The Bee Dungeon

Belissar, Niobee, and the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter returned to the Apiary, specifically to Belissar’s farmhouse. The guardian angel bee description mentioned they liked to live in people’s homes, so Belissar figured that would be a good place to put their spawner. Additionally, the old beehouses and bee apartments from before the hive of hives’ move to the Beecity still stood around the Apiary. The Tower’s mana no longer flowed through the larger apartments since Belissar had moved the official Tower features to the Beecity…but the physical structures he had built still stood, while the smaller beehouses were innate to the Apiary. The new bees would have their choice of homes if they weren’t comfortable moving into the Beecity just yet or if they preferred different environments.
Belissar couldn’t help a grin.
“Here we go!”
As Niobee and the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter happily danced their replies, Belissar brought up the guardian angel bee spawner. It appeared as just a small little hole, so Belissar placed it on a corner of the farmhouse walls.
A little hole appeared in the wood and then a small tube of clear wax extended out of it to form an entrance. The tube was nearly see-through and blended into the sunlight, Belissar would probably have missed it entirely if he wasn’t watching it form.
In fact, he nearly missed the first movement even though he was watching the entrance closely. A small little bee crawled out, even smaller than a newly hatched monster bee queen. Like the wax, her chitin was very lightly-colored, more clear than any particular color and she blended into the sunlight, becoming difficult to see. Belissar could just barely make out her general form.
Her antennae twitched and she looked around from the exit of the tube. The moment she saw Belissar, she slowly crawled out and took flight, carefully hovering towards him. Her mana passed into her wings, causing them to light up briefly and create little flashes of light. Belissar blinked as he watched…because the Tower’s magic considered it a form of communication and duly translated as the guardian angel bee queen saluted via light.
“Ready to try protect…”
Until she saw the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter. Her mana flared briefly, creating a flash of light that hid her from view. Her body turned completely clear and she became invisible…and even her mana grew dim in his mana sight. Belissar only knew she was still there because of his connection to her as Tower Keeper and monster.
But first and foremost, he had a new bee in front of him. He smiled, held out his hand, and created a bit of spell honey.
“Hi there! I’m Belissar, the Tower Keeper, and welcome to our Tower! This is Niobee, the Conduit, and the First Queen of the First Dynasty of the Fifth Spawner’s First Daughter, the monster bee empress who takes care of all the other bees! Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you.”
The guardian angel bee swayed side to side before gingerly flying towards Belissar’s hand. She landed so lightly he could barely feel her. She partially released her invisibility, become visible again but just barely, as she slowly crept towards the honey.
Niobee crawled down from Belissar’s head and onto his arm. The guardian angel bee started to vanish again, but Niobee released her mana in the new bee’s direction. The angel bee calmed down after contacting Niobee’s mana, letting Niobee approach her and touch their antennae together.
Belissar waited quietly as Niobee did her thing. After a few minutes, the guardian angel bee fully released her invisibility and turned to the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter, flashing lights with her wings.
“First Guardian Angel Queen…greets hive of hives…”
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter calmly greeted her in turn, careful not to rush the smaller queen. Belissar smiled as he watched them all start to talk with dances, pheromones, and lights. It seemed she would have no trouble joining the hive of hives after all…
After the bees greeted one another, the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter, with the Conduit and the King’s help, asked the new bee what kind of home she wanted and what she needed, describing to her the various places and magical palaces different bees of the hive of hives lived in. The First Queen of the First Dynasty of the First Guardian Angel Spawner, the first of her line, ultimately liked the same beehouses as the stingless bees and butcher bees, with the trays placed sideways, so King built her one of those.
She surprised the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter with her desired location, though. Given the amount of Light mana she possessed, the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter expected the new bee to want to live in the new light forest. Instead…the First Guardian Angel Queen chose to in the Beecity, albeit that she requested a hidden hive where she could hide out of view of the other bees. At first, she had wanted to live in King’s hive and protect him, but once the Conduit had explained the entire Tower was King’s hive and the nature of the hive of hives, the new bee resolved to protect King by watching over his defenders, the other bees. The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter could only be impressed, this new bee was a perfect addition to the hive of hives even though she had just spawned!
