Dragonheart Core

Chapter 19: Twice Alike

Bullfrog, ironback toad, stone-tongue toad; I grabbed the remaining strands of consciousness from the mid-evolution toad and poked my way through them, absent-mindedly guiding him to stumble his way to a safe den for his rest. He was a brutish little creature, one of those that had come down from the first floor instead of being part of my seeding population; I could feel bits and strands of cave spider mana in his channels, something far above the normal flies and crickets most of his brethren fed on. Not a pacifist, then.

Despite how cowardly he'd acted when the greater crab had challenged him. Ah well.

No stone-tongue toad, then. As lovely as having creatures in my dungeon with more ranged options than the horned serpent would be, it didn't match with his particular style of hunting. Maybe for a later toad evolution. I tried to imagine an ironback toad, some sort of knightly amphibian strutting his way around and standing guard over the burrowing rats as they dug their nests through the stone of my walls; that would mesh well with my current floor set up, actually. Every time a burrowing rat got anywhere close to evolution it was quickly snatched up by a hungry kobold or luminous serpent, all the mana it'd gathered from nibbling down by whitecaps gone in a second. Such as with this current stone-backed toad, it took a massive, sudden influx of mana for my prey-ranked creatures to have a chance to evolve.

My attention strayed back to the first option.

The bullfrog. Losing his pebble-covered back protection in exchange for stone horns, turning in a prey's attitude for something that attacked at the slightest provocation; all well and good, especially in a dungeon where apparently my kobolds had to shake monsters to get them to attack, but one word kept drawing me back.

Frog.

I liked water, and I was plenty content with making sure my dungeon had it in excess. Already I was tracking the water levels of the underground river, planning out what my third floor would be; a massive, open room of nothing but water, greater crabs scuttling on the stony sand below, silverheads in spiraling baitfish schools, sturgeon casting sprawling shadows in their lazy swims overhead. I purred at the thought; I wanted water. I wanted Seros to have a territory he could truly claim as his own. And frogs were far more adept in water than toads.

But I had the crabs, didn't I?

Damned rational thoughts.

I couldn't predict how big the bullfrogs would get but I doubted it would be larger than the greater crabs, and even with earthen mana, their horns were comparable to claws. Another version of the predator I had just obtained.

My thoughts, as always, slipped back to the previous raid; where two adventurers, so proud and strong, had politely stomped their way through my first floor without so much as a problem. The only threat they had faced was handily defeated and currently running away deeper into the mountain.

Plan for now. I would have to let my dreams of a water-filled third floor rest until I had the strength to defend it; I grimaced and moaned but pressed ironback toad.

Another stone-backed toad would reach the evolution point eventually, and it had better have the bullfrog evolution option available.

The toad croaked once, a pale glow fully overtaking his warty skin as he slumped to a comfortable sprawl at the bottom of his den. Already I could see the earthen mana start to shift, taking on more and more metallic properties as he evolved; maybe with his new honour system, he could start defending other toads to help them evolve.

That was my current biggest problem, really. I had all these fantastic evolutions that I had seen, only a handful obtained; but of those I had obtained, very few were actually… increasing.

Sure, my silvertooths and electric silverheads were breeding—breeding a lot, actually, dozens of eggs already laid and growing—but for things like my horned serpent or armourback sturgeon? I couldn't make more until others of their species evolved, or they died.

The second was certainly not an option.

I pushed my way back up to the first floor, idly shifting through a half point of mana as I tended to my fungal gardens; the food chain up here was rather complete. Whitecap mushrooms and lacecaps at the very bottom, fed by the algae wall constantly dripping water over the ground. Dozens upon dozens of bugs I didn't care enough to focus on beyond keeping my populations of them steady fit the next layer, nibbling away at the mushrooms and growing fat and bloated with my mana, only to be promptly eaten by my cave spiders and stone-backed toads. The burrowing rats shifted between a diet of mushrooms and insects when they could snag them, and then they and the toads were in turn eaten by the luminous serpents.

And when the serpents had reached their peak, they grew confident enough to make the trip to the second floor, where they promptly left their position as apex predator and had to start fighting for their life again.

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That was how a dungeon functioned. No creature was truly the strongest, as there was always a deeper floor to go to, one filled with both richer mana to satiate their hunger and stronger creatures to make them work for it. Every time a cave spider made the treacherous leap over the rock pond I celebrated alongside them, every time a burrowing rat successfully avoided a kobold's grasping claws and dined on more mana I cheered.

