Dragonheart Core

Chapter 66: Returns

Nicau wasn't ashamed to admit he wept when the jungle thinned and revealed the mountains again.

Dramatic? Yes. He'd only been in the jungle for two days. Hardly enough to forget about civilization and how it looked.

But gods, he missed the safety of the kobolds' den.

"Ah, thank you," he offered, extending his arm; the parrot, halfway through preening a feather, blinked at him. "I couldn't have made it without you."

Its squawk was rather smug.

More than a few hours it'd been, trying to decode the parrot's instructions and fighting against exhaustion, but out he'd made it. A few more plants under his belt, a couple harrowing glances at enormous beasts while crouching in the underbrush—there'd been one particular encounter with an enormous grey beast, easily three times his height with massive hooves and horns studded on the front of its face—but he was out. Alive.

Mostly.

Now he stood on the outer lip of the mountain pass, the rubble extending before him; after that, just another half day's travel and he'd be back at the dungeon's entrance. And to be frank, after the jungle, he'd feel more than safe catching a quick sleep somewhere at mighty Alómbra's base.

But he was curious about his companion.

"I'm going underground," he said, pointing with his unoccupied hand towards the distant mountains. "To a dungeon." That might kill you on arrival. "Do you want to stay with me?"

The parrot abruptly stopped preening, spread its wings, and took off from his shoulder with an earsplitting squawk. In an instant it was dozens of feet in the air, circling overhead; it shrieked once more and flew back to the jungle, red-gold feathers disappearing beneath the emerald canopy.

Nicau blinked, feeling rather foolish.

It didn't want to go underground, he knew that. But he also knew that wild creatures didn't particularly feel the urge to guide lost humans out of their jungle. So what had it all meant?

He didn't have any sort of answer.

So he pulled his sling higher up on his shoulders, gripped his spear, and started back to the dungeon.

-

My next grasshoppers had also found unfortunate demises of an exploding variety.

If I were feeling particularly charitable, I'd probably say that me doing the equivalent of setting my claws on their throat and demanding they agree to join me probably wasn't the best way to get their mana to relax, but my sympathy was pretty well fleeting at this point. Why wouldn't they want to join? They were already feeding on my mana.

But I was running out of non-dungeonborn insects, and my frustration was building to the point my tests weren't effective. I'd return to this later.

So off I went, handling all my boring chores; keep the mushroom population up in the Fungal Gardens to feed the bears, add more insects to the fourth floor to sustain the thornwhip algae, drop a few more rat families into the Drowned Forest. Another replenishment of the roughwater sharks, still too bullheaded for their own good—although only most of them were killed by the sarco and Seros. One, a smaller but battle-honed bruiser, floating weakly by the surface; I shifted a point of awareness closer and found puncture holes spread over its dorsal fin, ones with venom still leaking out.

The silver krait.

After the merrow's second invasion, I'd kept a close eye on the amount of mana he had—it was building near a fever pitch—but now he was going after sharks instead of his more typical prey. I pondered that even as I shaped another dozen sharks, spreading them throughout the enormous room. Was there something specific he wanted from their death?

Interesting. I'd try to keep a closer eye on him in the future.

But I went around my other daily tasks on the Underlake, trimming back the bloodline kelp from completely swallowing the floor and dissolving more silt for the armourback sturgeons to dig through, making the fully wolf cloudskipper wisp was full up on mana and still doggedly fighting against Mayalle's influence. All normal.

Then one point of awareness happened to glance towards a tunnel near the entrance, where a light had been shining for the past week. A light that was now very dim.

Oho. Finally.

With the last, wisping glow of a light that had lasted far too long, my first second evolution opened his new eyes.

The royal silvertooth.

Five feet long, quintuple his previous length, with his brutish appearance trimmed back; no longer fangs like broken glass sticking wildly out of his jaws, dorsal fins no longer edged in jagged spikes. Instead he was sleek, silver scales so small they were nearly invisible, fins pale and translucent. His eyes were the same scarlet but now deeper, more meaningful, the teeth below a uniform dagger's point.

