Dragonheart Core - Chapter 48: Centuries Unspoiled

Chapter 48: Centuries Unspoiled

Huh. So.

It’d been, what, two floors? Three? Long enough that I’d gotten past my annoyed stage and frankly forgotten about the possibility.

But of course right as I was digging out the literal final spot of my cavern, a little niche in the wall where the tunnel to my core room would be, that I finally ran into something that wasn’t my standard limestone and mineral fare.

A fossil.

It was a twisted thing, bound up and jostled like it’d suplexed into the ground, but undeniably bone. I tore into its surrounding limestones to expose it fully, practically purring with glee at every new sliver of white exposed—finally.

I’d found fossils before in my digs, but they had been small things, bare crumbs scattered around by general erosion or the shifting of the mountain; not enough for my Resurrector title to properly work. Same issue with stupid invaders only wearing the skin of an animal, not even a scrap of bone or flesh as well for me to compile together. All powerful I was not, apparently. Infuriating.

But this one… deliciously complete. A whole skull fell gently onto a bed of algae I’d woven into existence as I dug it out of the wall, easily ten feet long and riddled with fangs. A spine slithered out next, ridged with dorsal spines, clawed skeletal feet clattering down too; plenty for me to shape.

It was a beast, though shrunk and twisted by age. Perhaps thirty, maybe forty feet long with an overwhelming number of them going to the head, long and twisting like a lizard. A triangular skull with wide, snapping jaws and a tail snaking down to a jagged tip. Not a creature I could remember having heard about, but one that I certainly knew of its descendants.

A crocodile.

I could have purred. For my last fossil, I’d had to design a floor around the mangroves, perfecting somewhere for them to survive. An aquatic reptilian monster, however, would fit beautifully onto several of my current floors.

…would Seros get jealous? Hm. I know I certainly would be in his position.

No matter.

I brushed across my Named creature’s mind, settling a gentle suggestion to watch over my floors; he stirred with a lazy yawn but unwrapped from around my core’s pillar, meandering through the labyrinth to head up to the higher floors. There wasn’t enough going on in the fourth floor beyond the scheming little rats and their jewels and the horned serpent to keep watch there. The second and third floors were far more busy.

But hopefully his guard would be a moot point. If my Resurrector title didn’t reduce the time to reawaken a fossil from the bloody three days it’d taken me last time, I would scream.

I reached out and shifted the skeleton back to a rough approximation to how it had probably looked while alive, stretching out its spine and legs, having to really strain my creativity in order to make the stone move in a way that wouldn’t damage but just move it.

My floors had been busy, constant cycles of death and predation, mostly from those within and the constant stream of fools hungry for mana that clambered within my halls. Nothing too new yet, although there’d been a half dozen fish species that hadn’t yet tested the new paths the cloudskipper wisp ran over the Underlake, creating a suction to keep them from freely fleeing back out the entrance. None of them looked too interesting, but I’d always welcome new species.

Which. Back on track. I glanced at my core.

Dragonheart Core

Mana: 38.4 / 75

Mana Regeneration: +0.9 per hour

Patrons: Rhoborh

Titles: Resurrector

I was still tickled very pink by seeing both Resurrector and Rhoborh in my heart. I’d come very far from a collection of mushrooms and spiders I’d started as.

But thirty-eight was plenty of mana to try and rebirth this monster.

I gathered all but five points, just as a fall back, and let them loose in great billowing clouds; around me, little spores of algae exploded in growth and the stone trembled as extra tendrils of raw power burst through them, but the vast majority surrounded those pale bones. I dissolved just the barest tip of a fang and knowledge surged through me, ancient memories of strange trees and unfamiliar coasts, back when these mountains had been just an ocean shoreline, back when the world was green and new; but I’d done this before. The schema I was collecting was just shaping more fossils. Not the creature.

So I gritted my metaphorical teeth and poured mana in.

The bones writhed, greedily drinking the Otherworld power but refusing to change; stubborn bastards. I redoubled my mana, surrounding them, infusing them, pounding into their stupid little heads that I was very much interested in reviving them and I would not be accepting no as an answer–

With a deep, booming crack, the calcium shattered. Fresh marrow bloomed over its strangled remains, leathery green-grey skin shaped in pebbled scales stretching taut between, massive muscles blooming underneath.

