Dragonheart Core

Her world had changed.

Veresai hissed, tail lashing, as she abandoned the corpse and the madness in its wake. The invader with her power to disappear from attacks like they hadn't existed was infuriating in a way she hadn't experienced, and that was before the Voice Below had told her just how she had been only a distraction. A chance for the other invader, the one with the mind, to escape.

But before she'd even understood that, before she'd ground her fangs into the frustration and ripped it to marrow and bone, the Voice Below had said words to the stone her home was carved from, and titled it.

Not Naming, not the mind-opening power-giving awareness-making thing she cradled close to her connected soul, but another. Teeth, though her floor had already had fangs. Sharpness where there had once been fragility.

Her world had changed. There was something different, something in the air, something in the tunnels. Still her horde spread, bringing her knowledge of those outer edges, but there was something else in her floor, claiming a greater power than her. It moved the halls, shifted the stone, hollowed understanding from what had once been a map of perfection within her mind. Danger, yes, but danger not from her—danger from something else. An insult. A goddess, it was called, in response to the titling; something of softness and tendrils, like a spider's silk, but thoroughly unwelcome.

Her world had changed.

But if her world had changed, then she would change to beat it.

Veresai inclined her head, silver light spilling from her crown; her horde shuddered and raced for her unspoken command, slithering off in search of food or information. Anything to keep them from falling to her fangs in failure. She hissed, a soft and pressing sound, and flicked her forked tongue—still mana sat on the air, heavy and unwelcome, both from the goddess and the corpse. A corpse that had fed her, filled her channels with power well beyond anything lesser rats and crawling bugs could obtain, a fire and a fury she hadn't tasted since the last battle with humans where she had ground victory from their bones.

But this body was not the only invader. It was just the only corpse.

Veresai looked to the back of her sheltered home, where the tunnels moved, but too slowly to stop who had escaped.

The man. The human, the invader, the one who had spoken mind-to-mind with her, who had ripped understanding from her and slunk through the shadows to flee; he hadn't been like the woman, simplistic in her attacks. No. He had been… familiar, in ways she didn't appreciate, with a mouth of mana and mind of madness. Infuriating.

But though Veresai was loath to admit it, she knew that he had been powerful. Not more than her, considering she had chased him away and he had abandoned his underling just to die at her fangs rather than face her himself, but powerful still. Something she hadn't quite understood.

So she hissed another command to her horde, vitriolic obedience embedded into melded minds, and turned back to her den. All fled before her, clearing the path with silent fear, as she preferred it. There was no victory that could not be claimed from obedience.

Even the horned serpent, who was her as she had been before, without Name or soul or new heights, knew not to upset her. Oh, Veresai would not have been so subservient then, even against an empress serpent; but that was why she had been chosen to be Named, and not this upstart. Veresai would allow her to live for now. There would have to be someone to claim these wretched little halls eventually, when she descended to new lands. Particularly with the goddess kicking around and trying to claim her power was what made this land dangerous.

It wasn't.

But in the back of the den, wrapped around moss and the gentle trickle of water from stone overhead, was a body—not yet a corpse, though it had very nearly been one, but cloaked in deep scarlet scales and slitted eyes, it had been spared.

Kriya, the serpent-born invader, snake made human, human made snake.

She was asleep even now, the Voice Below pouring soothing mana over her eyes, keeping them closed and breath soft. An odd thing, this creature, with all the beautiful elegance of scales dressed up in the garish legs and limbs of humans. A hood at least, that could snap open in wide crimson blotches and fangs behind a strange fleshy mouth.

But asleep. She had been asleep since the attack that brought her, since Veresai had ripped her mind to shreds in an attempt to control her, and been forced to lay her to sleep instead.

Since Veresai had attempted to control her, and given someone else the task. Someone who had not yet succeeded.

As she approached, horns held high and four eyes narrowed, another presence flinched and coiled in on himself. The crowned cobra, deep grey-blue scales, turned to face her with cautious eyes.

Veresai hissed, curved fangs dripping venom. Insults and acrimony bled through her psionic power.

