Dragonheart Core

She peered through the gap of stoned branches, a macabre reimagining of a forest, or at least something resembling it. It could have been a fairytale kind of story, maybe, the one she'd delight in with her sister reading it through hissed syllables and rippling hoods, but it wasn't, because it was right before her and she could see it.

Kriya Acadaiss, on the day she was to finally reach Silver, untangled her mind from the easy, gentle persuasions plaguing her for just a moment.

There was a cobra before her, coiled in on itself with pain, and Veresai—am yours, she is leader, she is empress—had told her to heal it.

Mana thrummed through her chest. Two years had she spent at Bronze, and today was when that would change.

But she couldn't go back from this, she knew. That was the manner of deals—or deals, really—and magic listened. Her father had been a wild man, never mentioning their mother or how he didn't have scales to match her and Sarissa, but he'd taught her well on bargains and offering. Magic was a living thing, as he described it, something more than a tool by which mages threw out destruction; it hummed and sang and watched.

That was half the reason Kriya had chosen to attune herself to healing. Most would call it stupid—anyone could get a piece of rose quartz and carve a healing power into it, or make simple enchantments to take the edge off. They wanted the fire, the lightning, the fury.

But if magic was really listening, then maybe it wanted to help.

So Kriya had chosen healing.

And that healing led to her now, standing in a dungeon's floor with psionic power flowing through her, mana channels full, crouching over the body of a crowned cobra.

Attuning herself to healing had given her more than the ability to take away pain—it let her sense, let her learn. Few other humans could sense when their ability was about to change, needing an Adventuring Guild of some discipline to declare it, but she knew. Mana thrummed and thrashed beneath her, lighting through her fingers, and magic was listening. Always listening. It was ready to elevate her to Silver, to finally raise her to the power her sister had reached and she hadn't, only now it was just her, because she was in the dungeon where her sister had died and she was still here.

If she chose to soar into Silver by healing a dungeonborn creature, a technical enemy, then magic would hear that. Magic would see. Magic would decide what that meant for her power.

Kriya looked at the serpent. It hissed, coiling in and up on itself; she'd already pried the thorns out of its scales after the mage ratkin had beaten it away with commanded strands of green, but the wounds were still there. It was in pain.

Magic listened and magic heard and magic helped. Kriya had become a healer because it was who she was.

Kriya set her palms on the cobra, pulsed healing energy through its wounds, and ascended to Silver.

-

Climbing was an act of fruitless desperation, but those lesser did it anyway.

The old hunter—the stalking jaguar, as others called her, unknowing, always unknowing—sank her fangs into the mantis as it tried to escape her. She tore it down from the green-root walls and shattered past its skin; ripped off its head in one elegant motion as it clicked and chittered and died.

Another death. Another victory, to eat her fill and drag the rest down to Akkyst.

In the endless darkness of the tunnels, these beasts were the only real threats that could fight back without devastation. Oh, there were the platemail bugs, those that shambled around in armour, but they didn't fight, just endured. Serpents fell to her claws no matter glowing blue eyes. Rats with morsels.

But the mantises were enough for now. Not forever, as the mana built in her chest and staggered out through her limbs, but enough for now. She would satiate herself on their lesser bodies until the time grew that she wanted more.

So she crouched over the corpse and bit her way through its limbs, click-click, her rasping tongue shredding the meat underneath. Another meaningless one, not strong enough to hurt her, not strong enough to matter. Young, perhaps.

Not all of them were young.

Because there was one mantis she hunted for, that she searched in the darkness for it to emerge and challenge her, to begin the hunt once more. Partnership was not a word in her understanding. Oh, it was a word, one of the many she'd become aware of when the Growth had spoken into her mind and called her its, but that did not mean she would allow its meaning to taint her. She was an old hunter, no matter what the Growth called her, and she hunted alone.

But this beast.

The others kept their dark green skins, no fur or feathers, but just hard surfaces like claws. But the eldest, the largest, had started to soften; the greens to blues to rippling iridescence. They were insects, her new knowledge told her, and they fought with claws much longer than hers and a brittle body that did not survive one bite. The largest, however, danced around her—again and again had they fought and both emerged alive. That was not hunting anymore than it was victory, but it was clever, and it was fast. Her claws against its claws; her fangs against the air left in its wake; her tail lashing through empty space.

A challenge.

One that never slept, never rested. She had only seen it when it came to her—much as it did now, fading through the darkness, lingering on the edges of her peripheries as she devoured the corpse of her making.

Perhaps she had summoned it. Perhaps it had heard her thoughts.

But what mattered was that she looked up and saw it, standing at the very back of her awareness, scuttling body raised high and full of teeth. It watched her, blue-green-iridescence, and waited. Its claws came up, near imperceptible through the darkness.

