Dragonheart Core

Chapter 171: Sea-Shaped

Hardly a moment after I'd collected new schemas had my attention been pulled down, burrowing deep within my halls. A heartbeat of hesitation, making sure the merrow had left—but they had, and Abarossa had followed them, returning to Arroyo. What was left of it, anyway. Seros' memories were of a false city, empty and broken, the rubble and ruin left after a devastation. The single pillar of bloodline kelp up the center, hiding the entrance to the rooms underneath.

Hiding after they were destroyed. By what, I didn't know, but Seros had seemed certain.

A pitch-shark.

I should have asked Abarossa about it, asked why it was so important for the merrow of Arroyo to hear her voice again instead of all her other followers in the wider world; but part of me wondered if she would even answer. I still remembered how it felt to take that schema, to feel the creeping, shuddering wrongness of the abyss carved into a shark's shape—and the power above, trying to keep it from me. The gods, squashing its mention.

A pitch-shark had destroyed Arroyo, and it wasn't recent. Old enough they should have recovered, but instead stayed hidden beneath the stone.

I shook my mana, coiling back in over the pale glow of the Scorchplains. A fear that I could do nothing about for the moment, slotted back into my core for when I had time to hiss concerns to Seros. For now, my focus went else, far below the surface world—where, n a land of smoke and soot, a new creature opened her eyes.

All four of them. The orthrus.

Her ears perked up, the leftmost head lifting off the ground with a rumbled whine. She'd grown to some five feet tall, burnt sienna fur spilling over her bulky shoulders and the muscle coiled tight as stone. Black streaked over her spine and face, surrounding ember-bright eyes, four of them; two heads, conjoined at neck, staring over her surroundings.

What an odd creature. Powerful, yes, and already she'd thrown off the sluggish consciousness of evolution to start thinking in these brisk, pointed thoughts, but two heads was certainly not something I would have come up with myself. She could bite prey from multiple sides, at least.

And she could do it all the better with the one awakening at her side, silver light drifting off his scales.

The kobold tamer.

He had the build of a kobold hunter, all long limbs and overlapping scales, but instead of their spiraling horns, he had an enormous curling set that wrapped around the back of his head and stuck forward, long enough to gore something. Dark red scales, like the embers after a fire, and a long tail curling around his legs; not too closely, with the blade-like spine on the tip, black like his claws. Grey eyes opened blearily, motes of light fading under his scales.

At his side, the orthrus barked, her leftmost head pitched lower. The right head tried to look over at its twin, ears cocked, and she fumbled around for a few steps as the twist in balance threw her off—and that was enough for the kobold tamer to lurch upright, arms spread, and look at her. She looked at him.

Whatever truce they'd established before not so much reappeared as remade itself; almost immediately I could see them categorize each other as allies, locking in their understanding, choosing each other. He was a tamer, she was a beast; but both with minds well above their peers. A proper partnership.

And all around, the rest of the pack awoke, peeling out of their evolution daze. Blazebane wolves, picking themselves up slowly—their wake was littered with houndspores, so that would likely have to regrow, but they were all the stronger now. Four feet at the shoulder and powerful limbs corded through with muscle; their fur was this dusty orange, flickering to fire-yellow at the tips of their ears and tail. Their eyes, bright red, and their breath—it smoked between their ivory fangs, crackling like embers.

They stood up together, ears pricked, panting air already wavering with heat. Larger than before, enough the few unevolved scorch hounds in their midst immediately tucked their tails in submission, but it seemed the pack mentality held stronger than post-evolution aggression. They walked around each other, sniffing and butting noses against flanks, eyes bright.

And over them was the kobold tamer and orthrus, taller by at least a foot. The leaders of the pack, maybe, but even if they went their own way I knew they wouldn't attack each other. Canine loyalty.

For her part, the orthrus barked, a dual-tone, rumbling sound—the wolves perked up and turned to her, ears swiveling up. She yipped a few things, paused, then switched heads to the one with a higher pitch to continue her spiel. At her side, the kobold tamer kept testing out the movement of his arm, flicking his tail; the blade on the tip scored against a basalt pillar, and his eyes lit up. Another weapon.

Another animalistic weapon, to be specific. Chieftess' kobolds tended to use spears, and Rihsu fought with claws, but the tamer looked to be fighting like the beasts he surrounded himself with. A lashing tail would work wonders.

And he would need it, as their prey awoke.

Farthest away, the bounding moose clambered to its hooves—and then kept clambering, up and up. Maybe seven feet at the shoulder, with three more in the form of enormous, twisting antlers spread wide like wings. Shaggy brown fur, dull black eyes, and a bray that echoed off the stone like a warhorn; plenty and plenty of meat, but only for those brave enough to risk it.

