The Bee Dungeon

Urubran rushed over to Belissar with smoke wafting from his nostrils and a huge grin on his face.
“Ok, Belissar, let’s make the volcano!”
Belissar, however, frowned.
“I…don’t have enough mana.”
Urubran’s face fell and he groaned. He let out a deep sigh and then looked back at Belissar, leaning forward to give Belissar an intense stare.
“Fine. Belissar…you HAVE to invite me when you get enough to make the room. I’m not kidding, don’t forget me this time!”
Belissar nodded his head repeatedly.
“Ok, ok! I will! Niobee…oh, don’t attack, he’s not going to hurt me…and can you ask a bee to remember and remind me?”
Niobee gave one final warning buzz to Urubran before dancing her usual enthusiastic “Ok!” Fortunately, Urubran seemed satisfied with this, as he gave a nod and then stepped back. Belissar shook his head…and then grinned. In a way, he could understand Urubran’s excitement for rooms representing his primary patron…
“Now…let’s talk about those bee rooms! So, what? We fill an entire field with beehouses? Or turn an Apiary into one giant beehive?”
Tarwantrad giggled as well before rubbing her chin.
“Huh, actually, I think the Dirt Tunnels might be easier to convert into a beehive. Most of your bees prefer enclosed spaces for their nests, correct? Plus…it would be easier to fill the tunnels than it would be to build a beehive up into the open sky.”
Belissar’s eyes widened as he nodded.
“Ah, those are good points!”
Finnakynne popped up out of the bumblebee fuzz.
“An Apiary would probably work for the meadery idea, though. You probably wouldn’t need the meadery to take up the entire room, you’d just need more mead-making than honey-making going on there, I think. Oh, and you’d need to guard the door from us pixies. I’d say hide it from us but we’ll find it eventually.”
Captain Karpakynne clutched at her chest.
“Princess Finnakynne, you wound me! Do you not trust your own people?!”
Finnakynne just gave the pixie captain a stare.
“Karpy, mother dearest always taught me to trust our people the least. I can literally smell the mischief on you! You’re already planning to sneak into the meadery and it doesn’t even exist yet!”
Captain Karpakynne…averted her gaze. Belissar quietly asked Niobee to have a bee remind him to set a guard around his current mead projects, as well as any future meadery room. He had caught enough villagers stealing mead back in the day to know that was a serious threat.
“Captain Karpakynne, I’ll share mead at the celebrations as available, but know that a lot of my mead is intended as offerings for the gods. So…please don’t steal. I don’t want the gods to get upset…”
Captain Karpakynne huffed…though still refused to make eye contact.
“I-I won’t! Don’t trust the princess, Tower Keeper, sir! Are we not comrades who have drawn swords together in defense of your home?!”
Belissar tilted his head.
“Well yes but so is Finnakynne?”
Captain Karpakynne…had no response to that but to grind her teeth while Finnakynne couldn’t help a smug smile.
With that, Belissar made arrangements for the bee-room experiments and then concluded the meeting. Urubran promised to stop by the next day with the trees for the phoenix forest he promised and then the council dispersed.
The next morning, Belissar all but rushed through his morning routine. He even received a message about a room changing natures but he brushed it aside for the moment. Instead, he watched as the hive of hives conducted a small+ purification first thing in the morning, going for the larger purification so they wouldn’t have to conduct any minor ones during the day. They brought the whole bee army and obliterated the shade with as much mana, archer stingers, and sprayer sprays as they could throw at it, wasting no time so that they could get to the day’s work. Apparently, not even a small+ shade could withstand the full might of the bee army’s barrage. After finishing, Belissar stood in the Orchard before the wall of shortcuts.
Nearly the entire Tower had gathered along with him. The soldier bee army blotted out the sky along with the big bumblebees, soldiers and workers both. The monster bee trappers and spiderkin were working together to weave as many transport ropes and bee baskets, as Belissar and the karnuq had started calling the little bags the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive used to carry things, as they could. The carpenter and lumber bees were already chewing through trees and wooden planks that the soldiers, lancers, archers, and bumblebees then carried and stacked in neat piles.
The karnuq and the handful of completed beeswax golems assisted them, bringing in construction materials of their own. Chief Rohsuak was teaching the Third of the Sixth’s hive how to dry wood on the spot with Fire mana. Hirkolos was present as well, riding his wyvern and using it to help lift big pieces of stone processed by Muuraqi. To Belissar’s surprise, the second surviving wyvern was there as well, ridden by Paisijik of all people…with the First of the Ninth’s hive following her mana through the air. Finnakynne was helping too, using her magic to support the bumblebees and lift huge piles of materials all on her own.
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Not everyone was present in the Orchard but even those absent were helping out as they could. Belissar saw the First of the Fifth with his Tower sight, her hive a flurry of activity as her honeypot production lines switched from focusing on honey to making as much wax and propolis as they could. All of the Apiary hives without an elemental evolution followed suit, preparing to produce as many construction materials as the hive of hives needed for the day. The Fourth of the Fifth’s First Daughter was also stacking up bits of metal wax in her hive, easily accessible in case the hive of hives wanted it.
