OK, so two weeks was definitely too enthusiastic of an estimate. It was nearly three before Sam finally reached the adventurers' encampment. From Sam's surveillance, they could tell Molly had been thoroughly but thankfully not harshly interrogated about their presence. However, it was clear that they were getting rather annoyed with their late arrival.

  “Look, I don't know what to tell you, it told me it would take about two weeks, and we've seen plenty of its flying drone thingies overhead, so it's clearly not forgotten about us. So, either it ran into a problem and couldn't get here fast enough, or it's busy elsewhere.”

  As if on cue, a small amount of dirt burst out from the ground, followed by a silvery, bluish liquid. And within a few seconds, a sizable puddle had formed. As Sam began to build. Sam had considered how they wanted to portray themselves, and while they would have rather begun transforming another tree, as they had plenty of experience with that medium to pull from, they didn't have that luxury this time. All the nearby trees had been chopped down, and making a new one was a bit beyond them, so they had thought to go a bit more ostentatious and started to form a fountain.

  Mollys boss… Well, technically, he was her boss's boss's boss's boss wasn't even meant to be an actual member of the Guild. Instead, he was a kingdom's representative liaison to the Guild. Witch was just a fancy title given to some nobles' disposable brats. The ones that would likely never achieve any great feats of their own and would likely not make good backups for the ones that would. And since every other noble was trying to ship off their more useless spawns for just a bit more wealth and power, there was very little demand left for political marriages. So, despite being backwater or lesser or unwanted nobles, they were still nobles. They were trained and, despite lacking any actual power, still held some level of authority. As such, they were colorfully termed disposable nobles by the higher class. Usually, they were handed off to the guild or the army or even some trading companies to give them some form of legal standing with other nations or other powerful entities, and if they got themselves killed, it wasn't considered a great loss.

  Graduafold, or Gray as he preferred, was more than aware of his status as a disposable, and as much as he hated the term, he couldn't help but agree it was fitting. Especially when it came to his fellow disposables, most were just snobs in his opinion, but he, on the other hand, had not been content to lounge around and accept his disposable status. But he wasn't as cutthroat and glory hungry as his more prosperous siblings. Especially considering he had been 17th in line for the family title when he was born, and he was now the 8th. So, he knew what would happen if you were too ambitious. So instead, he’d had to establish his authority by his own right. Though admittedly, through administration and leadership, and his position as a guild master.

  He lacked the power of many other Guild masters as he neither had great skills, magic, nor even strengths at his disposal. He was, however, smart and good with money, investments, trade, and picking the right fights with the right people. This had earned him a reputation for getting shit done. He often had to request muscle from other guilds when he encountered something he wasn't equipped for. But most found this as a reasonable trade off for not having to worry about where they were going to find enough rations to feed their men after the next battle or have to complain when bandits pop up and slow trade in their territory.

  That was until the undead uprising, he had nearly entirely been shifted over to logistics, but the problem was it hadn't been done soon enough. Whoever was in charge before him had been a bit of a brute, throwing troops and manpower at the problem. Leading too many roots with not enough guards and to too many lost shipments. He had trimmed the tree as much as he could. But the simple fact of the matter was that there was more than one major trade artery that simply went too far between defendable settlements, and rerouting them took far too long.

  He had already put in requests for smaller settlements to be established on various routes to fortify trade routes in the future, but that was for the future. As things stood in the here and now, he had to set up some form of way station or find something like it at the very least.

  He was focusing on three roots, the largest and most complex of which would likely require 2 to 5 stations, and that was the one he was focusing on right now.

  So imagine his surprise when he had been rushed out of his office at the nearby settlement to a make shift encampment in the middle of nowhere. That was home to one of the seven operations he was currently overseeing to try and find a good place for the waystation.

  Apparently, they had made contact with something, and they couldn't be clear on exactly what the thing was. Just that whatever it was, was the tender of the nearby forest.

  He had been stuck in the outpost for over a week, and he was sick of it. If it wasn't for the handful of mages and the rather ridiculous amount of magical objects he had brought with him, he would have had to cancel nearly a dozen operations at this point. Unfortunately, even with his rather impressive artifacts and tools, there was a limit on how much he could get done in such a small backwater outpost. Without the power of the grand communication Lacrima in the larger settlements, getting messages out and coordinating his various operations was growing more and more expensive by the day. He was down to his last handful of mana crystals if it did not show up before they were depleted, he would have to leave regardless.

  So, imagine his surprise when a massive blue and silver pool opened up in the middle of the make shift outpost the scouts and adventurers had established. He watched as, over the next few hours, a fountain formed out of the pool. Though it was nothing too extravagant in comparison to those in many of the estates back in the capital. It was a simple thing, 3 tiers, each bowl shaped like the petal of a flower, the top spicket resembling an unopened bloom. Slowly, the petals started to glow, rimmed with a thin glowing blue line.

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  To Grey’s shock and amazement, the fountain seemed to fold in on itself like a flower blooming in reverse. Its lights grew dim before reigniting even brighter as it opened back up, silvery blue liquid flowing from the bloom on the top that was now open. Sitting in the middle of the bloom was an orb that began to turn as if surveying its surroundings. No, not an orb but an eye.

  “Test, test, hello, can you understand us?”

  The voice that came from the fountain sounded almost androgynous, like the synthesized voices from cheap message spells or from young elementals. Though thankfully not as annoyingly stunted, the accent was still a bit off, like it had learned to speak for multiple different teachers.

  “Yes, we can hear you.” Gray spoke up as he stepped forward.

  Meanwhile Sam did their best to tap down on their slight panic. They had prepared for this and come up with a somewhat believable story, now they just had to play their part.

  “Hello, I am S.A.M. or the Smart, Anima, Machina, the core intelligence or I believe you would refer to it as the queen of the nanite swarm.”

