Dragonheart Core

With an odd, stumbling jerkiness, Kriya rose to her feet.

Every point of awareness I had in the newly-titled Jungle Labyrinth raced for the Stone Jungle, for the den enclosed in the back—because hells above hells, that was a human, just up and toddling upon my dungeon. Not bloody again.

The aforementioned human blinked slitted eyes, arms curled in close to her sides. Her umber skin was dressed up in scarlet scales, patches that trailed down her arms and up her neck, slotting around her fangs and flared hood. Shorter for a human, with a thin build and a Bronze's mana swirling sluggishly through her channels.

There was a passing resemblance to Nicau, in a way. Not in her naga ancestry, which was at least some sort of balm over her abject human-ness, but in her demeanor. She was a nervous, flighty thing, I remembered, and that had been before her entire party had been slaughtered and herself kidnapped by a serpentine monster. Not one to charge as a barbarian through my halls, if she was even cognizant enough to stitch together a plan.

But that didn't matter, as Veresai's words echoed through the mana of my halls.

Become mine.

Words, instead of psionic commands. Something tangible. Something there.

Kriya, shuddering, stood there, and looked upon the serpent before her. An adventurer she was, an invader, one of those who had delved in my halls in search of treasures and my core—but her eyes were devoid of that desire now. No greed.

No terror.

She was watching Veresai with worry, with fear, because she was a twenty foot serpent with four eyes and mana that boiled through the air—but it wasn't the fear of someone who thought they were about to die. It was the fear of someone who knew that death could come.

Veresai hissed, mana dripping from the prongs of her crown, with stars burning in her eyes. She was not a creature of doubt or second-guessing, I knew that, but through our shared connection I felt an unease. She didn't truly know what she was doing.

To be frank, neither did I, but it was clear something was happening.

Kriya looked up at her, scarlet-gold hood pressed flat to her neck, shifting her weight between legs shaky after weeks of unease. "Hello?" She managed, in a voice soft and unsure—it rasped on the edges, curled vowels and bitten consonants, shaped by the fangs that glinted past her lips.

Veresai's mana flared once more. Mine, she hissed, words echoing through mana she'd coiled around the den. Serve me. Become mine.

Kriya's amber eyes gleamed. Not dead, not unaware, but merely glowing with reflected power, the blue over Veresai's scales. Something entirely separate than the pale red she used for her healing attunement. "Yes," she whispered, quiet, like it was a fact written across the stars. "I am."

Every point of awareness I had went still.

Nicau had sworn himself to me with the three-day dead corpse of a pigeon and a kobold's claws at his throat. Oh, he'd eventually come around, in whatever fashion a human clutching for power from a dungeon core could be, but that had been after weeks of near captivity in the kobold den. An offering made from desperation.

Not for Kriya. This was her first time awake in weeks, and she had said it freely.

Whatever Veresai had done to her, it made her say she was hers.

But I still hadn't told Nicau where I hid my core, what my weaknesses were, anything he could share with Calarata that would harm me. Humans were creatures of greed and deceit, betrayal written into their very core. I would never trust them.

Proof, I murmured into Veresai's mind, a gentle thing without my characteristic booming echo from speaking to lesser creatures. As a Named, my voice wove with hers like a song. Make proof.

Veresai's eyes flashed a brilliant blue, her mind darting over her followers like currents through a ripstream—there, in the far back of the den, curled up and shivering. A luminous constrictor, still young and foolish with it. He'd been struck by Syçalia, a glancing blow from her daggers that'd ripped scales off his back and scoured blood over the moss below. He was on his way to recovery now, but it would take time, a dangerous thing to ask for in Veresai's horde.

But when his queen's mind slipped into his, he jerked upright, forked tongue flickering out. His wound had barely scabbed over but still he slithered out of the hole he'd tucked himself into, head lowered and tense, and went to seek Veresai.

She tilted her head down to him, horns gleaming with starlight. Not words, like she'd done with Kriya, but just a twisting of the rope around his mind, holding him still. Not fleeing.

