Hello Neighbor

Slowly but steadily, things were falling into a daily routine. It wasn't exactly pleasant but it beat having your life threatened in new exciting ways every day.

Eat, drink, sleep and manage the minions: this was all that Marcus had been doing lately. It had been almost two weeks since he had given birth to the "builder drones" triplets, and since then his hive had increased more than fivefold: he now had about 6 builders, 8 hound-hunters (including Cooper) and a couple of flying explorers which looked a bit like oversized dragonflies.

Food was not an issue anymore: thanks to the hunters, he was always able to eat as much as he wanted. And the builders had done an amazing job at renovating the cave: although the "wax mold" they produced wasn't enough to build things on its own, it worked perfectly as a coating material. By covering branch structures with that stuff, Marcus had managed to create some furniture: a bed, a table and a couple of chairs. Plus, the wax mold was exceptional as a thermal insulator, so he had the inside of the cave coated in it, resulting in a much more dry, warm and overall pleasant space.

But there were also some drawbacks about having such a number of minions. First of all, Marcus felt their presence inside of his head and it was incredibly distracting. The first couple days after the triplets had been born, he couldn't even walk around without tripping or slamming against something since the shared thoughts of his offsprings took all of his attention. All he could do was sit and concentrate, using his brain power to micromanage his minions. Luckily he was getting better at it and now, even though he had many more units to control, he could move normally while supervising the activities of the hive in the back of his head.

The other drawback was that the presence of so many new hunters was thinning the local fauna. The drones had to get further and further to catch new preys, and that entailed some risks:.: first of all, the forest was still full of other dangerous beasts, some of which were more of a match to the pack of Hunter Drones, so travelling around was quite risky. He had already lost 4 hunters to some of those animals, and although they were easily replaceable he didn't exactly like feeling their pain. It wasn't that traumatizing (the pain itself didn't get transferred, just some sort of alarm) but it was still unpleasant.

Second, the swamp and the forests nearby were full of patrols of those gremlin like humanoids. Marcus didn't want any more trouble with them, so he had the hunters avoid them, but hiding away like that had a negative effect on the hunts.

Luckily, the mold wax was a great boon to his food supplies: not only was it edible, but it was also highly nutritious and it grew at an amazing pace when exposed to sunlight. The taste wasn't anything to write home about, but it wasn't actually disgusting: it tasted kinda like grass and stale bread.

Thanks to this surplus of nutrients, Marcus could produce a lot of minions, to the point that he was giving birth almost every other day, much to his chagrin.

The experience of laying eggs was still something he couldn't quite get used to. It made him feel vulnerable, confused and uncomfortable... and yet it was also incredibly stimulating and almost titillating, in a very weird way. He would have died before admitting that even to himself though, so he just tried to avoid thinking about it.

In order to keep his mind occupied, he only had one past time: exploring the lands around him. Although it was too risky to get out of his cave personally, he had no trouble seeing through the eyes of his offspring. At first he just sent the Hunters or the Builders to the places he wanted to see, but then he decided that making a drone specifically for reconnaissance was worth the effort.

So, using the informations he got from the animals he had eaten, he had created some sort of lizard-dragonfly hybrid, the size of a small dog. They could fly and had an excellent sight, but they were rather clumsy on land. Also, the first one he made could only look downward, which had proved to be a mistake when some big bird had attacked and killed it from above.

After that, Marcus made sure to include a way for the flying drones to look upward, giving them 3 pairs of eyes, and explored all the surrounding hills and valleys through them.

It was then that he discovered the nest of the dragon-like animal that had both terrified him and saved his life days before. He had made this discovery almost by accident: one of the flying drones was returning to the cave at twilight, when he had spotted an gargantuan figure moving through the trees.

Even while being safe in his cave, only looking at the creature through the eyes of his drone, Marcus couldn't help but shiver: the dragon was larger than his world's whales, and yet it moved with a serpentine grace that suggested an unnatural agility. Every movement it made was confident, calm and without any trace of urgence: it was at the top of the food chain and nothing could threaten it or make it nervous. Not that Marcus had any intention of bothering it. He just had the flying drones follow it, in order to learn his habits to better avoid it.

The dragon wandered for most of the night, sometimes stopping to tear down a tree and eat its foliage. Marcus had started wondering if, despite its appearance, the animal could actually be an herbivore, but then a huge boar, even bigger than the one he had met at the carnivore plant field, crossed path with the dragon.

The encounter was over so fast that Marcus had barely any time to register it: the gargantuan reptile moved with incredible speed, pouncing at its prey in a blur of dark scales. With a loud snap, the dragon bit the side of the boar with its humongous beak. The poor animal squealed in pain, trying to free itself, but it was too late for him: the dragon lifted the animal, throwing it into the air, and decapitated it with another bite before it could touch the ground.

The creature then proceeded to eat its prey, tearing off huge chunks of meat and swallowing them whole, before returning to its nest before the sun rose.

Much to Marcus's alarm, the dragon's den was actually pretty close to his cave, just a couple kilometers downhill, in a narrow canyon between two hills, but after some thinking he decided that this was actually a good thing, since it kept other predators away and the dragon didn't seem interested in going uphill. Staying on guard wouldn't hurt, though.

Since he now knew that the area was free of dangerous animals (except for the dragon), Marcus decided to expand his mold wax field.

He got out of the cave, looking at the rock face his cave opened into: part of it was already covered in the gray, opaque stuff, and the builder drones were already working on making it bigger.

Those drones were very good at climbing steep surfaces, using the powerful grip of their talons to cling to the rocks, and were producing mold wax from their mouth and spitting it on the rocks.

The process was quite disgusting to watch, but also somehow fascinating, like popping a zit or something like that.

Marcus planned on having the whole rock face covered in mold wax. This way both he and the drones could live on that stuff, and since it would grow back he wouldn't have any more food related problem, and could stop with the excessive hunting he had been doing lately.

Also, that'll reduce the risk of being discovered by those gremlins! He thought with optimism After all, if neither me nor the hunters have to travel around, it will decrease the risk of being discovered by those patrols!

He smiled to himself. This new life wasn't exactly what he'd have wished for, but he had the feeling that he was actually doing good for once.

He looked up at the sky, which was, as always, mostly cloudless, basking in the light of the sun.

For a moment, he almost thought he had seen a flying figure in the air... something similar to a humanoid with bat wings, but when he looked better it had disappeared.

"Must have been a bird I don't know." he shrugged "Well, back to work then. Let's see if I can make some other furniture with the mold wax!"

A few hundred meters above, Graak finally started moving again. He had hid himself from the scrying creature on the ground by flying in front of the sun, but now the weird insectoid creature was distracted again. Not that he was worried about being harmed, being confident ins his flying skills, but the boss had ordered him to scout the area without being discovered.

The gargoyle flapped his wings with energy, flying towards the Southern Tower to report his discovery. While he was flying, he was amazed once again by the foresight of the General. When the orders had came, he didn't think much of them: using multiple patrols and even Gargoyles like himself just to search for a couple of creatures seemed like a waste of time. Even if they had managed to kill a single hob, the forest was full of beasts that were capable of such a feat.

But after seeing that hive, he concurred with the General: a group of organized creatures like that would become a serious threat for the goblins if it had time to grow.

But now that the hive had been discovered, time was something the goblins wouldn't give to it.