With fragile obedience, the crowned cobra fled from her presence, head bowed and hood tucked to his sides. Failure. He hadn't unlocked the secrets of the serpent-born, had barely done anything, just curled around her still body and hissed frustrations into her uncaring face. No healing, no evolution, no nothing. If he didn't find another way to prove himself, she would eat him, and soon.

She had chosen him for his strength, and he had not delivered. That was on him.

But behind him, tucked in the gentle embrace of her den, was the serpent-born, and all the potential that still simmered under her skin. Veresai slithered closer, coiling around the body she dwarfed in size and power and might; but Kriya had one thing she did not, which was healing.

Her horde was little more than extensions of her grand will, bodies for problems and eyes for sight, but they died, and they died quickly. Precious few had evolved, and she couldn't risk harming herself in such brutish combat that so many invaders enjoyed; she needed her horde to throw themselves at problems, and they needed to be alive to do so. She'd seen the little human's potential so long ago, when she had first claimed her life and tried to control her.

The Voice Below had not taken and Named this serpent-born for her, changed it to her side like the male human before. It had disrespected her in the most irritating way that she couldn't combat, because there was no mind there to slip her thrall around, no body for her horde to sink their fangs into. And she did, to her own conniption, still appreciate the Voice Below—it had made and Named her, even if it hadn't given her this serpent-born.

But that didn't mean she couldn't take it herself.

Before, she had attempted to do this like she had with her serpents. Dive into their minds, take their eyes, make them extensions of her enormous will—this one was serpent-born, so surely it would work the same. But it hadn't, and the Voice Below had told her to stop. It wouldn't work.

But perhaps though she was serpent-born, she was still human.

And that invader, the man of mind, had shown her that humans could not be controlled through mana alone—they needed words.

Veresai was not one to suffer failure. That was for those lesser, those who scuttled and scurried in the shadows, who clawed for any power that the world would give them. Those that did not fight for it. Those that did not claim it.

If her psionic power alone would not be enough, then she could do more.

So she coiled around the serpent-born, iridescent blue scales pressed to crimson, and lowered her great head until she near touched the human's face. Her horns lit up, silver light splashing over the den, great and demonstrable, power above power; for this world was hers. It was not the Voice's, not the goddess', not the invaders—it was hers, and all things were hers, and she would make it so.

And what she wanted, she got.

Awake, Veresai hissed, in the ancient tune of the beat that pulsed alongside her soul, in the words of mana more than speech. Awake. Become mine.

And, shuddering, Kriya awoke.

-

Ealdhere fought the truly incredible desire to flee back to his room under weight of this conversation. The Darlington family had been one of the elders in Abhalón, of course, with power and treasuries to match—but he had been far from the one to stand at the vanguard. A third son was taught entendre and fineries and cutting words disguised with crumpets and extravagant meals, yes, but he wasn't expected to use them.

And he certainly wasn't expected to have to be the one frontmanning missives such as this.

"I am sorry," he said again, like he could just keep saying it and one day it would actually be accepted. "But I can't offer you anything else. What you collected has already died."

The man with the giant ancestry frowned, a delicate thing on his brutish face. He stood there, arms tucked behind his back, a bandage still wrapping up his arm from the holes the thorns had impaled through his palm. He'd been in the first group to emerge from the dungeon, two members when three had entered, and he'd brought with him a branch from one of the odd mangroves, and knowledge besides. A very extraordinary find.

Unfortunately, an extraordinary find didn't mean much when Ealdhere couldn't pay how he wanted, and instead how Lluc commanded him to.

"I apologize," Rordan said, stiffly. He was unerringly polite, even if something in his eyes said he didn't wish to be, which honestly made it worse—Ealdhere had never been one to insult others, and he rather felt like he was grinding this soft-spoken man under his heel, even if he could snap Ealdhere in half over his knee. "But I discovered for you its diet, and obtained a sample as well."

A sample that was now little more than a stick of greenwood, dead and dying. Deprived from its tree, it had died surprisingly quickly, even after dining on Rordan's blood. Which. Fascinating, truly, and what had led to Ealdhere making a fine breakthrough on the seedling he tended in his personal rooms, but still not enough for Lluc to offer the Adventuring Guild's coffers.

