Dragonheart Core

It was an odd thing, to be so convinced something was about to fall on my core. Even as I looked over the ninth floor and all the work I had put into it, an instinct older than the stone around me urged me further down. It said great threats were coming, that death was on its heels if I were lucky, and enslavement were I not.

Surprisingly convincing, that. I angled my gaze to far back of the floor.

If I started on the tenth floor, no matter the distance, it would just be an empty room that I had to hope would be enough to keep invaders back; and it would be more distance for Seros to cross before he reached me. Not ideal. What mana I had would be going towards creating creatures for my Heartwood and ninth floor, filling in the arctic wasteland as the water rose and glaciers froze, not creating a new floor that I didn't even know what I wanted yet. I knew that. I knew that.

Still I kept staring at the flat expanse of stone.

Fuck it.

I gathered my mana, what scraps remained, and flew to the end. I wouldn't be making the floor, not yet, but I would be moving my core down—tucking it further beneath the stone, a tunnel leaning down to tuck into the depths. I wasn't full of the farcical hope that invaders would simply turn around rather than descend the tunnel, but if there was even a chance they took a moment longer to locate the proper way down, that would give Seros just a little more time to reach here. And I would take a chance over nothing.

The ninth floor hummed in quiet anticipation, water lapping at the stone as more mana gushed through the cloudy gems. It would be ages until it was full, which was the unfortunate downside of creating my own water instead of siphoning it from the cove, but I rather saw this as the only option. I was not interested in another hole punched through my walls for critters to scuttle through into my lower levels; the War Horde was still too fresh in my mind.

I picked a spot somewhere higher than the water would be, requiring a precarious climb up the broadside of a future glacier, and started to dig.

The limestone crumbled away, devoured by my mana and recycled back into the digging claws; I meandered my way through the Alómbra Mountains, channeling out a path just wide enough to fit Seros moving at full speed. He was the basis of my design, as always. The glaciers of the ninth floor were thick enough to hold his weight; the tunnels were tall enough to fit his horns. There was a certain peace to me at the thought of building around him. Oh, how I still dreamed of him becoming a proper sea-drake, a monster of unfathomable power—but I had been a sea-drake, and still I had died. And something about that was now less important to me, less fundamental to how I viewed the draconic monitor. I wanted him to be a dragon, yes, but I was also content in him just being– him.

The stone broke, and air billowed back.

I froze.

My mana stilled, drawing away, dust drifting through the half-crumbled limestone—my ambient mana bled from my control, spilling forth, escaping through the hole I'd just carved into my own fucking dungeon.

What?

My mana kicked up as though in a maelstrom, fleeing for the exit; I didn't have time to panic. All hells, but at least I was adept at this—I grabbed my mana and slammed it shut, dragging all the looping coils back until they were under my fucking control, locked within my halls. It snapped and snarled at me, wanting to escape, to slither out into the wider world, so I hauled it back into my core until it obeyed.

The entrance closed to my mana; my sight was locked out. I now could see nothing but a black void in my halls, a gnawing emptiness where objectively I knew

There was a brief moment of perfect, helpless terror. Where I waited, coiling in on myself and burning with arcane fear, for another War Horde to fall through the gap—for my doom to come to me with claws out and teeth bared.

And nothing happened. Just stale air, sickly sweet like rot. No monsters. No threats. Nothing to see.

Seros, I called, just a touch hysterical. Seros!

He raised his head, pausing from where he'd been entertaining himself by chasing a moray shark to test both their agility—and felt the thrumming panic through our connection. His golden eyes flared wide.

The Hungering Reefs squawked as one as he dove into the water, kicking up a tremendous splash with his hydrokinesis—the armoured jawfish and his tidewalker sprite fumbled back, gnashing his teeth, but Seros was a beast possessed. He flew through the floor like a loosed arrow, geysering through the third room. The sea serpent lunged back as Seros clawed into the shipwreck, scrambling down the drowned tunnel, and ran through the Scorchplains as though they were his own personal damnation. Even the kobold tamer barely had time to lift his head before Seros had leapt over the basalt pillars and plunged into the tunnel down, water droplets still streaming off his scales.

There was only a brief moment of confusion as he faced the new Heartwood—though I'd lovingly talked about all of the changes, he hadn't yet seen them himself—before he was clambering into the treeline, bracing weight on the laddercaps as he hauled himself up. Verdant howlers shrieked at him, their territory still so new they were trying to defend it, but at least they had enough of a brain on them to understand that challenging my Seros would be a swift and unremarkable death. They stayed back and just screamed.

He splashed into the ninth floor, water barely more than up to his dew claw, but the cold was enough of a shock to make him hiss. He charged through, eyes wild and hunting for whatever the threat was, the reflected pain from me. The tunnel down took nothing more than a heartbeat.

Seros came to a stop before the hole, horns held high and mana thrumming through his channels. Wary confusion bled through to me, Otherworld mana flickering around the cragged stone.

When nothing attacked him, he tilted his head to the side, exhaling a plume of mist. He pushed a thought of questioning through to me.

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I don't know, I admitted, still hackled like prey before a devourer. I broke through.

Seros hissed, forked tongue flashing through his fangs. He padded forward, tail swishing over the stone, and poked his head in—very odd to me, where to my sight it appeared as though his head had been spontaneously cut off—as he investigated the hole.

He would have to be my eyes. And for me to actually see something, that meant I had to travel alongside him, putting my mind with his through our Otherworld connection.

It would leave me blind, but the risk was worth it. I had to know what was on the other side, if my dungeon would be forever frozen at nine floors or if a threat was about to taste the ambient mana and come to consume me. I couldn't afford to just block up the stone and dig my tunnel elsewhere.

