Dragonheart Core

Chapter 170: Empty Space

The Myvnu Jungle was a bit of a hellscape, in Nicau's opinion—there was a reason Calarata hadn't named it, because there wasn't a reason to go there. A starving land of encroaching trees and hungering beasts, where death was expected. Hells, the only stable job in Calarata were those hired to beat the jungle back from crawling too close to the cove.

So no. Nicau did not particularly enjoy it.

In direct opposition, Chieftess was having the time of her life.

They'd crept over the flanks of the Alómbra Mountains in a dizzying amount of time, seeking to avoid any early risers of Calarata noticing the plucky band of kobolds traipsing their way through, and then slithered down to make it to the front of the jungle. Still that semi-avalanche to clamber over, though already plants were beginning to sneak through the cracks, emerald green against the grey. In under a year, the entire thing would be swallowed.

But for now, Nicau got to lead the kobolds up and over old stone and into a new land.

Chieftess' eyes were like twin suns, so bright and wide—every single thing she saw got her full attention, up until the next one, or the next one. The other three kobolds were equally amazed, trailing behind her, spears nearly slipping out of limp claws.

The jungle didn't start so much as swallow them; one instance he was clambering over rocks and the next it was moss-choked roots, underbrush choking all available space but for a thin path carved by small paws. Trees, flowers, greenery; an endless expanse of humid creation, the sweltering depth of a greenhouse.

Nicau would never say it out loud—hells, he wouldn't think it, either—but the dungeon had a long way to go before it could create things like this. Before it would create worlds.

By the kobolds' wide-eyed shock, they agreed. A dangerous paradise, spread before them like all the world's offerings.

Chieftess crouched, claws raised to brush curiously over a fern. It was a delicate thing, wide fronds of a muted green, curling in at the tips. Wide, spreading out like a king's crown. Nothing particularly noteworthy.

She tilted her head at him. "Collect?"

Oh. Right—the dungeon was looking to create a jungle of its own, which required plants. It had sent him for trees, but jungles weren't just thickets of trunks and canopies overhead; they were tangled messes of everything green and growing. The fern didn't look like much, because it wasn't much, but it belonged in a jungle.

If nothing else, it proved why he should keep bringing Chieftess along—it was easy for his mind, if not used to than at least familiar with the jungle, to walk right by the lesser plants. But the dungeon didn't have them yet. It would want them.

"Yes," Nicau said, tapping one of his gourds. "Any plants you see, take them."

Chieftess nodded, extending a claw; she cut the fern off at the base, spores fluttering loose, and shoved it into her gourd. A satisfied hum escaped her mouth as she stood, a new determination settling over her shoulders. Proving herself to the dungeon, and gaining her own knowledge as well.

"Collect," she repeated, pointing to the other kobolds—they nodded as one and switched their gazes down, peering at the forest floor as they walked. Still traveling together, considering they were all rather small and rather fragile when it came to fighting an entire godsdamn jungle, but one of the kobold hunters stopped to pluck a flower, tugging out its stem as well, and shoved it into her series of pouches. Another unspooled a cluster of pale grass, clumps of roots and stems stored for later. They drifted apart as more species appeared in the peripheries, Nicau taking a moment to carefully dig out a strange tuber and Chieftess flicked her tongue at a mushroom, when–

A squawk of surprise. Nicau spun.

The kobold warrior, crouched over a flat stone he had been poking at the lichen on, sprung back with a warbling hiss. His eyes lit up, claws braced, kicking up his spear to jab downward—a crunch of something violent. He danced backward, tail up, legs braced; yanked his spear out and stabbed again, thudding through the underbrush.

"Safe," he barked, still glaring at the ground. "Am safe. Dead."

Nicau exhaled, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He couldn't deny being happy that he had those actually combat-capable on the trip with him, but it did mean he had to be scared for everyone, not just himself. Which. Exhausting in its own right.

The kobold warrior shook himself, scales rustling and horns catching the sun. He took a step back to rejoin the group, yanking his spear out of the ground—and its new addition.

A centipede.

It was a macabre collection of limbs and claws with way too many of both, a burnished monstrosity with void-black eyes. The kobold had speared it through the side first, then straight through its– thorax? Whatever the word was, he'd killed it. And a good thing too, because in its full terrible length, it was maybe three, four feet long—which was… a little bigger than Nicau necessarily wanted to know was scuttling underfoot.

