Dragonheart Core

Chapter 40: Strength Anew

My mana kicked up for just a second as the silver krait locked eyes with the intruder, curled up in the bloodline kelp as he was—it had made its way through the tunnel without suspicion and now poked its wide head into my halls, black eyes swiveling as they took in the ripe feast of mana flowing through the currents. Shark.

And one floor above, a piece of glowing algae ripped from the ceiling cried out in an unseen voice to all the other plants in the Drowned Forest as a final alarm; something new and skulking.

Or, by new and skulking, I meant the same fucking bat that had evaded me so far.

It'd grown in its insolence, able to safely sprint past the first floor before I'd even noticed—and, with the silver krait only noticing the shark when it'd entered my halls, I was beginning to understand just how powerful Rhoborh's blessing was. My home-built alarm system only worked as long as one of my creatures actually looked at my entrances. Not exactly a good thing.

The bat cried out, shrill voice reverberating in the narrow space of the first room it was so casually exploring; more creatures raised their heads to squint at this irritating annoyance but it had moved on before they could track it down, its hooked wings and massive ears disappearing before they could blink. I kept up with it of course, unlimited by such pedestrian consequences of gravity and air resistance, but I didn't want to.

Though it was frankly impossible, my points of awareness managed to squirm out of my control and angle themselves away from the wretched thing's screams.

Yeah. Shark first.

I shot the majority of my attention back to the Underlake.

The shark fully emerged into my hall, and it was a beast; maybe thirteen feet long, riddled with mottled grey and white patterns arranged like the sun shafting through the water's surface. Common camouflage, if a bit flashier than normal—most sharks just went with grey on top, white on bottom—but I could respect it. Its fins were large and edged in black, the typical shark mouth filled with gnashing teeth; a streamlined brute.

Something I was rather suitably interested in. My third floor had all manners of smaller predators, but as the armourback sturgeons were still figuring out how to defend themselves and others and Seros hunted infrequently, there wasn't a true top predator.

And I was looking at one that would slot well in.

I nudged my creatures to awareness.

The krait was the first to move, having been the one to spot the shark—he wriggled free of the bloodline kelp, wide, paddle-like tail swishing as he popped loose of the forest that was quickly overtaking the available space.

Honestly, it was kind of concerning. I'd planted three whole stems and in a few weeks, it'd swallowed over half of the claimable space in the Underlake. I'd need the baby crabs to grow up so they could keep the population in check.

And speaking of the baby crabs–

Hundreds of them, all less than a foot in size but with those same enormous, crushing claws and the vivid emerald carapace. Pint-sized monsters. I loved them.

But it was definitely still concerning to see what were essentially infants merrily start trotting towards the invading shark. Hm. Of course I'd had births in my dungeon before, given with the staggering rat generations that had already come and gone, but it was different seeing the children fight. Ah well. Crabs were independent from birth and while this group still had plenty of rounds of molting to go through before they reached their full size, that didn't mean they were weak.

I did nudge the krait out first.

He swam forward, plenty of air in his lungs to support this fight without needing to take a break, and waited until he was just free of the kelp before starting to spin, over and over as the algae-light from above broke over his scales and scattered rippling light throughout the lake.

The shark took about a heartbeat to see the light and immediately lash its tail, enormous bulk prowling forward.

Hm. I'd assumed the krait's silver and white colouration was for camouflage, hiding in the ripples of water, but maybe it was equally a distraction. For a darkwater hunter, the flash of his tail would trigger nothing but an urge to chase. Which the shark was very much doing.

The krait disappeared back into the kelp but the shark wasn't a woe-begotten scavenger; its eyes easily picked out the silver amidst the amber-gold fronds, shoving its way through with its enormous head. It looked strangely at home here, stalking through the kelp.

Just unfortunately for it, not all of the strands were kelp. The krait had lived here plenty long enough to know where the traps were.

A mimic jellyfish, its tendrils the exact size and shade of the bloodline kelp, welcomed its new prey with the sort of enthusiasm that was supposed to be impossible for something without a central brain. Its tentacles all lashed together, wrapping around the shark with their thousands of micro-barbs all perfectly poised to release their venom–

And failed miserably.

The shark's skin repelled the barbs but not the tendrils; they seemed to hook and latch over the mottled surface, caught on invisible rough edges and breaks. The shark swam forward and all the tentacles the jellyfish had rooted into the ground below were ripped free, tearing away from its body, its bell tugged along for the ride.

Half a second later and the shark had realized what had happened, spun in as tight a circle as it could manage, and swallowed the bell whole.

