And so, several days passed. Belissar was currently checking in on the bumblebee meadow, as he had taken to calling it. Bumblebee workers buzzed and circled around him as he walked through the meadow. Belissar responded by creating some magic honey in his hand for them to take a sip of, smiling as he walked. Soon, he arrived by the nests and the queens crawled out to greet him.
Belissar felt a breeze blow into his face as large wings beat in the air, shadows passing over him as large shapes circled overhead. A moment later, huge balls of fuzz gently landed on his back and shoulders. He cupped his hand, filled it with honey, and lifted it up so the bumblebee queens could get a sip as well. The queens had grown dramatically over the past week, and were now the largest bees in the dungeon. They weren’t yet as large as the incoming lancers would be…but they were still growing.
So far, only the queens had grown to that extent. The workers were a bit larger than the bumblebees Belissar was used to, but still ultimately bee-sized. However…Belissar had noticed that recently the bumblebees had started to build some larger wax cups. He couldn’t wait to see what they planned to do with them.
But, most importantly, the bumblebees were happy, and growing well. And that was enough for Belissar. He laughed a bit as the queens crawled over him and he gently scratched their backs.
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Belissar did not spend the entire week just checking on the bumblebee queens, however. The Apiary had been transformed. Previously, around fifteen beehouses were scattered around the area behind the farmhouse. Now…now the Apiary looked like a small village, with ten structures even larger than the farmhouse now arranged around the flower patches and the hole leading to the third floor’s Dirt Tunnels. Six of the queens had decided to join together in joint hives, so the total number of beehouses decreased to twelve, and then the digging and burning hives were both underground.
Belissar and the soldier bees had worked hard and now all of the Apiary beehouses were now upgraded to Bee Apartments. The soldier bees grew increasingly efficient at lifting and arranging the wood, to the point that Belissar requested karnuq help with the woodworking in order to keep pace. Fortunately, since they had been offering Belissar wood as his portion of their work, he had plenty of raw materials, so the work really took off.
As for the digging queen, her workers had managed to expand her home in the meantime. She even raised a few digging soldiers with thick, tough mandibles well-suited to larger scale excavation. Belissar had simply needed to fill in the space with some frames and add a few more doors to some new entrances and her home was eligible for upgrading as well.
Of course, the other Apiary queens were not idle, either. Another queen had evolved, this time into a sedative queen. But the greatest work was one they all performed together. While Belissar and the soldier bees expanded their homes, the Apiary queens had laid new queens and drones which had just hatched today.
Belissar frowned a bit as he saw the drones fall to the ground after completing their tasks. He thought of taking them to the Memorial…only to watch their bodies fade into sparks of mana as their power was spent. But then he noticed the sparks were not moving at random, but rather drifting towards the nearest Shrine of Bees. He turned his tower sight to the Memorial off in the Flower Meadow…and found new numbers written upon a new pillar. He took a deep breath and nodded.
After that night’s daily purification, Belissar walked over to the Memorial.
“Let’s thank the drones who gave their lives today.”
Niobee paused, and then began a slow, unsteady dance.
“King wants to honor…drones? But…drones don’t fight. Don’t help…”
Belissar chuckled and held out his hand for Niobee to land on.
“No…but they have an important job to do, you know? The new queens couldn’t build hives without them, and they perish in the process. That, I think, deserves some recognition.”
Niobee spun around rapidly.
“Really?! Drones important?! Help queens?! How?!”
She turned to the queens. The Firstborn, the First of the Fifth, and the other queens danced their confirmation.
“Spawner queens fine, but new queens have to mate with drones before raising workers.”
Niobee continued rapidly dancing around in circles.
“Useless drones…not useless? Drones…important, even though don’t work? Queen needs drones to raise workers?!”
Belissar chuckled and nodded, then pointed to the new pillar.
“Yep, the God of Bees says so too.”
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Niobee spun around a few more times and then came to a stop, lowering herself to lie on Belissar’s hand for a moment before dancing slowly.
“…ok. Then…honor…drone?”
Belissar nodded.
“We’ll honor all bees.”
Belissar and a hesitant Niobee then led the bees in one of their memorials for the bees who had given their lives for the hive of hives, though not in any battle. And, unbeknownst to Belissar, a certain bee dragged along by the Fourth of the Seventh was present as well, his eyes fixed upon Belissar, the memorial, and the dance of honor.
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The rest of the Tower continued working as well. The new queens raised by the Fourth of the Seventh and the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter had grown and begun to raise workers of their own. Worker bees now spread out from beyond the grove where they lived, visiting the rows of apple trees beyond. And exchanging pollen between those trees and the mana flowers in the grove.
