POBee 188.1 - Can Bee Build It?
Belissar had a quick chat with Niobee and Chief Rohsuak about their impressions of Tarwantrad. He felt quite positive about her, for once, but he wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Chief Rohsuak agreed that Tarwantrad had been perfectly friendly and it seemed beneficial to forge a positive relationship with her, though advised him to treat any conversations with the Compact the same as the ones with the sigmaka. Even further deals with Tarwantrad personally needed to be considered carefully.
Niobee’s perception was simpler. Tarwantrad hadn’t hurt him and had offered them mushrooms, so it was acceptable to continue talking with her. The bees would continue to watch her closely, but they did so with everyone. They still escorted Belissar even when he spoke with the karnuq, much less someone outside of the Tower.
In any case, Belissar had a few adjustments to make as a result of the talk with Tarwantrad. He went ahead and enabled the new mushrooms in every applicable room and had Niobee inform the queens and gardeners of the change. Then, he was about to move the battle Fairy Grove to be the first room of the dungeon when he paused. On the one hand, he wanted to put it there as long as the nexus door or whatever Tarwantrad had called it stayed open, just in case it turned out the Compact wasn’t as friendly as Tarwantrad had been. On the other hand, he realized that might leave the door vulnerable to shades, and he wasn’t sure if it would close permanently if a shade corrupted the area. He didn’t want to break the deal by accident.
After a few moments of thought, Belissar decided to compromise. He put the battle Fairy Grove second, right after the Dirt Tunnels but before the Lava Field. Hopefully that would give them enough time to either deal with a shade before it reached the nexus door, or to respond to an attack by the Compact before it reached the battle meadow. The Dirt Tunnels would also buy time to rearrange the rooms in case of a big emergency purification.
After that, both the bee army and the karnuq posted sentries to keep an eye on the door, and then everyone returned back to their business. Impending negotiations with the fey or not, the work went on.
Speaking of ongoing work, the Third of the Third found that her chosen task was far more complicated than she had ever imagined. Her original cooperation with the carpenters bees had gone well, that much was fine. The carpenters, while they could not perform the dance language her hive could, could still follow instructions and process wood into whatever shapes and sizes she desired.
It was then she hit the first unexpected problem: what exactly was she going to build? There was no way she could ever match the magical palaces built by the King, so she wouldn’t even try to build one of those. The karnuq, as well, had their own methods, and had taken to using stone rather than wood. They had mostly completed their hives as well, and did not require as much assistance from the bee army.
She found her answer examining the defense layers of the Bee Barracks. The King had arranged for a wall of sharp stakes that would ward off larger predators. The Third of the Third then noticed that the King had also planted some thorny roses that had wrapped around the nearest stake, creating an additional layer of spikes to deter anything that could squeeze in between the larger stakes on top of providing more flowers to forage from.
Her scouts had then reported that one of the Flower Meadow gardeners had planted an entire patch of those roses near the wooden platform towards the front of the room, and had cross-pollinated the roses with many other flowers types to create mana-imbued thorns with novel effects. That had gotten her attention, and an idea had coalesced in her mind. If she added a line of stakes through that patch, the roses the garden had grown would wrap around them, forming a veritable wall of mana-imbued thorns. That wall would block the approach to the wooden platform as well, further protecting members of the fallen hive who had not yet regained their wings. She could join efforts with the hive of hives in a way that would improve the fighting power of the bee army.