I carried my next kill back to the cave, our little soldier needed to get used to dirty part of fighting before her first battle, her hardwired battle understanding should make it quick. After being gone for just two hours to get this thing I can see she grew a few centimeters, that is a scary growth rate, and probably violates a law of physics somewhere. I hold the boar up, give her the knife, and direct her on proper boar chunkification, slice open the stomach and pull the guts out, cut off the skin, and saw through the joints. The first slice startled her, but just as i thought, she got used to it real easy and quickly started enjoying the feel of cutting flesh, which was kinda disturbing since she looked like a five year old.

I would handle the cooking still, until she had her battle shell she could get hurt too easily by being near fire. I gave her a head pat and told her she did a good job, which made her happy enough to chirp and broadcast happiness. While it was cooking I gave some attention to the workers, Victoria lead them in trying to dig a tunnel into the dirt wall while I regenerated it so they wouldn't bring the wall down from lack of structual support. It was amazing watching them work, while having a proper leader they moved almost like they were V's limbs, like some kind of digging version of a synchronized dance routine. I was actually struggling to keep the dirt flowing back into the gaps faster than they dug away at it.

They stopped after about ten minutes due to tiring themselves out, may be workers but they still had a child's stamina. I got them some meat and we all sat down and ate like, relatively, normal people. Afterwards I took them up the tunnel to see the outside world, I had to help them over the pit trap since they couldn't cling to the wall properly yet, I gave each worker an empty jug and have soldier be on lookout. I told her if we see anything moving she is to take her sisters right back to the cave while I fight it. She nods and we headed over to the berry grove, I showed them how to get berries off intact and tried to send them an idea of the green ones causing pain while the orange ones are yummy, and explained it verbally at the same time. 

We moved in a circle through the grove, the act of berry picking together activing their hive mindish trait and they turned into a trio of four armed berry picking machines, the bushes didn't recover all the way from my last visit so they ran out before we filled the jugs. The workers were happy with completing a task, but soldier was a little disappointed nothing exciting happened. So while we were walking back I explained to her that being bored was a good thing for a guard because it meant none of the family was in danger. She pouted but also had a feeling of grudging acceptance, so she understood and agreed, but she still didn't like it.

Once back we split the berries and had them for lunch, I could almost see them growing taller as they ate. Measuring them, the workers were already about the size of eight year olds while soldier looked nine. They grew almost three human years in a morning, and I was completely sure that violated conservation of mass or something. After that I put soldier in charge of commanding them to move around so she can get used to being in charge. While they got started with that I noticed Victoria was looking a little bummed out.

"What's wrong?" I asked while sitting next to her

"It's just... when you took them outside I realized I probably wont get many chances to do that, my job as queen means that I will eventually be stuck in here, pumping out eggs almost constantly. Oh I could try to slow down, just refuse to make any more, but my instincts are already whispering at me to make more, I can only keep them quiet by thinking about how the workers aren't grown yet so they can't care for the next batch, it's both terrifying and exhilarating."she said with a complicated grumble and a sigh "My mother was probably able to slow because dad was dead, her body knew the hive was doomed so it stopped trying to make her expand." 

I lean over and give her a hug and rub her back "I can't imagine what it must be like for your body to want something you are scared of." She slowly relaxed in my grip and returned the hug. "But don't try to handle it alone, we are together for the long haul, if you need anything i'll help you with it. if you want to go outside I just need to make it so safe out there that your instincts let you go." I told her confidently.

She gives me a smile "thanks, I don't think that is possible, but you being willing to try the impossible means a lot to me" and stands up and starts helping soldier work on her commands.

So yeah... an ant queen's ultimate fate, an immobile baby factory, being surrounded by her loving family being the only thing separating her being content with it and going crazy. But I don't want her to just be content with sitting there, I want her to be happy with her life. I can already think of one way to help, but it really depends on how enchanting works and if it can be powerful enough. For now I just needed to pump her full of as much happiness as I could before she becomes immobile. I sat there for a bit, just watching her have a rapid fire antenna wiggle conversation with soldier who then wiggled at the workers, managing to get them into a straight line formation. 

