Ch 18

Zerg Mana – 354,748,360/1,000,000,000

I let out a low whistle at that. Considering the rate this is going, I'm going to have enough for level three by either the next night or the night after. I look over at the Queens and said, "Break time from learning. Now to increase the Swarm."

With a chorus of agreements, I observed as they purchased 643,178 Drones and turned them into Lairs, leaving me with 1,000,460 mana. Shaking my head, I had to wonder just how much land I cover exactly. The sheer amount visible to my mind's eye is tremendous, but that doesn't exactly tell me how much land that covers. Thankfully I'd already calculated earlier that each Lair provides about 250 square blocks, or meters, of surface area. With 725,848 Lairs at the moment, that'd give me approximately… 181,462,000 square meters of surface covered. I had to gape at that. A minecraft overworld is only 600 million square meters large… I've already covered approximately 30 percent of the surface of this world!?

I can barely comprehend that I've already gotten so far in less than a month. Granted I know that the Zerg could do comparable things quite easily before I came along. Heck, didn't the Zerg infest most of Mar Sara in only a few days? Although Mar Sara might be quite a bit smaller than this planet… either way, at this rate, I very well might be infesting an entire planet in the span of a day, or maybe even multiple planets!

Shaking my head at just how far we've come and how far we might go, I checked over the Swarm. Seeing the Overlords reminded me that if the teleport technique had worked out, then I'd want to evolve them all the Overseers. After all, I don't really need personal carriers anymore, though I'll still keep one Overlord per Queen and one for me as well. After all, on the off chance that we're incapacitated but not killed, we might not be able to warp away carrying anything… or can we?

Standing up, I explained what I wanted to do, then I picked up Faye and activated teleport. As I expected, she got left behind. Warping back, I went over to the Lair that we're using as storage and grabbed a large chunk of iron the size of Faye and tried to warp with that. This time it worked. So why didn't it work with Faye? Maybe it has to do with her being capable of teleporting herself, or being alive? I'm leaning more towards the former rather than the latter, but there must be a way to test this. Casting around, I spotted a herd of pigs through the Overlords. Warping over and grabbing one before it can slip away, I warp away with it. It worked. I quickly warped it back, then warped back to my Queens and explained my findings.

In that case, we'll need to keep an Overlord each for ourselves unless we can have a cerebrate alter our teleport ability to allow us to take people capable of our version of teleport. It occurred to me that it might be possible that if my Queen IS incapacitated, then I might be able to warp around with her then, but I have no idea how to test that without frying one of their brains out with psi assault and that's not an option. I'm not about to hurt my Queens in the name of science, or to be quite frank, anyone. Ever. I draw the line at tests that require purposeful harm. It's not happening.

With my tests concluded as much as possible, I almost went ahead with turning them all into Overseers, until I remembered that while I may not need them as personnel shuttles anymore, I still need them as gatherers. With that realization, I decided to leave the Overlords alone instead.

Turning back to my Queens, I settled back among them, and they continued to pick my brains for more knowledge. I covered just about anything and everything I could think of as best I could. I can only hope that it's enough though. I still wish I could just download my knowledge into their heads. For all I know there's stuff that I know that I forgot to mention or don't know that I know. It'd also be easier if I could just hand them an encyclopedia or an internet connection, but I don't have either of those.

This whole situation has instilled in me a new goal though. As the Zerg expands and assimilates new strains into the Swarm, I'm also going to have the Swarm collect knowledge, technology, and culture as well.

As my mind wandered a little as it's wont to do, I realized something and I turned to Asura and asked, "I thought you didn't know how to read?"

Confused, she answered, "I don't. I only know the little bit you've taught us."

"Then why were you trying to read those books that the historian of the village had?"

Asura blinked and asked, "That was writing? I thought it was just strange pictures. I tried to figure out if they looked like anything I'd seen before, but they didn't. I couldn't understand them at all. Even so, I knew they had those books for a reason, so I tried to figure out there secrets."

"Why?" I asked. She rubbed her other arm and said, "I was curious. I like learning new things. It's one of the first things that developed when you gave me free will."

My other Queens agreed with this, concurring that that was one of the first things they experienced as well. Knowing now that Asura hadn't really learned anything from those books to tell me, I made a mental note to go check those books as soon as the sun had risen. Until then, my Queens continued asking me various questions, and I did my best to satisfy their curiosity. Part way through the night, Joy started trying out making music herself, using her voice and drumming on her lap. There were a few false starts before she huffed and said, "Doing two instruments at once is hard!"

I chuckled and replied, "That's why most people only master playing one at a time. Very few people actually try to combine them, but when they do they usually only try to do that with two instruments they know so well that using them is almost instinctual."

She nodded, and started singing instead and had a much easier time of it. She didn't sing about anything in particular, but it was very pleasant to listen to. We spent the rest of the night making music.

When the sun rose, we made our way to the village. Thomas greeted us, asking us about why we're visiting. I explained that I wanted to see their books. Thomas nodded and lead us to the library. I greeted the historian, snobbish boor that he is, then asked about his books. He explained most of them are blank, ready to be filled with the writing of current and future generations. He showed me where the latest writings were going back to the earliest. I pulled out the earliest book and went about reading it.

Not even two pages in, I found myself bored out of my mind. The thing read like a journal, and a very dry one at that, pointing out seasons, deaths, and births mainly. Record keeping at its finest. Steeling myself, I pushed on, reading more and more, skimming more and more to try and get through it all.

The second book thankfully had a little more life in it, but it's subject matter was still not all that great. It seems these people don't do innovation really, or at least they didn't, far more focused on trying to survive this world.

