Catalyst

Chapter 17: Fascination

"Hello, and welcome to the Study of Ancient Runes," said the terran at the front of the class, a female that had identified herself as Bathsheda Babbling. "Now, this is not a class of immediate rewards, of waving a wand and setting a feather on fire, or of lifting up a pile of wood." Titters floated around the classroom. The terran paused. "Or was it the other way around?" Now there were open giggles from around the class. Not very many, as the room was nearly deserted, only with 15 humans besides Hermione in the sizeable classroom. And Abathur, of course. Apparently psionics weren't any more inclined to learn dead languages than their inferior counterparts. This was precisely why he had chosen the class. Abathur sat silently and waited for the teacher to continue.

"Now despite my jokes, this is quite a serious class. Even a simple mistake could have far-reaching consequences. In Charms and Transfiguration, and all the other wand-based classes, you can correct errant wand motions with only the occasional counterspell. In Ancient Runes, if you get so much as a single line wrong, well, anything could happen. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes you get a better result than you could have hoped for, and sometimes the results are quite explosive," Abathur could sympathize. He absolutely hated finding all the errors in the early versions of new strains.

The teacher continued, "The point is that a mistake is volatile, unpredictable. Attention to detail is of the utmost importance if you intend to keep those eyebrows in place." Hermione was furiously taking down notes. Abathur wasn't. He had learned these lessons long ago, albeit about a very different topic. There was no reason for him to write them down.

"This is not to say that there are no rewards for attentive students of Ancient Runes. A poor rune sequence can be disastrous. But when you get it right..." Babbling held up a moderate sized stone, with a number of lines carved into it, and tapped her wand to it. The stone lifted off her hand and lit up with a corona of light. With a low hum, it flew around the room rapidly, easily navigating around the students watching with awed expressions. It stopped for a moment in front of Abathur's face, allowing him a glance at the patterns inscribed upon it. The runes themselves were of course completely unknown. But Abathur could almost see something familiar in the patterns. He didn't get much of a chance to examine it closely before it zoomed back to outstretched palm of Babbling.

"The possibilities for this are as endless as your imagination. Runes can be combined in countless ways, if you have the right knowledge. Runes act as a set of instructions for magic, telling the very flow of power what to do and where to go..."

Babbling said more, but Abathur wasn't listening. He was too overwhelmed by what she had already said. Instructions, telling magic where to go and what to do. The human knew the essence of psionics, and was stupid enough to teach it straight to him!

(Transition)

One of the greatest strengths of the Hive's strategy of infestation was that it didn't need to spend any resources to defend its new territories. It was a simple task to send the new converts to patrol the forests surrounding the Hive, or to dig pits and weave webs. They had the forces to spare, and the coordination to pull it off. It was the way the Hive had always done it, which meant they had never had the challenge of guarding a new, abandoned territory. They'd never needed to grow their forces, never had to plan and map areas to lay defenses, never required specific resources for growth and defense. It was a weakness the new, incredibly numerous enemy took brutal advantage of.

Their attacks were not organized. They were not consistent, they were not even particularly strong. But they were endless. Hundreds of attacks could come for the Hive's new territory in an hour. Some attacks were crushed. The Mind had designed its forces to be deadly soldiers, far beyond their original capacities. Each was easily capable of crushing their lesser cousins, one on one. This was little help against the hordes that the super colony sent their way. Slowly but surely, the Hive was pushed back from their newly acquired territory. For every attack that was forced back or slaughtered, dozens more made their way through the Hive clusters. As quickly as the Hive had claimed the territory, they were being pushed out of it. The Queens were in disarray, each fighting desperately to preserve their colonies.