How long can a human laugh? That question was asked by one of the spirits within the hive as they were waiting for The Grand to stop laughing. Well, laughing and screaming. The Grand kept ranting about him being the best, the greatest, the grandest, the most hardworking blah blah blah…most of the spirits within the hive stopped listening after awhile.

Only after The Grand finally stopped did the humans proceeded to enter the second floor.

The Grand held back as other humans went down first. There, they were shocked and delighted by the blue lights of the tunnels. Several of the mages even held up several of the Light Blue Worms and openly marvelled at the creatures. Some of them even put the worms in bottles, clearly intending to keep them.

As usual, some of the spirits within the hive were unhappy about the potential theft but one of the spirits within the hive then said that the hive should take this as just another example of their genius; the human mages were so poor they had no choice but to steal from them!  Once they heard this, the other spirits within the hive decided they didn’t really mind the theft so much.

What they did mind was how easily the humans got through the second floor!

After the disaster on the first floor, hunters were now in the lead. They checked the ground for traps and successfully got the human through the long tunnel without incident. This greatly irritated the hive as they had no chance to blow up more of the humans. Worse was the fact that the second floor was a long straight tunnel to the Floor Boss so there was also no room for the hive to order their creatures to ambush the humans. This greatly bothered the hive and several of the spirits said that they need to change the structure of the second floor. That’s for later though; right now the hive was more interested in how the humans would handle Smoky. 

Taking lessons from the mistake they made with You-Who-Are-Not-Bear, this time the humans only sent in a group of 10 into the room. The Air spirit controlling Smoky decided to use Mana and the blue elemental beast spirit appeared out of mid-air in front of the group of humans. Once they spotted the beast spirit forming, the humans immediately got into their standard formation. Warriors in front, hunters behind and mages at the rear. By now, this standard formation of the humans held no surprise to the spirits of the hive. Neither did their actions.  

The human mages immediately attacked using long ranged spells that Smoky avoided the spells by landing on the ground. This prompted the warriors to attack covered by the arrows of the hunters. However the Air spirit controlling Smoky had been expecting this and immediately loosened control of the spirit beast’s body. The arrows flew right through Smoky without damage and the spirit beast reformed just as the warriors reached it.

The battle that followed was of the same pattern. Smoky evading the humans’ attacks while the humans used magic to force the spirit beast to engage them in battle. To the spirits within the hive, it was a play which both parties knew exactly what the other party was going to do. This prompted one of the spirits to again comment that they need to change things around more often as the humans were getting too used to the tunnels. It was boring.

Most of the spirits within the hive agreed and they immediately went a discussion/argument about how they would change the whole of the second floor once they killed off all the humans. The Earth spirits firmly refused to close off the sole tunnel but after some persuasion and many insults, mostly involving how struck in the mud they were, the Earth spirits agreed to dig several side tunnels into the main tunnel of the second floor.

As the discussion/argument was being held, the fight between the group of humans and Smoky ended when one of the hunters fired an arrow at the spirit beast that branched into four other arrows in mid-flight. The five magic arrows then all converged back to hit the spirit beast at one spot and the damage was too much for the Air spirit to maintain control. To the hive, it looked like a hunter skill that was a variation of what they had seemed before and several of the spirits within the hive noted the hunter that shot the arrow. They want to kill and absorb him.

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Victory cost the humans just 3 of their group and the remaining 7 members of the group went down to the third floor. There the humans stopped in the first room looking at the 3 tunnels in front of them. Unlike the second floor, the third floor was not filled with blue light but was dark, lit only by some torches that were made and placed by the Fire Hive. The humans were discussing on which tunnel to take when one of them, maybe the boss of the group, ordered them to setup a base in the first room and wait for reinforcements.

This was something new to the hive. The humans that came before never done this but as other humans came down to the third floor, the tactic began to make sense to the hive. The 7 humans who came down to the third floor setup a perimeter in the first room to defend against any attack so that the other humans could come down to the floor in safety. The hive had to grudgingly admit that it was a very good idea.

