Dragonheart Core

Emerging from the caves was a little, though not a lot, like getting slapped in the face.

Sunlight, actual sunlight, warm and golden streamed over him as Nicau stepped out of the cove entrance; the invasion had widened it so he no longer had to stoop to leave, nor crawl on his stomach like Romei all those months ago. Now he could just casually walk out.

A casual walking out that was quickly waylaid, as he was not the only one there.

Swallowing a cuss that would have melted stone, Nicau skittered over to the side, one hand keeping his surcoat wrapped around him and another helping the shadowthief rat keep her balance on his shoulder; she squeaked as he threw himself around the side of an enormous boulder, one knocked loose form the Alómbra Mountains, and pressed himself flat to the other side. His breath whistled through his teeth.

Why, in all gods, were there so many people here?

He'd only gotten a glance before his more rational sense had deciphered he shouldn't be seen and thus had fled before he could, but there had been dozens of people, none he recognized, wearing grey tunics pulled back and with mana sparking over their hands. He'd seen piles of wood and stone, stacked against the pebbled beach, and he could have sworn the docks from Calarata were connecting to this edge of the cove, a direct walkway to the dungeon's entrance, which. Bad.

It looked like he wouldn't have to go very far to find answers, at least.

Feeling very un-heroic, Nicau peeked over the top of the boulder; there were mages, wearing the grey-brown cloaks that spoke of construction; building something, then. The docks from the cove extended over the pebbled beach, reaching far against the cove, and he could see foundations of some building, large and sprawling, next to the mountain's base proper. So. Something that was planned, worked on, and much too close to the dungeon.

There had been fifty invaders, and then nothing since. It looked like he had found the what, but he needed the why.

Nicau swallowed a little hesitantly. Suddenly, all his finery felt less like a disguise and more like a hindrance.

If he marched all proud out into the opening, there was no direction he could have come except the jungle, which would bring questions; or the dungeon itself, which would bring even more questions. But he had to figure out what was happening here. And then meant he somehow had to get out in the open without being suspicious. Which.

Nicau wasn't a big fan of the odds there.

He needed something to do, some task to make him look busy and like he belonged–

There.

In the shadows by the construction, a wisp of a girl crouched, eyes pale and focused. Maybe a pigeoncatcher, maybe an adventitious thief; but a streetrat, someone who had been watching the situation. Nicau, for all he was wearing the clothes of a noble, didn't have a godsdamn clue how to talk to them. He'd blow his cover immediately.

But a fellow streetrat? That was familiar territory.

He waited with bated breath—one of the construction mages flickered, the pile of wood he'd been growing shrinking back to its original size, and plethora of curses filled the air. The other mages turned to face him, barking their own complaints, and just enough of them turned away from the cavern entrance that Nicau slipped out from around the boulder and not-quite-fled over to the construction site. His coat flared around his calves, Calarata's blazing sun catching on the high collar and wind trailing through his shirt. The impressive figure was somewhat ruined when he nearly tripped over his not-yet-broken-in boots, and Nicau's lacking height didn't exactly make for a bold silhouette; but compared to the streetrat crouched in the shadows, he must have looked intimidating indeed.

Or, at least he guessed, judging by how her eyes widened when he walked towards her. She straightened, emerging from the shadows; her clothes were rags around her, shoulders curled in, eyes flighty and skin loved by the sun. Younger than him, maybe, with the gauntness that came from the streets; but clever. Sharp. She watched him with a wariness that spoke to survival.

Nicau, who had perhaps not thought this out as well as he should have, came to a stop before her and fumbled, quite unelegantly, for something to say. "What are they making?"

She stared at him.

"Sir," she said, a touch hesitantly, and oh was that weird to hear addressing himself. "What're you meanin'?"

Fair question. Intensely fair question. Nicau busied himself with adjusting his collar. "The mages," he said, and tried to push some aristocratic tinge to his voice. Or at least deepen it to sound older, despite how he was practically the same height as the streetrat even in his boots. "They're building something. What?"

Her eyes had that caged dog look to them, wondering why he was asking and why he was asking her, but in Calarata it didn't bode well to ignore questions of those more powerful than you, and Nicau certainly looked important. Maybe. He hoped.

Her gaze flicked, a little slowly, to his shoulder. Or who was on his shoulder.

Oh. He'd, uh, kind of forgotten she was there.

