The Bee Dungeon

Belissar nodded. Honestly, the process didn’t seem that different from mead-making besides the mana and the burning roots. Under Juosiutik’s watch, he started mashing up some healing herbs and pouring his mana into it.

“Um, is it supposed to be glowing?”

Juosiutik frowned.

“No, let me see.”

She picked up the bowl. The herbs were glowing...or rather, glistening in the sunlight. If she looked closely, she could see a viscous, golden liquid leaking out of them. She narrowed her eyes.

“Why exactly did you put honey into the mix?”

Belissar tilted his head.

“Huh?”

Juosiutik shoved the bowl in front of his face.

“You heard me, honey got into the bowl somehow and I definitely didn’t put it there. Don’t you remember what I said about this being a careful process? Adding random ingredients is a recipe for disaster!”

Belissar held up his head and shook his head.

“I-I didn’t, I swear!”

Juosiutik was about to object again when she heard buzzing. A group of soldier bees flew down in between the two, while the rest began forming an encirclement around her. Belissar quickly began waving.

“Ah, no! It’s all right, she wasn’t going to hurt me...”

Belissar suddenly narrowed his eyes and glanced at her.

“You, um, weren’t going to hurt me, right?”

Juosiutik shook her head with all her might. Belissar turned back to the bees and nodded.

“Ok then, yep, it’s alright.”

The soldier bees swayed a bit in the air but slowly backed off again. Belissar rubbed the back of his head.

“Sorry about that.”

Juosiutik shook her head.

“No, I’m sorry. I know I get a bit...passionate about this stuff. There’s, um, a lot of people in the tribe who don’t get why I make a big fuss about ‘minor’ details in the process so I may have overreacted.”

She took a deep breath.

“Still, it is an issue to add a new ingredient without warning. If you know how the honey got there, could you tell me?”

Belissar rubbed his chin, then suddenly smacked the bottom of his fist into his palm.

“I think I got it. Um, this is what happens when I move my mana outside of my body...”

Belissar held out his hand and willed his mana to leave. It once again formed into a honeycomb pattern made of light and then converted into honey. Juosiutik’s eyes went as wide as they could go.

“You...can make honey? Mana honey, even?”

Belissar slowly nodded. Juosiutik stared at him for moment before she suddenly began mashing the herbs in the bowl as hard as she could.

“That’s amazing! You have an endless source of an ingredient that I believe has incredible potential! Honey already has incredible medicinal and preservation properties, so what would happen if we imbued it with mana and then mixed it with other ingredients? I think this could become a revolution in potion making! At the very least, it should dramatically increase the life-span of a given potion, and I believe it has to improve the medicinal effectiveness as well! Look, even now the mixture is soaking up my mana like a sponge! I don’t know for sure but I believe the mana in the honey and the herbs are resonating with each other. Now, let’s see what kind of potion awaits!”

Belissar was left glancing about as Juosiutik sprung into motion, barely able to keep up as she spoke as fast as she could. The knife flashed as she quickly shaved a bit of fire radish. She barely avoided spilling the water as she dumped it into the pot. She had barely dropped the fire radish in when she poured the mixture.

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The pot immediately burst into a column of fire.

Juosiutik’s smile slowly faded and her eyes started to grow wide.

“Um, oops?”

Chief Rohsuak watched as her people cleared a bit of the forest around their camp. They cleared the branches and stripped the bark off the trees before carrying the processed log in front of her. She smiled and laid her hand upon it.

She channeled just a bit of her mana and the log began to heat up. Steam began to rise from the top and bottom as the water burned off in response to her Fire mana.

This was the technique that allowed her people to continue woodworking and fueling fires as they traveled underground. Chief Rohsuak could dry wood even in a damp cave with no sunlight, using roots instead of branches or trunks. Though, the process was not an easy one. Too little mana and the process would take too long, risking burning the wood from long exposure to the Fire attribute. Too much and the whole thing would burst into flames. And the amount necessary was different for each piece of wood, as each had different properties and carried different amounts of water. There was a person or two who could produce Fire mana in the tribe besides her, but she was the only one with the Blessing of Fire as well as the experience needed to fine tune her mana with the requisite precision. She had tried to teach the others but It was very slow going without the Blessing of Fire, maybe even impossible. At the very least, it would be years if not decades before any of them reached that level.

