It took a bit before her death grip on me relaxed and she let me go, which was fortunate because the angle she had me at was getting uncomfortable. Ugh, this was a mess, the day was going so well and then WHAM some kind of surprise terrible event! Okay, breathe in, breathe out, calm down, it was just a coincidence, I knew she was dying since we left. Now what am I going to do, leaving her alone right now is a terrible idea, I want her to see I am still here when she wakes up, and I can't go to sleep yet myself. I guess I can practice some magic in here, I go over to one of the workers that just finished feeding the larva she was holding and sent her to get my bowls of materials while I held the baby. I looked down at her and gave her some head pets while I waited, in spite of the workers' apparent lack of individuality they were still super cute and I loved them.

A short while later she came back with the goods and I traded her for the little one. I sat down and started floating the contents into spheres, starting with the dust since it was the hardest. Once it was floating a little bit over my right hand I moved to the ash, doing both at the same time was interesting. Needed to use extra grip to hold the ash but keep a light touch on the dust to keep it from blowing away. Once that was floating over my left hand I grabbed the sand, three different substances at once was apprently my limit, for now. As is I could feel the strain from basically using three magic hands at the same time, just sitting like that was giving me plenty of experience.

Huh, it's interesting how new things seem to give loads but as soon as I gain a level doing it that way it slows down massively. Like dropping those trees while holding the ash ball wasn't ridiculously harder, but it was new. I am mentioning this because I noticed that as soon as I gained a level while holding these orbs it became less difficult and the exp rate went down, I can just FEEL it not filling as fast, but it is still the fastest method I have found so far. I set them into a slow orbit around me, like they are little planets , it helps a little due to more complexity but doesn't count as a new enough thing for the bonus. Two levels and change later I hear Victoria start waking up so I put my spheres away and look over to her as she sits up and yawns.

"Good afternoon, you feeling okay now?"

She had to contemplate that for a minute "I think I am, which is odd, she was my mother, why am I already over this? I was dreading this since I knew her time was running short, she told me shortly after she killed dad what would happen. But... I only got super sad for a little while and then nothing!"

I walked over, sat next to her, and patted her back "I thought that would happen, it's probably a mind thing queens need to run a hive properly, you just can't grieve over every death otherwise you would mentally break after hundreds on your daughters die because they are your front line warriors. The fact you were able to feel awful for your mother at all shows just how much you loved her." We sat in silence for a little bit before I continued "so what should we do with your little sister?"

She got an strange expression before turning her head and seeing that, yes, her sister's corpse was still laying there. "Well, I think we should... dang, first idea I had was to turn her into fertilizer for the farms, but I don't have farms yet. It also kinda sorta shows that I probably do have a mental disconnect since that's my sister and the first thing my gut suggested was using her to make food. Hmmmm, ah, I have a word, cremate, the burning of a corpse to ash as disposal, let's do that."

"Sounds good, let's see if we can convince the soldiers to let you out to see it." I stood and offered a hand to help her up next.

Then I scooped up her sister and told the workers to follow us as we headed up and towards the exit, we stopped at the guarding soldier and I explained what we wanted to do as well as I could to her. At first she refused hard but after I explained the protective formation she and her soldier sisters would be doing as well as the wall being built she finally relented. She told us to wait before heading up and came back down with two more soldiers. We all then headed topside where we pulled the workers off the wall and had them switch to helping me make a pile out of some the tree the workers and I cut up earlier. Once the pile was done and fire start point was placed I pulled up a wave of dirt and made a basic oven cover over it to ensure complete ashing.

"Do you want to say anything to her? Keep in mind this isn't just about her, but is symbolic of your mother's entire hive." I asked her.

"I loved my mother and all my sisters, she may have rushed me out when she was barely two years old instead of the traditional six" uhhhhhhhhh I'll ask later "but she made sure I was as loved and cared for as could be managed under the conditions she was under. I hope mother's soul becomes a child that receives just as much love as she gave, that Fighter will become someone smart, and that all my sisters can find a life where they can be happy." She gave a sad smile to her sister in my arms and gave her head a stroke before nodding to me.

