Path of the Hive Queen

After she made sure that none of them were in immediate danger and that Mia was caring for Tia, Regina turned her attention to the notifications the System held for her.

She grinned, then blinked it away. Level 4, yay! Only a few more fights and I’ll see if there are any significant thresholds in this System.

“I leveled up,” she announced to the others. “What about you?”

Tim shook his head, while Max nodded. “I did as well. Level four now.”

Considering his contribution to the fight, and the fact that he’d probably been close to a level-up before it, that didn’t surprise her. It was a shame Tim hadn’t leveled, but he probably wasn’t very far off now.

Regina stepped over to her Workers. Mia was trying to staunch the bleeding of Tia’s wound by pressing leaves against it, with mixed success. Regina quickly unwound one of the pieces of rope she was carrying and, with her help, wrapped it around Tia’s arm to press the leaves against it.

“Tim, get the waterskin and fetch water from the river for her,” she ordered. “Max, get started with the bodies. Mia, can you help him?”

“I can hardly do worse than the Warriors, my queen,” she answered. “Leave it to me.”

Regina nodded and leaned against a tree beside Tia. “How are you feeling?” she asked her quietly.

“I’m alright, Mother,” she responded with a weak smile. “Maybe a little faint, and I’m really hungry right now.”

“Okay. Maybe you should eat some of that meat right away.”

She looked at Max, who was starting to butcher one of the wolves. He must have heard, since he came over with a chunk of raw meat for Tia a minute later. She devoured it quickly while Regina looked away.

“The two of you didn’t level up, did you?”

Tia and Mia shook their heads. “I’m sorry, my queen,” Mia said, lowering her head. “We didn’t contribute much to the fight.”

“That’s alright,” she assured her. “You’re only level 1 and you’re obviously not a combat class, if that’s a thing in this system. You can just go out with the warriors to hunt some weaker monsters later.”

Tim returned soon, passing their crude waterskin to Tia, who guzzled down the water. They used the rest to try to clean her injury. With the wolves they’d killed, they’d hopefully be able to get more of them, now.

They had three people working on it, so they managed to take care of the carcasses quickly. Tia insisted on helping. She cradled her injured limb to her side and just used her left arms, but Regina could tell it hurt. She sighed and started fashioning a sling for her from another vine. She didn’t really want to join in the gory work, and none of the others seemed to mind that. So Regina kept an eye on the forest around them and told herself she was doing an important job by standing watch.

She did help in carrying their prey when they finally returned to their campsite. Tia wanted to help with that, too, but Regina put her foot down. They had to make two trips to carry everything, but it didn’t take very long, anyway.

While the boys and Mia continued their work and tried to preserve as much of the wolves as they could, Regina checked the campsite, then focused on the sense she had of her drones. Tia’s injury was clearly noticeable. Regina didn’t feel her pain, even when she focused her attention on the Drone Worker, but she could tell it was there. She even got a pretty good sense of how badly injured the girl was.

Finally, she turned her attention to her most recent level-up and quickly checked her status. The ‘Hive’ part gave her pause: It now listed her drones as 4/6. That meant her cap had risen by two again, not by three or four, as she’d half-expected. Regina frowned, then gave her status a closer look, and promptly jerked upright.

“What the fuck,” she muttered.

Distantly, she noticed the others pause in their work. “What is it, Regina?” Max asked.

“My stats are finally unlocked.” She stood up and walked towards him, checking on their progress absently. They’d gotten a lot done.

“I have more points than you,” Regina said. She frowned thoughtfully. “If I had to guess, it looks like I started with a twelve in all of the physical stats and a ten in Int and Wis, and then got one point in Int or now Wis with every level.”

“Hm.” Max straightened up and wiped his hands on a scrap of fur. “Really? That does seem a bit weird.”

“Aren’t you more suited to using magic in the first place?” Tim commented.

Regina shrugged. “My last point has apparently been put in Wis. And I haven’t noticed myself get any stronger or more dexterous, but my control over magic has grown. Not to mention my mana, though that’s apparently connected to you drones.” She scratched her cheek. “Well, I would have probably distributed my stat points from leveling up the same way the System has done it, so I guess I can’t complain.”

At higher levels, it might be a problem if her physical stats never rose. But she was obviously best suited to a mage build.  She wondered if there was a way to assign your stat points yourself. Maybe you needed to be a higher level?

