Dragonheart Core

Nicau spent a good percentage of the time he had before meeting the Marquesa de Wolf in a remarkable state of panic.

In glorious hindsight, he had made an agreement to stay one extra day, when he had no ability to house himself in any way. There were inns and taverns out the ass in Calarata, but they were places you were as likely to sleep as to wake up with a shiv to the throat. Only those under official Dread Crew power were safe enough to sleep with both eyes closed, and Nicau was not particularly inclined to go to them.

But he was far too frantic to consider sleep, so instead, he spent his time climbing up, and up, and up.

Calarata had a rotating array of prime locations, just for less than genial purposes. People dumped corpses in the cove until everyone started doing it, and wary eyes would fall on those hauling covered sacks down to the beach; then some number of years would pass where no one would toss bodies in, the reputation too stark, until memories faded and soon it was picked up once more. Calarata was only creative to a point.

The Overlook was one of those places, forgotten from deliberation and avoided by those not yet smeared in the undergrime. In typical Calaratan fashion, the wealthy went up instead of out, building switchbacks and towering supports to place their houses high above the cur of the streets. The Overlook was one such place, built in a natural enclave, tucked in the Alómbra's sheltered embrace. Not directly over the city, more to the west, but what should have been a place of perfection for the rich, beyond a quaint little problem of avalanches.

Three noble families dead, and now it was a graveyard, made of crumbled stone and the whisper of old foundations. A location for getting rid of problems you wished not to have.

Nicau, rather fervently, hoped he was not one of those problems, considering he was hauling his way up the broken switchbacks to get to that woebefore peak. Night spilled grey fingers over his steps, darkness wrought in blindness, and he'd tripped twice and nearly fallen off once, so whatever sleep he could have had was well and truly deserted.

The Marquesa de Wolf hadn't given him any specificities beyond tomorrow, but considering they were dealing in illicit secrets and potential rebellion against the man who killed a dragon, Nicau had guessed their meeting was to be at night. Not that anyone in Calarata particularly hid what would mark them as traitors in other countries, but this was a scale higher than mere smuggling.

And now he was here, caught in the evening light, wishing both to be asleep and elsewhere and dead and all manner of things he wasn't, looking over the twilight grey of distant Calarata, and wondering just what he'd gotten himself into.

The Overlook was a pale memory of a place, whitestone cobbles hauled up to make paths that would never carry their benefactors on account of them being quite dead, the shells of walls hollowed and flattened, thorned weeds and castaways from the jungle in a sprawling mat. Nicau picked his way over the rubble, coat flaring around his ankles—perhaps she would think it was a statement to wear it twice, and not that he had nothing else to change into—and arms tucked tight to his sides. The moon cast a hazy glow over the place, somewhere old and forgotten, beyond scattered pieces of nightmarket trades and abandoned incriminations. He'd been here once before, when he'd been cold and hungry and searching for anywhere to sleep, and he'd been quite glad to never be back again.

Not so, then.

Nicau exhaled, muggy air billowing under the velvet dark. Jittery with nerves and lack of sleep, but he was alone here, beyond the whistle of distant night-birds and owls.

He hoped he was alone, at least.

Gods, as much as he loved his Communer abilities, it didn't stop his mind from wandering through golden fields of any other skills he could have gotten. Something that could have gotten him through yesterday without sticking his foot in his mouth, without staring directly at the most dangerous woman in the room and opened her right up to march on over.

Even with the reason that she had sensed how he was Unranked, and thought him the Scholar. Thought he was the hidden Scholar, disguised from the crowds.

…why hadn't she thought the actual Scholar was who he was?

Over the past day, Nicau had stuck his nose into as many corners as would allow, and he'd found that the current Scholar was an eccentric foreigner from distant Abhalón, curiously pale with a shock of red hair, and entirely devoid of leaving the Guild. And considering Lluc was the Guildmaster, Nicau had more than a few thoughts as to why he wasn't leaving, but prisoner or not, most things he heard about the man said he was polite, enthusiastic, and deeply knowledgeable. All parameters of a Scholar.

But the Marquesa de Wolf had thought him a masquerading loudmouth, and was on the hunt for who the real one was.

There were only so many reasons that a Scholar would be false, and Baron Ealdhere Darlington didn't feel like one.

Movement.

