The Bee Dungeon

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.

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.