Ch 8

The next day I woke up in Joy and Cuddles arms. It felt nice. I hadn't said anything, but I guess they figured out I wasn't happy waking up alone yesterday. Stretching, I made to start out my day.

Zerg Mana – 22,840

Zerg Supply – 18/65

Holy crap that's a lot of mana! Checking over my Swarm quickly told me that I now have 38 Hatcheries and the other 20 are already in the process of spawning. But that would mean that before those 20 started to spawn, I was sitting at… 30,840 Mana? Holy crap! I guess my plan to spread the Creep they way I have is working!

Excited, I immediately set to work spawning as many Drones as I could from my new Hatcheries. That gives me 43 Drones, 65/65 supply, and 21,765 mana left. Sending the drones out to spawn more Hatcheries, I finish my morning ritual, and go out to float in the pool and explore my land in an Overlord. I don't have enough to see everything that my land covers. That's going to need fixing. I add making Hatcheries sensors as well as capable of as much sight as the Overlords to my to do list.

About midday, my last drone finishes finding a new site for a hatchery, dropping my supply back to 18/65 and my mana to 4565. By then my growing Hatcheries had finished as well, giving me a total of 58 Hatcheries. By midnight that number should increase to 101. Geez that's a lot of hatcheries! My Queens are still out spawning Creep tumors, but with the new Hatcheries set up, their work now involves filling up the cracks in the creep between the hatcheries. My Queens are practically exploring the world now. I'm surprised they aren't bored though. Such work has to be tedious by now. Surprisingly though, they aren't. I guess it's hard to be bored when everything they're doing is slowly but surely increasing the size of the Swarm. Working towards a higher cause can do wonders for moral it seems, especially when you don't have to be lonely ever and can hold conversations across any distance mentally. How they haven't run out of things to talk about is also beyond me.

Let's see, with my new Hatcheries underway, the next step will be to get more Overlords. Spending the last of my mana, dropping me down to 65, I now have 45 extra overlords, giving me a total of 56, raising my suppy to 18/290. Spreading them evenly over my land still doesn't cover the entire creep though. With the ability to have Overseers coming up in the near future, and making the Hatcheries fill in for the Overlords original purposes, I'm probably going to have all my Overlords become Overseers. I'm still going to need Overlords for transport purposes though, but from where I'm sitting, that will get phased out too by the Leviathans. I'm going to have to weaponize Leviathans as well come to think of it. If only the Oveseers were still capable of transport! I don't know… I'm still thinking about it. I haven't decided yet if I'll change that part of the swarm yet.

Climbing out of the pool, I cloth myself and enter into an Overlord. It's not all that different from being inside a Hatchery actually, just smaller. The fact that both can regulate their internal temperature to feel like a cool 70 degrees makes it all the nicer.

Almost as an after thought, I have the overlord pick up my dozen zerglings as well. I direct the Overlord to the chasm Rose discovered a few days ago. It's time to try my hand at mining!

Looking through the Overlord's eyes, I looked down into the chasm astonished. Rose had said anything about just how big it is! And the sheer amount of monsters is rather daunting, and there are plenty of endermen down there too. Luckily they didn't react to the Overlord, since with 360 degree vision, they don't have to look directly at anything.

Directing the Overlord near the bottom, I have it deploy the Zerglings first, who proceed to rip the monsters to shreds. As I expected, the Zerglings had no trouble dealing with the Enderman. With the Overlord nearby granting them it's vision, nothing could sneak up on the Zerglings at all.

Finally, with all the monsters in the immediate area destroyed, I turn my attention to the rock wall trying to spot minerals. I spot iron and coal immediately, as well as a small vein of diamond ore sitting over a lava pool. That's going to be annoying to get at. Just as I'm about to exit the Overlord, a brilliant idea hits me. You need a pickaxe in minecraft to mine, and while I'd brought wood with me to make one, why don't I just use the Zerglings? Their claws are probably more than capable of carving the rock to bits if they can cut up neosteel and whatever the Protoss make their warmachines and armor from.

Sitting back, I direct the Zerglings to strip mine the area, then bring back anything of value. After a few minutes and watching the Zerglings struggle to carry stuff back to the Overlord, I lament not bring drones with me before I exit the Overlord to grab stuff to carry back myself. Since the Zerglings and the Overlord have nightvision, I don't even have to worry about not being able to see either.

As for the diamonds, I decided to leave them there for the moment. With lava available, I'd be better served getting some obsidian available as well. I directed the Overlord to collect some water from the river to drench the obsidian. Thankfully this is real life, so the water source wasn't infinite. I don't know whether to be grateful or disappointed in this. An infinite water source would've been very handy, but the blatent 'screw you' to physics would've given me a major migraine. With the obsidian layered over the lower pool of lava, and not really wanting to carve it up, I directed the Overlord to use it's tentacles to heave it up and deposit it topside, but not before I had the Zerglings carve down the diamonds.

