Dragonheart Core

Chapter 168: Bargain Met

My lovely vampiric dryad—Svythe, the draconic word for hooked claws, which fit, considering her… everything. She made a deep, acidic hiss as Otherworld mana flooded through her, head tilted, silver motes drifting over her form. Her Ancestral Tree shifted, twisting its thorned roots until it almost seemed to open, carving a den within the sandy soil—Svythe stumbled towards it, weight shifting like she wanted to raise her arm to nudge away the thorns. But her arm was gone. The thorns moved for her regardless, shifting back so she could curl up in the roots of her Ancestral Tree, the Otherworld mana diffusing overtop.

It had only taken Akkyst a day or two to awaken, and Svythe was far hungrier than him. Oh, she would awake, and she would be powerful. All my Named were.

I hoped Chieftess came back soon. It wasn't necessarily that I disliked having more mana regeneration, but the piddling points from that were little to nothing compared to an invasion, or a wandering creature, or even just the standard fight-and-feast in my halls. No, it was there for Names, and the improvement to my mana pool was for creating more expensive schemas. That was the real point of it.

A simple system, but one evolving. Back on my first floor, I had needed to wait for regeneration enough to build my room, to make any creatures. But that had been when I relied on an underground monitor for all my defense and a single human with a torch tried to enslave me. And already I was butting up against problems with my mana pool, my schemas growing larger and larger until they threatened to be too large for me to make. A threat for a future day, because every time I evolved, all I thought of was more Names. More Named to join my Otherworld mana.

Which would happen, as soon as Chieftess got back. Eventually. Fuck. Why did I let her go before? All I wanted was more Named, more blessings. I was a wretchedly greedy creature at my core, this I knew. Svythe's blessing fascinated me to no need, particularly since the language of the runes was never immediately clear. Seros had hydrokinesis, Nicau could talk and command all, Veresai could see through her follower's eyes, Akkyst made the world speak in runes to him—what would the blessing of the hunter mean? What would that give her?

I was still a shade distracted watching over Svythe, even though I knew it would be at least another invasion before she woke up, when another creature got the jump. Rather, creatures.

Woven throughout the Hungering Reefs, the shadows deep and heavy, my sharks awoke. I preened.

Rammerhead sharks were, fittingly, brutes. Much like my armoured jawfish, the moment silver light drifted off their forms they immediately started to fall, the weight of their new enormous forms dragging them to the sand. Most of it was in their head, which had mightily tripped its way up from cartilage to calcified strength. Not armour, bone or otherwise, just strengthened skin—sharpened skin. Like the roughwater shark it had been, where it let its skin grow sharp to dissuade predators. But now it was a weapon, combined with their weight, to tear apart anyone in their path. Battering rams, combined with teeth and fins and tail.

In as strong a comparison as water and fire, my moray sharks were nightmares.

Thin and twisting, they coiled out of the light and immediately darted for the island-reefs beneath them, threading themselves into the capturing coral and bloodline kelp. They were nearing twenty feet long but a fraction of their previous width, a perfect blend between moray and monster. They had the dorsal fin of a shark, but stretched the length of their body, ending in a shark's tail, but missed the side fins. And their head—gods, their head. A carnivorous maw, gills rippling down the sides, and fangs like a vampiric mangrove's thorns, jagged and angled back to hold.

And—most damningly—their second jaw. Their second row of teeth, like the first wasn't enough, snug in their throat, ready to lunge whenever they opened their mouth. What could snap down on anyone who thought they were safe.

Oh, I loved them. Perhaps it was Abarossa's presence strengthening the evolution of my sharks, perhaps it was how long they had gone without an evolution and only now obtaining the next level of strength, but they well-deserved it. And I deserved it.

Let Shoth try and get through this floor now. The moray sharks, woven through the reefs as ambush predators—rammerhead sharks to pummel anything in their path. The threat was still speed, but this was filling another obstacle in Shoth's path, a way to hopefully throw him off. Just one bite—just one hit. The swarm would fill in afterward.

