Otjag Heya!
I'm sorry for the long break. I'm having trouble with my depression and for the past half year or so it became more and more difficult for me to write until I mostly stopped. It's getting better little by little though and I'm starting to write again. Just don't expect more than a chapter a month for the time being, I'm a work in progress ahahahaha...
That aside after this chap and the next one there will be a lot of worldbuilding and stuff. Just saying since a few of you asked.
Thanks for reading and enjoy!
It’s been one and a half days since their procession had set off towards the dungeon and they were closing in on their destination. By Artemis estimation they would have to leave the river in about half an hour and then walk for another hour or so till they arrived. 1 and a half hours was nothing compared to one and a half days.
Still, Artemis made it a point to spend as much time scouting around to be away from her sisters. She didn’t mind being in the forest for this long, skulking around and watching this and that. It was what she was good at, her element in a way and it was what she did.
Her sisters however were bored out of their minds. The novelty of the gigantic trees and the rest of the forest was lost on them and worst of all, they couldn’t do anything to spend their time, forced to walk as they were.
They made for horrible hikers. Artemis snorted to herself at the thought.
Now, them being bored wasn’t really the problem. No, the problem was that after a few hours they had started to gossip about everything. Who of the hunters had hunted what, whom of them had fallen to the ground due to their carelessness and whatever was going on back home. Whatever happened her sisters talked about. They even made a game out of it and whoever got to know something first also got the honor of telling the others about, looking smug about their accomplishment.
Artemis shook her head, slowly making her way back to the river.
They could just dip into the hive connection with their consciousness and would know all these things in a matter of seconds. She couldn’t really understand why they bothered with the rest, not even talking about how unimportant and pointless most of the information was and it kind of annoyed her. Hence the scouting and stuff.
Then again, they didn’t enjoy the forest the same way as her and had to do at least something. Artemis could accept that.
She let out a quiet sigh. Despite all that, she couldn’t be angry or annoyed at her sisters for more than a second every time she thought about this. They were family and she would accept them as they came.
A quick few minutes later Artemis stepped out of the underbrush and took in the 40 something sisters of her walking besides the advanced swarm drones. The only one riding was Tiffany, completely absorbed in her own world while she designed the new camp. Besides the advanced drones there were only about half a dozen of the normal ones around. Most of them had been sent ahead to scout the surroundings of the dungeon as much as possible and ensure the group's safety.
Had she had time, Artemis would have marveled at the little caravan full of her people. She didn’t get time though, as the moment she came close five heads snapped towards her, all trying to be the first to get to talk to her. One of her sisters was distinctively faster than the other four, who could only acknowledge their loss with a pout.
“Hey Arti! Did you see anything cool?! Did anything interesting happen during your tour?!”
Artemis rolled her eyes. “Hey you four. Nothing happened and I already told you 5 times today that it is extremely unlikely for anything to come close to us. Animals aren’t stupid, they know when something is out of their league.”
And if something did attack us, it was either desperate or they would be in deep shit. They didn’t know how far you could take strength with mana and escalate things. Going by their mother though, the growing curve was exponential and there was no end. Artemis would rather not find out while she was still weak.
Her sisters looked disappointed at the news and began to trundle along with the rest of the caravan again, grumbling good naturedly about how Artemis was a spoil sport.
She put her hand into her gathering pouch and threw a berry at them.
That out of the way, Artemis waited until about half of the procession was past her and Tiffany reached her, not that her sister noticed. She fell in step with the advanced drone and looked up at her sister.
“Hey Tiffy.” She greeted her softly.
Tiffany blinked a few times befuddled, as if she had just woken up from a dream. “Huh? Ah, it’s you Arti. Where are we?”
“We entered the hilly region about an hour ago, so as long as we keep to the river we will need to break away in 30 minutes.”
Calling it a hilly region might be a slight bit misleading as said hills were quite tall. Then again, they weren’t tall and rocky enough to be called mountains either. Either way, it made traveling along the river easier than forging their way through the forest.
