Dragonheart Core

The last of the stone ground away to dust.

I slumped, mana collapsing around me as I finally stopped carving out the second floor; all the regeneration rate increases in the world wouldn't have kept that from taking as long as it did. Gods. Why had I decided I wanted it so big?

But it was gorgeous.

A full thousand feet in diameter, the circle-esque shape spiraled deep under the mountains, the ceiling carved far and away from the bottom and littered in nooks and stalactites. Hundreds of rivers—canals, really—twisted and knotted their way over the bottom, stone pillars separating sections into nearly a dozen smaller rooms, the only consistent land already covered in stony soil ripe for planting.

The canals ran deep, almost twenty feet in the larger areas, and I'd threaded hundreds of smaller tunnels and dens underneath for my creatures to rest. Some of them were large and sprawling, enough that Seros could have fit if he managed to wriggle his way through the tunnel leading to him, while some were only inches from the surface of the river and riddled with jagged spikes. Only creatures willing to fight would earn those better dens, with what knowledge I'd taken from the silverhead's schema to make perfect homes and those that barely counted. I preened at the thought.

It would be a meandering river, broken into smaller pieces like the mouth of a delta—I didn't nearly have the knowledge on how to shape fast-moving water yet, so a slow but deadly threat would have to do for now, filled with all manners of creatures that I could source from within the mountain.

One day I would mimic a proper oceanic floor, with riptides and undertow currents galore, but as with most of my ideas that would have to wait.

I hated waiting.

Seros hissed as my points of awareness floated back up to the first floor, snapping down another silverhead—he'd been patient as I'd finished up what I'd promised as his new hunting grounds, but I could see his restraint rapidly eroding away. Fish that were only half a foot long compared to his near ten wouldn't ever satisfy him. Both in the nutritional sense, and the sheer love of the hunt; he wanted prey that could actually put up a fight. Could actually challenge him.

And oh, I was going to deliver.

Keep back, I instructed him, gathering my mana. Only five or so points to my name, fed both by the Otherworld and the constant hunting of my many predators, but it would be enough. I slipped slivers of power between the cracks in the stone.

The river thundered overhead, racing down over the side of my walls and continuing deeper into the mountain. I pushed my cloud of control out further, settling at the base of the water, and dug a narrow shaft underneath.

It immediately filled with water.

Oh, this would work.

I dug dozens more, filtering away from the river in narrow stretches of water—I paused, then combined them all into one large tunnel, maybe five feet in diameter. If I wanted aquatic creatures, I couldn't ask them to politely flop their way through my first floor and make their way to the canals below. I'd just give them a route directly to the second floor.

A third entrance, then. My dungeon instincts prickled uncomfortably at the thought, too many openings for adventurers to rampage their way through and attack me; but this was a hole tucked away under the base of an underground river. It was unlikely at best that a human would go through all that effort just to skip a small room filled with mushrooms.

Or at least what they thought was a room of mushrooms. My glorious serpents and spiders would soon convince them of that folly.

Still. I refused to let myself hesitate as I dissolved the wall between the first room of my second floor and the tunnel of water.

It rumbled, spilling through the carved pathways I'd laid out. Seros raised his head at the new sound, tongue flicking out curiously; my luminous constrictors with their lack of anything resembling decent hearing carried merrily on murdering but my spiders and toads all stopped what they were doing to search, glancing around.

The cave bear continued eating. He truly was a juvenile.

But for now, I would sit and wait, letting my second floor fill with water as I focused on my second task—if I wanted a proper mangrove forest, I would need light for them to grow.

Maybe it hadn't been such a waste to imbue my algae with bioluminescense.

-

Two hours later, I could admit I might've gone overboard with how much I'd carved out.

Barely a foot of water sat throughout the entire floor, not even filling the bottom tunnels and dens, and it already looked like it would be days until I could even try to call it full. I'd already dug out an outflow near the back room where I'd planned for my core to go, reconnecting it to the river so that my room wouldn't overflow with an excess of water, and covering the ceiling in a mass of glowing algae. Everything was washed with a hazy green glow, filtering through all the cracks and lighting the place up not quite to an outside level but enough I could trust they would grow the mangroves.

It would limit my ability to have mushrooms, but ah well. I could find nooks and crannies for them.

But the entrance was open and even with only a foot of water through the floor, several silverheads swam merrily through the stream available to them, struggling through too-shallow sections with nary a thought between the ten of them. The bare sparks of life already sent warm thoughts spiraling through me, getting to see my floor used and properly appreciated.

Speaking of.

