Spring 3, Year 2

Hive 4 would have Shifted away had the well been tapped. You don't know what effect, if any, the Shift had.

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Brute Squad - Talon, Plated, Horned, Predatory, 46 Thrums

Raid: Ravage through the woods South of elven territory, killing anything related to the orcs. Prioritize eating squigs. Only eat the others if we've eaten all the squigs we can find and still need food. Stay on the move during the day. With the elves' permission, they'll hole up in elven territory each night, then back to the grind in the morning. If we take casualties to the point where we can't field at least 20 slivers in this group (see the note on reinforcements below), revert to patrolling elf territory.



There were a lot of greenskins in the area, but always in small groups. They never knew what hit them.

Losses:

10 thrums

166 goblins

38 ogres

31 wargs

30 spiders

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Regina

Mana Bond x 2 - Nearest available

Queen Spawn - 16 mana. Tap all mana except Hive 3. +1 mana cookie from me.



You bond a green mana, but are unable to find another well.



19 beautiful new thrum children are born.

(NB: With the mana you bonded this turn you actually had 17, so you didn't need the mana cookie. I applied it as a fertility cookie instead, but you didn't get any specials.



Leadership: Manaweft is our (remote) general for Operation Not One Marine More. (This is our mind-speak name, not to be used in that weird mouth-speech. The marines might hear it if we did that. Let them come up with their own name.) He will direct the Brute Squad, especially in combat. When things are going well, the priority is killing orcs and fell critters and keeping up a screen between them and our ranged allies. If we need to retreat, the priority is saving Gil, then marines, then elves, then specials, then Thrums. He will also spend some time with the Thrums helping in elven territory, but they are lower priority.

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Research: When he's not directing troops, Manaweft will research with the following priority:

Using the Library of Alexandria to help with research. Make fire.

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Manaweft

Research: Make fire.

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Jenny, 24 Thrums, 2 Furballs, 2 Predatories

Breed - We'll need the numbers to make up for using a Queen spawn to try to get a special or two.



28 thrums are born

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Hive 4

2 Thrums

Patrol x 2 - Keep an eye out for any signs of orcs.



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Through the miracles of Sliverizon, the Brute Squad has reported back to home base about the muck. Home base doesn't have anything on hand that would be suitable for extracting the flowers safely and without damaging them; they're building a robot, but it will take a couple weeks to make some of the parts.



This month, the entire hive and most of the Marines were either fighting, breeding, or building defenses. There were patrols out around Hive 3 but they were not thick enough; something got into one of the newly-planted fields and dug out a lot of the still-germinating potatoes. This will set the farming back a couple of months.





Summary

Hunting: --

Hunting Cap: --

Total food needed: 395

Food from dead enemies: 72 (all the slivers could eat, but no time to preserve more)

Food from farm: 50 (would have been 70 but for animal attack)

Food from elves: 727

The southern section of elfland has been reclaimed! (Or, at least, you can't find any greenskins walking around in there.)