Goal completed, we flew back to the main hive cluster, and unloaded our findings. Using the Zerglings, I had them carve out of the obsidian a proper sized archway as an entrance to the Nether. Dragging it a fair distance from the Hatchery itself, I had the Overlord lift it up and then situate it into the ground so the creep could help stabilize it and keep it upright. That finished, I sifted through the gravel we'd collected till I found a good size piece of flint. Then in a stroke of brilliance, I made the Overlord become a temporary furnace, melting the iron we'd collected into ingots, and using packed dirt as molds, created a solid iron pickaxe. Brushing the flint against the tip of the pickaxe produced sparks, igniting the nether portal open. Unlike in the game though, you can actually see the Nether through the portal from either side. It's pretty cool.

Directing a Zergling through the Portal was trippy. I could still see the Zergling, but according to my senses, I can feel the Zergling as if it's in front of me, but I can also feel as if it's thousands of miles below my feet. It seems the speculation that the Nether is actually located at the center of a Minecraft world has been proven. I wonder if that means that the End really will be the moon, or somewhere else entirely?

My thoughts are interupted by a strange chirping noise that sent chills down my spine. Next thing I know there's an explosion, the Zergling is dead, and the nether portal's connection is cut. I could only stare in shock. Ghasts can oneshot Zerglings, yet can't do the same with a guy in diamond armor? How the hell does that work!?

"What's going on?" "What happened?" "Is something wrong?"

Blinking, I looked around. I guess I'd been so lost in my thoughts I hadn't noticed my Queens approaching. I shook my head and said, "Nothing's really wrong. It's just that we lost a Zergling to a Ghast. Somehow the thing oneshotted the Zergling. I don't know how that's really possible, but it did. This pushes any invasion plans for the Nether back a bit, until we can assimilate diamonds into our armor."

My Queens still look shaken, and Asura approached and put her hands on my shoulders, "From now on, if you're going to do something like this, would you please have us nearby? You're still mostly human so far to easily damaged for our peace of mind, even if you can regenerate. Anything that can oneshot a Zergling would do far worse to you."

I nodded, "Agreed. That's mainly why I was so shocked. I know of a human who was able to take multiple hits from a ghast and survive, just by wearing some armor. Now a Zergling with armor far superior is one shotted? I didn't expect that at all. Don't worry though, I didn't take any unneccessary risks. I knew a Ghast might be too much for me, that's why I sent the Zergling first. Still, I'll feel better having you around in case something like this happens again."

Asura nodded, and along with the rest of the Queens, looked relieved. Pulling the Diamonds I'd stowed in my pocket out to look at them, I looked up at Asura and asked, "Now, how would I go about getting Diamonds assimilated into the Swarm, particularly the armor?"

Asura thought for a moment, then replied, "We'd need access to the Evolution Chamber before we could do that. It'd also be far easier to do so if we had a genetecist, but those are always Cerebrate level, and we can't get them until level 5. Between us though, I'm sure we could come up with something."

I nodded, sighing. The only thing left that I can think of off the top of my head would be to get some Adamantium. Voicing this, The Queens decide to come along with me this time. Back in the chasm, between the Queens and the Zerglings, we were tearing it up, trying to reach bedrock. Despite working the rest of the day away, by nightfall we still hadn't reached the bottom, though we'd certainly spread the chasm out quite a bit. It more resembles a pit than a chasm now, and the sheer amount of diamonds, coal, flint, stone, and obsidian I have available is almost ridiculous.

Calling it quits for the night, the Queens and I headed back to the hatchery, leaving the Zerglings to continue in the digging effort, since their ability to burrow allows them to do so and avoid monsters at the same time. Faye had thought of that one, and I was particularly impressed with her. She fairly glowed afterwards. I was also able to use the Overlord as a furnace to form a solid obsidian pickaxe. It almost combusted from the temperatures needed, but it turned out to be well worth it, since it hadn't chipped in the entire time I'd used it. Also worth noting is that by now all the drones I sent out to spawn Hatcheries have finished, bringing my total Hatcheries up to 101. I can't wait to see how much mana I'll have tommorrow. Tuckered out from the long day, I fell asleep rather quickly.

-END CHAPTER-

Overmind mana – 100/100

Zerg Mana – 65/1,000,000

Zerg Supply – 18/290

Units:

1 Overmind

56 Overlords

20 Drones

11 Zerglings

6 Queens (Broodmother)

Structures:

101 Hatcheries

1 Spawning Pool