It had been a legitimate concern. Chief Rohsuak wasn’t the youngest, so the tribe should not depend on things only she could do for their survival. But, fortunately, they had found their home before then. They could dry wood for fire-making and wood-working the normal way now, her method had dropped from crucial to merely convenient.

So, Chief Rohsuak used her abilities for the first round of lumber, giving her people immediate access to dry wood. With that, they could begin building homes for the first time since before she became chief. Once the basics were set up, she could take a step back and wean them off of her powers.

And, perhaps more importantly, they could now trade construction-ready wood to any other parties who may require such materials. She started to grin at that thought before shaking her head. This process had been a joint effort by her people, therefore the rewards of this trade must be for the community. And since she already had some honey of her own, she definitely could not justify taking any from the community’s share.

She figured she better start rationing her personal store...

Juosiutik was staring at the ground.

“I’m sorry.”

Belissar waved his hands about.

“No, um, it’s...not really ok but, um, no one got hurt so no harm done?”

Juosiutik didn’t move.

“I’m really sorry.”

Belissar shook his head.

“It’s, um, fine...since nothing else caught fire this time, at least...”

Juosiutik still didn’t budge.

“The chief keeps telling me I need to calm down. But I never learn. I absolutely should have expected that mana honey would resonate with fire radish. That should have been obvious. But no. I went and acted stupid. After lecturing you on the complexities and dangers of potion-making.”

Belissar heaved a sigh and shook his head. But, well, this seemed to be a thing for the girl and he didn’t know what else to say to her, so he figured he’d just let her recover on her own.

There had been a big commotion when the fire broke out, but fortunately it was contained within the pot. Still, if the flowers started catching fire the whole Flower Meadow may have burned quickly, so it was quite concerning. Belissar...may not have been so understanding if the Flower Meadow hives were threatened by such a mistake. And speaking of the bees, he again had to reassure them that Juosiutik was not intending to harm him...after which they began looking for shades, having associated him lighting fires with incoming purifications.

It got Belissar thinking. Fire had been his ally for now, but would that always be the case? A brush fire could race across an open field like the Flower Meadow with surprising speed, so even a small fire could quickly burn the whole thing down. In that regard, Belissar had been a bit careless with his fire pit plans and it had been extremely fortunate he had never tripped while carrying a torch.

It would be a good idea to think about digging a fire ditch or something, at least around the hives, the Memorial, and the Shrine of Bees. He or the bees might drop a torch, the bear people might do something with fire accidentally...or otherwise, or a shade might show up with black flames or something like that. It was a vulnerability he should prepare for...particularly since his Tower lacked water sources at the moment.

But all that thought also brought something else to mind. Belissar turned to Juosiutik.

“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have extras of that fire radish, would you?”

Juosiutik stopped mumbling to herself for a moment.

“Huh? Um, well, yes, but they’re kind of important. It’s hard to start fires underground, you know?”

Belissar tilted his head.

“But, um, aren’t you moving into the purified area? So, you aren’t living underground anymore?”

Juosiutik looked at him for a moment before tilting her own head.

“That’s, um, right?”

Belissar nodded.

“In that case, I'd like to trade for some.”

Juosiutik crossed her arms and nodded.

“Well...I’d need to check with the chief but...what did you have in mind?”

Belissar rubbed his chin.

“How about a tray of mana honey...wait where are you going?!”

Juosiutik ran from the Tower immediately, calling for the chief. Belissar shook his head. Well, it would be a good thing to get it done as soon as possible. If he had access to these fire radishes that would apparently burst into violent flames on contact with mana honey, then he wouldn’t need to start fires at all. He could just drop a few shavings into a pit trap and watch them light up. That would minimize the risk of accidentally burning the Flower Meadow down until he could get some safety measures in place.

There was just one problem.

Belissar crossed his arms as he looked at the pot and other materials still spread out.

“Um, should I just watch this stuff until she gets back?”

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