The Bee Dungeon

Chief Rohsuak raised an eyebrow. She and Belissar had just finished the physical training for the day and had sat down to practice moving his mana.

“Already?”

Belissar nodded. Chief Rohsuak rubbed her chin and then nodded.

“I suppose a Sacred Den Master would have some advantages. Very well, let’s move on to the next step, then.”

She held out her hand and a small ball of dim light appeared.

“You must learn to move your mana outside of your body but remain in control of it.”

She went on to explain how to do so. Belissar nodded and then held out his hand. He tried to move his mana once more, concentrating it in the palm of his hand. He then tried to push it out...

A huge flash of light blinded him. Belissar cried out a fell back. Chief Rohsuak, on the other hand, had already shielded her eyes, and grinned.

“Happens to everyone. Yours was brighter than most, but that’s to be expected.”

Belissar rubbed his eyes as he sat back up. He held his palm out again...but turned his face away...

Which turned out to be wise as flashes of light filled his view time and time again...

Belissar sighed as he walked back to the Apiary. Thanks to the large quantities of mana he could feel from the Tower, the first steps of accumulating, sensing, and moving his own mana were quite simple. This step was not. The mana did not want to leave his body and when it did it would do so all at once. Trying to control that burst was proving difficult.

Still, it was only the first day, so Belissar tried not to get too discouraged. He was learning magic, after all. He glanced around as he stepped into the Apiary, watching the bees as they visited the nearby flowers. He had heard one of the queens had moved out here, so he wasn’t surprised to see them this far from the beehouses.

However, he did see something that surprised him.

A second, relatively new hive was under construction. He could feel the queen inside like the others but something felt a bit different about her.

“Hey, Niobee.”

Niobee flew into his vision.

“Yes, King?”

Belissar pointed at the hive.

“Did another of the queens move out here?”

“No. New queen!”

Belissar’s eyes widened.

“A new queen?”

The spawners had long since reached their maximums and Belissar hadn’t made any more recently. So, there was only one way a new queen could exist.

“The queens can reproduce? Have new queens as children?”

Niobee flew rapidly.

“Yes!”

Belissar began to smile as a small queen bee crawled out of the hive and gave him a hesitant salute. Somehow, he had not considered that the monster bee queens could give birth to each other, but it made sense. And it would very much change his strategy.

Because he checked his mana and found that it hadn’t changed.

He could tell now what felt different about this queen. The Tower’s mana flowed through the spawners and the monster bee queens. It did through this queen as well but it felt a bit weaker than with the other queens. Which made sense to Belissar, since the other queens were born from the Tower while this one was born from more normal parents.

Which apparently meant she didn’t require a spawner or an upkeep of mana from him.

And that meant...from now on, Belissar didn’t need to make any more monster bee queen spawners. The current queens could expand the bee numbers on their own. He could subsequently devote his mana to other uses, perhaps to more resource flower nodes to support the new queens if the current flowers weren’t enough.

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He nodded at the new queen.

“Welcome, and great work. Let me know if you need anything, or if you don’t have enough flowers.”

She began dancing a salute as fast as she could, before returning to her hive to continue setting up. Belissar grinned, and then continued home in a good mood, imagining how he could grow the Tower to support more bees. He looked forward to the day the Tower expanded that much more.

The days began to fall into a rhythm for Belissar after that. The magic practice went slowly with no discernible progress, but Chief Rohsuak told him that such was normal, so he kept at it. Belissar and his bees performed minor purifications in the late afternoon, and at this point could consistently pull them off without issue. No new perks or room feature offers caught Belissar’s eye, so he steadily expanded the dungeon’s mana reserves, working towards the day he could attempt an expansion.

But for other residents, some things did change in that time...

Light died down within the hive. The Fourth of the Seventh shook her body and then stared down at the honeycomb, at her limbs, and at the little workers crawling around her.

She did it. She was big now! It had taken a while but when the Firstborn had learned of her intentions she shared access to the Mana Flowers, which dramatically sped up the process. And now, she could begin to lay some soldiers of her own. Once they hatched, she could put her plan into motion.

She couldn’t wait.

