@Blitz Boom
Asildae shrugged, she didn't have much to add since she didn't know for sure how she had ended up there, though she was equally surprised how few creatures made their way to her, sure there had been some critters that had come to investigate the singing, but it had been relatively few. Her best guess was that animals around here just weren't stupid enough to wander into a dark cave with sounds inside, or maybe there was a local predator that made similar sounds? She wasn't that well educated on the wildlife here.
Asildae did notice the change in Glutton, and was more curious than anything, in big part because magic was one of those things her kind didn't have much understanding on, mainly because they didn't use it. They weren't incapable of learning magic altogether; but not having their own usable natural magic, and their hives forming an area of magic-nullification due to how they were build; magic wasn't really relevant for them to learn. She would have likely been more impressed if she actually knew about magic, since at her current level of knowledge, as far as she knew, what Glutton did could have been one of the most basic spells in existence, or the hardest one to exist, Asildae simply had no idea.
Asildae gave a sort of 'kinda' gesture at Glutton's rhetorical question, since it was not entirely that simple; Yes, generally speaking her understanding was that draconequui kinda just came to existence, but out of nowhere? not quite, since nothing came out of nowhere. Asildae kinda just figured that some kind of magic formed them, instead of biological means. The fact that they could apparently reproduce more traditionally was a surprise to her, but at the same time, it made sense in how weird it was, it would be the creatures known to break the natural norms to be able to do that too.
While listening to Glutton, Asildae would now and then suddenly charge in a direction, and grab a small animal from a tree or the ground, never far enough to not hear Glutton speaking, but enough that Glutton would need to turn her head if she wished to look at her. It was everything from birds and rodents to lizards and even one snake, who all got the same treatment, as Asildae injected them with her venom, seemingly indifferent to their attempts to scratch and bite her. She also now and then grabbed insects and other invertebrates that happened too close to her.
Asildae's movements were quick and snappy, not too different from her smaller, distant relatives she seemed to like to snack on; and with how sudden they were most of the time, it was hard, if not impossible, to predict when and where she was going to move.
"A fascinating tale, it is curious to me how little your kind is known outside these specific lands." "Considering what you told me, I can say for certain that some of the creatures where I come from, would likely see your kind as gods." "It makes me also wonder. Since your kin is from sound of it generally such that you embody things that go against the current order, does there exist an opposite equivalent?" she was more pondering out loud than expecting actual answer, but would let Glutton respond if she had an answer.
"What comes to my story, there are few details that need to be explained first." "The place where I come from, we have no name for it, nor our species." "Those have many names in many languages, often descriptive of appearance or action, combined with specific cultural believes." "But for us, there is only hive, and other hives are described by location or by the queen." "For you see, we do not have a language, no written word, or spoken tongue." "Hive is one, we are what you would call, a hive-mind, so external communication, is unnecessary." "And when it comes to communicating with other hives, we use pheromones and body language, and sometimes buzzes or whistles." "Such communications are simple, for there are only few reasons to interact: conflicts, upkeep of peace, and reproduction." "That is why I speak your language, and many others. We do not have writing, so what we learn from outside the hive, comes in many languages not our own."
"As for where I come from, it is what you would call 'jungle', there is not any great civilizations nearby, only my kind, and tribes of various other creatures." "Not always a pleasant place to live, but food is plenty, and that's really all that matters." "It is far from here, but as stated earlier, I'm not entirely aware of the exact relation to this place." "My hive was build by my mother's mother, somewhere around 400 seasonal cycles ago." "My mother inherited it from her mother, like I was supposed to inherit it from her." "Queens often stay in their mother's hive, as building a new one is lot of work."
"Being a queen is not a title for us, it is a physical reality. We are twice the size of our sisters and daughters, and our mind is more capable to allow us to oversee the hive." "A hatching of a new queen is initiated by the hive when the old queen is nearing the end of her life, this is so that the new queen can learn certain skills before taking over, as not everything transfers perfectly through the hive-mind." "It is also because to be even a day without a queen, is extremely dangerous to a hive, as loss of a queen leaves them vulnerable for takeover by another queen." "We hatch fully matured, I had hatched only few cycles before I found myself in that cage."
