Dragonheart Core

That was. Ah.

Ghasavâlk disappeared from the cove entrance, clutching the corpse of the sarco, and faded beyond my sight.

Gone, then. But not dead. Not damaged. Not destroyed.

Seros had scared him off. Maybe they could have fought, but I wasn't about to ignore that he had needed to sacrifice Syçalia to distract Veresai, rather than command her directly. My Named were not to be sucked under his thrall, lost to the power of his words. He had known that. Had been aware of it enough to immediately cut his losses when Seros entered the battlefield.

I did not understand his powers, not in the slightest.

He had not been defeated by my dungeon, hardly even threatened—it had been his choice, careless and casual, to leave. He had merely decided that the time was right to dip his head and retreat back to the shadows, to curl up without exposing his stomach and venture to higher planes. His fellow Gold he had left as some parting gift, a reason to keep Veresai pinned to her floor as he ventured further; it had been entirely his decision.

I had not beaten him.

And though he had neither beaten me, it didn't feel like a victory.

Fucking hells. All this time I had feared and gnawed over choices regarding lesser Silvers, and I had never quite realized that the threat was far greater.

At least there was one mercy in this world—and that was Seros, mist coiling around his body and flowing from his scales like makeshift wings, tearing into Syçalia. She'd already lost an arm to his claws and was stumbling drunkenly back, a fumbling thing in the darkness and the horde, and his fangs snapped her head from her shoulders with easy precision.

Ghasavâlk's thrall held until the last second. She twitched once, shuddering, and died.

And power exploded outward.

She had been a Gold. Whatever mana was hidden under Syçalia's skin was far and above anything I'd seen before, and I knew just how powerful Silvers were. I still didn't understand the specifics of how killings worked in my dungeon, how the mana was divided amongst the victors, but I knew there was something deliberate about it. In the way that the kobold traps gave back to those that had created them, and how Chieftess earned from directing her tribe in battle, and how the webweavers split their kills evenly.

So it would not just be Seros, with his fangs stained red with blood, who would benefit—Veresai, her horde, the mage ratkins, and all others would receiving this mana, bright and sparking and more than there had ever been before, and I couldn't wait to see what happened.

And I wouldn't have long to wait, as almost immediately, my core lit up in golden letters. I pounced on the information with glee.

The Stone Jungle burst into light, the shuddering glory of power beyond—half a dozen luminous constrictors immediately settled into becoming crowned cobras, no other options of particular interest, and fighting Syçalia had shown me the versatility of ranged opponents. They hissed once, a pleased, lazy sort of sound, and curled up under their glow.

Two more had the option of becoming jeweltone serpents, with their burgeoning interest in magic perhaps from their continued rivalry with the mage ratkins, and I wasted no longer before selecting that. I would certainly never reject magic.

But they were not the only options.

For in the far back, right next to Syçalia's sluggishly-bleeding corpse, collapsed on the ground with a wound over its head—a luminous constrictor, one who had nearly given its life to kill Syçalia. Its eyes were glassy with pain, breathing with a rasp in its scaled chest, but it was still alive, and now Gold-level mana exploded through it.

Congratulations! Your luminous constrictor is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Jeweltone Serpent (Rare): Learning from those around it, they sacrifice their scales for the elegance of gems. Though they are slow and ponderous, they can force great feats of magic, and only need replace their jewels once they are used up.

Astral Constrictor (Uncommon): Alight in the glow of the stars, this creature has learned from the psionic touch of its empress and found solace in its power. It serves as a gleaming reflection for her reach, greatly strengthening her presence.

Spectral Serpent (Rare): The paleness of its scales are more than disguise; it slips between the death and the dreaming, phasing from the world to hide from mortal worries. Its strikes are unseen, its fangs unnoticed, until the moment is far too late.

Well. That was certainly an unexpected range.

I hadn't particularly noticed this serpent before, simply one more of Veresai's endless horde, but it had thrown itself into the fray with a determination that did not come commonly to the more passive constrictors. It—he—was an old thing, though not enormously so, but serving the empress serpent had granted him far more mana that he would have found on the higher floors. Appropriate, really. There was a reason Veresai had been so frightening Ghasavâlk had rather sacrificed Syçalia than face her head on.

But those evolution options were tempting for all different kinds of reasons. Not the jeweltone, given I had others of those, but between astral and spectral—hm. Astral did immediately call to me, if only for giving Veresai another fang to adorn her well-deserved crown, even if I didn't fully understand what power he would be granting her. Spectral was easy enough to tell, taking from Syçalia's attunement, and that power certainly seemed the kind welcome in my halls.

The choice wasn't only mine, however. I ducked into his head, hazy under the pressing weight of evolution, and scanned through what ran there. And I saw, in his thoughts, a fear—a deep and gripping fear, the kind that came from the wound he had sustained in battle. It would have been a mortal wound for a creature outside of my dungeon, without my healing touch and the mana flowing throughout. Not even the blade of her dagger, just the pommel, struck over the head hard enough to knock scales loose and send him flopping to the ground.

The fear of the death, after he had pushed himself to attack. A terribly wretched kind of fear.

And one I could allow him to avoid.

I selected spectral serpent, to let him dive between worlds and escape unharmed from wounds like these. He disappeared under the glow, his scales losing what little colour they had already, a ghost soon to be born from the fear. Something I would certainly welcome.

And more in the Stone Jungle—far from the fight, having taken a position crouched on an extended piece of stone with her little paws held up and mana sparking over her emerald eyes, the eldest mage ratkin shuddered as the weight of Syçalia's death fell over her.

