Chapter 333 - A Bee-sy Week
A tunneling nomadic monster bee worker nestled into her hiding spot. She was buried just underneath the floor in the center of the big cavern where the hive of hives confronted the spiderkin. From there, she could feel any vibrations from anywhere in the cavern, even those that originated from the walls or the ceiling or even particularly strong ones from the air. Her mana sense could cover the rest if need be, though she was restraining herself from using that lest someone notice her mana pulses. Instead, she was using as little mana as possible so that her mana sense could pick up any mana pulses that might be sent by others.
And today, the ground began to rumble. The tunneling scout quickly identified the vibrations as consistent with spiderkin, like the ones in the hive of hives, only much bigger…and far more numerous. She waited as the vibrations grew stronger, until she confirmed they were right above her, present within the cavern itself.
Then, she began to tap on the web in her hiding spot. The digging bees had dug a small but long tunnel that went all the way from her hiding spot to the nearest mini-hive, then the monster bee trappers had stretched a scout web across it as the spiderkin had taught them. The hive of hives had been warned that using mana, even to send a mana dance, might be noticed by the predators of the Underway, so they had come up with this solution.
The tunneling scout, after tapping the web a few times, went back to observing, knowing that the mini-hive would communicate her signal to the hive of hives’ proper. Before long, she felt her queen mother’s attention shift to her. Her queen mother then viewed the situation through her senses, without her ever needing to send a mana dance at all. The scout was thus assured that the hive of hives knew all that she did as she settled in to observe further.
The spiderkin lingered in the cavern for a while, scouting it judging by how they spread out and combed across it, before gathering again at the far end from where they enter. Near the tunnel that would lead towards the King’s realm and his allies. The scout resisted the urge to buzz her wings and tap on the web again. Now was the time the tunneling scout would learn if the fair ones’ defenses would work…or if she’d need to sound the alarm.
The spiderkin began to march into the tunnel and the scout held her leg over the web. But then, the spiderkin suddenly changed course, heading down a different tunnel, one that would lead them away from the King and his allies. The scout pulled back her leg and settled back into her position.
The defenses worked. The spiderkin hive would not make war against the hive of hives today.
The scout did not report this as there was no need. The hive of hives already knew, her queen mother’s attention did not recede from her until the spiderkin left her awareness. The scout thus settled back into her vigil, waiting to feel any further vibrations approaching the hive of hives from the cavern…
Time passed quickly as the alliance began to cooperate. The sigmaka shared all their knowledge of the local Underway to Belissar and the fair folk, the bees then worked to establish a subterranean scout network with the spiderkin children advising on their former family’s methods while the wardens and pixies set up defenses in the tunnels approaching the area. The sigmaka warriors were invited to join the bee army, karnuq, and fair folk’s daily training and all groups began to practice their coordination. Additional fair folk arrived as well, the green elves and dusk elves sent some warriors to join the training and were soon joined by others. Most accompanied by inquiries regarding opening trade relations between their people and Belissar…
Belissar did not have the opportunity to arrange individual negotiations, however, as he was still hosting ongoing talks between the sigmaka and the fair folk, who were now discussing a more comprehensive compact between them. This process, now that the immediate defense was no longer a concern, proved far slower and far more exhausting in Belissar’s opinion, not least of all because some members of the Compact wanted to use the opportunity to plug up the loopholes in his own bargain with them. The sigmaka, however, wished to preserve their own autonomy to the greatest extent possible, even to a greater extent than Belissar did his own, so the talks had largely stalled on those points.
And it was not only the fair folk and sigmaka that had requests for Belissar. Two new gods, the God of Air and the God of Trees and Forests, sent Belissar missions during this time, which the God of Bees approved him accepting. The God of Air wanted mead made from Air-type honey, as was becoming a common mission for Belissar. The God of Trees and Forests, however, gave somewhat more vague instructions.
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Unite the power of bee, flower, and forest.
Belissar wasn’t sure how to do that. He guessed it might have to do something with the plant-hybrid monster seed? In any case, the bumblebees had already planted it on a new queen’s egg, so he’d have to wait and see how that turned out. He thought about asking them to move the growing queen to one of the fairy groves, but then the bumblebees’ brood tenders already moved the wax pot to a new position within their nest for the sake of its growth, so Belissar decided not to interfere for now.
