Dragonheart Core

Chapter 26: Hardfought

Gods.

My last two points of awareness spun around the invaders, scouring for any advantage I could claim—six, all armed, all ready. I didn't know the intricacies of merrow mana channels, our interactions being limited since I was a creature of the open ocean and they stayed near the coasts, but they didn't feel like Bronze-ranked adventurers.

Except for the Priestess. I didn't know what god she served, but there was no other way for me to interpret the tunnel she'd bored through the mountain and the mana sparking off her diamond-tipped staff but Bronze.

Gods, I was so dead.

"It's in here," the lead merrow murmured in their strange, warbling tongue, adjusting her grip on her twin spears. "Priestess?"

She nodded, angling her staff so the pale diamond shone deeper through the murk of settling water. "It's young but not untested. Defeat the creatures in our route for me to pass. I will need full concentration to bond with the core."

Bond. What a pretty word for enslave.

As one, the other five merrow nodded. Their various weapons shone in the green light.

If they were coming through like normal, polite adventurers, I'd have had plenty of opportunities to stop them—but they had punched a hole right through my third floor. The one I'd barely begun.

I'd crush my other floors just to stop them here.

My mana, what scraps of it remained, howled.

Creatures dozens of feet above presumably raised their heads, hungry and awakening, but it wasn't like I could see—I clung desperately to my last points of awareness but kept them on the third floor, mirroring their positioning to try and see all the merrow at once. I just needed more defenders.

With a hiss, those still alive on the third floor swam to life.

The original armourback sturgeon picked himself off the sandy bottom, movements stiff and twitching with even his minimal exposure to saltwater, but at seven feet he was nearly as long as the merrow themselves and built like a tank. Silvertooths spiraled overhead, their school reduced by half but still dozens present, bloody red fins flashing in the algae-light. Even silverheads poked cautiously out from their dens, my mana inciting a hunger they couldn't ignore.

I could feel those above resist my call—some from fear of going deeper, some from a pure inability to brave the water—but I didn't have time to worry about individuals now. I just had to pray enough would come.

A splash, and the twin greater crabs who had spent all their time terrorizing my mangrove canals fell into the third floor. I could feel stone-backed toads and cave spiders gathering at the edges of the canal, answering my call but unable to find a way down to the third floor that didn't involve drowning. Luminous constrictors slipped into the depths with their long and twining lungs, electric eels filtering it from deeper in the canals. More creatures.

For one, though, I felt a disconnect. Still born of my mana, shaped by it, but no longer listening. The original kobold.

Seros was already racing, tearing through the tunnels of the third floor as soon as he'd felt the wall break. No time for stealth; he emerged from a side wall with a twist of raw muscle, iridescent scales gleaming in the light, fangs bared and fins quivering. At the same time, he closed his eyes, mana picking up through his currents–

And on the second floor, something I could feel more than see, the firstborn kobold raised her head.

As lovely as it was to have that fact confirmed, I had bigger problems to deal with.

The Priestess raised her clawed hand, pointing to Seros. "Don't kill that one," she commanded, and her voice rang with mana—I could see her soldiers straighten, a little more adrenaline in their eyes. "But incapacitate it. Slaughter the others."

Seros hissed, bubbles erupting from behind his fangs. Of course merrows would be interested in capturing and studying such a beauty of aquatic life. At fourteen feet he was nearly double their length, armed in all manner of scales and fins and raw power. I'd also have to be dead before I let them capture him.

Which, hey! Might be today!

I roared.

My creatures surged to attack.

The greater crabs with their glorious lack of self-preservation were the first to spring forward, scuttling over the sandy floor with their massive pincers raised high. The merrow with her twin spears shot forward to match. Brawlers versus a bladedancer.

She swept one spear low and I could see mana at work, a kind of passive ambiance that kept water from slowing down her strikes; my crabs could only try and match that with brute force. A spear tip punched through one of the male's legs. He chittered and snapped, pushing off the ground with his back two legs built for swimming kicking to life; the merrow danced back with her spears flashing. Between the three, the female crab was far more cautious, a clutch of eggs clinging to her underbelly. They'd been in the process of trying to find a den for her when the attack came.

The merrow lunged her spears forward, sliding one around the crab's outer carapace and one up under his left claw. The crab spun and knocked the higher with the armoured bulk of his body, nudging it off course, and slammed his crushing pincer against the spear's shaft. His mate scuttled beneath and snapped at the merrow's tailfins.

A rather perfect tag team. The merrow spat some sort of curse in a cloud of bubbles and shot up, abandoning her follow-up attack in favour of a slap of her tail. No contact but it kicked up enough of a wave of water to push the female crab back, her mate lurching in from the other side. The merrow twisted, one spear clumsily shooting for the crab's face.