She growled, low in her throat. Her belly full, a corpse to be taken to Akkyst. More tunnels to explore and mana to gather.

Its black eyes flashed.

She lunged.

-

The shadowthief rat was a creature of, fittingly, shadows; she liked darkness in the way it coated her, drowned her fur beneath its shroud, hid her away from all the keen eyes of predators. It had led to her hoard, long ago, and it led to her survival now—though perhaps not as much as the moon-pale flower she'd consumed.

She felt it, still. It hovered somewhere in her stomach, heavy like a good meal, one that never went away. Not a thing like the Mind-Voice, the thing that told her where to go and what to do, but something deeper. A part of her, as much as bones and meat, but colder. Wind, to guide her when she ran hot.

But it was rather difficult to run hot when the darkness she normally adored was drowning her.

The Mind-Voice had given her a mission, and not only her—Nicau, the human, the steal-target, the price-mark, had plucked her from her comfortable den and deposited her on his shoulder, as they had made a perch for her on, and wandered off through the tunnels. A wretched kind of walking. No prey or treasure to be seen.

Mana overhead and watching, half-thought-bit of the Mind-Voice, and a path she didn't understand carving through the darkness. There was a mission, yes, something guiding, but she hadn't been told. A rat still, to them. Strong and powerful and clever and with a star in her chest, but not told. Even Nicau, so soft, so subservient, didn't say anything.

This was why she had never been one to join a colony, not like her brethren, high up on the first and second floor. They had wanted the security of multiple eyes—but eyes never looked out for others as much as themselves. All the better to be safe in yourself. All the better to only trust the one you knew was protecting you.

But there was something to be said of being trusted by others, even if she planned on betraying them eventually. There was no point in being cold and biting when they wanted to believe you; better to hold her teeth back until she could steal all their treasures to take for herself when they least expected it. Even the Mind-Voice thought she was perfect. Kept putting her on missions. She would maintain this trust.

Which was why, when the moon in her mana lurched, the shadowthief rat hesitated for only a second before following.

Nicau walked with plodding, hesitant steps into the darkness; she scuttled over his shoulders, ignoring the yelp of surprise from her steed, and wrapped her ridged tail around his neck for support. Even with his fumbling awkwardness, there was plenty to lean down and tap his arm.

Nicau blinked at her. "Um."

Overhead, the Mind-Voice paused in its digging, the stone grinding away back to pressing silence as they both focused in. The attention, the awareness—it went against her shadows but did go to her pride. Truly nothing better than being seen when she wanted to and not when she didn't.

The weight in her heart shifted. She tapped his arm again, then flicked her nose in that direction.

"Go… left?" Nicau said, hesitant. He squinted at the wall she indicated, nothing setting it apart from the others. "Is that what you're saying?"

She squeaked.

The Mind-Voice reached out, a faint tendril of awareness; she opened her mind to let it see what it wanted to. The thoughts circling around the tugging sensation in her chest. The moon-pale pull of something powerful.

Nicau winced, skittering backwards, as the Mind-Voice abruptly dug into the wall where she directed; stone billowed outward in a plume of grit and dust, choking the air, shattering deep within the mountain.

And there, past the rock—

Something white. Something sharpened and jagged, gleaming through the stone, a break unlike the cold grey around. A prize only her intuition had achieved.

With no small amount of pride, the shadowthief rat returned to her perch on Nicau's shoulder, and began grooming her ears. Served them right.

They'd trust her, because she would only give them reason to, and when she claimed the greatest treasure of all, no one would know enough to stop her.

-

In the cold marrow of a forgotten tunnel, he hungered.

The others slept and rested and lazed but he was ever-moving, the weight of his mighty defense carrying him to the bottom when the goddess' currents did not suffice. The armoured jawfish was one of teeth and trial, rage wrought into destruction's form, and he did not allow things like exhaustion to hamper his ability.

For he was Old, and precious things were, in this world. Sometimes, he was the only one.

And still he was here, in the land he had known since his first change.

Lower, lower, lower—mana called to him in the way of prey and flesh and meat. Things to sink his armour-fangs into and tear open.

But the water was heavy and the path heavier. Lesser beasts crawled through tunnels on their way down, guided by the Reawakener, but he had not received such a call. Twice changed was he, from prey to prize to predator, but still did the lower floors elude him. Did the Reawakener think he was not strong enough? He ruled the Underlake more than those with scales but sunlight callings, and the blood-fang thing that could only pester his armour. They were–

What were they, truly? Squalling infants to his mana, bright and untested, who puttered around with delusions of impossible strength ripe for the culling. He could not even call them young, because there wasn't a word for it—only Old. Only him.

