Dragonheart Core

Gonçal, when his life was on the line, spun a lovely little tale.

Fettered descriptions of the Filla de Orgull, with biting eyes and dramatic ways of speaking—she'd promised him information on another nightmarket in the area in return for delving with a patron of hers. Despite Nicau's mana-laced commands for answers, Gonçal didn't have many to give; it seemed like she'd met him only once, and their deal had been a precursor to a later partnership.

Exactly what she had done to Nicau. It seemed she was carving an interesting mark over Calarata.

And then his deal with Ealdhere—or deal, I supposed, since the Scholar hardly had anything to offer in return. Beyond the idea that I was sapient and thinking, which he seemed to be startled by; which was fascinating in its own regard. I knew I was special and high above other banal dungeon cores, who scrounged for scraps and responded with bestial intellect to threats, but surely the creatures they had seen from my creation should have proved my mind was one of thoughts.

Quite the collection of assumptions and misunderstandings, woven together to form a net they had attempted to entrap me with. An alliance that Gonçal had apparently thought he could just investigate, rather than bring the proper trappings of a kingly gift to me. How mortals never ceased to amaze.

I wasn't entirely convinced he was telling the truth—even with Nicau standing off to the side, mana coating his tongue in commands—because Gonçal was a thief and a liar and a bastard, but—the pieces lined up too well to ignore.

So. I supposed for the moment I would believe him, or at least prepare for the events he spoke of. There was to be no chance I would be captured, and if I had to listen to him to achieve that, so be it. He would have his deal for his life, for a partnership that he would come back to ask for boons with actual offerings on his side, and I would spare him. For now.

Gods, I still hated him. Was there anything I could do to make him suffer even more for his transgressions?

He had already said he would keep his deal. The mention of a dead master, or something similar—the reason he wouldn't betray us, because he had something more important to do before he died. In the very long list of things I hated about him, that was something to respect, at least. I had always been a creature of spite.

Gonçal stared up at me, mana lurching through his channels like he was preparing himself for defense. Like he could have done anything to me, in the home of my land and the territory I wielded like claws.

I glared at him. Oceans would have boiled under my stare.

He may go, I hissed, mana sinking into the air.

Nicau exhaled in far too relieved a manner. I flicked around a point of awareness to glare at him, too.

"Okay," he said, electing to ignore me. Rude. "You can go, Gonçal. Just. Don't tell anyone about this."

Gonçal tilted into an uncomfortable bow, shoulders still bristling around his ears. "Thank you," he murmured, jaw tight, and took a step backward—when nothing burst from the shadows to slit his throat, he took another, then another, and then not-quite sprinted back into the Drowned Forest on a race to the exit.

I kept the raid-frenzy down, just a simmer, but– well, if a few kobolds watched his frantic retreat with gleaming eyes and claws tightening around their spears, that was merely an intimidation tactic. Gonçal was certainly running like terror-beasts were on his heels. What use was a scaled ancestry without any of the fervour and power that should have come from one?

But that was another deal I'd made. Another deal with a human, with a thief, at the behest of Nicau. I'd sent him out to find information, and he'd returned with a partnership from a mysterious woman who called herself a wolf and a liar who brought his own alliance with the Scholar of the damnable Adventuring Guild. And the parrot, from last time. And the suspicion from Lluc.

Why had Nicau gone and spoken to so many blasted humans? Were the kobolds not enough, not even Chieftess, who took him as a second-in-command and listened enraptured to all he had to say? Did I need to go find him more… enrichment, or some other useless things?

This was why I didn't bother with humans.

As if to prove my point, Nicau sagged against the wall, one arm raised wearily to brush over his face. Deep bags hung over his face, red veins lit up in his eyes, and his thoughts were a sluggish plod of ocean boulders.

I supposed I had pushed him rather hard—and I had other things I could take care of in the meantime. Nenaigch could allow a pitiful moment of distraction before I called upon her power once more, with my webweavers hunting around for more things to sacrifice to her. And I would hardly risk Nicau being too tired to do it properly and messing up my fourth entrance.

You may rest, I said magnanimously. Then show me the path.

Nicau bobbed his head, exhaustion bleeding through his eyes. "Thank you, o' dungeon," he said, rubbing at his face. "I'll be ready."

He would be. Three days apart from me with liberal use of his abilities had left him drained for mana, just a flicker through his channels even as his return to the dungeon refilled them, and that was a dangerous thing to be. I needed him to take better care of himself if he was going to survive this.

I flicked a point of mana at him like an admonishment and opened a tunnel in the side wall so he could skip the Underlake, because I was a dreadfully caring soul despite my attempts to be otherwise. He bowed at the wall and stumbled in, back down to the Hungering Reefs, to the paradise I'd crafted.

Because I apparently wasn't done caring, I sent a message to Chieftess for her to prepare a hearty meal for his arrival. She immediately perked up, warbling something near-comprehensible, and strode out of her den—before her, in the lagoon, some half-dozen hunter kobolds were swimming through the blue waters with three-pronged spears. They'd dried out the funnel gourds I'd grown for them and strung them over their scales, using them to hold both fish and tools as they hunted; quite the efficient little beasts. Nicau had taught them well.

But he'd make it home, feast, sleep for a day, and then show me where my newest exit was going to be. In the meantime, I had a paltry offering of gifts to investigate.

Gonçal had merely set them on the ground without much care of any kind, which was typical of mortals, but it hardly mattered. I dove through them, points of awareness spiraling up and around, mana fluttering against their edges. Chains, cages, vials—enchantments I would no doubt infuriate myself when I wasn't able to mimic the power within them—and other things I dissolved just to consume, filling my core with new understanding. I already had silver and glass, but I stored each of the runic shapes to recreate later—perhaps to show Akkyst, if he could figure them out.

