After his last advice, the Maker strode out of the room without a second thought. I am left reeling trying to digest the enormous trove of information that had been dropped into my mind with all the grace and care of a thrown brick. After a few seconds, I decided that I can not process this information all at once and would instead need to digest small chunks of it over time. I force the knowledge to the back of my mind, straiten up, and turn to the collection of Coptos in the room. I see that all of them are looking at me expectantly. I don’t know what to do, the orders may as well be stored in a locked chest.

Eventually, the Blue with green markings makes a connection with me.

Anxiety Battle outside, no time for inactive, what maker will?*

The Violet chimes in from its position in the corner

Large orders are hard, especially for a Blue so newly made silver*

He strides up to me, looking directly into my eyes for a few seconds before speaking again.

* I can help you, let me into your mind so we can begin on this mission, there will be time to teach you properly later.*

I hesitate, it is rare to allow another Blue direct access into my mind, unheard of to let one of the other colors access. We Blues are supposed to command the other Coptos not the other way around, so I had been taught from the moment I was cohesive enough to learn.

After a few tense moments, I mentally nod to him. He reaches out and places his hands on my head. It is a strange feeling, Violet hands are shaped for the purpose of spell casting, needing to make quick sure motions and quickly draw diagrams in the air or with chalk. Due to this, his fingers have one more set of joints than mine and in some places his pseudo-chitin is so complex that it looks more like scales than a true exoskeleton.

I feel his influence enter my mind and hover observing for a second before it moves pulling the complex tangle of orders to the forefront of my mind

Perplexed apology Hmmm I have never seen such complicated orders, the Maker truly has given you quiet the task, let us see if some sense can be made of this*

After several seconds of poring over the mental knot, the Violet’s mind moves, pulling at one part of the mental construct until a loose string of command is pulled free.

* This should be the start of your orders* He says before withdrawing from my mind.

I carefully teased the thread of information further out of the tangle in my mind to determine what the beginning of my orders are.

Orders step one: Put as much distance between your group and central command as possible, do so while avoiding notice by hostile forces.

Well, that seems fairly straight forward, finally, I know what needs to be done.

I turn towards the gathered Coptos and relay my intent. They form up and follow me as we file out of the room. I hesitate for a second, I don’t know where in the compound we are, and what is more, I don’t know which direction to run in.

I turn to the Violet * What is the best way to leave*

He turns to me * knowing amusement Follow me I know just the people to ask*

I follow him through the twisting corridors of the command center our group moving quickly as other Coptos step out of our way. None seem to want to be in the path of such a large group. I had heard that back when Coptos were much simpler and completely reliant upon the orders of the Maker there had been several incidents of Coptos being trampled by their singleminded kinsmen. Such an incident had not occurred in almost three years yet the fear remained in some of the older Coptos and had filtered down to all of us.

Eventually, we reached a large room filled with frantic Blues rushing around and speaking to each other rapidly. Hovering above the room is a projection displaying thousands of dots and lines slowly moving across it with a few flecks of light appearing every now and again for a few seconds before disappearing.

I had no idea what the projection represented but the Blues in the rooms watch it like hawks while they speak with one another in their quiet voices. My Violet walked in and grabbed one of the Blues roughly pulling him out of the room before he could react

The startled Blue turned to look at my Violet and I was horrified to see his gold-flecked eyes fill with fury

“ You dare to —“ he suddenly stopped as my Violet made eye contact with him. A few seconds went by as a silent mental conversation took place between the two.

Those gold-flecked eyes, the eyes of a blue so high above me in the past that I had never even seen one turned to meet mine.