"What happened?" He asked, leaning in; the thing was still twitching, clawed limbs curling in and out. The back of its carapace was an earthen brown, rain-soaked dirt, while its underside was bright gold like armour; the legs by its head were even longer and built for grasping, for holding its prey down as it bit. He didn't want to imagine what kind of venom was stored in a beast like this.

The warrior hissed. "Tried to bite. I killed."

The eloquence of the kobold language was still a work in progress. Nicau nodded regardless. "We'll collect it," he said, then frowned, patting his gourds. Four feet of pure nightmare wasn't going to fit. "We don't need all of it; a chunk will do."

Chieftess tilted her head to the side. "Not all?"

"Just–" Nicau considered it for a moment. "Different parts," he settled on, like he was an expert and not like the dungeon hadn't beamed express disapproval about that one feather he'd collected from Calarata a lifetime ago. "Multiple pieces of a creature to learn it, but not all."

The kobold warrior squinted at the thing, shaking his spear. Then he reached up, grabbed its head, and tore it right in half.

Yeah, that'd work.

Chieftess accepted the head, clutching it between her claws to examine it closer. It was most similar to the ants found in the Drowned Forest, or maybe the hard shell of the lichenridge turtles, but not near exact. A new species for her. Not something easy to expressively learn from, but knowledge– the reason she had come to the jungle.

For his part, the kobold warrior pulled the rest of the centipede off his spear, poking curiously at its carapace. Pink-white flesh, from the multiple holes. His eyes gleamed.

Nicau sighed. "Please don't eat that. We don't know if it's poisonous."

The kobold churred something moderately demeaning under his breath but released the other half, falling with a splat to the rock it had been sheltering under.

Nicau needed a drink. He closed his eyes. "Thank you."

Chieftess placed the centipede's head in her gourd, taking some moss from the rock to pack it in tighter. "Good," she said, pride flickering through her mana. "We collect. More!"

Hard to argue with that. Nicau shucked his straps higher on his shoulders and followed her back into the underbrush.

The jungle was a choking thing, even barely poking their noses in as they were; a tangled destruction with no path but the one they carved through with claws and spears. Nicau was less than useful, admittedly, but he kept plucking more cuttings of plants and lesser creatures, anything that caught his eye—or, more accurately, what Chieftess saw but was too busy cutting through to collect. She had an eye for anything new, which was everything to her.

It was endearing, in its own way. Even walking around Calarata, where she had marveled at the cobbled streets or windows carved in walls; something to make him reconsider the little wonders of the world around him. After they'd finished dumping an unconscious priest in a back alley.

Nicau moved to duck around a branch—but it wasn't a branch. It was a root, extending overhead, fitting like a wall to the ground. He blinked.

A tree, one dropped in the center of a clearing only formed by its enormous roots choking out all the competition, threaded through the ground until it was hardly dirt anymore, only more tree. It had odd, sinuous bark, twisting on itself like flesh instead of plant; a deep caramel-brown, underlights like amber, and the leaves scattered around its base were akin to needles, soft and feathered. Certainly one of the more unique ones he'd seen in the jungle thus far.

Particularly alongside the fact it was fucking enormous.

He couldn't see the top, hells, even the start of its leaves; it shot right through the canopy like a sword, growing straight and powerful. Each of its above-ground roots were thicker than his torso, knotted around each other like a castle's walls, and the trunk– the trunk! Gods, he could have walked through it, carved a den, lived entirely within its walls. Easily twelve, fifteen feet in diameter, if not more. A mountain of a tree.

The dungeon had wanted a centerpiece; or something to make into the centerpiece, considering jungles were rarely one tree. And Nicau hadn't really seen something quite as large as this before.

"This one," Nicau decided, patting its trunk. Then stopped. Probably shouldn't have done that, considering he lived in an atoll littered with thorned trees with a taste for blood, but. Well.

Chieftess churred her approval, tail swishing by her legs. "Good size," she said, which, an understatement. "But nothing to take. No branches."

Ah. A fair point—it grew in a single line, spearing through the wilderness like a beacon, but for the kobolds, who needed branches and accessible wood for tools, that was less than helpful. Particularly if the dungeon wanted to add climbing creatures to the mix, or anyway for other species to make their way up.

