Dragonheart Core

I faced my first floor.

It had grown past its initial roots, no longer small and stunted but grown. A thousand feet long, eight hundred wide, full of pillars and dens and stalactites and stalagmites and all manners of glorious little things I'd worked hard to perfect. And now it was time to finish it, once and for all.

There wasn't much to change, though. I'd polished almost everything, improving and honing it to a knife's edge. A few changes in the future, sure; when the shardrunner spiders finished evolving and I figured out if they had a spot on the first floor, or whether the bears would stay here or eventually move down. But those were minor things. I was done waiting.

First was the new schemas Nicau had been so generous to bring me—while most wouldn't work on this floor, too large or out of theme, there were a few that would. First was the moonstar flowers; while I still had plenty of time to wait to let them propagate, they would match beautifully well with the greed I wanted to foster on invaders, pulling them deeper into my depths to feed my creatures. I certainly wouldn't fill the floor, but even planting just the sprouts, trimming it every time it got flowers so they wouldn't ever be able to harvest the luck-granting plant, just as a way to imply deeper treasures to those who could recognize the leaves. Little things like that, similar to the gem-filled dens of rats. While there were plenty of—I presumed—very expensive things on this floor, the invaders would have to wonder. Was there more on later floors?

And by the time they'd had that thought, it was already too late.

The only other would be the creeping vine. I'd had time to think it over while my mana slowly recollected itself after I'd tested out the schemas, and the vine was the only one I felt enhanced the theme of the floor. Everything else was too large or flashy for what was supposed to be an entrancing first floor. So. Vine it was.

And I had a beautiful little plan for it.

It crept towards water and stayed; so what if I could move and adjust the water? In the past with invaders, I'd struggled with changing things because those with any mana capacity could tell when my ambient mana shifted, able to know I was reacting or even able to track what I was doing if they were skilled enough. Uniquely infuriating. But if, say, those invaders were on my second or third floor, would they notice me fiddling with something on the first? A rather high chance no.

So I reached out, clearing away the algae and cave spider webs from directly above the twin doorways, poking out on either side of the little outcropping I'd made. I carved a little hollow from the main attachments to sit, dragging a tunnel through the limestone from the mountain river overhead, and let it splash into the divot filling it slowly but not overly full as to drown it. I chucked several pounds of creeping vine over the doorways.

It wasn't only one vine per plant, interestingly enough; each was a bundled collection of emerald green or earthy brown vines, all wrapped around each other with a ridged, knobbly skin that looked already more defensive than most plants. It twitched as I created it, reaching out with thin, microscopic hairs moving in unison over its length to shift it forward, and immediately found the water I'd placed for it.

All of its various vines turned back to the source, drinking as fast as the river replenished it. Perfect. So instead of moving, they stayed as twin clumps above the entrances, shifting and rustling like a ball of snakes. Maybe a little noticeable, but I had all my stalactites glimmering with jewels and precious metals. Hopefully they'd pay attention to those instead.

Then, by the feet of the entrances, I created another shallow divot, carving a hole through the surrounding limestone to constantly fill with water; overflow would trickle down through the soft incline I'd made on the first floor, whatever wasn't drank by the rows of green algae and whitecaps ending up in the rock pond.

But that was a close source of water. I reached back up, digging into the stone; I raised a thin barrier to the river water and closed it off.

There was still enough in the little puddle there wasn't an immediate reaction from the creeping vine, still drinking. I waited.

The water ran out eventually. The plant twitched, its jumble of vines that somehow functioned as a brain unable to comprehend not having water. What to do? It shuddered, trying desperately to cram a single thought together.

Then its smaller vines extended, their microscopic hairs feeling around as they searched for water; as it traveled, I cleared out any water deposits on the surrounding walls, forcing the plant to search farther and farther, vines unfurling as it hunted. Not particularly fast, of course, but still moving.

Until at last they found the puddle at the bottom.

Every vine extended, reaching out with whatever the thirst equivalent of starving was; and right as they did so, I unblocked the original tunnel connecting to the river overhead, refilling the puddle.

I watched whatever neurons the plant had immediately fry, trapped between two options. Half the vines stayed at the original puddle, another half reaching down, and they accomplished exactly what I'd hoped for.

Instead of an opening, a faux wall of vines hid the way out.