The shadowthief rat was nothing if not a performer, though. She rose to her back paws, silvertine fur catching in the sunlight, and squeaked, a high, cheery little note. Her barbed tail curled neatly over her paws as she braced herself against Nicau's head, peering at the streetrat with wide black eyes.

A proper charmer. Nicau still wasn't quite sure why the dungeon had made him bring the rat, but it was looking like she was a better actor than him.

Maybe she would help him blend in better.

"An Adventuring Guild, sir," she said, all soft and low with an underbite of awe. And it was deserved—a Guild. Calarata had none, not even a Traveler's Guild; they were synonymous with rules and regulations and all the fettering things Leóro stood for.

But they were also about adventures, and the prizes that came with that.

"A Guild," Nicau echoed, more than a little off-balance. If they were making one—and they were making one here—there was really only one thing they were making it for. The dungeon, it seemed, had been properly unearthed. "The Dread Crew's doing?"

There. Properly intelligent and not like he was able to panic. He was quite proud of himself.

Her eyes sharpened, flicking over him—right, if he knew of the Dread Crew, then he must have been from Calarata, and thus should know about the Adventuring Guild. But, ah. He didn't.

It was really quite inconvenient spending most of his time living in a dungeon. He'd never be sad that his life was spared, but it did cause many problems.

"The Dread Pirate's makin' it," she said. "With First Mate Lluc being the Guildmaster. Only way anyone's allowed in the dungeon now."

Hm. Fascinating. Really great to hear her say dungeon so openly. Nicau loved that.

So that was what the Guild was for, then. If these mages were hired by Lluc, that meant he was likely going to be around here often, and Nicau's cover was a little closer to being blown. So.

Several of the construction mages glanced at him, brows furrowed but because he was talking to the streetrat and dressed in such nice clothes, he doubted they suspected he had come from the dungeon. Hopefully. Maybe.

Nicau had his Name and the mana that coiled through his voice, but he was only faking at being strong; he certainly wasn't. If they wanted to attack him, it could go, to put it politely, very bad for him. So.

Avoiding that was very much the plan.

He tilted his head down—terrible idea, he was already short, why was he doing this—and fixed the mages with a curious sort of look, as if wondering why they were paying attention to him. As one, they turned back to their world.

Thank the gods.

He turned back to the streetrat, eyebrows raising in an expression he hoped was interested. "And what happens when it opens?"

She dithered for a second. "Said we'll be allowed to delve it." Her feet shifted. "'course, with taxes 'n all that. But we can go in and–" something longing took over her voice, drifting away in fantasy. "Said we can try for the core."

Oh.

Oh, Nicau didn't like that.

A Guild was bad enough—for all Nicau didn't understand the finer details, he got the gist—but attempts on the core were worse. Infinitely worse. Really, truly, awfully worse.

"Everyone'll want it," he murmured. "Desperados, Dread Crew hopefuls, traveling adventurers—they'll all make attempts."

That was, perhaps, the worst-case scenario, but also a very likely one. Bad combo.

"What 'bout you?" She asked, curiosity enough to break past whatever delicacy she was taking with treating him. "What are you?"

And. Ah.

An interesting question, that. He had a plethora of answers—pigeoncatcher, thief, runaway, murderer, orphan, streetrat, wanderer, stowaway—but that wasn't who he was, here. Now, with his deep blue surcoat and high leather boots, he wasn't that. He was something else.

And he got to decide what.

Nicau was, amongst many things, not a great liar, but he didn't have to be a liar for this. Not the full truth, because dungeonborn would bring up a lot of questions that would lead him back to Lluc, but a partial one. Something he could be proud of.

Well.

He was of Calarata—born to its grey-stone streets and high-rise buildings, to the open-air markets and waterfront taverns. They weren't the Leóro Kingdom, weren't part of that collection of city-states with a crowning Citadel, all of their rules and regulations and taxes and tariffs. He wasn't that, and Calarata wasn't that, and when you were from Calarata, of Calarata, there was really only one thing to be.

"Pirate," he said, and his grin didn't feel fake, this time.

A pirate.

Perhaps he was.

The shadowthief rat squeaked again, tail curling around his neck and little paws braced on his collar. Not a pirate's parrot, but close enough. Certainly distinctive.

He'd gotten the answers he needed—at least in part—but his mission wasn't done. And the longer he spent talking to one person, the more he risked slipping up in one way or another. No need to tell the streetrat his name, not with Lluc aware of his existence, but he wouldn't mind her remembering him. Potential help in the future, if she stayed around the construction site or even made an attempt on the dungeon.

His pockets jingled.

