Regina had a hard time counting the attackers coming at them from the forest. Partly, that was because of the weather and the poor visibility it entailed. Some of them were also using magic or Skills. Besides the blue shield, which she was guessing or at least hoping would fade over time, someone pulled up clumps of earth and hurled them at the palisade. Others emitted brief flashes of light, shifting gusts of wind that didn’t quite get lost over the storm, and even rumbles in the ground.

Luckily, their palisade held pretty well. They’d driven the stakes deep into the mound of earth making up its base, and the Workers had used their melding ability to have them hold together. Regina heard parts of the palisade creaking, and it seemed like a section of it almost bent inwards because of the impact, but it held.

Her drones paused, then intensified their efforts. Regina sent another carefully aimed Firebolt. This time, she aimed for a group of two attackers away from the shield. They dodged and rolled, but she still managed to catch them with the backblast of the explosion, and one man visibly staggered when he got back to his feet.

Regina frowned. It looked like fire wasn’t going to work very well, given the weather. That was a shame, especially since fire and related things was one of her best weapons.

She’d had some time to prepare, knowing it was possible that an attack was coming. She was pretty confident that, while she probably hadn’t done nearly everything she could have, she was pretty much ready. Sure, some things might not work now. Still. Regina grinned at the approaching humans. She would take every one of them that walked away from this as a personal failure.

“Volley on my command!” Ben called out. He paused for a second, then. “Ready, set, fire!”

A hail of javelins and a few arrows rained down on the humans, catching a few of them. Not every projectile that hit, even outside the shield, actually did anything, since many of the attackers wore heavy armor or used Skills or other ways to protect themselves. Still, she saw at least two slow and one go down. And the shield began to fade.

But the cleared area around their palisade wasn’t large, and the attackers now started to reach it.

Regina set her feet, glancing down at herself one more time to check that she was ready. She wore pants, a shirt and a cloak, since she wouldn’t be able to fly, anyway. She carried a bag slung over her side and had her polearm in her left hand as a backup. It should be a good fit for defending herself, hopefully.

The humans were clearly stronger than they should have been. A few vaulted over the ditch before the wall in a single jump. When they tried to scramble up it, the drones met them with their blades.

Regina held back for now, watching and assessing the clash. She had the impression that their counterattacks had scrambled the humans’ charge, the surprise attack they’d obviously planned. But they rallied quickly. Then a soft sound from above, almost lost to the wind, made her remember they weren’t alone, and she looked up.

A small flock of birds circled down from the air above. A Magic Missile caught one of them in the center, completely unaffected by the wind or rain. The bird sank down faster until it apparently managed to right itself.

“Len, Lea, Zoe, up above!” Ben called out.

A pair of light javelins and an arrow quickly arched through the air, seeking out the birds. Two of them were hit, one in the wing and one in the body. Regina watched carefully, prepared to cast another Magic Missile or even a Firebolt. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be necessary. Another hail of projectiles rose up, this time much more poorly aimed, but large enough to make up for it. The group of War Drones Zoe had taken charge of, throwing spines from the Shooters, Regina confirmed with a glance.

Then a cry pulled her attention back to the wall around her. One of the drones was wounded. Ina, who’d been throwing stones, since they didn’t have enough proper weapons for everyone. Regina quickly hurried the few steps towards her and laid a hand on her shoulder, activating her healing Spell.

After she was done and stepped back towards her old position, she glanced at her mana.

Mana: 987/1360

She hadn’t been topped off on mana even before the fight started, though she’d been relatively close, since she’d decided not to cripple her regeneration too much by having a lot of eggs in development. She’d have to watch her mana expenditure.

By now, the palisade was obviously getting pressed harder. Regina hesitated, then stepped towards Ben. They’d never intended this primitive wall to be able to hold back a serious attack, just to slow it down and give them the ability to thin out the attackers.

“I think we might want to retreat,” she shouted over the wind at the Warrior.

Ben glanced back at her, but didn’t pause in swinging his sword and blade-limb at a human who was trying to climb over the palisade. Two meters to his right, another attacker had decided to cut through the logs with some kind of special weapon or Skill, and was succeeding. “If that’s your command, my Queen!”

Of course, they didn’t give it up right away. Regina stayed, a bit farther back, and tried to assess the state of their defenses. Ben and the others were drawing closer together, preparing for a guarded retreat.

Regina reached out with her mind, linking the drones. She’d never done it quite like that before, but she wasn’t really taking on the burden of trying to speak to many at once. Instead, she was connecting them together, not all at once, but in a few groups. Ben and Ada, Dan and Tia. It helped that the drones, or at least some of them, had a much better grasp on the War Drones now.

