The bad-things swarmed over Will, working their way through the cracks of his ore-flesh skin. Finally, he toppled.

Finally, he died.

I lowered my head in respect for a moment, letting out a mournful hiss. Beside me, the other Coreless did the same. Turning, I twisted my way up the female-who-was-not-Needle’s body, finding my customary perch again.

Drops of fluid dripped down her face, spilling from her widened eyes. I flicked out my tongue, catching a drop. It was salty, yet somehow bitter at the same time.

I didn’t like it.

She looked at me, her eyes widening even further.

“Hey, little cutie…” she hissed softly, even more drops of fluid spilling from her eyes. “Are you trying to cheer me up?”

After hearing her failed hisses again, I gave a hiss of my own. Enough proper examples, and maybe she would get it right.

“You are? That’s so sweet…” she hissed again, and butchered it again. This time, I didn’t bother to hiss back; I was beginning to think that she would never learn. Instead, I just bobbed my head in frustration. It would be nice to be able to understand what the Coreless tried to say. I thought that I was getting pretty good at interpreting their senseless jabbers and failed hisses, but it was a tiring effort, sometimes.

I longed for the easy understanding that I had when it was just the Great Core and I.

Those were simpler times. Still, I knew that the Great Core had brought me here for a reason.

The Coreless were important in the Great Core’s plan. They were its first disciples, other than myself; the first to witness its greatness and be overwhelmed by its power. The first of many, I was sure.

Unlike the bad things, the Coreless were not subservient to a lesser Core - making them the perfect group for the Great Core to convert.

In times like these, I was astounded by the Great Core’s wisdom.

The female Coreless reached out and scratched at my head-scales. This time, I let her do so without complaint, leaning into the press of her fingers, letting her trace lines around the Great Core’s likeness that rested there. I knew that she probably needed the reassurance that it provided. Unlike me, she did not know that Will might not be forever lost.

If the Great Core found Will worthy, surely he would be brought back.

Or maybe I would die, and he would be brought back when I returned. I wasn’t planning on that one though, as much as he had earned a sense of respect with his sacrifice.

If the Great Core willed it, it would happen. If not, it wouldn’t. It was as simple as that, like all things in life were.

The female-who-was-not-Needle slowly relaxed as her fingers dug against my head-scales, the tightness in her shoulders shifting into something less mortified and more determined. She turned towards the others, making her noises at them.

“What now?”

Needle ignored her, still staring over the edge towards the writhing mass of bad-things. Still dripping fluids from her eyes.

The male, the only one to not leak fluids of his own, answered. His face was impassive, but I could see the fire that lurked within his eyes. The rage. The hate. “We do what Core seekers always do. We move on, before we end up joining him. We live, so that he didn’t die for nothing. We avenge him. Later, we’ll grieve.”

The noises that he made, whatever they meant, startled Needle out of her reverie. She turned towards us and wiped her eyes, touching one hand against her needle-spitter as if to remind herself that it was there. A few brief seconds later, she nodded, her eyes red-rimmed and hard.

I let out a little gout of flame as my scale-flesh began to overheat again, sending it directly upwards in order to bleed it off before the heat became too much.

The female-who-was-not-Needle scratched at my head-scales a bit harder. “Even the little guy is fired up.”

“Valera, it’s been doing that for a while now. I don’t think that it’s connected.”

“Don’t be an ass, Doran. Let me believe what I want to believe right now.”

As the Coreless jabbered on, the familiar click-clacking of mandibles began to reach us. I hissed, bared my fangs at the tunnel’s edge just as the first bad-thing clambered over it. It was one of the smaller of the bad-things, a size that I could easily manage to fit my jaws around, unlike many of the other bad-things that had been spawned by the nearby Dungeon Core.

The Coreless, directed by my hiss, turned and looked at the bad-thing. It clicked its mandibles threateningly, clacking them together as it faced off against the Coreless.

Yet, unlike before, it was alone.

More importantly, the Coreless were angry.

The male Coreless’ face shifted, transforming into an example of pure rage. His teeth grit together, grinding audibly against one another as he stomped over to the lone bad-thing.

And then he stomped on it.

Again and again and again, smashing it into the ground, pulverizing it under his heel. Even after it was long dead, he kept going. The Coreless jabbered all the while, letting loose a string of unintelligible noises that I thought-guessed were used to release his anger.

Finally, he began to slow, his frame bobbing up and down in time with his heaving breaths. Seeing my chance, I began to unwind myself from the female-who-was-not-Needle’s shoulder. Her fingers had long since paused in their scratches, her attention lost to the male Coreless’ rage.

I ignored the sounds of the Coreless as I slithered my way over to the pulverized bad-thing.

“Fucking Formicans. We’ll get out of here, gather more seekers, and kill them all before we take their Core. Damn it!” The male Coreless kicked at the ground just beside the bad-thing’s mangled corpse, forcing me to flinch and rear back. He almost kicked it over the edge. That would be annoying. I wanted it.

I slithered past his foot, unhinging my jaw and consuming my prey. It was an awkward fit, crushed and flattened as it was, the sharp edges where its hard-flesh had snapped making it harder to get my jaws around the thing than it might have otherwise been.

Still, I managed to get it down. As it reached my stomach, it shifted states in the way that I had become familiar with. Soon enough, the energy that it had become had traveled all the way to my head-scales.

The thought-light flickered.

Level 2 Flame Formican Consumed.

Transferred to Core.

Blooded Trait Acquisition Progress: 1/5.

I hissed in glee over this small victory. It wasn’t much, considering that a Coreless had been lost.

But it was the start of something.

The Blooded Trait that the bad-things, these Flame Formicans, provided might prove useful - just as the other traits that I had acquired with the Great Core’s blessing had proven to be.

I let out another gout of flame just before I slithered back up to the female-who-was-not-Needle’s shoulder, finding my perch once more. She absent-mindedly reached out a hand. I let it pass without complaint again.

The male Coreless, still panting after his outburst of rage, looked over the edge. A moment later, he turned and made noises at the other two. “It’s time to go. They’re getting closer, and we can’t handle this many.”

The other Coreless nodded, and we immediately began to move further down the tunnel. As we walked, I continued to release gouts of flame to cool down. Yet, at the same time, I tried to do more.

[Illusion Spark] was keeping me alive, despite the great heat, but I knew that it could do greater things than protect me from temperature. I had seen it do more. It had required the efforts of many bad-things working together, but a river of flame-water had been concealed when I encountered the Flame Wisps.

With that in mind, I was sure - [Illusion Spark] could do far more than I had already managed with it. Far, far more. I concentrated on that idea, trying to bend the light that I had stored within my scales to my will.

It was difficult, with the way that the female Coreless kept softly jabbering at me and scratching at my scales. I turned my head towards her, intending to hiss and warn her away.

I stopped myself before I could; seeing the way that she looked at me, I couldn’t do it.

As if she was wrapped in an Aridae’s threads, and desperately hoped that I would save her.

I let her do what she wanted.

Looking around, I could see that the others were not doing well, either. Needle, the greatest of the Coreless disciples, was quiet. I could see the occasional bit of fluid drip from her eyes, and she kept turning around as we walked, before looking back with what I thought was a disappointed expression.

As if she had expected Will to be right behind us.

The male Coreless was silent, walking directly ahead of us. I couldn’t see his face, but his shoulders shook every so often.

I, however, was fine.

Everything would turn out as the Great Core willed it, I was sure.

I turned back to my experiments, focusing on [Illusion Spark] again.