Dragonheart Core

Chapter 174: Internal Threat

I was midway through throwing the last of my points of mana at carving an elaborate archway in the eighth floor when my points of awareness spiked—or, more accurately, my alarm system for my newest walking monstrosity lurched to follow Gnat.

It had been perhaps a day since his evolution and his grace had… moderately improved, insofar as he was capable of walking without stretching out his arms for balance or constantly stumbling over his own claws, but not much else. His mind was still a maelstrom of divided thoughts and interaction, unable to wrangle an identity out of the mix of two slammed together; though Gnat was supposed to have died and the webweaver survived their fight, the human had not wanted to go gentle into that world beyond worlds, and he clung with a fervour to his body. Which made things difficult. It would be much better if it was only the webweaver's mind.

But it wasn't. And thus I was temporarily okay with Nenaigch shoving him into the side tunnel instead of directly next to my core.

And it wasn't like he wouldn't see action here, as he was already making himself a nuisance as Nicau came back.

He was bloodied, dusted, and looking otherwise very tired—Chieftess was still a brimming pool of energy in the way she'd always been, both of them slung over with gourd-pots stuffed with plants. One of the kobold hunters was missing, a new crimson scale on Chieftess' chest, but the other and the warrior both marched behind to take up the rear. It seemed the jungle had not bested them.

But they probably hadn't been expecting this newest roadblock.

My arachne—Gnat, gods, could I please change his name—reared up, a hissing, spitting chitter snaking through the air. Nicau froze dead, mana sparking to his tongue—Chieftess raised her claws—the kobolds readied their spears–

And I slammed in overtop of everyone. Stop.

Gnat halted, because the webweaver part of his mind still knew to obey the Great Voice, and he skittered back, enormous legs flashing in the dark. His mandibles clicked before his mouth, all eyes fixed and glossy; considering the only light was the single quartz Nicau had clutched in his palm, it certainly seemed like a nightmare.

"Give-self?" Gnat said—with said being far too generous. It was a monstrous, garbled mess of a sound, like old scales dragged over stone, rasping and hissing and choking over his own fangs. "Here-give-self?"

Gods, I couldn't wait until his brain sorted itself out and he could have even an ounce of intelligence.

Nicau, for his part, seemed to have looped around from startled into bewildered acceptance. It wasn't the strangest thing he'd seen from my dungeon, though it was the first with as strong a human influence as this one.

"Okay," he said, careful. "I am one of the dungeon's Named. This is Chieftess, of the kobold tribe, and two of its members. We are returning to its halls."

Gnat tilted his head to the side—which off-balanced him nearly into falling over, this idiot—but I was hovering in his mind, plucking the threads of agreement and necessity. I was his Great Voice, and he knew I was right.

"Self-to–" he paused, eyes sharpening. "You are here. For Great Voice."

Still stuck between human and arachnid talk, but closer. I'd take it.

Nicau licked his lips. "That's right."

Chieftess warbled something distrustingly.

Gnat, on account of being fucking enormous, filled the entire tunnel—so his apparent solution was to rise to the very tips of his claws, legs splayed to press against the stone; he pressed his exposed back to the ceiling, bulbous spider thorax shifting and rising, until there was just enough space to walk underneath.

Nicau stared at that. He stared for a moment too long.

Then he sighed, hoisted his gourds higher on his shoulders and slipped under, nearly stumbling in his effort to move as fast as possible. Chieftess followed right on his heels, her claws fully extended, and the kobold warrior had a scuffle trying to get his spear through without stabbing Gnat before they were all on the other side and, appropriately, booking it into the shadows, far from the arachne.

Gnat turned to watch them go, head cocked. Thoughts moving.

I dumped a few more points of awareness over him and followed Nicau.

He kept moving quickly, whatever exhaustion he'd brought from the jungle thoroughly wiped clean in face of that new welcome. He paused as he felt my attention sweep over, wincing just a touch, though he smoothed his face over before looking up. "Is he… always going to be in the tunnel?" ?

A guard, I said, slightly miffed. Protection.

