Dragonheart Core

Chapter 32: Restoration

I'd always been vaguely aware that most of my plants were more intelligent than their outside brethren. More was a strong word, of course, because the bar was set at a particularly low point when it came to plants, but there had always been an undercurrent of something else. The algae growing in gentle waves like the sand of a beach, the mangroves shifting their roots in intangible breezes to catch prey, things like that. Enjoyable, but still tame.

Now they were beating out an uncomfortably large percentage of my creatures.

I still hadn't quite figured out if that meant they were profoundly intelligent, or my creatures were profoundly idiotic.

Either way, it was still a sight to behold.

They didn't have to worry about figuring things out on their own, not when their every thought was connected; great strands of consciousness flowed between every living plant on the level like the finest of wines, carrying information or plans or little details like how a cave spider's web had blocked a section of the algae-light and now a whitecap was free to grow there. Then the spore would land, sprout, and there would be a few more specks of consciousness to add to the growing collective. Already I desperately wanted Rhoborh's blessing on all of my other floors. Whole fields of strangling bloodline kelp, tidal masses of moving algae on the first floor—beautiful.

Unfortunately, that wasn't how blessings worked.

Although I would definitely find a way to mimic it.

The mangroves were the undisputed monarchs of the Drowned Forest, though. Their massive size and ability to go on the offensive with their thorns stood far out compared to the rest of them, and even with the greatly increased kobold population, they'd barely been able to score more than a handful of branches for use as tools. They'd have to get much more clever about this.

And the kobolds were merrily improving as well. Twelve of them meant they could split into shifts, half going out on great hunting missions and bringing back corpses of the rats and toads the ironback hadn't defended. One fire-drake descendant had set up in the back of the cave, twisting billowing moss strands around each other to create sort of facsimile bandages, and he spent his time healing those injured on the hunt.

And then the other half went out on gathering missions.

In the week it'd been since the attack, I'd had a handful of creatures evolve—mostly small ones, all without any new options. Half a dozen more webweavers I'd guided to a tree of their own, a few armourback sturgeons to replenish their lost numbers, and most excitedly, three more burgeoning ironback toads. They were still evolving but considering it would take the kobolds a hell of a lot longer to figure out how to mine than it would to kill the toads and take their armour, I was counting on them to give the kobolds proper weapons.

Theoretically, I could shape them blades from what I'd collected from the invaders. And if another massive army came tramping in I doubtless would—but not now. I wanted them to discover it, to harness it from their own power. It would be all the more meaningful.

Not that the mangroves were planning on making it easy, though. In fact, I was also counting on them to–

Oh?

One of the points of awareness I always had aimed at my various entrances sent a rush of information back to me; the underwater one, with its gaping tunnel stretching to the cove beyond. Over the week I'd seen plants start to grow through the rock, little tendrils of seagrass and even polyps eagerly claiming the new land, but not nearly fast enough to reach me yet. But maybe the presence of more normal flora was enough to convince them it was safe.

Because a jellyfish merrily bobbed its way into my third floor.

It wasn't quite the fifty-foot long beasts I remembered from the open sea, but it was impressive, easily dozens of tentacles trailing like ribbons ten feet below. It barely made it through the entrance, long as it was, some vague sort of mana flickering under its pale blue hood to propel it into this new territory.

Or– not blue, because the second it passed in front of the limestone it flickered, a silvery grey washing over its body. Interesting.

It drifted into the first part of the room, dark eye spots roving the space. A new hunting ground, presumably, especially since a silverhead was the perfect half-foot length to fit into its mouth—but something else made the choice for it.

From the murk of the shifting currents and the tangling protection of the kelp forest, the original armourback sturgeon appeared.

He was the only one to survive the merrow attack, his size of near ten feet—three times what he'd first evolved as—giving him just enough leeway to survive the breakdown of his cells. And though I'd successfully evolved a few other silverheads up, his new family sifting around in the silt behind him, he had risen up to protect them.

If I counted back to what had triggered his first evolution, that desperate charge against the electric eel, this was twice his family had been cut down around him. He didn't look to want to let it happen a third.

