Dragonheart Core

Nicau awoke with the vague sort of realization that he hadn't expected to wake up. So already, things were looking up for him.

He blinked up at the cragged stone above him, a dark mess of shadows except for a strange, vaguely green light coming from somewhere he couldn't see yet. Something soft was below him, though wet. His head hurt.

But he wasn't dead. Maybe? He didn't know what happened in the afterlife. Maybe everyone who died just appeared in a dirty cave.

He stiffened. There was a certain cave he was thinking of that seemed more likely. Nicau closed his eyes, tugging on that bare power he had; it came awkwardly at his call, stiff and unwieldy from unuse. But still he managed to wrangle it, searching for trails of mana and power–

And immediately had to shut it off as his mana-sense screamed.

Yeah. There was magic here.

He winced, sitting up; it was a small room, walls rough and cramped, made of a pale grey stone he remembered from the Alómbra Mountains, though more… silver? than what he was used to. Common green algae was below him but glowing, and water trickled down the rock on the wall opposite.

And ever so faintly, in the back of his mind where his mana-sense was still reeling from the power it'd beheld, there was the barest scent of dragon.

Dungeon.

The same one he'd begged for life from, and apparently got, but in his mind he'd had a bit more of a thought that not being killed also meant being let out. Looked like that was not the case.

But if it had wanted to kill him, it would have done so already, and he stood up from his algae bed with a bit of hope from the idea.

And immediately came face to face with a lizard.

He squawked and fell back, back pressing against the stone; the monster poked its head through a crack he hadn't noticed before, golden eyes bright. It had speckled red scales, horns curling over its head, muzzle lined with fangs. Maybe a bit taller than him, bipedal but hunched over, claws clutching a deep scarlet spear tipped in bone. A kobold.

Before, he'd only seen them as heads and horns sold as trophies, but now he'd seen them fight. And as easily as Aloma had been defeating them, she was Silver ranked. Nicau certainly wasn't.

He was fucked. Fantastic. Not an ounce of combat magic in him and certainly no physical prowess, but maybe the kobold couldn't recognize that. Maybe. Nicau raised his fists, still pressing his back to the wall.

The kobold blinked at him again, forked tongue flicking out, but didn't enter the room. Its slitted eyes were almost… curious?

Nicau's heart was pounding so hard it physically hurt, but he couldn't help but be curious too.

The dungeon had taken his pigeon and presumably killed Aloma, but left him alive, tucked away in this little cavern. He could recognize the blood-red wood of the kobold's spear as the same mangrove trees from the second floor, the same golden eyes as the other kobolds, though they'd had different coloured scales. So. Still within the dungeon.

"Hello?" He tried. Never hurt to be polite.

The kobold made an odd hissing sound, tilting its head to the side. Then it promptly decided he wasn't a threat and squeezed its way past the crack in the wall, setting its spear down. Its tail swished curiously as it padded towards him without fear.

Nicau certainly had a lot of fear but it wasn't like there was anywhere he could run to; he settled for bracing his arms over his face and whimpering.

But the kobold didn't attack, instead bending its digitigrade legs and narrowing its eyes at his chest—his clothes. It seemed confused, reaching out to almost hesitantly run its claws over the rags. Nicau could feel its cold touch through the thin fabric.

It looked up at him and warbled.

"Uh." He grappled for an appropriate response. "My clothes?"

The kobold blinked again, hissing something that could have potentially been an attempt at mimicking him, and poked the fabric again.

…it reminded him of the other streetrats.

A strange comparison that came out of absolutely nowhere, but there was a sort of child-like innocence in its motions, curious about the world with a desire to learn. And though it was nightmarish and powerful and monstrous, it clearly had some form of intelligence. Did it want clothes? Did it know what they were for? Covered completely in overlapping scales like plate armour, it didn't need them, but it seemed fascinated by the concept. What about something like the merrow, where they had decorative strips of fabric and jewels, not covering anything but merely to accent?

Nicau remembered once more that he was trapped in a dungeon and whimpered again.

The kobold stiffened, jerking away from him; its eyes slid to the ground, closing in a sort of worshipful awe. The spines running down its back twitched like a storm was racing over them.

Then it shot back to attention, grabbed his wrist in a grip like iron, and tugged him out of the relative safety of his cave.

He squawked, stumbling behind; it grabbed its spear with its free hand and maneuvered them both through the crack in the wall. Nicau held back a very sincere scream as he came face to face with an easy two dozen other kobolds, all watching him with wide golden eyes, all crowding around like he was a Mythril ranked hero. They were in an even wilder cavern, filled with little hollows carved into the walls with algae beds, fresh water dripping off stalactites and pooling in gentle ponds for drinking, kobolds sitting in clumps and carving slivers of bone or preparing corpses for he guessed eating. A society.

Then he was dragged further on.

