Path of the Hive Queen

Over the next few days, Regina started a reorganization of the hive and their territory. She worked with the senior drones to iron out the details and make it happen. The hive was still growing quickly, but that just made it more important to have some kind of structure for new drones to settle into.

In the end, she kept the broad categorization into warriors and workers that seemed to come naturally as an overall element. Max, Tim, Ben and Ada would be leading the warriors, officially. Or semi-officially. Hopefully, in time, there would be at least one Shooter to join them. Mia and Tia were in charge of the workers, with Ivy having a leading role as well, and hopefully at least one Attendant would be, soon, too. Of course, the Attendants were a bit of a special case as well. They were arguably outside of this structure, working directly with (and for) Regina.

They had not only high Int but also high Wis stats, besides magic, so that made some kind of sense, anyway.

The drones would still work together and coordinate their efforts closely, of course. When warriors currently didn’t have much to do or were otherwise going to help out with construction or more worker-oriented stuff, they’d presumably be under the worker in charge, as well. And the reverse for workers helping warriors. And if some drones wanted to do more of the other kind of work despite their Template, or cross-Evolve their Class into it, that should be possible, too. As long as the drones worked everything out together.

Besides that, Regina was considering making a tradition where some drones took newly hatched ones under their wing. Whether or not they actually had wings. That would mostly be relevant once she started adding more eggs for sapient drones, but it was better to be prepared. There were too many drones already to just manage it as a small family, and Regina certainly couldn’t handle it herself. She just wasn’t sure if it would be best to introduce small care groups or single mentors.

When she asked the others, they just shrugged. “I think mentor-mentee pairs might work best,” Max finally ventured. “We don’t know when or how many new drones you’ll make at once, and that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we can easily manage in advance.”

“And new drones won’t really need childcare, since they’ll be mostly grown,” Mia added. “They’ll just need some guidance and the chance to gather some experience.”

Regina nodded. “That makes sense. Alright. Do any of you have anything to add?”

She looked at the other drones, who shook their heads.

“I think we’ll just have to see how it goes when there are more new drones,” Tim said. “Do you intend to start increasing the number of sapient drones more?”

“Maybe.” Regina shrugged. “I still intend to focus on the Swarm Drones and get more of them. But I don’t want the discrepancy between sapient and Swarm Drones to get too far, either. Or the ratio, at least. I think we do need sapient drones to control the Swarm effectively.”

The others nodded. Regina appreciated that they trusted her to take care of managing the hive’s development and growth, but she sometimes wished she had someone to review her decisions. Or some kind of guide or manual. A pity the System doesn’t have a tutorial for the Class. She smiled to herself.

The meeting dissolved, and the drones headed out to their various tasks. Max waved as he went off to the training field. His gaze darted to Ira, who was coming up to Regina, before he left. She suddenly wondered if he was pressuring or otherwise getting the Attendants to keep him informed of her condition with her making new clutches of eggs. Or maybe having Tim do the talking.

Regina shook her head and turned back to Ira. “That time again, isn’t it?”

“Are the current batch of eggs almost ready, my Queen?”

Regina nodded. She’d started to be able to sense that kind of thing. Or maybe she’d just gone through so many periods of it that she got accustomed to the timing.

Regina headed off to the house - more like a hut - they were using for the eggs. Ira must have called ahead to Via, who was already there and preparing some hot water and a few towels.

“You really spoil me,” Regina muttered.

The two Attendants grinned. If they were like this in the current conditions, Regina didn’t want to imagine what they would do if they ever got more plush accommodations to work with. Hah, no, I’m totally looking forward to it. Regina grinned to herself, then sobered again. I guess they’re trying to give me something to look forward to, rather than be anxious or resigned.

She pushed herself to create two more Worker eggs as well as sixteen Swarm Drones today. Her capacity for this was growing, but with hive limits in the thousands, they wouldn’t be reached quickly.

The attendants carried the eggs off, and when Regina stood up, she felt a bit weak in the knees. She sighed and sank into the simple wooden bathtub Via had prepared. Ray showed up to hand off more soap, and Regina let herself relax for a bit, just floating in the water. She moved ‘make a bigger tub’ up her priority list.

Then she started practicing with her magic, to get the new Spell she’d chosen for herself. She knew quite a bit about water, from its chemical composition and makeup to its rough freezing point and stuff like that. But for this, that didn’t seem to be enough. Regina moved her hand, creating some ripples, and watched them bouncing off the edge of the tub. She tried to put some mana into the water, but it just dissolved.

She wasn’t dissuaded. She had tried this before and hadn’t had much success so far, but she knew practice was key. So, Regina tried to push some mana into her hands, as if she was preparing to form a spell, but kept it there. Then she tried to slowly push it out, into the surrounding water.

This time, there was a small ripple in the water. Regina grimaced as she felt a slight sting against her fingers. She tried to trace the mana in the water, but it had already dissipated into the ambient mana.

Regina tried again, but she didn’t see much improvement. Finally, she sighed and got out of the water, which was getting cold. Via held up a towel for her and she dried herself off before putting her clothes and shoes back on. Her hair was growing in, but it was still short enough to not need much effort to dry, especially when it was warm outside. Regina ran a hand through it, then paused and rolled her eyes but kept still when Ira went at it with a simple comb that looked to be carved out of bone. She wouldn’t mind having a real mirror to use, Regina reflected.

Once they were done, she stepped out and walked through the village again. There were quite a few drones around, especially Swarm Drones.

“Are the villagers still grumbling?” she asked quietly.