A long time coming. I dove into her options with a pleased sort of purr.

Congratulations! Your mage ratkin is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Illusionist Ratkin (Rare): Small in size but large in creativity, it whips together great whorls of mana to cast a shadow far larger than any it could have. Hulking and deadly, or slinking invisible, or distractingly bright; any form is theirs to conjure.

Forestfall Ratkin (Rare): Caretaker and commander of nature, this creature uses its nature attunement to control great swathes of forests and flora, to serve at its biding and do as beckoned.

Dire Rat (Uncommon): A beast of untold potential. For too long have they skittered underfoot, unfeared as mere vermin; no longer. Growing to monstrous sizes with fangs and fury alike, they are the fear of many an adventurer.

Her mind was soft with evolution already, humming under the light that covered her earthen brown fur, but even then I felt her pride.

She had been the first of my rats to truly carve an empire for herself, to scrape and tear mana from the jewels I'd strewn about the Fungal Gardens. Long ago had she evolved, and then taken other rats under her wing, shown them the power of consumption when the prize was a mana-filled jewel.

Oh, how the dire rat called to me, a monster of endless size, and the illusionist ratkin, with deceit above anything my dungeon had; but she had swallowed the gem to earn her mana, and I would not part her from it.

I selected forestfall ratkin, and pushed vague thoughts of satisfaction through to her. She churred, a soft and gentle sound, and curled up under a bed of billowing moss. I would protect her while she slept, but after that, I rather suspected there would be little on this floor that could challenge her properly, not with the forest under her command.

As a sea-drake, I had been well-content with my size as the greatest deterrent, but small things could often be just as deadly as those enormous. If not more.

Oh, she would be quite a little monster when she finished evolving. I couldn't wait.

Even now, the Stone Jungle echoed in the wake of those evolutions, Syçalia's corpse steaming as her mana flooded out of her in great pulsing bounds. Veresai hissed, a deep and rumbling sound, her horns gleaming with the deep blue-white of starlight. She seemed a touch peeved she hadn't evolved also, even as the mana flooded through her. A greedy thing she was.

But she'd proven her might, and the fourth floor held strong under her command, for all that Ghasavâlk had scraped his way deeper. She had earned her strength and the reputation of her floor—the next evolution would come with time.

Empress serpent, Named, and a tyrannical warlord. Truly, she was a creature after my own heart.

Beside her, Seros hissed, throat bobbing as he swallowed Syçalia's head whole—his tail lashed and mist scattered from his scales, despite not being on the Skylands, summoned from the air at the call of his blessing. I could feel his displeasure, the burning hatred he felt at having fallen to Syçalia's distraction, to Ghasavâlk's thrall—not something I had exactly prepared him against.

Not something I would forget in the future, considering Ghasavâlk had survived, and made it out of my dungeon with far more knowledge than I wanted him to have. The fucking bastard.

Soon, that Gold-ranked mana of his would be mine, and I would feed his attunement to Nicau like the finest of wines.

And then, far above, something distant from Syçalia and untouched by her mana, another strand of golden letters fluttered through my awareness, the gentle caress of attention. I paused, points of awareness flickering up—had another creature come in when I had been distracted? Another invader?

But no. It was just a lacecap, huddled in the deep darkness of the Fungal Gardens, a rat's desiccated corpse clutched tight to its rippling base.

One that was glowing with the pale light of evolution.

Oh. Oh!

Congratulations! Your lacecap is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Shadowed Lacecap (Uncommon): Born from darkness, this mushroom fades from the waking world into the darkness beyond. There is nothing to see, nothing to fear, until those who venture too close are caught.

Bloomcap (Uncommon): No longer content with a sheltered territory, it spreads through enormous clouds of spores, filtering through the air. Whatever they land on they grow from, be it land, water, or the lungs of any unfortunate creature.

Reaper's Cap (Rare): The beasts of burden and battle, to be made anew. All those who die within its grasp are puppeted, brought back to undeath, to serve as lures for greater and greater prey.

My word.

Rarely had I encountered such a diverse selection of options—though I supposed that was with the territory of evolutions beyond the first, especially for one that had been within my dungeon for so long. The shadowed lacecap was from Nuvja's blessing, but the other two were unfamiliar to me—perhaps what the lacecap had earned itself?

Even now, looking up, I could see how massive it was; a sprawling thing of frankly unrealistic proportions, gills sprawling out into faux tendrils with the rotten corpses of flies and crickets stuck to the tips. The rat's body curled around its base, fur sunken in and pale bones sticking through its paper-thin skin, jagged edges protruding as if from a century's long death.

A little monster, and one I hadn't even noticed until Ghasavâlk had fed it.

Of all the options, however, there was only one that spoke to what it already had—the shadowed lacecap was glorious and well deserving on its current floor, and the bloomcap was a killer beyond what could be avoided by mortal means, but that was not the creature I beheld before me. It was a deceitful thing, one built of trickery and lies, and reaper was a deliciously apt word for it.

And if reanimating flies was what it had done without an evolution, I couldn't wait to see what it did after.

I selected reaper's cap and let the pale glow overtake it.

And then I sat back, coiling my awareness around my core in a protective spiral, deep beneath the Skylands and the Hungering Reefs and the seventh floor, still unnamed. Once more, the realization of what had actually occurred sunk through me, at the cove entrance, at the missing sarco, at the danger and destruction left behind.

Well.

I couldn't quite say I was happy with what had happened, with corpses still rotting through my dungeon and horror left in wake of the escaped Gold, but I was rather pleased with these evolutions.

It seemed I would be needing them.