Chapter 58: Green Bear

For the ones that come after me and by either accident, fate or even luck find these entries, please keep them safe. Learn the lessons I have learned, not through practice but through the study of my findings.

If you have read my notes on my previous experiments, you likely have noticed a trend in the ones with greater potential. Namely, power comes at a cost. This implies the currency many use and the land sacrificed if any of the more catastrophic weapons I have made are used in practice.

I hope you are more cunning than me. A truly intelligent dryad or forest dweller does not create the means to destroy themselves. Yet I am willing to give much up for my victory. How foolish will my friends deem me, if they read this? I do wonder what they will say. That I am a fool? Careless even?

They will not see these entries, I hope. For they’ll finally notice the true monster that hides beneath the moss and the secrets hidden among my roots.

Experiment 154B: Corrosive magic.

By applying several mixes of spores, see the details below, in various combinations, I have stumbled upon many strange interactions. The intensifying of magics has been labelled in experiments 12 through 31. Most who are knowledgeable in the arts know of this phenomenon.

What is less known, is that magic can shift in a multitude of ways. Some combinations of spores and applications of mana can cause strange types of magic to form. Often, these types are highly unstable and need to be stored in stable spaces, lest they degrade and forcibly reach an equilibrium with the world around them.

Corrosive magic is one of those stranger types. It seems to hang somewhere between the simpler magics and the truly complex ones. While trace amounts have been documented by me (see the attached notes) I hypothesise it can be found more commonly in highly magical regions. I have derived it from intensifying decay magic, death magic and adding a sliver of malignance I once bought from an acquaintance.

The combination of all three has resulted in something that hates the world. It lashes out at anything, the small threads of magic visibly peeling apart the living and the non-living. Strangely, it seems that the sliver of malignance has also made the magic gravitate towards anything organic.

It is the perfect remedy to eliminate large swaths of enemies. But as I said earlier, there is always a cost. This test certainly was expensive and barely fit in my budget, however, the cost of land is far greater. Unless the corrosive magic is actively disposed of, at the rate of disintegration and the natural flow of magic, it might take years for the affected area to grow hospitable again. Perhaps the Xir might be able to live in the affected areas, then again, the less know I possess these weapons, the better.

Experiment 154C: Consume magic.

I fear this magic. It eats and eats, and it grows and grows. Where the corrosive magic (154B) expedited the natural cycle, deconstructing the complex into the simple, Consume magic is different.

The decay and death magic has been overpowered by the malignance. I have underestimated her strength. And I do not dare to spell out her name for you, my reader. I do not want her to find these notes and weaponize them.

The consume magic is the magical equivalent of a hungering hive species. It grows like destabilized cells. Only through pure magical force, accelerating the particles themselves until they have enough power to break up chains and currents, it can be ended.

Notation added after further experimentation -

It is too strong for me to control. I do not dare use it. Not anymore. I do not want to be the next Segria. I will give up for my victory but I will not become the monster I set out to slay.

Written by, dryad, Sairal, (E).

***

Sairal and I continue to stare down at the knockoff version of Winnie the Pooh. The bear mutters to himself again while we both consider what to do with the forest dweller waiting for a reply.

“So,” I say, drawing out the words, “Should we let him in?” I turn to the dryad who has gone stiff like a board, eyes wide as he looks down at the new being in front of him. Curiosity is plastered on his face while he almost leans over the battlements, studying the creature.

At my words, he jerks back, stands up straight, and schools his face into the neutral mask he often wears. “That would be the right course of action.” The dryad looks at the forest dweller again, clearly noting the size of the being.

Even from this distance, it is apparent that the creature is small, likely not reaching beyond the dryad’s knees in height.

“He might need some help getting up the battlements,” Sairal quietly adds.

I nod, “Yeah. Oh, right, don’t we need to build a gate or something like that? A proper base of operations has one.”

At this, the dryad shakes his head. “Gates are a structural weak point. I won’t have those. Ladders are better,” He hisses the reply, the forest dweller forgotten for a minute.

I ignore the remark and jump off the walls, eager to meet the new being. Who knows, he might even join our camp. It brings a broad grin to my face, imagine how that will work out. Hanging out with Cobalt, Sairal and the mushroom guardians is fine and all, though, eventually you tend to crave more company. There are only so many games of rock paper and scissors you can play with the gentle giants.

