When I became aware of myself again I was in a field, beside me; Crecur was simply waiting. When it realized I had awoken the Essence spoke.

"Ah, you're finally awake. I was wondering how long it would take, much longer than I had guessed. No matter, if you had been too late there would be other opportunities."

"Opportunities? For what?"

"For your test. Over there is a beehive, Apis florea to be exact, which you will now take control of as is fitting of your role."

"Wait, I thought my Essence was going to represent Eusociality. Why am I dealing with bees?"

Had I been mistaken? What did bees have to do with being social? Sure they lived in large colonies, but they weren't exactly talkative. I really needed clarification, I knew I should have understood why this was happening but I couldn't pinpoint how I was aware of the missing information in the first place. That is, I didn't know why I couldn't remember until Crecur explained it to me.

"Some of your memories have been suppressed, for your wellbeing and for the sake of not inhibiting your growth. As you gain influence and come into your own, you will gain more of the memories of the lives you led. Until then just know this: Esociality is not about 'being social' it's about non-fertile workers taking care of a fertile 'queen' both of which are now capable of being under your control."

"Ok so, I get that now. But what am I supposed to do?"

"For now? Simply take care of the hive after you take control of it."

"Ok, but how do I do either of those things?"

Crecur responded in a tone that was infused with exhaustion and impatience.

"I will give you access to the lives necessary to take care of creatures under your control. As for gaining that control, we have a system in place to help you while you get used to your new abilities. And before you ask, the abilities you possess are not currently known due to the uniqueness of the aspect your Essence is presiding over."

Ok party pooper, you were the one so excited for me to get this gig.

It continued on despite my sarcastic thoughts on the moodinesss of the veteran Essence.

"Controlling things also gives a direct benefit in the form of what we call "Influence" which you can use to further expand your control, affect the world around you, or change aspects of things that fall within your domain including dieties or yourself."

"So, this is essentially a test of my ability to control my aspect. With bees." There was much incredulity in my statement.

Crecur, however, did not seem to notice or care about my doubt at all as it responded. "Yes, essentially that is what's happening here."

"Ok, so then, when do I start... beekeeping. After you unpause time or something? Because there are some nasty looking yellow things under that hive."

I was a bit worried about them, they were obviously going to be a test of some kind. I would have to find a way to get rid of them before they caused trouble or some other objective that involved the destruction of the only thing I had.

I suppose I at least have time to consider my options and carefully think over how to handle the situation. It would be ridiculous to expect me to just hop in and take over a hive and start running it immediately with no prep time or instruction.

Crecur spoke before I could continue that line of thought, simply explaining to my horror.

"Oh, time isn't stopped, I can't affect time. They are just waiting to attack your hive. As for the test and how to control- HEY WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING!?"

"TO STOP THOSE MONGRELS FROM RUINING MY CHANCES TO SUCCEED!"

Once the unfortunate truth that I wasn't granted any time to ready myself was brought to my attention, I knew I would have to play it by ear. Those tiny little creatures were going to destroy my only chance to get out of the miserable life and death cycle. I wasn't concerned about going easy on them. Their pointy teeth, long ears, and green beady eyes did not endear them to my favor. They looked like pests or monsters if I'd ever seen any.

Ok, so, the slow and steady approach is right out. Gotta find out how to control these bees, and fast, if I want to have any hope of success. Those claws they have may be small, but I don't want to assume they are any less formidible because of it.

For the moment I ignored the three things that were now jumping straight up to try and get at my new hive. Luckily they were small and really poor jumpers, it would buy me some time until they realized they could climb the tree or whatever they did to get at these bees. Speaking of the bees, they were suprisingly pretty up close. Their backsides had a black and white stripped pattern while the rest of their body was a brownish red when it wasn't grey or black. They looked like they were the back half of a bee sized zebra suit.

Now I really don't want these little ones to die, they're too cute to deserve that!

As I entered the hive, I saw the bees were few in number. From the information that was now flowing into my brain, I could tell that something was wrong. The bees looked too old to be doing this kind of work. Red Dwarf Bees, known as Apis Florea, have the young take care of the hive while the older drones forage and protect the hive. I saw hardly any young bees, and the bees I did see looked as if they had just gotten out of a fight. It was obvious they were not prepared for such a conflict that those yellow demons outside intended to bring to them. My only hope was to organize the bees and use my superior mind to remove the threat with minimal casualties.

Here little bee, listen to me little bee. Nope, nothing is working. Let me try the queen, I know normally they're just baby making machines, but those things outside make me think this place doesn't work quite how I am accustomed to.

I travelled as fast as my incoporeal form allowed, straight to the heart of the hive. There I found the queen, and a lot of bad news. The queen was obviously weak, with her thorax small considering she was supposed to be birthing a huge amount of eggs. Around her I saw maggot looking larvae chewing on the eggs she had managed to hatch despite the condition she was in. The queen moved her head towards me, and I sensed despair. Then, I heard a voice in my head.

