The Bee Dungeon

The wounded soldier stood at the entrance to the Memorial Beehouse. She danced a salute as a squad of workers from her queen arrived, carrying with them precious honey. The wounded soldier then danced directions and the workers dispersed. Other wounded soldiers stood at various points around the Memorial. Some crawled on or around the Beehouse, ensuring it was clear of debris and rot. Others kept watch on top of the pillars. The wounded soldier kept track of them and directed the workers to her injured comrades, ensuring each of them ate their fill before she, too, partook in the gift from her queen. Some of them had been reticent to use their hive’s resources as soldiers who could no longer fly with the army, as she had once been. So, she had simply refused to eat until they did. They were still reluctant but, given the King’s interest in her and her contributions to the latest battle, none of them were willing to threaten her health by sacrificing their own. They had all settled into an uneasy compromise, where they allowed the workers to instruct them how much they would eat.

The workers fed them more than any of them were comfortable with, but that was the price they paid for arguing.

And now, with that task dealt with, the wounded soldier turned to her own personal quest. When she had first received a pair of lightning wings in place of her missing half, she had been ecstatic. She danced and she danced as she thought that now, finally, she could return to her comrades in the skies. She could once again join the fight to defend the hive from the very start, not only in desperate final stands.

Unfortunately, reality was not so kind.

The lightning may have taken the shape of wings, but it did not perform their function. She could move them like her old wings but they did not move the air around her. They did not generate lift and they could not bear her weight. She was still trapped on the ground.

Her disappointment had been immeasurable.

But she was a bee and it would take more than a bit of crushing despair to keep her from whatever work she could perform. She continued to experiment with the lightning wings and the lightning itself, which continued to flow through her body. And soon, she came up with another idea. Something else she could do with these wings that might allow her to further contribute to the hive.

She recalled what the King had done to save her life, how he had moved the mana beyond his body. As a monster bee, she already had an instinctual ability to manipulate her mana. She could concentrate it in her wings for a burst of speed, in her chitin for improved resilience, or most commonly in her stinger for greater damage. But all of these uses had ultimately been within her own body, she had never manipulated the mana outside of herself as the King had.

Until now, that was. Now, her mana was automatically flowing outside of her body in a way. It was generating the lightning that now took the place of her missing wings. Now, that mana had not truly left her body in a sense. It was trying to take the place of a missing part, it remained connected to the flows of mana within the rest of her body and it acted, for all intents and purposes, as if it were within the missing part. And yet...it was, in fact, outside of her body, yet still under her control.

She thought that maybe, just maybe, she might be able to do something with that. She would never presume that she might match the wisdom and power of the King, but to follow his example was only natural. She remembered, very viscerally, what the enemy had done with the power of lightning. If she could replicate even a small fraction of that with the lightning coursing through her, then perhaps she would not need to fly to rejoin the fight.

She tried once again to take control of the lightning. The lightning in the wing resisted her, holding to its shape even more strongly than the mana in the rest of her body so she tried with the lightning inside her body instead. Like with her mana before her injury, she had some ability to move and concentrate it on different parts. And yet, it largely refused to leave her body. She could eject it through her stinger, but that simply infused her venom with the mana. It was not the external manipulation the King had displayed.

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But with the other wounded soldiers now helping her maintain the Memorial, she now had time aplenty. So she tried. And she tried. She tried and tried again and again. She tried all sorts of different ways to manipulate the mana and the lightning. She could already move the lightning wing as easily as her original wing so she knew there HAD to be a way to do this!

And eventually, her persistence paid off.

She thought back to when she had to take control of the shade’s lightning in her body and used that as a basis. She rubbed her legs and wings and hairs together to generate tiny lightnings, and then reached out with her mana and her lightning wings to try and exert some control over them. She found with the lightning wings it was far, far easier to generate them than before, she could even do just by adjusting the amount of mana flowing through the wings. Soon, she was able to make tiny lightnings appear and dance between her normal wings and her lightning wings at will.

But this was still just the normal movement of the lightnings, so she went further. She tried to pass mana into the generated lightnings and retain control of them. This ended up being fairly easy to do, as she could have her mana hitch a ride with the lightnings. With the lightning wings she already had a circuit of mana and lightnings flowing through her body, and eventually she was able to join the mana leaving one wing to the other. She successfully formed a new flow of her body’s mana that, if briefly, moved outside of her.

And then came the hard part. She tried to actually adjust this flow consciously. As of now, it was just another automatic flow, a part of her body that was not part of her body. If she wanted to do anything more than light up a dark room with it, she needed it to do more. And today, she made another attempt to do just that.

She could redirect the mana when it first left her body but that simply caused it to sputter out in another direction, unable to complete the path. So, she tried another angle. She tried manipulating the lightning wings while the flow was in process. She slowly moved the crackling wings, also adjusting the mana within them. And the flow of mana and lightning between her wings stretched out, ever so slightly changing its path to reach its new destination.

She repeated the process, paying extra attention to the movement of her mana as it traveled along the adjusted path. Then she repeated it again, and again, and again. Finally, she gave it a try herself. She returned her lightning wings and the mana flowing through them to their original position, but tried to make the mana flow along the adjusted path herself.

She tried...and failed. So, she tried again, and failed again. Over and over she tried. Over and over she failed. But she kept at it. And if there was one thing she had too much of these days, it was time.

So, eventually, she succeeded. The flow of mana elongated and curved ever so slightly. She had manipulated a flow of mana outside of her body.

She couldn’t believe it at first so she tried again...and succeeded again. She did it a third time. And then a fourth. She started to push a bit, make the curve a bit more apparent so she could be really sure she was actually changing it. And it moved according to her will.

She paused for a moment, and then burst out dancing, drawing the attention of the other wounded soldiers around her.

She had done it. She had taken a step. A tiny step, to be sure, but a step. She knew now that it was possible. That if she kept at it, she could actually succeed at this. She could actually do something with this lightning.

She could be of greater use to the hive than she presently was. She could justify at least some of the attention the King had lavished upon her.

Perhaps, one day, she could even rejoin the fight.

She doubled her efforts. Now that she had determined a way to manipulate the mana, her progress accelerated. She pushed to see how far she could elongate and curve the flow, moving it a bit further with each attempt. Soon, she made it complete a full loop before flowing back into her wings. And that meant...she could begin forming shapes with it, like the King had. ȓἈɴọ𐌱ĘŜ

It would take time, but she had plenty of that and would spare none of it. For now, rejoining her sisters in battle was no longer just a dream. And her wounded comrades around her watched her with great interest...

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