These would adapt themselves to the heat of the Scorchplains, but I could already see them fitting well in my eventual glacial floor; grow out their coats and plod through the ice on their face-sized hooves, carving prints for predators to track.

And while they could live in the tundra, my next species couldn't.

The cinderhoof deer.

I had evolved a dozen and a half of them alongside only eight moose, considering I imagined they would be more herd-focused—and they seemed to be wonderfully excited to prove me right, as they shook off their evolution and immediately clustered together.

They stayed around the same height, five feet at the shoulder, but their coats were now a bright auburn, trailing to white on the underside. Branching antlers, black like their eyes, and their hooves were overly thick, like stones attached to their limbs—and sparking.

Hard to miss the sparking.

With every step they took, embers kicked up around their hooves like stars in the pressing dark of the Scorchplains—settling on their fur didn't seem to bother them, surprisingly, though I imagined a fire resistant element would be critical for this evolution. They were skittish things, clumped tight in a herd with ears raised and tails flared; even the distant pop and hiss of magma pools or coal pits made them jump, hooves skittering over the surface.

Well, if nothing else, they'd provide an exciting variety of prey for the blazebane wolves.

The final evolution was tucked in the smaller corners of the Scorchplains, hidden around basalt pillars and any shelter that could be scrounged from the unforgiving landscape. Only four of them, enough to start a population—the seekspine lizards.

The largest clambered her way out of the pit she'd chosen, hooded eyes searching blindly through the smoke. She was maybe four feet long, a brilliant grey-gold with these white spines, barbed like fishhooks, spreading over her back. She flicked out a forked blue tongue, head tilted curiously to the side.

And a bounding deer darted across the Scorchplains, too distant to be visible, just the clatter of hooves on stone, and she launched one of her spines like a fucking arrow.

It snapped off her back and disappeared, lost in the smoke, but I tracked it as it flew through the air and slammed into the haunch of the deer—it bellowed, stumbling back, but the blow wasn't enough to kill it; just a scare tactic. Her way of clearing out her territory.

Hells, I wouldn't mind more of these.

As if hearing me, she scurried off her little pillar and out into the wider floor, head high and thoughts full of hunger; so long as she and the others survived well enough to reproduce, they didn't have enough natural predators that I imagined there would be a thriving population before too long. Something to truly look forward to.

Because now my Scorchplains were not only tested but improved; instead of quite literally a collection of unevolved creatures, now they were stronger, more aware, more alive. They knew both danger and themselves.

Or, as a cinderhoof deer surprised itself with its own sparks and nearly fell over, they would soon figure themselves out. The orthrus seemed permanently confused on which head to use for basic activities.

I left them for the moment, though I pushed a point or two of encouraging mana to sift through their minds, a few mild suggestions in place. The kobold tamer raised his head, nodding at what he thought was me in the air. Something about him was calmer than I expected, eyes bright and thoughts steady. He wanted to hunt. He was excited about it.

Well, he had no lack of targets. I rather thought the bounding moose would have to establish themselves quickly or risk disappearing.

And with my evolutions safely awake and aware but Nicau still not back, I had one more thing to do with my mana reserves before diving back to the eighth floor. Because Abarossa had just lovingly bestowed me with four schemas, and I wasn't interested in letting them rot in my core.

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I dove down to the Hungering Reefs, splashing about in the water like a hatchling, letting the white sand sift and move around by my mana. The first, the table-reefs, water circling through the bottleneck I'd carved between rooms. The lagoon in the second, the rest of the kobold tribe carving new tools and swimming out over the wider room to hunt prey. They were getting surprisingly bold with it, moving out of the safety of the atoll to test their spears on larger targets, and I knew they would only grow more fierce with Chieftess returned.

Then, the third room, my land of predators; those where the others did fit. Or where my new arrivals landed.

The armoured jawfish, with his symbiotic tidewalker sprite—it was still a pulsing, thrashing collection of spines and fins but it pushed him up, a guided current kicked up under his enormous armour to sail smoothly around the Hungering Reefs. He'd fit his way through the few gaps I'd left in the atoll wall, narrow things that led past the lagoon and into the final room, with its tower-reefs and the shipwreck splintered over the bottom.

The second he arrived, my sea serpent had peered out from a gap in the hull, his amber-gold eye narrowed. Puckered skin and scales where the other had been, a lasting blow to his fighting instinct; even now he spent most of his time coiled in the shipwreck, snapping at anything that got too close. He hadn't fought, hadn't trained with Seros, even after my mana had healed over his injuries.

