It had been a while since Regina had been to what used to be her base of operations at Forest’s Haunt, and quite a few things had changed since then. She wasn’t surprised by the changes, of course. While she hadn’t deliberately kept an eye on the settlement to watch it, she’d often connected to drones that were here and picked it up in the background.
The town had grown again, and she thought it was probably on the way to becoming a real city, though Regina wouldn’t venture a guess when it might cross that threshold, if there was one. It made sense, the town did have a strategic position. And now that her hive was here, they also didn’t have to fear monsters from the forest attacking. Their population had declined sharply.
She’d already ordered the drones to limit their hunting. And the other citizens of the Empire living in the region, too. She suspected the elves were relying on the wildlife in the forest and she didn’t want to annoy them too much.
A lot of the change that the hive’s base itself had undergone was not visible, of course. They had dug further underground, added a lot of tunnels and rooms and generally expanded its footprint. Some new buildings had joined it above ground, too, and a few older ones had been renovated. The focus of recent changes hadn’t been on defenses — it was deep enough inside the Empire that, with all due paranoia, Regina really wasn’t worried about attacks here — but instead more living space and quality of life improvements. The hive’s population kept rising steadily, after all. They needed a lot of facilities. Luckily there still wasn’t a problem managing the water; even without the small river nearby, the groundwater was comfortably high and easy enough to dig for, although that did add challenges to their digging for space. Luckily the drones were pretty good at water-proofing their structures.
Right now, though, she was walking around outside instead of in the underground parts of the base, casually strolling through the area and watching everything around her. It might be a bit of a waste of time, but she felt that letting others see her would be good, anyway. After all, their workshops, printing presses and schools didn’t just have drones but also humans present. And even drones probably liked to feel like their Hive Queen was around, she supposed. Besides, it was a nice day.
“It’s getting quite warm,” she remarked.
Most of the drones in the group she traveled with nodded. Some of the senior people currently based here had decided to join her with what she suspected were similar justifications. Not that she would begrudge them.
“Summer is definitely well on its way,” Zac agreed. “It’s good that we’ve had a proper spring so far, though. I’m hoping it won’t be too hot this year. Would be better for the crops.”
Regina glanced at the fields they were nearing and sped up a bit. Besides the base, she really also wanted to see them, even if she knew most of the hive’s cultivated land wasn’t exactly close enough to be visible and they had adjusted what they grew based on the town’s proximity. “I know,” she agreed, watching the play of the light through the stalks of wheat on one side, clearly still far from ripe for harvest.
Most of the land south of here, which they’d been originally assured in the treaty and which was still their heartland, was by now dotted with small outposts and what might have been farms for humans. They were growing a variety of crops, not limited to what would have been food crops for humans, although obviously there was still quite a lot of those, too. They had been optimized to be calorie-dense through selective breeding, after all. But others grew quicker or didn’t need as much care, which was an important factor.
Swarms of Swarm Drones that weren’t currently needed somewhere else were also spread across that land, grazing it. They would have been competing with people or their livestock in other places. Most of the hive’s Drone Producers were guided to systematically eat the vegetation prepared for them and then let their substances be collected, which were usually used as food as well as for other things. Their product was much more portable and less perishable, not to mention easier to harvest. The hive did harvest some crops themselves, though, to prepare food or occasionally for other reasons. Luckily, Swarm Drones were easily used for most agricultural work, at least under supervision.
“It’s a shame we don’t have corn,” she remarked. “From what I know, it was often used as a crop for animal feed, it definitely grew quickly.”
Zac nodded but shrugged. “We do have potatoes, and they’re also not native to this continent,” he pointed out. “I assume corn just got lost somewhere along the way after the Cataclysm.”
“Which crops are best here again?”
Zac glanced at the fields. “We’re still figuring some of that out. But we can grow the usual staples like barley, rye and wheat here, or other cereal like millet. Potatoes, like I mentioned. We have a lot of clover. Cabbages, tomatoes and lots of other vegetables. Some apples, pears and other fruits, we mostly gather berries from the forest still. I’m trying some sunflowers, but the jury’s still out on that one. And of course there are lots of weeds, from dandelions to new ones you probably don’t know.”
Regina smiled. She was aware of all that, though it was good to get a reminder. “Thanks, Zac, good answer, but I actually meant more the immediate area.”
“Oh.” He would have blushed if he could, she was sure. “Of course. Mostly traditional food crops around the village, like the wheat here. That’s the majority. And some barley on the other side. There are orchards to the southeast, mostly growing apples. Some pastures, as well, the locals mostly keep sheep and cattle.”