They emerged back out onto the second floor, the mangroves rustling quietly with their bone-white leaves, the canals rumbling beyond, moss billowing and small things scampering between. A paradise, really, or at least he certainly would have thought so if he didn't know the truth.

He also probably wouldn't have thought it was a paradise if the massive snake was present.

It was easily twenty feet long, covered in mottled grey-black scales with no visible pattern. Pure white eyes, slitted pupils mere pinpricks, fangs like daggers. And atop its raised head, two massive horns spiraled out, ghostly and crystalline.

Sitting outside open-air taverns in Calarata and listening to adventurers brag about their travels had been enough to hear about threats like goblins and winterwolves. Certainly not anything like this beast. He lost a few inches as he shrunk in on himself.

The snake hissed, flicking its tongue, and the kobold obediently let go of his arm and stepped back. He felt very alone.

At least, up until a deep, rippling presence brushed against the outside of his mind.

Something within him calmed down, immediately acknowledging the serpent before him as so much not a threat that it—she—was in fact a friend, and he could trust her. Really, she was both incredibly safe and so fascinating that he needed to go to her, to welcome her into his life, to bow before and serve her. Nicau stepped forward, raising his arms.

She narrowed her eyes, something like frustration building up in her mental presence, and pulled back. The feeling snapped and he promptly took several steps back. The psionic attack stopped pulling on him but he still shuddered, chasing away any last lingering thoughts of trust and peace—gods, why had he ever wanted to be an adventurer? This was hell.

The serpent shook herself, a pale glow building through her antler-like crystals; her presence touched his mind again, but far less calm, more fluttering. Like she didn't know fully what she was doing.

A voice rumbled alongside his thoughts. Gift.

Nicau blinked.

There were a few key words missing in that particular sentence. Had the snake—dungeon?—accepted his gift? Was there some gift for him? Some question?

The serpent's eyes narrowed further and he could feel the frustration rippling over their shared connection; and just for a second as she shifted closer, he could feel what she was doing. Her psionic mana served as a bridge, loose and untested, to a presence beyond her. Something dark, something looming.

Something with that same faint hint of draconic power.

Ah. He was talking to the dungeon.

Subservience was probably the right angle here.

Nicau bowed his head, arms awkwardly clasping behind his back. "I'm glad you liked it," he tried, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. The serpent's shadow bobbed against the green algae-light. "And thank you for sparing me."

The presence in his mind lost just a touch of its frustration. In return, serve. Collect information. Creatures. Live here. Spy.

There were a few other words in the mix well past his understanding. He could barely pick out the ones he had.

The message was still, unfortunately, clear. He'd really hoped that the pigeon would be enough of a gift to cover the entire sparing-life thing, but it wasn't looking like it. Serving as a dungeon's spy, collecting more things for it to recreate, living inside it?

Far and above from him to question the being that currently controlled an over twenty foot snake directly in front of him and an army of kobolds behind, but Nicau could pretty confidently say this was a one-sided deal. He shuffled his feet. "I, ah, would agree, o' dungeon. But. Why me?"

Her shadow swelled as she lowered her head, close enough he could feel her breath brush against his hair. He glanced up and saw the unfortunate picture of light glinting off the snake's fangs.

In return for your life. Be bound. Serve.

The serpent's horns glowed brighter, and he felt both her and the dungeon's question echo as one. Not so much words, but merely a curiosity; what did he want out of the deal?

It wasn't a question of them actually offering anything. Nicau was pretty sure they knew he would accept, because to not would be death, and it certainly wasn't them that needed to sweeten the pot at this offering. It would all be on him.

But being bound… he knew of deals like this. Often creatures, but sometimes people, being put under a dungeon's command. For most, it was a willing thing, because being bound to a dungeon meant power. Meant gifts.

The dungeon sensed that. Be soul-bound. Mana.

Nicau couldn't help his intake of breath.

He heard Romei whisper, somewhere hidden within. Do you want to be worth something?

And he did. He wanted it desperately. The trickle of mana-sensing power he had wasn't enough, the potential of tricking endless pirates into a death trap just to take their place wasn't enough.

He wanted to live, but more than that, he wanted to be powerful. In any way he could.

The normal routes were dead for him. If he left the dungeon without Aloma and without a map to the dungeon, Lluc would kill him. The Dread Crew's First Mate had sent him in here to die, he knew that—Aloma had been there to witness what happened when the dungeon fed on someone killed within. Either by letting a monster do it or killing him herself; that had been why he'd been sent in alongside her. It certainly wasn't because Lluc thought he could fight the beasts inside. It had just been a way to kill two birds with one stone; stop any knowledge of the dungeon from being spread without control, and figure out the dungeon's abilities. Nicau had figured that out quickly enough.

So his only option was within.

He abandoned his position and dropped fully to both knees, bowing like he was before the High Lords of Leóro. The stone was ice cold beneath him. "I accept, o' mighty dungeon. I will serve you to the best of my ability for as long as I can."