"Right." He rubbed at the brim of his nose. "Thank you, o' dungeon."

Was that sarcasm? That felt like sarcasm.

My awareness of the tunnel was frightfully small, lest I wanted too much of my ambient mana to spill off unused in the canals of the Alómbra Mountains, and it was only some ten minutes between Nicau entering my awareness before he emerged into the Jungle Labyrinth proper. He yawned, setting his quartz-light down; I fed it with my own mana and let it spill warm yellow over their surroundings, soothing the thornwhip algae down to keep it from attacking them.

One kobold down, but entire gourds full of new creatures. What did you find?

Chieftess warbled something. Her mind thrummed with excitement.

"As much as we could bring back," Nicau said, diplomatically. He gestured to the kobold hunter, who nodded, started to pull apart the numerous gourds over his body. "The jungle was very full. And–"

Then he paused. Emotions, one too fast to parse apart, flitted through his channels.

"We found something," Nicau said, hesitant. "Ruins—just a half-built structure, in an abandoned clearing. Some bones, which we gathered. But."

Chieftess warbled, tail lashing the ground. The other kobolds shifted.

"I, ah." He paused, pursing his lips. "Got angry?"

What?

Nicau's connection to my soul fluttered as he attempted to shove his memories through it, vague recollections of shoddily-stacked stone in the center of a clearing. It was strangely empty, even the roots hungering on the edges instead of encroaching within, just the desolation of some small-scale loss and the bones left there.

I felt nothing looking at it, because unfortunately they were just memories, but I did feel the reflection of his anger. This fierce territorialism, the pain of nails digging into his palms, the shaking, shuddering rage that came from nothing but old stone—and the visceral relief he'd felt leaving the site, abandoning it back to its eerie solitude.

Nicau shrugged, a little helplessly. "I don't know what it was. I've never felt anything like it. I wanted to– punch something, anything. Chieftess too."

She nodded when he gestured to her, hissing something through her fangs.

Right. I'd been around Nicau enough to know that while he liked power and he liked prestige, he was not necessarily the type to obtain it by bloodying his fists against the faces of those below. There was a reason his grand scheme had been feeding people to me rather than killing them himself. And the rage I felt through his memories was entirely antithetical to what I knew of him.

Curious.

The bones, I said, clustering points of mana forward. Perhaps they will reveal.

He warbled something and the kobold warrior stepped up, pawing open the gourd slung over his back. From within, he tugged out a bone, split in half to fit. It was yellowed with age but surprisingly pristine; no bite marks, no cracks. Like time had forgotten it.

Just the bone wouldn't have sufficed, but I was the Resurrector, and by the gods, I would bring this thing back.

…which was also wonderful that resurrecting something gave me the schema, rather than actually bringing the creature back, considering it would probably be a bad time for all involved if I dropped a hyper-capable predator right in the midst of this group. Ah well.

I poured over it, dissolving the outer edge piece by piece, ivory-white flaking off into mana as I dug into the marrow of what had been a living creature, and what would become a living creature once I gnawed into the depths of what it was–

Crack.

Terrorbird (Rare)

A beast only found in the deep forests, it stalks through the underbrush with enormous talons and jagged beak. Their flocks control sprawling territories, fearing nothing and crushing all those in its path.

Oh. Oh!

I remembered this one!

Hells, what was a supposedly rare Otherworld schema doing in the middle of this jungle off in one lonesome corner of Aiqith? I rather thought they were supposed to be these impossible creatures I could never make for myself.

Well, that sounded like complaining, which I certainly did not want to do when such a wonderful schema had come to me. If nothing else, it spoke marvelously of building a jungle floor when you directly bordered a jungle to take schemas from. Particularly ones as dangerous as this.

Certainly something capable of killing those smaller, though. Particularly in packs, roving through the undergrowth—though it was curious these had entered the clearing to kill the others, when the rest of the jungle had stayed back.

I leaned over, letting the schema flit back to my core. The other.

This one came out of Chieftess' gourds, two thin bones that looked eerily humanoid, down to the twist and length. I paused as she set it down, examining it closer; familiar, in a way. I took my time breaking it down, feasting upon all within.

