Dragonheart Core

The ironbacked toad croaked at me.

Or, more specifically, at the little tendril of mana I was meandering towards his feet.

He puffed up to his actually rather impressive height of three feet, chest inflating like a bellows for a squawk that wouldn't have been out of place from a bird, posturing with all his metallic armour. It was a significant upgrade from his last look, I'd give him that; where once his protection had been a vague, half-hearted collection of lumps over his back he just had to pray would be in the right spot, this time he had proper silver-grey plating stretching over his torso and face. His limbs were more barren, just a few patches of scale-esque iron over the flat fronts to leave the joints free, alongside a face a battering ram would be proud to take home.

Glorious little bruiser. And gods if he wasn't taking his new job a touch too seriously.

He'd evolved mayhaps an hour ago, shaking off the haziness of mana overload. Taken a few minutes to snap his tongue at the closest cave spider to refill some of his empty stomach, examined the new billowing moss flooding through the second floor, tested his new armour by bashing it against the stone with a pleased croak.

Then he'd promptly plodded off to the nearest burrowing rat den and sat there.

It wasn't even one of my dens, the rats living up to their name and carving it out themselves; they were one of the smaller families, too small to be able to threaten one of the more massive colonies out of the large, pre-made dens. So they'd dug out their own little slice of paradise and promptly lost many generations trying to defend it. The way of the world.

But now, with a beast so many times their own size sitting before their entrance, they didn't have to worry about luminous constrictors poking their head into the crack that made up their entrance, a greater crab angling its crushing pincer in. All threats of the second floor still existed when they went outside to gather food but for rest and recovery, they would be safe.

All the better for evolution.

Gods, I wanted them to evolve—they'd been with me since before I'd carved out the second floor, scampering little bastards with their highly-honed senses. I doubted one evolution would be enough to take them from prey to apex predator but giving them a chance would be lovely; and seeing one of their own reach such peaks would be enough to push the others up.

And if the ironbacked toad could give them that chance, I'd be more than grateful.

I retracted all the various probes of mana I'd been teasing him with, letting him return to his silent guard with only a slight narrowing of his grey-black eyes. Seven rats behind him curled up, content even past their fear, whiskers and twin-forked tails twitching constantly. Soon.

Leaving a point of awareness in their den I spread out to the rest of my floor, poking in to watch the various comings and goings; a school of silvertooths welcomed a newly hatched youngling to their midst, the rest of the eggs wobbling and twisting behind. The horned serpent sang her siren's call to a blissfully unwary toad, antlers glowing. An electric eel with its dozen or so loyal followers geared up for a fight, itching to claim another eel's territory.

The kobolds were back in the den I'd originally shaped for them, all three—even though the two groups had wildly separate goals, the first looking to kill the snapping turtle and the other two just looking to survive, they still worked together.

Even if the original no longer could hear me, sworn to bloody Seros as she was. Gods. Just the thought made me a strange mixture of furious and confused.

The first kobold proudly brandished a length of branch she'd managed to claw loose from a mangrove, the rest examining it with wide eyes and warbles.

The splotched kobold who'd done such a lovely job with the rats pushed his own contribution forward; a fang from a luminous constrictor, far too small for the piece of wood but moving in the right direction. All three bent their heads over it and warbled in unison.

One day they'd understand tools. Whether by making them themselves or by me finally losing my patience and dumping buckets of swords in their laps.

I had only just started to give the idea more merit when a low, distant boom echoed through my halls.

Every creature paused.

All of my points of awareness flared to life, blitzing about the place as I searched for an intruder I'd somehow missed; the snapping turtle, huddled against the wall of a canal and gnawing down chunks of a dead silverhead. The screaming bat, digging its claws into strands of algae for an upside-down nap. A multitude of bugs far too small to make the sound. I shoved my awareness as far against my entrances as I could handle, jabbing invisible eyes at the dark like I could magically start to see through it; nothing. The sound didn't feel like it came from there.

I darted through my floors, tugging on mana still reverberating with the echo; Seros raised his head from his languished sprawl on the third floor, ivory teeth bared and tail lashing. Water swirled around the quivering fins over his neck.

One section of my third floor shook slightly.

I sprang for it, pressing great loops of mana against its surface to try and pick up where the sound had come from. It echoed, the last lingering remains of some distant attack, before fading out. I frowned at it.

An earthquake, maybe? From the thoughts I'd pieced together from the Calarata natives, the area was prone to them; it could have been one of those strong enough that there was a tangible sound and I'd be hit by the shockwave in short time. Or—my core twinged unhappily at the thought—one of the threats I'd heard lived in the Alómbra Mountains. Goblin-hordes and iron giants and maybe even a stone-drake, waking on top of its shining hoard. My mana sharpened.

Dragon I was no longer, but I'd be damned if I let some upstart try to muscle in over my territory.

Boom.

Another, closer.

My mana filtered through the cracks in the limestone, feeding me bits of information; something was hitting the stone, heavy as a thunderstorm. I could even hear vague whispers of water, the slosh and gurgle of misaligned currents, and the deep, water-dark smell of open ocean.

