The Bee Dungeon

Belissar turned his attention to the karnuq hunter group, which was just beginning their descent into the tunnels below. The digging bee surprisingly couldn’t see that far beyond the lights the karnuq carried with them, making Belissar wonder how she would operate underground without such assistance. His question was answered, though, when the bee flew off of Metsaitti’s shoulder and landed on the ground. The moment she touched the ground, a small little pulse of mana shot out from her. Information on the surroundings came streaming back to her, and she could feel the vibrations of all the karnuq moving around her as well. It seemed the digging bees didn’t intend to rely on sight in the first place. After the pulse came back to her, she flew back to Metsaitti’s shoulder. She continued to land and send out pulses at regular intervals, building a steady map of the tunnel they were traversing.

But at that moment, something drew Belissar’s attention away from the hunting group.

New plant detected. Fire Mana Flower is now available.

Belissar’s vision blurred as he whipped his Tower sight around and quickly found the culprit. A new flower had bloomed in the middle of the flame radish node in the Apiary. It was like a mana flower but with a stalk that was a shifting shades of yellow, orange, and red, with bright red petals. The mana surrounding it was not a subtle, slowly pulsing glow like the mana flower or ground mana flower’s, but rather a flickering light that illuminated the flame radish flowers around it. The air around it grew slightly hazy.

Belissar’s eyes widened and then he grinned. He knew Cross-Pollination was working its magic, but this was the first time it produced a flower so different the Tower classified it as separate. And what a flower it was. Belissar could practically feel the heat emanating from it…until he realized that with his Tower senses he actually could feel it if he wanted to.

It felt like it was burning him so he decided to stick with vision alone.

In any case, it seemed like a flower that was practically on fire. And while he could sense the regular mana flowers and Ground mana flowers both held as much mana as this one…there was something impressive about it. The mana and Ground mana flowers, for all the power held within them, didn’t truly appear that different from regular flowers beyond the occasional glow. The Fire mana flower, on the other hand, was very clearly magical even to Belissar’s barely trained eyes.

He grinned as he opened up the menu…

Available Resource Plants for Apiary:

He pursed his lips as he immediately calmed down. Right, he had somewhat forgotten how expensive Ground Mana Flowers were when placed anywhere save the Dirt Tunnels. And well, he didn’t exactly have some sort of fire tunnels at the moment. So, if he wanted to make a Fire Mana Flower node, he’d have to shell out a lot of mana.

And right now he had a grand total of zero available…

Belissar froze, and then smacked his forehead. He had completely forgotten that Ground mana flowers were far cheaper when placed in a Dirt Tunnels room…and he currently had two Ground mana flower nodes in the first floor’s Flower Meadow and Orchard that he could now move to the new Dirt Tunnels on the first floor. He used his Tower voice to let the Flower Meadow and Orchard queens know he was about to move those patches, then he modified the Dirt Tunnels a bit, creating a room just below the Flower Meadow’s resource nodes. He then moved both Ground mana flower nodes there, and created another small, soldier bee-sized tunnel up to the Flower Meadow so the bees could access the room directly. For the Flower Meadow bees it would be practically the same as before, for the Orchard bees it was a slightly longer trip but still quite short. And as for the results of his efforts?

Mana: 30/575

Dropping both Ground mana flower nodes’ upkeep from twenty to five each freed up a lot of mana for him to work with. Enough that he could now afford a Fire mana flower node, even at the more expensive cost. So, the question now was should he spend his mana on that?

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He turned his sight back to the Fire mana flower…and frowned. A handful of worker bees were hovering around the flame radish patch…but weren’t moving any closer. Only the handful of burning monster bee workers that had grown so far were able to fly to the new flower, or even the flame radish flowers around it. If Belissar had to guess…the Fire mana flower was now raising the ambient temperature beyond what the normal bees could handle.

He let out a sigh. That settled it, then. If most of the bees couldn’t actually gather nectar from the new flower, then there was no point in spending the mana on an entire patch of them. He’d have to wait for the queens to raise more burning workers…or maybe even for a burning queen to evolve.