“They’re uneasy, my Queen,” Via said. “They’re concerned their food stores won’t be enough.”

Regina nodded, suppressing the urge to grimace.

Their food situation was actually becoming a problem. With several hundred drones, the amount of food they needed to procure had grown by a lot. Of course, the Swarm Drones could eat the substance the Production Drones produced, and she did feed that to them, but there were limits and Production Drones needed to eat, too. The fields outside the village were largely used for the villagers’ food production, and the drones would have to compete with their livestock for the grass of the meadows. They could still eat the greenery in the forest, and so far, they still hunted in the forest. But there were only so many monsters or game available and Regina didn’t want to overhunt the area.

Besides that, Conjuring organic substances was still tricky, and she hadn’t managed proper food yet. Even if she could, there was no way she could make enough of it.

“We may have to open new fields, perhaps in the area around the castle,” Regina said. “That’s going to be more of a long-term investment, though. And we should use the river more. Maybe we can grow some algae.”

“Mia has also been talking about growing ivy on many of the structures we have,” Ira said. “And we can find other quickly-growing plants to use as crops. It’s not like we’re restricted to what the locals consider edible.”

Regina nodded. “Alright. Get one of the Workers to take over that project. I think Ina doesn’t have much to do currently, right? Or, wait, let’s ask Zac. A Harvester would probably be better for this kind of thing.”

Ira nodded. “I’m on it, my Queen.”

She peeled off, presumably to go find the right drones, while Regina continued on. She decided to go towards the river. After a few meters, she took a right turn and headed for the sound of clanging and sawing, farther out from the village. A few War Drones carrying logs of wood stepped aside to let her and Via pass. Regina paused as soon as she came into sight of the construction area, taking in the progress they had made.

They were building a waterwheel. It was a simple technology, which was even known around here. Consequently, the locals didn’t have any objections and were helping out gladly. They would be able to use the mechanism for milling flour or something when it was free. Regina was honestly a bit surprised they didn’t have a big mill already, but she supposed that with the System and higher Strength, it would be easier to do it manually (and cheaper if you didn’t have to pay a miller). Maybe there were also some local politics involved.

“My Queen!” Tia greeted her cheerfully as she arrived. “We’re almost finished with this, and Mia and the guys are putting together the actual wheel.”

Regina glanced at the wooden supporting structure they had set up. Hopefully, they could connect an electrical generator to it at some point. From what she remembered, they would need a lot of wire for that, as well as magnets, though. She hadn’t had any luck trying to conjure those yet. This could also do with a covering, but they would be constructing a real building here later, or at least a hut or something.

“Good. Don’t let me stop you. Is there anything you need help with?”

“Not really. This should be about ready to use soon.”

Regina stuck around while they finished up, then helped get the wheel into the water. As one of the strongest drones, Max heaved it into place. An old carpenter from the village who had seen two of these in action before had helped with the planning, so they’d settled on a design with a large wooden log being turned that they could attach various mechanisms to with a system of gears.

Regina stepped into the shallows of the river and watched as the wheel sputtered into motion, the water splashing in the wooden compartments. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a large incline to work with here.

“We could make a separate compartment, maybe with a water reservoir,” Mia said, probably thinking along the same lines.

“We’ll see how this works out,” Regina said. “There’s always room for improvement later.”

“Personally, I’m looking forward to making some paper,” Via commented.

“Definitely,” Regina agreed. That was one of her main goals for this. She’d need to do more experimenting to figure out how to make it work, though. Or maybe get knowledge from elsewhere; paper did exist in this world. In this time, she corrected herself, grimacing.

She trailed her hand into the water, watching the wheel at work. Then she decided to try something and began gathering some mana. She attempted to infuse it into the water and keep it together while it was moved around by the wheel. The smaller volumes that were separated for a short while from the rest of the water in the river made it more interesting. It actually seemed like it was easier to keep the mana together with the wheel.

Regina switched tracks and tried to use a bit of mana to put into the wheel and speed it up for a moment. It worked, for a short, sputtering moment, though the mana clearly didn’t like to stay in the wood. Infusing or enchanting items was probably a separate skill, or a group of Spells.

Still, it proved she was onto something. Regina slowly worked her way closer to her goal, until she was able to directly affect the movement of the water with her mana. She took a short while to rest, glancing over at the drones at work on the rest of the project, who were giving her space, then refocused. After another hour of experimenting, with her mana dipping low, she was finally able to create a splash of water and make it move as a spray directly over the river. She cracked her neck and turned back to dry land, checking her System notification.

Regina smiled to herself. She couldn’t wait to tell Janis and talk to her about it. And to experiment further with her new Spell, although that should probably wait until later.

“Did you learn the Spell, Regina?” Max asked as she joined them again.

She grinned. “Yep, I did it.”

The surrounding drones made awed noises and congratulated her, and Regina ducked her head, suddenly feeling a bit bashful.

“Thanks, guys,” she said. “I’ll try to teach it to those of you with magic in our regular training. Though healing and conjuring should still have priority.”

They nodded, and Via and Ray, who’d shown up at some point, looked excited at the prospect. Regina stayed for a while, watching as they made the first tests of the new wheel. After a short time, she got another notification, as presumably some other drones’ accomplishments got her Experience to tick over a threshold.

Regina grinned again, and finally got herself moving. Then she slowly ambled down the streets of the village, checking on the bands of War Drones and occasional Winged Drone nested on the roofs. It was nice to have her hive around her. They might never replace what had been lost, but they would certainly make something. And now that they had a secure base of operations, access to at least a few materials and allies, and a better understanding of the world, they were in a much better position for it.