But now I watched his frills extend, sea-green luminescence in the murky depths. His thoughts, for seemingly the first time in as long as I could remember, pulled themselves out of the cold they had been hunkering under—because he remembered the armoured jawfish.

Back in the Underlake, a lifetime ago, when I'd had to deal with the territorial messes of Seros, the sarco crocodile, the sea serpent, and the armoured jawfish. It had been a hell amongst hells just to keep all four of them alive, and creating the Hungering Reef to move half of them down had done wonders for my sanity.

And now, they were back together again.

I considered them.

My first instinct was to let them hash it out, train against each other like they had in the past, the reason for both of their exponential growths—but no. I had seen this fail before, when they were strong individually but not together. They needed to learn.

They needed to be taught.

Seros, I called through our connection, my Otherworld mana simmering like a volcanic vent. He raised his head, still swimming through the Underlake, snapping at leftover pieces of the crystalline starfish. Come down.

He rumbled, low in his throat, and pushed off the sandy bottom; hydrokinesis swirled around his claws as he swam, tail flicking with a melodic lilt to his mana. The royal silvertooth pulled his school back, my chosen greater crab watching with wary eyes, but the predator in their midst just clambered out of the water and started padding down to the Hungering Reefs.

Seros floated a question to me, a vague confusion without proper words. What did I need him for?

My points of awareness drifted out, providing me a perfect picture of the sea serpent and armoured jawfish to send him.

Seros missed a step.

Apprehension flickered through our connection, mana brimming through his channels. He knew he could beat them in a fight separately, and a part of him was curious whether he could do it two versus one, but he knew enough of my strategies as a dungeon to know that wasn't what I wanted.

No, I agreed. I want you to train them.

He missed another step. Pure confusion reflected over to me.

I was… a little bit setting him up for failure here. He had just learned the Song, the true call of the sea, but that was rather the first time I'd watched him open his mind to something larger than himself. Or me.

Alliances wouldn't come naturally to him, much less teaching. But he had to learn; he had to be the face of my Named and all their potential, because, well.

Frankly, I was watching Chieftess, who didn't have a Name, flawlessly lead her tribe into a well-honed army that controlled the lagoon and everything within it. And I was watching Veresai, who I'd given a Name, grind her horde into the dust and terrify all those into obeying or dying. Technically, both were doing exactly what I needed from them, which was controlling their territory to prevent invaders from making it further down, but Chieftess' tribe was growing strong, adapting, learning, and Veresai's horde was– surviving. Holding on. The last evolution she'd had was the spectral serpent from Syçalia, and putting Kriya under a geas—what else?

The kobolds had learned to build storage vessels in the funnel gourds, had figured out how to swim, how to hunt in the lagoon, and doubtless Chieftess would bring back a wealth of new knowledge from the outside world. They were growing in more than just strength; they were learning.

I still loved Veresai. How could I not? She was a tyrant strong enough to cower a gold-drake, and her psionic hold was likely the strongest thing in my entire dungeon. As soon as I finished the eighth floor, I would be moving her down for a new territory further away from the threats of invaders, but that would have to mark a new change for her. She needed to be better.

Seros did, too. He had to learn how to be a leader, because even if he became a sea-drake, he would be a dungeon's sea-drake, which could not afford to be the solitary destroyer we were prone to being.

He'd be fine. Probably.

As for me, I left half a dozen points of awareness to watch over his descent and flew off to the opposite end of the Hungering Reefs, to do what I had actually come here for.

Likely best to start with the most expensive schemas, to give them a chance to establish; I flitted off to the first room, spreading intangible wings as if to catch the currents. My mana pooled up around me, not quite full but hopefully enough to start a school, and I began to weave together a pod of shrieking dolphins.

They coalesced slowly, a long, sinuous body covered in pale grey like stone. A muzzle, some foot and a half long, teeth jutting out, eyes pure black. The first wriggled out of my mana and splashed into the water, its tail beating back and streamlined fins throwing it forward, ten feet of near pure muscle and raw potential.

And then, right as it broke the surface for air and looked around the world, it opened its maw and screamed.

Fucking hells was that going to get annoying.

It was a sound like the banshees of stories, high and piercing, and being a dungeon core I could see the mana crackling alongside the call, fierce and jagged like blades. Not just a noise, but an attack; something to destroy the spirit and morale of their enemies.

Four more sprung into existence, the stretched limits of my available mana, and started circling each other; every time they surfaced for air they screamed, seeming testing their abilities, until the eldest by about four seconds tried it underwater.

