Nicau glanced back at Calarata, torch flickering weakly in his hand. Morning rose, low and flickering, over the Alómbra Mountains to light the city in strands of gold—soon everyone would wake up to see the obviously, painfully, visible pair.

Romei dug into the mountainside, splashing through the stony shore, blood pebbling under her cracked fingernails. "Not yet," she muttered, glancing back so he could point her more in the right direction. "We're so close—just one bloody scale and we'll go back. The Dread Pirate won't be able to turn us away." Her eyes burned. "I'm going to be rich."

Nicau looked at her. "We."

A pause. "That's what I meant."

"...okay."

Romei gritted her teeth and muscled more rocks aside to look underneath, wet sand sloughing away. "What about here?"

He closed his eyes, clenching his fist not holding the torch—he could feel thin, spidery trails of draconic mana, like memories of its flight, crisscrossing over the entire cove. "It should be there," he said, brows furrowing. The lack of sleep made him hazy but it shouldn't be to the point where he couldn't sense scales buried in the sand, especially only two days after the dragon's fall. "I don't know why–"

They both broke off.

Beneath one of the boulders, a crack spanned deep into the mountain, choked with sand and black beyond. Nicau could hear the echoing drip of water inside, promises of some larger cavern, and the muffled skitter of some creature; a proper cave, one hidden for potential centuries.

And, more pressingly, the steady buzz of draconic energy.

"In there," he murmured, hesitantly inching the torch forward. It cast shadows over the stalactites like a fanged maw. "Something's in there."

The crack was small, had to be if it had remained hidden for so long, but they were both street-starved orphans from an illegal pirate city. If anyone would be thin enough to squeeze through, it would be them.

Romei's eyes burned. "Let's go."

"Are you mad?" He hissed, unable to avoid another glance back at the waking city. "We don't know where the cave goes—it could go right out the other side of the mountains and drop you in the middle of the Leóro Kingdom. Or all the rumors of the goblin nation, and the stone-drakes, and that's without all the monsters living in there–"

"Do you want to join the Dread Crew?"

"...what?"

Romei cracked every bone in her body as she stood, blood dripping from her fingertips. She towered over him. "Do you want to keep catching pigeons for a living, unranked with no chance of even reaching Bronze, scrounging in the scraps and knowing that everyone in Calarata would kill you without batting an eye? Or do you want to be worth something?"

Nicau narrowed his eyes. "I want to join the Dread Crew."

"Then you'd be willing to dig through this mountain for a chance, wouldn't you?"

He hesitated for a second too long.

Romei snatched the torch from his hand, flames spluttering weakly through the scraps of oil they'd managed to steal. "Then go back to Calarata." She shifted the torch to her mouth, shadows thick in the hollows of her face, and dropped to her stomach. Sand shifted under her stomach as she started to worm her way into the mountain crack. Fearless.

She'd gotten what she wanted. Tricked him into leading her to the scales and scared him from going any further. Played him like a fiddle, really. Both of them knew damn well he wouldn't muster any courage to go tell a member of the Dread Crew about her plan.

Nicau looked between the crack and Calarata, between salvation and stability.

Gods, he really was a coward.

-

The mushroom was growing.

My many points of awareness circled over the entrance to my lair, prodding at the white flesh. I hadn't noticed it in the midst of the fight, but when I'd shove my metaphorical weight over the lizard to try and get past his thick fucking skull my mana had been drained, nearly three points of it. Neither him nor the snake had absorbed any, too caught up in their pissing contest, but they'd been fighting on top of my little fungal bait field.

And now one of the mushrooms was changed.

Its stalk had grown thick, cap reaching for the ceiling—the same proportions but swollen thrice past its original. Even its coloration was more of a pale green, as if it had leached life from the algae it grew from. I gave it a mana-filled poke.

It absorbed another spark.

Living creatures in my realm had two ways of gathering mana—active consumption, the killing of others. The second, however, was much more passive, my mere presence imbuing mana through the air.

