Ursula

"She should wake up soon," I said, examining the young mermaid in greater detail. The glow of health and vibrancy that was missing when Bob had first released her from her prison had faded as I healed her. Now instead of looking like she was long dead, she looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

"How hard do you think it will be to get her back to the Merman's palace?" Sieph wondered.

"Why would we want to do that?" Thutmose asked.

"We received a System Quest to see her safely delivered to her grandfather, the ruler, and a King for her people," I explained. "The reward is access to the dungeon core."

"An escort quest," Thutmose groaned. "We get those occasionally too. Nobody likes to do them because they take so much time. Unfortunately, you can't refuse them, or you lose out on the side quests that will pop up as you escort her, and this one gets us exactly where we need and want to be.

"The loot drops and quest rewards will be better than just trying to clear the dungeon, but it's interesting how System seems to be helping and guiding. I will have to research past attempts to claim a planet, but I can't remember of a time when the System seems to be almost helping."

"Maybe it's because our people have been left so long without a chance to expand. The System paradigm we serve under never having a chance to evolve and update as we claim new worlds," I suggested.

"Not a bad thought," he mused, "I'll see if I can find any information on how each Pantheon's first planetary expansion went. Maybe this kind of System help is standard the first time a planet is claimed and System is updated."

"Gloria, how did you wind up here?" I asked, ignoring the question for now. The young mermaid had woken up while we were speaking. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed, especially since she had begun feigning sleep once she realized that she was surrounded.

Gloria was startled, surprised when I addressed her directly. I could see the panic in her face as she tried to make a mad dash and escape. I might have let her if we hadn't gotten the escort quest and if we didn't need the dungeon core, but Bob had reacted before I could give chase or direction.

His ability to maneuver in water eclipsed the young mermaid, and he quickly caught and returned her to the group. He had to use more and more of his tentacles to keep her controlled as she squirmed and flailed, fighting to escape. The powerful slaps of her tail against flesh had staggered the Slaugh for a second, his health taking a major hit.

That she could harm him so easily had to relate to level. Certainly, technique and skill hadn't been involved. So much damage, for such an insignificant action, meant she was between level ten and fifteen. She might even be considered a mini-boss. She was certainly an elite mob and might be a foretaste of what we could expect to find in this dungeon.

"You can stop fighting," I said soothingly. "We aren't going to harm you, not after the trouble we went to freeing and saving you. We're just trying to understand how you wound up captured and so close to death."

"My guard detail was attacked," she answered reluctantly. It had taken a few moments for her to respond as she examined each of us more closely. I'm not sure exactly what she thought, but Bob had managed to restrain her. There was little harm in answering.

"I think I was meant to be kidnapped, but my most loyal guardsmen bought enough time for me to flee even after most of the men sworn to protect abandoned duty to flee," she explained.

She didn't seem bothered or surprised that I knew her name. [Inspect] and the quest notice had given that basic information, if little else. There was debate among Sidhe scholars as to why she might ignore or accept our knowledge so easily. One faction thought the people we met in dungeons were automatons, following scripts that System created, and the script only acted when key-words triggered a response. The other faction thought they were real people who were playing a role, almost like actors that had been trained to respond in specific ways.

I wasn't sure either faction was correct, not when King Teigh was my grandfather, and I knew the events that had taken place in the CERN dungeon. Princes Wynne and King Teigh had had a long discussion about Earth, a discussion that had touched upon the creation of dungeons. They had concluded that each dungeon followed certain parameters, and one of those parameters was an overlap, an intrusion into an area of a world that existed somewhere within the multi-verse.

I was starting to think that this dungeon was formed the same way CERN had been. In any event, I would adjust my tactics to act as if that were the case. Death was supposed to be final, but some dungeon creatures respawned. It was one of the ways the Sidhe farmed the dungeons on Talahm. For those dungeon mobs, death was just a time-out before they were reborn, and the dungeon stage was reset for the next party of adventurers.

My biggest concern with a normal dungeon would be those respawns unless this dungeon worked drastically different from any I'd read about, Gloria, the [Bell Spider], and this entire scene would reset. But if this dungeon acted on the same principles of CERN, then there would only be one Gloria, and if she died, she died permanently.

