“Are you done yet, Penn?”
“NO! There is still so much I need to do. I need to see your digestion in action And see how you repro-“”
“WOW, THAT SOUNDS INTERESTING, but I think it can wait for tomorrow; I'm exhausted, Penn, really well and truly exhausted. Relax, Okay?, I'm not going anywhere. You can continue tomorrow.”
“But….”
I Let out a deep sigh as she gave me a bunch of meaningless protests about her research. The tests weren't hard, and nothing was draining. Move here, crush this. Pierce that. Over and over again. I'm mentally done for today, and I want to go home. But I don’t think she will let me leave easily. Unless.
“Earlier, you said you wanted to know what these holes were for. Well, come here and take a look.”
Instantly, she was by my side, ogling me like a dog staring at a raw steak.
“Show me, show me, SHOW ME!”, She pleaded, causing me to roll my eyes.
I rolled my eyes and held my arm. I think 2 flies will suffice. Penn looked eagerly as 2 royal flies crawled out of the holes.
“Woaahhhh, are those….. flies?”
“Those flies are my children, yes.”
“That’s amaz- wait, children, are you a mother?”
“Not just a mother. A queen.”
“A QUEEN!” Her eyes bulged, I figured that would happen I wanted to keep it quiet, but seeing how glued she was to me, she was gonna find out eventually. I guess it's best to let her know on my terms. I placed the flies in a nearby glass jar and placed it in Penn's palms
“Now, I will leave these two here with you for the night. They are very intelligent, so they shouldn’t cause you any bother.”
“thank you.”
“And Penn. If you even consider hurting them. Contract be dammed I will end you. Understand?”
“Y..yes. Of course, I wouldn’t even dream of doing that.”
“Good”
< Okay, you two. Do what the crazy woman asks you to do. I don’t think she will hurt you, but you never know, so be alert.>
“You have your own language!” I winced at her yell. Why is she like this
“Diva, you have to teach me.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. You don’t have the vocal cords for it.” I lied. I have no clue whether or not a human can learn the language. But I'm doubtful.
“I've learnt multiple languages. I'm sure I ca-“
“Maybe another day! Bye, penn!”
Before she could argue any more, I bolted away. Sorry, my children, but Mother needs a break. I'll collect you tomorrow. In no time, I was at the entrance to the dungeon, up the stairs and out into the dark alleyway.
I took a deep breath. Good lord, Penn can be overwhelming at times. I took a few steps down the alley. It was cold, damp and completely swamped in darkness thanks to the night. You could probably murder someone here, and nobody would notice.
Annoyingly, however, Andre took the carriage, leaving me with no mode of transport.
I looked around, not a single body in sight. Thankfully, Penn lives in a pretty secluded place. I slipped off my clothes and threw them in a nearby garbage Bin.
My wings unfurled and spread out wide, almost hitting the walls of the alleyway. So what do I now? When my children do it, they just flap their wings and take off. Is it really that simple? My wings swayed back and forth, picking up more speed as they moved. Soon, flecks of dust and litter start to move and tumble away. The speed and power increased some more. My feet started to get light, and soon, I was hovering off the ground.
I looked around once more to make sure the area was clear before finally, with a large flap of my wings, I shot up into the air like a bullet.
I sored clear over buildings and up into the night sky.
My wings flapped hard again, and I took off once more I kept soaring higher and higher into the sky, and the once-tall buildings looked like tiny ant hills from where I was. Just how high can I go? I kept flapping, sending me higher and, giving me more speed, and getting faster and faster. As I got higher, the air got colder and colder. I could feel water condense onto my armour, but I kept pushing. Soon a dark all-encompassing cloud came into view.
< Let's go for it!>
My wings hummed even louder as I surged up towards the cloud. I felt the air get colder and colder as the water on my armour started turning into ice, but I kept going until I plunged deep into the cloud. The visibility dropped to zero, and all around me, I could see nothing but darkness. But as quick as it came, it went, and soon I shot through to the other side. My wings thrummed forward, and soon, all my forward speed stopped. My wings instinctively settled at a steady speed, keeping me in one place.
I was hovering above the clouds, nothing but a clear moonlit sky, twinkling stars that looked like jewellery and a large bright white moon. It was so large that it made the moon on Earth look like a joke
I looked down towards the ground, and a large blanket of cloud blocked my vision.
I bent over, and my body followed through, putting me into a dive. My wings stopped flapping as gravity took over soon. I was through the clouds and heading down like a bullet. Soon, the town came into view. My speed increased more and more, and I moved faster than ever. 2000ft, 1500ft, 1000ft. The wind howled against my ears as I dove like a falcon down toward the ground. 900ft, 800ft,700ft, 600ft. The lights of the houses got brighter and brighter. 500ft, 400ft, 300ft, 200ft, 100ft,
My wings shot out, and I instantly levelled out, and I started flying horizontally towards the mansion.
It’s so easy to forget everything you have and just fly, no stress, no responsibilities, nothing! Just me and infinite miles of sky. I cruised steadily across the sky, taking in all the wonderful sights. I looked around to the east and noticed a familiar-looking warehouse.
< That reminds me…. Let's take a detour to see our would-be-friendly assassin.>
My wings twisted sharply to the left, causing me to sharply bank to the right. This is going to be fun.
A few minutes later…..
My wings flapped again, bringing me nicely to the ground in front of the warehouse.
I walked over to the door and quietly pulled it open. As soon as I stepped in, I was hit with the familiar smell of dust and mildew.
