Wearing proper clothing for the first time was an interesting experience for Regina, a relief, but also a little annoying. She’d gotten used to not wearing much, and her shell as well as the high temperatures of summer had made it tolerable. But now that she had the option, she’d jumped on it.

Regina ran a hand down the front of her dress, frowning slightly. She wasn’t wearing a bra, since they apparently didn’t exist here, but her chest was small enough that it shouldn’t be much of a problem. The dress was a drab brown and made of a heavy, slightly itchy cloth. It went down to about halfway past her knees and only had short sleeves. She would have preferred to get some sturdy pants, but a woman from the village had brought this instead, and she’d been too eager to get into the bath to argue about it.

She glanced around the room one last time. She wouldn’t have expected a bathhouse in the village. But it was apparently a fairly prosperous settlement. For obvious reasons, the building was situated directly on the riverside, with some of its water diverted into its pool. There was a fireplace to heat water up, but Regina hadn’t wanted to wait that long. The cool water was refreshing, anyway. She’d left a lot of accumulated dirt and grime drifting down into the river. I really hope the village has a clean water source. Wasn’t there a well earlier?

Regina shook her head and made herself move. She was exhausted and felt drained. It took more effort than it should just to walk. While the fighting could have been enough to cause that, she knew the real culprits. Regina glared briefly at the three eggs sitting on the floor of the wooden room.

Now that it was over, she could tell she might have been a little too influenced by her Hive Queen’s urge to lay eggs. If nothing else, it might have been better to wait for a more suitable place. But she was now warm and safe, had had enough to eat, and was much below the limit for her hive; this wasn’t surprising.

It had still been her decision, and she didn’t regret it. The monster horde could last up to a week. Even if they would start at level 1, getting reinforcements might be vital. And she needed the strength of more drones after that, too.

She cracked the door open and glanced around. Mia and Tia had let her go first. Luckily, Max and Tim were already back from the men’s section of the baths.

“Boys, give me a hand please,” she said.

They entered the room and carefully took one of the eggs each. Regina picked up the third and they carried it outside.

Max raised an eyebrow at the coloring, but didn’t comment. These would be two warriors and one worker. Maybe she should have gone for three warriors, but workers could also be useful in fortifying the village and gave her a different kind of clout for the situation beyond the fight. She’d settled on having three warriors and a worker, but three eggs was the limit of what she could do in one sitting. Clearly, creating them did take a toll on her body, and even if the process worked with magic, eggs probably still used up nutrients or something.

They quickly put the eggs into the bags they’d been given with supplies. The boys would just have to carry those directly. Luckily, the eggs were still small enough that this worked without problems. Regina glanced around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone watching them.

Then she straightened up, frowning at the side wall of the bathhouse, little more than a wooden shack, and squashed the impulse to lean against it.

She couldn’t help her lip curling as she looked around the village. It seemed so … small. Dirty, chaotic, battered. Human. Nothing at all like the cities of gleaming skyscrapers in her memory, but not inviting to the monster side of her, either. She knew that had little to do with the way they were built, really. Her hive would be lucky to manage something like these houses, at least for now. But they weren’t hers.

Regina sighed and resolved to get moving. “Tim, you can join me. The rest of you, get some rest.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

She hadn’t been inside the empty house the baron had assigned them yet, but she didn’t feel the need to right now. She was still quite low on mana, not to mention the effect of her recent production, but she didn’t feel like just curling up yet. So she left the bags to the other two to watch over and took off with Tim in tow.

The boys had been given pants, she noticed with a bit of grumpiness. Tim was wearing a short off-white tunic over them, but he’d cut holes in it to allow for his blade-limbs. From the way he walked, she could tell that he didn’t like it. She suspected that if she let them, the boys were both going to end up going shirtless, at least. Well, she could care less.

Regina had planned to wander around a little and maybe ask people she passed, but that turned out not to be necessary. As soon as they stepped onto the part of the main road leading to the town square, Janis came hurrying towards them.

“Well met again!” She smiled. “You look much better.” Then she clapped a hand before her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. Pardon me, please.”

Regina waved a hand dismissively. “You’re fine. I need to impose on you for a minute, actually.”

Janis looked surprised, but quickly mastered her expression. She glanced around. From the way the group of fighters gathered in the square were looking at them, Regina guessed that she was hanging around where she supposedly didn’t have a reason to be. “Alright, I’d be happy to help, m’lady. What is it I can do for you?”

Regina tilted her head, looking at the human. She’d been fully prepared to bully her into it, but Janis looked genuinely willing to help. That’s good. She can come in useful. Maybe I could even learn something about magic. I should have enough to entice her, too.

"Show me around the village,” she answered. “I need to know the lay of the land if we are to plan defenses.”

“Of course!”

Janis set off, with an unsure glance at them as if to check they were really following her. Regina smiled and walked down the road, looking around curiously and assessing what she saw.

Unfortunately, she didn’t find much to contradict her first impression. The village was probably pretty fortunate, for a medieval shithole. They could walk all over it in just a few minutes, and Regina took note of the position of the houses. The narrow streets would probably help defend against the monsters, although she didn’t think the houses would do much to stop them if some of the stronger monsters decided to go right through them. Still, with a few strategically placed ditches and maybe some spikes, they could do a lot to prepare the ground in their favor.

