The Bee Dungeon

After the battle, the Firstborn flew to the healing hive the fair ones prepared for the Second of the Sixth. This was not abnormal for her, the battle meadow queens now made it a point to visit wounded soldiers and give them an order to join the hive of the fallen so that the soldiers wouldn’t worry about leaving behind their original hives…and after the last battle, there were a great many wounded to visit.
Yet, the Firstborn visited for another purpose as well…the light dragon following her. After freeing the dragon from the strong hive-burner, the dragon wanted to stay around the Firstborn and her monster bee knights as well as bumble helper and the bumblebee soldiers. Since the dragon was also injured and none of the bumblebees were thanks to bumble helper, the Firstborn decided to escort the dragon to the Second of the Sixth. From the hive of hives’ report on the dragon, she may also need to force the dragon to stay calm and let the healing bees approach him.
But the Firstborn’s concerns proved unfounded. The dragon only whimpered when the healing bees landed on it and gave it a few healing stings, then silently stood by as the Firstborn visited the wounded soldiers from her hive. He continued to follow her throughout the day…leading to her current dilemma.
The Firstborn wanted to return to her hive in the Bee City room. She needed to tend to her hive and lay more eggs to replace the losses suffered today. And when she tried to fly through the shortcut…the dragon kept following, sticking his head and neck through the shortcut. The Firstborn turned around and started dancing.
“Stay, too big fit in hive.”
She might have let the dragon into the Bee City had there been room. The Bee City was big enough and the dragon small enough that it just might be able to squeeze between the big Bee Apartment-sized trays…but the bees needed that space to fly around and do their work. The dragon would get in the way, introducing a massive inefficiency to the Firstborn’s hive.
The kind of inefficiency the First of the Fifth would have her head for. So, this is where the dragon needed to part ways with her.
The dragon responded by whimpering with his head raised and his eyes rapidly glancing around. He was no bee, he didn’t dance and he wasn’t connected to the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s hivelink…but the Firstborn could understand his general emotional state.
He was scared.
The Firstborn was a bit confused at first. Scared? Why would he be scared right now? They weren’t fighting at the moment so it had to be because of the battle they just fought. But why would a fellow spawner monster be scared after a battle, especially after a victory? Sure, he got injured, but his wounds were light and easily healed.
But…the Firstborn knew that King strongly disliked bees getting hurt or killed. That dislike extended to all of his defenders as well, the King didn’t want anyone in his Tower getting hurt. So, she could understand why the dragon might feel bad about getting himself hurt. She could even approve of it, as King wouldn’t want him getting hurt either!
That still left her uncertain about how she should respond, though. She needed to work in her hive and the dragon couldn’t follow her there. But…if he was just worried about getting hurt…that was something the protector of the hive of hives could help with.
The Firstborn called up her monster bee knights and a communer and had them hover around the dragon, then danced to him.
“Go to dragon’s hive and rest. Will send bees with, will keep safe. Communer can talk to me, let know if dragon needs. Ok?”
The dragon stared at her for a moment then glanced around rapidly. He looked at the monster bee knights and then lowered his head. Then he slowly pulled out of the shortcut. He waited for the monster bee knights to follow, then turned to leave.
Only to spin around and start wandering in random directions. The Firstborn judged that he did not know the way back to his spawner room, so ordered the knights and communer to guide him.
With that taken care of, the Firstborn returned to her work. She had to finish quickly, the queens of the hive of hives had much to discuss after this battle. After all, they had defeated a powerful foe…but they took more casualties than they had in any battle since the fall of the First Dynasty of the First Spawner…
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As the sun began to set, the allies gathered their wounded and dead, repaired their defenses, and organized the forces that would keep watch during the night. After all their affairs were sorted, the leaders gathered together in the command tent to discuss the battle. Belissar, the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter and the Firstborn, Chief Rohsuak, the First Spiderkin Queen, and Sehfitis joined from his side. Not all of the signatories were there this time, but Wardmaster Varilold had command now that a battle for the fate of the Compact had begun so they didn’t need to be. Loremaster Anyadre stood in for the signatories generally and he was joined by Henilett for the pixies, Curuhaxa of the dusk elves, and Nenavann from the Circle, but most others were occupied. The silver elves sent a general of theirs, one Duke Turuhavare The sigmaka sent Fourth Queen Pezuya, who had participated in the battle, and Second Queen Berbiya, who would report the results back to their home.
