The entrance to the underground complex is about 80cm in diameter. Not enough space to stand upright, but enough to crawl through. The dirt is compressed tightly to form the passage and has a thin, transparent coating. It is secreted by a gland at the stern of the hive drones in the building process and hardens quickly. It forms a barrier to keep the inside of the hive complex warm and moist. At the same time, it strengthens structural integrity and has antibacterial properties.

Sylvia indicates that they have to go inside to show what she has been doing. After a quick talk between Mark and Elise, they decide that Erik will wait with his father outside and that Elise will go into the hole with the Hive Queen. Sylvia crawls into the passage first, followed by Elise. The coating on the walls allows a good grip and feels like hard rubber. The passage goes down with an angle for about one meter and then continues after the bend for about two meters, before opening up into a small cavern below. The cavern is two meters in diameter at its longest point, with an oval shape and the two living structures embedded opposite of the entrance into the floor or wall of the recess.

When the Sylv Queen gets to the end of the passageway, she shoves a transparent curtain to the side, which is made out of the same coating as the one on the walls. This allows her to enter her main hive complex and Elise following her. The curtain prevents the heat and high humidity from escaping from the inside of the chamber to the outside. The temperature around 37 degrees Celsius combined with the seemingly living wall opposite her give Elise the impression of being inside a living organism. The impression is not so wrong, since the coating of the walls is of organic origin and the living structures of the Sylv inside look like the organs of a creature.

When they enter Spinny, the first hive drone, is feeding some finely chopped straw to the digestion pool resting in the floor of the chamber. The living structure acts like a big stomach, with the upper half open to enter biomass and continues in a gut-like extension that goes up the wall. This extension is ending directly into the Spawning Grounds embedded into the wall, feeding it the necessary nutrients for unit production. The Spawning Grounds itself have a honeycomb structure with larvae inside. At the moment there are six honeycombs in which the first Sylv hunters are already growing. The structure is not finished maturing and is currently forming more combs to unlock its full production capacity.

Elise is shocked at the sight in front of her and her heartrate increased significantly. She was not prepared for this. She is already squatting next to Sylvia in the chamber and the longer her eyes get used to the dark surroundings, the greater her uneasiness becomes. She realizes that her husband was right. Sylvia is dangerous and they have to do something!

Sylvia notices that something is wrong and looks worriedly at Elise, who is now as white as a sheet. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to show humans her new hive complex after all. She reaches for Elise's arm and snuggles tenderly against her side to calm her down a bit. At the same time, she gives her swarm the order to pause any activity immediately and to be as quiet as possible. Her drone stops in its tracks and the living structures slow down their pulsating movements significantly.

After a minute Elise's breathing calms down and her face gets some color back. Now that she has calmed down again, Elise begins to think clearly about her situation. Her previous assessment was perhaps a bit hasty. No harm was done to her and Sylvia has done nothing to put her in danger. On the other hand, she remains of the opinion that something must be done. In any case, it can't go on like this. She remembers that she has already spoken with her husband about the fact that Sylvia should discuss further extensions to her swarm with them in the future. She thinks that now is the right time to talk to Sylvia about it.

The Hive Queen listens closely and agrees to her proposal, “that she will discuss further additions to her swarm with Elise and Mark in the future”. Right after she quietly remarks that she can't stop the production of the already started Sylv hunters without harming the hive. Elise suggests talking about this last part in detail, after they spoke with Mark.

Together they crawl back the way they came and meet Mark and Erik, waiting outside. With a curious look, directed at his wife he asks, “What does it look like inside?”. Elise replies, "Very strange. Different from what I would have expected ...". She looks to Sylvia and asks, “Could you please explain?”

The Hive Queen clears her throat and communicates that her two drones morphed into two living structures for unit production. These structures are producing six Sylv hunters right now, which can’t be cancelled. The last thing she adds is that in the future she will discuss extension to her swarm together with Elise and Mark. After her last words an eerie silence reigns. A couple seconds later Erik, who listened to the conversation, remarks, “Does this mean we will soon have more pets like Spinny?”

“Yes, but we don’t want too many pets for now. This much is fine, but Sylvia must stop creating more in such a fast manner!”, answers Elise. Her husband doesn’t think that half a dozen is fine at all but wants to avoid contradicting Elise in front of their son, giving her a disapproving glance instead. The Sylv Queen notices and begins to assure that she has firm control over her swarm. Her Sylv creatures would never harm anyone from the family! Sylvia's sudden assurances earn her some surprised looks from Elise and Erik, who refrain from answering to them.

Mark comes to the conclusion that it is best to leave it at that and suggests that they return to the house together. The others agree and they make their way back. Sylvia is a bit annoyed by the bright sunlight, but since it is still early in the morning, her discomfort is bearable. Besides, there are more important things right now than her discomfort to direct sunlight. Back in the house, it is much more pleasant for her.

Mark takes the next opportunity to speak privately with his wife. He thinks that they should keep an eye on this "underground nest". With her consent, he would let Sylvia know that once a day one of them would take a look to confirm everything is right. Elise agrees provided that she can tell Sylvia. Her husband has no problem with that, so Elise informs Sylvia about the checkups in a more friendly manner.

The rest of the day Elise completes her last pending missions and then hands all of them in at the adventurer guild in Westerville. Mark continues to work in his smithy and cooks the meals to eat. For lunch there is a rich salad with some bread and for dinner its meat from a Zarax, a large spider-like creature, which Elise bought in Westerville. She got it for a cheap price and thought that Sylvia would be thrilled to eat it.

The Sylv Queen indeed managed to extract a Strain from the Zarax, called “Ceiling runner”, which allows the affected creature to walk on walls or the ceiling without problems. She already imagines her drones and later in addition her hive guardians to walk on the walls of her main hive complex. This doesn’t help Spinny, as he is already completed, but it will be useful for future generations. Normally Sylvia would produce a replacement for Spinny and then order the outdated drone to commit suicide in the digestion pool in order to update her forces without wasting precious biomass. There are two reasons refraining her from doing so. The first is that she noticed that her human family have some kind of attachment to her first hive drone, especially Erik. The second reason is that she would have to consult Mark and Elise about producing the replacement.

The next day Elise would start teaching the kids. The Sylv hunters on the other hand would need four additional days to hatch, because of the increased production time by the Rapid Regeneration Strain. Sylvia is satisfied with her progress thus far and already excited about the lessons. With this thought she goes to bed with the rest of her family. In the meantime, Sylvia has gotten used to sleeping at night. This has the advantage of adapting to the routine of humans. Her swarm, on the other hand, becomes particularly active now. Whereby strictly speaking that is only Spinny at the moment, who is busy expanding the hive complex and feeding the living structures.

The Hive Queen never truly sleeps, she maintains control at any time! When resting her cognitive functions slow down, but she continues to be available for the swarm subconsciously. If something unexpected happens and her full mental capabilities are needed to solve the problem, she is immediately awakened via connection to the hive mind.