Dragonheart Core

I let the schemas tumble over my core like tossed stones.

Ice-attuned mana didn't hurt, particularly since I didn't have a material body to hurt, but there was an echo of it; I held the idea of their bodies in my mind and felt intangible aches in my fangs and rugged patches on my scales. Potent things, these creatures; while I didn't have more than three, already my thoughts spun together great shining glaciers and towering mountains of nothing but ice. Muskox, thundering over the plains; piercing lynx skulking through the underblow; snowscape beavers carving palaces in the desolate.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a place for them in my current halls—the lesser muskox needed room to roam and while they could potentially fit into the Scorchplains, I doubted their preferred tundra home would mesh well with choking smoke and flame. The snowscape beaver was in the name; I'd make them an arctic, but I didn't have one yet.

The piercing lynx could fit, and I could see them in my unfinished heart tree, climbing through the vascular vines and branches. Invaders who tried to hide couldn't from their all-seeing gaze, and if the humid density of a faux rainforest didn't work for them, I could simply send them down a floor.

That would be the plan, and already my core thrummed with excitement to see those two widely separate ecosystems next to each other. There was so much to do.

But for now, I chucked out one more point of awareness to make sure that Gonçal had left—he had, the tunnel stayed devoid of thieves—before turning back to my Underlake and the changes there. Already the floor was divided up, churning up the existing sandbed into a mess of stone crags and bloodline kelp; not a peaceful walk. Though Gonçal had swam to the surface to let me guide him to a talking point, I had seen him clock the change; no longer would the only threat of the Underlake merely be defending attacks from above as you trotted on through. Considering I was about to lose my armoured jawfish, I needed that.

I didn't have a Named here, which was going to stay that way, despite the two Names I was preparing to create. The third floor was too high for me to be comfortable; I wanted my invaders figured out before they came traipsing down to stick a secret attunement through Seros' ribs. So my commanding creature would instead be the royal silvertooth, whose horde had coalesced from all the silvertooth schools; he would be the main centerpiece through whom my instructions were communicated. Mostly.

He was, unfortunately, a little single-minded on his silvertooths. Mayhaps I would also have someone else.

And, as I dove through the murky currents and tug of the cloudskipper wisp's waves, I found one.