Regina nodded. She guessed that was where the milk came from.
“Speaking of agricultural products, do you want to try some ice cream replica?” Tia asked. She’d arrived a bit late, while Zac was talking, and was carrying a canvas bag that Regina now realized probably had some Conjured ice as well.
“Sure,” she agreed.
What Tia handed her did look a little like ice cream, although it was clearly based on a substance from Production Drones. It did have roughly the same consistency, however, and it was arranged in a thin cone of dough. Regina didn’t waste time examining every detail, though, and instead started eating.
She hummed. “Pretty good,” she judged. “It’s a pity we don’t have vanilla or chocolate, but you could try it with strawberries, that’s also a classic and sounds pretty nice.”
Tia smiled. “I’ll tell Ida. She’s the one who had the idea to make ice cream.”
“I still think we need to add more actual milk,” Zac chimed in, but he didn’t hesitate to pounce on the cone Tia handed him. She passed out the rest and kept one for herself, starting to eat it with gusto.
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Regina smiled. Eating ice cream out on a walk through their territory on a nice, sunny day with her drones, her children. It was a beautiful moment and she’d treasure it.
“What other culinary surprises have you gotten up to?” she asked after a while, absently licking a finger clean where a bit of melting not-ice cream had dripped onto it.
“Not much, but I think I’d rather show you what Jem was baking when we get back than spoil the surprise now, if that’s okay,” Tia said.
“Incentive to head back early,” Regina joked, although she was only mostly kidding.
Still, it was nice to see them carefree and pursuing hobbies like cooking. Assuming making ice cream counted as cooking, but whatever.
“Have you heard from Tim recently?” Tia asked after a short pause.
Regina raised her eyes from her cone and nodded. “Define recently, but yes. Galatea visited them again a while ago. They’ve left Veragles, the first major city, and probably the most important. Tim seemed pretty confident from what Galatea said. Apparently he’s on good terms with the local merchant prince. He really does have a talent for making friends, doesn’t he?”
The others smiled and Tia chuckled softly, shaking her head a bit. “He really does,” she agreed. “He’s just so taciturn usually people don’t realize how good he actually is with people. It was a good decision for him to be Champion, Mother.”
“I know.” Regina smiled. “Anyway, they’ve probably reached the second city on their list by now. Tim has passed along some information on dwarves and a suggestion to make contact, which I’d like to pursue if the opportunity arises. He’ll probably get to handle it himself, though. I don’t think they’ll stay as long there, they will probably have moved on by the time Galatea wants to check on them again.” She shrugged. “I’m just thankful she doesn’t seem to mind doing that.”
“Well, no offense to Galatea, but if our best mages had a teleportation Spell, maybe we could do it too,” Zac said. “Or someone like Zephyr, if not. I guess he might not be trustworthy enough, though. Still, I think Galatea likes Tim well enough, anyway, and she’s been traveling all over the place, too.”
Regina hm’d noncommittally. She wasn’t sure if she’d trust Zephyr with that, although, there wasn’t much he could really do to sabotage them that wouldn’t be discovered with scrying, probably. She didn’t think he could travel that far, at least not as easily as Galatea, though, so the question was probably moot.
They talked of some lighter topics as they continued their walk, the drones filling Regina in a bit on the daily life at the base. She was a little sad to miss it, but many drones were also in Cera with her by now. And there was always the psychic link, anyway, it wasn’t like she didn’t still talk to them even across some distance.
Regina dropped in and out of the psychic link occasionally, checking on some of the drones around them, and in particular, the Swarm Drones in the fields. And the Drone Breeders, for obvious reasons a lot of them were stationed here as well. There weren’t as many of them as she could theoretically support, of course, given the practical and logistical constraints on the number of new Swarm Drones added to the hive. And with the end of the war, there was no immediate reason to keep pushing those numbers, so Regina had actually slowed down a little in that regard. She wanted to be sure they could properly provide for all those drones and not have them suffer any deprivation or anything if she could avoid it, and to have a plan on where to deploy them all. Accordingly, the number of Drone Breeders was still relatively low, as there would be no point in spreading the Swarm Drone eggs among many but not properly letting them grow. Better to keep a few Drone Breeders active and have them rising in Levels instead. Of course, she had a few who weren’t ‘active’ as backups, too.