Sairal lands gracefully on the ground behind me and we make our way towards the being. However, as the forest bear backs up, almost slipping on the mud, we realise our mistake.

The forest dweller is, to say the least, skittish at our approach. His hands frantically streak through his unkempt fur as he wearily watches us approach.

Sairal puts on his best smile and bows to the being, “Greetings forest friend.”

The greeting does the trick and the bear stops combing his fur in distress and slowly bows while keeping his eyes on us, “Thank you, forest keeper.”

“Safety is abundant behind the walls, do you need to rest under my canopy?” Sairal offers.

It is strange seeing him in this light. As far as I can remember, he never said these customs to me. Then again, I was a (I) grade mandrake and a suspected second-lifer.

I inspect the forest dweller while Sairal continues to calm the creature by using more formalities.

[Green Bear] lvl 11/40 (F)

I didn’t see that one coming from his appearance. Higher grades tend to be more sizable.

“...what is your name, forest friend?” Sairal says while giving me a jab to the stomach, drawing me back to the conversation.

The bear, mostly calmed down, answers, “Zillindial.”

Sairal continues to coax the Green Bear into the bastion, offering food, water, and whatever the dryad can come up with. From a human’s perspective, it’s shady and I wouldn’t be surprised if back home, the innocent forest dweller would get pulled into the first and best white van.

I move to the walls and make the thorns that line the outer wall part to either side, creating a narrow line Zillindial can use to climb over the wall. And right as he prepares to, Cobalt arrives on the scene as she rounds the walls on one of her usual circuits to exterminate any Cave crawler the guardians might’ve missed.

The cold winds that perpetually blow around her, make Zillindial's head snap in her direction. He lowers to the ground, stretching his hands out and revealing sharp claws that have been hiding in his fur.

Cobalt, still not noticing the Green bear that has blended in with the wall makes a beeline for us. In her left hand, she holds the head of a Cave crawler, slowly crushing the carapace as she squeezes her hand shut.

“Insect,” Zillindial whispers under his breath. His green fur stands on edge as he leaps out of the wall’s shadow at Cobalt.

“Don’t!” I yell, after him.

The Green Bear ignores me and lunges at Cobalt, his claws rending over her carapace. The blow doesn’t draw blood. However, it draws something far worse: Cobalt’s anger.

***

An hour and three conversations later, Zillindial is finally willing to climb up the walls, now believing that we aren’t consorting with the Cave crawlers or something along those lines.

Cobalt still has her arms folded over each other, her antenna twitching in anger. As far as insults go, calling her a Cave crawler is on the top of her list, followed by forest murderer and a dozen of other curses hurled her way while I was forced to restrain the suddenly irate forest dweller.

Luckily, Zillindial was reasonable enough to listen to Sairal whom he seems to hold in some regard. So, an entire hour later, Zillindial dares the ladder I made for him, letting out small gasps of air and hisses as he pulls himself up the wall.

When he reaches the top, I follow behind him, pulling the thorns back in their rightful place. Sairal and Cobalt don’t deign to use the ladders, favouring using their Agility and leaping straight up from the ground, only to find Zillindial sagged on the battlements, looking at the land beyond.

As if mystified that this all still exists; a piece of forest mostly untouched, he begins to mutter to himself again, ignoring our presence for the moment. This close to him, the scent of sweat and dried blood that cling to his fur make themselves known to me. Under the fur on his face, his skin is almost ashen.

His eyes have difficulty focusing, the pupils rimmed by a mix of teal and spring green almost entirely swallowing the band of colour around them. The forest dweller draws in slow steady breaths. “The grass isn’t all gone,” he says in a tone devoid of emotion.

Zillindial climbs down the walls with clear effort and sits down on the grass, his hands patting it as if it all might be a grand work of illusion magic. He stares out at the groups of mushroom guardians, Sairal’s tree in the distance, and the silent lake in the middle of the bastion.

Slowly he curls in on himself, pulling his knees to his chest and begins to sob.

***

Sairal, in his role as a dryad, is the first to sit next to the forest dweller. For a long time, he sits there calmly, watching the walls and his tree while Zillindial cries. The tears run into his green fur as his body convulses each time a particularly painful sob presses itself through his throat.

I take place on the other side of Zillindial, already dreading the story that will be dredged out of him by the dryad. It is inevitable, the information precious, even if stained in tears.