Chieftess stepped closer, eyes bright, and tore a section of the bark free. It wept sap over her claws, a strangely sweet smell that made her wrinkle her muzzle and pull back. Nicau helpfully offered a gourd and she dropped the bark inside, dragging her claws over the edges to clean off at least a little. Across the way, the kobold hunters collected some of its fallen leaves, one scraping a chunk off its exposed root. The warrior kept watch over them all, head on a swivel.

She nodded, tongue flicking out as she looked up, scanning the canopy with keen eyes. "Hunt for tool-tree," she said, pointing to the surroundings. "Branches, roots. Things to take."

The others nodded, a warbling agreement. Chieftess flashed her fangs and walked on.

Nicau padded after her, coiling Otherworld mana in his throat just in case. They were stronger together, but also louder—moving through the jungle was always a terror, and at least he knew he could defend against scorch hounds, but that didn't mean there weren't larger threats within as well. Hells, what was he saying? Of course there were. Just his luck, one of the famed thunder-rhinos would pop up just to vivisect him.

He missed the parrot, in a way. Someone who knew the jungle, guiding him out; gods he hoped Chieftess remembered the way back, because he certainly didn't. Or the kobold hunters—that was what they had evolved for, a perfect power for exploration. For collecting.

Chieftess stopped moving. Nicau ran directly into her.

He yelped, jumping back—her charcoal-black spines weren't as sharp as her claws, but that didn't mean they were pleasant; he winced, shaking his head. Chieftess glared at him over her shoulder. "Stop that," she said.

Nicau rubbed his nose. "Sorry."

She warbled some wordless amusement and turned back to the front, where her eyes were fixed on something spiraling up through the underbrush. Another tree, this one with flaking white-gold bark and wide leaves. It was some thirty feet tall, but twice that in width; a canopy like latticework, emerald green spiraling overhead.

"This," Chieftess declared, padding forward to rip a branch off—it groaned and bucked but she wasn't a kobold chief for nothing; it splintered off in her grasp, bark cracking. A good heft, strong enough to support itself.

This would be the tangled knot of branches the jungle needed, something to give its creatures actual places to be rather than single spikes growing from the forest floor. It wasn't as tall as the other—which was an impossible comparison, actually, considering how tall the thing was—but it was wider, spreading where it had room to fill the space. It even had flowers, pale pink, blooming over older growth; and fruits, dark and clustered.

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Nicau stepped around it, scanning the branches—he'd been burned by the webweavers one too many times to just go reach into the leaves, but it seemed a strong, stable tree, only excluding how it was growing up—its roots weren't limited to only earth, but instead twisting up and around, latching onto anything in its surroundings. Similar to the mangroves, though without water. Its peeling bark, spreading out, seeds pebbled around its base. The kobold warrior flicked his tongue at one of the fruits, eyes curious. It was long, about the length of his arm, and covered in a hard shell; he knocked on it, a faint hollow thud in return. Interesting.

That went into a gourd for storage, alongside splinters of Chieftess' branch and some peeled sections of bark. Plenty, hopefully, alongside the small menagerie of lesser plants they'd collected so far. The jungle would be a wild land of diversity.

"This is good," Chieftess churred, eyes bright. "Gathering much. More."

Nicau poked around his gourds; they had about three, four more empty, and then what they could carry on the way back. So long as both the warrior and Chieftess kept their arms free for defenses, he and the hunters could–

In the distance, a lone, echoing howl.

It was alien enough that Nicau froze, ears pricked. Something feral and guttural, booming like thunder over the trees; the death-call of a beast approaching. Of something.

"Spears!" Chieftess barked, extending her claws like daggers; in perfect evidence of her training, the other three kobolds leapt to protocol, stances up and positioned like a bulwark. Nicau lurched to be in the middle, hackles up, eyes wide. Hells, was it the scorch hounds again?

But no, that didn't make sense—the scorch hound had snuck up on him, slipping through the wilderness as it chased down the smell of the mottled scorpion's corpse. Even in a pack, it relied on stealth. Not this creature. It was a howl but not a canine one, throatier, fiercer; a warcry.

