Dragonheart Core

Chapter 155: Twin Enigmas

Chapter 155: Twin Enigmas

Shoth was going to slit someone's throat, and at this point, he didn't particularly care whose.

This fourth floor was a nightmare, and it didn't have the decency of letting him wake up. Right beneath the flooded hellplain above, it was humid as anything he'd ever felt—the heady water-sickness that did its best to drown men standing on dry land. Every wall was an enemy, stretching out with lurching arms just begging for them to lower their defenses, spores just bright enough to keep their eyes from adjusting but never seeing through the darkness.

Shoth had the terrible instinct that the tunnels were moving, too, shifting under his feet in the laborious deed of the dead.

He hated this fucking dungeon.

Pau, who had originally been so helpful, was now being regulated to keeping the group together—quartz-lights would weaken both Lanc and Hulimat, which was dangerous, which meant they had to paw through near-complete darkness and just hope that they were moving in the right direction. Ossega still in front, Azkhal still taking up rear, as they cleaved through luminous constrictors and crowned cobras and platemail bugs

There were spiders here, which Gnat called to like a clicking monstrosity, but they were slow, bulbous things that wove webs of iron and stone right where a human's neck would walk through the tunnels. They could offer some direction, and did, but they were stationary enough they didn't know a complete way out of this miserable maze.

Even the child-wonder was useless now. Lovely.

On and on they traveled, searching for an ending to the endless; the only real thing they had to follow was Pau's mana-sense, a side product of his situational awareness. Whenever they killed something, he could feel where the mana was going as it raced to the core, the smallest of trails in the air. Hardly enough for a proper guide, but enough that they were more confident on picking left or right when the tunnels forked, which they did frequently. Unendingly. What a mess.

At least until they turned down another identical path, and the smallest member of their hesitant truce stopped.

Damn him, but Shoth immediately drew short, the rest of the party freezing in place. A miserable existence, listening to a tyke still undropped, but he hadn't led them wrong through the dungeon yet, and he was loath to fight what he didn't have a second response to.

They all looked at him, eyebrows raised, Alda stepping back. In the darkness, the black of his eyes was like the sea.

Gnat reached up, and one of the bulbous spiders crawled down to his palm, a thread of pure iron left in its wake. It sat over his spinneret, looking up at him with its multifaceted eyes, near invisible in the darkness. Click-click went its mandibles.

"There is something ahead," he said, quiet. "We are going the right way, but a threat lies at the end."

A threat? No, really? They were in a fucking dungeon. The whole place was made of threats.

For once in her pitiful life, Alda seemed to agree with him, a frown creasing her brow. "We're right drowning in threats," she said. "What's different about this one?"

Gnat held the spider higher, clicking to him with echoing repetition. "Strong," he said, pausing again. "Holds… many. Blue eyes."

A serpent, killed some tunnels ago, with blue eyes instead of habitual black.

"She is… controller," Gnat settled on, like he couldn't find the right word to put in place. "Greater than those around. Chosen by the dungeon."

Oh.

Ealdhere had mentioned the dungeon had Guardians. High Lord Thiago's hadn't had any, because he was a gormless twat without creativity, but legends aplenty told of them—creatures bound to the dungeon by soul and spirit and mana, fierce and clever, more than their making.

A brief spark of joy—if the dungeon was putting Guardians on its fourth floor, that meant it couldn't have had many floors in total—before wariness overtook it.

You didn't fuck around with Guardians. Ealdhere had spoken only a little on them, because a group of four Silvers who had only spoken of going to the second floor to commune with a god wasn't expected to go any deeper, but a psionic snake and draconic lizard weren't things to be taken lightly. Especially not when they were choked in an endless darkness and lost in a maze.

Alda grimaced. "What option do we have?" She said, brusque. "You said we're going the right way—no other option but through."

Gnat shook his head. The spider clicked its long mandibles in his palm. "The dungeon is made to go down," he said, and something stretched in his voice. "But its creatures need their own paths. There is another."

In Gnat's palm, the spider hesitated. All around them, mana sharpened to a dagger's point, the dungeon looking in at the active betrayal happening—but tough luck. If it hadn't wanted them to learn of its secrets, it shouldn't have left them around for its creatures to partake in. And for a boy that wasn't a boy to discover them.

Shoth found himself vaguely curious if the spider would be smited for its actions later. Maybe he'd force the core to keep it alive in a bit of petty entertainment.