The relatively low number of Drone Breeders, still less than a hundred, also made it easier to gather and move the new Swarm Drones, or at least simpler. Sapient drones were assigned individually to monitor them, although it was a tedious duty and so often swapped around. Regina didn’t mind that, since she knew they still gave it their best effort.
“What are you thinking about?” Max asked quietly as she turned around again. He’d clearly waited until he’d sensed that she was returning to the present moment. “You seemed deep in thought.”
“About the Swarm Drones,” Regina shrugged.
“What about us, My Queen?” Kit asked, raising an eyebrow.
Regina gave her a quick smile, her gaze briefly going to the other sapient Swarm Drones in the group, which had grown a little. The end of the war had also meant some more of them Evolving to gain sapience, but the ones here were all older. Kit was walking beside a younger Winged Drone, now Drone Commando, Dee, who’d been part of Janis’ task force in the war. She hadn’t paid attention to what they were talking about.
“Nothing really,” Regina answered. “I was just thinking about the Drone Breeders and the sapient drones. A lot more of you are Evolving to sapience now, and given the disparity in numbers between hatched sapient Drones and Swarm Drones, that’s only going to increase.”
“Is there a problem with that?” Dee asked. “Grandmother?”
Regina just stared at her dumbly for a moment. She could hear Max and a few others laughing, at the expression on her face, the psychic link told her. She could have thought it was an innocent term, but Dee’s slight anticipation in the psychic link had also told her she’d done it on purpose.
“Don’t call me that again,” she finally said, blinking.
“But it’s what you are,” Kit chimed in helpfully, much more successful at keeping her laughter on the inside. “Not even mentioning other Swarm Drones, a lot of the new sapient ones come from the Drone Breeders. And only you can make them … Mother.”
Regina rubbed her forehead. “As far as I’m concerned, the Drone Breeders are basically extensions of me. Any of you, or all Evolved Swarm Drones I suppose, born from them are just as much my children as the rest of the people here. You can all call me Mother. Or use Queen, Empress, call me ‘Your Imperial Majesty’ if you like, just not grandmother.”
“Understood, My Queen,” Max chimed, still smirking a bit.
Regina sighed and rolled her shoulders, straightening up a bit as she turned her head to face them. “I’m serious, though. Some humans, or others, in the Empire might get weird about it otherwise. There’s not reason to let them think any of my children,” she emphasized, “are less valued or lower ranked than others.”
“Sure thing, Mother,” Dee agreed, smiling brightly.
“Let’s go back to the base,” Tia suggested, “I think I can smell cake.”
She definitely couldn’t, but it was still a good idea and Regina agreed, turning to go back to the hive’s main residential area in the company of the drones. The conversation remained lighthearted as they walked.
As it turned out, the cake was not a lie; cheesecake, specifically. Regina just took a moment to savor the look of it while she sat down with a plate and small fork in one of their communal dining halls, the others around her. “This day is the culinary highlight of my year,” she declared. Then she glanced at Tia. “How did you get quark?”
“It took a bit of doing,” she admitted, but she was smiling, clearly pleased with herself. “I made it a project with some of the village women.”
Regina nodded, then savored her next bite. She didn’t have any personal memories, but she was still sure this was authentic traditional cheesecake. She supposed the other ingredients wouldn’t have been hard to source, just butter, flour, milk, eggs, and the like. She wasn’t a baker.
Instead, she just ate her slice of cake and sipped at her buttermilk, another nice new addition. She wasn’t crazy about the taste, but Tia had added berries and it wasn’t something she got in the royal palace of Cernlia. Not that it was lacking in cake, of course.
If you’d asked her a few months ago what sign she wanted to show that her hive had really come into its own and was secure in their place, she wouldn’t have known what to say. But now, seeing her drones experimenting with new dishes, or recreating old ones, and just generally having fun with food was a balm for the soul. It drove home that they were no longer scraping along the subsistence line, like they’d been at the beginning, in a way that seeing the houses outside hadn’t.
“Maybe we should set up some kind of cooking competition,” Regina muttered.
“We were thinking about that, actually,” Tia agreed. “And, if you’re staying till tomorrow: We have a music competition planned.”
Regina smiled again, surreptitiously blinking her eyes. “That sounds wonderful,” she said. “I can’t wait to hear it.”
“You should,” Tia agreed. “Making instruments was nice.”
“We’re lucky Tia isn’t playing, though,” Kit added.
Regina laughed. This visit had been a great idea, she didn’t think she’d been laughing or smiling this much in a while.