Chapter 41: Moss Rolling Stones

I had to agree with Jimbo-no and Spinemess.

Jellybee was truly terrifying.

“I can see that they’re swarming!” Jimbo-no said. “BUT WHY BRING THEM INSIDE?”

“They’re not aggressive right now! Honest! There are no broods here,” Jellybee replied. “You can dip your hand right in them and they won’t sting you. Come on, give it a try.” He held out a hand covered in bees.

Which was true. I saw it happen. I had only been paying attention at the moment because I had been trying to test another theory in the hive again. It scared the wits out of me when I watched him dip his arm into a fresh batch of bees hanging from a tree branch.

“Fuck no,” Jimbo-no replied.

Jellybee held his hand out to the dryad next.

“I will pass this time, but thank you for the offer,” Spinemess said.

“Suit yourself,” Jellybee replied. “What about you, Granny?” Jellybee held out a swarming hand to me. “Wanna take a dip?”

Just then, Bonny stepped into the Merriweather Dungeon. “I’m back, Ethel!” She called. “Just for a quick moment though. I'm going to drop off some stuff, then head out again.” She entered through the front door and moved through the cottage.

“I’m sure they’re real cuddly, Jellybee, but you know I can’t touch them even if I wanted to. Besides, it sounds like Bonny has returned.”

“Hey, where is everybody?” Bonny called out. “And is that… music?” She cautiously walked down the trapdoor stairs. “Is anybody down here?”

“Get a load of this, Bonny!” Jimbo-no called. “Granny made a music box and Jellybee has gone crazier than normal!”

She slowly came down the stairs. “I like it. I didn’t know you could make music, Ethel.” Without looking, she carefully set down a heavy looking parcel upon a side table. I took a peek inside and saw that it was a bundle of books. When she turned around she took a step back in shock. She quickly recovered, then stated firmly, “No, Jellybee. Absolutely not!”

“They’re swarming!”

“I DON’T CARE. No bee swarms in the house. Period. Take them outside where they belong.”

“But-” Jellybee started.

“No butts.” She pointed up the stairs. “This is an order. Or so help me, Jellybee!”

He sank his head and glacially shuffled up the stairs. A few bees fluttered about in his absence, then shortly followed after.

Jimbo-no started laughing. I admit I cracked a smile.

“And you, Ethel,” Bonny said as she turned upon me. “Jimbo-no I can understand, but I would think you should know better.”

“You’re right.” I smiled sheepishly. “You caught me. I thought it’d be a funny prank to play on the others. I didn’t know you’d be home so soon.”

That wasn’t a complete lie. It was funny. The reality was that for the last few minutes I had been actively trying to Mana Sweep in the background. More specifically, I was trying to see what would happen if I Swept up a bee corpse. Unfortunately the results had been the same. The rest of the hive that had remained did not take kindly to this and responded with aggression.

But Bonny didn’t need to know what wouldn’t hurt her.

I continued speaking. “Can he keep the bees though? I can build him a beehive. Though it might take some trial and error. The boy needs a hobby. And I know he’ll take good care of them.”

“And you’ll get a bunch of honey!” Jellybee called down from above. Because, of course, he had been listening from halfway up the stairs.

“Fine. Just make sure they stay out of the house,” Bonny said.

Jellybee cheered, then charged up the rest of the stairs.

“I’ve got another errand to do, but I should be back before nightfall. Until then… try to behave yourselves. All of you. That includes you, Ethel.”

“No problemo,” I said. “We’ll be working down here the rest of the night.”

Bonny raised an eyebrow. “Building another tunnel?”

“More or less,” I said.

Bonny raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. Which I had to admit was a little intimidating. She was taller than me and could look imposing with those sunken dark eyes.

It was almost as effective as my stern granny stare.

Almost.

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“We’re digging downwards this time. It will be another set of steps leading to another floor. So we can do tests away from the cottage.”

And away from my Core.

“Okay,” Bonny unfolded her arms. “That’s fine.” I was taken aback. Which must have shown on my Soul Stroll face, because she continued. “It makes sense. We need an area to safely summon new Minions. And you need all the Mana you can get. Just be careful. It’s not likely, but there’s a chance you could encounter a monster. This close to the surface monsters shouldn’t be too high level, so your Minions should be able to handle it.”

I had no idea one could find monsters while digging. What a terrible treasure hunt reward. I had been honestly looking forward to finding nothing more than old fossils. Those could be neat. Instead I had to look forward to monsters randomly popping out of the ground? Until this point my only concerns had been completely natural, like accidentally hitting groundwater or breaking into a cave system.

“And if they can’t handle a monster?” I asked.

“Then collapse the tunnel if you can. And let me know immediately when I return.”

I nodded. “Understood.”

Bonny started up the stairs. “Oh, before I go…” She paused and shook her head. “Never mind, it’s dumb.”

“What is it, dear?”

“I bought some pots and pans. And other cooking utensils. I left them on the table. If one of your Minions gets a chance, can you have them put them away nicely in the kitchen? I would appreciate it. If not, it’s no bother. I’ll get to it when I can.”