Gnat nodded, lifting his hand so the spider could skitter back onto its web. "Go back," he murmured. "And take the left instead."

Wonderful. Reversing progress. But their other plan revolved around hope, and Shoth hated that more than he hated Alda, so on they switched around their positions and loped back up the path they'd already come, clambering over corpses and smoking sections of algae.

The sharpened mana followed them—followed them closely, really, in the most the dungeon had ever been explicitly tangible in their presence. Never enough to do anything, because that wasn't how dungeons worked, but enough that the hairs on the back of Shoth's neck stayed permanently raised. It didn't want them taking this path.

An excellent point as to why they should be.

Gnat moved slower with this path, pausing at each fork to trace back his thoughts, but they were moving, and picking up less and less kills as they went. The lack of enemies sparked each of their excitement—nothing was ever truly random, no matter how much the twisting maze of tunnels seemed to be. If a dungeon didn't want them to reach its core, it would place obstacles in their path. Encountering less meant they were going on a route less traveled.

At least until Pau took a half step and faltered. Safely sequestered in the center of the group, surrounded by shorter members so he could keep his head on a swivel, he seemed the most hesitant he'd been since the start. "Something is following us," he said, glancing back. "Not close, but fixed. Not a bug or serpent. Its eyes are higher off the ground."

Fucking lovely.

And the mysterious monster wasn't the only thing—though the enemies ahead of them kept decreasing, more serpents with blue eyes kept appearing from behind, gleaming through the darkness. One in a side path they didn't go down, and another behind, and a third slithering up until it almost reached their heels before Ossega cleaved its skull from its spine–

No. Trying to lead them back.

Shoth lived life by a very simple ideal—if someone tried to stop you from doing something, the chances were that something was worth doing.

The air grew thicker, more water beading over the algae as it lurched for them with sluggish arms; mist in the air, drifting through the stone, weighing down the glowing spores until the darkness was enough to drown in. Pau stayed achingly aware, their only sentinel unless they wanted to hamstring Hulimat and Lanc's abilities, Ossega's quicksilver eyes bright at the front.

Shoth's fangs vibrated in his mouth. He had never been more ready in his life, which was helpful, because the dungeon wasn't going to let them avoid its Guardian without a fight.

From the darkness came the click of claws. Not against stone, because that was drowned and buried beneath algae, but against each other. The hiss and chitter of insectoid voices.

Pau went very still. "A dozen," he said, fast and grim. "No, two—a swarm–"

Unfamiliar they all were with each other, but adventurers first. Before he'd even finished talking, Alda tore the cork off a vial with her teeth, clapped her rings to produce a spark, and hurled both behind the group.

Fire, orange and blinding, erupting into screams—hurtling through the smoke and flames were mantises, tall as a man's chest, claws long as sickles and black eyes full of hatred. Ossega howled a battlecry and lunged to engage.

By Alda's side, Gnat fully emerged from his ratty clothes, dead eyes gleaming—from the holes in his palms emerged silk, thick and thrashing, spun as webs and nets and lashes and leads. Whatever was in Alda's alcohol wasn't normal, and the fire leapt for the webs greedily, suckering to them like tinder. Every web he spun was a bomb waiting, sparks blowing holes in the approaching swarm, feeding Ossega and Nolla a thin stream to bully off.

But not all. Too many, too fast, and capable of climbing upside over the walls to reach those past the twin dervish fighters—Shoth picked them off with an assassin's precision, culling numbers to collapse with legs curled in, the tunnels cramped and only growing narrower.

One, with pink-white chitin and the sinuous grasp of a snake, lurched up from the side with its claws extended–

Aedan reared back and punched the mantis.

Mother of mercies, he'd actually done something.

From the moss over his hands, thorns emerged, wicked and bone-pale—a scatter of chitinous armour went wide as his hit connected, the insect whipping back. He choked on a yelp and punched it again, throwing it back, stumbling back himself. Shoth could hear how fast he was breathing from here.

Pau froze, throwing dagger going wide. "In the middle!" He cried, stumbling back. Shoth snapped to cover him, fangs rocketing through the eyes of the mantis sneaking up on Lanc, and nearly froze himself when he saw it.

Fucking hells.

