Dragonheart Core

The Hungering Reefs shattered.

Its wall fell apart, limestone thundering in pieces of the quartz-white sand; I howled anew as another entrance punched into my dungeon, mana flooding out in the break. As something slithered through the gap, crowned in dust and a ringing horror.

It was a monster. As a dungeon core, I didn't use that term lightly, but there was nothing else to describe it as.

A nightmare's cross between a wurm and a centipede, twisting and coiling in on itself, carried by hundreds of insectoid legs—it surged forward with hooked claws and orange-red protrusions over its back, unnatural grace. A frill extended from its head, wide and taut between bristling spines, scraping at the ceiling so high overhead. Mandibles clustered over its gaping maw. Ice-blue armour, offset with the ruby-red of its fiery spines, a volcano's warmth wavering around.

Its eyes—pure white, nothing behind them. Bulbous and arachnid, all hunger.

Fucking hells, what was this?

It hissed and spat, a chittering nightmare of multi-jointed limbs and crackling flames. It had broken past the wall with its innumerous claws and the dust over them immediately caught fire, smoking away in acrid smoke; it coiled on the beach, over quartz-white sand and the lap of waves beneath. It wasn't from the mountains. It couldn't be. But then from where? How had the War Horde gotten their claws on a beast like this?

The opening.

I had precious little mana left after closing the Skylands, but I didn't have a choice; I gathered all I had and threw it at the wall, at the entrance, at the gap in the stone. My mana bucked, trembling—it knew that was an entry, considering the monster was still slithering its centipede's length through the gap, but no. It was stone. It was stone, and nothing more, and my mana would stop escaping me and this was my–

Not as smoothly as before, a shuddering kind of resignation, but my awareness snapped shut. No longer could I see outside in the mountain; it was just stone. Not another entrance.

But the beast continued to emerge. Longer and longer, filling the beach with chitinous armour and the hiss of smoke against air; fifty feet emerged from the opening, concluding in a seething array of spikes, all the same fire-bright material. Larger than anything I'd fought before. Larger than anything in my dungeon.

And it wasn't the only threat.

In the Skylands, the War Horde raged—and rejoiced. My halls echoed as they howled, a rippling cry of victory spreading through their ranks; they knew their pet monster had arrived, and they counted the battle won. Where had they gotten it? Where in Alómbra had this been hiding?

My points of awareness flickered and shook, torn between centering and dissolving; all my mana had gone into shutting the entrances, holding my dungeon steady, and now the scraps remaining struggled to exist. Two floors to watch was too many.

I only had the mana to focus on one. I had to choose.

Time slowed in the manner of a dungeon core—my consciousness coalesced into one, sharpening to teeth and wings and terror. I flew up, burrowing past stone into the lightning-tainted halls of the Skylands, Magelords and War Horde alike. A final stand, but not, but broken. Something more.

I had to defeat the beast below. So others had to defeat the threat here.

My awareness dove, hunting through the frenzied minds for the one who I knew I could communicate with in my mana-starved state. For Akkyst, standing tall at the forefront of the burgeoning army, my Named, my strongest of the floor. His thoughts burned for his enemies, these curs with their vicious batterings against reality; but he paused as I spoke.

Hold, please, I begged, humming on the edge of Akkyst's mind. His singular ear flicked back, awareness trickling over our connection.My eloquence disintegrated in face of terror. Kill, defend, alone, can't help, below, fight, go!

His memories echoed over to me; thoughts of the stone-wurm, of digging his claws blindly into its punctured neck for a chance at victory. He didn't know the creature below, but he understood the threat.

Resolution thrummed through his mind. He would handle the Skylands. He would protect the Magelords once more—I would go lower.

I poured pride into his mind and gathered each point of awareness, abandoning all higher floors so as to flee below. My last glimpse of the Skylands was Akkyst rearing onto his hind legs, claws extended and fangs bared, bellowing.

And then I was gone.

The Hungering Reefs awoke as I resurfaced, my eyes hampered and shuttered like a storm over the coastline; even as I ducked and wove throughout, a shuddering emptiness lurked in me, my gaze locked to only one floor. This was not how I should exist, but I had no other option.

