Dawn of the Second Day
-12 hours till nightfall remain-
Morning has come. Morning has come and all that implies. I watch in vengeful glee as all the Zombies and Skeletons burst into flames and stumble around looking for shade from the sun. All of the Endermen abruptly disappear, teleporting sporadically away. The giant spiders which had been aggressively roaming everywhere, even crawling on the Hatchery to find a way in, are now sitting docile and slowly meandering back to the trees. The only things left are the Creepers.
I will have to blame what happened next on not having slept in 24 hours, or however long a Minecraft day is. I certainly feel like I've been awake for over 24 hours. My body and mind don't deal very well with being forced to cope with extreme exhaustion. Tack on stress and a desire for revenge to that, and you get the decision to have the Overlords punt Creepers with their tentacles. I climbed to the top of the Hatchery to watch and see for myself, laughing maniacally and occasionally yelling out "FOUR!" or "IT'S GOOD!"
Yeah… I really need some sleep before I do anything else crazy… At least watching those stupid things getting launched into near orbit cheered me up some. Visibly reigning myself in, I turned my attention to the Swarm. I really need to get some defenses up pronto. First things first, I order my Drones to go finish collecting up trees. Sadly, the trees on the Creep are looking just about withered and dead, so I doubt they'll give me much bio-energy than yesterday. I seriously need to find a viable source of income and soon.
Before I can even contemplate what to do next, I hear a distressed noise from my Drones in the back of my mind. I turn towards them and abruptly face palm. I'd forgotten to order the Hatchery to lower the wall of Creep, and the Drones are circling the perimeter trying to find a way out in order to follow my gathering orders. I should've taken care of that first before anything else, so I feel a bit dumb on top of being exhausted now. Yay.
Mentally ordering the Hatchery to redistribute the Creep, I turn my attention to my Overlords and order them to take control of the reforming of the Creep wall during times of danger, as well as taking it down during peace time. I love Overlords. While it would've been nice to have someone to talk to, at least they follow orders to the letter so long as it's something the Swarm is capable of. They're like giant floating adaptable bio computers. Maybe the longer they stay alive, perhaps they'll develop personalities? I'd already tried ordering them to talk to me, but all I could hear are those weird noises that sound like an Elephant saying 'blegh!' and 'blargh!' Weird. Now I suddenly want to hear one say 'Honk!'
Once again bringing my brain to task from the distraction, I grimace as the first of the mostly dead trees are dropped into the Hatchery. They're only giving me 1-2 Bio-energy now. They're definitely not worth having my Drones gather up now. Heck, some of them are falling over on their own and the Creep is growing over them, absorbing them to the point where you wouldn't have even known they were there. I wish I could get the bio-energy immediately rather than once every day. At this rate, all I'm going to be able to rely on for bio-energy is the Creep itself. I honestly can't think of anything for my Drones to gather to supplement my bio-energy income. Considering I'm now only sitting at 140 bio-energy and climbing, that's not good at all, and I don't dare use that bio-energy up yet until I decide what to do with it.
Come on! Think! I know Minecraft like that back of my hand! What kind of things are here that I could have my Drones collect? The monsters themselves might work, but until I find a way to neutralize the Creepers and Endermen, mob farming isn't a viable option, though the idea of building some kind of water slide into one of the Entrances of the Hatchery for Zombies and Skeletons to slide down into does amuse me. If not for water not being infinite in reality, I'd contemplate doing just that. At least an infinite water source has to be good for the bio-energy income right? I mean, all living things are mostly composed of water and minerals…
Minerals… Maybe… if I had my Drones start mining for rock and other minerals like iron and coal, that might count towards bio-energy? The Creep is already leaching minerals out of the ground after all. Pushing my mind towards an Overlord, I quickly take control of its movement and sight functions. I'm honestly surprised at how easy it is. I figured since an Overlord's body is nothing like my own, that I'd spend most of the time flailing about as I try to figure out how to fly the thing. That's why I didn't try to do this last night in case I caused the Overlord to collapse into the ground and get swarmed, instead relying on commanding them where to move and transmit what they see to me. Ironically, the collective transmitted vision of the entire Swarm, particularly the Overlords, isn't that different from the map screen of the original Starcraft, just a heck of a lot more detailed and coming in from multiple perspectives to make one conclusive whole.
