Dragonheart Core

In the kelp, Seros was a hurricane.

He dove through the center, tail lashing and water lurching to his call, hurling him further and further down into the forest. He snarled, bubbles exploding between his fangs, and clawed down. A nightmare incarnate, the first of the Named, hunter of those who thought themselves above–

If only he could reach.

Weakness was not his to claim but these waters didn't obey him like they were supposed to, hesitant and wavering and dragging mana from his channels like weights. The merrow seemed to move like it was effortless, spiraling downward, never quite fast enough to leave his sight but not close enough to catch, just out of reach, spiraling downward with its arms tucked to its side. Prey, little more than a meal, but escaping.

Seros did not suffer losses.

So down he went, through the thick of the forest, water dragging at his gills and tugging at his limbs. Oh, how the Core would hear of this, to know about the merrow and the threats they didn't pose to the most dangerous creatures, to the Named. He could almost taste the blood coating his tongue, coursing down his throat, the crunch of scales between his fangs.

Gold, amber, gold, gold, gold– the kelp seemed to dance and twist around him, a dance of some endless antiquity. He'd never encountered anything like this before, this madness within the waters; could the Core create this? No invader would ever be able to get past the Underlake, if they swam through this chaos. What was this?

Gold– a flash of green, the flick of a merrow's tail—Seros snarled and dove deeper, clawing through the web of kelp. The oceanic world was still confusing to him but he knew he should have reached the ground by now, that stone should have been in front of him—but it wasn't. There was nothing there. Just more bloodline kelp, an endless expanse of it, with the flicker of movement of a merrow in front of him.

Gold– shouldn't he have reached the merrow by now? It was so close, he could almost sink a claw in its tail, flashes of teal, constant and repeating and drawing him further down. More movement, a glimpse of fish, a break in the kelp and pale blue beyond.

Something soft. A hum, something deep, softer than the merrow's rumble, melodic, harmonizing, pressing. Something. A song. A Song?

Black.

-

I was, to my own humble opinion, remarkably adept at digging. Seven floors I had already made, burrowing through the Alómbra Mountains with tyrannical fury. I had perfected how to sharpen the edges of my mana until it was something with teeth and trial, gnawing through stone with a precision mortal things could never muster.

Terribly efficient. It was such an honour to be the best.

And in the stead of the matter, it meant that I had carved a glorious, wonderful haven, a tunnel that arched down through the Jungle Labyrinth and pooled like a river in some far-off section from the rest of my dungeon.

It was a paradise, even though I normally attached that name to places of proper danger and excitement—but for now, I would grant the title. A circular mess of a room, a meandering river carving through the center and settling in an enormous pond off to the side, cloudsire palms and billowing moss choking out the ground plane. No vampiric mangroves, since I rather doubt I could have kept the mostly-insentient beings from stabbing all surrounding creatures to death, and similarly for the razorleaf lichen or thornwhip algae. I had rather a dearth of unaggressive schemas, I was finding.

Not that I particularly minded. Anything of mine should have teeth.

But it meant that in the end, the haven was a pocket of warmth in a frigid crater of destruction. Few species, mostly stone-backed toads and burrowing rats I could trust to be cowardly enough to simply accept their death when it came, meandering around more as walking bodies of mana than living creatures. I was, to put it lightly, not planning on getting too attached to any of them.

Beyond that, it was a little home for those often without, some three thousand feet in diameter and littered with sprawling dens for eggs and infants and other helpless things. Not nearly as large as my other floors simply because there was no need—I didn't have to worry about creating proper territories when there would be no infighting here.

Or at least there better not be. Anyone who played dirty with my proffered mercy would meet their quick and divisive end between Seros' fangs.

I wondered what he'd think of it, actually. He took the most after my previous self, the sea-drake, the hungry and the vicious. Veresai was tyrannical like a gold-drake, Akkyst collected knowledge like a forest-drake with trees, and Nicau could not have been less draconic if he tried—but Seros was like me, and the me of ages past would not have accepted such weakness.

But as long as it wasn't him being weak, I imagined he'd be more willing. Draconic beings were fiercely protective over their young, given how rarely they had any, and this was essentially a nursery.

Gods above, I'd made a nursery. I could hardly believe it.

And in terms of gods, I wasn't alone in my creation, as I layered billowing moss over fine-grit soil and strung quartz-lights through the ceiling. Nenaigch, flickering in the back of my awareness, a spool's thread of iron-stars. She was not particularly pleased about the order I'd elected to handle this in—she'd have much preferred I give her priests and followers first, and go about creating all of my elements second. Bully for her. I was working on it.

But I was a mite uninterested in the wrath of a goddess, particularly one whom I had already scraped a secondary deal from, and so as soon as I finished aligning the last beautiful strand of algae to the upper wall, a delicate trail down to the ground like ribbons of cloud, I turned my attention not to the many creatures I wished to enter, but to the second floor.

The floor where the webweavers hunted.

I was… mostly sure this would fulfill Nenaigch's bargain, due to the fact I couldn't imagine a more violently loyal bunch, though they might not have quite the intelligence she was hoping for. But what they lacked for that they made up for in collaborative thinking, one thought stretched over every body, and the exceeding willingly to dismember one of their number just so I could obtain their schema.

That had to count, surely.

They scuttled over the dead branches of a vampiric mangrove, twisting white things with chitinous legs and pooled eyes. There were some dozen of these traps in the Drowned Forest, in the dead trees killed through an influx of saltwater or invaders, but those of this particular tree was the eldest and most powerful. Over five dozen spiders, fattened on steady feedings, mana thick through their channels.