The beast coiled in the first room, bulbous eyes of pure white scanning its surroundings. In memories stolen from Akkyst I recalled the stone-wurm being on a rampage, a furious deconstruction of hunger—this monster seemed more sentient, investigatory. Smarter. It raised the upper half of its body, frills extending to triple its width, stretched like ice between spines. Heat crackled over its back, amber-orange horns like teeth over its armour. An amalgamation of nightmares. Smoke, trickling to the air above.

Fire something. I had no idea what powered those spines, what kept the heat crackling between its armour, but it burned with an internal fire—the Scorchplains would not stop it. It needed to die here.

My remaining scraps of mana thrummed.

Its frill extended like wings, mandibles clicking against each other. The beach wasn't large, just enough to give invaders enough room to take in the majesty of my reefs, to understand the threat they had befallen them. It filled the entirety of the sand, so much larger than anything I knew; and still it was far from size alone. Each of its many claws pinched and snapped at the air, a coalescion of hunter and predator. Not something for the mountains. Not something for the sea.

But its eyes, pale, looked to the far wall, as though it could see the next room. The prey it hunted through a drive I didn't know.

And it slipped into the water.

Steam erupted like a geyser, choking out the air; whatever its spikes were made from made the water froth, boiling, but still they didn't lose their glow. It burned hotter than this. And now it was in the water, now it was in the territory that was mine.

The first room of the Hungering Reefs.

I didn't have enough mana to roar a battle-frenzy, nothing to warn my creatures; but Abarrosa's boon carried the threat forward. Five dolphins, pod still so young and undeveloped; their sinuous bodies leapt and darted through the waves, fanged muzzles shrieking. It flinched back, the frill around its head snapping closed; the whites of its eyes burned.

It couldn't swim, not in the manner of swimming—but it could move. Its hundred legs undulated and clattered against each other, kicking up hazy clouds of sand and grit. What lurching movement it had was slow and condemnable, obscured by a billowing cloud of boiling water; but on still it forced itself. Why was it doing this? What hold did the War Horde have over such a powerful monster that it would throw itself into its opposite just to swim on? There weren't any goblins here, none beating it forward or howling commands; it moved from its own volition.

The dolphins swarmed around it, a cyclone of muscular bodies faster than it could hope to be, but they were barely a fifth of its length with fangs built for soft flesh, not chitinous armour. All they could do was circle and scream, but with its frills pressed flat to its sides, it hardly seemed to hear them. Not a creature that hunted via ears.

Its mandibles caught one of the shrieking dolphins; it took only a shake of its enormous head to snap her spine, black eyes dulling to glassy depths. Scarlet bloomed through the water. It hunted like a centipede, all extended jaws and coiling length; even in the water as it fumbled, all I could see were its eyes, pale in the blue. It clawed itself forward over the sand like a corpse, floundering through water but still moving.

The first room wasn't built to kill, not yet. The dolphins were so young, so untested, only schools of prismatic dartfish to fill in the gaps—the monster slithered forward unhindered, dragged to the ground for insectoid claws to sink into sand. Through the first room, water boiling and capturing coral bleaching white in its presence, until it squeezed its hulking mass into the second room of my Hungering Reefs. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

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My mana roared.

This was the largest, my most adept, but not for this. Nicau and Chieftess weren't here yet; the kobold tribe, leaderless. Svythe was a whirlwind of fangs and claws but only a fraction of the beast's size. My newly-evolved sharks were hardly the length of one half its body, their fangs like twigs against its spines. Even the venom of my silver kraits wouldn't bring this monster down.

My third room was made for those of its bulk; as unaquatic as it was, it would swim through the tower-reefs and find its way to the exit. The sea serpent in his shipwreck was still scared, still cautious from Shoth's attack; I didn't think he would win. I needed to end it here.

And there were a few here with the size to match.

Seros answered the call before it had time to ring through my Otherworld mana—he uncoiled from a tower-reef and sprung forward, hydrokinesis like a sea-drake's wings. In the third room, my armoured jawfish narrowed his scarlet eyes. The dolphin's blood diffused through my halls, staining the water, and he smelled it; prey, more than the normal. I didn't have enough mana to speak to him properly, no connection binding our souls together, but he was a hunter reborn, and Abarossa's boon had only accentuated his drive. He snapped at the water, a summoning cry. His tidewalker sprite, the watery collection of frills and fangs and fury, sprang underneath his fins and drove him forward, powering through the current like a loosed arrow. He slipped out of the room, mind thrumming with the hunt.