Nicau turned his flinch into a turn in time to see the Marquesa de Wolf crest the last switchback, a proper robe thrown over her coat and fineries, deep grey-black except for moss edgings. Still her staff, still her predatorial aura, but softened and smoothed over with anonymity. A disguise.

Hells, she really was taking this meeting like an alliance, and it was not for anything good.

Nicau inclined his head in what he hoped was proper. "Marquesa de Wolf," he greeted.

"Pirate Lord," she said back, in a polite sort of tone that curled around her lips. She flicked a glance past him, at the Overlook in all its corroded glory, before turning back. Her staff clicked on the ground.

Something moved, in the shadows behind her. Not large. But it clicked and rustled as its silhouette shifted forward, staying in the grey.

Wonderful. Fucking fantastic.

"You came alone," she noted, curious, amused. "This is to be your trade, then?"

And she didn't come alone, but he didn't feel confident enough to call that out. He was a little too focused on keeping his stutters firmly between his teeth.

"My trade," he agreed, because mentioning he was merely the human-shaped spy for a dungeon felt out of place.

She tapped her staff on the ground, a bloom of moss spiraling up the edges and tucking around the edges of her robe. "Knowledge is best not locked behind shackles," she said, and again the thing shifted. A rustle of old leaves. "What is known should be known."

That ancient awareness flickered in his chest, the thrum of mana past and beyond him.

Nicau licked his lips. The last of her words floated over him, the implications, the thorn-sharp hunt in her eyes.

Hells beyond hells, he was far too deep.

And the worst part was that it was entirely his fault—it had been him that had immediately pivoted into trying to make a mystery for her so she wouldn't kill him for the dreadful crime of just knowing she was hunting for the Scholar. Nicau would excuse himself for fear-made decisions, because being alive was a touch more important than saving face, but the truth at the end of the canal was that she thought he was playing the same game as her. Either serving a master or for his own goals; but to her, the Pirate Lord was investigating the dungeon.

…the Pirate Lord.

Nicau fought the urge to slam his face into the mountain.

When she'd first said her line about crowns and kings, he'd had a thought about the danger of that. Leóran though she was, you didn't last long in Calarata badmouthing Varcís Bilaro, or at least you lived a life long enough to regret it. But she'd said it rather openly, even tucked and layered under the subtlety necessary to stay alive, and she'd said it like she was prodding for his reaction.

The Pirate Lord was a title nothing less than a challenge to Varcís Bilaro.

Could he be overthinking it? Maybe that was her true goal, and she'd only been more open to test his response; to see if he was in a similar boat. That was a hells of a thing to fake just to get someone on her side, particularly when the consequence often ran more fatal than not. And she'd said that when she had thought he was the Scholar, someone theoretically even more in the Dread Pirate's pocket unless you had two functioning eyes to see how Lluc kept him on a leash.

Was anything she said true? Or was she playing the same game as him, trying to match her faux motivations to his so an alliance could form?

Nicau was going to be a cynical old bastard before the day had worn down.

But for now, the Marquesa de Wolf stayed smiling, watching him, so he nodded again. "I know many things," he said, because he liked that turn of phrase, but now it was ruined for him. "And I believe you do as well?"

"Quite true." Her dark skin almost disappeared into the umbral night, just the gleam of her golden eyes. "You mentioned knowing more than even the Guild," she hummed, like it was idle curiosity. "Perhaps how many floors it has?"

Ah. Yeah. For some funny reason, Nicau didn't think the dungeon would be too interested in him giving that information away without consulting it. So he smiled again. "I believe we arranged for a trade. What could you offer me in return?"

What could she offer the very dungeon she was investigating?

"I am only now arriving in Calarata," the Marquesa de Wolf said, and there was her accent again, that faint Leórenthan lilt to her letters. "So my knowledge on this particular Adventuring Guild is, unfortunately, limited. I have many connections and a rather… intricate understanding of how Guilds function, however. I can assure you–" a flash of a cat's smile "–that you will not find a more bountiful fountain of knowledge for your queries, as soon as I have time to begin my study."

Fucking hells, half of those phrases he had to stitch together from context. The second he finished this conversation, he was going straight back to the kobolds' den and speaking in nothing but guttural hisses and warbles to cleanse this filthy taste from his tongue.

