It was really hard to get the soldiers to understand checkers, I had to exaggerate the false battle qualities of the game, and change up some of the words, like "king me" makes no sense to them because the idea of more then one king hurts their heads. So now the pieces are soldiers, reaching the other end is a class up, and the reason they had to jump pieces was because both armies are using extreme hit and run tactics. They were also confused about why they were doing this at all so I called it large battle practice, so it trains their ability to lead. After some convincing I managed to get one to try playing me instead of just looking at it like it was a weird thing. Was one more hurdle, in that when presented with an opportunity to jump one of my pieces she hesitated and was really uncomfortable "attacking my army" because it was mine.

Once past that she was good to go, but she still lost, I mean this was literally her first time playing any kind of game ever. After the match I tried set a good example for them, I told them to always shake your opponents hand and tell them "good game", win or lose. I then moved over and had both soldiers currently on break try a game against each other, maybe being similar skill level will help them learn it better, and there is no hang up about them attacking the king's army. After a couple of capture exchanges they both suddenly started playing faster, they weren't playing any better, just faster. Best idea I had was they were both in the zone and were focusing entirely on the game.

Eventually it came down to both of them having a single piece and they were just dancing around eachother. After ten turns of doing that I called the game a draw, and made "ten turns with no captures results in a draw" an official rule. In the middle of a third round there was a shift change, so the two I was playing had to head out while two who were hunting came back in. They must have had very good internal clocks since they were here at the same time and had been too far out in the woods to communicate the shift change. I tell these two new soldiers the rules and take a couple minutes to convince them to play a round against eachother, using what I knew from the first time convincing the others to move this along quicker, before I left them to play and I went down to Victoria.

I saw she was in the middle of a statue, so as to not interrupt her I just sat down off to the side and took a meditative pose and turned on magic sense. I focused entirely on her to see if she was using any magical effects, like a subconscious claw sharpening power. After bit of observing I concluded that she was not, her magic was actually swirling into her abdomen and was trickling into four ovoids, the growing eggs. It changed composition slightly as it transferred, taking on a different... hue, I suppose you could call it, as they grew. Taking a closer look I saw one was absorbing energy slightly faster then the other three, that must be the child that had plus one to something. I turned it back off as she sat the in progress statue down and turned towards me.

"Back already... scrumptious?" She asked while blushing.

"Yeah, I had been leveling some weird stuff and while I am not tired I am worn out from pushing through barriers. How goes the tunneling and wood carving, beautiful?" Her blush goes back to full force at the compliment.

"Well, it's going okay, the cooking room has an issue with adding the chimney, the rock was too thick so they didn't breach into the dirt layer from the bottom, I told them that you would look at it later and to move on to the next hallway. On the other side they have made a chamber and are working on the hall past it. As more me, I've been making good progress, I have a bunch of animals in different poses, but I feel like I should work bigger, and i'm not sure how to go about doing that. Now, tell me what you have been doing in more detail... handsome." It's pretty cute how she seems to struggle to say that, enough so that I can actually feel myself blushing slightly.

"Well first I learned a spell from the workers, then I used that to start making super strong stone rings and practiced enchanting them. Eventually I made something crazy, this" I pulled the triple layer enchanted stone ring out of my pocket "it may not look like much but this thing is very magical, enough so that I do not trust wearing it. Looking at it is safe though, and after doing that really hard I learned an enchanting rune. That is what finally made me decide to relax a bit so I taught the soldiers a new game and played with them a bit before I came down here to see you."I explained to her.

"You do so many things every day, I just sit around, make a few statues, and tell my kids to work." She sighed and looked down sadly.

"Shhhh" I grabbed and hugged her "I have an idea, I may be able to teach you dirt control, but how it works could be dangerous to your eggs so we will have to try it during the window between you laying this group and needing to start a new one." I pulled back a little so I could see her face "does that sound like it would be fun to try?"

