—grasp of the mind—was not a terribly descriptive title, and every time she'd seen him use it the words had come in his odd tongue instead of Viejabran. Could he only use commands with that language, or was it a choice? She had thought his strange manner of speaking was an accent, but there was something noticeable in how he didn't issue commands to her; merely questions, open and leading, or statements involving them both.

Whatever it was, it was one more damned secret in this accursed dungeon, and she wanted nothing to do with it.

Which was fantastic, because this was easily the longest floor by far. In the dark, in the lingering shades of grey her Gold-sense limited her to, there was no way to tell how much time had passed. But it was certainly longer than the previous, with a bite that even the deepening call of mana couldn't soothe. Fucking hells.

She'd bitched about the watery depths of the last floor, but it seemed the dungeon was determined to disappoint.

Ghasavâlk seemed miserable in the muggy heat, which was the only modecorum of justice Syçalia had found in this world, and she took great pains to make her own stops at rat dens along the way so he had to wait. The little thieving bastards were even more prevalent on this floor, but they were no longer burrowing rats; they were an odd variant, with silver-grey fur and tails that slithered like snakes. Curious, although less so with the way they watched her, fury in their eyes as she plucked jewels and gems from their den.

It took her Gold-sense to find them as well, which was an extra layer of a concerning thought. They cloaked themselves in darkness and danced away from her dagger with the grace of acrobats, disappearing into the volatile algae like a second home, and though both she and it swatted at them they disappeared before they could be caught. Irritating, though she could admire their spirit.

Or, she had admired their spirit, until she noticed the damn golden clasp on her left boot was gone.

Fucking bastards.

She would skin the whole dungeon of them for the slight.

From the darkness, a chittering sound—Syçalia bit back another curse and slipped from the world just as a pair of sickle-like arms cleaved through where her thighs had been, carapace glinting off the bioluminescent lights. Another of the damned hunting mantises, common enough beasts but made suitably more dangerous in the darkness of the tunnels. Useful in their own way, though, as she dipped back into the world behind it and carved through its chitinous skull—they were far too common to take as spoils, so she had taken to dumping their corpses at the interconnections between paths.

Because it wasn't enough to be endless tunnels. It had to be a maze, too.

Ghasavâlk stared at her, head tilted to the side, mana sparking from the corner of his lips as he held the algae at bay long enough for her to dump the corpse in the path of where they'd just come from. The strain was a bitter thing for her, since she was merrily transponding herself between body and mana by the hundreds, but Ghasavâlk hadn't seemed to feel the emptiness. Even in the kobold's den, he'd only struggled to control the large number; his mana stayed thick and it stayed coiling.

Gods, she hated him. Brief and bloody fantasies flashed through her head, and she let them linger long enough to smile before pushing on.

Through the dark and through the endless they went, First Mate Lluc's damned commands hanging in heavy weight over her head; there was no part of this adventure that seemed viable, not anymore. They'd found the next floor, hadn't they? She'd stuffed her pockets with jewels aplenty from the rat dens. It would be easy to slip back, to follow the trail of corpses, and shove her knowledge into the Dread Crew's palms before disappearing once more. Simple.

But these tunnels were not kind, and less than that for one alone; for all she was a Gold, she had not gotten there by overconfidence.

Serpents slithered through their surroundings, mere shadows in the thick of the algae; the lithe creatures were annoyingly fitting in this maze, like the tunnels were snakes themselves in the darkness. The luminous kind, which had the annoying habit of responding with light whenever they were spooked, but Ghasavâlk's mind sense was enough to point them out in advance, and Syçalia did her damnedest to creep around them without either side being bothered. She mostly succeeded, and when she didn't, an impromptu impaling did the trick nicely.

But it wasn't always neat and tidy, if anything in this dungeon could be. Because after another snake slithered by, Ghasavâlk guiding her to its location, something changed.

From the depths, nearly hidden with its diamond scales buried underneath the algae, the serpent twitched. An odd thing, racing down its spine, rattling in its bonds and exposing its pale underbelly, forked tongue flicking out.

Then it looked up, and instead of white, luminous blue eyes looked back.

Syçalia stilled, and something crawled over her awareness, a spider's dance down the length of her spine. The serpent was still shifting, moving, swaying back and forth like a slithering hunter, but its eyes were no longer its own, and the blue was like nothing it'd had before.