Tiffany looked up and nodded to herself. “Good. Means we will arrive before dusk and have time to build a room or two for the night.”
Artemis wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment. No matter how much she liked the forest, she preferred the soothing violet light of their silk and their beds over some crude sleeping roll. They would have to work fast and cuddle together for the night to house everyone, but no one would complain about it. No Antanoid minded the company of the other, it wouldn’t compliment their hive and some of them had been sleeping together back at home already anyway.
The two of them continued in comfortable silence for a few minutes, both of them deep in thought. This time however it was Tiffany who engaged the next conversation.
“Say, do you remember Anna’s plan to build giant walls into the forest?”
“The plan where we transform the forest into a needlessly huge fortress and the plan mother wouldn’t approve of?”
Tiffany nodded. “Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?”
It didn’t take long for Artemis to answer that, she had made up her mind on the matter a long time ago should it ever resurface.
“I’m against it.” She said, shaking her head.
“Mother had told us from the very beginning to be careful with our surroundings and nature because of her memories and I agree with her on that front. Building walls between the giant trees would disrupt the entire ecosystem, stopping the animals from moving around much and a lot of them wouldn’t survive that.”
Artemis turned to her sister and looked up at her. “I don’t think that’s how we want to live in this world, how we want to tread our home, so I’m against the fortress plan.”
Tiffany nodded along and smirked. “I haven’t thought of it that way, you make a good point. Though I’m sure that’s not why mother initially disagreed.”
Artemis rolled her, but didn’t comment on it further. Their mother had the tendency to make the right decisions because of the wrong reasons, though one thing was for sure, she always had their best interest in mind.
While Artemis was still in thoughts, Tiffany’s smirk made place for a more serious expression. “If you are against the fortress, what about a single wall, one that goes around our entire territory?”
So that was what Tiffany was on about, she thought as she scratched her cheek. “I think a single wall is fine.”
Artemis didn’t know Tiffany’s exact plan, but walling off their territory was a good defensive decision in her opinion, especially so or rather because of the humans that lived in these lands.
Now, she didn’t have anything against all humans out there, but she did not trust them, not the whole of them. Humans, contrary to her own people, were not united under one goal, at least as far as she was aware. There would always be those that had only their own interests in mind and, be that something good or bad, this meant one could not trust humanity. In the end it just meant that every human individual would have to earn the Antanoid trust separately.
Tiffany hummed happily at her answer. “Allright, thanks Arti. I will ask all the others about it, though I will probably just leave the impression and plan with Brian. It’s less of an inconvenience for everyone.”
Artemis nodded and the two walked on in silence again.
Leaving an impression in the hive mind was something that one of her younger sisters had learned to do a while ago by accident, along with a few other things. To put it somewhat simply, by fully opening their connection to the hive they could leave an impression of something there ,like the plan for the wall, and others could later access that and add opinions and arguments for and against something. They could even do it actively and it was more or less as if they were joining their minds together.
What made the method so vastly superior to normal discussions though, was that it was extremely fast and they weren’t communicating with language, but with pure unfiltered thoughts. There was no misunderstanding, scheming or keeping things hidden this way, not that any of them would think of doing so.
Really, the only reason Artemis and her sisters didn’t have their mind constantly joined together with one another was that it was extremely mentally taxing and they simply couldn’t. Her own record was 10 minutes and she had to sit still with her eyes closed the entire time.
The caravan marched on as she thought about this and a slight frown creased her lips.
Mother didn’t know about all this yet and they were a bit hesitant to tell her. While it had been nearly 7 months since Mother became mother, there were still some remnants of her human mind there, a mind that simply wasn’t used to being the Antanoid Queen. As such, out of all of them, Mother was the one who’s hive connection was the least open and they feared that if she were to join minds with them her mind would be overwhelmed.
Artemis let out a sigh and briefly dipped into the ongoing discussion on the topic to absorb all the new ideas and new arguments.
They should call this ability roftid.