I quickly ran over to the far office, and in no time, I was in the basement. Well, it was the basement. It turned out my children have been doing a lot of work here. It was completely different in front of me; there was a large hole where my children had started digging, and whoo boy, have they been busy. The tunnel stretched for what looked like miles into the ground. The amount of dirt piled up in this room was astounding. How long ago did I ask them to start this? If I had to give a rough estimate, I think it's been 2 weeks, give or take. And to think they've done so much in so little time. I took a step into the tunnel when suddenly, a high-pitched voice hit my ears.
“HELP! HELP! I’VE BEEN STUCK DOWN HERE FOR 3 DAYS. I NEED SOMETHING TO DRINK IM GONNA DIE OF THIRST HERE!” I winced as the tunnel caused his voice to echo and distort as it travelled up the tunnel towards me.
I let out a long sigh. As I left the room and went back into the tunnel. There was still quite a bit of tunnel left, so I decided to explore the cave further. Safe to say, it wasn’t an exhilarating expedition, just the same monotonous tunnel walls as before. Despite the boredom of this, I am deeply impressed with my children. I don't think they got so much done by themselves. I continued walking until eventually I reached the end, where 3 of the other workers continued to chip away at the tunnel wall. Before I could say anything, they all turned to face me
Ideally, I would like this to be done before I leave. Having quick access to the warehouse would be very beneficial for me and the hive. Maybe we could expand outwards, turning this into a smaller hive.
I sat down and crossed my legs. I guess it's finally that time, huh.
Suddenly, a flurry of blue screens erupted in front of me. Oh boy, that’s a lot of new abilities.
| ABILITY UPDATED Insect vision is now a passive skill. You will no longer have to activate it to get its benefits; it will now activate when the right conditions are met. For example, when walking in the dark and stalking targets |
| New ability added: Tail Whip strike Some people say that a whip is a crude and barbaric weapon, but I disagree. In the right hands, it can be very useful, So unleash your inner dominatrix with this nifty ability. (you can now swing your tail like a whip, dealing extremely painful damage to your target whilst also doing a very small amount of damage)
|
| New ability added: Flight. Remember those dreams you had of flying in the air without a care in the world. Well, GOOD NEWS, thanks to this neat lil’ ability you can take to the sky with no limits. (using your wings, you can now fly high into the sky.) |
| New ability added: Flight Analytics. Flying is all good. But without the proper data and knowledge. How will you ever become a flying ace? Well, worry not. With this ability, all the data you need will be beamed straight into your head. (When flying, information about your current altitude, speed, and angle of attack will be sent straight to your head.)
|
| New ability added: Phermone production. What hive queen would you be if you couldn’t make your own pheromones? (Pheromones are created in your mouth and can be used to mark people as yours to the hive) |
| New ability added: Launch. Ever wondered what it would be like to move like a bullet? Well, wonder no more. This ability was made for that exact reason! ( Your hind legs can deliver more power to the ground, allowing for a massive burst of speed at the start of a sprint.) |
| New ability added: Fluid hybrid armour. What was that old saying? A great offence is a great defence? No? Well, what does it matter? Taking less damage and gaining more agility is something only an idiot will pass up. (your chest armour has been redesigned to incorporate fluid underneath it. The fluid disperses the impact of an attack over a larger area, reducing the damage of blunt attacks by 5 per cent! Additionally, allowing for the chest area to expand to a greater size) |
Woooh boy. Okay, where do we start? A lot of those abilities are very self-explanatory, as I had already experimented with a few of them. Now, what really caught my eye is the Fluid hybrid armour. This explains the redesign of the armour in my chest area. It's nice to know it wasn’t just for looks, but what worries me the most is that little bit about my stomach being able to expand…. I can't…imagine…what…that’s …for. My easy quickly darted towards the other boxes. Launch seems cool and exciting, but I’ll need to test it out to see how good it is. Tail whip strike baffles me a little bit. The attack is painful, but it does very little damage. How does that work? And is this skill actually useful? The low damage makes it useless in a fight. I don’t know if some experimentation is needed for this one. I dismissed all the other boxes and opened up my status.
| NAME: | Diva: *LVL 10 HEALTH: 1500/1500 STAMINA: 1000/1000 MP: 800/800 POINTS: 78 BIOMASS: 50,000 | |
| RACE : | Alvearix | |
| TITLE: | (outworlder) (herald of the end) (Fanatic Xenophobe) (sadist) (Silent assassin)(mother)(midwife) (Scholar)
| |
| ATTRIBUTES: | MIND: 30 BODY:20 SOUL:20 RECOVERY: 24 | |
| MAGIC: | Null release Null shroud Null driver
| |
| Healing spells Lesser heal | ||
| ABILITIES: | Living nest (LVL 2) Bestial call (LVL 1) Venomous constitution (LVL 1) Enhanced reaction (LVL 1) Insect Vision (Passive) (LVL 2) Insect speech (LVL 1) Hive link (LVL 2) Efficient Processing (LVL 1) Feasting (LVL 1) Hive weave (LVL 1) Painful Recovery (LVL 5) Mana perception (LVL 1) Meditative restoration (LVL 1) Mana Cycling (LVL 1) Royal Mouthpiece (LVL 1) Climbing (Lvl 1) Tears of the Hive queen (LVL MAX) More eggs (Lvl 3) Extreme Conditioning (Lvl 1) Conversion Process (Lvl MAX) Level-based XP earning (lvl MAX) Rock Throwing (Lvl 4) Tail Whip strike (Lvl 1) Flight (Lvl 1) Flight Analytics (Lvl MAX) Pheromone production (LVL 1) Launch (Lvl 1) Fluid hybrid armour (Lvl 1) | |
| Resistances | Pain resistance (Moderate)
Cold Resistance (Minor) | |
| Subordinates | Cindi (Servant) Sally ( Daughter)
| |
| ABILITY GRINDER | HIVE MANAGEMENT | ABILITY SHOP |
Damn, that’s a big bump-up in stats. Also, what with that star next to my level? Is that how the system marks my evolution 1 star = 1 evolution? It must be seeing how it wasn’t there before the evolution. Either way, it doesn’t matter. All I really care about is the boatload of health and mana I just got. It is not something to pass up on. Prior to this, My attributes were sorely lacking. This was mainly my fault. Really now that I think about it, not putting any points into the body was a massive fuck up. It would have been nice to have a little bit more strength and health, especially in that fight against the assassins. Well, no matter, let's fix that right now.
