Overlooking the northern end of the Great Kar Forest was a trio of mountains that first got their names from the lovely drink known as ale. The cities of Yachium and Yaslay were enemies but no animosity could stop the human love of alcohol and the ale from the northern city of Yaslay was widely considered to be the best in the region. As they say ‘love conquers all’ and the love of ale was no different. A trade route was established between the two cities and as the trade route skirted the trio of mountain, humans lazily began calling the mountains the Keg. Of the 3 mountains that made up the Keg, the middle one was the tallest so humans just called it Big Keg.

Never let drunks name anything.

At the foot of Big Keg was a cave first made by 5 Mage apprentices who wanted to make a name for themselves. They failed but they did leave behind a legacy that had changed the world. That legacy was a crystal. Floating on top of a stone slab, the crystal had 4 lights turning clockwise around it and within the crystal you could see thousands of small lights dancing within. The crystal was The Hive and the small lights within were the trapped spirits that made up the Hive. Hundreds, maybe thousands of spirits, were trapped within the crystal and currently, they were a happy lot…mostly.

“Alright! It’s done!” The Earth spirit shouted. “The ninth floor of the tunnels is finally finished!”

Cheers rang out within the hive at the announcement. Although no one outside the hive could hear them, most of the spirits within the hive were delighted by the completion of their latest floor and were congratulating each other loudly at the achievement. However as was the usual case for the hive, there’s always some spirits who dislike the current direction of the collective.

“Yes! Wow! Yeah! So what? So what if another floor was built? It’s not like we intend to leave the fifth floor any time soon?”

The complaint from one of the spirits within the hive rang loud and true. Currently the hive was within the underground forest that was the fifth floor of the tunnels and the spirits of the hive had no intention of going any deeper into Big Keg.

“Oh cut that out! Creating new floors is fun!” One of the Earth spirits of the hive said. The Earth spirits loved to dig and more than any of the other spirits, they enjoy the creation of new floors. Something not missed by the other spirits.

“Only for you Earth spirits,” the discontented spirit answered back. “The rest of us are bored.”

“Very bored”

“Super Bored”

“Incredibly bored”

“Amazingly bored!”

“Let’s do something!” the first spirit suggested.

“YES!”

Several of the spirits within the hive immediately shouted their approval but just as quickly, someone asked, “Like what?”

“…”

One of the Earth spirits sighed dramatically and replied. “Come on you guys, we’ve been through this already! There’s nothing to do right now except the creation of new floors. No humans had arrived to kill and steal from us for several snowy winters already.”

The other spirits heard this and understood how right the Earth spirit was. 5 winters ago, over 300 humans attacked the tunnels and their deaths gave the hive a feast of energy. However since that battle, no humans had arrived. The hive had waited patiently but for some reason, the humans had decided not to visit the tunnels anymore. Even when the hive ordered the Kin to attack the humans again in the hope of drawing another response from them, no humans came. Instead the Speaker informed the hive that the humans had withdrawn from the Kar Forest and there were now no human settlements within a day’s ride of the great forest.

Honestly, the spirits within the hive didn’t understand everything the Speaker had said. They had no idea of what “a day’s ride” was and little idea of what “withdraw” meant. However they did understood the essence of what the Speaker was saying; no human was coming.

Thus the seasons passed, and the hive was now more bored than ever. The hive took some satisfaction in the creation of new floors so any time a new floor was completed, it was an accomplishment but the only reason they were doing this was because…well, there’s just nothing else to do! The Earth spirit was right. The spirits of the hive weren’t creating floors because they wanted to; they just got nothing better to do! Even the creation of new creatures had long lost its luster. What’s the use of creating new creatures that weren’t even needed? Of course that was not something the spirits wanted to tell the Kin; like the one currently standing in front of it.

Several winters ago when humans were still visiting, the hive created the fifth floor as a huge dome with an underground forest for the various flying creatures it had. Now one of those flying creatures was standing in front of it. The creature had a human face but instead of arms, it had wings and the creature’s legs were bony and bird-like. So bird-like that the creature had talons instead of human feet and trapped in one of the talons was an animal called a rabbit. The spirits within the hive immediately knew what the harpy wanted and not for the first, they got into an argument over the matter.

“See!” a spirit shouted. “Here they come again. Let’s just create a new creature for the Kin so that they would stop doing this?”

