Chapter 123: Soliloquy

Chapter 123: Soliloquy

Beset on every side, a horde surrounding and a thrall in her mind, the Gold still did not die quickly.

Syalia, able to drift into clouds of mana and flit from danger like any spriteling in ocean pools, attacking with a fury that didn't reflect to her blank eyes. One wordsarnulakh, in whatever tongue that wasand she'd quite abandoned her desire to flee for something more bloody. Veresai answered her in kind, an endless army of serpents, spiders beyond, the warbling cry of lesser creatures, and the Gold's death was assured.

But I didn't want her to die, because she wasn't the only fucking threat in my dungeon.

Because as Veresa's horde continued their vicious attacks, the mage ratkin launching great beams of mana and tearing free strips of armour, someone continued to descend to deeper floors.

Ghasavlk.

Deep in the darkness of the den, past the thrall he'd slipped into Syalia's mind with the command distractnot even speaking to my creatures, just at the clever-fingered Gold he had seen no harm in casting aside like an Unranked commoner. Whatever the language he spoke, whatever mana he wielded, had made Syalia seem irresistible, a siren's call of mana to hunt, as she spun around their attacks with blistering grace unhindered by mere mortal things like fear and self-protection. New novel chapters are published on

Veresai seemed a monster, with her power to pull people under her commandbut I had taken comfort in her being my monster.

Ghasavlk was not.

Every time one of Veresai's horde made to look back to their den, to follow the screaming commands I heaped in their mind to get them to go fight the actual bloody threat, Syalia was there, slamming her dagger hilts into their skulls or lashing out with an armoured kick. A living distraction, but the further Ghasavlk descended, the less and less his thrall held over heralready her movements grew sloppier, mind torn between the dark and the dreaming, between the commands and the consciousness.

Lovely, really. I was so interested in watching how his power worked.

I was just slightly, tinily, infinitesimally more interested in killing him.

Not her, I snarled, the roaring bite of mana sinking through their skulls. Not her. Him! Hunt!

But whatever he'd done, whatever stinking, insidious power that cloaked Syalia held strong. He turned through the tunnels with careless ease, guiding himself like he had been born in these darkness-choked lands without mind nor care of creation. My hunting mantises and shardrunner spiders were hardly passive prey but that meant all but hells to him with his fucking mind control, the simple little words in his odd tongue that pushed them away like wafting breezes.

I sat overhead, and I seethed, and I felt a fury well beyond what I could have wielded.

A dreadful thing, sometimes. To be a dungeon core. It was to live again, to spread my power as great as the gods above; but all while trapped in marble, in the swirling red-black stone that had been my heart.

Though there would be at least one death to satiate me.

Syalia wheezed, an empty, fluttering sound that rattled in her chestblood beaded and spilled over her skin, shallow cuts from where the mage ratkins had billowed apart her intangible form. Still fighting, but now of her own accord, which meant viciousness with one eye pinned to the back of the Stone Jungle like she thought she could escape.

A fanciful dream, but an impossible one. She would not just be leaving.

But that was a question to puzzle over when I didn't have a fucking threat marching its way merrily down towards my core, so I dumped a few dozen points of awareness over her head and flew down to the depths beneath the Jungle Labyrinth.

Down and down and down, Ghasavlk went, through the tunnels I'd painstakingly carved, the ones that had never felt a human's feet beyond Nicau, until he emerged into the awe of my fifth floor.

There was a part of me, however small, that was more curious than afraid. The Skylands were so recently completed, mana arching together in synchronicity and new godly boons, and it hadn't been tested for a very long time.

I would have preferred some slinking Silver who I could be assured would be stomped dead well before they could make it deeper, but I would take what I got.

And what I got was Ghasavlk drawing to a halt in the Skylands, steps freezing beneath, looking out over the wonder and splendor and glories of the mist-choked isles forked through with blue-white lightning and the shriek of distant predators.

"Oh," he breathed, something soft and startledI preened like a luxurious beast. The first time any foolish eyes unaccustomed to my beauty had laid eyes on my floor, and at least he wasn't enough of a coward to appreciate what lay before him. Well deserved.

Short lived, however, as pragmatism took back over; Ghasavlk hummed, mana crackling around his eyes, spilling from his teeth like fangs. More of his commands, I guessed, more of those infuriating words that kept my creatures at bay; but oh, I rather thought he'd find this floor a touch too much for his liking. This was not the cramped tunnels of the Jungle Labyrinth, where my monsters came at him one-by-one, or those of higher floors, much weaker than those fed by deeper mana.

Gold he was, but a dungeon was I.

In fact, I prowled closer as he took his first steps into the Skylands, eyes still wide and a gleam of confusion as he took in the exotic sights. Already I could see his death playing out before meperhaps the bladehawk would spear him through the heart, or the storm eel would sink her twin jaws into her first terrestrial prey, or the

The awareness swept over me like tar.

Akkyst was here.

