Dragonheart Core

In the depths of my dungeon, Seros slept.

He curled around my core like usual, iridescent scales hidden beneath the glow of evolution. His draconic evolution. Still the thought just warmed every inch of my mana, my points of awareness watching over him near vibrating with glee.

Was he a dragon? Not yet.

But gods, he was getting there. And I couldn't wait until he did.

But for now, I let him rest, surrounded by silver and moonstar flowers and jewels and ancient draconic runes I'd layered over my walls. Unfortunate that he'd settled in for evolution before I could have him bring down all the artefacts I'd gotten during the invasion, but even my silver was enough to build a beginner's hoard. Maybe that would help speed up his evolution?

I was not a terribly patient creature.

But for now I drifted away, poking in with my other points of awareness; the pigeon-bat-bug war continued to rampage around the fifth floor, seemingly barely aware that there had even been an invasion; which I was glad of, because that was far too close to my core for comfort, but it also meant they were still only stumbling their way up to evolution. Several of the greater pigeons were inching closer, ripping heads off baterwauls in ways that only made me appreciate them more, but they were still a fair while off. Fire-tongue flowers continued to bloom smoke over their surroundings, eyeblight butterfly cocoons hanging off the rust-red iron branches I'd woven around the surroundings. Down below on the floating islands, scorch hounds ran amuck, hunting burrowing rats with their fiery bites, mottled scorpions scurrying around for scraps.

An ecosystem, but not the one I wanted. This floor wasn't made for them, too narrow, not enough room for dens or proper hunting territory. The scorch hounds slept by just curling up in one massive pile on the farthest island instead of the den that they wanted, guards posted, and the mottled scorpions didn't have the leaf cover their camouflage was built for to hide under. The fire-tongue flowers, while beautiful, filled the air with smoke when I wanted clouds.

But for now, it would have to do. I would build other floors for them soon.

I jumped to another set of points of awareness, darting through the thornwhip algae-choked tunnels and drifting bioluminescent spores of the Jungle Labyrinth, the skittering bodies of hunter mantises and platemail bugs looming through the dark. I reached the Stone Jungle at its end, filled with towering limestone trees wreathed in jadestone moss and hazy quartz-lights. In the walls, dens of rats lived, led by the eldest mage ratkin and her five evolved followers, as well as all the other burrowing rats who had made the plunge from the first floor down to the richer fourth, but hadn't developed their mana channels enough to swallow a jewel. Soon, with any hope.

At least until they learned that the shadowthief rats were about to join the fight, and I rather doubted that the mage ratkin would be able to keep as steady a hold on their gems as they had before.

In the farthest back den, larger than all the others and carved by me instead of the little teeth of the burrowing rats, glittering piles of scales sat; crowned cobras in the midst of their evolution, jeweltone serpents awash under light of every colour, and a budding horned serpent curled up beneath the growths already extending off her head.

And there, in the largest hollow of the den I'd grown quartz-lights above just to warm her granite bed, the empress serpent slept. I hovered overhead, even though I knew it would take forever until she finished evolving. But oh, I couldn't wait until she did.

Her serpentine horde had lost much of their focus without her tyrannical oversight, snapping at each other and hunting food for themselves instead of gathering for her. The eldest crowned cobra had apparently made some claim to power, trying to use his age and ranged venom to scare others into obeying him, but he just didn't have anywhere near the bulk nor the psychic powers needed.

And I also imagined that the empress serpent would not be particularly pleased with his actions when she awoke.

She would be getting a Name though, so maybe that would get her in a good enough mood she wouldn't immediately take his head off. Maybe. She hadn't exactly shown herself being a paragon of well-thought-out actions.

I darted up another level, splashing into the depths of the Underlake—still a fraction of the previous population, even after I'd spent dozens of points trying to reclaim the excess my core wasn't able to hold, only a few creatures visible in the murk of the swirling water.

The less-swirling water, unfortunately. That fucking bastard with the unknown ancestry who'd stolen my beloved cloudskipper wisp, her canine form no longer darting over the waves and kicking up much-needed currents that kept creatures from escaping my third floor. With all the corpses still scattered over my various floors, I could easily wrangle together enough mana to shape another wisp, but. Well.

Maybe I was foolish. I didn't know what humans wanted with wisps, why they had captured her in a piece of quartz that I had still been able to sense she was alive within, why she was so prized to them at all. But surely if they had gone through all that effort, wouldn't she still be alive?

Sometimes I still thought of my first cave bear, lazy and unmotivated and young as he was. Our connection had snapped once he'd ran out of my dungeon, not Named where our Otherworld shared mana meant I could still be with him even out of my halls, but he'd been alive then. Maybe he was still alive now.

I loved my creatures. If there was even a chance for them to still be alive, I wouldn't give up on them—I still remembered my first message upon ripping my heart out, the one that told me that all creatures within my halls would be my hoard.

I had lost my last hoard. I wouldn't lose this one.

