Mariam thought one thing as she watched the fourth village in the Barony of Omus fall to the army of the Sovereign Swarm. The Antmite General was incredibly efficient in everything he did and ordered. She and the rest of the army had passed through the land for about three weeks, conquering and enslaving everything that they came across. And in that time there had been only one thing that Mariam would classify as a battle. It had been three days before they reached the village when the forces of the local Baron had attempted to do a cavalry strike with horse archers, little did they know that every combat Unit in the Army had ranged attacks of their own.

It had been slightly less one-sided than a slaughter as the hired mercenaries rode down and unleashed a deadly rain of arrows down on the backtroop of Workers and pack animals. The response had been swift as Fungal Zombie Birds and the nearest combatants unleashed a deadly hail back on the Archers. From the Fungal Zombies they unleashed acidic spit or muck of some kind, while the Soldiers spat out some kind of hardened chitinous projectile that tore through armor like crossbow bolts. From there the Swarm Champions led the nearest Fungal Zombies into battle and slaughtered the remaining Soldiers. With one exception.

Over the course of the three weeks there had only been 10 more Subjects added to the Swarm. 4 of them were accidental or rather they were not intentional, somehow the people involved must have accepted the infection and that consent caused them to become Swarmsworn rather than being reduced to Fungal Zombies. The remaining 6 had been intentional as the people in question either intrigued the Antmite General or had something unique to bring to the Swarm. Which was why the Captain of the attacking force had been left alive to the tender ministrations of the Fungal Zombie Wasps and Ants.

Beyond that one aberration, the process of how the roaming army had handled the war targets had become a simple if effective routine. First, flying Units were sent out to inspect and surround the target, this often days before the attack force would reach the area. The scouting Fungal Zombies would take their time watching the population, note geographical details, and get a general sense of what was to be found in the area. When the army was ready the Vanguard of Soldiers and Swarm Champions would be sent to scare the village into a panic, at which point the fliers would unleash Toxic Spore Cloud.

Those who fled the village would be attended to by mosquitoes, wasps, bees, and birds. Serpents and more stealthy creatures would be sent into the buildings where people hid, and those out in the street would be handled by the Vanguard. When the population was accounted for then Mariam and the other Subjects would wander into the claimed settlement and ransack it for anything of value. When that had been handled the settlement would be razed and the Workers would begin the process of transforming everything into resources that the Swarm could use.

It was this final process of the village conversion that was being undertaken while Mariam sat with a few other Subjects at what had once been the local village guesthouse. They were all enjoying the bits of the larder and the ale that they had been allowed to take before the Workers absconded with the remainder. She had at first been utterly isolated from her fellows, but the nature of them all being Swarmsworn made it impossible to remain so for long. Therefore, Mariam had picked out the people that she could tolerate the most and settled to socialize with them.

First, it had been Bor and Lysander who had been grabbed in the second village. They had only managed to withstand the torment that the Swarm put them through for a day before they broke and accepted the conversion, and they had been chosen for a very simple reason. The two men were both Dwarves and the Swarm did not possess any Dwarves yet, so to fulfill the need that the Sovereign had for collecting beings they had become Swarmsworn rather than the alternative.

Mariam had not believed that Bor was a dwarf when she first saw him, despite what his Fragment whispered to hers. He looked so...urban in that he was smooth-shaven with glistening pale skin and an elegant if understated blonde mustache. Bor had been a traveling Scribe working for the Duke to go and help record the gains from the harvest. He had brought his companion and secret lover Lysander with him on this journey and they had been caught in the assault on the small village of Holm. Bor had explained with a pained laugh that the irony of it all was that his next destination had originally supposed to be Hor itself, so he would have been caught up in this either way.

