Belissar smiled as he watched two hives of bees migrate to the Orchard. One of the queens, in particular, seemed quite excited as she zipped around the new room. That, above all, convinced Belissar he had made the right decision.
At this point, the day was growing late. Belissar decided to give the bees a break from the routine purifications, so he headed for the Apiary farmhouse instead. As he settled in to rest from the day, he considered what he would do next. The Orchard was now set up and none of the new features required any more direct and immediate action from him. The migrating queens needed to set up their hives, the Flower Meadow queens would need time to raise or evolve some sprayers, and he had no idea how long it would take Cross-Pollination to start working. In any case, all three of those were the work of his bees, not him, so he would need to find something else to work on in the meantime.
His bees barely even needed him for the normal purifications at this point. He would need to set up a campfire site in the Orchard and start the fire before the purification, but after that the bees could handle it themselves. In fact…Belissar turned his tower sight to the Memorial and saw the wounded bee still flapping her lightning wing as she stood outside the memorial beehouse. Since she still had access to lightning, she might even be able to start a fire on her own, in which case Belissar would be entirely unnecessary…against the normal wolf-shades at the very least.
Point was, the bees could and would take care of the fighting and growing aspects of the Tower work for the near future. Belissar’s role there was setting up traps, leading the celebrations, and making decisions on the rewards. None of that would take up the majority of time he had each day. But Belissar wasn’t just going to sit around and do nothing while his bees were working their hearts out.
Fortunately, Belissar did come up with a task, one that the bees had specifically requested. One of their dances at the meeting had stood out to him, when one of the bees requested more beehouses.
Yes, Belissar had stopped making beehouses. He had put that task aside after upgrading the Apiary beehives, but there were far more queens than that who were currently building their own hives. Including all of the Flower Meadow queens, the ones who had been here the longest and who were bearing the brunt of the fighting and the sacrifice.
Belissar frowned. It was a travesty that he hadn’t made anything for them as of yet. He may have been distracted by world-shattering revelations and heavy panic on account of Tower Lords and shades, but at there was no excuse to delay any further. Now that he confirmed the Tower wasn’t in any immediate danger, he would make that task priority number one. Especially now that the queens were starting to reproduce, so their numbers would only grow. If he didn’t get started on it soon, he might fall behind permanently.
Well, there was the magic training with Chief Rohsuak. He had learned how to use magic, but surely that wasn’t all there was to it, right? And there was also the quest about helping the bear people acquire blessings or something. But for Belissar, the bees came first, and they deserved a roof over their head.
Belissar nodded and rose to his feet, walking to the bed. He had his path set forth now, so now it was time to rest and prepare for the work to come.
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The next day, Belissar walked over to the Flower Meadow. He glanced over at the wounded soldier. She was no longer trying to flap her wing to fly. Instead, she was apparently trying to make the lightning move on its own, as parts of her lightning wing distorted and curved about.
It was fascinating to watch but Belissar had a job to do so he pressed on. He walked over to the Flower Meadow hives. The largest queen there, the First Queen of the Second Dynasty of the First Spawner if Belissar had the name right, crawled out of her hive and greeted him. Belissar nodded and smiled.
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“Hello, are you busy?”
She danced a negative. Belissar made a small sigh and then chuckled. As she was a bee, he was pretty sure that was a lie, but she’d probably always make time for him so he’d just have to be quick.
“I’m going to build you and the others here some beehouses. I figured that the soldiers might need a different design, though, so I wanted to check my ideas with you, first. Would now be a good time to take a look?”
The queen froze solid. Belissar’s smile started to drop when she suddenly burst into action. Her dance was rapid and chaotic, her legs got tangled and her torso fell to the ground. Belissar started to panic but Niobee flew to the bee first. She began to brush her antenna against the queen’s and Belissar could feel her mana move as well. The queen stopped writhing about, then slowly rose to her feet. Slowly, she began to dance. Niobee flew off as she did.
“Honored, gratitude.”
Belissar held back a gulp. After her initial reaction and the care she was taking with her current dance, Belissar felt that the words told him by the Tower’s translation power were not enough to convey the queen’s current feelings. He could tell that this was a big deal to her.
He had the urge to reconsider the plans he had come up with casually, as they did not seem to be worth such a reaction, but he held it in. He may have felt that way, but the bees were apparently happy with his work. However bad he might feel about his work, letting the bees go without a home would be worse, so instead of second-guessing himself he would just have to do his best to build them something nice.
“Ok, um, so…since you girls already have well built hives, I was thinking of building a larger home around them all, and then building some larger trays for raising soldiers. I’m guessing you make larger cells for the soldier eggs, right?”
The queen watched him intently and responded immediately.
“Amazing. Yes, larger cells.”
Belissar nodded. As he did, Niobee returned with more of the Flower Meadow queens. Belissar nodded at her as he turned to the Second First of the First.
“Got it, so bigger trays for the soldier cells. I was going to split it up into larger rooms for each of you…”
Belissar took some sticks and stuck one into the ground, then walked around in a square and placed a stick at each corner.
“Would about that big be enough for each room? Not just for your current hives, but in case you want to expand?”
The newly arrived queens stared for a moment before exploding into rapid dances.
“Amazing! Incredible!”
Belissar shook his head and chuckled before he got serious.
“Ok. Next…I want to talk about defenses, since you girls are in the most danger. We’ll keep the entrances small, maybe with one large one at the back for me. But, I also want to try and dig a ditch around the house, with as many Pit Traps as we can fit together, and then maybe a fence of some sort on the other side. How does that sound?”
He treated to another flurry of “Amazing’s” from most of the queens. The Second First of the First started to dance before stopping. She slowly changed course and began a new dance.
“Protect us from enemy?”
Belissar nodded. She paused for a moment, then started another slow dance.
“We protect hive of hives. King…should protect all.”
Belissar frowned a bit and tilted his head.
“What do you mean?”
Her dance slowed even more.
“If King make for us…King should make to help all. Help soldiers fight, stop enemy.”
Belissar crossed his arms and hummed.
“So you’re saying…you would rather me make something that would help you fight, rather than something just to protect your hives?”
The queen slowly danced her affirmative. Belissar hummed and rubbed his chin. Obviously, it didn’t sit well with him for the queens not to have some protection, but it was true that the soldier bees were the first and best line of defense. If a shade were attacking these queens, it would have already bypassed the soldiers. Helping the soldiers defeat the shade would be the preferable option, and yes, if he was going to devote the time and effort to building a ditch and a fence it may make sense to make something that would benefit the defense as a whole. But how could he do that while also helping to keep the queens safe? Belissar knew he should consider the Tower as a whole but he didn’t want to lose any of them if he could help it.
He thought, too, about the last shade. How it had nearly beaten them, and how it had been beaten in turn. What could he build that would help the queens face it?
His eyes lit up.
“How about this? What if we move the house and the ditch right in front of the exit of the room? We put a big entrance through the house here where you girls don’t put any of your hives. The shades will have to pass through to get to you or further inside, and we put some honey traps there too. If a shade gets past the army again, you can plan to trap it in there while they catch up. Like, wait on the house here to ambush it like the wounded soldier did?”
The Second First of the First looked at him for a moment before responding.
“Amazing. Incredible.”
Belissar chuckled at that.