The Bee Dungeon

Belissar had the bear folk put the wood near the Flower Meadow queens. He then went and got some trays of mana honey to give in exchange. Chief Rohsuak wanted to refuse but Belissar convinced her to take enough to share with the laborers. After that, he and the soldier bees escorted them back out of the Tower, and then he finally made his way to the end of the Flower Meadow where the wood pile now waited.

Well, it took a bit longer than Belissar hoped, but the bear people and their awkward conversations were finally gone. And that meant, he could get started on his projects! He had a nice stockpile of fully dry wood now, so he could make a higher quality home than he had first expected.

But first things came first, he wanted to dig a ditch around the hives, the Shrine of Bees, and the Memorial to ensure they wouldn’t be at risk if the Flower Meadow ever caught on fire. He would also dig another, circular ditch nearby to create a safe place to plant some flame radishes. He didn’t know if they would be as flammable as their roots were but he figured it would be best not to take the chance.

He then, of course, realized that he should have asked if the bear people had any shovels or digging tools. They came from an underground tunnel, so they had to, right? That would be a lot easier than trying to dig by hand, or with the knives, saw, and axe he had available…

But at the same time, Belissar didn’t want to go run off after them immediately after they had left. Plus…he was just calming down from the first conversation.

Ultimately, Belissar decided he would leave that until tomorrow and see what he could do with what he had now. He also figured he should see if the Tower had anything he could use to help with the process.

And it turned out it did, now that he managed to remember it. He could clear small areas of the Flower Meadow and the Apiary of flowers, which was how he prepared the campfire sites in the first place. And if he thought about it, the flame radishes didn’t specifically need a ditch in the ground, they just needed an area clear of anything flammable. So, Belissar went ahead and set a small area near the other Flower Meadow resource patches where flowers wouldn’t go.

It was one thing to watch the Tower magically grow plants, but it disturbed Belissar slightly to watch them now disappear, receding back as if they were growing in reverse. But he shook his head and continued on with his task.

Available Resource Plants for Flower Meadow:

- Basic Poisonous Flowers (Mana Upkeep: 3 per node)

- Basic Textile Flowers (Mana Upkeep: 3 per node)

- Mana Flower (Mana Upkeep: 5 per node)

- Flame Radish (Mana Upkeep: 10 per node)

Belissar paused at that. That was...quite expensive. The most expensive resource plant to date. The same price as a monster bee queen spawner after the Blessing of Bees discount. The full amount of extra mana he could gain from a minor purification. More expensive than the actual room.

But then he shrugged and selected it anyways. He had the extra mana to afford it, the flame roots would be useful, and new flowers could mean new honeys, new bees, or even new plants depending on if it worked with Cross-Pollination. He was curious as to why it was more expensive than the mana flower, given what Juosiutik told him about their relative value, but he didn’t know enough to guess so he moved on.

A short, ground-level plant popped out of the ground. Four-petaled flowers grew out of it that transitioned from white at their center to bright red at the edges, with a yellowish-orange center. Belissar slowly and carefully approached the new plant. He could feel a slight amount of heat radiating off of it, just enough to warm the area slightly. He narrowed his eyes as he watched the plant, feeling the mana of the Tower flowing through it.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

But ultimately neither the new plants nor the area around it caught fire, even with the Tower’s mana flowing all around it. It seemed like it would be fine...

Belissar took a deep breath and then turned to the bees that were starting to investigate.

“Um, be careful with this one. It might catch fire, especially if it touches mana honey or has mana pass through it. It, um, might also be dangerous to drink. Juosiutik said humans...or bear people can’t eat it, I’m not sure if that applies to bees too.”

The worker bees danced salutes and began to dance to pass his message to their newly arriving sisters. Some of them began to fly back to relay the message to their hives. Belissar took another deep breath.

Well, he didn’t know how these plants would interact with his bees, but he figured they would know best. They could drink nectar from the poisonous flowers without any problem, so maybe it would be the same here? He couldn’t help but worry, but he trusted the bees to know flowers better than he.

“Niobee will check!”

It turned out there was a bee particularly sensitive to his worries who flew straight towards the flower.

“Hey, wait...”

But Niobee moved faster than him and hovered over one of the flowers. She extended her probiscis and drank some nectar from it. Belissar frowned...but he remembered that Niobee could apparently return from death so if any bee was going to test the possibly flammable flowers she was the best. Even though Belissar absolutely did NOT want to see her get hurt.

And so he paced and sweated as Niobee drank. He gulped as she slowly flew back over.

“Well...are you ok?”

Niobee started dancing slowly.

“Nectar is hot...but ok! Not hurt!”

Belissar released his breath as the worker bees slowly began to approach the new flowers. He watched them as they, too, landed on the flowers and began to drink nectar. Each of them paused as they first tasted the nectar, but then they continued on with no apparently ill effect. When the first round of workers took off and flew back towards their hives, Belissar finally tore his eyes away and started to move. By all accounts, it seemed safe, and at this point was out of his hands. So, he decided to prepare another of these flowers for the Apiary as well...

The First of the Fifth could not help but dance as she heard the reports. The King had prepared an entirely new type of flower specifically for her and had even gone out of his way to advise her workers on its unique properties!

She knew now she was on the right path. The implementation of the King’s new gathering method was going...slowly. Or more specifically, the implementation had occurred immediately, but had not produced any results as of yet. As she had predicted, the blending of different nectar sources was not improving the quality of the honey and was making quality control more difficult, she could not as of yet see an advantage of her prior methods.

Regardless, she would never question the wisdom of the King, so she had decided to be patient. The King himself had informed her of this method so there had to be a reason behind it. And the King was larger, grander, and more than any bee, so she knew it was possible he was looking at a timeframe beyond what she did.

Still, it was encouraging to receive such a boon from the King in the meantime, a clear sign that he was still pleased with her. It gave her confidence that she was not wrong in her implementation of his will, even if it had not produced results as of yet. It also gave confirmation that she was correct to choose this aspect to focus on and let her daughter handle the new room and its new plants.

Speaking of which, she wondered how her daughter was doing. Now that she thought of it, she had not checked in with her in a while. It had taken most of her focus preparing the surplus healing honey for the latest battle. She did still plan to check on her daughter but she heard the Fourth of the Seventh was assisting and so focused her efforts on her task. And now her daughter had moved away and they had not had contact. Since the Fourth of the Seventh was presumably still setting up her own hive after the move, her workers were not yet revisiting the Apiary, so all news outside of the Apiary was slow in coming these days.

But that was fine. The First of the Fifth assumed her daughter would alert her if there were any crises that needed to be addressed, so she assumed no news was good news. The Fourth of the Seventh would surely reestablish contact in time, and alert her if there was anything she needed to know. And beyond that...well, the First of the Fifth was not concerned with any of the bees further than the Fourth of the Seventh, those who had put the King himself in danger. It was only natural that they had been moved further from his abode, so the First of the Fifth would follow suit and have nothing to do with them.

So, no, there was nothing going on out there that she needed to concern herself with. She would wait patiently for the Fourth of the Seventh to inform her about her daughter’s progress and focus on her task. She knew that the new gathering method would surely pay off in time, and now she had a new flower to focus on, new resources with which to propel herself further and further. Surely all was going her way...

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