She had always been interested in how the body works. Little girl, she had a habit of capturing and dismembering bugs and small critters to see their inner workings. Growing up she slowly learned to keep her subjects alive for the first part of her experiments, it allowed her to see how they worked longer.

As she was using bigger and bigger animals the inhabitants of her small village started to notice the disappearances of their pets and small livestock. Having always been a strange girl, she was automatically suspected by the villagers. But they had no proof of her guilt, she was smart enough to always perform her experiments in secret places and when no one was around, and since the mayor was a former town guard, he would not let the villagers go after the girl without evidence.

So, at the age of 11, Helgyra Joanasbin left her large family and her village. She travelled fast, by night and out of the roads for the first week before taking a more normal pace. She wasn’t really worried for her safety on the road, as her former village was located in the country of Haulnma. This particular country, ruled by Gnomes and Hobbits, was a safe place surrounded by the Iron Ring, a chain of mountains populated by Dwarves, therefore they were almost no bandits or monsters on the road.

It took her three years to reach and cross the mountains. During this period she continued to make experiments. One event, in particular, had made an impact on her. One night, as she was 12 and secretly sleeping in a barn, the farmer came in and found her. He was a nice Gnome that invited her to the house to eat with him and his wife and to sleep in a real bed. She stayed there for three night, then the farmer’s son came back and proposed to take her with him when he would return to town. Still a bit naïve and trusting the farmer’s son on the behalf of his parents, she accepted.

On the way to the town, Helgyra was betrayed by the farmer’s son as he tried to rape her. With luck, she managed to grab the small knife she used to open her subjects and stabbed the man in his stomach. He screamed and felt on his knee, she looked at him fall on the ground in fear. Then she realized he wasn’t that different than the animals she had studied before. A bag of flesh screaming in pain and flowing blood out of its body when stabbed. With the farmer’s son, she performed her first experiment on a sapient being. And while it should have traumatized her at least a bit, it only reinforced her curiosity of how the body works. What was the difference between a sapient being, a simple animal, and a monster?

At the age of 16, she arrived in a human port town. During her travel she had learned to be more wary of every people, but that some of them were truly nice and could be manipulated. She had also learned to apply her mother’s sewing lesson on flesh. Still wanting to make experiments, she managed to get in touch with the local underground society by stitching back some underlings after bar fights, and slowly but surely installed herself as an independent doctor. Capable of working on the most gruesome wounds without a flinch, although not always with success, and never asking questions she managed to practice her experiments relatively in peace for four years. Then she was betrayed, again.

She hadn’t been able to save a life. It was not the first time, especially with her experiments’ subjects, and it was part of the job. But this time, it was not the life of a complete nobody. It was the life of a minor slaver’s son, he was not rich enough to buy a potion or a better doctor or healer so he settled for her services. For revenge, the slaver had captured her and sold her to a colleague of him to be taken overseas. She didn’t know what happened to the slaver after he had sold her, she hoped the different mobs and independent criminals she worked with had made him pay, but if not, that would not stop her from having peaceful dreams.

On the slavers’ boat, she learned quickly they doubled as pirates, she was badly treated. Having learned about the ‘pleasure of the flesh’, she had made some small experiment with her own body and had lost her virginity a long time ago. And now she would experiment first-hand the events that led some of her female customers to require her services. She was not an expert on the matter of reproduction but knew enough to know that it was highly unlikely that one of the pirates could impregnate her. But, countless and various amounts of semen poured into her female parts over three of her ovulation’s periods had finished to beat the odds. She became pregnant roughly three weeks before reaching the dungeon but was aware of the situation only one week earlier, when she noticed she failed to have her periods.

Since her arrival in the dungeon’s village she had made herself a bit useful by helping Melinda care for the ill, it allowed her to study their conditions even if she couldn’t cut them open. She could also try to sew clothes in exchange for other services with the former slaves, but there were better seamstresses there and only a few needles, plus the threads were taken out of the rags serving as clothes, so they were not of the best quality.

When the dungeon had let them know it was sapient and that it was against abortion, Helgyra had found this very interesting. Why was it against abortion? Was it planning something with the children? Or was it only some form of moral it was imposing on its inhabitants? But more important in her eyes, how could it be sapient? Dungeons weren’t supposed to be. Could that mean she could bargain with it? Offering her expertise and knowledge for the possibility to take her studies to a whole new level?