…hm.

Knowledge flowed through me, critical information that I– already knew. Depictions of stone-carve dens, of mushroom-based diets, of reproduction and fighting habits and intelligence.

For highland goblins.

But as I devoured the bone, let it trickle away to motes of light as I ate my fill, no schema came to me. Nothing more than the understanding of goblins I'd already gotten when the first of the Magelords had died in my halls; and much like I hadn't gotten the schema then, I didn't get it now. A sapient race, one the gods themselves prevented me from just making as I wished. The reason that it was so critical to have gotten the kobold schema from my evolution, because I couldn't have gotten it any other way.

Goblin, I said.

Nicau blinked. He looked at the ground where the bone had been, like a fully-formed goblin would spring through the cracks. "What?"

Again with this. I'd already said what it was. Goblin.

Perhaps expected, though. Bylk had mentioned a third tribe of goblins, the miners, who had disappeared far below; it couldn't be that much of a stretch that some had tried their luck in the outer world. But that didn't explain the rage—the fury my normally quiet Named had felt. Nor why it was so untouched.

Well. There was damningly little I could do about some ruins in a distant jungle, not when I had bigger problems to claw towards. I dismissed the knowledge, alighting back in this room with my full awareness.

The other schemas, I reminded him.

Nicau sifted through the gourds braced on his hips, head tilted. "Creatures or plants first?"

Well, this would be a jungle, but I had always been a being of teeth. Creatures.

"Only three," he said, apologetically. Then paused. "Four. With the bones."

Already almost at his previous record. This was quite the improvement.

The kobold warrior nudged open his gourd and dumped a whole head on the ground, still leaking blood and pus; it was oddly humanoid between green fur and wide fangs, black eyes frozen open in death. A monkey, I thought, though I'd never encountered one before. A climber?

Well, no point in speculating when I could just figure out the truth. I gnawed on the mammal's head.

Verdant Howler (Rare)

Land and air combined, they are beyond agile as they leap and fling themselves through the canopies of jungles, traveling in roaming packs. With their camouflaged green fur and wicked claws, they are a nightmare for those who don't see them—but their echoing cries are always heard.

If my terrorbirds would control the ground, then these would control the skies. Already I was stitching together the schema and Nicau's memory of the event, their booming howls stalking the underbrush as they fell from on high—none could resist them, even if they knew they were coming, because I would place my plants so strategically to never have them be seen until they wanted to.

The next was rather easy to parse apart—an insect, large and sprawling, though split down the half to reveal pink-white flesh under its burnished gold carapace. I picked my way through.

Acidic Centipede (Uncommon)

A motley collection of limbs and claws, it waits beneath stone and brush for any to cross its path, digging dens with spat venom. Rarely is it ever threatened twice.

Fascinating; similar to my crowned cobra it seemed, ranged venom attacks when bites weren't enough. I'd be curious how it dealt with my more populated floors.

The last was near impossible to see, just a tiny thing, but Nicau took the most care with it. He carefully overturned his gourd, letting it fall splat without touching it—and considering the bright orange stripes over its back, it was rather the correct choice.

Sunset Dart Frog (Uncommon)

It lives an unharried and unworried life, content in the fact its bright colouration will dissuade predators. If it doesn't, they will both only have a very short amount of time to regret it.

Oho. I was damn near giddy, feeling all this information flood through my core like the finest of meals—and I wasn't even done. The frog was a lesser prize, admittedly, relying on natural instinct to keep from being attacked and only able to enact revenge instead of protect itself, but it would fill another necessary gap in my ecosystems. Much the same as the next section; I slipped my mana back into Nicau's head. Plants.

A hint of a grin flashed over his face—he was anticipating something, interesting—and he warbled to Chieftess, who churred back and to the others. And then they started to pull out plants.

And kept going.

More and more and more—I didn't even bother to sift through all, to admire the intricacies; just devoured them one after the other and let the knowledge flood me like a hurricane.

Towering Cypress (Uncommon)

In a land of competition, it grows to beat the rest. Only once it breaches the canopy will it begin extending branches, glutting itself on sunlight until it grows faster than all its surroundings.