Then the humans did something new again. Some of the mages took out some small cages that were in their possessions and opened them. Each of the cages held a small creature that flew out of the cages and using some sort of silent command, the mages ordered the creatures to go deeper into the third floor. The spirits within the hive were immediately interested in these flying creatures and focused on one of them. The flying creature was a small flying creature with small wings. The hive immediately understood these flying creatures were made, most probably by the human mages but…they were terrible!

Using the energy around the creature, the hive guessed that the creature was made by the mages by blending human spirits with some sort of insect but the creature was very badly made. If you asked the spirits, none of the spirits within the hive could tell you how they knew this but their instinct told them something about the small creature was just…wrong. The creature’s face was gaunt, its arms and legs were bony, and its wings looked like something forcefully attached on its body. It looked like it was dying!

Then the first of the flying creatures went into a room where a group of werewolves and Ratlings were lying in wait. The group made quick work of the flying creature which the hive noticed had no fighting ability whatsoever! One of the spirits within the hive noticed that one of the human mages immediately noticed the death of his flying creature and he informed his comrades in a passionless voice of that fact. The hive understood these flying creatures were purely scouts sent into the tunnels to die. The hive decided it was time to discuss the matter with the Fire Hive.

*Hey genius! Genius! You guys there?*

*…*

*Geniuses…calling the Fire Hive geniuses…you guys there?*

*…yes we’re here. What happened? Why are you guys suddenly calling us geniuses?*

*Oh! It’s what the humans are calling us! You Fire id…geniuses didn’t hear what The Grand said on the second floor?*

*No, what did he say?*

*He called us ‘genius among genius’ for making all these great creatures!*

*…well considering what the flying creatures the humans made looked like, our creatures are just superior but I thought we were idiots who didn’t know what we were doing?*

*Hey, you Fire guys rather be geniuses or idiots?*

*…*

*Well?*

*…we are geniuses!*

*We are super geniuses!*

*We are geniuses on a level that the stupid human can’t even comprehend!*

*So go do something to prove it to these humans!*

*That’s right! Uh…what you want us to do?*

*…how do we know? The whole floor is yours. Do something that…*

Then the hive noticed that one of the flying creatures had flew into the room of the Fire Hive. The sickly looking creature had somehow found the room as intended by its human master. Just as the hive was going to tell the Fire Hive to blow the creature apart, the creature’s sad face turned into one of surprise. The hive was wondering what happened when the creature then began to change. The wings of the flying creature suddenly turned red! Its hair became silky and the creature’s body suddenly filled up, looking like it was filled with vitality. The hive didn’t know what happened but they knew who to ask.

*Fire Hive, what happened? You guys did this? What you did to this creature?*

*It’s called a fairy.*

“A fairy? How you guys know that and what did you Fire morons do?*

*Oh, we are morons again…we thought we were all geniuses!*

*Oh stop being coy! What in the name of the 99 Gods did you guys do?*

*We offered the fairy a better deal.*

*A better deal?*

*Yeah! We were right that the fairies were made by the humans but they were even more clueless than we thought. It seems the fairies need a constant source of energy from their creators to exist and even then, they don’t live long. A few weeks at best according to this fairy.*

*So you guys what? Stole the fairy from the humans?*

*In a way; yes!*

*Yes?*

*They had been stealing from us so often, why not do the same to them? Besides, the fairy seems more than happy with our deal.*

*It AGREED to be stolen?*

*Oh yes, it was more than happy to betray its master. Why not when we could give it a constant source of energy and we even promised to change its’ body for the better.*

*Change…uh, could you Fire guys really do that?*

*Not really sure but it shouldn’t be a problem. We already absorbed one of the fairies so we should be able to do it. We’re pretty sure we can’t do any worse than the humans…we are even contacting the other fairies flying around now offering to…steal them.*

*The fairy killed by the werewolves and Ralings just now…but what good would they be? The fairies looked kind of weak.*

*Oh please, we are geniuses! We have an idea…*

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