Dragonheart Core

A mottled scorpion scuttled its way over the fifth floor.

They were large but compact, nearly three, four feet in diameter, but squat and heavily armoured. Its carapace was dappled in browns and greens, enormous claws clicking as it hunted over the Skylands, searching for whatever scraps of meat could be found.

Not a lot, unfortunately. The three others I'd shaped had already eaten the downed corpses.

I watched them with a flitting curiosity, letting them meander over the open space. Their camouflage was wasted here, too many earthy tones for the plain greys of limestone and the marbled pink-white-black of granite. They needed a floor full of trees, wide and sprawling trees that dropped leaves by the pound but still grew enough to let the light splatter between them. Something for their dappled chitin to actually hide amongst.

But I needed other floors first. Fire, or maybe water, something larger and more themed for beasts like the sarco and Seros. And a jungle on top of that mess, of course, where the kobolds could move and thrive. Terrible. I wanted to complete more floors before moving on, but I was running out of options. The schemas I had were being wasted on the floors I was putting them in.

Although if I could build twin floors, maybe construct two at a time to get those initial schemas flowing down before filling in their predecessors. Merit to that thought, especially since I had so many plans for the Skylands–

Mayalle's connection thrummed deep, fang-like mana stabbing through my awareness. Something was wrong.

I flew to the Underlake, points of awareness snapping to attention—but there were less than I remembered. Still plenty of ambient mana around, no reason for them to be disappearing; but I had to pull more from the surrounding floors just to see.

The whirlpool was failing.

Not quickly, not with any instant collapse; but its great sweeping arms were spluttering, falling in on themselves as the pressure couldn't keep up with the current. Mayalle's mana pushed, tugged through my Otherworld connection as her subconscious fed her boon to me; but something was eating at the mana. Consuming it faster than she could refill it.

A shadow swept forward through the tunnel.

More of my mana withered away, ambient power tugged through what should have been an impenetrable barrier stretched over the entrance—this was wrong. My dungeon barriers prevented mana from escaping, prevented outside mana from coming in. But then why was Mayalle's whirlpool falling apart? I stabbed points of awareness towards the tunnel. Something was out there.

I got my answer. A shark swam into view.

It wasn't so much large as painfully enormous, longer than Seros, longer than the sarco; fifty feet long, streamlined, fins like sailcloths. A roughwater shark could have swam into its open mouth unhindered. Except something was wrong with its mouth, set too high on its head; a second slit opened beneath. I shrunk back despite myself.

Twin mouths, enormous and gaping, lined with teeth like a knife's edge. A thin strip separated to two, yawning forward like a cavern's opening, impossibly large and frankly impractical. It didn't have a dorsal fin so much as dorsal spines, lining its back like a mimicry of its own fangs, useless for steering. Its tail swept languishly as it moved forward, finally breaching the entrance of my dungeon. More of my mana disappeared.

And it was pitch black.

I didn't have a spine, but a chill crept down it nonetheless.

Creatures looked like they did for a reason. Camouflage, hunting strategy, but just as frequently for warding off predators, defending themselves, mating, mana collection; any number of things. And I had been the farthest stretches of Aiqith, had stretched my mighty wingspan across all numerous places where many-hued and many-limbed creatures lived. But this creature didn't make sense. None of its features worked with each other. Everything was wrong.

I had never seen something that looked like this.

But I had heard of them.

There was Aiqith, yes. The world where all the poor schmucks cursed with mortality lived. Then there was the Otherworld, birthplace of mana; the nameless land above, where gods and deities dwelled; and one more. One beneath, one some of the older veterans might remember, when beasts had spilled out from beneath the world and clawed their way to the surface.

Underlings from the Underdark.

This shark was one of them.

Why it was here, why it wasn't banished, why it hadn't already swallowed Calarata—not questions I had the time to answer, because my mana was flying off my floors and my creatures needed to move.

Go! I roared, echoing through all my floors; Seros jerked awake down on the Skylands, the sarco raising his head from his sleeping perch, kobolds and serpents and spiders and eels all arising as one.

The shark paused, seeming to notice as the mana it had been so rudely absorbing tried to leave its presence. It swam the rest of the way forward, moving slow. With its pitch skin it was impossible to tell where one part started and another ended, all lost like the space between stars, only the jagged spikes of its dorsal spines and the white of its fangs visible.

I felt very small.

Some of that particular feeling was helped by the fact that any point of awareness I moved too close got popped, the mana making it up dissolving into a flow directly to the thing's heart like a goddamn funnel. What was this power? Why couldn't I stop it?