But the mangrove.

The neusangoj mangrovoj, the delicate sapling that had grown significantly less delicate once he'd learned just why it came with white leaves and no particular requirement of sun. He'd named it, as the Scholar who had the right, and he'd named it with a kind of old pain. It should have been merely sangonoj mangrovoj.

Neusangoj, instead, in memory of Neus—the kind, gentle soul with dryadic hair and a propensity for quiet stories in late night relaxations. He'd barely known her, and when he closed his eyes, all he saw was her corpse, sprawled over the moss-covered floor of the dungeon, eyes wide and scarlet haloed around her head. Dead for a dead man's mission. Little more than gold greasing palms and the idea of extravagant adventure.

How far he'd come, from the man who had left the Darlington Manor with feathers in his cap and dreams of writing papers on things unknown, when he'd studied Viejabran and marveled at the curiosities of Calaratan natives. When they had been little more than elements in some greater story.

Neus had died, and he had lived, and he would remember her, in any way he could. Her and Steshe and Jorge, caught and bloodied, dead and unburied.

Neusangoj mangrovoj.

"I understand," Ealdhere said, and gods, he did, he really did. "And I wish I could pay you more—but my hands are tied. You'll have to collect more samples and keep them alive long enough for me to replant them before I can give a true discovery's boon."

Technically, the discovery's boon should go to him, the first one to bring a mangrove out of the dungeon and name it, but Scholars rarely earned that honour, considering it was expected of their position. And Lluc would certainly never give him anything he could use to free himself from this well-appointed prison.

Rordan's frown deepened. "But I–"

"Excuse me?"

A deep voice, heavy on the consonants and rasping at the corners. Ealdhere blinked, turning around. "Oh!"

Approaching from the entrance, hands clasped and face blank, was Ghasavâlk. Ghasavâlk! A curiosity well beyond others—Ealdhere had been quite taken with him when they'd first met, with his thick Üchlaghan accent and odd style of speaking, so apart from anything he'd grown familiar with in this unfamiliar land. Particularly with how First Mate Lluc had chosen him specifically, the first Gold to invade the dungeon, alongside an acrimonious woman named Syçalia who had seemed remarkably incurious about the world in a way that rankled his feathers. There was no question not worth asking or answering, but she hadn't been interested. What a waste.

Not Ghasavâlk. He had, if anything, been as focused as a Scholar himself.

"Scholar," Ghasavâlk said genially, inclining his head. "If I could have a moment of your time?"

"Why, of course, of course!" Ealdhere not-quite blustered, turning away from Rordan with a swallowed wince. "Apologies, my good sir, but I've duties to attend to. If we could speak later?"

Later, meaning when the man delved the dungeon again, and came back with things Ealdhere actually had the ability to pay him for, rather than offered platitudes of Lluc's noose around his neck.

Rordan bobbed his head in an empty sort of nod. "As you wish." He strode away, steps echoing over the foundations, and had to duck his head just to leave the Guild's entrance hall. Little doubt he'd find himself in the dungeon soon again, with his strength and the fire-spitting woman he partnered with.

"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems you've found a world of discoveries," Ealdhere said, smoothing down his open face robe, fingers itching for paper. Ghasavâlk and Syçalia had began their delve two days ago, and while he wasn't one to begrudge taking some hours to recover from a truly arduous expedition, they had been the first Golds who had no doubt discovered more than any adventurers up to this point. He was ever so curious. "To my office, or here?"

Ghasavâlk hummed, an ambiguous sound. "To the Withered Hog?"

Ealdhere… paused.

Calarata was a pirate's city, one without laws beyond the Dread Pirate's, and he was a commodity with red hair and pale skin and blue eyes that hadn't seen outside of this Guild in seemingly years. His imprisonment, if he bothered not to dress it up in prettier words, was doubtless seen, but not given any mind. Calarata was stuffed full of those with chains, both tangible and not, particularly those who served the Dread Crew, and the Scholar was just another lost soul. A tavern was not where he was allowed.