Then she turned to Kriya again, tail lashing. You are mine. A flick of her head. He is mine. Heal.

My mana tightened around the two of them, an inhalation of breath, a sharpening of claws. Kriya blinked, pupils flexing. She was an invader, someone born for the guts and glory—but she had also chosen the attunement of healing. That was not a path for those cruel and uncaring; it truly had no way for her to cause harm to the world outside, not like those with fire and lightning at their fingers.

Psionic powers were powerful, but whatever Veresai was doing wasn't control. It could be broken, could be fought against—and while Kriya was merely a Bronze, hardly that dangerous, she still had the potential for some macabre final act if she willed it.

But she had chosen to be a healer.

And all Veresai was asking of her was to heal.

The blue glow stayed in Kriya's eyes as she knelt, hood flaring out, catching the ambient mana like a whirlpool. "You poor thing," she whispered, voice lisping on the edges. Her dappled scales gleamed with pale red as mana sparked over her fingers, hazing into the air like a storm cloud—evidently more power than she'd ever had before, if how her eyes shot open said anything. "Here."

The luminous constrictor hesitated, gaze flicking between Veresai and Kriya. In his tyrannical world, he certainly wasn't familiar with concern or kindness, but Kriya was kneeling before him, hand extended, warmth spilling through her fingers. He slithered closer, tongue flicking out, diamond-grey pattern melding through the moss.

Kriya waited, still hesitant, still pressingly aware that she was surrounded on all sides by monsters, but she had the heart of a healer—she set her hand over the constrictor's wound and closed her eyes. Light spilled between her fingers.

When she pulled away, he was healed, only a faint patch of discolored scales left behind.

She'd healed him. Freely. Fully. With her own mind.

Well, shit.

Veresai had learned from Ghasavâlk, more than even I had—with her serpents, how she controlled them was to jump from mind to mind, peering from their eyes, curling her power around their very thoughts. But that was for serpents, who were lesser things in terms of minds, not yet sapient. A human was different.

But Ghasavâlk had commanded Syçalia, and he'd done it with words, rather than control.

Syçalia had been a fighter, as detailed by the strewn serpentine corpses she'd left in the Stone Jungle before she'd finally been taken down, even without her attunement. Ghasavâlk hadn't been one, a thing for the shadows—if he had tried to take control of her, to shove his mind in alongside hers, she would have died. Or at least not killed any of mine.

But he hadn't been controlling her. He'd been commanding her. His action, but her free to obey as she knew how to, all of her expertise as a threat alongside his demands. Veresai didn't know how to use healing mana, even if she took control of Kriya's mind. Not that.

It wasn't control, psionic power whittled into chains.

It was a geas.

A compulsion, rather than puppeteer—Kriya would have her mind but not her direction, able to act as she thought was best but only in working for what Veresai asked. A blade, but one that sharpened itself and performed as directed. Something without enough mind to fight back, but instead fight for.

Hells above hells, she'd made a geas.

It wasn't some perfect thing, I could admit—it was likely only because Kriya had been unconscious for so long, disoriented, and weak that she'd been able to hook her, but she had, and now Kriya was standing, confused, hesitant, entirely alone—but alive. Listening. Functioning.

Veresai had ever been a tyrant, content in the ache and murder of her underlings, serving as little more than bodies to bring her food and exist as her eyes. Control had been her driving power, with fear for those she wasn't actively in the minds of—but control and fear were things that could splinter, that could divide her attention and brew hostility and rage.

But a geas.

Oh, it would break one day, because all good things fell to ruin—but for now, Veresai had not a slave, but a follower, one who thought she was willingly complying with her own mind.

The luminous constrictor shook himself, tongue flicking out, and then swiveled around to look at himself in wonder. A wound that would have taken weeks to heal in the outside world and still days with my ambient mana, gone in a second, new scales grown and strength returned.

Kriya smiled at him, the dappled scales on her face catching the last light drifting off her fingers. "You're okay now," she whispered, and brushed her hand over his head, little more than a ghosting of her fingers. Serpents weren't overly fond of physical touch but he leaned into it, a quiet hiss in his chest, before slithering off. Returning once more to the hunt, to fill the gap in his stomach. Alive.