The bees, meanwhile, had continued to sort themselves out after their move to the Beecity. Over the course of the week, they finished all the orientation flights so that all the workers could find their way home, then came up with joint foraging routes to ensure all hives had enough nectar and all flowers in their home meadow had sufficient but not excessive visits. After that, their efforts turned to raising new queens now that they had a set of evolved drones to mate with. The Third of the Third and the Fourth of the Seventh’s first communer were finally free enough to attempt evolutions as well and would soon do just that.
The bee army, in between its guard duty for the negotiations and continued daily purifications, reorganized itself to spread captains across the squads and smaller formations. They began to raise monster bee glaivers and add them into the mix as well. The Firstborn focused on raising as large a force of monster bee knights as she could, leaving it to the rest of the bee army queens to raise the other soldier types.
The other bee types began to contribute as well. The stingless queen managed to offer three squads of stingless sprayers to the army, while the butcher and bloodsucking bees raised enough soldiers that some could be spared for defense instead of hunting. The First Butcher Queen even raised a butcher bee glaiver with some swirled honey courtesy of the hive of hives, which she enthusiastically offered to send to the bee army’s own growing glaiver squads.
Belissar had not neglected his Tower Keeper duties during this time, either. He had built up quite the stockpile of DP over the week and so purchased a new perk, intending to strengthen the Tower without adding to the bees’ workload while they were still settling from the Beecity move.
That time, he was offered a Diverse Bee Empire perk, which improved the monster bee empresses’ ability to expand their influence to bee species besides monster bees and honey bees as well as some symbiotic non-bee creatures, a Drifting Pollen perk that extended the range and duration of any pollen-based abilities and improved wind pollination, and a Piercing Archers perk that improved the attacks of monster bee archers. The hive of hives immediately set upon the Diverse Bee Empire perk and Belissar whole-heartedly agreed.
Besides that, the Flower Meadow with the cold mana flowers had rapidly declined in temperature following Belissar’s discovery of environmental seals, and he felt it wouldn’t be long now given that most of the flowers had wilted save those adapted to colder climates. Likewise, the Second Third of the First was dutifully hunting down the rabbits in the second hunting room and a new kind of mana was beginning to linger in the room, not unlike the mana around the memorial but somewhat…darker in Belissar’s mana sight. A mana that sent a shiver down his spine when he visited the room. He could thus be assured the room was changing…though he wasn’t sure he liked the direction of those changes.
And just like that, a full week had passed. Belissar was sitting, once again, in his seat overlooking the negotiation table. Third Queen Penaseconza was here today and was glaring at the silver elf representative.
“So, you continue to insist we bow to you, to open up the lands we have cultivated, fought for, died for over countless generations, while you block access to everything of value in your own? That the ‘land of mortals’ as you call it should be a free for all for you to grab up whatever you wish, while your precious ‘land of the fair’ remains solely in your hands?”
The silver elf representative scoffed.
“You are being invited to become a full signatory of the Compact, equal to any of us and with an equal say in the distribution of any new lands made available to us, a great honor that you seem unwilling or perhaps unable to comprehend. Besides, your ancestral lands shall remain your own as the land of the fair shall remain ours, the rest of the land you speak of has only become available because of Tower Keeper Belissar, has it not? Who is already a signatory, I might add.”
Third Queen Penaseconza scoffed right back.
“You call it equal say when your side has countless signatories and we shall only have one! You will be able to dictate whatever you want to us and then dare to call it a joint decision! Do you think us so foolish as to miss such an obvious ploy at domination?”
Belissar started tuning out the rest to focus on managing his Tower. He was pretty sure they had gone through this exact exchange yesterday…in fact, his memory bees confirmed for him that they had when he asked. The negotiations were going in circles, again.
But the moment he turned his attention to the hive of hives, a mana dance filled his vision both via Tower message and hivelink.
“KING! Scouts see more flying things heading towards King! Think is more Hive-Burners!”
Belissar stiffened at the Fourth of the Seventh’s urgent warning. He turned his attention to the Fourth of the Seventh’s scouts…and confirmed what they had seen. Several flying creatures were approaching in the distance…much like the wyverns had before.
Belissar slowly rose to his feet, his mana buzzing as his heart began to pound. One by one, the representatives of the fair and the sigmaka quieted down and turned their attention towards him as the buzzing grew and spell-bees began to form and take flight.
“They’re here. The Tower Lords are back.”