Lysander unlike his compatriot looked exactly like what Mariam had heard dwarves were supposed to look like. He had a long but carefully kept and braided beard, he dressed in thick clothing that hid his bulging muscles. The man carried himself with the gruff demeanor and strange accent that a memory in the Swarm called a "New York" accent, which dwarves were known for. Where he didn't conform directly to the assumed stereotypes, was that while yes he was an artisan like most people thought dwarves were, his chosen crafts were painting, poetry, and pottery.

She had been disappointed by that as it would have been fulfilling an old childhood dream of hers to meet a proper dwarven Smith, and it didn't help when Lysander had explained with a laugh that smithing had largely fallen out of fashion among the dwarves.

"It is all about carpentry and musical instruments these days. When we moved out of the mountains it just became less convenient to pursue smithing and stonecutting above all else."

Lysander had explained the crestfallen Mariam before he had made her, Bor, and himself share a proper pint of ale in the ruins of the second village. Since then the three of them had traveled as a group along with the army and the two dwarves had caused the Antmite General to amend the looting parameters. The two men knew something that the Swarm had largely no understanding of prior to the invasion, artistic value. Material, strategic, and mystical value were already being accounted for, but with the two dwarves in the Collective the General appreciated the arts in some small part of himself.

So, when the Subjects ransacked settlements all poems, baubles, and pieces of art were found so that the two men could examine them and see what was worth keeping. It added a bit to the time it took to ransack each village as the Artisans demanded a more meticulous and careful approach than what the Subjects had used in the previous villages.

Mariam had later picked up Zilla, one of the Acolytes of Old Yoss. She and one of her colleagues had been sent along with the army to help feed it by leading the Subjects in prayer. It was in the third village that Mariam had struck up a conversation with the younger woman as they worked to pull out a heavy crate containing various valuables. She didn't entirely know what had caused Mariam to start the conversation, maybe it had been the way the hard-working woman pulled at the crate prior to Mariam joining her. Or maybe it was simply regular loneliness that caused it, no matter the reason it had begun with an awkward round of small talk before the conversation dipped into more...interesting areas.

After that short conversation Zilla joined Mariam and the dwarves on the march as they moved through the plains of Omus. Zilla was an enigmatic figure, garbed in converted farming clothes that also served as the robes one would expect of a Cleric, and carrying the hammer and sickle now associated with the Sovereign. The rumor went that she had split from her fellow Acolyte Iorns over a spat that came from Zilla dismissing Old Yoss after zirs fall. Apparently, she had been rather callous in describing zie as a failure that hadn't been worth the worship.

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Yet, Mariam had only seen Zilla be a compassionate if slightly odd figure. She had adopted the quirk of letting her Fragment do most of the speaking for her. It meant that when she actually vocalized her words then it was worthwhile to listen. Like when she had picked up the last member of Mariam's little group.

The Child had no name as far as Mariam knew, it had been found in a small forest after having been stung by one of the passing Fungal Zombies. It had survived and become a Swarmsworn Human rather than having its soul and form consumed and converted into a mindless Fungal Zombie. Zilla had been the one to find the Child and she had carried her over to Mariam and the group and she had said only one word.

"Ours."

And since it had been spoken out loud rather than through the Swarm, Mariam had decided not to argue the point. It was a feral little thing, with an age that was hard to determine. Malnutrition did strange things to the body and this scrawny little child could be anything from 8 to 15 as far most people could tell. From the Fragment that it had the group had learned enough to piece together the story.

Once upon a time, a Child had been born in one of the outlying farms. The child never spoke and barely made sounds as it grew, and the parents noticed that it didn't act like the other children on the farm. It took to odd interests, developed strange ticks and affectations, and often acted out over things that most would consider trifling issues. Chidings, beatings, and trips to local Cunning Folk followed without the "problems" going away, and then the child was thrown out of the family during a bad harvest and from then on it was left to fend mostly for itself.

"The Changeling Child" was apparently a bit of a local legend if the newest additions to the Swarm were to be believed. A child that had been "stolen away" by the Leigh and replaced with a Changeling. Mariam along with most people had heard such stories in the past of course, but it was another thing entirely to see what people claimed to be a Changeling, in person.