However, where some things are inevitable, others can wait.

I lay down on the grass for just a moment, watching the blue sky while coming up to say anything comforting. Stupidly so, I can’t find the words to comfort him. What do you say to someone who might’ve lost everything? That it will be okay? Do you tell them lies to comfort or the truth to peel the bandage right off?

Sairal broaches the subject differently. Asking him where he grew up, pulling those happy memories to the surface, even if quickly drowned by sadness.

***

Zillindial’s story is painful as anyone might expect. Where he used to be a simple forest dweller, tending to his grove of flowers, growing pleasant blooms and joys of spring, things changed the day the event was announced.

Where others frantically fled deeper into the forest, he was hesitant to leave his home behind. Who would care for the flowers if everyone was gone? Who would water the trees if the dryads had left?

And so he stayed with a few others, taking care of the forest while it grew more desolate as the days dragged on. Without any dryads to relay information, news of the war was sparse. He didn’t know about the danger growing beneath their feet, slowly climbing out of the Depths. Neither did he know anything about the humans gathering at the border, planning their invasions to break the outskirts before chasing after the fleeing dryads and forest dwellers who went deeper into the forest.

And so, every change came as a new surprise to Zillindial. First, it was the Cave crawlers that suddenly streamed out of a hole that opened up in his garden, tearing through the flowers he kept and loved, eating through his life’s work and taking it back underground to present to their queens.

He fought back, using his flowers as weapons to wield, warding them off with the other forest dwellers and the single dryad that decided to not give up his own home. But as anyone knows by now, the Cave crawlers can’t be beaten back.

Even with newly gained levels and stronger skills, he was outmatched. His garden was eaten, the trees consumed, first of leaves, then bark and finally the wood itself. The dryad fell, the Cave crawlers were drawn to his heart like a beacon, and soon the walls were closing in.

Now, having lost everything he wanted to stay for, Zillindial and the rest of the forest dwellers pushed to enter one of the cities deeper into the forest. Overflowing as they were with refugees, it was better than staying in the outskirts.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Surrounded by the Cave crawlers, it was a risk. One he had to take. There simply wasn’t anything to do, in the outskirts. And when the Cave crawlers turned their attention to the grass beneath their feet with most of the trees gone, he was forced to make a decision. One he would later come to regret.

***

He and the rest of the forest dwellers didn’t have the strength to push past the growing camps of Cave crawlers. And when special ones began to appear in greater numbers, they were even pushed back; slowly surrounded from all sides, unable to set flower gardens for defence, lest they be eaten. The skills he relied on his entire life, suddenly didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Then came the plan to leave the forest altogether, setting out for the vast oceans of grass that served as the border between Zulis and Luxia. Loss made way for hope. The idea of starting something new in the grasslands became just more than that. It became a plan.

In the grassland, they could plant new trees, and he could set up a new garden of flowers and find a new home. Without dryads, it would be hard, but the war they were forced to participate in had made them stronger, if not in skills than in temperament.

One day, the remaining forest dwellers stopped pushing back against the Cave crawlers and left the forest altogether, one large party of forest dwellers, most of them (H) or low (G) grade. None of them combatants.

Pushing through the tide of insects, their carapaces blending in with the ground that was quickly becoming nothing more than mud and the spare root of a tree, they met with another obstacle.

A single party of humans, six in number, found them wandering; a blotch of colour green and yellow the bright coats of fur or the scintillating scales the forest dwellers had for skin too noticeable in this changed world.

The monsters donned in golden armour drew their swords and slaughtered them. He remembered them commenting on each kill and the exact number of event points gained. Pitiful as these beasts are, I had hoped that they at least gave some decent points, one soldier said.

The woman with the bow shrugged and pointed at one of Zillindial’s friends. The venom sacks in that one’s body are worth some gold, she said.

He evaded them, the group of soldiers distracted by the forest dwellers who were deemed to be valuable in one way or another. And even with the bodies of his friends getting hacked apart as he fled, more than half didn’t survive the encounter.

Pressed between the Cave crawlers and the now advancing parties of humans, his hopes fully shattered. No more flowers would be grown, no more trees erected. The forest had died.

However, a single tree stood on the land freed from the forest that once flourished upon it. Something that had likely been there for decades, suddenly special; a simple tree with a connection to someone who was the antithesis of simple.