Then, just beneath my awareness, deep in the Hungering Reef–

The star-burn of a shadow overhead, lithe, coiled potency. The hunger of a creature unquenchable. The shark.

Abarossa.

I paused, my points of awareness swiveling in. She was settling into my dungeon from on high, the nameless world releasing her mind down like hail. All my reefs awoke when she arrived, lurching up like hatchlings with a meal overhead; kobolds leapt into the lagoon with renewed vigour and triggerfish fired shards of coral and greater crabs brandished their emerald claws. For a moment, I wondered if she was coming to look in on the newly-evolved sharks.

But Abarossa didn't stay there, not lingering on her chosen floor—she drifted up, moving like a wave of currents, clawing through the stone with ever-replacing fangs. I followed her, intangible wings flaring out. I didn't particularly enjoy gods leaving their boons, but Abarossa was one of the less dangerous gods in my halls. She rose through the Skylands, the Jungle Labyrinth, and settled into the Underlake, her attention fixed on the cove exit.

Mayalle's consciousness prickled, star-burn and stone-teeth, but settled from some agreement I wasn't privy to. Curious.

Abarossa spread out her mana, hungering on the edges of the murky waters. Prepare, she murmured, this lingering steadiness mixed with blood. A peculiar combination. Not for the first time, I wondered how she had gotten the merrow city of Arroyo to make her one of their Thirteen Gods; what about her was so popular they thought she was necessary? What about sharks appealed to merrow?

The hunt, in all likelihood. Merrow were hunters; they killed to eat, and they lived in a very unforgiving world that wanted to eat them back. A shark's hunger was a prime bulwark to build themselves behind.

Focus. Prepare for what? I asked, cautious.

Abarossa's star-burn sharpened. My end of the bargain.

Oh?

Movement, outside the cove—the swish of long, scaled tails and gleam of mana. One. Multiple.

Oh!

With Abarossa guiding my awareness, and her mana spilling out to call those outside, half a dozen merrow swam into my Underlake.

Almost immediately, my creatures lurched over, baying for blood—but I heaved them back, clawing awareness instead of a raid-frenzy. Control, control; my new path forward. Preparation rather than reaction. The merrow, entering my halls, destruction and dangerous—but think. Think.

A tormentous desire rose within me to destroy them all. I squashed it, though unwillingly, and instead examined my newest invaders.

Six of them, arranged in a phalanx, one at the head. He was a pale blue, like clouded aquamarine, tail long and stringed through with fossilized kelp and jewels. White-ringed eyes, sharpened teeth. Merrow could have been an acceptable race, with their sinuous bodies and layered scales, but they had strayed too far into a humanoid body. Annoying.

Still the effects of a leader, though. Tall, leading the charge, with his claws wrapped around a staff of current-smoothed stone, diamond on top. A familiar staff.

This was her new Priest, then. The Thirteenth Priest, fulfilling Arroyo's needs to be complete. Interesting. He swam into my halls with his white-ringed eyes narrowed, arms flaring wide. The one to talk.

But there was one in the row behind, blending in with the others. Deep teal, a ring of jewels around his throat, coral clutched in his webbed claws. A shade of not nerves but near-unhealthy paranoia, although I supposed all paranoia was necessary when entering my dungeon. A typical merrow, the kind whose souls I'd eaten before.

But not quite. Seros' memories, pictographs of his attempted kidnapping by the merrow—he knew this one. The one who had led him on the merry chase down the bloodline kelp, leading to his unconsciousness and subsequent imprisonment. Neither of us were particularly pleased about this fact.

I could talk to Abarossa who could then presumably turn around and talk to her Priest, but, well. Two would hardly level the playing field in their regard. Already Seros had raced up to the Jungle Labyrinth, gravitas pounding a straight path before him as he pushed his speed to the brinks, excitement and loyalty intermixed. I'd had Akkyst do it once, Nicau mostly, Veresai when I needed psionic communication. Why not Seros now that he knew the Song?

