Now, giving Queen a body should be my first priority. But there was so, so much to do. I thought I’d have a bit of a break after Yiwi ended, but now I find myself inundated by things to do - again.
Yelah’s body was currently the most fitting candidate for Queen to control. I had set the CBU to do a bit of investigating, to make the whole process easier, and the results show that it really shouldn’t be possible. And candidate numero uno just left for the fernen base.
Speaking of those dang fernen! For some reason, it felt really weird to look at them lope around and not know every thought that went through their heads. Maybe it was Queen’s instincts, or maybe my brain was completely scrambled from Linking so many creatures, but it really did feel strange to not control them. Looking at them through Ben’s eyes, all I saw were enigmas I couldn’t fully understand.
Which, unfortunately, freaked me out.
And the fernen weren’t the only things currently nagging me. They were certainly a sudden, unexpected intrusion that had potentially far-reaching consequences, but our collision didn’t up being so disastrous. No, humans were the other thorn in my side. So many things were awry in Yiwi. It practically made my head hurt. Nothing dangerous or immediately concerning for the hive, but just a bunch of stupid bullshit. Bella’s experiment with Mesne, Mesne herself, the peacekeepers, the sword mercenary on the run, food shortages, material shortages, rampant homelessness, escape attempts, Rette, Dip.
Well, that last one isn’t much of a human thing I suppose.
An egg was evicted from the abode that was my mouth, and that was one of the last Linker eggs I was going to make for now. Ah, another thing to do. For the hive as a whole, expanding our forces is the most important priority to focus on. In the time since I last thought about it, I created hundreds of Linker eggs of varying Mind allotment with still no level up in [Create Egg]. Seriously, what the hell? The difference in scale needed to level up from 3 to 4 was on a totally different level from 2 to 3. I had to be missing something on that front.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on Abilities in general. Now that I understood Abilities a bit more, I knew that [Create Egg] wasn’t just weird; it was stupid. Its leveling conditions weren’t explained at all. Why?! Was it because bees just do the things needed to level up instinctively? Was I bypassing hidden requirements? Does it even matter?!
At this point, who knows? What I did know, however, was that I had other Abilities begging for my attention. Namely, the healing Ability I needed. Oh, and that’s all stuff I know I personally have to get involved with at some point. There were tons of things within the hive to manage, like the actual construction of the physical hive, our own food situation, wacky mad science, army training, and on and on and on.
So yeah. Plate’s a bit full.
“You do know that my body is not a maximum priority thing, right? I would like it to happen sooner rather than later, especially with how I have been feeling recently, but really? You’re going to prioritize that over feeding our children? Over creating more children? I don’t think so.”
Well sure, but I mean, we’re already making progress on your body. Maybe. But anyway, multitasking isn’t exactly difficult for us now. I managed the whole Beryl and Beelzebub situation AND the fernen situation while puking up freaking eggs!
“Regardless. Since that’s the case, leave it in the background. I know, I know, that particular task isn’t something that can be done in the background well. But eventually the B-boxes can figure it out, I’m sure of it. For now, we must focus on more important matters. Like eggs.”
…
I know it hasn’t been that long, but I missed you, Queen.
Her ‘finger’ vaguely seemed to waggle in my head. “Yeah. Now get your ass to work.”
Alright. Working. Uh, which overwhelming thing do I focus on first? I think the obvious one is the healing Ability. It’s something I really need, considering the lack of doctor bees, and it allowed me to take a mental break from all this high-stakes fighting and whatnot. As for how I would do it? I had some ideas.
First, I had to think about how Abilities work. As far as I had found, I just needed the ingredients. The intent part was easy, at least broadly: I want to heal injuries. The required influence from an outside source was where things got a bit annoying. After all, it's not something within my control. However, I did think it would be possible to influence those outside forces to give me my Ability. At this point, I was basically a pro underminer of the godly systems.
“Hm. From our position, it would be best to test things out manually, with various types of intent, until the gods latch onto something and grant us an Ability.”
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Precisely, Queen. I would use the ideas present in the moments people like Vlugh or Yelah obtained Abilities, but with more flexibility and knowledge. Well, knowledge about Abilities. I don’t know shit about healing.
And therein lay the problem. A crucial aspect of Abilities, I’ve found, is that you have to at least be able to perform a similar, if lesser, version of the Ability using only pure Mind. How do some people do that, exactly? Honestly, no clue. But I can’t really manually ‘heal’ anybody, I think. Forget bee biology for a second. I can’t even tell someone much about human biology. As a former human from a world of advanced science, even. The last time I learned anything meaningful about human biology was some random fun facts my roommate told me in sophomore year of college.
So bee biology wouldn’t fare much better. Thinking of fusing chitin back together and making sure the guts are intact filled me with dread. I had to be a bit more creative, like with the water filtration system, or when I ‘healed’ the twins of poisoning.
I floated myself out of my room and towards the exit of the central hive, feeling the eyes of the caretaker bees burning into my back. Yeesh, I know. I’ve gotta lay more dang eggs, but my brain can’t take any more of that monotony right now. Sure it's going on in what is essentially the background, but I did genuinely want Beatrice to be alongside me, taking notes and keeping track or whatever. Speaking of.
“Beatrice!” I called as I exited the central hive. I’d like her help with this next part, considering that I wasn’t really sure how to proceed.
No response. Wait, holy shit. Was Beatrice, the Beatrice, not immediately showing up at my side?!
