Dragonheart Core

Chapter 3: First Climb

I examined the cave that had become my unwilling home.

With the full spread of my mana, I could tell that my size estimates had been accurate; ten feet long, five wide, and maybe three tall with a roof littered in stalactites. Miniscule. Even the lizard would have problems maneuvering within the cramped walls.

With only a fraction of mana left, there were limits to what I could do—but I refused to exist in such a decrepit place.

I gathered almost a full point of mana and slammed it into the wall behind me, filling it with thoughts of gnashing teeth and strength. The stone shivered and shrunk away from me, shreds of mana flitting away with flecks of dust—limestone, I realized. Dissolving the stone granted me intricate knowledge of what it was and how to shape it, endless patterns of great weight pressing together accumulations of old shells and organic material to form a porous grey-white stone.

But with my mana, I could skip all but the important steps.

I turned my attention to my core, deposited so grandly by the lizard in a shallow divot. My mana took on thoughts of architecture and beauty and slowly, rising layer by layer, I pulled up a column under my core. I grabbed at the occasional flecks of silver in limestone and filled my stone with it, twisting the column like an ancient temple's walls, pouring in raw mana until my reserves emptied.

But in the end, my core now perched on top of a lovely silver-white column in a room I'd widened to twice its original size, walls still craggy and rough but alight with the ambient touch of my mana. It was mine.

My dragon memories and my dungeon instincts would agree on one thing, at least. I very much enjoyed things that were mine.

The lizard raised his head, blinking curiously at his newly-changed home. I preened as he padded around the new room, nosing at the column with wide eyes. A lowly admirer but one nonetheless; I would accept his presence for now.

But I wanted more.

I only had a point of mana left and many hours to go if I wanted more, but I loathed to wait. My instincts could only nudge me in the proper directions, instructing me from a distance rather than saying expressly what to do, but I knew at least I needed dead things to copy.

And besides the unfortunately still-alive lizard, there were only two other things in the cave.

The algae was a thin, slimy green I could recognize from the sea, common enough to be found anywhere in the world. The mushrooms, however, were pale spidery fingers poking up from the stone with small white caps, spores sitting under their gills. The basis of a food chain.

Bait.

I reached my mana over and bit into the largest of the mushrooms, filling my power with thoughts of hunger and fire. Nothing happened. My mana sharpened to a point and jabbed again, worming at the fungal flesh.

My old-but-new memories did the mental equivalent of a sigh.

Ah. There was a reason dungeons had to use creations to defend their cores, rather than just reaching out and crushing their opponents– my Otherworld mana was so pure it would only be absorbed by living things I tried to influence, rather than doing anything I wanted. I needed to learn from dead things.

So I shifted my focus around the bed of plants, rifling through the stalks and blades, and found a brown splotch of algae nestled under the broken stem of a mushroom. I devoured.

Both dissolved into sparks of white light, flowing to my core. I saw the true shape of the algae, shallow roots gasping for water and blades knotting together, saw the variants of colour even in the small section I'd absorbed. The mushrooms, with their pale caps and stalks, entwining their mycelium with that of the algae to stay rooted. I saw them.

And thus I could recreate them.

With the splinters of mana I had left I wove them into existence right by the entrance to the cave, layering a bed of algae several feet wide right over a stream of water from a stalactite high on the wall. But I made them of the brightest green I could create from the information I had, reflective and glimmering. For the mushrooms, I elongated their stalks until they could see eye to eye with the lizard, impossibly delicate and trailing their undergills like wisps of smoke.

Green Algae

It grows without the need of sunlight but instead only water, and even then it consumes little. Excess water spills over its interconnected webs, creating an oasis for hungry creatures.

Whitecap Mushroom

They thrive in damp, dark places. When they can't grow on dirt or other high-nutrient substances, they will grow from the back of algae, lichen, or moss.

I wanted to do more, to create a garden of thousands of varieties, gleaming every colour of the rainbow like the world's greatest hoard of gems—but I couldn't. Not yet. I only knew how to create two species and without knowledge of more plants I didn't know how to alter them, not in a way that would keep them alive. And evolution would only come once they'd absorbed enough of my mana.

Something I was in very short supply of.

Creating the plants had taken two points, even with modifications, but that was all I had. I felt woozy, my awareness sluggish and unresponding, even as I painstakingly gathered more mana from the Otherworld.

So I settled my focus on the entrance to my nest and waited to reap the benefits of what I had created.

-

The lizard left before an hour had passed.

He at least avoided my mushrooms, the clumsy brute, but in seconds he disappeared from my awareness and I was left very alone. I knew, or at least the ancient memories did, that once I could create a creature it would be a true companion that could listen to me, and once I Named one I could even travel alongside their minds, but, well. The lizard was all I had for the moment.

Dungeon cores born from ley lines or shaped by mages might have been fine with the pressing silence of the cave, but I had been a dragon first, and I craved interaction.

The small number of buzzing flies that had taken up residence by my mushrooms didn't count.

I had only regenerated back up to half a point, but maybe it was enough to claim the outside of the hallway? Something to allow me to see outside my cave, catch a glimpse of any approaching creatures or–

Something moved by the entrance.