Because in the middle of the mantis horde, a perfect disguise if Pau hadn't felt the difference of its gaze, was a new kind of predator—one enormous and rippling with muscle and perfect for these jungle halls. A jaguar, with rosettes through its emerald fur, a long, lashing tail with iridescent blue feathers at the tip, golden eyes bright at Alda's fire. It snarled, and even past the madness, the sound was loud enough to thunder into Shoth's ears.

He'd certainly never seen the like around Calarata. Where the fuck had the dungeon gotten this?

The jaguar was a new threat. A new distraction.

In the wake of its discovery, as they all tried to figure out how to kill an ambush predator in near-complete darkness and when swarmed by other attackers, one of the mantises slipped through their defense and slammed its claw into Nolla's leg.

The wave-dancer took the hit like a mountain for all she immediately spun and cracked her blade across its eyes, tearing out one and hurtling it back—but she wasn't Azkhal or Ossega, whose attunements helped with defense. She was built to move like water and avoid everything, fast and lithe, and this struck her like she was still a Bronze. Blood, rippling and bright, poured over her grey skin.

Everyone moved to cover—Hulimat surged forward, shadow snapping at the bit in his twisted reflection, Lanc throwing a false shadowed human to pull the mantises' attention, Myra pressing more mana into Azkhal for a fierce returning blow—but the mantises were dull and simple. Their charge stayed the same.

The greater predator saw the weakness and hunkered down—let the mantises swarm around its side, covering its enormous form until the shadows drank it down entirely. Nolla stumbled back, seeking shelter behind the other enhancers of their party, but–

Shoth saw it coming with a wretched kind of helplessness, trapped in the middle of the group as he was. His fangs sprang forward, racing, but he couldn't hit what he couldn't see, and the jaguar stayed within the swarm until the very last second.

Pau shouted something wordless—Nolla stiffened, blood dripping from her knee, blades rising to her chest. The jaguar lunged.

It was nothing but a blue-green blur in the darkness; Nolla, tall, stark, lit up from behind, had no time. She screamed as it slammed into her with a crash of shattering bones and splattering blood—high and piercing, still lyrical, still musical, bloated with agony. She went down. They both disappeared in the tangled net of algae.

Azkhal roared, springing forward—his club clipped only its feathery tail as it leapt off Nolla's body with an impossible grace, pushing off the stone to disappear back into the shadows. A mocking snarl echoed around them.

In its wake, Nolla trembled. Her throat wept scarlet through grey skin, pulsing out in tune with a fluttering heartbeat—Pau choked and leaned down, reaching for healing potions, clothes, bandages, tourniquets–

Nolla croaked, twitched, and slumped. Her blades slipped from pale fingers.

Shit. One member down on his and Azkhal's team—only Alda's was at the original four. For a group teetering on the edge of mutiny, that was dangerous.

Not as dangerous as the massive fucking cat in their midst.

"Up," Shoth barked, incisors vibrating as they crashed into two more advancers. "This isn't over!"

Pau lurched back to his feet, eyes clouded. A hunting mantis swung at his torso and he slammed a throwing dagger into its neck, stumbling back, grief fanning his fury—a heart on his sleeve, bleeding all over the place, but it made him dangerous.

Shoth bared his teeth and kept up the fight. One death wouldn't make ten more.

Pau's prediction of two dozen had been woefully optimistic—corpses littered their wake like a fallen empire and still more came from the tunnel, lunging in with claws raised and chittering madness. Ossega was a whirlwind in the front, Azkhal introducing exoskeletons to innards with the force of his blows, and they could have kept going against these relatively weak opponents but the problem was numbers. A Silver could fight against Bronzes all they liked, but mistakes were still fatal.

And there was something more dangerous than mantises hunting them.

"Left!" Pau hollered.

Shoth fired a fang before he could think about it—ivory snapped into the distance, so fast it whistled, but the jaguar lunged out of the shadows and pressed itself flat to the floor. His tooth rocketed overhead and slammed into the stone, bouncing off with a shudder of pain racing back over the mana to jab into his mouth like a series of daggers, muffled around his curses—it slotted back in place when he called it, missing the flat edge of its point. Fuck. Fuck.

Alda hurled another vial at the wall, lighting it up with an explosion of smoke and sound—she slammed a palm into Lanc's back, more false hounds spilling through his fingers, and shoved him towards the side tunnel. "Go!" She roared, eyes burning. "Follow Gnat!"

