The Bee Dungeon

The Daughter of the First of the Fifth laid the last egg her current mana would permit. She gave her workers some space to tend to the new egg. Now that she needed to wait for her mana to return, she took a moment to observe her hive. Or rather, their hive.

As the Fourth of the Seventh’s workers offered to assist her with building her hive in the first place, she had worked up her courage and proposed to build one joint hive. Since they were working together anyways, it didn’t make sense to do the same job twice, she thought. And, on a more selfish note, she thought that if their hives were joined together she would have more opportunities to repay the Fourth of the Seventh for all she had done.

She recalled trembling as she had approached the Fourth of the Seventh with her unthinkable idea. What queen would share a hive with a bee other than her children? There were bees that did that…the cuckoo bees. The evil scourges that refused to produce anything of value and stole the work of others. She had prepared a full dance routine to explain her reasoning, and how her intentions were purely to improve the efficiency of both their hives. How she would never, under any circumstances, even think of exploiting the Fourth of the Seventh’s efforts, and how she fully intended to contribute back in excess of what she had received.

But, when she first asked the question, the Fourth of the Seventh cut her off and said…

“Ok!”

And now they were working together. She and her mighty savior. In a grove filled with mana flowers and protected by vast chasms, built specifically for them by the King himself. A clear sign of his favor, one that would surely please her mother greatly once she was ready to report on their progress. And that the Daughter admitted made her feel quite happy in and of itself.

She watched as her workers returned with nectar brimming with mana…including workers from the generation she feared she would lose. Instead, they were now the most numerous and energetic of her laborers yet.

And it was all thanks to the Fourth of the Seventh.

Speaking of which, one of the Fourth of the Seventh’s workers now approached her. The one who had approached her from the start and coordinated their hives efforts. The Daughter and the worker greeted one another. And then…the worker paused. She seemed hesitant to start her next dance. The Daughter crawled forward and gently brushed antenna against the worker. Their mana and pheromones had clashed at first, but at this point the hives had started to acclimate to one another. They knew they did not belong to each other, and yet they were not strangers or rivals. So, the worker relaxed and slowly began to dance.

“Other Queen…have request. Hives stabilizing, move complete. Queen had plan before move, wanted to use soldiers and copy King. Can let her start again? Might have less workers, honey from us…”

The Daughter froze…and then immediately began to dance. She was surprised by the request, but she once she realized what was being asked, she did not spend even a single moment thinking about it.

“Yes! Of course! My hive, growing well. Don’t need extra help. Can give help instead. Will give help!”

The moment she could begin repaying her savior had arrived sooner than she had ever imagined. The worker began a dance of gratitude and apology, and then the worker and the queen of two hives began to plan their future honey production and expenditures…

The Firstborn stood in her hive, watching a large, waxed-over cell. So far, her plan had been a success. Her own command had managed to handle a shade even while keeping the majority of the army in reserve. The First of the Second had pioneered a new command structure for the army and introduced them all to the Fourth of the Seventh’s organization for hive management in a queen’s absence, both of which eased the obstacles to her idea. The next queen to take command thus settled in well, familiarizing herself with the situation even faster than either she or the First of the Second had. The Firstborn now had faith their army would be far more flexible and adaptive to the next unforeseen challenge.

But this was only the beginning. They had grown more flexible and adaptive, but they had not grown stronger. That…was about to change.

A small hole opened up from within the cell, two mandibles piercing through the wax cover. Medicinal workers moved to assist and began pulling open the wax. Soon, the cover had opened large enough for the cell’s occupant to crawl out.

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A new mad honey soldier emerged. She appeared a bit smaller than normal save for her abdomen, and she lacked a stinger entirely, with a small nozzle taking its place. She shook herself, buzzed her wings, and then turned to the Firstborn, dancing her salute. The Firstborn brushed her antenna and then instructed her to join the army. The Firstborn then turned to the next two cells as their occupants also began to break through.

The first soldier bee sprayers had arrived. A brand-new addition to the army created by the King himself. An addition that would not only improve the army they had but would introduce an entirely new element to it.

The Firstborn wanted nothing more than to follow the sprayer out into the field and see her in action. To how strong their army would now become.

