I woke up surrounded by my gemstones and my egg.

  I didn’t really remember what had happened. Then the memories flooded back—some of them made me wish they had stayed buried forever.

  I had filled myself with nectar and then started eating it directly.

  As I ate, I remembered I should scent-mark it and began buzzing until I fell to the ground.

  I stood up, totally confused, looking for the one who had made me fall and started to laugh. After having a nice laugh and somewhat wondering what had made me start in the first place, I looked at the flower and felt a wave of worry coming from it.

  It made me want to cheer it up, so I tried flying, but I went up too fast, spun around, and smacked straight into the ground. I didn’t really understand what had happened.

  I remember looking around for a culprit again, but I couldn’t find any.

  On my next attempt, I flew up, then forgot what I was supposed to do.

  The next thing I remembered, I was cuddling my egg and the gemstones.

  Then I rolled on them and started rubbing myself against them, eventually scent-marking the entire hive.

  And that explained the strong smell.

  I would much rather have had the flower scent from the different blossoms I’d taken nectar from. Now it only smelled of my own pheromones. It was like everything was screaming that it was mine—mine, mine, mine.

  Everything was just broadcasting ownership. Nothing else.

  It was so strange.

  I went to my egg, and it was the same. I felt a little sorry for my lazy little egg.

  But then another memory hit me. I was wax-crafting a throne. I looked around, seeing the clump that was supposed to be a throne. What a waste of wax—and the nicest nectar I have ever tasted.

  Even as a weird clump, it looked cleaner and nicer than the other wax in the hive.

  I also remembered dings, but not what they were for. I opened my stats and just felt confused and flustered.

  I had doubled my mana and gained two more skills—not just from Nectar Sense and levels—but I wasn’t sure if it had happened during the night or while I slept. I don’t look at my status that often.

  But now that I stopped to really feel within, I could feel energy. I could even feel it in a way I hadn’t before.

  It flowed through me in a pattern that felt natural, but at the same time didn’t make sense.

  It moved in circles from somewhere near my heart, I think, streaming through where I make eggs, then through my rump, becoming a stream again as it returned to my heart.

  It felt like there was almost a small clump by my heart. It was hard to sense, and now that I think about it, I couldn’t feel anything like this before—except faintly when I was creating an egg.

  This is weird.

  Whatever this is, I wonder if I can move it.

  I tried for a while, but it just isn’t possible. If it were, I just know I would have done it.

  Whatever, I looked at my skills instead.

  I know it—I can sense mana!

  I was dancing and clicking around. Yes, I have magic. I’m the sorcerer supreme, queen of magic, the master of disaster, the ruler of—

  Eemmm.

  I should make time for naming my soon-to-be kingdom. Did my mother’s hive have a name?

  I can’t recall.

  Whatever. Let’s look at my new arsenal.

  That’s all? It doesn’t explain anything!

  Passive sensory? It feels like I really need to concentrate to feel it—that’s not passive at all. Why do you have to be so aggravating? Do you think it’s funny or something?

  It took me a while to calm down, but it felt faster than it usually does when the system does something irritating.

  I could feel that my egg would hatch any day now, so I needed to be prepared.

  No time to waste. At the same time, I could look for the wasps and see how close they were.

  I flew toward the way we came from, toward the lake.

  As I flew, it hit me that we hadn’t gone as far as I thought. It went so much faster now that I was healed and had no extra baggage.

  I was weaving through spiderwebs like a pro now.

  It was still weird that there were no other bugs or birds.

  I tried feeling the mana, but since I didn’t have a reference outside this part of the forest, I didn’t really know if it was different or not.

  I looked at the flowers as I flew by them, and from the ones with a stronger glow, I took nectar. Even when I felt full, I continued looking at each flower. They were part of my garden, and it felt right for me to take an interest in them. None of them were even close to the flower guarded by the puppy.

  Eventually, I passed something that reminded me of when I crossed my mother’s lands. It didn’t look different or smell different, but it still felt less ominous than where I had come from.

  It was a lot more subtle than my mother’s domain. I flew back and forth but couldn’t feel where the edge was.

  Either it’s because I don’t have a relationship with the owner, or it doesn’t have a defined domain.

  Heeem. This doesn’t help much, but I wonder if all areas are part of someone’s domain or not.

  I kept flying and tried feeling the mana again—and then I stopped.

  It felt so different. Nicer.

  If I compare the mana near my hive, it’s more suppressive.

  It clicked that this must be why all the bigger animals had left. They had moved away pretty recently.

  Something is happening. The question is whether it affects me and whether I should care.

  Something to think about when I have the resources to do something about it, but it does seem like the mana by my hive isn’t very good. And it kind of sounds like something interesting and fun is going on.

  As I looked at the flowers, more and more I passed glowed much more than any flower near my hive—except the exceptional flower by the puppy, but that one was in a league of its own. Both nectar and pollen were stronger here, and it made me wonder if the undead were the problem. Stupid walking fertilizer messing up my garden.

  And as I was thinking about that, I smelled one of them.

  I saw only red.

  One of those things was this close to my only surviving egg and my new hive. How dare it come here.

  I flew full force toward the wasp.