The Bee Dungeon

The Second of the Sixth buzzed her wings as her workers reported to her. She stood in the midst of her Bee Apartment, filled to the brim not with yellow but bluish green as medicinal workers filled medicinal honeycombs with medicinal honey. One wall, however, had turned yellow with bits of color here and there as it displayed the interior of Beero’s growing Memorial Hive. Her workers flew in from the other hive to report now the status of their charges.

Yet another display of the King’s might, and his love for all bees. After her transformation, the Second of the Sixth had the opportunity to watch the King firsthand. She watched him build palaces for brand new bees by his own hands. She herself had been showered in flowers and shelters galore. And when battles came and bees were injured, she found him right there at her side. Her new instincts informed her how to care for and heal bees. The King had done so with no instincts or transformations at all.

It had been seeing the King watching with concern as she tended to the wounded, and then participating in the healing himself, that taught the Second of the Sixth the King’s true character. And that was why she had accepted the First of the Fifth’s own transformation, one of perspective rather than chitin. She realized the First of the Fifth must have also deciphered the nature of the King and thus pivoted herself to follow suit.

The Second of the Sixth could only be grateful to her. Because now, thanks to her transformation via a flower offered to her freely, the Second of the Sixth could truly match the heart of the King. Every aspect of her hive, from their inborn instincts to the designs of their bodies to the honey and wax they produced, was geared towards taking care of bees. For a while, the Second of the Sixth had basked in contentment, knowing she had found a place within the hive of hives that the King would value greatly. She was the one who could assuage his fears and grief when the soldier bees fulfilled their duty.

But no longer.

The Second of the Sixth relaxed, letting her proboscis unwind and her antennae droop. The workers reported back positively, the wounded bees were predicted to make full recoveries shortly. Sans those who had lost wings or limbs, but those had already been gathered to the hive of the fallen and were training in Beero’s methods even now.

Which meant the risk the Second of the Sixth had taken wouldn’t come back to sting her after all. She dismissed the workers back to their duties before taking off and flying to a newly built section of her hive. There, new children were just crawling out of their cells.

Children as large as herself.

This latest battle had both shaken and enlightened the Second of the Sixth. Shaken, for her hive had proven inadequate to their task for the first time since her transformation. The sheer numbers of wounded, plus the size of the bumblebees, lancers, and the karnuq, had stretched her hive to its limit. To her shame, the King himself had been forced to intercede personally and injured himself in the process. No bee, whether the Firstborn when a shade bypassed her army, the First of the Fifth when she had completely misread the King, or even the fallen First Dynasty of the First Spawner that had perished to a bee, had allowed the King to be injured by their failures. She would never forget that she had been the first.

Enlightening, though, for the karnuq had shown her a way forward. Their sheer size meant that the medicines they prepared were equally great in quantity. Additionally, she watched as the karnuq warriors evacuated their wounded mid-battle, pulling them away from the fight so that they could be tended immediately.

And so, the Second of the Sixth had begun to raise soldiers. The first of the medicinal soldiers crawled out of her cell, as bluish green as the rest of her hive. Her stinger was a needle like thing resembling the hair on a bumblebee’s back. It was as long as the stingers of the regular soldiers, yet no thicker than the stingers of her medicinal workers, and so could be applied to any bee of any size despite its growth. Beyond that, she appeared as a regular soldier, with the tough chitin, powerful wings, and solid limbs of a bee intended to fly into danger. She had not thought soldier bees had any particular value to her hive’s mission, but she had since been dissuaded of that notion.

With this, the Second of the Sixth had bees that could tend to larger allies far more efficiently than the swarm of workers previously required. Additionally, the soldiers’ greater strength meant they would be able to pick up wounded bees and carry them to safety, while their greater size and protection would allow them to do so even as a battle raged. She could tend to wounded bees right away, before their wounds grew critical, and handle the casualties as they came to stagger the work for her hive.

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Additionally, one of the soldiers crawled out of her cell with no stinger at all, having been raised as a sprayer. The Second of the Sixth had realized how complacent she had been, and so had resolved to leave no flower un-foraged. She thought that soldiers, who couldn’t produce honey and were intended for fighting, had no place in a hive of healing, yet it was the lack of soldiers that spread her hive thin and led the King to injury. In fact, no queen had raised any medicinal bees besides workers, as they had valued the medicinal workers’ ability to tend the brood above all for the limited medicinal honey they had available.

