Over the next four days I dug, killed, gathered, and built. I dug the entrance tunnel into a longer but shallower angle and made it taller so it can be walked through without having to hunch, I also added a basic pit trap, hidden with dirt control to make a solid looking sheet of dirt that crumbles if stepped on. I could easily jump it, but if a boar or something ran down here it will fall in and be stuck for hours since the sides of the pit are hardened and smoothed. Haven't needed it so far but until Victoria has a soldier to protect her I want some assurance that she will be safe.

I killed several boars and managed to get the drop on a deer, literally, I dropped on to it's back from a tree and stabbed it. My new absurd levels of strength makes landing a killing blow much easier. I had also lost both stone spears due to shattering the stone heads by hitting bones at bad angles. I gathered several bunches of fruits, mostly berries, need to keep our vitamins up, can't eat nothing but meat all the time. Finally I was able to snap off branches and gather wood easy enough that I worked on building a simple bed between rounds of waiting for meat to cook.

It was on the fifth day that things changed, I was carrying back another kill when i heard yelling coming from the cave. I dropped it and ran as fast as my eleven dex ass could go, I leaped over my pit and barely thought of the fact it wasn't broken. I skidded to a stop in the cave and was scanning for enemies before I even finished moving. Not seeing any I turned back to Victoria who was sitting with her back against the wall, her hands were rubbing her abdomen, which was convulsing. My eyebrows shot up in alarm as i rushed over.

"They're coming now? I thought they wouldn't be ready for a week?" I asked her as I tried to help sooth her abdomen.

"It's how long my mother's first nnnng workers took, I think getting an extra level or my aaaa class made it faster." She panted.

"What can I do to help?"

"Make a soft pad ffffffor the eggs, and then be ready to catch." She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing

I ran back out and grabbed a double armload from the pile of leaves I had gathered for the bed, while coming back down i realized i couldn't jump my pit like this, so turned on dirt control and made a foothold so i could walk accross. It caused an incredibly odd sensation but I couldn't think about it now. I placed the leaves right next to me and kneeled down right in front of her abdomen with my hands up and ready to catch. It was a tense several minutes of silence with only her occasional grunt of exertion to break it.

Suddenly with a gush of fluid I saw one of the eggs starting to peek out, it looked like a glob of clear jelly. My eyes locked on to it and my hands were ready to move, her next push caused it to pop out and I caught it out of the air and gently placed it on the leaf pile. The egg was roughly the size of my forearm and was cloudy clear throughout with a black spot in the middle. The next two were basically the same, but the last one was a bit different, it took three pushes before it came free and it was a bit larger then the other three, it was obviously the soldier instead of a worker.

Victoria broke me from my musing "I want to, haaa haaa, hold them." She said while holding her arms open

I just smiled and placed an egg in each of her arms, the way she cuddled them was just the cutest. After a few minutes of cuddling she had me put them back on the leaves so she could take a nap. When she finally went to sleep my tension also began draining, the adrenaline surge that started when I heard her yell finally cutting off. I took a minute to cool off before getting up and heading back towards the corpse I left, hopefully nothing started eating it. As I walked up to my pit trap I saw the spot on it I magically forced to support my weight, and realized it shouldn't have worked, it was just a spot in the shape of my boot that was slightly thicker then the dirt around it but it had no support structure or anything.

I basically forced the dirt to hover against my weight trying to force it down, but since I was the source of the lifting force it was like doing a troll physics maneuver. The one where you weld handles to a chair, sit in the chair, and then pull upward on the handles in order to fly. It having a ring of dirt attached to the wall was probably the difference between it failing and working, it was able to radiate the magic into the surroundings as extra support. I activated dirt control again and stepped into the middle, focusing on the sensation I got from holding myself up.

I stood there for about five minutes thinking about the feel of the magic when something clicked in my mind and the sensation faded. I lifted my back foot from the solid ground and nothing terrible happened, I took a step forward and my magic automatically moved to support my step, holding the dirt together by itself. I realized there was a lot i didn't know about this power but I still had things I needed to do so I just left it on while walking to the body. It kept working passively, it hardened the ground as I walked so i didn't sink into it at all giving me great traction.