"I would love to accept," he said, cautiously, "but I'm rather fond of this building, I'm afraid."

Ghasavâlk just smiled. "Lluc suggested it to me," he said, calm. "If you wouldn't mind."

Ah.

Ealdhere wasn't a fool, though it would be easy to believe the opposite. Lluc wanting him seen outside of the Guild, specifically with Ghasavâlk—with a man he had personally chosen to be the first Gold to delve the dungeon—meant something.

Well. He could play along, and particularly so if it meant seeing the sun.

So Ealdhere smiled, shucking his coat off and slipping a bag with papers over his shoulders. "Who would I be to refuse? Please, lead the way."

Ghasavâlk nodded, turning back to the entrance, and pushed the door open. The clatter of voices as Ealdhere followed him, those lining up in the welcoming room in their hunt to be next to invade the dungeon, to scour gold and gems from its shadowed depths, or power and prestige from its core; they all watched him with wide eyes as, for the first time since its inception, the Scholar of the Adventuring Guild left its halls.

It was nearing evening, the quiet dimness of approaching night—but the sun caught over the horizon in brilliant gold, lancing over the cove in orange-gold-amber, fire on water. Midyear humidity, heavy and pressing, the kind that sank into his bones and softened his eyes, that wormed into his awareness like a blanket in an Abhalón winter. Beyond, glorious life, a city alive and burning and feeling.

Calarata, land of thieves and scavengers and pirates and murderers and nightmarketers and bastards and fools and monsters and people.

It was just another city, another sprawling destination with whitetack walls and grimy alleys and little more than desiccation over prosperity; but still Ealdhere drank in the sight like the finest red from Ter Asla, and he marveled at its splendor. Storm sigils dusted in ash over the surrounding buildings, the pebbled beach clattering against the evening tide, the wooden dock spidering out into the cavernous entrance in the Alómbra Mountains. Ghasavâlk moved quickly, the light steps of someone with a destination in mind, and Ealdhere trotted at his heels like a loyal dog. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the sights.

Lluc had spared his life, but taken away the living. Oh, how he loved research, diving into the minutia of creatures and beasts beyond normality, but he was still a man, who needed laughs and light and love of things beyond sketched drawings and corpses to study.

Whatever game Ghasavâlk had, he would play along, if only to continue this.

After the dock came the sprawling streets of Calarata, open and packed and dust-choked. Markets, piled high on corners, sturdy stalls to fragile pallets stacked for a veneer of professionalism. The sizzle of steam from cooking dishes and smoke from distance alley fires. Raucous calls from those drunk or looking to become so. The creak and groan of distant ships in the docks, repairing storm-damage or battle scars from naval wars. The stench of life and its excrements, but also of exotic spices and salt-filled breezes. He'd missed this, he knew that. Had expected this yearning.

He hadn't expected the attention.

Ealdhere had been well-known before, because the Darlingtons were, to play fanciful pretend for a moment, rather beloved in Abhalón—but that had been for his name, for the extravagant robes with his family's crest. But here, people turned to watch him with curiosity because of him, the Scholar, the reputation he'd hammered into the base of Calarata's dungeon.

Ghasavâlk hardly seemed to notice, or at least care. Just kept walking with the same jaded docility, mana flashing from the corners of his eyes, paths clearing before him with ease.

He was a particular kind of calm, one that struck Ealdhere with memories of Abhalón like a blow; the kind with empty eyes and blank face and a perfectly agreeable almost-smile. A trader, but without the necessary charisma; a king's man, but without the devotion; just a person, slipping between the pages of the story that tried to contain him. A curiosity indeed.

Ealdhere did so love mysteries.

What keeps you here? He wondered, quiet, little more than a missed step as he trailed after the man into the city he did not come from but stayed in regardless. What keeps you tethered to these stars?

There was no answer. That was the way of the best riddles.

Further in and in they went, through winding streets shaped from necessity instead of design, past hovels and humble abodes and outposts of greater groups in even number. The Withering Hog was a place on the edge, one of the switchbacks that crept up the base of the Alómbra Mountains to make Calarata appear as a huddled mass far above the pedestrian ground; an open tavern, with old wood and rickety tables exposed to the evening air, looking over the city above and below. Right in the middle.