The Firstborn and the other queens of the Flower Meadow gathered before the Memorial. She felt it appropriate to meet there, a place that belonged to all the bees of the King. The place that reminded them of the sacrifices required to achieve what they had.

The wounded soldier stood up and danced her salute and greeting. After the King had lavished honor and attention on her, the Firstborn could not simply discard her. Yet, with her missing wing the soldier could not participate in either the training or the battles of the army, nor could she do much work around the hive, so both the Firstborn and the soldier were at a loss for her purpose. But that had changed with the new memorial. Now, the soldier stood guard at the entrance of the beehouse, the hive of the fallen where the sisters of her squad lay buried beneath. While the Firstborn knew the soldier would not be capable of handling any threats, it felt appropriate, somehow. A job that she couldn’t justify devoting healthy bees to...and yet, a job that she felt needed to be done.

After greeting the soldier, she flew over to one of the monuments and paused before the symbols there.

Queen 1 – Dynasty 1 – Spawner 1, and her hive of 1018 workers.

Queen 2 – Dynasty 1 – Spawner 1, and her hive of 564 workers.

Queen 3 - Dynasty 1 - Spawner 1, and her hive of 186 workers.

The Firstborn liked to remind herself that the King had built a hive of hives. And there was no better way to do that than to remind herself of those who had come before. The Queens of the First Dynasty who had sacrificed everything; their children, their hives, and even their very lives. She danced her own salute before making her way to the meeting place. The other queens soon arrived, each greeting the soldier and pausing before the memorial as she had.

And then, they began their conversation.

The Firstborn had wanted to follow the First of the Fifth in raising a new queen, but she had run into an issue. To do so required drones, which meant the cooperation of one other queen, and the drones the First of the Fifth had used had already perished. At first, she was going to see if the First of the Fifth would be raising a second queen and if they could collaborate, but she quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen. The Firstborn had been stunned when she realized how much mana and honey it would require to bear a queen, so she knew the First of the Fifth would not be ready to bear a second anytime soon.

So, instead, she gathered the queens of the Flower Meadow. She greeted them, and then explained her plan...which was simply to follow their instincts. If all the queens released both new queens and drones at the same time, all of them could bear a new queen at once while sharing the burden of raising drones.

The First Queen of the First Dynasty of the Third Spawner then asked for more details.

“A queen and drones. How much mana, honey needed?”

The Firstborn told them and all the queens fell still.

The Fourth Queen of the Fourth Spawner then began a slow dance.

“My hive, can’t. Not enough.”

The Firstborn expected as much and gave her prepared reply.

“Will help, give honey.”

She looked around at all the queens.

“We are all one hive. All help when in need.”

One by one, the other queens gave their approval. Afterwards, however, the Third Queen of the Second Spawner began to dance.

“But...if all spending mana and honey, will need to cut soldiers. If all cut soldiers, army not grow?”

The queens once again fell still at that. The Firstborn danced her acknowledgement.

“Yes. But, more queens mean more soldiers later.”

The Third of the Second stood still before beginning an even slower dance.

“But...King planning something. Something big. Need army now?”

The Firstborn paused at this. She...had not considered that. She stood in silence for a bit. In the end, it was the First Queen of the Second Spawner that replied.

“Ask Conduit? If King needs army, wait until King’s plan, then try? If not, try now?”

The other queens began to agree. The Firstborn quickly agreed as well, for that was a much wiser idea than she had. She, perhaps, had been a bit overexcited, but now that she thought about it coordinating with the Conduit and the King’s plan was only natural. If anything, she should have done that to begin with.

But that was why the queens were gathered now, and why they were a hive of hives. Even if she should miss something, another bee might notice.

“Then, everyone agree?”

The queens all danced their affirmatives, and the meeting adjourned. The Firstborn sent messengers to find the Conduit and the Conduit quickly sent her reply. The King was indeed planning something big, something that would likely require a fight more dangerous than the daily assaults. It had been immensely fortunate that the Firstborn had asked before enacting her plan, for now the queens of the Flower Meadow could focus on soldiers until that battle came.

The Firstborn was left deep in thought. Had the Third of the Second not spoken up, she may have made a major mistake. But because they had cooperated as a hive of hives, they had found the most efficient course of action. So, she thought...perhaps the queens should get together to speak more regularly...

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