But if my bear, lovely and wonderful though he was, discovered how to make enchantments before I did, I was going to have to think about that for a long time.

No matter. I ate the last of them and cleared the path, no more entrapments, nothing to potentially harm her.

And then I reached out, mana sharpening into fangs, and shattered the crystalline cage.

The crackle of a broken enchantment—shards of crystal tumbling over the stone and into the water—and the eruption of a beast freed from her prison.

Hells.

She was… bigger than I remembered.

No longer did an amorphous form flicker with the ceaseless motion of mist; instead a fully realized wolf darted through the room, head held high and tail flowing behind her. Ivory fangs dripping water snapped at the air, claws digging into currents and throwing her forward, miniature storms kicked up in her wake. Clouds poured into the room, strong enough Rhoborh's redwood scent whispered in the back of my core as he sensed the new power in his claimed floor, the cloudskipper wisp rampaging about.

My mana rebounded, reconnecting with her after so many weeks apart—her soul, back to mine, my dungeonborn, my creation–

Evolution crackled through her like an explosion.

What.

The message crawled over my core and I ignored it for the moment, reaching out, dipping into her mind. She was fury wrought and incarnate, teeth and adversary, clawing at the air like Gonçal was before her—she wanted to kill him, she didn't care what it took, she was going to find him–

Deeper, I urged, soft and soothing. Away from threats. Close to me.

The light of evolution hummed and thrashed around her, raring for a target to punch her rage into, but I was her creator and she knew my voice. She howled with a whistle like rushing winds and plunged down into the Underlake she had once ruled—the other cloudskipper wisps raced away from her, sensing the boiling turmoil. She hardly paid them mind, darting over the lashing waves and kicking up into the Jungle Labyrinth, a streak of silver-blue through the darkness, and then into Khasvar's lightning realm.

I thought, for a second, that she would keep running—that the depth of deeper mana would call to her, particularly with the potential bursting in light around her, but she didn't. She looked over the world before her, the twisting islands of rock and instability, the billowing clouds of grey-white, the endless war between baterwauls, greater pigeons, and eyeblight butterflies, the bladehawk shrieking his warcry overhead, the storm eel snaking through the shadows, the mist-foxes darting around with illusions in their wake, the goblins far below, Akkyst with his gleaming blue energy–

The Skylands, my land of destruction.

There, the cloudskipper wisp tossed back her head and howled; a whispering, rushing sound like a storm-call, and plunged forward.

The other three cloudskipper wisps ducked and bobbed away from her, kicking up trails of silver in their wake; the storm eel dove through their passing as a new enemy entered the floor, a new combatant.

But I saw it in their minds—they knew cloudskipper wisps. They knew them as intangible, friendly things, entirely removed from mortal concerns, flitting about in gleeful oblivion as they created fields of clouds to play in. They thought that my wolf-wisp would be like them.

They were wrong. I could read her thoughts, feel her rage; she had at first settled into this canine form as a means to run faster, for legs to propel her, but now she had grown into her claws and fangs. She wanted death. She wanted to tear out Gonçal's throat.

And, well. I was rather confident the thief would outlive his worth eventually. Then she could hunt.

But she couldn't hunt as she was now, little more than steam, and so I looked down to my core and the golden letters scrawled across it.

Your creature, a Cloudskipper Wisp, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Cloudrider Sprite (Rare): Summoner once, wielder now. No longer are clouds only brought in its wake; it creates and directs them at its will. Entire field drowned in grey; entire mountains draped in silver, led by their powerful host.

Stormcaller Sprite (Rare): Hardship breeds power. From the depths of captivity awakens a spirit for power, for a break from fragile clouds. Soaring through others' creations, it howls to bring forth a storm to strike against its foes.

Mistrunner Sprite (Rare): A thing of speed and distance. With fashioned legs and canine form, it carves enormous territories through its percussive presence, each step throwing out lands of mist to swallow all invaders and mark it as superior.

Well. These were all very fitting for the one who had returned to my halls for less than a heartbeat and already summoned the power to evolve. Cloudrider seemed the most direct evolution from cloudskipper, digging deep into the grey; mistrunner was likely from her canine form, granting her even greater speed and unconquerable territory.

But stormcaller–

That was her power. That was her strength. She had felt the call of deeper mana but stayed on Khasvar's floor, where lightning crackled around every spark of mana and things darted through air; this was where she wanted to be.

Akkyst had come back from his adventurer and learned intelligence; she had come back and learned fury.

There was only one option that truly fit her.

I selected stormcaller sprite and called her down, letting the mana suffuse her in gleaming perfection as her thoughts smoothed over. She couldn't rest, not like my creatures of flesh and blood, but she merely… separated—instead of a wolf, a glowing cloud joined the collection on the floor, crackling with lightning and power.

Let it be known I would never understand elementals.

But oh, I couldn't wait to see her when she evolved.

Khasvar's awareness drifted over the Skylands, the faint whisper of someone looking down from on high. Not truly looking, though, in the manner of powerful gods; just one small facet of his enormous presence. Acknowledging the change and moving on. Not enough to annoy him.

Lovely.

So for now, I let the floating-glowing-cloud-that-had-once-been-a-wolf drift away, burning with potential, steading and coalescing into a new form. I had reclaimed her, brought her back from the torment that had taken her, and now the world spread before me in lovingly possibility.

While Nicau slept, I would wait for Seros and then finish the Hungering Reefs and the Scorchplains, sharpen them to the destruction I knew they could be.

And then, once I'd dug my tunnel and finished the Haven, it was time to begin my eighth floor.