I awoke to knowledge.

It was a strange sort, like remembering conversations I knew I'd never had. Old memories of deep stone and pressing darkness flooded through me, information about mana and the formation of life I'd never learned before. If I thought of air I could still remember currents under my wings, the bite of cold easterlies; I also remembered finding openings in caves by breezes through the rock, the pressing importance of keeping caverns full of oxygen.

The sensation was strange enough it took me several minutes to notice my own corpse.

I wasn't looking with eyes, though I remembered having them—faint wisps of mana floated out of me and whatever they touched I could see, brushing against the dark stone of the mountain and whispering through patches of grass. But beyond that, below me, a great dragon's corpse cooled against the rock.

Gods, even dead I was gorgeous—lowly sky-drakes were pale blue and the whelpings that lived in the forest could be a mossy green, but only the sea-drakes were the deep, rich teal that so gleamed under the sun. Even smote against the mountainside, dust settling over scales and silver horns broken and cracked, it glittered with perfection.

No, not it. Me.

My attention wavered.

I was a dragon. I knew that. Idiotic cowards had killed me but I had refused to die, had cast the one magic all dragons feared but knew, had ripped out my own heart–

Mana drifted backwards, resting on its source, and I could see what I had become.

A scarlet sphere, interlaced with streaks of black like veined marble, sat nestled in the embrace between two boulders. Blood traced its path away from the corpse where shreds of mana had ripped it from my chest, transforming it even as I fell, flawlessly round and riddled with runes shaped of pure mana. I peered deeper.

Dragonheart Core

You are a Dungeon Core, awoken from a dragon's dying wish for revenge. Your birth symbolizes the arrival of a new dungeon to be created. Through you, mana from the Otherworld flows and is yours to command, bringing many miracles within your grasp. Thank the Gods for your life by revitalizing the world around you and bringing life to lands starved of new mana.

As a Dragonheart Core, all of your creations will be your hoard, absorbing mana from you to fuel their strength and evolutions. You may Name creatures by bonding their soul with yours, letting them draw the same Otherworld mana as you and granting them a blessing. All dead things within your walls will be yours to rebuild.