The Bee Dungeon

The next day, a group of sigmaka warriors arrived first thing in the morning, lead by Fourth Queen Pezuya herself. Metsaitti greeted them with the karnuq’s own challengers. After a brief review of the goals and restrictions of their challenge, the sigmaka soon began. Belissar watched them for a bit but since Metsaitti was handling things today he soon left them to it.

After all, Belissar had a new type of honey to try. The First of the Fifth had given him a full tray of her new swirled honey. Belissar would have preferred she spread it among the bees first, but he knew at this point it would do no good for him to refuse, so he accepted it graciously. And…if he was perfectly honest, he was incredibly curious as to how the new honey tasted.

And so, without further ado, he scooped up a bit from the new tray with his finger and took a taste.

His eyes immediately brightened as the taste hit his tongue. It was like mana honey but…more. Sweeter, yet not in an overpowering way. Fuller, satisfying even from just a taste. A huge mass of mana immediately warmed his mouth, but it did not merely absorb into him as with the mana honey. No, it moved and spun, causing a tingling sensation that was surprisingly pleasant and spread the delicious sweetness of the honey to every corner of his mouth. It then joined with the mana buzzing through his veins to warm up every inch of his body, leaving him feeling pleasant and energized.

Belissar decided that yes, he did like the new honey. Especially as he came to himself and found he had already consumed about a quarter of the tray on its own. He did his best to put that tray aside and focus on his other fare, fortunately, he now had access to a spread of fruits, cave root dishes, and meat like he never had before. Sure the First of the Fifth would probably give him more swirled honey on a daily basis…but the question that immediately rose in Belissar’s mind was what would mead made from this honey taste like? And since he would be offering some of the new mead if and when he made any to the gods, and also wanted enough to share with the karnuq and Tarwantrad and even the bees if he could convince them to tolerate drunk workers, then he needed to start stockpiling for a large first batch.

So, he did his absolute best to save the rest of today’s trays for future meals…

After finishing breakfast, Belissar went about his morning routine, gathering honey, checking on the bees, and making offerings to the gods. When he arrived at the bumblebee meadow, however, he stopped and rubbed his eyes.

The flowers had grown…and not in number. There were flowers now as wide as his thigh and as tall as his waist, with multiple bumblebee workers crawling around on a single one. Belissar blinked, rubbed his eyes again, then blinked again, but the sight remained. He double checked for any messages from the Tower and the flower menu for this room, but didn’t see anything new in either of those.

He crossed his arms and hummed to himself. So, the flowers were suddenly growing larger…but didn’t count as new flowers? The only difference he could identify was a subtle flow of mana in addition to that of the Tower’s. It was rising up through the nearest flower’s roots, this one a combination of green and gold in color. Belissar tried to follow it in reverse, using his Tower sight to keep track of the flow down underground.