Besides, he had just recently come up with the idea of specializing the bees and the Apiary queens had already begun delivering honey to the Flower Meadow. His original instinct to provide one of every type of possible flower node to every single room where bees lived was perhaps a bit outdated. So, he decided this time he’d wait for some sort of fire queen to evolve, and then make just one Fire mana flower node for her. And who knew? Maybe he’d manage to get a new room type that would make the Fire mana flowers much cheaper.

Well, in any case, that meant he had another thirty mana to work with, or ten if he wanted to keep twenty in reserve for a Fire mana flower node. The question was…what to do with it?

…Belissar couldn’t think of much. Or rather, he would need new Bee Nests for the next two bumblebee queens but they wouldn’t spawn until tomorrow and the day after. He could also make more resource nodes for the karnuq if they needed any. Or he could add more Pit Traps and Sticky Honey Traps, maybe use them to reinforce the new palisade for the Bee Barracks?

Maybe he should see how his DP was doing and how long it would take him to be able to get something new…

Belissar froze. His eyes went as wide as they could go.

“…how did this happen?”

Because displayed before his eyes were numbers he did not expect to see.

DP: 3015

His jaw hung open. He…had enough DP to afford another choice from the DP shop?! Already?!

When he finally snapped out of his daze he realized something. He turned his gaze to the second floor. The karnuq were going about their day as usual. A group of four karnuq strolled through the Orchard, picking apples off the trees. As they returned to their camp, they stopped by the Shrine of Bees, dropping off some apples and speaking a few words.

Gained 16 DP.

Small messages like that had been constantly passing through his vision ever since the karnuq moved in. He had eventually started to tune them out. They were notably smaller than the DP gained from the hunting group or the original gathering group, so Belissar hadn’t considered them important. He had even thought that his DP income had dropped since the hunter had temporarily stopped fighting remnants.

Apparently, he was wrong. What he had not considered was that there were many more karnuq in his Tower than before. The gathering group and hunters ranged from single digits to low double digits. Now there was a camp of over a hundred. Since the karnuq just stopped by the Shrine of Bees individually as they went about their days, it wasn’t all at once like before. But if he added them all up…wouldn’t it be a lot more?

Apparently, yes. Yes, it was. Belissar could afford a new room, new monster, or new room feature right now.

Belissar considered what he should pick. Or well, he’d confer with Niobee, the queens, and Chief Rohsuak after today’s purification but he figured he should also think about it a bit on his own. As far as Belissar was concerned…a new room would probably be ideal, if only for the chance to get something fire related for the new flower.

But on the other hand, he had currently filled up his available room slots for all three floors, so any more would require either removing an existing room or expanding again. And he wasn’t certain he was ready for another expansion purification just yet. His Tower’s defenses hadn’t changed all that much since the last time…save for the addition of the karnuq, which to be fair was a pretty notable addition. But the bees were still the same as before, as the newest bee types hadn’t started appearing in significant numbers. The communers would help the bee army fight, but didn’t add much in in terms of direct fighting power, while the bumblebee queens were just starting to build their colonies. On those lines, maybe a new bee type would be a better choice? If he got another option like the monster bee bladers, he could then conduct an expansion with more confidence, which would give him more choices to boot.

Or…he could go with room features. They were perhaps less impressive but he could afford three of them, so there was a greater chance of getting something useful. On the one hand, it seemed like Pit Traps were less and less useful as new shades appeared that could avoid them. But on the other hand, Pit Traps had proven very useful considering they were a mere common option that cost only a single point of mana to upkeep. What would an uncommon or rare trap be capable of? Additionally, room features accounted for the basic resource nodes, which were perhaps the most important part of his dungeon. It was what allowed the bees to grow and the karnuq to move in. Maybe there would be more than just basic resource plants out there that could really help his Tower grow with the bees it already had?

Belissar continued to ponder it as he went about his day…

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