Tantalus felt his world shiver. His entire world, his complete existence shook as the three floors of the dungeon felt themselves move against their will. A dark thought entered Tantalus’ mind, the darkest thought he had ever thunk.
The Leviathan was waking up. Mr. Pacman, worm edition, was coming to take another chunk out of him.
Satharis! Wake up!
No reply.
Satharis was still mid evolution, he would be incapacitated until the process was complete, and he progressed to his second form. Tantalus’ mind raced, without his dragon he had no hope. No possibility of fighting the Leviathan.
The rumbling ceased as starkly as it began. A dozen damage reports entered Tantalus’ consciousness, the repair costs amounting to a bit over two hundred thousand MP. He paid it without thinking, accepting each of the proposed repairs without examination. Several moments passed as he waited for the aftershocks to hit.
“Dad, what are you doing?”
Tantalus jumped in surprise as his consciousness was touched by another. That wasn’t me.
Ah! Oh, it’s you Maia.
“Of course it’s me. Now come down here and apologize for squishing my littles!”
Tantalus’ shifted his view changing dungeon levels so he could see and be sensed by Maia directly. She was one of his newest creations, a gorgon whom he had spawned into the dungeon with the purpose of making a second dungeon boss. Someone who could rival Satharis in intelligence and wisdom. At least, that had been the intention.
Unbeknownst to Tantalus, all creatures he spawned were created from his core, they shared his strongest traits, getting a boost to their MP and Intelligence stats. A boon that should have created geniuses. Instead, it had created a gorgon roughly his own age. Not the age of his soul, but the age of his intelligence in this world.
Maia had been born as a sorcerously wise month old gorgon. Truely an infant.
Tantalus swallowed, unsure how to approach the gardner gorgon. He was a priest! Children did not exist in his world without adult supervision. For the past thirty years his only interactions with infants or toddlers was their baptisms. Having a daughter spring out of the aether was giving his bodiless soul a conniption.
“Daaad! Apologize!” Said Maia, pouting at his silence.
I said it wasn’t me Maia. Began Tantalus, only to see her pouting face.
Maia stood in the center of a recently dug chamber, holding the half broken form of a serpentine creature she called a ‘little’. It was a sort of snake native to this world, a non venomous serpent with a shovel shaped head. Somehow the ‘little’ could tunnel through stone, how it did that was beyond Tantalus, Hephestus’ notes said it somehow ate the rock, compressing it into mana stones or expelling the stone in a sort of peat.
As a gorgon, Maia could speak to the creatures, convincing them to sculpt tunnels and furniture for her floor. A feat that tickled Tantalus’ brain in a way he had never felt before. Something about tunneling, seeing the dungeon grow, satisfied him in a way he could not express.
We can’t leave your hurt littles like that.
Activating Heal, he targeted the creature in Maia’s claws, it’s smashed lower half reinflated and exposed organs sucked back into it’s anus, restoring the creature’s body. The little quivered in excitement, slithering across Maia’s scaly arms and into her dress, emerging from her opposite sleeve and coiling on top of her forearm. It swayed for a moment, staring at the stone wall before it tensed.
The little uncoiled like a spring, launching itself in a suicidal attack at the solid stone wall. Tantalus watched it go, too surprised to intervene. He could only stare as the serpent collided with the stone, and sank into it, leaving behind a perfectly round hole with six tiny grooves in it. Barely an inch wide, the hole should not have been large enough to house the creature. Maia let out a cry of glee, clapping her hands as her little was healed.
“Thanks dad!” She said, smiling with all her teeth.
Gorgons were a blend of human and serpent, meaning her teeth were all pointed and half as narrow as a humans. To a casual observer she would pass as a human girl, two arms, two legs, with odd dreadlocks covering her head and neck.
A closer observer, or someone who wasn’t blind, would realize she was more serpent than human. From her inhuman fangs, to the black claws extending from each finger, to the miniscule scales covering her skin. Her eyes were a lurid red, with vertical slits as pupils. Though the most disturbing feature were the scores of dazzling dreadlocks crowning her head. Each dreadlock was a cord of bronze and ebony stripes, a foot long spiral of color that terminated in the round face of a beady eyed gardner snake.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Gardner snakes were a pleasant species, often ignored or favored by farmers since they kept rats and mice out of the winter pantries. Some might even call them cute. That is, when they were outside, in a field, and not connected to a young girl’s skull.
The serpents seemed tangled together, like a ball of yarn in a den of lions. Scores of black eyes scanned the underground world, roving black dots of intelligence, each head squirming independently from the tangled whole. They seemed to be competing for Maia’s attention, searching for points of interest to pass their vision to Maia.
A month old, and she was already four feet tall, slender in a way that felt reminiscent of Nara’s athletic figure.
Tantalus snipped that train of thought. He had enough sins, he should not be, could not be thinking of Maia in that way. He did not want to think about her like that. She considered him her father, and as uncomfortable as it made him, he was responsible for bringing her into the world.
Scanning his roster he healed each of her ‘littles’ who were missing HP, noting their real name as Colchian wyrms. It would have been more efficient to allow them to die, then respawn, but Tantalus could not stomach the thought of Maia questioning his actions. A weakness Gurk or Satharis did not share.
A month old mom plus one hundred and one murderers. This dungeon really is my own personal hell.
Evolution complete.
“Dad, What does ev-o-lotion mean?”
Tantalus winced.
