It was probably the worst name for a monster Quinn had heard since arriving in the universal Library those few months ago. It was as on the nose as anything. Very unimaginative. While trying desperately to figure out how to take cover in an open air room, Quinn allowed herself to scan them so perhaps the system’s information could be accessed to assist them.

She was clutching at all the straws.

Vibrato bees (Vibicial Forenado)

Ability: Swarm resonance disruption

Danger Categorization: 12 Typhoon Type

Current level: Medium

Quinn raised an eyebrow at that. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about this information that meant absolutely nothing to her. The ability to process and think fast may have bought her precious seconds, but the only thing she could think of to do, was to throw a barrier up and hopefully prevent them from dive bombing her.

It was Quinn’s first real attempt at shielding something that wasn’t a body. She wasn’t entirely sure how much energy to throw at it, to push into it and how it would go taking all the damage. Small though they might be, they’d do a heck of a lot of damage if they all impacted against something at once.

She erred on the side of putting way too much into the shield.

It popped up not a second too soon, the blue hue of her scales the predominant color, even though the entire shield was mostly transparent, shone in the dim light reaching through the canopy, just before the cloud of Vibrato Bees descended on it.

Hundreds of the little buggers must have rebounded off the shield as Quinn could hear them hitting it. There were quite a few squishing sounds to be had as well. She frowned, and poured a bit more energy into it, not too concerned considering she had it in abundance. But she couldn’t keep doing this for hours. It was only going to buy them some time until, hopefully; they figured out what the hell to do.

She took a sharp intake of breath as the cloud of bees began to move more cautiously, as if they were trying to discover an in to the interior through the shield. At least that meant it wouldn’t take her any extra energy until they decided to attack again.

“Okay. That’ll hold for now, but first - what the hell and secondly... how the hell do we deal with these?” Quinn was proud that some of that was even made up of coherent sentences.

Irias spoke before Nishpa could. “They’re not supposed to be here.”

The kid was beginning to sound like a broken record. Despite being hundreds of years older than Quinn, she felt more like a child. “We know they’re not supposed to be here, but...”

Irias shook her head, glaring vehemently toward the bees. “They were driven out thousands of years ago. We have glyphs and runic circles in place specifically to ward them off. They shouldn’t be here.”

Quinn understood now. She wasn’t being figurative, she was being literal.

“That’s true.” Nishpa said as she came to hover next to Quinn, also looking up at their slow-moving attackers as they cased the joint, trying to discover a weak point.

“It’s not the best shield.” Quinn muttered, quite worried that it wouldn’t take much more for them to break through. “So the quicker we can come up with a solution, the better.”

“Those aren’t fully charged yet.” Narilin gasped from where she still lay on the table, gasping slightly for breath. “The shield is helping. Their toxins can’t reach us in here right now. My bark is healing on its own...”

Irias catapulted over to land lightly next to Narilin and knelt down, placing her hand on the book doctor’s forehead. She exerted a slight bit of magic Quinn could practically feel. But the sensations weren’t like anything Quinn had experienced herself when using her own magic. In fact, this was more like a calm waterfall spilling out into an equally calm lagoon. Soothing and peaceful amidst the slightly delayed abject terror of being stalked by a massive swarm of bees.

Narilin’s peeling bark began to heal, visibly.

Quinn raised an eyebrow and Irias shrugged, as if she could feel the scrutiny.

“I am a healer. I have always been a healer. Part of my parent’s disgust and disappointment that I am not a true book healer, but a person healer.” The young Balisor leapt lightly across the tables to reach her parents. There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation in her reaching forward and applying the same healing method to each of her parents.

Even if Quinn was certain she glimpsed an ever so slight unwillingness in her eyes before she applied the healing, there was nothing different in the undertones of the spell as it sang into the older Balisor’s bodies.

They didn’t wake up the way Narilin had though, and Quinn frowned. “Do you think they’ll be okay?”

Irias shrugged. “I can’t say. They have been quite lax in my training and so my ability to read how well my own abilities heal has not been afforded the necessary growth. I cannot read why they are not yet waking up or guess when they might. It would take a better healer than I to read those aspects of their minds.” She glanced back up at the bees, and Quinn could see how her shoulders shook despite the spirit of her words.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Irias was being brave, but it only extended so far. She was still young, inexperienced, and had apparently been sheltered most of her life.

Not that Narilin was any different.

The bees moved, pressing slowly against the shielding, testing every single nook and cranny of it. Quinn narrowed her eyes. This way, they weren’t actually draining her power. It wouldn’t drain until it had to repel or reinforce itself. Which was good, because in the mean time she could work on replenishing all the energy she’d already spent on it, let alone the mana.

“How are you holding them there?” Irias asked.

“It’s a shield.” Quinn muttered, still relieved that the idea worked. Her energy was barely on the edge of three thousand right now, but one of those bees gave up inspecting it and began trying to smash it, her mana was going to run like a faucet until she stopped it.

