Dragonheart Core

Lluc stood before the borwood door.

Littered in ancient carvings from the Dead War, its blue-black surface seemingly drinking in the surrounding light and raising the hairs on the back of his neck, it was the last barrier between him and the Dread Pirate. The last moment to rest before he had to explain himself.

His back ached and his eyes hung heavy and wished to close; it had been… hm. Days, perhaps, since he had last slept; there had been information to gather, prisoners to secure, oath-bonds to force from Gonçal, Callick, and Ealdhere.

It was a stupid man that made the Dread Pirate wait, and though Lluc had sent a missive explaining his absence, he was not idiotic enough to make the man wait for any longer than he had to. A week would be enough to question mutiny, especially with a dungeon on the line; so he simply couldn't take that long.

Six days later, he was finally ready. Empty of mana, wounds still healing, exhausted and worn and weary, but ready.

Because it was time.

He had agonized over the decision for every one of those six days; did he truly want to go through with it? It was a comfortable life as the First Mate, and if he did nothing for the rest of his life, just continued to listen to Varcís' commands and play the loyal lapdog, he would live as a king about common Calaratans.

But that was before the dungeon had entered the picture.

What was a First Mate worth when Varcís could claim a dungeon's core?

So he steeled himself, used the last of his mana to flow through his channels and raise his shoulders up, and knocked politely on the door. It echoed like a storm-warning's bell through the waiting room.

Silence, for a moment, then–

"Enter."

Lluc exhaled, smoothed over the front of his crow-wing coat, adjusted his wolf-pelt tricorn hat, and entered.

Varcís Bilaro had an office that sprawled, in the best terms of everything; glass panels, overcast by the sea-green wings mounted just above, a deep purple-red carpet taken from the elden days of the Wandering Empire, an enormous borwood desk with inscriptions new and old that rose the hairs on the back of Lluc's neck. He still didn't understand how the man could stand to have so much of the accursed tree near him, much less sit before an office crowned in it. Another show of his power, perhaps.

It worked. Most of the time Lluc was in here, he was cleaning blood from meetings that had gone poorly.

As always, Varcís stood near his alchemy set, mounted on the wall opposite the windows. Lluc didn't know from what land he'd stolen it from, because this was nothing from either Calaratan or Leórian design; full of twisting golden tubes, yawning glass beakers, purple-flamed fires, trembling quartz containers. This time he had a few sea-green scales in the highest container, pouring mana-rich water in an endless cycle over and over their ridged surface. Even just stepping into the room he could feel the mana pick up, vague memories of ocean and water and deep currents. It was odd, prickling at his awareness, but he'd long since grown used to it.

In the many months since Varcís had killed the sea-drake, he had spent that time distilling it down.

He hadn't sold a single piece, no matter how much woe-begotten little scavengers had come forth on pleading knee and begged for a scale or how rich nightmarketers had offered the entirety of their vaults; he had only mounted the wings above his palace home to cast their enormous shadow over the white stone of Calarata and kept the rest for himself. Lluc had heard the rumours as he stalked through Calarata: the Dread Pirate was fashioning its corpse into a god-weapon to strike down the Citadel of the Leóro Kingdom; he had kept its body for an Old World ritual that would allow him to transform into a draconic shape; he was carving out its chest and drying its wings to shape it into a new ship to outpace the Golden Ghost. All manner of things that imbeciles thought.

Lluc wished they were right, though. Because the truth was far stranger.

He was consuming it.

Something cold lingered at the thought.

Varcís was human, no matter his void-black eyes and concealed soul; and humans didn't eat to increase their powers. They fought, won, bled; if they could merely eat mana-rich items to fuel their own power, it would have been discovered centuries ago. That was simply not the way that they grew stronger.

And he didn't know why Varcís was doing it.

Lluc had been around him for all the time since the dragon's kill; with the people of Calarata thoroughly cowed and convinced of the Dread Pirate's power, the taxes had been flowing back in, and there was no need to send the Dread Crew out for any missions beyond their regular. That had been why they had hunted the sea-drake; far too many Calaratans had started to give less and less, even as their own coffers swelled, and that was not an insult Varcís Bilaro would accept. So since then, he had been here, managing Calarata, an unenviable, thankless job that he shouldered as First Mate.

And in all that time, he had felt no increase in strength from Varcís.

Where was the power going? Why did he sit by his alchemy pipes, distilling scales and meat and claws into raw mana, while his own soul stayed at the same murky depths as before? Lluc had never been able to sense how powerful Varcís was before, whether Gold or Electrum or even the legendary Mythril, but that had been the most powerful sea-drake in the Ilera Sea. Surely he should feel something different.