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter was going to ask the digging bees to dig out a new burrow…but the King moved first, using his magical ability to reshape the very land to carve a hidden nest within the dirt walls of the Beecity, then placed his handmade trays within to make it a true palace. The other bees, especially the Fourth of the Seventh, were immensely curious as to what was going on…but the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter held them back. She could tell the First Guardian Angel Queen was still nervous around them, her mana didn’t accept the hivelink just yet after all.
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter gave her some honey, let her know she could ask for any help she needed, and then backed off. The new bee already had a suitable mentality for the hive of hives, so the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter had no doubt she would join them fully in time. For now, they would give her space to build her hive and settle in.
As much as it pained her to tell the Fourth of the Seventh not to go see the new bee, or Beero and the hive of the fallen that they couldn’t ask her about Light mana just yet.
Instead, the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter refocused the hive of hives by creating a link to the queens and discussing the latest battle, as well as what evolutions to prioritize now that there was a lull in the fighting.
The Third of the Sixth immediately began a distraught dance.
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But the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter would have none of that.
The Firstborn quickly joined in.
The Third of the Sixth still seemed upset, but she stopped her rapid dancing and started to calm down. After a bit, she danced while buzzing her wings.
The hive of hives quickly agreed to help her. The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter let them propose ideas and offer assistance before she moved the conversation along, asking them what they could do better for next time.
The hive of hives noted they couldn’t hurt the Hive-Burner until after the First of the Second’s new monster bee assassin managed to slip past his defenses. Even then, the bees still couldn’t break through his metal chitin until the Bee-Swarm Barrage gathered a massive amount of mana on his back. If he had fought like other hive-burners in the past, side by side, then the bee army would have had trouble using that method, so they couldn’t necessary rely on doing it again. The bees needed to get stronger.
In the short term, they decided to employ the sprayers and the archers more, to coat the enemies in mana even if the attacks wouldn’t hurt them, and then aggressively deploy the soldier bees. If even the Firstborn and her monster bee knights couldn’t break the enemy’s defense, then the soldier bees, which were still the most numerous by far, would help build up mana and weaken the enemy’s defenses much faster. They had been forced to retreat by the Hive-Burner’s fire this time, but deploying the Third of the Sixth and asking the karnuq queen for help before the battle should resolve that.
But that was just what they could do with the bees they had now. In the long term, they needed more bees. New bees. Stronger bees.
They needed to evolve.
The Third of the Third and the Fourth of the Seventh’s First Communer had both been ready to evolve for a while but held back when the battle began. In particular, the Third of the Third’s construction squads had been the ones to drop big rocks on the hive-burners, while the Fourth of the Seventh’s First Communer was still helping organize the scout reports from the Fourth of the Seventh’s nomadic bees spread both high in the sky and down in the Underway. The hive of hives would miss their contributions, but that was all the more reason to try and evolve them while they could afford to.
Additionally, Beero and the hive of the fallen were welcoming new members. She reported that the first sprayers and archers of the fallen might be ready soon, while she and the First Dronecaster were making steady progress teaching workers how to cast. Meanwhile, the seed the Fourth of the Seventh had found had been planted in a new bumblebee queen and the sense the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter got from the bumblebees was that the new queen would hatch soon. She was most excited to see the first bumblebee evolution, the bumblebees had proven crucial in the last battle along with bumble helper.
Beyond that, all the hive of hives looked for ways to contribute. The First of the Eighth’s First Daughter offered to help the bee army raise new mind-maddening soldier types with her honey, while her queen mother resolved to finish her work on developing a new kind of swirled maddening honey. Frelis and the gardeners would redouble their efforts to raise more monster flowers so that they could join the battle too. The First of the Ninth reported she and her karnuq queens were training alongside the karnuq beekeepers and would soon be ready to deploy soldiers of their own. The butcher bees were very excited about their new glaiver about to hatch.
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter organized it all, bringing together bees that could help each other, pointing out possible ideas that she or the Fourth of the Seventh thought of, and allocating her queen mother’s swirled honey for the queen to experiment with. The foe they faced was powerful, but the hive of hives had overcome powerful enemies before. The bees would do their utmost to ensure they would overcome this one as well.
