Dragonheart Core

Even with Rihsu, the electric eels, the silvertooths, the greater crabs, and the lichenridge turtle, the Silver took an uncomfortably long time to die.

I kept my points of awareness outside, watching only the churning water and crackle of lightning-attuned mana. Rihsu had to poke her head out of the water, breathing large, desperate gulps through her unfortunately still not aquatic body, and then diving back in for combat.

It seemed she strengthened both her muscles and her skin, and even as the lichenridge turtle dragged her to the bottom, she kept struggling up to the top, ignoring the multitude of little fangs doing their damnedest to gnaw past her enforced skin.

It was honestly fascinating. While my floors had been strengthened and could take down one dangerous person with pretty relative consistency, she was convincing me of the threat level of Silvers. Of the base three, being Bronze meant just being a strong enough adventurer to be ranked, and could encompass a wild variety of skills and levels. But reaching Silver meant that there was both talent and skill, plenty enough to impress a guildmaster and earn that fabled title. Gold, even moreso.

So I welcomed the ability to test my creatures when she finally, finally, died.

Mana, rich and powerful, burst through me, but I shoved that aside in favour of poking at her memories. The woman, Aloma it seemed, had been instructed by some furrow-browed man with an overly flamboyant hat to investigate the rumours of a dungeon off the side of Calarata, with whispers that the job had come from the Dread Pirate himself.

At least that confirmed they knew of me. It looked like the information had only come out recently, but they weren't interested in killing me immediately? Why else send a Silver and a streetrat?

Speaking of.

The boy, Nicau, slumbered if not peacefully than at least completely, though a welt was building on the back of his head. The kobold chieftess with her bone necklace and poorly decorated spear poked curiously around his slumped body, though she obeyed my previous command and didn't attack him. Just seemed vaguely disgusted.

Which made sense. If you were a glorious being, albeit descended and diminutive, covered in beautiful scales and horns, the fleshy skin of humans was not exactly appealing. Honestly, even if you weren't a dragon. Human beings were strange, squishy little things. Nicau was no different.

But he would be a helpful thing, if he wanted to survive.

And I was also prevented from having to Name a bloody pigeon for my spy.

Rihsu dragged herself out of the canal, hissing and spluttering through a mouthful of water where she'd apparently gasped when the Silver ranked mana went through her. Understandable. The last she'd gotten in a big way was the Bronze stuff from the Priestess kill, and she'd evolved immediately after. Figured this would be an upstage.

The rest of the aquatic beings scampered off to celebrate their cut, easily two dozen silverheads who'd just been in the vicinity of the kill and had tried their shot immediately evolving; I shifted a few to replenish the electric eel's schools of electric silverheads and made the rest armourback sturgeons for the third floor. It could use the aggression.

The kobolds, what dozen remained, slowly picked themselves up; Aloma hadn't been fighting for too long before she decided to cut her losses and run, but she'd decimated their forces. Half of those that had come were now dead from blunt force trauma, or on their way; the strongest and uninjured scooped up those they could still try to save and started to drag them home, the mana from their assisted kill flowing through them. Not a lot, because it had to split up between all of them, but plenty to soothe their wounds.

Losing twelve kobolds wasn't even that big of a detriment anymore. They were breeding like mad and had a whole little family lineage spreading out; sooner or later I'd need to build a floor below for them, if they kept expanding like this. It'd need trees and water, and strong competitors for the challenge; a jungle, maybe? It'd have to be massive if they ever truly unlocked their potential and became dragon-born.

I bonked a point of awareness against a wall in the best approximation of slapping my head. Not now.

Worry about the present.

I reached deep through my connection and called out to Seros, who slept as normal on the fourth floor, wrapped around my core's pillar. He yawned, flashing his ivory fangs, and raised his head; I'd only awoken the first three floors for this battle, not wanting to get everyone excited when they wouldn't have a chance to fight. So it took him a second to properly get moving with the haste I requested.

He meandered through the tunnels, ignoring the thornwhip algae with all the care of the idle rich. They tried to attack him—sometimes—and he rewarded the foolish arm with a quick and snappy amputation. Clever beastie.

The rats of that floor avoided him, and he and the horned serpent did their best to never interact. He was stronger physically and she was stronger psionically, and they were quite content to leave it at that.

Seros slipped into the water of the Underlake, giving the roughwater sharks a momentarily hungry look, but swam quickly through the bloodline kelp forest, dodging all the mimic jellyfish in the way, and popped back up in the Drowned Forest. His over seventeen feet of length meant that everyone was quite considerate in avoiding him.

The kobold chieftess saw him enter the room, squeaked, and disappeared. Seros sniffed the air, felt the still-dissipating Silver mana, and whipped his head in my general direction with a look that was uncomfortably similar to betrayal.

What?

He bared his fangs and did a rather slow mimicry of biting something's head off.

I sighed, poking through our connection with an overly thick layer of sympathy. Yes, I'm terribly sorry that I didn't let you fight in this battle, you lazy lump. Yes, I'm aware you didn't fight in the last battle, because if you haven't noticed, we've been rather battle-less for a while now and the last battle was against the sharks you now fight on the regular basis. Yes, it was fun. Rihsu proved herself well.

