The Bee Dungeon

Chief Rohsuak sat in her tent. A certain bag sat on the mat spread across the ground. Chief Rohsuak didn’t take her eyes off of it for even a second. She barely even blinked.

She may have seemed calm and steady now, but she was not known for her self-control in her youth. A berserker directed her emotions, she did not suppress them. But she took a deep breath and did her best. Now was not the time to indulge. Not yet.

After a seemingly endless moment, her guest finally arrived.

“You wanted to see me, chief?”

“Yes, please come in.”

A young bear woman stepped inside the tent. Chief Rohsuak didn’t bother to look at her. She stood there for about a minute before she began fidgeting.

“Um, chief? How can I help you?”

Chief Rohsuak slowly tore her eyes away from the bag and to her guest.

“I have something to show you.”

“Chief…what is all this?”

Chief Rohsuak removed the contents one by one.

“Mana flowers and…mana honeycomb.”

The woman glanced up and looked at the chief, hers opening even wider.

“Mana…honeycomb?”

Chief Rohsuak just silently nodded. The young woman stood still for a moment before a wide smile broke out on her face.

“That’s amazing! To infuse mana into the honey…it must have been condensed down into the nectar while the bees were still processing it. Or, is this what happens when bees gather nectar from a mana flower? Honey already has medicinal properties so I certain the mana will enhance it, it might serve as a basic potion as it is. There are some many tests I’ll need to…”

Chief Rohsuak slapped away the hand that was reaching for the honey…with only slightly excessive force.

“Ow! C-Chief?”

Chief Rohsuak looked the woman in the eyes.

“Calm down, Juosiutik. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

Juosiutik bowed her head.

“Sorry.”

Chief Rohsuak shook her head with a smile.

“It’s fine, this truly is an exciting find, so I understand why you’re excited. We’ll need to arrange for you to gain some soon.”

Juosiutik froze.

“Gain some? Um, chief…”

Chief Rohsuak leaned forward and looked her in the eyes.

“As you may have gathered, this is from the Sacred Den. Specially, it was given to me by the Sacred Den Master himself in exchange for teaching him how to unlock his blessing. And yes, I know that normally such a treasure would go into the communal stock. But this was a reward from a Sacred Den in exchange for the completion of a challenge. That means, by the will of the gods, it belongs to me, and me alone. Just like your blessing will belong to you, should you complete it.” R̃ãꞐôʙÊṥ

Juosiutik frowned.

“I…guess that makes sense?”

Chief Rohsuak nodded.

“Which is why you must also earn these materials for yourself if you wish to experiment with them. But don’t worry. The Sacred Den Master has already agreed to one such exchange, I’m sure we can arrange another.”

Juosiutik furrowed her brow.

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“But…what can I offer him, chief?”

Chief Rohsuak smiled.

“For now, teaching. Share your craft with him, both knowledge and results, and he will share his bounty with you. And who knows? Perhaps his patron will look favorably upon your collaboration, and you will progress towards a full blessing as well.”

Juosiutik rubbed her chin for a moment. Eventually, she slowly nodded her head.

“Mana honey…it’s too incredible to pass up. I’ll do as you say, chief.”

Chief Rohsuak grinned and nodded.

“Excellent. We’ll be waiting here for a few more days, but plan to come with us when Metsaitti’s group next returns to the Sacred Den.”

Chief Rohsuak nodded in satisfaction as Juosiutik left her tent. She had found a simple solution to the question of the Sacred Den Master. If she had little else to teach him regarding the mystic arts, then she just needed someone else to take over. Direct manipulation of spells and elements represented only one small fraction of the mystic arts, and was one of the rarer uses of mana outside of those with the blessing of a god. One of the most common, and indeed, one that she thought would pair with this Sacred Den quite nicely was herbology and potion-making. And Juosiutik was the foremost student of that craft among them, and was even seeking the blessing of the Sacred Den’s patron to boost her skill to new heights.