But there was one bee left to address, one bee who had not spoken up during the evolution talk. So, once the hive of hives had been organized and started on their new work, the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter made her way to go speak with the bee in question directly and see how the hive of hives could help…
Velebee happily spun around in her hive. She couldn’t help herself, she had fed the honey the magical giants had given her to her workers, and now every single worker was becoming a Niobee! She would soon have an entire hive of Niobees, all powerful and intelligent and able to make better honey than her hive had ever made before! Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think she’d have a hive like this!
And then Velebee twitched, doing her best to repress any buzzing as mana pulsed through her body once more. Not everything was going well for her right now. Apparently, the Hive-Burners had returned and the magical giants were fighting to stop them from driving away Niobee and the Hive-Builder once more, but Velebee couldn’t even pay much attention to that. No, she had a problem that was consuming all of her focus and effort, it was all she could do to keep up with her own duties.
Her body was demanding she curl up in a cell and sleep. That…was not good. She couldn’t think of any reason she would need to do that…unless she was getting tired. When a queen grew tired and started to slow down in their work, the workers would take note. Eventually, they would turn on her, killing her and raising a new queen to take her place so that the hive would remain healthy. And Velebee had turned all of her workers into Niobees at this point, they would certainly notice the moment anything was amiss.
So, Velebee was doing everything in her power to ignore her body and to keep fulfilling her duties as well as ever. It…was not going well. Her body’s demands grew stronger by the day, now even making her lose control of her mana! She couldn’t even respond to the Hive-Burners’ return because it took all her focus just to keep from crawling into a cell. And she couldn’t help but notice her Niobees all watching her more closely with each passing day. If they saw her curl up in a cell to sleep…she knew she wouldn’t wake up.
So, here she was, trying to celebrate each new Niobee to keep her focus off of her body…and her impending doom. As the despair began to creep up on her once more, another wave of mana passed through her. She started to shudder…until she realized it wasn’t her own.
She shuddered for another reason, one of the magical giants had come to visit. They had been very nice to her thus far…but that was because they seemed to listen to her first Niobee. If they noticed her condition and reported it to her first Niobee…well, any Niobee noticing her condition would be her end.
Still, she had to portray confidence, so she did her best to gather herself and crawled out of her hive. So, she found herself before the one called the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter.
“Hi, ok. Very ok, better than ever. What need?”
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter was especially big and powerful and her mana pulled on Velebee’s instincts to listen to her, so Velebee was more uncomfortable around her than most. Still, listening to the magical giant meant not paying attention to her own body, so for once Velebee was grateful for the urge.
“Wanted to know why Conduit’s Queen Mother hasn’t evolved yet?”
Velebee’s antennae twitched.
“Evolve? What that?”
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter stopped moving for a while.
“…don’t know evolve? Evolve makes bees change, become stronger. Like larva growing, but for adults.”
Velebee’s antennae kept twitching. Was this some magical giant thing she was too small and weak to understand…
She froze…then began to dance as rapidly as she could.
“Wait, get stronger?! Can get stronger?! How?! How do?!”
Maybe there was a way for her to survive after all! The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s antennae twitched around rapidly, but she still began to explain.
“When bee absorbs enough mana and does amazing, incredible things, can evolve. Body will tell when ready, then just need curl up in cell and sleep. Will meet Queen of All Bees, she will help.”
Velebee froze yet again and this time it took her quite a while before she was able to dance.
“…bee…grows stronger by sleeping? Not getting tired and weak?”
The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s antennae were continuously twitching at this point.
“No? Conduit’s Queen Mother has good mana now, should be ready to evolve? Ready for while now? Want to know why haven’t, Conduit’s Queen Mother’s workers worried.”
Velebee slowly turned to look at her Niobees flying in and out of her hive. Many of them had stopped to watch her dance with the magical giant. Noticing her attention, one of them started to dance.
“Queen mother going evolve now?”
Velebee’s mind went blank as she struggled to process the situation, one far different than she had thought…