Dragonheart Core

Chapter 169: A Whole New World

"Um," Nicau said.

Chieftess didn't reply, because she was a touch busy shoving her entire face into the dirt. The dirt of the Overlook, of the outside world—something past the dungeon. Her first taste of Aiqith.

Her first literal taste, because Nicau was pretty sure she'd just licked it.

Overhead, the moon gleamed in a half-crescent between silvertine clouds, an eve of the approaching wet season. Warm air, kissed with a sea-wrung breeze, drifted through the altitude to settle on his shoulders. He inhaled, holding it for as long as he could.

The dungeon gave him every shade of variety, a hundred different paths he could walk down and find a new environment around each corner, but there was something about familiarity that curled between his ribs like a family dog. Comforted, almost.

For her part, Chieftess seemed less comforted and more losing-her-mind. Which. Understandable. If Nicau had been born in the dungeon, he imagined the sight of Calarata would cause something close to a nervous collapse. At least she seemed to be excited rather than frightened of how large the world actually was.

Behind her, the lone kobold warrior hissed, irritation bubbling around his crimson-scarlet scales. Slung over his back was Aedan, nursing closed eyes and a welt the size of a rat upside the head—an homage, in a way, to Chieftess knocking Nicau out when he'd been so lovingly welcomed into the dungeon's fold.

But Aedan was being taken out, dumped in Calarata, never to see the dungeon again. Nicau… honestly couldn't tell who had gotten the better deal between the two of them. Power, yes, and a Name alongside it, as well as the newly minted task to smuggle four kobolds through Calarata, a city more akin to a murderpot than anything with lenient infrastructure, which, well. That was his life.

At least he'd chosen the Overlook for this expressed purpose—it was a maze of switchbacks and limited vantage points, meant to overlook the city without being accessed by the filthy poors, up until the nobles that thought themselves kings had been taken out by an avalanche. He could go down a few layers, dump Aedan, and then go horizontal over the Alómbra Mountains—disappear before Calarata ever got a taste for his existence, which was exactly how he preferred it. Though he trusted Gonçal not to go blabbing about his true power, he also didn't want the Marquesa de Wolf to pop out of the shadows and strike another deal. Once was plenty.

"We're going down," he said, gesturing over the city proper. "Just enough to leave him, then go to the jungle."

Chieftess churred, contemplative. "Many tribes," she said, staring at one of the distant houses—probably a den to her eyes. "All together?"

"Not kobolds," Nicau said, with only partial certainty. "Invaders."

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She bared her fangs, eyes glowing. "Humans."

It was… maybe a touch worrying that the entire population of kobolds seemed plenty fine to feast on human flesh without ever truly acknowledging he himself was human, but Nicau was electing to ignore that. He nodded. "Lots of them," he said, shaking his head. "We don't want to be seen. Or fight."

Chieftess warbled disappointment.

But, as the kobold warrior hiked Aedan's limp body higher on his shoulders and the two hunters spread out to cover their flanks, it was time to move—he wanted to be out of Calarata long before the sun rose, in any chance of avoiding being seen. And he knew from unfortunate experience that it took far bloody longer than he wanted to climb down the mountain. On they went.

After three switchbacks, they reached the upper echelons of the city, though not to be confused with wealthy subdistricts—this was still in avalanche territory, prone to falling or being fallen upon, and what buildings poked from the mountain back like snaggled teeth were just worn brick and mud-packed walls. Nicau crept forward with a spider's hesitancy, ears pricked, eyes wide—but no one came out. Calarata's nightlife was typically reserved for drunkards down at the docks or murderers, who also did not particularly want to be seen.

"This way," he whispered, tugging Chieftess' attention back to him. She dropped a piece of gravel and padded after, head on a swivel—every inch of her seemed to quiver with excitement, like traveling to a new world. Even something as mundane as the packed dirt of the road filled her to the brim.

But thankfully, where came shitty buildings brought shitty alleys, and some four levels down from the Overlook Nicau turned a corner with his heart in his throat and found a narrow pathway, stuffed between the gaps of buildings that likely should have just attached to each other.

Obscured, tucked away. As safe as one could get in Calarata. Nicau walked a little further in, kicking aside the rotted boards of a pallet just to confirm no streetrat pigeoncatcher was underneath. Nothing but paper, ink bleeding through a shoddy drawing of the Adventuring Guild. "Here," he said, gesturing at the back wall.

With a rumble of relief, the kobold warrior let Aedan tumble off his shoulders and hit the ground with an unpleasant crunch. Shit.

He was probably fine.

"We're leaving him," Nicau explained, as one of the hunters made a half-aborted gesture to extend her claws. "Not killing. Just leaving."

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She hissed in vague irritation but turned away, drinking in the alley wall—the bricks in particular, kiln-hardened, stable. Not just stone, carved and shaped by the dungeon; something created, something chosen. And the tiles overhead, protected from flying creatures and rain alike, layered on themselves like a kobold's scales. The hardened path for ease of movement and transport. The gaps for mist-clouded windows. The metal braces.

He would guess that the kobold tribe would be experiencing some changes in the upcoming future. Just as long as they got back.

