The Bee Dungeon

The First of the Fifth couldn’t help but tremble as she danced around. Thanks to the King, she had established direct contact with the dangerous karnuq. And despite the danger of doing so, the rewards promised to be unimaginable. The dangerous one held vast knowledge regarding mixing different plants together. Already a single conversation had produced multiple potential processing methods to attempt. If even one of them succeeded, the First of the Fifth might discover a new honey type…and possibly new types of bees as well.

And this success was fortunately timed as the First of the Fifth waited at the entrance of her hive. A group of foragers was just returning…and no normal foragers.

The bees that arrived were large for workers and far fuzzier than normal, more closely resembling the bumblebees than their sisters. Their antennae were fluffy with almost leaf-like hairs, their pollen baskets were large and deep, and their mandibles large with sharp edges. Their proboscis could extend to a surprising length when fully unfurled.

These were the newly evolved gardener bees, back from their first foraging trip. The First of the Fifth watched as they unloaded the nectar and pollen they had gathered, each carrying noticeably more than the other workers. The gardeners then walked up to her.

“Ground mana flower too bright. Wants less sun.”

“Workers taking too much nectar from Slime Flower. Needs break.”

“Gravilion Flower has too much nectar, not enough pollen. Needs more visits.”

Each of the gardeners reported on each of the flowers they had visited. They were optimized to gather data from the plants they visited, with their large antennae sensitive to whatever scents the plants released, the mana that wafted off of them, or even the tiny-lightnings that changed whenever a bee landed on them. As a result, they could identify the health of a flower in a deeper way than the average worker. Information the First of the Fifth now needed if she wanted to take care of the hive of hives as a whole. She turned and danced to a nearby communer.

“I’ll inform King about Grand mana flower. Tell workers slime flower is gardener only now. Will try to raise more gravity bees for Gravilion Flower. Good work.”

The gardeners saluted and then took off again, returning back to the flowers beyond. With their help, the flowers would grow more numerous and healthy than ever before. And with the dangerous karnuq’s help, the First of the Fifth’s hive would pioneer new ways to process their nectar too. The First of the Fifth couldn’t wait to see what would result.

“Too much light? Huh, got it, thanks for letting me know!”

The First of the Fifth danced around happily as Belissar thanked her. He subsequently moved the Ground mana flower nodes. Each of them had been placed in their floor’s Dirt Tunnels, but right underneath the entrance to either the Apiary or the Flower Meadow for maximum sunlight and easy access for the bees. Apparently, the flowers preferred it a bit darker, so Belissar moved them just a bit deeper into their tunnels, just enough to keep them in the shade but still visible for the bees.

It seemed the gardeners were already earning their name. Both the First of the Fifth and the Firstborn had evolved their first sets, which were now buzzing around the Apiary and Flower Meadow flowers and determining their state. Belissar couldn’t wait to see what else they came up with.

Belissar mostly just watched the gardeners do their thing for the rest of the day. Their pollen crops could carry a massive amount of pollen, making them look like they were carrying two round stones as they flew about. Additionally, each gardener connected its mana with each plant it landed on, and passed the knowledge it gained through the communers to the rest of the hive. Already, Belissar noted the rest of the worker bees adjusting their foraging routes as the gardeners determined which flowers were over-gathered from and which flowers were neglected. It seemed the gardeners were not only great at foraging themselves but would improve the gathering efficiency of their entire hives.

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Eventually, though, the day passed on and the time came for the next purification. Belissar selected another small purification. His eyes widened slightly as he saw the Hunger coalesce.

Small purification begun. Remaining hostiles: 4

This time it was back to the good old wolf-shades…but with a twist. Belissar watched as the most shades he had ever seen ran into the Dirt Tunnels…and the lead shade then promptly fell into a Pit Trap and was doused by a Sticky Honey Trap. As with the first pair of wolf-shades, the others stayed by the pit, and even jumped down to help when it was clear the fallen shade couldn’t escape on its own. And since the bees weren’t attacking in the Dirt Tunnels, the shades managed to climb out again. Belissar rubbed his chin. He’d have to see about getting some digging soldiers soon, the digging queen was established enough to either raise some herself or to donate some honey to the Flower Meadow, so it should be about time.

Belissar was free to think about the future as the wolf-shades only slowly made their way through the Dirt Tunnels. It was not as bad an environment for them as for the bird-shade, but it still wasn’t ideal. Likewise, the wolf-shades lacked either the speed of the cat-shade or the resilience of the turtle-shade, so they were very much affected by the pit and honey traps placed throughout. While they managed to escape and continue moving forward, the maddening honey took its toll on each of the wolves hit by it.

And so it took quite a while before the four staggering shades finally arrived at the Flower Meadow, Belissar having kept the volcano room back again until the Third of the Sixth was more established. The shades…were then torn to shreds. Sprayers began bombarding them from above, easily evading their counter-breaths. When the shades spread out to avoid the toxic sprays, the soldiers began their own attack runs, and cut each shade off from the other. Meanwhile, the two healed lancers set up their dives, targeting the shades hampered by the honey traps. Those shades proved unable to dodge, and the lancers’ stingers pierced straight through them and into the ground.

It was not long before all four shades were defeated, without a single bee casualty.

Small Purification completed! Please select a reward:

- +100 DP

- +20 Max Mana

- Wax Torches

This time Belissar went with the mana. New features were great but not if he lacked the mana to make more, and he still had two room slots to fill. And with that, the celebrations began. Belissar thought about bringing out the mead…but the one time he had fed it to bees in the past…hadn’t gone well. He was still full of regret and guilt for the fate of that worker. So, while he had a feeling his current bees might hold up a bit better, he still wasn’t going to risk it. Besides, he didn’t have enough for all the karnuq hunters that watched each purification, much less all the bees, so he decided to save it up for now.

And well, he soon learned he had made the right choice.

New mission received: Offer ten jars of mead to the Shrine of Bees.

His eyes widened slightly. He guessed the God of Bees very much appreciated the mead. Would that mean that monster bees could handle it? He could probably speak with the queens to avoid any…incidents as well.

However, Belissar was quickly pulled out of his thoughts.

The God of Fire wishes to offer you a quest. Accept?

Belissar tilted his head. Did the God of Fire still have to ask permission to do that? Even after the blessing? Well, Belissar didn’t see a reason to refuse right now.

New mission received: Make and offer mead from Fire-attribute honey.

Well, it seemed Belissar had his next mead recipe to try. Though, that would be a longer-term project, as he wasn’t comfortable taking honey from the Third of the Sixth yet. In any case, it seemed his mead was popular with the gods. That…was a bit more than he expected from his first attempt to get back into the craft.

But well, he’d just have to do his best and trust in his bees’ honey.

The next day, the karnuq launched another expedition to the Underway. Metsaitti noted that the Sacred Den’s purified zone extended in all directions, so there was a need to see how much of the Underway was within its range. And so, much to their dismay, the karnuq made their way to the rot cap field once again, only to find the stink bugs had replaced their numbers all too quickly. And as the karnuq fought their way through noxious clouds and smelly mushrooms, several pairs of eyes lit up in the dark tunnel beyond.

“They’re finally back. Get ready, everyone.”

A faint shuffling in the dark went unnoticed by the karnuq as they fought their way towards the tunnel…

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