“It looks like Hive Queens are just better at the start.” Mia shrugged. “That’s not a bad thing.”

The other drones nodded in agreement. After a moment, Max returned to his work and the others redoubled their efforts. Regina smiled faintly.

“I’ll go walk a perimeter of the camp, see if there are any monsters afoot,” she said. “Oh, and by the way. I should have probably said this sooner. If I’m ever away for a longer time or incapacitated for some reason, Max is in charge, okay?”

“Understood, my queen,” they chorused. Tim and Mia glanced at Max, who just stared at her for a moment.

“I’m honored, my queen,” he finally said. He looked like he wanted to ask her if she was sure, but didn’t want to sound like he was questioning her.

Regina smiled at him, then turned to start her patrol. It was the obvious choice, since Max not only had the highest level, but was the oldest and most experienced one, after herself.

As she walked, she considered how she wanted to go about laying eggs. She had two new ‘slots’ in her hive now. Their group still wasn’t large enough that she was worried about getting enough food for everyone, so she didn’t see much reason not to have two new drones. More people would help to keep them safe and help with their undertakings. In general, considering their situation, she would prefer to have a few more warriors than workers right now. But they did need both. So, since there were only two spots, Regina decided to go for one of each. She’d wait until her mana was full again, though.

Her patrol was quiet. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary and didn’t even hear any monsters, only the usual birdsong of the forest. Once she returned, she saw that the drones were mostly finished with their task. Tia was sitting on a log beside the others, looking a bit paler than usual. They must have managed to convince her that she should rest. Regina joined her.

“I don’t think building a house is going to work, or that trying is really such a good idea,” she said after a minute, glancing at the wood they’d stacked. “It would take a lot of time and effort, and by the time we’re finished, there are going to be new drones, so we’d have to do it all over again. And so on.”

Mia looked up from where she was cutting a wolf skin and nodded. “You’re probably right, my queen. We’d need to cut down quite a few trees if we want to do it properly, unless we manage to use different materials.”

Regina nodded. “I think you actually need straw for that method I mentioned earlier. And I’m pretty sure you’d need that to make bricks, too, even if we found clay.” She sighed, looking out into the forest. “Let’s just build a few simple shelters, something to keep the rain off. Constructing a proper dwelling is a side project.”

Tia stood up. “Then I’ll get started!”

Regina resisted the urge to roll her eyes and got to her feet as well. She’d feel bad if she lazed off while the injured girl was working.

It quickly became obvious that the Worker was a lot better at this than Max had been, and, if she was honest, a lot better than Regina, too. It might have been connected to her relatively high Dex stat, but Regina’s was also high. She probably just couldn’t make use of it as well as Tia.

After a while, the boys and Mia finished up for now and joined them. With the whole group working on it, they made good progress. The experience from their first try helped, but they managed to improve on it.

A few hours later, Regina stepped back and surveyed their accommodations. Four shelters, all of them built up against thick tree trunks and looking roughly like round pyramids cut in half. They’d reinforced their original ones, but the two new ones were taller and had a larger base area. They were built of wooden posts, branches, vines and pieces of bark that held together surprisingly well. Mia had even fashioned something that could work as a crude door.

“Well done, everyone,” Regina declared. “Very good work. I’d say we’ve earned a reward. Let’s make dinner.”

The boys grinned, and Max ran off to get the best cuts of wolf meat prepared. Regina followed them, smiling. She didn’t protest when Mia claimed the post of cook to start grilling the meat over the fire. Cooking probably was more in a Worker’s skillset.

They ate a lot that evening. Regina briefly considered rationing their food, but dismissed the notion. They still had more than enough and they didn’t have a good way of preserving it, anyway. Plus, so far, they hadn’t had too much trouble hunting. Instead, she ate a large portion herself, since she needed the energy for producing two eggs.

After dinner, she stood up and stretched. “Alright. Boys, would you go to the river and fetch water? Girls, please check on the plants with System screens and gather a few berries.”

Tia opened her mouth, looking confused, then she looked at Max, who was heading off, and turned to go. The others left as well.

With them gone, Regina retreated to one of the shelters and prepared to lay her next two eggs. Now that they had some kind of dwelling that would offer them protection and concealment, it would be better to have them here than on the hill.

She frowned to herself. She’d hoped there might be new classes or templates available. Not yet, apparently. Shrugging, she mentally focused on both choices and settled down to grow her hive.