I gathered all my points of awareness, coalescing into a single conjoined consciousness—time slowed as all my power came together, the distant buzz of insects and splash of water muting as I gathered in this tunnel. Then I followed the pull of Seros' soul, the Otherworld connection woven through our beings, and fell into his body.

All at once, my mind locked itself into him, pressing at the edges yet unable to move beyond. It was remarkably

Seros huffed air in faint amusement, which also felt weird. He shifted, testing the movement of each limb with my added presence, letting mana spark to the tips of his fangs. I urged him forward. Caging myself within a mortal form tore at my composure; I was so used to a dizzying array of perception, everything open to my points of awareness. Seros only had two eyes, advanced though they were.

He churred agreement and stepped forward, weight shifting, tail sliding, a million things to keep track of and still all within his scales. I simmered in his mind, peering out alongside him.

The stone was grey and cragged, rooting in on itself where I'd stopped halfway through eating it entirely. The hole was a shallow thing, the height of the tunnel but half the width, and beyond was– more grey, more stone. A cavern, maybe?

Seros braced his claws, gathered his mana, and stepped through.

The loss of my ambient mana struck me first, aching and omnipresent; the little sparks of healing and soothing presence I always pushed into Seros disappeared, his scales suddenly heavier, his limbs less agile. He stumbled once, tail lashing, hissing at the darkness—he was one for the deep waters and shadows did not hide the world from him, but it was achingly dark here regardless, a passage towering before.

Stop, I murmured, and Seros did so—we stood still, only his breath echoing against the stone. We just stared at the impossible world right beneath my halls.

The stone was– I wanted to call it naturally formed, being so deep in the mountain, but it wasn't. It was ruined.

Everywhere Seros turned his head was destruction; the walls broken down to fragmented pillars, fractures snaking through the ground and overhead. A thick layer of stone dust swirled by his ankles, clouding the air and littering shrapnel over the path—what had once been a path, relatively straight and purposeful through the rock, but had seemingly been explored at some time in the distant past.

What was this?

It was frankly terrifying not to have my mana fill this land in its entirety, to understand each turn and twist because it was my own—we were walking blind, our only awareness being that which was before us, all else hidden. But even still, I got the impression that this was large; stretching far beyond our claws, beyond the stone walls and pressing darkness. This was something more than a cavern, than the depths. It had been something once, and then it had been destroyed.

There was a part of me that hoped it was just the pathways left by a stone-wurm's travels, snaking through the mountain range, but I had not survived as long as I had by relying on hope.

Onward, I said, less than confident. Seros rumbled deep in his chest and pressed on.

It wasn't just one path but a dozen, all weaving around themselves and coming back together. The land reeked of death, something recent and rotting, but all around was stone and stone undisturbed. It had been destroyed, yes, but found again? What could have died here so recently, yet not change?

Seros' nostrils flared, head cocking enough his horns brushed the outer wall. He and I saw it together—beneath a fallen boulder, looming through the darkness, was something sharp and white.

Bones.

Bleached by age, by neglect; they were yellowed and twisting, most broken by the falling stone and splayed in their corpse's final pose. Humanoid but smaller, parts hunched where they were still configured. And oddly familiar.

This was beyond a mystery now. I needed more than just Seros if I wanted to investigate this cavern system right against my dungeon; if I wanted a tenth floor, if I wanted any more floors at all. Gods, but if I didn't have both this and the Marquesa de Wolf to haunt me.

One thing at a time, as little choice as I had in that matter. Grab it, I said, pulsing through our connection, then return.

Seros churred his agreement—being woven in his mind as I was let me sense his own unease, the shadows lurking through the darkness. For all he had explored the cove and found Arroyo, he was not fond of being in territory not made by me. Threats were larger things when they were unknown.

He crouched, tail flicking, and carefully picked up one of the larger segments. I was treated to the uncomfortable sensation of ivory scrapping against fangs, which echoed with an odd resonance that was deeply unpleasant, but then Seros turned and padded back the way we had come, though we had barely explored anything and both of us knew it.

What was this? Why was there something like this so deep beneath the mountain, and what had happened to it? Why had I dug for so long and only now found anything?

Seros moved faster now, weaving through the passages, head raised and nerves rising. Something about this was very wrong. He squeezed back through the entrance, letting the bone fall out of his mouth. It clattered over the ground, my mana sweeping in to surround us, familiar walls and feeling.

I dove out of Seros' form, immediately exploding into ten, twenty, a hundred points of awareness as my consciousness bloomed out to the wider halls—Seros huffed as I luxuriated in movement and focus and sight and being a dungeon core again.

Hush, I chided without any venom. If you knew what this felt like you would–

And then I paused.

Because my core, two floors above, was flashing; golden runes wrote upon its surface, gleaming through illegible mysteries. This in of itself wasn't a surprise; I got hundreds of things requiring my attention throughout a day, from lesser evolutions to the schemas of Underranked insects. All inconsequential gatherings.

But my core wasn't acting like it normally did. The runes were fever-bright and burning, scouring out at the surrounding stone with a vengeance I hadn't felt before. It dragged at my awareness, something heavy and furious, growing, getting angry at every moment passing.

Seros felt it as well. Which was concerning.

I darted up, weaving through the ninth floor to hover over my core proper, peering at the light spilling forth. At the message waiting for me with the opposite of patience.

The runes wrenched themselves to the surface—still gold, still glowing, but something black beneath. Something hungry.

Your creature, a Vampiric Mangrove, is

Please select

Borwood Tree (???): this will not be

Borwood Tree (???): this should not

Borwood Tree (???): YOU CANNOT HAVE

I balked, panic ratcheting. What–

In my Drowned Forest, one of the vampiric mangroves exploded into shadow.

-

Far away, in a glass-paned room beneath spread draconic wings, a man with black eyes raised his head.