| Do you want to put 1 point into body and mind? |
| 2 point used. HP: 1500 -> 1600 STAMINA: 1000 -> 1100 MP: 800 -> 900 |
All right then, so it goes up by 100 per 1 point. Let's increase both stats by 10 points if that's the case.
| Do you want to spend 9 points on both body and mind? |
| 9 points used. HP: 1600 -> 2500 STAMINA: 1100 -> 2000 MP: 900 -> 1800 |
My entire body radiated with an old, familiar warmth radiated across my body.
All my muscles firmed up as I felt my body get stronger.
| Attribute price increased. Do you want to put 2 points into the body? |
Woah… what was that, a price increase? So does that mean the more I spend, the more expensive it will be? I guess it would make sense if it stayed that cheap forever. It would be ridiculous. With this in mind, I'll need to be careful of how I spend points and take advantage of them while they're still cheap. I swiped away the menu and took a look at my skill list. I had a lot of skills. Let’s trim the hedge, shall we? I focused on the skill grinder, and suddenly, a blue box popped up.
| Skill Grinder | |
|
SELECT SKILLS | Points earned |
Well, this looks simple enough. I focused on the select skills section and an entire list of all the Skills I had. On a quick glance, 4 stood out to me as immediately grindable. Bestial call, climbing, painful recovery and rock throwing. I was also tempted to grind feasting, but I think that skill hasn’t had the time to shine. As for why I want to grind those skills, it's mainly because they're not useful anymore. Climbing is irrelevant now since I can fly, and nothing stops me from climbing without it. Bestial call is so situational I don’t even know where to start. If I could select what I'm calling, it would be more useful, and I'm sure if I put points into it, it could possibly do that, but I'm not gonna waste points to find out if it can, and frankly, I'm still angry at this skill for nearly getting me killed that time.
The other two skills, painful recovery and rock throwing whilst on paper, are good abilities but, in reality, are kind of useless at worst and situational at best. Painful recovery was very good when I first got it, allowing me to recover faster; however, now that I've got a healing spell and my pain resistances have gone up, this skill isn't being activated as often as it once was and is taking a lot more pain to be activated thinking about it this skill didn’t even activate once during my fight with the assassins. Do I have to be nearly dying just to get the benefit of this 1 ability? No, thank you. Into the grinder, you go.
Now, rock throwing is a victim of being a skill that is very useful in a very specific situation. It allowed me to easily dispatch those guys at the barn. Still, besides that, it’s in the same boat as bestial call, and it’s a situational ability unless I plan to make rock-throwing my thing which I wont.
I quickly selected the 4 skills, and a green button appeared at the bottom of the menu. I focussed on the button and was taken back to the previous menu.
| Skill Grinder | |
| SELECT SKILLS | Points earned Bestial call: = 5 Climbing: = 5 Painful recovery: = 15 Rock throwing = 13 Total= 38 Please say “confirm” if you want to grind these abilities: (Note: Abilities that have been ground down can be rebought for an Exorbitant fee.) |
38 points, huh. That’s harsh. That barely covers the points I spent on rock-throwing alone. I should be careful going forward when spending my points.
Suddenly, the menu popped out of existence, and my body briefly glowed with a cold blue aura. The complete opposite of what I get when I upgrade or buy an ability.
| Ability Grinding complete. 38 points earned. Current points total 96 |
Good. There were still a few skill I could grind but I decided ill give them a chance before removing them. This town just hasn’t been a good use for them. Now then lets take a look from the top.
| NAME: | Diva: *LVL 10 HEALTH: 2500/2500 STAMINA: 2000/2000 MP: 1800/1800 POINTS: 96 BIOMASS: 50,000 | |
| RACE : | Alvearix | |
| TITLE: | (outworlder) (herald of the end) (Fanatic Xenophobe) (sadist) (Silent assassin)(mother)(midwife) (Scholar)
| |
| ATTRIBUTES: | MIND: 40 BODY:30 SOUL:20 RECOVERY: 24 | |
| MAGIC: | Null release Null shroud Null driver | |
| Healing spells Lesser heal | ||
| ABILITIES: | Living nest (LVL 2) Venomous constitution (LVL 1) Enhanced reaction (LVL 1) Insect Vision (Passive) (LVL 2) Insect speech (LVL 1) Hive link (LVL 2) Efficient Processing (LVL 1) Feasting (LVL 1) Hive weave (LVL 1) Mana perception (LVL 1) Meditative restoration (LVL 1) Mana Cycling (LVL 1) Royal Mouthpiece (LVL 1) Tears of the Hive queen (LVL MAX) More eggs (Lvl 3) Extreme Conditioning (Lvl 1) Conversion Process (Lvl MAX) Level-based XP earning (lvl MAX) Tail Whip strike (Lvl 1) Flight (Lvl 1) Flight Analytics (Lvl MAX) Pheromone production (LVL 1) Launch (Lvl 1) Fluid hybrid armour (Lvl 1)
| |
| Resistances | Pain resistance (Moderate) Cold Resistance (Minor) | |
| Subordinates | Cindi (Servant) Sally ( Daughter)
| |
| ABILITY GRINDER | HIVE MANAGEMENT | ABILITY SHOP |
I nodded and closed the menu to see my children had returned to digging the wall. Maybe I could give them a hand with this. I raised my hand, and black mana started swirling around it.
