Dragonheart Core

Nicau peered at the jungle with more than a hint of trepidation.

He was less than ten feet from it now, a hard divide maintained by the rubble from the Alómbra Mountains cutting a line out to the sea. He'd have to clamber over fallen stones nearly his height twice over but then he'd be lost in the thick of the jungle bristling on the other side. Which. Um.

It'd certainly been easier to build up courage when he was still half a day away, just imagining what things he'd find, not when he was actually looking over the crumbled rocks and seeing the deep emerald green of the jungle beyond.

As much as Nicau had grown up around adventurers and pirates and all manners of unscrupulous fellows who were fond of fighting, it was normally humanoids versus other humanoids.

And that was the problem; Calarata wasn't exactly… civilized. You could be reasonably right in assuming wild monsters wouldn't attack you on the streets—excepting if any nightmarketers lost control of their latest captures—but the surrounding areas weren't culled for protection. So this jungle, despite being within a quarter day's walk of the bustling port, was the real wild deal, full of dangerous creatures that didn't have enough of a mage population to threaten them back.

Nicau gripped his spear a little tight. He was rather out of his depth.

But if he thought about it for any longer, he'd lose all the courage he'd spent his time gathering, so he shifted his spear to one hand and started clambering up the rocks. A near stumble and some lost skin and he was over.

Trees towered overhead, great enormous things so different from the skinny palms of the cove, emerald canopies spread out like a clouded sky; dew-covered ferns kissed his ankles, ruby-red and orange-gold flowers dotted throughout. As close as he was to the edge, most everything rare was already harvested by nightmarketers looking to sell, but he could see hints of moonstar sprouts, capable of bringing luck when ingested, and creeper's vine, visibly shuffling closer to him under the cover of rotting leaves.

And, perhaps mostly thankfully, an enormous finleaf frond only ten minutes away from the entrance.

Nicau exhaled, swiping at his forehead that was already covered in sweat. Glancing around, just because the jungle moved and shifted and writhed uncomfortably with life, he set his spear down and knelt to access the base of the plant, fingers scrabbling at its massive leaves. He knew finleaves, other pigeoncatchers using them for large hauls; with a little grit and determination, the fronds could be pulled loose and used as a sort of sling to carry loads home.

Which he would certainly need.

His fingers were useless and he reached for his spear, pushing through the leaf layer that just kept falling. Nicau frowned, twisting to lay flat on his stomach; he jabbed the spear forward, its bone tip shanking through the very base of one leaf. The plant shuddered but didn't release the leaf. Great.

He stabbed it again.

Three more punctures and the leaf wilted enough he could rip it out, the veins down the center bending and twisting as it fluttered to the ground. It was easily seven feet long, shaped like a fat sword, emerald green with a pale yellow underbelly. Perfect for what he needed.

Cradling his spear under one arm, Nicau sat, pressing his back against a ripplebark tree. Fold the leaf over itself, line the edges up, then carve a slit down its outer edge and pull the fin vein that gave the plant its name loose. Wrap that twice around each end, size appropriately, then stitch the two bottoms together. Adjust, wrap around.

He stumbled at first but the familiar motions came back quickly enough, and soon he had a sort of sling, sort of backpack snug against his tunic, the vein crossing over his chest as the leaf stayed on his back. It wouldn't let him carry the whole jungle back to the dungeon, but this way he could use his hands for something other than clutching various plants. Nicau bit back a yawn—how was he tired now—and stood, kicking his spear back up into his hands in a move he was really too proud of. Now, where were those moonstar sprouts? He doubted the dungeon had access to any luck-attuned mana at this point and it would surely not go amiss to gather some–

Nicau turned, only loosely grasping his spear, and came face to face with a beast.

Easily up to his chest, muscles taut under its auburn fur, four legs splayed and tipped with truly awful black claws. Its ears flicked forward, cradled by two obsidian black horns, its tail lashing behind. Its eyes burned a deep red. One of the jungle hound tribes, pack hunters with different elemental attunements; this one looked like it followed the path of fire. It also looked hungry.

It growled. He whimpered.

Nicau raised his spear as the beast stalked closer, feeling truly every part of him shake. It wasn't with a pack and its rib cage protruded past its coat, but that didn't mean shit when Nicau would die facing either it or its entire pack. Fantastic.

It barked twice, raw heat infusing the air around it; its eyes, like twin embers, narrowed. Nicau swallowed.

Some form of desperate insanity took over and he struck first, lashing out wildly with his spear; the hound yelped and backpedaled, dodging the blow to its chest. Nicau cursed. Bracing his legs, he swept forward again, the kind of recklessness born from the knowledge there was no other option flooding through him.

The hound bounded around the attack. Nicau screamed something wordless and charged forward, sling bouncing against his back as he jabbed the spear with all the strength his malnourished body could manage; but the hound, even equally starved, was far more nimble. Its tail lashing, the bone-esque tip scouring against his leg. Blood poured down his leg.

Nicau yelped, stumbling back; the hound charged. He jerked the spear forward and managed a glancing blow on its shoulder, tearing shreds of deep red fur loose. The hound snarled, whipping around even as that motion ripped the spear's tip through its body, and sank its fangs into the meat of Nicau's calf.

He screamed. Some instinct took over and he pounded his fists into the beast's head, managing to find a soft spot between the base of its twin horns; the hound yelped, muffled, and retreated. Nicau panted.

The rational part of his mind that wasn't focused on how he was about to die noted that though the hound was linked to fire, it wasn't fully attuned or nearly as powerful as a fire mage would be. Even so, its breath and mouth was hot enough that Nicau's wound wasn't bleeding, not fully cauterized but blackened and stoppered nonetheless.

