The Bee Dungeon

Tyhgak shuffled his feet, pacing back and forth. He peeked across the camp. Noigakkuq was sitting on a log bench and holding her tray of maddening honey. He took a step forward, then shook his head and turned back. As he did, he heard a sigh.

“Could you stop? That’s getting annoying.”

He jumped and then slowly turned around to find Noigakkuq glaring at him.

“Well? If you have something to say, then say it. Otherwise, stop pacing around like that. It’s distracting.”

Tyhgak gulped and nodded.

“Right. Ok.”

He shuffled forward, averting her gaze. Noigakkuq rolled her eyes and then glared at him again.

“Out with it, Tyhgak.”

He took a deep breath.

Noigakkuq leaned back and blinked.

“Um, what?”

Tyhgak stammered but pressed on.

“Could you teach me how to do that bee-stab thing? I’ve eaten the honey and got some mana but I can’t figure out what to do next. I’m trying to be more…bee-like, I guess? But I don’t really know how.”

Noigakkuq nodded. She frowned and crossed her arms.

“I see. Why not ask Metsaitti, though? He can do the bee-stab thing, as you call it.”

Tyhgak quickly shook his head.

“I want to learn from you!”

He flushed as Noigakkuq blinked again.

“Um, you see, what I’m trying to say is…uh…Metsaitti already knew how to stab things, right? You were the one who learned how to bee-stab from scratch. You went and got the God of Bees’ blessing all on your own, so I figured you know about it best. That and you went into the tunnels and found mana flowers all on your own and that was really brave and impressive of you and so I just thought…”

Tyhgak trailed off as he started running out of words. Noigakkuq stared at him for a moment before she made a smug smile. She puffed out her chest and lifted her head high.

“I see. If that’s the case, then I can show you what I do.”

Tyghak grinned.

“Really?”

Noigakkuq nodded.

“Come on, let me put this away and then we’ll get started.”

Tyghak nodded as quickly as he could and then rushed to go grab his spear.

Metsaitti and Chief Rohsuak returned from the ruins, accompanied by some hunters and the Fourth of the Seventh’s workers. Chief Rohsuak held a book in her hands while Metsaitti and a hunter carried a suit of armor. Belissar’s eyes widened. ɌÀƝŎ฿ÊȘ

“Well, it looks like you found something after all.”

Chief Rohsuak smiled.

“That we did, Tower Keeper. It seems to be the ruins of an old fortress. We didn’t find much but we did find this intact armor, as well as a library. I would like to hand this armor over to our smith as an example.”

Belissar nodded.

“Sounds good, it looks kind of rusty?”

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Chief Rohsuak nodded back.

“That is what I thought as well, but perhaps it could serve as a bit of inspiration. As for the library…can you read this?”

She handed him the book. Belissar looked over the words on the cover, then frowned and shook his head.

“It seems a bit familiar but no, I cannot. Maybe we can ask Sehfitis?”

Chief Rohsuak tilted her head.

“I thought you and he speak the same language?”

Belissar shrugged.

“We do but…I was just a peasant in a small village. I was lucky enough Mrs. Imkomos knew how to reach and taught me, but I wouldn’t say I know very much. Sehfitis might know something more than me.”

Chief Rohsuak nodded at that and the two made their way over to the humans, explaining the situation. Sehfitis nodded and took the book. He looked over the cover but a moment before his eyes grew wide.

“Where…where did you say you found this again?”

Belissar tilted his head.

“Um, the ruins nearby? Like we just told you?”

Sehfitis looked up at Belissar with an intent gaze.

“And was this the only book you found, or were there others? Did they all use this script?”

Chief Rohsuak was the one who answered.

“We found a library and all the items we checked used the same script as best we could tell.”

Sehfitis slowly turned his gaze back towards the book, his eyes going as wide as they could.

“By the gods…”

Belissar glanced at Chief Rohsuak, then turned back to Sehfitis and furrowed his brow.

“What is it? What’s going on?”