A little less grating on the metaphorical ears, but traveling faster and further; there would be nowhere for the invaders to hide from that. And already they were swimming around their new home, cresting the surface every other moment as they scouted out a home. Abarossa's boon and their own innate abilities meant they didn't need a den and already I could see them as an ever-roving band of destruction, their jagged fangs ready to take out any in the path.

I felt a little bad for the prismatic dartfish that had no idea what their life was about to become.

But for now I watched them swim, darting around each other. It was curious to have a creature that stuck so close to the top of the water; they needed it to breathe, obviously, but most of my other creatures were more adept at diving. Even the roughwater sharks traveled wherever there was prey, but not the shrieking dolphins; I wondered how they would affect their hunting habits.

To make it a little easier, I would give them more prey.

I wove together a whiplash squid.

It came quickly, being only three feet long and not particularly complex—but where I had previously demeaned the deflated mounds of pink-white flesh, now it was an actual creature, spinning away from my mana with a flash of its tentacles. Its mantle was a dusky red, streaks lining the fins, its slit pupils almost a blue beneath a milky surface. It drifted away for a second, its mind catching up with the new fact of being alive, and then its arms contracted and blew it backwards, swimming down into the floor; its arrow-shaped body did not so much dispel the water as become one with it, moving with a near casual ease. Its two arms, larger than the others and lined with barbed hooks, floated out as it stared at its—her—surroundings.

I hadn't given squids much thought as a sea-drake, but she seemed intent on proving me wrong. There was a startling awareness to her; not quite intelligence, considering she didn't have a brain much larger than a burrowing rat, but within those simple thoughts was a dream much larger than her. It seemed innate, more than one chosen, but it was achingly strong; she knew she needed to eat, to hunt, to consume, in order to grow bigger. And oh, did she want to grow bigger.

Her dreams were amorphous, not quite her own, but the end result was clear. Very interesting. I'd be curious how she'd end up.

Not much mana left, but enough for the last. I dipped out of the first room and into the second, swarming with the life of a dense coral reef, and let the sparks coalesce into two razortooth barracudas.

I'd already seen their corpse and they looked much the same, seven feet long but narrow, small silver scales covering their bodies. Hooked fangs, built for holding and tearing, and these black, hungry eyes—I only had enough for a breeding pair and they immediately swam off together, fast as all hells; in a world, similar to my silvertooths, but actually made for saltwater and infinitely more in control. These would actually choose their battles rather than rushing blindly into whatever spilled blood.

One splayed its fins, lashed its tail, and sunk its fangs into a lone prismatic dartfish; the rest of the school scattered, panicked, and its pair went rushing in to pick off other scraps.

Another lovely mid-level predator for the kobolds to both hunt and defend themselves from. Which was rather what I was hoping for.

The last creature wasn't much, and while I knew I had to gather mana to create a second whiplash squid, I felt fine only creating one crystalline starfish. It came together slowly, tucked under the outcropping of a wall of reef, ghostly silver-blue flesh and those odd, angular growths. If I had been impressed with the squid's mind, there was, quite literally, nothing to be impressed with here, because there wasn't anything. Just a body, moving on through stimuli than thought.

Well. Maybe it would… manage to stab an invader and evolve a brain. I could hope.

It laid under the coral bed, its seven arms twitching; slowly, it ratcheted up one and started sliding over the limestone, its mouth on the underside gnawing blindly for anything within reach. I had a steady supply of Underranked clams, mollusks, and other meaningless things that were no closer to gaining my attention than they were evolving, so it would have no lack of things to feed on, and all it needed was one bite from a predator to split apart and start filling my reef.

I would just. Leave it here, I supposed. Until it did something. Anything.

I let the current carry me away from that, drifting up past the shipwreck and then down into the Scorchplains, where the orthrus was leading a pack on unsteady feet as they returned to their den to figure out their new positionings. Then lower, over my core at the very back, its marbled red-black surface gleaming with golden light. My heart. My soul, really. All that I was.

And soon, I would be moving.

All my activities were critical, insofar as I couldn't just let my creatures wait in the light-soaked oblivion of evolution while I toddled around doing other things, but still my core prickled with nervous energy. Shoth had shown me my weakness, and for all I was making strides in bolstering my defenses and teaching cooperativeness to my creatures, I wanted more room between me and the invaders.

Nicau was fast, and with Chieftess at his side, I had little doubt they'd come tromping into my halls before long—and I wanted the eighth floor carved out by then.

I gathered my mana around me, a pulsating mass of teeth and claws. It was time to dig.

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