My mana spiked like a startled cat and I shifted my awareness down until I was at the base of the algae, pressing my sense of touch over the fungi. A dim splotch of life, the barest trickles of mana, moved closer.

The spider stalked closer, testing the algae with one of its clawed feet before accepting it would hold its weight. It was almost half a foot wide, a shiny satin-black with reddish stripes on its legs. Eight black eyes peered out at the cave and a spinneret hung at the back of its amber body.

And, most excitingly, it boasted a pair of mandibles.

I didn't spare a thought for where the words spinneret or mandible had come from—venom! I knew well its effectiveness; only lesser sea-drakes retained the venom of the hatchling days but I had seen them use it to slay whales dozens of times their size. To give my creations venom would increase their lethality to a truly glorious degree. All I had to do was absorb–

Hm.

The spider crept forward, apparently deeming my cave safe, and began to climb its way up the wall next to my mushrooms. A gleaming strand extended behind it, hind legs grabbing the silk, mandibles twitching. I watched it begin to spin a web between the wall and the closest mushroom.

Watched it, key word. I had no way of interacting.

For all my talk of preparing the greatest dungeon to kill the cowardly man of the city outside, I hadn't actually… thought about how I was supposed to collect schemas. Finding dead plants was one thing; if I wanted to find dead animals, I would have to venture outside my cave. The sheer nausea I'd felt when the lizard had transported me stopped that particular train of thought very quickly.

The spider finished a rudimentary web, lurking against the cave wall—I had made my mushrooms fragile in my attempts to grow their height and even now the stalk sagged under the silk's weight, listing to one side. A tiny fly, one small enough to suggest it had been born in the caves rather than come from outside, promptly flew in and got stuck. A single speck of mana and the faint whisper of a soul from its death floated towards me as the spider had its first meal.

Good for it.

I paced my awareness next to its web like a sulking hatchling.

Maybe I could cut loose stone above its web to crush it? But that would ruin my little fungal garden and while I had the mana to attempt rebuilding, destroying it would certainly be noisy. Maybe other creatures were waiting outside, using the spider to test the danger of the random new ecosystem that had appeared. I couldn't risk disturbing the fragile peace I'd made in the cave.

So I settled for waiting, glaring at the spider like it'd keel over. Another hour passed, mana building but still so far away from full, until the lizard returned.

He was plump and full from some meal, head held high and tail swishing. Pausing to nose curiously at the mushrooms, he made to slip past them and enter the garden. I slammed my ambient mana over his head. Kill it.

The lizard blinked, swinging his head over the narrow web. The spider had finished its meal and tucked itself back on the wall, legs pulled tight until it looked like little more than a lump of rock. I could feel his confusion, though it was clear my message had gotten through. His tongue flashed.

Kill it, I repeated. I filled my mana with thoughts of hunger and blood as I pressed my influence against him, certainly not pleading but getting close. Don't eat. Kill.

The lizard stared at the spider. With the sort of pause I just knew was him weighing his options for whether he wanted to listen to me, he finally padded over to the web, claws clicking against the stone.

It had a second to rear back, mandibles flashing, before the lizard crunched through its carapace with a single bite.

He marched over to me and spat it at the base of my column, raising his head to stare at me. A lizard's face functioned surprisingly closely to a dragon's—I could read the clear challenge in the curve of his eyelids.

I wouldn't be swayed so easily. Don't push your luck, brute.

Its soul was delicious—raw power thrumming with scraps of memories from its short life, deep and rich with mana so unlike my own pure style yet beautifully familiar all the same. I inhaled its corpse, dissolving into specks of white as I broke down each layer of its being and examined the pieces—it wasn't as venomous as I would've liked but what was there could be easily bolstered with mana, and any advantage would never be useless in a cave environment. My first schema of a creature.

Cave Spider (Common)

With its venom and web-building expertise, it is an ideal ambush predator for cave environments. They feed on small insects and often become food themselves, but can reproduce quickly.

Ignoring modifications for the moment, I wove my shreds of mana together, barely enough earned from its death to make a proper dungeonborn one. The creature was plainly dull to look at, gangly and bulbous, but there was some elegance in the curve of its many legs. I would have to accept it for the moment. My newly formed cave spider awoke, swiveling its body as it examined its surroundings. I could feel its mind, could peer deeper to understand its most basic thoughts—it wasn't terribly intelligent, most interested in food and building its nest. Since the lizard hadn't moved, it didn't even register him as a threat.

I nudged it mentally, installing thoughts of hunger and prey; it twitched and made for the crack in the stone wall its predecessor had come from. It clambered up, ignoring the mushrooms, and started to spin an elaborate web over the top of the entrance. By the time it was done, it would span nearly two feet in diameter.

Plenty to catch some larger prey.

The lizard peered at the new development, lazing at the base of my column. I glared with two pinpricks of mana but the uninterested creature hardly seemed to notice, lapping at one of the numerous puddles of water over the cavern floor.

Terrible, but the only real strength on my side.

When my mana regenerated, I would spawn more spiders and build a proper threat for any attracted by the flies of my trap, endless webs and venomous mushrooms. I had taken my first real steps toward being a proper dungeon today, and I had no intentions of slowing down.

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