They stared at each other, and she got the sinking idea that something else was staring back.

"Hells," she murmured, barely a whisper in the depths of the tunnels. "Ghasavâlk. Here."

The man glanced back, following her finger; the serpent was there, frozen, tongue flicking in and out. Little more than one of the luminous constrictors she'd hardly paid a thought to on the higher floors, but here its eyes were glowing, and there was something missing in its movement, in its actions. Something aware.

Syçalia slipped from the world, coalesced above it, and drove her dagger through its skull.

The blue disappeared in a flash as the serpent died, blood arching out in scarlet spray; but there was no puff of mana beyond the expected, nothing to explain what the blue was. Ghasavâlk crept over, eyes narrowed; but it was a corpse now, regular, hardly more than the dozens she'd left behind on the higher floors.

Syçalia stood, shaking the thing off her blade; it fell to the ground with a disquieting splat. Maybe she had overreacted.

Or maybe you could never overreact in a dungeon.

She tightened her grip and kept on.

The serpents were still there, but none of their eyes glowed; she watched them with a burning suspicion, the kind that itched to loose her daggers in their scales. They crept through the tunnels with the same blind hunt they had before, searching for rats and lesser bugs, easily dispatched or ignored in equal measure.

And then the serpents stopped showing up.

And then the rats disappeared.

And then the bugs went silent.

By the time Ghasavâlk froze, Syçalia was about to claw out of her own damn skin.

They were crouched in the darkness of a tunnel, algae rustling on each side, boxed in and crowded with threats; but not tangible things, no creatures, just the idea of one. The lingering pain in the back of her head that told her something was approaching. Was approaching her.

From the shadows emerged a monster.

Twenty feet long, moving with the silence of night distilled down a living form, it pulled itself from the shadows. Midnight blue scales, the deep-wrought depths of some carved beast, and above a twisting head of horns. Moonlight, almost, or silver, or stars—and beneath, four slitted eyes.

A serpent, crowned in power she had not felt in a very long time.

Something in Syçalia's skull ached.

For the first time in the thankfully short time she'd known him, Ghasavâlk looked truly shocked—his black eyes were wide, lips parted, even as mana sparked over his tongue and dripped from his teeth. Whatever this snake was—if it was even a snake anymore—it wasn't what he had expected.

Syçalia hadn't been expecting it either, but it wasn't like she'd say that. "This is no time to die," she hissed, nudging him with her boot. And certainly not for her.

Ghasavâlk hardly seemed to hear her, entranced as he was. The serpent reared higher, its crown brushing at the algae overhead, for all it did not dare strike. Whatever this– this thing was, it was the ruler of these halls, and there awoke a terrible fear in her, the likes of which she had not felt since claiming her first kill.

But Syçalia Celessé Temoro did not crumble, and she did not die.

Ghasavâlk exhaled, and mana bloomed alongside his breath, no spell or casting but merely a latent burst of power. It sparked like darkness as it fell to the tunnel's floor. "You are… like me," he murmured, hand twitching like he wanted to extend it.

Bloody hells. If he started turning into a snake, she was going to gut him herself. Their powers weren't that fucking similar.

The serpent rumbled, something deep and melodic, and did not strike; it stayed opposite them, unthreatening, its four eyes peering through the darkness like a set of moons. Even the iridescent edges of its scales were hardly more than the gleams of starlight, something enveloping and warm.

There was a– a beauty, perhaps, in the strange, in the arcane. The serpent's eyes glowed with a pulsating blue, the deep, summoning call of something unknown, flickering off the edges of its iridescent scales. Her jewels no longer felt like the prize they had been before, not in material treasures, or at least not in what she had found so far—what could the serpent have, in its nest? Something brighter? Something–

"Kharûl!"

With the shriek of twisting stone, the algae lurched off the side walls at Ghasavâlk's call; it wove together its many arms and whips and lashes into a shield, filling the tunnel, blotting out the glow from the serpent's horns. The compulsion broke the second Syçalia couldn't see its eyes, gasping, staggering back and nearly losing her daggers to clammy fingers.