I really needed to start warming Kriya to my side. Anyone who could open up conversation without me focusing on translating would help leagues above.

Overhead, my royal silvertooth swarmed, streamlined body and fang-studded school rippling like morning mist through the cloudskipper wisp's waves. Then, from the back, a roar of moving water—and Seros sped forward, lashing the current to his bidding with a melodic trill. He swam to a stop directly before, towering over the merrow, strong and powerful and brimming with gravitas.

They were already cautious, but Seros had a wonderful effect of making them scared. He, my draconic monitor, my soon-to-be dragon; here was a damned good reason they would never have made their way to my core. He would protect me. He would not be taken down by them.

Seros rumbled, bubbles trickling through his fangs. Water swirled around his braced frills.

Well, that was my answer to their invasion, play though it was. We sat in a truce brittle as fan-coral, though Abarossa and I would enforce it. But for all there was the floatings of an alliance, or at least peace, I wouldn't see them get too chummy. No, I was a dungeon core, and I was to be feared.

Seros was a helpful punctuation of that fact. His iridescent scales, ivory claws, the gravitas spilling from his scales like the peal of a bell despite his youth—yes, they did not want to fight him.

But they did have a mission.

The pale blue one swam forward, not enough to get within fifty feet of Seros but enough to establish him as the frontman for the group. "Hail," he cried, in a warbling, bubbling voice. "I am the Thirteenth Priest of Abarossa, here to pay honour."

I wondered how long he'd practiced that speech. If he were terrestrial, he would be sweating buckets.

Overhead, Abarossa tilted her presence like a nod, which was fascinating to think about for an all-powerful deity deigning herself to my halls. Gifts, she murmured. Are you ready?

Was I ready? For schemas? I was ready before I'd even finished falling from the Dread Pirate's spear. Yes, I said back, and then, on a strange whim– him. Who is he?

My mana, coalescing, pointed towards the deep teal one from Seros' memories. I was nothing if not petty.

Abarossa hesitated, startled—or, rather, a lesser word. Perhaps mildly confused. It was hard to truly surprise a deity. But I felt her mana reach out, shifting past the Thirteenth Priest and into my chosen target, murmuring instructions I couldn't overhear.

That merrow hesitated, flicking out a webbed hand. His white-ringed eyes were narrowed, tense, mana crackling around the corner of the coral piece he clutched in his claws. Overhead, Abarossa swirled, half-annoyance. She wanted this to only involve the Priest, a testing point for him, a way to prove her newest delegate. But that was the luck of a parlay. I wanted Seros to stand strong before his attempted captor, and I also wanted to know just who this wretched captor was.

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"Katharra below," the merrow murmured, a touch like a prayer. Curious. Was he not in the house of Abarossa? Why had she chosen him to come, then? "I am Cássio," he said, addressing the water, Seros, perhaps me. "I am here to… present our chosen gifts."

Cássio. Not a familiar anything, but fitting in with the typical names of the merrow-city of Arroyo. I could likely rule out an intricate plot to capture my Named other than the touch of destiny. He mostly looked like he wished he could be truly anywhere else.

Acceptable, I said to Abarossa. Continue.

With a touch of brimming pedantries, the Priest reached into a bag of dried kelp on his side, secured around the bend of his tail. It opened with a spark of magic, reflecting like Abarossa's presence, and from within he drew a creature.

That was the interesting element of receiving aquatic schemas—while I didn't know the exact one, I did know the species, not that this one was particularly difficult to identify. Perhaps three feet in diameter with seven arms arching out of a circular center, ghostly silver-blue flesh rippled with strangely angular geometries. A starfish.

…huh. One that was still alive.

Was there a particular reason they gave it to me alive? It wouldn't last the while—I needed its schema, which only came from corpses. Not worth transforming it into a dungeonborn, either.

