Hmmm.

Hmmm...

I've been at it for a while, but after depleting the crystal a few times, I ran out of space to put nectar while it ferments into honey.

Looks like I'll have to slow down for a bit. Right now I'm literally too sweet for my own good.

I made some progress though. Last time I connected, I managed to get the zombie to stumble and fall down. Not really the kind of progress I wanted, but I think I'll cancel the escape for now, and we'll make the hive a bit bigger. A little more space will get me a bit more mana to play with when we fill it up. These bees are pretty voracious though, they eat their own body weight in honey twice a day! I won't have to wait too long regardless.

The queen laid another egg, so that's good. I learned that bees have names, but they're all combinations of dance moves, kind of hard to pronounce, really.

It seems very colonial of me, but I'm probably just going to give them english names, since I'm not likely able to figure out their language anytime soon. It's too complex and weird.

I decided to name one of the older bees who insists on making honey all day and grooming the other bees Geraldine after learning she also frets about their health. She's very grandmotherly. She's not very exciteable, and she takes long naps, I like her.

The hive expanded to almost twice its size after I asked for help expanding from the bees. I also asked them to clear more space in the chest for more beehive, since I finally managed to get the zombie to take a step by itself! This is a good sign, I think I can be a meat mecha pilot! This wasn't exactly Plan A, but I'm pretty sure it would be faster than getting the bees to drag me around.

If I can use the zombie as transport, it might be worth hanging on to for a while though. This is a land of magic though, and I'm sure I can find a better ride eventually, this thing isn't exactly luxury transport.

Next step in the plan is to figure out how to gather mana better, and how to store more. That'll help me work towards controlling the zombie better. I've got a feeling this is going to take a lot of mana to master.

While I've got all these spare zombies here, I might as well conduct some experiments as well. I need to understand how the zombies work if I'm going to get anywhere. Hell, if the zombie crystal is really why I'm alive, I need to understand all I can about it.

Let's find out what's in these other zombies. Let's see... You seem to like this kind of work, how about you go help me scout out the inside of a zombie, yes?

Good, thank you little one.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Oh, would you look at that, that other zombie didn't die when we destroyed its brain. I guess pop culture lied to me. There is a little crystal in here though. I ask Eliza to get it for me. She's a nice bee, even if she likes chewing up human flesh a bit more than I feel comfortable with. She seems to be up for volunteer work, but only if it involves gore.

She grabs the crystal for me, it's pretty small, and I stick it next to the heart crystal in my hive and it slowly starts to glow green! Not quite sure what that's about but I'm excited to find out

Let's do more organ scouting. What have we here?

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Oh, nice, all these zombies have crystals in them. There's one in the brain that is small and glows various colors when charged, and one in the chest that's huge and always glows blue.

After some time, Eliza managed to get me all the brain crystals, and I had a few of the others work on digging out more heart cores. I now have 6 different brain crystals. One red, two green, one white, one gray, and one yellow. How to use them and what they do, however, I have no idea.

I've tried a lot of things at this point, many of which are too embarrassing to mention. One thing's for sure, they don't respond to any of the power ranger morphing sequences. Yelling “By the power of Grayskull” does nothing either. It's going to take me a while to steal the heart crystals, they're a lot bigger.

I think I'll poke around some more and see if I can figure something out while we work on acquiring them.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Chew chew chew.

Oh, look, my status says I turned 4! and for my birthday present... We're adding all six heart crystals to my hive, charging them up, and getting the heck out of here. The delinquents chewed a lot of the meaty bits off our zombie while the others were diligently working on the plan. You can see most of his bones, and he doesn't smell like rot anymore, at least according to the bees. Not really sure how well bees can smell, honestly. I have no frame of reference.

It looks like they slowly charge over time in addition to gaining a bit of charge from honey production. The more I get, the more I'll be able to spend without worrying! Nice!

Ooh, they're finally charged! It's time! I must be projecting my excitement, because all the bees came to watch!

Power containment units --- Online

Weapons systems --- Offline

Forward propulsion units --- Online

Steering systems --- Absolute garbage

I really want to say All Systems Nominal, but they're really not.

But we're moving around! The hive mecha is live, baby!

I make the zombie clumsily stumble around and finally leave the room I was born in! There's a hallway! So exciting and new!

There's a dead body around the corner, and this one doesn't walk. He's wearing a bunch of old rags and what looks like a messenger bag, and there's a rusty axe on the ground next to him. Looks like he got his head chewed off, and I'm betting I know who did it. Poor dude. I won't let your sacrifice be in vain. After at least 20 minutes of struggle I get the messenger bag off him and throw it over zombie's shoulder, and 4 attempts later I manage to pick up the axe.

An entire heart crystal is drained from my psionics by now, but I'm not too worried, I have 5 more and I can always fill it back up. I've been very patient. But now I'm excited. The bees have already mangled these zombies pretty badly, at my instruction, and they'll be easy prey, even with my cruddy movements. I'm pretty sure they won't even fight back.

Looks like it's time to see if I can level up.