The digestive tract seemed like a good place to start, it would free the drones of the need to render their hauls, and thus increase the speed of resource collection, once more diving into what you were starting to call ‘weaver trance’ you began assembling a rudimentary digestive tract, you had two blueprints to choose from, manticore and snake, but ultimately decided to discard and recycle most of the manticore’s essence seeing as it was the least efficient of the two, only keeping the musculature, bone structure, sight, hearing, claws, teeth, and venom, the rest was repurposed into raw biomass.

With that done, you began working on the first set of organs of your new hatchery, and while the snake’s digestive system was far more efficient than the manticore’s, it still left a lot to be desired speedwhise, you tried to tweak and improve what you could, and while what you ended up creating was a far sight better that what you started with, it still was a rough thing “simple, crude, inefficient, must improve as soon as possible” it would have to do for now, but it would have to do for now.

Once the designing phase was done, it was time to actually implement your new creation, slowly you coaxed the flesh and biomass to grow, it started as a bulbous growth at the base of two ribs, tendrils of flesh slowly growing upwards in the bone, the main mas bulged, pulsing and squirming as it slowly took shape under your guidance, a sack soon grew in the flesh covered wall between the two bone pillars, the sack would act as stomach and intestines, processing and absorbing anything dragged inside, once it finished formed two ducts began growing downwards.

The first tube expanded dramatically as it neared the ground, twisting and turning, the end of it growing a circular maw filled with thousands of small tentacle-like appendices, each equipped with a set of hook like constructs to grasp and drag the resources in, and the section deeper in growing rows upon rows of molars and and incisors, to prepare said resources for processing.

The second tube went into the ground and disappeared from sight, the purpose of this tube was to transport any material the ‘stomach’ couldn’t process, and deposit them in a secondary chamber it would grow, to be consumed by the creep tumor’s roots.

All in all, a patchwork rush-job for zerg standards, but it would have to do, at least for now, so with that done, you moved on to the next project/problem, defences.

Some would call it paranoia, others cowardice, but the fact that the only thing standing between you and everything in the forest were a pair of drones, luckily for you, traditional zerg blueprints were already available without the need for much experimentation, and one such unit was well within your reach, so without wasting any more time, you got right back to work.

This time the production time was faster, seeing as you didn’t have to start from scratch, but it was still not as fast as it could be with the aid of a spawning pool, nevertheless you continued working, the resourced the drones and the creep brought would be enough for six zerglings, not much, but sure as hell better than no zerglings, the embryos inside the cocoons were slow in growing, almost unbearably so, but by the end of the third day since they were created, the hardened shells of their prison began cracking and splitting.

Unlike the drones, the zerglings didn’t wait for the cocoon to break off completely, oh no sire, they tore their way to freedom with an eagerness not unlike that of a piranha in a feeding frenzy, and once they were out hissing and growling and snapping at each other, pushing shoving and nipping, their blades shaking and producing a rattle like noise, as if they were trying to determine who the alpha of the pack would be, it was fascinating, and more than a little bit intimidating.

They were at slightly above hip height on an average person, with their scythe like blades extending up to where the shoulders would be, the blades on said limbs were uncomfortably big, longer than a human torso was thick, glinting in the bioluminescent light, their minds were both similar and worlds apart from that of the drones, sharper, more focused, far more eager to go out and do stuff, but still dim.

Finally, when an apparent leader was chosen, the small pack settled down, looking at you expectantly giving them a mental command to patrol and remain unseen, you watched as the zerglings hissed, chittered, and took off, nimbly leaping over the returning drones as they returned, one hauling another cargo of gems, the other hauling a pile of wood, both drones deposited their hauls, and floated off again, in search of more resources.

The digestive tract worked fast, barely a minute and a half and already you could feel the resources becoming available to you, just enough for another pseudo structure, looking around, you realized there wouldn’t be much more space for anything other than the other two organ systems, with a mental sigh you got to work on the nervous system, or at least, tried to, but a mental ping from the zerglings snapped you out of it.

Immediately, you became alert, the message was simple, but urgent, intruders were making a beeline to the cave, another ping came soon after the first, and this time it was a memory, you tensed when the memory settled into your mind, ‘Changelings, fuck! How did they find out about me?!’

Quickly, you called back both the drones and the zerglings, racking your brain for a plan, trying to decide how to approach the situation ‘do I try to communicate? Do I attack? Fuuuck, it’s too soon!’ steeling your nerves, you took a deep breath to try and calm down, panicking now wouldn’t do you any good, the problem at hand needed a cool head, not a panicky moron.

Once more reviewing the memory, you saw something you were not expecting, the group, which was a dozen strong, had one particular individual in the middle, this one had an actual mane and tail, not at all like the see through membrane the others had, was slightly taller, slimmer, feminine, and her-you assumed it was a she- had actual eyes with pupils, and her wings were also of a slightly different shape than the rest, all in all, the changeling looked almost like a miniature version of chrysalis, with lighter colored mane and tail, the only thing missing to be a perfect copy, would be the antennae.

“interesting…”

Plan to deal with the changelings
[] Write-in

Author's Note

winning vote: [X] Digestive tract.

sup! new chapter, enjoy.

also, for those of you who don't know what a write in is, basically is a blank slate for the 'players' to suggest their own plan/decision, you will start seeing this kind of vote a bit more often after this chapter