The Bee Dungeon
Chapter 66: Home Bee-vamping

Belissar’s breath caught in his lungs as he saw another bird-shade appear. After what the previous one had done, he had NOT expected it to count as a minor+ purification.

Fortunately, the bees, however, had prepared for such an event and reacted well. The shade was immediately sprayed with toxins on appearance and quickly surrounding by a formation of constantly moving bees. It was then that Belissar noticed the shade was significantly smaller than the first one had been and its lightning attack was a lot more limited. He had another fright when the shade broke away from the bees, but it was then surrounded by a formation many times the size of the first.

His eyes widened as he watched the bird-shade vanish into mist. His eyes went even wider as realized that not a single bee had fallen in the process. He soon broke out into a wide grin.

“Yes!”

His bees had grown remarkably in the handful of days since that first battle. And, perhaps even more relieving, he had managed to correctly assess their growth and their readiness for a greater challenge. Even though he personally had not expected a small bird-shade, the bees had no trouble handling the situation.

And, of course, with victory came rewards.

Minor+ Purification completed! Please select a reward* (*One or more choices upgraded due to Blessing of Bees):

- +75 DP

- +15 Max Mana

Belissar’s grin grew. For once, he didn’t need to wait until after the celebration to make his choices. He knew exactly what he was going to pick this time.

Beehive selected.

Beehive variation unlocked: Belissar’s Beehouse.

Belissar nodded in satisfaction. He would have insisted on upgrading the beehives anyways, so he was pleased to learn the Tower could build his versions right away. And now, all his bees could receive the honey production and brood growth benefits of the Apiary’s beehouses. Perhaps it wasn’t the water source he had been thinking about, or something as dramatic as new bee types, but anything that made his bees happy was an ideal choice for Belissar.

Plus…there was the fact that such a feature came from a minor+ purification which he could perform every day and that his bees proved they could handle. Who knows what other options might be available from those rewards?

In any case, he was satisfied for now and it was time to bring out the honey for a victory celebration…

***

The next day, Belissar stepped out of the Apiary farmhouse. He intended to get started placing beehives for each of his queens but there was a bit of math to do first, which meant have some dirt he could drawn numbers on to keep track of it all. Which he now did. There had been nine Apiary beehouses compared to thirty-two queens, four each from eight spawners, so there were quite a few who had gone without. He then took a look at the new feature…

Beehive

Mana Upkeep: 5 (2 due to Blessing of Bees)

Base Production Rate: 1 honeycomb per 24 hours

Slight boost to monster bee growth rate

Available Variations: Belissar’s Beehouse (100 DP per hive, 25 if manually constructed)

That gave Belissar pause. He checked the information on the Apiary.

Apiary

Type: Bee, Resource, Settlement

Innate Features: Beehives

Mana upkeep: 10 (5 due to Blessing of Bees)

Description: A farm dedicated to beekeeping. Comes with beehive nodes that produce honeycomb. If Bee type monsters are available, may settle in beehives for a slight boost in brood growth and beehive productivity.

He had a room free so he could potentially add a second Apiary as an alternative, so he was trying to figure out which would be better. So, an Apiary cost five mana for him and provided nine beehives without any additional cost…save the DP required to upgrade them but that was the same regardless. Making the beehives one by one, on the other hand, would require eighteen mana for the same number. There was a pretty clear mana advantage to using the Apiary.

On the other hand, placing a second Apiary would use up another room slot, his last available one, in fact. Room limits could be increased but the option to do so seemed quite a bit more rare than options to increase mana, so it might be better to spend the extra mana instead? Instead of an Apiary, he could add a second Flower Meadow or Orchard. Notably, the Apiary had enough flowers to support its beehouses and then some, but it still had less than the other two rooms, and he had already confirmed that some flower types the others had weren’t available in the Apiary. So, if he added one of the other rooms and added beehives himself, he might be able to support more queens than a dedicated Apiary would.

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There were other possibilities too. He could add a Flower Meadow or Orchard to the very front of the dungeon that he wouldn’t add any beehives to. That would give the soldier bee army a place to fight that didn’t have any hives in harm’s way…and would also give a place for the bear people to gather from that wouldn’t disrupt his bees. He was a bit loathe to add stuff that wasn’t for his bees, but he had noticed them crossing rooms on their foraging trips, so the bees could still gather from the room even if their hives weren’t located there.

