Chapter 14 of Wayward Ranger by J Scott Miles
Aidan jogged the hundred or so yards back down the dungeon corridor to where they’d fought the vines. When he drew near, he found a few of them still hadn’t gone back to their docile pre-fruit-pick state. Several still roved and wriggled through the air like long blind worms, their plump green stalks probing for something else to wrap around and drag away.
There was no sign of Elease’s gear or his spear, but thankfully the waterskin had somehow avoided the vines thieving tendrils. It lay alone near the center of the path with the vines lazily swaying around and over it. Thank the gods for that.
Then a thought struck him. How smart are those vines, or the dungeon as a whole? Could they being laying a trap? It’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have found and carried away the waterskin along with the rest of our stuff. Are they leaving it there for a reason, just hoping we’d come back for it?
He stood there outside what seemed to be the vines he’d triggered’s area of influence, taking in the scene. What do I do now? We need that waterskin, but is it worth the risk?
He considered his options. I could go in swinging. That’s why I brought Elease’s sword after-all. Or I could crawl in low. The vines seem to be patrolling mostly up around waist height. Or I could leave the waterskin where it is and run back to Elease and Tarna empty handed.
Turning around and going back was clearly the smartest course of action, but he was parched, and the others would be as well when they woke.
He could still smell the flower’s scent all around him, thick as ever, and was aware his mind still wasn’t completely clear of its influence. He thought he was keeping it at bay and thinking as rationally as possible, though. The longer I stand here, and the more time I waste, the more chance something else finds Elease and Tarna before I get back to them. If I’m going to do this, I need to do it now.
Darting forward with blades at the ready, he kept one eye on the waterskin and the other on the roving vines. He didn’t have far to go, only about ten yards, but as soon as he’d gone a few steps closer and crossed some invisible barrier, the vines seemed to notice him all at once.
They came at him like angry green snakes, and he lashed out with Elease’s sword and his knife as he ran, knocking them back. When he reached the waterskin, he bent down and grabbed it with his knife hand, then changed direction and sprinted back toward the safety of the invisible barrier that seemed to be the extent of the vine’s influence.
Just before he reached the point where he thought the awakened vine’s effect should end, he felt a tendril wrap around his foot. It jerked his leg out from under him, dropping him onto the hard stone path and spinning him halfway around. He cursed and swung the sword wildly, missing his own foot by less than an inch, but cleaving the vine that had stopped him in two.
More vines closed in, and all Aidan could do was scuttle backward on his butt while fending them off with reckless swings of the sword. Then he must have crossed the invisible point and the vines suddenly lost interest in him.
Turning, he got his feet beneath him and scrambled away, back toward where he’d left Elease and Tarna. Relief washed over him a minute or two later when he jogged around the gentle curve of the dungeon corridor and found them right where he’d left them.
Tarna still lay on her side, but Elease was sitting, looking further up the corridor, away from his approach. She had one hand protectively on her wolf and her head swiveled from side to side franticly, but groggily, as if she was waking from an awful dream.
She turned when she finally heard him coming, baring her teeth, and brandishing her long knife defensively as if he were their next attacker. Then she blinked slowly, as uncertainty clouded her face. She stumbled to her feet, facing him, her eyes wide and her mouth agape.
“You’re alive?” she said, her speech impeded by a half drunken slur.
“Alive?” Aidan asked as he skidded to a stop just before her and held up the waterskin. “Of course I’m alive. I just went to get the waterskin we dropped back by the vines.”
A flurry of emotions swept across the half-elf’s face in an instant. Surprise gave way to relief, followed by joy, then embarrassment, and finally anger. Her non-knife-wielding hand, the one that had been comforting Tarna a moment before, shot up to slap him.
“What the fuck?” she yelled, her voice thick with emotion. “We thought you were dead, you asshole. Eaten by one of those things.” She motioned back toward the three dead plant-men lying on the dungeon floor. “Or dragged off into this infernal forest somewhere like the rest of our gear.”
“No.” Aidan said weakly. Rubbing his cheek and holding the waterskin higher. “I just went to get this. I was thirsty, and I thought you would be too when you woke up.”
“You left us to go get the god’s damned waterskin?” she hissed, her voice growing low and ominous.
Tarna clambered to her feet to stand beside Elease.
“I’m sorry,” Aidan replied, taking a step back to hopefully avoid another slap if it was coming. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The half-elf glared at him. “You didn’t scare us,” she said as she stepped forward to jerk her sword from his hand. “We just didn’t know what happened to you is all.”
Aidan looked down at Tarna, hoping for some help, but the wolf glowered at him as well.
“So, you’re not thirsty, then?” he asked, hoping he could redirect his companion’s anger.
Elease sheathed her blades, then grabbed the waterskin from him as well. “Give me that damn thing. Of course we’re thirsty.”
