“It would likely be very dangerous,” Three Squeaks finished his pitch to the Great Queen. “They could get squashed on accident, even! It’s not easy to replace princesses, is it?”

The Great Queen responded, though her signs were only partially directed towards Three Squeaks. “Then they had better make certain to take care of themselves. Any princesses so irresponsible as to get themselves killed would not be worthy of ruling a colony.”

“I can take care of myself,” Fearsome Mandibles said. “And my sister.”

Crossed Antennae twitched in annoyance. “I am quite capable of watching out for myself, thank you.”

“Good,” the Great Queen concluded. “Then all of you should make certain not to die, or I shall be very cross with you.”

Three Squeaks scratched his head. He had come here with the intention that she would force the princesses to stay behind instead of coming with him on his journey. Now, it was like he didn’t have any choice but to bring them along. How frustrating. He supposed he would simply have to deal with it. And keep them alive, because no matter how much the Great Queen said they were responsible for themselves… he didn’t want to return missing either one and find out if she meant it.

-----

“Common Oak,” the Great Queen looked towards her friend hiding nearby. “You will look after them for me, won’t you?”

The leaf insect revealed herself with slight movements that didn’t fit the wind. She exchanged her own body signs with the Great Queen. “Wouldn’t it be better for you to do so?”

“Despite how it may seem, I am not undetectable,” the Great Queen said. “My daughter will be more sensitive to me than to you. Besides, there is much more to watch over here in case of trouble.”

“Do you have no attachment to your own brood?”

“If that was the case, I would not be sending you, would I? I would simply leave them to fend for themselves as they believe they will be.”

-----

Deep Purr was too invested in the safety of the coalition to go on a journey. Echoing Cry was with his aforementioned nestful of eggs. Contented Grunt said she was too lazy to go on a long journey. Clang was… still a blacksmith and uninterested in exploration to begin with. Half Oink would probably come… the only issue there was Forceful Snort. Then again, the warthog was a master of her own tusks, and certainly capable of making her own decisions.

At least if he invited her, Three Squeaks wouldn’t be alone with two void ants. He didn’t think they would be a danger to him, but if he wasn’t going to travel alone, he’d prefer others with which he could actually talk aloud without constantly looking over at them. Also ones he could pick out with his senses. He didn’t want to be constantly worried about losing his companions.

Yes, Half Oink would be a good option. Swordmaster Ty was a big proponent of training journeys, so she should be amenable to the idea. And indeed, it was easy to get her agreement to come along. It was unfortunate that the expected resistance came to pass.

“Absolutely not,” Forceful Snort said. “Wandering about who knows where into great danger? I won’t allow it. You can’t take my daughter.”

“I agree,” Half Oink said. “He can’t take me anywhere. I will go where I please. And I want to go.”

“I forbid it.”

“Oh yeah? You and what army?”

The two warthogs glared at each other, and Three Squeaks rapidly moved out of their way. This was something they should hash out between the two of them.

“I don’t need an army,” Forceful Snort lowered his head. “I am an Essence Collection cultivator!”

Half Oink was only at the peak of Spirit Building, but she didn’t back down a single inch. “Wanna go, old man?”

“Bring it, pipsqueak!”

Squeaks and thudding hooves abounded as the two warthogs charged at each other. Forceful Snort was significantly larger, and seemed quite able to trample his daughter. In any other case, Three Squeaks would have bet on his victory. However…

A flash of light and a sound rare in the coalition to this day- that of something hard being cut. A sound often associated with metal. There was none to be had, of course, but the two boars were past each other. And then… the left tusks of Forceful Snort landed on the ground. A long red line along his left side began to well with blood. He turned heavily.

“What’s all that natural energy for if you don’t know how to use it, huh?” Half Oink shook her head.

“Hmph. Ungrateful brat. Go on then, get out of here! I never want to see you again!”

Half Oink took off, and Three Squeaks barely kept up with her. “Are you certain that this is alright?” he said, scrambling along on all fours, his bow slung over his back.

“It’s fine. He’ll settle down eventually. Though we might really have to explore the whole world to give him enough time!”

“Wait.”

The single word came out of seemingly nowhere, and the two of them stopped to look around. No, four of them- because Three Squeaks was reminded of the two princesses riding on his head. They were barely the size of his eyes, despite being much bigger than workers. Then again, even the Great Queen was only as long as his arm, so their size only mattered a little bit.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Three Squeaks almost fell into the hole as he was looking for the source of the voice. A figure slowly climbed out. “You… almost… left… me… behind… here…” Meep stood in front of them.

“Uh… well,” Three Squeaks looked awkwardly at the old man. “You kind of just stay here and look at your roots and fungus. You wouldn’t really want to explore, would you?”

“I… do. Ran… out… of… roots. Saw… them… all.”

“Well… we have to move far. And we can’t move slowly for you. Sorry.”

“Not… a… problem,” Meep said. “I’m… fast.”

“Sure thing buddy,” Three Squeaks said. He exchanged a look with Half Oink. They wordlessly agreed to leave the old meerkat behind, and the sooner the better. As long as they ditched him within coalition territory they would be alright.

