The newest stream of life force warmed my scales, pushing back the bitter cold of death just a little further. I did my best to ignore that, focusing on what I knew would come next.

The thought-light flickered.

Mana-Infused .̸̠̑/̷̧͖̮͚͐̕.̵͙̣͍̩̜͉̏/̸̩̖̐ͅ.̸̮̙̰̖̜̾̽͌̌̽͛̾͐/̸̛̗̘̼̳͕͔͕͚̈́̈̑̅̑̚.̴͉͉͌̃̊͆̈́̄͘.̶̱̔̌̓͊̚/̸̜̞͉͙͔͖̬̇͋͜.̵̘͔͇̘͇̄̓̃͜/̵̧̺̼͖̠̮̩͚̒͒̑̂̈̿̃͠ D-

Stopped.

The dead rose again, and I pushed my newest minion’s mind into the dark. It was as easy as it had been for all the others - natural, near effortless. The undead Coreless quickly joined his brethren, a bit of dislodged flesh plopping to the ground as he walked. The hole it left vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, wiped away through the sacrifice of a small part of the wispy black essence that kept him from his true death.

All around me, the Coreless watched, making their noises at one another. More and more, I was becoming annoyed with their lack of [Little Guardian’s Totem]s. It was exhausting to go entirely without.

I hissed, feeling the Coreless below me startle at the sound. He had been doing that a lot, overly excited by the reminder of my presence. The male was a particularly devout Coreless, given how quickly he had moved to place me on his shoulder when my slithers proved too slow. Eager to exact justice on the blasphemous Coreless that had tried to keep the rest of their kin from the right and true path. He had even covered himself in those same blasphemous Coreless’ ore-flesh and taken up one of their ore-flesh-tipped rods, all the better to ambush and defeat the unsuspecting heretics.

Not that I needed his help; my undead were already more than enough to overwhelm any opposition.

Still, I approved of his fervor. I’d have to keep an eye on this one; he had the markings of the truly faithful.

“...please don’t bite, please don’t bite, please don’t bite…” the Coreless continued to hiss under his breath, already practicing at making the sounds. They weren’t very good, but all hisses had to start somewhere. I was just glad to hear how quickly he came to understand the superiority of a proper hiss.

Maybe one day, I’d actually have someone to talk to. A lot of the Coreless tried, but not particularly well. Even the littlest of the Coreless, whose [Little Guardian’s Totem]s were filled with [love] and [adoration] - some of the most devout of the Great Core’s followers - hadn’t managed it.

It would probably be a long time before any of them would.

Oh.

That was a lonely thought.

I slumped a little, losing a little bit of the luster that I had been constantly supplying to my scale-flesh, my concentration on [Illusion Spark] waning. The minor illusion enhancements that I had been placing around myself to enhance my appearance and further impress the Coreless dropped for the first time since I had captured my initial set of undead. My tail drooped, slipping from its tightened coil to hang limply off the back of the Coreless’ shoulder.

It all reminded me too closely of how much I missed the Great Core’s company. Yes, it was Great enough to always be with me even when it wasn’t, but I still missed seeing my Creator. Missed the feeling of its light splayed across my scale-flesh. Missed being able to wrap my coils around it. Even missed the way that the Great Core’s slow-spots, the annoying kin of the fast-spots that I greatly preferred, always tried to stall my slithers.

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It had been a long time since I had felt that light, even if it still held as steady and strong as ever in my mind. My disciples helped, knowing that I was spreading the Great Core’s light to the lightless helped, but it didn’t dull the pain entirely. Just made the truth a little easier to ignore.

I was lonely.

I also had a job to do. The most important job there could be. And, as always, I knew that the Great Core was with me. Even if I didn’t get to feel its light physically pressing against my scale-flesh anymore.

I was looking forward to the day that would change. Because it would. It had to. One day.

And then I would feel whole again.

----------------------------------------

It took a while for me to calm down. I still managed to guide the newest Coreless through the tunnels during that time, though. Not that I really needed to anymore.

It seemed like they knew where I wanted them to go, forming an ever-lengthening mass of bodies as we moved from one group of Coreless to the next, wiping out the blasphemous Coreless that kept the Great Core’s would-be followers in constricting threads. And just in time, too. The horrible blasphemers were forcing the captured Coreless to strike the walls of the tunnels, playing some horrible game where the wall-breakers had no choice but to injure themselves on inevitable floods of black-water.

I had to heal more than a few injuries that the black-water caused; luckily, it never touched me. The one time it almost did, one of the blasphemous Coreless flinging a mass of black-water in my direction, I managed to move an undead in time to save myself.

The undead Coreless died, its essence sucked dry - but at least it died serving the Great Core. That was a better death than any other.

Other undead ran out of essence too, injured enough that the animating power ran dry; sometimes I reached them in time, giving them more. Enough to keep them going. Other times, I didn’t make it.

When that happened, they died their last death.

Each time, those deaths turned the other Coreless into a noisy mass as they vied for the now-ownerless ore-flesh. For the most part, I let them deal with that on their own, only interrupting with a hiss or two when they became overly upset with one another.

They never seemed to get too upset with me, though, even when I hissed at them to make them quiet down. They raised their voices at one another, and even sometimes formed faces wrinkled with menacing stares, but not at me. In fact, they barely looked at me at all. Not when I was looking back, anyway.

I did catch them staring at me when they thought I wasn’t looking, though. Making quiet hisses that weren’t quite hisses at one another.

“...long before it turns on us?”

“...wanted to kill us, it would have by now. ‘Sides, it healed Therran, didn’t it? And Rory, and Alec, and Urie, and…”

“...about that creepy magic, though? It ain’t right what it’s done to the guards. I hated ‘em as much as the next man, but that’s just…”

“...even matter? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather willingly follow the weird snake than try to explain that ‘no, I didn’t have any part in the murder of all the mines’ guards, I just didn’t have any choice but to watch it happen. Also, I somehow lived through the attack that took out all of the guards without a scratch on me. Oh, and the monster that did it broke my chains and set me free - but it was against my will, all of it, you have to believe me!’. Very convincing. See how well that goes over. Like it or not, someone’s getting blamed for this, and I’d rather be standing behind the snake than in front of a judge…”

I hissed with frustration, once again failing to do more than guess at the meaning of any of it, and that failure reminding me of my earlier troubles. There were too many new voices, and too few [Little Guardian’s Totem]s to help me try to figure out the sounds they made. I was closer to understanding the thoughts of the blasphemous Coreless - over twenty now, even with the few that had suffered their last death - than the would-be followers that I had freed. They didn’t push confusing not-hisses past their throats. Even without a [Little Guardian’s Totem], even pushed into the dark, I caught small hints of what they were feeling - and sometimes even further. Who they were, things they had done.

And though I didn’t understand any of it yet, I thought that, eventually, with enough time and effort, I might. Though, to really test that, I would probably need to lift one of their minds more fully out of the dark. But I couldn’t do it now. There was too much black-water here to feel safe trying anything too complicated. Instead, I focused on keeping myself going with [Mana Restoration], biting my tail to recover mana and converting it into the death essence that kept me alive, all while flashing light-formed instructions to the carrier-Coreless whose shoulder I rode. A set of undead Coreless ringed us, keeping watch for any dangers, while the remaining Coreless followed from behind.

Still, as I lay there, mouth firmly attached to tail, I wondered: what sort of things go on in a blasphemer’s mind?

It was something to think about for later.

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to find out.