The Grove mother, in her kindness, hadn’t pulled back from the outskirts yet. The tree that served as an extension of herself still stood proud. A single tree, undefeated by the Cave crawlers. The roots fiercely fighting back and harbouring all life from the forest under its canopy.

It was a safe place, but not without problems. Food under the tree was not abundant, the space not enough to sustain the hundreds of forest dwellers that all ended up under her canopy. She kept them safe and protected. Not fed.

Well meant by the Queen of the forest but they hungered. The ones who were able to digest meat ate the bodies of the Cave crawlers, barely holding the green meat down as their stomachs protested. The ones that couldn’t digest the insect flesh gradually faded away.

It was painful. Seeing the forest dwellers he lived next to for years starve. Even now, Zillindial’s heart ached for Merska, one of his neighbours who took delight in his garden. Her burrow was nestled in the hill it grew on. There, in the darkness, she cultivated special mosses she fed herself on. Or Sephonea, who loved to sleep on the bench in his garden, sneakily snacking on the most vibrant flowers.

She had cried, whispering how she wanted to lay on that bench right now, watching him hard at work with one eye open while she drifted in and out of sleep. Sephonea had told him that she’d close her eyes for just a few minutes. She was so tired, so hungry.

She didn’t open her eyes again.

***

The days passed. Hope fell away once more. It wasn’t the first time it happened. Forest dwellers were resistant and able to adapt as the forest demanded it. However, here they faltered. First the Cave crawlers, then the humans, and finally the starvation of some.

He watched the Cave crawlers swarm around the tree, chittering angrily, their quarry in sight yet unable to be reached. The roots kept them away. Zillindial began counting the ones too careless. One step too close to the tree and the roots lashed out.

When there were enough of the careless ones, or when one of the Elites wasn’t nearby, they stormed the tree. The roots whipped through the air, cutting through the Cave crawlers as if they weren’t even there.

Each time Zillindial thought it’d be the last. And a part of him slowly hoped that it was. He had fought, stood his ground, and lost. Now in the tree’s shade, with no more friends remaining, he wanted it to be his time. Quick and fast, he wished, not like the ones who had starved. Please not like that.

***

Sometime later, long after the last forest dweller sought shelter under the Grove Mother’s canopy, the humans came to end it all. They had butchered his friends, peeling the skin of their bodies, saying it would make for a lovely coat.

And now they wanted more.

They stood there, a gap in the sea of roving Cave crawlers, axe in hand, hungering to chop down the final tree once and for all. Behind them, faintly aware in their dim minds, the Cave crawlers waited for their chance.

The human with the flaming beard swung with his axe against the tree.

The Queen of the forest rebelled against the vicious monsters. The roots fought against them, spearing through golden armour and parrying blades flung her way. But with the Queen’s power spread thin due to the war, the tree fell. The canopy that sheltered them gave way to the scorching sun. The cage they willingly fled into broke and the monsters pushed themselves through the bars.

There were the humans. Their magic bolts obliterating the forest dwellers as they laughed at them. Some made it past, dodging swords and the tips of spears, only to fall upon the barbed mandibles of the Cave crawlers.

Zillindial wrenched himself through the gaps made by one of the larger forest dwellers. He had to get out, he had to run.

Something pulled on his fur. Something pressed into his skin.

Zillindial ran past the humans and slid under the Cave crawlers. His smaller size for once in his life an advantage. His legs burned with pain as his Stamina counted ever closer to zero. Afraid when night arrived, he covered himself with mud, praying it to be enough to fool the glowing monsters and the hunting parties of the insects.

More time passed in a blur, his mind barely keeping up until he found a growing speck of green on the horizon, obscured by mounds of uneven dirt and the bodies of the roving Cave crawlers.

He blinked and time passed, his body ached more and he stood in front of high walls made entirely out of coiling vines.

A dryad and a curious mandrake peeked over the walls and offered him safety.

***

Green Bear rested on the ground, his entire body drained of energy after recounting the story step by step, elaborating on certain points when Sairal enquired.

Halfway through, Cobalt stalked off, vanishing beyond the walls.

Mushroom guardians crowd around the bear, sitting next to him in silence, guarding over him, their fists raised in distress. Since Zillindial shares much of his natural affinity with some of the guardians and a particular skill that he might have, the mushroom guardians can sense his emotions faintly.

