“So,” Regina started, folding her hands behind her back. “Has this little holiday made you any more talkative?”

Her rather unwilling conversation partner glared at her and stayed silent.

They were in one of the oldest and smallest huts in the hive’s small settlement, with the Delver sitting leaned against the back wall. She was tied up with so much rope she should have trouble moving at all. Ben had been very enthusiastic about making sure Regina was safe during this interrogation. She also had a few drones in the room with her, although she didn’t really think they would be needed. Regina examined the human again.

Elenia Wood — Level ? Binding Blade

Apparently, she was over level 20, which might explain the more fancy-sounding Class name. Regina didn’t think she was much higher than that, though. A level in the early twenties, tops. She seemed about ten years older than that, although Regina found it hard to tell. She’d looked like she could use a shower even when Regina first saw her, much less now.

“I hope the pain is manageable,” Regina continued. “It looks like your injuries haven’t quite healed, yet.”

The woman didn’t blink and just kept glaring at her.

Regina considered healing her as a gesture of goodwill. So far, she’d mostly left the Delver like that because it weakened her and hopefully made her less likely to escape, and because she’d wanted to conserve her mana. With the boost to her mana pool and mana regeneration that her growing hive and new level had given Regina, the latter wasn’t really much of a concern, though. And probably the former wasn’t, either.

“You know, if you meet me halfway, I can help you out,” Regina said. She smiled slightly at the human. “How about that? Just answer me and say a few words, and I’ll heal you. You should know that I can use a healing spell.”

At first, she thought the Delver would decline her offer and stay spitefully silent. But then she shifted, and Regina saw a flicker on her face which she guessed was a reaction to the pain, or maybe just her decision. “Fine,” the woman grumbled.

“Great. So, what’s your name?”

“Elenia Wood,” she responded after a moment. The truth, according to the System, but saying anything else would have been idiotic, anyway.

“And your level?”

The Delver scowled at her and stayed silent. Regina raised an eyebrow, otherwise keeping her expression unchanged.

After half a minute of this, the woman finally answered, sounding just as unfriendly as she was before. “Twenty-two.”

Regina nodded, then stepped forward and reached out to touch the Delver. She kept the motion obvious and slow to make it clear what she was doing. The woman didn’t flinch away, though that might have been because she had a hard time moving, anyway. Regina lightly laid her hands on her arm and focused on sending mana into her. She healed the most serious of her issues. When she drew back, she had the impression the woman had relaxed slightly, though she was still tense.

“And you are a Delver, I’m assuming,” Regina continued.

Her prisoner nodded shortly.

Well, at least we’re making progress. Small, small progress. “You know, I really don’t know where your hostility comes from,” Regina said. She held up a hand as she saw the woman’s somehow even darker glare. “Not right now, I might act the same in your situation.” And they had killed all her squadmates, but she’d rather not mention that. “I mean at first. Ada was friendly and not hostile, but your party just attacked her anyway. And don’t try to tell me some nonsense like she attacked first, I know exactly what happened.”

This actually seemed to soften the woman’s glare a little. Regina found it hard to figure her out. But maybe she did feel guilty about attacking unprovoked? Nah, better not count on that.

“Your scout trespassed where she shouldn’t have,” Elenia responded stiffly. “And she refused our offer of surrender.”

“See, but why’s that? Those caves are a lot closer to where we live than wherever you came from. Not to mention, the elves are probably the ones with the best claim to the area, but I’m pretty sure you didn’t have permission from them.“

“It’s not about what’s above the tunnels, it’s about what’s in them. And we are humans. You aren’t.”

Regina frowned. On the face of it, that sounded like racist-xenophobic talk, claiming superiority just because of their species. But something about it struck her a bit differently.

"Oh? What is it about the caves that is so exclusive to humans?”

The Delver averted her eyes, looking at the wooden wall beside Regina, and clenched her jaw, staying silent. After a moment, Regina sighed. She stretched, taking care not to move her wings, and backed off a little bit.

“Be like that, if you want,” she said. Then she paused, stepped forward again and let a little mana flow into the woman, healing her further. There was no point in getting too upset, or being inconsistent about this. She’d talked a little, so she had earned this bit of relief. “We’ll speak again soon.”

Regina turned around and left the building without looking back. Ben glanced at her, then stepped inside to release and retie the prisoner, taking two of the higher-level War Drones with him. Regina wasn’t worried about the woman taking advantage of the opportunity. She had no weapons, and she was still in the middle of the hive’s settlement.

Once outside, Regina glanced up at the gathering clouds. The sky to the west had grown visibly darker, with clouds now covering most of it except for a clear patch to the east. It was going to rain soon. There might even be a real storm. Regina wasn’t too worried about it, since they had, with their new resources, managed to get their houses completely waterproof, but it might stir up a few monsters and hamper their ability to operate in the forest. She made a mental note to find out if weather-control magic was possible. Her list of questions like that was steadily growing.

Ben joined her soon, and she read the concern in his expression when he, too, looked up at the sky. “How are Dan and the others?” he asked.

Regina quickly checked. “They’re on their way back, moving pretty fast. They should be here soon.” She paused. “Make sure the warriors are prepared, and I’ll go tell Mia and Tia to secure everything for a storm.”

She focused on her psychic connection and quickly sent off the message. They’d discovered that the best way to get drones started on using it themselves was with her connecting them, at least at the beginning. So she contacted both of the Workers, pulling them into something like a virtual conference call, except much more involved and not really separate from the psychic bond of the hive, to talk. They were able to hear the thoughts the other drone sent, too, and with a short exchange, the three of them quickly coordinated what to do.

