“Be careful, Via!” Regina called down. “The wings are supposed to move you upward, not downward!”

Her Drone Attendant glared at her, as well as someone could while frantically trying to right herself in the air and arrest her downward plunge. “Thank you for that crucial piece of information, Regina, I wouldn’t have guessed!”

Regina whistled silently, noting that apparently, it was possible to get a drone angry enough (or just frazzled enough) to snap at her. Probably just someone like Via, who knew her pretty well, and who was currently undergoing a rather stressful flight lesson. Or flight training, since Regina had decided she didn’t need to actually teach her anything.

Ira was doing a little better. At least she managed to maintain her current elevation and slowly inch higher using carefully timed beats of her wings. With her other senses, Regina could tell that she managed a steadier flow of mana into her wings. The other Attendants had more trouble with it, especially the younger ones. They hadn’t almost managed it quite as well as Via, either, so they weren’t as high up already.

Regina turned, letting herself drop a bit, and focused on her. Luckily, it didn’t seem like she’d need to intervene. Via had managed to right herself in the air and was slowly leveling out her trajectory. It looked like she wanted to avoid dropping into the water. They were training above a small lake they’d found at the edge of their new territory, since Regina didn’t think she could construct anything softer to land on as a safety measure than a body of water. She could see Max standing on its shore, watching over them, and a few Drone Witches who were trying to practice their gliding, preparing for flying training of their own once they were stronger.

After a few seconds, Regina decided Via had it well in hand and rose again. She circled upward, keeping an eye on the Attendants and motivating them (hopefully). At the same time, she turned part of her attention elsewhere. She had been practicing her multitasking, especially over the psychic link. So now, she tuned back in to the War Drone she was using to hold a conversation at the same time.

“Wait,” she interrupted after a moment. “Did you say the hobbit actually managed to throw the ring into Mount Doom? I thought the whole thing was being set up for some interruption or reversal.”

Galatea gave the impression of lowering her book, pushing down her glasses and giving her a stern glance, which was impressive considering she was currently working with shadows projected against the cave wall. She’d apparently created an avatar appearance for herself, but properly projecting the visual was challenging through a closed door.

“Do you want me to keep storytelling or not?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Regina raised the drone’s hand. “I promise to be better.”

In truth, she was using the opportunity to practice. She was lucky that they didn’t have to resort to the ‘scrawl on the walls’ plan, but getting a Swarm Drone to make sounds resembling speech was still tricky. As a matter of fact, her hive members or anyone else probably wouldn’t be able to make out what she was saying. But she was talking to an AI, whose ability to parse her sounds, create a reference and denoising filter and translate on the fly at the speed of a computer’s processing made it trivial, or so she said.

After a moment, Galatea continued to talk, painting more shadows on the cave wall. Regina had had the War Drone bring a torch, which at least made it brighter, although the added flickering needed a bit of getting used to. She supposed it fit the ambiance, though. Even without the additional light, there would have been enough for her to see, since the diffuse blue illumination was back.

Apparently, Galatea was mostly manipulating the ambient mana for the light in the cavern. Her explanation had been a bit too technical and quickly made Regina realize how much she still had to learn about magic, especially the fundamentals and theory. She’d gathered that the AI-slash-mana ghost had been using the scrying she mentioned to pick up a lot of information, at least on subjects that interested her. And a lot of it was gathered over centuries.

“Thanks, Galatea,” Regina finally said when she came to an end. “It was fun. I appreciate the effort.” She smiled. “I just hope I didn’t bore you.”

“I already told you, Regina,” Galatea answered. “I’m not a biological sapient. My ability to multitask is something you literally can’t even imagine. I’m doing a few other things right now.”

“Hm, I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Regina leaned back, then had to catch herself for a moment and beat her wings to correct her position and make sure she didn’t come tumbling down.

