Dragonheart Core

Akkyst stood with the slow, lumbering weight that said he really shouldn't be.

Every muscle remade, his fur scrapped of its brown and given a lustrous silver instead, larger and dexterous and more refined, in a way, a collection of mishmashed parts he hadn't adjusted to yet. His thoughts flowed smoothly, picking up stray observations and stringing together connections in a way that felt natural but was eerily fast. Too… coordinated.

His body, on the other hand?

Still very much unused to it.

He stumbled up to his paws, vision bobbing and weaving as he adjusted to having only half of what he was used to, blurry on the edges and cut off on his left side. Hearing, too; he could feel the thump of his paws against stone, the scrap of the edges of his claws, but they weren't nearly as loud as he thought they should be. As they ought to be.

Everything echoed rather hollowly after that.

But he hadn't backed down before the stone-wurm so he didn't now, staggering on legs that wanted to do everything but obey, enormous head shifting as he tried to take in all his surroundings. Movement, the rustle of a sound; Akkyst's lips pulled back from his fangs in a throaty rumble, not yet a snarl—but prepared.

For all he knew, the War Horde had been the victors after he'd passed out.

But still, he turned as best he could toward the sound—unsurprisingly, difficult to pinpoint with only one functional ear—and began to lumber towards it.

The rattle of voices, echoing over the empty stone, the language he'd worked so hard to decode now coming crisp and understood through him. Almost unfair, really. He'd put so much effort into it, and a simple change had unlocked whatever the rest of the information he needed?

That was for a later time. For now, Akkyst rounded an enormous, shattered pillar collapsed against the ground with shards twisting in every direction and came face to face with goblins.

Blue, black stripes, stone-like robes, jewels and bone earrings.

The Magelords.

As much as relief flooded through him, something heavy and dark lurked behind it; because for all that he recognized every face, there were far too many spaces between them. Maybe four dozen left, if he was being generous, some injured or limp or slump-eyed with exhaustion. They were piled around the shattered remains of a tent, huddled together under a few scavenged quartz-lights, bare bits of food between. Not much more, themselves.

Barely a fraction of what they had been.

And at the head of them all stood Bylk.

Wrinkled, old, the jewels in his ears not yet regaining their shining light—but alive. His eyes met Akkyst's, and true, honest relief poured through them; even if he had to look up even more to properly lock gazes. It seemed Akkyst had grown.

"Bylk," he managed, and nearly marveled at the sound that came from his lips; still growling and rumbling in the way that goblins didn't do, but the sounds were crisp and defined, easy to understand. Several other Magelords blinked wide eyes at the first word of his they'd understood.

"Akkyst," the chief said, eyes wide.

But then Bylk looked at him. He was an old thing, Akkyst knew, twisted and gnarled and wearied by age, ancient for all that goblins rarely had the lifespan to reach it. Most of the time he hid that fact with jokes and cackles and odd, wheezing sounds that were probably laughter, or he ached and moaned about body aches while still springing spryly around the home.

But he was old, and at that moment, Akkyst saw it. Bylk's eyes, framed by black stripes over his blue skin and the jewels dangling from his ears, were dark and deep, something hidden beneath their black surface.

Discerning.

Spending as long as he had slept and waking up with all these new changes, it would be impossible to ignore. Before, it had been easy enough to wave away other problems with him just being a lunar cave bear, a relatively unknown species around here, or lingering effects of the War Horde's hospitality—but not now.

"You're not like us, are you?" Bylk finally said, ears drawing back. "Somethin' else entirely, eh?"

Akkyst rumbled, deep in his throat. There was no hiding it, not now. Not that he was particularly interested in it. He was not overly fond of secrets, much in the same way he disliked keeping knowledge to oneself; while it had only been common sense that kept him from telling the War Horde, both because he didn't want to reveal he understood them and also because they didn't exactly speak fondly of the Growth, the Magelords were different.

Bylk was different.

"The Growth."

The goblins, near collectively, inhaled in an almost hiss.

Which, fair. The Growth wasn't exactly a supportive thing; most saw it as a parasite, worming through the depths of the mountains and claiming territory that lesser creatures couldn't reclaim. To natives, it was little more than a powerful being encroaching on what had been theirs.

But Akkyst remembered the gentleness that had shaped him, that had given him home and food, and knew it meant more.

"Ah," Bylk said, at least one sliver of his normally unflappable self chipped free. Akkyst took an odd sense of pride in that. "Huh. Wasn't expectin' that, I'll be certain. But can't say it doesn't make sense. Wondered why you were so mana dense and all that."

Akkyst nodded. Lingering effects of his home, though he wished he knew more; he had fled from its halls when he was still young and unsure, unhungry for knowledge, content to let the world pass him by. It meant what information he knew about it was tragically limited.

"Suppose you'll be headin' back there," Bylk said, scratching at one of the jewels hanging from his ears. "Can't say we won't miss ya, but whatever new beast ya are will need more than this sack o' bones."

The goblins behind him wilted nearly as one, staring at Akkyst; he hadn't been in their presence long and he'd thought that would count, that they would still be suspicious of his enormous size and blooming intelligence.

Instead, they looked near heartbroken at the thought of him leaving. Something tightened in his chest.

"Don't forget us, eh?" Bylk said, eyes dark and tired and more than a little sad. "Remember us little guys when ya take over this whole damn mountain."

It wasn't a plan. It was barely even a thought, formed from the ever-present longing of moss beds and freshwater streams and whitecap mushrooms that the War Horde had tried so hard to squash out of him but hadn't managed entirely. He hadn't been home in so long he barely remembered what it was, just a vague collection of memories tainted and stained by nostalgia of easier times; maybe it wasn't as nice as he remembered. Maybe it was gone, too.

