Dragonheart Core

My sea serpent, lovely, wonderful, untamed, unstoppable, held the beast in place as Seros ripped its head off.

Blood choked out the water as it thrashed once, twice—then went still, caged in a drowning grasp. Its many spines flicked and twisted, pure white eyes going hollow. Dead.

Panic shot through me, roared through my first Otherworld connection. I slammed all my awareness into the sea serpent's mind.

Squeeze, I pleaded, shoving thoughts of gullets and stomachs and burning through to him. Squeeze, compress, force, break, push–

He hissed, bubbles snaking through his fangs, but rewrapped himself around the beast's corpse—still it smoked and burned, but Seros sprang in with hydrokinesis spiraling, carrying away the boiling water as fast as he could. My sea serpent coiled, chitin cracking and snapping like underwater volcano, its headless neck flopping–

And something purple-white, through the flesh.

Seros lunged, wrapping his fangs so gently around the exposed limb. Currents looped around like cradling wings as he pulled a limp body from the ragged hole where a head had been,

Rihsu.

She was a twisting, macabre mess of scales bleached white with heat and trembling muscles. Her heart still beat, mana sluggishly trickling through her channels—alive, but barely. Seros shifted his grip to wrap his claws around her torso, barely putting pressure on patches of pale skin where the scales had melted away. Her eyes stayed shut, no movement. Unconscious.

A lifetime ago, she had thrown herself forward at the merrow Priestess for little more than the desire to fight by Seros' side—and it had worked, against one at that strength. But her targets were no longer surmountable. She cracked one plate of its armour before it had swallowed her, and she had barely survived. She might still die.

I had no mana. All had been spent patching the two holes slammed into my dungeon, keeping my influence from spilling out in the mountains to wisp and diffuse away; I barely had enough to maintain my current points of awareness. I needed to consume corpses before I could heal her.

Keep her stable, I murmured to Seros, pushing images of warm water and keeping her away from sand. He didn't waste time nodding and just swam up, wrapping his tail around a reef outcropping to support a hovering depth midway through the water. The burn from his golden eyes scared away all those who thought to chase the scarlet bloom of blood through the water.

My sea serpent sagged back, uncoiling from the corpse—they both fell, drifting to the sandy floor beneath. The beast's spines had punctured through his scales, scorched them white with raw flesh underneath, but he was more stable than Rihsu. Strong enough to survive. Still missing an eye, still injured, but strong. He'd pinned it for long enough for Seros to apply the finishing blow. He needed healing, too. Which meant I needed mana.

I gathered my few points of awareness, reshaped them into teeth, and dug into the corpse.

Motes of mana poured through me as I devoured chitinous armour and fish-pale flesh underneath, the fiery spines cracking like ivory as I gnawed into its core. The water heaved around its colossal size, splitting and boiling and thrashing, its faux wings snapping as their spines disintegrated. I was filled with images of tundras awash with sleet and hail, dunes of snow piling up to swallow horizons, the flicker of orange-red as the only difference for leagues upon leagues–

Remorhaz (Exotic)

A monster from distant lands. It devours all those it can fit within its mouth whole, using their mana to power magma-hot spines over its back to protect from the cold. It is fast enough with its many limbs to evade all those who wish to harm it, even if they even see it at all.

My first thought—elation. My ninth floor needed a beast, needed a monster akin to the ice-drakes of polar worlds, and this would live in my dungeon and be a lethal promise to all who entered.

My second thought—why was this in the Alómbra Mountains?

Not now. I had more important things. I gathered the mana from its corpse and flew back to Seros, wrapped around the reef. He perked up as my presence approached, suspending Rihsu in a curl of controlled currents.

I poured mana into her.

She flinched, still unconscious, as healing swept through like a flood. Bleached scales popped off, snapping and cracking, as maroon-indigo scales grew to replace. Her tail flicked, the fins over the side rebuilding out in sluggish unity, her bone-white claws lengthening back to where they had been melted off.