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Because indeed, in the chaos, the boy had stopped weaving webs and instead ran to the darkness—Lanc cursed in seven languages and charged after them, throwing up more shadowed distractions in his wake to give them cover. Azkhal bellowed a wilderness cry and shifted his grasp to the base of his club—less effective but now he could do wide, sweeping blows that filled the entire tunnel, holding the mantises at bay while Ossega fell to cover the other side of their retreat, shoving Pau in the middle and letting Myra switch her mana concentration to Azkhal. His eyes burned scarlet.

Another hit—another shriek from a crushed mantis—and then they were all down the side tunnel, Shoth firing his teeth fast as lightning in their wake. Beneath the insectoid chitter, he could still hear the growl of the jaguar, and Pau never once relaxed as they ran.

At some unseen command, Ossega spun to the side, battering at the whips of algae with his twin axes—a perfect distraction as Gnat slipped underneath and pressed a hand into the wall.

Through the wall, as he sunk up to the shoulder.

Ossega reversed his grip and cleaved downard—the algae twitched and writhed away from his blows as he tore whole sections from the walls, blade biting into stone only half the time. And when he was done and Gnat successfully scampered back to Alda's side, there was a new tunnel that had been hidden under the algae, stretching down in the distance.

No time to wait for risk assessment. "Go!" Shoth barked, and shoved Aedan forward as an unwilling test—the priest dropped to his knees and crawled through the smaller gap, robes leeching colour in the darkness. Through the vines, the algae, still lashing for blood—but Ossega and Hulimat beat it back as Alda threw herself through, dragging Lanc alongside. Shoth waited a moment to call both his fangs back before following, popping into a still-dark still-cramped tunnel but without algae on the walls.

Hulimat next, Myra behind, Ossega crawling through backwards as he kept lashing out with his axes. Azkhal was last, and he almost didn't fit with his enormous shoulders—but before Shoth could truly think about abandoning him, he dug his fingers into the stone, growled, and slammed his way through. Dust rained from above.

But then they were all through, and the mantises and jaguar stayed firmly on the other side.

Fucking hells.

Shoth sagged against the wall, breathing hard through his teeth. His mana was curling around his mouth, pushing healing into the nick in his incisor—gods, he was going to find that jaguar just to wring its stupid neck—and every muscle he owned shook, lacing exhaustion into a body that could not afford to feel it.

Four floors down, and an unknown number still to go. The core at the bottom. He couldn't be tired now. Even as his heart beat a pauper's dance in his chest, he knew this was not the time to falter.

But gods above, what the hells had that been?

It was easy to be pampered in High Lord Thiago's dungeon, which was as uncreative as it was surmountable. The bastard resting on his golden laurels didn't do shit to elevate his dungeon beyond the fact it was a dungeon, and the Kingdom of Leóro kept him fat and well-fed for the service of merely providing a place of mana to adventure in. Little wonder that Calarata's dungeon had gained such interest, even with the Dread Pirate overhead. People wanted more than what relics of a lazy past could grant them.

But that creativity came with creative deaths as well, and of twelve, they were now ten. Nolla's corpse, blue-lined and incredible, lost somewhere behind them in the darkness. Therrón, bloating in the mountain lake.

Shoth bared his teeth against the darkness. Difficulty meant nothing more than higher peaks to climb, and he was still alive.

They were still in the dungeon, but not where adventurers were supposed to go—without the algae or mantis horde, they could take a moment to breathe and recover. Shoth was going to milk that for all it was worth.

Aedan clasped his hands together, moss crawling down his face, bloody thorns disappearing back under the surface. He was ashen pale and shaking, murmuring constant prayers to a god about three floors up, sounding sick even when whispering. Rhoborh was the God of Symbiosis—not warlike in any meaning, and his priests likely followed his example, if Aedan's understanding of healing and plant growth meant anything. Maybe this was the first time he'd actually had to fight, to grow thrown instead of fresh blooms. Wonderful. At least he'd had the stick in his ass forcibly ripped out.

Azkhal murmured something in a foreign tongue, sounds curling around each other in guttural sounds and animal-like croaks. A eulogy, maybe, which was perfectly adorable, but they were still in the thick of it, and such fanciful things could wait until after. Pau was still stiff-jawed and furious, Hulimat curling a fist drenched in shadows, Lanc peeling illusions from his palms, but they seemed ready. Time to go.