Looking back at my previous fight, I have realised that my use of null mana is very limited. At best, I have 3 spells, and all of them can be boiled down to release null mana in a wild way. This is not good and very limiting. Null mana is one of the key things I use in a fight, and having it be so crude is just not good for me. I need to improve, and this is the perfect opportunity. I want to help my children dig, and I think my null mana could be helpful.
I held my hand out, and inky black mana started to flow randomly around my hand. What can I do with this to make it more useful in a fight? Maybe if I focused and pulled it, maybe?
The mana shook for a moment, but soon it started to pull itself together Into a thin line.
I forced more mana into the line, but all that did was make it bigger and longer. I tried to make the line move like I once did before, but nothing happened. It was too stiff and stubborn to move.
I yelled as the line dissipated, and I slumped onto the ground. Andre and Apollinaris make this look so easy! They wave their hands around, and shit happens. No matter how much I try and force it, the mana won't do as I say!
I looked around to see the same worker who helped me get into the assassin's cell.
| New ability added: Mana manipulation |
I continued to manipulate the beam, bending and twisting it until it Eventually landed on my desired shape, a pitch-black, inky spiral around the diameter of the tunnel.
| New spell created: Null spiral |
I ordered the other workers away as I slowly started to rotate the spiral, and with each rotation, it picked up more speed. Soon, it turned into a black blur. I pushed my arm forward against the rock wall, and with ease, the spiral cut through the stone and dirt
The spell instantly dissipated as I turned towards him.
dammit, he’s right.
His 2 antennae started twitching as he was joined by his brothers. Once they were close enough, all 4 of them butted heads and suddenly, their antennas started twitching rapidly. I was tempted to listen in on what they were saying using the hive weave, but I restrained myself. My children are entitled to a little privacy as well.
After a few seconds of antenna twitching, he came back
Before he could go back to his brothers, I quickly swept him up into a tight hug.
He started squirming as I held him tight, but I didn’t let him go.
He squirmed a little bit harder and managed to escape towards his other brothers, who glared at him with jealousy.
I held my arms out, and the 3 of them tackled me to the ground
We enjoyed our time together. When was the last time we just spent time together? It feels like forever.
They all said in unison.
I nodded and stuck my arm out towards the wall, and created the spiral. Now that I had created the spell, it was a lot easier to call forth. I quickly opened up my status, and I had 1200MP out of 1800. I'll have to watch it and see how much I use it. The spirals started spinning, and soon enough, I started digging.
Some time later…..
I sat down and crossed my legs. We had been going at this for around 16 hours now, according to my children. And let me say this right now. Tunnelling is hard work. I can't believe I expected the four of them to dig a tunnel this far. How cruel of me. I'll have to reward them properly after this.
I took a deep breath in and then out.
| Meditative restoration activated HP+STAMINA+MP Regeneration boosted by 10 percent Time until full recovery 2:30 hours |
This skill I picked up ages ago has been beneficial. By simply meditating, I can boost my recovery speed by 10 per cent, which is not a lot but has helped a lot over a long period of time. Due to this one skill, we have built this tunnel 10 per cent faster. I took another deep breath in and then out. I could hear the workers' soft rustling as they were also taking a break. These breaks have helped with the fatigue, but I can tell they are getting quite tired now. We have to finish this last stretch of the tunnel, and then I can give them a few days of rest. I inhaled and exhaled one more time. Again and again. I could feel my body sinking with my breathing as it started to relax. My muscles loosened as they released all the tension they had. This is nice. I need to meditate more in the futu-
I opened my eyes and was met with the eyes of a worker.
I gently nodded. And there was the other part of that ability. It alters how I perceive time. I didn’t even notice that 2 hours had passed. It really is a great ability
I created the spiral again and started digging upwards. Dirt flew past me, and the spiral easily cut through and erased any dirt it came in contact with.
The spiral shifted slightly upwards, and we continued to dig upwards. It turns out my children were great navigators. Every now and again, he would chime in, telling me to adjust my angle of attack, Whilst also guiding and supporting his brothers in the building process.. I guess that makes sense, as he is the oldest of the 4 here. I'll have to reward him properly when we are finished.
We kept going up and up and up. Every now and again, there would be small corrections of the angle of attack of the spiral.
| Mana manipulation upgraded Lvl 2 ---> Lvl 3 Your ability to manipulate mana has slightly improved |
I nodded and pushed through. This was hard, monotonous work that felt never-ending; it was nothing but brown dirt and stone. There has to be a better way to do this. There has to be.
Suddenly, the dark tunnel exploded in an array of light, and I found myself in the 1st level basement.
I turned around and opened my arms and was instantly tackled by my children.
We all stopped as we looked towards the door where Sally was standing watching us.
Before he could react, I swept him up into another hug, causing him to squirm.
They all looked at each other briefly before nodding in unison.