But he hadn't, and he didn't, and still Varcís consumed.

His plan seemed more dangerous, now.

But he had spent six days preparing for this, and he wouldn't back down now. He couldn't.

Lluc Cardena Ferré would not disappear.

An awful silence stretched between them as Lluc entered the room, Varcís still focused on his alchemy. He felt no stirrings of wards or protections, much like he'd never felt them—but he didn't believe for a second that Varcís didn't guard his room. So the fact that he, a Gold, couldn't feel them, wormed at his confidence like a knife to the gut. There was simply no way to trust your own instincts around the Dread Pirate.

Exactly as the man liked it.

He could be a bastard like that.

"Ah, Lluc," Varcís said, voice deep and calm. He smiled with all the serenity of a slit wrist. "I would hope," he said, slowly, casually, unhurried. "That there is a good reason for your absence."

Or like that as well.

Lluc nodded, hands behind his back in a partial bow. It kept the paleness of his palms out of sight. "Of course. Your plan was a success, but as I was preparing to complete it, I realized you had set yourself up for something far greater."

That was the way to talk to the Dread Pirate, of course. Assume all faults were your own and any brilliance was his.

Varcís raised an eyebrow.

"Claiming the core would grant you power and prestige, but so did killing the sea-drake," he said, very carefully not looking at the scales distilling in the golden pipes. "And constantly poking the dragon's nest for more attackers isn't sustainable. So I thought, how would you make it so this core wouldn't be only a single boost, but something that could increase forever?"

There it was. The script he'd been practicing ever since he'd seen the greed in Gonçal's eyes.

"And then I remembered," Lluc said, fighting the urge to bite his nails into his palms. "High Lord Thiago's dungeon."

Varcís tilted his head to the side.

It was the dungeon closest to them, on the edge of the Leóro Kingdom's territory; not an ancient dungeon, one formed through a three-moon eclipse, claimed by a Gold adventurer who had started the Thiago High Family line. But she had died some years back, and her son, Aitor Thiago, had taken it over.

And done his damnedest to drive the thing into the ground.

"It should be an old, proud dungeon, full of unique creatures and rich mana; and under Aiyalera Thiago, it was. But under Aitor, he hasn't been managing it, languishing on the riches he earns from being its High Lord. The dungeon has grown stale, its creatures no longer evolving, and the monsters found within are those that can be found elsewhere. Aitor has shoveled restrictions on any adventurers going in, not allowing them to kill too powerful of creatures, not allowing them to take too much out, and under pain of death and torture, not even allowing them past the twelfth floor for fear of someone taking the core. It's hardly a dungeon at all."

He let that hang in the air for a moment.

"And adventurers by the thousands go every year."

"They come to a dungeon where the monsters are basic, where the prizes are lesser, where restrictions disallow them from anything but scrapped finds and mana. If they so much as think about claiming the core, they're killed where they stand. And still they go there. Aitor Thiago collects his weight in gold every few days from the taxes his Adventuring Guild claims over those venturing into the dungeon, and he's doing that for a dungeon that's not worth the ground it's dug into."

Calaratan taxes were paid by pirates, who could have months where they made like kings and months where they made like paupers. There was no way to guarantee the money coming in, nor the rare creatures or artefacts. But an Adventuring Guild could be better. Could be more.

Could be his.

Varcís had a hint of a smile now, his void-black eyes swirling like eddying pools. It was a smile entirely at Lluc's expense. "Are you proposing I should become a High Lord?"

That was a terrifying prospect. Any version of the Leóro Kingdom that had Varcís at the head would crush Aiqith beneath its heel.

"No, sir," Lluc said. Here it was. His lynchpin argument, the reason he thought he had a chance at all, his saving grace of potential. "I'm proposing that you open an Adventuring Guild and allow adventurers to attempt to claim the core."

Varcís paused. Lluc held his breath.

He was suggesting blasphemy here, of course. Not a single dungeon had ever allowed anyone to challenge the core since they had been claimed, since that would threaten to dethrone the High Family and quite thoroughly remove any of the reason to have a dungeon, but Lluc needed this. He couldn't have Varcís just take the core and remove any chance he had of growing more powerful.

This had to work.