Otjag Heya!
I'm sorry for the long break. I'm having trouble with my depression and for the past half year or so it became more and more difficult for me to write until I mostly stopped. It's getting better little by little though and I'm starting to write again. Just don't expect more than a chapter a month for the time being, I'm a work in progress ahahahaha...
That aside after this chap and the next one there will be a lot of worldbuilding and stuff. Just saying since a few of you asked.
Thanks for reading and enjoy!
It’s been one and a half days since their procession had set off towards the dungeon and they were closing in on their destination. By Artemis estimation they would have to leave the river in about half an hour and then walk for another hour or so till they arrived. 1 and a half hours was nothing compared to one and a half days.
Still, Artemis made it a point to spend as much time scouting around to be away from her sisters. She didn’t mind being in the forest for this long, skulking around and watching this and that. It was what she was good at, her element in a way and it was what she did.
Her sisters however were bored out of their minds. The novelty of the gigantic trees and the rest of the forest was lost on them and worst of all, they couldn’t do anything to spend their time, forced to walk as they were.
They made for horrible hikers. Artemis snorted to herself at the thought.
Now, them being bored wasn’t really the problem. No, the problem was that after a few hours they had started to gossip about everything. Who of the hunters had hunted what, whom of them had fallen to the ground due to their carelessness and whatever was going on back home. Whatever happened her sisters talked about. They even made a game out of it and whoever got to know something first also got the honor of telling the others about, looking smug about their accomplishment.
Artemis shook her head, slowly making her way back to the river.
They could just dip into the hive connection with their consciousness and would know all these things in a matter of seconds. She couldn’t really understand why they bothered with the rest, not even talking about how unimportant and pointless most of the information was and it kind of annoyed her. Hence the scouting and stuff.
Then again, they didn’t enjoy the forest the same way as her and had to do at least something. Artemis could accept that.
She let out a quiet sigh. Despite all that, she couldn’t be angry or annoyed at her sisters for more than a second every time she thought about this. They were family and she would accept them as they came.
A quick few minutes later Artemis stepped out of the underbrush and took in the 40 something sisters of her walking besides the advanced swarm drones. The only one riding was Tiffany, completely absorbed in her own world while she designed the new camp. Besides the advanced drones there were only about half a dozen of the normal ones around. Most of them had been sent ahead to scout the surroundings of the dungeon as much as possible and ensure the group's safety.
Had she had time, Artemis would have marveled at the little caravan full of her people. She didn’t get time though, as the moment she came close five heads snapped towards her, all trying to be the first to get to talk to her. One of her sisters was distinctively faster than the other four, who could only acknowledge their loss with a pout.
“Hey Arti! Did you see anything cool?! Did anything interesting happen during your tour?!”
Artemis rolled her eyes. “Hey you four. Nothing happened and I already told you 5 times today that it is extremely unlikely for anything to come close to us. Animals aren’t stupid, they know when something is out of their league.”
And if something did attack us, it was either desperate or they would be in deep shit. They didn’t know how far you could take strength with mana and escalate things. Going by their mother though, the growing curve was exponential and there was no end. Artemis would rather not find out while she was still weak.
Her sisters looked disappointed at the news and began to trundle along with the rest of the caravan again, grumbling good naturedly about how Artemis was a spoil sport.
She put her hand into her gathering pouch and threw a berry at them.
That out of the way, Artemis waited until about half of the procession was past her and Tiffany reached her, not that her sister noticed. She fell in step with the advanced drone and looked up at her sister.
“Hey Tiffy.” She greeted her softly.
Tiffany blinked a few times befuddled, as if she had just woken up from a dream. “Huh? Ah, it’s you Arti. Where are we?”
“We entered the hilly region about an hour ago, so as long as we keep to the river we will need to break away in 30 minutes.”
Calling it a hilly region might be a slight bit misleading as said hills were quite tall. Then again, they weren’t tall and rocky enough to be called mountains either. Either way, it made traveling along the river easier than forging their way through the forest.
