The Bee Dungeon
Chapter 18: Curiosi-bee

Belissar brought the flower back to the Tower. He originally planned to carry it to the far corner of the Flower Meadow, but a message popped before his eyes the moment he stepped inside.

Absorb Mana Flower? Current samples: 0/5

Belissar stared at the message for a bit. He had a feeling that this was yet another important Tower Lord thing that he didn’t know about. He had no idea what would happen if he absorbed the flower...but he felt the Tower wouldn’t have prompted him if it wasn’t something important.

He thought for a minute, and then put the flower to the side. He then stepped outside the gate and crouched down in the grass, picking some of the other flowers in the area until he had five of the same one. He brought them back inside...and again, a message appeared before him.

Absorb Lily? Current samples: 0/3

It turned out the sample number wasn’t consistent. Belissar shrugged and confirmed. Three of the lilies in his hands were covered in glowing light, and then vanished.

Lily absorbed.

Sufficient samples gathered. Lily now available.

Current applications: Flower Meadow, Apiary.

Belissar then crouched down and focused on the dandelions in the Flower Meadow once more. He had a hunch as to what had just occurred...

Manage flower types? Available types:

- Dandelion (*Selected, Mana upkeep: 0)

- Lily (Mana upkeep: 0)

He smiled slightly. It seemed his hunch was correct. He went ahead and selected lilies...

Flower types:

- Dandelion (*Selected, Mana upkeep: 0)

- Lily (*Selected, Mana upkeep: 0)

Belissar watched as new shoots began to pop out of his flower field. White lilies began to grow among the dandelions, adding a new shade of color that spread across the Flower Meadow. The bees gathering nectar all paused, and then many of their number began to fly to the new flowers. Belissar nodded in satisfaction. It was nice to have correctly guessed what the Tower was trying to do. He then focused on the Apiary. There weren’t as many flowers there, but there was a small field he was able to manage as well along with flowers growing around the beehouses, so he went ahead and added lilies there too.

“I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

“King is best king!”

He couldn’t help but chuckle as Niobee danced before him. Then he stepped outside the Tower, walking back towards the forest. Now that he had confirmed what was going on, he definitely wanted these mana flowers...

A short while later, Belissar returned, several more mana flowers in his arms.

Mana Flower absorbed.

Sufficient samples gathered. Mana Flower now available.

Current applications: Flower Meadow, Apiary.

He again focused on the Flower Field...

Manage flower types? Available types:

- Dandelion (*Selected, Mana upkeep: 0)

- Lily (*Selected, Mana upkeep: 0)

- Mana Flower (Mana upkeep: 3)

He paused and frowned. The mana flowers were apparently a bit different from the normal ones and were going to cost him. Three was a lot when the entire Flower Meadow only cost him five previously. He crossed his arms and hummed.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He...honestly didn’t have enough information to make a decision. Mana-filled plants were legends and stories to a former peasant like him, so he had no idea what this flower was or how valuable it would be. But...he glanced at his bees. They were extremely excited about this flower, enough to report it to him immediately. And to Belissar...that was reason enough. He didn’t want to be wasteful...but the bees were the ones who were going to work and fight and die for this Tower. They deserved whatever consideration he could give them.

And if it turned out the mana flowers had other uses...then all the better. He went ahead and selected it.

This time, the changes were more subtle. The field itself didn’t change in color. Belissar frowned at first, but the words confirmed he had selected the mana flowers. And then...he felt it. A light current of what he now knew was mana, flowing through the field unlike before. He followed the current and eventually, he found a spot of blue in the field of yellow, green, and white. A subtle thing, easy to miss. A lone mana flower growing amidst the dandelions and lilies.

Walking around the field, he found a few more. He did wonder if such a small and sparse number of flowers was worth the mana upkeep. But...all the bees nearby stopped what they were doing and began to congregate around the flowers, wherever they grew. One of the queens herself flew over and froze midair at the sight. She turned to him, and simply hovered in the air, watching him. Belissar motioned to the flower.