"You mentioned an interest in dungeons," she continued. "Is there any field wherein your studies lie?"

Were they going to maintain the façade of being kind, gold-hearted academicians of dungeons? Sure. Fine. Why not. Nicau nodded, splaying his hands. "All things within," he said, because she'd approached him when she had thought he was the Scholar. From his limited knowledge, Scholars were there for glorified price-makers. They knew everything within the dungeon, what it was, how to use it, how to kill it, and what to make from its corpse; all things that Nicau was also quite versed in, though it hadn't exactly been his choice to learn. "Beasts and floors and environments."

Was that enough?

By the sudden flash in her eyes, it was.

"Then we are paired," she said. "I can tell you of the outer workings, and you me of those within."

Everything about this was terrible. Gods, he fucking hated this.

But still, he couldn't help his interest. "Then we have a trade?"

The Marquesa de Wolf raised her eyebrows in mock surprise, lips pursed. Nicau wanted to punch something. He hadn't even hit his twentieth summer yet, and he was feeling every pound of that ignorance now. "That's rather hasty," she said, a fallacy of concern in her voice. "Why, neither of us have proven ourselves to each other."

Well, that was right bloody convenient she'd just finished saying how she didn't know anything yet, wasn't it?

Nicau smiled, because otherwise he was going to chew off his own tongue. Why the hells had he gotten the blessing about talking? He'd been a pigeoncatcher. This world was not his. "Of course," he said. "What do you want to know?"

Not floors. Not Named. Not powers. Not strength. Not… most of anything, really, considering it was him that had to go back and face the dungeon's wrath if he spilled too much of his hand.

The Marquesa de Wolf hummed, the grinding deep of ancient forests. "The number of rooms within the floor filled with canals."

Well. Damn. That was a half-decent question. Testing the waters, not pushing too deep, but establishing something she could go off and verify on her own that wouldn't just be known to the common cur. Great.

He could give her that information, and she couldn't give him anything.

But he had one problem left to solve.

"Yes, I know that. However," Nicau said, with some imperiousness he had to scrape at the bottom of his soul to fake with the right inflection, "in return for it, I will request a trade."

The Marquesa de Wolf raised an eyebrow. "I believe I already told you I have newly arrived," she said. "All information I have is of other Adventuring Guilds, though of course I am happy to deal in generalities."

"No," Nicau said, all eloquence. "I'm interested in your connections."

Her eyes sharpened. "Oh?"

Oh, that was a change. She hadn't expected him to ask that.

Curious.

But that was his request, and he was sticking to it. She'd been a suitably dramatic bastard about this, and he saw no harm in playing coil. "Studying the dungeon from within is the best way to gather information," he said. "I am, of course, quite capable by myself—but to find what would appeal to you, I believe I would need another."

Because in all hells was he not walking up to the Adventuring Guild and asking to be a lone delver. First was the fear that Lluc would recognize him, even much changer and disguised and no longer a shrinking, terrified streetrat; second was that up to this point, there had never been a party of one. No. He needed to be in a group, and he… rather didn't trust his chances at finding one in the few hours he had before passing out and getting robbed within an inch of his life.

Her eyes narrowed. "I am not one to make deals with fools," she said, lightly. "The dungeon would kill an Unranked."

Nicau wanted to laugh, so he did, touched with madness and flavoured with delirium. Of all things in Calarata, the dungeon was the least likely to kill him. "The Pirate Lord does not die," he said, and grinned; pushed a curl of mana over his tongue. The Otherworld mana thrummed in his chest like fire.

The Marquesa de Wolf tightened her smile into a macabre fallacy of one. Not yet frustration, but something budding over the interest. "I believe we mentioned how mortal men may call themselves kings while deaths still await them."

Well. She had said that. Nicau, frankly, doubted Varcís Bilaro had anything resembling mortality lurking under his skin.

But if she didn't recognize that, he wasn't going to tell her.

Nicau shrugged. "Then I die," he said. "And you have nothing to worry about. Secrets to secrets. But if I live, then I prove myself, make a partnership with your connection, and find information in places no one else knows where to look." He let his smile build. "Think of it as an investment, if you will. No better way to explore the nine rooms of the second floor."

Her gaze flicked to him. Considering.

