The Bee Dungeon

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter quickly passed news of the Hall of Purification and its abilities to the hive of hives and to Belissar’s allies. Since Starami could resume the attack at any time, the alliance decided against making any major changes to their defense plan, but they did inform the defenders that preserving their own lives now took precedence over keeping Starami away from the Tower.
Belissar, meanwhile, adjusted his first floor a bit based on advice from his allies and his fellow Circle masters. The Hall of Purification would remain as the first room for the duration of Starami’s siege, but then Belissar put the Abyssal Trench as the second room, with the battle Fairy Grove now as the third room. Since the Hall of Purification could eliminate shades all on its own, there was no longer a need for Belissar’s defenders to fight Starami before the Abyssal Trench, so he placed that as an immediate obstacle to Starami’s advance. The defenders instead would wait in the Fairy Grove, where it would be easy for them to ambush Starami’s forces if and when they passed through the trench.
After all that was taken care of Belissar checked in on the tunneling nomadic bees keeping track of the Underway. Fortunately, they reported that Starami hadn’t started moving towards the surface yet, so Belissar still had time to make more choices.
First and foremost, he accepted the mission offers from the God of Light.
Belissar gaped at the wall of missions now blocking his vision. He tried to focus by going through them one by one…only to end up even more confused when he read the first one…that was somehow already completed. The only thing he could think to do was ask the gods themselves…
Velebee’s response came immediately.
Belissar blinked repeatedly as his mind processed that…but one it did, he broke out into a warm smile. Even now, the bees of the First Dynasty were still helping him…and apparently helping the God of Light too.
Belissar grinned.
“And she’s the best patron I could ever ask for!”
Belissar then noticed Tarwantrad and Tamosmed looking quite confused given most of his conversation had been via silent Tower message, so he explained what was going on. After that, Belissar opened the suspicious common Room choice, having a feeling he knew what was inside.
As Belissar expected, the God of Light delivered the other room he requested. He turned to Tarwantrad with a big smile.
“We got the aurora forest!”
Tarwantrad thrust her hands up into the air and jumped.
“YES!”
Belissar laughed while Tarwantrad jumped around. The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter began flying and zipping around as well in an “Amazing, incredible!” dance. Even Tamosmed got infected and began to chuckle.
The group then settled down as quickly as they could manage to evaluate the other choices. Tamosmed, the calmest of the bunch to begin with, spoke up first.
“Belissar, since you have one of the Light dragonvein rooms, you should consider taking the light dragons right away. I’ll admit I have ulterior motives, but consider too that a dragon, even a hatchling, would be a great addition to your forces for this battle. None of your bees can match above average stats across the board, right? Having a stronger flyer with them might really help them fight off those wyverns.”
Tarwantrad rolled her eyes.
“Tamosmed…well, Tamosmed’s hunger for spare dragonscales aside, he’s not wrong that it’s the monster that will help most in the incoming fight, since the bees would need time to establish their hive and a few sunflower casters aren’t as important when the entire Compact is fighting with you. Besides…check out the Star Core Flower, Belissar! If you add those to the aurora room, I think we can cultivate all sorts of Light flower, monsters included!”
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The First of the Fifth's First Daughter danced as well.
"Firstborn says excited to fight with new monster. Says nice one helped a lot with his monster, so wants more like them. Third of the Sixth hopes is like Hive-Burner general's."
Belissar blinked and tilted his head.
"Got it but...you don't want the new flowers?"
The First of the Fifth's First Daughter danced the negative.
"Hive of hives wants, especially queen mother. But if flower one can help raise, then can wait."
Belissar smiled at her. The bees were really growing if they wanted something other than a flower, even if only temporarily.
"Got it, then let's see if the other flower option might help flower one raise those after all."
The First of the Fifth's First Daughter replied with a happy dance while Tarwantrad giggled, then Belissar opened up the choice Tarwantrad had mentioned.
Tarwantrad cackled.
“Core flowers,
Belissar, core flowers are flowers with so much mana it’s a miracle they
become monsters on their own! It will be incredibly easy for us to breed all sorts of flower monsters by cross-pollinating them! Take this, Belissar, and we’ll grow an entire forest of Light-type flower monsters, just you watch! Oh, and…can you
the honey your bees could make with a flower like that!”
Tamosmed had now broken out into a grin himself.
“Not to mention the core part of their name is entirely literal. I could take the seeds from these flowers and use them as golem cores directly, no processing required. Core flowers are an enchanter’s dream.”
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter then expressed the unanimous opinion of the hive of hives.
“Amazing! Incredible!”
Belissar chuckled, it seemed his council was in complete agreement. He
go and check the other two choices, since they could always ask the God of Light to add them to the next reward.
Tamosmed’s grin fell and he began mumbling.
