Dragonheart Core

Chapter 134: A Life Spent Below

Through the Underlake he swam.

Seros swam like the predator he was, currents swirling around his claws and pressing against his scales. Through the murk he flew, like spat venom from a crowned cobra, a shadow in the swirlings depths. This was not his preferred home, not against the crystal blue waters far below, but he knew this place with an intricate understanding that mere beauty couldn't replace.

But though he dove past sluggish roughwater sharks and emerald crabs that wouldn't be more than a heartbeat to snap down, he swam past, for he had a mission. A goal, called upon by the Core himself.

And Seros was not one to fail.

The waterpool that hissed and snapped with stone-teeth and ancient power bucked against his control, determined to drag him back into the Underlakebut Seros was the first of the Named and most powerful, and with a lash of his tail it broke and slowed, a passage opening within the heart of its spiral. Something lurched at that, a presence above displeased with his actionSeros hissed a mocking cry and swam through the entrance, frills raised.

Deep in his soul, the song. The Core's connection hummed one last note of fondness, a murmured farewell, and then he slipped out of the dungeon.

He felt it immediately, in the drag on his scales and the weight in his soulthe song faltered and dimmed, barely a whisper, a memory of the connection that once thrummed within him. And instead of quartz-light and glimmering green algae, it was just empty stone, grey and lifeless, extending out in a macabre mockery of a proper dungeon's tunnel to the blue water beyond.

The mana here tasted different, white and cold, a bare memory instead of fill. Seros growled, bubbles spiraling from his mouth; it wasn't home, wasn't the song that purred in his soul, wasn't anything he knew or lovedhe reached out for his water-control and it shivered, coming to with sluggish acceptance.

There was no mana here to feed it, nothing that flowed through him from the outside world. All the mana available was weak and thin, stained with watery attunement and entering him only reluctantly. Useless.

How the Core provided; what he was only able to understand in its absence.

Seros snarled, dragging at the depths of his soul to spool out mana. Lacking from the dungeon or not, the water was still his, and it would obeyhe spat out clouds of crackling aura and wrenched the currents back under his mind, spiraling them to push him out of the cramped tunnel. It gurgled, spiraling, but moved.

He hadn't been this uncoordinated with his power since he'd first been Named. Perhaps it was best he wasn't in the dungeon so the Core didn't have to see this. But with a lash of his tail, soon he was out of the mountains, and within the cove.

The world outside.

How long had it been since he'd been here? So long ago, when what thoughts he'd had were narrowed in on food to father and predators to flee. A moment where he had poked his head through the entrance merely to test how the Core could feel him, but no other time, no contact with wider existence beyond what entered his floor to die.

Seros called the water to hold him, right outside the tunnel; it lurched sickeningly to his call, almost fighting him, unwilling to leave from the pathways it had perfected. He bared his fangs and dug deeper, tore spirals up to wrap around his limbs and keep him suspended; a stone in the depths, only the faint glow from his eyes spilling forth.

The cove was enormous.

He he didn't want to think this, to even consider the comparison, but it was larger than anything he had ever known. When he was weak, the world had been too large for comprehension, and only the small places had matteredbut now he had grown enough to truly see how small he still was.

The Underlake had been a paradise, and then he had grown; the Hungerings Reefs now housed him in glorious freedom.

The cove dwarfed it in every conceivable way. He couldn't even see the bottom, the sides, the walls; just an endless expanse of blue, made inky with night, the flash of distant scales and crashing waves overhead.

What power had shaped this cove?

Before the Core, he had never even imagined this, had never wondered at the eve of his creation; had only tucked away from the sun and hunted for rats in the shadows. For rats when he felt confident enough to try; for insects when he was scared.

What life was that? Who had created him to live like that, terrified, hunting for nothing but life in of itself? He wasn't like the others, shaped by the Core, only Named. What purpose had he been made for?

What life was a life spent weak?

Seros tilted his head back, to the waves dancing overhead, capped in moonlight. Beyond, he knew, sat a city; a den for humans, tucked away in the shadow of mountains. White against grey. Movement. Humans.

He had been afraid of them, when he had known fear and fright; when he had been small and the world had been terrifying, before there had been even a thought of fighting back. An underground monitor, the Core had called him. Small and scurrying, tucked in the shadows.

No longer.

He clawed at the water, tearing himself through the currents until his head broke the surface, gills flattening and steam hissing around his fangs. The air outside was brisk and salted, infused with twilight, but the darkness had no bearings of his eyes. He was one for the deep seas, the darkness; he saw through it more clearly than sun.

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So he saw, so far away, the human city of land.

Calarata, it was called. A word without origin, no draconic twist of sound or growled power. A useless word. But one that the humans thought that they needed; that they deserved a name, despite their lack of ambition, of strength.

They had not earned one from the Core. It was not a true Name.

Seros settled on the water's surface, claws flicking as he made the currents hold him still on the surface. Only his head poked out, barely a ripple in the dark surface, a shadow amidst many others. He watched the white city, crawling up the base of the mountains, made of odd, stone-like walls and tamed boulders. What existence was that? Perhaps there was danger in falling, or of creatures breaking inbut it was like a den. A den was for rest, for food; a protection from the world, yes, but not for life. You could not grow strong, tucking yourself away behind stone walls.

Perhaps they would never grow strong. But if that was true, then the Core would not build his strength to oppose them, not merely the desire to be more.