I nodded back before placing her on the wood pile through the hole. "God, if you can hear me, please do what you can for her mother, she deserves it, and if you can find some way for Fighter to come back smarter that would be great, amen to you."

I close off the front hole leaving only the chimney and the air inflow holes around the bottom open, I take some fire from the cooking fire to light this one and it spreads quickly, filling up the oven with flame. I back off and stand next to Victoria as we both watch the red glow pouring from the air holes until it was time to head back down due to it becoming dinner time. We ate our food and she fed the larva and shortly after that we snuggled together and went sleep for real for the day.

I woke up second today, seems the nap let Victoria wake up earlier, when I heard a cracking sound I sat up to see what it was. It turned out to be the worker larva shedding their skins, once free their older sisters assisted them with drying off. It was nice seeing the workers being earnest about something without instruction, they may have been simple but they were still able to care. I turned and saw V was working on a new wood carving, a stunningly lifelike boar next to her. I walked over to her to see what the new thing was about it was no where near identifiable yet. I stopped and stood next to her until she finished what she was doing, she is taking this seriously and interrupting her could cause a mistake and upset her.

After a few more cuts she set it down and turned towards me and I said "Hey, I wanted to ask about something from your farewell speech yesterday that has been kinda bothering me."

"Sure, but not sure what it could have been" she replied.

"Well, you said your mother was two years old when she had you? So I sorta realized I have no idea how old you are, so how old are you?" I asked her.

"Oh, I am a little four months old now, I was three months when I shed that last shell." She answered while checking her status screen.

Hooooo boy "it's a bit late for it now, but you do know humans normally take years before they have... relations, think most people if they hear your age would be... worried about the legality of it."

"Well I'm not human, I can't just wait that long to find a husband. To me you humans are the weird ones, being able to take your time to the point you can wait YEARS? A princess has three months after their last shed to mate or their hormones will give them a heart attack from being elevated too long. Well, since you were willing to mate with me you consider yourself old enough, how old is that anyway, three, four years?" She asked me grumpily.

"Well, no, I'm eighteen years old, and according to where I am from that makes me old enough to... how do I explain this? It's like how you needed to have your last shed before we were allowed to be physical otherwise it could have just hurt one if us, it takes years before humans are allowed to mate because their minds need to shed, metaphorically, otherwise they can get hurt." I hope I explained it to her properly.

She seemed surprised and then mulled it over before she said "So you wanted to know my age cause you were worried about hurting my mind?"I nodded "That is sweet, and silly, but that's why I love you, always caring about me even when you don't need to." She smiled at me.

I scratched my cheek, feeling kinda embarrassed "Well, that leads into another question, what is your maximum age now that you have a mate?"

"Should be about twenty years plus two for every level, so twenty six at the moment, at least that is what a normal queen's age limit would be, mine will probably be higher due to having a better class. But as long as you make sure I have plenty of babies I should gain levels faster then I age for quite a while, so you don't have to worry about that." She gave me a smug grin.

"One last thing, what is the thing you are working on now with that wood?" I pointed to the just started chunk of wood.

"Ah, well this one is going to be a rabbit, figured I would do the animals around here and I decided to take my time on them and make them perfectly, I sorta rushed the family ones as I was worried I would forget them before I could finish." She said as she grabbed it.

"Well if it is even half as good as this boar you made it will be fantastic" she blushed then smiled at being praised.

"Jeez" she gave me a slap on the leg "get out of here you goof, before you embarrass me even more."

I just smiled at her before grabbing hold of my bowls and headed out to see what needed to be done around here. Once topside I saw the wall still wasn't done, but that was because the workers ran out of waste rock to pile up. I told the workers to head back down and join the diggers, and to only stop and return to wall building once the rock pile was head high. They nodded before heading back into the cave, while I took my stuff to the river to see if I could get some more fast levels by mixing mud into my material list. I sat down in a spot as close to the river as I could that was still dry, then grabbed hold of a mud ball and two other materials at random, i'll just juggle all the materials until something happened or I ran out.