Seeing my creatures grow and thrive was what I wanted.

Seros raised his head as I poked a point of awareness back into his den, curled up as he was on his comfortable bed of algae; a luminous serpent's mana diffused through his channels. Back from a hunt, then.

The canals were infinitely better for him than the miniscule rock pond of the first floor was, even past the fact that he was near thirteen feet long and it was roughly twenty in diameter. The presence of a current meant he could truly practice his hydrokinesis, fighting against the drag to bend the waters to his might; hells, with the point of awareness I had always locked to him, I had seen him kick up infant waves with a curl of his claws. Already he was living up to his name as a seabound monitor.

I couldn't wait to see where he went next.

Hello, I pressed through our connection, my thoughts spiraling down a sappy hatchling's path as his tail flicked happily with the attention. Walk with me?

He blinked but rose to his claws, shaking off the call of sleep; he needed to eat more than I had as a dragon, maybe once a week or so, but he also only had to sleep for a day after the kill. Significantly better than the months I'd dozed away after a large enough whale.

Seros pushed his way out of the den I'd carved for him, padding around my silver pillar with a brief glance to my core. He seemed content just to meander, choosing a direction at random and slipping into the canal to swim, heading to the left. I followed.

If I wanted to start building my third floor, I needed to make sure my second was up to snuff.

The vampiric mangroves had thrived over the past week, their bark darkening to a rich scarlet as they took in more blood and vitality from their hapless victims. My surviving burrowing rats had started to figure out that they should really avoid the trees, no matter how much protection they provided from the kobolds, and now the mangroves had started to extend out their roots to hunt for more prey. Even now Seros passed over a silverhead gasping weakly on the riverbed, the last of its blood leaking through a gash on its side. Each of the canals was a tangled mess of roots and thorns, impossible to safely travel through without losing at least a touch of blood.

Unless you were armoured, as Seros was. He nosed his way under the drooping root of a mangrove; it shuddered and did its damnedest to stab him. His glorious teal-blue scales never so much as shifted.

He wriggled around a bend, claws curling as he tugged the current back to guide him. I followed with a half point of mana, gnawing at the edges of the wall to make his path easier. He would be the guide to help me make sure everything was right.

I paused.

Wait, I asked, Seros dutifully securing himself to the riverbed. I reached out and grabbed all my various points of awareness, getting one last glance of my floors and creatures, before shutting them off. I hunted for the Otherworld song that connected our two souls.

Then I slipped fully into Seros' mind.

…woah.

By my best guess, it had been around a month since I'd started my dungeon, a month since losing my old life; as such, I had, ah, quite forgotten how a mortal body felt.

It was a lot.

I could feel the need for air, the ripple of his gills as he inhaled water, the scratch of his claws against the stony sand of the ground, the push and sway of the current against the frills on his back and tail. He had to blink, losing sight for precious seconds, he had a swell in his stomach and siren's call of rest, even a faint twinge of stiffness behind a patch of scales he was ready to shed.

Gods. I'd forgotten how many things mortal creatures had to deal with. I certainly didn't miss having to remember to breathe.

Seros crooned curiously at me, his throat vibrating with the sound and bubbles rising from his snout. That felt odd as well.

His sight, too—as a core, I was, well, very small; but my awareness stretched all the lengths of my halls, hundreds of feet. I could inflate a point of awareness until it loomed over my entire first floor or shrink it down enough to flit between the claws on a kobold's paw. Seros had one size.

Terrible. I would enter his mind only for special occasions.

Go, I said, and he rumbled back and continued swimming.

We ventured deeper into the second floor, twisting past mangrove roots and rocky outcroppings. Silverheads schooled like metallic clouds, the green algae-light from above catching on their scales and flashing over the canals. The electric eel, safely tucked away under a stony ledge, watched Seros pass with lightning-attuned mana flickering in the ridges on his side.

The snapping turtle, still with a back covered in various moss and algae, gave a halfhearted glance in Seros' direction before meandering deeper underwater. I glared at it. I should've just sent the cave bear to kill it.

But gods if I wasn't stubborn. The kobolds would eventually handle it.

Seros popped his head up in the large middle room, scrabbling up the bare section of shore that wasn't covered in mangrove roots. A family of burrowing rats threw themselves deeper into their den with a panicked squeak.

