Chapter 436 - Expanding Productive Capabili-Bees

The next day saw Belissar and his Tower start restoring their normal routine. He made offerings to the gods, then went to check on the bees. He stepped through the shortcut between the Apiary farmhouse and the Beecity and found the First of the Fifth waiting for him as usual. He accepted her daily gift of honey, then turned his attention to the two bees hovering next to her, two queens by the looks of them. One looked normal, with nothing different that Belissar could spot, but the other was obviously different as she had light, almost white-blue colored hair. She was also very fuzzy, as fuzzy as a bumblebee! She looked like she was wearing a little fur coat with how much fuzz she had.

“Are these new bee?”

The First of the Fifth zipped around.

“Is! Ninth Daughter raised from cold flower!”

The First of the Fifth’s Ninth Daughter danced a salute. Belissar smiled and held his hand out for her.

“Hi there, welcome to the Tower!”

The Ninth Daughter gingerly landed on his hand at her queen mother’s prompting. Belissar felt a little chills wherever her feet touched, but he ignored them and made some spell-honey for her instead. He took a closer look as the new queen drank from his hand.

Chilling Monster Bee Queen

Vitality: Minimal

Strength: Minimal

Speed: Average

Magic: Minimal+

Defense: Minimal

Resistance: Minimal+

Special: Above Average

Notable Skills: Chilling Poison Sting, Brood Mother, Command Offspring, Cold Resistance

Description: A monster bee raised on honey infused with Cold attribute mana. Both its body and its venom run cold. Stings will sap heat from the victim and may cause hypothermia in high doses. Can produce freeze-resistant honey and wax that prevents frost build-up, as well as providing excellent insulation.

This one is a queen who can raise a hive of chilling monster bees.

Belissar nodded along as he read the description. So, the First of the Fifth’s Ninth Daughter was a Cold counterpart to the burning bees, she’d be an excellent addition to the Tundra Meadow.

“Great, we’ll head over to the Tundra Meadow and build a home for you after this, then. Now then, how about you?”

Belissar turned his attention to the normal-looking queen, not wanting to leave her out. He observed her in detail…but couldn’t find anything different. Maybe her chitin was a bit shinier than normal?

The First of the Fifth then began to explain.

“Tried raise honeyswirler queen, but failed. Tenth Daughter has lots of mana, but just normal queen.”

Belissar stilled smiled and held up his other hand for the Tenth Daughter to land on, making her some spell-honey like her sister.

“That’s fine, she can just take her time and evolve on her own, right? Will she be staying with you or should I make preparations?”

The First of the Fifth danced a happy dance.

“King is best king! Will stay here, will try teach honeyswirling.”

After greeting the bees, new and old alike, Belissar asked Chief Rohsuak to send word to the sigmaka and inform them that the purification was over and they were free to resume challenging. Then, he made his way to the former nexus room door, now moved back to the sixth floor and away from the frontlines. The Fairy Grove had recovered remarkably over the night, the barren wasteland was once more filled with green. The forest was still a bit sparse, more of an orchard with young trees than the towering forest it once was, but those young, thin trees were already taller than Belissar. The mana of the room had grown enough to start moving again. It was only making light breezes instead of flowing rivers, but it was enough to make its presence felt. The fairy circles had started to gather mana once more and some light wild magic had resumed in their immediate vicinity.

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Belissar made his way past them to the new Gateway and found the fair folk already there. The wardens were hard at work, currently building up a base camp while they planned the room’s defenses. If there was any silver lining to the room’s devastation, it was that they had a lot of room to work with now, the fair folk were constructing wooden buildings around the gateway instead of the tents they had used before.

And with the wardens came a group of silver elf warriors, here to resume challenging his Tower. Belissar met them and confirmed that his Tower was open once more, as well as asking them to pass along a few invitations on his behalf. One was to Duke Turuhave and the Silver Host for a belated victory banquet, the other was to Lord Aratodel for a chat. Since it turned out Lord Aratodel was a dungeon master of Flowers like Tarwantrad, Belissar decided he would see if the elf was interested in hosting bees.

Once he had finished contacting all of his allies, Belissar set about to work on behalf of the gods. He would need a lot more mead for the God of Revelry’s celebration, so he needed to get started on that now.