It wasn't perfect—they weren't the same colour as the surrounding limestone, the vines not a solid barrier, a little too mobile to really be stone—but it was damn better than anything before. I'd already tried this with other entrances, but I couldn't just raise a barrier of stone every time I wanted to keep an invader inside. That would stop up one of my entrances, forcing me to have to reopen it and spend all that mana while also weakening my hold on my ambient powers; not worth it. Maybe as a last ditch effort, if someone truly too powerful tried to get out, but I didn't want that to be my only option. I wanted more.

Thus, I watched the creeping vine pretend to be a wall. And with the outcropping that kept the entrances out of sight from the center of the room anyway, I doubted the imperfections would be too visible. Those poor lost invaders would find themselves rather hopelessly lost.

At least I hoped.

But for now I let the puddle on the floor empty, forcing the plants to crawl back up to their hidden den above the entrances; there they waited until the next raid. Perfect.

As for the creatures, I couldn't think of anything to change; when I'd increased the size of the room, I'd also increased the population of nearly everything, and while I would have to tinker around with the exact numbers, I was happy with what I currently had. Several large rat colonies hunkering down with their gems, stone-backed toads barely surviving for long enough to reproduce before getting eaten by the armies of luminous constrictors, cave spiders caught in generational struggles to maintain territories to build webs. All the beauties I'd ever wanted.

As well as three new little treasures.

The three bear cubs were only just born, still fumbling and awkward in their mother's den, barely the size of her paw; but they would grow. I couldn't wait to see their full potential.

But there I sat, watching all the creatures move and bustle around, the mushrooms and algae shifting, water trickling down walls and pooling in the rock pond. The serpentine skeleton seemed to move in the flickering algae-light, its fanged maw distending; enormous bears slumbered in hidden dens, always hungry; the tunnel to the next floor sat in inky darkness.

Everything I'd wanted. I closed my points of awareness, reaching deep into my soul, and pulled out the title I had already given it.

The Fungal Gardens.

The entire floor shivered as the name sunk into its being, all creatures learning their true home; the Fungal Gardens, land of greed and gloom, bringer of deception.

Congratulations! Your floor has attracted the attention of the gods.

Some wish to become Patron of the Fungal Gardens. Please choose from the boons they present.

Ah. Perfection.

As with my other floors, I couldn't help but preen that I'd once again attracted the attention of the very beings that governed Aiqith; this was a beautiful confirmation that I was doing not just the correct thing, but a very well done correct thing. All of my work was beautiful and deserving of godly attention. I let their power simmer over me, feeling them arrive overhead with their power burning like distant stars, and…

Huh.

That was… a lot more than normal. Instead of the dozen from my first completed floor, maybe triple that for my second, this was over a hundred, maybe a hundred and a half; I'd never seen so many. And while I'd been expecting the number to keep increasing as I improved my skills and collected more schemas, but not at this rate.

I hesitated before going up to them, glancing around my Fungal Gardens. Was there something special about it? Maybe the gods liked the open space and opportunities for their special mana? Or maybe the floor itself, being–

Ah. Being the first floor.

Most gods granted me boons because being the patron of a dungeon floor meant they could spread their mana, allowing them to potentially collect new priests or followers. And there would be no better place for that than the first floor, where this was the newest mana would be initially felt. Admittedly, it was the first floor—so there was always the possibility that those feeling the mana would be those weak and unable to head down onto further floors, but that would still be more people.

So everyone was pulling out the stops.

I let go of my earthly bounds and drifted up, my consciousness reaching out to brush against the vast bubbles in the stars that made up the mere fraction of awareness each god was extending to me; I felt their amusement at my presence like the smell of distant fires and the crackle of mountaintop lightning. Powerful beyond my reckoning.

I was, of course, very polite as I asked what boon they offered.

Someone brimming with oceanic might offered air currents that functioned as water, pushing and tugging on invaders until they could barely keep their balance; another offered metallic pillars, reflecting and burnished until the barest fleck of light turned the entire cavern into a copy of the sun; one promised to fuel my amateur's efforts with the jewels, funneling her power into creating true mana sponges that would absorb all ambient mana to feed whatever creatures collected them.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone with the proffered boon of removing all spells cast on invaders when they entered; although I'd half expected it. That would be powerful, tricky magic and I couldn't think of any god who worked in that field beyond the God of Magic himself, and I rather doubted my floor would be up to his standards. A goal for another day.

I searched, drifting from god to god in this intangible, frozen time-space area I couldn't begin to comprehend. The goddess of fireflies back for a third time, someone filled with the smell of clay, the rasp of glass against stone–

And I stumbled across someone far behind the rest.

Her presence was inky black, the space between the stars, raw with ancient power; the back of my core seemed to buzz just from being close.