For plants, their only way of growing was the second; unless, apparently, I shoved mana into them. It was hardly the most efficient plan—I'd wasted three points on this one mushroom and I doubted it had ended up with even a tenth of that—but there was potential there. All dungeons craved the evolution of their creatures.

And given how my idiot of a lizard would end up dead with all the fights he so loved meandering into, evolution would be my best chance to kill the bastard outside.

My cave spiders, still trembling in their metaphorical eight boots, slowly crept back down to the fungal garden. I nudged them with all the care of an absentee parent towards the largest mushroom, guiding them to build their webs right alongside its base. Maybe the deaths of nearby insects, no matter how small and insubstational, could guide its evolution.

Actually…

I twisted to glance at my core. The mana I'd all but drowned the lizard in to heal his injuries had been a painfully large amount but so had been what I'd absorbed from the snake's death, leaving me crawling towards three-fourths full.

I waited a second to at least fake thinking it through before grabbing a full point of mana and shoveling it into the mushroom's core.

It shuddered, billowing out to reach a peak of nearly two feet tall, swaying with its impossible height. The spiders clustered around its base fled like the little cowards they were. I narrowed mental eyes and latched onto another half point, trying to inject splinters instead of going all at once. The lizard raised his head as if he could sense the normally delicate procedure I was merrily tripping my way through.

The mushroom swelled and started to glow a pale white, growing fat and plump with mana, the faintest undercurrent of silver visible under its flesh, until–

Your creature, a Whitecap Mushroom, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Lacecap (Uncommon): Learning from the spiders surrounding it, this mushroom trades its pacifism for sticky webs that trail to the ground, trapping small insects to serve as bait for larger creatures.

Glowlight Mushroom (Uncommon): Without needing light itself, this mushroom has become bioluminescent to attract those that would carry its spores, spreading far and wide with even a single sprout.

Fungal-folk (Rare): The influence of pure mana has given this mushroom a mind to think; growing stubby legs and a fanged maw, this beast hungers endlessly and attacks any in its path.

A-fucking-ha.

Finally a proper dungeon move—the evolutions were limited but I could clearly see where they had come from, not having my own bonds or titles to draw from. Yet. The mushroom had lived through my spiders, the luminous constrictor, and… I suppose my own intelligence, for the last evolution.

I weighed the options.

Fungal-folk, at its core, certainly seemed the most useful of the bunch. Another aware creature, presumably with many future evolution options. I tried to imagine it, a lumbering, slavering mushroom with as little brainpower as its description implied, skin pale and waxy without eyes nor arms. My mana shuddered. No, I wouldn't be choosing that. Seven hells if I didn't need nor particularly want savage little monsters scurrying through the cavern system, scaring away all my potential prey and drawing the attention of moronic humans.

Pandering to reason aside, they sounded disgusting. Mushrooms were meant to remain beautiful, ethereal, and very, very stationary.

Glowlight mushrooms fit that and I could imagine endless rainbows of lights, dotting like stars on the cavern walls as I created enough to spread over the entire mountain, but I kept trailing back to the first option. Serve as bait for larger creatures. Oh, if that wasn't tempting—my mana tugged on subconsciouses like the world's weakest whirlpool but if I could build a real ecosystem, there wouldn't be a limit to how many souls I could collect.

I selected lacecap.

The mushroom shuddered once more and began to shrink, features hidden behind a pale glow. I had no idea how long evolution took; certainly for something like a mushroom, which weren't exactly complicated to begin with, it wouldn't be–

My world shook.

I threw my points of awareness out of the haze I'd sunk to in my meddling, peering around—the lizard stood behind me, back arched and tail thrashing. He'd crawled his way up my column to nudge me, eyes worried and darting. All my spiders were frozen in the furthest corners of their webs.

Because outside the cave, the space where I had no control?

Footsteps.

I sent billowing curtains of mana out, trying to pry past the stone to see; the footsteps padded closer, the slap of bare feet against rock. My lizard tensed.

Pale orange light crawled its way over the floor as a human—a nasty, filthy, rotten human wielding a torch—peered into my room.