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I get up and take the boar hide, I may not know a lot about tanning but I do know it needs to have the inside as clean as possible and also made as dry as possible. I'll need salt if I want to really dry it out, but hopefully laying it in the sun will be enough to make it stop rotting. Can use a pile of them as a better bedding material than leaves. I get to the surface and lay it furry side down and started using my dagger to scrape away at it, I suddenly notice one scrape is going for four and realize along with smithing, leather making must have recipes, but without the class I don't know any of them automatically. The fact I am getting an assist means I am doing something right, but unless I can figure out the next step in the recipe I'll be stuck.

I laid it out on a tree and used huge dirt clods for weight on the corners to keep it from shrinking. Now I need some salt, digging it up is the only option in the middle of a mountainous forest and I can't dig through rock... yet. Other option is figure out how people with leatherworking classes do it. I can't go anywhere because of the kids and even if leaving was safe I wouldn't want to be gone for more then a day. At least magic stone control is a thing so I wont need to reinvent mortar and construction techniques. The rest of the day we simply played with the kids, had a dinner with the rest of the fresh boar and a handful of berries. 

Next morning the workers woke up ravenous, they ate two jugs of berries and all the smoked meat we had ready. They had hit full size during their feeding frenzy and assumed the position for moulting, soldier was hungry but wasn't close enough to done for her body to demand nutrients to finish up so she just had half a berry jug for energy. I can not wait for her to morph so she can help me with feeding all these hungry girls. I head out once more to find some food, I am getting sick of boar and berries, so I head in a completely new direction.

While walking I trained my magic by holding up three dirt balls and have them spin in different directions. After a bit I come accross a fruit tree, some kind of cross between an apple and pear, skin had an apple feel to it but shaped like a pear. I make a note of it and keep moving, eventually I find a group of rabbits, if I jump out I may get one but that is not enough, I want them all. I slowly and carefully weaken the ground under them, working from the bottom up, the whole area around them becoming a trap with a thin skin of real dirt. I release an extra strong burst of magic and the ground melts beneath them, their instincts to run failing as they find nothingnto push off of. I walk up to the group, hardening the ground beneath my feet only and stab them all to death one at a time.

I ended up with seven rabbits all told, and tied them together with bark strips. I filled two jugs with the papples on the way back, they may still be a fruit but hopefully they tasted different from orange berries.  I make it back near lunch and started getting the rabbits ready, I lit the fire and skinned them before taking the guts out and then put them around then fire whole instead of in chunks. Once I was sure they weren't going to fall off their sticks and into the fire I brought dosn the papple jugs.  The workers had just finished moulting and were almost done drying, their chitin plates in their permanant adult positions and sizes. 

The change in fruit was appreciated by all of them, even if the workers were low key about it on their faces, I could feel them broadcasting happy thoughts. Speaking of faces, they were more human looking then V's sisters, so I asked about that, turned out that while workers COULD be made without a king they were more simple like that. Since her father wasn't there as much as he should have been, her mother saved his visits for making special ants and let the workers be simple. They still had the "ant worker" class but their stats were a little lower, specifically their int, wis, and cha were all one lower. So normal workers had the same int value as a soldier but they had a naturally subservient disposition. 

After the fruit lunch Victoria took control of them again and started some real excavation on the back wall of the cave, the workers had hardened finger tips letting them penetrate softer rock. When I brought down the rabbits soldier practically inhaled two of them and started on her own moult. While waiting I set about cleaning up the place, needed to do something with the shell casings, when asked V had no opinion on what should be done with them. I decided to powder them and see if they could be used as fertilizer because i think i heard chitin works for that. I grabbed a rock one of the workers broke free from the wall and set to work crunching it up. 

I got through all their larval sacks and was halfway through the third worker shell when soldier was done cooking. She got out easily, her body designed to be sleek and strong. I just needed to make sure she got to level two so she got that power slash skill before letting her hunt on her own. Once dry I helped her stand (and she was a little taller than me), gave her a wooden spear, and had her come with me on one last hunt for the day.