The Second of the Sixth was not so limited in her medicinal honey stockpiles, and as the medicinal queen she felt it was her duty to push the limits of what medicinal bees could do. So, now, she would correct her mistake and raise medicinal bees of every type that she could. Soldier bees to carry the wounded. Gardener bees and the new honeypots to boost their honey production. Communers to coordinate her hives’ efforts.

And, yes, sprayers and lancers that she wasn’t sure would even help. And, once the wounded were healed and her stockpiles recovered, perhaps she would even try to train a battlecaster. Her hive had direct contact with Beero’s now, and she had seen what the King’s magic had achieved, so it should be possible.

Above all, though, the Second of the Sixth resolved that she would pursue absolutely every avenue she could, expend every effort she could. She would never again rest on her laurels until she had found the very limit of what a medicinal hive could do. She would never again let any wounded bee fall into danger by inaction.

And she would never again let the King come to harm.

Meanwhile, another queen prepared to send her bees into harm. The Fourth of the Seventh danced around her mini-hive in the Beyond, a communer by her side. Not her first communer, who was currently helping Beero organize her new hive, but that was fine! All of the Fourth of the Seventh’s communers were great!

The communer was currently dancing.

“Scouts ready?”

The Fourth of the Seventh watched through the communer link as her scouts out in the Beyond danced their salutes, scattered around their target.

“Soldiers ready?”

A squad of soldiers gathered together and saluted, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

The communer turned to the Fourth of the Seventh.

“Queen, ok to start?”

The Fourth of the Seventh nearly took off as she quickly danced her reply.

“Yes! Start!”

The communer relayed the command and her bees in the Beyond began flying to their target. With the latest expansion, the borders of the Hunger had been pushed back and no longer came up to that ruined stone hive. There was no longer any reason why the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive could not scout the ruins. So, today, they were sending in the scouts to see if they could find anything useful…and to see if the ruins were safe. The soldiers were on standby in case they weren’t.

The Fourth of the Seventh continued dancing about as she watched through her scouts’ eyes. They approached the ruins from every direction and angle, antennae twitching as they tried to pick up any scents or mana. Indeed, the ambient mana density rose as they approached and entered the old hive. Nowhere near the King’s realm, of course, but higher than they had found in the Beyond thus far.

The workers followed the mana where it concentrated on the walls of the ruined hive. It seemed to have been arranged in patterns of some sort, though wear and tear had long broken them down. They did, however, remind the Fourth of the Seventh of that pattern the King asked her to find after the battle with the King-shaped enemies. The Fourth of the Seventh stopped dancing for a moment.

“Tell them to be careful, might be enemies.”

If there were enemies, the Fourth of the Seventh was going to find them and report to the King as quickly as she could. She would find any more patterns before they could do anything this time. She would not let them attack her home again.

But her resolve was unnecessary, for her scouts found no living things within the ruined hives. They had a scare when they found a King-shaped thing, but on closer inspection it wasn’t moving and was made of rusted metal instead of living flesh, so they recalled the soldier team. Other than that, they found various curiosities. Pieces of wood arranged like the one in the King’s home where he seemed to rest and eat. Weirdly built hive trays made of wood that held thin animal skins and wood. They had weird patterns on them but none of them held mana so the Fourth of the Seventh left them, for now. A room with some shiny rocks, another room with patterns all over the ground and walls and the faint hum of mana. Nothing particularly noteworthy. They thought they found some flowers, but it turned out to be some twisted stems like the ones the King wore that were stained in a way that looked like flowers.

“Queen, found something!”

The Fourth of the Seventh raced her attention to the worker indicated by the communer. The worker had found a room attached to a small courtyard. The room was filled with dried plants, while new plants grew in the courtyard beyond. The worker had even detected mana in a few of them.

At first, she was worried it was more stained stems, but the worker started visiting the flowers and confirmed they were alive. The Fourth of the Seventh couldn’t help but break out into a happy dance. She knew scouting these ruins had mostly been to indulge her own curiosity, but they had found something that would help the hive of hives after all.

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