If there was one thing the recent fighting had made easier, it was getting a firmer estimate of the number of monsters in the area, and how their movement patterns changed day to day.

Of course, the movement of troops and the battles in Prekan, even if they were comparatively subdued, disrupted and obscured some of that activity. It made it harder to guess how the monsters would act if everything was calm. Still, the increase in activity was obvious. And this war only made it more dangerous. They needed to stop it; they couldn't afford to have their soldiers occupied protecting their citizens from monsters when they might face an attack from Esemen.

Tim was still in Prekan. He oversaw the securing of the city and towns of the small kingdom, as well as the tunnels leading to Esemen and further afield. Tia had gone to join him briefly to oversee the technical aspects of fortifying the area. June should have stayed as well, but everyone wanted her out of danger for now. Or at least out of that specific dangerous area.

All of that was why Janis had come here. They needed to finally deal with this issue, and she was also curious what they would find in this excavation. Ironically, the war made it easier for her to be here without drawing too much attention; besides it being a general distraction, no one questioned her departing for the east, and it was plausible enough that she might visit some secret installation or random outpost where the Empire would marshal troops. She just couldn't stay too long.

Madris' absence was keenly missed, but she had concluded that they couldn't afford to wait for her, and everyone agreed. Instead, June and Edmund would have to shoulder the psychic burden, with Regina watching and hopefully helping from further away. Iseis and Galatea were also here, ready to help. With them, Zephyr and — with all due humility — herself, Janis was confident they had all the magical firepower and skill they needed.

Not that she was really calling the shots here, whatever her official rank might say. This was Galatea's show in a way that no other project she had been involved in before was. At least that was Janis' impression. It might also be because Janis had come so late and was obviously less involved than the others.

Right now, it didn't seem to matter as they all stood in the tunnel, pressed uncomfortably close together, looking at the wall and the door in front of them. Parts of the wall had been carefully stripped way to expose some of the metal — and, apparently, more exotic substances — winding through it like veins. Most of the symbols on the door itself glowed now, though thankfully not all of them. The glow shifted and changed, more intensely in some glyphs than others, but she had looked closely and long enough to notice that the fluctuation was there for all of them, actually. Janis could almost sense the pulse of magic through the entire structure like the pounding of some great drum too low to hear but which you could still feel in your bones, or like the tide, regular and powerful and dangerous. It was hard to really categorize the magic or the sense she got of it, it was too different from most of what she'd seen before.

"… How long will this take?" June asked after they stood in silence.

"We should be clear to approach soon," Iseis said calmly.

Janis frowned. She knew she didn't understand everything that was going on here in detail. There hadn't been enough time. But she got the gist of it, and she could sense it. Iseis was lightly pushing on the magic in the doorway. Calmly, Janis reached out, pressing her own mana out and joining the elf's. It was difficult and delicate, requiring a sort of mana control that most spells didn't, but the basic premise wasn't too different from what she'd done before. She'd done exercises that were more difficult, too.

"Why don't you concentrate on shielding our minds?" she said absently.

Janis could sense the pressure against her mind, like someone was squeezing a band around her head, except one that penetrated deeper than the skull. She'd been working on her mental shields, so it was bearable, just a little distracting. Plus, she still sensed Regina's presence, hovering somewhere in the back of her mind, watching and waiting.

Iseis and Zephyr stepped forward, and Janis joined them, walking slightly behind them. Zephyr conjured a flame and started holding it up to the door, tracing a path through it. Iseis used something closer to magic missiles or shields connected to her hands instead. Janis monitored their progress, then stepped up to join them, making space for Tia to come up beside her. She raised her hands and laid them on the left side of the door in spots she'd memorized, slowly pushing in some of her mana.

Most of their work had been done already — identifying which parts of this entire construct were probably related to the monster activity, which corresponded to power supply or transmission, alarms or sensors, or wards. It gave them a roadmap forward. There had still been heated discussions about how they should proceed, but Janis clung to the confidence they had.

At first, they'd hoped they could just get the door to open by itself, once it recognized someone 'whitelisted' to be allowed entry. Unfortunately, that clearly didn't work; either its systems had degraded or, before this was buried, it had been locked up entirely, or even restricted to certain specific people who were long dead. Putting a Hivekind in front of the door wasn't enough; although if Regina could make it here, that technically might be.