As far as she could tell it was an odd duck, but it was handy with a sling and the Antmite General would use even children in war. So, she would just try to keep it safe while they fought and hopefully make the General send it back with the carts of resources that were sent to Hor.

It watched the four adults now, crouching on a little tree stump that had been turned into a stool. It had yellow eyes and looked at the group unerringly while they ate and drank. Mariam returned the stare and slowly raised her mug to sip when it happened.

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The Ant-Termite General was not pleased, not pleased at all. First he had discovered that one of the families from an outlying hut near the newly conquered village had actually managed to flee over to a hill at the edge of the plains, and that was added with the fact that all of the bugs and birds that had been sent after them had perished.

By itself, this would be vexing but it was the circumstances of how the Fungal Zombies had died that really made him displeased. They had passed through the mouth of a cavern and in so doing they had lost their bond with the rest of the Swarm. Not entirely mind you, but enough that the rest only sensed them in the vaguest of terms, and then they sensed them again one final time once their Fragments were snuffed out along with their bodies.

In response to the threat, he had ordered a force of 100 Soldiers and 30 Fungal Zombies to go in after the family and the lost Units. And then it had happened again, it took much more time before the Fragments began to die but when it happened even the Subjects started to notice it. He could feel their worry as the string of deaths started to reverberate through the Collective. But he didn't know what caused this effect nor why it happened.

The panic of his Army would make him panic, and he could sense that Mar themselves were paying attention as the final Fragment was snuffed out. He needed...perspective on the situation, but rather than reaching out to the other Collectives or one of the Avatars he decided to consult part of himself. So he whispered through the web to the small group of Fragments by the former guesthouse.

"Go to where we want you. We need your view on a situation."

His order thus deployed he spent the remainder of the time trying to calm down the Units who grew slightly agitated at the sudden deaths. Or rather he focused on the Workers and the Soldiers, the Fungal Zombies were far less...vulnerable to being rattled than the true creatures of the Swarm. It seemed like an eternity passed before he sensed that the group had reached the strange hill with a cavern mouth. A cavern mouth that he felt that they thought looked like an open beak. Mariam looked around and glanced over at a bit of red string tied around a rock, that looked strangely familiar to the Antmite General before she spoke through her Fragment.

"Oh I know what the issue is...you sent the troops into a Dungeon."

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The Clown stood hidden as he watched through the string left behind. It had cost him two balloons but two projects had been pushed forward through this. He had saved the Sorcerer and the Woodsman who had spent time in the Dungeon, growing stronger for what was going to be needed. A pact had been struck with the little family but they had been perfect for the distraction that the Tarot Reader had predicted would be needed.

When the Swarm came had sensed the danger in the past and moved so that the family could run for a future. The newly born Dungeon had accepted the offer that had been given to it once it realized the...peculiar nature of how it had been made. The Tarot had smiled after having grabbed the chicken they needed from the little farm. A Rusteater Chicken, the lowest grade monster one could find, but still a monster. The Puppets had brought the Dungeon Core and the Clown...he had to give up his green balloon.

In the weeks that had passed the new Dungeon had been fed what the Carnies could lure into it, while the two humans they had picked up trained by going on delves into it. The power of the Dungeon making them grow stronger and truly enhance their abilities. It would not be enough but the adventures would be the start that they needed. Now, the Swarm would pursue the secrets of the Dungeon and they would lose time. Time that could be used to move the other pieces into place.

He had left the string there not just as a way to see, after all, he was the one who warned when danger was afoot. It was in his nature to leave a little sign for the Swarm to find, if they ignored it, well he had still tried and that was enough to satisfy the laws of his nature.

Satisfied with what he had seen, the Clown turned his attention away and almost smiled. He couldn't because his mouth was unmoving in that way, but in his heart, he at least thought he tried to smile. The Sovereign would grow stronger from this, but it would help by stealing moments from it that the world could use.