Chapter 54: Chapter 52: Next Time

It took a few days until Regina decided to send another drone into the underground passages Max had discovered. She didn’t think there was any hurry. The humans seemed to be content to respect the truce deal they’d made and stay out of their territory, and they hadn’t seen much from the elves, or anyone else, for that matter. The monsters were the same as ever, though there were still remarkably few high-level ones around. Maybe even fewer than before - the human strike teams still occasionally moving through the forest might be thinning their numbers, as might the elven fighters the city sometimes sent out, as well.

Regina chose one of her oldest War Drones, which was also the second strongest at the moment, at level 16. That was quite high for them, and she didn’t want to lose it, but this was worth the risk, and she’d much rather risk it than one of the sapient drones. She’d been really worried about Max and wasn’t keen on repeating that experience.

They let the drone down into the tunnel through the hole using a rope. That worked a lot better than it had with Max, since it was smaller. Regina took control of the drone directly for this descent to make it easier.

Once they had lowered it far enough to reach the lake, Regina withdrew her mind. She didn’t think she’d be able to make it swim very well. To her surprise, the drone seemed pretty good at that by itself. It managed to make its way onto the shore of the lake, its mind a little more tumultuous than she was used to. She could tell that it disliked being away from its hive and its hivemates like this, but it followed its orders without complaint. Not that it had any real avenues of complaint, admittedly.

Regina kept one mental eye on it while the drone started exploring the tunnels. The other tunnel out of the cave it had entered in led into similar territory as the first, although the layout was of course different. There were still a few tunnels that had the characteristic look of being made by Tunnelers. Luckily, the drone was pretty sensitive to any signs of the monsters being around, and managed to avoid them pretty well.

Regina sighed to herself. One of her strongest or not, the War Drone still had lower stats than even a new sapient drone, or a young monster. At least its nose was keen. She could sense the fear coursing through it, what she might have called nervous energy in a person. Its mind was still simple and unformed, and there wasn’t much to differentiate it from any of its fellows. Regina didn’t even feel bad about causing those feelings in one of her drones, although she’d been a little apprehensive about that.

Once the drone reached the main, large tunnel after a few hours of exploring the tunnel system, Regina ordered it to head in the opposite direction of where Max had gone. She was curious about the place he’d found, but she didn’t think she’d be able to get much like this, and if there was another entrance to the tunnels, following that corridor seemed like a good lead.

The tunnel seemed to go on for quite a while, or maybe she was just getting impatient. There were a few others crossing it occasionally, and the drone hesitated as Regina debated sending it down one or two of them to check them out. In the end, though, she made it continue on the way it was going. The other tunnels were rare, anyway. They mostly looked like natural cave openings or ones dug by Tunnelers, but she was hardly an expert.

Unfortunately, the drone did have a few close calls with monsters it almost had to fight, and would probably get eaten by. There were Tunnelers, but also other types of monsters down here. Unfortunately, she couldn’t pull up their System descriptions through the War Drone. Maybe that was possible, considering she was mentally linked to it, but she hadn’t figured out how yet, and she didn’t exactly have a lot of time to try it right now. Something to work on later, back in the hive.

After a while, the light in the tunnel seemed to increase, just slightly. The drone noticed it as well and hurried forward with a bit of what passed for excitement in its mind, clearly wanting to get out of here.

That was when another monster struck. It had hung on the ceiling, in a dark spot between light fixtures, Regina realized after a moment. Its pebbly skin was almost the same color as the walls of the tunnel, which made for excellent camouflage here. It dropped down on her War Drone, not giving it any time to react. Regina only got a glimpse of a squat body and sharp claws before pain erupted through the drone’s body. She gritted her teeth, trying to take what she could from the connection while ignoring the pain.

Then the drone’s vision dimmed as it lost too much blood and its thorax was crushed by another blow from the monster. Its mind dimmed as well in her mental view, then ceased existing.

“Fuck.” Regina opened her eyes and shook her head, opening and closing her hands to fists a few times.

“What happened?” Max asked.

He, Tim and Tia were sitting with her, ready to give her advice or opinions on what she found. They’d been pretty patient these last few hours.

“Lost the drone to some monster,” Regina said. After a moment, she stood up and stretched, then shrugged as she saw their looks. “Well, we knew it was a big risk. And at least we got some information out of this. A better idea of the tunnels’ layouts, if nothing else. I’ll draw a map.”

“I’ll fetch a tablet and something sharp,” Tia offered, jumping up and running off. She returned with what was basically a wax tablet but made with the substance secreted by the Production Drones. It was a little harder to scratch than wax, even though it wasn’t fully hardened here, but it worked well enough.

Regina sat for a while, trying to remember everything and get it down as accurately as possible.

“We should probably wait a bit before trying this again,” she finally said. “And maybe send several drones that time. We’ll see.”

“There’s no hurry,” Max agreed. “Probably better to let the monsters calm down if they’re upset that something was in their territory.”

“And next time I’ll start drawing a map while watching.” Regina shook her head, feeling a bit disgruntled as she stared at the simple mess of lines and small symbols she’d drawn on the not-wax tablet.

“I’ll make sure we have a bigger one prepared for next time, then,” Tia said. She sounded almost cheerful.

