Kai did of course not order the drones back now that they had completed their mission. Having them scout the forest they had found sounded a lot more promising and it would give the hive more knowledge for establishing an outpost there.
The drones did earn a solid break for some time and Kai was determined to give them that break, after they were done scouting.
Before they took the next step and set out on a quest for wood there were a few other things that had to be planned. Kai wouldn't let her daughters go on this mission without some preparation and the proper equipment to defend themselves. She wasn't too fond of them leaving the safety of the hive as it was, but mothers had to let their kids venture out at some time and this step had to be done.
She naturally wasn't the only one excited about the discovery of a forest and especially her hunters were eager to go there. Kai nearly had to stop them from running off to be of help to the hive then and there. She could understand that urge though, from their perspective this was the chance to go on an adventure.
To keep her daughters motivated and focused Kai set goals that had to be reached before she would let them go and establish an outpost in the forest.
First of all, everyone that went on this mission had to be armed in some way, preferably with a bow and arrows. They would also have to train with their respective equipment for three days beforehand so they would know how to use it. This alone limited the group that would go to pretty much 3 or 4 persons or they would leave the hive without tools to defend itself. It was also a good chance for Kai to test out fighting with some of the weapons and other people.
Of course she was the one who had to choose who would go on the mission and the fact that most of her daughters wanted to go made that pretty difficult for her. She didn't want to have to tell them that they wouldn't be able to participate directly and would only be able to help with the preparations.
Unsurprisingly there were a few who did not want to go, Anna, Tiffany and Artemis for example. Well, Artemis not wanting to go might be a bit unexpected, but considering that the girl had her eyes on a certain giant lizard and was preparing and training herself for a revenge, it made sense for Artemis not to be interested in the establishment of an outpost.
After thinking about the mission for some time Kai chose three hunters and a worker. Covering the distance between the hive and the forest would take about one and a half days, which meant that they would have to build their own housings down there. Having a worker in the group would enable the rest of them to scout the area and make sure that everything was safe.
Kai hadn't chosen a spot for the outpost yet in hope that the river would lead to the forest too and to give the two drone squads to the west more time to scout the area. Putting the outpost somewhere with consideration for the future would lessen possible remodeling that they would have to do in the time yet to come.
With most of the planning done a sense of excitement entered the hive and everyone began to help prepare the required things for the group that would be sent out to establish the outpost. Most of Tiffany's girls joined Ember and Erika to help build the equipment, which slowed the construction work of the main hive down by quite a bit. This would only be for 2 or three days though, so it should be fine.
The four girls that had been chosen for the mission by Kai, namely Caro, Erin, Sharri and Helen joined the queen and Anna in their training. The tools and weapons they would get had yet to be crafted so the group only trained their footwork and hand to hand combat for the day. They should be able to start with the rest the next day however.
It turned out that fighting someone else than Anna now and then was quite fun for Kai, especially after the four girls stopped holding themselves back.
It was nice that they cared that much about Kai, but they hadn't been training daily for the last month and not training in earnest now would just be their demise in the future. Kai and Anna both made sure that they were aware of that and forced them to take the training seriously, just by being a bit ruthless at the start of it.
After the training they all bathed together. It was a weird experience for Kai to do this since she had only bathed when she had been alone with Anna or Tiffy and the others had always avoided bathing at the same time with her. As a result the bathing time was rather silent and she didn't chat about things with Anna as much as she normally did.
During the time Kai's fur needed to dry she looked through the things Brian had been up to. The hive mind had gradually been improving the technique to craft stone blades and how to secure them on the hilt better, not really things Kai could use herself, but still helpful for her daughters. There was also some minor change to one spell it had greated that made the spell a tiny bit cheaper to use.
Kai strifled through the small things some more, but couldn't find anything too interesting. Things like how to melt resin more efficiently wasn’t knowledge she considered important for herself.
Instead she looked at the things that Brian was working on, but hadn't completed yet. The list that was available for these projects was extremely long and she had to sort out a few of the things. Still, a lot of the left projects hadn't been more than started, which didn’t mean they weren’t interesting. On the contrary, there were theories about spells and mana as well as possible new drone variants.It seemed like the hive mind was trying to improve the drones based on things that they had seen in nature or for things that the hive required.
