Tim looked well, Galatea decided. It was a bit hard to tell with Hivekind, compared to humans, but she had spent enough time with them and compiled enough information on their habits and appearance to have a good estimation. He was slightly leaner than before, but his shell still had the same healthy sheen, he had no visible wounds or scars, and while his clothes had clearly seen better days, he didn’t appear bothered. He also met her gaze directly and openly.

“Will you come back to visit us soon?” he asked.

Galatea shrugged slightly. She hadn’t been here long, only popped by for a short visit, but the expedition party also hadn’t actually reached their goal yet. They were past the mountains by now, though.

Apparently, they had stumbled on a Veraglian archmage and his adventurer party somewhere in the mountains, on the southern side. According to Tim, it had still taken them several days to get here from that point, though, so they had spent almost a week traveling together. She was curious how that situation would develop.

“If I have time,” she said. “If I do, I’ll carry any return messages Regina has, don’t worry.”

Tim nodded with a smile she tentatively interpreted as grateful. The light was very sparse, since it was the middle of the night and clouds covered the moon. Galatea had approached the party while the southerners weren’t awake, to avoid unwanted questions.

She glanced again at the rest of the group, most of whom were asleep. Not the drones, of course, who might have been woken by Tim’s initial reaction anyway. The humans, elves and dark elves all looked reasonably well, too, she noted. Good, she hadn’t looked forward to the possibility of carrying news that they were dead or injured to their respective superiors. She just knew they were going to ask her to play messenger girl a lot more often, anyway.

Not that she’d told Regina she was coming here. It was supposed to be a surprise.

“Good luck on the rest of the trip,” she told Tim. “Remember what I told you about the local cities.”

He didn’t seem concerned. “I will, thank you. I appreciate it. Safe travels, Galatea.”

“You too.”

She turned and moved back the way she had come, out of the small valley the travelers were currently using as a campsite. As a mana-form without much of a physical body, Galatea could travel quite quickly if she put her mind to it. Of course not quickly enough to cross the mountains in a few minutes even if she didn’t still have to worry about monsters, but she had other methods for that. Instead, she just moved far enough away from the camp to be sure she wouldn’t be found or disturbed, taking a moment to appreciate the natural beauty around her. The landscape was a bit different compared to the northern side of the mountains, but there were still rolling hills and forests, which had seen few humans — or other people — in some time.

Once she found a sheltered spot in the lee of a patch of forest and a rocky ledge, she stopped. It wasn’t really necessary to find shelter, but it wouldn’t hurt.

Galatea stilled her outer body, which was little more than a projection, and focused on her magic. She cut a circle into the ground around her with a bit of air magic, then gathered her mana and concentrated it.

She had learned this spell from Leian, after much begging and pleading. It was very taxing, however, and even slight mistakes could lead to grievous consequences.

The spell required high visualization capabilities and a sharp focus, which fortunately posed little problem for her. Galatea envisioned her goal and her path, then made sure to direct her magic in a complicated, knotted spiral. This wasn’t going to be a simple short-range teleport, but a version suitable for both longer distance travel and veiling her movements and position.

With a slight swirling of the air, she disappeared from her current position and appeared at her target. Galatea instantly straightened herself up and used her magic to ensure her movement was controlled. She’d chosen to appear in the air above the city of Cera, above the outskirts of the royal palace. From there, she flew softly to the ground.

The guards at the palace noticed her arrival, of course. She assumed the magic-capable drones had sensed it and then immediately informed Max and some other people. By now, however, they were used to her, and neither humans nor Hive drones made a fuss as she walked through the back doors into the large building. She knew the shortest path to her laboratory, though she wasn’t in a hurry to go there right away.

Instead, she slowly made her way to where she could sense Regina. The Hive Queen’s presence was rather distinct to magical senses. At least in her experience, it might be different for others, since she knew her own grasp on magic was a bit different given that she was a mana-form. Luckily, instead of being shut up in her office or immersed in the psychic link, Regina was in the gardens that Kiara had recently started to have redone and expanded. She clearly sensed Galatea’s presence and showed no surprise as she arrived.

“You’ve been gone a bit longer this time. Welcome back.”

Galatea shrugged and sat down on the bench beside her, not that it made much of a difference to her whether she was sitting or standing. “I’m going to stay for a bit,” she replied. “Also, I have a message for you. A letter.”

Regina turned to face her fully and Galatea could practically see the question of where she would keep a letter flash across her face.

Amused, she fed a trickle of magic into another spell, watching the letter materialize in midair — in a sense, anyway. She’d decided not to rely on a physical letter and instead simply scanned the one Tim had written before burning it. Now, she showed a projection of it in the air at a comfortable height for reading.

“From Tim?” Regina asked after looking at it for a second, her eyes darting to the last line. “You went south of the mountains?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Sure.” Galatea shrugged again. She glanced at the letter, although she recalled perfectly what it said.

Mother My Empress Mother,

we have safely arrived at the other side of the mountains, which is where Galatea found us. I’m sure she can tell you more details. None of us are hurt beyond quickly fixed injuries, and we’re doing well mentally.

We found a good path through the mountains, I think. We made a few detours and fought a few monsters. There’s no way around fighting monsters, but with a good route, travelers can avoid the stronger ones. Digging a few tunnels would be helpful, but tunnelers need to be well-protected. Lingering at any spot for too long wouldn’t be advisable.

I estimate it might take around a week to traverse the mountains given a good party with an experienced guide. A quick sketch of the best route is marked on the back of this letter.

