Darjana sighed a bit and settled down at the small desk in the room she had rented in Auberdine. The desk was stacked with papers and maprolls. Her eyes rested at the small window overlooking the lovely forrest of her youth for a long time before finaly drifting down to the desk and the task at hand. Paperwork was not her favorite activity but it had to be done. Shaking her head a bit to clear her mind, she picked up a pen and started to write.

Report concerning the Silithid hives in Tanaris:

Some days ago several members of our circle made our way to the desert of Tanaris to investigate the Silithid presence there. If the goblins in Gadgetzan are to be believed, the Silithids have established two hives of significant size in the area. One in the western part, dubbed "The Noxius Lair" by the locals, and one in the south-eastern parts, dubbed "The Gaping Chasm".

We made our way to the western parts of the desert and found the first of these hives without any problems. Like the previous hives we have scouted, this one had several large talon like structures above ground. The ground itself seemed like a purplish carapace, I'm guessing the rest of the hives has been like that too, but due to the sand blowing away it is more visible in Tanaris.

As far as we could tell there were two main entrances to this hive. One north and one south in the infected area. Both entrances consisted of a spiraling structure going down in the hive, each with several small entrances.

The northern spiral contained two entrances, the first leading to a small hatchery with eggsacs. The second leading to two hatcheries one with and one without eggsacs. I'm guessing the small circular rooms are hatcheries due to large eggsacs hanging from the ceiling. If you look closely at them you can see embryos inside. To tell if a room is an unfinished hatcherie look for small spikes in the ceiling. These seem to be where the eggsacs are attached and gets nutrient from. We also speculate that what we had previously believed to be glowbugs are infact egg carriers. Transporting small eggs and sucking nutrients from the walls.

The southern spiral contained several entrances, all of which linked up in a large system of tunnels. We discovered one hatcherie like the ones previously described, a huge room which we weren't able to discover the meaning of, and a room of the kind I like to call a "crossroad". The crossroad room has been observed in several other hives. It is shaped vaguely in the shape of an X and contains five entrances. One open and four closed. We speculate that this is the room that connects the hive to various other hives, but when the hive senses our presence it closes off all exits.

The bugs in the hive were of a purplish color, matching their surrounding hive. There were beetles who seemed like workers. Wasps that attacked from the air and a four legged bug that attacked with powerful jaws and two short front limbs, they also had small wings, perhaps to be able to jump longer, the wings did not look like they would support flight. One particular type of beetle seemed to call for smaller beetles when it was attacked. How it did this we are not sure of. The small beetles were barely the size of my fist, but they had a powerful bite. They also escorted the larger beetles around and when I tried to trap one of the larger beetles the small beetles came running for my traps to sacrifice themselves so that the large beetle could attack us. Using druidic powers, the warden of the wild aided by Gilthas and Kyndra was able to subdue some silithids for studies. She will probably make a separate report on those findings.

With our numbers we managed to slay quite a few bugs, but I'm sad to report that when I checked the hive from afar the next day I saw absolutely no impact of our attack. The hive was bustling like before! My guess is that when the hive senses an intrution it closes off all internal tunnels leaving only a fraction of it open for us to explore. When we leave, new bugs move through these tunnels to replace the fallen ones. This is only a theory, but it is the only explanation I can think of to how they replaced their numbers so quickly.

The following day I also made a quick sweep through the south-eastern part of the desert and located the second hive. This hive also had two main entrances. One circular but not quite as deep as the one in the first hive, and also a more or less straight ramp leading down into another part of it.

Following the ramp down there was a small tunnel with a closed off doorway and one hatching chamber like the ones we have reported on before.

The circular entrance contained two smaller entrances which linked to a system of tunnels. In these tunnels I found 4 small hatching chambers, two of which was empty. One "crossroad" room with four closed off tunnels. And finaly two big circular rooms, one of which had a huge spike in the ceiling similar to the ones the eggsacs are affixed to in the smaller rooms.

There was something strange about the bugs in this hive though. They were either of a green or light blue color. Not at all matching their surroundings like the previous bugs we have reported on. The types of bugs were the wasps which acted as warriors. Six legged scarab beetles which acted as both warriors and drones. The warrior type was a bit bigger. The bug with four legs was also present and as before acted as a warrior type. Also of notice was that these bugs seemed to have parasites living inside of them. After a kill the parasites would appear to devour the corpse. These were not hostile unless I moved too close. The parasites came in two sizes, one as small as my fist and one as large as my head.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the findings in the second hive. With the colors not being right and the presence of the parasites. I can't explain exactly why, but it seemed somewhat "different" to the others.

So ends my report.

Darjana Stargazer