So he could die under the hound's claws instead of blood loss. Fucking fantastic.

Unfortunately, that same rational brain was too focused on blood to realize that with his injured leg versus the hound's four, Nicau wouldn't be faster, because he turned on his heel and sprinted deeper into the jungle.

Ferns whipped at his legs, the trees looming overhead; he half ran, half stumbled further on, jabbing out with his spear to push vines and hanging foliage aside. The beast howled, a raw, hungry sound, and took chase. He could hear it charging through the jungle with much more grace than him, the thump of its paws growing closer and closer–

Pain laced up his injured leg and he couldn't move it fast enough out of the way of a root. Nicau's toes hooked its underside and he plummeted, crashing hard into the rotting leaves; some small creature skittered away from him, scared from the impact, disappearing into the underbrush.

Nicau turned and saw the hound charging, eyes burning, jaws slavering.

Desperation flooded through him—would the Blessing of the Communer do anything? He doubted the hound had a language but maybe it did, maybe he didn't have to die here– "Stop!" He bellowed.

And something left him.

Some of that strange mana tight in his chest, next to the Name he stored alongside his soul; it flowed up through his lungs and burst through his mouth with a reverberating boom alongside his shouted command.

The hound, midway through its charge, stumbled. Its hind legs locked up like it wanted to stop but its front legs didn't know that, eyes confused past its fury, and it tripped.

Nicau saw it fall in slow motion. He rose to a crouch, braced the butt of his spear against the root, and prayed to every god that had ever existed.

Instead of its previous organized charge, the hound fell forward in a tangle of responsive and unresponsive limbs and impaled its horned head into Nicau's spear with a sickening crunch.

Blood exploded, steaming and bubbling, as the hound collapsed. Its limbs twitching weakly once, twice, then slumped to a standstill. The spear had punctured directly through its brain.

Nicau sat there, the hound half laying over its body, its still-open jaws a mere foot from his throat, and just breathed for a second. He'd deserved it.

But eventually, the near-scalding blood dripping over his legs got too painful and he managed to shove the corpse off him, stumbling up to his feet. His calf burned with pain, heart beating wildly in his chest, the stored mana he had working overtime to try and heal him up.

And Nicau looked down on the body of the creature he had just killed.

Not a pigeon, not even a greater pigeon, something potentially dangerous but more often a pest. No. This was a true threat, something that would require adventurers to be dispatched to take out, and could fetch a pretty price from a nightmarketer who would then turn around and make an even prettier price from a different market. This was a monster.

And he had killed it.

Even past the pain, even past the mana-exhaustion he could feel filtering through his thoughts, Nicau felt himself burst with pride.

-

It pained me more than I cared to admit, but I only let the luminous constrictors charge at the mage rat for a few feet before I supplexed my way into all of their minds.

No killing her, I near-bellowed, feeling their fragile thoughts crumble and crack under the pressure of my direct will—but I had to be that forward. These little bastards had a near cult-like devotion to the horned serpent, and if she wanted my beautiful mage rat dead, then I would have to work to make sure that no, she would not die.

The horned serpent, who also got a blast of my message, hissed. Her crystalline antlers shone with an inner light, some sort of command wavering on the edge of her thoughts. I pressed a touch harder.

With another hiss, she dropped the mana and begrudgingly slithered away from the mage rat. Her constrictors followed immediately, turning away from the mage rat like they couldn't even see her, too focused on their little tyrant.

I let my points of awareness sag. Goodness.

The problem was, I would be happy letting them fight to the death if only they weren't two of my more favourite creatures at the moment. The mage rat had just evolved and was working her way towards being the first fully attuned creature in my halls, and the horned serpent had been one of my very first threats and was now building her own empire.

So having one kill the other would be only harming myself, no matter how nice their individual schemas would be to have. Fantastic.

Perhaps even more begrudgingly than the horned serpent, I slunk off to help them divide up the territory.

The horned serpent wanted to live in this stone jungle, commanding her reptilian army to go out and hunt while she stayed here, which was fine. Her powers would work best in the choking tunnels but already she was taking on a different role, and I had little doubt that a few of her underlings would evolve into horned serpents of their own as they followed her rule. My original plan would still work.

In contrast, the mage rat was only here temporarily as she worked up her strength; while the stone jungle had plants, in the form of the billowing moss carpeting the floor and the green algae I'd strung all over my stone trunks in a facsimile of actual leaves, the twisting tunnels beyond had much more material for her to control with her jadestone attunement. She was just building up her strength and skills before heading back to the tunnels.

So a temporary truce was all. I'm sure they could survive that. Maybe.

I scattered a few more points of awareness around before flying back to my fifth floor.

It was coming beautifully along, dozens upon dozens of flying creatures darting above as the islands wavered and creaked. A few eyeblight caterpillars were already tucked away in cocoons, ready to reach their secondary form, and then my number of threats would increase even moreso. I'd already claimed the schema of the swarming wasp after a baterwaul had gotten an early meal and now I had near hundreds of them all around the place, roving clouds of danger.

Interestingly enough, they were actually fighting with their fellow evolution, the groundbreaker ants. While the ants used their metallic mandibles to carve into the earth and build their nests, the wasps would then swarm and kill the ants there, both giving me the schema but also claiming the nest for themselves. Since their stingers were more for killing fleshy things, they couldn't bore into the stone that made up my halls to make a proper den. But the ants could.

A little parasitic relationship. I found myself curious how the ants would respond.

But that was a question for a later day, given that it would be a while until they evolved. Although I was always fond of holding out hope that they would evolve soon, giving me all the bright shinies in the world when it came to creatures who–

Something moved outside my first floor.