Regina sighed. The feeling of a member of her hive dying was never pleasant, even if it was just a non-sapient drone. That would probably get less intense as their numbers grew, and she would get used to it. This was actually the first time she’d sensed a drone’s death while she wasn’t focused on something else, though, and she’d been right there with the focus of her attention in the drone’s mind. She could remember the sight of the monster pouncing on it, but at least it didn’t bother her much. It wasn’t the sort of thing that would traumatize you. Which made sense, considering Hive Queens would be unstable wrecks if they felt everything every time one of their drones died, she supposed.

“The elves will probably know about this,” Tim said. “I can’t imagine they’ve had this cave system under the forest all the time without learning about it. But we’ll have to be careful in asking them about it.”

Regina nodded. “You’re right. We may not want to reveal we’ve even found it, yet.”

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She paused and glanced at one of the huts. She felt a familiar sensation, letting her know that the latest clutch of eggs was hatching. It made Regina stand up and end the meeting. They could talk more later, though there wasn’t really anything else to say. Instead, she went to check on the new drones, then decided on which ones to hatch next.

Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any limits specific to Templates within the two types of drones, so nothing prevented her from filling her Swarm with almost exclusively War Drones. Which she was doing. She still hadn’t reached the limit, although, at this rate, she would bump into it eventually. Even if she kept leveling up further the way she was. But Regina decided not to worry about it. She would simply start adding more sapient drones to her hive then.

By the time she was finished with that, Ada found her to give another scouting report. Regina walked leisurely through the camp, listening to her talk.

“And that’s everything we could find towards the human border, my Queen,” she concluded. “Nothing much changed. In contrast, the elves seem to have become more active. There are actually two groups who are moving roughly in our direction.”

“They’re moving towards us?” Regina raised an eyebrow.

Ada shrugged. “It’s hard to tell if they’re traveling towards us or just towards the human lands, or even specific human parties. These could be counter-strikes, ambushing Cernlian raiders. No one here is really going in a straight line, at least most of the time. And we can only see some of it, we’re probably missing a lot, my Queen.”

Regina nodded. She knew that half of the information came from herself, relating what she had seen through Dark’s eyes, and Ada had collected and analyzed it to get an understanding of the situation. Even with the third Class Skill most of the Scouts had taken, which allowed them to move quickly for a period of time, there was only so much ground they could cover.

“They’re still some distance away, anyway,” Ada said. “Since you made the deal with the Cernlian noble, everyone has kept well clear of our territory.”

“That’s a good thing,” Regina said. “Good work, Ada. Is there anything else we need to be aware of, or something we need to discuss?”

“Not that I can think of, my Queen. Unless you want to adjust the training schedule?”

Regina hesitated. “I know you spend a lot of time out in the forest. Would having more Scouts help?”

Ada didn’t speak for a moment. Then she shrugged, but she was also frowning slightly. “That kind of decision isn’t mine to make. But having more people scouting would increase our coverage of the forest, and maybe even help us level up faster, if it means we can spend more time training. On the other hand, we do get experience from, well, scouting. I’m not sure how it compares, to be honest.”

Regina nodded. “I’ll add at least another Scout or two next time, then. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can sustain any more eggs at the moment.” She sighed slightly. “And we probably need more Workers as well, although the Harvesters should help. Oh well, maybe after this.”

Ada smiled, looking faintly sympathetic. Regina could practically hear her thinking that she was glad she didn’t have to make those decisions, or something along those lines. She smiled back at Ada with a touch of irony. Fair enough.

They said goodbye and Ada walked off, towards one of the huts. Regina looked after her, noting the obvious exhaustion in her posture and the way she walked. Ada had clearly pushed herself with her latest scouting trip. Regina was seeing more of that in her drones than she was really comfortable with, but no one had had serious problems yet, at least. Still, she wondered if she should maybe adjust the schedules. Or just talk to them about the importance of proper rest and managing your energy.

Not that she was any kind of authority on the subject. Or much of anything else.

Regina shook her head at herself and headed towards the makeshift pen where they kept a few of the weaker monsters they had captured. Only those who didn’t have magic powers or other abilities that would help them break out and wreak havoc in the hive. But they were good training for the lower-leveled drones and especially the War Drones, though getting those to fight the monsters without killing them wasn’t always easy. Though, to be fair, that’s rarely easy for anyone. I guess trying it might help build discipline and control, anyway.

This time, they had another Monster Duck, a grass monster she couldn’t make much sense of but which was probably an ambush predator, and a snake. Regina hesitated. Then, remembering her first ever fight in this world, she chose the duck.

This time, she didn’t want to spar or train her fighting ability, but her healing. She felt a bit bad about it, but perfecting her skill and perhaps even discovering a new spell might be the difference between life and death for one of her drones at some point.

So, she called over two of the War Drones and, with their help, moved the Monster Duck into an enclosure to the side. She tied shut its beak and dropped rocks on its claws, then picked up a knife and started cutting.

After the first cut, Regina paused, then resisted the urge to facepalm. There were still many plants they’d found in the forest whose use they weren’t sure of. This would be a good way to test out if they did anything. With any luck, they could find ones with beneficial effects. Like sedatives.

For now, she simply tried to knock out the monster with brute force, then returned to studying its anatomy. She had probably used too much force and given it a concussion or worse, but she probably would have killed it anyway.

She did feel like her healing got better with some practice, at least. Her control improved, and she managed to regulate her mana expenditure better. It probably wasn’t nearly enough to level the Spell up or discover anything new, but every little bit helped.