Chapter Three
Many Minions
Worker Drone version 7.3
Worker Drone crested another hill and held its breath. Not because the view was stunning, which it was, but because it had been holding its breath for the last 40 minutes and wasn't about to stop now. Eight legs treaded slowly under its domed, segmented shell to keep Worker Drone moving at a sedate but steady pace along the ground as it marched towards the skeleton its Emperor had demanded. Working for Emperor Phoenix had its perks, but mostly it was hard labor all day. The last week had been spent with drones 7.1 and 7.2 as they dragged home bits of skeleton for the Emperor to absorb. Occasionally, it saw the new scout drone flying overhead in its strange way. The scout drone had been the one to locate the skeleton, not long after its first successful version had been completed. Instead of flapping its wings like the previous versions had tried to do, it held them out straight and pumped air through its massive central gills to achieve both lift and a sufficient amount of oxygen for survival. It never stayed home for long, it just perched briefly on top of the Emperor's palace bunker, made its report, and flew off again. The Emperor's thoughts had suggested that it also drank mana somehow while on the perch, but Worker Drone wasn't going to think about it. Thinking was tricky, and probably not worth the effort.
The workers reached the skeleton and began to disassemble it. Using the hard points on the end of their legs to break up the larger bones, drones 7.1 and 7.2 tore it apart slowly but efficiently. Worker Drone 7.3 used its small grasping front appendages to move the pieces into a large basket. The basket was made of some kind of thread, but wasn't properly woven. It was only shaped like a basket instead of a barrel to make it lighter. Carrying the barrel on a previous trip had been neither fun nor efficient. The Emperor had made the basket himself, so no weaving was required, and it was merged directly to a pair of poles and harnesses that would fit neatly over the backs of the drones, much like a palanquin.
A short while later, the basket was full and the skeleton slightly smaller than before. Worker drones 7.1 and 7.2 were carrying the basket back home and 7.3 was walking ahead of them looking for danger. Nothing dangerous had ben seen before, but orders from the emperor were absolute. Maybe there was danger, and the workers simply couldn't see it. Maybe it was a mental exercise. Maybe the Emperor just didn't want the workers to get bored. Only time would tell, and there would be plenty of that on the way home.
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Emperor Phoenix I
The scout drone had been a smashing success in many ways. New information about the landscape came pouring in, and the first couple versions had died quickly, allowing for new upgrades. But Emperor Phoenix could not bring himself to be happy about the current version. He had developed a kind of pattern. He wasn't committed to it, of course, but it seemed a shame to break the streak when it had been working well thus far. Each time he created a new minion, it would only partially succeed at what he had designed it to do. Sometimes it died right away, like the earliest worker drones. The body was absorbed, changes were made, and a new version would perform slightly better than the last. He had even begun a convenient, if perhaps slightly degrading, naming scheme for his minions. A minion type, followed by the version number for that type, followed by an identifying number for that particular minion of that version. The workers had been slowly dying off. Versions 1 and 2 were complete failures, dying or being killed and improved upon right away. 3 was lost to unknown causes but 4 had shown a need for greater fire resistance and larger lungs, 5 had required a slightly enlarged mind and better graspers, and 6 had needed a larger stomach to get more nutrients to sustain its new capabilities. Version 7 was yet to die off, but the emperor had already decided that the next version needed to be faster.
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This left the scout drone in an awkward spot. The current version, version 6, was terribly inefficient. It was propelling air through its gills magically. Was this effective? Yes. Affordable? Barely. Efficient? Not remotely. In fact the cost of feeding it mana had almost completely stalled progress on minion development in other areas.
The Emperor had given the scout a large brain and several important sensory organs, plus a huge set of gills that made up most of its main body. Many of the needs of a normal biological creature had been shaved to save weight, and instead the Emperor would directly create nutrients in its small stomach, and those nutrients were quickly consumed by the brain and organs. There was a set of eyes, of course. This version had them placed far apart on its underside, so it could see a panoramic view of the terrain in relative clarity, from far above. Next was an organ not unlike the human inner ear, so it could balance in flight. And the most important organ was one for sensing mana. The scout drone could see mana with a large third 'eye', reflective to light but plenty sensitive to magical forces. Unfortunately, unlike eyes, which sensed light passively, this had to be an active sensor, more like echolocation.
Mana, the Emperor had discovered, would resist being pushed upon. The more dense mana was, that is to say the more of it there was in one place or thing, the harder it resisted changes. For ambient, unowned mana, the resistance was negligible, but still there. For owned mana, which belonged to any of the minions, the resistance was immense. This meant that by manipulating the mana which was in your possession, you could easily force changes in ambient mana sources. This was much like what the Emperor had been doing in his own domain, changing the form of things and moving things around, but it was different. Everything in his own domain was his. It belonged to him. Moving and changing the earth in his domain was practically his right, as it was either made from or saturated with his mana. Mana outside his domain was a little different. It hadn't been claimed, so it was still easy to push, if only you could extend your mana to push against it. This was the key difference between the Emperor and his Minions. The Emperor, for all the power he had in his own domain, could not extend his mana beyond himself. His minions, while their domain could not extend more than an inch or two beyond their bodies, could push on the ambient mana outside themselves. They could also absorb mana like he could, but their methods were far more limited. They absorbed a tiny amount from anything they ate or from the air that they breathed, and the mana sensory organ was an experiment in other ways to interact with mana. And while using their mana, as he had discovered with scout version 5.1, their mana became weaker. When the scout pushed its mana out farther, or with more finesse, the force of its own mana seemed to decrease. Basically, the more control you exerted over mana, the weaker the effect was. But if it was just sitting there being useless, it was practically immovable.
So this was how the scout was working. It pushed out its own mana from its 'mana eye' as far as it could. By using it further away and feeling for minute details, its power over its own owned mana weakened by orders of magnitude. The ambient mana was still possible to lightly push around where it was thin, but in areas of great density it was too much to push. Anything that resisted the scout's push at a distance must therefore have a lot of mana. Or it could just be another minion.
But this wasn't the problem with the scout.
It had its mana and nutrients supplied by the Emperor, from the bounty brought back in the mana rich skeleton it had found. It flew high above any potential dangers. And with all its needs for food and safety met, it would never die, and there would be no version 7. Which meant it would never get more efficient unless Emperor Phoenix broke his pattern and changed it before it died, or if he stopped feeding it.
He was interrupted from his thoughts by the drone swooping down to clutch at the small perch set into the top of the bunker. The bunker was growing slowly with so much mana invested into minions but it would be a palace in due time. There was no rush. As he filled the scout's stomach and dwindling mana reserves, he looked into its mind and found it slightly panicked.
The workers had run into some trouble. Another creature! Twice their size and many times as fast, it had burst from hiding in a mound of loose rubble and quickly slain the lead worker with its long, sharp tusks. The other two had been far enough back to escape its wrath, but were afraid to proceed further while it still feasted on their fellow.
"Interesting. That must be powerful to break through those shells. Perhaps I can model a future minion after it. But right now it's getting in the way of my mana supply. Where did I put my last minion..."
Looking around himself, Emperor Phoenix I found his last and as of yet untested minion, the Battle Drone 1.1, hibernating in a corner.
"Let's put you to the test, shall we?