As a dryad, Sairal seems to share the same fate, his face hateful, lips twisted in a snarl, eyebrows tied together. The air around him smells like deep forest loam, the march of decay and the eventual breakdown of anything organic. Where it used to smell like the forest back on Earth after heavy rainfall, it now is the advent of death. As if you stood amidst the trees at night, certain that something loomed behind one of them, watching.

I turn back to the Green Bear, lying on his side, still folded in on himself. On his back there are large patches of fur missing, some fallen out thanks to stress or a diet solely consisting of insect meat. Other as if freely pulled from his skin. In those spots, there are painful bruises of black that bleed into purple, fading into yellow and sickly green at the edges.

Close to his neck, barely visible, his skin has been separated by a sword slash. It’s a ravine in his skin, filled with bubbling lava that forms a painful and infected scab. Looking at it makes my neck ache, and think how close he might’ve been to getting his head chopped off.

Sairal stands up from the grass, dusts himself off and heads to the walls. I trail behind him silently, climbing up the battlements after him and watch Cobalt. She is a good distance removed from the walls, facing off against a group of Cave crawlers led by an Elite.

Even from this distance, I can see her mandibles spread wide in a silent scream, her movements flowing, yet careless. The refined way she fights is replaced by a new tactic; bringing as much pain to the Cave crawlers as she can.

She pulls on the Cave crawler’s antennae, slowly tearing them off the monster’s head.

“I have failed,” Sairal says next to me. His eyes are clear, sharp even, unhindered by the tears that flow from his eyes over his cheeks.

I almost stumble away from him, never having expected that. Sometimes he's annoyed or angry. Rarely, he even shows his sadness. But never like this. “I can sense it, you know?” he says sniffing while dabbing at his own eyes with curiosity, “We are the forest keepers. We tend to the forest, keep the balance and listen to the trees when they speak to us. We can all hear it. And if we listen closely, we hear even more,” he pulls out a handkerchief and wipes at his eyes.

“I thought it was the magic, something else maybe. The Depths, the humans, anything,” he looks out at the landscape, that single tree is now gone. He doubles over, leaning on the wall and begins to cough. The sound grows louder, evolving into painful retching. “I-I heard their hunger. I listened to them starve. They were right in front of me Green. Right in front of me and I didn’t notice!” The dryad pushes himself off the walls, unsteady on his feet.

Sairal cleans his face while the tears continue to bleed out of his eyes. He touches them as if they melt his fingers. “These aren’t mine. They’re his,” he says looking at Zillindial.

I burn from the inside, the molten fire in me stirring, simmering. Everything for Strength. Everything for power. Not even three hours earlier I learned about the acts alchemists willingly commit to create elixirs. From torturing flowers to literally breaking a bee, snapping off wings and legs, forcing the creature to ingest one thing and regurgitate it as the other as if the creature is nothing more than some machine.

How can everyone be so cruel?

Sairal looks lost, the tears flowing freely from his eyes. His fingers dip into his pocket space at his side as if wondering if he should pull something out.

“Do it,” I say. My head is light, the image of hundreds of forest dwellers caged under a single tree replaying in my mind. It flicks to a flower garden, getting torn apart by the Cave crawlers, and finally to the human that wielded the axe once and for all.

I see him in my imagination. The description Zillindial gave almost perfect, the tiny gaps filled in by my mind. How the armour must’ve shone in the sunlight, reflecting fake glory and dishonest pride.

Are we real to them? Facing down starved beings, weaker than them, with no tools at their disposal.

We aren’t, are we? Monsters in their eyes, no matter what we do, no matter if we bestow mercy or not. We’ll always be the monster, the witch in the fairy tale, the hurdle that needs to be overcome by the hero, the food on the plate or the ingredient for the potion.

The rage slowly overtakes me. Things in my body break as if thin bindweed strands that keep me together are snapping together. It’s the same, I hear the voice whisper. Exactly the same as in the Bazaar, sitting before that woman. That General.

“Do it,” I repeat, my voice feeling solid. Mandrake Scream makes the words haunting. Even if I wanted to stop it, I can’t anymore. “End it.”

In my mind, I already see the end of the road and the cliff beyond, growing closer as I tell the dryad to take action. With my hands on the wheel, I’m steering us straight towards damnation.