"Please, help us. my hive is in danger and I can't seem to get my children to listen any longer. They just wonder aimlessly as if unaware of the threat. Take my hive, but please save my children."

Apis Florea Queen Has offered her hive, do you accept? Cost: 0 influence

Yes

No

No time for questions, I just need to accept things as they come. I'll let myself be confused when my chance to succeed isn't in the red.

"Yes! Of course!"

Suddenly I felt information rushing like a river into my conciousness. I was every bee, I was in every comb, and I was one with the queen as I felt her fear for the future of her children. I was the hive itself, yet so much more. I was a unique type of hive.

The kind of hive corrdinated under one mind, and the kind of hive that refuses to go down without a fight!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I had a small amount of time, and my options were even smaller in number. All I knew was that I had to get rid of whatever those larvae were, saving the colony from the outside threat meant nothing if it still died to an issue I ignored happening on the inside.

Crecur said I could control anything in my domain, or something like that, it's time to see if the Essence was leaving anything out.

"Bees of the colony, there is a threat in the Queen's chamber! Remove these invaders at once!"

The entire colony heeded my words, quickly moving towards the threat. When they got there I encountered a problem, the same one I assume allowed these parasites to be undisturbed for as long as they had. The bees seemed unable to identify the larvae as anything other than another bee of the colony, every action they took was as if they were tending to a young bee before moving on to find the culprit they couldn't identify.

Ok then, we'll just try the direct approach. Hopefully they will be willing to sacrifice 'one of their own' for the sake of their hive.

"Bees, these individuals are not of the hive! Remove them immediately!"

As I commanded the deed to be done, the system I was given appeared before me in the same way as before, but with a new query.

Would you like to exterminate or remove the parasites? Exterminate: +5 nutrition Remove: +1 influence Assimilate: gain a random aspect from the undeveloped creature to use on organisms in your domain

I ignored assimilate, I wasn't exactly sure I even wanted my bees to be anything like these parasites. I knew that even if it proved useful I wouldn't know how to use it. I needed tangible benefits as fast as possible.

Ok, Crecur already explained influence but what is nutrition? I mean, logically it's probably a measure of how much material there is to sustain the hive. But what defines how much a single 'nutrition' is? Is the value different at different levels? Either way, my colony definitely needs food if the queen is anything to go by.

Before I made my decision, I remembered the pleas of the queen to save her children.

Wait, if the bees attack they might use their stingers and die. I should try to avoid that until we have a safer amount of drones. If I remember correctly some bees can do a weird attack where they swarm another creature and vibrate until the heat kills it.

"Do not use your stingers, surround and heat up these creatures with your moving bodies."

I chose to exterminate, I felt apathatic as my newly claimed drones covered the five developing creatures and began to shake with much fervor. It would have been cute if not for the situation and the violent reality of their actions. It took much less time than I had assumed it would, leaving corpses of the larvae for my drones to use as nutrition.

I still have to deal with those tiny yellow things outside, but I don't have many bees to spare. I doubt they would just sit politely as I tried to give them heatstroke. I'll have to strike decisively. They have eyes, so taking those out will be a great benefit to what I'm trying to do. Beyond that, the head is usually where the brain is, I can only hope the bees have enough length in their stingers to actually finish off these things. What even are these, anyway? They certainly aren't anything I've seen in my previous lives. Must be a different reality from the ones I usually reincarnated in.

"Drones, attack the eyes and head, those who have used their stingers grasp their legs and arms to restrict movement."

Just as before, the bees didn't hesitate despite their new opposition being twice their height. The tiny yellow pests swiped at the bees with their claws, missing as the drones out-maneuvered the haphazard attacks. The bees didn't swiftly stab out the eyes or into the head before latching onto the legs one by one as I had hoped they would, rather they did it as a group to the extent of getting in the way of one another. While still effective, it was not as quick or efficient when compared to the method I had hoped for them to embrace.

I'll have to look into a more direct way of controlling the bees, but for now this is more than enough to get me started. I just hope I won't need to do any percision strikes with the little drones until I get to that point.

I was brought back from musings on the logistics of bee aerial combat when I noticed my drones had finished off the first of whatever the heck these things attacking them were. The bees left over from the battle either began to sting on the cranium of each remaining creature, or to vibrate and restrain where they could if they had already lost their stingers. Soon the skirmish was over and the three yellow annoyances had been removed at the cost of about forty or so bees. It was hard to keep track of the numbers, but considering my hive had a remaining amount of bees numbering in the hundreds, the losses hurt more than it would have if the hive had been in better shape.

Ok, now that the hive issues are taken care of I can focus on other matters. Such as... my confusion and existential dread.

Consume +30 nutrition, carnivore trait aquired Remove +6 influence Assimilate Choose an aspect to take from the Anklebiters

Ok, more stuff to use is good. Could I please get something to help me understand what this all means, though?

System Assistance Progress Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain

"What!? What's with all these menues!?"

The existential dread would mostl likely have to wait until I was through with my confusion, which would probably take a while.