Cobweb Banyan (Rare)

A collection of interwoven branches without a central trunk, it spreads to take up as much room as possible, building off of other trees to cement itself within the jungle.

Painted Fern (Common)

So named for the way they absorb colours from their surroundings, it adapts to whatever hue is most likely to survive with.

Maraca Moss (Uncommon)

Its large, heavy seedpods move at the slightest touch, clattering against each other like the ringing of bells; creatures are frightened away, leaving it uneaten.

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Laddercap (Common)

It grows in extremely dense protrusions off of trunks, stable enough to be used as supports for climbing—which it uses to attach its spores to the bottom of traveler's feet.

Clovertail (Common)

A large, sprawling bush, it covers itself in white flowers to attract pollinators and ensure its seeds are spread.

Crane-Bloom (Common)

Its flowers are extremely long, fencing off the base with wide leaves and vibrantly-coloured petals. Its nectar is all the sweetest for those who can reach it.

Gods, there were so many of them.

The two trees, indomitable and towering; the ferns snaking through the underbrush; the moss filling in the gaps between roots; the mushroom to help my creatures up; the flowers as sparks of brilliant colour through the green–

Already my mind spun like a thousand currents of what I could use these for, to create such a masterpiece of a jungle within my halls that it would be unlike anything seen before. And not even on the eighth floor, but elsewhere too, filling in the gaps of my other lands who needed the variance. The vast majority of these I already knew would not be the evolving type, the kind I hoped would reach the fabled fifth evolution—but that was, perhaps, the point. Not everything in a dungeon could be the apex predator; some were needed to fill in the bottom ranks. And plants were rather perfect for that.

Nicau had done well—and the kobolds as well. I pushed my last remaining points of mana into them, a soothing, encouraging touch brimming with pride—a half-surprised smile flashed over Nicau, brightening his whole face.

Thank you, I murmured.

He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm happy you like it."

Oh, I very much did. Obtaining plants as a mountain-bound dungeon was a dream I hadn't known enough to dream of until he had supplied it. And now he could rest well in the Hungering Reefs, helping show the kobolds what they'd learned of the outside world, while I shaped my eighth floor and puzzled over whatever that odd ruin was.

Hm. Actually, I could nip another issue in the nest here. Before I polished up more of my floors, I wouldn't mind an adventurer's opinion, and of all my creatures, Nicau was doubtless the best to convince Kriya for assistance. And I did want to see his reaction to another human in the dungeon.

I want you to meet someone, I said, flicking a vague collection of a map into his mind. Kriya.

Nicau perked up, head tilting to the side. "Kriya," he repeated, like testing the word. "Are they another Named?"

No. And likely not ever, considering I needed more trust than I could get from humans to Name them—but, with my new title of Welcomer, I hoped I could make her dungeonborn if she agreed to join me. No, I said. She is a human.

He blinked. "What?"

What was confusing about that? I thought I'd explained it rather succinctly. This way, I said instead, pushing the map more firmly in his mind.

Nicau glanced back to Chieftess, whose golden eyes were thrumming with excitement, like her little jaunt in the jungle hadn't been enough adventure for the day. I could respect that kind of deliverance.

She warble-hissed a question to him—and I could actually hear that it was a question, though the precision of the words was lost to me. Their language was very, very close to be decipherable, which was lovely, considering it was a pain to dip into their thoughts every time I wanted to know what the kobolds were gossiping about.

Nicau shrugged, churred something back, and began making his way towards the Stone Jungle.

I darted ahead, all the better to clear the path of any adventitious critters hungry for a bite; the bladesong mantises were already beginning to spread through the outer tunnels, in territories unmaintained by Veresai, although I was already running into a problem of supplying them enough prey. It was a problem throughout my halls, actually; as my creatures evolved, they tended to become predators, chipping away more and more at my ecosystems. The Scorchplains in particular, even with the bounding deer and moose; the blazebane wolves would need more sustenance. And the seekspine lizards. And the kobold tamer.

Hells, there was a lot I had to do.

