Ch 10

My days are starting to really become routine now. Not that I can really complain as I snuggled closer to Cuddles who responded by holding me even tighter to her. Yes I could totally get used to this.

Zerg Mana – 237,350/1,000,000

I think my eyes just bugged out of my head. I really do. How in the world did I jump from 64,000 to 237,350!? At this rate, we'll be ready to reach the next level tommorrow! I shook my head. With this much mana… I'm not even sure what to do with it all! I guess I'll just keep doing what I've been doing.

Still snuggled in Cuddles arms, I worked out the mental math needed for further expanding the Hive cluster. I still can't believe I haven't hit ocean yet. I've only covered one entire biome and most of five others. I did finally hit the edge of the Desert, to find a mountain biome. It'll be difficult to expand the creep into that though. I'm seriously considering having my Overlords flatten the place and dropping off the entire mountain into the Zerg Mana Pool. That ought to increase my mana even more!

Let's see. 300 Drones would cost me 15,000. That's hardly a drop in the amount I have now. 300 hatcheries however… would cost… 120,000. Good grief! I'd still have a little under half the mana I have available if I did that! Unless I did it twice? Let's see that's 600 Drones, 30,000 mana for the drones, 240,000 for the hatcheries. Ok, I can't do it twice, but I can come close… or I can only do it once and spend the rest on Overlords. Maybe I'll come close to mapping the planet at that rate.

Sounds like a plan to me. 300 drones and an hour later, I have 102,350 mana, and 300 hatcheries growing. By the time they're finished tonight, I'll have covered all five biomes and then some. Now for the Overlords. With all the larvae I have access to, it doesn't even take me longer than half an hour to have 1,023 Overlords spawned, and my supply is now 18/5465, and my mana is back down to 50. Just for the heck of it, I set the entire horde to work tearing down the mountain and depositing the contents into the Zerg Mana Pool. Still, it's awkward for Overlords to fit into the Hatcheries so I add to my future plans for changing the Hatcheries by adding an opening to the top of them as well.

With that bit finished, I settle in to nap in Cuddles arms. There really isn't anything else to do after all. I can explore this world to my hearts content through the Overlords, and boy can I tell you that watching a mountain range get stripped down to flat land, even while boring to watch after a while, is still kind of heady. I have the power to destroy mountains. Crazy I tell you. Even so, I can't wait to level up tomorrow, or the day after at most. Who knows what's out there amongst the stars. Well, I can't wait to find out!

All of the Queens except Cuddles heads out to lay more Creep Tumors. Cuddles and I just stayed at the Hatchery and, well, cuddled. What can I say, I felt lazy today, not that I'd been doing anything seriously strenuous apart from that mining operation really.

Later on in the day, something interesting had happened. One of my Overlords had finally reached the end of the mountain range and found a Plains biome, and along with it, a village! I'm still surprised there wasn't a single village or temple in the desert biome, but you can't have them all I guess. Still, I want to see the village for myself. Maybe talking with the locals might be interesting.

Setting off towards the village via Overlord with Cuddles, we make it there by late afternoon. Asura met us there. The other Queens had decided to continue on laying Creep Tumors for now, though they might come by later, depending on how the villagers react to us.

Unfortunately it wasn't too good. As soon as the Villagers spotted my Queens, it only took mere seconds for the village to look like a ghost town. They'd even thrown up an iron golem, though so far we weren't actually near it so it hadn't attacked us. I ordered the Queens back and approached the village cautiously.

"Hello?" I called out. I didn't get an answer. Keeping a careful eye on the golem, I approached a door I'd seen a villager flee into and called out once again, "Hello? We mean no harm." I didn't get an answer, but a villager did come to the door. Glancing about, it asked, "Are the monsters gone?" I'd say he or she, but they all look to have the same gender, but that can't be right since they do have kids.

I nodded and said, "Don't worry. Those weren't actually monsters. They won't hurt you, but I've ordered them to stay back for now."

The villager's unibrow rose and he asked incredulously, "You can control those things?" I nodded and said, "I can. They're quite friendly once you get to know them."

The villager hesitated, then opened the door and came to stand next to me. The other villagers, seeing this, came out as well, some curious, many cautious and keeping a wary eye on me.

"Who are you, stranger?" asked the initial villager who I'd talked to.

"The name's Matthew. It's nice to meet you…"

"Thomas Farmer. Likewise. I've not seen anyone like you before. Did you come from another village?"

I shook my head and said, "I come from the forest beyond those mountains, er, well what used to be mountains. Beyond the desert behind the mountains too. There's a forest there, where my people live. I'm the leader, and while they might not look like me, I promise you they're a friendly bunch." I turned and pointed, "Those are two of my Queens. They'd like to come say hello if you don't mind."

The villagers had followed my finger and spotted Cuddles and Asura, waiting right where I'd told them to. The villagers seemed frightened, but Cuddles waving wildly once I'd pointed them out while Asura rolled her eyes at her seemed to mollify them a bit. After a moment, Thomas said, "So long as they're friendly, we would not mind meeting them."

I smiled and said, "Excellent. Am I correct in assuming you're the leader of this village?" For the villagers benefit, I beckoned to my Queens and they started approaching. Some shied away, tensing as if ready to bolt for their doors. I wanted to point out that if they wanted, their wooden houses wouldn't have stopped my Queens from tearing this village to the ground if they wanted to, but I don't think that would make me very many friends.