That seemed to excite him, lantern-esque eyes glancing around as if she was still there ripping Aloma's head off, though I could feel her making her way back down to the fourth floor to heal. He poked his nose curiously into the water, scanning the battle scene, and then his eyes landed on Nicau.

The very much still alive Nicau.

He perked right up and marched over, hydrokinesis dragging up a path of water for him to swim through so he never had to break eye contact with the boy. I pressed the mana equivalent of a sigh over his back.

Seros pouted, but begrudgingly stopped his charge and settled for just pacing around Nicau's lump of a body, fully encircling him.

I think I need him, I pushed through our connection, though I didn't doubt he could hear my hesitation. For a spy.

Seros hissed, nosing at the boy's arm. He seemed less than confident in that idea.

He gave me a schema, I said, tugging up random strands of greater pigeon for Seros to sense—the seabound monitor tilted his head to the side, though did seem intrigued at the flying beast. And this attack knew I was a dungeon. I think it's time we start planning for consistent invaders.

That got his attention. As much as he liked staying safe, he'd never turn down a proper battle. It had been near forever since he'd last evolved, and he was growing antsy in waiting. He pushed various thoughts of cages and traps to me. Which, fair point. My plan wouldn't exactly work if Nicau escaped.

Grab him? I asked, and Seros nodded. He sprawled flat next and reached out, cautiously grabbing a wrinkle of clothing and pulling him over; the boy skipped and slumped over Seros' various back spikes and frills but managed to get roughly stable.

Seros looked a little put-out on being a glorified pack horse, but he rose back to his full height and stomped off in the direction I offered.

The kobold's den was the most heavily guarded area of the Drowned Forest, and I didn't want to deal with trying to get enough guards past the Underlake and onto the fourth floor to put him there. Seros nosed his way curiously—and a bit tightly, the opening really wasn't built for his size—into the main entrance of the den, and got the welcome sight of four dozen kobolds freezing in awe.

Not quite the hero worship Rihsu had, but it was pretty clear to notice that Seros was powerful and draconicly-inclined. They bowered their head awkwardly as he padded past.

I poured mana and dug out a side tunnel, next to all the awkwardly-made dens that the kobolds had dug themselves with tools and claws alike. I shaped a soft-ish algae bed and a stream of fresh water trickling down the wall, all manners of great comfort, and let Seros slide Nicau onto its surface. Then I shrunk the entrance and sides so that while the boy could leave, he'd have to work for it, and by then the kobolds would be ready.

Not imprisonment, in the most permanent of ways, but enough to inspire that glorious obedience I'd seen with him. I wanted him subservient, but not enough that he would want to run away more than he was scared of me. So no terrible treatment, but the threat of it. Right.

Seros seemed less than impressed. Well. He wouldn't know quality if it hit him upside the head.

Although I did use the last of my unranked mana, nearly forty points, and whipped up another half dozen kobolds just to fill in the ranks. They were born, blinking, and immediately bowed their heads as Seros padded back through their cave to head outside. No need not to be safe.

Guard him, I instructed the kobolds, all of them blinking with wide, awe-filled eyes. But do not hurt him.

Hopefully that'd get the point across. I'd watch them closely over the next few days just to be sure.

But I still had something else to do.

With Aloma's death, while half her mana had gone to those who had killed her, the rest came to me, and it was rich, beautiful Silver ranked mana that I was only too happy to spend. Not for digging or constructing other schemas, but for feeding.

The Drowned Forest and the fourth floor were well on their way to completion, and it was time to bring the Underlake up to the same level. This mana would be the thing to take it there.

…it really wasn't that much mana. I was hyping it up like some great gift from the gods, but it was barely more than I could create an evolved schema with. Definitely notable, but not really serving this level of celebration.

Ah well.

Up above, the cloudskipper wisp darted to and fro, happily churning her four legs and whipping her tail; she looked like a wolf now, though still hazy and indistinct. I drummed up a few scattered drops of raw, condensed mana, all Silver ranked, and plopped them in her path; she dove for them like the greatest feast I could have ever created.

Even her little mouth moved like a canine as she ate. Very interesting. The other wisps on the second floor hadn't started to develop a form yet, but I got the strangest sense that it wouldn't be wolves for them. I wished I'd researched more into elementals before I'd died.

But hopefully this would feed her well, because I had plans; I reached into her mind and slowly pushed around the paths she already knew to run, kicking up wind and wakes over the water, being the sole reason there were currents sifting through the Underlake and a crushing sinkhole in the center.

I wanted more.

I guided her along new pathways, great spiraling runs to specifically kick up silt and sand from the area the armourback sturgeons fed in, another run to make the bloodline kelp forest twist and wave like a dancer, a third for creating a suction-like pressure to pull creatures in from outside and prevent them from easily swimming out. Little things, but they would build, and once she was powerful enough to strengthen them, I doubted anyone would be so easily leaving my halls.

Because with Nicau, I would be able to see what was going on outside and predict attacks, and that meant time to build my fifth floor. It was time I delved deeper.