Nicau hesitated, looking around. No one to kill the priest. Presumably. But the dungeon wasn't exactly the kind, sweet-souled thing that allowed for freedom without servitude—hells, he was a perfect example—and he imagined there was a reason Aedan was being released instead of slain. If his god wanted him protected, they could handle it. Nicau had brought him out of the dungeon, and he'd called that accomplished enough.

Although, well–

Nicau crouched, bringing one of his gourds forward. Chieftess warbled something curious in her throat as she leaned in to watch, amber-gold eyes bright. Having an audience made it a touch more awkward, but it wasn't like she understood the situation enough to judge.

Carefully, he took the hem of Aedan's robes, the ones woven and dipped in moss, heavy and emerald-green. It scraped off easily under his nails, shredding apart into root and stem, and he dumped a few handfuls into one of his storage gourds for later. Hopefully it was a new species.

"That is collecting?" Chieftess asked, head tilted. Her crown of horns gleamed in the twilight.

"Creatures and plants," Nicau said, bobbing his head. Aedan slumped back to the stone, still blissfully unconscious. Nicau should… probably wake him up to explain the situation, but with how vindictive the dungeon was, he'd hazard a guess the poor fucker had been threatened enough to keep his trap shut. "But of the jungle, not here."

"Collecting," Chieftess repeated, curious. Behind her, one of the kobold hunters warbled a wordless approval. "To make more of us."

"More of everything," Nicau said, then frowned. "Particularly trees. It wants trees."

Her head tilted further. "More than blood-thorn and water-mist?"

Vampiric mangrove and cloudsire palm, the only two trees she'd ever seen. Hells, Nicau had grabbed the initial leaf for the cloudsire palm as a backpack, something to store larger body parts in while traveling alone; it was likely one of the lesser trees in all of the Myvnu Jungle. "Dozens more," he promised, searching for proper words in their still-developing language. "Species you've never known, all running around. The jungle is unlike anything you've ever seen."

Chieftess' golden eyes gleamed. "Go," she said, a warble-hiss. "Go now. Fast."

Hells if she wasn't impatient when she heard of more—her tail almost wagged as she looked over Calarata, the sea-swept walls, the spidered docks, the cobbled paths. Thousands of souls, slumbering or fighting or hunting, all waiting for the next day. And the next. A microcosm of an existence.

Calarata, the Dread Pirate, his obsidian fist. The legacy of horrors he'd carved into what had been a fishing village, then a pirate hotspot, then a tangle of murder and madness. Home, yes, and any change he imagined would destroy what it was, but–

The dungeon killed. But the dungeon also created, and Nicau could not remember the Dread Pirate creating anything other than terror in a very long time.

"This way," Nicau said, and turned back to the switchbacks—to the thin, ramshackle path that led alongside the Alómbra Mountain's flanks, rather than descending to Calarata proper. Their way to the Myvnu Jungle. "It's time you see the world."

-

He had found himself.

The jeweled jumper lived, because he did not die, but he was living again—finding excitement instead of boredom. A new world he'd found outside of the had-been-home, and once again was it bringing worthy prey to his fangs. To his venom.

The grey-green-beasts died and they died easily, one bite, one snap of his fangs—though they were endless in number, they were never a challenge. Over time, he had grown to see them like the had-been-home, a land where death was never promised and he was little more than one spectre amidst many. A killer in the shadows, Ikiar. But not death. Never feared.

The grey-green-beasts feared him, but they died easily. That was useless fear. It was fear that was inevitable instead of uncertain. But then he had killed the one at the front, that stood tall, that shouted its think-words to bite all those beneath it. Not a fight, not a challenge, dying to a singular bite like all others he left in his wake—then the others changed.

Still weak. Still useless. But in their ranks were those more—those tall and broad, still grey-green but monsters instead of beasts, towering things. Their think-words rumbled like the mountain, heavy, pressing. They struck stone and broke it, carved things, made shapes. Bigger than even the scaled-beast he remembered from the had-been-home.

And there were even more.

Those with more limbs than two, walking down instead of up as all creatures should; no chitinous carapace but instead crystal, brightly coloured and impenetrable. He had walked over one's back while it slept and found no purchase for his fangs, even its eyes covered by shards. Others were those that dragged themselves with dripping, bulbous skin, proving he still had more words to learn in an effort to describe it, maw large enough to swallow a grey-green-beast whole. A third that chittered and hissed like himself but towering overhead, armour instead of carapace, eyes impossibly large.

Beyond the crystalline beast, none looked as though they should be in mountains, in rock and stone. All were threats. All were challenges.

The jeweled jumper reveled. He allowed himself to slow down, to choose only targets he wanted—an ever-present death, rather than destroying his fun too quickly. Ikiar, they shouted, again and again, but kept supplying more of these stronger monsters. Kept bringing them in from crevasses he couldn't find.

They were preparing for something, that he knew. Think-words were useless but they were saying them more and more, shouting, never standing in the spot where the one grey-green-beast had stood but surrounding it, surrounding its corpse.

They were going to a fight. Challenging something else within the mountain, as though they believed another creature had been the one to kill their monsters. As though they thought he was just a claw on another beast's body, acting to their will.

No.

He would follow them to this war, see who they fought, and destroy them himself. Prove his strength. Watch his venom wither away their challenge.

The jeweled jumper did not lose.