The monster emerged into the second room like a harbinger. Still it scuttled over the ground, an insectoid shadow so much larger than anything I'd known—and still it snapped and spit and hissed at my dungeon. Driven by something.

The centipede raised its foul head, mandibles flashing. Its eyes landed on the expanse of limestone in front of it, the base of an island.

It moved, this horrible, clattering approach to swimming that wriggled it through the madness like a swarm of locusts; prismatic dartfish died in heaps as the boiling water around its bulk seared them black and carried their corpses down. Greater crabs steamed in their armour and roughwater sharks flinched back from the heat, its journey unhindered until it clambered out of the water and onto the first of the shallow isles surrounding the lagoon, the atoll I'd made as protection. It hauled its bulk onto the white sands, dozens of legs clawing for a grip to hold its weight. Mist writhed off its horns, choking out the air. My points of awareness howled.

Out of the water, it looked so much more the beast; fifty feet of coiling centipede, wrought in ice-blue and fire-red. Its frill expanded, filling in the length of its body like malformed wings, steam curling off like jagged fangs. It stared over the room, the stretch of water between each island it would have to cross.

Within the lagoon, my kobold tribe gathered to the ready; no Chieftess to lead but they were far from helpless, preparing spears and coral-tipped staffs for the shamans. But they were so small before the beast, little more than a morsel. What could they do?

What others could.

Because Seros swept forward, tail lashing at the surf—and at his side swam Rihsu, plucked from her hunting to join her lord's side. She had grown since I had last watched her, larger than any kobold warrior and still with those deep indigo scales to prove her transition from fire-drake origins; not yet of the sea, but closer. Her webbed talons clawed at the water as she swam, an eel's grace through the currents Seros provided. They moved together, faster and faster, encircling the hall; my bare scraps of presence guided Seros' mind up, to the island where the beast sheltered. They would have to bring their fight beyond.

And they did. Rihsu surged through the water, finned tail lashing; Seros sang a snippet of the Song and a current pushed beneath her webbed talons and launched her up, flying through the air. Something they'd practiced. She dove like a bird of prey and slammed into its side.

It shrieked, lurching away—she was a fraction of its size but thrown as she was she punched right through its balance. Quartz-sand kicked up like a dust storm as it thrashed, biting at nothing.

But Rihsu screeched herself, falling back with a crash to the beach. Her indigo scales scorched white where she had touched its spines, where the demonstrable heat burning inside it had seized her. It hissed like a dirge, coiling in the sand; more steam erupted to fill the skies, drowning out the cloudsire palms and vampiric mangroves. Pure white eyes roved for what had hurt it.

Rihsu, ungainly on land with all her training with Seros, burned from muzzle to tail, struggling to her feet, trying to get back to the water. It saw her.

My points of awareness spiraled, calling for Seros, for the armoured jawfish, for Svythe, for Nicau, for anyone.

But the monster reared, frill snapping out with a raw burst of heat; it lunged like the arachnid it was, all teeth, all fury, mandibles extending and many-jointed legs clustered up like a clenched fist as it dove for her fumbling form in the sand–

And it swallowed her.

It swallowed her.

Seros and I screamed in unison.

Rihsu disappeared before she had a moment to attack. Its throat bulged as it devoured her, more steam erupting from its touch—but the core side of my mind saw that its mouth moved oddly, mandibles retracted. Not teeth. It was swallowing her but not chewing; a beast that ate its meals whole. Something to consume.

There was a chance.

But a chance that didn't fucking matter as Rihsu disappeared into its maw and lost us a fighter.

Seros launched himself forward, blind fury; the waters howled at his call, kicking into a whirlpool to rival Mayalle's as the walls trembled. Even the armoured jawfish was blustered back in his rage. Seros ripped out the waves and slammed into the beast's side, heedless of injuries; his own iridescent scales scorched and his ivory claws turned black as he hammered against its bulk, ravaging anything he could reach– beyond the island, the armoured jawfish snapped his fangs and circled–

And in my third room, something moved.

-

The sea serpent raised his head.

