The Bee Dungeon

Belissar stood just past the doorway to what used to be a flower meadow. Mud and pools of water dotted the room. Dead grass and flowers floated on top of the water along with lotus flowers, blending in with what plants remained in the soil and obscuring the depth of the puddles. A particularly large pool stood in the center of the room, also covered in the floating remains of flowers. The water stones had apparently done their job, he could still see bubbling He took another look at the message that brought him here.

A room is about to shift natures.

Bog is now available.

Change Flower Meadow (2F) to Bog? Please reduce Water-attribute mana and features to restore room to original nature.

Belissar made a light smile. Well, it wasn’t exactly the lake he imagined, but this worked too. He went ahead and confirmed the change.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The entire room began to glow and Belissar could see the Tower’s mana flood the room. He could see it wrap around places where green and blue mana crashed and swirled, smoothing them out and blending them together. He could see the dead flowers sink down and melt into the dirt while new ones began to grow.

He was so caught up in the sight that he didn’t notice the light die down at first. A few moments later, he rubbed his eyes and took in the new room.

The shape of the room was as before, a large pool of water in the center where he had made a depression, surrounded by shallower pools and muddy ground. The dandelions and the lilies had receded to a mere handful, heather and mosses taking their place on the limited dry ground with the occasional mana flower that didn’t seem bothered by all the water. The water was covered by lotus flowers and water lilies. Belissar’s face scrunched up as he smelled a scent like rotten eggs.

He decided to distract himself with the room’s description.

Type: Water, Nature, Field

Mana upkeep: 5

Description: An open waterlogged area with poor drainage and low nutrient water sources. The ideal environment for carnivorous plant features and monsters. Suited for many Nature or Water attribute monsters, especially amphibious types, though the low oxygen-content of the water precludes solely water-breathing creatures. As with all wetland rooms, the soft and moist terrain slows down any land movement.

Belissar tilted his head. Carnivorous plants? A water room that apparently couldn’t have water-breathing creatures, because of something called oxygen? He guessed he had more questions for Tarwantrad and Nenavann now.

In any case, though, he knew that bogs were not particularly pleasant to walk through and hoped the Hunger would find it the same. And since it wouldn’t be for him or the karnuq, he went ahead and added a vaporous hemlock node, pleased to find it discounted. Now he had a bog that would be filled with poisonous mist. A truly unpleasant place for any human.

But this room was not for humans or karnuq, so he turned to Niobee.

“Hey Niobee, could you let the queens know the new room is ready? We’ll need to check if the hemlock would hurt them or not, but once we do, they should let me know if any of them want to move into the room.”

“Ok!”

Belissar hung around the room, waiting for the bees. Soon, he saw worker bees begin to fly in from the shortcut, buzzing about and landing on the flowers as they explored the room. He saw one of the swimming bee workers fly in, spin about in rapid circles, and then dive down into the water. She shot up out from the surface back into the air, then repeated the process several times before checking the flowers too. She rushed back out of the room, flying at maximum speed through the shortcut.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Belissar smiled. He had a feeling the swimming bees might like the room…

Then, he saw something that brought his thoughts to a halt.

Walking into the room was man made of wax. A fully completed wax golem.

The First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter loved the mobile hive. A big problem for her hive had been speed, or lack thereof. If the slime bees wanted to fly, they had to limit themselves to small glob of slime honey that they could carry, which both felt deeply uncomfortable and limited what they could actually do with it. Likewise, their honey crops were smaller than other bees since they were intended to process additional nectar directly within the honey slime, so the worker bees either had to cut their foraging short or else resign themselves to gathering too much honey slime to fly home. The speed of the honey slime body moving along the ground, left a lot to be desired.

But no longer. The new mobile hive could walk at the speed of the King, using its massive King-size to its advantage. The Seventh’s Daughter honey slime easily poured into the cavity within the hive and then off it went. The mobile hive was still slower than a bee could fly, but that was less of an issue since it could also carry a huge chunk of the slime hive with it!

Especially after her honey slime had shrunk dramatically. Forming the mobile hive had been quite expensive in both honey slime and mana, but she believed it would pay for itself soon. The ability to carry all of her foragers and honeypots directly to the flower fields at the speed of the King would dramatically improve their gathering efficiency.

But before she could put that to the test, the mobile hive proved its worth in unforeseen circumstances. The Conduit reached out to each and every one of the queens, informing them that the King had built an entirely new land for the hive of hives. Each of the queens was invited to send their scouts and analyze the suitability of the land for their hives. ř𝘼Ꞑ𝐎𝐛ÈŚ

The Seventh Daughter initially resigned herself to being the last one to scout the room, as her slime workers would likely arrive after the others were well into their scouting. But then, she realized she could just send the mobile hive. It would be the last to arrive but not by nearly as much of a margin. And then she realized…she could ride in the mobile hive and see the room herself. She could join the Fourth of the Seventh as the only queens to see the room personally, but with no disruption of her own duties.

So, that is exactly what she did.

The mobile hive stepped out into the room. She saw the King and had the mobile hive wave to him as she had seen the King and karnuq do. The King smiled and waved back to her.

She spent the next few minutes in a happy dance that made her honey slime wiggle about. She couldn’t wait to tell her queen mother!

Eventually, though, she calmed down and set about to her original purpose and scouted out the new land. With the mobile hive in direct contact with her honey slime, she could treat it as part of her slime hive and view the world through its senses…

Her honey slime condensed a bit as she beheld the room. This room…was perfect. She sent one of her workers out in a ball of honey slime. The worker dropped into the water with a plop and sunk down to the bottom, protected by her honey slime all around her. She landed on the soil at the bottom and began absorbing it, rapidly growing in size.

As the Seventh Daughter could feel through the mobile hive’s feet, the water and soil here was all full of dead, slowly decaying plants. The absolutely ideal combination to process into slime: waterlogged nutrients with everything required save nectar, which could easily be acquired from all the flowers growing or even floating about. Her worker at the bottom extended a tendril up to a lotus flower on the surface and proved the point, simultaneously drinking nectar from the flower and absorbing water and nutrients from the bottom to produce completed honey slime all in one go. No need to drag her slime from flower fields to the pond and back again.

Before she knew it, the Seventh Daughter was spinning about, causing the mobile hive connected to her to run around in a figure eight pattern. She nearly dispensed her entire hive to start foraging from the room right then and there. Only the need to acquire the hive of hives’ permission stopped her.

She had the mobile hive rush over to where the Conduit hovered…or as fast as it could move through the soft, wet, uneven ground. She was about to ask the Conduit when, to her shock, the King addressed her.

“You like the room?”

After her mind resumed from the shock of hearing the King’s voice, the Seventh Daughter tried to respond. The mobile hive’s foot got caught in spot of mud that was a lot softer then it looked. Not wanting to make the King wait, the Seventh Daughter rushed out of the mobile hive and began dancing herself.

“Amazing! Incredible! King is best king!”

The King chuckled and his smile lit up like the sun.

“Then, would you like to move here after we test the poison mist?”

The Seventh Daughter froze. The King…was granting her permission to move here? To this perfect room he had built?

She began to tremble, sending ripples through her honey slime. A moment later she burst out into as rapid a dance as she could, causing her honey slime to wobble back and forth and send bits and pieces flying off here and there.

“YES! WOULD! KING IS BEST KING!”

This day couldn’t get any better.