It looped in great, sweeping rounds as it continued to tear into the jellyfish's corpse, gnawing down the tentacles with the same care as if it was beef. Given how it hadn't seemed to notice it was systematically ripping the jellyfish's tendrils off, I would guess it was a biological reason instead of a mana one; intriguing, though. Armour? It just looked like regular skin.

Its meal was rather interrupted, though, as the silver krait returned with a friend in tow. A few friends, actually.

The electric eel waited a second for its electric silverheads to get into position before releasing a blast of lightning-attuned mana.

The shark exploded—no organ to make sound but I could see that it wanted to, thrashing with its mouth gaping and gills writhing. The baby crabs spooked, disappearing back to the kelp's base, but the shark had no such escape, seizing and paralyzed. The silver krait, rather peacefully, swam around to its relatively still back and nipped his fangs through its dorsal fin.

Yeah. Turned out that no matter how strong an aquatic creature was, they really didn't have an answer for electricity.

The little krait-eel duo stilled as the mana from the kill flowed through them, rippling through their channels; nowhere near close to evolution for either, but the burst of strength was welcome. They'd need it with how many of these sharks I was planning on adding.

Speaking of.

Roughwater Shark (Common)

It never stops swimming, hunting evermore for more prey to stave its insatiable hunger. To protect itself, it rubs against stone walls to sharpen its skin, preventing anything larger from stopping its hunt.

Huh. More of a mundane reason than I'd thought, but still very much viable; that kind of raw power didn't need special gimmicks. And there were always evolutions.

I immediately wove half a dozen of them into existence, all spaced so that they couldn't see each other past the kelp forest, a bit shorter than the one I had killed but with plenty of room to grow.

They woke up, blinked, and immediately went on the hunt. Gods, I loved sharks.

Up above, my creatures weren't loving the bat.

It had successfully flown its way throughout the entirety of the second floor, darting in and around mangroves as it scooped up the plentiful insects thriving in the humid environment; several creatures had tried to swipe at it, namely the toads and the constrictors, but they hadn't fought a flying prey before. New and rather unwelcome experience, it seemed.

But I wanted that bat dead.

My mana slithered about, sneaking its way into the den at the back of the cave that had once been Seros', and woke up the kobolds.

The tribe had both grown and shrunk, several killed off by mangroves or cave bears whenever they lumbered downstairs for a drink and more to come with the eggs currently heavily guarded at the back of the den. A good seven padded outside to investigate the situation, led by the original two, and were promptly divebombed by the bat flying towards the next room.

Dragons at heart, still prey in stature. They scattered.

Five minutes later, they'd regrouped enough to start actually tracking the thing. A few made halfhearted efforts to jab at the thing with their bone-tipped spears, but they seemed to figure out pretty quickly that wouldn't work. It was just too fast.

And then came about the prized kobold intelligence. They huddled under a mangrove, although carefully just far enough away that they were protected under its pale white leaves but not close enough for it to shift a branch and catch one of them, and churred to each other. The newest kobolds were brash and ready to prove themselves—I saw a lot of ideas involving climbing stone pillars and jumping at it—but the original two had more cunning to them. More curiosity.

And I watched as one of them, not the chieftess but the male who had come up with the rat idea, slowly slid his gaze up the mangrove they were hiding under. Towards the white leaves. And then carefully looked to their left where stood a fake mangrove, pale webweavers scuttling over what could almost pass for leaves. What would certainly pass for leaves to a blind bat.

I could have purred as I watched him connect the dots.

He said his plan fast and the kobolds listened without hesitation—they split up, spreading around the room with their spears clutched tight in unwavering claws. The bat flew and rested in tandem, either tired or taking stock of the room, but either way it had only stopped on the ceiling before. The kobolds wished to change this.

By being irritating. I could respect the drive.

They started to holler and shout in their strange, guttural language, waving spears and slamming the wooden tips against the ceiling—the bat startled and dropped, wide wings fluttering as it tried to reorient itself. The kobolds swept in, still shrieking and howling. Two stood at each entrance of the room, vastly too small to actually block the opening but armed with a big stick and willing to try.

The bat kept up its shrillity, bobbing and ducking around the army trying to bludgeon it—but every time it tried to rest on the ceiling, a kobold would scamper up a pile of rocks for enough height to bang their spear against the stone, startling it off. Its motions got more and more frenzied as it tried to evade them, next trying the trees; but only the same story whenever it tried an alive tree. One kobold got too close to a mangrove in an effort to scare it and promptly received a thorn to the side for their trouble, doubling over with a gargled hiss.

But the bat finally, finally, swooped towards the dead tree. Every kobold froze.