I said aloud
“Are you done yet, Penn?”
“NO! There is still so much I need to do. I need to see your digestion in action And see how you repro-“”
“WOW, THAT SOUNDS INTERESTING, but I think it can wait for tomorrow; I'm exhausted, Penn, really well and truly exhausted. Relax, Okay?, I'm not going anywhere. You can continue tomorrow.”
“But….”
I Let out a deep sigh as she gave me a bunch of meaningless protests about her research. The tests weren't hard, and nothing was draining. Move here, crush this. Pierce that. Over and over again. I'm mentally done for today, and I want to go home. But I don’t think she will let me leave easily. Unless.
“Earlier, you said you wanted to know what these holes were for. Well, come here and take a look.”
Instantly, she was by my side, ogling me like a dog staring at a raw steak.
“Show me, show me, SHOW ME!”, She pleaded, causing me to roll my eyes.
I rolled my eyes and held my arm. I think 2 flies will suffice. Penn looked eagerly as 2 royal flies crawled out of the holes.
“Woaahhhh, are those….. flies?”
“Those flies are my children, yes.”
“That’s amaz- wait, children, are you a mother?”
“Not just a mother. A queen.”
“A QUEEN!” Her eyes bulged, I figured that would happen I wanted to keep it quiet, but seeing how glued she was to me, she was gonna find out eventually. I guess it's best to let her know on my terms. I placed the flies in a nearby glass jar and placed it in Penn's palms
“Now, I will leave these two here with you for the night. They are very intelligent, so they shouldn’t cause you any bother.”
“thank you.”
“And Penn. If you even consider hurting them. Contract be dammed I will end you. Understand?”
“Y..yes. Of course, I wouldn’t even dream of doing that.”
“Good”
< Okay, you two. Do what the crazy woman asks you to do. I don’t think she will hurt you, but you never know, so be alert.>
“You have your own language!” I winced at her yell. Why is she like this
“Diva, you have to teach me.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. You don’t have the vocal cords for it.” I lied. I have no clue whether or not a human can learn the language. But I'm doubtful.
“I've learnt multiple languages. I'm sure I ca-“
“Maybe another day! Bye, penn!”
Before she could argue any more, I bolted away. Sorry, my children, but Mother needs a break. I'll collect you tomorrow. In no time, I was at the entrance to the dungeon, up the stairs and out into the dark alleyway.
I took a deep breath. Good lord, Penn can be overwhelming at times. I took a few steps down the alley. It was cold, damp and completely swamped in darkness thanks to the night. You could probably murder someone here, and nobody would notice.
Annoyingly, however, Andre took the carriage, leaving me with no mode of transport.
I looked around, not a single body in sight. Thankfully, Penn lives in a pretty secluded place. I slipped off my clothes and threw them in a nearby garbage Bin.
My wings unfurled and spread out wide, almost hitting the walls of the alleyway. So what do I now? When my children do it, they just flap their wings and take off. Is it really that simple? My wings swayed back and forth, picking up more speed as they moved. Soon, flecks of dust and litter start to move and tumble away. The speed and power increased some more. My feet started to get light, and soon, I was hovering off the ground.
I looked around once more to make sure the area was clear before finally, with a large flap of my wings, I shot up into the air like a bullet.
I sored clear over buildings and up into the night sky.
My wings flapped hard again, and I took off once more I kept soaring higher and higher into the sky, and the once-tall buildings looked like tiny ant hills from where I was. Just how high can I go? I kept flapping, sending me higher and, giving me more speed, and getting faster and faster. As I got higher, the air got colder and colder. I could feel water condense onto my armour, but I kept pushing. Soon a dark all-encompassing cloud came into view.
< Let's go for it!>
My wings hummed even louder as I surged up towards the cloud. I felt the air get colder and colder as the water on my armour started turning into ice, but I kept going until I plunged deep into the cloud. The visibility dropped to zero, and all around me, I could see nothing but darkness. But as quick as it came, it went, and soon I shot through to the other side. My wings thrummed forward, and soon, all my forward speed stopped. My wings instinctively settled at a steady speed, keeping me in one place.
I was hovering above the clouds, nothing but a clear moonlit sky, twinkling stars that looked like jewellery and a large bright white moon. It was so large that it made the moon on Earth look like a joke
I looked down towards the ground, and a large blanket of cloud blocked my vision.
I bent over, and my body followed through, putting me into a dive. My wings stopped flapping as gravity took over soon. I was through the clouds and heading down like a bullet. Soon, the town came into view. My speed increased more and more, and I moved faster than ever. 2000ft, 1500ft, 1000ft. The wind howled against my ears as I dove like a falcon down toward the ground. 900ft, 800ft,700ft, 600ft. The lights of the houses got brighter and brighter. 500ft, 400ft, 300ft, 200ft, 100ft,
My wings shot out, and I instantly levelled out, and I started flying horizontally towards the mansion.
It’s so easy to forget everything you have and just fly, no stress, no responsibilities, nothing! Just me and infinite miles of sky. I cruised steadily across the sky, taking in all the wonderful sights. I looked around to the east and noticed a familiar-looking warehouse.
< That reminds me…. Let's take a detour to see our would-be-friendly assassin.>
My wings twisted sharply to the left, causing me to sharply bank to the right. This is going to be fun.
A few minutes later…..
My wings flapped again, bringing me nicely to the ground in front of the warehouse.
I walked over to the door and quietly pulled it open. As soon as I stepped in, I was hit with the familiar smell of dust and mildew.
