Swarming Sovereignty

Chapter 17: Kobolds

Lia ended up waiting for only a couple of minutes before a goblin made its way over to the piles of junk. Once it reached her, it knelt respectfully, clearly awaiting orders. Lia had it sift through the pile of stuff in front of her, separating it into multiple, smaller piles based on what she wanted with it.

Most of the armor and weapons went in one pile, lanterns and fuel went in another, stuff she didn’t know what they would be useful for went in another, and, finally, she had a pile of stuff she wanted to try when converting things.

The whole process took about half an hour, by which point Rose had set herself up, and one of the patrols had even returned, bringing with it three cocooned goblins and their gear. The patrol looked…well, she couldn’t tell if they had suffered any losses, since she had no idea how large the patrol had originally been, but there were still five goblin foot soldiers, a few rat foot soldiers, and an ironclad.

None of them looked injured, though the goblin foot soldiers had some cuts and bruises, so they had probably encountered a little trouble along the way. The group walked up to where the cocoons containing rats were, and deposited their much larger cocoons in a pile next to them, then left to go…do whatever Rose had set them to doing.

Lia scurried over excitedly, opening her mouth and willing a drop of venom to come out of her fang and drop onto the cocoon. She repeated the process with a rat, combined their cocoons, hardened the cocoon up, and looked at her options. There were the standard goblin and rat options, but there was also a set of new conversions available.

They were for a kobold, specifically a rat-type kobold. It was just Drone, Foot Soldier, Burrower, and Sentry, but each of those were prefaced with “greater” instead of “lesser” or nothing. That was her buffs to rats being applied to the kobolds, since they fell in the category of “rat-like minions”.

Lia made a note to convert goblins into kobolds whenever possible. Even without her influence, kobolds were smarter than goblins while retaining similar or better stats, so there was really no downside. Starting off as a “greater” whatever was just the icing on the cake, really.

She got that pair converting into a drone. She only had one drone that had actual hands, and she doubted it was close to evolving. While it was possible to gain experience from things that weren’t combat, it was a slower than fighting unless it was something directly tied to your Class.

Though…maybe “Swarm Drone” counted as a Class for that purpose? No one was totally sure how monster experience worked, and it was assumed that most of it came from combat, since monsters were generally adversarial by nature.

Whatever the case, having more drones that could use tools wasn’t a bad thing. So, with that started, she took a moment to go talk with Rose again.

Rose asked, turning to face her the moment Lia began to start walking over.

Rose paused, then nodded.

Lia asked. Lia trailed off. That…wouldn’t actually be an issue, would it?

Rose asked.

why

Rose thought about that for a moment.

noworiginalLia said.

Understanding dawned on Rose’s face.

have

Lia blinked. substitute

Rose gave her a smile.

especially

Rose paused. had

Lia replied.

Lia said. still

Lia said.

With that, Lia turned away and got back to her experimentation. Her next order of business was to test out the lanterns and see if she could make kobold lightborns. She wasn’t sure she make one right now, she just wanted to see if she had the option.

And, as it turned out, she did. She pondered that for a second, then decided to check her stocks before making a decision. She had about five rats and two goblins left, including the ones she was considering making into a lightborn. She would get more goblins soon, and rats were…probably a non-issue, provided Amelia was still awake.

Well…could she split up cocoons that had been merged like this? It would certainly be convenient. So, she softened the cocoon and pulled on an edge, focusing on trying to take the rat out.

It didn’t work. Her instincts were telling her that she could undo the cocoon entirely, losing the modeling wax used in its creation and letting its inhabitants free, but that wasn’t really ideal. If she wanted to separate the contents without doing that, she would have to have something take away part of the exterior, reach in, and grab whatever was inside and pull it out.

That really wasn’t worth the trouble, so she just set the cocoon to converting into a kobold lightborn and began to look through her pile of stuff that she wanted to try converting things with.

It was a relatively small pile, containing only a few things that she thought could be helpful or interesting. There was a bow and a pile of crude arrows, a stack of paper, a small set of tools like hammers and screwdrivers, and, finally, a rather cheap-looking magician’s staff. The staff was the type that you would find as loot in many low level dungeons, barely more than a stick that could be used to channel magic, but it was a staff, nonetheless.

Too bad Lia couldn’t use it as she was now. She would have to evolve into something that had first. By that point she’d probably have something better, or would be able to purchase better from the Dimension of Discounts, so using it for a conversion would be no great loss.

The question was which to check first. In terms of combat, she was hoping that the bow would make an archer and the staff a mage, so those were probably high on the priority list. She wanted some sort of builder from the tools, and the paper…well, she was just curious. The papers were all things like ledgers and inventory forms, so she was wondering what would happen if she converted something with those in there. Would that affect things at all?

Well, she would have enough goblins to try all that out soon enough, so best to start with the staff. She put it in with a rat and goblin, and looked over her options with anticipation. And, to her delight, there something available.