She got to spy on him in the dungeon—or, at least, she thought she would get a chance to, and he would gather her investment, and he was proving himself to her first. A perfect deal.

"I find myself fascinated," she said, slowly, the thing in the shadows behind her shifting back and forth, "by the creations of the dungeons. Not of the creatures, but the shaping and trappings of other things within. There are stories I've heard of enchanted armour and blades, pendants, impossible jewels. I'm sure I could find quite a wealth of information on the Guild in return for that."

Hm.

Not the question he would have expected; something about the scariest monsters, which was all of them, or how many floors. It seemed she hadn't been lying when she said she was familiar with dungeons.

"Of course," Nicau said, magnanimous, because he was about to throw up. "And I find myself interested in the expansion of Guilds, how they grow, how their future plans shape. I'm sure the Guild of a pirate's city would have a plan worth studying."

And a dungeon most curious to discover how they would attack it next.

"Well," the Marquesa de Wolf said, head tilted to the side. Less of the pure smiles and polite barbs she'd had before—more discerning, now. He'd asked things she hadn't expected and played cards she hadn't known he'd had. Not quite a threat, but certainly a mystery. Hopefully something worth more alive than dead.

"I look forward to our alliance, Pirate Lord," she settled on. Her eyes gleamed.

Nicau inclined his head. "Well met, Marquesa de Wolf."

Fucking hells.

-

Some sunrise later, Nicau was rather fervently wishing for sleep, but instead he trudged off towards the Adventuring Guild.

It was a particular kind of exhaustion that hung over his skeleton now, clinging its claws into the marrow of his awareness. But the walk was helping in some regard, after he'd spent hours scouring around the Overlook after the Marquesa de Wolf had left, finding every possible sightline and hidden crevice.

The Overlook would be his choice to report back to the dungeon. It was high, maybe higher than the dungeon wanted, in which case he would beg forgiveness and grovel and other ignoble things that had long since lost their ability to embarrass him, but for now he thought it would suffice. Away from the action, close to Calarata, opening access to other places, far from discovery. It felt appropriately dramatic, too, which hadn't been one of the dungeon's requests but would probably be appreciated.

Particularly considering he hadn't collected any schemas. The Marquesa de Wolf had been rather distracting.

But if the dungeon opened a path to the Overlook, a place abandoned by Calarata but still close enough to provide advantages, then Nicau could slip back out, and soon, to gather some physical prizes. To revisit his previous home, though he'd long-since changed allegiance. What a mystery of a life he'd found himself in.

From a single pigeon to a legacy.

But for now, morning just starting to glare into his eyes, Nicau plodded down the boardwalk to stand before the Adventuring Guild, and he wasn't alone.

A man leaned against the flagstone base, arms crossed. He was one of those that were truly enormous and effortless with it, muscles and bones and everything else that led to a giant more than a man. Well-worn armour, loose for agile movements, chains and odd vials hanging from his waist. Some sort of ancestry crawled over his face, gold-bronze scales and twin fangs, eyes that flickered and sparked with excess mana.

Vaguely familiar, in a way that didn't feel like his own memories. Curious.

Whoever he'd expected the Marquesa de Wolf to recruit, it wasn't this.

Well. He'd survived much worse over the past two days, and exhaustion tended to pluck the strings of confidence more than alertness ever had. So Nicau marched on over, head held as high as he could bring it, which was nearly to the man's collarbones if he was generous. "Hello," he offered, inclining his head in pompous brilliance. "I take it you've been sent by the Marquesa de Wolf?"

The man's eyes furrowed. Barely a flash before his trader's calm smoothed his face back down.

"Under a separate name, but yes," he said, with a voice that rumbled like a forge's bellows. He unfolded from the wall, enormous arms and body and general everything, a Silver's mana thrumming in his chest. "You are the Pirate Lord?"

Gods, Nicau hated that name now. He nodded. "I am."

"Then I am Gonçal," the man said, and mana flashed over his teeth, a reminder, a vaunt, some little thing that was likely impressive to anyone who still had the wherewithal to notice. "Shall we?"

Well. A solution to all his problems—disappear into the dungeon, confer with the dungeon on his plan, and either emerge again to convince the Marquesa de Wolf or fake his death in the dungeon's embrace.

Either way, sleep.

Nicau followed Gonçal into the Adventuring Guild. It was time.