Aiko went back to the tree with the fruit in it, Zenya still clinging onto her shoulder. She then set about ripening one of the large fruits for her and Brass. By using chaos knife and chaos grasp Aiko managed to get the fruit safely to the ground without damaging it.

The two of them went about eating the spoils of the endeavor and the ants all sat down and savored some of the rotten fruit next to them. When Aiko asked why they were eating the rotten fruit instead of the good one Zenya told her that an ant's stomach couldn’t handle fruit that wasn’t already rotten. Aiko had a pitying look cross her face briefly but didn’t comment.

After their meal, all the ants began discussing how much of the fruit they were going to get back to their nest. Aiko told them that if she knew the way back to the nest she could get the entire fruit there. The entire group began moving the rest of the fruit about and getting it ready to be transported.

At first, Aiko had considered just moving the fruit using her spell but that would be too far for her to walk with that spell going. She had discovered during her time gardening at the Warrens that she had a limited amount of time she could use the spell. If she didn’t want to drop the fruit and ruin it she was going to have to use something else.

Aiko wasn’t sure what she could do but then she remembered that she had Brass with her. She remembered a couple of the rabbit people using sticks across their shoulders to carry things between them. After a bit of trial and error, Aiko and Brass managed to fit two long thin sticks through the remains of the two pieces of fruit and hoist them up for carrying.

Seeing that the pieces were likely to touch and Aiko didn’t want the rotten fruit rubbing on their good fruit she asked Brass to pull out his blanket and wrap around their fruit. She figured that that would probably get his blanket a little dirty but they could wash it in a stream later.

It took a bit more working around to find a way for all of the ants to not get left behind. The two of them were much faster than the ants because of their size. The ants could all climb into one of their backpacks but Zenya warned them that ants needed to be able to smell to find their way home.

The inelegant solution that they came up with was for two of the lightest of the ants to cling to Aiko’s legs while she walked and point her in the right direction. All the rest of the ants climbed into Brass’s backpack.

By the time they made it to the Nitze mound, it was almost dark. That night the ants had a grand celebration because this was the most food that any of these scouting parties had ever brought back.

Aiko and Brass made a fire and enjoyed tea with their fruit for supper. After the feast queen Ziprit came out and personally thanked the two of them for their help. She then told them that she had an important matter that she needed to discuss with them.

Aiko was very, very curious about what the queen might have to discuss with her but tried to keep herself from fidgeting. She was worried that it was going to be something grim and annoying like the councilman from the warrens had sprung on her about Brass.

It turned out that she was both right and wrong at the same time.

The Queen explained that her time was limited as Queen. The last word of her name actually meant which generation she belonged to. She informed Aiko and Brass that the tat generation was coming to a close and would need to be replaced by the lay generation.

She then asked if the two of them would help them with a ritual to expand their influence. Aiko wasn’t sure exactly what she meant but she told the queen that she was happy to help if it was something she could do and it was safe.

After that, the Queen told her that they would handle everything else but they just wanted her help with spreading out. She informed Aiko that she had nine daughters that were fit to be queen and she didn’t want them fighting over the position of ruler of the Netze mound.

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She went on and said that she would appoint one of her daughters as the future ruler of their current mound but wanted the other eight to spread out and make new mounds in distant lands. To that end she wanted all of her other eight daughters to go with the pair of them and find places to make new mounds.

Aiko agreed because the ants were very light and wouldn’t really cause much trouble for them to carry. The queen thanked them profusely and headed back towards the mound while calling Zenya and a few others after her. Aiko and Brass decided that it was a good time to go ahead and go to sleep.

The next morning when they awoke there was already a procession going on. The queen was leading nine other ants out of the mound behind her. The mound was covered in ants and as the ten of them passed through they left the mound covered in spirals from the top to the bottom.

They stopped in a line in front of the pair of travelers. The Queen then walked to the middle of the line and looked back and forth between what were apparently her nine daughters. After what seemed like several moments of deliberation she walked over to one of them and laid her hands on the girl’s shoulder and then kneeled in front of her.

There seemed to be a bit of tension from most of the other daughters that weren’t chosen but not all. The Queen and the chosen daughter then silently walked back to the mound while the other eight just watched them go.

After the queen was out of sight the other eight ants turned to look up at Aiko and Brass. It was Zenya who finally broke the silence. “Well, that was an interesting and exhilarating night. It looks like we’ll be going with you.”

Aiko Brass and the eight ants had a leisurely breakfast before Aiko began getting everything ready. She was a little worried that they wouldn’t be able to find food for the ants along the way.

When she voiced her concern she was surprised to find that it was Brass who came up with a solution. He suggested that they take some of the fruit that was ripe but not rotten and put it into one of the pickling jars without any salt or water.

The two of them ate a bit more of the fruit till they were over-full and then stuffed a bit more of it into one of the jars. The rest of their fruit they pushed over next to the rotting one and left it for the ants of the Netze Mound.

As they continued their journey several of the ants left their company, about one a day. The last three of the sisters stayed with them for a while longer.

After about as many days of travel as could be counted on both of Aiko’s hands and toes, they finally came across something startlingly new. As Aiko made her way to the top of a tree in the later evening she was met with the site of a lot of smoke in the distance.

At first, she was confused and thought that perhaps this was some new type of cloud because there was so much smoke. Once she realized that it was smoke they immediately adjusted their course to head towards it. It didn’t take another day to reach the source of all the smoke.

As they got closer the five of them could hear work going on in the woods ahead of them. There was a rhythmic thumping sound coming from a lot of different directions. Once they got close enough Aiko recognized the sound.

That was the sound of axes chopping wood. Suddenly the amount of smoke made a lot more sense to her. If there were that many people chopping wood that must mean that they had a lot of fires to feed wood to.

Once they got close enough to see the edge of the woods Aiko understood that she had been fundamentally wrong about where the smoke was coming from. The people chopping the wood were hauling huge logs off into a large village in the distance but a lot closer than that is where the fires were.

Everywhere that trees were chopped down the people were building large fires to burn the brush limbs and roots of the trees that they had chopped down. She could see some tall people working with a huge scaly animal to pull the roots out whole.

The five of them warily made their way out of the forest between two of the people chopping trees. Since nobody seemed to be paying them any attention though they kept going.

They quickly made their way towards the large village in the distance. It was over several hills away from the edge of the forest that they had exited from.

The first hill the one next to the forest was mostly on fire in several spots. The next hill had a small stream running between it and the last and it had low grass growing on it. The hill closest to the village seemed to have big gardens on it and it was a lot lower and wider of a hill.

As they approached they saw people working out in the gardens. They also found that the big village had a row of logs stuck into the ground around it so that as you approached you couldn’t see the village anymore.

Once they got closer to the wall of logs they could make out people standing near a hole through the wall. There was also a path that led between a couple of big hills covered in gardens and that path led right to the hole in the wall.

Aiko decided that it would be a good idea to follow that path and head for that hole in the wall. So the five of them made their way towards the two people standing toweringly to either side of the huge hole in the tree wall.