"Fuck," she breathed, eyes wild, nearly trembling out of her skin. "Fuck, I– I almost–"

Hands, grasping at her shoulders, hauling her back upright—Ghasavâlk, skin sallow, teeth gritted, mana howling like a caged beast in his skull. "Up," he commanded, and she scrambled to listen, vicious retorts dead and dying under the fear that grasped at her heart. "And run!"

She ran.

The algae leapt and lashed for them but it had met a cautious Gold before, and she was not one now; her blades flashed and her body melded and she was a hurricane through the tunnels. Ghasavâlk lumbered at her heels but she sprang forward, light as wind, jewels jangling and spilling from her pockets.

"Left!" Ghasavâlk barked, and Syçalia didn't have a damn choice but to listen to him—mana coiling through her Gold-sense, she stumbled over the desiccated corpse of a platemail bug and charged, daggers out and rigid, through the darkness. Right, straight, right—pulling directions seemingly out of his ass she followed his words like they were all she had, baring her fangs, still the thrall lingering in the depths of her awareness.

Until eventually, with aching, heaving breaths, Ghasavâlk slowed—Syçalia stumbled back to meet him, huddled in the darkness, glaring at the algae like that would hold it back. All she needed was a second, just to think, just to– to understand what had happened.

"Hells," she gasped, fingers knotted through her hair like it would do a damn thing. "Hells, fucking hells, what was that thing?"

Ghasavâlk breathed, a heady, shallow thing. "A Chosen," he said grimly, mana still sparking around his black eyes. "A being of the dungeon. Power above what is known to be had and to own."

Gods. Lovely. She'd thought the dungeon itself was the threat, the passages, the ecosystems tucked beneath old stone and mountains, but it seemed there were monsters aplenty within. Gods. Gods.

Ghasavâlk grimaced, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I hoped it did not have them," he muttered, kicking at a greyed strand of algae like he was attacking the snake instead. "We will have to hope there are no more."

Syçalia went very still.

Her gaze slid up, carefully, to land on his—in her Gold-sense, there was little more than shadows for a face, but it was enough to see he was looking back at her. There was nothing to see but the hollow of his furrowed brows.

"That sounds like you think we'll be continuing forward," she said, very delicately, a dagger's edge.

Ghasavâlk did not hear the danger, or he ignored it, and merely inclined his head. "We will continue."

Syçalia laughed. It was a wild and bruised sound, ferocious and fanatical, the delirium of encountering a moron your life was now sworn to in the depths of this accursed place. "Are you mad?" She shouted, knuckles white around her dagger.

"We will continue," Ghasavâlk repeated mildly.

"I'm sorry," she said, hissing in a way that burned of the opposite meaning, "but we nearly died. Your grasp of the fucking mind doesn't seem to matter much when someone else can grasp the other side, huh? If you're as damn useless as I thought?"

She was breathing hard, air hissing between her clenched teeth. This was– she wasn't like those barbaric Golds, those who sought for Electrum and Mythril, who wanted to scar their names across the sky. She didn't need this dungeon, didn't need this threat, didn't need this death.

But Ghasavâlk merely stood there.

"I believe you misunderstand," he said, and he looked at her, and he was speaking Viejabran but she stiffened regardless. "From the mind of the beast, I took knowledge of these tunnels. I know the way out—and I know the way down."

Syçalia couldn't look away.

"We will continue," he said, "and I will lead you out once we are through; or you may go alone."

She didn't know how to read him, how to examine his face in the darkness and see what he was thinking; but he spoke with bland apathy, and there was no mocking lilt to his voice, no pressing manipulation. It was a fact—she came with him, or she fought the serpent.

Gods, she hated him, something old and aching. No wonder the First Mate had paired them together—Ghasavâlk was little more than the monsters he hunted.

"Fine," she bit out, and stepped back. "Fucking– fine, you bastard. Lead the way."

Ghasavâlk inclined his head and started down the tunnels again.

She snarled in silence and followed.

There was no need for corpses now, with Ghasavâlk leading them with soulless ease; but the creatures increased, hungry, boiling at the seams as the mana thickened around them. More serpents, with eyes that burned blue as soon as she saw them—faster and faster she killed them, panting, blood slicking over her calves and pooling in her boots.

