Triple Strength

292. Black and Gold: Wiremu

Umreti, Ruku and I sat and watched. This is a problem.

“Your Mentally weird Poison Cloud would work if we could get near the hole,” Ruku said.

“You could drown them as well, but that won’t be the only entrance,” I said. “They will swarm in defence of the nest. Snakeskin and Toughhide only go so far. Modrica’s Armoured Skin and Granite Armour are probably the only things that will hold, and there may be enough that they run us and Težka out of energy as well.”

“You and Modrica could collapse the tunnels with your quakes,” Ruku suggested.

“Possible, but this is a huge nest. I have only mapped half of it. There are millions of hornets in there.” I replied.

“There are no animals in the last kilometre. They were food for this. They killed a Forest Troll. How about we just go around and leave it.” Ruku suggested.

I flicked out a hand with Quick Strike and the Slight of Hand and grabbed a wandering hornet. It was about ten centimetres long with black and gold stripes. It stung me repeatedly. Snakeskin was newly Master level and stopped about half of the stings. The Venom was potent, and the sting was painful. My Poison Resistance would stop a lot, but it also got through my Pain Resistance. Others don’t have anywhere near my level of Resistances.

My Sense Spiritual was telling me this was a spiritual creature, and the venom was spiritually enhanced. That also might be how it got through Snakeskin. There are millions of these.

“I think this venom is reducing or bypassing my Pain Resistance,” I commented.

“That would make for a very painful death,” Ruku said.

“We are off the main trail, but this will multiply. I think we should kill it if we can. Does the army have a method for this?” I asked Ruku.

“An alchemy powder is usually used. Spread it around the area, and the hornets carry it into the nest, and it kills the larvae. It will also kill the queens or at least greatly reduce the number of hornets and weaken the nest. Fire works as well, but to get a fire to burn underground, you need an accelerant or an affinity user. Water is limited, and filling a nest of this size is beyond me as it will also soak into the soft earth around it. Plus, it is on the side of a hill.”

“And we don’t know where the entrances are,” I finished. “I could scout more.”

Ruku nodded, “Normally, something like this is reported to the nearest military base, and they get the necessary supplies and deal with it.”

The Free Republic fort is six weeks behind us. We are not far from the destination where I have a bond in mind for Umreti. The trouble is the bond creatures are rare, and this is the only colony on this side of the continent. A hornet nest of this size threatens them, and it may wipe them out.

What I have in mind are the Lowland Gorillas. They just seemed right to me as they are large, strong creatures but also gentle and family-orientated. They are smart herbivores who only really get violent when threatened. This seemed right for Umreti’s mental state as his damage has settled but is still there. A calming bond with family orientation seemed right. I may have it wrong, and we made this trip for nothing, but I like to think my class was leading me in this direction. Lowland Gorillas are endangered and close to extinction, and if we leave these hornets, they are likely to be the cause of the extinction of this subspecies, especially if they are killing trolls already.

The nearest military force is probably the Imperial Border Patrol. We are rather hoping to avoid those.

“You two head back and warn the wagons, and Tāoke, and I will see if we can map the full nest.”

“I stay here. Watch,” Umreti said.

Ruku and I both looked at him. He was watching the hornets come and go. I saw his hand was shaking like he was having a small seizure.

“We will both stay till you get back,” Ruku said, obviously concerned about him like I was. He wouldn’t be able to move easily if he was having a seizure. Were the hornets causing the seizure? They were triggering something.

I nodded, “We shouldn’t be too long,” and I slipped away.

My Granite senses were only of limited use in mapping the nest. Hornets don’t build in rock but soft earth and bark. From what I can tell, it started in a large fallen rotten trunk of a tree. That means it doesn’t go deep. It is spread out.

My Granite Armour should make me immune, and Puia should be able to burn out the nest in sections. This will cause the hornets to swarm in defence. The trick is killing all the queens, and there will be thousands of them, probably hundreds of thousands.

As I moved around the giant hive, there were hornets coming and going all the time, and I was pushing my camouflage to remain hidden. I didn’t want to get them swarming, or they would probably kill me. My defence would be to create Granite Armour and run, hoping to get far enough away before I ran out of energy.

I did have to kill a number, and I quickly buried the bodies under granite as I am pretty sure they warn others by releasing pheromones.

I saw a number of hornets crawling over the corpse of a small bird. I decided to capture them so we could test our skills on them as I encased them and the bird in solid granite. It was about the size of a small backpack, so they would have some breathing air until I got away. There was furious buzzing in the cage, I had about ten of them. I created a handle, picked it up and went to join the others.

Umreti had stopped shaking, and Ruku nodded to me, so we made a quiet exit from the area. The wagons were stopped about five kilometres away from the hive as we had been warned about the hive by our Scouts, Nne and Tano.

Everybody gathered as we came back.

“It is even bigger than we thought,” I started. “Multiple millions of hornets, thousands of queens. There are so many they are unsustainable, and the queens will probably all split up this winter and spread out.”

I put the stone cage on the ground in front of them and reduced the granite so it was a mesh we could see through. The Hornets were large, ranging 7-9cm long and black with gold stripes. They were not happy.

Everybody looked closely at them as Ruku described the sting and the danger of swarming. Modrica wanted to test her Armoured Skin, so I separated a hornet from the others, and she grabbed it and let it repeatedly sting her hand. Then she crushed it.

Modrica grunted and said, “Takes energy.”

Tabitha said, “Separate a couple out for me, and why is that one larger than the others? It also has a stronger spiritual presence.”

