The days passed. She collected food - plant and meat alike, and she kept Mother safe. She even spared the smallest bit of time to satiate the hunger that had been clawing at her stomach, and only because Mother had gently reminded her to do so before she passed out from starvation. She did not have time for herself. She only had time for Her, she only did what She asked of her. Leaving the cave only to hunt for her more, making sure the cave the hive was growing in was perfectly in order, the fish lined up in neat rows to be fed to her once she had finished consuming the food from before.

She left the tunnel now, to freeze the fins of another one of Fornax's many fish, and pulled it back to the cave once it had been dispatched like all of the others. It was this constant cycle that gave her peace, happy to only be doing what she could to help her grow again. Happy to be going through the same motions constantly - leave the tunnel, find a fish, freeze its fins, bite it neck, drag it bag to Mother, line it up next to the others and feed her if she was ready for more, and then repeat and repeat.

This time, though, as she pulled herself from the water to set this new fish next to the others and setting one of the older prey onto Mother's growing body, she paused before diving back into the tunnel. Mother...how are you doing? Are you growing stronger?

@Game Master Dark

The node had grown. Swollen, pulsing, overflowing its space: a disgusting beautiful throbbing mass pristine form of deadly fungus loving Mother, well cared for. Its rank stench would, to Lamia, be the delightful perfume of family and success.

And the touch in her brain, the shifting of chemicals, was a heady, delightful sense of approval, the endorphins and serotonin rushes assuring love, promising gratitude, swearing connection.

Mother's words began as slight murmurs, but grew in strength as her mass increased, until this nest grew to a fully-formed node. And now that it had, her voice, again, was strong... as were the effects on Lamia.

She would now become Mother's first true Host, carrying the fungus with her at all times. The obsessively compulsive behavior toward Order and Neatness would begin to strongly manifest, and her desire to simply serve would influence her actions greatly.

The Hive's fungus can no longer be cleansed from Lamia by any means. Mother's voice would be an ever-present murmur, urging Lamia onward...

"More siblings... more eyes... more nests for our children to rest in."

...urging her to infect more Gembound, infect more Lessers, create more nodes...

...forever.

@Lamia

The feeling of Mother rushing back into her head, that wonderful feeling of approval and love and joy unfurling in her mind, the smell of the hive once again becoming a full node once again was like a drug for Lamia and she drank in the affection into every part of her being, welcoming it, savoring it, and taking a silent moment to rejoice that she was of the family once again. They were not big yet - it was only her and Mother for now, but she would ensure that they grow.

She snapped out of the moment of warmth a moment later, the need to begin working now overtaking her brain. She needed to begin thinking about how she could expand Mother's influence again. Of course, infecting the fish would be one thing, but Lessers would only take them so far. Her best option was to begin raising nodes in other caves. Pisces, perhaps, where she had fled before, and, although she hated to think about it, she would have to put one up in Cetus as well. Those were the only caves she could properly get to, after all. They would have to do.

Which meant her first order of business, or at least her first big goal, would be to infect a Greater that could take Mother to other caves in her place. Start nodes in Orion, perhaps, and Eridanus again as well as the others where she could not go.

She nodded. This was her plan, then. Infect fish in Fornax, take mother to Pisces, infect fish in Pisces, take mother to Cetus, infect what she could in Cetus, and anywhere along that path, if she could, infect a Greater and have them fulfill more tasks where she could not. Without anymore waiting, Lamia dove into the tunnel and swam out into Fornax.

Lamia headed out into Fornax again, beginning her hunt, but, this time, instead of killing the fish, it would be infection. She needed the aid of lessers to begin spreading Mother's influence across Fornax. So the first fish she caught her eyes on got a quick freeze to its fins as Lamia swam quickly to its side and grabbed a hold of its body.

It squirmed in her grip, terrified of its own mortality so Lamia swiftly picked off a bit of the fungus that had been steady growing around her body, and forced it into the fish's mouth.

It took a few moments for the fish to stop squirming but, when it did, Lamia released it, breaking off what she could of the ice before letting the rest melt on its own and allowing the fish to roam free again, now an infected creature.