But in that moment, looking at Bylk, looking at the shattered cavern behind, the words poured out. "Come with me."

Bylk blinked. The other goblins blinked as well.

"A new home," Akkyst pushed, his mouth forming such complex sounds with almost ease, no longer limited to a scant few names and shakes of his head. Finally communicating. "One the War Horde doesn't know. Free. Powerful."

It was an insane offer, Akkyst knew. He'd been with them for weeks at most and now was asking them to uproot their life and follow him; but what life were they uprooting? Bare scattered portions left. The latest attack by the War Horde had decimated them.

Bylk looked around his home, with the crumbled houses, the shattered rock, the corpses rotting and festering on the stone. They could rebuild, perhaps; though with their reduced numbers it would take a long while. As they had in the past, they could try again.

But for all that they had rebuilt before, they had stayed in the same location. The same location where the War Horde knew where they were, where they were limited and trapped by an endless war of territorial disputes and vicious spats. He thought back to that old, troubled piece of stone that Bylk had treasured; covered in archaic writing, mossy edges, a crack splitting down the middle. The mystery of the Mage Lords, their ritual or engraving they had spent decades on until the War Horde had chewed them up and spat them out with only a broken stone to remember it by. Bylk spoke of the fools that had done the ritual with contempt, and Akkyst had learned that from him, but still he took great care of that piece of stone. Treasured it, almost.

But in this home, he had never been able to complete it.

They had survived two attacks.

Would they survive a third?

Watching Bylk, Akkyst thought that the goblin knew the answer was no.

"You've been our savior so far," Bylk said eventually, voice heavy and weary. "Only helped when ya had no reason to. Given me no reason to distrust ya."

The goblin looked over the shattered remains of his home.

"If you're goin' to the Growth, I'll follow."

-

She was clever and small and quick, but most importantly, hungry.

There was no passage of time in these dark, twisting halls, but she had awoken only recently; her second awakening, for she remembered first opening her eyes in the fungal room of her birth, and closing her eyes curled around a stolen jewel and opening them in this new body. A rebirth. A reimagining.

A new life.

And she would not waste it.

There had been others like her, small and furry and with grasping little hands and tails, but they would only be competition. They would take her jewels if she let them, much like they had in the past, like they always had before. She would not allow that.

Rats would do as rats would do, but as the newest of the rats, shadow-sleek and silver-wrought, they would not take from her.

So on she crept, slinking through the twisting canals of a floor deeper, staring up at all the lovely treasures piled high; but they were only plain treasures, in the end. The same gold and jewels and silver that she had found in the place of her first birth, nothing special, nothing new.

She was new. Thus her empire, her hoard, needed to be new.

And she would not find that in the simplicities of the higher places.

There was a tunnel, deep and rich and bursting with mana, tucked beneath the wavering roots of the white-scarlet-blood thing; sly as a ghost, she slipped through its thorny grasp and into the stone below, disappearing from all she had ever known into the depths of her new home.

As she skittered down, she felt something in the air change, growing heavier, almost dense. It pressed against her fur like the rock pond from her first birth, cool and wet, but as she struggled deeper, she felt the mana thicken, burning through her channels with a ferocity she had never felt before. What was this?

Why had she only stayed in the first place of her birth, where the jewels rewarded her with little sparks, when she could venture down here and taste a feast?

Onward she crawled, and greater and greater did the mana grow.

Past the water-air, the tunnel widened and suddenly she was in a new world, one narrow and choked with green-plants, long and grasping; but they were lesser. Were not new enough.

Were not treasure.

So on she walked, through things that reached and grabbed at her, but she was small and clever and her teeth were well adept for nipping off anything that got too close. Things did not see her as well as they should have, shadows rippling over her silver form, and through the tunnels she skittered, following the deepening call of mana. New treasures gleamed, plants with gemstones cradled at their center, striped razors lining the walls and floors, larger creatures with arm-blades and spiraling eyes. But they weren't enough. Not enough.

Through the tunnels, endless and sprawling, sleeping curled up in whatever hollows she could find, gnawing bugs and drinking from pockets of water. The mana called to her, and she felt hungry beyond compare, beyond belief. She wanted more.

So down, ever down, ever deeper, through tunnel and grass-green and spots of water, until she emerged into a massive cavern, false stone things and endless green. Serpents and other rats as well, but they were not her. Not new. So she crept on, slinking through shadow and stream.

The last room was the largest. She stood in awe for a second; perhaps this was a treasure, and she could claim it? Wrap it up in her tail and take it for her own?

Hm. Perhaps not. It was rather large.

Flying things shrieked and swooped overhead as she skittered over narrow platforms and sprawling sections, ears pricked, eyes wide and drinking in all around her. Over valley, over passage, over things she didn't know the words for; but still the mana called and she followed, ever deeper, ever beyond.

Until at last she arrived at the final opening. The mana was the richest it had ever been, promising jewels and gems and silver beyond anything she had seen before—and who was she to reject such a welcoming call? She darted forward.

And there.

A column, a slumbering beast awash in light, gold and silver and brilliance–

But in the farthest corner, a small, delicate flower, white-petaled, gentle.

And absolutely burning with mana, the likes she had never seen before. Something far-off, glimmering like stars, bright and tangible and brilliant. Stronger than anything she had ever seen.

New.

Yes, she decided right there, rising onto her back paws and staring at the flower. This would be her first treasure.