"Yeah, I may not be as crazy as you with magic, but if I can do a little it would go a long way in making me feel less useless. I mean, I like having a talent with wood working, but as is I am not really contributing to the hive as a whole, just doing a personal project." She lamented.

"Well, another idea, I have a more complex game we could try, and it needs playing pieces, so tomorrow you can carve a few sets and then everyone could have fun playing it during their down time. You would be using your skill to contribute towards fun for everyone." I smiled at her.

She smiled back "you always have great ideas, if I had a worse husband he wouldn't have been nearly as good at having ideas. On the other hand I also probably wouldn't be this introspective, I had only eight int and six wis before we were linked. So, smart enough to think, but I don't remember worrying too much about how my life would be after becoming an egg machine."

"Well, for what it's worth, I am sorry for making you even more amazing then you were before" she giggled at how corny I was being.

"Apology accepted, now get out of those pants, I need some... endorphins , and you are going to give me some." What is with this dictionary her great grandmother read that has words in it that no one in this place should know of. Oh well, pants off time.

The next morning we started working on a chess set, I explained how the pieces were effectively characters with classes, with designs that reflected their function. I let her figure out the designs based on my descriptions of what they do, with a caveat that they had to be solid so there was no chance to snap. We started at the top, the king and queen, I told her how in human chess the queen was a powerhouse on the board while a king was slow. It was simple to invert it to represent the ant system with a strong king and a slower queen, they ended up looking like simplified busts of us. Next were the bishops, holy people that channeled the divine, Victoria made them look like what she thought an awake celestial would look like.

Knights were simple to make, they were obviously soldiers. The rook was a bit more difficult, they were usually a tower instead of a person. Since ants built down instead of up there was some mental disconnect on what a defensible position looked like. It was swapped out for a different ant type, fire ant, it was even more vague then the others since Victoria only knew of them but never seen one. She was identified mostly through the spikes on her antenna and a ring of fire like a wreath on her head, Victoria said that part was just because it looked cool. Finally, the pawn, a thing that was super weak but could become anything, with humans it represented a normal person, but ants can't just become anything.

Eventually it was decided to be a first molt child, someone that had unknown potential and could theoretically kill someone with luck and an ambush position. Her main hang up was the fact they could turn into kings but I said it was just a game so it didn't really matter, and she face palmed before agreeing that it was silly to be hung up on that. Once she had one of each made I went and brought down a huge glob of dirt to start making stone versions for the other team. After making all the pieces Victoria called in a worker and had them bring over a large flat rock before assuming direct control and having her carve a board out of it, including alternating recessed squares to put wooden ones in. Finally, it was time to play a round, V was allowed to go first but even with that advantage she didn't have much luck.

She was just too conservative, refusing to sacrifice any pieces to gain an advantage, which I think is a good quality for a leader in real life, but this is a game, and I explained as much to her. Second round lasted a bit longer since she was being a bit more strategic, still not enough to beat me but it was better. Her stats should be completely identical to mine so I know I am not smarter then her but I have had more practice at it and a deeper understanding of the concepts, which let's me win. Third round she tried to be the opposite of the first round, pure aggression, which was Interesting but sacrificed too much too easily so I quickly wittled down her side. The fourth round she seemed to have learned from her mistakes and played a really close one, we were both down to only a handful of pieces before I tricked her into a corner for a checkmate.

We took a break from chess and started lunch, "you have gotten a lot better at playing really fast, almost scary fast, some people could play hundreds of games and not get any better."

"Thanks, but it helped that you explained what I did wrong each round instead of just letting me guess what happened."

"It was no big deal, this game is more fun with someone closer in skill level so making you better at it made it better for me too."

"Yeah, I get that, still, thanks." She gave me a beaming smile

"Heh, thank yourself. Anyway, after we eat I'm gonna head topside, the game is fun but I can't spend all day playing, so you will have to see if a soldier can be trained to offer a challenge." I said before taking a bite of meat.

"Of course, I bet I can turn her into a chess master who will be able to beat even you."

"I'm looking forward to it"