Regina paced up and down the hive base’s roof, softly cursing to herself. A part of her wished that she was with Tim and the others, fighting the battle. The rest of her knew that would have been a very stupid idea, however.

The gnomes were doing better than she’d hoped. There was no point denying that; their advance made it rather clear.

On the other hand, she’d been prepared for them to be strong. The hive had known so little about their enemies’ real capabilities that they’d had to work with large margins of uncertainty. It was part of why she’d been so cautious about deciding her drones’ deployments. Maybe that was self-defeating, and sending more drones would have ensured they held the fortress, while they were going to lose it now.

Whatever, she told herself. It’s just one fort. A fort that’s located very close to the Gnomish Confederation. Sure, if they had it, it would be a good base to launch attacks, or whatever tactics Ben would want to implement, but it was always going to be under threat from the gnomes. Simple geography would ensure that. And now that the gnomes were acting offensively instead of waiting for the hive to attack them in their own good time, the situation had … clarified a bit.

No, the only thing she couldn’t afford was to throw hordes of Swarm Drones down the drain. Or use up all of their ammunition.

Right now, a flock of Winged Drones was starting another attack on the gnomish soldiers. They stayed very high up, high enough that many of the gnomes wouldn’t be able to hit them even with Class Skills helping their projectiles along. On the other hand, there were enough gnomes gathered that accuracy didn’t matter that much, for the drones.

Most of the Winged Drones only carried rocks, but there were enough with real charges to make the gnomes wary of anything that came down. Regina sighed as she watched one of them explode atop a magical barrier raised to protect a few of their supply wagons.

She wished they had more, but the hive just didn’t have the capability to manufacture explosives on a large scale. They’d been stockpiling them, but their expenditure was already ahead of their production. At least they’d started to work out some good models.

Regina personally favored hydrogen, and high-explosive materials. Unfortunately, constructing large bombs from them required quite a bit of care and a lot of effort in terms of Conjuration. She’d figured out how to make nitroglycerin pretty quickly, but that also needed a lot of care in transport. They were making progress on making more modern variants of more stable compounds, including dynamite and something she’d hopefully be able to use for firearms. In the meantime, Ray had worked to get the elves to send them some ‘saltpeter’ as part of their support. She was confident that with some experimentation, they’d be able to get something they could make even without using Conjuration at all, something they might be able to scale up. Unfortunately, the hive didn’t exactly have a chemical industry or laboratories, so anything more advanced than early gunpowder might be off the table. For now, anyway.

Regina shook her head and returned her attention to the battle. Despite the bombardment, the gnomes kept advancing, clearly not content to just sit and wait while their artillery, if you could call it that, worked away at the hive’s fortifications. They were taking casualties, she could tell. But they were also using the mountains’ terrain to try and get more people close.

At least they didn’t have many fliers. There were a few gnomes riding flying monsters and a few who appeared to be using Class Skills to stay in the air, but not enough to be a serious threat to the fort’s defenders.

They could interfere with the Winged Drones, though. As Regina watched, an entire small unit of the flying drones was massacred by some sort of lightning darts thrown from a gnome on a giant goshawk. She grimaced as she felt them die.

How do you think things are going? she asked Ben, unable to keep a hint of anxiety out of her mental voice.

About as well as I’d expected, my Queen, he answered calmly. They don’t have as many fliers as I’d feared, although they are advancing more easily than I’d hoped. And, to be fair, their fliers can still be a big pain.

They had all agreed that Regina and Ben would keep their fingers out of this battle and let Tim and those who were actually there fight it, at least when they didn’t need to intervene. Otherwise, screwing up the command structure and possibly giving contradictory orders would risk turning it into a giant mess. That didn’t mean they couldn’t watch the battle, though.

Regina hadn’t really known what to expect, especially in terms of how much Skills and magic the gnomes would use. Now they were using those quite a bit, although probably more Class Skills than magic. It wasn’t always clear from the outside. Her hive was using a lot less of those, so far … Which is probably good, she told herself. They’ll run out of mana or spend their cooldowns before we do.

