The Bee Dungeon

Belissar went ahead and made his next choice, selecting the monster option.

Please select a monster:

- Monster Bee Burster (Rarity: Uncommon, Type: Bee)

- Monster Bee Lancer (Rarity: Uncommon, Type: Bee)

- Monster Digger Bee (Rarity: Common, Type: Bee, Ground)

Belissar glared at the choices for a bit. Sure, now the choice offered monster digger bees again. Long after he wanted Dirt Tunnels and scouts for the underway. After so long that he had acquired Ground mana flowers thanks to Noiggakuq and then subsequently evolved his own digging bees. Heck, even the previous mason bees might have been a better choice at this point, given his new stone-working needs. He didn’t know if mason bees could actually work with stone, but he’d imagine they had a better shot of it than digger bees!

And it wasn’t even the only repeat option! Monster bee bursters made their return. But Belissar was no more inclined to them than he had been the first time. His Tower may have needed more power but Belissar still wasn’t going to blow up his own bees unless he was certain the Tower would fall without doing so.

That left the one new choice, monster bee lancers. Belissar read out the description for good measure.

Monster Bee Lancer

Strength: Small

Speed: Average+

Magic: Minimal

Defense: Minor

Resistance: Minimal

Special: Minimal

Notable Skills: Poison Thrust, Death Blow, Brood Offspring

Evolves From: Monster Bee Soldier

Description: A monster bee soldier evolution. This bee focuses its growth into a large and powerful stinger that can impale foes as well as poisoning them. It is optimized for high-speed dives to take maximum advantage of this, though note that the stinger is unwieldy up close and the lancer lacks agility relative to its top speed.

Belissar hummed and nodded. The monster bee lancer was about the size of a small dog like the monster bee blader, though the lancer was shorter, thinner, and longer than the blader. It was sleek, smooth, and carried a massive stinger that ended in a sharp point.

Well, sometimes the choice was very easy. It was the lancer, a bee that was only born to die, or a bee that he already had a substitute for. But just in case, he turned to the queens before making the decision.

“What does everyone think?”

The Second First of the First was fidgeting, along with the rest of the Flower Meadow queens. Belissar chuckled as she attempted to keep her dance at an even pace.

“…new soldier?”

Belissar nodded and glanced at the First of the Fifth.

“Whatever King chooses! Already have digging bees, though.”

Belissar looked around but the Fourth of the Seventh and the other queens all just said “Whatever King chooses!” So, Belissar shrugged and confirmed the choice he had already made.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Monster Bee Lancer now available! Monster Bee Soldiers may now evolve into Monster Bee Lancers!

As this one was an evolution option, Belissar declined to make a spawner for them. He’d rather the Flower Meadow queens add them to the army at their own pace, though he’d consider it if there was another emergency purification before then.

Instead, he went ahead and added two Gravilion nodes to the Tower. One he added to the Apiary, so that the queens there could test out its nectar for any special properties. The other he added to the Flower Meadow, near the entrance. It was listed as a trap, after all, so Belissar also wanted to see what it would add to the defense.

With the options finished, Belissar decided to get to work on the two gods’ missions and left to ask the karnuq if they knew anything about masonry…

The queens and the Conduit remained after the King had left. Silence hung over them like a curtain of dark clouds that would keep the hive from foraging. Most of the bees kept glancing to the Firstborn, but she remained still save for the twitching of her antennae.

The First of the Fifth could guess what she was thinking. The Firstborn’s one goal, her one duty in the hive of hives, was to defeat the invaders and keep them safe. She had failed at that today, and it took the intervention of one of the former outsiders to bring the invader down. So how could she speak confidently now? How could she tell the others what to do if her decisions up till now had not prepared them for the fight?

Once upon a time, the First of the Fifth would have been ecstatic that her great rival had failed where she had succeeded, since it had been her honey that helped the karnuq deal the fatal blow. But now…now she knew that the King would not be pleased with such things. And…she had her own such failures in the past, failures that were completely of her own making.

So, the First of the Fifth decided to speak.

“Will need honey, right? Will provide.”

The Firstborn stopped twitching and turned to face her. The First of the Fifth decided to press on.

“Please show hive. Need to know how much you need for current soldiers. Will give enough for new evolutions too.”

The Firstborn stared at her for a moment before stumbling and then starting to dance.

“Right. Thanks, First of the Fifth is lifesaver. Come, will show you.”

“Oh! Want to see too!”

The Firstborn then led the First of the Fifth to the Bee Barracks, with the Fourth of the Seventh happily following along. The rest of the queens, unsure of what else to do, followed suit.

The First of the Fifth had to stop herself from pausing when she flew inside the Bee Barracks. She had been aware that the Flower Meadow queens had formed some sort of joint hive just like her daughter had with the Fourth of the Seventh, but to see it with her own eyes was another matter. There were no divisions within the Bee Barracks, just endless rows of trays with countless workers flying in and out. If she were not considering the mana of the workers, she would not have been able to tell where one hive ended and the next began. Even then, the mana of different hives jumbled together and had begun to blend, making the boundaries blurry. She even noted workers from one hive clearly carrying honey to a different hive’s section.

She paused again when she saw a particularly large bee crawling out towards them.

“A queen? Why wasn’t at meeting with King?”

The Firstborn answered.

“Is my daughter. Was growing, just finished.”

The First of the Fifth fell still once again. The Firstborn’s daughter, huh? That was no surprise. What was a surprise?

The Firstborn’s daughter was clearly in the middle of the Firstborn’s hive section. The First of the Fifth hadn’t noticed with all the different mana jumbling together but on closer inspection she realized the Firstborn’s section included workers from her daughter as well.

That…gave the First of the Fifth a lot to think about. She had several new flowers and mushrooms she needed to test. She needed to make regular deliveries of honey to the Flower Meadow, more now so that they could evolve the new bee type the King had granted them. And she wanted to investigate exactly what the dangerous karnuq had been doing with honey and if it had any implications for her own production. All of that required more and more workers and more and more attention. So, perhaps it was time to consider scaling up her operations in ways she had not yet considered. Ways the Firstborn, the Fourth of the Seventh, and her own daughter had already implemented.

That would have to wait, however, as the First of the Fifth turned attention to the task at hand. First of all…the Firstborn’s honey production line was atrocious. Workers were flying in all willy-nilly and dropping off the nectar at the first free cells they could find. Trays held nectar from all different sources together, requiring the workers to go through them one by one to ensure each had sufficient mana density. Those cells then would dry at different rates, leading to wildly inconsistent quality and viscosity as the workers processed them as if they were all the same.

She had known the Firstborn wasn’t as efficient at honey production as herself, but she hadn’t expected…this. She slowly turned to face the Firstborn.

“…have some suggestions on honey production. Want to know?”

The Firstborn, who apparently saw nothing wrong here, replied happily.

“Ah, yes. Would help a lot!”

The First of the Fifth gathered herself.

And then launched into a rapid dance, beating her wings as fast and hard as they would go as she pointed out every single mistake she saw in the mere minute since she had arrived. She didn’t recall all the details of her dance but by the end of it the Firstborn was lying flat on the ground with her antennae drooping, while the other Flower Meadow queens were trying to avoid notice.

And so, the hive of hives began to…tighten its cooperation.

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