You could hear the droning all the way from the Pyramid Temples of Degar’Alesh. You could also see the inhabitants thereof zipping around through the trees, although they’d kept a healthy distance from the dead Tree and the slithys stuff around it.
There weren’t very many living things on the island larger than a rat on the island for a very simple reason: the Phyntos Wasps here ate all of them. One blast of lightning, and goodbye to any land animal and flying thing that wasn’t a Summons.
The Wasps had long gotten familiar with the Summoned creatures and didn’t bother them in the slightest. Killing them didn’t get them any prey to drag back to their Hive, after all, so it was completely stupid to attack them.
Thus, there were a remarkable number of Summons on the way to and from the great Phyntos Hive of Freebooter Island.
“Aye, the only dead things ye ever saw in the cave were the corpses o’ Society agents… though that were strange, too,” the Mick assured us all, getting that ‘mindfuckery recognized’ look on his face again. “Aye, the corpses should have faded away, too…”
“What interest did the Societies have in the things? Just population control?” I had to ask him.
“Phyntos honey, stingers, queen’s body, and numbers,” he recited dutifully, his tone curt. “Fuck just wiping the things out completely as would make sense, we be just killin’ Summons repeatedly for some Karma and Luminance, aye, smart thing t’ be wastin’ time on…”
One hundred and three different Spawn Points had been neutralized behind us in a path leading back to the Pyramids. Nineteen real Killer Phyntos Wasps or Giant Jungle Phyntos Wasps were dead among the many Summons of moarsmen, moars, sclavi, Mana Hunter Bandits, and buzzily hovering Phyntos spawns going nowhere.
Luminance was definitely accumulating among everyone, on top of the major award of it gained for taking down the Arm of T’Thuun. What to spend such stuff on was another story.
The Phyntos Hive sat right at the bottom of the ridgeline that led up to Freebooter Keep. There were hundreds of the wasps hovering in static Summons all around it, with dozens visible flying in and out of the place every minute. The entry to it was huge enough to qualify as a Dungeon entrance all by itself, standing five feet above the surrounding ground.
“Productive,” Kris noted sarcastically, and the Mick just shrugged in irritation. Another pointless series of Quests he hadn’t realized until now. “Now, we’re going to kill them all if we can. Without destroying all that goddamn honey, because that would be just plain stupid.”
She had everyone’s immediate interest. “That be a lot o’ mead we could make out o’ that,” the Mick pointed out, smacking his lips for emphasis.
“Good honey butter on good bread,” I rebutted him. “And I know some candies and cream dishes that would make you cry to taste them.”
“I like Ryin’s ideas better!” Selena spoke up, and the Mick gave her an affronted look. “Sorry, Lord Mick. Wine before mead!” she said cheerfully.
“Barbarian southerner!” he accused her, wagging a finger scoldingly.
“Her ancestral family’s holdings are actually further north than the McMikal stomping grounds,” Kris informed him sweetly, earning a beaming smile from Selena at the score. “Salted honey almonds…” She licked very attractive lips enticingly, and he didn’t miss that, either. “Put ten pounds on you in a week. Hard to stop eating them.”
The solidly-built Aluvian patted his solid belly. “I not be needing more o’ that. Mead, I at least know when t’ quit, Highness!”
“True enough. Ryin, what do you think?”
“Open a tunnel into the bottom of the hive. Put a smoker in it on full. Block the entryway in and out, and all the ventilation holes, and suffocate the bastards. They shouldn’t be able to blast their way out before they all either suffocate or are forced unconscious, and then you and I can go in there and kill everything.
“The other part of the team stays up top and kills all the returning wasps, which should take at least twelve hours to get all of them.”
“How to make enough smoke?” the Mick asked after a moment’s consideration, nodding.
“This is a jungle with heavy ferns, palm leaves, and the like all over the place. I can bring in some Summoned Phantom Servants to do all the brute work, and just set up an Eternal Flame below they keep feeding,” I told him. “You said the wasps fly around everywhere inside, except for the grubs. They are really maintaining air circulation, so they’ll actually be spreading the smoke as they do.
“It won’t be fast, as such things go, unless we can generate a whole lot of smoke and I Gust of Wind it all in fast, but it shouldn’t take forever.”
“Aye, but can ye pack up all that honey?” the Mick asked with a grin. I slugged him on the shoulder, and we all got to work.
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A Wizard Eye with the illusion of a smaller Wasp about it was sent into the Hive. Not having any scent, it didn’t set off any alarms olfactory or visual, and it had the same droning sound as all the traveling wasps as it zipped around the hive, quickly charting out the six levels of the thing, the massive honeycombed walls dripping with liquid gold, and the thousands of wasps who lived there.
The hive actually went down to nearly sea level, so I had to start over two hundred paces away when I started driving in my smoker’s tunnel underneath the bottom level where the nursery and Hive Queen were.
Kris actually went up the trees and started cutting down branches and leaves with Quaver, hewing through the palms and hardwood branches and sending them down to a forest floor that was also being rapidly cleared of ferns and ground growth by the Scouts, who also had to be wary of stumbling across new Summons or wandering Phyntos, which the Mick was basically tasked with clearing out and guarding against.