There was a moment of silence where his breath stuck in his throat and made his chest hurt, but then the serpent lowered her mighty head. The barest tip of her scales touched his forehead and he felt a spark, a single speck of mana jumping between them, and then the entirety of the crushing weight of the dungeon's presence collapsed over his back.

He gasped, crushed flat to the ground. Something raced through his channels and touched deep within his soul, mana kicking up and spiraling; everything in his body ached and hurt and trembled as something moved within, searching and gnawing and ripping at his innermost being. He saw his mother, reaching out to her newborn, his father, glancing down at his son, a nameless spirit, deep cavern walls, gods above without number.

They all spoke as one.

Nicau.

-

Well. I thought that went well.

Nicau was, once more, completely conked out, sprawled bonelessly over a section of billowing moss with his eyes rolling into the back of his head. The horned serpent flicked her tongue, her psionic abilities slowly detangling from the sort of web she'd needed to wrap around his mind in order to let me communicate with him, though I could tell she was still very curious. Not about Nicau in general, but more about his thought process; what he had wanted in return for service.

I imagined she'd make some headway on her little tyrant side goal she'd been working towards.

But my thoughts were focused on Nicau. My newest Named creature.

Yes, I'd Named him. Yes, I did regret it almost as soon as I did it.

But that was the only way I knew that I could welcome him into my dungeon. Same as with Seros, I'd had to Name him in order to implant my mana within him, and while I'd been coming up with some strategies I'd been testing on bugs that I could sort of bleed them dry of their natural mana and quickly replace it with my own to make them a technical dungeonborn creature, Nicau was a sapient person. The exact thing that the gods protected my mana from.

So. The Naming.

Was I pleased about it? In part. Nicau, after a little threatening and reminder of his own mortality, certainly seemed like the groveling loyalist that would function well as an underling. The fact that he also had enough intelligence to actually be able to collect information for me, as well as a standard, boring human body that wouldn't arouse suspicion if he went out gathering schemas, was another plus.

And his Blessing was only another bonus.

Blessing of the Communer: all who speak shall be understood.

I wasn't positive, but I was holding out hope that by speak, it meant sentient creatures. So perhaps not the squeaking of the lesser rats nor the chittering of bugs, but certainly the kobold's warbles and Seros' hisses. Not as useful as the Blessing of the Depths, which I knew we'd only unlocked part of with Seros' hydrokinesis, but still very applicable for the scenario I wanted Nicau in.

Although I couldn't help but feel like it was a slight against me.

The horned serpent had done her job, letting me settle in her mind and then connecting to Nicau's, so it had been all my own incompetence in that communication. I had consumed dozens of souls who all knew the same language; I should have been able to talk freely with him. Instead I'd stuttered my way through the topic as he tried to parse through my words.

Horrifically embarrassing. I'd be better by the time he awoke.

But while I was certainly pleased by his potential, that didn't mean I didn't wish I could have Named someone else. The horned serpent was certainly working her way towards a Name, same for the little mage-rat; even the first wisp or the kobold chieftess.

But instead I'd gone with Nicau, and now I had to wait. Because rather unfortunately, the downside of Naming something had come into effect again. I glanced back at my core.

Dragonheart Core

Mana: 13.2 / 75

Mana Regeneration: +0.6 per hour

Patrons: Rhoborh, God of Symbiosis

Titles: Resurrector

Just like Seros had, this greedy bastard was taking my precious Otherworld mana. Roughly a third of a point an hour, gone. Disappeared. Beyond my control.

It was less disastrous than it had been with Seros, given as I hadn't had four floors all generating me their own supply at a very constant rate, but this would still be irritating. There was a lot I could do with those points, stuff that Nicau certainly couldn't.

Come to think of it, what was he even doing with that mana? From the blast of thoughts and information I'd gotten from him, his only skill was sensing and following mana trails, certainly not enough for how much he was taking. And his new Blessing wasn't exactly the type to use a lot of mana. And the same for Seros—given by how often he took great pride in hunting down roughwater sharks, he wasn't even using the mana as sustenance. Little bastard was just feeding on me.

Nothing had changed when he'd evolved from underground monitor to seabound monitor, but I had a very sneaking suspicion that when he evolved again, he'd start taking more than a third of a point. So. If my next evolution could come quickly so I could replenish my mana regeneration, it would be much appreciated.

It would be up to Nicau to prove his worth past the disadvantage he'd so generously given me.

But I would leave all those questions for later days, when Nicau woke up from his newest nap. For now, I needed to keep focusing on my fifth floor; it was so close to being fully carved, where I could finally start placing various plants and creatures around, but I wanted a second look. And who better than my first Named being?

The Named being that was currently getting his ass kicked by the sarco crocodile.

Fantastic.