But she didn’t. Instead, she left the soldier cells and began laying more worker eggs. She organized her hive into sections with different roles and appointed individual workers as the leaders of these sections, in accordance with the First of the Second and the Fourth of the Seventh’s methods. She double checked the routes of the foragers, the processors, and the brood tenders to resolve any traffic jams, unbalanced allocations of workers, or any other such inefficiencies.

She had her turn in command, and now it was her duty to manage her hive. In fact, she needed to put in even greater efforts so that her hive would continue to grow when she took command once again. The more efficiently her hive ran, the more sprayers they could introduce. Seeing the sprayers in action and determining how they would fit into the army was the job of the queen in command today.

That was what it meant to be the hive of hives. Each had their role, each had their duty, and all must work equally diligently whatever that role may be. The Firstborn would strive no less at laying eggs and managing the efforts of her workers than she did at commanding soldiers and fighting shades. The army was counting on her to do both with equal fervor.

And…now that the King’s battle had been won and the first sprayers had started to evolve…it was time to revisit raising new queens and expanding the army overall. The King also had created new lands and new flowers, all of which needed new workers to gather from. So, she would need much honey in the near future, and many more workers to gather it…

The First of the Fifth’s workers moved in coordinated groups, one of which split into three separate squads. The first two squads visited the mana flower patch and the healing herb patch respectively, gathering the first and the freshest of the nectar for the pure honey batches. The third squad visited both flower patches in turn, blending the nectar and pollen together for the mixed batches.

And this time…as they flew from the mana flowers and landed on the healing herbs, some of the initial pollen they had gathered was lost. This was intentional, even, in accordance with the new instincts they had received. They rubbed their wings and legs together, scraping a bit of the pollen off and even adjusting the tiny-lightnings on their bodies so that the pollen wouldn’t stick as well. And then they flew off to return their resources to their queen and hive.

The pollen from the mana flower pulsed faintly with a subtle glow from the mana still contained within it. This glow then entered into the center of the flower, which began to close. The flower quickly wilted…and a faintly glowing seed dropped from its head into the patch.

The next day, the First of the Fifth’s workers would pause as they arrived at the healing herb patch. A new flower had appeared, reminiscent of the other healing herbs, but glowing with a soft, blue-green light…

The First of the Fifth was beside herself, dancing about in a rapid, meaningless dance over the cells filled with the latest batch of nectar…something that was entirely new.

This…was beyond anything she had ever imagined. The instincts granted to her by the King were not for the sake of producing excellent honey, which explained why she couldn’t bring the quality of the blended batches up to standard. No…they were for something else. Something so much more.

An entirely new flower had grown from her workers’ efforts. She tasted the nectar herself. It started in a similar state as finished healing herb honey, infused with mana that resonated with and elevated the medicinal compounds within. But it went even further than her bees did, the mana not only elevated but adjusted those compounds at a fundamental level, granting them new and greater effects than could be achieved in a mundane plant.

This nectar could be processed into healing herb honey through basic concentration and evaporation, with no need for her workers to imbue it with their mana at all.

And if they did so anyways, running through the process with the maximum effort and precision the First of the Fifth always strove to achieve? This could be the First of the Fifth’s greatest achievement yet.

She and the King had now collaborated not merely to produce new honeys from new flowers…they had changed the very landscape itself and brought to life a new and powerful flower never before scene in his lands. He and her hive, working together, had done this.

And what’s more…who was to say this would be the last such achievement? There were the poison flowers, and the new flowers that radiated heat. There were those useless flowers in the Flower Meadow, though the First of the Fifth didn’t see much hope there. And there was an entirely new room filled with fruiting trees. What other flowers could result if her workers continued to pass between them?

The First of the Fifth’s mind raced as she considered how to prioritize her efforts. She would need to have the mixed foragers passing between as many different flowers as they could. At the same time, she now had multiple new flowers to produce honey from, that she would then need to refine and iterate upon until it reached a quality suitable to serve the King. She just had so much to do.

It was at this moment that she received word that contact had been reestablished with the Fourth of the Seventh’s and her daughter’s workers…

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