Regardless, they knew this doorway would have backup systems, and a degree of almost adaptable or 'smart' programming, in Regina's words. It was apparently almost a bit like a computer system, though Janis only had a vague idea of what that even actually meant. There would be some kind of basic 'code', some safety measures, resets, or something. Galatea at least seemed confident in that.

Now the mana-form floated forward, going to the sides of the door, where they'd carefully exposed some of the underlying construction. Originally they'd considered simply going around the doorway, but the builders had clearly thought of that possibility and the magical shielding was just as strong here as it was on the door itself. The meters of stone once you got past the edges of the doorway helped, too. But it was still a bit easier to actually get to what she called the hardware here.

Janis felt Galatea's magic snap out suddenly, severing wires and connections forged in mana simultaneously. She leaned forward in response, still emitting a constant trickle of mana, and used some of her mana to Conjure exotic elements she barely understood, that she had learned just enough chemistry to make a few grams of, but knew how their magical properties would react here.

The door almost seemed to shiver slightly, and beads of sweat dropped down her forehead as Janis had to mentally wrestle with her mana to stay under control. The drumming against her head grew to the point that she couldn't ignore it, and the world seemed to sway around her. For a long moment, it was like the doorway and the tunnel warped around her, and it took all her willpower not to throw herself away from the door.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Then June cried out lowly, without words, and Janis vaguely felt her crash to her knees, as she evidently wrested control of the mental effect. The razor-wire trying to drill into her head eased off, returning to roughly the same pressure.

"Now," Galatea said.

"We are the Starlit Hive," Tia spoke beside her, her voice strained but clear. "Of the Hivekind, of the Eclectic Hives, those who embrace our fate and our allies, of the work of the Aishan, of the family line of this Hive and its builders. Alat-a, a'esiemin, retakro-ra."

She thrust her hand right into the small circle formed by an intricate twisting of letters in the bottom center of the door.

Light flashed. It was like all the light that had gathered to light up the glyphs on the door now fled towards the center, shining under and through her hand, enough to show the shell and bone structure almost like x-rays. Janis could sense a spike of pain from Tia, but she kept her hand steady.

Galatea moved her own mana at the same time, and Janis retreated a step, looking closely. They had cut off parts of the whole structure now, and the charge in the central part was clearly wavering. If they'd done this correctly, the central core should have 'reset', its sensors damaged and partly removed but not entirely unavailable, and the defensive measures decoupled and disarmed. The mental force exerted on them seemed to increase for a moment, then flickered — it felt a little like she was standing on a drone suddenly diving — and then it disappeared. Invisible bands loosened and Janis could finally breathe freely again.

The light flashed, then seemed to drain into the inside of the door, and it rumbled. Galatea stepped back, and Janis grabbed Tia's shoulder, dragging her back a step, too. Just in time, as the door moved.

It split into fourths, the panels sliding back at an angle, into the space beyond along the floor and ceiling. It looked weird, but Janis was too focused on looking at what was behind the door to care.

Of course, it was dark. Janis blinked and squinted, absently casting Spark to give them a bit more light. She heard Tia breathing in sharply, probably able to see a little more.

Without waiting for them, Galatea advanced. Janis glanced at the others, then followed her.

At first glance, the complex behind the doorway was the same as the rest, built similarly, with corridors and rooms in stone and metal. But on second glance, it was clear this wasn't like the base they'd found in the south — there were obvious signs of a battle here.

Entire chunks of stone — cement? — were ripped out of the walls and ceiling, parts of it littering the floor. And that was the least of it, she could see metal sheets entirely warped, a withered hole in the ground deep enough to show only darkness. And there were even a few scattered pieces of equipment, most of them rusted, some stained. No bodies right by the door, thankfully.

"Ah, I see," Iseis hummed, staring at something to the side. Looking that way, Janis saw there was a kind of pillar or maybe a box of cement or something, slightly recessed on the wall of the chamber, with letters carved into it. Or more precisely, into plates affixed to it. They were dark, not glowing. She recognized a few words, but couldn't make much sense of the text.

"I think we were lucky this worked," Galatea commented.