Uh. Actually way more muscle than I’d thought. When I’d just seen its skeleton, I’d imagined it with a rather Seros-esque build, slender and agile. Still strong, but with a whip-thin tail and a more lanky build. Perfect for quick turns and maneuverability in water.

This thing was built like a tank. Thirty-five feet long and maybe five wide, squat and lumbering, with a tail that looked more akin to a battering ram than anything that should be attached to a living creature. Everything covered in spikes, scales like platemail, fangs bristling even out of its closed mouth like a sheath full of knives.

After a fantastic thirty points of mana had drained from my grasp, the monster awoke on the land that had not seen it in centuries.

Gods. I was fully intangible and even I held my breath around this thing.

Sarco Crocodile (Exotic)

In ages old and past, it hunted beasts many times its size to sustain its own growth. Its enormous fangs and mana-attuned bulla were too efficient, however, and it culled its prey to extinction and so passed itself. But once more it has been unleashed.

I watched it for another stunned second. Goodness.

I’d gotten quite used to Seros being the largest thing in my halls, although technically the horned serpent beat him in length, but he was utterly dwarfed by this beast. Its description didn’t speak much to any overall specialization, which presumably meant that even though I was pretty sure this was an evolution, it still had further paths it could walk down. This thing could evolve even more into a predator.

Yeah. I’d accept the long breaks between fossils if they kept giving me things like this.

I tore through the information in its schema—its bulla, a large, misshapen lump on the tip of its snout, functioned as a sort of tracking device, following trails of mana in the air to lead it to its prey. Its tail was both for swimming and battering opponents, claws webbed for aquatic maneuverability. It hunted by grabbing hold of its prey and ripping their limbs off for them to bleed out. The spines over its back were just for aesthetics, I guessed, because there wasn’t a bloody chance that something would get the opportunity to attack it.

It blinked its slitted green eyes and looked at its surroundings. I felt a momentary flash of panic that its first sight would be an unfinished floor, only empty limestone and rough walls, before remembering that I wasn’t exactly looking for its approval. I was the master here.

Still, I very gently reached into its mind to see what it thought.

Unfortunately, it looked like I hadn’t technically revived it; as with all of my creatures, they were born anew by me crafting a new soul from Otherworld mana. So I didn’t get any memories of the old world from it.

But I did get plenty of instincts.

It seemed a bit confused by its stony surroundings, the back of its brain looking for the marshy soil and coastal banks it knew it was supposed to be around, but it didn’t seem displeased. He didn’t seem displeased, actually. His thoughts were ponderous, flexing his tail and shifting as if he’d forgotten how to move; which I supposed he had. This was his first time being alive.

Sort of?

The intricacies of my Resurrector title confused me at times.

But a new monster was mine, and I had other things to focus on.

I pushed a vague map into his mind, a sort of guiding path up to the Underlake; I doubt he’d be happy in the dry, stony crags of the fifth floor nor the humid greenery of the fourth. He was an aquatic beast, and it would be a fair while until I would start on the sixth floor.

He shook his enormous head hard enough that dust flew off the stone under his feet, his ten foot tail swishing like a felled tree. For such a massive bulk, he moved surprisingly quickly, lumbering over the careful little bridges towards the entrance on the other side. I flew underneath him, strengthening the stone as he passed over; the limestone creaked and groaned under his weight but begrudgingly held.

Gods. The thought of creating such a beast and then losing him to a trap I’d created was a particular sort of embarrassing. I threaded a few more iron ore strands through the bridges.

He clawed his way up the sloped tunnel, shredding holes through the stone, and poked his snout into the fourth floor; immediately the humid air seemed to appeal to him, making a not-quite purring sound as he dragged himself up the final ledge. His thoughts were still coming around to the concept of being alive but he seemed at least decently intelligent, though mostly driven by hunger. Not insipid, though not necessarily the chatting partner I’d come to find with Seros.

…would Naming him improve his mental capabilities? It’d certainly done so for Seros.

I shook my points of awareness. Focus, fool. I’d created the sacro crocodile a whole ten minutes ago. Not exactly the time to think about Naming.

He clambered through the thornwhip algae, shrugging off its grasping hits with nary a thought; he had investigated it at first, though, with a keen-eyed paranoia I imagined was born from the time he’d come from. I certainly thought he was a beast, but his schema had spoken of hunting creatures even larger than him; perhaps the old world had been far more dangerous and he hadn’t been considered an apex threat.

