It was later that night that Matthias was given another surprise.

  [Individual (Arachne) has hatched within your dungeon. Individual (Arachne) is fully sapient and thus not bound by your will.]

  Matthias did not know how to process this at first. As he mulled it over, he began sorting through the spider populations. If something was already evolving into a sapient species, then he would need to relocate some of the spiders deeper into his dungeon. He had not really noticed his spiders evolving, as they had stuck to their territory, but now that he looked more closely he saw just how much their population had exploded. He took two thirds of them and ordered them down one floor.

  “What’s up?” Lucy asked. “I can feel your confusion through the bond.”

  “I have an Arachne,” he admitted. “She is alone—the only sapient. I also had to shift a significant portion of the spider population lower. They were about to get very much out of hand.”

  “I’m just surprised you don’t have more hunting spiders,” Lucy admitted.

  “Not many of my monsters can climb, so the weavers seem to have gotten a free ride,” he lamented. “I didn’t want to put too many flying creatures in for the new adventurers to contend with, but it seems I need something to fight the spiders,” he sighed.

  “I mean, one goblin with a flaming arrow would ruin that entire section of the swamp,” she pointed out. “I wouldn’t worry so much. But I would like to meet this Arachne. You should have Serenia invite her down.”

  “The Arachne was just born,” he noted. “So she’s probably deep in the nest. Wouldn’t the spiders just attack Serenia?”

  “They would not,” Serenia responded as she appeared, sitting on the edge of the bowl that contained him. “No monster of your dungeon would attack me without a command. It is a perk of being a Dryad. It is a passive skill called Nature’s Ally.”

  “I guess… see if she wants to come down, then,” Matthias allowed.

  Serenia was not even gone for a few seconds. When she reappeared at the base of her tree, she was holding an orb-weaving spider with the body of a child emerging from its head. It was only about eight inches tall. The child was asleep, apparently exhausted by the effort it had taken to hatch.

  “Oh,” Lucy began.

  “Oh,” Matthias echoed.

  In the background, Chloe mumbled something before returning to snoring.

  “We have a baby,” Lucy cooed as she flew around Serenia.

  “This was not what I was expecting,” Serenia admitted.

  “It makes sense, but it’s also horrifying,” Matthias added. “I mean, it makes sense that she isn’t born fully grown. But I don’t think she would have lasted long in that spider nest.”

  “Sometimes evolution takes a large step forward,” Serenia said with a nod. “I can take care of her needs. If you would permit me, I will raise her.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “I wouldn’t want to impose,” Matthias began.

  “You have other duties and no hands of your own,” Serenia said with a chuckle. “It is the duty of a Dryad to care for all forms of life.”

  Matthias sighed. “You have a point. It’s just that…”

  He was cut off by a series of notifications as mana began rushing in. Monsters were evolving. New species were being born, and each one gave him a small burst of mana.

  “What the—?” he asked as he began diving through notifications, hopping from location to location to see the new species appearing throughout his dungeon.

  Serenia just chuckled as she cradled the baby while Matthias began putting out fires.

  The first species should have been no surprise: hobgoblins. They didn’t seem so bad—until he noted that their stats were double those of a goblin at birth. He would need to come back to them once they were grown.

  Next were the trolls. Somehow, he had just gotten war trolls, and they made him question everything. Thicker skin, denser muscle, more brutal cunning, better regeneration, and stronger bones. Yep—they were going down a floor.

  Then a single lesser hydra egg hatched into a true hydra, complete with toxic venom, corrosive blood, and true hydra regeneration. That one was immediately moved down to the third floor.

  After that came no fewer than five new varieties of beetles, ranging from heavily armored to voracious. They all went to the second floor.

  Winged snakes were a pleasant surprise and didn’t seem overly dangerous, so he let them remain in the swamp.

  He also had to deal with the appearance of giant and acid slimes. They were a little too much for the swamp as well, so down they went.

  Then came a very odd crab evolution called a lurker. They had claws like needle-nosed pliers, which they used to impale prey before widening the wound. Eight feet tall and full of eldritch horror, they were promptly sent down a floor.

  Then came the most worrying new monster of all: blood oaks. They were quite literally trees grown using blood instead of water, making them mobile and aggressive. They could grind their inner fibers together to produce a wailing sound. Down to the third floor they went. No one likes fighting trees.

  As more and more new variants sprouted throughout his dungeon, Matthias turned his attention to the third floor. The rainforest there was growing nicely. It wasn’t fully mature yet, but he had finally figured out the artificial sky and lighting issues. He wished he could force the turtles down there as well, but they still weren’t his minions and were repopulating faster than they could be culled.

  His attention continued to bounce around, and to his delight, most new variants and monsters could be left where they were. Most were simply creatures with an affinity for life, water, or earth. Unless they became highly proficient, they wouldn’t break anything by being left alone for now.

  “Why did all that happen at the same time?” he wondered.

  “Maybe because you just slapped two passives on at once?” Serenia teased.

  “Some of these are scary,” Lucy noted as she flipped through images on his core. “Like these stalker crabs.” She shuddered. “Did you see they have a smaller second set of claws to pick up the pieces?”

  “I hadn’t,” Matthias admitted. “I just moved them to the second floor and tried to forget what they looked like.”

  “And they’re all black,” Lucy said worriedly. “Matte black. Like they were born to kill.”

  “That is how things tend to happen,” Serenia pointed out. “Did you expect an environment full of death to make creatures less capable? Something cuddly and cute that doesn’t fight at all?”

  In response, Matthias manifested an axolotl on Serenia’s lap.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “A creature that evolved in one of the most hostile environments in the world,” Matthias said smugly. “Instead of becoming more dangerous, it became nearly immortal. It lives its immortal life sitting in rivers, waiting for food to fall into its mouth. Meet the axolotl.”

  “Immortal?” Lucy asked as she flew down to look at it. “It looks so smug and happy.”

  “As long as they can get enough food, they can regenerate perfectly from just about any injury,” Matthias explained. “If I remember right, there’s almost no part of their body they can’t regrow. But if they ever decide to leave the water, they quickly adapt. They begin to look more like salamanders and lose their immortality.”

  “I demand you populate the rivers in the garden with these,” Lucy declared. “They are my new favorite animal.”

  “What about bunnies?” he teased.

  “I can have two favorites,” she pouted.