And– hm. This was the side of my dungeon that was closest to the sea, wasn't it? Right beneath the cove entrance of my first floor.

Boom.

Cracks raced over the limestone, roaring, and the whole wall collapsed.

My mana exploded, tugged out of my control towards the opening like a whirlpool; two opposing forces of water slammed into each other, the raging bully of the ocean and the meek, uncurrented freshwater. Boulders and pebbles and great slabs of rock went flying, crashing through the sand and algae and outcroppings.

I howled, thrown, spiraling through my floor; my mana flew away from me, wrenched out of the hole in my defenses, writhing with jagged edges as it flew. My awareness shrank to only vague colours as I spun, helplessly ricocheting off rubble and chaos and—

No. I refused.

My mana fled from me but I wasn't drowning; the water was equalizing and my core was up and out of it, safe overhead, even if the water level was rising far too fast for my comfort—I wrenched my points of awareness back under my control and jabbed them towards the intruder.

Intruders.

Many of them.

Five—no, six—merrows floated within the tunnel they'd bored through the mountain, rough and uneven but plenty wide enough for them to swim; through my escaping mana I could see a glimpse of the sea beyond, the wild toss and wave of untouched mana, the faint, lingering smell of a deep-ocean goddess. Six of them, five armed with spears and swords and tridents and one with a looming, diamond-tipped staff, all tensed to the teeth and gearing for a fight.

I bared unfortunately metaphorical fangs. Who the fuck did they think they were, busting through my wall? My mana surged, waking up any deaf creature that had somehow missed a bloody hole being torn through my floor—

And none answered my call.

I spun, throwing points of awareness up as fast as the mana drain in the floor sucked them away; the drain. Not just of mana, but—

Of freshwater.

Replacing it with the ocean's salt.

One of my armourback sturgeons had successfully escaped the explosion of rock and grit and had probably had time to be proud of herself before the water imbalance struck; she laid prone on the sandy bottom of my floor, fins flailing, mouth open and gasping. Her gills fluttered but already I could see them shriveling, all the hydration fleeing her cells. She twisted and writhed as her internal organs shrunk, muscles pulled taut and unmoving, still gasping helplessly.

And then she died.

Around her, silverheads and silvertooths trembled, saltwater they'd never had to survive before flooding their systems. What healing mana I could muster past my shock was wrenched out of my control, caught in the whirlpool of the opening, pulled out towards the ocean. They were dying.

They were all dying.

I exploded.

Seventeen points of mana to my name and losing it rapidly; I tore five loose and slammed them into the stone by the hole, wrenching it up with all the grace of a hurricane. The limestone shuddered, crawling over the gaping wound in its side, but the merrows had been casting spells. My mana trembled, caught between racing out to open sea and refilling the intruders—either way, it certainly wasn't staying with me. I roared, shoving another four points into the stone; my control eroded away under the onslaught.

I couldn't fix the hole. I just couldn't, too much happening at once; I flinched as another sturgeon died a horrible, writhing death, silverheads lurching overhead as their school lost half its numbers.

But I could control it.

It would be making it an official entrance to my dungeon, ripping free the primary control in favour of an intangible shield—I'd worry about it later. I poured mana between the gaping stones, the stream of my escaping freshwater, and slammed a command down.

The mana held, wavering, and was promptly ripped away as more of it filled the merrows and escaped out to open sea. I didn't have enough.

Then gods, I would make mana.

I ripped the sturgeon's soul back from the whirlpool, shredding apart flesh and memories alike; all my dying silverheads crumpled as their minds flayed under the pressure, flecks and sparks racing back to me. Not enough. I tore at the upper floors, wrenching back the ambient mana as my creatures fell apart. Not enough. The second floor shuddered, walls trembling and dust rising as my stabilizing presence fled. My core filled to bursting and then once over.

Then I turned and hurled it all at the entrance.

The water howled, lashing at my mana—it wanted to flow as water did, run freely, carrying mana in currents as it raced to fill every crevice.

But this was my dungeon, and it would obey.

With a deep, vibrating snap, an entrance closed around the stone.

My mana stopped racing out towards open seas, bouncing off the barrier and floating languishly back to me; I reached deep and spidered my mana through the water, hunting down every fleck of salt, every scrap of worthless corruption. My core room was the only area free of water. I heaved and threw a massive sprawl of salt out of my floor.

With a horrible, trembling emptiness, my core fully rid itself of mana but completed the task.

My points of awareness popped like bubbles, no mana to maintain them; I clung to a precious last two and fed them directly from the Otherworld, clutching my last senses as the others faded away. I was empty. I was beyond empty.

But as much as the entrance was now stopping saltwater from entering and my scraps of mana from exiting, it was still an entrance.

My creatures gasped, dead or dying, mere fractions of what my already understocked third floor had held; my core sat a mere three thousand feet away from the entrance, only murky water between.

I was out of mana, out of creatures, and my life was feeling very limited indeed.

Because those merrow?

They entered my third floor with nothing left in their path to stop them.