What are we going to do? We don’t have our fighters with us. I could probably burn up a whole gang of bees, but something tells me fire in the middle of a forest regardless of whether it’s super damp, is probably not the best idea.

Nishpa laughed, but the sound, even in Quinn’s head, was dry. There are few strategies that work with bees. Only that they would disapprove of a discordant harmony - which I don’t believe anyone here knows how to make yet... or else ice.

Ice? Quinn mulled that answer over for a bit, playing around with it in her head. Ice is a possibility. I can work with that. Will it lower their body temperature and make them less of a threat?"

Anything will lower its body temperature if you freeze it, Nishpa said meaningfully.

But Quinn wasn’t of the same mind. Won’t they like just cluster together for warmth against the cold and thus drop like a wrecking ball onto my shield, smashing through it with the sheer weight of the ice and their own mass and thereby draining all of my energy at once?

Nishpa shrugged. They could, but they could also just freeze and fall, shattering against the shield and other things.

In short, it meant no one had a clue, but ice seemed like the safest choice if Quinn didn’t want to burn the damn forest down.

Suddenly there was a knock, and it came from above.

Screw waiting for her to freeze them to death with her ice spells, they seemed to have already formed the ball and were knocking themselves rhythmically against the shielding she’d placed there. Another not ideal situation. She readied herself, digging in her inventory to grab another one of the energy regeneration cakes. This was the second... she couldn’t take them again...

Chomping down on it, she reinforced the shielding, pulling on her innate protections as well as everything she’d learned about protecting others. At the same time, she began gathering ice into a small ball to start with. About the size of a golf ball to start, she spun and spun it until it was at least as large as a tennis ball, then she allowed it to float in the air in front of it, suspended by the cold and whatever magic had leaked in near her. Quinn began to work on a second one, trying to form a decent attack plan in her mind.

This wasn’t like on Ishiposa Isle where there’d been fire and attack golems and people were on even footing, so to speak. No, in here they couldn’t even do anything standing up.

Frankly, Quinn thought, being made out of wood, the tables were highly suspect too.

Irias gasped off to her left.

Quinn maintained her grip on her ice balls and looked in the direction of the sound.

She wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about what she saw. Aradie was back, and she had two massive dark brown owls in tow with her. They looked like none of the night owls Quinn had seen before.

These are distant brethren. Hunters of this forest. They have confided that Vibrato Bees are some of their favorite missed delicacies.

Quinn grinned. She loved it when Aradie took the time to actually speak to her. Excellent. Sounds like a great plan. What do you need us to do? She couldn’t help but feel relieved that Sarila or another Salosier hadn’t arrived. Keeping the few in this room safe was proving hard enough considering how badly the bees managed to affect them.

Could you freeze the shield?

Quinn blinked, even as a second heavier barrage against the shield began. She could feel her energy just sapping out of her gently with each hit. At least she wasn’t in danger of losing it all yet. Of course I can do that. I’d like to know why.

Aradie gave her a brief look. Later. They’re starting to figure out your shield and I don’t have the energy left over to heal you all from Vibrato bee bites. You’re not immune, and they have venomous stingers. Especially for the Salosier. Keep the others safe. We will take care of the bees.

Quinn nodded. And keep the shielding frozen. Got it.

Aradie bowed her head briefly and took off back outside, with the other two massive owls following her.

Quinn watched the bird dart out, distracted momentarily from her shield, and at the worst possible moment.

There was a loud bang that shook the entire room. A crack sounded throughout the area, but Quinn hastily poured more energy into the shielding, securing it even tighter than it had been before. If she hadn’t gotten sidetracked, it probably wouldn’t have buckled so badly. She began the arduous task of creating ice over the whole thing, reinforcing it, solidifying it, making it thicker and thicker.

The bees began to hammer at it, and she could see them growing desperate even as they slowly began to lose momentum. What Quinn didn’t like was that it drained her mana, and she couldn’t see once the iced layers began to thicken. It created a barrier above them that was nigh impenetrable.

Above them, the swarms’ frantic hammering grew more and more desperate and then suddenly the loud buzzing that had begun to make her ears bleed... finally stopped.

The vibrations above them stopped and slowly, but surely, even Haritan and Karella began to move.

“Is that it?” Irias asked, looking around incredulously. “It just took some...”

But whatever she’d been about to say was lost in the high-pitched squeal buzzing that grew and grew.

Quinn fell onto her hands and knees on her table, the sound of pressure pushing her down. She didn’t have any spare attention to watch the others with. But she knew they wouldn’t be much better off. Her brains felt like they wanted to liquefy and spill out of her head. The only thing keeping them in there was sheer willpower.

Finally, the sound stopped. For several seconds, there was complete and utter silence.

And then the sound of crisp munching filtered down through to them.

The popping of icy bodies with sharpened beaks.

Quinn shuddered at the sound and refused to melt the ice from her shielding quite yet.