Sairal wipes the tears away once more and nods. He pulls out a vial with faint red spores, barely a gram of the stuff in a bottle that even the tip of my pinky won’t fit into. “Green,” he says after a moment.

His foot presses down on the gas, and we speed up, ever getting closer to that veritable cliff.

“I’ve decided on something. This place, it shouldn’t be only for us. So be it if we draw more attention. I will not stand by when others die. This can’t happen again.”

His free hand clenches into a fist, “A dryad in disgrace I might be, yet it is a dryad’s duty to care for the forest and her dwellers.”

He removes the cork from the vial and immediately the spores begin to glow with angry light as they react with the air. He dusts them onto the tip of an ordinary arrow and pulls out his bow from his Spatial pocket. Slowly, as if waiting for me to stop him, he readies the arrow and pulls the string to his chest.

The spores on the arrow burn, rapidly destabilizing and ticking down like the clock on a bomb. Mana leaks off the tip. Even without any of the stats unlocked, I can sense the sheer force as it ripples like electricity through the air, humming with raw, untapped power.

The abyss approaches and the road soon ends, my hands on the wheel and my foot finding the brakes. I can still stop it, I remind myself. If I just say the words, it’ll end. Zillindial fills my head, the scars he will have, how he couldn’t stop crying as he told us everything. It’s enough to blotch out reason and logic.

My foot leaves the brakes and I look up at the abyss ahead of us. “Do it,” I say for the third and final time.

The dryad pulls certainty from my words and says one more thing before loosing the arrow. “No more monsters in Luxia.” His fingers slip off the arow and we fall into the abyss. A choice is made and can’t be taken back.

The arrow lazily drifts through the air, as if only an afterthought or a cloud in the sky. A quarter of the way there, it begins to smoke, the spores minutes away from exploding.

On the muddy plains, Cobalt takes notice and abandons her fight, sprinting towards the walls to avoid the incoming fallout.

Halfway there, the projectile ignites in red and orange, the arrow burning up to form a ball of destructive magic greater than a Grand Fireball.

Cobalt jumps up the walls and takes place next to me, watching the orb that has moved from orange and red into bright pink.

I’m ready for the reprimand from her, willing to take the lashing of words. I could’ve stopped this.

But Cobalt doesn’t say anything of that kind. Instead, she nods as the projectile falls like the meteorite that ended the dinosaurs. “Let them burn. First the Cave crawlers, then the Humans.”

I feel her attention on me, likely a worry that I still hold my former species in some regard, though that is all gone. Time and time again they have disappointed me, not only because I am a monster now but also among themselves. Playing with soldiers’ lives as if it is less.

They never offered us mercy. Why should we give it to them? Let the armies break on our walls, and their families weep at their deaths. They chose this. It was never us.

I absentmindedly nod at her. “No more monsters in Luxia,” I echo Sairal’s words again.

The arrow-turned-nuke arrives in its last phase, seemingly hanging above the world and observing its enemy while it grows into something even grander. The power there is greater than the (D) grades I saw fighting once, deadlier than an entire army, all at the fingertips of a single dryad.

The weapon of mass destruction, because how else should it be named, lands in the middle of the grotesque bulbs that are filled to the brim with insects. For the first seconds, there isn’t anything to behold as if the arrow failed to bring doom. And finally, like an afterthought, a realisation that there should be something, the plume of soot and ash, sprouts from the world itself.

In the rising, billowing black hints of pink and orange echo, dancing in the sky behind the veil of smoke. Hiding the calamity that falls upon them. It continues to grow upwards, seemingly endless. The mushroom cloud, the aftermath for all to see.

The hives on the ground are eradicated by the heat that ripples outwards. The pearlescent material they use for the walls browns like paper in a hearth. It all scatters to the blasts of wind that ripple in the explosion's wake.

We watch the wall of sound visibly ripple through the air towards the bastion. It streams over us and my ears pop painfully. Next is the heat that washes over us like a warm summer breeze.

Only one faction has been punished here, the humans likely having defences set in place for angry dryads with bioweapons. But it is as it should be. A strike back, at the Cave crawlers. They will swell back to their former numbers in less than a week. However, the loss of a queen is painful. And that many of them? Maybe we finally hurt them for once.

And we’ll do it again.