Dragonheart Core

I watched Nicau descend.

Chieftess was carrying Kriya, the anaga-human weighing nothing in her arms, the darkness before meaning little to her golden eyes. Nicau kept Otherworld mana in his throat, tense and coiling for any threats, but I smoothed the way before them as they traveled to the Hungering Reef. Kriya was still unconscious, listing from the breaking of her geas, of her enslavement.

I turned away. I would confront that when she was talking.

But for now, I gathered my wits about me, letting my new schemas flutter through my awareness; not enough mana to fully sculpt the eighth floor, considering how large it was, but enough to begin. I dove down through the limestone and basalt, through the empty mountain that protected my floors from the other, and arrived at the future home of my heart tree.

It was a wonderful hell of a place, exactly as I wanted. In comparison to my other floors, it wasn't as large; perhaps some three thousand feet in diameter, vaguely circular, the walls irregular and peppered with dens.

And then the ceiling, a lovely three thousand feet off the ground.

I had rather wanted to make it more, to tunnel down until it was leagues upon leagues that invaders had to climb up, but my dungeon instincts had lurched unpleasantly at the thought. There was a reason dungeons had floors, rather than amorphous spaces; digging too deep meant breaking the orderly composure of our halls. If I dug too far, I would limit the amount of total floors I could build. And already I could sense the faintest strain in my awareness, the knowledge that I was approaching the end of what I could maintain. Even as I allowed more deities to claim my upper floors, to hold them stable with their mana, I was only one core, and I could not control an empire fit to consume the world. There would be a maximum to my number of floors, and one day, I would reach it.

But not yet. I still had time.

So I spread myself over the floor, mana coiled and ready. My dreams were already honed and prepared, waiting at the tip of my core, and all I had to do was breathe them into life.