"A pittance for your help," he said, in what he thought was a rather magnanimous tone. Then he pulled a copper coin from his pocket and flipped it to her; nearly fucked the flip up, actually, but she snatched it out of the air regardless.

As a pigeoncatcher, that money would have fed him for a week. And now he could afford to make himself seem valuable, seem important, by just tossing it away for free.

She looked between him and the coin clutched in her hand, eyes wide, almost awestruck. Pity was not a common thing in Calarata, and receiving coin even less so—a way that his story could spread, and with the curl of magic he displayed while talking, hopefully it would be more of an appreciative type, rather than the mug-him-in-the-back-alley type. Hopefully.

But there wasn't time to worry about such things. So Nicau nodded in what he hoped came across as an unbothered, lackadaisy man, and turned away from her, making for the center of Calarata.

-

The open-air markets were perhaps one of the most well-known elements of Calarata. Because sure, there were markets elsewhere—he could go to any city-state of Leóro and find one, blistering beneath the sun, spend every copper he'd ever had and walk away with fat pockets and a full stomach.

But that was in Leóro, where they had hard limitations on what could be sold, and in what quantity, and what the price had to be, and how to organize it.

In Calarata, there was no such thing.

Nicau strolled past a stall with an open fire at the hearth, kabobs covered in sizzling vegetables and meat to his left, and on his right was a woman with a wide grin only half filled with teeth proudly showing off a collection of icetouch adders, hissing and snarling within the iron bars of their cages. A man with air-attuned mana flickering over his fingers levitated an array of jewels, quartz-bright and topaz glimmering, next to someone hawking all the elaborate enchantments her weapons had. In Leóro, the vast majority would be illegal, and the other half would result in a quick trip to the executioners.

In Calarata, they were normal.

Nicau kept his hands and arms tucked very close to his sides—Calarata tended to carry more than its fair share of pickpockets, even though there were no qualms against murdering whoever tried to take your hard-earned money—and tried his very best to look like he belonged. He'd been here before, of course, wandering the edges and fantasizing over all he could purchase if he joined the Dread Crew, but never going in.

Never having any sort of power.

But now, with a deep blue coat and grey trousers and leather boots that clicked exceptionally nicely against the cobbled streets, Nicau looked like he belonged, and he was going to show it. He'd gathered information on the Adventuring Guild, enough to bring back to the dungeon, but the last time it had wanted more things for it to create, and it had given him all the money he could ever want to obtain them.

Not too much, though. Nicau was slipping somewhat under the radar here; his clothing was extravagant but local, not foreign, and he was speaking with a proper Calaratan accent. So while people would look at him and see a pirate, that would change if he walked out surrounded by an entourage of a dozen magical creatures and weapons and plants, especially since he had to haul them all back to the dungeon without being seen.

So he'd buy the best few he could find and focus on spreading a touch of reputation instead. Something that could build up so by the next time he came back, he could buy more without people looking at him twice.

It was odd, really, how fast he'd adjusted to serving the dungeon.

Nicau shook the thought from his head and marched forward. He spent two copper on a painfully expensive bowl, stuffed high with rice coloured black with squid ink and interlaced with various braised sea creatures. It was heavenly. He'd never be able to go back to the kobold's barely cooked meat after this.

His rat squeaked once, a little sadly. He gave her a bit of scallop.

He wandered from table to table, running his fingers over enchanted cloth or bars caging exotic creatures. This was the free market, open to anyone who dragged in a stall; if he wanted the real treasures, he had to go to the Silent Market. He wouldn't be pushing his luck today, though. That was a viper's den and the silver and diamonds in his pocket weren't enough to buy the truly rare treasures there. And that would get him noticed, which he didn't want. So.

Nicau paused over a wretched little stall, smeared with dirt and a thick, ripe scent of fresh-turned soil; a woman with wary eyes pushed forward her wares, housed in little pots made of thick paper wrapped around the base of plants. A novel idea that no doubt allowed her to pack up and run quickly.

Most of them were already sold, empty pockets on the stall, and Nicau really didn't know what the dungeon wanted—it had just told him to collect more—so he peered at the remaining five in turn with hesitance. One was bamboo, reaching tall with sheathed stems; another a flower, with petals that moved a touch too organically to be just a regular plant; a mushroom with a shaded cap and deep pockets over its gills.

The dungeon already had mushrooms, right? And flowers? And various types of moss and trees?

Gods, if only it had told him what it wanted.

