Zerask's corpse was still steaming in the cratered nest throne. The basin still pulsed faintly under our boots—some residual hive-energy twitching in the walls—but the queen was dead. Felicity crouched beside the wreck of her ribcage, already digging. "She'll go bad in minutes," she said. "We have to salvage now." I nodded as I knelt beside her, going to work on the cadaver. Herja's instincts kicking in like a predator harvesting her kill. We reached into the cavity beneath her second heart plate—a chamber Herja instinctively knew how to open—and pulled free a glowing, pulsing object the size of a melon:
[BROODMOTHER CORE – ZERASK]
Contains dominant psychic intent. Can be refined into a Swarm Catalyst for custom mods. Black market value: extremely high. Clan interest: guaranteed (Dangerous to keep.)
The core throbbed in my hand like a living heart. Felicity stared at it. "You feel that, right?"
"Yeah," I said. "It wants more children."
We sealed it in a stasis gland-vial. I collected six carapace fragments. Felicity pried up the largest chunks of her shredded rib-armor—iridescent bone plate layered with fused gland-fiber. These were Zerask Carapace Shards. Ultra-durable bio-armor plating. They could be reforged into lightweight plating for tail, chest, or arm mods. The shards smelled faintly like copper and scorched venom. Weapon modders like Cragg Thistlewire would love this stuff. Felicity tucked three slabs into her backpack. "For trade," she said. "Or armor if we ever stop being broke." We continued working our way up through the anatomy.
We collected three Gland Sacs of pheromone glands. While Felicity worked the chitin, I cut into the abdominal cluster and drained three intact scent-gland sacs. The amber inside was thick, fragrant, and subtly intoxicating. These were hive amber glands, raw scented-organ clusters. They could be refined into psychoactive perfumes, cloaking scents, or used in beast-crafting. Best known buyer: Xixelle the Perfumer, lower market tier.
I held up a vial "She's gunna pay a pretty penny for this." Felicity sniffed one and shivered. "That's almost sexy. In a 'lay eggs in your chest' kind of way." From beneath Zerask's throne, we unearthed a rusted spike—etched with old Vein glyphs.
It pulsed faintly when I touched it. This was the Territory Key of the Hollow Gutter Nest. It Granted dominion level privileges over this region of the vein, specifically level four subsection B. It could be claimed, sold, or offered to a clan as tribute for entry. But for us it would unlock private domain access, hive-forged crafting tools, and a Beast Ring Training Arena!
Felicity's eyes lit up, "This is big! Clans are going to come sniffing around."
I smiled wide, "Let them." I covered the loot haul one more time with Felicity.
One Zerask Core.
Carapace Fragments (x6) – Armor mod materials
Amber Gland Vials (x3) – High-value crafting/perfume trade
Territory Key – Hollow Gutter Nest – Grants access, status, and possible Beast Ring arena
Hive Amber chunks (loot from drone wave – can sell to Xixelle)
And the 5000 Digi Coins had been split between myself and Felicity, for 2500 apiece.
We were riding high. My tail still hissed softly from the plasma overload—segment ridges slowly cooling. Felicity had a giddy smear of gore across her cheek and was chewing dried amber resin like she just got off a rollercoaster. "I can't believe we actually pulled the Core," she said, voice vibrating with afterglow. "2500 Digi Coins! a catalyst, and a territory key!?
We are set for weeks!"
I grinned, slinging the pack of salvaged amber glands over my shoulder. "Was it my fire-breathing plasma tail? Or the succubus flipping off a Brood queen midair?" She shrugged, "Yes." We reached the outer corridor, where the Hive Zone funneled back into the central artery tunnels of Level 2. Everything smelled cleaner here. Less rot. More ozone. The air was dry, the light brighter. We were still joking when we heard the clank. Boots. Heavy. Multiple pairs.
Felicity froze. Her nose twitched. "We've got company." Ahead, blocking the causeway, stood a line of six figures in reinforced beast Mail. Not bouncers. Not bounty hunters. Clan scouts. Their armor was mismatched but rich with intent—sigils burned into shoulder plates, exposed glyph tattoos along throats and cheeks. The center one stepped forward—female, tall, midnight blue hair tied with red fang cords, her armor lined with humming bone wire.
She raised a hand, non-hostile. "A moment of your time," she said. Her voice was smooth—but practiced.
Professional hunter. Professional recruiter. "We saw the broadcast," said another. "The Vein did too. Slaying Zerask has consequences."
Felicity arched a brow. "Consequences like… applause? Free drinks?" The lead scout ignored the jab. Her gaze went to me.
To Herja.
"You wield clan-class force," she said. "But wear no mark. That's about to change." Herja stirred in my chest—sizing them up, head tilting like a predator testing wind.