And then, right as I was about to test all of her muscles, my mana stopped working and started getting taken. I pulled back, bristling in an intangible grimace.

I couldn't heal her completely. Much like I couldn't give Svythe her arm back nor regrow Akkyst's eye and ear, my healing abilities were limited by how much mana I could push into my creatures until they started absorbing it instead of being changed. And while Rihsu wasn't down any limbs, she was just so dreadfully injured, to have been swallowed by a fire-beast and nearly consumed by it; the journey to health would be long and perilous. I had done all I could.

Seros shifted, pulling currents up so that Rihsu floated over him; he rose carefully, arranging her on his back so that she was nestled between his spines, as stable as he could manage. She listed back, eyes still closed. Gone to the world, even as her dragon-lord nosed his muzzle on her limp tail, careful as she was a hatchling.

Then Seros crooned, a soft, thankful sound, to the sea serpent. For saving Rihsu.

It had been teamwork, mostly. Rather more the sea serpent doing something and Seros frantically moving to assist, but still something. The first since he had lost an eye and scared himself past the point of action. ṘἈΝȯᛒËⱾ

I had assigned Seros to teach him, but it had been the sea serpent who had made the plunge to work together. It seemed he had more to learn himself.

The sea serpent hissed, haggard. I pushed my remaining mana into him, filling in the punctures by the remorhaz's spines; deep blue scales regrew where they had been missing, restitching a tattered frill by his face, soothing an ancient injury. He warbled something appreciative, thoughts deep and brooding. I had hoped this would be enough for him to evolve, but there wasn't the light overtaking him—nor Rihsu or Seros, actually, though all of them should have been close enough to it. What kept them from that new peak?

Little matter. I couldn't afford to wait down here and lavish apologies for what had happened—the remorhaz, devastating as it was, wasn't the only threat.

Hold, hold, hold, I said to them both, quiet, pushing praise as best I could—then I gathered all my points of awareness, what scant remained, and flew up. I burrowed through limestone, through the edges of my control, until I burst into a storm-wrought floor. The Skylands, where the War Horde had burst through, where the goblins had threatened me and the Growth they shouted for. All the myriad threats and deaths and creatures they'd brought to bare against me–

Which were. Hm.

Gone.

I was quite positive there had been a fighting force akin to an army here.

But what was left were corpses, stacked high and smoldering. Through the choking mist, dozens and dozens of goblins laid strewn about the ground, lightning lingering over pale green flesh or riddled with the bites of mist-foxes and my storm eel. Magelords as well, their grey-tufted tails limp and eyes glassy, but inconsequential in number compared to the War Horde. Their bulkier evolutions as well, and the crystalline beasts and insectoid hulks and popped slime.

I had, ah. Thought they would be more of a problem?

This didn't feel right.

My cloud of awareness floated down, drifting over the shattered remains of the broken island from Alda and the cluster of dens carved into the basestone. Blood spilled scarlet over the cragged rock, slicking up the grey until even Khasvar's energy couldn't chase away the smell, iron and rich through the air. Already Magelords began the tireless process of unearthing their dead and dying, either to bandage or burn.

Akkyst, at the very front of the room, stood on all fours with Bylk at his side. Cuts carved through his fur, scarlet sluicing over silver, but his eye was bright and focused. He rumbled quietly to the leader of the Magelords, gaze drifting between the hole punched in my far wall and something between his paws. I flew it, glancing.

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At the fucking goblin there.

Still alive, a miserable wretch curled up with long ears folded in and all limbs retracted. Breathing, living, hardly a bruise over its pale skin. Not attacking, to be clear, but that likely had something to do with the enormous bear crouched over it, and something else to do with why said bear wasn't killing it.

All my points of awareness swarmed overhead, girdling the room as if any other threats were going to emerge. I dissolved a War Horde goblin or two, just enough to replenish my fill, and pressed mana into him; stitched his skin back together, rethreaded his fur. He rumbled, lifting his head to stare at my amorphous presence.