Otherworld mana spooled up his channels, settling in his mouth, fire-bright. Ready for anything.

Not ready enough to look up.

Something fell from the trees onto a kobold hunter's back.

She shrieked, lashing out, but the thing clambered over her scales with inhuman agility—it howled as she spun, beating it with her spear, unable to get proper aim. Chieftess roared and sprang forward, the kobold warrior lunging–

It got its claws around her neck and slit her throat.

Her scales were paper beneath it, scarlet-black blood bursting outward as she screamed, collapsing. Her weight carried them both to the ground even as the kobold warrior slammed his spear into the beast—into the savage, shrieking monster, trying to leap off its dying victim. Green fur, sickle-curved claws, and a disturbingly humanoid face—monkey.

The kobold hunter gasped and croaked, trying to press her claws to her throat; the warrior wrenched back his spear and just tackled the damn thing outright, Chieftess' warcry echoing through the clearing. The monkey howled anew, writhing underneath the warrior as it tore its claws on whatever it could reach—but the warrior had thicker scales than hunters, and he held, snarling back in its face. It snapped and snarled and called out–

Nicau tensed. His mana surged. Something moved.

"Stop!" He roared.

Chieftess flinched—the beast on the ground twitched—but most damningly, in the tree overhead, four more monkeys froze.

Pack hunters.

They were spread over low-hanging branches, long limbs hooked around branches and vines; his command had caught them right before another was about to fall, prehensile tail unlooping from a trunk. Four to fight four, one with aerial advantage, one already proven to kill.

His Otherworld mana pulsed fire-hot in his throat, the only way he had to defend himself, his Name. "Leave," he snapped, power scorching through the words. "Leave!"

The smallest of the monkeys twitched, its black eyes glazed and clouded. In twitching, unsteady movements, it wrapped its hand around a branch and pulled itself up, going higher, turning opposite of Nicau. The others fought his command but they were pack animals; they wanted to stay together. Claws dug into bark instead of flesh and tails coiled over branches as they slowly, slowly, faded back into the canopy, only their echoes of their howls left behind.

Distraction—the monkey still in the clearing tried to lash upright, tried to spring free; the kobold warrior slammed his spear directly through its chest, crimson smearing through its green fur. It croaked, a howl locked behind its fangs, limbs splaying; he stabbed it again, snarling furies.

Nicau staggered back, Otherworld mana burning his tongue on its way out, a headache ratcheting to miserable life—four pushed him to his limits, particularly four hungry, violent beasts who did not want to leave.

Very violent. His thoughts reconnected and he spun, turning back to the others, to the–

The hunter was dead.

Even the moments to chase away the other monkeys had been enough for her to bleed out, scarlet spilling over moss below—her eyes, staring blankly overhead. Torn scales and gashed throat.

Nicau thought her name had been… Root, maybe. The kobolds gave themselves names infrequently and inconsistently, changing whenever they found a new favourite object, and it was hard to keep up when the dungeon kept sending him out on missions—but the last he remembered, she had called herself Root.

Now she was dead.

The kobold warrior clambered off the monkey's corpse, leaving his spear stabbed through its chest; he shook blood off his claws and warbled, something soft and remorseful. He hadn't been fast enough.

Chieftess rumbled deep in her throat. Her crown of horns, gleaming with green dappled light, smeared with scarlet. She bowed her head, eyes closed, and then knelt; she took Root's head carefully, almost gently, and ripped out one of her scales.

Then Chieftess reached up to her own chest, claws digging in, and took out one of her own; she let that fall and instead set Root's scale in its place, a little smaller, a duller red. Mana pulsed through her eyes, concentrating—and the scale settled in place. Hers, now.

Her chest was full of that; a patchwork collage of scales from the fallen, a memoriam to those that hadn't survived. The kobolds had an interesting outlook on death, Nicau knew. Life in the dungeon was fast, frantic, and inevitably short; whether by invaders or the claws of another within, they tended to measure their lifespans in months rather than years. Kobolds were more resilient by way of being a tribe, but there were precious few that Nicau had seen stay alive the entire time, other than Chieftess. It was easier to die than to live.

Chieftess lived. And she kept the scales of those who hadn't.

"Remember her," Chieftess said, standing back up. "Hold her here, with us."