"Talk," I said. "But make it good." Inside my skull I had my own thoughts on the matter. "Yea, We just won. Big. Now they want in." Herja spoke up hearing my inner monolog, "No. They want control." The scout gestured. "Three clans are watching you now. One will send an envoy. Maybe more. They want to court you."
"Court us?" Felicity said smiling, "We're not private dancers."
"They don't want dancers," the scout replied. "They want weapons. And territory. And fear." She stepped closer. "You two just declared yourselves contenders. That means the game's changed. And not everyone is happy about it." Felicity and I exchanged a look. My blood still sang with fire. Herja growled softly under my ribs, "The kill is ours, the domain is ours." Felicity smiled wide. "Guess we'd better dress for the occasion." The scent hit first—before the stall, before the signage.
Sweet and spicy and wrong, like cinnamon sex on a storm drain.
"Yep," Felicity said, grinning. "She's open."
Xixelle's perfume stall wasn't just a shop—it was a sensory trap. Twisting banners of scented smoke billowed from horn-capped pipes. Trinkets dangled from hooks: beast-scent ampules, mood-matching burn oils, and vials shaped like claws and fangs. Vein-glass mirrors turned gold as we passed. Xixelle herself emerged in a shimmer of silk and feather-bone. Tall. Lips like cut onyx. Eyes layered with insect-lens filters that clicked as they focused on us. "Darling girls," Xixelle said, voice dripping. "I smelled your arrival from two levels up."
Felicity dropped a vial onto the counter with a delicate tink. "Hive Amber. Brood mother vintage." Xixelle froze. Then inhaled. Then shivered. "Oh… oh you naughty little champions. Do you have any idea how illegal this is?"
"We're not selling it illegally," I said. "We're selling it directly." There was a pause, Then a wicked grin.
Transaction Complete:
Hive Amber Gland Vials (x3)
SOLD TO: Xixelle of Scent hall
PRICE: 750 Digi Coins + 2 Beast net Cred boosts + Personal scent-token favor
BONUS: Reputation gained with Scent hall Mercantile Guild!
Xixelle leaned in, handing us a rune-sealed envelope. "Come back if you kill anything else mother-sized, my loves. Especially if it dies screaming." We made our way to the deep works, where real modders crafted gear like gods.
And that's where we found him:
Cragg Thistlewire.
Forge-Master. Bone-Engineer. Clan-neutral freak genius. His shop looked like a bomb shelter made of molars.
Racks of half-living tail mods twitched in stasis fields.
Cragg himself stood seven feet tall—iron-wrapped arms, four tusks, welding goggles, no shirt, ever. He looked up when we walked in. "You broke somethin'?" Felicity pulled the core from her pouch, sealed in a humming resin field.
"No. We took somethin."
Cragg's eyes narrowed. We placed the Brood mother Core on his slab. It pulsed. Once. Everything in the shop went still. Cragg didn't speak for five full seconds then, "You idiots brought a live pheromone relic into my forge."
"It's stable," I said. "Mostly." Cragg snorted and put on a thick pair of rune-tongs before gingerly lifting the core. The pulse sped up. It reacted to him. "That's not just a spawn engine. It's a psychic hive-seed. Zerask's will is woven into this thing." Felicity whistled low. "That's hot." Cragg didn't laugh. "This can be refined into a Swarm Catalyst mod, yeah. But do it wrong, and you'll grow your own personal hive inside your ribcage."
"Clan interest?" I asked. Cragg nodded, grave. "They'll want it. Or want it destroyed. What you have here is power with teeth."
"I want to refine it right away." He just grunted, took the core, and set it on a sterile slab. "You're not going to like this," he said, his iron-wrapped arms tightening. "This isn't a graft. It's a communion. Zerask's will is in this thing. I have to break her will before I can bend her to yours. It'll hurt like a hive-sting to your soul." I laid on the grafting table, the familiar hiss of the vein-locks a cold comfort. Felicity stood beside me, her hand gripping mine, her presence a solid anchor in the storm that was coming.
Cragg began the process. He didn't use needles or lasers. He used rune-tongs and a ritualistic, buzzing chant. I felt the Core's will, a cold, alien intelligence, fight back. It was a psychic battle for control, a war of attrition for my very soul. Herja roared in my head, a primal scream of defiance against the invading force.
Then, there was only fire. White-hot pain that wasn't physical. It was mental, spiritual. I felt Zerask's memories flood my mind—the cold of the under-wars, the joy of creating a new spawn, the bitter taste of defeat. I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from screaming. When the fire faded, there was a new presence in my mind. Not Zerask's, but a part of her. Refined. Tamed. A tool. The splicer had done it.