As Elease drank and shared water from the skin with Tarna, Aidan regretted not taking a moment before coming back to them to get a drink himself. Thankfully, the water seemed to cool Elease’s anger, and eventually she passed the waterskin back so he could slake his thirst as well.
“You know,” he said. “If I’d been dead, you would have gotten a notification.”
Elease and Tarna both glared at him again, so he stopped trying to be helpful or comforting.
Before they’d truly recovered, Tarna’s ears perked up. Aidan strained to hear what the wolf was hearing, but it took several more seconds for the distant sound of buzzing to reach him. It sounded similar to the fireflies and sprites from the last corridor, but different.
Then they heard a distinctly sprite-like female voice shouting and cackling from the same direction as the buzzing.
“Shit.” Elease hissed.
“What’d she say?”
“You don’t want to know,” Elease replied, as she climbed wearily back to her feet and unsheathed her sword. “Just get ready. I think we’re about to meet the queen.”
Several seconds later, a small swarm of grapefruit-sized bumblebees emerged from the gloom cast by the mushrooms. They flew at him and his group with obvious ill-intent.
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I sure wish I had my spear right now.
Directly behind the bumblebees flew a dozen slightly smaller, but still oversized, honeybees. None of the bees that Aidan could see had riders, although he figured that even if the bees were going to be accompanied by sprites, there was no reason for the sprites to ride on them when they could fly themselves.
As he gripped his kukri and prepared himself for the onslaught, he watched the bees approach while also trying to keep one eye on the ground. I wouldn’t put it past the sprites or whoever this queen is, to have more of those horned beetle knights waiting to charge us while we’re distracted by the bees.
When it got within range, the first bee swiveled its body into a butt-down orientation and dove with its stinger presented. Tarna lept aside and the bumblebee’s dive-bomb missed, but the next few had already begun their bombing runs.
As before, Aidan was impressed with Elease’s skill with her falchion and matching knife, although she cursed under her breath continuously about how much she wished she had her bow.
Tarna tore into the bees with the same determination she had the flying sprites. Snarling and gnashing like a wolf possessed. However, at least one of the bumblebee’s struck home along the wolf’s side, making her howl with pain.
Aidan’s momentary distraction checking on his companions cost him, and an oversized honeybee struck him in his left arm, stinger first. Pain lanced through him from his shoulder to his fingers as the stinger penetrated. The initial sensation wasn’t all that different from what the sprites had inflicted with their glowing magical balls, but the bee-sting’s aftereffects were much worse.
The searing pain grew instead of dissipating, and he felt an internal pressure building as his arm began to swell. That’s not good. I’ve never been allergic to bees before, but these things are either different, or they deliver way more of their poison with each shot. The only good news is, it looks like they leave their stingers and some of their guts behind after stinging, just like normal honeybees.
Kill: Glade Queen’s Honeybee Drone, level 11. Experience 35. Upgrade-point 1. Non-harvestable corpse. Loot-drop none.
He couldn’t help chuckling at the dark thought that came to him when he saw the bee’s kill notification. I guess if I can’t help the group by chopping a few of these bugs out of the air, I can at least take a few of them out by being their pincushion.
Tarna howled again, Elease cursed, and several more kill notifications flashed in front of Aidan’s eyes.
With only his kukri blade for attack, he met the next bee that flew at him with his already stung arm out in front, like a makeshift shield. Better my already swollen arm gets stung again than for me to lose the use of my right arm as well.
The strategy proved effective but painful as he eliminated several more bees. Although as he’d feared, as much of his damage to the bees came as a result of them leaving their stingers and guts behind dangling from him, then it did from the direct consequence of his blade. Elease and Tarna seemed to be doing better, although they too had taken their fair share of stings.
The cackling female sprite-like voice came again, and Aidan saw a strange little hybrid humanoid sprite-bee creature flying at them flanked by two more of the enormous bumblebees.
The queen’s upper half and wings looked similar to, if a little larger than, the sprite princess they’d fought. Her legs and lower half were all bee, however. Six insectoid legs dangled beneath her bulbous, segmented abdomen. And look at that stinger, it’s huge. Although if we can get her to use it and survive, that should be the end of the fight.
The foot-tall queen sprite-bee also held a three-pronged trident about the same length as she was tall. Smart lady. She’s brought another weapon to the fight, so she doesn’t have to spill her guts using her stinger.
Just as he was distracted by the queen, Aidan felt a sharp stab high on the back of his right thigh. He slashed at the huge honeybee that had gotten him, cutting it in half. Then, with a groan, he reached down to yank the stinger from his leg.
His vision swam when he straightened again, and he had the sudden desire to vomit. Allergic, or not, I think the accumulation of their venom is starting to get to me.