"There has never been another dungeon like this," he said. "Adventurers normally challenge them for money, power, or fame; but for a chance to start a High Family, they'd do anything. The taxes you could set would be astronomical, and people would pay them. From what I saw when I ventured inside, it's already evolving monsters and creating floors vastly different to what is present around here. That's not including what you could charge for teleportation rituals, guides, maps; even on its own, this dungeon would be a gold mine. But with allowing adventurers to try and claim the core, to become a High Lord themselves, there would be no limit to who would come. Calarata would only be a starting point; Leóro would come here, then the Wandering Empire, Ter Asla, Athabakhanu—anyone who hears of the potential."

And, of course, creating such an open and welcoming dungeon meant that Calarata's sheltered existence would become fleeting. They had existed off of maps for so long, being such a lawless place, and the Dread Pirate had promised to protect them from the Leóro Kingdom. That was what the taxes were for.

But owning a dungeon meant that many of the lesser sort of rules that Leóro demanded could become suggestions. Mere requests.

To come to Calaratan and invade the dungeon meant following Calaratan rules.

Would the Calaratans who paid their taxes and wanted their anonymity to stay be pissed? Probably. Lluc didn't give two shits. If they wanted to say anything about it, they were welcome to come to him or Varcís, and neither of those parties would be at all interested in what they had to say.

"There'd be no chance that people would be allowed to reach the core, of course," Lluc hastened to add. "No need to risk your golden egg. But they wouldn't be informed of that, and those that figured it out can be silenced easily enough."

He would know. He'd done quite a bit of that silencing himself since rising to the position of First Mate.

"To set up an Adventuring Guild without that rule means setting yourself apart from every other controlled dungeon in Aiqith," Lluc pressed, trying his damnedest to keep his voice steady and confident. "Adventurers would pour in by the thousands, and with the siren's call of going deeper, that means less of them just scavenging the first few floors and then leaving. That means you wouldn't have to worry about feeding the dungeon, keeping it full of mana, and it can continue to develop new floors and creatures without–"

Varcís held up a single finger. Lluc's words dried to ash in his throat.

The Dread Pirate tilted his head to the side, bird-like. His eyes were pools of void. "The adventurers would feed it," he murmured, something connecting behind his gaze. "Strengthen its connection with the other worlds."

His eyes flicked back up. "Would it grow more powerful?"

Ah. Lluc swallowed.

What was the right answer here?

Their original plan had been to fatten the dungeon up before Varcís took it, but that had been so its more powerful creatures were evolving when Varcís merrily strolled through and claimed the core. Not a plan for the future, merely a solution to a temporary problem. So Lluc didn't know what he wanted now.

Did he want it to be strong, or was he concerned about that?

Ice crept down his spine.

"Presumably," Lluc hedged. "Dungeons only grow stronger with more mana."

Varcís looked back to his alchemy set, where a drop of water heated by purple fire flashed landed on a scale with a hiss. He watched it, head still tilted, settling his gold-tipped fingers over his borwood desk. There was something oddly… curious in his gaze, as if a new solution to a problem he had puzzled over for centuries had presented itself, and he didn't know if this would be any more effective. But he was curious.

Interested.

"Stronger than what being the king of a pirate city can manage?" He hummed, more to himself. "Fed by more than taxes?"

Lluc was damn near ready to sprint from the room and beg apologies for even daring to bring up a competitor when he saw Varcís' face. The man didn't look threatened, nor challenged, nor worried—he looked hungry.

Like he wanted the dungeon to grow stronger.

That was not what Lluc expected. He fumbled for anything to say.

"Yes, I believe it would grow stronger," he managed, as if he hadn't heard what Varcís had said. "And it would be pushed more than dungeons that have their core protected; but of course, if it ever got too powerful, or someone did end up claiming the core, I have no doubt you could stop them."

Varcís' eyes snapped to him.

And there it was. His final argument.

Leaving the core explicitly open to being captured was playing with fire; it would invite every unwashed, untested Bronze with a rusty dagger to their name, but it would also draw Golds from far-off lands who were interested in claiming the power that came with the title, or even the mythical unclaimed Electrums and Mythrils who hadn't sworn to a country yet. Before, when it had been contained only within Calarata, Lluc had known everyone with enough power to truly make a challenge and thus had expressly not invited them on his little campaign. Theoretically, an Adventuring Guild could disallow anyone too powerful from invading, but that was setting boundaries that would limit people willing to risk their lives and their payment for a chance at stardom.

And for all that Lluc would say that the core was open to be captured, the truth was he would never allow it.

But to Varcís, he would simply say that surely the man would be strong enough to stop it. What would be a powerful dungeon, or an adventurer with a core under their control, be against the famed Dread Pirate? Why, Lluc had nary a thought that they would even be a flea under his heel.

