Dragonheart Core

Some species of cave cricket I didn't care enough about other than maintaining their population had managed to make their way over the rock pond and set up on the second floor. Even with the algae-light overhead they had found enough dark corners to be convinced it was endlessly night and thus they needed endless chirping; with the looming mangrove shadows and the endless rustle of the billowing moss, it set a frankly beautiful scene. Some morrow-side canal, eery and shifting in the late dusk glow, unsettlingly peaceful.

Peaceful, of course, unless you were the ironback toad.

It was the original one, the other three having finished evolving but not yet reaching his impressive bulk; he croaked, splaying his webbed toes over the pebbly soil, and leered his great battering-ram of a head.

The kobold crouched behind a tree like that would disguise her shifted an inch back.

It'd been a glorious constant battle between them, the ironback protecting the rats and unevolved toads of the world, and the hunting parties of the kobold very interested in food. Though they were growing in number and ability, all carrying spears with the heads fashioned from sharpened bones, they weren't quite up to the task of successfully and consistently killing the larger prey. Sure, every now and then they brought home a luminous constrictor or greater crab, but for fear of targeting those large enough to kill the hunt, they mainly settled for stabbing their spears into the canal and bringing up silverheads, as well as their normal hunting runs of rats and toads.

Something that the ironback rather disagreed with.

Him and his brethren had evenly spread out between the Drowned Forest, each choosing one room out of the roughly ten that they would protect. Of course, being only four against the several hundred dens I'd carved out wasn't the best strategy, but they still gave it their damnedest; and the rats and toads had learned that the handful of dens they switched between were safe.

For the toads, it gave them something to strive for; if they hid in those dens and learned from the great toad master, one day they too could be strong enough to defend themselves from the constrictors and kobolds of the wider world. So they huddled behind their evolved brother, watching him, learning from him. Already another handful more were nearing evolution.

And for the rats, well.

What I could only describe as an oligarchy was forming.

There were two types of rats who hunted down the gems; those who wanted them for the mana that came with being in an enclosed space with them, and those that wanted them because others wanted them. The first type of rat often stayed small, tucked away in a hidden den with their sequestered pile of riches and always searching for more.

The second were making a business of the ironback toads.

They would lay claim to one of the dens that an ironback would protect on their patrols, setting up guards and scaring away anyone else who tried to hide in there. They would welcome other rats to join their family, so long as they swore some sort of pledge I hadn't yet puzzled out, and then spin around and use those as more guards.

And then, whenever another rat family, scared and panicked and desperate for just an ounce of protection, begged to be let into the den, all it would take was one small payment of a single jewel.

Which of course they would pay, because the little rat tyrants had done a fantastic job of waiting until a kobold was physically looming over the den before making the offer. I honestly was waiting until they started to train the other creatures of the floor just to terrify rats into paying them more.

I gave it maybe two weeks. The rats had gained intelligence on a level I'd only see from Seros before. I couldn't wait for their evolution.

But for now, their little ironback empire would continue running amuck, up until the kobolds would figure out a way to combat that and then the whole cycle would begin anew. The ironback toad, perhaps realizing that he was being horribly exploited and wasn't seeing an inch of the profits, croaked again as the kobold shifted behind the tree. The various stone-backed toads behind him huddled up, but they trusted him—they relaxed and rested within the den, some sleeping, some merely sprawling out. But they were content.

And in the grand scheme of things, they were only one small part of the Drowned Forest, and the rest would continue with or without them.

Including my last plan.

A few days ago, I had decided I no longer wanted to add anything to the second floor, for fear of ruining its fragile ecosystem or getting so distracted micromanaging it that I never worked on anything else. It had been over two weeks since the merrow attack and I'd seen neither head nor hair of any other invader. It was getting to the point I wanted to be attacked again just so I would know what was going on.

But it never came, and I panicked, so I needed more floors. Thus the Drowned Forest had to stay the same.

But with other small additions.

The cloudskipper wisp had been having a jolly old time over the Underlake, stirring up all the madness that came with my endless shifting currents. She'd grown in size too, feeding on my mana like sustenance and growing more stable, less a roiling cloud of mist and instead something that looked vaguely… canine? I wasn't positive, but there was the rough impression of four legs as she ran about with a trail of clouds in her wake.

But I only had the one, and I'd made the same mistake with only creating three kobolds off the bat.

So for my final change to the Drowned Forest, I would be completing the atmosphere of a proper coastal mangrove forest with roiling clouds of mist.

I hadn't spent much mana since creating the roughwater sharks, beyond the general upkeep of the prey species whenever they became just a touch too endangered for my predators to eat or keeping up the whitecap mushroom population for the bears. As well as the dozens of bug species spotting the area, though that counted for barely a point of mana a day. So I had plenty to make some.

Although it fucking hurt to spend forty-two points of mana on what was essentially two lumps of mist.

I created them both in an unoccupied corner of the Drowned Forest, just to give them a chance to explore themselves a bit before starting off. I wasn't sure if my other creatures could hurt them, being as rather intangible as they were, but I wasn't exactly about to risk it. I'd spent far too much on them for some cave spider to be hungry for prey.