It was the sixteenth book that I finally found something interesting. Records showed one of the villagers spotted a new kind of mob, one they'd never seen before. It looked like a zombie, only with skin similar to the villagers and bearing tools. After that, the records had various trades listed in them that this new mob, whom I'm now certain was Steve, the main character of Minecraft, had made with the villagers. This continued on in this vain until by the seventeenth book he'd abruptly disappeared.

None of the books past that point make any mention of him, even to the 58th book, which is the one the current historian is writing himself. During all this reading, my Queens came and went, I took breaks to eat and stretch. Once I'd finished, I stretched and put the last book away, turning to the historian, I asked, "Are these books all the knowledge available in the village? Any stories passed by word of mouth?" The historian started to shake his head, before he got a thoughtful look on his face and said, "There are a few stories told to the children for bedtime stories. They aren't recorded in here and would have changed over the years."

Nodding, I went out looking for Thomas. I found him plowing his fields, though why he still does that with the creep around, I'll never understand.

Calling out to him I said, "Hey Thomas! Can I ask you some questions?"

Thomas wiped his brow and leaned against his spade, brushing his abnormally long nose shared by the rest of the villagers and said, "Sure."

Nodding, I came up to him and asked if he had any stories that wouldn't have been recorded in the historian's library, such as myths or legends. Thomas seemed to grow pensive, then said, "There are a couple, most just bedtime stories meant to help the children get to sleep or make sure they behave. Some are about the small nosed stranger, some are adventure stories of villagers who braved stepping out of the village, and some are about the monster man in the mists. What would you like to hear?"

At that last one, a bit of color drained from my face, and I asked, "Can you tell me about that last one? The monster man in the mists?"

Thomas nodded and said, "Why don't we go inside?"

I nodded and we went into the house adjoined to the field Thomas had been tilling and he passed me a metal cup of water, taking one for himself, which we both drained, and he refilled both our glasses, before beginning.

"The story of the monster man in the mists actually starts with the story of the small nosed man. It's told to young children the story of the small nosed man who did nothing but adventure and stayed out among the monsters. The adventures this man gets up to are many and varied, but his last one leads into the story of the monster man in the mists. It tells about how the small nosed man met his match in a similar looking person, only this person had blank white eyes. The monster man killed the small nose man and you could see him when the mists roll in. Of course this is just a story. The last time the mists rolled in was several generations ago, and no mention of this monster man was mentioned then. The story is to convince kids not to wander off from the village. Children are precious to us. We can't afford to lose any, not that we will anymore! We have you to thank for that. You remind me of some of the stories of the small nosed man actually. The fact that you have a small nose yourself along with your Queens helps that."

I nodded and asked, "Do the small nose man or the monster man have names?" Thomas shrugged and said, "Dunno. I do know when I was told those stories I liked to pretend I was the small nose man off on adventures, but that ended when I found out about the monster man. I didn't fancy meeting anything like that. Why? Have you seen this monster man?"

I shuddered and said, "No and I pray I never do."

Thomas gave me a quizzical look, then said, "You know something."

I nodded dejectedly, "I do, though I'd hoped I was wrong. The fact that you even have stories about the monster man increases the chance that he actually exists. The small nosed man's name was Steve. He appeared in this world in the same manner I did. He just popped up. Unlike him, I have an advantage though in that I command the Zerg. I've taken steps to try and make myself more powerful than the monster man, but I'm not anywhere near able to pull that off yet. Unlike Steve though, I came here forewarned to some degree. I was at least aware of places like this world before I got here."

Thomas Farmer nodded seriously and asked, "Is this something I should bring before the attention of the council?"

I shook my head and said, "No. It's one thing to have bedtime stories using the monster man as the proverbial boogie man, but if anyone has to face this monster man if he does exist, then it'll probably be me."

Thomas nodded, then downed his glass of water. I did the same then made to get up. We made our way out of his house making small talk. Before I left, Thomas asked, "You said the name of the small nosed man was Steve. Did the monster man have a name too?" I nodded, as serious as I could possibly be, and answered, "I know his name, but it's said that if you say his name three times, it summons him to come after you, so I don't dare say it once."

Thomas shuddered and replied, "Say no more. I fear I'm going to have nightmares tonight just from our talk alone."

"Here's wishing you don't. See you around Thomas."

Waving goodbye, I warped back to the Lair, seriously disturbed. With what amounts to confirmation now, I'm seriously starting to wonder if I should pull out from the planet. I may be impervious to most things HE can do now, but all the same, he's impervious to just about anything I could do to him too. I honestly don't know what I'd do if he showed up. I can only hope that my PSI Assault or PSI Storm could affect him.

It didn't take long for the rest of my Queens to show up. I'm glad to have them with me as they cuddle me, obviously sensing that I needed the contact. After a while, I finally relaxed, able to finally dismiss thoughts of HIM from my mind. By now night had fallen, and my new Lairs had finished a good while ago. With over a million of them available, 1,369,026 to be exact, I couldn't wait to see how much mana I'd get tonight. Of course, I could just calculate it but that wouldn't be as fun. Settling back into my Queens I set in for a wait, spending this time just relaxing with my Queens until midnight and my mana deposit.

-END CHAPTER-

Overmind mana – 500/500

Zerg Mana – 1,000,460/1,000,000,000

Zerg Supply – 1298/6,845,130 (0 pending)

Units:

1 Overmind

1079 Overlords

101 Drones

11 Speedlings

6 Queens

100 Hydralisks

Structures:

1,369,026 Lairs (0 pending)

1 Spawning Pool

2 Evolution Chambers

1 Hydralisk Den

1 Roach Warren

1 Baneling Nest