The last thing we want is for them to overwhelm us quickly, Ben said, agreeing with her line of thought. If it comes down to attrition, we have the advantage. As it is, I don’t think they can keep this up for very long.

Regina nodded absently and tugged on her mandible as she watched the battle proceeding. Ben was right about that, she quickly realized. And her drones were still doing her proud.

The gnomes tried to press the attack, but the hive’s fortifications did their job and stalled them. As it was, the terrain limited the angles of attack the gnomes could use, forcing them to advance in a relatively tight formation. At least more so than if they’d been able to encircle the fort. Some of them on more maneuverable mounts or with what had to be related Skills did get around that issue and crossed the mountainsides, but the vast majority of them couldn’t. And they clearly couldn’t push their artillery over cliffs and crags, either.

After the battle got underway and its shape started to crystallize, Tim gave the go-ahead for groups of drones to take up station on various overwatch and sniper positions around the area, outside of the inner fortress fortifications. The goal was to shoot down onto the advancing gnomish columns. These groups consisted mostly of stronger and smarter War Drones, especially in the really risky positions. They weren’t as powerful as Shooters or Mages would have been, but they could still harry the gnomes. Most of them needed to be moved into position by Winged Drones, though, which limited their numbers.

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Regina watched anxiously as they engaged with gnomish fighters trying to pick them off. The more maneuverable gnomes quickly found themselves tasked with eliminating these obstacles, as did their airborne fighters. In response, Tim diverted many of the Winged Drones to their support. Regina grimaced, trying to figure out if that was worth it. She didn’t like the idea of the hive just sitting behind their walls and letting them attack, but this might not be the best move, either.

Regina tried to take a mental step back and consider a bigger view of the battle. Overall, it seemed to be proceeding more or less according to Ben’s expectations. At least if his reaction was anything to go by. The gnomes were starting to get closer to the walls, but it wasn’t like they could just storm them. And the hive had built several layers of defenses. So far, she wasn’t impressed with their siege engines, or their munitions, and their walls were standing up to them pretty well. They probably wouldn’t even have needed as much depth and reinforcement, but it was better to have done too much than too little.

Tim stayed in the fortress, although he’d moved to one of the outer walls, looking down from a tower. He seemed tense, but not too anxious, all things considered.

My Queen? he asked her now. I think our pickets are a bit too exposed. I’d prefer to recall them or send some drones to reinforce them. Maybe both, getting them out might not always be easy.

Regina paused and quickly focused on Ben, sending him a silent question and getting his impression. He agreed with Tim, and would support her whatever she said.

Can you take over for a bit if Tim is out? she asked.

Sure, I’ll help Zoe and the others, if there’s any need.

Regina nodded, then sent Tim a feeling of encouragement. I think this might be a job for you, you know?

He hesitated for a moment, then smiled slightly. I suppose, my Queen.

Alright. Then, Tim, I charge you to get my people out. Protect my children, your siblings, in the area, defend them and fight against our enemies, and make sure the battle comes to a victorious conclusion.

Tim’s smile widened. As you command, my Queen.

Then he jumped up onto the battlements and grabbed onto Thor, who’d already started to descend to his level. Tim pulled himself up and Thor set off, flying in an arc following the fortress’ walls to not expose his rider to gnomish attacks. While they went, Regina sensed Tim’s stats being bolstered and his mind sharpening slightly as his second Skill activated.

Royal Champion was a bit weird as a Class, at least in terms of the Skills it gave. If Regina understood correctly, it also had pretty stringent requirements, like only being available once for each sovereign nation, and others that her hive met for some reason. But she wasn’t going to complain. And the mission Regina had just given Tim was apparently very much in line with the Class.

She watched as Thor made his way to one of the most exposed spots for their shooters, flying low to avoid making them a target. A few Shooters occupied this position, along with a group of War Drones. The raised stone walls and earthen berms gave them some protection, but the slope up to their position, while steep, was still navigable, and a unit of gnomish soldiers was making their way up it.