Healed.

Kriya looked back up, and the blue had rooted into her eyes, swirling alongside the amber like marbled veins, a dizzying image. Anyone that saw her would know immediately she was under a psychic compulsion, but who would see her, deep within the fourth floor?

I didn't know much about geas, considering I had certainly never been so weak-willed as to fall under one, but I did know that Veresai was doing everything right. The geas was a simple thing in essence, but much like the thread of a spider it was not infallible. Too many commands and it would splinter; too much pressure and it would crack; too opposite the nature and it would shatter.

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But all Veresai had commanded was that Kriya was now hers—a part of the serpentine horde, serving as its healer. She wouldn't be fighting other humans, wouldn't be harming herself for me, wouldn't be beating against her own beliefs. She would only be healing, what she had already been doing.

As long as Veresai held onto her, kept her safe, I didn't see the geas breaking any time soon.

And now she could afford to be more aggressive, to go after greater prey, to strengthen her horde with fights that could end in more than death. Kriya had healing, had strength, had clever human fingers that could plant gems into jeweltone serpents' scales instead of relying on just slithering over them, could do all sorts of things that snakes were unfortunately limited in.

She had gained herself a remarkably powerful ally, and learned an incredible skill at the same time.

Oh, my beloved tyrant; how I loved her and her vicious ways.

Though– I dipped into Veresai's mind, into the connection that thrummed through our shared souls. I'm not Naming her.

Veresai hissed, four eyes flaring, but it was a minor annoyance, a light drizzle in what had once been a cloudless sky. Pride stronger than anything I'd ever felt coiled through her like fire, igniting the mana in her channels and echoing in her mind. She knew just how powerful the thing she'd just performed was.

Soon, the Jungle Labyrinth would be too weak to hold her. Though it was still some time off, the ninth floor would have to be able to house her, though not forever. I didn't know how many floors I would end up, how large my dungeon would sprawl, but nearing the end, when I felt my mana was strained to its limit, I would create a floor entirely for her. And for Seros, and Akkyst, and all my other Named—if they had earned a Name, they had earned a floor, a paradise shaped for them.

Soon. I didn't know when, but soon.

Veresai hissed, pleased, and lowered her head to peer at Kriya. The human winced and tucked her head in—for all she believed she was a part of the horde, that didn't mean Veresai wasn't every shade of dangerous.

Which meant I poked my awareness in, mana spilling through the den. Though I certainly didn't like Kriya, even with her naga ancestry—there was an irritating lack of Nicau's frantic servitude that I did enjoy—I would at least provide her a place within the den, more than sleeping in the mass of serpents that filled the larger rooms.

The room she'd been in now was small and cramped, the bottom softened with moss, but it was a room made for an unconscious human with nothing else. So I billowed out great plumes of mana, vestiges of what I'd had before Syçalia's Gold potential poured through me, and I raised a moss bed, twined a stalactite down to drip fresh water into a pool for her, set up shelves for trinkets and stored food.

Kriya's eyes blew wide, stepping back, a hand over her mouth. A miracle, right before her.

Veresai hissed, pulsing magic through her crown, silver light splashing over the walls. Satisfaction hummed through our connection as Kriya turned to face her, astonished, respect and fear in even amount in her eyes.

Like she'd done it.

Gods, what was it with my creatures taking credit for my work?

I flexed a point of mana into her mind. Veresai didn't flinch, but she did level a glare at a wall I was tucked in. Not pleased with me.

Well, bully for her.

But she had earned Kriya, and I wouldn't begrudge her of that. I'd still be waiting for her to properly settle before I'd attempt to use my Welcomer title, to see if I could make her a dungeonborn creature—if that even worked, with her as a human, rather than merely a sapient goblin—but I would house and keep her, and tell my creatures not to attack her. Too much.

A healer.

I floated away, drifting through the wall as Kriya started to wander her new room, shoulders still hunched in and eyes cautious, but adjusting. A new world for her, one with blue-amber eyes.

