Chapter 46 Birth (Patreon)

                The dungeon watched the pregnancies of the four female humans with great interest, particularly the one that was pregnant with identical twins. In fact, watching the splitting process gave the dungeon a very good idea on how to make two-headed essence creatures. The pregnancy process was not without risk, but since the females were the dungeon's essence creatures, the dungeon had the ability to manipulate their biology at will, and stopped two miscarriages, and adjusted one of the fetuses so that it did not get strangled with its umbilical cord.

                The dungeon’s overarching goal was to make these fetal humans into productive members of society, but that required a society. And so over the months of gestation the dungeon required the human males to hunt the earth rabbits with their wind and earth magic, make fire, construct houses, and more or less be productive. As for the ladies, the dungeon used its speaking bear to show them how to weave, sew, and garden. As far as the dungeon was concerned it was very interesting to watch the society develop as the men embraced their work because they were competitive; they wanted to be better than the other men. The women largely embraced their roles as they wanted order, especially once they had their own homes, the women seemed to have a psychological bent to keep it neat.

                As a society the eight humans very quickly figured out the concept of ownership. If they built it, found it, or slept with it then it was theirs. In fact, the women were far more possessive of their men than the men were of their women. The women sewed together earth rabbit furs to cover up their men so the other women couldn’t see their naked bodies, then the women immediately began making themselves clothes to highlight whatever they considered to be their best features.

                As time passed the fetuses grew, and the dungeon kept himself busy as he patiently waited for the next generation.

                The dungeon continually experimented with earth and wind cores trying to figure out how to make an electric core. Thanks to the imp he knew he had the ability, but the imp also made it very clear that he would not explain how to make the core because the point of the dungeon was to figure out new ways of doing things so that the mages didn’t have to.

                The warriors were keeping the dungeon busy making ghillie dragons, as they were obviously hunting them, and then dragging their corpses out of the labyrinth. This would have bothered the dungeon more, but about one in five incursions they warriors lost a tier-one warrior, giving the dungeon a large boost in mana, and more often than not giving the dungeon new mana channels to examine. As for the tier-two warriors that led the tier-one warriors, they were very overpowered, and the dungeon saw no way to kill them without a tier-two essence creature. The added mana boost allowed the dungeon to reach deeper into the earth, and higher into the sky. Although the increase in size of his area of influence caused a bit of disorientation, the size increase was only a small percentage of the whole so it no longer threatened to knock him out.

                The dungeon was also now tall enough to see towns, villages, and other labyrinths off in the distance. It was obvious to the dungeon that dungeon cores were generally placed within a few miles of a town or village, and the dungeon was impressed with the variety of terrain created by the labyrinths, especially since it was clear that each labyrinth was created by a growth dungeon core. The amount of growth labyrinths made sence to the dungeon though, since every human had a growth core.

                When it was nearly time for the new humans to be born, a strange occurrence happened. Something that looked like a blind, green, naked elf made its way into the dungeon’s area of influence. The dungeon could tell that the elf was blind as soon as it entered his area of influence because it had some sort of growth on its face, covering the areas where its eyes should be. The dungeon also thought the elf might be deaf as its long pointy ears did not have holes, instead they were just cones, albeit the dungeon wasn’t sure as magic was involved. This elf showed up just after the labyrinth grew tall enough to use its telescope to spy on one of the nearby growth labyrinths, so the dungeon assumed it was one of the other dungeon creatures, which either came to his dungeon because it left the influence of the growth dungeon and walked to the Great Black Tree Labyrinth because it could see it in the distance, or the nearby dungeon figured out how to send its creatures to scout the surrounding areas without losing control of them.

                As soon as the growth elf entered the dungeons area of influence, wasp and earth bunnies attacked it. The growth elf was able to easily use growth magic to resist their attacks and counter attacks, by force growing the surrounding plants into potent weapons and shields. Unfortunatly for the growth elf the shredder goose was a hard counter to his attacks, as the shredder geeses cast squal,l sending the sharpest possible feathers at it within a whirlwind, cutting through the plant matter and then the elf’s body easily. The elf’s body tried to heal as it was cut through, but squall forced the diced pieces to get blown away before they could stitch themselves back together. That said, its life source was so strong it still took a few seconds to die even when it was in chunks across the labyrinth floor.

                Once the growth elf was dead the dungeon could instantly make some conclusions. First of all it did not see or hear in any way known to the dungeon, which suggested it used some sort of magical senses to see the world. Secondly the elf was clearly based on human stock. Third, the reason why the elf was green was because it literally had plants merged with its skin, allowing it to receive nourishment directly from the sun. The elf’s growth core was put directly into its brain, and the dungeon concluded that it could not survive without a growth core. Whether the core made the elf smarter or dumber than the average human, the dungeon had no way to check as the elf was designed to be so dependent on its growth core that if the dungeon tried to recreate the elf, it would be a vegetable.

                The only way something like that could have been made was if the growth dungeon that made it was allowed to do so. The mages could have easily wiped out that tier-one dungeon. As the dungeon pondered this it could only assume that the mages wanted dungeons that attained a certain amount of strength to play around with modifying humans; although that concept was alien to the culture the dungeon came from, it wasn’t alien to every culture in the world the dungeon was from. It became obvious to the dungeon that their purpose wasn’t just to make spells, but also to be part of the mages eugenics plan. What part they played he didn’t know, but if the mages had an issue with the dungeons manipulating the biology of humans, the imp would have said so, and that elf would never have existed.

                At day two hundred and sixty-eight after conception, one of the females began to give girth. After fourteen hours she gave birth to a very healthy baby boy. The boy’s brain was not tampered with in any way, that said, all of his organs and bones had carbon nanotubes weaved throughout, and the dungeon gave his cells the ability to make more. The baby was given both an earth and air core. The dungeon just barely managed to weave in the spells durability and separation. The reason for the first was because the child’s parents were idiots, and even though the child was an infant durability made him very difficult to kill. The purpose of separation was to allow the baby to have more oxygen pulled in as the dungeon hoped that with more oxygen the child would naturally be smarter.

                During the birth of the child the speaking bear had to assist with the childbirth, and the dungeon adjusted the speaking bear’s paws so that it no longer had claws so that it could more safetly catch the child. An interesting thing happened when the speaking bear handed the child to its mother. Her brain chemistry noticeably changed. After looking at her child for a minute she called over her man, and handed their child to him. To the dungeon’s surprise the man’s brain chemistry changed significantly as the man recognized the child as his, and decided he would protect his child with his life.

                The man then decided to name his child “Ernest.”