We looked at it closely.

“That is a queen,” Ruku said. “It is rare for them to be outside the hive.”

I separated two workers from the other, and that portion of the cage was suddenly encased in shadow. After about five seconds, the shadow withdrew.

“We can syphon energy from them quickly to kill them because they are so small,” Tabitha said. “The problem is how many there are. We can only hold so much energy, and we can only disperse it so fast. Nyx can only grow so fast. Multiple millions are too many. If we did this during the day, there would be more energy used in the skill. We would last longer and kill more.”

“This sort of thing is usually done at night when the hive is dormant,” Ruku said.

Tabitha just shrugged, but I was not paying attention to them any more. Umreti was fascinated with the queen. I watched, and his hand was shaking slightly, but I noticed it was different than a seizure. I watched with my senses as he reached out mentally and was rebuffed by the queen. I raised my hand to silence the others. I concentrated on Bond Care. He reached out and was rebuffed again.

Why was he attempting this? Strong, protective calm was what I thought he needed. I was fine if I was wrong, but a hornet nest was violent, buzzing death. The hornet queen was not wanting this either. He kept making attempt after attempt and was rebuffed every time.

Was there compatibility there? To be quite frank, I couldn’t tell. There didn’t seem to be incompatibility. That was a start.

I put my hand on Umreti’s shoulder to get his attention. He grunted without looking away from the queen.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked. “Why this?”

“I am Umreti,” he replied.

I was puzzled. I didn’t understand.

“Umreti,” Modrica explained, “means to die.”

I knew that, which was why I was puzzled about the name when we first met. I was his master back then, and he couldn’t lie to his master, so I had taken it to be his name, even though it was strange. I thought he had a death wish because he was a slave, and it was so strong he changed his name.

“This,” Umreti said, indicating the queen, “is not Umreti but Ubiti.”

Umreti is to die. Ubiti is to kill. Maybe I misunderstood the name. Maybe the ‘to die’ didn’t refer to him but to others. Maybe he was going with the ambiguity of the name. Somebody is going to die. Just because he doesn't talk much does not mean he is unintelligent.

Umreti is a Weapons Master. He does have a strong killing intent to his spirituality. Yet there is also the First Aid and survival classes. Those were the ones I was focussing on when looking for a bond. Caring for others and surviving together, but with strength, led me toward the Gorillas. Umreti obviously has a different direction he wants to head.

That is fine. He knows what he wants, even though I am not sure about it. One thing I would stand against is an incompatible or forced bond. I don’t sense any incompatibility, even though I sense other bonds could be better. It is his choice at the end of the day.

The problem is his attempts are continually rejected. Why? I focussed on Analyse Bonds. The Skill being Journeyman gave me good information.

“The queen is rejecting you because she is already bonded, not to a person, but to the other queens in the hive. They form a network of small bonds. There are lots of them.”

That caused Umreti to stop and think. “Can you break them?”

I examined the bonds again. They were not unhealthy. Some were stronger than others. Then I sensed some fade, and one was cut. I think the queen in her hive would be continually forming new bonds and strengthening them, but as she was separated from the hive, some of the weaker bonds were getting weaker. It seemed she was not bonded with all the other queens, but only some of them, probably the ones she interacted with. As I watched, she was strengthening bonds with the workers near her. I had never sensed these flexible bonds before. I guess when winter came, they would reduce bonds as they flew to make a new hive. This must be how they worked.

My Bond Master Class Levelled. Working out how different bonds function is the key to this class. I have learned something new. My Monster lore also levelled with this knowledge. I thought these might be monster hornets from the level of Spirituality in the queen and the hive, but this was totally new to me.

Where is the Monster Core if they are monsters? I was missing Mayakku and her Spiritual Sensitivity. Maybe they are like the Sand Elemental, and it is split amongst the queens. If that is the case, the flexible bonds confused me. Mayakku could sense the link between the separate parts of the Sand Elemental core. That must be different to the bond I am looking at.

Thinking about it, one queen could start a new hive. A new Monster hive and then grow more queens. Is this how monster hives spread? One monster queen starts weak and growing strong with the hive. That is all I could think of.

I realised I had been silent too long, “Yes,” I replied, “but they are naturally formed, and they are fading as she is separated from the hive. Her bond with the workers in the cage is growing stronger. The more important question is, this is a Monster Queen. What is her affinity, and are you compatible?”

That got everybody’s attention.

“Can you tell?” Umreti asked.

“Let me get a better feel for it. What I know now is that you are not incompatible, but that is not the same thing as being compatible.”

I focussed back on the bond, but this time, I tried to get a feel for the flavour. I could sense some poison, but it was not the main flavour.

“I don’t think I have sensed anything like this before,” I said, and I tried to understand it. “It is almost like it hurts.”

“Pain is an old friend,” Umreti said.

“Then, when you try bonding, channel your pain. Are you sure this is what you want? You have suffered pain, but the hornets deliver pain. It is not the same thing.”

“I have delivered my share of pain, even when keeping people alive. I plan to deliver a lot more when we get to the empire. I will bring the pain.”

“It is your choice.” I still thought my idea for a bond would have been better, but it wasn’t up to me.

I watched as Umreti got the queen's attention with his pain, but it wasn’t just pain. It was mixed with his killing intent. The queen’s other bonds were still there, and I guess she had a choice to make. She was one queen among thousands, or would she start her own hive with Umreti?

I watched as the queen made her choice, and the bond snapped into place. The five workers in the cage with her became her workers, and a new hive was born.