Terrifying thought, really. I was fine with the prey I had hunted when I was a dragon instead of these old monsters.

It took him a second to follow my guiding nudge through the labyrinth, lumbering through the endless identical corridors. His green-grey scales blended perfectly with the darkness and only his size made him visible, the glowing spores of the algae glinting off his slitted eyes.

My poor rat, the first and strongest of her kind with her jadestone jewel clutched tight in her little ratty hand, turned a corner and promptly froze. The vague powers she’d been building, something about stopping the algae from attacking her so she could walk freely through the halls, tried to twitch to life.

His bulla shone with an inner power, sensing her mana, and he shifted his fanged head in her direction.

She squeaked, dropped to all fours, and fled.

Fitting.

He made his way through the rest of the tunnels and once more clambered up my sloping tunnels, clawing a bit futilely to drag his enormous bulk up the stone. It seemed like he would be a rather stationary threat, finding one area and sticking to it; changing floors seemed to be too difficult for him, and that was without the potential evolutions I was hoping he would have. Fingers crossed and all that.

But finally he emerged into the tunnel overhead, water stretching before him, and I felt surprise flicker over his thoughts, quickly replaced by joy. He made another low, crooning hiss and surged forward, dragging his bulk into the water with a crash.

In the Underlake, his potential was even more revealed; while he’d been faster than I’d expected on land, he certainly hadn’t been fast, but now his enormous tail could actually help and his webbed claws could drag him forward. He poked his snout above the water, taking a breath so large his chest swelled, and dipped below to explore.

Everything fled before him. The electric eels and their entourages suddenly found better things to do in the corners of the room, silverheads and silvertooths schooling off to hidden shadows, the silver krait disappearing into the bloodline kelp forest. Crabs and sturgeons alike were rather difficult to be found, and even the always-starving sharks decided to find easier prey. The Underlake acknowledged its new ruler.

With the notable exception of Seros, who had been doing his surveying rounds and promptly came face to face with this terribly rude intruder.

The sarcro crocodile’s fangs glinted in the algae-light.

I took a moment to compare them; they could have been brothers, but with the notable difference of a few centuries of evolution. The same long tail, the same pebbled scales, the same hooded eyes and dorsal spines.

Not much past that, though. And though Seros was far more beautiful in my unbiased opinion, the sarco was easily twice his length and three times the bulk.

I pressed my influence hard into both of their minds, calming down the quickly-building desire for a fight. The sarco hissed, bubbles spiraling out of his snout, but begrudgingly turned away to continue exploring. Seros flashed his fangs at his retreating back.

That could be a problem moving forward.

What do you think? I asked him, half out of curiosity and half out of amusement. The violent string of lizard-y cursing I received satisfied that little moment. Fair enough.

He narrowed his eyes in my general direction and flounced back off to the fourth floor.

I left the sarco to his exploration, taking a moment to admire the looming shadow he cast over the ground from the algae-light above. Only a little bit of the floor would need to be changed to fit him; the breath he’d taken had been proof enough. Still working with lungs instead of gills.

Previously, I’d just had the tunnel to the fourth floor slope upwards and onward to keep the water from flooding my other floors, but from what I knew of at least modern crocodiles, they did prefer resting on land.

So I dug my feelers into the tunnel and widened it, dissolving my previous core room below to make room for a wide, swooping platform; still less than fifty feet in diameter, but plenty of room for my glorious little crocodile. Little being a relative word. I created a little sky of algae-lights above for him to sun himself with, but let it be with that. I didn’t want to baby him too much.

The floor was already built for him. He certainly felt like he completed the space; the roughwater sharks were violent and deadly, but they weren’t quite powerful enough to be the apex predator. The Drowned Forest had the kobolds as numerous, intelligent—somewhat—threats, and the unfinished Fungal Gardens had their cave bears, but the Underlake needed a singular, immensely powerful boss. Something that I don’t think anyone could argue the sarco crocodile didn’t fill.

Maybe a few smaller fish, a handful more silver kraits, but then the Underlake would be finished as well.

My musing was broken off by a message from above, the kobold chieftess peering curiously into the little den I’d carved into the back of her home; a room where a thin, gangly boy was now stirring.

Nicau was awake.