Within the shipwreck, he coiled around the rotted wood and sagging fastenings of a gifted home. Below, he knew, there was an entrance further down, the tunnel between floors, but all he was here for was to guard the wreckage and stop others. To hunt as others came to him, serving as protector.

A life of surety. A life where he would not lose another eye to a human who had nearly ruined him. When all he remembered was the waves moving and the water rushing and the blackness where there had once been sight; when the world dimmed and the pain erupted. When he had failed.

But now, simmering through the mana that kept him awake and alive and aware, he smelled blood. Rich blood, sea-tainted and worn. That of his brethren. That of the dragon-born.

It wasn't the hunger he remembered, the blind rage that filled him until all things foreign were threats, but something urged him to move; so he uncoiled from the wooden halls and slithered upright, frills tensed tightly to his side and fangs bared. Nothing in the water above, just murky darkness and distant tower-reefs. Slowly, he swam outward until he was entirely free of the shipwreck, darting from shadow to shadow.

Still the blood in the water, but not from here. He moved until he could see into the other cove.

Scarlet-white waters, filled with grit and gore. The jaw-beast, circling an island, hunger palpable; the wavering note of terror from the Gifter. Something overhead. Up he swam, until his head lifted above the waves to see the island's top. Where the dragon-born thrashed against a monster of fire and ice.

It looked, almost, like him. Too many claws, too many limbs, armour instead of scales; but it was long and it was fanged and it was dangerous. Others were scared of it.

And then he was struck by the thought.

How slowly had he moved out of his shipwreck? How slowly had he let the world pass him by with nothing more than hunting those that came to him? He had taken this mighty form by killing the greatest of the tooth-sharks that filled his previous home; and now he hid like a whelp in the dark.

This beast was not in the water, in his territory. But he could not limit himself to only that he knew he would win; he could not strike himself into the belly of a den as protection and never snap at the wider world.

He could not be a champion if he was scared.

Before, he had waited for the human to see what it was capable of. That had failed him. So instead he launched himself from the water before he could think.

Infinitely larger than his previous form, but it worked the same way—his finned tail lashed and thrust him above the water, above the safety; he barely cleared the waves but his head crashed into the sand, gills gasping and air choking his eyes. Movement, in the blurry world before—he snapped his fangs into three twisting, crackling things and fell.

There was a scream, a chittering hiss like breaking stone. One of the things he was biting snapped off, torn beneath, but the others held and continued to hold as he plunged back into the waters.

And a weight followed.

The monster crashed into the surf, bubbles exploding around them. Blood like fire filled his mouth, scorching, and he flinched back from the pain, released its limbs, curling in—and fought it. Fought the urge. Turned back to the fight.

It plummeted through the water, no fins to support itself, but here he could see how much larger it was than he'd thought—so much more than a human, than something small and darting away from his fangs. He should have feared it; but something felt better with it being enormous. He knew it couldn't surprise him, not when he could see it. When he could face it outright.

He wasn't alone—the jaw-beast snapped and the dragon-born hissed—but he was the only one large enough. So he sprang, boiling water catching at his scales and frills but he was large and it was large and this was a fight without the terror of the unknown. Serpent against monster; he coiled and it thrashed, claws ripping into his sides, fire burning through the waves. Wounds, destruction—but he had already been hurt. He already hunted through one clouded eye. He had tasted agony and found it did not kill him.

He was a sea serpent—but he remembered his roots. Before he fought with venom, he had fought with his size.

Pain became inconsequential. He coiled, wrapping around himself against and against, heedless of scales popping and boiling water lapping at his bared skin; he crushed the monster until its armour cracked and its spines punctured his flesh. It could not fight; it could injure him but it couldn't fight and he needed that. He wasn't alone. It was his to stop, to be more than, his fight to take to the end.

He held and he held and he held and he burned and he held and–

And from above, the dragon-born dove from behind and slammed his fangs into the back of the monster's head.

It thrashed, clawing at the water, but he pinned it so that it could not escape. The dragon-born gnashed his jaws into its armour and pulled, digging claws in for grip, ignoring his own pain as the water redoubled in heat and scoured at their scales. As they worked together.

He tightened his grip—he coiled—and the dragon-born ripped the beast's head off.

It died.

And he lived.