Lesser Swarm Rat Kobold Shaman:

A rat-kobold that has learned a small degree of magic, the Rat-Kobold Shaman usually serves as a sort of spiritual leader to kobold communities. They use shamanistic magic, a type of magic focused on bringing buffs to their allies and debuffs to their enemies, as well as manipulating the weather. Though it is weak, they remain capable of some offensive magic. As a member of the swarm, they provide little in the way of spiritual leadership, but have slightly increased magical prowess.

Lia barely even had to think about whether or not she wanted to make that right away. More magic was always something she would be delighted to have, regardless of whether or not she actually ended up using it; just having the option was nice.

She set it to converting and settled back to wait. It took another five or so minutes for the first kobold to finish. Once it had, she took a moment to look it over. Though she had heard of them, she had never actually a rat kobold before. There were only canine and reptilian kobolds in the areas she had lived, so she was curious.

The kobold was about as tall as a goblin, and was covered in a thick layer of white fur. It had hands and feet that ended in sharp claws, and a rat-like tail. Its head was more…predatory looking than the average rat’s, too; the muzzle was almost more akin to a wolf or fox’s than a rat’s, and the teeth were the same, rows of sharp things clearly made for tearing meat. The ears nose and eyes, however, remained roughly the same as they would on an ordinary rat.

It was definitely a better look than the goblins had, Lia decided. That wasn’t a particularly high standard, since that really only required something to have correctly proportioned limbs and not look like it had been rolling around in mud, but an improvement was an improvement.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what would look like when she gained a humanoid form. With the way things were going, it was almost guaranteed to be some sort of rat based thing, but was a step up from not having proper hands.

She would have to convert a lot of foxes. She had gotten onto her current path by doing a lot with rats, so it only made sense that she could hop paths by doing a lot with foxes. Now that she had Preservationist, she didn’t have to worry about losing the benefits to her rats, either, so there really wasn’t a reason that she couldn’t hop paths once she got the opportunity.

Perhaps she was placing too much value on what she used to be, but she had being a foxkin. She had only briefly tried being transformed into something else, but even so she had found her native form the most comfortable to be in.

…Not that she thought she would feel any less comfortable physically in some other humanoid form , since evolutions really helped her adapt in that regard, but it would make her feel better mentally, it gave her a goal to work towards. Plus, in the future, if she ever wanted to infiltrate sapient society, it would help to be able to pass herself off as a foxkin instead of some other thing, since she was intimately familiar with their customs.

She was snapped out of her ruminations by a new set of goblin cocoons being dumped in front of her. There were only two this time, but Lia could see the corpse of a third being dumped in another pile, likely meaning that the raiding party had run into some sort of trouble.

That was fine, she couldn’t expect perfect successes every time. So, she got her remaining rat cocoons, added one to each goblin cocoon, then added the bow and arrows to one and the tools to the other, then looked at the options for the one with the bow. And, as she had hoped, there was indeed an archer of some sort.

Lesser Swarm Archer (Rat Kobold):

The Swarm Archer is a slightly more advanced version of the Swarm Foot Soldier that has specialized in ranged weaponry. While it loses some of the durability of a Swarm Foot Soldier, it more than makes up for it with a solid increase to their attack while wielding a ranged weapon.

She got that one converting, then took a look at the one with the tools. There were actually two new options this time, which meant she had to decide which to go with.

Lesser Swarm Craftswoman (Rat Kobold):

A Swarm Craftswoman is a slightly more advanced version of the Swarm Drone that has dedicated herself to creating objects. Swarm Craftswomen are unspecialized, meaning they have slight bonuses to any type of production job, but do not gain the benefits a more specialized worker would obtain. Depending on the work they do while in this race, a Swarm Craftswoman will usually be able to evolve into a more specialized race.

Lesser Swarm Builder (Rat Kobold):

A Swarm Builder is a slightly more advanced version of the Swarm Drone that has dedicated herself to building structures. Swarm Builders excel in using tools to make buildings, and are especially proficient with making structures out of modeling wax. While they retain some of the Swarm Drone’s proficiency in manual labor, this extends only to tasks useful for making a building, such as clearing ground or hauling material.

The craftswoman was tempting, as she would be able to make things that Lia would then be able to use in further conversions, but she was lacking in the raw material for that at the moment. It was definitely something Lia wanted in the future, but seeing as how she was currently…well, reinforcing fortifications, the builder seemed more immediately useful.

She set the cocoon to converting into a builder, and was about to go speak with Rose again, when a note popped into existence in front of her.

The note read. should

more Sёarch* The Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Lia nodded and gave Amelia a mental thanks before resuming her journey to Rose.

Rose asked, turning away from the messenger she was talking to.

Lia said,

Rose agreed.

did

Rose nodded. she trailed off, looking away in embarrassment.

Lia giggled.

I Rose replied.

Lia said.

Rose confirmed.

Lia replied.

Cocoons stop time for anything within, much like a a high-level storage space. As such, cocooned creatures can be kept cocooned indefinitely. 

Lia relayed.

To Lia’s surprise, Rose was hardly paying attention.

Rose jumped, a chagrined expression on her face as she looked at Lia. She said.

Lia replied.

Rose explained.

Lia asked.

Rose said.

Lia nodded.

Rose said.

Lia said. will

not

Lia said firmly.

Rose slumped. She said.

Lia said.