บท 3: An Elf's Tale
The Abyssal Forest was one of the many forbidden zones on this continent. It was home to some of the most powerful and dangerous monsters, the peak reaching Fifth Step Monster Lords. Each controlled a large swath of territory in the forest and ruled over it with iron fists.
Despite all the danger that came with it a forbidden zone, the outskirts were quite safe, and the Monster Lords didn't pay much attention to them either. The strongest beast or monster would generally only be of the Second Step, and due to the lack of dungeons, no high level rankers passed by.
In this world, everything and everyone were governed by classes, subclasses, and levels. Everyone had them, could change classes when certain requirements were met, but only those who pursued levels, challenging dungeons and danger zones were called rankers.
Therina grew up in a small elven village on the east side of the Dark Forest. The forest village was hidden away from the world behind a low grade illusion array, keeping away random beasts and adventurers.
The elves were self sufficient for the most part, with some trade between other hidden elven or beastman villages nearby for things they didn't produce locally. It was a relatively peaceful life, although there were always those who wished to become rankers leaving the village to pursue strength.
Therina wasn't one of them, merely a young woman in her 40s hoping to one day find a husband and have a family in this small world of hers.
This peaceful life was shattered however when a group of mercenaries assaulted her village. The illusion array which kept them safe was useless, the band of humans clearly already aware of knowledge of where their village was located.
There was only one reason this would happen.
One of the elves who left the village in pursuit of levels had sold them out, or it had been tortured out of them.
Outside of the dungeon-cities, where order ruled, the strong preyed on the weak. One either had strength to protect their wealth, didn't have wealth, or hid it away from those with greed.
This village was exposed and taken by a surprise assault as fire arrows burst through the trees and quickly spread fire through the village.
The mercenaries numbered about 50 people, majority humans with a couple beastkin and dwarves mixed in. With the exception of four Second Step rankers, the rest were low levelled First Step adventurers aspiring to reach the ranks of rankers. They relied on quantity rather than quality.
The elven village had a population of around 300, but only 50 of them were combatants, equal numbers with the raiders, even their average levels were slightly higher despite a less combat oriented lifestyle, due to their nature of being a long lived race.
However, most of their combat relied on trappings and ambushes against animals and monsters. They were not only less equipped than the mercenaries, they were taking by surprise. The scouts outside the village were killed by the Second Step rankers without being able to sound an alarm, and the village quickly descended into anarchy shortly afterwards.
~~~~~
Therina Sel'Ether was only a <Lv. 2> Thatcher, a basic production class which had no combat proficiency. Her village was covered in flames, black smoke polluting the area and making it difficult to breath.
She saw the bodies of half her village fallen on the ground, cut up and bloodied in a brutal massacre. Long gone was the grace of the elves, replaced by the brutality of what a cold iron blade could do to a body of flesh and bone.
The screams of her fellow villagers could be heard in the background. Weeping, bludgeoning sounds and guttural human words in the common language.
The mercenaries subdued the entire village, killing the elderly and resistors, those who held no value to them. The rest were chained, iron collars attached to their neck in shame and placed off to the side, a slavery crest all that remained to cement their servitude to others.
Therina knew she should have fought back, even though her death would be the only result, but her fear of dying stayed her hand, allowing herself to be chained.
The humans among the mercenaries were extremely lustful, the weeping and blood stained crotch of more than several elves revealed the evil deeds they committed.
Therina was of average looks among the elves, but the base standard was high, and humans would sleep with even half breed demonkin. She curled herself up among the captured elves, trying to shrink her presence into something indistinguishable. She had even rubbed dirt from the ground over her face and hair. He clothes already torn from when she was captured.
It was apparently not enough, as two of the mercenaries apparently had taken a liking to her.
"You, 'et up." One of the human mercenaries commanded with his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Therina shook in fear, slowly getting up while constantly dodging the gaze of the man with her eyes. She hid her body exposed through her torn clothes as best she could by wrapping her arms around herself.
"Perfect, I can zee za ma'ins of beauty there."
The other human grabbed her arm with his thickly callused hands, breathing in lust at the touch, and dragged her off away from the other captives, not one of which speaking up due to fear.
Therina was forcefully escorted out of the northern region of the village where nobody would bother them. She knew what they wanted, and it brought a crippling fear to hear as she began to silently cry and beg for saving, but her fate was already sealed.
She would be but another who had been defiled.
Once away from the village, one of them pinned her up against a tree, forcing his body which reeked of sweat and blood against her while greedily taking in her scent. He even licked her elongated ear, sending a cold shiver of fear through her body.
"Oi', Ed. Check 'at out," The other human who was about to join in looked through the trees at the cliff which guarded the rear of the village from the deeper parts of the Abyssal Forest.
"Huh? What?! It 'etter be good, yar spoil'in the mood."
The human assaulted Therina was irritated, but still looked over toward where the first mercenary was pointing.
Therina fearfully glanced at it too, and saw a cave in the cliff face which she knew was the den of a forest bear. It was just an ordinary animal, and the elves didn't consume a lot of meat, so they hadn't bothered hunting it. It didn't attack the village anyway, so there was no danger.
"Jus' a cave, what o' it?"
"My Basic Trap Detection ze trigger'in. There are traps just inzide za entrance."
"What are ye' say'in? Zis a dungeon?"
"Haz to be. A low levelled von as vell. I zink… ve hit gold."
"We shoul' repor' it to the boss."
"Are ve nuts!? Don' ve know how vuch a core is vorth!?"
"So we shoul'…?"
"Aye, let's go look. If ve can, ve'll take it ourselves, vell it and zlit the profit."
"Wat of the traps?"
"Ve have an elf, ze isn't vorth mud compared to a core! Uze her as bait for traps. We can go vet more if ze vies."
