What the fuck, like actually what the fuckity fuck? Of fucking course, the instant I decide to play around with my memories, some actual fucking goddamn humans show up.

After doing some work on the FRP, I decided it was about time to try out some memory stuff again, and as expected, I got sucked into the memory world. Well, I didn’t really worry since Queen could just pull me out whenever. After that, I’d consult with Beatrice and finally pick the new Egg options.

Granted, I hadn’t expected Queen to appear in my memories with a burning fury, spouting about a freaking human attack on the hive.

My brain was crumbling at this point. Everything about this was just wrong. Looking at the Link, what was apparently classified as a human attack was us attacking a team of four humans that had appeared near the hive. So not only had humans appeared for the first time, we attacked them first.

And after that? WE nearly fucking killed THEM. Beryl, the first to attack them, had sustained some pretty damn bad injuries, but reinforcements had arrived in time to save her life. Or maybe it was me finally emerging from my memories and screaming bloody murder at her to back off. Unfortunately, she was in bad condition, and one of the other warriors had gotten pretty badly injured in the process, though he had gotten that one young girl human good.

Speaking of, the humans were in a sorry state. Stings big and small all over their bodies, though none compared to the holes in that one girl’s stomach. She was alive, but without treatment, the wound would probably get worse.

And why should I care? The humans had killed a bunch of my drones. Drones who… well, they were drones in every sense of the word. But I had still birthed them, dammit! Oh, but the wackery certainly didn’t end there.

Was that a fucking penguin?

There was no way my eyes were deceiving me. Alongside the four humans was a massive emperor penguin, larger than the tallest of the four humans. Slightly larger than Bedivere’s stinger. Wait, who cared about its size? What was a damn penguin doing in the middle of a forest?!

Then there were the humans themselves.

“Queen, are you sure these are humans?”

“Undoubtedly. I would recognize the creatures no matter the circumstances.”

Even if you say that… why did they seem more like half-elves? The humans sported slightly pointed ears and were pretty skinny, but not to the degree that one might imagine an actual elf to be. Besides those common features, they were quite different from each other.

Two of the humans had a similar, dark-tan skin tone, with fairly similarly shaped, wide eyes. One of those two was a huge, burly man, while the other was the aforementioned skinny injured girl, and neither had made a peep since I’d seen them. Well, besides groans of pain. The other dude in the group was skinny and brown, with light, practically white hair and sharp canines. That one was mumbling under his breath constantly and had his eyes closed. Maybe some sort of prayer?

The last woman was way too attached to the penguin (bro. A penguin) and had pale skin with dark hair, with the pointiest ears by far. On the topic of those ears of theirs…

“Uh, are you guys humans or elves?”

No response. Well, the ‘humans’ weren’t exactly in my Link, but I had been able to communicate with some vultures without linking to them. Why not the humans?

“This strange thing can’t tell what you are?”

I started as the penguin (a freaking penguin? Seriously?) spoke out loud, and that got the humans talking.

“Te somo na pabosa?”

“Ti nabidi, kabbu mana. Kabba di.”

Fucking great. Absolutely fantastic. I have no idea what the hell these people are saying. Shocker, they have their own language, and without the apparent capability to converse with Mind, there’s no auto-translation feature like with the bees or birds.

“I say we smite them where they stand,” Beatrice growled.

“What?” Beelzebub snorted, “Why would we do that? We should just kill them.”

Oh, brother.

“I agree. They are dangerous. Kill them, Enno.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Now hold on. Haven’t we learned anything from the Scavenger War? If we kill these guys, it's basically guaranteed more will show up. I mean, why are they here in the first place? Killing them is asking for consequences.”

“Humans.”

“But Mother, if that is the case, what do we do with them? Let them go?”

“Absolutely the fuck not! In that case, they might just bring more humans back to the hive! No, we can’t kill them, but we can’t just let them go either.”

I gave the others some time to mumble. The humans wouldn’t try anything in their current state. They were injured and trapped, surrounded by the workers and Bedivere and the Valkybees, not to mention myself. Only Bess and her swarm had left the scene. Maybe she would have an easier time commanding a smaller force?

Ew, that was a morbid thought. Why would I think something so heartless?

In any case, with all these brains thinking, maybe we could come up with a solution. I was doing my best to curb their bloodthirst, but Queen was absolutely doing her best to bring the hammer on the humans. I did feel bad, considering her situation, but we had to tread lightly. Even if we had easily wrecked these humans, there were too many variables out of our control.

“Well? What can we do with them, Mother? We cannot dispose of them, and we cannot let them go. I also doubt we could keep them trapped here forever.”

“Yeah, that’s also off the table. Even if we just imprisoned them here indefinitely, it's no different than if we had killed them. More humans would just show up and cause problems.”

It would be so much easier if I could communicate with them. Hm. Maybe I could just Link with them?

I focused on the closest human, the skinny prayer guy. If he was Mind-conscious, then maybe Linking with him would be easy.

“Hey. Sup?”

All the color drained from his face and his eyes shot open. Oh boy. His lips flapped and gasped for air, and I got nothing back except static. I cringed, expecting him to start screaming or something, but no. He suddenly became very calm and turned to his buddies with a tear in his eye.

“Ah. Fwekuho, besoto ma. Ti gowima bome mae.”

Hey, why did he look so happy with those tears?! And why were his friends tearing up with sad looks?! A strange pressure built around the man, so I mentally picked up a rock and hit him on the head.