Tim fell on them like a Swarm Drone on struck prey. He actually leaped out of Thor’s saddle and let his momentum carry him the last few meters to crash into the gnome leading the formation, just when they started to reach more level ground closer to the defenders.

His sword and blade-arms flashed through the gnomes, fighting with preternatural speed and grace. He still had the buff from his speech, and with the one from Queen’s Charge, he was a lot stronger than usual.

Of course, he still might not have prevailed if he’d been alone. But the drones he’d come to help joined the fight with precisely aimed projectiles and a sortie from a group of War Drones. A few of them died to the gnomes’ blades, but the majority tore their targets apart, and Tim made sure none of the gnomes managed to recover from the shock.

Alright, Thor, bring the young ones back to the fortress, he said briskly. I’ll make my way to the next goal on foot, come directly there. We’ll leave the War Drones here.

Before they could object, he’d already started running, jumping onto a stony ridge at least five meters up and continuing without pause. Regina smiled to herself and continued watching.

Tim acted quickly, finding his way to those of his forces that were pressured the most heavily and relieving them. Most of them managed to fall back on their own, sometimes leaving behind Swarm Drones to protect sapient drones’ lives. Regina quickly realized that Tim’s buff would spread to whoever he was fighting with, and for, at the time, and the more they were threatened, the stronger it would get.

Once he’d brought the third group of drones into the outer defenses, turning to focus on the other side of it, Regina turned her attention back to the larger battle.

She almost regretted that there was very little melee combat so far. Her Warriors were taller, naturally stronger and had better reach than the gnomes, they were protected by their natural shell, and they had four limbs to fight with instead of two. Tim’s fights made her start to realize how much of a natural advantage that was. Ultimately, though, it was probably best that the battle was more of a siege fought at a distance.

How long is this going to take? she asked Ben quietly.

He shrugged. This looks like it’ll become a drawn-out affair, he analyzed quietly. I think we’ll probably be best served to withdraw at some point, though. We’ve already managed to tie them up here, and the longer we can keep them the better, but there’s a reason we didn’t want to get into a long siege.

The food issue? she asked.

He shrugged. Swarm Drones still need to eat, and the gnomes are definitely in a much better position to supply their troops or even forage for food from the surroundings. Not that they’ll need to, this close to their home. We can try to attack their supply lines, but that’s unlikely to be able to stop them here.

I still think we can just have Winged Drones fly food in, Regina said unhappily. Then she sighed. But I understand your argument. While they could do this, they’d probably lose a lot of drones once the gnomes figured it out. And they could do something similar much more easily in a defensive position closer to their hive and further from the gnomes’ territory. Besides, they couldn’t really keep harassing the gnomes and wearing them down while they were stuck behind fortress walls.

So, we wait until they batter down the walls, then blow the rest of it and retreat? She asked. That was a scenario they’d discussed, but she couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous.

Ben sent an amused shrug. If things work out that way.

Unfortunately, as time went on, it did seem like things would have to go that way. The gnomes still had a lot more fighters than the hive, especially if you considered Swarm Drones’ relative weakness. And almost more importantly, their stack of bombs and grenades was dwindling quickly. They were even running out of normal arrows and projectiles to send at the gnomes.

Regina sighed, then walked up and down a bit to stretch her legs and work out the stiffness from being in one position for too long. She knew the gnomes were losing a lot more than the hive was, especially considering how much each fighter cost each side, but it didn’t exactly feel like the glorious victory she’d have preferred to start the war off with. Not that glorious victories are very good at luring the enemy where you want them to be, I guess, she thought with a snort.

Then her thoughts were interrupted by a notification appearing.

You have leveled up

You may now select another Ability

Regina smiled and sat down again. At least the fighting was clearly giving her a lot of Experience. And if she was gaining Experience, then her drones actually participating in the battle would be, as well.