The day after the battle had dawned bright and clear, the morning sun sparkling off the drops of dew and water left from the previous rains. The air smelled refreshed in that way it did after a storm, with scents of earth and plantlife stirred up by it and washed out by the rain. From her place up on one of the wooden platforms of the old elven outpost, Regina had a great view of the forest. She glanced up at a few clouds gathering in the sky, still scattered, if a bit darker than she would have liked. It was possible it would rain again later today, although she couldn’t tell for sure, and there probably wouldn’t be another thunderstorm.

A large part of her hive’s forces had moved into position around her in the treehouse. Regina looked around, meeting the gazes of Max and Tia. Tim and Ada had gone out, along with a small party, to greet the elves that were moving in their direction. A quick check through Tim’s eyes showed that they were still returning to the outpost together. Tim was talking with Anuis, while Ada was guiding a group of young elven fighters through a copse of trees.

Regina kept herself from pacing up and down or showing any other sign of nervousness. At least the elves all seemed friendly and relatively relaxed.

In contrast to the humans. Regina glanced back at their captives. The three of them were kneeling on the wooden platform, guarded by Dan, Zoe, Ivy and a cluster of War Drones. The humans’ clothing was still a little bloody, and Elenia, the Delver they’d captured first, had begun to reek a bit, although the drones had let her wash up with some water before they started the trip. She still had a few small scabs and bruises, but was mostly healed.

It only took a few more minutes for the incoming group to arrive. Regina jumped down to the ground to greet them, though she didn’t try to fly. She’d decided to wear a shirt rather than have the chance to use her wings. It was probably better to look as civilized as possible. Besides, this wasn’t going to hinge on her flying skills, but rather her diplomatic ones. If she did need to, she’d just rip another shirt.

“Hive Queen Regina,” Anuis called out when they arrived, smiling at her. “It’s good to see you again, especially to see you unharmed.”

“Commander Anuis,” she greeted her. “Thank you, it’s very good to see you as well. I hope you don’t mind us coming here, but we thought it would be a good location to talk.”

“Not at all, it isn’t like we were using it.” Anuis seemed to turn more serious as she looked around at Regina’s drones. “I heard you were attacked again. I hope your hive did not have to suffer many losses.”

“We lost some more War Drones, but no sapient members, fortunately. Will you come up with me?”

The group used a few ropes and tree trunks to climb up, leaving only a few drones and an elven fighter down on the ground as guards. Regina used the opportunity to look at the other elves. She guessed that Anuis had taken two squads of about ten people along. There were a few with Classes that sounded like they were a higher tier. Regina recognized some of the elves, ones she had seen with Anuis before. At least she didn’t have to remember their names.

Anuis raised an eyebrow when she saw the prisoners. “Ah. Dare I ask what happened to the rest of the humans?” she asked.

“They died in the fighting,” Regina replied. Actually, they still had all of the bodies. The Workers had dug what you might generously call an underground storage basement, and Regina had occasionally conjured some ice to keep it cold and keep them from decaying too much. “At least, when it comes to the Delvers we fought first. The Binding Blade is the only survivor of that group. The group that attacked us yesterday is another matter. We know that some of them survived, they ran away. The other two were among those attackers.”

Anuis nodded. A few of the other elves stepped forward, and they exchanged a few hushed words. “What else can you tell us about them?” she asked.

“They claim that they aren’t Delvers.” Regina shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure what to make of the whole thing, to be honest.”

The elf commander took a step forward, taking a closer look at the humans. She clicked her tongue. “I can understand that. Your hive does seem to attract trouble, Lady Regina. Unfortunately, the Delvers are not the only humans who might attack you, even if I have to confess that I still find this assault surprising.”

“You don’t say,” Regina muttered. “I was hoping you might have an interrogation specialist available, or something along those lines.”

Anuis turned back to her. “A good thought. We would certainly be happy to aid you in this.”

The other elves gathered together, and Regina caught them eying the humans. There was definitely no love lost there, and she realized that she didn’t even know much about how the common people in their city felt about the conflict, about being attacked by the human nations. And these were hardened soldiers who’d fought them.