The Fourth of the Seventh began the scouting missions in earnest now that the mini-hive was established. Niobee now included bees from her hive in the morning reports to Belissar, so he was receiving daily reports from the scouts. So far, they mostly just told him about finding more trees and flowers, but Belissar preferred that to finding anything dramatic…and potentially dangerous. Additionally, the scouts had begun to identify the different flowers and trees Belissar didn’t have in the Tower. The Fourth of the Seventh and her escort soldiers were then gathering seeds and samples to carry back whenever she returned to her hive. It…would still be a while before Belissar could spawn a pine tree, but he’d eventually be able to increase the diversity of the Tower’s flora.
And, of course, the karnuq were not idle either. Chief Rohsuak’s new blessings improved the amount of mana she could use each day, increasing the amount of wood she could dry. This, combined with Muuraqi’s growing ability to manipulate stone, boosted the karnuq’s construction efforts, and they had a small village going by now. Additionally, they had started on metal working. At the moment it mostly consisted of cold working copper into simple tools, but they had also started constructing a stone furnace for some more sophisticated techniques. They were also arranging a new expedition to the Underway, largely for scouting and hunting, but also to try and pick up some clay they had passed previously. If Belissar could absorb and create some, pottery would be in the works as well.
But, ultimately, the greatest growth came not from any of them, but from the Flower Meadow…
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The Firstborn, and indeed all the Flower Meadow queens, gathered together now before a new tray, a brand new addition to the Bee Barracks. The Flower Meadow queens had requested the material, and then had their soldiers assemble the tray themselves, not wanting to distract the King from his work on the Apiary queens’ homes. And, as more and more of their soldiers participated in the construction work elsewhere, they found they had the bee-power to make something simple like this themselves.
The tray was the same shape as any other built by the King, but with a very key difference: it was far larger. Not only did it frame a larger area, the frames themselves were also noticeably wider. When filled with wax, it became more of a box than a tray, expanding out in all three dimensions as the combs were built far deeper than normal.
It took great efforts to build and even greater efforts to fill, but the Flower Meadow hives had seen it done. They had made a radical decision and ceased laying soldier eggs altogether. The queens had concluded that, at the moment, the soldier bee army was large enough. They had enough to completely encircle an invader while keeping several additional encirclements worth of soldiers in the reserve force. More soldiers would not make them much stronger…and they needed the honey.
They instead focused on reorganizing and expanding their workers. The First of the Fifth’s feedback had been…incredibly enlightening. The Firstborn knew honey-making wasn’t her forte, but she hadn’t realized just how far behind she had fallen on account of her negligence. Their production dipped a bit as they had much to reorganize, but once they had implemented the First of the Fifth’s feedback they saw their honey output soar. They then all agreed to expand their worker numbers to a level that would keep the workers from scrambling and becoming disorganized in the future.
And since they weren’t raising more soldiers, they took all that additional honey and stockpiled it. The Apiary hadn’t cut its donations either, so combined with their own increases in production their combs were soon overflowing with honey.
And that brought them to today. Each of the queens had taken the oldest, strongest, and most experienced of her soldiers and encased them in the cells far too large for any existing bee, packed with the richest mana honey available in the Bee Barracks. They had slept away in their sealed-up cells for several days now…but the Firstborn sensed that the time was near.
The sheer amount of work had taken her mind off of it, but now that things were winding down her failure weighed on her once more. Their army had failed more than once against the intruders. Would that continue in the future? Would they always remain one step behind the invaders threatening the hive of hives? Was it impossible for them to defend the King?
The Firstborn didn’t know. Her record wasn’t the greatest, so she could not claim confidence in facing whatever lay ahead. But all she knew was that, even if it was impossible, even if she would fail, she would not stop trying. Beero, a soldier from her own hive, had gone from a cripple no longer fit for battle to a warrior who could bring lightning itself down upon their foes. The Firstborn would do no less. She would spare no effort to overturn their present weakness.
And the first of those efforts would show themselves today.
The wax covering one of the cells began to bulge. Workers and even soldier bees moved to tear open the huge cap covering an equally huge cell. A moment later…a bee even larger than the Firstborn began to crawl out. The Flower Meadow queens stood in silence, eyes poring over the new bee even as the workers cleaned off the last remnants of honey sticking to her body. This…this was a larger bee than any of them had ever seen, as large as the smallest invaders even. Her chitin was sleek, her wings long and firm, but it was her abdomen that drew the Firstborn’s attention. Her stinger was not retracted and hidden like the rest of theirs. No, it couldn’t have been hidden even had the bee tried. The stinger was built into the back of the abdomen across its entire width, extending out in a long and sleek clone ending in a sharp tip. It alone was as long as an entire soldier bee.
The Firstborn would not content herself into believing that this alone was enough. But she did allow herself to hope that it was a strong step in the right direction.
Especially as the other cells in the massive tray began to bulge out as well…