“We lost?”

“We lost”

“We lost?”

“We lost!”

“We lost?”

“We…wait a minute, are you deaf? I/we already answered you.”

“Wait, he can’t be deaf. We’re a hive remember.”

“Well, we don’t have ears so technically we can’t hear.”

“Ha, you’re right! We are deaf!”

Several of the spirits laughed and it was just too much for others within the hive. “Well excuse us for being nervous because you know…WE ARE IN DANGER!”

“Oh come on, we’re totally safe. We already killed 2 of them, only 5 of the humans are left.”

“So? Just one of them is enough to destroy us!”

“Ha! You still don’t get it.”

“Get what? That we’re about to die! I get that perfectly!”

“We can just summon You-Who-Are-Not-Bear again can’t we?”

“Uh…”

“That’s right! We can!”

“We’re safe!”

“Ha!”

“We were never in danger!”

“Come on everyone; let’s summon You-Who-Are-Not-Bear again.”

The hive focused it’s energy to summon the spirit bear. Seconds past and…nothing happened.

“Uh…are we doing something wrong?”

“Don’t think so. We’re doing what we normally do.”

“Then why can’t we summon You-Who-Are-Not-Bear?”

“We have the energy right?”

“We do but it’s not working. You-Who-Are-Not-Bear is not coming out. Whose turn is it to be You-Who-Are-Not-Bear?”

“Here but there’s nothing I/we can do. The energy…seems wrong.”

“Wrong? How can it be wrong? It’s energy and we have it. Use it!”

“Stop being an idiot! We’re a hive; you can tell we’re trying!”

“Then why isn’t it working?”

“How the hell would I/we know?”

“We’re idiots who don’t know what we’re doing!”

“We’re not idiots!”

“Yes, we are”

“No, we’re not”

“Yes, we are”

“No, we’re not”

“Yes, we are”

“No, we’re…”

“All of you shut up! The humans are talking.”

The hive focused back on the humans and saw that the group was indeed talking among themselves. Boss was holding up the green crystal with a puzzled look on his face. He wasn’t the only one.

“What do you mean you can feel energy from this crystal, Jakob?”

Boss was speaking to one of the hunters who nodded his head and answered. “Yes, I don’t understand it but there is energy here. I can feel it. I can almost touch it.”

“Touch it then.” Jundal said. “Touch it and see what happen.”

The hunter obligated. He took the crystal from Boss and for a moment all the humans waited. Nothing happened.

“Well, that’s something isn’t it?” The human with the 2-handed sword laughed. “It seems the fight took some of your senses Jakob!”

“No,” the other hunter said. “He’s right. There is energy there. I can feel it too.”

“I feel nothing,” Boss said. “Luca? Jundal?”

The hive knew that the mage was called Jundal, so that meant the human with the 2-handed sword must be Luca. Both the humans shook their head.

“I’m telling you it’s there,” the other hunter said. “How can you guys not feel it? It’s so clear and…energetic.”

“No one is saying you are lying, Hollie,” Boss replied. “But if it’s there, the rest of us can’t feel it.”

“I may have a theory.” The mage named Jundal said. The rest of the humans looked at him and to the hive, it looked like Jundal was fighting with himself about something.

“Well? What’s the theory?”

If the hive could speak, it would have asked the same question as the human named Luca. It too wanted to know what the crystal was. The hive didn’t even know it could create items, much less dropped them. If this was going to happen every time You-Who-Are-Not-Bear was defeated, the hive want to know what it was.

“How well do you guys know magic?” Jundal asked.

“Magic?” Boss said. “This crystal is magical?”

“No, not really,” Jundal said. “Let me start from the beginning, it might be easier that way. One of the first things the Mage Council teaches is what is called “The Formation of Magic”. Now I’m sure all of you know there are spirits all around us and that all humans can feel them to some degree.” The hive noticed that several of the humans nodded at this. Seeing the confirmation, Jundal continued.

“Now the thing is that humans can not only feel the spirits; we can gather them as well. Humans gather the spirits and when we gather enough of them, our bodies will automatically “convert” the spirits into different forms of energy. “Gather”, “Convert”, and “Release”. For magic-users like me and poor Brenna there, we call the converted energy “Mana” and we release them via spells.”

At this point Jundal kept silent, looking and waiting for the rest of the humans. Boss broke the silence first.

“Rage!” Boss said. “The Blades Council called it “Rage”.”

“Boss?” Luca asked. To the hive, it looked like the human was a little afraid. Boss only shrugged.

“The Blades Council can call me up if they have a problem with me. Besides, it’s not really a secret right?”

Jundal only smiled at that. He looked at the two hunters who were in turn looking at each other. Finally, Jakob spoke. “The Hunt Council called it “Stamina”. They say everyone has it.”

“And they are right!” Jundal said. “All human have “Rage”, “Mana, and “Stamina”. The thing is not all of us have them in the same amount. It takes time to gather the spirits and convert them. Remember the test everyone took when you were 10?”

“The one where members of the councils go village to village to administer?”

“Yes! They were testing for the kids’ natural ability to convert spirits to “Rage”, “Mana, and “Stamina”. Now most people have good rate of conversion in one of these, so whichever ability you have, you can then join the council that specializes in that if you so wish.”

“Very interesting,” Luca said. “But what does that has to do with this crystal?”

“That should be obvious my strong warrior.” Pointing at the crystal, Jundal said, “That crystal holds energy we call “Stamina”!”

Hearing Jundal’s explanation, the hive quickly focused back on the warrior called Donn. It had absorbed the warrior just before the fight between You-Who-Are-Not-Bear and the humans and had just a quick look at the human before the fight. Now it recalled the human again and noticed new things it didn’t notice before.

Species: Human

Class: Warrior

Sex: Male

Attack: 20

Defense: 38

Health: 40

Strength: 22

Agility: 18

Rage: 40

Stamina: 32

Mana: 10

Weapons: Longsword, Shield, Pickaxe

Armor: Iron chest armor- chest; Iron greaves- leggings; Iron helmet- head; leather boots- shoes

Job: Miner

Skills: Sword, Shield, The Wall, Shield Bash, Two-way Defense, Holding The Line

“So that’s why we can’t summon You-Who-Are-Not-Bear,” one of the spirits said. “It takes time to convert energy to “Stamina”.”

“But we are spirits,” someone in the hive said. “We don’t need to gather spirits…or do we?”

“We do,” another spirit answered. “Remember all the energy we can when something die in the tunnels? We must have been gathering the spirits that were released at their death.”

“Might explain why we are getting bigger,” a spirit said. “But more importantly, the human Jundal said it takes time to convert the spirits to “Stamina”. So how long do we have to wait before we can summon You-Who-Are-Not-Bear again?”

None of the spirits could answer that question. You-Who-Are-Not-Bear had never been defeated before. Finally one of the spirits in the hive said.

“Okay, I/we take it back. I/we are idiots who do not know what we’re doing!”

The rest of the hive could do nothing but agree.