I woke up hours later on Craggs slab, Felicity was sitting beside me, humming a low, wordless tune. I looked down at my body. My skin was no longer slick with ichor, but felt cleaner, harder. My right hand, the one that had held the catalyst, now sported a new growth: a single, black, chitinous plate on the back of my palm, with a small, unblinking compound eye at its center.
"What is this?" I asked, my voice a dry croak.
"A gift from Zerask," Felicity said, her eyes gleaming. "Cragg worked his magic, how do you like it?"
I flexed my fingers, and the eye blinked. I felt a thought, not a word, but an image: the Brood mother's hive, her control over her spawn. I looked at a half-digested Spine-Weasel carcass in the corner. I focused on it, on the thought of Zerask's hive-mind.
The corpse shuddered. It twitched. It got to its feet, a grotesque puppet on invisible strings. Its body was a mockery of life—ragged, rotting flesh held together by a flickering, bioluminescent aura. The eye on my palm glowed, and the corpse obeyed my silent command. It walked. It stopped. It raised its claws.
I severed the connection, and the corpse collapsed, the energy fading instantly. My heart hammered. This wasn't just power. It was control. I could briefly reanimate the dead, turning defeated enemies into disposable minions. I was a puppet master. A brood mother. Felicity watched me, her gaze filled with a complex mixture of fear and desire. "That's not just a mod, Ash. It's an abomination. The clans... they're not going to be happy."
"It's done," Cragg grunted, his face pale with exhaustion. "Now get out of my forge. And try not to lose."
"My price for refinement is steep, 1200 Digi Coins.''
I waved my wrist over his, and the coins instantly transferred, "Catch you around Cragg." Back at our hideout—an old nerve-silk yurt perched on a mech-spine balcony overlooking the mid-tier canals—Felicity sat cross-legged, sipping fizzy root wine, flipping through clan messages like dating profiles.
"Okay, Clan Balar wants to 'honor our victory with trial-linked sponsorship' but they also want my soul print as collateral."
"Hard pass," I muttered, watching my Plasma Tail hover and twitch as I practiced short-burst control pulses. "Next."
"Clan Dross kin say they'll give us a private forge and mod suite—but only if we agree to exclusive fights under their Beast Ring league. However, there is fine print: no personal bounty missions. They want to own our narrative."
"Pass even harder" I said chuckling.
She tossed the data pad onto a pile of rune-encrypted envelopes and glowing bone-notes. The offers were getting louder. More desperate. More controlling.
Herja's voice was calm, but iron-hard in my head:
"They want the queen-slaying power. Not the girls who earned it." I nodded to myself. "I want sponsors," I said. "Not leash-holders." Felicity's grin was sharp, "Then we hold out until they start begging." Just then—every light in the yurt flickered. Our wall glyph-screen hissed—and rerouted itself mid-idle scroll.
[LIVE INTERRUPTION: UNAUTHORIZED BROADCAST]
SOURCE: [TEAM BLOODBRINE]
RANK: TIER 2 CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION
STATUS: ACTIVE CHALLENGERS
MESSAGE: LIVE NOW
Felicity's wine sloshed in her cup.
"Oh no." I stood. The screen exploded with motion—static, then crystal-clear Vein Net-grade imagery. The broadcast began. It was a ring. Dim-lit. Flooded in fog. Two she-beasts stood center-framed, motionless. Both wore Team Vein born-style masks of Herja and Felicity—mocking. One lifted her head.
Bone-plated shoulders and a Sawtooth grin. "This is Team Blood brine," she said. Voice modulated like a growl soaked in oil. "We've watched your little debut." The other—taller, draped in flex-hide robes, holding a spine-bladed hook staff—spoke next. "Zerask was sloppy. Her blood earned your noise, not respect."
They stepped forward, masks hissing off.
Two women.
Twins.
One scarred. One perfect. Both terrifying. "You think you're ready for the real circuit?" Kira sneered. "Then prove it." They raised their hands in unison. Glyphs burned into the air around them. Challenge Glyphs.
TEAM BLOODBRINE
OFFICIAL PUBLIC CALLOUT: TEAM VEINBORN
VENUE: THE FANGDOME
STAKES: BLOOD RIGHTS – LOSER STRIPPED OF TERRITORY CLAIMS
STATUS: ACCEPTED ON CONTACT
The screen went dark. Silence. Then the Vein Net exploded.
COMMENTATOR: "OOOOH SHIT"
COMMENTATOR: "Fang dome challenge? That's clan-level bait."
COMMENTATOR: "Who the hell are these twins??"
COMMENTATOR: "If Vein born wins this... they're made."
COMMENTATOR: "If they lose—bye-bye Nest Key."
Felicity didn't blink. "Well," she said, standing slowly, "I guess we're skipping the dance and going straight to the slaughter." My tail coiled tighter. Burned hotter. Herja purred.