And the first thing he needed to do…was upgrade the Apiary farmhouse. A little side room in the small farmhouse was wholly insufficient to store the amount of mead Belissar needed. In fact, jars of mead were already starting to take over the living room and even Belissar’s bedroom.

No, what Belissar needed were dedicated facilities to making and storing mead. Fortunately, with all the Apiary bees having moved to the Beecity, there was plenty of room to work with in the Apiary…which wasn’t really an apiary at this point, either. So, Belissar called for the fortifying queen the Third of the Third and the blessed karnuq mason Muuraqi and got to work. The Third of the Third helped him assemble a workshop for mixing mead near the Apiary’s pond for easy water access while Muuraqi, the karnuq, and the hive of hives’ digging bees started building a storage cellar further away.

Unexpectedly, Juosiutik got involved when she got word of what was going on. She provided some pointers regarding storage and experimentation rooms for volatile and dangerous ingredients, for instance having a separate and fire-proofed place for work on burning honey. Belissar was most grateful for her suggestions, he was indeed intending to try making mead out of all sorts of honey and, indeed, it’d be a bad idea to have toxic honey lying around near the regular mead once Belissar thought about it. On Juosiutik’s advice, Belissar had several rooms prepared in the workshop, and even some separate structures, each prepared to handle one of the hive of hives’ more exotic honey types.

With the hive of hives’ and Muuraqi’s help, the buildings took shape before Belissar’s very eyes. He’d have the basic structures ready for him before the day was over…and then he’d have everything he needed to make as much mead as he wanted.

A group of soldier bees flew across the Apiary in steady loops, keeping an eye on everything in King’s home hive. This particular set of bees was unique in the hive of hives, for they had no queen-mother and no hive. No, these soldiers were those raised directly by King himself, they had no ruler but him, they had no hive but the King’s realm itself. They were the bees of the First and only Soldier Spawner, the only soldiers to have been spawned rather than born.

And these soldiers…had been at a bit of a loss of late. Once upon a time they had fought in battles alongside the bee army, but the threats facing the hive of hives had evolved beyond what a handful of hiveless soldiers could defeat. Later, they had been the ones to drop fire radish slivers upon King’s honey traps…but King had since moved to dangerous one’s fire pots. Those fire pots were too big and heavy for soldiers, not when the much larger and stronger bumblebee soldiers were available, so the spawner soldiers had been left without a role.

And as the bee army further embraced the hive of hives, the soldiers’ lack of a queen-mother came to haunt them. They had no one to lead them, no one to seek an alternative role for them outside of their instincts. They also had no advocate in the hive of hives and no one to bind them into the greater whole. They had no communer-sisters to dance with hive mana and no drone-brothers to connect them to other hives.

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter could have brought them into her hive as a monster bee empress, but she had much work to do and the soldiers had not approached her, for they were soldier bees. Their duty was to obey, not to request. They didn’t even need honey deliveries, being sustained directly by their spawner, so the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter had nothing pulling her attention their way.

Beero and the hive of the fallen could have taken them in as well, a hive made up of soldiers fighting apart from the hives of their birth would have suited them well. But, fortunately or unfortunately, none of the spawner soldiers had lost their wings, so none of them had earned a place in the hive of the fallen yet, and neither had their current status been brought to Beero’s attention.

And so, with no role in the hive of hives, no queen to command them, and no further orders from King, the soldiers fell back upon their instincts and returned to their spawner, which happened to be in the same room as King’s hive. There, they patrolled without fail, guarding King’s hive even though no threat had ever reached it. It was a duty of great importance…and yet, they couldn’t help but wonder if it was all they could do.

But now, on this day, something changed. The soldiers were present when King brought the Third of the Third into the room and began constructing grand palaces, palaces even grander than the giant one he currently dwelt in. The soldiers naturally observed…and they couldn’t help but notice King’s excitement. King didn’t dance “Amazing, incredible!” dances, but the soldiers thought this was the closest they had seen him to one.

The soldiers watched a bit more closely as time went on. One thing was clear: King had grand plans for this room and would soon do amazing and incredible works within it. And if he needed any help with it…the spawner soldiers would be there, waiting for his command.