The prisoners had all stayed quiet, but now the man broke the silence, sounding obviously nervous. “There’s no need to get violent.”

Regina saw Anuis smile slightly. “You do realize torture is not likely to be productive in gathering information,” she muttered to her, speaking so quietly that she was sure the humans wouldn’t be able to hear.

Anuis looked at her and inclined her head. “Of course,” she replied softly.

“I have some options for interrogating suspects or prisoners,” one of the other elves said. According to the System, he was called Niolin and his Class was Commissar.

Regina looked at him for a moment. The name of the Class sent distant warning bells ringing in her head, but it really wasn’t much to go on. And any parallels to the history in her head were probably coincidence or at least very indirect. “Alright,” she finally said.

Two of the elves immediately turned around and went down again, to look for certain herbs they could use for alchemy, he explained. At the same time, the Commissar pulled out a few devices and substances and set up further away on the wooden platform.

Anuis cleared her throat and nodded her head to another platform a story higher, where they would be out of the way and able to talk privately. Regina nodded and followed her, telling her drones telepathically to stay and only taking Max and Tim along.

“There is another matter I wanted to address,” Anuis began, speaking softly enough Regina assumed it would be reasonably private. “Your bound bird monster shouldn’t have been able to fly over the city as easily as it did.”

Regina started. She should have expected them to know something was up. And she hadn’t thought much about the magical shield enveloping the city, but now she realized that it probably should have turned monsters like Dark away. “Oh. Well, I’m not going to deny that it was mine. Your defenses didn’t work correctly?”

“To be fair, they are less tuned, so to speak, for approaches from the air than the ground,” Anuis replied. “The shield is also intended more to ward off groups of attackers than single intruders. But it still raised some questions. Some suspect that it has to do with another matter that also caused some concern, or at least interest, in regards to how they keyed your two drones into the shield.”

Regina frowned. She hadn’t forgotten the fact that the elves had taken blood samples from Tim and Bea. “How so? I don’t even know how your magical defense works.”

Anuis shrugged lightly. “Like you said, it is magical, and highly technical to boot. I do not know the details, either. But the signatures received from the two visitors” - She glanced at Tim, who was listening in with a serious expression - “were apparently quite similar. To the extent that I’ve heard they might even have both been able to enter with only one person being initiated.”

“Well, that sounds interesting, but not completely unexpected, to be honest. It might just be a quirk of our biology.”

Regina glanced at the drones, but decided not to elaborate. From what she’d seen so far, the probably magical anomalies of their kind still had a basis in biology. You could say that all her drones were technically clones. At least, they presumably had the same DNA. There didn’t seem to be any other parent involved, after all. They’d have her own or a subset of it. The drones might even be haploid, that’s how it is for bees, right? But Regina shook her head and forced her mind back on track.

“I see,” Anuis said, throwing a speculative glance at Regina and the drones. “The magical defenses around Ariedel are based on an entity’s magical signature, rather than biology, however.”

Regina only shrugged. “There is a magical bond involved,” she acknowledged. The psychic connection linking her hive, to be specific. “Has this sort of thing not happened before with bound animals or monsters?”

“It has, though not very often.” Anuis shook her head. “Well, I’ll let those responsible worry about that matter. It’s good to know that this seems to be contingent on a specific reason that has to do with this case rather than a more general fault in the shield. Let us rejoin the others.”

Regina nodded. It was good to know if she didn’t have to have any other drones undergo the ritual before they could enter the city. She wasn’t sure if that applied to herself, too. But she had more important and more concrete things to worry about for now.

When they returned, a few elves were still working on preparations. Regina glanced at the prisoners, noting the way their eyes hung on them. She realized the elves were probably making a show of it deliberately, as an intimidation tactic. Regina didn’t feel particularly happy about all this, less for moral reasons, since the prisoners had, after all, attacked her and her hive, but because she didn’t know how effective they would be. She was already taking a chance in essentially sharing her prisoners with the elves, hoping they could get something useful out of it.