With a plan in motion, the two humans had nothing but greed in their eyes as they dragged to terrified elf towards the cave.
Therina had no idea the cave had turned into a dungeon and based on what she knew, the humans were right. It would have to be a very new, low levelled dungeon. The dungeon core was ripe for the picking, and its value was easily ten times that of her small elven village.
Even without a trap detection skill, she could see holes all over the ground, walls and ceiling, indicating that it was riddled with basic spear traps.
"'Et in, try not tar die." The human who was about to rape her before shoved her into the cave, drawing a torch out of his storage bag and lighting it while holding a sword in his other hand.
The other human just held a sword while they cautiously followed behind her, ensure that any trap which sprung on her wouldn't affect them. She also served as a meat shield for any ambushes by goblins, rats, or other low level monsters the dungeon had summoned.
The cave stunk of blood and death, but it was mostly faded. There was a strange stone platter with fruit and meat on it that looked so suspicious, no sentient being would ever fall for it. Dungeon produced food was notorious around the world as it smelled fantastic and could make one salivate in hunger, but it all tasted like shit. No matter what it looked like, it was all made out of the same biomass, which was bland and unpalatable.
Therina walked a light footed as she could, avoiding the ominous holes in the ground which spears would shoot out from. She shook all over and felt weak from the threat of death looming over her, like she would collapse and pass out any minute. Her stats were all less than ten except for vitality which was at 12, so these traps could easily take her life.
Near the end of the entrance tunnel, which led to what looked like several roomlike excavations shrouded in darkness, each approximately 30 square meters, the dungeon seemed to suddenly come to life.
No monsters appeared, but the floor behind her, which the two humans were standing on, suddenly gave way to a basic pitfall trap. Therina and the two humans had been so focused on all the holes of spear traps, the pitfall trap had remained hidden like a single tree in a forest.
The mercenaries cursed, one of which managed to jump back before the pitfall lid completely dropped open, while the other dropped into the trap.
Therina was so terrified that her legs finally gave up below her and she collapsed on the ground, shaking and with a lump of fear in her throat so thick it refused to let her make a peep. She felt tears on her face as the sound of spear traps released one after another, along with the sound of flesh being punctured and bones cracked open.
Eventually, all the sounds died down and the spear traps slowly retracted, the cave being filled with an overwhelming scent of fresh blood.
She finally worked up the courage to look behind her.
The pitfall had closed, hiding its contents, while one of the mercenaries was no lying on the ground like a broken rag doll now covered in blood. The blood and brain matter than had come out a hole in the top of his head revealed where the fatal blow had been.
The humans with ravaged their village and raped their people had died, just like that.
"P-p-please, don't k-k-kill me," Therina fearfully stuttered in elvish, praying that the dungeon would spare her.
She wanted to retreat, but spear traps around the entrance had released and remained fully extended, barring the entrance of the tunnel with criss-crossing stone spears.
One would have to break the spears to enter or leave, which she was barely capable of even if she picked up the fallen mercenaries sword. The dungeon would kill her before she could work her way through it anyway.
A heavy thump startled a yelp out of her as a large brick of stone dropped on the ground next to her. She felt the presence of the dungeons consciousness focusing on her but had no idea what it wanted or even meant by the block of stone.
'Does it want me to pick it up? That is clearly too heavy for me. I may be able to push it a little bit, but that is about it'
The elf nervously reached out and touch the large stone block, when another one appeared not far away, slightly deeper in the dungeon.
She thought she knew what the dungeon was conveying and crawled to that stone block, as her legs were still too wobbly to stand. When she reached that stone block, another one appeared even further in.
She followed the trail into the rooms at the back of the cave, finally managing to somewhat stand steadily as she entered the room on the left. As she did, the stone blocks disappeared and stone bars grew from the ground and sealed off the room.
The bars weren't overly strong, but Therina would have difficulty breaking them, while their intent was extremely clear.
The room was very dark, with little light filtering in from the entrance. Being an elf, she had somewhat better night vision than humans, although not as good as dwarves or other races more accustomed to the dark.
Therina watches as a stone prison bed like structure was built in one corner of the room, while a chair, which appeared equally uncomfortable, was built in the opposite.
She lied down on the stone bed, ignoring the discomfort and all her emotions exploded as she began crying and shaking.
The emotional toll of everything that happened, of having her life destroyed, was too great and overwhelmed her mind as she eventually fell asleep.
~~~~~
Therina woke up feeling like everything that happened was a dream, but reality came crashing down on her when she woke up in a stone cave instead of her warm and comforting home.
She wasn't sure how long she slept for, but it didn't seem like that long. At least her mind was no longer in immediate panic mode. At least it wasn't until she saw the new contraption in her prison in which she froze in fear.
On the other side of the room from the bed was a person sized device made from black, sleek flesh. It was almost like a recliner chair, except for the various tentacle and appendages which grew from it.
It was a device notorious among all races and deemed illegal by all lawful societies in control of dungeons.
The breeder.
It was a device used to impregnate females and impregnate them, using their wombs to breed unique monsters. It was cheap and didn't cost any dungeon experience to use, and it could be used to create high level monsters rather than using a large amount of mana, and even dungeon experience, to summon them. Any dungeon lord would see the cost benefit of using one.
Whilst it was deemed illegal, there were always some under the table deals going on in which people sold their wombs for money.
But there was another reason why it was illegal. Creating monsters placed a burden on the body, in which if the burden was too high, it would affect their health and even fertility, while trying to breed something far beyond the body's ability to support, would kill the host.
One would have to be a high level ranker to support a high level dungeon monster birth, but no such ranker would sell their body, so evil dungeon lords would use "expendable" females to breed higher level monsters than they could summon, or unique monsters which couldn't be summoned.
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