Chapter 1681 – Slowly Waking

I don’t really dream while in torpor. Technically, torpor and sleep are different states, I get that, but still, not-dreaming is one of the few things that I haven’t really gotten used to in my new life.

This, though? This… listless… bodiless experience I’m having right now… it’s as close to dreaming as I’ve come since I was reborn on Pangera. If anything, it reminds me of how I felt just before I hatched.

The major difference between now and then is that I have the collective Will of millions of individuals flowing through me at any given moment. Moment to moment, my sense of self is frayed as I drift away in the stream of my family’s consciousness.

I spend a day as a miner, chomping at the stone, sensing the rock with my antennae, smelling the minerals and gems I’m hunting for. A deep sense of satisfaction fills me as I push my cart, filled to the brim with the fruit of my labours, along the tracks and back to the outpost. From there, it will be added to the next shipment, along with all of my sisters’ work, headed to the sorting facility.

Tomorrow, the mana filling the Dungeon will have refilled and regrown precious metals in another location, so the miner’s work is never done. Such a deep sense of fulfillment I feel with that knowledge.

Another day, I am a healer. Irritation fills me from the moment I emerge from torpor. Worried about my siblings, I rush out, barely giving myself enough time to eat and groom in my haste to reach the hospitals. There has been an influx of cases from below, hundreds of soldiers suffering from severe mana poisoning. Though they are already through the worst of their ailment, they still need around-the-clock care to ensure the toxins don’t spread throughout their systems again.

No sooner have I entered the chamber than I can smell the soldiers trying to persuade anyone who will listen that they are well enough to be released. When I step in, a soldier resting in a recuperation chamber calls out immediately, demanding to be sent back to the front line.

Irritation explodes into anger and I thwack the soldier thoroughly with my antennae, assuring them that their stay in the hospital has just been extended by another week. If they want to complain about it, I’ll make it two weeks!

For the rest of the day, I march around the hospital, endlessly worried for my family members who seem so infuriatingly incapable of worrying about themselves. Finally, exhausted and drained, I return to the torpor chamber and collapse into sleep.

Another day, I am a Brood Tender, and I spend all of my time feeding, grooming and tickling grubs. The fat little things wiggle happily as I tend to them, a pure and innocent existence, untainted by the world. Soothed and nourished by my aura and care, they grow rapidly, ready to become the newest generation of the Colony.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I even spend a day as a Queen, which is… interesting. Being fed an endless supply of Biomass and being nearly constantly groomed is nice, and the tea parties are exquisite, but laying eggs is a rather uncomfortable experience.

It feels like I am everyone and everywhere. Hundreds of different experiences, if not thousands.

I fight as a general in the tunnels, coordinating my siblings as they battle alongside me.

I work making carpets, weaving fine threads into intricate patterns that please the eye and will bring satisfaction and pleasure to the guests of the family.

Smelting in the great foundries. I watch liquid steel flow like a river, so hot only my mutations allow me to work in such a place without my insides boiling within my carapace.

Learning in the antcademies as a hatchling, I study the wisdom of my elders and listen intently to the teachings of my Brood Tender instructor. Soon, I will know everything I need to know in order to work and help my family, and I burn with eagerness for that work to begin.