Speaking of drone variants, there was one project that was nearly finished. The drone looked a lot like the normal swarm drone, only that it was about the size of a horse. It could easily carry 3 of her daughters because it wasn’t as thinn as horses were.
There were a few things that the Brian hadn't figured out yet that would make the design work, but it could already tell that this drone would need three times more capacity than the normal drones. Not even the hunters would be able to control them.
Kai wasn't worried about that being a problem though, the hive mind would figure something out to solve this somehow.
The next two days didn’t lower the excited mood of the hive. That they had found the forest immediately after fending off one of the moths cheered everyone up and motivated the small village even more than the victory had already done. Kai also added another two workers to the hive during that time, slowly working towards making the hive a real village.
The unbound and unworried excitement of the hive wasn't meant to stay however. During the night of the second day of preparations a united screaming of the hell moths brought silence to the titan forest.
Shortly afterwards moths flew randomly in every direction and not south anymore. You could see their shadows fall from the sky now and then when they found something to let their anger out and sometimes they just grabbed their victim to let them fall to the ground from a good hundred meters height.
The event was a good reminder for the Antanoid, that despite having won against one of the moths they were still not the leaders of the food chain.
Kai did not sleep during that night. She was pretty sure that this had something to do with the moth that had fled the hive a few days ago and they weren't ready for more of them. They were lucky that none of the moths had landed to look inside the hive for now, but hoping that it would stay like this would be foolish so they would have to be ready for a fight.
There was more to this problem however. Kai didn't know how long the moths would stay agitated and neither did her daughters, but if they kept at it until they had either spilled enough blood or killed the one that caused their anger that might take a long time. In this case the hive was in for a few long nights and they all had to be especially vigilant.
It would also make the establishment of the outpost tremendously more dangerous, but especially because of the current situation Kai couldn't postpone that plan. They needed the wood desperately to increase their defense, just having wooden spikes to funnel the moths to a point or create safe zones would make Kai feel better already.
Kai looked out of her room to the sky. There wasn't much they could do except hold out and she was determined to do exactly that, even if it meant they had to kill all of the moths.
Kai did of course not order the drones back now that they had completed their mission. Having them scout the forest they had found sounded a lot more promising and it would give the hive more knowledge for establishing an outpost there.
The drones did earn a solid break for some time and Kai was determined to give them that break, after they were done scouting.
Before they took the next step and set out on a quest for wood there were a few other things that had to be planned. Kai wouldn't let her daughters go on this mission without some preparation and the proper equipment to defend themselves. She wasn't too fond of them leaving the safety of the hive as it was, but mothers had to let their kids venture out at some time and this step had to be done.
She naturally wasn't the only one excited about the discovery of a forest and especially her hunters were eager to go there. Kai nearly had to stop them from running off to be of help to the hive then and there. She could understand that urge though, from their perspective this was the chance to go on an adventure.
To keep her daughters motivated and focused Kai set goals that had to be reached before she would let them go and establish an outpost in the forest.
First of all, everyone that went on this mission had to be armed in some way, preferably with a bow and arrows. They would also have to train with their respective equipment for three days beforehand so they would know how to use it. This alone limited the group that would go to pretty much 3 or 4 persons or they would leave the hive without tools to defend itself. It was also a good chance for Kai to test out fighting with some of the weapons and other people.
Of course she was the one who had to choose who would go on the mission and the fact that most of her daughters wanted to go made that pretty difficult for her. She didn't want to have to tell them that they wouldn't be able to participate directly and would only be able to help with the preparations.
Unsurprisingly there were a few who did not want to go, Anna, Tiffany and Artemis for example. Well, Artemis not wanting to go might be a bit unexpected, but considering that the girl had her eyes on a certain giant lizard and was preparing and training herself for a revenge, it made sense for Artemis not to be interested in the establishment of an outpost.
After thinking about the mission for some time Kai chose three hunters and a worker. Covering the distance between the hive and the forest would take about one and a half days, which meant that they would have to build their own housings down there. Having a worker in the group would enable the rest of them to scout the area and make sure that everything was safe.
Kai hadn't chosen a spot for the outpost yet in hope that the river would lead to the forest too and to give the two drone squads to the west more time to scout the area. Putting the outpost somewhere with consideration for the future would lessen possible remodeling that they would have to do in the time yet to come.
