Hi everyone, just want inform everyone there's a small update on this part of the story. I had changed the name werewolves to wolfmen. The name change to werewolves would be at a later part of the story. Thanks to Nnelg for pointing out the error.   

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“This slavery idea is exactly pretty good.”

“Yeah!” a spirit agreed. “Who could have guessed that these troublesome humans could come up with such an idea! Humans that are owned by other humans and who are directed by their ‘masters’ on where they would live and at what work they would do.”

“Sounds like a great idea! We should try that too!” another spirit immediately proposed.

In the midst of a chorus of “Yes”, approval and cheering, one group of spirits within the hive protested, “Wait a moment.”

“Yes?” several spirits asked.

“Why would we want to do that?” one of the protesting spirits asked.

“Why? What do you mean why? If we have slaves, we can control them. We can place them wherever we wanted. We can have them defend us. We can have them patrolling the tunnels killing any intruders that enter. We can…”

“Yes, and once again; why would we want to do that?”

“What?” several dumbfounded spirits asked.

“Why would we want to do any of that?” the spirit asked again. “We’re not in any danger. The last group that came in didn’t even reach us! Why would we want to waste energy doing any of this slavery thing?”

This got the hive thinking. “…you know, this guy got a point. We don’t really need to do any of this, do we?”

“Yes, we do!” a spirit argued. “Just because the last group didn’t reach us doesn’t mean the next group of humans won’t reach us? We must prepare!”

“Prepare for what?” the other spirit asked. “We don’t even know if another group of humans would come to us in the future.”

“Of course they…wait a moment; are you one of the fire spirits?”

“Uh…what does that got anything to do with this?”

“I/we knew it!” the spirit almost shouted. “You just want the humans to reach us so that you guys can show off your lizard! Okay, everyone please ignore the stupidity of the fire spirits. Let’s have a sensible discussion on the advantages of slavery.”

“Hey, we’re also a part of the hive.” The fire spirits said. “We have as much right to this discussion as you ‘sensible’ spirits of the hive.”

“Not when you guys make no sense and put us in danger!”

“What danger? We are not in danger.”

“We could be in the future, so it makes sense to prepare for it right?”

“For all your talk of sense, you don’t seem to understand two simple things.” One of the fire spirits said. “We haven’t been in danger for some time and also, every time we were, we survived.”

“So?”

“So why are we wasting energy to do something we don’t need to?” The fire spirit replied. “And even if we need to protect ourselves, why do we have to control our creations like slaves? We’re totally fine as it is now. We are safe!”

“More humans could come. We could be in danger in the future.”

“So we dig deeper. We make more levels. We make more…’Bosses’. We don’t need to turn our creatures into slaves. It’s not necessary.”

“Oh come on,” the pro-slavery spirit replied. “Remember the last human group that entered. They were killed by the wolfmen that just returned. Imagine having them in the tunnels at all times! It would be great for us. We need slavery!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“No we don’t,” the fire spirits argued. “It’s fine right now. We should let the wolfmen run free and do what they want. When we’re in danger, they would naturally come defend us on their own.”

“And what if they didn’t return in time? You fire spirits just want to show off you creature!”

“…hold on, are you one of the earth spirits?” one of the fire spirits asked.

“Uh…what does that got anything to do with this?”

“You are one of the earth spirits!” the fire spirit exclaimed. “You guys just want to control everything. Despite what you arrogant earth spirits think, you guys aren’t in control here. We are a hive. We are in this together.”

“Better to be arrogant and smart than wild and stupid!”

“I/we dare you to say that again!”

“Better to be arrogant and smart than…!”

“That’s it! We need to find a way for us to have a throw some spirits out! The arrogance of the earth spirits is just too much!”

“Trust us; we want a way to kick you useless fire idiots out too.” One of the earth spirits said. “Slavery works! We can force the creatures in the tunnels forever. The hive will be always be protected. What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong is that we will have a bunch of unhappy creatures with us who will take the first chance they get to leave us and never return! If we let them be free and happy, they will stay and protect us happily without us having to waste energy forcing them to do something they do not want to.”

…crack…

“That’s just insane! Keep them happy and ‘hope’ they will defend us? Who cares if they are happy? We can force them to do this!”

“But we don’t NEED to do that! Things are fine as they are.”

“For now, but what about the future? We need to think of that too!”

…crack…

“We are! The long term future of the hive depends on keeping our creatures happy; not forcing them to do things they don’t want to.”

“That’s…”

“Hey, hey, hey,” another spirit interrupted. “Not that this argument between Fire and Earth isn’t entertaining but any of you heard that?”   

“Hear what?”

“I/we thought there was a sound.” The spirit said. “It sounded like…”

Then the hive did hear a sound. Many sounds in fact. The hive focused on the sounds and saw that two of the wolfmen were facing each other in one of the rooms on the third floor. They were snarling and barking at each other while the other wolfmen watched. The hive fed as the tension in the room increased. Then, to the surprise of the hive, the two wolfmen leapt at each other.

There was a fight in the tunnels.

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