“Look, there’s no need to do this,” the prisoner who’d talked before spoke up again. “We’ll tell you what you need to know, it’s not like we know much, anyway.”

Regina glanced at Anuis, inviting her to take this opportunity.

“We’ll see about that,” the elf said, crouching down a little to look at the bound humans. “To start, who are you?”

They all replied with their names and Classes, something that Regina could obviously check with the System. Even her first prisoner, the Delver, joined in. We should probably separate them later, interrogate them separately, but I imagine Anuis knows that.

“Your equipment looks Nerlian,” the Commissar remarked.

Regina had noticed that some of the weapons and armor they’d captured were lying on the ground. She caught Max’s gaze and raised an eyebrow slightly. He nodded, confirming that he and the other drones had shown these to the elves.

“We’re from Nerlia,” the other woman admitted, her gaze darting between Regina and the interrogator. He was currently siphoning off the top part of some concoction into a glass vial. At least it looked like that.

“You’re Nerlian soldiers?” Anuis asked, but she didn’t sound disbelieving. “How did you come to attack the Hivekind? Did you work with the Delvers?”

Elenia, the previously captured Delver, scoffed. “Don’t tell them anything,” she barked at the other two humans.

Anuis nodded to another of her subordinates, who grabbed the Delver under the arms and started to drag her away. Then she returned her attention to the other two humans and raised an eyebrow, keeping her expression still and cold. They visibly withered. The Delver is clearly made of sterner stuff than them, Regina couldn’t help but think.

“The potion is ready, Commander,” Niolin spoke up.

Over the next few minutes, the elves got to work interrogating the human prisoners. Regina watched attentively, but quietly, as he gave them some of the potion to drink and then started asking questions.

The concoction seemed to be some variant of a truth potion, she figured, if maybe weaker than a real one might be. The captives were clearly affected, and showed some signs of being drugged. Their pupils dilated and their reactions seemed just a bit slower. But they didn’t really seem inebriated, and still answered clearly.

Unfortunately, they were both low-level grunts and couldn’t tell them too much about what was really going on. Still, Regina got the gist of things. It was clear that Nerlia, or at least someone very high-up in its army, had decided to take out the hive. They seemed to be aware of the treaty, judging by a few rumors that the two soldiers had caught, but clearly didn’t like the idea of just leaving the hive alone until it gathered more strength. So, this had been something of a preventative strike, and considering the complex political relationships involved, maybe a political action as well.

They had also at least talked to the Delvers, although, again, the two captured soldiers knew very little about it. Apparently, a few of the people taking part in the attack had been Delvers, or had at least joined the strike team relatively recently and seemed ready to fight some monsterbloods.

“I can’t help but think that they didn’t send us their best,” Regina commented when the interrogation wound down.

Anuis snorted, a small smile tugging on her lips. “Well, your hive must have seemed like an easy target, weaker than one of our outposts. You didn’t even have any fighters past the first Evolution, as far as they knew.”

“Don’t take it too hard, my Queen, I’m sure the next ones to attack us will be stronger,” Max chimed in.

Regina shot him a dark look, but couldn’t resist the smile forming on her face. She shook her head and looked back at Anuis. This is going to be a bit tricky, she considered, and took a moment to breathe and gather her thoughts.

“What I’m wondering is,” she finally said, “if the humans that attacked us weren’t them, then where is the party of Delvers we saw and reported in our message to you?”

Anuis’ gaze sharpened. “One would assume they are still in the tunnels,” she replied after a long moment.

Regina nodded. “Perhaps. If so, I wonder how we might turn the situation to our advantage.”

Niolin started smiling openly, with a bit more viciousness than you’d want to see directed your way. Anuis still looked thoughtful. “That is an interesting point.”

“I wonder, Commander, how long are you supposed to be dispatched here?”

Finally, Anuis started to smile, too. “We are not expected back immediately. I dare say there would be time for a little excursion or two.”

“Great. Let’s talk about how to go about it, then.” Regina glanced at the human prisoners again, all three of whom were being taken away. “And perhaps we can then discuss something that goes a little further.”