Where once he'd been a bruiser, now he screamed power in a very different way. There was an elegance to his movement, shaking off the glow of evolution and swimming out of the tunnel I'd hidden him in. A nearby school of silvertooths, freshly out of a blood-frenzy from a crab they'd consumed, turned to face him.

He opened his fanged maw and swam forward, moving in slow, powerful strokes; there was almost an eel-like quality to his strength, where his entire body seemed to be muscle. The other silvertooths realized he was stronger than them with the scant few braincells they possessed and drifted back, leaving half the crab's corpse behind. Acquiescing their kill.

Except for a few. Those few beautiful idiots charged forward, kicking up the last sparks of their blood-frenzy, starving and furious–

When the royal silvertooth reached out, his eyes glowing, and canceled their blood-frenzy.

The few silvertooths drifted to a stop, confused and furious but without the mindless rage to back it up. I balked and moved closer—some subtle mana drifted away from what he'd used, tinged deep red. Not any respectable amount, compared to what, say, my mage ratkin would use, but mana nonetheless. And a type I hadn't seen before, too.

Holy shit. I remembered back to its description—as blood commands, so too does royalty. Was that blood-attuned mana?

Gods, even if the evolution had taken forever, this was worth it. I couldn't wait to see what happened.

…to be fair, it hadn't been that long. There'd just been a lot happening in the past week.

Just to cement his point, the royal silvertooth swam forward and cleaved his mighty fangs through the disobeyers' heads, killing them instantly; but even as the blood spread throughout the rest of the school, he kept pouring out blood-attuned mana, keeping them from entering their frenzy. The other silvertooths saw what he was doing and suddenly all agreed that yes, they were very interested in joining his school and serving him.

Ah, tyranny. A seemingly favoured pastime of those in my halls.

I spent enough time admiring his fearsome progression that I nearly missed something walking through my entrance. A stray point of awareness caught a glance of someone—a human, thin and malnourished, but with a gleam about his eyes and a familiar mana deep in his soul.

Nicau had returned.

I held myself back from completely welcoming him; I bounced between the heads of the creatures on the first floor, holding them back from attacking, but I didn't reach out to him yet. I wanted to see his reaction.

Because, well, I'd worked hard on this new Fungal Gardens. I wanted to see what he thought.

He poked his head cautiously into my new entrance room, frowning at the walls; he held a sliver of quartz in one hand, pumping just a hair of mana in to make a quartz-light. The most basic spell that anyone could use, even those untrained, but already a good showing that he'd unlocked something about his mana while out in the world.

Nicau crept forward, eyeing the spiders overhead, and finally stepped into my newly improved room. His eyes went wide.

I basked in the awe. It was very deserved.

He stepped forward through this paradise, past the jewels and gold I'd strung over pillars and stalactites, the rivers of green algae next to fields of whitecaps, all the glorious limestone I'd polished to a silver shine. As intended, he lingered on the massive serpentine skeleton, carefully not stepping on the section that snaked under his feet. Luminous constrictors prodded at my suggestion, flicking their tongues out at what probably looked like a gift-wrapped pile of mana to them, but I held firm. I knew he looked like something I would have eaten as a morning snack when I was peckish. That didn't mean I would allow him to be consumed now.

With the new expanded rock pond, there was no chance of jumping across without an enhancement spell; and judging by the leaf bandages wrapped around his leg, probably not even with. So Nicau just raised his spear above the water and plunged in, nervous but trusting me to keep him safe.

If I hadn't already Named him, I would have been tempted to let the silverheads make their attempts. I held strong, though. He was too useful now.

The Drowned Forest went by quicker—he knew his way around these halls, and though there were still a few canals too wide to jump across, the kobolds had taught him how to slither across the dead branches they'd set up without snapping the wood. He made it across like it was born here.