Thank you for protecting me, I said, and did not hold back on rippling feelings of gratitude. And bewilderment. Why do you have a goblin.

"Questioning," Akkyst said, in his deepest timbre as if to scare the goblin. In my fine opinion, she seemed plenty terrified, but I respected the effort.

What questions? I asked. They followed you.

War Horde attacked Magelords—Magelords escaped—War Horde found them again. It all seemed to line up to me, beyond the marvelous fucking infuriation that they'd apparently found my lower floors instead of my actual entrance. Pricks.

Akkyst shook his massive head, stone trembling under his bulk. "This was not a full attack," he rumbled, singular eye narrowed. Runes flickered off his fur like a spiraling of thoughts.

I stared at him. What?

"Not enough," Akkyst repeated. He pawed once at the ground, rivuts bored into rock. "Not their full strength."

Bylk sighed, snaggleteeth revealed in a grimace. "They're stronger than this," he said grimly. "Don't want 'em to be, but they are. This ain't the army ya bring against the Growth."

There was that word again, spoken with a strange formality to it. I peered closer at Bylk, like any War Horde sympathies would come flickering up—but no, he'd called me that originally, hadn't he? Back when I'd first welcomed them to my dungeon after Akkyst guided them here, when they'd come for sanctuary; they'd come because they knew I was the Growth. Or a Growth, perhaps.

With a little less finesse than I wanted, I pushed into his mind, humming on the edges so he could hear me. Why called Growth?

Bylk frowned.

The jewels in his ears swung as he tilted his head to the side, a curious confusion spreading over his face. Beside him, runes drifted off Akkyst's fur, dim in the mist-choked air. "Dunno," he said, stilted. "Always has been. Can't remember why."

Well, that was a good sign.

I switched back to Akkyst's mind, where at least I was properly eloquent. What kind of questions? I repeated.

"Where the rest went," he said. "Their leader said they were below."

Like fucking hells were they below—if they were already popping into my fifth and sixth floor, what did they count as below? Was I going to feel a tunneling sensation and mere seconds before one of them emerged into my core room and enslaved me before I'd had a moment to react?

Question her now, I demanded, then pulled back. It was his idea, his insight that had led to her capture at all—I should be thanking him instead.

Because at least for Akkyst, I trusted him to do better with a prisoner than Veresai. Kriya still hadn't woken up yet.

After recovery, I corrected myself. Akkyst nodded, stepping back; though Bylk was no doubt low on mana, he summoned enough to raise sections of stone in a makeshift cage around the goblin, though she made no effort to move even with her captor out of the way. A perfect little coward. He'd chosen well for his target.

Then he padded off to the rest of the Magelords, helping pull their dead out of the piles and gathering supplies from the corpses—I'd leave them to take their finest pickings before dissolving the rest for mana.

Well. With a few exceptions.

Because stacked around were new creatures, and those I would be taking first.

Out of more interest, I found one of the evolved goblins and devoured it. From its corpse came the impression of strength and vigour, powerful arms and an unwillingness to back down, the name hobgoblin—but no schema. It seemed the evolved form of sapient creatures were still sapient. Not that I particularly wanted those brutes when I had mage goblins instead.

But the other three, oh those were beasts.

The first was the slime in the far back, seemingly popped by a bolt of lightning; that didn't bode well for its tenacity, but given the myriad bones dissolving away in viscous blue-grey, it was still dangerous. I nibbled around its outer edges, teething through a form of flesh so alien it was acidic, eating back at whatever passed through the thick membrane that bound it together. Fascinating.

Stone-Slime (Uncommon)

Moving through underground tunnels, it welcomes all within its core, where they are quickly made a part of it. Though it is not fast, it never tires.