The jellyfish, of course, ignored him; they were good at that. Their massive, stinging tentacles meant you had to be an idiot to attack them without the armour or size where it wasn't worth eating the very low-food meal of the jellyfish, the mana of their kill notwithstanding. They had few predators.

What they did have, though, was a defender.

The sturgeon shot up from the silt, his massive tail swishing almost clumsily as he pulled on speed he'd never had to use before. A hundred feet cleared, two—he slammed into the jellyfish's base with all the grace of a hurricane.

They both flinched away from the hit, great red lashes opening up over the sturgeon's side as he floundered away. The jellyfish's hood fluttered as mana pumped under its translucent surface, colours flashing wildly as it reoriented itself. The sturgeon's armour had been just dull enough by lack of use not to rip a few tentacles off.

He circled back around. The cloudskipper wisp's current kept the jellyfish drifting, sliding closer and closer to the crushing pit in the center; but with my luck, it'd get tangled in the surrounding kelp before actually being sucked down. The sturgeon needed to finish it out in the open, where he could choose how to target it.

Both he and the jellyfish knew that.

Its mana hummed and its tentacles spread, lifted by errant strands of water-attuned mana; a massive spider's web wove itself beneath, a circle with nearly ten feet of danger bobbing through the water. A poor sap of a silvertooth didn't swim away fast enough and got trapped, thrashing, in one of the tendrils.

But as far as the jellyfish could reach, its tentacles still stopped beneath its bell. Not enough mana manipulation to raise above its hood.

And the sturgeon, with my dungeon-granted intelligence, recognized that.

He ignored the bleeding lashes over his side and darted up, bulk cutting through the currents easily, and slammed his head into the beast's bell. Before it could shrivel away he reared back and heatbutted it again, and again, and again; the cloudskipper wisp's current held it in place as he rammed it, great wounds open in the cracks between his plates as a last defense toxin spilled from a gash in its hood, until all of its tentacles went loose and it floated sadly to the ground.

Well. That was certainly a way to do it.

I shoveled soothing mana over his injuries, guiding him back to where he stood guard over the rest of his family. He accepted it tiredly and swam back, resting on the silt. But the mana from the kill lurked heavy in his stomach. Well done, I impressed on him.

And then I promptly devoured the corpse.

A delightful little creature, really; capable of mimicking whatever colour was behind it in a combination of its own natural coloration being clear and various semi-attuned mana, it found busy sections of water and rooted itself deep into the environment. When it was hungry, it would spread a great net of its tentacles to catch prey and drag them all into its mouth, tugging all its tendrils back into one straight line when it was done as to not scare its prey too far away.

In the kelp forest, I could already see it being a proper menace. Very nice.

Mimic Jellyfish (Uncommon)

It sits, lashing its tentacles to the ground below, and waits for unwary fools to wander closer. If creatures fall prey to its web of tendrils, they retract once they are full, keeping the population up to feast again later.

All the better to prevent invaders from escaping. I poked around the schema, trying to see how intensive it was; fantastic. As always, the mana I'd gotten from its kill—a bit under two points—wasn't even a quarter of what I would need to create it.

Sometimes I missed the old days where it took half a point to grow a section of whitecaps, and that was all the schemas I had. A lot more difficult when I had little mana-sucking beasts like the wisp running around.

And speaking of beasts.

Seros shook himself, rising from the slumber I'd started to become genuinely worried was hibernation with a rusty hiss. His fins flicked, tail whispering over the stone, and he dove into the third floor to find something to hunt.

No need to defend his quarry anymore.

The kobold warrior had awoken.

-

Her eyes snapped open.

The world was hazy and grey, but blessedly dry; her last thoughts were of water and burning and drowning. Unwelcome. She raised her head, flicking her forked tongue at her surroundings, and stopped.

Her head came… farther off the ground. Not just her head, but what was within it too—the big thoughts came easily to her, words she didn't recognize but understood and once-foreign concepts made clear. Her limbs were longer. Strength more apparent. She glanced down and saw, instead of the dusty red she was so used to, a much deeper maroon, almost purple. Like a blend between her primitive colours and His beautiful blue-green. Her claws no longer needed sharpening, like fangs attached to her hands, her tail long and lashing.

