Dragonheart Core

Deep within the Skylands, three invaders thundered to the ground like falling stones. Three more died, cut down by my vampiric dryad; but still three more. Still a threat.

I roared; Alda's soul swept through me, sparking with potential, Ossega and Lanc only a moment before. My Skylands crackled in response, Khasvar's boon tinting everything with lightning. A storm bursting at the seams.

Hundreds of words scrawled over my core in golden letters, mana pouring through me, my Otherworld connection howling like a caged beast; Shoth was dead and the Scorchlands exulted in his death, Aedan abandoned to gibber on the sand, Alda's concoction crashing an island to the ground. But right this second, three miserable fucking invaders picked themselves up and shook dust from their hair, so that was where I went.

Up, up, up, I crooned, softer now, no longer driving my creatures into a frenzy to protect me; I guided their heads towards the humanoids in their midst. Damnably, I was still shucking off instincts from the frantic delve; my obtuse mana use meant all three invaders snapped upright, feeling my wingspan spread over my creatures' minds. Fuck.

But my creatures were still coming. And the invaders no longer had a way to sprint through my halls, not on the ground as they were. Trapped, like prey chased into a shallow cove. They were mine.

All around, already boiled out from their failed attempt to catch Shoth and Aedan, the Magelords emerged with fingers burning bright. Some weeks, months, had they been in my dungeon, and they'd mapped the environment out to their liking. A spider's web of mushroom-rope bridges and carved hollows, an ant's colony so far above what their previous home had been, at least from what I'd gleaned from their memories. Two dozen of them, all battle-ready and determined to fight down to the last drop. They already had a… brood? clutch? was there a goblin word for these things? that they were very invested in protecting, given there was some age of majority before they could properly learn how to manipulate mana. Similar to dragons and gravitas, but unlike them, hatchlings had venom to protect themselves before the world itself bent to their will. Goblins didn't have that. Another addition to their regrettable nature. Chapters first released on novel★fire.net

I was calmer. Gods, I could think again—could give myself the leeway to mock goblins instead of dissolving into dread as a Gold thundered towards my core. Azkhal and his group were still a threat, yes, because all invaders were; but I trusted I could stop them. I was able to pull back from the mindless terror. To think.

So close to death. Not even to death but enslavement, a destruction of my self and ego and identity. It was only now I was able to concentrate on anything past that.

Magelords came tumbling out, mottled scorpions readied their stingers, mist-foxes weaving illusions by the dozens. From the largest carved room, still guarding his little rock piece, Bylk emerged—stooped and wearied by age, that meant nothing to the constellations glimmering over his fingers, flecked fire-red and stone-grey. And also nothing compared to the beast alongside him.