My chosen priests—or, more accurately, my chosen tests. I was diving in with blind optimism, but I had learned never to be confident when a deity was on the line, and there was the scant chance this wasn't allowed.

But I would never know until I tried.

So I swarmed my points of awareness over them, filtering in like a coat of stars, resting over the ends of their truly intricate web and all the caught and bundled corpses within. They'd been a busy bunch, these webweavers; half a wonder there were any bugs left in the Drowned Forest. They'd do well to keep the ecosystem intact in the haven.

Down, down, down, I crooned, plucking at their awareness like the strands of their namesakes. Come further, come below, come to me.

As one, they shivered upright—spiders had no muscles to widen their unblinking eyes but I could feel their awareness spike into shock, then awe, then sheer, unending joy just for being noticed. For being acknowledged.

Hm. Well. I did appreciate Nicau's willing obedience, Seros' companionable allyship, Akkyst's intelligible conversations; but there was a certain enjoyment in fervent worship.

That was what I could have had kobolds for, when I had been a sea-drake. Perhaps I had been missing out by refusing to allow them in my presence.

No sense in regret.

Or, more accurately, no time for regret. I would certain bitch and bemoan willing servants when I had more freedom to entertain the thought.

With Nenaigch's mana coursing through my fourth floor, tunnels were even easier to shape and move, to carve through the marrow of the Alómbra Mountains until I reached pockets of cohesion—the webweavers skittered through an opening I carved for the second floor, pale ghosts through the gloom. They weren't particularly gainly creatures, bulbous bodies and near-sightless eyes; their movement was rather embarrassing to watch, in truth. But they were more sedimentary creatures by their very nature; those to huddle on their webs and create nightmares for those that came near.

Which. That felt priest-esque to me; surely that would be fine. But what else could they do to be priests? It wasn't just a matter of proffering worship; they had to worship.

And though sea-drakes were far from pious beings, I had an idea of how humanoids conducted their rituals.

I guided the webweavers up to something in the front of the haven, closest to the tunnel out to the fourth floor; it was a simple stone plinth carved into a wall, a hollow littered with stone veins in an approximation of branches, or at least enough nooks and crannies to fill with webs. They picked and darted their way up the wall, hooked claws dragging their bodies up into the miraculous places I'd saved for them. Five dozen of them, pale ghosts in the dim light, a hard contrast against the green and grey around.

A shrine for Nenaigch. But it was missing something.

I extended a hesitant tendril of thought up to Nenaigch, a question outlined in subservience and thanks. What was the object of her worship?

Her answer came down tinged in humour, amusement, the faint feeling of mandibles dragging over the edge of my core. She was not a well-worshiped goddess, as so many of mine were; far more taken by her mirrored deity who stood for products of weaving, less so the process.

I didn't envy these deities with all of their internal politicking and madness throughout. Nuvja's fight with the goddess of night, Mayalle's curse to only be worshiped by those who wished to avoid her domain, Rhoborh always lost to the unknowing; at least as a sea-drake, my worth had been won by the strength of my claws and fangs alone, not the opinion of others.

Nenaigch's thought extended down to me, only a whisper of annoyance that I didn't already know—she had expected that, though she'd hoped otherwise. Her symbol stitched itself together in my awareness; a needle's point, with threads spiraling beneath. Or perhaps a mandible with webs—could be both. Truly an open goddess.

Maybe there was a deity of spiders out there who was pissed about how much of their domain Nenaigch was taking. Again, I had no interest in ever joining their charade of power.

But that symbol was simple enough.

Back to the webweavers I went, careful and light and other gentle things; while I could simply carve out that shape, it didn't feel like enough to make it a proper shrine, more than something I had thrown together because the contract demanded it. Nenaigch couldn't read my thoughts but she could read my actions—I wasn't able to give the idea that I didn't care about her power.

Far better for the webweavers themselves to begin their worship by making her symbol.

Through me, I murmured, gentle and soft, little more than a whisper. Do you feel her? Can you sense her power? Can you make it?

The webweavers shivered. Their rudimentary minds bucked and shackled my suggestion, but their consciousnesses wavered—they wanted to obey me, by virtue of me being me, but their deity was suggesting them to follow another deity. What contradoxy was that?

Well. They had perhaps a week to devote themselves to her, or I was going to have to find other options. So.

I pushed a little harder.

The webweavers didn't have leaders, hardly even seeing themselves as individuals, but one of the largest and oldest took a hesitant step up the stone. Through its mind, I could see the shape begin to coalesce, how the various strands would have to hang and attach to make it. And then, through its psionic connection with its brethren, they began to move to spin their own threads, though they didn't yet believe in the mission behind it.

But it was a start.

The haven wasn't for evolutions, considering the rather extreme blanketing presence of calmness and docility and blasé disinterest I was going to be threading throughout my mana, but perhaps the weaving shrine could influence their future evolutions when they left. Something to hope for, in whatever distant future I needed to wait.

But by bringing in the webweavers first, I was hoping this would leave them as unofficial leaders of this little haven. A base of operations, if I allowed it—which I would. They would be the only ones allowed to use this place as such, leaving to hunt and grow stronger but returning to this place of worship and safety. It went against my ethos as a dungeon, as a former sea-drake, as someone who had fought and struggled for my power—but these would be priests, not fighters. I would allow them—and only them—to have a home they didn't have to worry about protecting.

I hoped Nenaigch understood what sacrifice I was making.

But for now, these webweavers had perhaps a week to convert over—enough time to see what worked and what didn't, because if it didn't work, as soon as Nicau came back, I would be sending his ass directly back into Calarata to go steal me a couple of priests.

Well. Life as a dungeon core was never boring, at least.