It was certainly a choice to make. I would laugh merrily in my core for them making their job more difficult while I murdered it.

Speaking of—I nudged Seros forward, currents swirling around his claws like a volcanic vent's power. He loped towards the Priest, who met his gaze with surprising determination. The merrow raised the starfish aloft and immediately let it drift away from him, the azure-white form twitching as Mayalle's whirlpool tugged it further into my halls. One of the ground-stuck kinds, those that shuffled along the bottom and hunted for anything to fill its mouth underneath. A schema to fill the scavenger role that had mostly gone to Underranked creatures up to this point.

I plucked the thread of our connection. Kill it.

Seros lunged forward and bit deep into its core, fangs cleaving through its fragile flesh—and, nightmarishly, it splintered, breaking apart like brittle skin into a collection of jagged shards. Uniquely terrifying, and also confusing; was that defense? Offense? Did it have to be injured in order to attack?

Little matter. The shards digging into his scales hurt I knew, because I was listening to Seros' thoughts, but he never showed it. He just bit harder, shaking his head back and forth until three of its seven limbs fell off in more splinters and mana burst through my halls, sparking bright and oddly earth-attuned.

The merrow were all watching him, their white-ringed eyes impossibly wide as Seros made a show of it, devouring one of the legs, his fangs coming closed with a guillotine's crunch—but watching him. Watching him closely.

A twinge of worry.

Was there a reason they had brought me a live specimen? Were they—the merrow, not Abarossa, considering there was no chance she didn't know exactly how a dungeon core worked—trying to test my abilities, to see what it was like?

Fuck that. I'd treat them the same as Gonçal—take their schemas and make them leave. I'd consume the corpses in my own time. I probably shouldn't have killed the starfish in front of them to give them ample exposure to my commands, but I would treat that as a display of strength from Seros for the moment.

For his part, my wonderful draconic monitor rumbled a brief stanza of a melody, something twisting and current-woven—in the back, confusion flashed over Cássio's face—and the remains of the starfish, plenty for a schema, drifted away. He wasn't going to turn his back to bring it to me, so he would trust his hydrokinesis, aided by the Song, to handle that while he watched the merrow with burning golden eyes. Oh, I loved him.

Abarossa's mana twitched, another unheard command, and that seemed to shock the Priest out of his comatose state. He flicked his tail and rose higher, a seafoam merrow mirroring him behind, pulling a bag off of her own body. Handing it to the Priest, she dipped back down to join the phalanx; it seemed the other merrow were here as bodies, serving for both guards and carrying the other schemas. A respectable precaution, considering what I was.

The Priest unclasped the kelp-bag with another spark of mana—something protective, if I had to guess—and withdrew my second prize.

Well, at least they'd only tried once. This one was dead.

The body of a fish emerged from the bag, coiled up on itself in a way that had to have snapped its spine thrice over—perhaps seven feet in length but less than eight inches in height, a narrow, knife's edge predator. Even in death, its eyes glassy and blank, the ivory jut of hooked fangs protruded from its maw.

A hunting-fish. Doubtless my Otherworld mana would tell me the exact name, but I knew the type. They were nothing but pests to sea-drakes such as I had been but they were devastating beasts in coral reefs, maintaining the population of anything that made such a foolish decision so as to leave the safety of their schools; or even for the crime of existing, depending on how hungry the hunting-fish got.

I had the triggerfish, perhaps, but they were ranged attackers that died upon anything close, and my silver kraits preferred ambushing unsuspecting prey. This would slot well into my ecosystem.

The Priest allowed Mayalle's current to lift it from his webbed hand, its body twisting once the kelp-bag no longer kept it crushed in a transportable size. Already there wasn't anything life changing, because I rather thought that even with Abarossa explaining I would not harm them so long as they made no attempts on my core, they still didn't want to arm me with anything too powerful. Bastards.

Which played true as the Priest procured his next schema. A squid.

Or, what I hoped was one, because any lesser creature could have mistaken the rubbery, stringy mess of translucent pink-white from a bag for a long-dead corpse.

