Belissar took a deep breath. He could do this. He slew a monster of the Hunger! He was chosen by a god, even! He was a Tower Lord now, one of the pinnacles of humanity that guided the course of civilization!

So, he definitely couldn’t be afraid of looking at the next choice! Maybe it would even help him make all his other choices!

Such was Belissar’s hope and prayer...

Please select a perk:

- Bee Specialist (Rarity: Common)

- Bee Breeder (Rarity: Uncommon)

- Enhanced Toxins (Rarity: Common)

Having no idea what any of that meant from first glance, Belissar looked over each option in turn.

Bee Specialist

- Bee type options offered more frequently

- Bee type monsters gain slight boost to all stats if more common than all other types

That seemed useful. He was blessed by the God of Bees, so he would be using more of them than anything else. Probably. As far as Belissar knew...which wasn’t very.

Bee Breeder

- Small increase to the rate monster bee queens produce offspring

Well, more bees wouldn’t hurt.

Enhanced Toxins

- Small damage and duration increase for all toxins

So that would make his bees’ stings hurt more. Belissar could choose between slightly stronger bees, some more bees, or bees that stung harder. Belissar rubbed his chin. He then grunted, crossed his arms, and nodded.

“Yep. I have no idea what to do.”

Then he held his head and groaned.

----------------------------------------

Belissar thought and he thought until the sun went down, but still he had no idea what to pick. He just didn’t know enough about Towers to know what he was even supposed to aim for.

The conduit bee then flew by once again, after a hard day helping the other bees no doubt. He lifted his finger and she landed on it.

“King, need help?”

Belissar sighed.

“I just...I don’t know what I’m doing, or what I should even do. I’m sorry, I just...I don’t know how to be a good Tower Lord.”

The bee danced around unsteadily.

“Tower Lord?”

Belissar sighed.

“Or a good king, if that makes more sense. Or queen, for you? I don’t know.”

The bee began dancing excitedly.

“King good king! Best king!”

Belissar chuckled at the sight, then shook his head.

“I’m really not. I just...I wish there was another Tower Lord here. Someone who could teach me what to do...”

The bee kept dancing rapidly.

“King not need other king! King knows! King make best choice! King build best hives!”

Belissar shook his head again.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“You and the queens built the hives, not me.”

The bee began to buzz loudly.

“King build all hives! Built hives without core!”

Belissar blinked, and then tilted his head.

“Are you talking about the old beehouses?”

“Yes, those! Warm, safe, good for hive! Old queen said were best!”

Belissar blinked, and then chuckled. He guessed a little bee might indeed be impressed by something like that. But making a wooden box and running a Tower of the Gods were two entirely different things.

Still...it didn’t feel bad to have someone who believed in him. He only hoped he could live up to that trust.

He then rubbed his chin and hummed. Well, he still didn’t know much about being a Tower Lord, and he didn’t know what the right choices here were. He was but a humble beekeeper. But...that was apparently why his friend wanted him in charge...and his patron was the God of Bees. Maybe he should just focus on what he knew?

After all, he figured out how to fight the Hunger when thinking as a farmer and a beekeeper. Maybe he should forget being a good Tower Lord, and just go with his gut? Well, in any case, making some choice was better than none. Hopefully. Maybe. There wasn’t another countdown for a purification at the moment, but Belissar couldn’t be certain if or when another would appear. And the one thing he knew is that he’d certainly like to have more to fight it with than a field of dandelions.

Belissar sighed and stood up, and then looked at the conduit bee again. He made a small smile.

“I think I’m ready to choose. Thanks for your help.”

“Worker always help King!”

Belissar paused at that. It seemed there was something important he had forgotten in all this chaos.

“You know, I never got your name.”

The bee paused, and then danced slowly.

“What name?”

Belissar frowned. He guessed...the bees didn’t have names for themselves?

“No name, huh. In that case, why don’t I give you one?”

The bee just stared at Belissar as he thought.

“How about...Niobee?”

“Ok!”

Conduit Unnamed Bee is now named Niobee.

Belissar smiled as he watched Niobee dance about, before returning to his task. He took a deep breath, and then opened the windows, making his choices as they came to him.

Monster bee soldier spawner now available. Monster bee queens may now spawn monster bee soldiers.

Belissar would love to keep his bees from harm, never letting them fight again...but that simply wasn’t reasonable. He was no fighter and had no confidence he could continue to protect the bees with his own hands. Equally as important, it was in the bees’ own nature to protect their hives, and Belissar couldn’t stop them from doing so forever. He had chosen them as the defenders of the Tower, after all. So, the next best thing he could do was make sure they could fight effectively, so that the next time he would not need to watch the hives destroyed and the colonies fall from the sky en masse.

As such, he went with the monster bee soldiers. Dedicated warrior bees might be capable of taking on an enemy on their own...and at the very least should do better than the workers who were practically normal bees. The soldiers would fight and the workers would gather, as was their intended roles.

And with that in mind...

Apiary is now available.

The monster bee soldier description stated the queens could spawn them once their hives were more developed...so Belissar hoped an Apiary would help them reach that stage more quickly. And, if it didn’t, he could still benefit from the honey it produced...

Sticky Honey Trap is now available.

Sticky Honey Trap

Type: Bee, Trap

Mana Upkeep: 3 (1 if honey provided)

Description: Spreads sticky honey onto a target or area, hindering target’s mobility. Upkeep reduced if dungeon has a source of honey. Effects may vary with type of honey.

With this, he would have a way to weaponize the honey more directly. That would allow his worker bees to contribute to the defense by doing what they did best, the Apiary’s honeycomb production as well. Perhaps if he could combine this trap and the pit trap, he could repeat his fire pit strategy without needing three days of setup.

The note about effects varying with the type of honey was also interesting. Could his bees make more than just regular honey? Would different types of bees make different types of honey, then? The old beekeeper had told him stories as a child about fire bees that could make spicy honey or ice bees that could survive in the winter and made honey as cool as snow. Up till now he had thought they were just stories...but with a Tower of the Gods, who knew what was possible?

Belissar even smiled. He was starting to look forward to the next monster choice...

And finally, to round it all off...

Bee Breeder selected.

This was the hardest of the choices. All of them were helpful to his bees and he still didn’t know enough to know which was more important. But at the end of the day, the strength of bees was their numbers. Bees worked together, living in colonies of thousands acting as one single being. They could drive away animals thousands of times their size by swarming as a group. So, Belissar figured the more bees, the better.

Stronger bees from Bee Specialist might have been helpful...but he didn’t know how much stronger it would actually make them. Even the monster bee soldier wasn’t listed as “strong” after all, so how much would the perk actually boost them? He didn’t feel like something described as a “slight” boost would enable a bee the size of his hand to take on the Hunger’s shades alone, at the very least. And as for getting more bee options...well, the Blessing of Bees was already doing that.

Stronger venom was also useful, but, again, Belissar didn’t know exactly how useful. The monster from the Hunger clearly felt pain from the worker bee stings but it didn’t seem to slow down much. And, thinking of normal bees, a single bee sting generally wasn’t that dangerous, unless you were allergic. But a hundred or a thousand bee stings was a different story. So, again, Belissar figured having more stingers would help as much or more as stronger venom.

And, ultimately, Belissar’s goal now was to help his hives develop as fast as possible so that they could get access to the soldier bees. So, he figured Bee Breeder was his best bet.

With that, he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled it. He had made his choices. He didn’t know if they were the right choices, but for better or for worse he had made them.

Now he just had to go and actually place some of his new options...