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The body was where I dropped it, only got some dirt all over the neck hole, I already drained it where it died it so it didn't get juice everywhere. When I got back to the entrance with it I decided to forgo the bed and moving the slats around I turned it into a bootleg smoking rack. I covered it in meat chunks and started a fire in the pit I had made a few days ago. After it got going I threw a bunch of live wood on it making a cloud of smoke. I then put my bootleg rack over it and let the meat dry in the smoke. I sat down and poked at the fire to make sure the smoke kept going.

While staring into the flames it finally sunk in, I was a father. The kids may be unconventional but they were still mine, i felt my eyes misting up and then I started having the best case of happy crying i ever had. My grin felt like it was going to split my face in half and my tears were falling like rain, I had no idea someone could feel this way. I had no idea how long I was like that, grinning, crying, and poking a fire, but it felt both forever and an instant. The sun had set before I finished, the meat of tough and chewy but it should last a few days without rotting. I brought up my empty backpack and stuffed it with dried meat bits and brought it back down.

When I checked how my darling was doing she was still asleep, but the eggs had a visible change, the black spot had easily doubled in size. I could easily imagine them hatching tomorrow or the next day, but with this day over with I turned out the light and cuddled up with my Victoria and went to sleep too.

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When I awoke she was already up and fretting over the eggs, ether turning them over or pacing around the room while watching them nervously. The eggs had their spots nearly triple in size from last night and i could now clearly tell it was the head, the outline of the body barely distinguishable from the gel around it. I asked V if I could do anything to help her relax, and she said no, right now she is entirely nerves from them being the first batch, she will be much better by the third set... at least her mother said so. Eventually she told me to just go get some water, which I obliged.

I grabbed the two empty jugs I had made and brought them with me to the river, while walking along I see if my new breakthrough with dirt control will let me compress them even harder. I would say I managed a partial success, changing from hard dirt to really hard dirt, but it is still dirt that has been glued together with magic. While carrying them back I try to actively prevent the dirt from absorbing the water, and I once again felt an odd sensation from forcing it to do something that it isn't quite supposed to do. Even after holding on to the sensation all the way back to the cave I don't have a breakthrough like with the hover foothold. Handing one of the jugs to Victoria she downs half of it in one go, and finally relaxed for a couple seconds as she savored it.

She went back to nervous pacing after the moment passed but she seemed less stiff so i'll count it as a win. I had a drink from the now half empty jug and took it with me, leaving the currently full one here. I keep up the "don't absorb water" effect on the jug as I walk towards the grove of berry bushes, but I finish off the water when I get there so I have to stop. I then start picking berries, these berries grow really fast, probably a magical effect, the berries themselves start green and turn almost floresent orange when ripe. Hopefully having something sweet to eat will help her calm down some more.

I get back from the grove around noon and she was already sitting, which I take as a good sign, and give her the jug of berries. She scarfs down almost half of them before setting the jug off to the side and going back to staring intently at the eggs, which seem to be almost done, the heads nearly reach the sides of the egg.

"This seems really fast, even more so compared to smaller eggs." I wondered

"Yes, it is, normally they take three days after being laid to be ready to hatch, these seem like it will be only one day. I can only chalk this up to a hidden effect of my class, same with their birth rate. Which is really annoying because as far as I know there is no way to check for those." She grumbled at me.

We sat there watching the eggs together, now that I was watching them I could see why this was so nerve wracking. They were growing JUST fast enough you could notice it when you blinked but not fast enough you could get a good estimate on how long they will take. I was starting to zone out when the soldier began moving in her shell, her mandible trying to saw away at the part of the shell right in front of it. It took a couple of passes but eventually she got a grip and sliced it open and wriggled out. Victoria scooped her up as soon as she was completely free of it and held her up to her breast and she started feeding.

Getting a look at her, the baby was mostly like a normal larva but her face was clearly more human looking, with a mouth under her mandible and a sort of chiten helmet over her head that covered her eyes, overall I would say she was a cutie patootie. While thinking that, the trio of workers all started gnawing their way out of their eggs too. The problem was Victoria only had two breasts and we had four hungry babies now, but she explained that they can handle the berries if I chew them first. So I grabbed two of the workers and started doing just that, mashing berries up, spitting it into my hand and pouring the mush into their waiting mouths.