Over the last week since their first conversation, the two of them had talked quite a bit. Thinking back on it, Regina was surprised by how quickly she lost most of her wariness and started being comfortable around Galatea. And despite her occasional irascibility, she could tell it was the same for the ancient AI. Maybe Galatea was a little more starved for company than she said.

Every time Regina started mentioning or even hinting at the door and what lay beyond it deeper into the structure, she changed the subject, though. Regina had decided not to press her. She’d learn about it with time. If there was anything that required her immediate attention, Galatea would tell her, she was sure enough of that. At this point, Regina wasn’t sure if the issue was some feature of the environment or location, or perhaps something else she was keeping contained. There might be another reason why Galatea couldn’t leave. Either way, she made sure her hive didn’t disturb anything, and the situation had apparently been stable for centuries.

“You should get back to your kids, though,” the AI said now. “I’m sure they need you.”

“Don’t call them that,” Regina grumbled, but she withdrew more of her focus from the Swarm Drone. Outside, she leveled out her wings to let herself drift downward.

She would leave the drone down in the cavern, until it was time to switch it out with another one. At this point, there was no reason not to, since a single Swarm Drone missing from their workforce was hardly noticeable.

Over the last few weeks, a large part of her hive had been moved to the new territory. Regina had left a sizable garrison at Forest’s Haunt, too, though, and she’d also sent a group to reclaim the old camp. Now that the soldiers had moved out of the forest, it should be safe again. Well, safe-ish, there were still the monsters. But for that reason, it might be a good posting to let drones level up.

As she touched down and waited for the nearby drones to gather on the ground, Regina checked in on the others quickly. She’d left Ace to head the warrior-types at the village and sent Ben and Dan to their first base, along with Ina, Zac and a few others. Where to put the Drone Attendants and Witches had been a difficult choice, but Regina had finally decided to leave most of them with her. She was still teaching them, and they were learning magic together. Ray was currently with the drones up north, though, and would switch out with other Attendants regularly. They’d finally got two more flying Mounts last week, so it was easier to shuffle people around.

They had enough sapient drones in the hive now that Regina was starting to have trouble telling them apart. Only when she was actually seeing or hearing them, though; somehow, she always knew who was who when she used the psychic link. She put it down to more of the subconscious stuff the link was doing, connecting the hive. I guess I accepted that sort of thing when I chose my Abilities, Regina reflected. I’d still like to know more about how it works, though.

They returned to the hive’s new camp quickly, although Regina still talked with Galatea a bit on the way. They were too far from the new base camp to walk there in what remained of the day, though, so they’d stay camping here for the night. They didn’t have enough flying Mounts for everyone, either. Regina had decided to make a bit of an outing of it, going camping with the magic-using drones and a few others. They were a big enough group with enough strength gathered that she wasn’t worried about the danger, but Max had still brought a few senior warriors along.

Janis had also tagged along, mostly out of curiosity, Regina suspected. She looked downright jealous of the drones learning to fly.

“If you keep up your elemental magic and learn Air Manipulation and a few other Spells, maybe you’ll be able to do the same,” Regina commented when they settled down at the camp. She sat on a felled tree trunk, watching as Ira made a campfire.

The days were getting noticeably short, Regina reflected. She’d discovered that Hivekind were pretty resistant against the temperature in general, including cold, since it was getting closer to winter. Janis was wearing a thick coat and had asked a few of the workers to make her warmer boots. Regina found it too cool to get by with as little clothing as she could have in the summer, too, and even most of the drones seemed to feel the same. It hadn’t snowed yet, but she suspected that was mostly due to the lack of any kind of precipitation in the area recently. The next time it did come, it could easily be snow instead of rain.

“I’ll certainly try,” Janis responded. She was looking at the fire and wearing the frown she usually did when she focused on magic, although the fire didn’t show any change.

Regina glanced at her for a moment, then shrugged and turned her attention to the others’ preparations. They fell into a comfortable silence for a few minutes.

