The Bee Dungeon

The Fourth of the Seventh paused. She was currently in the mini-hive beyond the King’s realm, preparing to set out, but something shifted in the back of her mind. There, in the link to the children back in her main hive, she felt a new presence.

“Fourth of the Seventh?! Can hear?!”

A huge chunk of mana reached her, twisted into a dance by the communer that sent it. The Fourth of the Seventh’s antennae twitched and then she began to dance, the communer beside her converting the dance into mana to send back.

“First of the Fifth’s First Daughter?”

“Yes! It worked! Joined Fourth of the Seventh’s hive’s mana thanks to drone! All thanks to Fourth of Seventh! Amazing, incredible!”

The Fourth of the Seventh began a happy dance. She wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but it seemed the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter was happy, so that was reason enough to celebrate. And it sounded like the drone she rescued did something too? She was happy he found something to do then!

And when she looked more closely, she found she could now see through the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s eyes, just like with her own workers! She could see her first communer glowing and passing along the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s mana. The drone was there too, taking mana from both hives’ workers and twisting it together. She sent her mana to them all.

“Amazing! Incredible! Great work!”

She then turned back to focus on her present surroundings. Her workers and soldiers were formed up outside. One flew in and danced a salute to her, the signal that all was clear. With that, the Fourth of the Seventh crawled out of the mini-hive, started beating her wings, and took off into the air. For today, she was joining the scouting party.

The Fourth of the Seventh initially planned to rely on her communers to watch the scouts, but with all the efforts her hive and the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter had made to let her come here, she and her scouts decided that she would join the sweep in person. The scouts had done a preliminary sweep to ensure the area was safe and then set a perimeter to keep it that way, and so now it was time for her to move. Her soldiers took up their formation around her, ready to respond to any threats, another group of scouts made a smaller perimeter around her in case the outer scouts missed anything, and a group of tenders flew next to her and monitored her own condition.

As for the queen herself?

She flew about at random, letting herself drift to anything that drew her attention. She found a particularly conspicuous pile of rocks on the ground. Conspicuous because they featured the same angular edges and uniform size of the rocks that she had built the mini-hive in, in a way that vaguely reminded her of the King’s own constructions. Also, the rocks were connected right to the fallen structure and extended out flat along the ground, in a line extending off into the forest.

If she had to guess…this was a guide to the fallen rock hive. If whoever built that hive were like the karnuq, then they wouldn’t have had wings or the ability to fly. It was hard to imagine lacking such a fundamental skill, how would they get anywhere? How would they orient themselves within the landscape? How would they spot flowers from a distance? So…she guessed that maybe this flat pile of rocks was to help them find their hive even if they couldn’t see the landscape from above.

Which, of course, made her wonder where exactly it headed. Maybe to a major flower patch to forage from? She couldn’t wait to find out!

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And so, the Fourth of the Seventh led her party along the flat rock pile. They flew at a leisurely pace, drifting on and off the path as they went. She landed on flowers she had never seen before and drunk from their nectar directly, making note of their locations for the return trip. Before this trip, she and her soldiers had weaved some new stem ropes, but that grew wider in the middle. A basic sling, like she had seen some of the karnuq use, that would wrap around a soldier bee and hand below its torso. She had seen the karnuq give flowers to the King and that made the King happy, so she figured they’d try to bring back anything interesting they found on their way home.

But first, she’d fly as far as she could and see all that she could see. Everything, from the air to the dirt to the plants themselves, was of a different quality than those made by the King. None of them had the warmth and abundance of mana that his realm offered, yet all of them were different, even from each other. There was a diversity of different plants here that the Fourth of the Seventh had never seen before, from towering trees with thin needles for leaves, to squat bushes that still towered above flowers, to vines that wrapped around other plants. And she took it all in with her own eyes, felt the cool breeze across her own chitin, smelt the scents of sap and nectar with her own antennae. She’d have burst into a happy dance if she weren’t flying forward at the moment.

Soon, the Fourth of the Seventh noticed that the forest was beginning to thin out. A short while later, they arrived at a clearing. The Fourth of the Seventh landed and tree branch and paused.

At the edge of the clearing they could see the dark and writhing mass of the intruders, what the King and the karnuq referred to as the Hunger. It appeared they had reached the edge of the Beyond, at least until the King took the fight to the Hunger once more. Her workers and soldiers grew agitated, fidgeting about. One of the scouts landed before her.

“Queen, should turn back. Not safe.”

But the Fourth of the Seventh hesitated. For there, in the middle of the clearing between her and the Hunger, was another hive of rock and stone. And this one…this one was far larger than the one she built her mini-hive in. It was even larger than the King’s Tower if she wasn’t mistaken. It had a crumbling wall surrounding its exterior, with not just one but several crumbling towers like the one she had built her mini-hive in placed along the edges. Behind that was the remains of yet a second wall, with additional towers of its own. And in the center of it all, she could see the remains of an even larger structure peeking up over the walls.

“Want to scout that.”

The worker danced the negative.

“Not safe. Too close to enemy. And…is just rock? Not important?”

The Fourth of the Seventh paused to think for a moment. The worker was right on most counts. It was most assuredly not safe moving that close to the Hunger. And it was, after all, just a pile of rocks. If whoever built the rock hive wasn’t around anymore, then just an empty one.

And yet, she couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of being built such a hive. Were they like the karnuq? Maybe like the King, though how a being on par with the King could have lost a hive like this she couldn’t fathom.

“Can wait. King will push back Hunger eventually.”

But the worker was still correct. She was a queen, and her hive was already making great compromises allowing her out this far. She would not risk herself or them by flying into the jaws of the Hunger. One day, the King’s power would push the Hunger even further and then she’d be able to scout the rock hive to her heart’s content. Today it would be a flight too far.

So, she turned around.

“Let’s go back, get flowers for King!”

Thanks to the communer, she could see her workers and soldiers conduct a small relief dance, even though her back was turned. She buzzed her wings. Did they really think she would just fly right into danger like that? She only…slightly thought about it!

As she left, the scouts made a note of the rock hive’s location. They had noted it as a landmark, but previously hadn’t considered investigating it in full. After all, the field and forest around it were far more likely to hold ideal foraging spots. But the queen had marked it as a feature of importance. Her scouts, therefore, decided to pay a bit more attention to it, as well as to keep their eyes out for anything like it.

And indeed, while the writing of the Hunger occupied most of their attention at this distance, one scouted noted a faint hum of mana on the air, something other than the Hunger in the distance…

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