But for right now, I dipped through the tunnels until I emerged in the open chamber of the Stone Jungle, my mana pooling out to alert all of my presence. Far in her dorm, Veresai lifted her horned head, four eyes gleaming with power; she hissed some vague greeting, idle curiosity sifting through our connection. What was I doing here?

Kriya, I murmured. Here to see her.

Pride thrummed through Veresai's mind—I, the mighty dungeon, here to look at her thrall—and she hissed a command, mana flickering through the air. From further back, a shallow outcropping that led to a moss-filled room, Kriya walked out, head bowed.

I paused.

Kriya was standing there, dappled red-gold scales flickering with quartz-light, slitted pupils blown and hood pressed to her neck. Healing mana hazed around the tips of her fingers, ready for another half-dead serpent to be set before her, blood smeared up pale skin; and she looked drained. Tired. As exhausted as she'd been before, if not more.

But I'd given her a gift. Restorative aloe, all the better to heal Veresai's horde without emptying her own stores.

My points of awareness fluttered; I'd left some here originally to see her reaction when she woke up with the aloe in her room, but the distraction of everything had led to me neglecting it. I threw another off to her room, peering at the spot where I'd planted it, but there was–

Nothing. The plant had been carefully removed, a healer's precision, and then used.

Raw frustration crackled through me. Kriya was a healer, one who knew damn well how powerful that plant was; and it looked like that, considering how carefully she'd removed it, roots and all, to make sure not a piece of it went to waste. But then why would she just– use it all? Why not take a cutting, bleed some sap, and let the plant regrow so as to maximize it?

Unless it had been another's command to do what she did.

But before I could follow that damning realization down the line, Nicau was already entering the Stone Jungle, peering around curiously at the land he'd only seen once or twice before. The forestfall ratkin, leading her cluster of mage ratkin around for more harvesting of jadestones, webweavers filling more fake trees with ghostly webs, serpents with flickering blue eyes traveling about–

And the den at the far back, the way down, writhing with bodies. Veresai's oracular blessing had already told her of the intrusion and she slithered out, crown held high and eyes burning.

Nicau, for his part, winced. It seemed he did remember when I had originally spoken to him through her psionic abilities.

I nudged him closer, at least enough he wasn't squinting across the enormous room, and he hesitantly walked over the rolling hills of billowing moss, kobolds right on his heels. Chieftess had her head constantly moving, keeping everyone in her line of sight, claws bristling. Understandable, really; being Veresai's territory had imbued the air with malice, making for a thoroughly uncomfortable experience. Little wonder why her horde kept bloodying themselves endlessly for a chance at survival.

Veresai watched him approach, coiling up. He paused some sixty feet away from her, plenty to talk without the excessive threat of death, though from his thoughts he really wished he was anywhere else. For her part, Veresai just seemed confused, though she was too prim a leader to show it.

I dipped back into our connection. Also here to see Kriya.

More pride—another to admire her geas—and Veresai hissed again, shifting to the side so as to frame the entrance to her den. Nicau frowned, not moving, glancing back at Chieftess.

Then Kriya walked out.

She kept her arms tight to her sides, hood pressed in, none of a serpent's threatening actions. Her naga ancestry gleamed in the light, dappled scales, quartz-light bouncing off her fangs. Eyes averted from Veresai, she padded out into the clearing proper, stopping before she strayed too far from the den.

Nicau stared at her. I stared at her, at this automaton that I could have sworn had been a person not two weeks ago.

"Hello?" Nicau tried, thoughts prickling with unease. Even Chieftess was stiff, watching the interaction with a lash of her barbed tail.

"Are you here to be healed?" Kriya asked, in a garbled throat rasping from unuse. She looked back, not making eye contact, but shifting so her head pointed to Veresai. "Am I to heal him?"

Veresai just hissed, more mana flickering around her eyes.

Nicau took a step forward, almost unconsciously. Something was brimming through his mind, taut and uncertain. "Are you a… healer? For Veresai?"

"I serve the Empress," Kriya said, head tilted. "Who do you serve?"