Still, I expected it to take a while before I got used to controlling an Overlord directly. One doesn't expect to hop into a plane and become an expert pilot immediately after all, yet that's exactly what this is. Flying the Overlord and controlling its movements feels completely natural, like they're coming to me through instinct. It wouldn't surprise me if that's exactly what's happening, since I've already got instinctual information coming to me from the side I've dubbed 'The Overmind' part of me. As soon as any question I have about the Swarm enters my head, I automatically already know the answer. It's extremely convenient for not having to worry about how the Swarm can do things, though I have yet to actually get any technical answers, like how exactly the Creep harvests bio-energy. The answer I got seemed to sum up to 'It just does'.
Speaking of bio-energy, I'm getting distracted again! Refocusing on the Overlord, I fly off in a random direction, looking for an open ground rock formation. With 360 degree vision and the ability to see for at least a mile, I quickly find what I'm looking for, and order a Drone to go collect some rock. Can't be much harder to collect rock than it is to cut apart and collect hardened crystal.
While the Drone is slicing up the rock, I make myself more familiar with the Overlord's abilities. Being sensors in the original Starcraft, I looked for some sort of function that would allow me to see the invisible. Almost immediately, creatures began to be highlighted in my, the Overlord's, vision. It reminds me of eagle vision from Assassin's Creed a little bit, though the Overlord's senses don't dim the world, just bring the creatures into sharper focus and make them glow blue or red depending on if they're passive or aggressive towards the Swarm.
Playing around with this ability, I spy out a couple cave entrances that some mobs are lurking in just outside of the sun. There's even an open air chasm just a ways north in the direction of those mountains in the distance. Obviously I don't have my Overlord actually go anywhere near any areas of darkness. I'm not about to lose another one.
My playing around with the Overlord is interrupted by my bio-energy jumping up by five. Evidently collecting up that rock is a very viable source of income and I immediately order my Overlords to have the Drones do some landscaping, flattening out the land and making it even with the clearing that my creep is on, and in so doing collecting up rocks and dirt to drop off into the Hatchery. I note with some skepticism that both rock and dirt give five bio-energy. I would've figured there'd be differences in the amount or something since rock and dirt have very different compositions. Still, I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I contemplated just having the Drones strip mine an area nearby, but I don't want to give mobs any more spots to spawn in. Speaking of which, how the heck does that work? I get how spawning works in a video game, but how the heck do monsters simply appear just because the area is dark? That doesn't make any feasible sense! But then again, neither do walking skeletons that shoot arrows at you.
I simply have to cheer when the Drones come across a nearby large flat rise of ground to the west of the Hatchery. Flattening that down should take days if not weeks, and just like that I have my main source of income. My bio-energy is certainly rising quite nicely again, and I quickly top out my Drones at 27 since that's all the control I have available at the moment.
Before I can do anything else, my stomach rumbles. Pulling back from the Overlord that I'd been having fly up to confirm if the planet I'm on is flat or round, idly noting that the planet's horizon has a curve so I can safely say its round, I regard my hunger in surprise. I'd been so busy I'd not thought about it, but I hadn't really eaten since yesterday and I'm only just now getting hungry again? The Creep really must be filling to have lasted nearly an entire day on one meal. Pulling up a new piece of creep, I eat it as I watch the hole I made get filled in once more. That never gets old. It looks so cool!
Now with an income to speak of, I turn towards the expansion of the Swarm. As soon as the funds and larvae are available, I spawn in four more Overlords, bringing my total to six by mid afternoon. I'd spent far too much time flying around and playing as an Overlord really. I should've gotten started on this a while ago. I'm starting to nod off on my feet too. Not good.
