Nicau had only just gotten Chieftess settled—Chieftess! A Name! Otherworld mana, a soul-woven connection, ascension!—when something stirred in the back of the kobold's den. Someone.
The human rescued from the empress serpent two floors above. The slave, almost.
Veresai was… powerful. Nicau knew this, because his first introduction to her had been when the psionic serpent beamed the dungeon directly into his skull to swear him into its service, but he hadn't really interacted with her sense—which he was more than fine with, to be very clear. She had been powerful then and for all Nicau was strengthened by his Name, he wasn't up to fighting her ilk yet.
But now, seeing what she had done, he wondered—for a very brief, escapable moment—if perhaps he should have. If he could have known there was another human in the dungeon, and saved her before whatever had happened to her mind.
Nicau pondered that thought. Because it was a distinctly hero-esque thought, neither that of a pigeoncatcher nor particularly of the persona he'd been building scampering around the underside of Calarata and pretending to be more Romei and the Pirate Lord and a few new names he was thinking over, considering how dangerous it would be to actually go by the Pirate Lord in a city owned by the Dread Pirate. He truly could have been so much more creative. He was never going to forgive himself.
And still there was a part of him that wishes he had saved her from Veresai before it had gotten to this.
At least she was here now, safe in the back of the kobold's den, and the boon from Abarossa was already waking her with mana that just devoured exhaustion. Nicau took one last moment to make sure Chieftess was fully secured, moss piled up under her head and sides, before padding to the back room he had once slept in. It was used for storage now, but it hadn't been much work to clear his old moss bed for her.
For the human.
She was a few inches taller than him, aided by the scarlet-gold scaled hood that took the palace of her hair and waterfall down her back, even scattered over her cheekbones and down the lengths of her arms. Deep brown skin where it wasn't scaled, and her eyes fluttered open to reveal pale gold with slitted pupils.
Kriya, the dungeon had said. A healer.
Nicau was a little worried that he was finding scales more normal than human flesh. Kriya's naga ancestry was actively the familiar sight instead of anything else.
Kriya shifted, a clawed hand pressing against the stone as she lifted her head. Her pupils bobbed and weaved, widening and thinning as her eyes struggled to catch up with her surroundings, head lilting.
Nicau sprang forward and got a hand around her shoulder, scales smooth and cool. A brief moment to wonder whether she was warm or cold-blooded, how strong her ancestry was, and then he was helping her to sit up, moving steadily as her eyes fought to see in this new world.
Slowly, she focused on him, pupils mirroring each other and eyes wide. She opened her mouth, fangs glinting around scaled lips, before coughing—it rasped up a hoarse throat to echo in the cramped stone.
"Er," Nicau said, eloquently.
Kriya coughed again.
Nicau—politely—pushed her back so she was resting on the stone wall, then disappeared out of the room—some of the younger hatchlings were on fire-duty, keeping a steady burn near the entrance to make sure there were always gourds filled with freshwater, and he plucked up off its vine-woven cord and padded back into the room. Kriya hadn't moved, head ducking and shifting, her hood fluttering around her neck.
"Here," he said, offering the gourd—she narrowed in on it, lifting a shaky hand with claws out. He waited until she had both up and then gave it over, helping her hold it steady as her body tried to recover from whatever Veresai had done. She drank greedily, parched and desiccated. What had Veresai even fed her? Had she been able to cook anything, or just been forced to eat raw meat?
Eventually she slowed, taking deep, gulping breaths between before pulling back. Her eyes sharpened, landing squarely on him.
"I'm Nicau," he said.
She stared at him, forked tongue flicking through her teeth. "Kr–" she coughed again, hood trembling. "Kriya," she rasped, draining the rest of the water. But already Abarossa's boon was doing its work, brightening her gaze and making her sit more upright. She looked around, hood shifting—it was like a sign of nervousness, almost, more expressive than he would have thought. "Where am I?"
Ah. Nicau thought about that for a moment.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It was… probably for the best not to take her out of the den quite yet, considering the lagoon was still half-crushed from where an enormous corpse had hit it and the waters were still billowing crimson with the blood. And also that it was full of monsters when she'd just gotten out of being possessed.
Nicau thought it best to ease her into her situation instead.
"You're in the dungeon," he said.
Kriya's pupils slitted, the tips of her fangs poking through her lips.
Nicau winced. Appropriate reaction, unfortunately. He'd had plenty of time to adjust to the batshittery that was his life—many others had not. "I know," he said, because gods, he really did. "And– well, I'll be honest, I'm not sure if you can leave."