"Daughters are always linked to their mother, but the issue rises when the queen dies, or is otherwise separated like I was, as the hive is left without protection, and lacks the will to resist a takeover." "Normally, the new queen, the daughter of the old queen, will take her sisters into her care, but sometimes, like in my case, there is more than one queen that hatches, and when the old queen dies, the hive splits." "Sometimes, especially when there's more than two, some of the queens leave and build a new hive, but other times, it leads to conflict, until only one queen remains."
"As you may have figured out already, my species is mainly female. Now and then a male hatches, sometimes intentionally, sometimes randomly, and they are sent away." "Their lives are short, they hatch, they leave, they try to find a queen in need, either succeed or fail, and are killed." "But don't feel too bad for them, they are mentally lot less developed, they are not smart enough to want anything more."
Even during her own explanation, Asildae would catch and eat prey.
"At this point, you may ask, why am I more legitimate than my sister." "And the answer is simple, timing, she hatched only days before our mother's death, she lacks the teachings given to me." "I also already had some daughters of my own, and most of my sisters took my side." "She is, by definition, an intruder, if not a parasite; not to mention the use of hired help." "If my sisters and daughters had free will, they would rebel."
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"Skilled is bit of a wrong word, but...point is, she didn't go down easy." Solar was still bit bothered by the whole thing, not because he hadn't seen stuff like that, he had, plenty, nor was it because he particularly cared for his colleague, they weren't in bad terms by any means, but she was...a lot to deal with sometimes, so they only interacted as much as their duty required. No, it bothered him because he couldn't help but think about it happening to him, and because he knew that moment had been recorded into her systems too, which meant he would see it.
"I'm still running analysis for everything, but I can confirm this as the source for the signal I received." "It seems to have activated after...the separation. so there isn't much data on that, but I have an idea why it was active." "Our communication systems can run on minimal power, for the purpose of transporting emergency signals even after our death, and location purposes." "It was not made with the idea that there would be no body left at all, but the heat from being left on the cursed desert was likely enough to keep it running still." "It cut out due to it being lot colder here, as there was not enough heat to keep it running." "It does also mean that her fate may be one of the first events of whatever is going on, since there wasn't an alarm yet, and based on the data I've analyzed already, it seems she was on a regular mission at the time."
Magma didn't need to address Vaz, as he spoke himself after walking closer and looking at the projection for a moment
"This confirms what I sensed earlier was what I thought, but I didn't imagine it would be like this." "Stiffness in muscles, faded colors, something missing in the eyes." "That is not me, it is merely souls puppeteering what used to be me." "In other words, dead, brought back to life." he paused for a second "Yet there are no signs of decomposition, no missing parts." he put his hand on the symbol on his armor in pained manner, while looking into the eyes of his projected equivalent,"It is disheartening, to see my work used in such a manner." "Such, selfish act." "Yet I can't blame them, after all, your dragon friend told me what you did to us." he looked at Solar "New kind of darkness has fallen on your world, and I'm afraid you don't have a bright enough light to counter it." "If your empires are the immovable, then they are about to meet something unstoppable."
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Ruby stayed quiet.
"Look around later, still tense." Was Charir's simple response, and for the first time his exact emotion was hard to read, he was clearly tense like he said, his voice too mirroring it, but it was hard to say what else may have been on his mind, if anything. He was also seemingly bit tired, there was still day left, but the whole thing had been so stressful that it took a toll. Charir didn't follow Leviathan, not right away that is, instead, it would be ten or so minutes later when Charir walked outside, sitting down in front of the cave and looking at the environment, the electricity caused by Voltaick's mere presence had finally left Charir's scales entirely, though he wasn't sure when that happened, as he had been preoccupied by his thoughts.
"I'm concerned about her." Charir broke the silence, speaking quietly so that his voice wouldn't travel far, but loud enough to be heard "She acts like mother, if mother could control herself." "And do you remember what Elder Werodex called her?" "Mother of Destruction" "What does that mean?" he sounded bit nervous, as if he wasn't sure if he should say it out loud.