Myra pressed a finger into his side, mana soothing through the connection. Shoth sighed, using the boost to heal his tooth faster, a Silver's advantage over Bronze. She nodded and didn't offer the help to anyone else.

At least someone in his party understood keeping advantages to themselves.

For her part, Alda hummed something under her breath as she readjusted all her vials, filling the empty pockets and switching around what she had in the fast-twitch draws. A readiness danced on her face, the desire to keep pushing. They only had so long before the dungeon would be invaded again, and they needed to finish this before then.

"Oi, Gnat," Alda said, sounding remarkably unaffected. "Got a lead?"

The boy hummed, hands grasping on air as he shook strands of silk off to flutter over the ground. The hunger lurked in him, his gaze, his existence—impossible to find any humanity alongside it, tucked in his black eyes. He stretched up, palm to the sky, and clicked the teeth beneath his lips.

No response. A few distant echoes, but nothing that came clambering over the stone. Gnat frowned, reaching out again, but this tunnel wasn't for living, and it had nothing to give.

Alda clicked her tongue. "All's the shame," she said, like it was an extra copper for a pint and not a complete lack of understanding for the death trap they were walking into. "But we can keep fast for–"

Gnat looked at her. Alda stopped talking.

She was short and he was shorter, weaker, more frail—but there was almost something subservient in her eyes, keeping her mouth shut as she waited for his response.

Ice shot down Shoth's spine.

He'd made a fair number of assumptions today. You had to, when delving a dungeon—spending your time muttering over possible connections or lack thereof was time he didn't have when jaguars with massive fucking claws came loping out of the darkness on a course with his skull. Alda had brought Gnat and called him insurance; then used him to find paths through the dungeon. After he'd spun little webs to trap the mantis in, Shoth had reasonably shuffled him into the near-useless-but-team-member category he'd designed long ago.

But that didn't explain why Alda was looking at him like this.

"Back up," Gnat murmured, soft, but in the suffocating silence of the tunnels his voice echoed around the group. "She is above."

She? Yeah, she sure fucking was, as long as the she in this equation was the bloodstained jaguar or the mysterious Guardian they'd managed to avoid.

"Not yet," Alda said, in a tone of voice that was likely meant to sound convincing. "We're makin' it to the end first. You can go pick her up after."

"Different," he said. "Not food. Other. The presence."

She blinked. Shoth blinked alongside.

"Right," she said, more hesitant now. "But still a ways to go before you can do that."

Gnat furrowed his brow. "Are you challenging?"

"Course not," Alda said, with a disturbing lightness that didn't cover a flash of fear. "Just stickin' to the deal, is all. You're s'posed to get me to the bottom, no?"

For all those two seemed to be existing in their own world, they weren't, and the surrounding eight people went very still. Ossega's quicksilver eyes flashed with something unreadable—Hulimat curled his fingers into a fist as his shadow thrashed—Myra raised her head, jaw set.

Shoth stood there, and felt the ice redouble.

"Deal?" He asked, before the part of him determined to play dumb could win. "What deal is that?"

She opened her mouth, ready to spill lies so sweet he could practically taste them, before she was interrupted.

"Between her and Mine," Gnat said, like woven apathy. "Food for protection. For discovery."

Alda sighed. She only seemed half disappointed. "Well, the kid's laid it out. No need to worry your ugly head over it, qanra. Just a gentlemen's agreement."

Shoth looked at her. At her smile.

He should have expected this. She was from Athábakhanú—an exile, not a willing adventurer. Athábakhanú was a land of desolation past the corners shelter curled up beneath, and fragility wasn't allowed. For an exile to survive banishment and make it to the outer world, she would be more than the typical Calaratan mark he was used to fighting.

In isolation, this deal didn't seem like much. Food, discovery—maybe Gnat wasn't a typical member of her party, and she'd needed to bargain to get him alongside her. Hells, that was likely what the rest of the group was thinking, if how they'd turned away meant anything. A normal adventurer's extortion. Perfectly in line for Calarata.

But Shoth wasn't green behind the ears. He looked at Alda's face and saw what was written beneath her empty smile.

"You're going to betray me," he said.

Alda laughed, a dark, mullish sound. "Betray," she parroted. "Are you mad I'm doin' it before you could?"