As a sea-drake, I'd certainly never had need of healers—I had merely slept away the decades on my silver hoard, letting the gathered mana refill my channels and soothe over any injuries. But my creatures weren't as powerful as me, with the power I'd managed to accumulate. They needed healing—and they needed healing in the heat of battle, which I couldn't provide, not with invaders sucking up all my ambient mana.

But Kriya could.

So I supposed I would allow her to stay. At least for now. If her geas ever broke and she suddenly started to question just why she was healing all of these dangerous monsters who had murdered her adventuring party, then I would kill her.

But not yet. So I flew away from the Jungle Labyrinth, back down to the seventh floor—the Scorchplains, I thought, with choking smoke and plumes of lava in the darkness—to rebuild the spined lizard population. The original four had been reduced to two, choked out by smog and mottled scorpions, but already they were rebuilding, aided by a dozen more I sent skittering into the dark. Soon they'd be a proper threat. So I busied myself there, fixing up the floor and smoothing over its problems.

And then, because today was simply the day of reawakenings, I felt a stir in the Skylands.

Every part of me jerked to attention.

My points of awareness swiveled to the den deep in the back, tucked under one of the islands. The largest of them all, with a small room in the side for the mysterious tablet the Magelords had brought, and multiple sleeping dens in the back.

Bylk was still there, teeth gritted, gnarled hands wrapped around a piece of wood like a staff and mana sparking on his hands. Even though Ghasavâlk was gone, he was a paranoid old bastard, through eyes gummy with lack of sleep and a tangible exhaustion present.

Hrm. I still didn't like him, because he was irritating and archaic and a blistering blight on the perfection of my dungeon, but I could respect his protection over Akkyst. Maybe.

In a manner of speaking.

But in those back dens, one of them was filled with soft silver light, now fading into the air as the creature within awoke.

Akkyst, my newest Named.

The starwrought bear, with the blessing of the scholar, returner to my dungeon.

He huffed, a loose and sleepy sound, before pushing up to his paws. He was even more enormous than before, eight feet at the shoulder, a towering monster in the relative quiet of the Skylands. His fur gleamed with light, like the stars he was named for, and his eye had changed fully from deep black to grey, quicksilver in his face. Mana thrummed in his chest like a volcano.

A monster.

Hello, I murmured, reaching out to pluck at our shared connection, a vibration from his soul to my soul to the Otherworld, power beyond what I knew he had felt before. Hello, Akkyst.

The bear went very still, mind still stumbling out of the evolution haze, inhalations like an earthquake in his chest. "Hello?"

He spoke out loud, because he still used the brutish goblin tongue, but it echoed now between his mouth and our minds. A twisting intelligence that I was unfamiliar with, an elegance to his thoughts that even my other Named creatures didn't have, an organization to how his mind worked. Fascinating—I couldn't wait to see if this was how he was after only one evolution and a Name. Where would he go next?

Although. Well. When I had first collected his schema, he had already been massively powerful—perhaps he was already evolved from a base form, though he had been born like this. That would explain his heightened mana cost.

But either way, he had at least another evolution in him, and whatever it was would take him to new heights.

Outside the den, Bylk straightened, rubbing blearily at his eyes—but he'd heard Akkyst, and it was with fumbling steps that he poked his head into the den, mana sparking in an unsaid threat.

One that quickly faded as he saw the bear awake, his eyes flying wide. "Akkyst!"

Akkyst blinked—difficult, with only one eye—and turned to face him, leftover mana pluming from his mouth and curling off his silver fur. "Bylk," he said, and there was even a precision in his speech now, coming still deep and powerful from his enormous chest, but with the proper growl and bite to the words I'd had the misfortune of hearing from the goblins. "You're here?"

Bylk stomped into the room, cragged old face split into a grin. "Told ya I'd watch over, eh? Not leavin' you to figure out this… Name business by yourself." He huffed, spitting a wad of phlegm off to the side. "Not that Growth told us how long you'd be out. Bastard."

I was right here.

