The days, weeks and months melted together as I worked together with my people. The Unbroken Blade worked tirelessly to shape, curate, and redesign every last aspect of the temple to be dedicated to Nievtala. There wasn't a single original design that remained untouched, not from her tail, stretching around the entirety of the inside of the chapel, to the quiet wrath in her visage where she looked down on the congregation from where her body was at the front of the temple. Her fangs seemed to glow from the tisarite that formed them, while her eyes promised destruction and forced abnegation. All told, the stone was carved and shaped to make quite the remarkable representation of the goddess that I'd seen more and more frequently as I grew of age and in stature. Even still, the product was still unfinished, and as the spring passed and summer approached, work to perfect the temple continued.
Meanwhile, the first officially mandated date for all duels for leadership passed with much excitement on the side of the lower castes, Khatif and Kha alike. Blood was spilled, and the losers were left to mourn their weakness while the victors gloated in their ability to retain their positions. Fortunately, Sybil had prepared a system to ensure that no worthy leaders would be ousted due to an overexuberance on the part of their followers in challenging their Alpha's continued leadership. Each challenger was required to have emerged victorious in battle against another before they could issue the summons to their leader, so long as the leader themself had already been challenged.
The specifics of the minutia were unimportant to me, though I enjoyed the show. Fortunately for the decorum and perception of my elite, the Keel all refused to engage in a battle for a position that had been granted to their superiors. My elite of the elite continued to grow in numbers as well, with nearly 100 of us filling the Empire now. Compared to the 10,000, counting the many eggs that had been laid and many hatched in the past months, Saharliard yet to reach Keel, that meant our population was about one percent Keel. Compared to my vision of conquest and victory, the numbers were small, but each individual capable of Speaking the Words and evolving represented another warrior who could disregard the majority of the attacks that we'd seen from the Misti Hawar.
Every day, all around me, the city grew, the frames of new buildings appearing where before there was nothing but ruins, additional dueling pits established where the elites could showcase and practice their skills against each other and in front of an audience. My first and greatest surprise came when there was a dungeon expanded, with different sections prepared within the network of tunnels and cells for different creatures that could be held captive. The dungeons for the Misti Hawar, many of which were currently occupied by those who remained in our custody, and whose leaders had still refrained from responding to any of the communications we sent, were open air. With the suns beating down on our enemies, a large portion of our own efforts were unneeded throughout the day.
I'd heard stories of dungeons as a human, a barbaric thing that monsters would throw heroes into, but I'd never seen one until we'd had to improvise one of our grain storage warehouses into one to hold our first captives. Now, we had even a buried, reinforced hole that Ytte hoped would be capable of restraining a warrior indlovu. I doubted it, considering the magic they seemed to get from the ufudoluk with stone, but even so, it was a good dungeon. The excavated earth was used to reinforce the ramparts outside the walls, and more and more, Nievtra was made into a fortress. When I notified the Misti Hawar that there was no news for them for now, none seemed surprised, instead seeming to accept the bad news without complaint or insistence in my potential duplicity.
Turning away from the dungeons, hundreds of hatchlings filled the streets, and that due to how every Saharliard was happily following my commands to bring as many young into the world as possible. The Kha had been more than happy to do so, and the nurseries were constantly full to bursting with the products of their exuberant obedience. Our numbers burgeoned so quickly that many of the Kha'Tal were forced to pull themselves away from any efforts pertaining to the war that would be coming, instead establishing more and more domiciles and dormitories that could house so many little ones. Interestingly, as more of the Kha saw the way that Sybil and I treated our children, the more they seemed to want to participate in child rearing themselves. They were still far from outstanding parents or even parental, by most senses of the word, but instead of giving a couple of vague instructions and then telling the hatchlings to make their way, those whose children remained within the numbers of the new hatchlings would dedicate themselves to spending at least one day out of every five near their children's brood.
As more of the hatchlings were actually taught what options were available to them, of how they could strengthen themselves in the long-term, and especially when frequently exposed to my [Cultivating Presence], the little ones did not remain Kha for long. Interestingly, I saw, or rather I could tell, when many qualified for [Exceptional Individual]. Those who strained themselves in practicing and working while still only a few days old showed greater and greater results than the rest of their broods. Those hard workers went on to become Alphas, growing even stronger compared to their broodmates with every day that passed.
Despite the tenderness with which I tried to treat all the little ones, I was reminded of the war machine that we could very easily become, so long as there remained breeding females and enough food to allow our young to grow. Day by day, I grew more grateful for the ant royal that had asked that we hunt their enemy race of ants. These ants, mindless and aggressive, gave our children opportunities to hunt, and with so plentiful a resource delivering itself to our walls, none of my people went hungry. Even with these days of plenty, though, I remained conservative in my own food consumption. I'd never become anything near fat, but I found that when I was constantly full, my senses dulled with the complacency and comfort that came with it. I instead remained eating only a single meal a day, and before long, all my elites did the same. Seeing their respected leaders hold themselves back from eating too much food, the rest of my Empire did the same. Almost overnight, the most pressing worry of being unable to feed all of my people was reduced from a terrifying certainty to manageably possible.
Then, one day, as the spring gave way to a warm summer, a qualified ant representative finally came to visit with surprising pomp and flair.
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