📗Compendium | 1: Lotus Wasp Queen
by Acclaimed Interstellar Survival-Exploration Entrepreneur and Nature Documentarian Sir Davis Astenbarrow
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📗A Compendium of Beasts, Bugs, and Botany
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📗A Compendium of Beasts, Bugs, and Botany
The Explorer’s Guide to Surface Life
Lotus Wasp Queen
Explorer’s Guide Contribution Written By Acclaimed Interstellar Survival-Exploration Entrepreneur and Nature Documentarian Sir Davis Astenbarrow
Lotus wasp queens—some Surface-dwellers call them “dragonwasps”—build their papery hives near sources of their sole food source, lotus fruit. After hatching her first clutch of eggs, the queen will forage with her tiny, flightless worker hatchlings clinging to her armor. They are small and weak, but quicker than one might imagine—still, the queen must walk slowly and delicately so the little ones can keep up.
For both defense and offense, dragonwasp queens are equipped with a powerful tail and razor-sharp, retractable barbed stinger capable of blindingly fast attacks. This retraction capability even allows the same orifice to be used for depositing her eggs! Lotus queens are ferociously territorial near their hives and will not hesitate to engage any kind of intrusion into their domain.
Yet fear not, intrepid Founding Settlers!
Though the sight of this fearsome beast may strike cold terror into your guts, the wondrous invention known as the “nullsuit” will be your cure-all! Designed with ease of use at its core, this armored suit nullifies all gravitational force which would normally render the mass of such an impenetrable shell completely immobile.
Protected as such from the ravages of this untamed world, you, dear Settler, will find yourself daring to brave the farthest unexplored reaches of the teeming swamps and jungles right outside the dome of Overlook City. Cover leaps and bounds with the ease of a gentle hop!
Land surveyors! Industrial agriculturists! Interstellar energy distributors! Heed our call for rampant colonization! But most of all, we need those often-overlooked desperate masses of you with nothing to your names—young, optimistic, rosy-eyed adventurers of all stripes are invited to apply. All gates are open, our recruiters are prepared to take your calls now, and no honest soul will be turned away!
— Sir Davis Astenbarrow —
Captured from the internal monologue of Harvester Wes Jackson:
From what I understood about their whole operation, years ago Mueller and his company had built artificial hive frames in four ideal breeding locations near the lotus wasps’ original nesting grounds. They baited some worker wasps to the areas with rotten lotus fruit. Once the wasps found the bait and the artificial frames, they brought a wasp queen and helped her gather leaves, wood, and other fibers which the queen processed into her own secreted, papery material for the walls.
The queen completed the hive while workers gathered lotus nectar for her, which could then be processed into pure, natural, lotus-infused honey and sealed inside the artificial hive frame’s cells. From what the harvesters said, we could just set up the kegs, turn the taps, and let the honey flow. But, like everything else about this job so far, we’ll see how that fucking goes.
📗Compendium — 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
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