The Bee Dungeon

Belissar woke up the next morning to an immediate surprise.

A non-patron god, the God of Flowers, wishes to offer you a quest, and will grant you a blessing should you succeed. Accept?

New mission received: Earn the blessing of a new secondary patron.

Belissar blinked, then rubbed his eyes, then blinked again. Yes, both messages were still there afterwards. It appeared he had attracted the attention of yet another god. And the God of Bees had preempted his question and approved with a mission of her own. So, he had no reason to refuse or delay.

He couldn’t help but grin as he accepted the mission. The God of Flowers! If there was any other god he wanted to invite into his Tower, that was the one! There was no better partner for bees!

Offer accepted.

New mission received: Spawn or evolve one Flower attribute monster with the help of bees.

Belissar nodded. That made sense, it was a similar mission to the God of Fire’s. Then he paused and tilted his head, rubbing his chin as he furrowed his brow. How, exactly, should he spawn or evolve a Flower attribute monster? For the Fire attribute he had had a burning queen already evolving, so he hadn’t actually needed to think about it.

But then he smiled. With the help of bees, the mission said. Belissar would have preferred that even if it hadn’t been specified. And that also revealed the likely answer. Perhaps Cross-Pollination between the right sort of flowers would result in a flower that counted as a monster in and of itself? His bees had already cross-pollinated slime flowers which spawned monsters, so why not a flower that was a monster?

Belissar then got up fully, ate a bit of honeycomb, and began reviewing his day with Niobee and the worker bees keeping track of various topics for him. The karnuq had just about gathered enough stone to upgrade the Bee Barracks, so he’d have to ask the Flower Meadow queens about that upgrade. Additionally, he now had the DP for another store purchase, another topic to bring up to the queens and Chief Rohsuak after today’s purification. And as the reports wrapped, Belissar brought up a topic of his own.

“Hey Niobee, could you ask the gardeners to gather after tonight’s purification as well?”

“Ok!”

Belissar didn’t particularly know which, if any, of his flowers might become a monster. But he figured if anyone did, it would be the gardeners, so he aimed to get their input on the matter. Additionally, he wanted them to spread flowers of all sorts to the Fairy Grove, which meant gathering flower seeds from all across the Tower, so he thought it might help them if they could talk to each other as well.

With that, he set off to start his day. He had to make his rounds to visit the bees and gather some honey, present offerings to the gods, practice his mana, and then start lessons with Chief Rohsuak, as well as his own beekeeping lesson for the karnuq. It was going to be a busy day.

Belissar and Chief Rohsuak sat in her house with Niobee hovering around. Her home was now a completed building with walls of stone adorned by wood furnishings. Muuraqi had been hard at work and at this point, most of the karnuq now lived in stone houses. Chief Rohsuak gave him a smile as he glanced around.

“We have to thank your bees for their help as well. We could not have built our homes as quickly as we did without them.”

Belissar smiled at that, and then they got into it. Chief Rohsuak nodded and hummed a bit.

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“I believe you have already learned the most important lesson of a leader.”

Belissar jumped.

“Huh? Really?! I’ve, um, never led anything before this. At all.”

Chief Rohsuak gave him a warm smile.

“In my opinion, the hardest and most important lesson to learn is that it’s not about you. A good leader should care for their people above themselves, which means setting aside your own pride, desires, and preferences for the good of the whole. From what I have seen, you already do this.” РάƝÖ฿Ëṧ

Belissar couldn’t really say anything, so just fidgeted instead. Niobee, ever present as always, flew around to respond in his place.

“King is best king! Was always best king!”

Chief Rohsuak chuckled and nodded while Belissar fidgeted even more. She then let her smile drop and narrowed her eyes.

“I think for you, Sacred Den Master, the next lesson is to accept conflict.”

Belissar frowned at that.

“Accept conflict?”

Chief Rohsuak nodded, keeping her serious expression.

“I was not able to mention it at the time given the urgency of the situation, but the sigmaka were quite demanding of you, and most Sacred Den Masters that I know of would have rejected them out of hand for their tone alone.”

Belissar furrowed his brow.

“Even if it led to war?”

Chief Rohsuak nodded.

“Even if it led to war. In this case, it worked out, as they were amenable to an equivalent agreement, so your willingness to accept their terms averted an unnecessary conflict. But that will not always be the case. One day, you will encounter people who would take advantage of your desire for peace and demand terms that are detrimental to your side if you are not willing to fight. And there are some people who will not bother with negotiations in the first place. What will you do in those cases?”

Niobee once again flew between them, buzzing her wings as she extended her stinger.

“If hurt King, Niobee will sting!”

But for once, Niobee didn’t make Belissar smile. Instead, his face fell.

“I…don’t want my bees to get hurt…”

Niobee fell still at that. Chief Rohsuak watched in silence. She was about to speak when Belissar continued. He looked to Niobee, reaching out to brush her back.

“…but, I know that’s not how they see it. So…”

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he opened and narrowed them.

“I think…if someone wants to take advantage of us, wants to hurt the bees, then we shouldn’t let them.”

Chief Rohsuak softened her expression just a tad and nodded.

“That’s good. Hold to that resolve, Sacred Den Master.”

From there, Belissar, Chief Rohsuak, and Niobee began discussing different situations, how to approach negotiations, and situations the karnuq faced when negotiations went wrong. Belissar could not say he enjoyed those conversations. The thought of people fighting and killing his bees made his blood boil and his stomach churn. But it was necessary for him to consider. He doubted the Tower Lords would be as agreeable should they discover him, and even the sigmaka had nearly betrayed them despite the agreements.

And in the end, Belissar would do anything necessary to keep his bees safe.

After that, Belissar, Niobee, and Chief Rohsuak stepped outside of her house and made their way to an open space near the karnuq village. Several other karnuq were waiting for them, including some of the children who had played with the bumblebee soldier the other day. Now was time for a far more pleasant lesson, in Belissar’s opinion. Chief Rohsuak joined the rest of the karnuq and nodded at him.

“Whenever you’re ready, Sacred Den Master. We are honored to learn from you.”

Belissar nodded. It was time to start the beekeeping lessons.

“Um, right. So, first things first, let me show you how I make a beehouse.”

There was some wood Belissar had asked the karnuq to prepare for this lesson. Belissar figured the best way to teach them about his beehouses would be to build one with them. Overall, he planned to teach them how to build and manage beehouses before he let any bees move in.

“We found that if you put these frames at the right distance apart, the bees will build straight honeycomb within them. With regular bees, you might need to put some comb in the corner to get them started and stop them if they start building between the frames, but if you have it at the right distance they should leave that space empty. That way, you can pull the trays right out whenever you need to check the hive or gather honey.”

To be fair, that lesson was only relevant for regular bees, since monster bees could be asked nicely to build their combs in any shape desired without any trays at all. They could even figure it out themselves without him asking at all. But the God of Bees’ mission said to teach the karnuq beekeeping, not Tower keeping, so Belissar figured he should teach them how it would work under normal circumstances as well.

Belissar put together the bee house, explaining its various parts and what he did with them, then upgraded the completed beehouse to a room feature. He smiled as one of the trays began glowing immediately.

“And this…”

He enjoyed the gasps of the karnuq as he pulled out the magically completed tray.

“…is what it looks like when it’s full.”

And so, Belissar began instructing the karnuq in the art of beekeeping.

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