So no. I would wait to create a new wisp until time had passed, time enough to give her a chance to escape, to whip up enough brilliant mana to shatter that damned quartz and fly back to the peace of the Underlake.

And if she didn't, well. Then, and only then, would I make a new one, if that came to pass.

But for now I merely grew out some limestone and granite deposits, pushing the currents from Mayalle's whirlpool a little further into my floor, and watched the fledgling sea serpent twine around the depths with regal grace. He needed to move to the sixth as soon as it was done, to utilize his growing size in a land that would appreciate it far more.

And. Uh. A floor that wouldn't have Mayalle constantly looking in. The faint star-burn lingering against my mana was something I was very, very aware of.

The armoured jawfish, the cantankerous brute who needed currents just to stay swimming, would stay. So would the sarco, although I imagined she might move down eventually, perhaps to a more marshy floor to match where she had previously lived.

But for now, I watched her sun herself beneath the glowing quartz-light, swishing her ten-foot tail lazily against the limestone. What a monster. I loved her dearly.

On the first floor, much was unchanged—the midnight cave bear slumbered, evolution pooling purple-black light over his body as it twisted and changed. It was only his first evolution, so I hoped it wouldn't take a while; and even if it did, there were still his cubs, slumped up against him. They would protect him if need be.

A few luminous constrictors on their way to crowned cobra or silver kraits, stone-backed toads to ironback toads, cave spiders to webweavers; the rest of my evolutions filled my halls with light of every shade and hue, brighter than my algae or quartz-light. There was something unsettling about having so many of my creatures under evolution, especially when my numbers were already so decimated. But there wasn't like I could do anything to speed up that process; I would just need to wait.

I hated waiting.

But at least there was something I could do—because on the second floor, past the near dozen and a half kobolds all asleep in their own spectral light, there was one creature that was still conscious and still capable.

And I had many, many questions to ask him.

High time I finally started to figure out some of the bloody things happening to me.

Nicau raised his head as I tugged on our connection, weary with streaks of purple wrinkling the skin under his eyes—in the absence of Chieftess, he had taken it upon himself to help the rest of the kobolds recover from the invasion, which was a trying task even with my healing mana and the numerous corpses strewn about for food. It was less than a day after the invasion and most kobolds were sleeping off their injuries and exhaustion; the two main healers were currently busy evolving into kobold shamans, leaving only a younger healer that hadn't proved herself yet, though the way she had stepped up to take care of everyone gave me hope an evolution was soon for her as well. She and Nicau flitted from kobold to kobold, rewrapping wounds and offering fresh meat to those that needed it—I helped as best I could, using the fact I hadn't Named any new creatures and thus my mana regeneration was the highest it'd ever been, clearing paths and warding off adventitious creatures.

Was it favoritism? Perhaps.

But in my unbiased opinion, draconic creatures, no matter how diluted and unevolved and generally unimpressive, were simply better than those not. So it was in my best interest to focus on them.

And Nicau, weak as he currently was, worked with the kobolds, and thus he was lumped in with them. Temporarily.

So I looped some healing mana around him as I focused in through our connection, soothing over aches and taking the bite off his exhaustion. He sagged against the stone wall, using half his broken spear to prop himself up, and exhaled deep enough I practically saw it rattle through him.

Not the thank you o' mighty dungeon I was looking for, but I supposed I would elect to forgive that for now.

At my gentle urge, he obligingly meandered back into his hollow of the den, slumping over on his moss bed and letting his broken spear clatter to the ground. I needed him to sleep and be capable—while I could communicate with all my creatures, that was a vague, compelling sort of impression instead of true speech, and to even make a primitive psionic connection, I needed the horned serpent, who was currently evolving. I didn't want to lose my last Named creature to something like meager exhaustion. No, he needed to be in better shape, especially if a second invasion was going to happen.

Speaking of.

I pushed into his mind. Why was I attacked?

Nicau frowned, leaning back against the wall surrounding his bed. "I don't know," he said, voice warbling slightly as he switched away from the primitive kobold language. "I didn't– I didn't recognize any of them. Or, at least not anyone important. Just adventurers from around Calarata."

A pause.

Hm. That lined up uncomfortably well with what I'd feared—ever since the attack by the invisible man, where the two other invaders had called me a dungeon, I knew that my existence had spread to the outside world. Or, given I'd already had Nicau know about me, at least it had spread to the wider population—something that made sense with the fifty invaders that had then marched through my cove entrance.

I picked my way through the souls I'd won, slithering through the scraps of memories they retained and the last of their thoughts before they'd died—I saw a town square, crowned by a twisting, black-grey tree that sent a shudder down the spine of the woman witnessing it, and a man standing beneath. He was tall, well-clothed, with a hat wrapped in a wolf's pelt; someone I'd seen before.

And this time, I had a name.

Lluc, the First Mate.

He had spurred the people of Calarata to attack me, to defend their home from the dastardly little dungeon that was me—but I hadn't seen him during the attack. Had he even been there?