But finally, he stood before the kobolds' den.

Exhaustion was heavy on his spirits and his thoughts, which I poked lightly into as I finally revealed my awareness over him. There was a momentary jerk as I tapped against his mind, that instinctual reaction to any stimuli, but he relaxed after. He didn't know how to control his mana well enough to even think of defending his thoughts from me so he just let it happen, tiredly making to enter the kobolds' den.

From inside, the Chieftess rose her head, golden eyes lighting up when she saw him; she churred something in their primitive tongue that was developing enough I was almost able to understand it, standing up to go greet him. He warbled something back.

Not to interrupt their little reunion, but I didn't want him going into the den quite yet. I pushed my command to him alongside an image of a destination, calling up Seros at the same time. Go here.

Only to the previous core room, unfortunately. I would have loved to bring him down to the fifth floor to see me, witness that which he had sworn himself to, but I didn't have a good way of bringing him past the Underlake yet. The little tunnels I'd opened for rats and serpents wouldn't exactly fit a human.

Nicau blinked but pulled back from the entrance, calculating where the room in the mental picture I'd shown him was—the Chieftess exited the den, sniffing curiously at the air. When Nicau made for the room's exit, she followed. Interesting.

The kobolds' den was close to the old core room anyway, and it wasn't long before they were both there, peering hesitantly into the darkness of the tunnel wending its way down. The humidity was thicker there, and though kobolds didn't have the best senses, I imagined the Chieftess still knew that the sarco was below. She gripped her staff a bit tighter.

Nicau, for his part, looked too exhausted to feel anything resembling self preservation.

A minute later, Seros emerged from the tunnel, lantern-esque eyes gleaming through the dark. He wasn't strictly necessary, but I wanted him present—this was about the outside world. This was as important as it got.

"Hello?" Nicau said, back in the brutish human tongue now that he wasn't talking directly to the Chieftess. Seros tilted his head to the side, playing up every angle of elegance that came with being the first Named of a dungeon, coincidentally not being the overexcited hatchling he was whenever he shared his reports to me. Fair enough.

I, for my part, was cramming in the last details of the human language I'd been studying. I refused to have my conversation with Nicau go as poorly as the last one. With a careful touch, I reached into his mind. What have brought me?

Fuck. Still better than before.

Nicau glanced around once more, but with Seros and my full attention present, nothing would sneak up on them. He seemed to pick up on my amusement over his paranoia, fixing his gaze back on Seros, and tugged the sling off his back. All my points of awareness swarmed in.

Though the leaf making up the bag was sturdy, it had been asked to carry much over a long distance, and fell apart at the first glance of freedom. Blood poured out, a mixture of bright red and blue, hunks of meats with straggling plants between. With a little smile, Nicau stepped away from the mess before it could soak his threadbare boots.

And what a mess it was.

Some mammal's head, crowned with horns and auburn fur. A handful of clawed legs covered in mottled brown chitin. Small white-silver flower sprouts, petals barely peeking out. A massive frond of something I vaguely remembered as palm. Shredded flowers with smoking red-black petals. A section of a vine slowly slithering its way out of the blood.

Oho. Already my Name was paying its dividends back.

The Chieftess' eyes went wide, staring at the bounty before her. She glanced at Nicau as though she couldn't quite believe he had managed this. I understood. He was still a ratty, malnourished thing, clothes only scraps and no weapons beyond a bone-tipped spear.

But he'd managed this.

She reached for the canine's head, warbling a question, her staff. Seros growled. She retreated with a hissed apology.

Hopefully that was just a general worship of Seros as a Named figure, and not another kobold converting away from me like Rihsu.

Either way, thanks to Seros for protecting these glorious treasures; I couldn't wait to collect their schemas. But I would consume them later—I needed to focus on Nicau while his memories were fresh and ripe for the taking. I pulled my awareness back to him. Where did you go?