“Wood with natural mana channels built into it. The golems and the weapons we could make with that…but…natural mana cores…hm…”
Belissar turned to Tarwantrad, who was shaking her head with a smile.
“So…should I ask the God of Light for this one too?”
Tarwantrad shrugged.
“Up to you, Belissar. As you can see, it’s a good tree for mystical woodwork, us green elves used to make a lot of stuff out of similar trees. It’s wind pollinated, though, so not the best for bees. Maybe I could raise something similar in my own dungeon…or maybe the God of Light will give something like it to one of us.”
Belissar nodded and then moved on to the next option. Lightseeker sunflowers were something like a Light-type mana sunflower. They apparently tracked the sun and could even move slowly to stay in the light if something shaded their original position. Tarwantrad rubbed her chin.
“They’re not bad and just one step shy of a monster flower, so could easily evolve. That said…I think this is a choice included if you didn’t want either of the dragonvein rooms, since the star core flowers need them to grow. Since you do have one…the star core flowers are more powerful.”
Belissar nodded. Since time was short and his council was largely in agreement, he made his choice quickly.
“Ok…so, star core flowers now…and then light dragons too? Maybe see what Tarwantrad and the bees can do with all that before asking about the other monsters and flowers?”
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter zipped around on behalf of the hive of hives.
“Amazing, incredible! King is best king!”
Belissar chuckled, while Tarwantrad bounced in anticipation. Tamosmed muttered to himself a bit more about the yew trees, but eventually sighed and nodded.
“Ok then, I’m going to quickly place the aurora forest so we can get a dragon spawner asap! First of the Fifth’s First Daughter, can you let the hive of hives and our allies know I’m going to get them some reinforcements?”
“Ok!”
Belissar moved quickly, placing a dragonvein aurora forest in an empty room slot on the fifth floor. He thanked the God of Light again for the extra room slot and the extra five hundred mana, allowing him to easily afford the two-hundred and seventy mana room. He added a shortcut and then brought up the dragon spawner.
Fortunately, Tamosmed’s earlier prediction was correct. The dragonvein aurora forest was deemed an especially compatible room for the dragons, cutting the spawner’s cost in half. Belissar only needed to pay one-hundred and eighty mana to place one there!
…he decided to stop thinking about the mana cost and placed the spawner. Then he stood up and began running towards the nearest shortcut.
“Ok, let’s go meet our new defender!”
When Starami tunneled under the sea of Hunger to reach his target Tower, he had not merely dug a small, single drake-sized path. He had an army of drakes afforded to him by his monster spawners behind the vanguard group, widening the path behind them while Tower Guards skilled in Ground magic ensured it remained structurally sound. He had thus created his own small Underway up until the point they found and joined the Underway proper along their route. This tunnel was built wide enough that two wyverns could even fully stretch their wings side by side!
The wyverns very much hated flying in the tunnels, but that was of no concern to their master.
Smaller wyverns and fast-moving land dragonkin thus rushed through the tunnel, carrying supplies for Starami’s army. The tunnel didn’t extend the entire way to the fey’s home, though, so the wyverns had to stop at a supply camp. The camp was close enough, though, that humans and smaller dragonkin could then ferry the supplies to the army the rest of the way.
It was thus that a small caravan of Tower Guard candidates and saddlebag-laden ground drakes marched through one of the small tunnels connecting their supply base to Underway passage where the main army camped. They had no full Tower Guards with them, but they did not need any. This area had already been cleared of any wild monsters and the Hunger was up above on the surface, so any incursions would be caught by the army long before they reached these tunnels. Additionally, it had been previously confirmed that this tunnel was a straight path with no branches and with long stretches of solid ground on either side, so there was no way for any new threats to appear without digging a long tunnel that the Ground mages would notice ahead of time…
At least, that is what the caravan had been told. So, they were quite confused when they found a large, dark tunnel entrance branching off from their path that they hadn’t seen there before.
And they were entirely unprepared when arrows began to fly from said new entrance.
The spiderkin captain stepped out into the lit tunnel with a frown. She and her band had conducted a perfect ambush, all of the caravan guards had been incapacitated immediately, leaving the reptilian beasts of burden helpless under their assault. Their targets hadn’t even been able to counterattack, so her band had taken them all down with no losses of their own and now had a whole caravan’s worth of loot to their name!
And yet…the captain was not pleased, not pleased at all. Her band had begun happily combing through the fallen caravan…only for one her warriors to hiss and recoil after removing the helmet of one of the fallen guards. The captain walked over without a word, then fully undressed the fallen guard, checking every inch of the corpse to make absolutely certain it was what she feared it was.
Once she finished, all of her band began to hiss and clack their fangs together. She let out a curse of her own, then rose to her feet and pointed to her fastest scout.
“Get back to the communication line as fast as you can and contact the nest! The queen needs to know…there are Sorcerer Kings here!”