She was scale-kin no longer. No, she was something more.

And, all around her, she could see His presence. He had guarded her while she slept.

The urge rose within her stronger than anything she'd ever felt before; the gnawing, biting need to prove something, both to Him and to herself. A pride in her abilities she hadn't even tested yet marched alongside her thoughts, ever-present and heavy enough to drown in. She needed to be strong. Stronger.

So she stood, shook off the dust that had gathered on her much-higher shoulders, and dove into the water at the end of the cramped tunnel.

Swimming was still a pain, but He swam, so she would figure it out. Her tail helped, shoving at the water as she clawed her way past the new and confusing plants, popping up then and again for air as she searched for that original tunnel. Then it was up and up and up until she emerged back into her original home. The land of forest and trees and water.

The land where her prey lurked.

She scrambled up the riverbed, claws scraping and bouncing over the stone, and inhaled; she hadn't had them before but she somehow knew how they worked, dit pits scored in twin lines above her mouth. Light flickered over her eyes, hazy outlines of heat and shifting creatures. A serpent, lurking in a den to her right; a rat, thrashing as a mangrove speared its gut; one of the skittering folk disappearing up a stalactite overhead.

And, just a few rooms over, the large, lumbering form of the beast.

She bared her fangs. She would not lose again.

It raised its head as she charged into the room, lazy and unworried—it didn't even recognize her. Why would it? She had changed, becoming anew, reborn stronger. There was no room for failure.

So she charged.

It blinked but stood to match, the greenery and plants over its back sliding as it rose to its full height. Strategy laced with rage raced through her mind; if she attacked it, it would hide, just like last time. When she had failed.

So she simply couldn't let it do that.

It lumbered forward to match her, keeping its scale ready to absorb the rest of its body. She lunged and it opened its mouth, beak out and gaping—she swept her arm between its jaws. It crunched through skin and scale alike.

She howled, thrashing, but shifted her grip; even as it bit down she wrenched a hold of its beak, digging her claws into the sensitive roof of its mouth, scrabbling for a grip against its leathery skin. Pain flooded through her veins.

But when it let go, she still had a hold.

It bellowed, swiping at her legs with its stubby claws, and tried to pull its head back under the protection of its scales. But it couldn't. Her arm ached, both with the pain and the effort of keeping its head out; it tried to move forward, bringing its scales to his head, but she lunged her other claw out and snapped a hold of the ridge of its shell. No. Not again.

With a howl, she dug her grip into both pieces and started to pull.

It truly panicked then, thrashing and lashing out. At her previous size, she would have been swept under its frenzy, unable to bear the weight; but she was stronger. She was larger. She held.

Its skin started to tear, scarlet bubbling through the gash, and it roared anew. A swipe tore the scales from her legs, its bite cleaving through her arm and digging at bone; but she kept tearing.

Until finally, finally, she ripped the beast's head from its body.

It slumped, blood gushing over her form as she fell back. She struggled back to her feet, dropping the head at her side; everything hurt. Even the welcoming burst of mana through her chest couldn't heal the agony crackling through her.

But she had won.

That liminal connection in the back of her mind, the same one she'd gained when she'd hesitantly tried to pledge herself to Him, flickered to life. She turned, still gasping for breath and clutching her wounded arm, and found her Dragon there.

Even with her new height He still towered over her, the frills around His face flared and golden eyes bright. He lowered His head to peer at her, tail swishing.

She reached behind with her good arm and heaved the corpse forward, displaying the beast; her greatest kill, made in His name, to prove herself.

He leaned forward, eyes started to glow with some internal power. There was almost something like hesitancy in His gaze, but that was impossible; He was a Dragon. They never feared anything.

A voice, faint and crackling, echoed through her mind. Rihsu.

She froze. The sound replayed, again and again, her resting the word with every ability she could muster—Rihsu. A name.

He had named her.

Rihsu.