I quickly ran over to the far office, and in no time, I was in the basement. Well, it was the basement. It turned out my children have been doing a lot of work here. It was completely different in front of me; there was a large hole where my children had started digging, and whoo boy, have they been busy. The tunnel stretched for what looked like miles into the ground. The amount of dirt piled up in this room was astounding. How long ago did I ask them to start this? If I had to give a rough estimate, I think it's been 2 weeks, give or take. And to think they've done so much in so little time. I took a step into the tunnel when suddenly, a high-pitched voice hit my ears.
“HELP! HELP! I’VE BEEN STUCK DOWN HERE FOR 3 DAYS. I NEED SOMETHING TO DRINK IM GONNA DIE OF THIRST HERE!” I winced as the tunnel caused his voice to echo and distort as it travelled up the tunnel towards me.
I let out a long sigh. As I left the room and went back into the tunnel. There was still quite a bit of tunnel left, so I decided to explore the cave further. Safe to say, it wasn’t an exhilarating expedition, just the same monotonous tunnel walls as before. Despite the boredom of this, I am deeply impressed with my children. I don't think they got so much done by themselves. I continued walking until eventually I reached the end, where 3 of the other workers continued to chip away at the tunnel wall. Before I could say anything, they all turned to face me
Ideally, I would like this to be done before I leave. Having quick access to the warehouse would be very beneficial for me and the hive. Maybe we could expand outwards, turning this into a smaller hive.
I sat down and crossed my legs. I guess it's finally that time, huh.
Suddenly, a flurry of blue screens erupted in front of me. Oh boy, that’s a lot of new abilities.
| ABILITY UPDATED Insect vision is now a passive skill. You will no longer have to activate it to get its benefits; it will now activate when the right conditions are met. For example, when walking in the dark and stalking targets |
| New ability added: Tail Whip strike Some people say that a whip is a crude and barbaric weapon, but I disagree. In the right hands, it can be very useful, So unleash your inner dominatrix with this nifty ability. (you can now swing your tail like a whip, dealing extremely painful damage to your target whilst also doing a very small amount of damage)
|
| New ability added: Flight. Remember those dreams you had of flying in the air without a care in the world. Well, GOOD NEWS, thanks to this neat lil’ ability you can take to the sky with no limits. (using your wings, you can now fly high into the sky.) |
| New ability added: Flight Analytics. Flying is all good. But without the proper data and knowledge. How will you ever become a flying ace? Well, worry not. With this ability, all the data you need will be beamed straight into your head. (When flying, information about your current altitude, speed, and angle of attack will be sent straight to your head.)
|
| New ability added: Phermone production. What hive queen would you be if you couldn’t make your own pheromones? (Pheromones are created in your mouth and can be used to mark people as yours to the hive) |
| New ability added: Launch. Ever wondered what it would be like to move like a bullet? Well, wonder no more. This ability was made for that exact reason! ( Your hind legs can deliver more power to the ground, allowing for a massive burst of speed at the start of a sprint.) |
| New ability added: Fluid hybrid armour. What was that old saying? A great offence is a great defence? No? Well, what does it matter? Taking less damage and gaining more agility is something only an idiot will pass up. (your chest armour has been redesigned to incorporate fluid underneath it. The fluid disperses the impact of an attack over a larger area, reducing the damage of blunt attacks by 5 per cent! Additionally, allowing for the chest area to expand to a greater size) |
Woooh boy. Okay, where do we start? A lot of those abilities are very self-explanatory, as I had already experimented with a few of them. Now, what really caught my eye is the Fluid hybrid armour. This explains the redesign of the armour in my chest area. It's nice to know it wasn’t just for looks, but what worries me the most is that little bit about my stomach being able to expand…. I can't…imagine…what…that’s …for. My easy quickly darted towards the other boxes. Launch seems cool and exciting, but I’ll need to test it out to see how good it is. Tail whip strike baffles me a little bit. The attack is painful, but it does very little damage. How does that work? And is this skill actually useful? The low damage makes it useless in a fight. I don’t know if some experimentation is needed for this one. I dismissed all the other boxes and opened up my status.
| NAME: | Diva: *LVL 10 HEALTH: 1500/1500 STAMINA: 1000/1000 MP: 800/800 POINTS: 78 BIOMASS: 50,000 | |
| RACE : | Alvearix | |
| TITLE: | (outworlder) (herald of the end) (Fanatic Xenophobe) (sadist) (Silent assassin)(mother)(midwife) (Scholar)
| |
| ATTRIBUTES: | MIND: 30 BODY:20 SOUL:20 RECOVERY: 24 | |
| MAGIC: | Null release Null shroud Null driver
| |
| Healing spells Lesser heal | ||
| ABILITIES: | Living nest (LVL 2) Bestial call (LVL 1) Venomous constitution (LVL 1) Enhanced reaction (LVL 1) Insect Vision (Passive) (LVL 2) Insect speech (LVL 1) Hive link (LVL 2) Efficient Processing (LVL 1) Feasting (LVL 1) Hive weave (LVL 1) Painful Recovery (LVL 5) Mana perception (LVL 1) Meditative restoration (LVL 1) Mana Cycling (LVL 1) Royal Mouthpiece (LVL 1) Climbing (Lvl 1) Tears of the Hive queen (LVL MAX) More eggs (Lvl 3) Extreme Conditioning (Lvl 1) Conversion Process (Lvl MAX) Level-based XP earning (lvl MAX) Rock Throwing (Lvl 4) Tail Whip strike (Lvl 1) Flight (Lvl 1) Flight Analytics (Lvl MAX) Pheromone production (LVL 1) Launch (Lvl 1) Fluid hybrid armour (Lvl 1) | |
| Resistances | Pain resistance (Moderate)
Cold Resistance (Minor) | |
| Subordinates | Cindi (Servant) Sally ( Daughter)
| |
| ABILITY GRINDER | HIVE MANAGEMENT | ABILITY SHOP |
Damn, that’s a big bump-up in stats. Also, what with that star next to my level? Is that how the system marks my evolution 1 star = 1 evolution? It must be seeing how it wasn’t there before the evolution. Either way, it doesn’t matter. All I really care about is the boatload of health and mana I just got. It is not something to pass up on. Prior to this, My attributes were sorely lacking. This was mainly my fault. Really now that I think about it, not putting any points into the body was a massive fuck up. It would have been nice to have a little bit more strength and health, especially in that fight against the assassins. Well, no matter, let's fix that right now.