Uhm… it is pronounced eh·vuh·loo·shn and I guess it means growing up, or to get stronger. I’m not entirely sure what the process is though, Gurk is the first person I’ve ever known to evolve.
Maia’s face lit up, a score of snakelocks turned to face Tantalus. Her open-mouthed joy warmed Tantalus’ ethereal heart.
“I wanna evolution! I wanna grow up and touch the ceiling!”
Another wave of tremors snipped that thought in the bud, dust fell from the ceiling as aftershocks reverberated through the dungeon. Maia’s littles narrowly escaped being crushed as stones shifted. Dozens of minor alerts appeared in Tantalus’ vision, he swiped through them
Thank god, no one died, but I have no idea what is causing these tremors. And Satharis is in the middle of his evolution.
Arriving at the final alert, Tantalus was struck with an idea. Activating his teleport spell he migrated his latest addition to Tantalus dungeon. A muscular creature, approximately five feet tall staggered forward, naked, surprised by the sudden teleportation. Its hands slammed together, as if it had been squeezing something tightly before it had been abruptly interrupted.
“Whoa, hi Gurk! Where did your clothes go? And how did you get so much bigger!” Exclaimed Maia
For his part, Gurk snapped to attention, saluting Tantalus. Tantalus summoned an illusory wall, horrified about exposing his month old daughter to Gurk’s cuccumber.
Why are you naked?!
“Sorry boss. My old armor was too small for these muscles.” Said Gurk, placing both hands behind his head and flexing his prodigious abs.
Tantalus’ mouth dropped open. His little green demon had become a slightly shorter, and much greener, Arnold.
“Was in the middle of acquiring some new armor when you brought me here boss. How may I serve the core?” Finished Gurk.
If Tantalus had been surprised before, he was now flabbergasted. Gurk’s transformation had given him a new body as well as a new mind and heart. What was about to happen to Satharis?
“Dad, when I evolution can I keep my snakes? Gurk only has one and I like all my pretties.” Asked Maia, stroking a few of her beady-eyed dreadlocks.
Tantalus was thankful he was no longer human, otherwise he would have followed Nestor’s example and had a heart attack.
“You’ll keep all your pretties when you evolve. They’ll get bigger and buffer, just like me.” Said Gurk, shouting to be heard over the illusionary wall.
“Yay!”
ENOUGH! Gurk go check on the Leviathan and find out what is causing those tremors! After you put some clothes on!
“Yes boss! On the double! Can I take some of the runts with me?”
Runts? Sure, just make sure you leave enough behind to continue training.
Tantalus waved his hand and the nude chieftain vanished, leaving him in the dark to breathe a sigh of relief. Maia snuck a few snakelocks through the illusionary wall, searching for their muscular friend.
“Aw dad. Why did you send him home? I like smart Gurk and there isn’t anyone to talk to down here! Do you hate me?” Whined Maia.
No no no Maia! Nothing like that. You have your littles, don’t you love them?
“They can’t talk dad! All they think about is rocks and swimming!” Shouted Maia.
This was turning into a full on temper tantrum, one that Tantalus’ was ill equipped to handle. He should have seen this coming, Maia had nothing on her floor. She was the floor boss of a broom closet, no wonder she had bonded with the tunneling worms, there was nothing else for her to do, no one to talk to, and nowhere to go. Tantalus began to panic, he was being the worst dungeon core.
I’m sorry Maia! I’ve been thoughtless, why don’t you go watch the goblins train?
As soon as Tantalus suggested the idea, he regretted it, teaching a month old girl how to murder others was the absolute last thing he wanted to do… Except, Maia would grow up, she had been born to kill humans and bolster his dungeon’s third floor. He suppressed his internal screaming to jot down a few mental notes, the third floor would need to be expanded, it would take a month or four but then he would fill MAia’s floor with aquatic grottoes and pastoral vistas.
Maia’s hand slipped into his, passing through his illusory form with a frown.
“Dad, show me the way.”
Okay Maia. Said Tantalus, guiding his daughter out of her closet and into the dungeon proper. They passed Nestor’s grave, and the grove of demonic trees, pausing as Gurk and a crew of a a dozen runts hacked one into pieces and used its branches as rope. Expeditiously making a path for them to exit the rent dungeon. Maia’s rushed to join them, only to stop when a nearby tree strangled a distracted runt.
“Can I come with you uncle Girk?” Asked Maia, approaching the killer tree.
Tantalus shook his head, a sign only Gurk picked up on.
“Not today Maia, we can’t risk your heart being lost. Leave the scouting business to us runts.”
Maia began to pout, reaching the tree she took hold of the strangling branches and shook them like a whip. The branches splintered as the force of a floor boss reverberated through them, shatting entirely as the destructive crack reached the trunk. Tantalus snapped to attention, suddenly reminded how physical appearances did not always correlate to stat levels in this world.
“Thanks boss!” Shouted the breathless goblin.
“You’re welcome.” Said Maia, beaming at the praise.
The freed goblin withered under her smile, unsure how to respond he fled, clambering down the felled tree to join his kin.
Ah, reminds me of young Deckard and his little sister, hmm maybe I should buy a sister for Maia, growing up alone will turn her into a psychopath like Gurk. Why does that sound so icky, I am literally creating them! If only gorgon’s weren’t so expensive. It’ll have to wait for a month or two. Thought Tantalus, careful to keep his thoughts to himself.
Maia’s hand passed through his once more, the affectionate gesture breaking his heart. She was just a child, a young girl lost in a vile world of pain and violence.