“Oh please!” A spirit argued. “The Kin are not going to stop and you know it. They want new creatures and the moment we create a new creature for them, they would KEEP ON COMING!”

“That’s right and what’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong is that we don’t need any more new creatures! If we create a new creature for them, they will just come back some time later with new animals, hoping that we would change those animals too! Let’s not encourage them.”

“Who said they need encouragement?” another spirit argued. “How long has it been since we created something new? That hadn’t stopped the Kin from coming to us in the hope of us creating something new. We should reward them for their efforts if nothing else.”

“No we should not!” a different spirit argued. “We should not encourage them at all and more to the point, we should not waste energy creating new creatures when no humans are coming for us!”

That was the crux of the matter. Most of the hive actually enjoyed the process of creating new creatures but it took a lot of energy for the hive to create a new creature, and the hive could only replenish energy in one of two ways. It could absorb the spirits in the environment and convert them into energy, or it could absorb the energy that was released when a creature was killed within the tunnels. The latter method was faster and far more effective but the hive could no longer used it because there were no more visiting humans! In desperation, the hive in the past had even told the Kin to bring back some creatures to the tunnels before killing them. The Kin did as ordered but the energy that was released just wasn’t the same. Several of the spirits within the hive believed that this was due to the fact that when the Kin captured the animals, the animals knew they were going to die so by the time they reached the tunnels, the fight had already went out of them. As such, the animals released less energy when killed. The hive didn’t know whether this theory was correct but it sounded “right” and the hive always followed its instinct.

More important than the loss of energy however was the simple fact that the hive did not need more variety of creatures. When the humans attack the tunnels, the Kin helped the hive to kill the humans and that proved to the hive that the amount of creatures it currently had was enough. In fact, some of the Ratlings and a pair of the Werewolves were even having children! Having more variety of the Kin wouldn’t hurt but the hive didn’t need them so most of the spirits within the hive agreed that they shouldn’t be wasting energy creating more of them. Creating a new type of creature it didn’t need was a waste of energy the majority of the spirits within the hive just couldn’t agree with.

So for the harpy standing in front of it, the hive did what it always did in this situation. It did nothing. The hive knew that in time the harpy would get bored and leave and all it had to do was to be patiently. For a floating crystal, that was easy.

After a few moments, the hive felt it. There was no tremor or warning, the ground just began shaking. The hive immediately spread its focus outwards, throwing energy throughout its tunnels. This wasn’t the first time the hive had faced an earthquake but after a few moments, it realized this was a strong one. The ground was still shaking! The harpy took to the air but the hive maintained its focus. It couldn’t do anything about the shaking but with its energy, the integrity of the tunnels was maintained. The spirits within the hive would be mightily embarrassed if there was a cave-in in their tunnels.

“This earthquake is different.” One of the Earth spirits said after a while. “It doesn’t feel natural.”

“What do you mean?” The other spirits within the hive did not have the same connection to the earth that the Earth spirits had.

“It just feels different,” the Earth spirit replied. “It’s still shaking. Something created this earthquake. Let see if we can find out where it came from.”

With energy to spare, the hive spread its power outwards. Unfortunately, the range of their senses extends only a short distance beyond the entrance of the tunnels but the power that was unleashed could still clearly be felt. Whatever made the earthquake came from the south of the Keg Mountains, well beyond the Great Kar Forest but even from this distance, the hive could feel the impressive amount of power that was released. It was honestly beyond anything the hive had felt before. The power was burning like an inferno that was turning everything in its path into ash. It was also somewhat familiar.

One of the spirits in the hive had to ask. “Hey, you guys don’t think…?”

“Must be…this power…it must be the Fire Hive!”

“They caused an earthquake? What for?”

“Who knows with those morons? It could be an accident for all we know. We need to send someone down there to check things out.”

“Send who to check what? We don’t know anything yet.”

“That’s right. We don’t know anything and that’s why we need to find out. Knowing those Fire spirits, they’re liable to do anything!”

“Yeah and whatever it was, it was something big. We need to be careful.”

“Very careful.”

“Well at least something good came out of this.”

“What?”

“We’re no longer bored!”

The spirits within the hive joined together in laughter. Whatever you want to say about those Fire spirits, they were never boring. In a way, the hive missed them.

“So…who are we going to send?”