| Do you want to put 1 point into body and mind? |
| 2 point used. HP: 1500 -> 1600 STAMINA: 1000 -> 1100 MP: 800 -> 900 |
All right then, so it goes up by 100 per 1 point. Let's increase both stats by 10 points if that's the case.
| Do you want to spend 9 points on both body and mind? |
| 9 points used. HP: 1600 -> 2500 STAMINA: 1100 -> 2000 MP: 900 -> 1800 |
My entire body radiated with an old, familiar warmth radiated across my body.
All my muscles firmed up as I felt my body get stronger.
| Attribute price increased. Do you want to put 2 points into the body? |
Woah… what was that, a price increase? So does that mean the more I spend, the more expensive it will be? I guess it would make sense if it stayed that cheap forever. It would be ridiculous. With this in mind, I'll need to be careful of how I spend points and take advantage of them while they're still cheap. I swiped away the menu and took a look at my skill list. I had a lot of skills. Let’s trim the hedge, shall we? I focused on the skill grinder, and suddenly, a blue box popped up.
| Skill Grinder | |
|
SELECT SKILLS | Points earned |
Well, this looks simple enough. I focused on the select skills section and an entire list of all the Skills I had. On a quick glance, 4 stood out to me as immediately grindable. Bestial call, climbing, painful recovery and rock throwing. I was also tempted to grind feasting, but I think that skill hasn’t had the time to shine. As for why I want to grind those skills, it's mainly because they're not useful anymore. Climbing is irrelevant now since I can fly, and nothing stops me from climbing without it. Bestial call is so situational I don’t even know where to start. If I could select what I'm calling, it would be more useful, and I'm sure if I put points into it, it could possibly do that, but I'm not gonna waste points to find out if it can, and frankly, I'm still angry at this skill for nearly getting me killed that time.
The other two skills, painful recovery and rock throwing whilst on paper, are good abilities but, in reality, are kind of useless at worst and situational at best. Painful recovery was very good when I first got it, allowing me to recover faster; however, now that I've got a healing spell and my pain resistances have gone up, this skill isn't being activated as often as it once was and is taking a lot more pain to be activated thinking about it this skill didn’t even activate once during my fight with the assassins. Do I have to be nearly dying just to get the benefit of this 1 ability? No, thank you. Into the grinder, you go.
Now, rock throwing is a victim of being a skill that is very useful in a very specific situation. It allowed me to easily dispatch those guys at the barn. Still, besides that, it’s in the same boat as bestial call, and it’s a situational ability unless I plan to make rock-throwing my thing which I wont.
I quickly selected the 4 skills, and a green button appeared at the bottom of the menu. I focussed on the button and was taken back to the previous menu.
| Skill Grinder | |
| SELECT SKILLS | Points earned Bestial call: = 5 Climbing: = 5 Painful recovery: = 15 Rock throwing = 13 Total= 38 Please say “confirm” if you want to grind these abilities: (Note: Abilities that have been ground down can be rebought for an Exorbitant fee.) |
38 points, huh. That’s harsh. That barely covers the points I spent on rock-throwing alone. I should be careful going forward when spending my points.
Suddenly, the menu popped out of existence, and my body briefly glowed with a cold blue aura. The complete opposite of what I get when I upgrade or buy an ability.
| Ability Grinding complete. 38 points earned. Current points total 96 |
Good. There were still a few skill I could grind but I decided ill give them a chance before removing them. This town just hasn’t been a good use for them. Now then lets take a look from the top.
| NAME: | Diva: *LVL 10 HEALTH: 2500/2500 STAMINA: 2000/2000 MP: 1800/1800 POINTS: 96 BIOMASS: 50,000 | |
| RACE : | Alvearix | |
| TITLE: | (outworlder) (herald of the end) (Fanatic Xenophobe) (sadist) (Silent assassin)(mother)(midwife) (Scholar)
| |
| ATTRIBUTES: | MIND: 40 BODY:30 SOUL:20 RECOVERY: 24 | |
| MAGIC: | Null release Null shroud Null driver | |
| Healing spells Lesser heal | ||
| ABILITIES: | Living nest (LVL 2) Venomous constitution (LVL 1) Enhanced reaction (LVL 1) Insect Vision (Passive) (LVL 2) Insect speech (LVL 1) Hive link (LVL 2) Efficient Processing (LVL 1) Feasting (LVL 1) Hive weave (LVL 1) Mana perception (LVL 1) Meditative restoration (LVL 1) Mana Cycling (LVL 1) Royal Mouthpiece (LVL 1) Tears of the Hive queen (LVL MAX) More eggs (Lvl 3) Extreme Conditioning (Lvl 1) Conversion Process (Lvl MAX) Level-based XP earning (lvl MAX) Tail Whip strike (Lvl 1) Flight (Lvl 1) Flight Analytics (Lvl MAX) Pheromone production (LVL 1) Launch (Lvl 1) Fluid hybrid armour (Lvl 1)
| |
| Resistances | Pain resistance (Moderate) Cold Resistance (Minor) | |
| Subordinates | Cindi (Servant) Sally ( Daughter)
| |
| ABILITY GRINDER | HIVE MANAGEMENT | ABILITY SHOP |
I nodded and closed the menu to see my children had returned to digging the wall. Maybe I could give them a hand with this. I raised my hand, and black mana started swirling around it.