The vent I worked through the stone under the bottom level took a couple spirals, as I didn’t want anything shooting lightning down it and destroying the Fire below, while I set up a constant Gust of Wind through it to ensure rapid air flow.
The first palms fronds and ferns were thrown on the flames and crackled away, venting thick black smoke from the oily secretions on them, which were quickly sucked into the vent above and sent on up into the hive above.
The Phantom Servants I Summoned up were a small horde of ghostly fellows in blank white masks and formal Gharu’n servant uniforms. They silently got to work gathering more fronds, leaves, and branches, feeding the Flames dutifully, while everyone applauded them as they took over the routine labor.
Notably, as Summons without the ability to fight, they shouldn’t trigger anything to attack them, so they could keep gathering vegetation, building up a supply, and keeping the thick smoke venting up into the hive.
Then it was time to seal the top of the place.
To be fair, we didn’t want to totally seal it, just make sure no wasps could get out of it, while leaving the ventilation intact. That first involved killing all the Wasp Summons in the area, and then having to park there and kill all the Wasps coming back after I blocked off the entry with multiple stone vents spiraling with small holes I could Gust through for more venting.
I smacked the Swarms for everyone, and they took out the Wasps with arrows if they could, Weapons if they could not. Kris and the Mick could dispatch them without much trouble, although there was a lot of Lightning flying I’d had to Protect and Resist against. Vivifying wasps were soon spread all over the place around the entry to the Hive, which now had a plug of stone twenty feet thick in it, well below the wax level so they couldn’t dig around it readily, while a Gust of Wind on the top of it drew out the air of the Hive, and drew up the smoke from below
From there, there was casual elimination of Wasp Summons in the area, and the killing of any coming droning in with their loads of nectar to return to the hive.
Kris was the one who tracked the progress of the killing of the hive below us, her Tremblesense measuring the slow decline of vibrations from below as the flying wasps ceased beating their wings and hit the ground, and then began to lose the ability to move at all.
It took about two hours before the first wisps of smoke started coming up out of the surface venting, meaning smoke had completely pervaded the hive itself. I immediately stepped down the Gusts completely, letting the carbon dioxide and monoxide build up in the hive and kill them.
Kris just waved to me, and I opened up the plug in series as she brought down her Mask of Clarity and the edge of her Phoenix Cloak. The one would protect her eyes from any tearing, the other would enable her to breathe without effort. She’d be seeing with her Tremblesense, so actual vision wasn’t important down there.
Also, the place wasn’t glowing golden anymore. No more suncatching when soot covered so many things, and the floors were carpeted with dead or dying wasps.
Quaver hummed quietly as it plunged down precisely in repeated coup de grace thrusts and accompanying Hews and Cleaves into the Wasps, remorseless and steady as Kris got to work inside, making sure no bugs were going to survive to continue and rebuild the hive elsewhere.
Outside, my Detects kept watch for incoming wasps as I meditated, the Roaches and the Mick rising to confront any that arrived.
-----
“Wow. That Karma award was nearly as nice as the Arm of T’Thuun,” Kris murmured when I reported the size of the Glory Award we’d received, along with a big dollop of Luminance, which Roaches and Knights of the Lost Light alike were eager to invest.
That all necessitated getting familiar with what Luminance had done in the past, which wasn’t necessarily what it was going to do now. Regardless, the Mick was laying out the benefits of the Path of Light he’d chosen, and the Enhancements that had formed a foundation underneath it.
A almost barrel-like container of stone had been erected on the first floor of the hive, which was currently drawing out streams of the honey from combs over the entire floor.
It was all quite golden, because vivified wasps had nicely cleaned up the smoke and soot.
“Yes. Going to earn a lot of money for all this honey, too.” I still had five more floors to do, although the top and bottom floors had the greatest amounts of actual honey.
“Six forty-gallon barrels of Royal Honey, however.” Kris shook her head in some disbelief. I’d been quick to join her down on the bottom level as she sniffed out the extremely valuable stuff. “How valuable is the wax?”
“To an alchemist? There’s nothing better out there for practically any use,” I told her. “It’s a QL jump to include it in anything that can use it, especially in candles, soaps, perfumes, and pills.”
“There’s thousands of tons of the stuff, Ryin,” she told me, looking around coolly.
“More the volume, but I’m guessing fifty Widened Tapestries to get everything out of here, given the stuff is at least two feet thick on all the stone surfaces.”
“That’s… quite a few days of Valences.”
“Tell nobody to die while I’m gathering wax and honey, please,” I muttered to her.
“This is literally years of alchemical goodies, especially for Healing Potions.” She smiled happily. “And no more goddamn major Phyntos hive.”
“There are literally hundreds of tree-hives all over the goddamn island, you know.”
“I can dream, right?”
“And this is not a place for anyone under 180, with really good Gear. They’ll just die… and it’s a Luminance place. We have to preserve at least some of it for hunting for Luminance seekers.”