Nicau paused over a smaller plant, one with wide, flat leaves and little orange flowers near its stem; only half the time, though. The flowers looked like they ripened into fruits, some type of gourd, wide and lined with crimson stripes. Food, maybe? Or something more defensive?

Either way, he hadn't seen a gourd in the dungeon's care, so that was his choice.

The woman's eyes lit up as he laid a gold coin on the stall, the engraved bird a little off but not enough to be noticeable. Absolutely more than the plant was worth, but he was here to make a bit of a reputation, and it wasn't like the dungeon had given him enough copper coins to split into change, so.

The streetrat part of Nicau's soul wept at giving so much, but the pirate character he was playing merely flashed a grin to the stall keeper and walked off with the plant.

Being rich was surprisingly fun.

He wandered further; more weapons, more food, more exotic materials. A piece of carved marble with amethyst eyes was slipped into a pocket, glass blown into a delicate rose cradled with paper next to it. There was something intoxicating about walking around and being able to buy things—he spent perhaps more than he should on exotic snacks, on wolf haunch and fried swam skin and potatoes carved into elaborate ships. A paradise.

One stall, run by a tall man with an ancestry that curled his nails into black claws and sharpened the edges of his teeth, caught his eye—clearly sensing weakness, he was waved over with all haste and shouts and an excitement that bled into desperation. Someone who hadn't gotten a sale in a while, then.

Nicau walked over. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.

"Hello, good sir," the man said, all smiles and bows and overly showy bits of performance. Was this what it was like to have power? Nicau bathed in the feeling. "Anything you want, your wish is my command, the likes of my stall you won't find anywhere else–"

He did have quite the spread. A nightmarketer, it looked like, collector of exotic creature parts; his table was awash in scraps of far-off beasts, pelts and fangs and scales. Nicau, who did not exactly trust himself to try and sneak a living creature past the construction mages, couldn't have found a better spread if he'd wanted to.

Running his fingers over a gazelle's jagged horn, he let his gaze and mind wander; nothing the dungeon had already, but also something that it wanted, and that fit its current floors and tastes and preferences.

Again, if only it had told him what it wanted.

There; a feather, curling and longer than his arm, done up in blues and greens and purples and looking wholly unable to fly, but very pretty. That seemed right up the dungeon's preferences. Nicau flicked it up, rolling it around his fingers—the tip was sharpened, some type of quill—and it swished nicely through the air. There was a brief urge to buy a hat to stick it in. "Have you any more?"

The man frowned, glancing down at his stall like he'd forgotten what was there, but the seller's spirit returned without hesitation. "Of course, any quill you desire, from the far reaches of the Wandering Empire I have one from a bird with the most beautiful orange plumage you cannot find anywhere–"

"More of this bird," Nicau clarified, holding the feather up. "Any other parts of it."

He remembered last time; the dungeon needed more than one bit of a thing to recreate it, which was why he'd brought the whole damned head of the hound back instead of only scraping off some fur or a horn. Which made it difficult, because people didn't tend to sell whole animals, only the valuable parts.

It was like this world wasn't built for dungeons. Or, more likely, that dungeons weren't expected to have human servants to go casually shopping at markets.

Nicau wondered, sometimes, how his life had gotten to the point it had.

The man wavered. "Ah, more of… that bird in particular? Its feathers are beautiful, more than anything, but the rest is quite drab; only the feathers are worth anything, I assure you, I would never try to sell you anything less than the most worthy–"

That was a no, then. Nicau kept the feather anyway, because there was never a way to predict what could come from the next time he went shopping, and continued perusing.

The man visibly leaned forward, pouring over his wares like they held the secrets to the universes. "Now, if you want something larger than a feather, there's nothing I can recommend more than the stormtongue ape, its hide protects from lightning strikes; ah! Or the mossbadger! This gentle creature houses full lives on its back, you'll never find fur with more spirit behind it–"

Nicau hummed some vague interest, poking through the table. Most of it was creature parts, but there were a couple other relics, daggers and mystical amulets, the type that the seller was likely to try and convince him they cured the weeping disease alongside growing him a full beard and improving his luck.

Something stood out to him.

A pelt, like many others on the table, but it wasn't alone—this pelt was more formed, with the thin, knobbly parts that spoke to the tail and legs.

Including claws on the tips.

Was that enough? Who knew. But it was a better chance than anything else on this table.