The kobolds kept their heads bowed, mana flickering around. A promise to keep her in the tribe still, past her death; her body, gone, but her name, remembered. Something more than a gravestone eroded by time or ashes never to be looked at.

The other kobold hunter carefully undid the ropes over Root's body, unstringing the gourds to put on his own shoulders, knocking against each other. Taking away her burden; what she had come to the jungle for.

Her death for the corpse of a monkey. A trade, not one he wanted.

"Let's go back," Nicau said. "We have enough."

Chieftess's face twitched, the reptilian version of a frown. "We have more," she pointed out, gesturing to the empty gourds. "Can collect more."

Right. He was dungeonborn—at least, he wasn't fully human. And dungeonborn creatures did not let death stop them. Root would lay here, quiet, and the jungle would take back her mana to give to Aiqith. A funeral in the way of the wilds.

Nicau shook himself, like pushing out the anxiety, the nerves; just let his mind take over, the pulse of battle-ready mana. Just a few more schemas to gather, a few more encounters, and then back to the dungeon. Back to the world he understood.

The warrior leaned over to rip out his spear, strands of green fur fluttering around. The hunter had the largest gourd and he was the one to stick the point of his spear into the monkey's neck, puncturing through its spine as its tail lashed through the last of its life, and tore the whole head off to shove into his gourd.

Gods, Nicau could have used this last time. His shitty palm-frond backpack was nothing in comparison.

Chieftess arranged Root's limbs, curled to press her throat to the ground, containing the flow of blood—something to avoid predators. Ever the pragmatism, even with the new scale in her chest. Then she straightened, her horns held high. "Go," she said, looking overhead. "Not there. Away."

Nicau could agree with heading in the opposite direction as the monkeys. He nodded, stepping back as the warrior cleaned off the point of his spear. "This way," he suggested, pointing to a thin game trail scoured between the cradled roots of another towering tree.

Chieftess nodded, claws out, and began walking again, others settling in behind. Still collecting things as they went, from lesser plants to scuttling bugs, but more wary; proof that this jungle was dangerous, even if it wasn't the dungeon. Things could still kill and be killed. Root survived the Drowned Forest and evolved down to the Hungering Reef, but she had still been killed. They all could be.

But that was true everywhere, wasn't it? In Calarata, he was only one too-drunk pirate away from spilling his interior over his exterior, or enough days without selling pigeons, or a nightmarketer forgetting to latch the cage of some beast. Everywhere, he could die. That was life.

It was here that he could do something other than die.

Nicau kept walking, coraling an orange-black frog into a gourd without touching it, shoving a handful of dried leaves to pin it in place. He'd learned enough about poison not to risk that. Chieftess kept clawing at every tree they crossed, testing its wood against her strength, though she hadn't found one she wanted enough. The warrior kept his head high, searching.

Nicau crouched, pushing aside the low sweep of a heavy branch—and instead of more jungle, open air greeted him. He blinked.

Ruins.

Crouched in the thin space of a learning, trees encroaching on all sides but staying oddly out of the center, a pocket of stone sat. Rough-hewn chunks, piled up on top of each other in a vague angular shape, not quite chest-height and uneven on all sides, moss flooding the cracks. Less than the size of the kobold's old den, barely large enough to fit the four of them within, shoddily built and unfinished. A building, alone.

Ruins. In the middle of the jungle.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose, paranoia snaking through his bones—Nicau turned, looking around the clearing, hackles up. Nothing but trees creeping in and roots spreading, but– holding back. Allowing this empty space.

Something about this was off.

Nicau pushed through the jungle into the clearing, finally out of the nest of biting insects; there were still roots and branches littering the ground but flat otherwise, an empty expanse of land. The kobolds followed him, eyes narrowed, spears up.

In the center, the stone chunks piled up on each other, a rectangle with a gap in one side for a door. A room of some creation, poorly made and broken further by time; the rocks were chiseled, clearly designed, but laid on each other without proper understanding of what was needed. Well made and badly placed. A room disconnected, just huddled in the center of this abandoned clearing, nothing else within. What looked like a shelter, almost. A shelter surrounded by an inhospitable jungle and the promise of death.