Bonny carried herself well, but the young girl clearly wasn’t used to being the master of the house. Let alone the master of herself.

I didn’t blame her. Asking for help could be hard.

“Most certainly,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said as she left.

Jimbo-no followed behind her.

“Jimbo-no?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved a hand dismissively through the door. “Already on it.”

****

Jimbo-no had not only put away the cooking supplies, but also installed hooks for them. Pots and pans dangled from the walls quite nicely. It gave the kitchen a professional, yet homely feeling.

In the yard, Jellybee and I worked on the new beehive. It took a while, but eventually we managed to create a decent box shaped wooden beehive, complete with removable hive frames. There were all sorts of man-made beehives that would work, but Jellybee was insistent upon the frame being removable. Which admittedly was a lesson in frustration for me. But I had to admit it was good for practicing Skills. Gardencraft went up to level 8. And because we needed the new hive to be far enough away from the old one to avoid conflict, Leyline Knitting went up to level 7,

Even after all that, Queenie’s swarm was resistant to settling into their new home. It took about an hour of soothing words and thorax scritches, but Jellybee eventually managed to coerce the new hive into the contraption.

To restock on Mana, I secretly Mana Swept away at the infrastructure of the old hive. Compared to Sweeping up the bees directly inside the hive, it was far easier to Sweep the outside edges of their honeycombs, along with the exterior of the oak tree trunk. Which, loathe as I am to admit it, the Skill got a big boost from my Homewrecker title. Of course, those bees weren’t too happy about that either, but what could they do to stop me? I was getting much faster at Sweeping, especially since it went up to level 4.

Throughout the evening and night I could keep pecking away, kicking the ‘hornet’ nest, then skedaddle as soon as they came buzzing. Given enough time I knew the old hive would scatter to the winds and search for a new home.

And hopefully they would leave behind a corpse or two for me to experiment upon.

Which, uh, in retrospective, sounds kind of evil?

Anyways.

Speaking of secrets: during all this, Spinemess secretly sifted for gold in my bedroom closet.

Yeah, that’s all I’ve got to say about that. It’s not exactly riveting work. But it was important to do and they did it without complaint.

All told, these tasks took longer than I expected, but a few hours later my undead Minions and I had completed them and we went right back to working away in the mines. Construction on a new set of steps was well underway at the end of the cellar tunnel. With enough Leyline Stitching I had figured out a good direction for the stairs to lead and their length. Ideally this new floor I wanted would be situated entirely away from the house and the river, placed neatly underneath a nearby hill that overlooked the cottage.

The Bone Spur Gramophone turned out to be an excellent choice. And not just because the boys enjoyed it, since Jellybee and Jimbo-no kept trying to sing along to the scrambled lyrics. Their work speed and efficiency seemed to have improved. It wasn’t hugely noticeable at first glance, but we were digging down through another layer. And the deeper you go, the harder it gets to dig. We weren’t even using modern machinery. Just a few pickaxes, shovels, and a simple Gardencrafted wheelbarrow.

We used the wheelbarrow to haul rocks and dirt into the cellar, which was closer to my Core. It wasn’t worth it to haul it all up the steps, but the shorter distance did make a difference. I could Mana Sweep objects closer to me in less time and get more experience out of it, since the cellar was officially considered by the System to be part of the “home” that was being “wrecked.”

Spinemess unsurprisingly turned out to also be a big helping hand. Four helping hands, to be exact. They didn’t have a Mining Skill like Jellybee, but they made up for it by being able to swing two pickaxes in quick succession. Within an hour, the multi-handed Dryad reportedly acquired a new Skill called ‘Dual Wielding.’

“What? Already?” Jimbo-no said. “Ya gotta be bullshittin’ us. You’re still undead! There’s no way! That’s too fast!”

Spinemess proved him wrong by carving through a foot of rock in mere seconds. They raised two middle fingers.

Jimbo-no whistled. “Point taken, mossy. Keep rolling them stones. I won’t stop ya.”

Then, shortly after that, I got a notification.

Which was just swell. It was already halfway to where it was before.

After that, the speed of the work amplified even more.

Sure enough, we made a full staircase by the time the storm blew in and rain poured over the cottage. And by the time Bonny returned we had even started on a new hallway. Which was technically on the new Dungeon Floor, which the air lady System kindly reminded me of:

Oh, yeah, I forgot I had one of those. But really, who needed a floor map for a small cottage? Not I, that’s who. I ain’t that old!

I used a bunch of the accumulated Mana to Gardencraft up new doors, flooring, and even lamps within the basement. Within a couple hours my Pyreplace Simmer Power had brewed up a soft, shag, runner. The long carpet fit perfectly down the length of the hall that led to the bedrooms. It was finally feeling less like a dirt tunnel and more like an actual hallway that was intentionally part of the home.

All that without a single monster in sight.

We truly had made good progress in ‘Record Time.’