"I've been swimming for days, trying to out-pace and lose the Murlocs that had attacked, but I think they were herding me somewhere."

"The guards were probably paid to allow her to be lost," Thutmose suggested, his cynicism probably correct this time.

"Or why wouldn't they tell her to retreat, to head back to safety instead of allowing you to just escape and flee?"

"Desmond would never betray our house," Gloria bristled in response. Her impulse to protect this Desmond telegraphing much about that relationship. He was either a long-serving family retainer, almost a father figure, or the object of infatuation.

"He was fending off two of those monsters while trying to deflect ranged attacks at the same time."

"Who is Desmond?" Bob asked for all of us.

"He is the head of my guard detail," she answered, still glaring at Thutmose. "He's been protecting me since I first hatched."

"Usually it is your most trusted retainer that has the most to gain by betrayal, the one that is the hardest to believe might be guilty. That doesn't mean it isn't possible," Bob warned her.

She turned her head to glare at Bob; her anger evident. Once she saw who was speaking, her entire body relaxed, something hard to do since all she could see was his underbelly. She hadn't had time to notice him before attempting to escape, and he had tied her up in such a manner that she hadn't seen who was holding her, but even her partial glimpse had a profound impact. Now that she looked at him, it was as if she recognized him, or that there was something about him that she identified with and took comfort from.

Bob was born a creature of water. His basic shape resembling a stingray. So maybe it was the familiarity that she was responding to. Whatever she recognized; it wasn't the monstrous characteristics that the Slaugh were born with, those attributes that made them Nightmares for most Sidhe. His gaping maw, serrated teeth, or field of tentacles did not intimidate her in the least, not that she could see them well. Instead, she was drawn to him.

For the Slaugh, their tentacles were more than a means to manipulate the surrounding objects. Certainly, they were used to grasp and hold, even rip flesh asunder before devouring it, but they served an additional purpose. They were sexual appendages, a means for both sexes to entice a prospective mate or companion.

The finer cilia were hyper-sensitive and if stroked would result in arousal. Gloria had no way of knowing this, and even if she had, she might not have cared. She saw something in Bob that she resonated with and trusted and stroked those finer cilia with appreciation and acceptance. Moving on from embracing and petting some of his larger tentacles, it wasn't long before she had both hands buried within the fine cilia.

Bob's reaction was involuntary. A male Slaugh couldn't be sexually stimulated like that without responding. The water surrounding the pair became murky as he released a highly concentrated ink that obscured our vision. I had no idea if the mermaid was a virgin before this, but if she was, she soon wouldn't be.

One of Bob's tentacles would be the appropriate size for penetration, and all of them had the ability for ejaculation.

"Can dungeon mobs get pregnant?" Sieph asked, her interest scientific not titillation.

"Yes," I claimed. "At least on Talahm they can.

"Remember, some of the more commercialized dungeons on Talahm are used for breeding and resources, a few for farming purposes. If becoming pregnant was an issue, it would be impossible to raise and breed certain strains of meat stock."

"I wonder what a mermaid and Slaugh crossbreed will look like?" She said. Most people would have moved away, given the couple some space, or attempted to interrupt them. But Gloria had initiated the engagement, even if she had done so unknowingly, and the Sidhe did not shy away from the intimacy of sex. There was nothing shameful in the action, so there was no need to pretend a lack of interest or offer a false sense of modesty by moving away.

"An octopus with a torso and head," Thutmose mused.

His guess made sense. Bob did have the tentacles and ink sac of an octopus. There was no reason to think any child born of this coupling wouldn't inherit those features as well as Gloria's upper-body. Her species had to be adaptive as it was, in order to incorporate the fish's tail into their DNA structure.

A powerful wave of life and magic put an end to our speculation before it even began. The ink was allowed to dissipate, and Bob and Gloria were revealed; sated and pleased with themselves.

[Hidden Quest Complete - Life Finds A Way: One of your party members has taken part in the creation of a new race of people. The Slaugh will be remembered as the progenitor for a new species.

The Ursula species has been given life.

Note: Successfully claiming Ijal will see the people of Ursula born within the waters of Talahm.]