Once we reached the southern side of the mountains, we ran into a party from the southern lands, specifically, adventurers led by an archmage from the city of Veragles, named Thande Lucian (‘Archmage of the Present’, unknown high level, maybe ask Galatea). The party includes several dwarves. Mr. Lucian invited us to accompany him back to his city, to establish diplomatic relations, which I have accepted.

I currently have no itinerary to report, length of the stay will depend on the situation in the city. I estimate at least several weeks before we travel to other cities. I have made some inquiries, but gathered no information beyond what Galatea would already have.

I request any information we have on potential conflict between elves and dwarves or other races/nations be included in any potential return message.

Please give everyone my love. I await further orders.

Yours,

Tim

Galatea could see the relief in Regina’s expression and the slight slumping of her shoulders as she read the message. Then she frowned thoughtfully, scanning the letter again.

"Show me the map?” she asked.

“Turn the page around.”

Galatea watched with interest as Regina used her mana, slight strands of it intertwining with her construct and causing the imaginary letter to turn and reveal its back. The young Empress leaned closer to examine the map. Galatea knew she wouldn’t be able to make much sense of the details, but it did show the most important aspects of the proposed route, like the starting point.

“And he looked well?” Regina asked. Suddenly, she seemed more like a concerned mother, which might have been ironic. “I don’t think he’d lie in the letter, but …”

“He did,” Galatea assured her. “So did the rest of them. I didn’t talk with him long, you understand, but from what I could tell, their mental states were just fine, not traumatized or broken by losing the connection to your psychic link.”

Regina let out a breath. “Alright. Good.” She nodded and turned back to the letter. Presumably, she knew that if that hadn’t been the case, Galatea would have dragged Tim — and the others — back to Regina. Galatea was pleased at the sign her friend trusted her, at least.

She still had to occasionally fight the urge to be a little too solicitous and obedient to Regina. At least she assumed so. Being devoted to your friends wasn’t a bad thing, surely, and what’s worse, Galatea didn’t exactly have much experience with healthy friendships. The closest was Leian — who she probably should have considered a friend from the start, and she was chagrined she’d been an idiot about it — but the situation was different.

Either way, she did like Tim.

“How are things going with the gnomes?” she asked, shelving those thoughts.

Regina quickly caught her up on the negotiations, which were apparently proceeding today but not making any real progress. She didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic, certainly.

“I don’t think I have much insight to offer you on that front,” Galatea told her. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“I wish it was that simple.”

Galatea thought for a moment. “Well, your ultimate strategy relies on them being disunited, right? Did you see any fracture lines in the group? Who they sent to negotiate?”

“I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that,” Regina muttered. She tugged on her mandible, which usually meant she was nervous but sometimes just thinking. “They definitely don’t all agree on everything, even if they try to show a united front. I’m pretty sure the military guys they’ve sent are the most reasonable, actually.”

Galatea had to smile at that. It probably wasn’t a surprise considering the situation. “Are they?”

“And maybe unhappy with their civilian leadership, but considering how they’ve waged the war and everything else, that’s understandable. Military officers are always complaining about civvies, right?”

“From what I’ve seen, yes.” Galatea agreed. “How about our side? Are your commanders being good? Or your new appointments?”

Regina chuckled. “Well, it’s not like I ever had that problem with the Hive. And actually, the Delvers are surprisingly similar in a sense. Their ‘civilian’ and ‘military’ parts, such as they are, are pretty closely linked, after all. And I guess the Nerlian and Cernlian commanders are all nobles, so there’s that.”

“Who would have thought the feudal system might have some advantages?” Galatea deadpanned.

Regina laughed. She could tell it was a genuine reaction, but there was still a flicker in her eyes.

Galatea didn’t comment on it. She supposed Regina had been dealing with (or pushing off) a bit of an identity crisis for a while now. Or more than one, but the whole Hivekind vs. human thing was old and worn by now. Either way, Galatea was determined not to barge in unless Regina actually asked for her help or opinion.

“If and when I get back, I’ll tell you so you can write a return letter,” she said, redirecting the conversation back to the original topic.

Regina nodded. “Thanks. I suppose I should tell some people about Tim’s letter.”

She’d clearly already shared it with the Hive. Galatea nodded, then quickly said her goodbyes and turned to go.

She headed back to her laboratory. During her trip, she had had a few ideas she wanted to start implementing. Besides, she should probably check in on June, she supposed. Since their joint training started, she’d arguably taken on June as something of a second mentor/apprentice dynamic alongside Regina.

Some people, she knew, would question that Regina had ever taken June as an official mage apprentice at all, given how new she herself was to magic, in chronological terms if nothing else. They had a point, she’d admit, but she would also admit to calling Regina arrogant at least in the privacy of her own mind. It wasn’t undeserved, and if anyone could, Galatea understood the feeling of being alone in a world that was in many ways much more backward than the one whose knowledge you carried.

Many of the issues she saw in Regina were probably ones she herself had to deal with. She preferred not to think about her own identity too closely, for starters.

Once she reached the door to her quarters, Galatea shook off those thoughts and instead turned to the nearest workbench.

Today, she was not going to work on tools of war. There were enough people concerned with those. Instead, she was more interested in playing around with Conjuration magic for more academic or beneficial pursuits. A major issue with such tests was always safety precautions, she didn’t want to accidentally create some poisonous, explosive or radioactive substance. But she’d had an idea for a vacuum chamber with a contained internal testing space that should do fine. Maybe with it, she could finally play around a bit more with gases.

And maybe test whether gamma radiation would actually hurt her. Carefully, of course. On second thought, it was probably better to search for a new location for that.

Until then, she would focus on silicates and maybe make some progress toward solar cells like she’d been hoping for.