Asura was the first to reach us, and said, "Hello." Cuddles, who was still waving, said brightly, "Hi everyone!" I chuckled at her antics. It broke the ice nicely though, and some of the villagers came forward to speak to them, even offering to trade. In answer to my question, Thomas Farmer replied, "I'm not the leader of this village. Our village, along with others like it, are collections of families that work together to survive, fulfilling each position we can. If something must be decided, then the leader of each family comes together to decide what is best for the village."

I nod at his answer, impressed. "It must be quite the ideal setup, running a village like that." Thomas shrugged and said, "We get by. It's not easy though. Every night we still lose some to the monsters. If it weren't for the iron golem and our ability to reproduce quickly, we would have all died long ago." I nodded at this, then asked, "Why don't you just build walls to keep the monsters out?"

Thomas shook his head, "No good. The monsters spawn so long as there is darkness available. In the past, other villagers tried to trust walls to save them. It never worked."

I shrugged and said, "So not even walls and filling the interior with torches would work? With no shadows inside the walls or on the tops of them either, you wouldn't have to worry about monsters spawning inside your walls anymore." I'd done the same thing to protect villages in Minecraft before after all.

Thomas seemed to think a moment, then responded slowly, "That… could work. But we don't have the manpower to build walls unfortunately." I grinned and pointed off in to the distance towards the mountains that are slowly but surely collapsing thanks to the Overlords. Thomas looked and shook his head gaping, "Never in my life have I seen anything like that. It's been going on all day, yet I can hardly get over it." Thomas turned back to me and asked, "Are those more of your people? What are you exactly?"

I smiled and answered, "We are the Zerg, and we're your new neihbors. My Overlords can tear down a mountain and can also forge just about anything inside themselves. They can build you a wall around your village brick by brick. If I provide the wood and coal, can you make the torches?"

Thomas again seemed to think on this, then responded, "Your offer is very appreciated Matthew. If you can do this, what would you want in return?"

"Peace, friendship, open trade. We're just trying to be friendly neihbors, and good neihbors don't let their friends die from a mild case of zombies."

Thomas nodded and said, "Come, I will gather the family elders and we will discuss this."

It didn't take all that long to gather all the Elders together. There are only six families in the village. After Thomas had gathered them all, he brought us to the stone chapel near the center of the village. Once gathered, Thomas explained my offer. There were a few arguing for and against this. One pointed out that torches don't last forever, at most a day, and since they're needed at night, they'd only really last for two nights if dowsed in the morning then relit. The sheer amount of wood required to light up the entirety of the village would be inconcievable (this coming from the village historian). His argument really was sound until I'd pointed out that my people had torn down an entire mountain range in little less than a day. The sheer amount of wood I could collect for them would be astronomical, and yes I did feel some satisfaction throwing big words back at the slightly snobbish learned historian, petty as it was. I could even tell that he would have to go back to his books just to look up the word I'd used.

Long discussion cut short, everything was agreed upon. All trades offered to the Zerg would be at huge discounts upon completion of the wall and delivery of the wood and coal, and we would have a very good basis for becoming allies. The historian then took my information, including my title as Overmind along with the names of my Queens and such, to document this historical moment. I did as he asked, though part of me still wants to smack him upside the head for being rude. Any more of this, and I'd ask Thomas for the right to do so! I'd do it anyway, but I really am trying to make friends here, and I doubt the village will take kindly to me smacking one of their few members over the head. Then they could blame his obvious brain damage on me!

Discussion over, I directed a few Overlords to deposit the materials I'd been having them collect since the start of the discussion. They'd even been able to form the wall sections inside of themselves by smelting them down and using the interiors of their bodies as presses. Not even an hour later, the walls were completed, sunk into the ground, and even had stairs formed so that the villagers could climb to the top to light the torches up there too. True to my word, I piled up as much wood as they could hold in a corner of the village, in stick form. The pile reached the top of the wall, and unless I miss my guess, would probably last them the next five years if they were careful not to burn through the lot. I even had a stone overhang formed over where the wood would go so that lightning wouldn't hit it.

That finished, I left the village feeling quite satisfied with myself. Asura and Cuddles said their goodbyes, Cuddles to a chorus of awww's since she'd been a big hit with the kids. Asura had been more interested in devouring their library and questioning the historian on past events. To my immense relief, their books had no mention of HIM, which makes it all the more likely that he doesn't really exist. By the time we reached the Hive cluster, night had fallen, the 300 hatcheries had finished, and the sheer amount of creep visible had been astonishing. The Overlords had also finished tearing down the mountains and depositing the gathered material, and now were spread out evenly over the Creep, and then some. I also stationed a few to the village to keep an eye on things, as well as two of my Zerglings, that I kept waiting in the Overlords. At the first sign of trouble, they would deploy and slaughter any monster trying to threaten the village.

With everything taken care of finally, I crawled back into my bed of Queens and slowly fell asleep.

-END CHAPTER-

Overmind mana – 100/100

Zerg Mana – 50/1,000,000

Zerg Supply – 18/5465

Units:

1 Overmind

1079 Overlords

0 Drones

11 Zerglings

6 Queens (Broodmother)

Structures:

551 Hatcheries

1 Spawning Pool