Maximum visibility. Peculiar.

Ealdhere eased into the seat Ghasavâlk led him to, humming happily as his aching knees sank into the reprieve and his elbows clattered onto smooth wood. Ghasavâlk mirrored him, one finger raised in casual authority, flicking to one of the barkeeps who had been watching them with wide eyes. Recognizing at least Ealdhere, then.

Whatever his—his and Lluc's—plan was, it was beginning to set seed.

"Will Syçalia be joining us?" Ealdhere asked, twisting in his chair like she would pop out from a shadow in the tavern, walking over with three pints in hand.

Ghasavâlk shook his head. "She passed," he said, with a kind of performative sympathy. Not friends, then. Little wonder, with how Lluc had shoved them into a group together.

Something rankled at him, at the callous disregard for life, for existence. The man before him would not have cared about Neus, would not have named the mangrove after her death; but perhaps that was what being a Gold meant. What being so powerful that those beneath didn't matter. That nothing did, perhaps.

Ealdhere couldn't call himself happy that he would never reach anything about Unranked, not with his area of expertise, but there was a certain amount of contentment in how he would not have power change him to apathy.

"I see," he said, and flicked his fingers in the base appealment to the world beyond worlds, so that her soul might fly to its final rest with the understanding that someone would remember her. "My apologies."

"Of course." Ghasavâlk leaned forward, bracing his arms on the table, the bag at his side swinging forward like it carried a great weight. "Her sacrifice bought great rewards. I made it to the fifth floor before turning around."

Five floors? Goodness. The one in Abhalón had laid claim to twenty, but each were small and empty, no longer fed by a core near crippled by its taming, safe for him to wander through with a handful of guards at his side. Five for something fierce and angry, vicious in its innovation and producing things never seen before, was a feat indeed. "My word," Ealdhere breathed, already fidgeting with excitement that seemed a touch out of place considered those five floors had likely cost Syçalia her life. "Were each as alive as the first three?"

Ghasavâlk tilted his head to the side. "I'd have thought you'd ask about how dangerous they were."

Ealdhere waved a hand. "Yes, yes, but later. I'm a Scholar; the fangs and fury are for adventurers. Were they systems? Established and functional, rather than monsters for monsters' sake?"

That had been what excited him most about this dungeon, over unique creatures and fascinating strands of mana—it had been a place, more than a creation. Perhaps his opinion was stained by the dungeons he knew from his home but those had been defanged and smoothed over by ownership, mere hallways with vicious beasts rather than lands and legends. Here, full worlds beneath the stone, of life beneath quartz-lights and with predators and prey fighting for dominance more than just invaders.

Ghasavâlk stared at him. His black eyes were uncanny in the evening light.

"They were alive, yes," he finally said, and there was an odd note of curiosity in his voice, something to break past the deliberate weight in how he spoke. "The fourth, a maze of tunnels lined in algae, ending in a cavern of stone trees. The fifth, a collection of islands over clouds, filled with flying beasts and storms."

Fascinating. Fascinating. Neither of those could be found in the surrounding area, although perhaps the jungle could have lent inspiration for the fourth, which meant that the dungeon was a thinking thing creating more than defending. Creating! What discovery there was in this magical thing's mind, it was more than he could have imagined.

"For creatures, there were many," Ghasavâlk said, head still tilted. "Most of what I discovered were from the first three floors, but I will present them." Never removing his gaze, he reached into the bag at his side, other hand tapping on his seat. First he pulled out the faceplate from an ironback toad, nicely cleaned of gore, heavy enough the table muttered complaints in the creak of old wood. Then the white corpse of a spider, legs curled in and eight eyes glassy—oh! One of the mysterious ones from the second floor, what he'd thought were either icetouch or phantom-adjacent; something wonderful to study.

And finally, a scale, large as his palm and ridged in grey-green. He laid it on the table with a quiet sort of smile.

Ealdhere blinked at it.

