Lilia stretched lazily and uncurled from the ground. It took her a couple of moments to remember that she had just evolved, and had settled here so she could do it safely. She did not have a mirror, but she wanted to take stock of herself. Feeling herself, she found that she still followed the rarer bipedal model for her form. Her butt felt bigger though, and her chitin covered legs felt sturdier and stronger. The chitin still didn’t cover her breasts or belly completely, and in fact, it felt like they covered less. She got the impression that she would look stunning and that her chitin armor would leave little to the imagination and even draw attention to her assets. Speaking of her assets, she found that her breasts had swollen several sizes. Her breasts had always been modest before, and she was not looking forward to big breasts. She didn’t know about Antgirls, but she knew that some species had problems with large breasts. Cowkin didn’t, but they always had huge boobs. She heard that they had a racial trait to protect them from the problems of such large breasts. At least her own weren’t that big, but she had a feeling she would have to get used to the new size.

Taking a few experimental steps she quickly found that her new change in shape felt natural. As if she had been in this body for years. It was honestly a pleasant surprise. She had a feeling that it had something to do with her evolution, and now that she thought about it. Her experience with becoming an Antgirl had been similar. She had never had problems walking, but it had still taken some getting used to. At the time, she had thought Tina had something to do with that, but now she had other questions. Maybe her master knew. Dungeons were always depicted as wise, even if they did not always talk to people. Given her master, she suspected they interacted with people far more than they thought. They just didn’t advertise who they were.

Speaking of questions she was also finding herself wondering what would happen if two dungeons met. It was not the first time she had considered the question, and she had even searched a few libraries. Not to find any answers though. She had considered asking, but she had always been a girl of few words. Not because she did not want to speak with people, but because she had a hard time speaking in long sentences without getting uncomfortable.

Lilia dismissed that line of thought and started making her way through the tunnels. Her first priority was to establish a nest, but before she could do that she needed to talk with her master. There was a bit of a problem though. Considering she was up on the surface at the guild building spending time with her bond-mate. Lilia knew it would not be easy to reach her without attracting unwanted attention, but she did have an idea on how to get that conversation.

Since she could not just go to her, she would have to bring her here into the dungeon proper. Someone would have to get her here. That someone would need to be someone who could leave that would not attract too much attention. Of the people she knew, Tina could not leave to do it. While Susan being a slime would draw too much attention. That meant she would have to talk with someone she had met while in the dungeon. Amy seemed like a good choice, but Lilia was able to eliminate her. Amy was just a bit of a sexy firebrand and not drawing notice just wasn’t in the young mage’s skill set. Her sister Thomas though while a bit of an idiot sometimes seemed like the better choice. Lilia had taken to calling her Tammi lately, well in her thoughts anyway, and it seemed to fit the young woman. She had taken the name from one of several feminine derivatives of her personal name. One of the better ones in her opinion.

Her choice made, she started working her way deeper into the dungeon. Passing an exit into the dungeon proper she heard a bit of a scuffle. Feeling curious she approached it and looked through the peephole. Outside she saw a party of adventurers fighting some demons in the maze. The demons were mostly spiders, but she did see a couple of demon girls in the mix. A few of the adventurers had already been caught in webs. From here, she could see two poor girls hanging from the ceiling, and a third stuck to the wall. The remaining two in her sight were doing their best, but it seems that they had gone too far and were being bit in the ass for it.

Suddenly a pink blob dropped from the ceiling and landed on one of the two fighting adventurers. The blob quickly pinned the woman to the ground as it reformed into a young girl who looked like she was barely out of puberty. Already the poor adventurer’s clothes and armor were dissolving in the pink slime of the slime girl. Who was already forming tentacles and starting to ravish the young girl. Lilia shook her head and turned around. It was not the first time she had seen this sort of poor luck. The Slimegirls were very good at timing their ambushes. It played a major part in how successful they were in proliferating in the dungeon, and on this floor, they also often worked together with the Arachne in catching a few adventurers.

Together they were very good, especially against the unprepared. Although more and more parties were getting through to these floors, not many were going past floor eight. Being the first ocean floor had made it a bit of a curveball, even if the only one with aquatic demons was on floor fourteen. As she was making her way down, she started thinking about which floors would work best for her to make a new nest. Six and seven certainly had their appeal, but they were already the territory of the Arachne and the Slimegirls. She didn’t really feel like competing with them for space. The next set of floors to appeal to her were the labyrinth floors of eleven, twelve, and thirteen. No adventurers had gotten there yet, at least none she knew of.

Except those floors were already home to Lust variant Minotaurs and frankly she didn’t like them all that much. She really did not want to be competing for space with them either. It occurred to her that it might be a good idea to ask Misaki to make a floor for her. That seemed like a good idea to her honestly. Her mind was already working out the details.

She could already see it now. A vast floor filled with ancient trees that reached for the sky. Beneath the soil a vast warren of tunnels and chambers for her progeny, and in the center a mountainous anthill that would serve as the entrance to the underground labyrinth. The forest would be where adventurers would start. It would be dotted with ruins and filled with wild animals, and even a few monsters. In the clearings would be a few settlements, the safe zones of the floors. Her mind froze in the middle of the picture when she thought about pitching it to Misaki.

The young Ant Queen stopped in her tracks and muttered to herself. She knew it was a good idea, but she had no idea how she was going to present it. After a moment, she sent a heartfelt prayer to Dewari that she would be able to pull off her presentation, and continued on her way. Not even noticing the extra attention brought her way by that simple prayer.