Gangly and gaunt, she waved the torch ahead of her, eyes narrowed. A spider screamed as its web caught fire, jumping ship to flee to the cavern wall—she snapped the torch over and its ruby-red carapace turned scarlet-red for the split second it took to burn to death. No chance for webs, for venom.

Just like that.

I roared and the rest of my spiders swarmed, driven mad by the urge and shout of my mana—they threw themselves from the walls, manibles flashing, eyes rovering. She screamed.

But her torch still moved and in a heartbeat, the other five were dead.

"Fucking spiders," she muttered, burning away the remains of their webs. My fucking spiders, I would have bellowed, would have carved into her grimy face; but I couldn't.

Because I was a dungeon core whose creatures had already been destroyed, and that meant I had nothing left. The lizard stayed frozen on the side of my column.

"What is this?" She asked to nothing, swinging her insipid little gaze around my nest. Eyes narrowing, she at least stepped over my fungal garden, bare feet splashing through the puddles of water scattered over the floor. "A beast den?"

Maybe you could have figured that out with some common fucking courtesy.

The lizard shifted, tongue flashing; I surrounded him with as much calming mana as I could muster past my panic. If he attacked, if she killed him, I would be bound. Be dead. We would all be dead.

Her torch finally reached far enough back to show me, and I could sense more than see the greed building in her eyes.

"That's not a scale," she breathed, voice excited and rising. "Oh, that's not a scale at all– you're the heart." She came closer without fear now, torch limp at her side, water splashing around her ankles. "Gods. The Dread Pirate will make me his first mate."

I would die first.

I reached, blasting my mana deep into the surrounding mountain, her footsteps ringing through my mind as she came closer—just one beast big enough to scare her off, some earthquake I could trigger, something, anything–

My mana plunged deep into a river.

The source of all the puddles in my room, the reason my algae grew. It ran directly above us, wild and old, surging from somewhere up at the peak of the mountain.

I didn't hesitate.

My power poured out of me, tearing through the stone between us—the human flinched, raising her torch. I ground away at the limestone, gnawing and biting like a rabid dog. She couldn't take me. She couldn't.

I ripped through the last inch and the full force of the underground river slammed into my cave.

Both of us screamed—the water threw me off my column, my awareness spiraling as I tried to focus past the nausea; she collapsed, torch extinguished, water already where her knees had been and rising faster. It bullied her towards the door, head and thrashing limbs visible above its frothing surface, ready to escape deeper into the mountain–

No. Gods no, if she survived this and made it outside, she'd tell this– this Dread Pirate about me and I would die even faster, besieged by armies and mages and berserkers–

My mana flowed and I slammed it over the stone of the entrance, rooting deep into the limestone—with a heave like straining muscle, I pulled.

With a rumble, the stone grew and closed off the escape.

Mana exhausted and still being limply tossed in the currents, I managed to swivel some vision to see the human, thrashing as the water reached over her head. My mushrooms floated past, shreds of algae like hair spiraling around me, the wooden stick of the torch skittering against stalagmites. Ruined, everything ruined; but I could recover. She wouldn't. Bubbles billowed from her open mouth.

As well as another set of bubbles, small and helpless.

Horror bloomed.

My lizard thrashed, tail whipping at the water, clawing to reach the surface—but there wasn't a surface. The entire room was flooded. There was no air left for him.

And just like the human I'd tried so hard to kill, he would die too.

I flung every last scrap of mana I had at him, pressing into his lungs, covering his mouth—but I couldn't do anything. He wasn't mine, no way for me to trigger an evolution, no way to heal him from what I had caused.

The human collapsed, no more air in her lungs and limbs too weak from malnutrition to swim away. Her soul ripped through me, full of panic and fear, and mana exploded from her corpse, more than any snake or spider—but even with it I couldn't do anything. The lizard continued to thrash, unable to accept my mana, unable to find air.

Unless–

If my mana didn't work, I still had more.