I knew squids, so I did know its potential, but that didn't mean the gelatinous glob of tentacles and flesh looked anything near powerful. The Priest released it from his grasp and let it drift over, where Seros stared at it with as much disdain as his presence could emanate. I wholeheartedly agreed.

And then, from the back, two merrow busied themselves unclasping a sling stretched between both their backs—a heavy wrapping of kelp, nearly as long as they were head to tail, doing its damnedest to drag them to the bottom. It didn't have a securing spark of mana like the others—and in fact, there was blood, ghosting out near one of the tied ends of kelp. A fresh kill.

My points of awareness spiraled up, surrounding them, as they unwrapped the final schema to be brought to my halls.

A dolphin.

Streamlined, stone-grey, pure black eyes—a powerful tail with all the strength of a shark but infinitely more mobility, fins out, extended snout lined with teeth. Just under ten feet, and absolutely corded with muscle.

Dolphins were pirates in their own way. Enormous groups, knifing through the waves as they swam from sea to sea, eating their fill and allowing no threats to their pods. I didn't have as much room as they would need, but I would give them food aplenty and mana galore, something the high seas often lacked. They would thrive here.

The Priest didn't even try to present it to me, considering it had taken two merrow just to haul the thing here—he simply bowed his head as if in prayer and, on the signal of a twist of his tail, all three let the dolphin sink to the bottom. A few of my silvertooths twitched at the trail of blood but I held them back with my typical iron will.

Four corpses, scattered over my Underlake. Four schemas.

The Priest straightened, mana thrumming through his channels. "Gifts from our mighty Abarossa," he said, puffed up with resonant devotion. She'd certainly chosen a shill instead of her more ambitious previous Priestess. "Let these mark the day of our coalition!"

Yeah, I wouldn't go that far.

I swirled overhead, pondering. A good spread, all aquatic, and more versatile than Gonçal's ice-bound beasts. Giving me the freedom to choose where to put them rather than guiding me to a new floor, though they would all end up in the Hungering Reefs regardless. Or, I would know that, as soon as I actually ate the damn things.

They will leave, I said. There was no hesitation nor parlay in my voice. It was a fact.

Abarossa's mana flared, not in anger, but a curiosity—she didn't know why I wanted that, which made me think she wasn't as involved as I had previously thought. Maybe she had just told them to bring schemas, and it was them that had made the deliberate choice to bring one alive.

The Priest blinked, imperious stance cracking; maybe he thought I'd use my precious mana to weave him an entrance hall, stacked with thrones and golden offerings? No. He'd fulfilled my trade with Abarossa, which meant I wouldn't kill him, and that was where the contract ended. They had done nothing to make me want to give more; only what was expected.

"Ah–" he started, and Abarossa's retort went directly to him but was loud enough I heard the echoes through her mana. He winced. "Of course," he said, switching his tone to something far more reverent. "We shall leave at once. Please, think kindly upon our offerings."

That would depend on the manner of their future offerings.

The phalanx had hardly left the first hundred feet of my Underlake and it was simple for them to reverse and swim out, Mayalle's whirlpool dying for just a second to allow them passage. I watched their green-blue forms through the murky waters outside my dungeon, Seros' piercing gaze managing far past what my points of awareness could, until they were gone.

Presumably. I would have the royal silvertooth patrol for the next few days, in case they got any bright ideas.

But that was an encounter I wasn't likely to forget. A deal completed, with me as rather the unchallengeable victor. Making myself stronger again and again.

And stronger still, as I split my consciousness between the four bodies newly granted to my halls.

I'd start with the freshest kill. The starfish, the shards of its body scattered throughout the Underlake. I gnawed it down to mana.

Crystalline Starfish (Uncommon)

It is unkillable in the most killable way. Every injury only breaks it apart further into jagged blades of life, each capable of regrowing into their own form, ready to ever-expand outward.