Looking back at my previous fight, I have realised that my use of null mana is very limited. At best, I have 3 spells, and all of them can be boiled down to release null mana in a wild way. This is not good and very limiting. Null mana is one of the key things I use in a fight, and having it be so crude is just not good for me. I need to improve, and this is the perfect opportunity. I want to help my children dig, and I think my null mana could be helpful.
I held my hand out, and inky black mana started to flow randomly around my hand. What can I do with this to make it more useful in a fight? Maybe if I focused and pulled it, maybe?
The mana shook for a moment, but soon it started to pull itself together Into a thin line.
I forced more mana into the line, but all that did was make it bigger and longer. I tried to make the line move like I once did before, but nothing happened. It was too stiff and stubborn to move.
I yelled as the line dissipated, and I slumped onto the ground. Andre and Apollinaris make this look so easy! They wave their hands around, and shit happens. No matter how much I try and force it, the mana won't do as I say!
I looked around to see the same worker who helped me get into the assassin's cell.
| New ability added: Mana manipulation |
I continued to manipulate the beam, bending and twisting it until it Eventually landed on my desired shape, a pitch-black, inky spiral around the diameter of the tunnel.
| New spell created: Null spiral |
I ordered the other workers away as I slowly started to rotate the spiral, and with each rotation, it picked up more speed. Soon, it turned into a black blur. I pushed my arm forward against the rock wall, and with ease, the spiral cut through the stone and dirt
The spell instantly dissipated as I turned towards him.
dammit, he’s right.
His 2 antennae started twitching as he was joined by his brothers. Once they were close enough, all 4 of them butted heads and suddenly, their antennas started twitching rapidly. I was tempted to listen in on what they were saying using the hive weave, but I restrained myself. My children are entitled to a little privacy as well.
After a few seconds of antenna twitching, he came back
Before he could go back to his brothers, I quickly swept him up into a tight hug.
He started squirming as I held him tight, but I didn’t let him go.
He squirmed a little bit harder and managed to escape towards his other brothers, who glared at him with jealousy.
I held my arms out, and the 3 of them tackled me to the ground
We enjoyed our time together. When was the last time we just spent time together? It feels like forever.
They all said in unison.
I nodded and stuck my arm out towards the wall, and created the spiral. Now that I had created the spell, it was a lot easier to call forth. I quickly opened up my status, and I had 1200MP out of 1800. I'll have to watch it and see how much I use it. The spirals started spinning, and soon enough, I started digging.
Some time later…..
I sat down and crossed my legs. We had been going at this for around 16 hours now, according to my children. And let me say this right now. Tunnelling is hard work. I can't believe I expected the four of them to dig a tunnel this far. How cruel of me. I'll have to reward them properly after this.
I took a deep breath in and then out.
| Meditative restoration activated HP+STAMINA+MP Regeneration boosted by 10 percent Time until full recovery 2:30 hours |
This skill I picked up ages ago has been beneficial. By simply meditating, I can boost my recovery speed by 10 per cent, which is not a lot but has helped a lot over a long period of time. Due to this one skill, we have built this tunnel 10 per cent faster. I took another deep breath in and then out. I could hear the workers' soft rustling as they were also taking a break. These breaks have helped with the fatigue, but I can tell they are getting quite tired now. We have to finish this last stretch of the tunnel, and then I can give them a few days of rest. I inhaled and exhaled one more time. Again and again. I could feel my body sinking with my breathing as it started to relax. My muscles loosened as they released all the tension they had. This is nice. I need to meditate more in the futu-
I opened my eyes and was met with the eyes of a worker.
I gently nodded. And there was the other part of that ability. It alters how I perceive time. I didn’t even notice that 2 hours had passed. It really is a great ability
I created the spiral again and started digging upwards. Dirt flew past me, and the spiral easily cut through and erased any dirt it came in contact with.
The spiral shifted slightly upwards, and we continued to dig upwards. It turns out my children were great navigators. Every now and again, he would chime in, telling me to adjust my angle of attack, Whilst also guiding and supporting his brothers in the building process.. I guess that makes sense, as he is the oldest of the 4 here. I'll have to reward him properly when we are finished.
We kept going up and up and up. Every now and again, there would be small corrections of the angle of attack of the spiral.
| Mana manipulation upgraded Lvl 2 ---> Lvl 3 Your ability to manipulate mana has slightly improved |
I nodded and pushed through. This was hard, monotonous work that felt never-ending; it was nothing but brown dirt and stone. There has to be a better way to do this. There has to be.
Suddenly, the dark tunnel exploded in an array of light, and I found myself in the 1st level basement.
I turned around and opened my arms and was instantly tackled by my children.
We all stopped as we looked towards the door where Sally was standing watching us.
Before he could react, I swept him up into another hug, causing him to squirm.
They all looked at each other briefly before nodding in unison.
I said aloud