After a while, Regina pulled out a kind of pen she’d made out of some charcoal as well as a sheet of paper one of the drones had created to practice with. It looked less like paper than vaguely coherent pulp, but she wasn’t going to use it for anything official, just a draft.

Regina set down the pen, then paused. “Janis, I gather Kiara isn’t addressed as Princess of Lyns, being the daughter of a high noble?”

The young mage blinked and turned to face Regina fully. “No. I gather it’s different for some places, but in Cernlia, the title ‘prince’ or ‘princess’ is reserved for members of the royal family. Since Lady Kiara is only descended from it maternally, it generally doesn’t count.” She paused and tilted her head. “You can call her ‘Lady Kiara’. Besides, she doesn’t seem to care about this sort of thing much. Unless you want to emphasize her royal affiliation? I suppose you could just call her ‘Madam’.”

Regina hummed. “No, that sounds a bit stupid to me, she’s not that old.” She scratched a few words on the paper. Dealing with nobility was shaping up to be several headaches.

“May I ask why you want to write to her, Milady?” Janis asked.

Regina shrugged. “Just keeping up contact and communication. I feel like we have an in with her, and I’d like to not let it wither.” She paused. “It’s a bit hard to think of what to actually write, though.”

Janis leaned forward. “You could tell her about our new settlements. As long as you don’t go into any sensitive details, it should be fine, right? And maybe a few personal accounts. And please give her my regards.”

Regina nodded. Maybe I should just let Janis write the letter, she thought while she scrawled a few sentences. “Well, I guess there’s no reason you couldn’t write to her, as well.”

Janis smiled. “I’d like that.”

Then she paused and looked up. Following her gaze, Regina saw Max and Tim coming back from a short patrol around the area. They didn’t seem to have found anything, so she returned her attention to her letter.

“I still haven’t received an offer of ransom for Whitor,” Regina said after a while, keeping her voice down to not bother the others. “But I expect something will be coming. I’m not sure what to do, to be honest.”

She’d watched the Cernlians retreating from a distance. Unfortunately, she’d already lost sight of John Cern and most of his army, who’d gone on to conquer the Relains March to the south and southeast of her current position, and she didn’t know much about any Cernlian army movements beyond that region. The main Cernlian army from the war in the forest - or what she assumed was the main army - had been moving through Whitor’s earldom. She hadn’t dared to let her flying drones and Dark get too close, but she was pretty sure that most of the soldiers had already moved on from the earl’s capital, which was also the only real city in the region.

Janis frowned, looking thoughtful. “I can’t tell you what to do, my Queen,” she said slowly. “I’m quite sure Earl Whitor is an honorable man, but that could be a bit of a double-edged sword, I suppose. Still, I don’t think he bears us any ill-will, and he seems pretty clear-eyed about the potential power of the Hive and the martial strength you could accumulate given a bit of time.”

Regina nodded. That was what she’d been considering, herself. “Do you think I could make a parole or release agreement where I ban him from ever taking up arms against myself, or anyone I choose?”

“Anyone you choose?” Janis shook her head. “That seems rather extreme. Perhaps if you worked out some restrictions and concessions with him.”

“Wait, so I could stipulate something like that?”

Janis shrugged. “If you get him to swear an oath, publicly, and have it written in an officially signed document? I don’t see why not. As long as it’s an agreement he actually accepts.”

Regina glanced at the rather barren territory beyond their current camp, though their base was beyond the horizon from this vantage point. “That sounds interesting. Thanks, Janis.”

Janis gave a noncommittal grunt and leaned back, staring up at the sky, which was starting to darken and reveal its full star-strewn glory.

Regina did the same, until she was interrupted by a notification.

She stared at it for a moment, before waving it away. This was clearly not due to anything she’d just done, but just the slow trickle of experience she got from her Class. At this point, any personal feats would probably count less for that than the kind of general experience gain she accumulated, anyway.

She could just sit around, direct her hive, and collect levels. Regina had a feeling the world wasn’t going to let her do that in peace, but it was a nice thought.