Greater crabs, not yet fully grown but very close, swarmed from underneath, fluttering at the water as they surged upward, hungry for anything to satiate their hunger; roughwater sharks, uncaring at their vastly inferior size, piled in for the challenge; armourback sturgeons, led by the eldest and the largest, charged from the sandy depths.

The shark watched them all approach.

Its aura flared and every creature flinched, raw mana tugged from their channels and spiraling towards their enemy. It wasn't strengthened by the power, barely reacting, but my creatures were weakened. Were confused.

It swam forward, moving slowly seemingly not from a desire but from an inability to fully stretch, as massive as it was. Its tail had barely left the outer tunnel and already its first maw poked through the bloodline kelp, moving further through my floor. Its skin shredded the kelp, ripping it to useless little chunks seemingly without effort. It was practically clearcutting one of the more resilient parts of my dungeon.

A roughwater shark reached it first. Ignoring the mana drain, she darted forward with powerful swipes of her tail, jaws cranked open wide. She swam in from the side, the only intelligent thought she could muster, and dove.

The shark hissed, a bloody impossible sound that sharks should not make, and spun to face her. She had a moment to regret her decision before twin maws took off her head and another took off her side.

It swallowed her nearly whole, but its throat and gills didn't expand in the way I was familiar with sharks, needing that movement to push things down to their stomach. Like it didn't have a stomach, or didn't need one; like everything that entered it was dissolved all the same.

Revulsion crawled over me. This thing was wrong.

My mana wasn't so much being absorbed as fleeing from me, more and more points of awareness popping like inconsequential bubbles; I tore at my control, urging more and more creatures forward as the shark swam further in. Its eyes, the same pitch black as its body but somehow distinct, swiveled to stare at my halls. An alien intelligence lurked there. I had no idea what it was thinking.

One of the few electric eels in the Underlake swam forward, her school of electric silverheads swarming around her; only a moment to charge up her mana and she spat a bolt of lightning, bouncing off her surrounding school, and fired it to the shark. Raw electricity crackled forward, stunning those even around its path, knifing through the water–

And sunk harmlessly into the shark's inky skin. There wasn't even a reaction.

Looked like mana wouldn't do shit to this monster. I needed fighters.

And finally, finally, both Seros and the sarco had made their way to the center of the Underlake.

The sarco arrived first, having only needed to get his slow ass through half a floor; he pushed his way through the bloodline kelp, eyes bright and hungry. I darted into his mind, using double my usual mana just to communicate; I couldn't risk him charging forward when the kelp reduced so much visibility. My points of awareness spiraled around us, keeping track of the beast as it moved—now.

The sarco darted back just as the shark pushed through the last stretch, shredding the kelp in its wake, and emerged into a small clearing. The two behemoths faced each other.

In face of this beast, the sarco almost looked small. He also looked deeply uncomfortable with that fact. I could relate.

He bellowed, bubbles exploding from his jaws; the shark hissed. It had been sizing up my dungeon, passive except when threatened, but it didn't seem to like the sarco, and certainly not the danger he posed. It shifted, both maws open.

And that was when Seros, his iridescent blue-green scales keeping him from being immediately spotted, swam underneath. Even with the shark ripping at his mana he pulled on his blessing, on his Name, and his hydrokinesis surged to life.

With the groan of moving water, the shark's forward momentum stopped; water wrapped around it, grasping at its fins and tail, pinning it in place. If this were a regular shark, it would have start choking, needing the constant flow of water over its gills to deliver oxygen to its lungs; but of course this wasn't a regular fucking shark.

Seros hissed, claws glinting as he reached for more power. The water that held the shark was only moved by mana, not made of it, so while it weakened and needed constant attention, it was holding even against the drain. But Seros had limited stores and I was running dry enough that I couldn't help him maintain it. The sarco needed to move now.

He bellowed and charged.

Even with his jaws cranked open he couldn't match the double maws of the shark; he figured that out with my helpful addition of screaming in his head and swam down, narrowingly avoiding the shark's lunge for his back. Seros hissed, eyes glowing a blinding blue as he tried to keep his hydrokinesis active, already the shark managing to shift though not outright move.

The sarco raked his claws on the shark's underbelly, ripping out void instead of blood, hazing through the water like a squid's ink. The beast hissed, lashing against the hydrokinesis; its tail sliced through the sarco's back like a blade, biting deep through scales like they weren't even present.