Too big to be one of the many serpents he'd heard of, with edges lining the sides and an odd, curved tip instead of a more jagged point. Still distinctly reptilian, but not the red of the kobolds or the sea-green of the dragon he'd heard so many stories of. Something else.

"From a crocodilian," Ghasavâlk explained, something vaguely proud in his voice. "This is just a scale—I have the corpse waiting in the cove."

Hells be damned.

"The one in the third floor," Ealdhere said, eyes wide. "You killed it?"

Ghasavâlk nodded. "I did."

It had been killed before, back in the original delve that ended in so much more blood than life, but that had been with fifty people charging into the depths; this was merely two people, and depending on where Syçalia had died, it might have even been one. A feat well above a normal adventurer.

Ealdhere kept blinking. A full corpse to study, rather than fragmented memories stitched together from those who had seen its decapitated body and fled out the next second; he could create a full understanding of it, of what he had never heard more than stories about, even at home. Utterly fascinating.

"I have more collected pieces," Ghasavâlk said, still bland, still open. "But these are the most interesting. The others I will give back at the Guild."

Interesting. Certainly a way to put it. Ealdhere brushed a finger over the crocodilian's scale, the ridges on its edge, and the curled legs of the mysterious spider; all parts of some greater mystery, of puzzling out just where this dungeon put its strength and what it had made it from. "You've discovered more than I could have imagined," he said, because it was well true. "What did you find on the lower floors?"

The ones unknown, the ones untested.

Ghasavâlk hummed, drumming his fingers on the table. The barkeep still hadn't approached them, though she'd gathered two pints, an elven ancestry keeping long, jagged ears pinned flat to her skull. More people were looking at them, befuddled, recognition and suspicion warring in equal measure. Decidedly unpleasant.

"It has Chosens," Ghasavâlk said, with an odd intention in the word—more than typical emphasis, something personal. And considering Ealdhere had grown up around dungeons, tamed though they might be, and he had never heard of the term Chosens, that was something else. He would piece together the vague idea, that they were made Guardians by a dungeon, given power and prestige–

But Chosen. A peculiar phrase. Maybe that was what they called them in Üchlagh?

"At least two," Ghasavâlk continued. "A serpent and a lizard. One psionic, one draconic."

Hells, he'd encountered two Guardians and lived to tell the tale? A rare kind of adventurer indeed. Ealdhere blinked. "How powerful?"

"Exceedingly so. The psionic serpent combatted my own abilities. The draconic lizard fought with water and mist." Something in Ghasavâlk's jaw tightened—not one fond of discussing his own weakness, considering by how he talked about both as if they were still alive, not like he had managed to kill them. Ealdhere stored that. "But easy to distract. Not guided by a firm hand."

Curious. Curious, curious, curious. So very many things about this dungeon were.

"The lizard lived lower than the fifth floor," Ghasavâlk said. "But it was within a room engraved with draconic runes, and it had an intelligence not befitting its power."

Draconic—that led more credence to how the dungeon formed, though Ealdhere had never quite figured out whether that was supposed to be public knowledge. It seemed rather blatant to him—Varcís Bilaro had killed a dragon, and some months later, a dungeon had sprouted from where its corpse had landed. Surely obvious, no? But still some people marveled and wondered at where it could have come from.

"Goodness," Ealdhere murmured, drumming on the table. "If it is already that powerful, I don't wish to imagine how strong it will get with time."

The man across from him seemed to agree, if how his jaw tightened further said anything. He'd been truly threatened by it, then. That might have something to do with a counter to his own power, though Ealdhere didn't know what his attunement was, but just as likely that anything to give a Gold pause was something they didn't necessarily want still kicking.

"And I sensed someone within," Ghasavâlk said, fingers knotting together. "Sleeping, I believe. But on the fourth floor, within the serpent's den."

What?

"What?" Ealdhere asked.

Ghasavâlk turned to him. "A person," he repeated, like that had been the confusing part of the sentence. "Someone within the fourth floor. I did not encounter them, only sensed their presence."

Ealdhere was rather grateful they hadn't been brought ale yet, because he would have dropped his. "There's a human in there?"