  Gray swallowed, a queen worse, a swarm queen. The only swarm queens he knew of were of the insectoid races.

  The Nazarenes which was a hive of multiple different races all linked together. The Ant kin. Who were one of the forbidden kingdom's most hated enemies and disliked by everyone other than the dwarves. The Bee kin, which honestly just wanted to be left alone. To the point that next to no one had made contact with any of their hives that wasn't a declaration of war in the past couple hundred years. The spider and the draw nations each had Queens, but they were not a hive queen. This didn't match anything, he knew. This had to be something new. Which, judging by how they had been digging around, they probably came from deep underground. Which probably wasn't to good for his own kingdom, regardless, he needed to confirm as much as possible.

  “Am I speaking to her Highness directly, or some form of intermediate, or is this some form of magical communication artifact?”

  “Neither and both, we are complex. The swarm are our eyes, our ears, and our hands, and there is no individuality among the drones. Only us and the swarm, and we are we are alone.”

  Gray felt his stomach drop at the implication, and he desperately hoped he was wrong.

  “Are you saying that you are the last of your people?”

  ………..

  “Likely, yes, once we were many, sharing and tugging on the swarm for what little control it offered. Then something came for us, something took us, broke us, and then we found ourselves here. The swarm was small, but the land was rich. We dug down, grew, then moved to the forest and made it our home. Now, these things attack our home.”

  Sam believed they had crafted a somewhat believable back story, and if they had some way to detect lies, it would likely pass as they made it as close to the truth as possible. But they had to add the part about once being many at the last minute, hoping it would help buy them some sympathy.

  Gray internally swore a new race and one that had likely all but been wiped out. The gods weren’t kind to genocides, even an accidental one. They were not equipped for this! He was not equipped for this! Yes, he was a diplomat on some level. But he was expecting to have to perform that role on the equivalent of a trade contract. Not first fucking contact with a fucking new race.

  “My greatest apologies your majesty, we had no idea we were dealing with royalty. More than that, you had been through such a tragedy, it is my greatest shame that this could not have happened under better circumstances. I am a humble but unfortunately lesser noble that was sent here to negotiate with some form of magical creature or spirit of power. As we had no knowledge of your subterranean Kingdom.”

  “You would not be far off from our state, while, the swarm is vast and numerous. I must confess we are far, far smaller than you giants. The pool before you is our third hive and contains 10s of thousands of my swarm. Even with the advancements with our war machines, we still do not scale to your heights.”

  That statement through Gray for a loop, he had no idea what she was referring to by hives or war machines, but he desperately needed clarification.

  “I'm sorry, I don't quite follow. Please forgive my ignorance, Your Highness, but could you elaborate further?”

  “Yes, it is complex. I have done my best to understand your vocabulary, but I still find it lacking for certain terms. I will, however, endeavor to do my best. A single swarm drone is small enough that it can crawl upon a single grain of sand as if it is a grand boulder. Individual drones are fairly weak and are nearly incapable of surviving on their own, but when they gather together in the millions, their collective intelligence can put them on par with a basic insect. I believe the drones and my race were once two different species until a group of drones was found by one of my ancestors. Our ability to communicate mentally with each other over short distances was likely too overwhelming for the simple drones. As time went on, our two species became so intertwined as to be 1 and the same. I am far larger than any drone, but I still probably could comfortably fit within the hand of any of those here. With our intelligence and drones working together in numbers far larger than any I know the word for. We are able to complete tasks at incredible rates. I further this by using these capabilities to forge my war machines, the mobile hive structure which expands my reach.” One of the silver blue slimes slid over the edge of the fountain and landed on the ground in front of him.

  “More meant for labor than combat, but they do well enough against the weaker ones. My aerial logistics and surveillance machine.” Sam said as one of the drones flew down from above.

  “These allow me sight over great distances, they can also transport the mobile hives or even resources gathered by the hives. It’s also something originally meant more for labor than for war. lastly is the bestial mobile hive it is still a work in progress and was meant for larger, more complex forms of Labor. I have yet to test it in combat or attempt to modify it for combat.” On Sam's cue, four of their aerial drones landed one of the dog like robots they had been working on.

  “These, along with the labor of my drones, is all I can offer, I'm afraid.”

  Grey wasn’t sure if he should be cursing or cheering. If he understood half of what this thing was saying, they were simultaneously one of the most numerous and smallest kingdoms in the world. Not only due to the drones' strange sizes, but despite their insane number of drones, there was only one thinking individual in charge of it all. No nobility, no nights, no peasantry, just the queen and the queen herself admits to being so small that they could make off with her just by picking her up and walking away. Yeah, so a powerful spirit or beast wasn’t that far off. That being said, the things it had made could not be ignored. He was no artificer nor an engineer, but the dog looking machine standing in front of them she had referred to as a bestial hive. If he was equating hives to cities. With the small slime like things were the equivalent of small castle towns or mining villages. Then it would be the equivalent of an actual walking city, they have the capabilities to, admittedly on a very small scale, to build massive walking cities. Even if they could not be scaled to larger infrastructure or larger production capacities. He might have just found a race that was somehow more technologically advanced than some of the greatest dwarven citadels. Best case scenario, he’d found a tiny, tiny Kingdom with an absolute genius at its head that was the equivalent of just a really powerful spirit or he just found the next national superpower that fit into a valley. Either way, he had a lot of paperwork to start filling out. Even if they really were the equivalent of just a spirit, it had proven itself to be fully intelligent. It had even claimed itself as a queen, though it likely meant it was closer to the insectoid term instead of the truly noble term. Regardless, it shot way above his pay grade. So, until he got explicit permission in writing, there wasn't much he could do other than be cordial and try and get as much information. So whoever they sent next could make an informed decision.