The Bee Dungeon

Belissar gulped as the lancers began their dive. He held his breath as they passed into the smoke, and then into the fire. He couldn’t bring himself to watch them burn through his tower sight, so he just froze, not even breathing as they disappeared into the inferno and as a surge of black flames shot into the sky.

And then…the black flames began to die down. Two lancers pulled out of the fire from either side.

And then…finally…Belissar caught a glimpse of the other three. Burned and smoking, but still flying. He finally exhaled his breath and nearly fell to the ground, placing his hand on the wall of the Bee Barracks to steady himself.

“They made it.”

And then, a moment later, he felt the Tower’s mana surging.

Expansion successful.

Reward: Floor limit increased to 4. Receive one perk choice, and two random reward choices.

He allowed himself a small smile.

“In fact…we won.”

The bees began celebration dances, zipping through the air. The First of the Fourth began zipping around him in a “King is best king!” dance. Chief Rohsuak and Metsaitti both smiled.

But Belissar’s attention turned away from them all to the lancers. They were flagging and dropping out of the air at the moment. The nearest soldiers bees moved in and began pushing and pulling at them, helping to prop them up until they were clear of the flames below. The moment they cleared the first fire break they all but crashed into the ground. Belissar took off running in their direction, monitoring the situation with his tower sight until he could arrive.

The Second of the Sixth’s workers immediate swarmed over the lancers, flaring their mana and giving the lancers their healing stings. Belissar could tell from the lancers’ mana that they weren’t in immediate danger of dying, but they were not in good condition otherwise. Their chitin was burned, their wings were singed, and smoke still leaked out of their bodies. His heart began to pound as the scene came within sight of his eyes. Medicinal workers continued to rotate in and out as their mana and medicinal stings depleted, while the Fourth of the Seventh’s soldiers placed trays of medicinal honey in front of the lancers to drink. The three most heavily injured barely had the strength to suck up the honey.

Belissar finally arrived and walked over to them. They tried to salute but he immediately shook his head.

“Don’t get up. Rest, and let the medicinal bees do their thing.”

He then forced himself to smile.

“And…great work. You won.”

The lancers beat their wings and tried to stir, but the medicinal workers all buzzed at them so they stopped. Belissar couldn’t help but chuckle at that. He then made some honey in his hand, pouring as much mana as he could, and gave each of the lancer’s a drink. He didn’t know if it would heal them like the medicinal honey would, but it helped restore their mana reserves and made them happy, and he wanted to do whatever he could. They deserved no less from him.

Belissar held a grand victory celebration as soon as the lancers were safe to move. The lancers were at the center of it all, with a tray each of the First of the Fifth’s finest honey spread out before them at Belissar’s request. Eventually, though, the Second of the Sixth noted that they needed to rest and heal, and the celebrations came to a close. Belissar once again thanked the God of Bees and the now the God of Fire for their help. Thanks to the fire resistance from their cross-perk, he did not need to hold a memorial today.

Afterwards, the queens and Chief Rohsuak all gathered once again. It was now time to determine the fruits of their victory. Belissar first checked the two reward choices.

Please select a reward:

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- Uncommon Room Choice (At least one uncommon or better option)

- Uncommon Monster Choice (At least one uncommon or better option)

- Common Perk Choice

Please select a reward:

- Uncommon Perk Choice (At least one uncommon or better option)

- Uncommon Room Choice (At least one uncommon or better option)

- +150 max mana

Belissar turned to the bees and Chief Rohsuak.

“So, what does everyone think?”

The bees immediately replied with “whatever King chooses!” while Chief Rohsuak chuckled.

“I think you already have a plan, don’t you?”

Belissar stared at her, then sighed and nodded. Well, since she had him figured out already and the bees didn’t have a preference for the choices, he might as well go with his own desires. He now had another floor with three more rooms to work with. So, he very much wanted to build a fire room for the mini-volcano and the Third of the Sixth. However, he had noticed by now that he didn’t always get the choices he wanted when he wanted them. So, his plan this time was to pick one room choice…and if he didn’t get anything suitable for a fire room to possibly pick a second. And even in the worst case where he didn’t get what he wanted, he’d at least have two new rooms to fill up the new room slots with. His DP was nearly at three thousand, so he’d then be able to buy a new monster or a couple of new room features on that front. Well, if he had the option of a rare monster or room feature he might have gone with that, but he did not so that was a moot point.

With no objections, he went ahead and enacted his plan.

Uncommon Room Choiceselected.

Please select a room:

- Lava Field(Rarity: Uncommon, Type: Fire, Field)

- Hedge Maze (Rarity: Common, Type: Nature, Labyrinth)

- Fungal Tunnels (Rarity: Uncommon, Type: Ground, Fungi, Labyrinth, Resource)

Belissar couldn’t help but crack a smile as he read the first option highlighted in bright red. He guessed the God of Fire approved of his current plans. Still, he at least read out the descriptions of the options.

Lava Field

Type: Fire, Field

Innate Features: Lava Flows

Mana upkeep: 20

Description: An open area where lava flows both on and beneath the surface. Newly formed rock creates a bumpy and shifting surface, which can be hazardous given the lava flowing about…or bursting out from a seemingly solid crust.

“Lava is…what’s in volcanoes, right?”

Chief Rohsuak nodded.

“It’s actually a type of liquid stone, so hot even rock has melted into a river of liquid fire.”

Belissar couldn’t help but glance at the Third of the Sixth, who was fidgeting and dancing about. So…a room that was practically a volcano already, filled with rivers of liquid fire? Belissar didn’t know much about volcanoes but he couldn’t have imagined a better room for his current purposes.

“So, um, anyone want to hear about the others? Fungal Tunnels? They’re, um, tunnels…with fungi. Mushrooms and stuff…”

Chief Rohsuak just gave him an amused smile. The digging queen actually looked a little interested in the Fungal Tunnels but, well, at this point the bees also knew what he was going to choose. The Third of the Sixth was struggling not to break out into a happy dance. And Belissar wasn’t going to disappoint her.

Lava Field is now available.

And that meant that Belissar didn’t need to use the second choice for a room either. He could pick from another perk, another room, or an extra hundred and fifty mana. Which…he actually needed to stop and think about, since he hadn’t expected to actually need to pick between them.

Perks…could be anything. It could unlock powerful new options like cross-pollination had. It could be something that empowered his entire Tower, like Fire Resistant Bees had. Or, on the other hand, it could be just a small buff to one type of bee, like the various monster bee worker, queen, and soldier buffs he had acquired from daily purifications. It was hard for him to say and he already had a perk choice waiting. On the other hand, perks had a notable advantage: most of them didn’t take any work to implement. He didn’t have to spend any mana or build anything new like with rooms, room features, and monster spawners. The perks just sort of…did whatever they did. He was going to focus his mana and attention on setting up the new lava field, so something he didn’t have to think about might be nice.

Or he could go with his original idea and get another room. He did have three room slots to use and only one new room so far to fill them with. A new room could mean new flowers, which would also mean new bees. There was also the fact that the Hunger had just sent a fire shade, so adding something else besides a lava field might be a good idea. He wouldn’t want to spend everything on the new fire room only to face more shades that were already immune to it.

Or he could grab more mana. More mana never hurt and he was going to have to spend a lot on the new room. Though, daily purifications largely had that covered.

As he rubbed his chin, part of him wished the Lava Fields had come in the second choice…

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