Her Gold-sense hissed, retreating from her eyes in a flash of mana—after the endless darkness of the tunnels, this was the sun, arching through her eyes in the white of quartz-light and the subtle green of algae-light. She hissed, slipping from the world for a momentary relief, coalescing but a second later to look upon this new threat.

A forest, or a blind man's idea of it—instead of normal trees there were twisted stone growths, spidering outward, and instead of leaves they were crowned in algae, roiling masses of green. Something like a memory of a jungle, just wrong enough it reflected in the corners of her mind, like the spider-choked mangroves from the second floor.

The dungeon certainly had a theme.

The room itself was enormous, a sprawling cavern of monumental heights, jagged and wild in its freedom, an aching contrast to the rest of the floor. Trees scattered throughout, dens carved into the surrounding walls, a mess of madness.

She did not like it, but she saw it, and she carved it into her memory. Enough to tell the Scholar, to tell Lluc—surely it would be enough, with the crocodile's corpse and the knowledge of the dungeon's Chosen.

It was weak, it was pathetic, but she looked to Ghasavâlk to see if he agreed.

By the look in his eyes, he did not.

"We go on," he said blandly, uncaring, and strode into the false woods.

Syçalia bared her teeth, knuckles white around her daggers, but didn't dare stay alone in this unknown territory.

Moss billowed around her, gentle swaying fields like a prairie if the stone hanging overhead wasn't deterrent enough, the scattered grasp of stars. More of the bulbous spiders she'd had the pleasure of avoiding with her Gold-sense in the dungeon proper skulked here, weaving webs of pure iron and stone and jewels, jagged enough to cut to shreds, watching her with beady eyes. Serpents slithered through, both luminous constrictors and odd hooded ones and even those that left pale scales scattered in their wake, but the monster was not there, and Syçalia slipped from the world to avoid their gaze as Ghasavâlk pushed them away with careful words. Onward they crept, sticking to the sides, out of the main light.

An idea that backfired as Syçalia stepped too close to a den's hollow in one side wall and something scurried from its depths, tail lashing behind—a rat. Impressive.

A rat on its hind legs, far larger than any others she'd seen before, and with a coiling spark of mana wrapped deep in its chest and threading through its channels.

Hells. Mages.

She could go intangible all she liked, but that form was pure mana—something that was, unfortunately, rather receptive to other mana. That was why she had never been a fighter, never a star clawing for higher glory; her attunement carried her to aces in the mundane, amidst the Unranked and Bronzes who could do little more than touch her, but it did not have the same weight in the upper echelons.

But then came First Mate Lluc and fucking Ghasavâlk, and that choice had been removed from her.

The rat scampered forward, earthen brown fur stirring in an unfelt breeze; it had green eyes, little emeralds in the depths of its face, and a hunger that had nothing to do with food beyond.

"Back," Syçalia snarled, daggers held out like twin promises. "Or I will wipe your miserable line from existence."

It squeaked, ears flicking up. Jade energy flicked over its claws, curving up the length of its tail.

Hells. This would not be where she died.

Syçalia slipped from the world and threw herself back, deeper into the room, following the call of Ghasavâlk's mana—and from behind, a lance of green, spiraling through her intangible form with a deep, bonecrushing crack.

She flew, half from speed and half from force, mana pushed apart and scattered; coalesced on her knees, slumping forward, arm reforming seconds after the rest of her body had already come together, nearly blown away. Blood poured from her scalp, from her shoulder; gentle little cuts, all things considered, but they were wide and they were long and they burned, heavy in the knowledge the rat had been powerful enough to unmake her if it had so gotten the chance. Even now, she could feel it, could feel more of them, gathering forces somewhere in the floor.

Syçalia staggered upright, dragging herself to her feet, heart thundering in her chest. Too powerful. It was– it was a fucking rat, how had it carved such a clean blow through her? They had to leave.

But Ghasavâlk wasn't looking at her. He was standing in the middle of the room, head tilted to the side, looking to the far back with such a look of empty curiosity it made her teeth ache.

"The den," Ghasavâlk murmured, eyes enormous in his face. "There is a person within, no?"

She didn't care. She didn't fucking care.