I reached impossibly deep, enough to taste for a split second the nectarine feeling of the Otherworld, the source of my power; I dug through memories of wind and wings, through my own pride and personality, through my ego and who I was. My soul fluttered in my grasp, weary and misshapen, and I ripped my awareness out, searching for a similar spark–

The lizard's soul, weak and fluttering. It drifted away even as I latched onto it, bringing my own soul up to match. I slammed the two together, knotting and twisting and splicing; something posed a question to me, deep in my core, something older than my dungeon instincts or my dragon heart. I answered. Seros.

Light bloomed between us.

Underground Monitor

Seros

Large, fast, and heavily armored, these lizards have adapted to life in unlikely places. Their mild venom can paralyze their prey if a club from their whip-like tails won't, and they are at home both under the sun and under the ground.

Blessing of the Depths: Named by a sea-drake, the power of the dark waters is bestowed.

I came back to myself panting, trembling with the horrible sensation of attachment—no longer was my soul alone in its spiral of mana. A thread, no matter how thin, connected it to another. The thoughts connected. I panicked, spreading my awareness back out, fighting to see past the slowly-calming waters and the murk of froth and grit–

Just to see the lizard—my lizard—Seros—wriggle to the top of the room and flick his tail, some unknown power wrenching water away from the roof to let him take a shuddering breath. I could feel what he felt, from the desperate relief from the burning of his lungs, to his confusion at these new abilities and his instinctual control of them, to his–

Well. To his fear for my safety, frantic even past his fear for himself.

It wasn't enough to make me regret all the things I'd called him in the comfort of my own mind, but it was close.

My mana wasn't full but it was enough; I reached out and found the breach, the underground river splashing along its usual course now the room had been filled. I gritted metaphorical teeth and pulled, dragging the stone of the ceiling across the gap. Water washed it away but I managed to stay just ahead of the erosion, tugging a flimsy shield that lasted just long enough for me to reinforce it. My attention shot down and I ate into the floor, churning stone into dust; the water level slowly, slowly began to drop. I drilled holes into the outer wall to let fresh air in, I tunneled deep to store the water away in pockets to leave the room open, I respun a platform of smooth limestone for Seros to collapse weakly on.

And finally, with a mere five points of mana to my name, I let myself stop.

The room was narrow and crumbling, pitch black water lurking against the platform and the river rushing ominously overhead, the only light the pale glow of the runes over my core. A right and proper mess.

I would need to reopen the walls, bringing food and air for Seros, but for now I let us both rest.

Someone had invaded my lair, though I didn't think she was a proper adventurer—not enough gear, not enough meat on her bones, not near enough power to earn the rank Bronze. Clearly enough of a threat to my intellect that I'd destroyed my own cave and nearly killed the only companion I had. But I'd saved him, granting him a blessing and the Name… Seros. Seros.

Draconic for friend. Gods, I was turning into a hatchling.

He raised his head as if he could sense my attention, blinking blearily in my direction. Exhausted, the poor fool, both from the events of the day and the new powers that had dropped in his lap. Blessing of the Depths; I'd have to puzzle out the full details of what that was later, though his brief stint of hydrokinesis was enough to get me excited.

No, what I had to do right now was think.

Two or three days ago, after ripping out my own heart, I'd awoken as a dungeon core with a thirst for revenge. My first day could be excused; I hadn't known what I was, let alone my powers. But after that, well. What had I been doing? Staying in one tiny room, creating nothing more than some plants and a handful of spiders, wasting my mana forcing evolutions instead of letting their full potential arise naturally? Lounging around with plans of greater success and never thinking of the now?

I'd forgotten what I was in comparison to what I had been. A dragon had time to grow under the protection of their parents and siblings, to have floundering baby steps and early mistakes.

Dungeon cores had no such luxury.

I glanced around the room I'd found myself in—even with the bare scraps of mana filling it, I could sense life in the water with the promise of more in the river above. Two openings, one to the unknown and one to the coastal city. The home of the so-called Dread Pirate.

I'd bet my stolen hoard he was the bastard who'd killed me.

But if I wanted to survive, I had to focus on the me that was currently still alive.

So I shoved down my dragon-memories, let the taste of whale and the currents of the Ilera Sea fade deeper in my mind. Tonight I would rest, healing Seros and making plans.

Tomorrow, I would truly begin my first floor.