Akkyst rumbled a laugh, something that softened his ivory fangs and jagged claws and made him seem kindly, for all he was powerful enough to battle near every creature in my dungeon. "Thank you, friend," he said, and gods beyond, that was damn near eloquent, what had his Name done?

Then Akkyst tilted his head back, staring at some random point on the den overhead. "And thank you."

I preened, sending soothing thoughts through our connection once more. Generalities of welcome and praise, intangible claws brushing over his fur and sparking little flecks of mana in his channels. The presence of a watchful dungeon.

Bylk coughed, tilting his head to the side. The gems swinging in his ears lit up with vague motes of power. "What'd it do, then? Beyond gettin' ya even bigger?"

Akkyst shook himself, the last bleariness from his days-long sleep fading away. He pawed at the ground in some abject confusion, peering at his dextrous claws and pure silver fur, attention flicking around the room. I could almost see him thinking, brain purring to life with power few others could claim, the desire for learning and knowing and more–

And something drifted off his coat.

What?

It didn't look like much of anything, just a faint wisp of light—I thought it was a stray piece of fur at first, the same quicksilver consistency, but it wavered and shifted like smoke. Originating somewhere near his neck, it billowed upward with gentle speed, and coalesced into a half-formed spiral with three jagged marks beneath.

I stared at it. Bylk stared at it. After a moment of confused silence, Akkyst followed our gaze upward and then stared at it.

The shape, seemingly quite content with our scrutinization, simply floated there, unchanging.

Then, just to complicate things, more lines of pure light flitted off his fur, merging and lining together into more shapes, into more puzzles, bobbing stars in the darkness of the den. None of them were the same, all different combinations of lines and dots and curves, some flat, some spherical, other irregular masses. But there was a consistency there, in the sizes, in the way that each time Akkyst seemed to start a new train of thought they would form, as he looked from each other they formed anew.

Shapes, similar in stature, lining up in a spiraling wave.

It almost looked like a language.

Akkyst stood in the center of the den as silver picked up around him, great swirling clouds that billowed and plumed like living things, strands of light and colour and words. Nothing I knew, even with my dungeon core awareness, but beyond that. The starwrought, the starmade, the star-formed. The bear who scraped understanding of a language from nothing and clawed himself to speech just so he could.

A scholar. One who learns.

One who teaches.

Akkyst looked around, eye wide, his remaining ear perking up like it was trying to see more of what surrounded him. The light kept spilling from his fur, shapes and sounds melding together into a dizzying display.

"You're the stuff o' stories," Bylk said, eyes wide. "Rock 'n' rubble, Akkyst, what is this?"

"I don't know," Akkyst rumbled, rearing onto his back legs—hells, I'd have to make his den even larger, he was truly enormous—to brush his claws through one of the illusions. The silver swirled and spiraled around his paw, not sticking to his fur but displacing around it—and new ones emerged from the movement, little scratches and near pictures.

He nosed at another illusion, more breaking and clustering around his face. His eye seemed to glow, stars caught in the silver of his gaze.

"It's showing me something."

He exhaled and more silver flowed out, words and images of mystic things I couldn't understand. Something well above what I had guessed, what I could know; this didn't seem like something for combat, not like how the mist-foxes used their illusions to hide or disguise themselves; bright, yes, but not covering. Not distracting. Something else.

Blessing of the scholar.

The world and its secrets are revealed.

These were pieces of information.

Some language I didn't know, that Akkyst clearly didn't either, but every time he had a thought—every time he interacted with something—every time he moved or shifted or flicked his gaze elsewhere—more came to be. Little things, floating incongruously in the dim, with information.

The secrets of the world.

Bylk's gaze flicked, very slowly, to the ancient tablet in the corner of the den. The old piece of history, scraped free from the rampage of the stone-wurm, of something lost to time.

Something to be studied.

"I don't know," Akkyst said again, but there was a fanatical gleam in his eye, the excitement of a new project, a new goal to strive for. Something he'd been granted power and ability for, something well above what he could have thought. Something more. Something greater.

"But I'm going to find out."

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