Akkyst, asleep, slumbering under the weight of the new Name I'd so graciously bestowed upon him, unconscious to the world. He would be out for days, if what had happened with Seros and Veresai was any indication, and in that time he was pressingly, achingly defenseless.

A starwrought bear, silver-furred and scholarly-minded, but that meant nothing if he was asleep.

And then, from the depths, from the darkness at the back of the hoard, a monster emerged.

My monster.

Seros, droplets sparkling off his scales and horns thrust back, stalked forward from the mist. Gravitas spilled from him like a struck bell, the ringing of power beyond that Aiqith lent out to mortal creatures, a gleam in his golden eyes like inner fire.

Ghasavlk went very still.

Whatever confidence he'd had shriveled away as Seros prowled forward, claws tearing furrows in the stone, tail lashing behind in slithering fury. "Another Chosen," he whispered, barely a sound in the air.

Damn right I had more Named.

The invader stood there, knuckles white, breathing in gentle, rhythmic patterns that did little to stave off the panic I could smell building within. "Thank you for your care, dungeon," Ghasavlk said, leaning his head back to widen his gaze, through the trembling clouds of mist like I lurked beneath the grey. His attention did not leave Seros. "I will not bother you further."

Oh, he'd certainly been bothering me.

Seros felt that sting of my fury through our connection and rumbled, something deep and thunderous in his chest. He didn't have wings but gravitas flared behind him, spread to capture the scene, mist swirling at his beck and callnot his typical hydrokinesis, but still something within his power.

He'd grown quite far from the cantankerous brute of his past.

"I do not mean you harm, dragon," Ghasavlk said, palms out. He took slow, careful steps back, eyes fixed forward, and wariness curled around his shoulders. "Your master will not be troubled by me today. I made no attempts on the core."

Oddly presumptuous. Oddly specific.

Seros hissed. He agreed.

Ghasavlk inclined his head, as if a dueler to another, and started walking backward. A fool's retreat. My creatures sensed weakness and darted in, feathers bristling, claws extended, talons poisedanother Magelord, clinging to the side of an island. Her claws bit into the wall and skittered, barely out of adolescence and with a burning desire to prove herself, slunk up the stone gripways her kind had built, blue-black ears pricked and mana humming over her fingersone lucky swipe, barely a scratch, anything to break his concentration.

Seros snarled and lungedGhasavlk gathered his mana and threw.

"Khangi!"

The Magelord froze, tumbling off her precarious perchthe storm eel shuddered to a halt, fangs baredeye-blight butterflies collapsed under their own unmoving weight. The Skylands creaked and crashed in absence of movement.

My beautiful, lovely, wonderful draconic monitor stayed charging.

True, honest fear flashed through Ghasavlk's eyes and he ducked under the attack, almost throwing himself off the islandSeros' tail lashed and mist swirled around him, breaking vision, scattering composure. Ghasavlk's eyes burned with Gold-sense and he threw himself back, limbs clattering over the stone.

After him! I shrieked, voiceless in furymy creatures lost themselves to the raid-frenzy but then Ghasavlk abandoned all poise and ran, the cluttered, awkward movements of one unfamiliar with it, and threw himself into the tunnel. Greater pigeons and bladehawk feather skunk into the stone a heartbeat after he had been there.

Seros howled, a terrible and furious sound, and pursued.

Up Ghasavlk ran, panting, mana coiling through his limbs in desperation strengthinto the Stone Jungle. Syalia was still there, though hardly for long, eyes blurry with fatigue and losing blood far faster than she regained it, slinking back from the serpentine horde like it would save it. She stared at Ghasavlk, mouth dropping in shock, before fury overtook it.

He didn't care. Just jerked his arm out at her, fingers curled. "Sarnulakh!"

Once more the thrall overtook her, irresistibility coiling over her skin, and he sprinted past her with harsh, wheezing gasps.

Seros exploded into the Stone Jungle, fangs bared and a curtain of water swirling over his scales, and promptly fell upon Syalia with a roar.

No! I screamed to him, but Ghasavlk's thrall was a wretched thing, and even as she lost an arm in the process Syalia threw herself at Seros with fury artificially manufactured in her slashing daggers. Ghasavlk disappeared back into the tunnels.

More and more of my creatures awoke, hungering, but still he'd memorized the tunnels in whatever he'd ripped from Veresai's mind and he hadn't lost it yet, darting his way up and through with frightful precision. He dodged the stalking jaguar, the shardrunner spiders, even the midnight cave bear that lumbered from the shadowsand then he dovely freely into the Underlake.

The armoured jawfish lunged for him, the royal silvertooth gathering his controlled servants; but Ghasavlk was only wearied by exhaustion, not defenseless. Psionic mana curled insidiously over his tongue.

And then he grabbed the sarco's corpse, the lovely, wonderful thing I had grown so fond of, and dragged her through the cove entrance, and disappeared.

Well.

Shit.