“Oh thank goodness I’ve let myself out of isolation. I have no idea how you’ve survived to this point. Do you happen to remember a little contest held recently?”
Right, that. Nevermind, then, I suppose I’d just have to do it myself. As for why I needed Beatrice, it’s because of the method knocking around my brain for making healing happen. In order for a body to be healed, that body needs to be injured. Now, that might sound bad. After all, I wasn’t about to go around hurting my bees for the sake of a little experiment.
Humans? Maybe. Nah, just kidding. Probably.
But seriously. I need something to be injured to heal it. My eyes drifted down to my foremost left arm. Who said an injury had to be fresh for it to be healed? My own body - Queen’s body - was mangled from the Burning, so it was a brilliant testing ground. Unfortunately, I had no illusions about my chances of making an Ability work so quickly. I wanted Beatrice so she could catalog, record, and analyze the injuries and subsequent healing of my experiments. There were injured warriors like Beryl and Bend and so on who I also wanted to experiment on.
I’d call them later. For now, I’d try it on myself.
“I don’t know. I can give you my input if you want, but…”
It’s pretty unlike you to be so reserved with your opinions, Queen. I guess my personality is affecting you a bit much, after all. I’ll never not want to hear your opinion, so shoot.
“Of course. I do not know if this will work. Something just seems different about a fresh injury compared to an old one. I suppose it will depend on how your healing actually works.”
That’s actually the problem I’ve been mulling over, which I only just mostly solved. After all, what is healing anyway? Returning something to its original state, maybe? Making something ‘better’? You could define it as any of those things.
Then I had an epiphany. You know what healing is? Well, since I don’t, I might as well ask someone who does. And you know who knows how to heal? The freaking body! Well, it won’t restore a lost arm or something like that, at least when not discussing lizards. But the body technically heals itself to some degree, so why not force the body to heal itself more and faster?
Before anything, I sent out a warning across the hive; I’m about to do some Mind shit. I noticed several of the more experienced bees throw themselves to the ground, so I puffed up my cheeks in annoyance. My previous Mind escapades weren’t that bad, were they?!
I focused my Mind on my lost arm, the Tapped mind growing percentage by percentage. All my thoughts turned to imagination, trying to envision the process by which the body repaired itself accelerating, going beyond what it could usually do. In my head, I saw my arm growing back to its original state, the chitin reforming and expanding, the claw at the tip freshly formed.
Nothing happened. Fuck! My Tapped Mind was already at 20%, and climbing. At this point, my available Mind was just above 50%, so using this much Mind at once was really pushing my capabilities to the extreme. In terms of ratio, I was nearing half of my available power.
I kicked up the Mind usage and tried another angle of attack. Grasping the processing of the CBU, I inspected my intact arm. With all that power, maybe I could understand the deepest makeup of the arm, and try to imagine it reforming that way. Each crease and hair, each individual section.
And deeper, down to the very molecules that made up the arm. Consciously, I wasn’t even sure if I was understanding the concepts, but hopefully the sheer processing power of the CBU could make up for it. Vaguely, I became aware of the immense pressure my Mind was producing, swirling the dust on the ground and even causing waves in the river. Thankfully, I had wandered far enough from the central hive for there to be any concern, but even there the bees within were shuddering in anticipation.
I refocused on my arm. My fucking arm, which was doing nothing.
30%. 35%. 40%. 41. 42. 43. The Tapped Mind kept ticking up, with nothing to show for it. I threw my sense away, trying to think of anything to make the healing work. The cells reproduce somehow. Energy gets infused and regrows the arm. Mind itself solidifies and reforms the arm.
Oh! That last one was working! Before my eyes, a shiny orb formed in the air, growing in size and rippling like a dollop of liquid mercury. I slammed the breaks on my increasing Tapped Mind because I could practically feel the waste. I had just needed to visualize the right way to get it done!
A drop of liquid fell from the orb and landed on my arm, but nothing happened. I was close, though. Maybe the liquid shouldn’t create new matter, but make the body replace it with new material. Like its own self-healing process, but using the Mind juice as a catalyst. With wide eyes, I watched another drop fall, and the arm began to regrow itself.
With a single molecule.
Huh? Was that real? Are my eyes deceiving me?
“Nope. You just put all that Mind into it and got a single tiny piece regrown. That orb might have enough to regrow the rest of the arm segment, but you’d have to do it several more times for the entire arm to be regrown.”
Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. In a split-second decision, I grasped the claw of my first right arm with a bit of Mind and twisted, compartmentalizing away the pain. With a cry, I bent my claw, cracking it in the process, still feeling the sheer agony that came with breaking your own freaking claw. OW! Shit, I barely dulled the pain at all!
“What in the name of FUCK are you doing?! That’s my damn body, you moron!”
This was my last resort. I once again thanked my incredible ability to multitask as the orb never even wavered, and tried to shift the liquid’s purpose. Heal the claw on my right arm.
A drop. Two. The crack barely even closed, the healing doing next to nothing. Goddammit! Using so much of my Mind was starting to make me a bit loopy, affecting my decision making. Was this why my self-control seemed to shatter whenever I did Mind experiments? Had I seriously just broken my own arm on a whim?
I plunged my entire right arm into the liquid, biting down a scream. Fucking do what I want you to, goddamit! Just work already! I need this. I need this to help the damn hive! I won’t let any more bees fucking die. When I say heal, you should fucking heal.