…he remembered another Old thing.

It had been on the night of blood, where bodies fell from the surface and a storm exploded in the outreaches; he had sunk his fangs into mana fresh and ever-flowing to emerge satiated.

All except the one thing that had swam before him, staring at him, bronze scales and fleshy limbs—and mana that sang of Old magic. Something before; something beyond what this world had to offer.

The armoured jawfish was a wretchedly hungry beast.

But he had let that thing go.

He hadn't much thought on that decision, distracted by corpses to devour and victory to revel in, but the truth was that he had swam on, and the thing was alive. It hadn't been killed by anything else, considering he hadn't found its body, nor its mana. Instead, it had left, and he had been hungry in its absence.

There were other Old things, he knew. He remembered them from back when he was still prey; when he swam through canals instead of lakes, and trees with ancient mana trailed thorns in the water. And the scaled beast that was sometimes here and sometimes not was also Old, though less so, more adapted to this world.

He was Old, he knew that. He felt the song in his marrow that had never been sung by living creatures.

Old, twice reborn, and still stuck on the floor so high above the others. The mana thin, the power lesser. He wanted to go beneath. He wanted to be unstoppable.

Deep in the tunnel, he gnashed his fangs, water billowing through his armour. The Reawakener hadn't called him below, but perhaps that was because it wasn't looking; he would give it something to look at. He would give it something to choose.

-

Teeth. Teeth!

Bylk stretched open his mouth, tapping at one of the canines dulled by age. "Teeth?"

Before him, quicksilver letters drifted like smoke. They twisted around Akkyst's exhale, wavering without losing their form, bobbing stars in the darkness. But, of current interest, was one that they had been studying for some time, a jagged thing with four prongs and a slash through the center.

Akkyst bit at the air.

Another one of that shape appeared.

"Yes," Akkyst said, eyes bright. "I believe so."

Bylk sighed, leaning back. He rubbed at exhausted muscles holding his ears up. "Rock 'n' rubble, that takes bloody time, don't it?"

"It is something new," Akkyst said, raising his head to nose at another of them. The runes were amorphous beings, made of pure light and entirely ignoring most characteristics of existing things he was familiar with, but they had managed to figure out what some of them meant. The simple ones, for the most part, like goblin and fire and wound. Handy, in a way, to have so many other creatures in the Skylands to study.

With each discovery, Akkyst grew brighter—quicksilver glowing, no longer a lunar cave bear but now starwrought, and all the stronger for it. The act of learning was almost more important to him than the learning itself, because he was a beacon for sages everywhere.

Bylk remembered, quietly, the first time they had met—in the wake of a massacre on both sides. If Akkyst hadn't reacted to his voice, hadn't revealed he could understand them, would they have still become this? Would the Magelords have died to the War Horde, never more than a memory for those who weren't goblins? Would he still be here?

But you didn't get to his age by frenetic worryings over times long past. What mattered now was that they were both here, and they were learning, and there was a piece of archaic stone that soon they would discover the meaning of.

It was the goal at the end of the thicket, really. Because anything Akkyst touched or did or interacted with made runes flicker into the air, full of knowledge, and all they had to do was decode them. Bite the air—symbols for air, bite, teeth, power. Scratch the stone—rock, claw, wound, dust.

When he touched the ancient, moss-covered rock that was the only saved thing from their previous home, runes came to the light.

Still undecipherable for now. Oh, they were close, so close—already they'd figured out that one meant heart—but it was coming. Akkyst was a right proper genius, the kind you didn't dig out of rock but had to come down from above, and Bylk made up with age to offer. The Magelords were settling in, the Skylands were secure, and progress was coming.

Soon, Bylk would have more to offer his people than survival. Soon, they would become the Magelords again, rather than the scuttling fears that they still were. Soon, they would be what they had been.

But for now, he leaned back with Akkyst, and worked to learn more runes.

-

Chieftess squinted up at the quartz-lights overhead. Though she was well-prepared for it, the urge to yawn didn't emerge.

The world had changed, recently. Tiredness lurked only in memory, in the empty hollows of the den that used to be filled. She had woken a day ago and though the quartz-lights never wavered, she had prepared to lay down, and just– didn't. There wasn't a need. Her mind was as sharp as it had always been.

A wonderful boon, which felt like the sharks swimming outside the lagoon with teeth bared. Every kill came tinged with those fangs, a faint taste that cut back her hunger and exhaustion and distraction until she bared her own teeth in response.

But for all she was ready to fight, there was nothing to fight.