Nicau picked it up; it was soft and impossibly fluffy, a deep, silver-blue, lighter on the stomach and darkening over the back. Perhaps his height when fully extended, with pale claws like a dog's, and the vague impression of a head with wide, pointed ears and empty eye sockets. Rough around the edges and missing its muzzle, because there was a reason this man was a regular nightmarketer and not serving the Silent Market, but the most complete specimen he'd seen.

"Ah! A keen eye, good sir, wonderful find; that's what I call a mist-fox, terribly clever beast, hunts at night and disguises itself in the gloom. Moonlight hunters, their coat gleams like nothing you've ever seen before, perfect for a scarf or coat, I can assure you only jealous eyes will follow once you put it on–"

Fox. The dungeon didn't have one of those, and from the spirits Nicau had seen floating around the forest he called home, there was certainly the presence of mist. A good enough find. "I'll take it," he decided, folding it up with the iridescent feather. Enough he could tuck under his coat and slip past the construction mages. Hopefully.

The man visibly beamed. "Of course, but a humble salesman am I, in fact I believe I'll give you a discount for being so considering–" Nicau rather doubted he would be receiving any such thing "–and it'll only be seven silvers, a bargain, nothing you'll find elsewhere–"

Something shifted on his shoulder.

Nicau's smile grew a little fixed, keeping eye contact with the man even as his hand snaked up to grab at the rat that was now wriggling quite determinedly, her tail lashing at his back and whiskers twitching so fast they were practically summoning a breeze.

She chittered at his hand and then took that as an open invitation, plopping herself onto his palm—which, she was much larger than a normal rat, his untrained arm nearly buckled under her weight—and then nosed forward, as if directing him to bring her down to the table.

He did so, because what else was he supposed to do, and she hopped merrily off his hand and skittered over the stall.

The man's smile tightened. "Your… rat seems to have noticed something," he said, light and cheery and utterly forced, because Nicau was dressed just right to be the type of pirate who would kill anyone for disrespecting his choice of companion. He said it like you've put a vermin on my table, but he didn't say that out loud, which, great, because Nicau really, really did not want to worry about someone trying to kill the rat like she was a common pest. Some part of him doubted the dungeon would appreciate that.

So he smiled back. "She's clever, that way."

The rat—he needed to give her a name—nosed her way around the table, tail curling. She picked her way under pelts and twisting horns until she got to the edge of the stall, sticking her nose under the hanging tarp and disappearing beneath. The man's smile thinned.

But then she poked back out, and clutched in her prehensile tail was a scroll.

Both of them blinked at it.

It was an old thing, yellowed with age and torn on the edges, wrapped up and bound with a thin strip of leather curling around itself. Water damage on the outer side, looking all the world like it would fall apart if he sneezed in its general direction, but it held itself together as the shadowthief rat trotted back over to him and carefully set the scroll in Nicau's extended hand.

What.

Was this why the dungeon had made him bring the rat? Shadowthief, he guessed, so she was probably good at sniffing out treasure; certainly made sense for ventures into Calarata. Maybe.

He guessed.

Nicau patted her a little awkwardly on the head and held up the scroll.

The man, never one to miss an opportunity, clapped his hands together like it was a performed trick. "Clever indeed, good sir, you've trained her well past anything I could believe." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "And that little wonder is something I don't show to just any old customer; picked up fresh off an excavation run. Rare beyond belief. Only those with true knowledge will know what treasure they're holding."

Nicau could read the translation between the lines. The man had absolutely no idea what it was, but because Nicau was showing interest in it, it was suddenly the most expensive thing on the table. Of course.

He carefully undid the leather strap, almost holding his breath to avoid disturbing it, and rolled the first handspan open. Words, done in a faded grey ink, displayed themselves.

Or what he thought were words.

Now. Nicau couldn't read—or, he could a little, rough on the best of times—but that didn't matter, because these were absolutely not Leórian letters. They were more pictures, each almost the size of his palm, full of twisting lines and splattered indents. Something strange, and–

His Name trembled in his chest.

Draconic, dungeon, Old—it didn't matter. Something about this called to him.

The shadowthief rat chittered, a little smugly, at him.

Nicau picked up the mist-fox's pelt and the feather, slipping them into his coat, and slapped three gold coins on the table. Still spreading his reputation, and all that, and by the way the man's eyes flew wide open it was definitely noticed. The rat skittered up his offered arm, perching on his shoulder again, grooming her whiskers with a proud squeak.

Nicau pulled open the edge of the scroll; his soul sang again, Name twisting oldly in his chest. He slipped it close.

"A treasure indeed," he echoed.

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