Belissar sawed away as best he could at the piece of wood before him. He was working on one of the beehouse walls at the moment, trying to cut some grooves he could slot the trays into. He looked at it and sighed.
It...was not his finest work, a rough cut that looked more like some creature had taken a bite out of the wood than a detailed woodworker. But that was the limit of his current tools and material. Since he was working with wet wood, he would have to leave room for the wood to bend or shrink or any number of other such things he couldn’t necessarily predict. He just wasn’t going to get it to fit perfectly together. He was just hoping he could get it to fit together, period.
He sighed and put it aside and began working on the next wall. He wanted to make sure all this would actually work before he went and cut a bunch of the grooves. A while later he had a basic three-sided box that fit together...sort of. There were holes and gaps and what not, but at the very least it stood up without collapsing. Belissar then went and cut out a floor piece, seeing if he could get it to fit in. It did...sort of. Again, there were gaps on the edges Belissar would have preferred to do without, so he tried to cut some pieces to line the edges.
Next, he began to cut some thinner long pieces for the frames. Getting the grooves and shapes so the frame parts would fit together was...challenging, but eventually Belissar got one assembled. He placed it down into the box...and it managed to fit into the grooves he had carved in the wall. He heaved a sigh of relief.
With the proof of concept confirmed, he could begin to assemble the rest of it...
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It took most of the day, but eventually Belissar finished. He took a step back and beheld the work of his hands.
...it was a rickety thing, leaning to one side where he misjudged the length of one of the legs, and with gaps all over the place. But it was a complete box, with some frames to guide the bees that could be pulled out...with a lot of effort and grunting. Belissar sighed.
And then he heard a chime.
Mission: Build a beehouse completed!
Reward: 225 DP
He blinked and looked over the beehouse again. The God of Bees...approved of this work? Belissar frowned, but then he glanced over at the existing beehives and his face relaxed.
Maybe the point wasn’t to get the best that Belissar could produce, but just to get something that would work without having to destroy an entire bee colony with each harvest. He...could understand why the God of Bees would prefer even the rough construction he had made.
But in the end, it was neither his nor the God of Bees' opinion that would truly determine if the hive was sufficient.
“Well, ok then. What do you think?”
He glanced over at some of the bees circling around him. He caught sight of Niobee...and the queen from the nearest basket hive. Both of the bees began buzzing and flying around the house at maximum speed.
“Great! Amazing! King is best king!”
Belissar chuckled at that and then nodded.
“As long as you girls like it.”
He then moved to pick up the hive...grunting at the weight of the wood. The rough construction meant he made things a bit thicker than normal...and he was paying for that now. But eventually, he moved it over to the closest basket hive, intending to make it as easy as possible for the queen to transfer over.
But it was then that the beehive and the basket hive began to glow.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Compatible design confirmed. Upgrade Apiary Beehive to Belissar’s Beehouse? Cost: 25 DP
“Oh, sure? That would be helpful.”
Light covered the two hives and flashed, and then the basket hive vanished. Belissar’s beehouse moved in its place, sitting on top of the tree trunk now. Belissar’s eyes widened, and he rushed over to it.
Replacing the basket hive was all well and good...but that queen had been working hard in the basket hive. The very last thing Belissar wanted was for her to lose her brood growing inside. So, he quickly removed the lid of the beehouse and began pulling out the frames. He then exhaled his breath.
Honeycomb now filled the frames...and Belissar could see little eggs and larva in some of them. The queen herself flew in front of Belissar and began a dance of happiness and gratitude. It seemed the process had transferred over the queen’s brood to the new house without issue. A smile grew on Belissar’s face as he put the frame and the lid back where they belonged.
“Enjoy.”
The queen gave her gratitude once last time, saluted to Belissar, and then flew into the beehouse to continue her work. Belissar then turned his attention to the words he had ignored in his panic.
Apiary Beehive upgraded to Belissar’s Beehouse!
Product Mana Honeycomb changed to Mana Honeycomb Tray.
Maximum products stored increased from 1 to 3.
Bee productivity increased.
Bee happiness increased!
Belissar blinked. The last line was written in glowing yellow letters. Soon though, he began to grin. That alone made all this effort worthwhile to him. He went and focused on the next basket hive. Since the Tower could upgrade them, he figured he wanted all his bees to have one.
Upgrade Apiary Beehive to Belissar’s Beehouse? Cost: 100 DP (25 if beehouse provided)
Belissar frowned and rubbed his chin. It seemed it would be a bit more expensive to upgrade if he didn’t build the beehouses himself. He did some...as quick as he could manage math in the dirt and determined that if he built all of the beehouses personally, he could just afford to upgrade the entire Apiary, while if he didn’t, he could only afford to upgrade two more.
There was no choice to Belissar, especially after he heard another chime.
Mission received: Upgrade all Apiary Beehives to Belissar’s Beehouses.
Belissar nodded.
“Absolutely.”
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Belissar spent the rest of the week working on the beehouses. With each one he made, he was able to adjust a bit more, both improving the quality of the construction and decreasing the build time. He noticed a curious phenomenon: every time he upgraded an Apiary Beehive with a new and improved beehouse, the other upgraded beehouses would adjust themselves to match. It wasn’t an identical copy of the latest one; rather, it seemed to average out between the quality of the first one and the best one available but either way Belissar was glad. He was happy to know the first queen wouldn’t be left high and dry.
Of course, that wasn’t all he did. As much as Belissar enjoyed working entirely on the beehouses, the whole purification business still weighed on the edge of his mind. So, he also spent some time making whatever preparations he happened to think of. He gathered and chopped a bunch of firewood throughout the week, since it would also need time to dry.
Once some of the firewood had dried, he could start to do some work with beeswax. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a strainer or any pots, but he could do some basics. He managed to carve some grooves into a log to melt the beeswax in, and then dipped some branches he gathered from the outside forest into the grooves. That way, he managed to make some beeswax torches that were a bit better crafted than wrapping a strip of his tunic around a stick.
...A tunic that now left a bit of his stomach exposed thanks to the strips he cut off the bottom earlier. He sighed and shook his head. Fortunately, the climate in the Tower seemed very pleasant at the moment...or perhaps it was the mana of the Tower protecting his body? In any case, it was fine since his only company at present were the bees, but he should probably keep an eye out for any plants he could use to make repairs.
Fortunately, he knew a bit of textile work. Some of the village boys called it women’s work but in a village of their size most people knew how to do most jobs that needed doing. That went doubly so for Belissar, growing up first with just the old beekeeper, and later living completely on his own. Unfortunately, those skills wouldn’t matter unless he could acquire some suitable materials, so Belissar just resolved to keep an eye out for now.
In any case, he now had a stockpile of firewood and kindling to make fires of various sizes as necessary, as well as some torches to light. He assembled another gathering of kindling, firewood, wax, and honey in the pit traps on either side of the door between the Flower Meadow and the Apiary, as well as in the pit trap closest to the gate to outside. Then he built a campfire pit on the Apiary side and stored the torches and his fire bow around it.
He was thus ready to make a fire he could use to light torches in case he needed to use the pit traps like he did before. The work slowed down his beehouse making, but he felt it was necessary. If and when the Hunger returned to his Tower, he would be ready.