I spent my last few points of mana to plant a dozen mangrove seeds, lacking any more to actually grow them beyond a few inches; I would wait until I had enough to bring them to their proper height, but I was curious if they would grow on their own in my mana-rich environment.

They were beautiful trees, really; thin and wavering at their current stage but already doned in a wine-red bark, sprouting pale white leaves. White? I swiveled a few points of awareness in; huh. Pure white, ruffled and shaped like a collection of spikes. Maybe plants had been far different in the olden days.

But either way, I had a proper grove building up, separated into dozens of rooms to properly confuse and entrap any adventurers that dared to venture into my halls. All I needed now was creatures to fill it.

I shifted back to the first floor, peering at all my various inhabitants; I could admit my not-quite failure here, at least. What I had created was a resting point for my creatures, a place where they never had to struggle for anything. Dragons didn't subscribe to that particular line of thought.

So instead I pushed myself into all of their insipid little minds, brandishing faint pictures of my second floor. I showed them the algae-light sky above, the deep rivers and currents soon—somewhat—to be filled, all the trees and mushrooms I'd be able to grow. I also showed them the endless tunnels and dens I'd carved both into the canals and the walls of the room, of the larger pockets for those willing to fight for them, of how the ambient mana on this level would decrease as I moved my core down.

The last one seemed to hit them the hardest. Even my cave bear stiffened, his endless thoughts of hunger fading as he considered what that would mean for him. I got the sense my creatures had grown fat and comfortable, fed by my buffet of Otherworld mana.

Not any longer. You'll have to work for it, I impressed on all of them.

Seros rumbled, pulling himself out of the pond and facing me. You too, I said, getting a vague sense of irritation but also excitement from the seabound monitor. He was already the strongest creature in my dungeon but I could tell he wasn't going to stay comfortable with that position, always striving for more.

On an idle thought, I returned a point of awareness back to my second floor, carving out a hollow behind where my core would sit. Large enough for him to curl comfortably in, padding by soft algae with a spring of fresh water trickling down the hall. A den to replace what I had taken from in, far back in the beginning.

Take me down, I asked, surrounding myself in as much soothing mana as I could muster.

The journey tore at my soul with jagged claws, but I endured.

Mostly.

Seros still had to stop halfway through the second floor to let me recover, panting and heaving my mana out in great clouds.

But soon I sat upon my next throne, a great pillar of silver-flecked limestone like the one before, and already I could feel my mana diffusing out into this new environment. The floor above would still have the ambient power, enough for any creature to dine and sup like nowhere else in the world, but all they would need would be a taste of the lower floors to be filled with a hunger nothing else could satiate.

And to come to the lower floors, they would need to be strong.

Already I could see a few creatures staring out at the rock pond they would need to cross, to the gaping maw that stood as the descent; even the silverheads within the pond nosed hesitantly at the tunnels I'd dug to the canals below. A luminous constrictor with earthen mana heavy in its gut flicked out its tongue, a cave spider that had already doubled in size from its many hunts eyeing the darkness beyond.

Come, my mana sang, and I knew they would answer.

-

She awoke from her mana-filled slumber.

The power stayed within her.

Two new growth weighed heavy above her eyes, sharp enough to hurt when they brushed against her scales as she uncurled to her new height, lidless eyes staring across the room she had claimed as her home. The Voice Below had shaped her, created her as the predator within these walls, but now…

She was stronger. Much stronger. Already new power came to her call, her horns thrumming with a siren's cry of potential. One of the eight-legged beasts stopped weaving its web, scuttling awkwardly over to face her, eyes fixed on the light spilled over her head. On an idle thought she tried to activate the same mana that made her stomach glow and came up empty. The loss of her previous power ached deep in her soul.

But already she could feel there was more.

The beast crawled closer, eyes unfocused on her mighty fangs nor her bulk capable of squashing it with an errant flick of her tail; it came to her like she was the one filling the air with all the sweetest mana, unaware of danger or threats.

In a past life, she would have curled up and let these meals march to her throat one-by-one, content to sleep and let the world pass her by. But she was now changed. Now stronger.

And beyond where the Voice Below had once sat, an opening loomed deeper within the mountain.

Beyond that, mana called to her with all the gentleness of an avalanche.

Let her primitive siblings stay on this floor, hunting beasts with no more intelligence than strength or letting their fangs bounce off the rocky four-legged creatures that fled from their mere presence. Let them continue to stagnate, to never reach the levels she had already obtained.

She wanted more.

And thus the horned serpent, freshly evolved and starving, became the first to slip into the rock pond and venture deeper into the mountain.