Nicau licked his lips. Every nerve he had was tense. "The dungeon."

There–

A flash of attention. Of interest, something more than bland apathy. And then it faded away, disappearing back beneath the winternight pool of obedience filling her eyes.

For the strangest reason, I felt a prickle of– discomfort. Guilt, almost.

In the beginning, Kriya had seemed… alive. Serving Veresai, yes, healing what should be her sworn enemies, but still functional. Still thinking. I had taken some joy in turning another human to my side.

But it seemed as Veresai drained her, kept overusing her mana, her spirit had dipped and died under the geas. Until only the thrall was left.

She was a human. She was a human who had invaded my halls with the express purpose of enslaving my core, binding me to her service, and I had tried to kill her for the slight. I had killed her party, quite successfully. I had rejoiced in that.

But I hadn't wanted this.

Nicau's soul lurched in his chest, pain echoing through our connection as he dug his nails into his palms. Worry, confusion, and– revulsion. At this. At me, for allowing it.

"Are you okay?" He asked, cautious.

Kriya just stared at him, like she didn't understand the question. She likely didn't, if Veresai had remade her mind; she only distinguished between alive and not. Like she had been rewritten.

But the question did not go unnoticed.

Veresai hissed, coiling up; her serpentine horde boiled in, called by her summons, the atmosphere simmering to a dagger's point. Mana surged to Nicau's tongue as he tensed, battle-ready; behind him, Chieftess curled her claws and the kobolds hefted their spears, bristling. Power hummed in the air like a warcry.

Stop it, I snarled. Do not fight!

Veresai hissed again. Her eyes burned; she didn't like Nicau's question. She didn't like that he dared to institute her thrall was… malfunctioning in any way. Not for Kriya's sake, but for that of her psionic mana. If he asked it again, she was going to punish the disrespect, my commands be damned.

My first instinct, worryingly, was to separate them; pull them apart so I wouldn't lose either of my Named nor special creatures. My mana was already reaching out to do it, to tug Nicau and Chieftess back, guide them to the Hungering Reefs and leave Veresai to calm down—but.

But that was what she wanted, wasn't it?

Get rid of the interlopers, since she knew I wouldn't let her kill them. Back to her unchallenged territory, particularly with the boundless jaguar already moving down and the mage ratkin being annoyances at best. She would once more have free reign of her floor, since she knew she was powerful enough to threaten anything that entered, and it wasn't like it was difficult to sense my affection for her bloodthirsty ways. She knew she was admired. She knew she was necessary.

I stared at her.

There had always been the budding nervousness in my core about her; I hadn't called her a gold-drake as a compliment. They were oft the most powerful of the dragons to the terrestrial races, which they would brutalize to build their horde; tyrants to all those in their surroundings. But they were known tyrants, and more often than not, they were killed for it. One could only be a monster for so long before others decided it wasn't worth it, and they pushed too fast too hard before they'd built up the strength to be unchallengeable.

But Veresai had been unchallengeable, because I'd made her so. No creatures in my dungeon were allowed to kill the Named, every spar with me watching overhead, because I would never allow them to die preventable deaths.

Which meant that she held a perfect confidence in her actions and no understanding that she was not the higher power.

I stared at her, sharper now. My mana prickled overhead.

It had been a little too long since anyone had pushed back.

Nicau, I murmured, pointed enough to echo out for other minds to hear. Take Kriya with you.

Perhaps most worrying of all, Nicau didn't balk at the new command. Just nodded. He thought it was more necessary than his own preference to stay out of the action.

Gods. How bad had this gotten?

My empress serpent, my Named, my tyrant. She slithered closer to Kriya, rearing overhead. Her thoughts thrummed with a bitter refusal.

All around, my mana grew teeth. Nicau will take her, I said, pointed. It is my choice.

Veresai hissed, butting up against my iron will with her own fanged approach—she switched tracks already immediately, four eyes flashing. Her next thoughts were of her horde, the endless serpents flooding the Jungle Labyrinth; if they were to grow stronger, they needed a healer. How else could they fight for mana if they were scared of death? How else could they learn their limits in anticipation of invaders?