Learning from my mistake with the Evolution chamber, I consider what to do about protecting the Swarm. I need new buildings, but I can't without either a way to take out the monsters from a distance, or removing their spawning territory with light. Surely the Swarm must've consumed something with bioluminescence at some point? Unfortunately, without an Evolution Chamber, that thought is moot point.
With no ideas forth coming, I spawn out more Drones to increase my income further, topping out at my supply limit once more with 59 Drones. With the amount of income I'm pulling, and larvae spawning every minute, it only takes me roughly half an hour. With this many Drones out collecting resources, a traffic jam of sorts is starting to make itself known with the Drones. Best way to fix that is to make a new Hatchery. With the income I'm already pulling in, I don't even have to wait long to do just that, sitting it within the clearing made by the Creep since there aren't any nearby clearings large enough to set another Hatchery up in.
With the Hatchery on the way, I order up another Drone to replace that one, and then contemplate what to do next. I really need more buildings, but with the night slowly but steadily creeping forward, I need defenses more. Hydralisks would be really nice right about now. Mutalisks even more so. A few ideas cross my mind. What if I put a ring of Creep colonies around my Hatcheries that are just wide enough spaced for an ultralisk to squeeze through, and then have the Creep colonies form a ring wall around the hive itself rather than just the Hatchery?
The idea has a lot of merit, but before I can think to put it in action, I realize the snag. Even with a wall up, that wouldn't prevent the monsters from just spawning inside of the walls. I really need a light source. Unfortunately fire won't last long enough. I don't know how to make a proper torch that'll last a few hours, let alone a torch that'll burn indefinitely like in the game. Coal on a stick won't burn forever. Heck, even if I did make those glorified matches, I wouldn't know how to get them to light anyway. All of my boyscout training for wilderness survival always relied on having outside resources, either matches, a lighter, flint and steel, or a battery and steel wool. I have none of those things, though I suppose I might be able to get my hands on flint and steel at some point here.
So fire is out. Glowstone and lava is the only thing I know of that naturally glows in Minecraft, but one requires a Nether portal to get any, and the other requires digging long and deep for since none of my Overlords spotted anything glowing in the distance last night. Makes sense really since exposed lava cools on its own anyway. With all ideas exhausted for an immediate light source, I turn to the next best thing. Hoping and praying that the Swarm has consumed a creature that glows in the dark before, and figuring out how to implement that into the swarm before darkness falls.
Biting my lip, I worry that I may not have enough time. I may have five hours of daylight left, but who knows how long it'll take to implement bio luminescence into the Swarm? That's when I get a wonderful idea, an awful idea. I just got a wonderfully awful idea. If I can't prevent the monsters from spawning in, then I'll just mow them down as they pop up! How will I go about this, one might ask? I have no Hydralisks or Mutalisks, and I don't quite dare trying to have Zerglings employ hit and run tactics on Creepers within the confines of the Hive. It's simple really. So simple I can't believe I didn't see it before.
Immediately, I set about having a Drone bring in a Spawning Pool, reflexively replacing the lost Drone with another. With that, I start the process of ringing the entire Creep with Creep colonies, putting them right on the edge of the Creep available. Another hour and a half into building the ring of Creep colonies, the Spawning Pool finished growing. To my delight, I have just enough income to keep up spawning in Drones and Creep colonies to start morphing the Creep colonies into Sunken Colonies. It'll be cutting it close, but I have just enough income to keep it up.
Judging by the size of the first Creep Colony, which is roughly the size of a two story house, it's going to take about twenty Creep Colonies to completely surround the Hive. At twenty minutes a pop to spawn them in, and with my income allowing me to spawn one with every new Drone produced, which also takes twenty minutes to spawn in, I should be finished with initially ringing the Creep colonies in… let's see, that three every hour… oh dear. It'll take me a little over six and a half hours to finish, and I only have about four and a half hours to finish this before night falls. I'm going to have to change my strategy if I want any kind of defense tonight.