In eerily coordinated unison, considering the lack of training involved, the drones jumped down from the palisade in staggered groups, backing away deeper into the settlement. Shooters and War Drones with throwing or projectile weapons intensified their efforts to support them.

The humans had not been unscathed so far. Regina saw a few bodies lying on the ground when she took a quick look through a few of the War Drones’ eyes. There weren’t even that many of them in all. But she could tell that at least a few of them were probably stronger than anything she’d faced before. One large man in particular, who was clad in full plate armor and swinging a large greatsword, or at least a huge, straight sword.

They’d deliberately left a gap in the ditch and heap of earth going around the camp, to leave a path through the wall. The hastily put together wooden barricade serving as a gate was already much worse for wear. It was torn apart completely now, a bright explosion throwing splinters of wood around. Luckily, none of her drones were close enough to be seriously hurt by it. A large figure stepped into the gap, pausing for a moment as if to take in the battlefield before him, and completely ignoring the few stones and small spikes thrown at him. Regina focused her attention and called up the System information.

Merl Reteren – Level ? Sword of Light

That’s the same Class that Trito had, right? Or at least very close. Regina frowned at the sight for a moment, before she focused and kept moving backwards, keeping the attackers in view.

She’d considered using Molotov cocktails, but in the wind and rain, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea, even if they had the bottles for it. Still, pure alcohol was very easy to create. She knew the chemical structure of ethanol, simple as it was, and her Basic Conjuration had no problem with making liquids. Honestly, Regina was almost tempted to try something with it, but she couldn’t create anything at a large distance, at least not yet, and she didn’t want to get close. She would have needed more time to prepare to fill the ditch with alcohol or something else flammable and light it up.

She still experimented with it now, soaking the tip of a javelin in alcohol and using Spark before letting a drone throw it. Unfortunately, the wind and rain didn’t do it any favors, and there just wasn’t that much for the fuel clinging on to at the projectile.

At least it got a reaction from the human leader, though. As soon as the flaming spike struck at his armor, trying to find a chink between different plates, he turned towards her and got moving.

Regina bit down on a curse and backed away. She glanced around quickly. Right now, she was standing in the shadow of the first hut, with a clear space between them and the palisade. Most of the humans had vaulted over it or followed the leader through the door, and were engaged with the drones. According to their usual tactics, the hive let the War Drones take the front, getting the brunt of the damage but protecting the sapient ones behind them, and swarming the humans where they could. The storm was letting up, the wind dying down somewhat and the rain no longer coming down like someone was dumping a lake on them.

Regina took the first object from her pouch and threw it at the leader as hard as she could. The human dodged, so it clanged off the side of his leg armor. He glanced at the block of wood, then looked up to face her as Regina took a step forward.

“Human!” she yelled at him. “Call off this attack and surrender! I don’t know who you are, but I see no reason for anyone to attack us like this.”

At first, she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he did, a gravelly voice rumbling from beneath his helmet. “We will not, monsterblood. We are not here to talk, but if you surrender immediately, you can save your people’s lives.”

Regina frowned at him. “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider that?”

Even as she spoke, she was already channeling mana. She barely gave him any time to react to her words before she launched the Spell.

To his credit, the human reacted quickly, stepping aside to dodge the attack. But it wasn’t aimed at him. The Firebolt curved over the space between them, moving to hit the cube she’d left there before, and his movement had not brought him far enough away from it.

From the outside, the thing looked like a solid block of wood. In fact, that was only the outer part, a very thin layer. Inside, it contained the simplest thing Regina had known to conjure. Quite a lot of it. She remembered the makeup and properties of hydrogen quite well, the details of a proton, electron and even orbitals, while molecular hydrogen was just about the simplest molecule there was, and also a gas under normal conditions. And she didn’t need to be in direct contact, if that was even possible, with whatever she was conjuring.

When it came into contact with the fire, after mixing with the oxygen in the air, it created an explosion that put the human’s own attack to shame. Regina’s enhanced hearing caught much of it. For good measure, she’d studded the pressure container with bits of metal and diamond, and that and wooden splinters created proper shrapnel.

It was possible the man survived the explosion — she didn’t know how well his plate armor would protect him. But it definitely blew him off his feet, and Regina’s drones didn’t waste time. War Drones quickly swarmed him, and the System no longer showed his information.

Regina turned her attention to the other humans. She knew her little trick would be easier to avoid the second time. Some of the hydrogen still burned, blue flames licking at the air and barely doused by the rain. Beyond them, she saw several humans who had frozen where they had been preparing to attack. She decided to be nice and snap them back to reality with a Magic Missile to the face.