No one knew how powerful Varcís was. Their original plan had involved Lluc weakening the dungeon so Varcís could claim the core, but he didn't know how much that was for an actual threat or merely convenience. He had consumed a sea-drake's power, taken over the entirety of a pirate city full of backstabbers, controlled mana and creatures beyond understanding. To lesser eyes, he looked like a god.

If he said now that he didn't know if he could defeat an overpowered dungeon or stop someone who had claimed the core, he would be undermining his own power.

Varcís stared at him. Lluc felt the full weight of the Lord of Calarata, the Dread Pirate, the Keeper of the Underlings, settle on his shoulders. Void-black eyes rippled.

Maybe Varcís saw what he was doing, that Lluc was challenging him to dare say that he wasn't strong enough for the plan to work. Maybe Lluc would get smited down before he managed to say another word. Maybe all of his planning, all of his years as the First Mate would mean nothing for this one final scheme.

But maybe it would mean something more.

In the far corners of the room, the shadows trembled.

"The taxes will go to me," Varcís said finally, and his voice rang with the decree of the untouchable power that had kept him in command of Calarata for so long. "Mana and creatures, not gold. Take what you need from the Crew's coffers to start it. Take more than you need and I'll gut you myself."

Something flashed across the room, the shudder of his mana extending outwards, and he idly adjusted the collar of his sweeping coat. "Set up near the entrance, as close as you can. Extend the docks to meet it. You'll make weekly reports on its strength, how it is growing, and send me updated maps the second anything changes. If it gets a single new bug to make, I will know."

He said it like a fact, because it damn well was with how Lluc would obey it, but he didn't know why. Why did its strength matter so much if he wasn't just going to claim the core?

"Keep it contained to Calarata for the first while as you stumble your way through leading, but then expand to Leóro and beyond. Declare yourself Guildmaster, but to the public it is still my Adventuring Guild." A dagger-thin smile. "I'm sure you'll have enough time to manage it."

Lluc very, very carefully didn't react.

"Of those you've gotten an oath-bond from, only keep a few. The hunter, Callick, will be unnecessary. Ealdhere will be easiest to control. Use Gonçal as the liaison to the Silent Market, and he will obey better than attempting to keep him only in the Guild."

Lluc swallowed. Of course he knew about them. Was there anything in Calarata that he didn't?

But he hadn't mentioned Lluc's true plan. Or had he? In giving Lluc the position of Guildmaster, was he testing his loyalty as First Mate, seeing if he would try to strike out for power on his own? Or did he truly believe that Lluc was serving him and only him with this scheme?

Gods. There was no way to know. There was never a way to know, not here.

But that didn't matter. Not now.

Lluc leaned into a bow, like this was all Varcís' plan from the beginning, like he was in awe of the man's genius. Like he was his normal, spineless self that was only happy to serve.

"Thank you, sir," he said. "It will be done."

Varcís didn't nod—why would he, when there was never any doubt that his will would be carried out by his army of loyal backstabbers—and turned back to his alchemy set, but his eyes were distracted. He kept drumming his gold-tipped fingers on his borwood desk, humming something tuneless under his breath, mind clearly elsewhere.

Lluc decided to take the dismissal for what it was and carefully bowed out of the room. Varcís didn't react.

The borwood door clicked shut behind him, quartz-lights flicking back to life as he entered the waiting room; immediately he exhaled, air-attuned mana sparking over his fingers. Gods.

He'd done it.

He'd done it.

The Guildmaster he would become; to Varcís, busy as he was with all the hidden projects and gatherings and deals no one knew about, it would look like Lluc was merely getting more taxes for him. Never in gold, since Varcís only kept enough gold to pay for his lifestyle and cast the rest into the Dread Crew's coffers, but in creatures and artefacts. The things he had always collected.

Maybe the reason he had decided to rule a pirate city, where such things were traded and gathered, rather than go to Leóro, where they would pay him a king's ransom but in gold to serve as one of their enforcers.

Lluc did not understand Varcís Bilaro. He wondered, sometimes, if anyone would.

But that didn't matter. Because tomorrow, he could gather stone and wood-mages, drag them down to the cove where they would begin construction. He would kill Callick—because as much as this was his plan, he would still not disobey the Dread Pirate—entrap Ealdhere into serving the Guild, and drag an agreement with the Silent Market out of Gonçal.

For today, he was still the First Mate, loyal lapdog, mongrel pup, lesser being.

But tomorrow?

Lluc Cardena Ferré would not disappear.

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