“There aren’t any monsters around right now, thank the gods,” Janis explained.

“They’re probably swarming what remains of the castle and fighting over whatever they find there,” Regina commented.

The other girl shuddered, and Regina realized too late that that category probably included the bodies of the defenders. She’d been thinking in terms of whatever you might get from beast attracting mana enchantment materials.

“How old are you, anyway, Janis?” she asked, partly to divert attention from her last words.

The human gave her a sideways glance. “It’s my eighteenth summer this year.”

Regina raised an eyebrow. She really was younger than she looked at first. Probably the conditions of life here. “I see.”

“And how old are you?” When Janis noticed Regina’s look, she hurriedly added, “Milady.”

Regina nodded. The villager had probably settled on that address because of her Class, or whatever you called the System identification it showed. Regina had no qualms about getting respect from these — well, ‘primitives’ was a little unkind. Probably poorly-educated and weak strangers?

She quickly thought back over the time since her awakening, trying to count the days. “I’m fifteen,” she answered, simply neglecting to mention that she meant days instead of years.

Janis nodded, not looking surprised. So she really did look like fifteen for a human, then. Good to know.

“And you, young sir?” she asked Tim. “Excuse me, but I don’t think I’ve heard your name.”

“Tim,” he answered simply.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Janis responded. She looked at him for a moment longer, then turned back to Regina. “Anything else I can help you with?”

Regina glanced around. She’d already seen enough of this settlement. “Do you know any other spells?”

Janis shook her head. “Afraid not, m’lady. Just Spark. I’m not a real mage like you. That spell you cast, was that Magic Missile?” Her eyes brightened and she looked at Regina with unbridled enthusiasm. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Regina confirmed with a small smile. That was easy. “It’s a pretty simple little spell. You basically just gather your mana and press it into a simple form …”

She explained how she cast Magic Missile for a few minutes while they walked slowly down the road. Janis hung on her every word, while Tim’s eyes darted around, looking for any potential hidden dangers. He was probably listening too, though.

After she was done, Janis frowned, looking like she was trying to do a difficult calculus problem in her head. Regina watched attentively as mana flickered around her. Her own sense for it had grown, but it was still difficult to tell what went on inside someone else. Still, she found it fascinating to see someone else trying to do magic.

Janis didn’t manage to cast the spell, but Regina estimated that with some more time trying and maybe a few tips, she’d get there.

“Why don’t you have a Class?” she asked.

“Huh?” Janis blinked, clearly ripped from her thoughts by the abrupt question. “Oh. I, well …” She tugged at her head covering. “I was holding out, trying to get a better one. I want to be a mage.” She looked almost defiant as she said that.

Regina just nodded. She didn’t particularly care about whatever social taboos they might have regarding someone’s station and Class. But it was interesting to learn that humans did apparently choose their classes, and could even level without having one, although probably not as quickly as with a good Class. Presumably, there were prerequisites to meet before the System granted you one. Well, you couldn’t say Janis wasn’t being proactive in chasing her goal.

“How do you cast Firebolt?” Regina finally asked what she’d been leading up to.

The human chewed on her lip. “Well, you also push mana into a shape, but it’s a bit more, er, restive for this one …”

They stopped at a corner of the town square while she tried to show Regina how the spell worked. She could see people watching them, but ignored them, focusing on the lesson. Firebolt really was more complicated than Magic Missile, although it seemed like some elements were the same, and it had some of the properties of Spark as well. When Janis demonstrated how she moved the mana for Firebolt, Regina had trouble seeing it, but she still managed to get an idea of how it was supposed to move. She made Janis repeat it until the human girl was looking pale with drops of sweat dripping down her forehead.

Finally, Regina took a deep breath and tried to copy her. Moving her mana this way was hard, and she felt like she was straining muscles she didn’t know she had, trying to bend something into a shape it didn’t want to go. But she persevered, and it got easier. After a few long seconds, she even managed to draw the form into her hand and let it bubble to the surface, causing sparks to flicker from her skin. The proto-spell fell apart after a moment, but she knew she’d made progress. With a bit of experimentation, she’d be able to learn it, she was sure of that.

Regina ran a hand through her stubble of hair and looked around. A few villagers who had been watching turned away as soon as they caught her gaze and hurried off. Some of the men in armor standing ready in the town square frowned disapprovingly at them.

She shook her head and started looking for the baron. She’d discuss what they needed to do to get the village ready for defense, then retreat to the house her hive had been given and get some rest.

Regina didn’t see him around, so she set off towards the largest and fanciest house in the village, which actually had three stories and was mostly built of stone. Janis trailed along behind her and Tim.

One of the soldiers stepped out of the group and almost directly into their path. “You should be careful, girl,” he said to Janis. “You know how the Delvers feel about people trying to go beyond what they should. Or associating with monsterbloods.” He glanced at Tim.

Janis frowned. “So they are really coming here, Alan?”

The fighter nodded. “They’re gonna be here soon enough. Just take care, Janis.” He shook his head, going back to join the rest of the group.

Janis looked a little bit paler suddenly, Regina noticed. Her fingers were hidden in the sleeves of her dress, fidgeting with the edges.

Regina sighed. Their arrangement had been working out well. She was not looking forward to dealing with this.