No shape yet, both far too young to have deepened into anything more than just grey-silver blobs, but I was curious if they would all switch to a more canine-esque form. Was it specific to each element, or more depending on their personality? Who knew. But I'd be curious to find out.

They spent half a second looking—somewhat? They didn't have eyes—at each other before immediately scattering, darting through the halls with vague hissing sounds of joy. Clouds of mist exploded in their wake, dropping low to slither over the billowing moss and slide over the canal's surface, the humidity skyrocketing. Every creature paused to look up at them, wondering at this mystical new addition to their already magical lives. I imagined they would go absolutely insane to learn what was on the fourth floor.

But that was it. The Drowned Forest was done.

I could feel, in the vague part of me connected to the Otherworld—which I was starting to get the sneaking suspicion was where the gods lived—that Rhoborh was pleased with my final addition, that he enjoyed how the floor had gone. As he very well should be. It was magnificent.

And one day, I hoped that my mana and his blessing would deepen, so that every creature would connect to each other instead of only plants, but who knew? I had plenty of time to find out.

Or maybe I didn't, depending on what Calarata was doing. Gods. I needed a spy.

I flew up to the first floor instead of worrying about it.

The two juvenile lunar cave bears were curled up in their respective dens, bellies full of whitecap mushrooms and safely cradled by their green algae beds. They'd grown, both in size and combat proficiency; the male had started to use his shadow-attuned mana more, hiding in ambush for whenever the other bear went down a floor for a drink or snack; he'd managed to rip a nasty scar over her left haunch in one such attack. In comparison, she had started more on her general lumbering protectiveness, slowly encroaching her territory over his with displays of power.

Both of them were plenty strong enough to venture below, maybe even to the fourth floor—but my intentions of their creation had definitely worked. They both refused to go down a level, even to the sweeter food and the irresistible call of my mana, because going down would mean giving up their territory to the other bear, and both absolutely refused to even stomach the possibility.

It certainly worked for me. I'd been training them in the moments between their territorial pissing contests not to react when invaders came in from the two mountain entrances, to stay slumbering in their dens whenever adventurers came a-traipsing into my halls. The rats, constrictors, stone-backed toads, and cave spiders were free to attack, just strong enough to show that this was a dungeon and just weak enough to soothe the invader's concerns. A basic, regular pathway to shoot them directly forward with no worries—I'd even removed the pitfall I'd made, moving it to a side slope that led out to the mountain.

The same slope that would be used when the invaders tried to leave.

Because that was when I was training my bears to attack.

Everyone was welcome to enter. No one was allowed to leave.

That would be how I survived. I was still building a similar plan for the Underlake, something primed to attack in the tunnel to keep any merrows or similar aquatic builds from leaving, but this would suffice for now. My lack of knowledge was killing me.

I shook my points of awareness enough that Seros raised his head from where he was wrapped around my core to flick his tongue curiously out at me. I couldn't keep focusing on them. I had other problems.

And other solutions, judging by the current movements of the rat on my first floor.

It was the original one I'd noticed, curled up in her den filled with many sparkling jewels. She had grown from her proximity to the mana-sinks, from a foot long to nearly three, hunched over with clever, grasping hands. Her twin forked tails twitched constantly as she kept guard over her tiny room, desperate to keep her gems out of other ratty hands.

But now she had a new problem, as seen by how she scoured over her mana-filled collection.

She wanted to go to the fourth floor.

It would be a perilous journey. It was easy for me to forget that my floors weren't small, when I could be any size and see a thousand angles at once; but the second floor was enormous, a thousand feet in diameter and crawling with deadly creatures. I'd placed all the tunnels to the fourth floor hidden deep within the Forest, so she would have to venture far into the darkness to get to her goal.

And by the time she made that journey, she wouldn't be able to guarantee that the other rats wouldn't take advantage of her lack of guard. And if she tried to come back up to the first floor, there was always the threat that she would risk her life on the journey only to find nothing left back at the top, all her jewels stolen, and then she'd have to go back down again. Any time was a risk.

So she could only afford to carry one gem with her down into the depths.

And that came about the problem of which one.

She had easily a half dozen different types that I'd grown, and beyond diamond which seemed to absorb pure mana—which I'm sure was very useful outside of my dungeon, but rather pointless within given my general ambiance—all others slowly attuned the mana within them to a specific element. Quite helpfully, they were very clear to tell which was which, whenever she brushed her little ratty hand against one giving her a breath of the power.

But her little mind couldn't comprehend which power would be most useful to have on the mysterious fourth floor, and so she sat here and debated. Hunched over, tail lashing, whiskers twitching. A little picture of contemplation.

I was terribly excited to see her and her brethren on the fourth floor, though. No real dens but instead open oases where the tunnels connected, set up with mana and a slight reduction in the thornwhip algae, plenty of threats but also opportunities for them to succeed.

And of course, the jadestone moss, growing constant gemstones for the rats to harvest and use. Very helpful. They would thrive down there.

As soon as she figured out which shiny thing to bring.