"We are lucky this never blew up at all," Iseis corrected. "They rigged this to explode, I believe. Perhaps as a failsafe measure. Apparently, our tactic worked and what was left of the security mechanism decided to let us in."

On second thought, it did look a bit like a warning label. Janis swallowed, trying not to show the prickling on her neck. She'd known something like this was a possibility, in theory, but still. She was glad to have apparently avoided it. As far as she knew, Tia's little speech and the bits of Aishan she'd used had been pretty cobbled together, but maybe they'd helped, or the installation was just good enough to recognize Hivekind and had defaulted to alow them entry.

Then again — for the war this had been built for, were fancy details needed? They were isolated bearers of their civilization and culture stranded on a foreign planet, set against everyone.

And the Hives had lost. She was forcefully reminded of that as they continued, through the antechamber and through another doorway into what looked like the main room behind this last defense.

It was bigger than expected, with tall ceilings, several doors at the end, a few lowered sections inset in the ground with a different material that looked springy, and several panels on the wall that reflected the light they brought with them, illuminating the space. But Janis barely took this in, because she was too focused on the bodies they also found.

There were a few drones. They all looked … young. In human terms, maybe fifteen or so. Maybe older, but not quite fully-grown adults yet. They laid on the floor, and she could immediately see what they had died of. One was missing all of their right limbs, one had a hole in her chest, one had his throat cut. What struck her was how similar to the Starlit Hive they looked, even if they were different. The body types were wrong, the shell color had a bit more variety and reached darker tones — one was an almost greenish gray and one a dark earthy brown more similar to a human trader she'd once seen (though maybe he'd been demihuman) — but they were still recognizably Hive drones, sapient ones.

Janis still remembered when she'd first seen the Hive, she knew how the drones had grown. Max had definitely been bigger than them after a few weeks, and he'd lived in the wilderness after hatching.

She could also guess how they'd died. Someone cursed lowly, she thought it was Tia, but Janis was too distracted to check. The young drones were arranged almost in a star pattern, laid around the center of their group.

Their Hive Queen.

Unlike her children — they must have been of one Hive — their mother had been killed differently. She was not lying down, but was instead still standing upright, as if frozen in time, although that wasn't it. Her shell was the color of stone.

"They must have used a Skill," Iseis finally said, breaking the silence. "Petrification. I've seen it used before with magic, it was slightly different. The coloration — there is a gradient. It went up from her feet to her head."

Well, Janis thought, a bit detached, that would explain the horror on her face, anyway.

"She's so young," Galatea muttered.

Janis took a step closer and to the side, very careful to avoid the drones' bodies, to look at the Hive Queen more fully. She really was young; she looked even younger than her drones. Of course, Hive Queens probably matured a bit more slowly. This one was about as big as Janis had been at thirteen. Her face was set in an expression of horror and anguish, her torso angled slightly as if she'd tried to lean away. Her wings were curled on her back — maybe they hadn't developed far enough to be usable yet? — but her hands were slightly outstretched, held low, as if she'd instinctively tried reaching for her drones.

"We don't know how old her soul was," Tia said, sounding as if she was reminding herself as much as them.

"No, but if she is like Regina, she lost her memories of her life before," Janis said, shaking her head. "Though hopefully she kept more of it … Gods, she must have hatched directly before the Cataclysm, or even after. Probably after."

"We do know none of the original Hive Queens coming to this world survived it," Galatea said.

"And neither did the others survive the crusade against them," Tia muttered.

Janis glanced at her, trying to send a bit of reassurance through the psychic link, but she could tell they were both affected by the sight.

Personally, she felt a bit like she had missed a step going down a staircase, except it wasn't just a single moment. She'd been aware of the genocide that the people after the Cataclysm had committed against the Hivekind, of course, but it was different to have such a tangible reminder right in front of her. These Hivekind and their fates — this wasn't just war, they hadn't died in battle, but worse.

They'd been hunted down.

There must have been quicker ways to kill them, but someone had wanted to play with their food. And this young Hive Queen was Regina's family, which made it their family, her family. Janis didn't know how Regina would feel about that, but she knew this reminder would strengthen her resolve.

She looked at the macabre tableau and let it strengthen her own resolve.

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