Whew. It seemed that Linking with them wouldn’t be easy. Trying to force it seemed to hurt them or scare them to the point that they were willing to do something drastic. Well, they wouldn't have much of a choice. I'd consult with Beck or something to maybe figure out a way to successfully Link them without trouble. Or without resistance.

What was I supposed to do with these people? Humans seemed to be the key to so many next steps in my situation, but figuring things out with them was going to be ridiculous. No killing, no releasing, no imprisoning, no communication. My only avenue of communication was…

“Hey, penguin. Tell them I can’t understand them, but if we were to create a Link, I might be able to reason with them directly. For now, I’ll have to talk to them through you. Warn them not to do anything hasty. I need you to find out how long they can be gone before more humans might come looking. You got all that?”

“I… see. I will try my best to communicate your desires, great beast. But, may I ask why you believe I am capable of giving them such detailed instructions?”

“Ah, crap. Is your eloquence just a product of my mental translation? Well, just do your best. I guess in that case, in the meantime….”

It had been a while, but I went and reactivated Food Storage. I poured Mind into encasing the party in a ball of dirt big enough to hold them all and ensured the force-field effect was strong as can be. It was by no means a good solution, even temporarily, but where else was I supposed to put them?

Of course, I felt a bit bad when they panicked. Were they afraid of the power of my Mind? Or maybe it was the fact that they were being trapped in a freaky dirt ball?

“Bedivere, you’re to monitor these guys. I have faith you can easily keep them busy until reinforcements arrive if needed. As for them, well, I’d really rather not bring them too close to the central hive. But it would be more secure for them to be inside the walls. Beatrice, we need to figure out what to do with these guys. I want to consult with you, Beck, and the other workers. Also, if we want to keep them alive, we’ll have to feed them. Be careful they don’t deplete our food stores too much. Alright, everyone, get to work on the double. These humans are a sign. We need to solidify our position now.”

________

Hell. That’s where we were.

I couldn’t bring myself to thank the Person that my team and Dip had survived. I was so sure we were doomed, especially when that… thing appeared. By all accounts, it was an unassuming creature. Nowhere near as terrifying as the bee with the enormous stinger or the one bathed in angry crimson.

But its Mind. Oh gods its Mind. All four of us had been practically paralyzed by that thing - the queen, most likely- and its ridiculous power.

“How are you holding up, Rette?”

“Urgh… Not great.”

I doubted the bees were capable of giving Rette proper medical care. She wasn’t losing blood, but the wound would become infected if nothing was done.

“Squawk…”

“It's alright, Dip. You’re trying your best.”

Dip’s attempts to communicate the queen’s instructions were rough, but we just didn’t have much of a choice. Using [Friendly Immersion] did let me get a better idea. ‘No hasty’ and 'More human' were clear. As was the rest, to some degree. The queen wanted to communicate with us and ensure we didn’t try anything rash.

It came as no surprise to me. A creature with a Mind that powerful was bound to be intelligent. But how intelligent? Frighteningly. It was honestly more terrifying that it was keeping us alive; that meant it understood the consequences if we were to be killed, and that was likely why it was asking how long we could be away from other humans without issue.

“How’s Vlugh doing, Grehn?”

“Oh, he’s just fine, the idiot.”

Vlugh’s unconscious form presented another problem. If I remembered what I had learned about the Drevani religion, then that queen had tried to gain control of Vlugh’s Mind, so Vlugh was going to deactivate Life. So went their teachings. Fuck. If the only way that bee could communicate with us was by controlling our Minds, that would be problematic. Would I resort to the same drastic measures if it tried to control my Mind? Probably.

How could I expect a monster to understand that sort of taboo?

In any case, we were stuck. This... dirt ball was cramped and uncomfortable, but it was shockingly sturdy. I could also see that the giant stinger bee was patrolling outside by looking through one of the peek holes, so even if we managed to break out of the ball, death awaited us all the same. Not even taking into account Vlugh and Rette's present condition.

I was ultimately left with one option. Wait. Wait and hope. Or rather, to be more specific, I had to lie.

No doubt the bee’s assumptions were correct; if we were gone too long, more people would follow. There were any number of reasons. Our company could become concerned and send a search party. Or, more realistically, they would be upset that they weren’t going to receive the full payment from the city Lord and send another team or two to complete the job.

Speaking of, the Lord could also send more people. Hire another mercenary company or something. Especially considering how concerned he was about the vultures, it was practically guaranteed he would do everything in his power to investigate.

And unfortunately, that greed and fear was all I had to count on. I would lie to the bees and give them a much wider time frame. But how long?

Company policy was that a team’s Estimated Time of Completion had to be surpassed by two weeks at minimum before the team was considered to have failed, also taking into consideration communication from the team. Since we wouldn’t be able to communicate with them from within the forest anyways, that gave us a total of three weeks from now. So we just had to survive for nearly a month, maybe even more, trapped here by the bees before anyone would likely start looking for us.

Of course, the City lord could become so anxious that he might send more mercenaries poking around here. Hooray.

Some buzzing outside drew my attention. A bee slid something through one of the small holes. Food maybe?

I’d ensure Rette was fed first. Maybe getting some food in her would improve her condition. I shuffled over to pick up the food so I could feed it to her.

I picked a chunk of raw, rotting meat.

We were so screwed.