Chapter 145: Chapter 139: Scouting Finds

Despite Regina’s concerns, it seemed pretty clear the gnomes weren’t going to march an army out and attack the hive right off the bat. Maybe they hadn’t been completely prepared, after all, or maybe they did want to let the hive come to them. She supposed that the timing of Bea and the others’ visit might not have been good for them. The gnomes hadn’t known they were coming, at least not far in advance, and if they were determined to strike before the group got back to the hive, that must have limited their options.

Unfortunately, that didn’t give her any indications about how long, exactly, the gnomes would take to get ready, or how far along they already were. And her efforts at surveillance didn’t contribute that much, either. Especially if she had to worry about single scouts or small units that the gnomes might be sending.

And yet, despite all of that, Regina still relaxed slightly. As eager as she was to get up close and personal with the gnomes and make them pay, she was content to wait until her hive had grown enough to secure victory. And it was growing rapidly.

Ray stayed with the elves, for now. He would be needed to coordinate their support efforts, and it was good to have a channel to talk to Enais and their government. Regina was even considering sending someone to the Cernlian rebels’ forces, although she wasn’t sure she really wanted to give them the ability to speak with her that easily. Especially since there would definitely be questions about how a hive ambassador actually communicated with their home.

Her increased range also meant she could send Winged Drones flying over a lot of territory that she estimated belonged to the Gnomish Confederation of the East. There were a few more above-ground cities, although none was easy to get to - even from the air, mostly - and she knew there would be more below ground. While the gnomes did happily trade with others, they didn’t like to let other races too deeply into their territory, and the elves weren’t very interested in that, either. Which made it hard to get anything like reliable information on their geography and numbers.

Right now, she was relying on Dark to give her the best intel. The little bird — which wasn’t so little anymore, since he had gained quite a few levels since she got him — was still their best scout, especially in regards to stealth. She’d already had him take a closer look at two other cities behind the one with the museum, although she’d also ordered the bird to be careful and not risk exposure. That limited what she could learn, but at least Regina was starting to get a better picture of the Confederation, its structure, and its infrastructure. Not to mention where and how it was using things like steam engines, since those were rather hard to hide.

The Confederation was big, a lot bigger than she’d truly realized. At the same time, it wasn’t really nearly as big as it could have been, in some respects. The terrain wasn’t particularly well suited to agriculture, although, naturally, a lot of its territory was still farmland. But given that they didn’t have anything like proper industrialization, a lot of the gnomes’ population was still bound up in agriculture. And the towns and cities she saw weren’t that huge, so judging from those, the land was a lot more sparsely inhabited than it had once been, too.

You’ve done good work, she told Dark, sensing his fatigue and small aches and pains accumulated over the long journey. Come back home, you’ve earned a rest.

The little bird responded with a surge of joy and a feeling of affectionate playfulness, like a bump with the head or maybe even a nip at her fingers. Regina chuckled to herself and sent the equivalent of ruffling his feathers while he turned around to head north.

Dark was pretty smart, and his time connected to the psychic link had clearly not done him any harm in that regard, either. Still, he was a long way from the Swarm Drones who’d gained sapience, and she didn’t think he ever really would. He had become quite good at using the psychic link’s communication, but he still wasn’t really up to more abstract concepts, and she knew his ability to understand her words was only due to their connection, to the meaning being psychically transported directly. Then again, they didn’t really need anything more than that.

It would take him a while to head home, so Regina turned her attention to other things in the meanwhile, though she made a mental note to check in with Dark regularly.

She’d been assembling a mental picture of the Confederation and the areas around and between it and the hive, adding information from her various scouts. Jem was very helpful in that regard, and using a Drone Keeper’s ability to channel information and knowledge and bind it into the hive’s link gave it a kind of solidity that it never could have had otherwise. It meant the map was available for other hive members to call upon, and add to, at least in principle. It still didn’t quite work perfectly and there were a few kinks to work out, but Jem was getting on top of it. Regina suspected this capability was going to be very useful when the time came to really wage war and fight battles, and Ben felt quite enthusiastic about it.

Regina also contacted Ken regularly, and at the same time, she pulled together as much information about the gnomes as she could get from him. Ida, another Keeper, was largely in charge of that effort, and the knowledge she was providing to everyone was very welcome. She had a knack for finding and analyzing details from even little evidence, like glimpses Ken caught of gnomish soldiers in the city. Her analysis of the outpost Janis and the others traveled through had also given Ben quite a lot to use, even if it did mean Regina had to detail several Winged Drones to go back and take a closer look at it from above, and they lost over half of them. Still, that was more than worth it … hopefully.

Regina was just stepping out of her rooms and considering whether she should call another meeting to discuss their intelligence efforts and its bounty when she got a System notification she’d been waiting for.

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