We both took great pleasure as he chose not to dodge, taking the hit across the top of his carapace, and gave himself just enough of an opening to lock his claw around the shaft. The merrow recoiled, tugging back; the crab's pincer twisted and snapped it in half. My mana burst into a cheer.

But it had only been a feint gone wrong, and the merrow had two spears. She spun, dorsal fins taut, and used the momentum of her breaking spear to lunge the other up.

My crabs were built for hunting on riverbeds. To protect his mate, he had pushed off the ground to fight in open water. He had no way of moving quickly.

The spear punched right through his underbelly.

He flailed, legs twitching and writhing. His mate shot from the ground like a loosed cannon. The merrow was still desperately trying to tear her spear free from the crab's dying body but in one last rebellion he wrapped his pincers around the shaft. No more strength left to snap it so he merely held it, jostling it deeper into his body, keeping the weapon away from her.

The merrow gave up and shot upward, dodging a pincer snap that would've taken her arm off. She fumbled at a sack tied over her shoulders and pulled out a coral knife, one meant for cutting polyps and stone. There was panic in her eyes now, only matched by the raw fury in the crab's. She fell upon the enemy, smashing her emerald claws into anything she could reach. The merrow screamed, slashing with her knife; the Priestess' enhancement sang true and a lucky hit cleaved through the crab's outer armour, ripping her pincer off in a burst of blue-green blood.

But same as her opponent, she had two weapons.

Her other claw took the merrow's head off.

There was no time to celebrate one victory; in the minute that had taken, the other invaders were swarming forward. One with a trident that my stolen memories found vaguely familiar took up guard by the Priestess, a pair with swords and spears alike darting forward, the fourth dropping low to slink over the sandy bottom.

Seros bellowed like an avalanche and shot forward, hydrokinesis pushing him with all the raw fury he could muster. The pair of merrows raced to match.

For all the clumsiness in water I'd mocked when he'd first evolved, Seros had not so much lost the weakness but made it his strength. The twin fins over his tail quivered and a current sprung to life from the ceiling, pushing him down in a perfect spin to dodge the sword coming in to cleave his head. He spun around the pair and lunged, claws ripping at their back; they split and shot away, mana swirling to life around their tails to match his.

I didn't know if merrow followed the same categories that humans put themselves into but I could guess; between spellcasters and warriors, they looked to be warriors, those that used mana to enhance their movement and attacks rather than external spells. Faster, stronger, ignoring pain and injuries—not a clue on what specific subclass but that wasn't important now. Seros just needed to attack.

He spiraled back, raking his horns against a merrow's arm as he passed—she shouted and lunged. Her sword clipped her back and punched through a stripe of scales. Definite strength enhancement.

Seros roared, surging forward to match her. The other merrow lunged back, swimming prone low over the ground as he rose for a spear jab. The seabound monitor spun, whipping at him with his tail as his claws extended–

And a lone little creature, one who'd swam down from the second floor, poked its head out from behind a wall.

Get back! I roared through our connection—Seros stiffened and flung himself away, tail lashing to give him just an inch more distance. The two merrow paused. She raised her sword, pressing a clawed hand over her bleeding arm, and moved to follow him.

The electric eel lurking behind an outcropping slunk forward, electric silverheads spiraling out into their perfection formation, and released a blast of lightning-attuned mana.

By himself, the attack would have been deadly. Lightning-attuned mana wasn't exactly the same as real electricity but it was close enough, and there were plenty of imperfections in my water to carry the attack wide and far; but it didn't need to lose its strength hitting the largest area possible. It had electric silverheads.

A dozen or two per eel was the general rule of thumb I'd seen. Too many and there wouldn't be enough kill to go around, too few and they wouldn't be able to direct the electricity. He had fourteen.

A lance shot from his sides and slammed into the conductive metal that made up an electric silverhead's armour, hissing and spitting, and then sprang off to bounce against another head. The game of catch sped up until it was only one spear, impossibly white and blinding, and exploded forward.

The merrow had perhaps a second to regret her life choices before the lightning skewered her stomach and burned her from the inside out.

A glorious second of silence as her husk floated gently to the bottom.

The other merrow shouted something incomprehensible and lunged forward, spear raised to pop through Seros' skull—and above, one of the luminous constrictors merrily floundering through attempting to learn to swim activated its underbelly.

Seros lunged through the blinding flash and sank his jaws around the merrow's throat.

Or at least he would have, if the Priestess hadn't raised her staff. "Stop."