Sehfitis took a deep breath, his eyes still locked on the book.

“This, Tower Keeper, is the old language. The script used by the wicked kings of old when they still ruled the land, an archaic form of our own that fell out of use after the Hunger appeared.”

He slowly lifted his eyes once more, his gaze still intent as he locked eyes with Belissar.

“If you found a library full of them in an old ruin…then it is possible that you have just found a remnant of the ancient kingdom. Unless you have stumbled upon some sort of collector’s home, we might be standing within the borders of that old kingdom.”

Belissar gulped at Sehfitis’s gaze.

“Um, and that’s important?”

Sehfitis slowly nodded.

“Yes. It means we could be standing near the place where the Hunger first appeared.”

That got Belissar and Chief Rohsuak’s attention.

Sehfitis then relaxed a bit.

“Well, that’s if the ruins are indeed from the old kingdom, and if we are close to the old capital. The old kingdom covered much of the known world at the time if what spotty records we have are to be believed, so we could be quite far away and still within its borders.”

Belissar frowned.

“Is there any way to find out?”

Sehfitis rubbed his chin for a moment and then sighed.

“I am not sure. Archaeology was not my area of expertise, I’m afraid.”

Belissar crossed his arms. He thought for a moment before he shrugged. At the end of the day, he knew very little about the ancient kingdom, so he didn’t really understand if it was important or not. Being near the place the Hunger appeared sounded scary, but the Hunger was everywhere these days, so Belissar didn’t know if it was any more dangerous than being anywhere else. Even if it was, it didn’t ultimately change what he needed to do: grow his Tower and his bees as best he could to ensure they could handle whatever came their way. The ancient history of some crumbling ruins didn’t seem all that relevant to said goal.

“No matter, I guess. Can you read that?”

Sehfitis again rubbed his chin and frowned.

“I have studied the ancient script, but only for theological purposes, so I am by no means fluent, and I no longer have access to the dictionaries and references I usually use for such things. I might be able to decipher some of it, particularly if I can cross-reference different works, but it will take me some time, I’m afraid. You said there were more?”

Chief Rohsuak nodded.

“A small library, mostly scrolls.”

Sehfitis nodded back.

“That could suffice, if I have your permission to take on this task, Tower Keeper?”

Belissar shrugged.

“Might as well. Let us know if you find anything important.”

Sehfitis bowed his head.

“Of course.”

After that, Belissar returned to the Apiary to practice his magic. Sehfitis could handle the dusty old ruins and ancient tomes, so he figured he’d best spend his time working on his own area of expertise. He began to stir up his mana and began to form a honeycomb in the air, this one much larger than before.

His spell bees had worked, but he noticed it took a lot of time and a lot of mana for them to deal noticeable damage to a shade. If he wanted to use this magic against a shade that wasn’t already trapped and helpless at the bottom of a pit, it’d be best if he had something a bit larger.

So, he was trying to see if he could make a spell soldier bee. He imagined the bee swarm of his mana flying to the honeycomb and gathering together there.

His first attempt just came out as bunch of spell bees, more than his usual spell but no larger than before. He asked them to disperse, to his surprise, they ended up crawling back into the spell honeycomb before he felt a bit of mana flow back into his hands. That was curious.

But it wasn’t what Belissar wanted so he tried again. This time, he tried to imagine his mana forming a larger clump and becoming a soldier bee within his body. He imagined that soldier bee crawling to his hand before flying out to sting the enemy. He thought of soldier bees who had sacrificed themselves in the jaws of shades, or in the flames of a burning pit trap. He thought of Beero leaping from the Memorial onto the back of a shade. He tried to impress his mana with the will of the soldier bees to protect the hive.

Another honeycomb appeared, this one formed of much larger cells. A big bee crawled out of it, formed of glowing yellow light like the rest. Bright plates of mana formed armored chitin while its stinger extended out.

A spell soldier bee took off from his hand and hovered about with its abdomen curled and its stinger extended, searching for a target.

Belissar grinned until his vision started to spin again.

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