Belissar let out a light sigh and made a self-deprecating smile. He…may have been a bit
enthusiastic when making preparations last night. The hive of hives thus took this endeavor incredibly seriously, treating today as if it were a big purification and going all out. The karnuq, the humans, and the spiderkin had followed suit. But he soon began to grin. Today, he didn’t mind the bees dropping everything to help him…because today, everyone worked for the bees. Today, they worked to truly turn their home into the Bee Tower.
“Let’s build the best beehouse we can, everyone!”
The room erupted into buzzing at his command as countless bees danced their salutes. Belissar then turned to face the shortcut wall. He placed a new Dirt Tunnels on the top floor of the Tower, connected to the Apiary he called home. He did not use the default labyrinth-like layout the Dirt Tunnels came with, instead combining as many of the tunnels and caverns as he could into the biggest chambers the room would allow him to make, ones large enough for a wyvern or bird-shade to fly in, if barely. He wanted to make the entire thing one big cave, but the room wouldn’t let him so he instead made seven large caverns all interconnected by short, straight tunnels. He arranged six of these in a hexagonal layout so they resembled a honeycomb shape with the seventh cavern in the middle of them all. He then placed the exit of the room on the roof of the central cavern so that sunlight shone down into it from the Apiary, then set up a shortcut between the central cavern and the Orchard’s shortcut wall.
Belissar turned and smiled to his Tower as the shortcut opened on the wall behind him.
“Let’s begin, everyone!”
The Tower then burst into motion. Scouts from the digging and blinding hives zipped through the shortcut and spread out across the tunnels so that the hive of hives would have a detailed understanding of the space. Next, shining bees flew in and stirred up their mana, glowing and illuminating the caverns.
After that, the construction began. Belissar, Muuraqi, and the Third of the Third’s construction team guided the countless bees and everyone helping them as they brought in construction materials and started the work. Digging bees cleared out holes in the ground, then bumblebees and karnuq worked together to plant big posts of wood down into them before the digging bees hardened the ground around them. Equally large beams were set into grooves within the posts and secured with nails that Toivenaq had forged under Tamosmed’s instruction, and then further sealed together with metal wax and the propolis sprays of stingless sprayers. Together, the posts and beams formed the square shapes of an enormous honeycomb tray, stretching from the floor to the ceiling.
Once a square was completed, the bees began to bring in smaller pieces of wood, filling the space within the room-sized frames with smaller support posts and beams. They then brought in regular-sized beehouse trays to slot into the smaller posts, making a giant tray filled with trays.
And the moment a smaller tray slotted into place, worker bees got to work filling it with wax combs. The First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter would cover whole trays with her honey-slime and then condense it into honeycomb all in one go, completing entire trays in an instant until she had to go and replenish her slime. Meanwhile, a continuous stream of worker bees with bee bags carried new wax from the Apiary’s production lines, ensuring that the work never ceased for even an instant. Yellow walls began to fill the cavern as honeycomb stretched from the floor to the roof.
But Belissar and the hive of hives didn’t stop there. Worker bees crawled and buzzed all along the walls, floor, and roof of the cavern as well, covering it over with wax and propolis to seal off the entire space. Digging bees and bumblebees worked to excavate new chambers in the floor and walls to use as subterranean nests for the bees that preferred them, while Muuraqi and his team of bees and karnuq brought them stone trays and doors to turn them into beehouses.
Belissar himself used the Tower’s mana to add as many beehouse-type features to the room as possible. He found that the big, room-high trays could be each converted into a Bee Apartment, so that’s what he focused on. He used his own mana to make spell-bees as he could to help with the work, while trying to lead and guide the overall efforts at the same time. It…proved extremely difficult at first…until he discovered his connection to the hive of hives was just strong enough that drones and communers could command his spell-bees if he instructed them to listen. From there, he could just make as many spell-bees as he could and let the hive of hives allocate them as necessary.
The day went on, but the work continued. They finished one chamber and then immediately moved on to the next. Tarwantrad, Urubran, and Tamosmed arrived, but Belissar hardly noticed after absorbing the seeds and saplings Urubran brought. Tarwantrad squealed in delight at the sight of all the bees flying around, then began to help the digging bees as she knew a bit of Ground magic, while Urubran went to help the Third of the Sixth and Tamosmed started advising the general construction efforts. Belissar got word that Second Queen Berbiya arrived to relay the sigmaka’s response to the Compact’s offer of negotiations, but Chief Rohsuak and Tarwantrad went off to handle it themselves so Belissar could stay and continue the work. Nothing would distract him from his present task.
It was as the day grew long and the team was working on the fourth chamber that something began to change. The mana and air in the room began to hum, almost like a light buzz. Belissar and the bees paused. The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter turned to the First Dronecaster, the most sensitive bee to mana in the hive of hives.
“Something happening?”
The First Dronecaster’s antennae twitched before he replied.
“Think…yes.”
Belissar began to smile and then turned his attention to the Tower messages he had been ignoring. He began to bounce as the hope grew in his heart.
He stopped and blinked for a bit, because there were now several more messages waiting besides the room change one he had ignored that morning…