Chapter 44 “Humans” (Patreon)

                When the dungeon killed the first three warriors, he was thrilled, especially with the treasure trove of knowledge that came with the mana channels carved into their bodies and some of the unique features of their various mana cores. Although their unique mana cores gave the dungeon ideas to play around with, their mana channels were the real prize, as the dungeon finally had examples of how to make essence channels smaller.

                Originally the dungeon hoped that mana and essence channels would work similar to how magic worked in the fiction of his world, through a magical language. He was hoping that he would learn some sort of alphabet that allowed him to write out spells. Instead, what he got was something far closer to transistor logic gates, which significantly reduced the length of essence channels. In just a month he managed to acquire eleven samples, and five of them were earth and wind. One of the things he found fascinating was that the logic gates used by each of the elements were different, suggesting that something fundamentally changed about mana and essence as it went through one of the many core types.

                With his newfound knowledge, he played with the essence channels of his already existing essence creatures. What he found was very promising, and thanks to his new knowledge, he figured he would be able to shoehorn in at least one more essence channel in each of his essence creatures.

                While playing with his new essence channels, the dungeon had another project, the human voice project. The dungeon was fearful that if he remade the humans that he killed, although they would be essence creatures, they would retain their memories and be able to resist his instructions. In fact, he assumed they would retain their memories and thus hoped to gather a lot of intelligence on the world he was brought to. Now that he had access to human voice boxes, he was able to design an essence creature that could speak for him.

                The human-speaking creature was a bear with a voice box, human tongue, and face. The dungeon was leery about giving the speaking bear a human brain, as it wasn’t sure about how many memories it would have or the ethics of such a thing, so instead, it doubled the size of the speaking bear's brain and began training the bear on how to talk in the language of this world, or at least the parts that the dungeon had learned.

                While the dungeon was working on its speaking bear, a tier two warrior came in and killed the dungeon's original ghillie dragon. As soon as the warrior left, the dungeon gladly made six more ghillie dragons, two male and four female. After seeing what the ice warrior could do, the dungeon assumed that it would be a while before he was able to kill more warriors, so he focused all his work on the speaking bear. After a few months the bear was able to more or less speak for the dungeon, and so the dungeon recreated the humans he had killed. Expecting trouble with the humans, he recreated them in one of the labyrinth’s bulbs, far from the dungeon core, surrounded by the recently remade ghillie dragons. The speaking bear was flanked by two of the ghillie dragons. If the humans managed to kill it, then it wouldn’t be much of a loss since the dungeon could recreate the speaking bear with all its memories, but the dungeon had something of a soft spot for its newest puppet.

                With everything prepared, the dungeon recreated all eleven warriors that his essence creatures had killed. He could not fully recreate them as he had no way to restore their growth, fire, or water cores, but the ones that had earth and wind cores had them restored, with essence channels perfectly replicating the mana channels they had lost. The dungeon even restored the clothing and armor they had on before dying.

                Once they were made, the eleven essence warriors stood still. The dungeon was confused for a moment before having the speaking bear ask, “What are your names?”

                None of the warriors answered. So the dungeon had the bear ask, “Do you understand me?”

                The warriors showed no reaction.

                The dungeon grew slightly frustrated and directly commanded one of the warriors, like he would if it were a different essence creature to speak, but the essence warrior stood confused.

                The dungeon then had the bear ask more questions, but the warriors stayed stubbornly quiet.

                Eventually, the dungeon grew so frustrated that he asked the imp, who was staying in his core chamber, “Are your warriors trained not to speak to the enemy?”

                The imp asked, “What are you talking about?”

                “I resurrected the warriors that my ghillie monster killed, but they are not speaking.”

                “What do you mean you resurrected them?”

                “When they died, I gathered all the data on them, and a few hours ago, I recreated them to the smallest detail. I made them live again.”

                The imp shook his head and said, “No, you did not resurrect them. You simply made the best clones of the warriors as you could.”

                “I recreated them down to the smallest detail. Memories are carried chemically in the brain. They should still have their memories.”

