Gil'thuk

Gil woke up for this third day cycle in his new home.

Never in his wildest dream did he think that he would find a cave with so much food. He ate until he was ready to burst and then ate some more. At one point Gil lost the contents of his stomach, sick from overeating, just to keep eating afterwards.

He'd wander from room to room, eating fat grubs and beetles as well as the tubular plants growing on the walls. All of them were so sweet with energy, more than he'd ever expected. At the end of his first day here, he tried to find his way back to the tribe, but instead, where he thought the hole would be, there was a wall covered in more food.

Gil'thuk had just finished peeling the eighth leg off this spider before slurping it down still squirming when he felt a weird sensation.

There was an odd pressure. He'd gotten used to the pressure of his stomach pushing against his abdomen over the last few days, but this was different. Instead of the internal pushing, he felt something shoving against every inch of his skin.

He resisted the sensation, pushing back just a bit, but he found it too difficult. Better to let it happen and just get back to eating as soon as possible.

The pressure intensified, leading a pounding headache and Gil'thuk voiding his stomach contents once more. Then all at once it was over, and he felt more at peace than he had in his entire life.

* * * * * * *

Cara

She did it.

After two days of this creature scraping at her walls and eating all her drones in its vicinity, the mana derma had thinned enough that she could force her way through and claim it.

Instantly she was bombarded with new information, and she learned almost nothing.

Whatever he was, it was not a classified race but an unnamed variant of goblins that was so different that it had its own evolutionary tree. She was correct in her assumption that the thing was a bottom tier sapient however, as she learned what it knew of its language, if you could call it a language.

Not only did the language not have a name, but it didn't even have words for most things. It consisted of 7 words; Mate, Food, Hunt, Fight, Sleep, Good, and Stop. At least those would be as close as the common language translation could get to this language of clicks and tooth clacking.

Her creature had a very small mana capacity for magic, with passive dark being its base affinity. First things first, she would have to name this race of subterranean sub sapients. Troglodyte seemed fitting, so she went with that.

Her second order was force learning it something. With most of her beasts she used up their entire capacity teaching them ambush tactics or how to work the traps, but with a sapient race they had much more room to learn. Not only this but as they evolved their intelligence should increase, allowing them to learn more. For now, she knew just what to teach it.

She pushed the knowledge of the common language into the creature feeling as its capacity was consumed. It wasn't going to able to learn much more, but she'd settle for communication.

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* * * * * * *

Gil’thuk

The tingling sensation had finally passed, but now Gil’thuk could feel his headache coming back. It wasn't nearly as bad as last time however Gil was thankful that he hadn't picked himself back off the floor from when he collapsed last time.

"Little Troglodyte, are you ready to serve the dungeon?"

What was that? He'd never heard any of those words before, but for some reason he understood them. They'd even sounded off from inside his skull. As he grasped for a way to respond he realized that he could speak.

He responded as he pushed himself up onto his knees.

"What Troglodyte? What serve? How talk?" Gil found it extremely difficult to speak as his vocal cords were not made to use this language, nor was his tongue or mouth used to the shapes. As such he decided he would try to speak using the least amount of words possible.

"I am a Dungeon, you are a Troglodyte. I have claimed you and now you will serve me fighting off adventurers or however else I choose to use you. I am very happy to see that my force learn stuck and now you have a job to do. You need to convince the rest of your people, if there are more, to come into the dungeon."

Gil'thuk did not know how he was supposed to do this. The other troglodytes, as that is what they were now called, had never listened to him before. He was not the strongest, nor the smartest, nor even the swiftest and garnered very little respect amongst his people.

He tried to deny the dungeon voice but found that he was magically compelled to carry out its orders. He pondered how he could get around this because the tasking was impossible, then realized that he was pondering something. He was thinking about something not directly related to food, and this was a first for him.

With his new found ability of thinking, Gil'thuk decided he would just put his mind to tricking his tribesmen into the dungeon.

"Gil'thuk me. Gil'thuk. Me thinks I bring one or two. More trog hard. Then three trog. Bring more."

If he could get the voice to sign off on this, it would be far easier than bringing everyone at once. Gil knew there was no realistic solution to getting the tribe leader or shaman to follow him, and even the hunters disdained him. However, there were at least 2 troglodytes who were less intelligent than Gil'thuk, even before now. If he could get more, they could start kidnapping his people and bringing them here.

Before long he was sure this would work.

"I see the logic I guess, but you need to do this quickly. I need to have more of your colony before the threats arrive. What do you need?"

So, it was then that Gil'thuk set off into the newly opened tunnel, heading back home. No, the colony was never really a home for him and it was time that things changed. The dungeon had gifted him with a string of dead bats and bugs to drag behind him as he wandered back to town.

He stashed the chieftain’s hammer behind a rock before entering town in case it was missed, he did not want that to be his downfall. Proud of himself for even remembering that, he sauntered into the warren and went down to the fire pit where his targets usually loitered.

Gil'thuk did not know their names, because their language did not have an ability to say them. He did not even know if the other Troglodytes had chosen names for themselves, or if he was the only one who wanted a way to refer to himself to himself. It didn't matter. Lying about were the two he'd had in mind.

Both kinsmen in front of him were smaller specimens, too stupid to hunt, too weak to hunt, and too untrustworthy to stand guard. Truly they were a leech on the colonies resources but right now they were exactly what he needed.

"Stop sleep. Good food. Hunt food."

Both of their eye's wandered up from where they were staring at the cook preparing the next meal. They then instantly wandered to the string of prey that Gil'thuk had dragged in.

"Food." Said the first while pointing at the bats.

"Food." The other echoed.

"Food. Good food. Hunt food." Now armed with the common language, Gil'thuk reflected on how frustrating it was to try and communicate thoughts in this awful tongue. It was no wonder that they were all so stupid. That was going to change however.

Gil'thuk was going to rescue his people from themselves.

"Food." They both got up from their spots and followed Gil'thuk back up the incline, rewarded with a treat in the form of a beetle every so often. It would do him no good for them to lose interest and return.

As he walked through the hole in the wall back into the dungeon, his two tails shoved past him. It seemed that the energy, the mana that the dungeon put off, had the same effect on them that it once had on him.

The wall sealed itself shut behind him slowly while he watched it. This was going to be easier than he thought.

Then he sat down to eat.