Let us rewind time for a bit, back to the day after the Five Great Houses had been sent on their mission to prepare for an assault Anglond. Roughly four months before the Month of Long Fangs had begun, Kain had finished researching a very useful Technology from the Black Library. He had managed to power through most of the other techs, as they were shorter and merely added minor things like buffs to the Undead that were raised by his subjects, bettering their equipment and increasing the general capabilities of his living citizens.

Now he was on to the one tech that he truly wanted to explore; Research New Building. It was a tech that gave him a new building to build (duh!) but the only downside was that he had no control over what building would be researched or even if it would be useful. Kain was already dreading the possibility of having something as useless as what his first (and only) roll of this dice had given him.

“I swear if it is another god damned piece of shit like that fucking Garden Gnome ‘Building’ I am going to never try this crapshoot again! And how the hell is a Garden Gnome that stands only a foot tall a ‘Building’ anyway? It had no benefit to its existence and wasn’t even valued by anyone! It was just a waste of time to spend a week building it when I could’ve just made one myself….”

With the menu open, Kain selected the technology and dreaded having to wait another week in the event of a failure. A space in the buildings menu opened up and with the sound of a slot machine the empty space shifted and changed. Kain hated this kind of system, as it had no guaranteed chance of giving him anything useful, but at least the plus side was that he didn’t have to pay for it.

“Fucking loot box-like piece of shit… Just tell me what I am going to get each week if I decide to use this damnable tech so I can make an informed decision…”

The colors and lights that tried in vain to dazzle Kain and make him anticipate his ‘reward’ kept going on and on until slowing down and finally stopping as the Governance System realized Kain had long since stopped paying attention and was focused on using his magic to fashion a toy for his soon-to-be-born children. Kain stopped his actions and looked up at the menu with a gaze saturated with annoyance.

“Are we done? Gonna give me something useful or do I have to go down to the core and directly interfere? You DO know that it is not good for a slot machine to give a failure on the first try, right? Besides, why the hell do you even use that system anyway?”

The menu’s slot machine whirred back to life with lights and noise as Kain held the bridge of his nose.

“Am I going to have to go down there and MAKE YOU give me something useful? Do I have to smash this chair to pieces and remake it?”

The slot machine slowed down as it hyped up the noise and fancy lights. Kain had endured enough and used his power to directly grab the menu and dig his fingers into it, eliciting a cracking sound from deep beneath the castle.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking. Did I seriously just decide to jeopardize my own dominion over a simple ‘game’? Well, you’re gonna have to ask yourself one question. ‘Am I really so important that I can’t be replaced by something more willing to give my maker what he wants?’ Well, I hate to break it to you, but the answer to that is a resounding ‘No’. Because you aren’t as impossible to replace as you think, and I am going to replace you if you don’t cut this shit out. DO. I. MAKE. MY. SELF. CLEAR?”

The Castle-Core powered slot machine immediately stopped spinning and awarded Kain something worthwhile, or at least it hoped that what it awarded its master would be considered so. Kain did not let go of the menu and opened the box containing the new building design. There was a puff of confetti and some sparklers shot out from inside the non-corporeal box as the lid popped off and out came a design for….

“What the actual fuck….?”

It was a Dungeon. Not the kind of dungeon you would expect from a castle, but instead one from fantasy stories and such. Kain released the menu and immediately ordered the Dungeon to be constructed. He did not know what kind of dungeon it would be, only that it was a Dungeon.

“Well. This should at least be interesting. Maybe if this run continues, I will play again. Best case scenario is that I end up getting something worthwhile and if so then all is well. You did good, Core, and things will continue this way. If they don’t, I may end up having to shatter and replace a bitch…”

…

A week later and the dungeon was complete, thanks in no small part due to the utter panic that the Castle-Core was experiencing in regard to the realization that it could, at any moment, be completely destroyed and replaced at the whims of its master. Kain would have entered the Dungeon to check it out but had a far, far more pressing matter to concern himself with. In fact, there was a more pressing matter than the invasion preparations for Anglond that had resulted in the Five House Founders reconvening inside the Castle. For the past few hours, Alexis had been screaming bloody murder as she had gone into labor completely unprepared. While the birth of normal human babies is likely one of the most painful things a human woman can experience, such pain is nothing compared to the birth of vampire twins who each have the power of a House Founder.

Kain was at his wife’s side, with everyone else aside from some exceptionally brave/ suicidal wet-nurses helping with the delivery. Kain’s hand had been repeatedly crushed into gore over and over as his wife lashed out both verbally and physically. He had already consigned himself to this but was astounded at how much power his wife had. Surely adrenaline, or the vampiric equivalent of it, was raging inside of her, or something like that. Kain had no fucking idea about how birth worked or how it affected women or anything like that and was glad that the new version of this world had extrapolated on what already was to one degree or another.

“Come on, dear. Deep breaths. You can do it. Push. It’s almost over.”

“I AM PUSHING AS HARD AS I FUCKING CAN! AND SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT ‘DEEP BREATHS’! YOU DON’T KNOW JACK SHIT ABOUT MY PAIN!”

“You’re right. I don’t know. But I am trying to help as best as I…”

“THEN TRY HARDER YOU FAT FUCK!”

“… I’m not fat, am I….?”

Kain was not liking this side of Alexis. Not one bit. Finally, some good news rang out from one of the surviving nurses who had not been killed by Alexis’ kicks.

“They’re coming! I can see the head!”

“ABOUT FUCKING TIME!”

“Please, dear! Not in front of them…”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“Okay… Okay…”

Kain considered it a terrible shame that painkillers counted as a kind of poison and thus could not be used by either of them. If Alexis’ senses could have been dulled even slightly then the thirty-odd nurses that had their lives taken by her feet would still be alive.

First came one, and then the other, followed by Alexis gasping for air that she did not need.

“FUCKING FINALLY!”

Alexis’ scream overlapped and drowned out the declaration of the genders of our two children. I wouldn’t risk our kids coming to harm, even accidentally, so I poured as much mana into Alexis as possible to help her overcome her current situation. The influx of mana coupled with her own absurd regenerative factor resulted in Alexis recovering at a speed no woman could hope to match, and mere moments after our children were born, she was back to her old self.

The surviving nurses washed our two children, who were surprisingly docile, and swaddled them in blankets before presenting them to Alexis. I had held out my hands to try and hold my kids, but they were passed right in front of me to my wife. With mild feelings of annoyance, I watched as Alexis’ face lit up like a lighthouse as she cuddled our new twins.

“Elizabeth. Razael. Our two little bundles of joy. This. This is… They are…”

With the five surviving House Founders having been allowed to enter and behold the heirs to their rulers, I, Kain, responded to my wife as much as my mind could allow. Overwhelmed by positive emotions for the first time in far too long, I could only let out a few words.

“Lexi, I love you.”