More creatures swarmed in, hungry for any chance to refill the mana fleeing their system, too stupid to see that this was clearly not a normal monster; they flew around the sarco, schools of silvertooths and silverheads. One cloud spiraled in, led by the royal silvertooth, and they were the only ones who actually attacked from the sides, gnawing desperately at the beast's seemingly impenetrable skin. It hissed, thrashing, still consumed with trying to rip the sarco to shreds. Its aura tugged on the mana surrounding it; weaker silverheads died, ripped open and empty, others shuddering and unable to attack. But Seros and the sarco held strong, keeping the shark's attention, ripping more and more void from its inky skin.

And the silver krait, though twitching and writhing from the mana being ripped from his channels, slithered down from overtop and bit through one of the shark's dorsal spines.

Unlike others, the shark noticed the attack immediately; it stiffened, sheer will breaking through Seros' command as it spun, double maws tearing at the water for whatever had dared attack it. Seros hissed, eyes glowing, but his mana was down to scraps, barely enough to keep him from being killed by the shark's drain, let alone keep up his hydrokinesis. The sarco punched his fangs through the shark's side but it spun around to face him, only barely slowed by Seros' efforts–

And the thought struck me. I'd prepared for this. I'd known of invaders draining my ambient mana.

I spread out my awareness through the rest of my floors, to pockets and dens and veins I'd carved through the walls and placed gems in. Gems that had grown plump and fat off my ambient mana, gems ready and ripe for the taking.

I tore out their mana with a hunger I hadn't felt in years.

Mana roared through me, fresh and full—I flew back to the Underlake and shoved it at Seros, pouring it through our connection even as the shark took more and more from me. Seros flinched, unused to the power, but redoubled his efforts. The shark's second maw froze an instant before carving through the sarco's tail.

He bellowed, twisting his tail up even as he completed his spin; armoured scales slammed into the shark's underbelly but Seros kept it from being blown back, stuck thrashing. The royal silvertooth took what remaining soldiers he had and threw them at the shark's back, gnawing through its dorsal spines; the eldest armourback sturgeon charged upward, slamming his scaled head on the bottom of its second jaw. More and more drained into its heart, creatures spiraling around it and spilling void into the open waters of the Underlake. Seros screamed, blood pouring from under his scales as he used the last scraps of mana I could give him, holding the monster in place for just a second longer, silvertooths and sturgeons and crabs all ripping at its side.

Until the sarco managed to swim underneath, latch his jaws right around the shark's head, and spin. Seros held it in place and the sarco, though beaten and bloody, was strong.

With a last shrieking roar, he ripped the beast's head off.

Void exploded through the Underlake, murking the water until even I couldn't see anything, its body sinking to the bottom—both Seros and the sarco sagged, exhausted, their mana channels running well past dry.

It was dead.

There was no moment to celebrate; even its corpse kept absorbing mana, ripping away at my control, not needing to be alive to continue to drag what fucked up land it came from here. I tore into it, shredding it into impossibly black pieces, forcing more and more mana into the action until it finally collapsed, disappearing into murky swirls of light. Dead. Gone.

Mana exploded outward, rippling through the air in an explosion that shook at the very foundations of my dungeon; creatures and I alike howled, thrown back. Those that had participated in the kill glowed brighter than they ever had before, mana flooding their channels, power churning through their thoughts; but it wasn't the beast's mana. I could feel that, gingerly reaching out my awareness once the blast was gone, just what it had absorbed from my dungeon. Not even all of it by a longshot.

Just what the beast hadn't managed to digest before we'd killed it.

The Underlake shuddered in its absence.

I could feel a message begin to cross my core before stopping, hesitating. Whatever god controlled my powers didn't want me to have this schema.

Well, I was pretty damn certain I wouldn't be making any of these bastards; not near enough ambient mana to maintain their starvation and no particular desire in having something that could so easily destroy my home. But I wanted to know what the fucking thing was. I needed to know.

I pushed against the hesitance, sending thoughts of confusion and need through what slim connection I had to that nameless god above; the message trembled, caught between obeying the laws of power and the will of the god. I pushed harder.

It caved.

Pitch-Shark (???)

A beast from the abyss. Absence carved into a shark's form, ripped from the Underdark. It is not of Aiqith and does not belong here.

Somewhere in the pits of my core, I felt the schema snap into place, ready to be used. More… aware than my others, reaching out even without attention. Like it wanted to be made.

Gods. What was that thing?