Tiffany looked up and nodded to herself. “Good. Means we will arrive before dusk and have time to build a room or two for the night.”
Artemis wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment. No matter how much she liked the forest, she preferred the soothing violet light of their silk and their beds over some crude sleeping roll. They would have to work fast and cuddle together for the night to house everyone, but no one would complain about it. No Antanoid minded the company of the other, it wouldn’t compliment their hive and some of them had been sleeping together back at home already anyway.
The two of them continued in comfortable silence for a few minutes, both of them deep in thought. This time however it was Tiffany who engaged the next conversation.
“Say, do you remember Anna’s plan to build giant walls into the forest?”
“The plan where we transform the forest into a needlessly huge fortress and the plan mother wouldn’t approve of?”
Tiffany nodded. “Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?”
It didn’t take long for Artemis to answer that, she had made up her mind on the matter a long time ago should it ever resurface.
“I’m against it.” She said, shaking her head.
“Mother had told us from the very beginning to be careful with our surroundings and nature because of her memories and I agree with her on that front. Building walls between the giant trees would disrupt the entire ecosystem, stopping the animals from moving around much and a lot of them wouldn’t survive that.”
Artemis turned to her sister and looked up at her. “I don’t think that’s how we want to live in this world, how we want to tread our home, so I’m against the fortress plan.”
Tiffany nodded along and smirked. “I haven’t thought of it that way, you make a good point. Though I’m sure that’s not why mother initially disagreed.”
Artemis rolled her, but didn’t comment on it further. Their mother had the tendency to make the right decisions because of the wrong reasons, though one thing was for sure, she always had their best interest in mind.
While Artemis was still in thoughts, Tiffany’s smirk made place for a more serious expression. “If you are against the fortress, what about a single wall, one that goes around our entire territory?”
So that was what Tiffany was on about, she thought as she scratched her cheek. “I think a single wall is fine.”
Artemis didn’t know Tiffany’s exact plan, but walling off their territory was a good defensive decision in her opinion, especially so or rather because of the humans that lived in these lands.
Now, she didn’t have anything against all humans out there, but she did not trust them, not the whole of them. Humans, contrary to her own people, were not united under one goal, at least as far as she was aware. There would always be those that had only their own interests in mind and, be that something good or bad, this meant one could not trust humanity. In the end it just meant that every human individual would have to earn the Antanoid trust separately.
Tiffany hummed happily at her answer. “Allright, thanks Arti. I will ask all the others about it, though I will probably just leave the impression and plan with Brian. It’s less of an inconvenience for everyone.”
Artemis nodded and the two walked on in silence again.
Leaving an impression in the hive mind was something that one of her younger sisters had learned to do a while ago by accident, along with a few other things. To put it somewhat simply, by fully opening their connection to the hive they could leave an impression of something there ,like the plan for the wall, and others could later access that and add opinions and arguments for and against something. They could even do it actively and it was more or less as if they were joining their minds together.
What made the method so vastly superior to normal discussions though, was that it was extremely fast and they weren’t communicating with language, but with pure unfiltered thoughts. There was no misunderstanding, scheming or keeping things hidden this way, not that any of them would think of doing so.
Really, the only reason Artemis and her sisters didn’t have their mind constantly joined together with one another was that it was extremely mentally taxing and they simply couldn’t. Her own record was 10 minutes and she had to sit still with her eyes closed the entire time.
The caravan marched on as she thought about this and a slight frown creased her lips.
Mother didn’t know about all this yet and they were a bit hesitant to tell her. While it had been nearly 7 months since Mother became mother, there were still some remnants of her human mind there, a mind that simply wasn’t used to being the Antanoid Queen. As such, out of all of them, Mother was the one who’s hive connection was the least open and they feared that if she were to join minds with them her mind would be overwhelmed.
Artemis let out a sigh and briefly dipped into the ongoing discussion on the topic to absorb all the new ideas and new arguments.
They should call this ability roftid.