A pale reflection of confusion flicked over his face. "Does that change so much?"

"This changes everything," Ealdhere says, bemused. "Why, either they're there willingly, or they've been taken—but that's a human mind within the dungeon! Likely someone we need to rescue, if they haven't been killed the moment you sensed them—I shudder to imagine what could have happened to them. What the dungeon could have learned from them."

Ghasavâlk went very still.

"A human mind," he repeated, quiet. "Do you believe the dungeon might have taken one?"

Ealdhere blinked. "If you sensed one within, then yes?" He tapped the crocodilian's scale. "It clearly has creatures powerful enough to combat the majority of those who invade it, considering no one has claimed its core yet, and obtaining multiple gods to patron its floors means it has an intelligence we can't ignore. If it already has the wherewithal to create Guardians, then it could take a human, either to study or use as bargaining."

He paused. Swallowed his own words. Pondered them.

The dungeon was intelligent.

That was easy enough to tell, because of course it was—it had created living lands capable of both defending itself and thriving, becoming more than they had been shaped for, and done whatever ritual was required to create Guardians. It had survived some weeks of daily raids and seemed to only be growing stronger, digging deeper, further than they could even sense.

But it was intelligent.

The dungeon in Abhalón had been little more than an extension of will from the family who held its core. High Lord Thiago's dungeon was similar, a stripped beast of power and death. Unclaimed dungeons were either claimed or killed, with very few in between—and those that never lived long enough to savour it.

In Calarata, it hadn't been claimed yet. It hadn't been killed.

It was alive, and it was moving, and it was intelligent.

Ealdhere's hand curled around the crocodilian's scale.

To be an Adventuring Guild's Scholar was to be one who studied a dungeon, who pierced through its mysteries to find its creatures and their uses, what could be created from its spoils. That had been what he had been charged with, what he was expected to carry out; what Lluc held over his neck like a sharpened blade. Even now, as soon as he finished playing dress-up for whatever Ghasavâlk wanted the public to see him for, he would go back to the Guild and begin mapping out the fourth floor, creating more detailed documents on the creatures within for adventurers to defeat and harvest.

But he was not just facing new wonders within a dungeon. He was facing a dungeon itself.

Something that no one had ever had the chance to study, because they were always defanged first.

Something new.

"Yes," his mouth said, filling the silence as his mind raced like a horse free of its bridle. "Yes, I believe there may be someone trapped within the dungeon. I believe Lluc will be very interested in that."

Ghasavâlk looked at him, brows flicking together—but Ealdhere was Unranked. A petty noble caged by a pirate's orders, little more than a researcher on a chain, and he was hardly deserving of suspicion; he smiled, open, curious, the same face he had worn for the past weeks. Ghasavâlk's expression faded back to apathy.

Ealdhere stayed smiling. Stayed unsuspicious.

His mind flew.

There was someone within the dungeon, likely unwillingly, but they were still alive—and they had been alive for, at the very least, a day, if they were from the previous invaders a day before Ghasavâlk's delve. For a dungeon that had the power to end a Gold, it wasn't from a lack of ability to kill them, which meant they were alive for a reason, which meant the dungeon had reasoning, and it was something that had a consciousness, however alien or draconic it was.

It was something entirely, entirely new.

And Ealdhere wanted to know more.

Well. He likely wouldn't be allowed in the dungeon again, not if that would give him the chance to slip the chains Lluc was so determined to keep on him, but there were people who could.

And there had been that man, anciently powerful with scales crawling over his face, that had seemed remarkably interested in forging a truce. A connection, between Guild and Market, who had been in that wretched cavern with Lluc's brand of cruelty and the towering guard of the Dread Crew.

Ealdhere had things he needed to investigate, things that couldn't be found with Lluc's eyes watching him with the feverity of a water-sick beast. Things that would aid the Guild, yes, but more than creatures and ideas and strategies. They were things to do with lives, lives that Calarata seemed so content to ignore, to cast aside as little more than costs to be paid or a thing to be caged and bound for power. Things Ealdhere cared for still.

Perhaps it was time he reached out to Gonçal.