Seros rumbled, mist spiraling off his grills and drifting over the water's surface. These humanspirates, a different wordwould never survive in the dungeon, neither by living there or by invading. He would make sure of both.

But they were not his target today.

So with a final glare, he slipped back beneath the water and summoned the currents to tug him along, a gentle pull against his tail and horns, what should have been stronger but still fought against him. He bit against the disrespect and dove, deep below the evening-dark air, down into the shivering blue beneath.

To the merrow.

Twice had he encountered them, once in the grips of fear he had never yet felt from himself or the Core and the other when fury undefeated. Aquatic things, clever, without much of tools or trinkets that Nicau would like. They brought no warmth or kindness from him, much like the humans, but they were more understandable, perhaps. Choosing the brilliance of water over the mundanity of land, particularly with scaled bodies and water-attuned mana. A choice that did not excuse their vengeance against the Core, but did make Seros take the time to appreciate them before slaughter.

And even now, though he was more used to the murk of the Underlake or the glimmering perfection of the Hungering Reefs, he could feel their presence herea current tugged out of its normal alignment, one even less willing to listen to him, its habit already thralled by another.

It was odd, in a way. All things within the dungeon obeyed the Core, whether by choice or by natureso too did the currents within.

But here, out past the mountain, Seros could notice when this current served some greater power as being different, because the others didn't. There was no mind whose song they danced to.

Or perhaps there was, and he just couldn't hear it.

Curious.

So for now, Seros clawed for fragile control over the water that had once leapt to his command and followed the strange one, one that looped and spiraled around to gather warm water streams from old, deep volcanic vents and any lingering sunlit warmth. Something for civilization, thenand one leading to something tucked beneath, far below the surface, in the murky gleam that no humans' eyes would ever penetrate.

Seros was not so limited. He dove down, past the grey, and saw what lay below.

A city, made of rock and amongst it, under the water.

It was nothing like Calarata, not in any sense he knew. Instead of climbing up, it huddled in the shelter of a mountain, some rocky outbreak from one half-buried in the cove; no white walls but deep grey stone, rubbed smooth by currents and faded down to near imperceptible difference. A shadow, tucked in the depths, some forgotten place with an emotion he didn't know to place.

Curious. Seros would never grant them any mercy, nor truly any extension of admiration, but he would save memories of this underwater palace for the Core to learn from.

The walls were natural and curving, great spiraling arches and pillarsno towers like humans or exposed heights like trees, but merely stalagmites, stretching upward to connect with the mountain base with holes peppered through their surface. Shapes moved, barely visible in the gloom but to Seros' eyes, the flash of scales and fins. And, in its center, a shock of brilliant gold. Kelp, what he remembered from the Underlakethe entire city was built like a ring, encircling the kelp forest. A guard or a prison?

The warm water fed the kelp, brought the fish, and served as an alert, if he had to guessand the kelp protected its own. Perhaps that was how they functioned, if this could be called functioning, so tucked away and hidden as they were. Where was their drive to fight? To call all attackers unto themselves so that their mettle could be tested? So they could grow strong?

Movement.

Far larger than any of the other merrow he had seen, little more than a grey shadow slipping through pillars of the city, something with a slender body and great spiraling arms. It slunk up the side of one pillar, a trembling blotch of movement, and disappeared into an empty hole.

It didn't look like one of the twin-maws, the empty-beast, the void-made-teeth; there wasn't the same aura, the same gnawing viciousness that slunk up on his memories when he was least prepared.

But it did look like something dangerous. Something delightful in a fight.

And the Core had expressed interest in more corpses to devour.

Seros relaxed his grip on the water and started to drift, a gentle movement, the warmth of the transposed current wrapping around him and tugging him deeper below. He stretched out his limbs, splaying his tailthe current wasn't particularly strong, but for smaller creatures, if they didn't keep their wits about them, they would be pulled towards the city until their inevitable escape or transference into food. A clever trick, though not as good as the Core's whirlpool, but indicative of a society that had been formed and functioning for a while.

Seros let a hiss build and rumble through his chest.

The Core had told him of the merrow's goalsto reclaim something they had willingly forsaken in invading the dungeon, that staff was no longer theirsand their supposed strength, as well as the memory of the sunlight-wielding merrow that had managed to levitate out of the water with a strength that didn't make sense for their aquatic life. And the mention that this was only the thirteenth house of merrow, implying many more, all within the cityArroyo, another meaningless word, another name without being a Name.

Seros flicked his tail. There was no air for mist deep below the water, but warmth boiled off his scales regardless, spilling around him and blurring his outline. One of his favoured tactics for battling the sea serpent.

But in those fights he had been within the dungeon, with currents that leapt and danced to his tune with a glee of obediencethe ocean was entirely unlike that. It was hungry, and there was no voice he knewor no voice he could hear, or be aware of. Something the Core had spoken of, without words, just a quiet reverence for something he didn't have words for.

The Core, in reverence to something. An impossible concept.

So Seros ignored that and looked down, bubbles trickling out around his fangs. The city glimmered before, bare flickers of movement, of merrows and their pale scales and darkened magic.

The Core had told him to investigate, to find more than what scraps invaded his halls and threatened his power. Seros could have stopped here; could merely look upon these scurrying baitfish beneath him and take refuge in their lack. Understand that those so scared of growth could not possibly take the Core.

But he had been weak once, and he had become strong.

He could not dismiss the merrow.

So Seros lashed his tail, bared his fangs, and dove to the city.

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