A flawless sentence. Perfect.

Nicau swallowed, his mind fluttering. It seemed like he still wasn't used to hearing my voice in his head. If I'd wanted, I could reach in and pull everything I needed to know out, but there wasn't a point. This way I got someone to bounce thoughts off of, while still having no fear he would lie to me. "To the jungle," he said. "I didn't want to risk going to Calarata."

The correct decision. While it wasn't front and forward, I had a lurking fear that anyone with soul perception would be able to see the Name I'd given Nicau, outing him and potentially losing me my spy. Which was why I needed him to tell me what abilities his people had. After. What jungle?

His brow furrowed. "The… jungle? It's right beside the Alómbra Mountains."

How terribly helpful. I had been a sea-drake who had traveled the currents to see more of Aiqith than he could comprehend. The name.

Nicau looked truly flustered then. "I. I don't know? It probably has a name but I've never heard it."

Huh. If the natives didn't know the name, it couldn't be that widespread; maybe a name given by those scholarly types who drew maps about places they'd never visited? Even so, it seemed wrong to have a place filled with such wonders unnamed. My dungeon instincts said it was incomplete.

I will name it, I decided. That seemed fitting; it was more on my territory than Calarata's, anyway. If they didn't treasure it like I would, they didn't deserve it.

Nicau blinked. "What, then?"

All of my creative ability fled. I will name it later, I amended.

His brow furrowed further but he nodded. "I went there, walked for a short while, and was attacked by this hound." He gestured towards the canine's head, then again at his leg wrapped in greenery. "We fought but I won."

Ah shit, I'd meant to do this earlier—I reached out with a curl of mana, looping it over his leg. It burrowed under the leafy bandages, sinking into the punctured skin. Already, his poor care had led to the heat of infection, his umber skin starting to redden. Not a concern for me. Just as I had with Seros all that time ago, my mana spiraled through him in a healing wave, rushing through his channels in a reinvigorating touch.

Nothing instantaneous, unfortunately—as loath as I was to admit it, I wasn't that powerful—but as long as I didn't have invaders stealing my attention or mana, I could heal those within my halls. The infection shriveled under my touch, his skin starting to regrow, though it would be another day before it was back at its previous strength.

Nicau blinked, stretching out the limb with a look of bemusement. "Oh. Thank you?" He shifted his leg, putting weight onto it with a wince loaded but never needed it. "Thank you!"

I preened. Continue.

"Ah– I stayed by the corpse, since it was attracting more creatures, and killed the scorpion. Then I thought having that many bodies by me was too dangerous and started back. But I was lost." He paused now, his mind furiously racing for a way to phrase it. "And then a parrot saved me?"

Seros and I shared a look, which is even more impressive when you consider I was an invisible collection of mana.

A parrot?

"It helped guide me out," he said helplessly, shrugging. "And when I asked it to come with me, it flew away."

Okay. So alongside the mystery pirate with the wolfskin hat, there was also a parrot out in the world I had to contend with. I peered into Nicau's memories but he hadn't noticed anything blatantly magical about the avian, not that he had any soul-sense and he'd been too empty from healing to use his mana-sense. Fantastic.

But that was his first adventure.

I wanted to grill him on Calarata's abilities and information, but already he was slipping; the bags under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders told me that his brilliant oratory abilities would continue to degrade. I was hoping it was more his exhaustion and not that he was naturally this unimaginative of a storyteller, because gods these future gathering trips would be boring.

So I'd let him sleep tonight as I consumed these schemas.

You have done well, I said, pushing another bout of healing mana over his leg. Rest. Will talk tomorrow.

Nicau nodded, looking to the Chieftess—she dragged her gaze away from the pile of delicious mana but came to his side, guiding them both back to her den. They'd be fine.

As for me, I turned to the mess of blood and parts with a distinctly sharp touch to my mana. Seros felt it, leaning in with his eyes bright.

It was time for me to feast.