Something cold shot through my mana. The last time I'd encountered him, he'd been invisible. Only Rhoborh's patronage had allowed me to sense him in time, and he'd fled before I could even attack him. Had he found a way to break past even that?

It was difficult to panic as a living gemstone but I managed—all my mana sharpened to a knife's edge as my points of awareness spiraled around my halls, searching every nook and cranny, hovering over my evolving creatures like I could protect them. My awake creatures stiffened and disappeared back into their dens as I flew by, hunting with intangible claws and wings as if I was back in the Ilera Sea, fangs extended–

But nothing.

It had already been a day since the invasion and nothing had happened, my halls falling to rest instead of ruin. If that bastard Lluc had been here, he had already fled.

But for all I had beaten the Bronzes and Silvers who had invaded me, he was Gold. If he was truly so hungry for my core, why hadn't he made an attempt?

Gods. None of this made any sense.

Two points of awareness flicked back down to look at Nicau.

I didn't want to do this, not particularly. It had been my intention when I had first Named him, because I would much rather spend my mana on something even remotely intelligent rather than a bloody pigeon, but so far I'd only sent my little spy out to the jungle, where the only threats were vicious beasts and impossible environments rather than insipid humans. There was always the chance he could get recognized, or that someone had adapted a spell that let them see he was full of Otherworld mana instead of a more regular human variant. And if that happened, I would lose him.

But I needed answers, and only Calarata had them.

Rest, I murmured, pushing another full point of mana into him, removing the last of his aches and pushing a hidden splinter out of his palm. When more of my creatures awake, I will send you to Calarata to discover more.

Ha. I was getting much better at speaking this primitive human tongue.

Nicau looked a little less pleased with the situation, but that subservience I'd always appreciated in him won over before long. "Of course," he said, a touch hesitantly, glancing down at himself. Namely, glancing down at the blood-covered rags, marred skin, and distinctly unkempt appearance that he existed as. "Ah, not to question you, but I, ah. Would stick out. A bit."

Hm. Irritating.

Ah well. I'd seen his amateur attempts to show the kobolds weapons and clothing; I would step in myself and grant him some finer options to blend in with. Presumably some silver and gold as well, so he could buy things to bring back to me.

This was a pirate city. If anywhere was going to have some wonderful schemas for me to collect, it would be this blasted place. When Seros woke, I would send him to collect schemas in the cove beyond for my coral reef, but Nicau would be for the more terrestrial schemas. And considering I had already seen several groups of Collectors, surely they would have to gather from places other than me. There could be any unknown number of schemas just waiting to be devoured, and Nicau had done quite good work on selecting choices the last time I'd sent him out.

I will assist, I said. But for now. Rest.

Nicau dipped into a bow, slumped over on his moss bed, and was out like a light.

I left a few more points of awareness watching over for when he woke up and drifted away, checking on the evolving kobold hunters, warriors, shamans, and chief; already the tribe was straining to consume all the Drowned Forest had to offer, and that was without these evolutions. Rihsu ate her weight over again whenever she hunted.

I did have the bounding deer schema, but I didn't know if Rhoborh would allow me to add that to his floor; I'd already pushed my luck with the lichenridge turtles and cloudskipper wisps. I would need to find a place for them on a lower floor; let the unevolved kobolds stay up here while those more hungry traveled beneath. You know. As soon as I got a floor capable of holding them.

There was always more to do, as a dungeon. There was no time that I could merely sit to the side and let the world pass by; everything wanted to kill me and I always had to be prepared to escape that fate. Maybe ripping out my heart had been an ill-advised idea.

But above worries for further invaders, for another proper assault like before, for monsters and deaths and bastards who thought they could contain me—excitement thrummed through my mana. Because for all that my creatures were slumbering under the light of their evolution, I had dozens of corpses still scattered across my halls, half-chewed though they might be. And that meant plenty of mana I could harvest from them—mana that I could immediately turn around into great grinding claws for stone.

Because it had been far too long since I'd expanded. My Skylands were still just a catch-all for any creatures I didn't yet have a home for, a dry, fire-esque environment that was the opposite of my final plan for it, Mayalle still watching with growing discontent as I didn't remove the fledgling sea serpent from her floor. And, well.

I was a terribly greedy thing. The gods had given me an Otherworld schema for coral, with characteristics I'd never heard of before, and that spoke to me creating something that had perhaps never existed until me.

And that was something I could get behind.

I spread out my points of awareness, scattering hundreds throughout my upper floors, pinned on my evolving creatures and my entrances. With Seros asleep, he wouldn't be able to take second-in-command like he normally did when I focused on big projects, so I'd need to split my awareness a little more than I wanted to, but I could manage. I had already planned on taking my time with this project—all the days having to completely rework the Fungal Gardens before I was satisfied was a lesson I only wanted to learn once.

This time around, I would be doing it right.

My mana curled around me, sharpening into claws and fangs and enormous, dangerous weapons that the limestone had no defense against. From the entrance tunnel I'd already carved out—not my hoard room, that would stay separate from the sixth floor—I began to dig.

It was time to begin the sixth floor.