With most of the planning done a sense of excitement entered the hive and everyone began to help prepare the required things for the group that would be sent out to establish the outpost. Most of Tiffany's girls joined Ember and Erika to help build the equipment, which slowed the construction work of the main hive down by quite a bit. This would only be for 2 or three days though, so it should be fine.
The four girls that had been chosen for the mission by Kai, namely Caro, Erin, Sharri and Helen joined the queen and Anna in their training. The tools and weapons they would get had yet to be crafted so the group only trained their footwork and hand to hand combat for the day. They should be able to start with the rest the next day however.
It turned out that fighting someone else than Anna now and then was quite fun for Kai, especially after the four girls stopped holding themselves back.
It was nice that they cared that much about Kai, but they hadn't been training daily for the last month and not training in earnest now would just be their demise in the future. Kai and Anna both made sure that they were aware of that and forced them to take the training seriously, just by being a bit ruthless at the start of it.
After the training they all bathed together. It was a weird experience for Kai to do this since she had only bathed when she had been alone with Anna or Tiffy and the others had always avoided bathing at the same time with her. As a result the bathing time was rather silent and she didn't chat about things with Anna as much as she normally did.
During the time Kai's fur needed to dry she looked through the things Brian had been up to. The hive mind had gradually been improving the technique to craft stone blades and how to secure them on the hilt better, not really things Kai could use herself, but still helpful for her daughters. There was also some minor change to one spell it had greated that made the spell a tiny bit cheaper to use.
Kai strifled through the small things some more, but couldn't find anything too interesting. Things like how to melt resin more efficiently wasn’t knowledge she considered important for herself.
Instead she looked at the things that Brian was working on, but hadn't completed yet. The list that was available for these projects was extremely long and she had to sort out a few of the things. Still, a lot of the left projects hadn't been more than started, which didn’t mean they weren’t interesting. On the contrary, there were theories about spells and mana as well as possible new drone variants.It seemed like the hive mind was trying to improve the drones based on things that they had seen in nature or for things that the hive required.
Speaking of drone variants, there was one project that was nearly finished. The drone looked a lot like the normal swarm drone, only that it was about the size of a horse. It could easily carry 3 of her daughters because it wasn’t as thinn as horses were.
There were a few things that the Brian hadn't figured out yet that would make the design work, but it could already tell that this drone would need three times more capacity than the normal drones. Not even the hunters would be able to control them.
Kai wasn't worried about that being a problem though, the hive mind would figure something out to solve this somehow.
The next two days didn’t lower the excited mood of the hive. That they had found the forest immediately after fending off one of the moths cheered everyone up and motivated the small village even more than the victory had already done. Kai also added another two workers to the hive during that time, slowly working towards making the hive a real village.
The unbound and unworried excitement of the hive wasn't meant to stay however. During the night of the second day of preparations a united screaming of the hell moths brought silence to the titan forest.
Shortly afterwards moths flew randomly in every direction and not south anymore. You could see their shadows fall from the sky now and then when they found something to let their anger out and sometimes they just grabbed their victim to let them fall to the ground from a good hundred meters height.
The event was a good reminder for the Antanoid, that despite having won against one of the moths they were still not the leaders of the food chain.
Kai did not sleep during that night. She was pretty sure that this had something to do with the moth that had fled the hive a few days ago and they weren't ready for more of them. They were lucky that none of the moths had landed to look inside the hive for now, but hoping that it would stay like this would be foolish so they would have to be ready for a fight.
There was more to this problem however. Kai didn't know how long the moths would stay agitated and neither did her daughters, but if they kept at it until they had either spilled enough blood or killed the one that caused their anger that might take a long time. In this case the hive was in for a few long nights and they all had to be especially vigilant.
It would also make the establishment of the outpost tremendously more dangerous, but especially because of the current situation Kai couldn't postpone that plan. They needed the wood desperately to increase their defense, just having wooden spikes to funnel the moths to a point or create safe zones would make Kai feel better already.
Kai looked out of her room to the sky. There wasn't much they could do except hold out and she was determined to do exactly that, even if it meant they had to kill all of the moths.