On the way further down, she passed a couple of others heading the other way but did not encounter any other incidents on her way to Misaki’s castle. Reaching the castle she made her way inside and considered the time of day. At this hour she knew Tammi was likely not in the servant’s quarters. It was almost lunch, so there was a good chance she was near the servant’s mess. In fact, she was going to bet that is where she was. Her sister was likely to be there too. Both of them were pregnant and liked to get their food ahead of the crowd. There had been some awkwardness between the pair some time ago, but thankfully it had been resolved. Although Lilia was not sure of the cause. No one had told her, and frankly, she had not asked either. It never really mattered to her. She was just glad her friends had resolved whatever issue they had with each other.

Having made her choice she made her way to the servant’s mess, where just as she suspected she found Tammi enjoying her midday meal. However, she did not find Amy nearby as she suspected. She moved through the crowded room and settled next to her, thankful that the seat was vacant.

After getting her attention, she started with something she was curious about.

“Um, uh, where’s Amy?”

Tammi sighed, and said, “not really sure, she said something about it, but uh well I wasn’t really paying attention. I did notice her meet up with Naked Ribbon earlier.”

Lilia shook her head. The nickname while distinctive didn’t feel appropriate to her. In fact hearing, such a nickname actually irritated her. She didn’t even realize she was doing it until she did it, “TAMMI, she has a NAME you know.”

She flushed when she realized that she had let slip her nickname for her. Tammi looked at her confused for a moment and then changed the subject on her. She rolled the nickname over her tongue several times, and said, “ it has a nice ring to it. I think I like it. Amy has been pressing me to choose a girl’s name for myself. It’s better than anything I came up with." 

Lilia almost shook her head. She knew Amy had been pushing Tammi lately to select a female name, but she had not been aware that she was actually in the market for one. If she had she would have suggested her private nickname for Thomas to her ages ago. Looking away, she muttered, “Glad I could help.”

Tammi thanked her and then said, “anyway, before I forget. You were asking about my sister. As I said, I’m not sure what she is doing, but knowing her it probably involves sex.”

Lilia nodded, and then asked, “Can you do me a favor?”

Tammi gasped, and said, “You need a favor? Sure, what is it?”

“I need to talk with Master. Could you get her for me?”

She nodded, and said, “I could, but what do you need her for?”

Lilia blushed and replied quietly, “...Nests.”

Tammi gave her a disappointed look and said, “Speak up. I can barely hear you. Now you said something about nests?”

Lilia looked up and it was rather draining, but she answered, “I need to talk to her about Nests.”

Tammi sighed, “That doesn’t tell me much, but I guess I can work with it. Just let me finish my lunch first and then I will go get her.”

Thomas looked out the entrance. It was the first time she had been up here since the dungeon captured her, and the sight was enough to jolt her out of her line of thought. She had been thinking about the new name idea that Lilia had given her. She really did like it, and she knew Amy was right about her taking on a female name.

Outside she could already see the changes. It had only been a few months, but the roads were clearly well established. Based on the looks, she guessed a couple of earth mages had helped out. It looks like the earth had been packed and then coated with a layer of stone. Nothing fancy, but outside the Dwarven kingdom this type of road was rare. If she had to guess, someone hired a few dwarves. Not too surprising since they were on the border of their kingdom, in addition to a pair of elven kingdoms, a Human empire, and a Human Theocracy.

Honestly, she had never been to the Theocracy, the Drake family hailed from the Empire. Not that she had been home in years. The last thing she had heard was that the Emperor had been killed and that the princes were competing for the Throne. While she had not met them, she knew someone who had, and from what she had heard. She didn’t think any of them would prove to be the next emperor. The only reason they were thought of as the next was because they all had significant backing from the nobles. The person she saw taking over was their youngest sister, an individual she had actually met once. And the only reason she even knew she had was because she had accidentally seen her naked. Thankfully, the princess did not know about that. Thomas knew she could be stupid at times, but she had wisely turned around and postponed her bath at that time. Well, it might have also had something to do with what else was in the water, but the princess came back perfectly fine an hour later.

As for the circumstances of the time, the Princess had been pretending to be a common adventurer at the time. Thomas did not really know the story behind why, but her party had ended up along with her and a couple of others on a quest together. It was during that time that she got to know Princess Rosewood. She still didn’t know much about her, but she had learned enough. She was very intelligent and an accomplished mage, not to mention talented. Thomas had actually seen her level once, and never understood why she had been in their party. At the time Thomas had been level eight, which was actually a little low for her age then. The princess though had been a year younger and was almost level forty.

Shaking her head and clearing that line of thought, she took her first tentative steps out of the dungeon in months. As she did, she took a look at the buildings but while there were a few more they were much the same as before. She had barely taken a step out of the dungeon when there was a flash, and a trio of naked girls appeared at the entrance. Almost no one even batted an eye. A few guild workers came over and quickly helped the girls to a nearby building. She kept her distance and made her way through the town towards the guild building. It wasn’t all that far from the entrance, but far enough that she noticed she was gathering attention.

She was not sure if it was because she was pregnant or due to her attire. Or even a combination of the two. She had not bothered to change before coming up, so she was still wearing her demon maid outfit. It did not exactly cover much of anything, but she had gotten so used to it that she had barely thought about it. She decided to ignore the watchers and hurried along to the guild.