Regina jerked awake as the mana well near her fourth hive shuddered. The well's connections to the land around it were shaking like leaves in a storm. Some frayed, but nothing broke; when the Chaos Shift passed the land was still there."I will never get used to that," said Corporal Martinez, shaking his head in amusement as the slivers grew and shrank as Plated wandered in and out of range in his ongoing quest to sniff every inch of the SGCL base."I know, right?" said Corporal Painter. "Hey Pauly! C'mere, Pauly!"Plated looked around and saw his human friend waving a stick. Oh boy! A stick! Yay! Stick! Maybe HumanFriend would play fetch! He tailbounced over and dropped down on his claw, his butt up in the air and wiggling to suggest that he wouldlike it if HumanFriend would throw the damn stick already! Throwitthrowitthrowit!"Here you go!" Painter said. "Fetch, Pauly!" He hurled the stick end over end as hard as he could, back towards the group of slivers that Torres and Gil were busy herding into position. Plated bounded after the stick and seized it (the other slivers grew larger and acquired heavier armor as he came in range), then turned and bounded back (they shrank down and lost their armor) with the stick in his mouth. He dropped it at HumanFriend's feet and wiggled some more."Knock it off, you two!" Torres shouted. "You're supposed to be gearing up for the patrol!""All set, Gunny!" Painter said, giving Plated a pat on the head as an apology for not playing fetch anymore. He and Martinez slung their packs on and went to join the rest of the group. Plated whined a bit, but came along willingly enough."All right, listen up," Torres growled, once the Marines were all gathered around. "As part of a very important and fragile diplomatic alliance full of frippery and la-de-da, we have been tasked to go to the southern border of elfland and kick the living shit out of everything green. This is a search-and-destroy—not a raid, not a scout. Keeping ourselves alive is higher priority than body count; we will not, I say again not, engage with any enemy unless we are in overwhelming force. Said force levels should not be difficult to come by." He gestured to the side, where all the slivers had flopped down in a massive cuddlepile while waiting for HumanFriends to finish yapping and get back to the important business of either throwing sticks or pointing out things for the slivers to kill and eat. The cuddlepile was massive; the thrums, normally the size of a Great Dane, had swollen to pony-size in the presence of their empowered siblings, as well as acquiring noticeably heavier armor and longer, sharper claws."Should things somehow still get unpleasantly hot, we can call in Sergeant MacDonald and Lobo," Torres said, giving Gil an acknowledging nod and then one for the APC that sat a short way off to the south. "Lobo will be carrying two fire teams of Marines, plus a heavy weapons team."Gil smiled with teeth. "Give us a ring whenever, boys," he said. "Lobo goes like a japed ape, and the AO ain't that big. We'll be maintaining a central position when we aren't making greenskin salsa, so we can get to anywhere you're likely to be in about fifteen minutes."The Marines grinned like wolves. Army boy or not, no one had anything less than respect for the soldier who had survived here for nearly a year before the SGCL showed up. Not to mention that he was the one who'd arranged the food. Oh yes, and now he was going to be providing heavy fire support. Best of all, they were going to get to ride on the APC instead of having to burn shoe leather getting to the AO.Torres paused and worked his jaw as though tasting something foul. "Here's the hard part," he said. "The following order is unpleasant, but also non-discretionary: the slivers are expendable.""Fuck that!" Painter said. Half a dozen other Marines chimed in.Torres turned a look on him that could have melted sheet steel. "I believe I misheard you, Corporal. Would you like to try that again?"Painter quailed at the glare. "No, Gunny," he said.Torres eyed him for a moment longer, then looked around the group. "I don't like it either," he said. "This comes from Regina, though. She was adamant that slivers are to be considered expendable in favor of Marines. She made the point that there is no way to replace us and our skills as cadre, while she can produce new slivers in a month. She also reminded me that, even though we've heard them talk, that wasn't really them. It was Regina or Manny talking through them.""Absolutely right, Gunnery Sergeant," said the thrum on top of the cuddlepile. "The thrums are not intelligent on their own, and should not be treated as such."Torres took a calming breath, then turned to face the pile. "Not helping, Manny," he said."I don't see why not," the thrum said. "I mean, if anyone is capable of recognizing the intelligence of a sliver, it's another sliver. The thrums are evolutionarily intended as processing nodes and guard dogs. Really, it's as though—""Manny!" Torres snapped. "Talking. Is. Not. Helping.""What?" the thrum said. "Oh. Right. Yes, I suppose if you aren't part of the Race Mind then me talking through the thrum would seem as though it were the thrum talking, which would tend to imply that it's...you know, I'll think I'll just leave you to it, Gunnery Sergeant. Nothing to see here, everyone! Just a dumb thrum! Really!" With Manaweft's intelligence turned elsewhere, the thrum flopped down on the cuddlepile and scratched behind one ear with its claw.Torres sighed. "Okay, everyone. Mount up. Time to get stuck in."Killed:By the ninth day of the patrol, Torres was pondering ways to get away with assassinating a member of a hive mind. Manny had a real problem shutting up, which meant the Marines had an especially hard time remembering that the thrums were not people. Still, the obnoxious, supercilious rat bastard did ensure that the slivers worked flawlessly together, didn't snap at the Marines when they were feeling hungry or irritable, and he was better than an Asgard comm for passing information around. Overall, the Gunnery Sergeant was more thankful than not to have him there.Still. Maybe poison?"Loremaster First Hatched of Forest Home's Autumn Spawning, what have you been doing?!" Regina demanded.Manaweft blinked and tried not to look guilty. From talking with his human friends he'd discovered that the old "you're in trouble if mom uses your full name" saying was one of those things that crossed species lines."Nothing...?" he said."Why is my brain buzzing?" Regina demanded."Oh," Manaweft said. "Right, about that...um. So, I figured out how to use the Library. Yay?"There is nothing in all the multiverse that can loom as well as an angry sliver queen can loom over her child."It's just that it's bonded to you!" Manaweft said, the words starting to tumble out. "See, I can pull information out of it, but it's only really willing to talk to you, so I kinda had to go in through your mind and filter all the data back that way, so...um...."Regina glared at him for the longest seconds of his life, then flicked her tails. "Next time, ask before you use my brain!""Yes, mom," Manaweft said.It is really hard to make fire with no thumbs. The humans have tools that can do it, but they need thumbs. It's wildly unfair. Still, nothing to do but roll up your sleeves and...oh, wait, slivers don't have those either. Man, the humans get all the good toys!Some wolves wandered into your territory; they were delicious. There were also some strange tracks that Private Alvarez identifies as "hogs—big ones", but you don't see the animals that made them."That is disgusting," Gil said, trying not to gag as he stared at the soupy mess that had, a couple of days ago, been the bodies a few dozen goblins.The Brute Squad (as they had taken to calling themselves) had gone through this area two days ago and turned it into an abattoir. Beckett had asked if they'd check on what happened to the bodies after they were killed, so they'd made a point of coming back. Instead of dead goblins they found a layer of chunky greenish-brown muck that had oozed out across the ground in a pool two dozen yards wide. Eight small blue-black flowers were growing up out of the stuff."Those are pretty flowers," Torres said, arms crossed over his chest as he eyed the muck thoughtfully."Yup," said Gil. Pause. "Whadya think, carnivorous or toxic?""Probably both," Torres said. Pause. "Beckett would probably like a sample.""Yup," said Gil. "Have fun with that."I spent most of yesterday writing code that would generate random encounters and manage all the fighting. Making spillover + first strike work, and then accounting for the fact that the *defender* might be the one with first strike, was a fun project. It was really satisfying today to be able to put the two together and watch as it automatically did all the work.