I bared unfortunately intangible teeth. I gave you a healer. Alongside my words, I sent an image of the restorative aloe thundering over, what should have been the solution to her problem.

Veresai paused. Her forked tongue flicked, a peal of light drifting through her crown of horns. She remembered what I was talking about, and her memories lit up with telling Kriya to heal her serpents above all else.

There was a damning certainty when she thought of how I could simply make her more of them.

Absolutely fuck that.

It had been twenty points for a near-seedling, which was enough mana to revolutionize my halls with the new schemas Nicau had just brought. If I had spent that on the kobolds, they'd have dedicated one of the shamans to learning only healing mana, providing an endless bount of healing for themselves. Hells, even my creatures without sapience would know to only drink the sap instead of ripping the whole godsdamn thing out.

Veresai had Kriya, a healer from the start, and still wasted her talents.

It hadn't been more than a moment, less than an hour, since I had come down here. Since I had seen what she had done with what should have been the greatest boon for a dungeon horde; since I had seen what I allowed her to become. It required a response. I should have thought about it, should have weighed the cost and rewards, but fury simmered under my surface in a way I hadn't felt since I had destroyed half the Drowned Forest in an endless rage against the inevitable.

My mana settled around Veresai, looming overhead like her creator, which I was; and she would do well to remember that. Break the geas.

The echoes of the command flowed through my halls.

It was a terrible choice. I would be dropping a Silver right into my sixth floor, ripe for the taking, but– but I would also be putting her on my most populated floor, filled with monsters, and leaving her uncoordinated and confused after a geas. If nothing else, I trusted Nicau to be able to command her, and my various creatures to slit her throat should the need arise.

It was a terrible choice. But it was also the only way I could show Veresai that for all she had made an empire, she did not own the land.

Veresai hissed, blue crawling down her horns until they were entirely lit up with iridescent rage; her thoughts thundered over our connection. Refusal, fury, the constant repetition that Kriya was hers.

Maybe she was. But Veresai was mine, and I would be damned if I would let her continue on her current path to threaten my dungeon and all the creatures therewithin if she kept up with this fucking power trip.

Oh? I taunted. Are you so weak you need her?

I'd called her a gold-drake; I knew how to hit where it hurt. Veresai reared up, fangs flashing. The rest of her horde slithered away as her wrath bled into the surrounding air, a psionic raid-frenzy of her own making. The exact thing I knew I needed to avoid; creatures fighting mindlessly for a war larger than them. Not using their minds, their intelligence; just the raw force of their bodies. Her horde did that.

I remembered her rejecting the spined lizards simply for not being serpents. Her constant refusal to parlay with the mage ratkin, even if their nimble fingers would allow her jeweltone serpents to properly obtain a coat of magical gems to utilize their mana on. Her war to keep all outers out of the Jungle Labyrinth.

How long had it been since she'd fought?

And I didn't mean her horde, her army, the blue light flaring behind her traveling serpent scouts; I meant her. When had she last bloodied her fangs on a threat her serpents hadn't brought back to her as food? When had she last used her psionic abilities on anything but commanding her underlings?

Chieftess ruled her tribe. And yet it was her that went out into the Myvnu Jungle with Nicau, who swam in the lagoon to hunt food for all, who investigated the world to learn new things. The kobolds were growing.

I had given Veresai a Name before of her strength. I was going to give Chieftess a Name because of the strength she gave to others.

Veresai fought like a dragon.

But I wasn't a dragon anymore.

All around, my mana picked up, swirling in these biting ripples as the air stirred. Everyone felt it, shifting, the anger I exuded like a lifeforce; so close had Shoth come to destroying me. I would not allow those I had created—those I had Named—to do the same.

Break the geas, I said, cold. No point in taunting, trying to cajole her into obeying. It was either she did or she didn't, and I would react accordingly. I will not tell you again.

Maybe she knew she'd pushed too far. Maybe she could hear what lay underneath my words, the promise there. Maybe she understood what this meant, maybe she didn't.

Veresai's eyes burned. Mana scorched the air, fire-bright, and–

Kriya collapsed.