The water around him froze. Icicles grew over his scales, locking his tail down and stopping him inches from the merrow's face with fangs extended. Seros' eyes bulged as the ice shocked through his coldblooded system, mana quavering, the chill creeping into his heart.

But he had the blessing of the depths, the power of deep waters. He held.

With a crack like a splitting glacier, the ice sloughed off his tail and he flung himself forward.

The merrow didn't so much flee as disappear, shooting up to brace his tail against the ceiling and ready his spear; but free though Seros was, being half frozen didn't do wonders for mobility. Seros barely managed to change the trajectory of his attack to not crash into the bottom, writhing as he broke more ice off his scales, movements stiff and unwieldy.

I needed more creatures.

It hurt but I tore away the point of awareness following the single merrow slinking along the bottom, sending it bursting through to the second floor; dozens of beings lurked at the canal's edge, filled with a pressing hunger but no way to satisfy. Spiders and rats would never survive in the water, toads would be next to useless for the few minutes they wouldn't die, most of my luminous constrictors had already gone down. I tugged on the strand of mana connecting me to the horned serpent, waking the lazy beast from her digestion—

A red blur from one of the room's entrances. The original kobold shot from whatever room she'd been holed up in, sprinting like her life depended on it, and dove into the canal without an ounce of hesitation.

I spared a brief thought of happiness for Seros. As far as first followers went, she would be hard to top.

Her brethren, less so. They were crouched at the edge of the water, tapping their claws over the stone, but entirely unwilling to go in. Godsdamned cowards, still clinging to their fire-drake legacy—their thoughts warred with hunger and a latent fear of water. Bastards.

That was all the time I could spare. I darted back to the third floor.

The merrow with the trident swam forward, leveling the three jagged points as Seros drew nearer—his lantern-esque eyes stayed fixed on the Priestess as he circled them, ignoring the spearman floating above. The ice attack had made it personal.

She recognized that, her own white-ringed eyes flashing with mana. "Go," she murmured, gesturing to the merrow with the trident. He nodded and swam back, guarding the entrance; their back up plan for a hot exit, probably.

Not that I'd let them have one.

Creatures poured through the tunnel above her, snakes and fish and eels; the merrow with the spear shouted a curse and darted forward to engage, spearing a silvertooth before it had a chance to go into a blood-frenzy. Familiar with the species, it looked like. Maybe there was a saltwater equivalent—or, honestly, given how bloody unaffected all the merrow were by swimming in my water, they were capable of swimming up rivers and entering freshwater. A spell or natural protection, hells if I knew. Infuriating all the same.

The Priestess and Seros circled each other, neither wanting to make the first move. I perched overhead with my mana fluttering like a wounded bird. Seros was damned strong but she wasn't the type he could afford to–

He sprang at her with a roar, horns sliding up in a feint as he tucked down and lashed at her tail. The Priestess swung her staff forward.

The water between them flashboiled—Seros howled as the scorching water caught him on his side, searing over scales and far-weaker gills alike. He panted, half his breathing laboured and pained, struggling to swim out of the pocket of superheated water.

Gods if she didn't know how to fight sea creatures. Cold to hot—his mana went wild in his channels, desperately trying to smooth over the cracks building in his consciousness.

Something dropped from the tunnel overhead, swimming with as much grace as a dead fish, and lunged for the Priestess.

The kobold, her grey eyes as focused as I've ever seen them, kicked off the surface and charged. The Priestess blinked and released her boiling spell, shifting back as if to let the reptilian drift past her like a particularly lackluster bit of algae.

Neither her nor Seros were ready when the kobold instead floundered her way closer and ripped a fin off her tail.

The Priestess screamed, water whipping around her as she flung herself back; the kobold was blown back, thrashing awkwardly in the water, but her dulls claws—no, not dull, she'd sharpened them with a rock—had blood drifting hazily around them. First scratch.

Seros took no time in wasting the opportunity. Tail lashing, he spun overhead and whipped it at her, catching the edge of her shoulder and tearing one of her strands of fossilized kelp free. She shouted more words I didn't recognize and her staff glowed, water solidifying as a shield in front of her; but it was slow. It seemed she was very used to fighting at a range.

No longer.

The merrow with the spear howled as the silvertooth school he'd been so determined to slaughter finally drifted close enough to the corpse left by the greater crab, blood filtering up to them through the water. Their eyes flashed red.

Kobold and monitor swam in tandem as they charged, claws extended. The Priestess' staff flashed and another spell surged around her, water stiffening around the slash in her tail and sharpening elsewhere. Like swimming into a field of knives.

Unfortunately for her, Seros had hydrokinesis.

He roared, lashing his tail; the water between them shivered, caught between a mental war. Seros would never win—he didn't have nearly the experience she did—but the moment of hesitation was enough.