                “You recreated them the same way you recreated all your essence creatures. You copied a bunch of corpses, adjusted the design you got from the corpses so that they could live once formed, and then created them directly from essence material stored inside of your core. It is impossible for you to copy a living creature unless it's one of your own essence creatures. Furthermore, killing those warriors involved a lot of massive head trauma. Even if they survived those attacks, they would likely have memory problems despite their ability to heal.”

                “That’s so stupid and unfair.”

                “That’s life. What did you want to do with those warriors anyway?”

                “I wanted to learn everything they knew.”

                The imp snickered and said, “Well, now you know everything your new empty-headed essence humans know. If you don’t like them, just kill them and start over like you do with all your other essence creatures.”

                The dungeon was shocked by the suggestion and said, “But they are human.”

                “So.”

                “Human life is priceless.”

                “You don’t seem to think so when warriors come into your labyrinth.”

                “Your mages gave me a compulsion to kill every mana creature that comes into my area of influence. Furthermore, I am defending my labyrinth from invaders. These new humans are no threat to me, and I have no compulsion to kill them. Most importantly of all, I made them. I have a responsibility to any human I make.”

                The imp snickered and said, “You are acting like they are your children. They are not. They do not have blood ties to you. You can’t fool me, you dungeons do not have emotions or feelings. You are simply programmed to be insatiably curious. Don’t worry, if you kill them, you won't feel a thing.”

                “You are only hardening my resolve. If I am truly a monster with no feelings, then I must be a person that operates on strict values, and the strictest value of all is the sanctity of human life.”

                “You're not a person, you are just a core. Those things you created are not persons either, they have no mind.”

                “So why am I not a person? Is it because I don’t have a body? I certainly have a mind, one that is greater than when I was a human. Why are these clones, not persons? Is it because their minds are undeveloped? Would I become a person with a body? Would they become persons once they develop deep thoughts?”

                The imp shook its head and said, “No. If I am to understand your thinking, you think that a person is someone important enough to be protected by law from death. By that definition, the only persons in this world are the immortals, not you, and not those cloned husks. The laws of this world echo that sentiment. Immortals have the right to rule and the authority to kill anyone they want. Three tier core mages nearing immortality are just behind the immortals as persons. Followed by two tier, and one tier core mages. Following behind them are warriors, and normal humans are behind them. Those who are better have control of life and death of those below. Your mindless husks are below even that.”

                “So just because a mage figured out how to stave off death, they get the power of life and death over everyone.”

                The imp somberly shook its head and said, “They don’t just stave off death. Immortals are tier-four mages. There is only one tier-four dungeon in the world, and it grants the power of immortality to those who conquer, which is much more than just staving off death. The immortal core allows its user to recreate their body using the power of every core, and if that body should get destroyed, they can instantly remake a new one and move their consciousness to it. That is what a person is, a human who cannot be killed. Every other human might as well be considered a miscarriage. It's also why you are not considered a person, someday, sooner or later, your core will crack, and you will die. You will not die of natural causes, but you will still die. The immortals will not.”

                The dungeon was stunned, then had a realization and asked, “Is that what all this dungeon and labyrinth stuff is about? You’re trying to make more immortals?”

                “Not just trying to make more immortals, trying to find a consistent way to do so.”

                “So, in your mind, it wasn’t wrong to pull my soul from another world and put it in this crystal because I was going to die sooner or later anyway and therefore had no rights.”

                “Not just my mind, but the people of this world all feel this way. Not only wasn’t it wrong, it was the right thing to do because there was a chance that you would help our mages learn a more consistent way of becoming immortals. If you help one mage become immortal, then you have done an incalculable amount of good, and for what? A few years of a life you were going to lose. The trade-off is worth it, and doing anything else would have been immoral.”

                “That’s monstrous.”

                “That’s necessary.”

                “I will not become like you.”

                “Good, do whatever you think is best. Kill those human husks, allow others to kill them, or raise them like your own children. There are millions of dungeons on this planet, all doing their own things, and sooner or later, they produce results. Maybe whatever you are doing is the best way, or maybe not; either way, it's one more data point bringing this world closer to consistent immortality.”

Authors note-I always planned for the dungeon to interact with humans, but until I was writting this chapter I didnt really think about how the humans it gained the ability to make would be empty husk, and thus the perfect empty vessels for the dungeon to interact with.