“Go ahead, I made them for you girls, after all.”

The queen dipped in her flight, and began a dance of gratitude...and respect? Or something more...

And then the bees swarmed the flower, quickly forming a long line of workers to gather as much nectar from it as possible.

Belissar nodded and his face relaxed. If his bees liked them that much, then he considered it a worthwhile expense.

With that, he moved on to his next task...

Belissar made his way through the forest once again, coming before the ruins. He couldn’t help himself, he was curious about them.

“King, what doing?”

Niobee buzzed around him, along with several of the other bees who had followed him when he left the tower. Belissar shook his head.

“I’m...not sure. But I wanted to check this place out. It looks like people lived here, other humans like me.”

“Ok! We help!”

Belissar smiled as the bees spread out and began to fly around the Tower. Even when neither he nor they knew what he was doing, they never hesitated to help out. They really were the best.

But Belissar wasn’t about to let them do all the work, so he got to exploring as well. He stepped forward to the stone and traced his hand upon some engraved words. But he still couldn’t make heads or tails of them, so he moved on.

The ruins were arranged in a small circle that rose into the air. The stones that remained reached about two stories, but Belissar thought they might have gone higher. He couldn’t say for sure, as everything above that point was long gone.

As he walked through, he could feel small spots of warmth. Small bits of mana still imbued the stone, and occasionally he could feel it move about slowly. He rubbed his chin.

“How did this stuff survive the Hunger? I thought it consumed everything...”

At first, he thought the Tower of the Gods had simply grown everything back from scratch...but then why would there be ruins? Why wouldn’t the Tower just rebuild a brand new structure if that was the case? Or did the gods want to restore things exactly as they were when the Hunger arrived? Were these ruins already like this before the Hunger got there?

But well, Belissar didn’t have even the beginnings of the knowledge required to answer those questions, so he shook his head and kept exploring.

The ruins were mostly empty. Little remained besides the stone itself, either time, nature, or the Hunger having claimed everything else. There was a stone path leading out from the far side of the structure, but the structure was close to the edge of the safe zone around the Tower, so right now the path just led to the Hunger. So Belissar found himself back towards the entrance, where the broken statue was. He then noticed something lying behind the statue. A rectangular stone, a bit on the flat side. He thought it was just another piece of debris at first but on closer inspection its shape was too neat, too regular. And most of all...there was a faint hint of mana inside of it.

He picked it up and dusted it off, flipping it over.

It turned out it was some sort of thick stone tablet, engraved with the same letters on it as were carved into the ruins themselves. There was also a carving, showing some sort of soldier and a crest he didn’t recognize.

Belissar glanced at it for a couple of minutes before he shrugged. It didn’t mean anything more to him than any of the other carvings had. And even though he felt hints of mana inside, they didn’t seem to do anything. He may have been able to feel mana now, but he didn’t know how to actually do anything with it...and wasn’t willing to risk spontaneous combustion figuring it out with trial and error.

He picked up the tablet. He figured if nothing else, maybe the Tower would try to absorb it if it was anything useful. He nodded at Niobee as she flew over to rejoin him.

“Find anything?”

“Sorry...couldn’t...”

Belissar smiled and held his hand out for her to land on.

“Don’t be. I was just curious about this place. Besides, you girls were the ones who found it, and the mana flowers too.”

She didn’t respond but her wings buzzed a bit. The rest of the bees began to rejoin them, and Belissar nodded at them all.

“Let’s go home.”

Belissar took the tablet back to the Tower, but nothing happened when he passed through the gateway. He shrugged, and carried it over to the Apiary, placing it inside the farmhouse. It was an easier walk than trekking back through the forest would be. After that, he stepped outside and gathered a bunch of the flowers surrounding the Tower, absorbing them and applying them to the Flower Meadow and the Apiary.

He smiled as he looked over the now colorful field filled with bees. He felt that, honestly, this sight was much better than some dusty old ruins would ever be.