Ch 4

I spent the rest of the time left in the day having my Overlord fly the perimeter of my Creep, smacking Creepers away and picking up branches to deposit just outside the entrance to the Hatchery where I'd pick them up and toss them into the energy pool. Unfortunately there weren't so many branches to get, and it didn't take long to clear out the rest of the Creepers, leaving me with little else to do but scout around until night fall.

I quickly determined that not only am I following Minecraft world rules, but that I'm not even on Earth anymore. I had suspected, but finding a mountain range off in the distance with what look to be a Tundra right next to the forest I'm in confirms it. No way would weather like that be possible on Earth that I know of. As for this world, the fact this forest is so huge tells me that I'm definitely in a 'large biomes' world. I spotted a few more rivers snaking through the forest, as well as one large one trailing from the base of the mountains and off into the distance.

Just before night fell, I finally had enough to get a Drone, and thanks to my Overlord scouting, I'd already found dozens of places where the Drone could start, but with it being so close to night, I decided not to risk the Drone getting destroyed by monsters as soon as it hatched. I'll just have to wait until morning after the Creepers are all gone to get a Drone out.

As soon as night fell, I had my Overlord come back to the Hatchery to keep a close eye on everything, that way I can get more information about how this world works. With the Overlord in place, I quickly tore up another piece of Creep, eating it as I watched the hole I tore reformed in seconds right before my very eyes. I couldn't help but notice that the small glimpse of ground beneath the Creep is a dull lifeless grey, and sighed.

By the time the sun had gone down, I knew it would be unlikely I'd get any more Bio-Energy from that source. I still held out some hope that moonlight would be enough, but as time past, that hope died. Looks like I'll have to wait until daytime to get bio-energy from light.

Starting to get tired, I settled down in my niche, watching via my minimap as monsters started showing up as the light grew more and more dark. To a normal person's vision, the mobs would appear as though they're simply walking out of the darkness or from behind trees and such. Thanks to the Overlord, I can see that isn't the case. For all of the monsters, everytime one appears, there's a flash of darkness and the monster just appears as if from nowhere. My Overlord can't identify the darkness as anything in particular.

It was when the first Enderman appeared, snarling and eyes bright that I realized I'd made a huge miscalculation. I watched in horrified fascination as more and more Endermen appeared from distant parts of the forest to tremble in impotent rage staring up at the Overlord. Quickly I gave an order for the Overlord to float a ways away from the Hatchery but still stay over the Creep.

I should've realized. Just because the Hatchery didn't draw the Endermen's attention doesn't mean a creature with eyes wouldn't, and an Overlord is the equivalent of one gigantic eye, able to stare out in all directions at once. It's only been ten minutes, and already a collection of nearly twenty Endermen have shown up. Just in case, I had the Overlord rise just a little bit higher in case the Endermen start trying to climb each other.

I do find it just a bit confusing why the Endermen are going after Overlord when they didn't go after the Hatchery though. Both are living creatures, even if one is stationary. The only real difference is that the Overlord does have two eyes, but they're practically redundant since it uses the same sense the Hatchery does to be able to see all around it. Thinking about it like that also makes me wonder why I found the Overlord's vision so jarring as opposed to the Hatchery's. Then I realized it must have been the fact that the Overlord sees in more colors and can move. The Hatchery can't move, so is just a glorified security camera, whereas the Overlord is a fully moving creature, and I'd suddenly started receiving two inputs rather than one.

With that little mystery out of the way, I turned my mind on the issue of the Endermen. What should I do about them? After observing them for a little longer, I quickly realized that I really don't need to do a thing about them. They'll just sit there, gathering more and more, but unable to do anything. If anything this could be a good thing, since this is practically handing me the ability to farm Endermen on a silver platter. Better still if I can find a way to incorporate them and their ability to teleport into the Swarm. A fully teleporting Swarm is a rather scary thought. Only the Protoss have such abilities and even that is limited by time and resource constraints. Thank goodness my Zerg won't be that Swarm. Not if I can help it.

My musings were interrupted by a skeleton finally getting close enough and attempting a shot at the Overlord. The arrow fell short and nearly hit an Enderman in the face, only for it to Teleport away, before immediately teleporting back immediately to get at the Overlord. I snorted in amusement, and closed my eyes, satisfied that things would be ok on that end.

It would take a while for sleep to come until I successfully blocked the Endermen's unearthly screams from my mind. To the Overlord, they're extremely loud. I'm just glad the Hatchery is blocking out the noise from my actual ears. Unfortunately my sleep was still fitful just the same thanks to the Creepers.

I groaned in irritated annoyance at that. If only I had some kind of barrier set up that could stop the Creepers from getting to my Hatchery! Maybe the first thing I'll do tomorrow is have the Drone set up a wall of rocks around the Hatchery. No wait, that wouldn't work. The Creep would just absorb that into itself, which goes a long way towards explaining why the other races could never build on Creep for fear the Creep would just absorb it into itself.

But then what could I use to keep the Creepers away? I don't have anything that can emit light, nor do the Zerg have anything of the sort at the moment. If only I could make the Creep make a wall itself instead of flattening everything it covers! I grinned at the thought. Now wouldn't that be something? Maybe make the Creep bunch up on top of itself, growing thick and tall instead of spreading over the ground.

It took a few seconds after that thought before I realized just what I was seeing. As if responding to my wishes, the Creep had started to recede and pile up just as I had envisioned. It took a few minutes, but fairly soon the Creep had formed a thick steep hedge that the monsters could no longer climb up or cross over. All the monsters caught between the wall and the Hatchery were quickly absorbed by the Creep, and left without a path to reach the Hatchery, the Creepers are left with no recourse but to circle repeatedly around the outer edge of the Creep wall.

How? How is this possible!? Nothing I've ever seen would suggest that the Zerg Creep had the ability to do something like this! At that point my Hatchery chimed in, and I quickly realized. The Hatchery controls Creep generation. All it had to do was change the output and a few other things to make the Creep grow differently, and just like with the hollow the Hatchery formed for me, the Hatchery automatically responded to my needs, just as it does with anything residing inside it under its care.

Feeling cared for isn't a feeling I'm used to, and it filled me with a warmth I can't say I've experienced very often, like a warm soft blanket. Reaching out, I stroked the floor of the Hatchery I'm laying on, sending it all the gratitude and love that I could muster towards it in thanks. It shivered and wrapped me further into that mental warmth, and I idly realized as I grew drowsy that it's responding to my needs once again. Since I like the warm feeling, it's giving me more of it. It was then that I realized just how truly blessed I am to have become a part of the Zerg. I was so alone as a human… more than I ever realized… but I'm not alone anymore. It was with this blissful realization that I drifted off to sleep.

-END CHAPTER-

Overmind Matthew

PSI Energy – 50/50

Status – Normal

Abilities

- Spawn Hatchery – 50psi – 12 hour build

- Regeneration – Passive – Heals anything not instantly fatal; time needed depends on extent of injury

- Anaerobic – Passive – No longer requires breathable atmosphere to survive

- Temperature Resistance – Passive – Currently able to survive temperatures between -450 and 118 F

- PSI Regeneration – Passive – Regenerate energy at .5 points per second.

Zerg Swarm

Bio-Energy Intake – 144 a day (1 point every 5 minutes)

Support – 0/16

Entities (Non Sentient)

1x Hatchery

1x Overlord