It landed, wrapping its hooked wings around itself, and just managed to brush the edge of a faux leaf.

Every webweaver scuttling over the tree felt the vibrations and turned as one to see the intruder.

I would have been lying if I said it wasn't deeply satisfying to see the bat suddenly become aware of the new threat and try to take off, only for its wing to keep it pinned to the branch; and to see its thrashing and shrieking and writhing come to a very welcome stop with the addition of some venom.

Apologies to the webweavers, though. I spawned them a cloud of common mosquitos directly in the center of their web even as I dissolved my newest conquest.

Baterwaul (Uncommon)

This creature doesn't limit its echolocation to only movement; it cries out in a shrill, piercing voice, disorienting prey and predators alike so that it can both hunt and escape with ease.

Just as irritating as I'd thought. Fantastic.

Though it was an impossibly small kill, the kobolds still hooted and cried out in victory as the mana split between the seven of them and the dozen webweavers entered their channels. Barely more than a speck but won through victory; their little prides were well and truly inflated. They marched back to their den with heads held high.

At least for the poor one who was being dragged back before she could bleed out. She'd be fine.

The baterwaul. My first flying schema, perfectly built for annoyance and general confusion. All it needed was a place to roost and insects to feast on, both of which I had in great numbers.

I wouldn't be adding it to my floors yet, though.

My Drowned Forest needed one, maybe two new creatures; something for atmosphere, to keep things prime and maintained for those living there. I was already coming up with a way to add the cloudskipper wisps. But past that, if I kept adding more things, I'd just upset the balance. There wasn't enough room there for fifty species. I needed to focus on my deeper floors.

In the same vein, the Underlake wasn't done yet, but the roughwater sharks had certainly started it in the right direction. I could see room for a few more plants, just as competition to the kelp, and maybe one larger creature to compete with the sharks whenever I added too many floors that Seros wouldn't go hunting here, but that was it. Make things too complicated and that was how floors started to fall apart.

So for now, I'd just hang onto this schema, and wait until I had a floor ready to use it.

Although…

Hm. I'd wanted a spy, just to see what was going on outside—would the bat work? Limited to night, small, weak, unable to actually see what was going on. Irritating. Unintelligent.

Maybe I'd wait a little longer.

-

Nicau sat in the darkness of the same alley he'd once lived out of and thought. It wasn't difficult; thinking was all he could afford to do, now.

His scheme was falling apart. Something had happened and now the merrow of Arroyo had disappeared from Calarata, some internal strife ripping them apart; and that meant people were watching the cove. People were also asking questions about the missing folks, spurred by members of the Dread Crew poking their heads around as well—and that meant he certainly wouldn't be able to get anyone else to go die and leave their position open to him. He'd lost his opportunity.

Make them remember you, Romei whispered, and gods, he wanted to. He wanted to be something more than a streetrat, than a smudge under someone's shoe they could kill with no consequence. He wanted to matter.

But that door was well and truly closed, now.

Dare he go back to being a pigeoncatcher? It was a rough life, a hard one, and both unprofitable and oversaturated. Every orphan with a rumble in their stomach tried selling cooked bird to the pirates on the docks. Whatever slim pickings he could find would never fill.

But he didn't need filling. He just needed to survive for the moment, up until he could get on a ship and leave this cursed place behind, traveling to… to Leóro, if he had to. Just outside of Calarata. Whatever success he'd wanted in this palace had been wrenched from him. He'd had a moment of autonomy, the searing potential of knowing that he could have done something with that dragon's heart, that he could have been the next best thing to rise above his fellow streetrats, and that he had failed.

Because Arroyo was consumed, people were watching, and he had lost his window.

Nicau grimaced, hugging his arms to his sides, and stood. Pigeons, then. He'd catch a few, sell even less, and try to build up enough wealth to serve as a bribe if he got caught as a stowaway. The same thing he had done to get to this gods-foresaken place. Maybe he could strike it as someone important somewhere else.

Something moved in the darkness.

Nicau screamed—or tried to, at least, when a cloth wrapped itself firmly around his mouth. Hands gripped around his sides and plucked him up with ease, not so much arranging him as shoving him into a small and more easily-carryable size; the cloth was wedged between his front teeth and tied behind his head. In seconds he went from a free man to a lump shoved under someone's arm.

"You've been causing trouble," a voice hissed, and Nicau froze; an unfortunately very recognizable voice, which was heard spitting with rage more often than not. Lluc, First Mate of the Dread Crew. "You've been causing untold amounts of trouble, and by the gods, you're going to solve these problems for me."

And with that, Nicau was brought away.