From his perspective, the room was enormous, thirty feet high and ripe with towering trees. The canals lapped softly at the stony soil, algae slick over their surface, mushrooms sheltering in the alcoves away from the light. To Seros, it was one of the most impressive things he'd ever seen. I preened at the praise.

But to me, I could see where it could be improved.

I tugged myself out of his head, releasing my points of awareness back throughout my floors; nothing had changed in the miniscule time I'd been away, but some pressure released itself as I could once again scan my surroundings. I didn't like leaving everything behind.

But it had shown me what else I could do on my floor. Seros was large, easily thirteen feet, and he was the limit I would build my canals to; so I needed larger tunnels for him to hunt, larger underwater dens if he needed a rest, easier turns and twists. But at the same time, I needed those same passages to trap unwary foes, so I would make them narrow; just enough he could wriggle his way through. Minor expansion there.

And then I needed more ground cover; the mangroves were unbelievably impressive, but our little jaunt showed me that most of their thorns were exposed. No one would willingly step on an exposed root when stone was right next to it. More algae, unless I could snip some of the growth from the snapping turtle's back.

Increasing creatures, as well. I glanced back at my core.

Dragonheart Core

Mana: 13.1 / 25

Mana Regeneration: +0.9 per hour

Patrons: None

Titles: Resurrector

Enough to experiment, then; I chose a spot far away from Seros, nestled in a little nook near the entrance and started to weave together a greater crab, something to fill the current niche of apex predator and cull the rising population of luminous serpents. I doubted they would be there forever, considering the kobolds were already well on their way; well. Sort of? They had fully separated into two groups, the original off hunting to her heart's desire and strangely following Seros around, and the other two staying grouped up with coordinated hunting efforts that were bringing in more and more rats and toads. They hadn't yet figured out how to harvest the mangrove's wood for tools but they were working towards it, awkwardly holding slivers of rock and poking the trees to no success. Eventually they would, though. As for the first, I had no idea what she was up to. Maybe when I had created her, I had accidentally let my intentions for her to hunt down the turtle into the mana shaping her? That might explain why she was so determined to do… something.

I had gone off on quite a tangent when I realized that I was still weaving mana.

Mana that was quickly emptying itself from my stores.

Twelve godsdamn points later, a greater crab awoke, clicking its pincers together and peering out at its surroundings. Twelve.

Little bastard had even taken most of the Bronze-ranked mana I'd been saving.

That had to be because it was an evolution. Had to be; but that also spelled very worrying things about the future expansion of my dungeon. Twelve points for a single evolution of a—let's face it—rather unimpressive specimen?

An idle thought of how much it would cost to make another seabound monitor slipped across my mind, and I shuddered.

For my first evolution, I had the choice between expanding my mana storage or regeneration, and I'd easily picked the regeneration. Now I was becoming uncomfortably aware of how little twenty-five points really was.

I'd create another crab tomorrow and let those two breed. Not a chance I was going to actively manage their population like I did my smaller creatures.

It scuttled off towards the closest canal, dropping into the water with a splash—off to hunt, I guessed. It'd find a bountiful feast ahead of it.

Me, with one mere point to my name? Yeah. It'd be a bit of waiting until I could do all those lovely plans I had come up with.

-

He ran, bawling, crashing deeper and deeper into the mountain; his coat was crusted in dry blood, the cuts over his legs stinging and raw, bewildered by the dark and unfamiliar setting. It hurt, it hurt so bad–

He smashed his nose into a stony wall.

With a roar, he collapsed back, panting wildly. Everything hurt. He hated this, hated running, hated the two strange animals that had stabbed him; all he wanted was to go back to his safe little cave, full of mushrooms and water, where nothing was scary and he didn't have to worry–

"Oh?"

A voice crept out of the darkness.

It wasn't the deep, rumbling voice of the cave before, the one that had spoken into his mind rather than his ears, the one that had made the mushrooms grow and given him shelter and food; it was a raspy voice, dark and curious, and very, very close. He managed to swing his head to the side.

Two figures, shorter than him and scrawny, standing on their back legs with their front legs wrapped around strange, stone-tipped pieces of wood. Their skin was a pale green, hairless, with ears that extended away from their face like tree leaves. Bits of fabric wrapped around their chest and legs.

Their eyes were black.

"What do we have 'ere, boys?" One of them croaked, face twisting up like they were baring their teeth. "Little ol' cave bear, lost without its mommy?"

He didn't know much, not like the great lizard or the pointy serpent had; but something about them awoke something in the back of his mind. Something that wasn't him recognized them.

Goblins.