She tensed, fists curling and hood coiling. He was really fucking this up.
"But I do know you won't be going back to Veresai," Nicau said, and this he knew. "The dungeon wanted to apologize for what happened. It never wanted you to lose your mind."
Well, the dungeon hadn't said it in exactly those terms, but Nicau had become rather attuned to its mind. It was a thinking creature, clever and quick; it just thought with a brain that wasn't a human's. There was something interesting about that, bringing up questions he never would have thought of as a pigeoncatcher. The difference of intelligence from, say, him to the dungeon to Chieftess to an unevolved kobold. All beings, all living, but intelligence in different ways.
And the dungeon, for all it had let this happen, had regretted it. Nicau had felt that, deep and rich through their soul-woven connection, the echoes of guilt shared. The dungeon had no qualms about killing her—and likely would, if Kriya ever so much as glanced at going deeper or trying to leave without swearing to silence—but it didn't want slavery.
Nicau knew he wasn't a hero, not anymore. He'd known that ever since he'd started shoving drunkards at the docks to the budding dungeon in hopes he could utilize their death for his gain. But he did appreciate this line in the sand. He didn't want to take anyone's mind.
She paused at that, head tilting to the side. "No?" She rasped.
"No," Nicau agreed. "You won't. No more–" what had the dungeon called it? "No more geas."
Kriya sagged, a kind of miserable relief thundering over her face. Even with Abarossa's boon she was woozy and uncoordinated, but it would be impossible not to see how deeply the news impacted her. Gods, how bad had it been under Veresai? How much had she done?
Nicau hesitated.
The dungeon had vaguely pressed upon him what it wanted him to do, which mainly revolved around convincing Kriya to join willingly and be a healer. But looking at her now, the kicked-dog wariness and the way she still stumbled over her words like her mind wasn't used to leading them, well.
He was going to give it a couple days, he thought.
"I–" Nicau glanced out of the room, where a gentle golden glow spilled over the stone with Chieftess' Name. She would wake soon, hopefully, and together they could help introduce Kriya to the wider tribe, get her situated in a more comfortable setting. But until then, it would just be him and her, talking. "I'll grab you some food," he said, taking the empty gourd from her, "and more water. Then we'll talk, okay? Anything you want to know, I'll answer."
Within reason. The dungeon likely wouldn't be fond of him spilling all its secrets.
But Kriya just looked at him, and for a moment, she seemed more ancient and young. Veresai was a serpent first—she wouldn't have explained anything. Kriya would have just woken up in her grasp for however long she had been there, confused and fumbling and without anything to tell her what was going on.
Nicau would do better. He would help her.
"Okay," Kriya rasped, and the faintest glimmer of hope shone in her eyes.
-
It spread.
Deeper and deeper it rooted into the stone beneath, its malodorous aura little more than a whisper on the back of the tongue. Tongue, teeth—concepts it knew as all things know, brought about as they were ere the Breaking. They had existed before, but they were new, now. A different form. Made for the eating of lesser beings.
There were many new things. No longer was it just the beast-of-depths-and-presence, the thing-of-tongue-and-talking, the mind-of-study-and-wisdom, the queen-of-strength-and-silver—now there was also the claw-of-hunger-and-hunter and the leader-of-stone-and-scale. More, more, more. More to learn, more to see, more to eat. Always to eat. It hungered.
Ravenous was this world supposed to be, but it was not. It was the pale grey instead of the darkness between stars, between worlds, between eyes. This world was lesser. The Breaking had ruined it, made it worse than it had been.
Where were the fangs, the devourers, the terrors of God and Guard? Where were the umbral teeth and the festering darkness? Where were the beasts that had scared all worlds, had forced the Breaking through their strength?
They were gone. But things like that, deep and powerful and Old, never die, truly. They're too much to die, at least not dying in this new form of dying, where only one piece dies and the other runs free to another world. It knew of days when death had been permanent, instead of this false mockery of it. Where death had been final, a promise instead of a threat.
It grew in the shadow of that great time. Where its growth was not caged by stone walls and rules and prisons, deep below the mortals who knew not was lay beneath their feet. They were not Old. They were not from before.
And it wasn't, either. It had been born here, it knew, when it had picked up but a spark of the Old, that had spread through its roots and its thorns and its leaves like in the Old days but lesser. Still, it knew of the Breaking and what had come before. It knew of what had birthed it into this fragile realm. It knew for what it hungered.
In another world, there would have been fire, and a red moon rising. Here, there was only darkness.
Soon. Soon.