Meep turned in the direction they had been moving and began to plod along. Three Squeaks and Half Oink broke into a fast jog. It was actually a good speed for them to travel, since they should be able to maintain that throughout the day. They passed Meep, leaving him in their dust as they began their journey.

Half an hour later, Three Squeaks thought he felt something, and looked over his shoulder.

“...Problem?” Meep asked.

Three Squeaks ignored him for a moment, sweeping his senses around the area to make certain they hadn’t gone in a circle or something. He looked at Meep, who had taken two whole steps in that time and nothing more. “Uh… how did you keep up?”

“Foot… tech… nique…” Meep said. “More… eff… ic… ient…”

Three Squeaks couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening as the old meerkat clearly took only a single step, but moved far further than that.

“Well, alright,” Three Squeaks said. It was up to Meep if he wanted to try to keep up. Surely he would fall behind eventually. But if they went any faster, Three Squeaks didn’t know if he could keep the pace.

-----

“I still feel awful,” Anton said. “I am not meant for these tasks.”

“Think of it as indirectly killing your enemies,” Heath grinned.

Anton shook his head. “I am not much suited for the indirect. Unless you count the trajectories of my arrows among that. Of course, I do not mean to say that it is not necessary or valuable to do things this way… but I am not good at it.”

Taalay stroked his beard. “Even so, you provided quite a few insights. I wouldn’t have noticed anything wrong with them for quite some time if you hadn’t explained the faults to me. I’m still not convinced that it’s impossible to bend a planet to your will.”

“Not impossible,” Anton shook his head. “Nothing is, strictly. But it’s certainly inefficient compared to being assisted willingly.”

Over the last few months, they had coordinated with people from the Lower Realms Alliance and Vrelt to add unhelpful insights into the totality of the Anchoring information being transmitted to the upper realms. Now, everything was set in stone and couldn’t be changed- though they could end the transmission early. Instead, they would let it complete with their sabotage.

It was possible that they might transmit more flawed information in the future, though they couldn’t do it with trivial things or they would draw suspicion. So they had to come up with something big enough. The paths of Anchoring, Assimilation, and Worldbinding were more or less different perspectives on the same thing, and they might eventually try to feed false information about one of the others- but that was a project for decades if not centuries down the line.

The cleanup after the war had lasted longer than the actual war. Not just the repairs and the like, but tracking down the remnants of the Trigold forces, hiding out in the wilderness or down in the mines. Though only the latter one worked even tolerably for them. Both Devon and Anton could track down anyone hiding on the surface, through quite different methods. Many of the ships could sense stray cultivators there as well.

In the planet-spanning mines, a good majority of which had been collapsed during the war, people were slightly more concealed- but they were not impossible to track down. It simply took more time and different skills.

Another critical project was straightening out the countries and cities that had been under the influence of the Trigold Cluster. The cultivators involved had mostly been killed, but there were still mundane cities that had been influenced by them, and were resistant to change. And while it was a problem… it was one that would eventually go away on its own. Some active effort might help, but people would either grow used to the change or… simply die of old age. That was a thing that still happened, after all. Even for cultivators… just more slowly.

-----

Devon found himself consulting with Aerona, as he often did. “I wonder if we could have done things better here.”

“I don’t think we can ever truly know,” Aerona said. “However, I am certain we could have done far worse. Different is easy, better is not. Let us say we came in with the full armies of the Lower Realms Alliance immediately. We kill everyone from the Trigold Cluster. Then what? Everyone else sees invading armies and fights back with all their might- ultimately resulting in many deaths for little reason. Perhaps reinforcements could have been closer at hand, but I am not a tactician and we hadn’t really anticipated… those particular events with that timing.”

“I’m just afraid I screwed everything up.”

Aerona smiled, “You may have felt drawn here, but it was not a task you could complete alone. You were the one who got things started when the Lower Realms Alliance was puttering around hoping something would happen.”

“It’s not quite like that… but we did ultimately need people like you who just joined our alliance to take part.”

“It’s been decades,” Aerona said.

“That’s still nothing,” Devon pointed out. “Cultivators live a long time.”

“And yet, we’re also capable of causing rapid change. Perhaps more of us should be cognizant of that… besides those from Rutera. They certainly have an interesting understanding of the world.”

Devon nodded. “One without which we wouldn’t have accomplished nearly so much. We would likely still be dragging ourselves between nearby systems on ponderous ships.”

“Perhaps you would be. So then. What next?”

“What do you mean? Next for what?”

Aerona shook her head. “I don’t know. For you. Or for us, perhaps.”

“Nidec,” Devon declared. “We encountered them at much the same time as Udre and Vrelt. Little progress has been made with them… and we need someone who can talk to make that happen. So that’s probably you. And some others.” Devon shrugged, the movement emphasizing his missing arm. “And I’ll be there with you, if you’re willing to have me.”

Aerona chuckled. “I didn’t run halfway across the galaxy to reach you just to push you away.”

Devon rolled his eyes. “Please, it wasn’t even close to halfway across the lower realms. Maybe a quarter at best.”