Nuvja, Goddess of Shadows.

Something I'd learned from my time interacting with these beings was that their title often carried a story. She was the goddess of specifically shadows; not darkness, not night, not the colour black or any of the other, larger concepts. And while this sometimes meant that the concept had only come into existence when sapient beings started to worship said thing and thus a god came into existence for it, I rather doubted that was the case with something as universally existing as shadows.

And judging from the harsh power that echoed through her presence, I imagined it was the other scenario; where perhaps she had been the goddess of all those things, but another god had come into existence and stolen them from her.

Some faint memory tickled the back of my awareness. For the Underlake, there had been another god offering a similar boon, though lazily and without effort, of an ever-present night to swallow all my creatures and keep invaders from seeing them. I hadn't accepted it in the past, not interested in hiding my floor over keeping people from escaping, but I remembered thinking about it.

Nuvja's presence sharpened to a knife's point.

Yes, she knew who I was thinking of.

I coughed. Not really my place to get into those godly politics.

But I couldn't look away from the boon she offered.

Hers was a powerful addition to my floor, awakening the shadows that lived and lurked there; while intangible and unable to attack, I could guide them to hide things, covering all manners of creatures and their attacks while retreating away from things I wanted to be seen, like all the gems and jewels I'd hidden to tempt invaders further in.

And not just creatures; my entrances as well.

With shadows, the imperfections of the creeping vines would be hidden; even close up, they would just look like another section of wall. And with the exit tunnel hidden as well, invaders couldn't try to remember the correct location by tracking where that landmark was. They would be lost, fumbling and confused, up until my creatures tore their throats out.

Nuvja's presence, cold and hard as it was, seemed to nod in approval. She liked my thoughts.

I also got the little niggling thought that perhaps she wasn't so much using this floor as a way to gather more followers, but more purely to work against whatever god had stolen some of her concepts. So an increase in the lethality of her boon was to be expected.

And I could hardly say no to that.

I extended myself to her, signing my name on the proffered contract some higher power had inscribed. She would grant me her boon, and I would keep any followers she sent to me for safe keeping. No god had sent one yet and I was getting the vague idea it was more of a general rule than anything anyone followed, which I was fine with. I signed.

Nuvja leaned, her incomprehensible presence shifting as she made to imprint her aura on the contract. She paused.

I felt her look at me, the space between stars looming before me, and she reached out to the contract.

Another clause was included.

Even as I reached forward to read, I felt the higher power stir, focusing its attention on us. Nuvja shifted from its awareness, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, but held strong; the contract flared as raw magic moved through it, examining the new clause, before eventually retreating; but the presence stayed. It watched.

I got the message. This was not normal.

I read it anyway.

The boon would still stand, the housing would still stand; but if I were to assist her in other endeavors, to declare an ally in issues she would bring to me, then her boon would improve. Expand beyond the boundaries that godly floor boons reached, perhaps strengthening in power, perhaps strengthening in scope.

Nuvja sat back and watched me.

I hovered rather hesitantly.

There was a worrying lack of specifics in this new clause she had added. Be an ally in what? Her fight with another god? Basic territorial disputes? And what about improving her boon; adding… more shadows to my floor? Maybe extending to other floors?

I didn't like risks. I was entirely opposed to them, really; and this was a risk beyond others. Whoever the higher power was that controlled this magic, it was not used to gods changing the contract; and though it had allowed this change, it had focused on it. Been aware of it. Was that something I was willing to risk?

But it was more power.

If I were to be Nuvja's ally in this… something, surely she would be giving me lots more power. Maybe the lack of specifics were for my benefit; if she had listed them out would the higher power not have accepted it? Was I grasping at straws for any potential chance at more power?

I was. And I wanted that power.

I didn't let myself think about it for another second; I reached out and accepted, imprinting my dungeon's True Name onto the contract. Nuvja answered in kind. I felt her presence… smile, for lack of a better word, the shadows wrapped around her form softening.

Then I was unceremoniously banished back down to my core as her mana swarmed around my Fungal Gardens.

The walls shivered as the shadows crept off them, reaching out with faint, trembling energy; they wrapped spectral darkness around my creatures, leaving them mere inky splotches shifting through the cavernous room as they hunted. The far corners of my halls disappeared, lost to the blackness, leaving only mere gaps of opening where gems gleamed. I could feel the shadows moving, guided by half my power and half Nuvja's lingering presence, ready to obey whatever command I had;

And something more, flickering beyond that. Waiting to be unlocked.

Waiting to hunt.