And, of course, there was always the possibility of acquiring new room types somehow. Belissar checked and found it was possible to remove a room after the fact…the problem being that if any of his bees set up hives in a given room he was not willing to rip up their home. So if he placed another Apiary, it was there to stay. Any new rooms would then have to wait for more room slots…

All in all, there were too many possibilities for Belissar to handle and his eyes were starting to spin. So, he decided he would just add the beehives one by one. He’d have to do that anyways for the Flower Meadow and Orchard queens and he could always just expand his mana reserves with the daily purifications. So he’d just do it this way for now and keep the last room free in case he needed it for something else.

Beehive (1 mana due to Blessing of Bees and Apiary discount)

Belissar stared at the message for a moment and then slapped his forehead. Of course. Of course, the beehives would also be cheaper to place in the Apiary. He didn’t even need a second Apiary to get a discount on the hives, it seemed. Which, if he had thought to check, could have averted a lot of this thinking and decision-making.

He sighed, shook his head, and then got to work. He shifted to his Tower sight and a transparent beehive appeared in the Apiary. He moved it towards the nearest queen without a beehouse…and then paused. He realized that if he just put the beehive next to the colony, the queen would have to move and rebuild all of her comb. He wondered if there was anything he could do…

Just to checked, he tried moving the beehive over the existing nest…and the transparent image didn’t turn red. Instead, it seemed to wrap around the nest.

Belissar mentally nodded to himself. It was good that he checked first. Well, he hesitated slightly as he worried whether this would impact the bees and their larvae inside…but when he had upgraded the occupied beehives into his beehouses the colony hadn’t been negatively impacted, so he figured it shouldn’t hurt them. And so, he went ahead and confirmed the new feature…

***

The Third Queen of the First Dynasty of the Sixth Spawner, the first of her line, fluttered her wings as she checked over the latest batch of honey. It was coming along nicely. Sure, it wasn’t nearly as good as the First of the Fifths, or any of the other nine Apiary queens who were born before her, but she could say that it was her best.

She had been born just a few minutes too late to receive one of the magic palaces, and so she had been relegated to the outskirts. She had to build her hive by her own hand, and her workers had to imbue the nectar of mundane flowers by themselves. They, therefore, couldn’t produce honey in the kind of quantities and quality that the other queens could and her hive couldn’t grow anywhere near as quickly. Soldiers, if she had been inclined to raise any, were just a dream, and she was still of a similar size to her workers at the moment.

It was a humble, but good and honest living. She may not have done much in comparison to her peers, but everything she had was achieved by her own efforts, and those of her children. She took pride in it, that was the truth.

Still…there was some small part of her whispering on the edge of her mind. It asked…what if she had been born but a few minutes earlier? What if she had been one of the favored queens who received magic palaces and flowers brimming with mana? What if her hive produced honey in such quantities that they could offer tribute to the King on a daily basis, receiving constant visits from him as a result?

What if it had been her?

But she put such things aside. Such was her lot in life and all she could do was make the best with what she had. Maybe, one day, the King might see her efforts and…

She buzzed her wings and shook herself. Such thoughts did not aid in her work and there was work aplenty for her to do. So, she tried to put her wondering aside and get back to it.

But at that moment, something changed. The air began to thrum with mana, causing all of her workers to pause. Her antenna twitched as she reacted to the swirls of power flowing all around her. The very walls of her hive began to glow, growing too bright for her to make out anything.

Then, slowly, the light began to die down. And the Third of the Sixth froze solid once she could see again.

Her hive was gone, or at least the hive she had before. Thick wooden walls like the trunk of gigantic tree replaced the exterior of her hive, granting her powerful protection against the outside world. And, most of all, she could feel rivers of mana flowing through the walls and even the air itself. The mana flowed into her honeycomb, imbuing the nectar stored there as her workers might otherwise have needed to. The mana wrapped around her eggs and larvae and they drank it up, accelerating their growth. The mana even condensed down in empty cells and honey began to spontaneously drip from the walls.

Her mind couldn’t process what had occurred. Her workers began to dance around her as they requested instructions.

And then, she felt the tremors as something huge approached her hive. She slowly turned around and crawled towards the entrance as a shadow fell over it. She peeked outside and confirmed the unthinkable suspicion that crept into her mind.

There, standing outside of what was once her hive, was the King.

“Hey there. Sorry for doing this without warning you, but it helps you. These hives aren’t the best but I’ll build you a new one soon, so hopefully this is ok for now.”

The Third of the Sixth began to tremble. The King…had gifted her a magic palace? Was going to make it even better later because he wasn’t satisfied with it?

Her mind went blank as she began to dance. She had no idea what she said to the King. But what she remembered was this.

The King had seen her. Had acknowledged her. Had gifted her with the same blessings the others had received. Now she could grow as powerful and productive as them. Now she could make vast quantities of excellent honey like them. Now she could offer tribute to the King without worry or shame.

And she would do just that.