When Regina withdrew her attention back to herself, she glanced up at the sky, considering it. A thunderstorm was going to severely limit her ability to fly. So, she readied her wings, then bent her knees and jumped as high as she could before beating them, taking the opportunity to get up there and have a look.

She still hadn’t figured out the trick to staying in one spot while flying, so she flew in tight circles. Right away, she noticed that it had already started to rain further east. It was going to come here quickly, too.

She quickly glanced around, but the forest made it difficult to see any details of monsters’ or even people’s movements, like usual. Regina sighed, then slowly came back down. She paused after a few meters, though, beating her wings a little harder. Was that spot darker than normal? I wish I had a skill like Ada. She frowned to herself. She just couldn’t be sure.

But it was better to be safe. So, Regina touched down close to Ben, who was currently talking to Zoe and a few other drones. “There might be trouble during the storm,” she said. “Are we going to be ready for it?”

“We’ll do whatever we can, my Queen,” Ben promised. The drones had all straightened up and were looking determined. “If you agree, I’d like to station our warriors at various locations and have some keep manning the palisade, if at all possible.”

“Okay,” Regina said. “Maybe we should have them trade off if the storm is going to be too extreme.” Privately, she doubted it was going to be that bad, though. She didn’t want to station all of her warriors at the palisade, in case some danger snuck inside. But she trusted Ben to handle it well enough.

“You can count on us, my Queen,” Ada spoke up. She’d stepped up to join the group just after Regina landed here.

Regina smiled at her and nodded. The Scouts were basically a warrior type, so it made sense for Ada to be essentially part of their command staff. She hoped Max and Tim would wake up soon. Maybe I shouldn’t have let them evolve their Classes yet. Especially Tim. But it will hopefully be worth the downtime once they’re finished. And maybe I’m jumping at shadows.

She pulled herself from her thoughts and turned to see how the Workers were doing. By now, all of the drones were gathered back in the settlement, except for a few War Drones in the tunnels. Regina closed her eyes for a moment and focused on Dark. The bird was restless, uneasy, but she guided him to a perch in a thick cluster of trees, where he should be dry and safe enough. That would leave her with some eyes outside, at least. She’d planned to use Infect on another monster or two, but hadn’t gotten a good prospect for it yet. At the moment, she wished she had looked harder or settled for something less optimal.

Drops of rain started to fall, quickly growing in frequency. They chased Regina into one of the houses. She was tempted to use her magic to dry off, but decided to conserve it, and she hadn’t gotten that wet, anyway. She felt like rain and her species didn’t mix well, but maybe it was just her, since she had wings.

The wind picked up in tandem with the rain, and all too quickly, the storm had started in earnest. Regina listened to its howls over the patter of the raindrops hitting the roof, grateful that she didn’t have to weather it out in the wilderness. The thought that none of their buildings had a lightning rod made her worry for a moment, but then she realized that with all of the much taller trees around them in the forest, it shouldn’t be an issue.

For about half an hour, everyone was quiet and simply waited it out. A proper clock was one of the things they hadn’t managed to get yet. They had a sundial, but, of course, that wasn’t much use in a situation like this.

Thunder roared occasionally, and Regina tried to count the seconds between it and the flashes of lightning. She wasn’t confident she’d even got all of those, considering they only had small slits in the windows they’d left open, and they all used wooden shutters instead of glass. Something they should probably work on. Regina distracted herself by considering if she could make glass as a feasible export for the hive.

Then, after a period of tense waiting, they finally heard noise that might not come from the storm. Regina immediately closed her eyes and focused on her psychic bond with her hive, checking on and with various drones stationed outside. It took her only a few moments to make sense of what was happening.

A few dark figures were moving across the field, clearly hoping the darkness and driving rain of the storm would help to hide them. At the same time, a few winged forms approached from above, keeping roughly on course despite the wind and rain.

“We have incoming people, probably hostile, including what seems to be tamed flying beasts!” Regina alerted the others.

Ben cursed in a low voice, then opened the door. He exchanged a few quick words with the other warriors in the building, before he left. Regina stepped out right after him. Behind her, the others spread out to carry the news to the other drones and organize the defense. She knew he’d already made plans, but now they knew where the actual threat was coming from.

Regina chose the best spot for herself and ran there. From here, she had a good view through the gap in the palisade they’d left for a gate and rough barricades, at the approaching humans. More warriors and many war drones had gathered here. The Warriors mostly carried throwing spears and some other things they had as ranged weapons and stood on the primitive battlements behind the palisade wall. Regina jumped up to join them after checking out everything.

The humans were quickly coming closer, so Regina prepared her Spell. She could now tell that they all carried weapons, mostly blades and other melee weapons, so this was obviously an attack. After a moment, she released a Firebolt, sending it shooting towards them.

The attack landed between two running humans, sending one of them off their feet. Regina smirked with satisfaction and prepared a second one, but waited and watched for a moment to gauge how effective it would be.

Her drones let loose as well. Unsurprisingly, the Drone Shooters did best, throwing javelins at the attackers that shot straight towards their targets’ center mass.

Then a transparent blue shield flickered into existence, several meters wide, looking a bit like a force field from a science fiction show. It caught most of the projectiles, and while it seemed to flicker, the human casting it clearly managed to stabilize it. It moved with the humans. Those had clearly given up all attempts at stealth by now.

Regina cracked her neck, hissing at the incoming humans. A few of her drones picked up the sound, then more joined in. If it wasn’t for the storm, it might have echoed threateningly across the field. But she didn’t care.

Let them come. She was ready for them.