In a word, yes. Shoth had a rather marvelous plan that ended with her head on a pike and him standing tall with core in hand. Even if he didn't make it to the end, a final petty revenge would be instructing Aedan to only pray for his party's protection—letting her and hers die while they were unharmed. He imagined that would have been a nice balm over failing to obtain the core.

But she was speaking like she had something else. Something tangible.

"See, you got some big talk in your teeth," Alda said, shrugging. "Grab a priestly bastard who the gods will fall over backwards to save. But that's hopin' on hope. Clutching that delusion like a babe on a teat."

Her grin was sharp. "I've got one a little more real. Wañuymanta atipay—and plans big enough for it."

Shoth stared at her. At the boy by her side, the not-boy boy with spiders in his soul.

Calaratan was full of those who would serve a better time on a stage than in reality. No reason to be so proud of your plan you shouted it to the rooftops instead of keeping it tucked away—for all the many moons he'd traveled with Myra and Therrón, they still didn't know the full power of his attunement. Oh, they suspected, and likely the rest of the party did as well, with how he'd made Aedan bleed through his fucking gums at a hint of disobedience.

But there was a reason he'd felt a kinship with the mangroves of the higher floors. He kept his secrets in his mind or in corpses. And here was Alda, prideful enough she'd tell him to his face of her planned betrayal, and think he would just play along.

He'd told her the essence of his plan, let her fill in the gaps where he hadn't said anything. Gather a group of twelve, trick Lluc into letting them in piecemeal, then make a charge for the core. Little guess she could imagine that he planned to fight all the others to be the one to claim the core himself, because of course he was, they all were—and it seemed she thought that was it.

It wasn't.

Shoth let his gaze slide over the cramped cavern they were waiting in.

Pau would be useful, but not enough. Especially if Shoth's plan worked to perfection. Not a threat, either, considering he was mostly support for Azkhal's party. Hulimat stayed much to the shadows—toss a quartz-light in his direction to weaken him, same for Lanc. Not enough. Too different from his attunement.

Azkhal himself was dangerous, fast-twitch and paranoid—even though the blood in his tattoos was promising, Shoth didn't trust he could finish what he needed to before the man would gut him to his grey masses. Ossega, too, considering the man didn't speak Viejabran and was a whirling dervish with his axes.

Gnat? Shoth didn't trust the spider in human skin, particularly not with whatever deal he'd made. Not worth risking it all.

Alda raised an eyebrow when he looked at her, arms crossed, smile shining through her singed beard. Fully fucking content in the delusion she'd won, and he was just trying to find a way around.

Oh, he'd love it to be her—but her attunement was useless. Alcohol, brewing, fermentation—intricate knowledge of effects and calculations, yes, but not enough. He'd kill her later, when everything wasn't on the line. When the world was in his grasp.

That left one, considering he wouldn't risk Aedan when Rhoborh could still be arsed to interfere. He looked at the only remaining member of his party.

Myra was a horrid bitch who used her attunement as an excuse for keeping herself as bitter and biting as possible. Oh, he'd enjoyed that for quite some time, fencing insults and blasphemy with the understanding that they still had each other's back—but there was another reason why he let her join his party. Why he kept her around, even as she scared off all other prospective members.

A plan he'd kept in the back, hoping for a more conventional path that held the potential of developed power, but never one he'd discarded. And one that was critical now.

Shoth stood fully. He shook off the façade of normality he'd shucked over his shell for this whole adventure, for bowing before Lluc as a normal Silver on the pursuit of impossibility. The mana, sparking through his chest, through his eyes, through his teeth.

With hindsight he could see in the moment, it would be safer to wait. To pull the weeping coward's act, promise to help if only so she wouldn't leave him behind, wouldn't make him have to fight through the dungeon alone. Wait until her back was turned, and then act.

But Shoth fumed now, steaming, seething, and the risk would be worth the expression on her face.

"Aedan," Shoth said, dragging the shivering priest's attention back to him. "Can you run?"

Alda laughed, all teeth. "Run, run, little ukucha," she purred, like he understood the insult. "And where will you run, beyond straight to the death?"

She had an odd way of phrasing it—the death. An Athábakhanú understanding, perhaps, a more spiritual take on a soul traveling the world beyond. Fitting, for the dwarves that burrowed into the marrow of mountains and never poked their heads above the stone.

Shoth didn't bother with a response.