Nicau yelped, bouncing back; the kobolds clustered up, gazes spiraling as if they anticipated another attack descending from on high, but it was just Kriya, sprawled in the moss, eyes closed and the remnants of the geas floating away from her head. Her scales, dappled like light through leaves; the hood fluttering loose around her neck; herself, unbound. An adventurer, free in my halls.

No longer under Veresai's command.

Oh, it was a battle, but it wasn't the war. Veresai was still glutted on Otherworld mana, filling her horde with terror and commanding too strong of a presence in my halls to ever be ignored; taking away Kriya, even temporarily, wouldn't stop her. All I'd done was bruise her ego.

It was a test for us both. My way of seeing how she reacted; if she used this as a lesson to grow, to be more than the tyrant I'd allowed her to become, or if she would double down now that I saw the full display of her violence.

And it was a test for me, if I would be willing to cull her if needed.

I didn't want to. Gods, but I still remembered her back before, when she had been a mere luminous constrictor falling from the ceiling to stop a juvenile lunar cave bear, when she had been a horned serpent slithering through the thorned roots of vampiric mangroves to entice invaders into her waiting fangs, when she had first taken claim of the Jungle Labyrinth and shown my halls what she was truly capable of.

I remembered her before I'd given her a Name. She had been… more, then. An odd thing to think about a creature that had evolved so far past her fragile start but she had been more alive in the beginning, when she had fought, when she had wanted to grow. Veresai of today just wanted passive domination. To control the center of a land and let others brutalize those that dared threaten her.

A monster, yes. But not the monster I needed.

Help her, I murmured, softer, to Nicau. He nodded, hesitant; though he didn't know the full story, it was rather hard to miss that something had happened. And still, that quiet disgust at what had happened; at what I had allowed to happen.

A month ago, I would have killed him for daring to think of me like that. But now I just looked away.

I didn't particularly care about Kriya, not with who or what she was. She was an adventurer, a human, who stalked my halls looking to enslave me. Killing her was what I did, and I would feel no shame from it, whether it happened then or now.

But I would not take her mind. I would not become what I feared would happen to me.

Slowly, Chieftess padded forward, golden eyes fixed on Veresai. She crouched, tail extending for balance, and got her arms around Kriya; hoisted her up like she weighed nothing, slumping over in Chieftess' arms. She kept her gaze locked on every threat as she walked backwards, the other two kobolds keeping their spears up and teeth bared. Mana still waited in Nicau's mouth.

To the Hungering Reef, I murmured. It will take away her exhaustion.

He nodded, warbling something to Chieftess as I pushed a new map into his mind. The journey would take some time now I didn't have the auxiliary tunnels, but I hoped it would be soon enough; I needed to talk to Kriya, to learn what had happened and why she had seemingly disappeared beneath her thrall. Why Veresai had been draining her healing mana dry, even if she hadn't engaged in any fighters with invaders.

I split my consciousness, sending half with Nicau as that group carefully walked out of the Stone Jungle, wary as all hells. I dumped another chunk over Veresai, to actually watch her, to not let this corner of my halls go unchecked.

Then I drifted away for other things.

I let my new schemas flit through my core, already imagining where they would go in the heart tree once I regained enough mana to make them; the verdant howlers, filling the air, the boundless jaguar clambering up my extended branches, the cacophony of green and green and green. A perfect hellscape.

What I had hoped would be Veresai's new home.

She had grown too large for my dungeon. I still hoped I could cut her down, show her the error of her ways, but for too long had I been content to let her corrupt herself because it meant she was more powerful. And it didn't escape my unfortunate attention that it was only now, watching her destroy a priceless resource of a healer, that I was stepping in; not before, when I'd watched her slaughter her serpentine horde wholesale if they dared not to bring her food or attempt anything past her commands. Only once she'd threatened to kill one of the greatest boons possible, if I could convince Kriya onto my side.

Maybe Veresai would be given a place in my heart tree. Maybe she wouldn't.

But I would no longer allow her to think of herself as a dungeon instead of a dungeonborn.