For some reason, possibly because he appeared the least intimidating with only his kukri in hand, the queen and her guards focused in on him as their first target. The two huge bumblebees led the way, allowing their mistress to direct the attack from behind.
Aidan didn’t think his pincushion strategy was viable any longer. His left arm was all but useless, his right leg was quickly getting that way as well, and the last sting he’d absorbed had nearly incapacitated him completely.
He dodged the first of the bumblebee’s dive-bombs, but just barely. As he rolled away across the ground, his hand fell on the waterskin he’d gone back for. Picking it up in his throbbing pincushion hand, he swung the half-filled skin like a club, sending the second bumblebee spinning away.
The first bumblebee who’d missed was already coming back around and Aidan didn’t have time to swing either the waterskin or the kukri at it, but he managed to get the waterskin up between him and the bee’s stinger. The stinger sunk home, but thankfully, only penetrated one side of the leather bag.
The bumblebee buzzed franticly, trying to get itself out, but for the moment it was stuck and Aidan hoped that if it managed to pull itself out, it would also leave its guts behind.
The queen had not remained idle watching her minion. She’d leveled her trident at him from several feet away and the weapon was already glowing with accumulating magic.
He saw the bolt of power release from the center trident tip, and again, only had time to lift the waterskin up between him and his attacker. He felt the impact of her spell against the waterskin as the bolt of magic struck the stuck bumblebee on the other side of it. The bee’s grapefruit sized body shook violently then popped, sending bits of bumblebee flying in every direction.
The queen shrieked like a banshee, gnashed her teeth, and readied another bolt of magical power. Aidan winced and hoped the waterskin was up to standing in as a shield one more time. Then a slightly curved falchion blade streaked in from the side and cleaved the queen in half.
Her lower half dropped to the floor, but her wings continued to beat, and her upper half remained airborne for a moment. As her shrieking dwindled and her life-force drained away, her trident fell from her hands and clattered to the floor. Then finally, the rest of her followed.
Kill: Bee Queen of the Glade, Greater Fiendish Woodland Sprite, level 16. Experience 335. Upgrade-points 9. Non-harvestable corpse. Loot-drop none.
Aidan slumped to the floor. “Thanks. I did not want to find out what her bolts of magic felt like.”
Elease chuckled, although her laugh sounded strained. “How many stings have you taken?” she asked in a slurred voice.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, but when he glanced over at her, he had to do a double-take. The entire right side of her face looked as puffy and swollen as his left arm felt.
“It looks that bad?” she asked, and he could tell she tried to smile, but her effort turned into a wince. “You’ll be rethinking all those things you said about me being hot when we were drunk on toxic flower fragrance.”
Tarna limped up beside them, and as bad as Aidan felt, he was certain the wolf had again taken the brunt of the damage for their party. Her entire body looked puffy, as if there was an overstuffed winter jacket tucked beneath her fur.
“I’d split a healing potion with you two if I had one.” Elease mumbled through her fat lip and what sounded like a swollen tongue. “But even before my pack was taken by those damn vines, I was running low. And I think I should save my mana for now, or I’d cast my healing spell.”
Aidan shifted his weight over onto his good leg and surveyed the dead and dying bees all around them. Then a quest notification popped into his vision.
Quest update: Green Hollow Raiders. The path of summer completed.
The Glade King may eventually forgive you and yours for killing his overbearing queen, but he will not be pleased to lose the treasures she guarded.
Collect your bounty and the queen’s own fare. Eat, drink, heal, and rejoice. For in due time, you will need to choose your next path.
Aidan breathed a small sigh of relief as he read through the notification. It was similar to the notification they’d received after killing the sprite princess, with only a few minor differences in the wording. “It looks like she was it. She was the mini-boss for this section.”
“Yep.” Elease replied despite her swollen face. “But the real question is, where’s our reward for taking her out, and where’s our doorway back to the circular room?”
She’d barely finished her thought when something ahead of them in the corridor began to glow. The soft golden light was reminiscent of the glow from the mushrooms, just much brighter. The strange oval structure hung from the branches along the ceiling about thirty yards further up the corridor.
“What do we have here?” Elease murmured and then began shuffling towards it.
The closer they got, the more the thing looked like a few of the hornets’ nests Aidan had seen back home in the forests, only much larger. Maybe bees make free-hanging hives shaped like that as well. All the wild beehives I’ve seen were tucked up in dead trees or rock crevasse, but I guess that thing could be the queen’s hive.
He kept his ears and eyes open for more buzzing or bees, but except for the pulsing of the hive’s internal golden glow, the corridor was as eerie and empty as ever.
The hanging hive was at least as wide as Aidan was tall and so long it nearly touched the stone path floor from where it hung in the branches. When they reached it, they circled it cautiously.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Elease said as she gazed down at the small chest that looked nearly identical to the one they’d received at the end of the princess’s corridor.