Whatever this place was, it was wrong. The fumbling unease of a group that wasn't used to building for themselves, young and unskilled, slaughtered by the jungle around but still with this bleached corpse left behind. But what collection of people would just– start in the middle of the jungle? Why not on the edges, or how had they even gotten here?

Nicau frowned, raising a hand to scratch at his chin, and stopped.

His fists were clenched. White-knuckled, veins straining under his skin, dull pain where his nails dug into his palms; coiled like he was ready to strike. Anger, crackling, growing brighter the more he became aware of it; a beast crying for action. These ruins made his Name lurch in his chest, defensive in a way old stone shouldn't be causing. Nicau wasn't particularly the posturing type, due to the unfortunate circumstance of being easy to kill, but he wanted to puff up his chest and punch something here. All of them did.

Chieftess hissed. Her eyes were sparking flames, amber-gold, but even through it he could tell she was confused—why was she so mad? What was causing this?

"Hey," Nicau soothed, unease prickling down his spine. "It's okay, Chieftess."

"Wrong," she snarled, not at him but at her claws. "This is wrong– need to kill–"

She did. And he did. But there was nothing to kill because it was just ruins in the middle of nowhere.

Nicau shook his head, which didn't help. It kept brimming up as he got closer to the room, to this quiet, less-than-nothing room time hadn't yet managed to retake. Anger, frustration, this odd, impersonal rage—something boiled in his gut, a fire stoked by itself. But there was nothing to cause it. There was nothing to fear, no creatures, not even plants; just old stone.

Wait. There was something.

Bones.

Curiosity beat back the fury—Nicau padded forward, ears pricked and caution thundering, to peer at the remains. They were inside the stone walls, half buried in the dirt, interwoven with scraps of skin so old they were near mummified. Collapsed against the walls, curled in; three, maybe four, though their individuality had been eroded away by time.

The bones were– worryingly humanoid. Shorter than him, but with the familiarity of shape and structure, even desiccated. Nicau leaned in, brushing one with his hand; just a bone, nothing more, but his mana lurched.

Three corpses, hidden under ferns and moss and dirt—though it could have been how they died, he wondered if they were trying to hide, to shelter within their half-built structure. It seemed whatever had killed them had gotten to them before they finished.

Chieftess glared through slitted eyes, claws tensed and still twitching with confusion. Nicau looked around the ruins again—more pieces of stone, carved from the ground, from their surroundings. Pieces that almost looked like sharpened spearheads, tools, undisturbed. Remnants of a civilization, its inhabitants destroyed.

Outside the walls, the kobold warrior hissed, jabbing his spear at the ground—he pushed aside an enormous sun-warmed leaf, warbling. "More."

Another corpse.

This one didn't match the others, being larger than him in almost every conceivable way; but still the same untouched state. What arms it had were thin and spidered, while long legs with three oddly-extended toes jabbed outwards. Its neck, curled in, ended in a beak nearly the width of his twin fists. It was coiled around itself, dying as it fell; a spearhead, the wood long-since rotted away, pierced its chest. The last stand of the other corpses. They had taken one of their killers down before they fell.

He stared at it, at this canvas drawing of an event he was only seeing the aftermath of. Somehow, a collection of people had made it to the center of this primeval jungle and tried to make a life for themselves, working with stone instead of wood, and had been brutally dispatched by their neighbors. Only bones left behind.

But bones untouched, bones undisturbed; and this was in the jungle, where scavengers lived lives of plenty. But they hadn't taken these bones. Hadn't overgrown these ruins. Hadn't squashed out this fragile moment of time.

Nicau licked his lips.

"We'll collect these," he said, and his Otherworld mana purred at the thought, a visceral approval past the anger still thrumming through his veins. "Then we'll leave."

Chieftess nodded. Her eyes still burned, even as she shoved bones in her gourds with brutal force. Too strong, too sharp; hard to control herself. Nicau was the same; even walking was difficult, this howling hunger trying to make him fight. Fight anything.

He knelt before the three corpses, the humanoid ones, the ones who had tried to make the shelter and died before finishing; they were wrapped around each other, either trying to protect or a predator stacking their corpses. But what predator would leave them uneaten? What scavenger would leave these bones untouched?

Why was this clearing so untouched?

Nicau picked up a smaller bone, the width of his palm. Just cold marrow.

But deep in his chest, his connection with the dungeon thrashed.

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