Wardmaster Varilold inhaled slowly before she began the meeting.
“First of all, I applaud you all. One way or another, today was a victory, that much is cause for celebration.”
Duke Turuhavare shook his head and chuckled.
“One way or another? You are too modest, Wardmaster! We inflicted heavy losses upon the enemy’s finest with barely any of our own! It is a decisive victory at minimum! Were it done a bit more gloriously, I might even call it perfect!”
Belissar frowned at that, but fortunately Wardmaster Varilold replied the same way he wanted to.
“Barely any casualties among the fair folk, Duke. The Tower Keeper’s forces bore the brunt of the attack by the strongest of the enemies we faced today and suffered accordingly. Our sigmaka allies took heavier casualties as well. Tower Keeper Belissar, Fourth Queen Pezuya, how heavy were your losses today?”
Belissar took a deep breath, pushing down his feelings lest his eyes start to moisten or his mana start to buzz.
“That first breath attack took out almost an entire formation of soldier bees.”
Fourth Queen Pezuya’s expression was even darker than Belissar’s.
“My entire band was wounded to some degree or another. Three of my warriors are so badly injured they will not be able to fight for the foreseeable future, several more will need a few days. I will be honest, the sigmaka cannot sustain that rate of injury. We were fortunate enough to avoid deaths today.”
Wardmaster Varilold looked Belissar in the eye.
“Tower Keeper…what is your overall assessment of the Tower Guard you faced? Could your army fight more like him if they had to?”
Belissar looked to the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter and the Firstborn and frowned. He didn’t want to discourage them…but he also wanted to be honest.
“If it’s just one, like today, I think we could handle it, especially now that we know we need Chief Rohsuak’s help from the start. Maybe if Urubran helps, where is he anyways?”
He turned to Nenavann. The dungeon master gave him an apologetic look.
“Some of the Circle needs to keep watch over their dungeons and the land of the fair. General Rippotis did advise us the Tower Guards we faced would be naturally resistant to fire, so we thought bringing the masters of other attributes would serve us better and assigned Urubran to keep watch at home.”
Belissar looked down for a moment, but shook his head to push his regrets aside for now.
“We didn’t realize how strong that guard’s fire would be either. But…if we had to fight two or more Tower Guards like that, or if one had support from the rest of their army, I think it would be tough. Even this one only went as well as it did because Finnakynne helped, we would have lost a lot more bees if she hadn’t been there.”
Henilett sighed and leaned her head against one of her palms.
“I don’t know whether to be proud of her for dooming a powerful mortal with mental attacks or absolutely appalled at the brutish and sloppy way she did it.”
Wardmaster Varilold ignored the pixie and rubbed her chin.
“Then the situation is as I expected. In the end, we only faced a small portion of the enemy army, it would be risky to try and counterattack the main body of their forces. We’ll have to remain on the defensive and accept a siege for the time being. Hopefully the casualties we inflicted on our enemy will make him equally cautious. Tower Keeper, the Compact will harass the enemy while he regroups and buy you some more time, do you think you’ll be able to recover from your losses and implement new defenses?”
Belissar’s expression softened a bit.
“Yes. I have lots of stuff from the God of Light already and there’s one or two missions I could complete right away if we don’t have to fight tomorrow. And…these losses were bad, but the bee army prepared for that, right?”
He turned to the Firstborn, who danced a salute.
“Laid more soldier eggs before battle just in case, will hatch tomorrow. Will need to train, but captains help train faster. Bee army can still fight.”
After the Firstborn’s report, Wardmaster Varilold gave Belissar a firm nod.
“Then we will do all we can to buy you as much time as possible.”
Henilett and Curuhaxa both began to chuckle behind her. The wardmaster refused to look at them…but the edges of her mouth curled up.
Belissar gave them a nod and then turned to his bees.
“Thank you. Then, we’ll do our best to grow as strong as possible before the next attack, right?”
Both the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter immediately danced a salute on behalf of the entire hive of hives.
“Will!”
Belissar smiled and quickly reviewed the list of quests from the God of Light…and immediately determined which one to start with. One that would also implement a reward from the God of Light he hadn’t handled yet.
“In that case…what does the Second of the Seventh think about becoming a champion of light?”