As to be expected, the slaves really didn't want a fight. Armed with picks and shovels, they were hardly a match for the goblins. See the cave goblins are about three feet in height and pale of flesh. It looks they're a subterranean mutation as they have albino skin, big pointed ears and milky white eyes. I honestly don't think they see the slaves or handlers, more are using their hearing. Thing is, I looked back in the shaft, there's some two score cave goblins coming through the mine shafts. Looking even further back I see their nest, there's easily another hundred of young and females, though its hard to notice the difference between male and female goblins, they look almost exactly the same and nobody really wants a close inspection of either crotch.
The goblins don't have weapons, they are more like animals using dirty jagged nails and sharp teeth. What made them so dangerous is they swarm victims, like a school of piranha, to just a bloody result. Shadowhand has been alerted and is rushing towards the fight area, I can't let him kill off the goblins, they're my first monsters! Let's see, what can I do, what can I do... hrmm System present dungeon master with monster conscription package?
{ Initializing. Deploying monstrous master package to dungeon master Shadowhand. Installing. Explaining. Complete. }
Wow that was quick. Shadowhand pulls up short and holds a wall for support as the system smacks his brain with a clue by four. You're a dungeon master now not a hero, embrace your monstrous allies! Shaking his head he continues to hurry forward to the fight, the slaves have taken several nasty losses but a good dozen goblins are dead too. Against the thugs and slaves armed with tools its more the little beasts numbers and reckless disregard of their own lives that has seen another six... wait, seven, slaves dragged under the horde and ripped apart.
With Shadowhand on scene the stand off becomes a full on stalemate. The first few goblins that throw themselves at him are torn apart by his blades. He may as well be fighting babies considering how little effort a level ten thief needs to put down a well, level one anything. The goblins seem cowed by the appearance of the boss, and from his lip movements I think the system is letting him communicate with the little beasts. It does not look like they're too keen on being his underlings though.
Hrm, let's see if I can help. They're inside me so I should be able to exert a certain amount of influence over them. Let's see, focus on their minds hammer them down with my will and...
{ Dungeon Shadowheart wishes to forcefully conscript the Pale Eye Cave Goblin tribe. Expend three hundred energy to claim the tribe? }
Youch, three hundred? I mean I have close to five hundred but is there no way to make it cheaper? System? Sigh, guess not. Alright, make these bastards mine... err, Shadowhand's.
{ Forcefully conscripting monster tribe. The Pale Eye tribe is now a part of dungeon Shadowheart. Shadowhand wishes to observe the tribe state. Present info? }
Sure, let's see if they're worth it.
[
Tribe Name: Pale Eye
Racial Make up: 100% Cave Goblin
Tribe Numbers: 27 Level one Males, 60 Level one females, 46 infants of mixed genders, 1 Level three chief
Held Resources: None
Estimated Technology Level: Primitive
Current Owner: Shadowhand
Current Enemies: Sharptusk Tribe (Cave Orcs)
]
Meh, little better than wild animals. Still if they're like the goblin package they should breed like rabbits. Hrm, let's try this..
{ Presenting Mother of Monsters option to dungeon master Shadowhand. Explaining. Offer has been rejected. }
What?! Master you idiot! We have a renewable source of breeders here, even if they are useless to your operation just being able to create useful creatures from these turds is a viable option. Bloody idiot. Well... I might no be able to force myself into the option I want, I can maybe do it on the sly. Let's see I'll focus on their home cave, there's a female fresh off her breeder cycle, let's lure her away from the tribe... good thats it, just follow over here to this cave. And now... You're MINE! Slime erupts out of the wall to wrap her up nice and tight, my reserve of energy is cut in half as I installed the Mother of Monsters package. Now is to just let her evolve and I can lure a male over to breed it.
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The days pass as the tribe settles into its new existance as slaves to Shadowhand. With an easily bred monstrous race he wastes no more money on replacing the slaves. Instead the cave goblin males take over the job of digging out the mines. This frees up his thugs who are only too happy to let the monsters work themselves to death. As diggers they're quite handy and as they surmised are readily replaceable. Females tend to spawn on average three babies each mating cycle, two females and one male. This cycle only occurs a few times before the lack of energy kills the mother so its little wonder why the female to male ratio is rather skewed.
I originally feared over population but with pregnancies lasting around a day with maturity taking a week, their life cycle was surprisingly short. The typical level one goblin seemed to only live for a month before it became weak and was devoured by its fellows. Now this is their "normal" life cycle. Personally I wanted to do a little experimenting. The one I had lured aside finally became a grayish green slime, rather tiny compared to Gretna-slime. Still the same make up though, a transparent slime creature with cave goblin organs squat up around its core.
