Khepri M

I used my ability to read the physical states of the creatures I controlled, reading my swarm much as I’d check a spider’s level of hunger, its health, fertility or the amount of venom available.

Almost across my entire swarm, people were threatening to lose their minds.  Literally.

It was stress, a factor I hadn’t taken into account.  I controlled their bodies, but I didn’t control their minds.  They were bystanders, watching this all unfold, and even though I regulated their heartbeats, kept their breathing level, the mental stress accumulated.

There were exceptions in every category, but I could assess my gathered army with broad strokes of the brush.  The thinkers were coping best, the tinkers nearly as well.  The masters struggled the most, followed by the shakers and breakers.  The rest fell in some middle ground.  Moord Nag… my control over her had apparently tapped into some kind of trauma or phobia she had, so she’d been the first to reach some kind of fever pitch in terms of the buildup of stress-induced chemicals and reactions.

I was killing my own minions.

Speck 30.5