To his credit, miniscule though it was, Aedan just nodded, arms still tucked feverishly tight to his sides. "As much as I am needed to," he said, quiet.

Acceptable. Shoth wasn't one who kept all his ships in one harbour, and as much as they were many floors below Rhoborh's territory, Aedan was the kind of spineless pious bastard that could still plead for protection. Shoth would have to work with it.

"Myra," he said, because as much as he wouldn't go laying out his intentions for Alda like he wanted critiques, he wasn't above some dramatics. "It's time."

She grinned, sharp. Mana crackled under her skin, preparing for what she thought was a miraculous sort of thing, grinding Alda beneath their heel and claiming the core. The hunger that had led her to searching him out, though she didn't understand quite what she was partnering with. No one did.

There was a reason he had killed the previous master of this attunement in order to learn it. There was a reason he had stayed at Silver for so long despite the years that were crawling up on him. There was a reason he had worked so hard to disguise himself as a normal adventurer when he met the Guildmaster Lluc.

Something like caution entered Alda's eyes. She hadn't expected him to do anything but roll over and show his stomach. "Don't tell me you're that foolish," she snorted, flicking an impassive finger at his chest. "Take certain death in the dungeon, or a chance of survival with the core in my hand."

Shoth didn't respond.

Myra laughed, this vicious mix of hyenas and thunder-screams. "We've got our own offer," she said, sneer firm in place. "Bow your head to the true masters of the core."

Well. Shoth was polite enough he'd let her die with a final retort on her lips. He rather imagined that was how she would've liked to go.

But her opinion didn't much matter as he stepped forward and sank his fangs into her throat.

Myra screamed—everyone did, this panicked exhalation of surprise and fear. Shoth wrapped his arms around her and pinned her to the wall; slammed her skull against the stone with a satisfying crack as he drank. As he drank and drank and drank, filling himself, emptying her, scouring power and death in turn.

He was adept at this and all it took was a drag of his canines to tear open her windpipe—drain blood and air at the same time, forcing her mana into trying to heal her body instead of retaliating. Myra clawed at his sides, pulses of mana snapping and billowing against him, but more sank through his fangs—into him.

The reason he kept her around. By its very existence, her mana was attuned to help others. Even if it wasn't blood-attuned, it was compatible with him. He drank it down like the finest wine at a feast.

Mana thundered through him, this shrieking tidal wave and monsoon and earthquake ripping around his channels—and then outside, bouncing off his surroundings, filling his awareness until the world paled in comprehension and the walls of the cavern became known. A sense. A Gold-sense.

Myra struggled, faltered, struggled, fought—and slumped in his grasp, head spilling over his shoulders. She pawed weakly at his hands, gasping nothings to the dungeon, and the last of her blood—of her mana—sank into him. Dead.

Shoth stumbled back, mana crackling through him, and laughed.

Gold.

Shoth, greatest of his attunement, stretched out his hands and let mana burn through him in ascending purity. The tunnel heaved and shuddered in wake of his power.

Much like he'd thought, everyone was too startled by his actions to retaliate, giving him the precious moments he needed to show the last corner of his attunement he'd never shown anyone else, at least not without them being on the receiving end. A martyr's attunement, he'd called it once, with a kind of laugh no one at the time had understood. They never would.

A thief he was, and a Gold-ranked one at that. Finally. Finally.

Alda was stiff, frozen, hands over the vials on her waist. Oh, where was her deal? Where was her precious little betrayal and the plan she'd wanted to bash over his head?

Gone. Just like she was about to be.

Ever pragmatic, Azkhal turned to him—the war-like man was built for fighting and little doubt he could have raised his club in the mere moments Shoth was distracted by his ascension, but he didn't, because all Silvers were bound by this intrinsic fear of Golds. Prey versus predators, no matter how much they could slaughter Bronzes. Golds were above. Golds were beyond.

He felt like he could take on the Dread Pirate. He felt like he could take on the world.

But Shoth wouldn't let the euphoria control him. The death of all great things, heaving their weight up to categories stronger than them—no, he knew his mission. Claim the core. Don't waste his time pattering about with lesser fights to test himself when instead he had to leave them in the dust.

Let them try to claim the core. Let them distract the dungeon with frivolous fights—he had something else in mind.

"Aedan," Shoth said, and smiled around teeth that were all sharpened—that were all threats. "It is time to run."