Propelled by another current he'd kicked up, the kobold rocketed into the Priestess' extended arms and ripped another chunk of flesh free.

A blast of freezing cold, but the kobold was tucked so close to her she missed wildly in her attempts to avoid icing herself. The reptilian hissed and spat bubbles but the Priestess slammed the butt of her staff into her stomach, wrenching the kobold away.

Seros lashed his tail, water frothing as he kicked up a fledgling whirlpool to force the Priestess to switch attention—the kobold took the opportunity and struggled her way to the surface, breaking through the water to one of the dozens of air pockets I'd sown around the ceiling to try and evolve my mushrooms in. She inhaled greedily, almost panting, and dove back under to continue.

Not an ounce of hesitation. If Seros didn't treasure her, he was more a fool than I thought.

The Priestess was far from finished.

She spun her staff, diamond glowing every shade of the rainbow, and threw a rippling wave of force through the room; an electric eel doing its damnedest to sneak up on her was ripped in half, its school shattered, even the trident-wielding merrow behind her crying out as a cut appeared over his stomach. Seros roared and darted forward, covering the kobold with his back; scales flayed as she tore a line down his spine, blood clogging the water between them. The kobold squeaked, bubbles flying from her mouth, and clawed her way past him to charge. Indignant fury filled her eyes.

The silvertooths finished cleaning flesh from bone of the spear wielding merrow and I shifted my point of awareness elsewhere; maybe there was another creature that could aid the fight between the two tyrants, something to distract her while Seros moved–

That was the problem with having spent so much mana that I lost my normal dizzying cloud of points of awareness. I only noticed the last merrow when it was almost too late.

One from the beginning, who'd slunk off to the tunnels to make his way to the back; a sword clutched tight in his hand, eyes narrowed, and mana swirling over his body. Some sort of stealthing spell.

He swam less than ten feet from the tunnel that would lead him to my core.

Seros!

The seabound monitor spun, saw the situation, and exploded.

I'd never seen him swim faster; limestone groaned as currents whipped up along their sides, eddies and whirlpools kicked up in his wake, fins fully extended and tail lashing like a hurricane. He cleared a thousand feet, two; the merrow glanced back as his death approached with fangs aimed for his throat.

But the Priestess was faster.

She raised her staff, the diamond within losing its luster as she seemed to bleed the power out of it; babble spilled from her lips as mana swirled around her, faster and faster, some sort of spear made of light coalescing above her head. A spell over her sea-green skin shimmered as it tried to protect her from the water boiling with excess mana, the entire rest of the silverheads on the floor not so much dying as imploding—

It could be excused, really. Not a problem I'm sure she'd thought of. The Priestess had perhaps never encountered kobolds before, or at least never seen a group defend a dragon. Self-preservation simply never factored into the equation.

But she elected to think that the boiling water would stop the kobold from attacking her, and that had never been a worse mistake.

Eyes lit up with grey fire, the kobold howled and sprang. Teeth that no longer deserved the title of fangs scrabbled at her side, at her neck; claws sharpened by amateur hands tore at her face. The Priestess screamed, spell dropping. She tried to kick up more boiling water, enough to flashboil any living creature less hardy than stone, but it didn't matter. She'd attacked a dragon.

And a kobold never forgets.

And perhaps some latent gift from her fire-drake legacy kicked in; the boiling water clung to her, ripping at her scales and tearing at her sensitive eyes and mouth, but she didn't die. She bit down hard, thrashing at the Priestess' skin with her sharpened claws, ripping blindly at whatever she could reach. The merrow died screaming, her protection fading and the boiled water sweeping in to consume her whole.

Seros, unhindered, cleared the last thousand feet and spent half a second ripping the stunned merrow head from tail.

Mana exploded through the room, rich and powerful and so welcome I wanted to cry; I immediately grabbed a strand of Bronze-ranked and flung it at the kobold, drifting away from the corpse of her kill. Seros threw his own power a second behind, wrenching the water away to give her air to breathe.

She wasn't bound to me any longer, but she was dungeonborn, and I shoved as much healing mana into her as her body would handle. She slumped over, but the milky shade of her eyes started to fade, scales regrowing and blood refilling through her veins.

She would live.

And, as my points of awareness slowly started to reappear as mana returned to my system, I could see the merrow with the trident had fled through the entrance he had been guarding.

Silence rippled through my third floor.

A merrow had escaped, off to tell Calarata about my true position as a dungeon and soon there would be more raids, more invaders, more people desperate to steal my connection to the Otherworld. I should have been panicked, furious.

All I felt was a desperate, desperate relief.