I of course knew that a sea-drake's defense wasn't feasible for every creature in the world, but surely there was something more effective than this? Letting oneself be killed, be overwritten, just to grow elsewhere?

…it was probably fine that pieces of it were currently drifting through the Underlake. The water here was only brackish, not the concentration of saline needed for starfish. I wasn't about to be planting an invasive creature of my own creation here. Surely.

I distracted myself by moving on, going down the order of arrival. The twisted hunting-fish, glassy eyes fixed outward.

Razortooth Barracuda (Uncommon)

Fast as death, it darts from sunlit shallows to sink its fangs into any prey, regardless of size. What it cannot devour whole it consumes in ripped chunks, fiercely defending its territory.

Exactly as I'd thought, then—a ceaseless solitary predator, charging forward instead of waiting in ambush. A much faster variant of my sharks, it seemed, which was rather what I needed. I didn't know how large of a territory they needed, but I'd force them to share, considering I only had so much to go around. Or that would breed competition and force a sooner evolution. Either option I would take.

Next was the squid, the sad, limp pile of meat no longer than two feet long. I poked and prodded around the chitinous pen in the center, the support structure that was doing very little support now, the grasping arms. Other than some small barbs on the tips of its tentacles, there wasn't much to look at, but I knew well of the potential of squids, which had been a favoured snack of mine in the deep.

Whiplash Squid (Rare)

Hunters of the shallows and the unconquerable depths. It fights with hooked tentacles, releasing ink when threatened and always, always dreaming of growing larger than possibility.

Perhaps I could teach it some lessons from my thornwhip algae. And depending on how fast they reproduced or how cheap their mana cost was, I could see myself using them to show Seros more of the proper seas, the variety of prey he had to hunt when the dominion of oceans was his alone to claim.

I didn't know if my truce with Abarossa extended to all of Arroyo, though Cássio's presence as a follower of a different god seemed to suggest so. Perhaps it would be safe to send Seros back into the cove to gather more schemas.

And then the final, the largest, the creature I already could taste the brimming power within. Large, fast, social; everything I wanted my dungeon to be.

Shrieking Dolphin (Rare)

This creature is kind enough to announce your death before it comes calling. Traveling in enormous schools, their shrieks can install either an unworldly terror or perfect paralysis, allowing for easy pickings.

Terror or paralysis? What kind of creature was this?

Dolphins I knew, the traveling mercenaries that chased their own food and fun with no care for others—rather perfect for a dungeon, in truth. The schema gave me a familiar impression, powerful grey bodies moving knife-fast through the water, but with mana woven around their throats and mouths—a scream that echoed even through thought. Fascinating; was it for hunting or defense? I could already imagine a full school of them swarming, freezing invaders in place to be torn apart by either them or my other creatures. A cyclone of death.

Hells, I had been so pleased with Gonçal's schemas, granting me the option for a proper frozen terrain—but these would fit so well into the Hungering Reefs I was already slotting them in mentally. The armoured jawfish was making his way to the third room, the land of large predators, which would let the shrieking dolphins take over the first room as their undisputed territory. The crystalline starfish dotted throughout, perhaps as a nasty surprise in the lagoon—then the whiplash squid in the dark corners, plenty of prey to grow. And to fill the water with razortooth barracuda like a swarm, endless and biting.

Shoth had made it through my running over the bottom. That would no longer be an option.

Abarossa's mana trickled down to surround me, a thrumming pride in her presence. There, she hummed, quiet. Is our bargain complete?

I remade her staff—she delivered me schemas. Becoming the patron of my floor was an additive for us both.

Four schemas; four paths of potential. A connection to aquatic creatures I had frightfully few ways to access, considering the last time I had sent Seros out he had been captured and nearly killed. And she was still granting me the boon of the endless hunt, a perfect home for my Named to function at their best. She had brought six merrow to my halls, had them give me schemas, and left. What I'd done to Gonçal, but more free. A power and promise.

Yes, I said. It is complete.