Unfortunately for the attackers, the hive’s drones were much better off than in any other battle so far, with the weapons and gear they’d looted from the Delvers they’d fought. They were ready, in tune with her and the flow of the battle. Now, more projectiles and even the occasional simple incendiary rained towards the humans.

Regina saw one of the men look around, then turn tail and run. She almost laughed. Instead, she sent a few more Magic Missiles towards them. Their morale has to be hitting rock bottom by now. Their surprise attack was foiled from the start, we’ve defended ourselves at every turn, and now we’ve even killed their leader, who was probably also the strongest.

The drones seemed to smell weakness and pressed harder. Regina reached out again, but kept herself in the background as Ben coordinated an advance. Using their telepathic connection, that went far more quickly than it otherwise would.

The drones clashed with the remaining humans, blades flashing and a few Abilities being activated. Luckily, her hive had the War Drones to tilt the odds in their favor, especially with the numerical superiority. Regina hurried towards the drones who had gotten injured in the scuffle, healing a deep gash that had almost torn Bea’s arm off and then jumping to Zoe’s side to treat what might have been a crushed forelimb. That one taxed her healing Spell to the limit, and she wasn’t sure there weren’t any lingering effects.

Regina had just finished with that and stepped back as she felt a prickle on the back of her neck. She frowned. Something felt a bit off, although it was hard to pin down.

She turned around, then froze. A large, black wolf the size of a horse that had definitely not been there before bared its teeth at her. Its coat seemed to twist with shadows, and she felt a faint sense of mana connecting it to a figure behind it, a slightly older man leaning heavily on a wooden staff.

Regina formed a Magic Missile in her hand and stepped back slowly. She swallowed, trying to find a weakness to attack. A War Drone jumped at the side of the wolf and tried to bite into it, but it barely seemed to react. Instead, it opened its maw and started to lunge forward.

Only to crash into a raised shield that had suddenly blocked its path. Regina blinked, then turned to look at the figure that had appeared beside her, a familiar presence.

Max was larger now, towering at least half a head above her. He had filled out, and both his normal and blade-arms showed corded muscles. His blades themselves were darker and seemed both longer and sharper. He apparently hadn’t had the time to grab his ax, but he didn’t seem to care. He heaved the wolf off his shield and struck with his blade-limbs.

The wolf yowled as one of them cut into its face, almost taking its eye. The darkness of its coat intensified, but Max wasn’t impressed. He simply stepped forward and struck again, raising his shield to block the wolf’s teeth.

Regina snapped out of it and formed another Magic Missile, which she threw directly into the wolf’s face. That elicited a pained whimper, and Max took advantage.

Regina didn’t follow as he pushed the wolf back, judging that he had it well in hand. Instead, she turned to the rest of the battle. She formed another Magic Missile and prepared to throw it at the man who must have summoned the wolf, but stopped. A higher-level War Drone had already jumped him.

Regina looked around and felt a smile creeping onto her face. At least two of the humans had to have taken the opportunity to run away, and several more of them lay in the dirt, broken or bleeding.

“We need at least one or two prisoners!” she called out to her hive.

She hadn’t intended for it, but two of the humans immediately threw down their weapons and went to their knees. They’d both had a little space to breathe, not fighting off any of the drones at that moment. Regina sent a few War Drones to gather their weapons and watched while the rest of them flanked the few remaining fighters.

Curious, Regina paced forward and glanced at one of the humans. One of the few women in the group, she looked to be roughly in her early twenties, and the System called her a simple Warrior. The other one was a young male Rogue. “Why did you attack us, Delvers?” she asked while she made a few War Drones tie them up with some of the vines they’d stored.

The woman started, then her eyes sought out the man’s before they flitted back to her. She opened her mouth. “Er, we - We’re not Delvers. Ma’am.”

Regina frowned. “Truly?”

The woman started to say something again, but a glare from the man made her reconsider. Clearly, they’d just decided not to reveal their actual identities if they didn’t have to.

Regina sighed. She thought the reaction was probably genuine. These were just simple soldiers who clearly seemed to be out of their depths. And for all their faults, the Delvers she’d seen had never been particularly subtle.

A cracking sound from behind her distracted her. Regina turned, just in time to watch a mostly familiar figure stumble out of a hut. Like Max, he’d grown and put on more muscle, though it was not as pronounced. His color had darkened a bit and his blades were both black, looking wickedly sharp.

“I didn’t miss anything important, did I?” Tim asked.

Max walked away from the dissolving body of the monster wolf he’d slain and gave a muffled laugh.