Past the lagoon, water lapped and thrashed against the sky. A roiling mess of devastation—the great monsters, those adapted to water and woe. Too strong for her tribe. They had only just perfected swimming in the lagoon; adventures beyond were few and far between. Too dangerous. Too few returned.

Chieftess warbled a quiet command, the strongest of her kobold warriors joining her side. They were tall now, crimson scales bright and battle-hardened, and they wielded claws and spears in equal measure. Able to swim through the lagoon, the heavy currents; proper champions.

She had become strong, too. She had made the bargain so that her kills were those of her tribe; so that their mana was given in share to her for her strategies. And then they had all awoken, been reborn in light and new bodies, and then come to a lower floor full of mana, and the threats had stopped. The humans had stopped.

Oh, they had grown—coral adorned the staffs of her kobold shamans, they'd successfully sent hunts beyond the lagoon, their den towered with stored food—but their enemies hadn't. Small fish to feast on and those too great to challenge outside of the lagoon; their world had grown and their prizes had shrunk.

Because the lagoon was the only place they could hunt, but they were not the only hunters here. Sharks, kraits, fish, serpents; and something else. Something bigger.

The dryad.

They were not to kill her. The Great Voice had made that very apparent. The twisted, warped thing with too many joints and not scale but bark instead, that feasted on blood and hissed at contact—protected. Not to be killed. No matter how many sharks she dragged from the water or fish she skewered upon the mangrove at the center of the floor, she was not to be attacked.

Even as she killed kobolds. Even as she slaughtered them.

Chieftess didn't like that. The Great Voice decided their creation and destruction, speaking of their growth like it wanted it; but then it forbade certain targets and trapped others in stagnation.

The dryad could kill them, but she could not kill the dryad.

Chieftess flicked her tail, lashing it through the white sand—at her command, the twin kobold warriors dove into the water, disappearing beneath the blue as they rose up to the surface. They were still not as agile as Rihsu, who swam out of the lagoon, who never sheltered in the shallower waters without predators; and they had kept their scarlet scales. Rihsu had deep purple.

Water.

She wanted stronger fights. She wanted danger. She wanted fairness, so that she could rend the dryad claw to claw instead of forced to watch her kill.

The Great Voice had led her tribe below, to a land of water and woe. It had made her think things she had never known to exist before; thoughts so much bigger than she had thought possible. Rihsu had her own big thoughts, and she got them from following the lord-beast of iridescence and scales. The other kobold that had been born alongside her had traveled below, following the hounds he had seen. Of the original, she was the only one who had stayed with the tribe.

The tribe was hers. It was what she wanted. A leader was she, forever more.

If the Great Voice wanted others to survive at the cost of her tribe, then she would find a way to make her tribe strong enough to never be hurt again.

-

Something was wrong in the weave.

The web, untouched, untainted; the endless march of those devoted. A new world apart from the old, without dead-trees far above but instead twisting stone to hold up their webs, their mission, their purpose.

They had been chosen. Others were left behind, stuck without the power to relish in, without the intimacy, without the words. They hadn't been spoken to. They would continue weaving their meaningless webs and striving for devotion that would not earn them attention anymore than it earned them change.

Only this web had been chosen to go below, and to complete the task bestowed upon them.

The Great Spider had given them a vision; a shape in which to weave his dream. They were but the many claws on his many limbs; the incomprehensible power that filled his mind and drifted down to join them when they were chosen. Just them, their ghostly bodies, their threads selected for the worship. Only them, only the Great Spider.

They had no concept of personhood. Why was it necessary, when they were but tools for a greater purpose? A mandible did not consider itself separate; it merely was. And the Great Spider that wielded it was the creature, the thing. So they would sink their understanding into greater treasures and become to him, to this power above.

But there was something wrong in the weave.

The shape they made was by decree of the Great Spider, his shape their purpose, but the needle did not match his power. No mana from his gift to them had been formed like this, nothing more than a shape without devotion. What did that mean? What did it want?

Why had they been told to make this shape, when it was not of the Great Spider?

Blasphemy was death and, truly, unthinkable. No part of them could disobey or hold the idea of it. But questions were lesser things, irritating things, a shiver in the stability.

The shape was wrong. The shape was wrong. It was– a gnat, scuttling over the web. Too small for a meal but large enough to pluck at the strands, to make noise and rippling movement without the promise of prey. A gnat, instead of anything with meat.

The one that they were—old, large, with thoughts that had grown beyond their shell—curled their limbs in, staring over the world with glassy eyes.

Perhaps it was a test.

Perhaps the Great Spider had given them this shape so that they might bite into it; so that they could follow this loose thread until they discovered the web at its core. Perhaps there was a path for true devotion just waiting to be walked, and they were the first to discover this.

The Great Spider demanded obedience.

They would not fail.