Luring a male over was the hard part. They're blind and dumb. If I had had hair I would have lost some to tearing out trying to lure it to the cave goblin Mother of Monsters. Thankfully getting the little rat to breed with the slime was easy, I don't know if it smelled female or it just randomly enjoyed sticking its little brother in random things but the goblin mounted up and went at it like its albino arse was lit on fire. I actually had to lure it away as it tried to copulate with the slime repeatedly in one go. Horny little bastards.
I had selected a base cave goblin package to see if I could just continually breed them for Shadowhand but I misjudged the time. Like cockatrices I figured they'd only take an hour and spawn one. I was so very wrong. Three hours later it spawned five squirming baby cave goblins. It had almost doubled the birth rate. The down side however was the Mother of Monsters ruptured birthing the litter. Sadly using one to breed thousands wasn't going to work, but considering the ratio was still three females to two males I would not lack replacement materials.
The next big surprise was the maturation time. MoM born cave goblins took about a day cycle to reach maturity rather than a week. To test out my new bornes I released the five back into the general tribe. They were more or less accepted. Both males and females seemed stronger than the normies. The two males were quick to dethrone the existing chief, the females also weren't as docile as the normal cave goblin females, this was driven home when one of the MoM females tore the little brother off a normal goblin when it tried to forcefully mate her.
I have high hopes for the new strain. As does Shadowhand. While he believes the new strain is a natural mutation from the work his people now force on the tribe, I'm content to let the new genes purge the old. The MoM cave goblins are more loyal and compliant to Shadowhand... but are still horn dogs. The other biggest change is longevity, the mutated strain seems to live twice as long as the originals. While this is only two months, it still is an improvement over the two week useful life cycle of the old.
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Lately I've been paying little interest to my halls. As I feared, Shadowhand is using me as a guild hall, other than the cave goblins and a few slaves or henchmen, nothing else roams my halls. I've been spending the last six months tempering the cave goblins. They're currently on strain three of the MoM mutation. They live about four months, though that fourth is mostly an infirm state and rarely survive the tribe recycling them beyond the first week of the fourth month. Birth rate is still elevated, though with different slime its shifted between three females and two males to sometimes being four males and one female.
The latter occurs one in five litters. The MoMs now survive about three litters each now greatly reducing my energy consumption. Energy return is rather unique. Any MoM bred goblin returns about thirty five energy for the seventy it takes to make a Mother of Monsters so I DO come out ahead a bit instead of the cockatrice farce, weird thing is naturally bred third strain MoM goblin offspring usually give me between ten and fifteen energy. Its a very strange thing, but a beneficial one for me. With the old tribe bred out, I now have a self generating energy source, regardless if I do any more MoM tests.
But this has me curious. Is the tiny energy return due to the weak nature of goblins? This is why I've been boosting their numbers heavily. I hope to induce a raid on the original tribes enemy, the Sharptusk cave orc tribe. If they can capture a female, perhaps I can make some orcs for Shadowhand. As I recall, Gretna was rather durable as a Mother of Monsters, she only died when those adventurers "popped" her. Maybe a full blood orc Mother of Monsters will provide exceptional sustainability. I can only hope a reared Mother of Monsters orc litter, in bred, will have great energy returns.
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Sadly the raid did not go well. I bred maybe a hundred males for the battle but goblins are goblins and orcs are orcs. Less than half my mutated fighting force returned, and with a bunch of angry orcs trailing them. With another tribe bearing down on the goblin tribe cavern it was time to notify Shadowhand lest they breach the dungeon. To say he was... displeased... was somewhat of an understatement when he got the notification that a part of Shadowheart was about to be invaded.
While it wasn't a displeasure aimed at myself, I could well see revealing my hand in the problem would not go well. Much as the System had said, a dungeon master preferred to be in control. A dungeon doing its own thing rather... annoyed... them. Wouldn't stop my tests of course, just wasn't going to show them off just yet. I lured some males and females away from the main tribe to be safe as Shadowhand summoned his guild in to help the goblins beat back the orcs. While the resulting fight went rather badly for our side, my reserve stock were already being converted.
The fight granted me a lump of energy to rebuild the goblin tribe, but as a show of force, Shadowhand executed the cave goblin chief for attacking the cave orcs on his own him rather than being directed by the guild. This in turn lead to infighting in the tribe as the males fought over who was next in line. More energy for me, but put a strain on the survivability of my cave goblins. But I had time. Coupled with my newly morphed Mother of Monsters and Breeders, I was ready to continue my work. I think that's the most amazing thing about this situation.
Were it a normal recovery cycle the orcs would either rebuild what the guild killed off to continue being a threat or swiftly finish off the remnants of the goblins. But with my own... spawning vats... I'll easily rebuild my fighting force in a fraction of the time it will take the orcs to breed a new batch of warriors. I'll have my way... eventually.