The Bee Dungeon

Back in the bear people’s camp, Juosiutik was currently staring at a bubbling pot, hung over a normal fire this time. Since the mana honey had a…potent reaction with fire radish, she was processing this potion without it. She stirred the mixture and gently swirled her own mana into it.

“Hm…from what I can tell, it’s resonating well.”

She narrowed her eyes at it.

“Too well.”

She was currently testing the mana honey in some of her recipes to determine its exact effects. In this case, the healing herbs from the Sacred Den were a bit too forgiving in maintaining their properties, so she was using other ingredients gathered on their sojourns.

And yet…the infusion of mana into the potion and the resonance of the compounds within was going about as well as it would if she had used those healing herbs. The mana honey was resonating with it all and helping smooth out clashes in the ingredients.

Juosiutik frowned. She would have to wait for the potion to settle and a good opportunity to actually test its effects but from what she could tell…this would likely end up one of her strongest potions yet. Despite the fact that it required less than half the steps and efforts of those she had made before.

It was incredibly exciting, but for some reason also kind of irritating…

In the Apiary, the Second Queen of the First Dynasty of the Sixth Spawner, the first of her line, stared at the workers just outside of her palace.

“Yes.”

She stared at them for a moment longer before conducting a slow, guarded dance.

“…why?”

The worker bees repeated a dance from when they first greeted her.

“Queen says Second of Sixth not making enough honey, not good enough honey. Needs better nectar.”

The Second of the Sixth put aside the insult, such was par for course for the arrogant First of the Fifth. More aggravating was that the First of the Fifth was within her rights to say so. Her hive did, in fact, produce the most and best quality honey, so few queens could argue should the First of the Fifth disparage their output. Still, the Second of the Sixth also knew that such words were beyond the point. The First of the Fifth cared little for the operation of other hives beyond her own, so that was not the ultimate point of all this.

“…what does First of Fifth want?”

Yes, the only reason the First of the Fifth addressed the other queens was when she needed something for her own plans. Unfortunately, she also controlled the most valuable of the Apiary’s resources, so the Second of the Sixth would have to at least entertain the idea. Even the First of the Fifth’s scraps could be highly profitable to the other queens, even one of those fortunate enough to dwell in one of the King’s magical palaces like the Second of the Sixth. She herself had obtained access to the medicinal flowers by raising a drone when the First of the Fifth wanted to raise a new queen, so she figured it was something like that.

“Nothing!”

So, she was taken aback when the workers replied. She spun around and brushed her antenna, then fluttered her wings.

“Nothing?”

“Yes.”

The Second of the Sixth paused before she realized what was going on. This, too, had happened before. The First of the Fifth had once given free access to a flower patch to the Fourth of the Seventh, one of the younger queens who didn’t have a magical palace of her own. That flower patch, upon investigation, had turned out to be located all the way in the Flower Meadow, and was rumored to be of relatively low quality. So, the Second of the Sixth realized the First of the Fifth’s intent. She must have identified the new flower as lower quality and was now “gifting” it to another queen in order to offload it without relinquishing her claim to all new resources. The Second of the Sixth, however, would not be so easily deceived.

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Well, it was also true that the new flowers had benefited the Fourth of the Seventh in the end, as evidenced by her growth and her ability to move her hive and claim a new room, so the Second of the Sixth couldn’t reject the offer out of hand.

“…thanks. Will send workers to check, see if hive needs new flowers. If not, can give to others.”

“Ok, will let queen know. New flower in medicinal flower patch. Is glowing.”

With that the First of the Fifth’s workers departed. The Second of the Sixth instructed her foragers to check out this new flower and report to her before foraging was arranged. Whatever the First of the Fifth’s intentions with this, she would be ready.

It turned out, though, when the workers reported and brought her a small sample of the new flower’s nectar, that she was not ready after all…

The Fourth of the Seventh zipped through the air, led by her scouts and flanked by her soldiers. She was going to the Flower Meadow! Herself! And beyond one of the King’s big post-battle banquets!

When her workers had told her to go, she couldn’t believe it. They…were letting their queen leave the hive? For a long trip to another room? But it turned out the First of the Fifth’s Daughter had offered to look after their joint hive in the meantime. The Fourth of the Seventh had spent a full fifteen minutes on a gratitude dance before her workers stopped her.

The First of the Fifth’s Daughter was a wonderful queen! Maybe even her favorite!

She soon entered the Flower Meadow and took in the sights. Wide open skies and a vast sea of flowers opened up before her. She simply paused and took in the sight for a minute before one of her soldiers started nudging her. She danced a quick hello to the wounded soldiers by the Memorial. One of them was even playing with lightning! She would have to have her workers ask her about it later!

She then made her way past the Flower Meadow hives and towards the patches they gathered from. There, she saw a curious sight. One of the Flower Meadow queens was outside of her hive, flying around with the soldier bee army. She remembered her workers mentioning that!

The queen paused when she saw the Fourth of the Seventh and flew over.

“First of the Third, is my turn to command army today. Should go back to hive.”

“Fourth of the Seventh! Hi! Wow, Flower Meadow queens command army?”

The First of the Third paused for a moment.

“Fourth of the Seventh? From Apiary, right? What doing here?”

The Fourth of the Seventh spun happily in the air.

“Gathering flowers!”

The First of the Third paused again before starting a slow dance.

“Gathering…flowers? But…Fourth of the Seventh is queen. What about hive?”

The Fourth of the Seventh sped up even more.

“First of the Fifth’s Daughter helping!”

The First of the Third was no less confused at the answer.

“First of the Fifth’s Daughter? But…what about First of the Fifth’s Daughter’s hive?”

“Same hive! We share, built together!”

The First of the Third fell completely still, nearly dropping from the air as her wings stopped for a moment. Seeing that the conversation had concluded, the Fourth of the Seventh bade her farewell and continued on with her quest. Soon, she arrived. And, for the first time, she saw the flowers that had provided her hive with much nectar. They had five bright blue petals with yellow centers, and sat a top of long, thin stalks. A few of them were glowing slightly.

“Ok! Let’s try grab flowers!”

Her soldiers saluted and flew with her to the flowers. The Fourth of the Seventh knew the King gathered whole plants, flowers, stalks, and all, and so was attempting to follow suit. Her scouts said he just pulled them right out of the ground, but his might was far beyond that of any bee’s so the Fourth of the Seventh didn’t know if that would work for her, but she’d do her best to figure it out!

The scouts also said the King gathered the glowing ones and left the others alone, so the Fourth of the Seventh figured that was how he knew which ones were fully grown. So, she and her soldiers flew around one of the glowing stalks. They all flew towards the stalk and wrapped their legs around it as best they could.

“Ok, together!”

The Fourth of the Seventh then pulled with all her might, and her soldiers with her. They beat their wings as fast as they would go.

And then instantly flew out into the sky and started careening out of control. The entire plant had come right out of the ground with hardly any effort at all. They ended up crashing into the ground.

“Wow, was really easy!”

The Fourth of the Seventh danced at their success, before she and her soldiers picked up the plant off the ground and began carrying it back to their hive. She could finally begin following after the King’s footsteps!

Later, when the day came to a close and the Flower Meadow queens gathered to review the army command, the First of the Third shared some shocking news on how the Fourth of the Seventh and the First of the Fifth’s daughter ran their hive…

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