It had other benefits as well. Introducing the Sacred Den Master to more of her people should hopefully warm him up to them as a whole. And it just so happened that Juosiutik was one of the most eligible bachelorettes available. If a young man and a young woman working together happened to grow a bit closer…well, Chief Rohsuak would simply take things as they came. She wasn’t sure if Juosiutik would be initially attracted to a man with so little fur, or, alternatively, if the Sacred Den Master would be attracted to a woman with so much from his perspective. But he seemed close enough in form to her people that she couldn’t help but speculate.

But even if nothing came of that, this method would establish a precedent. If each member of her people had to individually deal with the Sacred Den Master to trade for his incredible treasures, then he would slowly get to know more and more of them, and establish more and more friendly connections. It would lay the groundwork for a close relationship in the future, or so Chief Rohsuak hoped.

Of course, the fact that she got to lay claim to the honeycomb she already had was just a side benefit, and had definitely not factored into her decisions. Especially not as she reached for the honeycomb again…

Belissar was getting to work as a couple of worker bees flew over to Niobee and began to dance in the air. After that, she turned to Belissar and began to dance.

“King! Fourth of Seventh and First of Fifth’s daughter want to move to new room! Ok?”

Belissar nodded immediately.

“Yep, that’s fine. The queens can expand anywhere they want.”

Niobee began zipping around.

“Ok! Will tell them!”

Belissar chuckled as he turned his attention back to the room. Confirmation that the queens, including the newly born one, were moving the room was quite helpful. Thanks to that, Belissar put off any plans to build more queen spawners. Instead, he planned to add a new mana flower node and some wood trees once the queens chose the location for their new hives.

As for traps…since Pit Traps had been rendered useless against the latest shade, Belissar chose not to place too many of those. One right outside the entrance to the room, one by the exit, and then one in the middle. He would have to build a campfire site by the entrance as well, since the Apiary campfire was a whole room away at this point.

He then thought about where to place Sticky Honey Traps. They had proven key to defeating the latest shade…but their range was a bit of an issue. It was a stroke of luck and the efforts of the wounded soldier bee that had enabled them to work. Belissar rubbed his chin as he looked over the room, moving a transparent honey nozzle about as he considered where to put it.

Then, he had an idea. He tried to move the nozzle towards one of the trees…and found the nozzle moved right up along the trunk. He grinned.

“Well, that’s convenient.”

More than convenient, even. Placing the honey traps up on the trees would greatly expanded their ability to hit flying targets. Belissar tried to move the nozzle as high as it could go, but found he couldn’t move it onto the branches once they got too thin. So, instead, he put it as high up as it could go, and then proceeded to place over a dozen more honey traps on top of various trees. After a moment of thought, he placed some lower on the trunks as well, so that they would be able to trigger on ground targets. Just because the latest shade flew didn’t mean the next one would.

With that done, the last thing to do for his new room was finalize the resource plant nodes. Niobee was off talking to the queens, so Belissar would have to wait a bit before he could ask her where the bees were setting up.

Or did he? Belissar rubbed his chin and then turned to his Tower sight, looking through the Orchard. When focusing on his tower sight, he gained an intuitive sense of his bees’ locations, so he managed to identify worker bees scouting through the room. A bunch of them were congregating around the door to the Flower Meadow.

Belissar frowned. He would prefer if they didn’t set up right there, since that would leave them vulnerable to any shade that reached the Orchard. But at the same time, if they had a reason to move there, he didn’t want to interfere. He would ask them, but he knew they would take even a simple question from him as law, so he hesitated.

But then, he came up with an idea. Or rather, remembered one from earlier. He tried to see if he could move an apple tree and found that he could. He began to arrange them into a tight grove a bit to the side of the entrance, as close as they could go. He put Pit Traps in the ground between them and honey traps along their trunks and branches. Then he put a Mana Flower node in the center.

With that, there was a hopefully defended location where the bees could set up their hives. It was a bit off to the side, about halfway between the entrance and the side walls, so hopefully it would be out of the way should a shade assault the Orchard.

Belissar nodded with a smile as he saw the worker bees pause and then fly to the near area. They began to buzz and zip around before racing back towards the Apiary. Belissar hoped that meant it was a job well done.

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