Well, that was certainly something. I had absolutely no idea where to put it, nor what it was particularly supposed to do. At least the Otherworld slime schema from what felt like centuries ago had disguised itself as a water pool—this just… slithered around my floor until something walked into it? Was that it?

I'd find a use for it.

The next one, at least, was more intriguing; the crystalline beasts, quadrupedal and hunkered beneath the weight of their own armour. There were perhaps four scattered throughout the Skylands, clustered in one group of three and a loner in the back. I ate that one, gnawing through the pale eyes and geological carapace.

Bullwark (Rare)

Often used as war-beasts, this creature lumbers onto the battlefield with an armour ni-impenetrable by physical weapons. It eats minerals and stones to grow its ever-protecting back, both for itself and for those it shields behind.

Considering how much that had felt like a war, these would see their use. It seemed the War Horde hadn't properly prepared for them, urging them forward with spears to flanks instead of hunkering behind; but I could see how my sapient creatures could use them as proper defenses or raising them as tamed prey, perhaps. Something to propagate.

Or armour. Could their crystalline growths be used by my kobolds for armour? Something to harvest and repurpose?

An interesting thought. I'd suggest it to Nicau later.

And there was one more creature, one crippled by Akkyst's mighty paws; a towering beast of amber-gold chitin, insectoid in build and with claws that extended nearly the length of its massive arms. It was missing a leg, snapped off at a more fragile joint, but the power extruded from its corpse even now. I ate it gleefully.

Stagclaw Brute (Rare)

A rampaging savage, it burrows through stone to tear at its prey with vicious claws. Striking from beneath, it either cuts them to pieces or opens a sinkhole; either way, none escape.

Hells did I want this one. Already I could taste the potential; perhaps in the Scorchplains, where its size would be invisible and claws unstoppable. There was something about how deadly I knew it could be when it wasn't forced into a frontal charge; it was taller than Akkyst, though weighing less, and its schema spoke of vicious nature but with a mind capable of more than merely brute force, despite the name. The mana it would win me would far outweigh the cost.

And then I paused, looking back at my core. I poked through the new creatures I'd gotten, down to the first—the remorhaz, all the glacial fury it wrought and promised. At the size. At the density.

That… could be a problem.

I poked around the schema, coalescing in motes of silver-blue light. There was no true concept of space in my core, not in marbled red-black stone and rings of golden runes, but either way, the remorhaz's schema felt… large. It sprawled through my awareness, insectoid limbs and caged heart-fire. I could prod around and discover more about it, that it preferred deep tundras where its spines kept it warm, where it hunted through raging blizzards as an opportunist hunter, or burrowed through stone and snow alike to burst from below. A nightmare it was, perfect for my ninth floor.

My nervousness flickered.

Though I was nearly empty and this was a horrible place to try it, I gathered what mana I had and started to create one, to weave it together just to test how much it would take—and flinched.

Every single drop of mana I had flew out of my core and barely shaped the rough outline of the remorhaz's bottom half, tingling away in the air with nothing to show for it.

I pulled back my mana, dissolving the shape and stuffing it back into my core. Fucking hells, my stores could hold seventy-five points at full capacity, but I had a terrible suspicion the remorhaz was more than that. Which meant.

Which meant I had a perfectly good, perfectly useful, schema in my core, and I didn't know if I could even make the damn thing.

I'd thought I should only ever choose regeneration when I evolved, so as to make more Named, but this was a very critical reminder that that was not all. Fuck.

With an intangible sigh, I let my mana diffuse throughout my floor again, healing latent injuries in Magelords or sending more points to the sea serpent below. A victory won, and a lesson learned—on more than just mana. To see the sea serpent rise above his fear, only to not evolve; for the Magelords to crush a threat I thought was above them; to gather new creatures to use in the coming floors.

But still something felt off.

I'd survived the attack, yes, and I rejoiced at that—but watching the goblin in the stone cage, or remembering Akkyst's quiet certainty that this wasn't all… something lurched in my core at the thought.

This wasn't over.

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