"Ghasavâlk," Syçalia hissed, blood carving a line down her face. It had been so long, so terrifyingly long since she had been touched by physical pain, by something more than the strain of overdoing her attunement or the general scuffs of a living life. Reaching Silver had smoothed over most mortal concerns and Gold even moreso, but now she was here, and there was blood in her face, and she hadn't escaped.

Mages in the walls, and more unknown dangers below. The den didn't matter—they had to leave.

Ghasavâlk stared forward and did not move, but his attention flicked, eyes shifting to the side like he had sensed something. He exhaled, very softly.

And, with a pouring of icy regret down her spine, Syçalia turned to see a serpent. Not one of the luminous constrictors, something longer, with deep grey scales and a flared hood and glowing blue eyes.

It stared at her, unmoving, until the gleam in its eyes disappeared, and from the tunnel entrance of the room slithered the crowned monster.

Gods, it was back.

Slowly it moved, slender in its bulk and graceful in its movement; not a creature of hunting like its underlings, for the fangs and the fury, but its horns gleamed with moonlit power and the aura that spilled forth was undeniable. A beast above any this dungeon had to offer.

Syçalia grasped for her mana, coiled it through her spine like a living thing. She would not fall under its thrall again.

It came through the forest to coil before them, and all around, from every corner of the hall and dens and patches of billowing moss, a horde came to follow. Serpents of every kind, moving with the blind obedience of the foolish, of the fallen. A thrall, or maybe it didn't have to be—maybe they served willingly. Syçalia snarled.

And Ghasavâlk stepped forward, arms spread.

"Chosen," he said, and gods, he was talking to the fucking thing, chatting like some amicable friend over lunch no matter the stiffness to his spine. He should have been crawling for his life, not– not whatever the fuck this was. "I do not mean harm."

Yeah, well, the serpent sure did.

It seemed to agree with her, four eyes flashing, a flicker of mana arching over its crown of horns. Not one for immediate attacks, though for the life of her—which might not be all that much longer—Syçalia couldn't figure out why. Why it hadn't struck as soon as it'd seen them in the tunnel, or commanded its horde to take them out, why it was playing around in this façade of something else. Why it was letting Ghasavâlk talk to it.

And then she saw Ghasavâlk's eyes gleam, a spark of light, like it was talking back.

All of her prayers had never seemed so useless.

"Ah," Ghasavâlk said, still unconcerned, still uncaring. "Will you let us pass?"

The serpent rumbled.

That was a no, then. Syçalia tightened her grip on her daggers, mana coiling fragile grips through her spine. This was not an ideal world, far from it, some mockery of hells from a pious fool who hadn't yet realized they would not win their deity over; but Syçalia had been through these hells before. She'd gotten herself sworn from every dungeon in Leóro, Abhalón, and the Wandering Empire—and those were only the ones organized enough to bar her entry, rather than simply trying to run her through. She would not die here. She would not.

"Apologies," Ghasavâlk said, and turned to face her, tilting his head to the side. Stared at her, impassive, the jaded docility that sat on his skin like armour. The serpent hissed, unused to being ignored, but Syçalia couldn't tear her gaze from Ghasavâlk's eyes. She saw, much as before, the same man who had dropped the burrowing rat to its death, that had watched its corpse with nothing but idle curiousity.

Apologies for what? She wanted to ask, but there was a part of her that knew the answer, and she pulled on her mana a second too late.

"Sarnulakh."

The air rippled in wake of the word, none of the darkness of their surroundings but something deeper, something old, the weight of worlds and the black between them. Syçalia hissed and flinched back, but her own attunement slipped away, and she could not look anywhere else.

And though she did not speak his language, still the word sunk through her, and still she understood.

Distract.

Her daggers came up unheeded, unchallenged, the thrall settled deep and rotted into her core. She turned to face the serpentine beast, face slack, movements sure but not her own—the dungeon sank its fangs into her shoulders but it would no longer be her death, not as her consciousness buried beneath the darkness of Ghasavâlk's command.

Lunge forward, the hollowness in her mind murmured, beneath her screams of fury, and her body obeyed, blades up. The monster's crown of horns glowed, its horde racing at its call.

Her last sight, before Syçalia Celessé Temoro lost herself to the battle and the blood and the breaking, was Ghasavâlk, strolling through the mist-choked lands, as he disappeared down to deeper floors.