Using some of my already existing Drones, I have them morph into Creep colonies as well. Now I just have to build two every twenty minutes rather than just one. Doing so causes my income to hit zero a few times, but it's necessary. Just in case, I stop sequentially making every Creep colony a Sunken Colony and instead make every other one a Sunken Colony. That solves the money issue nicely, and I should have a mostly finished ring of Creep colonies and sunken colonies by night fall. It should be just enough. It'll have to be enough.
Finally unable to put it off any longer, I order the Overlords to keep up what I'd been doing until the ring is finished, or as close as it can be with our resources. I also changed their earlier orders about the wall of Creep from forming it around the Hatcheries to forming it around the entire hive, leaving the Creep within the ring of Creep colonies alone. I wasn't sure if such control on the Creep could be done, but the Overlords didn't give me a negative reply to the order so I guess they can pull it off.
As for finishing the ring tonight… I contemplate ordering the Overlords to have some of the Drones keep gathering resources in the night, but then I remembered this morning's fiasco with the Drones unable to climb over the wall of Creep, so they wouldn't even be able to reach the resources anyway. Instead I just order the Overlords to finish the project as best they could with the funds available.
With that finished, I stumble to the nearest Hatchery and flop up against the wall and promptly pass out. Just before I do so, I have the presence of mind to make sure to order the Overlords to float up high enough to be out of teleport range of the Endermen, and to form up in positions between the hatcheries and the Creep colonies, that way the Endermen will always be under fire throughout the night, even if none of them will hit. Stupid preemptive… 'Yawn' teleporting abilities… make the stupid Endermen seem like th- 'YAWN' –ey have the Spider Sense… or something…
And with that I spent the rest of the day dreaming about a bunch of Endermen web swinging through the trees fighting crime and other random stuff while I caught up on my sleep.
-Chapter End Review-
OVERMIND
Health-50/50
Psi-Energy-10/100
Psi-Replenish-10pc
Control-10ucp
Abilities
Spawn Hatchery-100psi-2hours-1ucp
ZERG SWARM LVL 1
Bio-Energy-125
Bio-Replenish-200pc
Control used/provided-59/59
Strains Available
Larvae-0be-0:0:1-3 per Hatchery-25hp-10armor
Drone-50be-0:20:0-1ucr-40hp-5ga
Overlord-100be-0:40:0-8ucp
Buildings Available
Hatchery-300be-2:0:0-1ucp-1250hp-800 m creep gen
Extractor-50be-0:40:0-750hp
Creep Colony-75be-0:20:0-500hp-500 m creep gen
Sunken Colony-50be-0:20:0-300hp-40ga-700mr
Evolution Chamber-75be-0:40:0-750hp
Spawning Pool-200be-1:20:0-750hp
SWARM COMPOSITION
Sentients-1
Overmind
Underlings-70
2 Hatcheries
1 Spawning Pool
2 Creep Colonies
6 Overlords
59 Drones
Vassals-0
Allies-0
REQUIREMENTS TO EVOLVE
Spawning Pool –Completed-
-Swarm is ready to evolve-
A/N - Wow! I can't believe how many favorites and follows I'm getting! Crazy! I hope you're all enjoying the story and that I don't scare you off in later chapters, cause we're just getting started! OH! And before I forget, I also updated the Zerg Information Sheet to include the upgrades available to the Swarm. I'll be editing and adding more as the story goes along, especially once the Overmind starts messing around in the Evolution Chamber. ;)
Oh, and fair warning to all of you out there, I AM going to try and make this story not be a curb stomper, but I'm probably going to fail miserably at it, so I hope you can deal with that.
Turtwigle63 - Don't worry, I won't let flamers scare me off. :)
FtDLulz, New World Zero, S.R.457, - Thank you for the Reviews and I'm glad you're enjoying the story.
Special thanks to all those who have favorited and followed my story. I'd list your aliases but that would take too long, so here's a blanket thank you and a cookie!