She was also pregnant, and that made her wonder. She had heard that pregnancy was the best thing a woman could experience, and that caring for one own child was enlightening. She was curious about those statements and of the so-called ‘maternal instinct’. Would she develop some kind of unconditional love for her offspring? She wanted an answer to those questions, and the possibility of having a permanent and willing subject for some of her hypothetical and future experiments was endearing, therefore she had decided to keep the child. Also, she wasn’t ready to perform the medical procedure on herself, she cared too much for her own life to risk it like that.

Now, she’s in the house she considers as her new home thinking about what she just said to the other women. She can help them make the abortions, she has experience in the act. But, like she says, without proper equipment and plants it is a very hazardous procedure for the mother and the result is not guaranteed. If they want to try it, she can help, she’s not judging them for not wanting the child. But they need to know the risks, if she can avoid it, Helgyra doesn’t make ‘legal’ procedures on people that don’t know what they're asking for, the experiments are another matter.

She’s certain some of the women will come to her, so she’s preparing whatever instruments she can. She has some clear water washed clothes, it would be better to have some boiled ones, she doesn’t know why, but she had observed that boiled instruments provoked fewer infections in wounds. But, unfortunately, they don’t have fire in the dungeon, not enough wood to burn. Fortunately, she has some wood sticks she can work on to give them the desired form.

A few hours later, when the lights in the cavern lose intensity and what the former slaves name the ‘night’ settles, she hears a soft knock on her door.

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I’m a bit sad.

A woman is currently undergoing the abortion process. I can’t blame her, I heard how she became pregnant, like most of the women here, raped by the pirates. But I would like it better if she kept the child.

Anyway, I have to keep my promise and let her do as she wants. But that doesn’t prevent me to look at it and to study it. It starts easily with Helgyra, the Gnome, inviting in the young woman, offering her a chair and talking to her about the procedure, as she calls it. The woman is a Human with brown hair and is not particularly good-looking, she would be average in a normal society, making her rather below average here, her name is Emilia and she’s at least three months pregnant.

After a bit of talking the Gnome installs the resolute Human on her table, helps her to remove her lower garments and motion her to open her legs, she also puts a cloth over her own mouth and her nose. Helgyra inserts her wooden sticks into the vagina and womb of Emilia and moves them around. The human lets out a cry of pain and tears flow down her cheeks, she’s visibly in pain. This pain makes her let out some burst of mana that I can absorb. And, hmmm, it’s some tasty mana… I could enjoy this mana some more, but Emilia faints when blood starts to flow out, and it cuts the tasty mana flow of pain, just letting some bland mana pouring out of her. Helgyra on her side doesn’t stop working.

She moves again the sticks in her patient and takes them out. But it’s not finished, after that, she moves her hand up the tights of the unconscious woman. Then much to my surprise, she inserts her own hands in Emilia and pushes her arms deeper in, up to the elbows. I don’t think she could do so so easily if she wasn’t a Gnome and her patient a Human. Helgyra rummages for at least thirty seconds before pulling her arms out. I can see that she’s holding a gruesome pack of flesh in her hands.

It looks a bit humanoid if you don’t stop yourself at the big head and the tiny arms and legs, or at the partially translucent skin letting see some of the blood vessels. It’s really small and fits inside Helgyra small hands. It is also covered by wounds, probably the hits from the sticks.

Helgyra puts the unborn child on a cloth on the chair and folds the cloth around it, making a small package out of it.

Contrary to what I thought, the procedure isn’t finished. Helgyra put her hands back in Emilia and starts to work again. After a bit of thinking it is not so surprising, I often see it with animals and it is only natural for the humans to have it. It’s a bag of flesh that is expelled after the children, from what I learned from the discussion between the two women, it’s called a placenta.

The Gnome works on extracting the placenta. During this part of the procedure I feel a big surge of tasty pain mana and notice that Emilia has regained consciousness. But it doesn’t last long and she quickly faints again. After ten more minutes of work with her hands and her sticks, it is done.

Helgyra starts to wash the Human with the clothes laying on the second chair of the room. She then retrieves the placenta and throws it in the waste disposal. She then put the package containing the unborn child in the other room and comes back to tend to the woman still unconscious on the table.

When the morning comes and Emilia wakes up, Helgyra talks to her a bit then led her to the river crossing the village. Helgyra’s house is located close to it so it’s a quick walk. There she washes the Human and herself. The last thing the Gnomes does with the now non-pregnant woman is leading her to the house where Melinda takes care of all the needy.

After that, she goes back to her house and goes to sleep.