The Bee Dungeon

In one of the Flower Meadows, a mana flower pulsed with soft light, standing peacefully in the sun. A worker bee landed on it to gather nectar and pollen, fluttering her wings as she tasted the delicious mana.

But then, a shadow fell over the mana flower. Something loomed over both bee and flower. It opened its mouth, exposing wicked teeth. The worker didn’t seem to notice its slow approach, focused as she was on foraging the flower.

Just as the monster was about to take a bite, its ears twitched. Buzzing began to fill the air and the monster bolted. A flight of soldier bees dove down, their stingers landing where the monster once stood and cutting it off from the flower.

The monster raced across the meadow, running so fast even soldier bees struggled to set up good dives. But a hive of bees was no solitary hunter, another squad of bees dove down in front of the monster’s escape path. These didn’t dive at all, but instead unleashed a toxic spray that splashed onto the monster. It let out a high-pitched cry and made a hard turn, running off in another direction after the sprayers’ attack.

And the bees…did not pursue. Instead, they waited, landing back down on the ground and hiding amidst the flowers. The monster eventually halted its retreat and began looking for other flowers to ravage. In short order, the toxic spray began to do its work and the monster slowed. Soon, it fell to the ground and then the soldier bees made their move. They gave it a final sting to ensure it was truly defeated, then picked up the corpse and carried it to their hive.

Near their hive was entire stack of such corpses, left out in the sun. The soldier bees shook as the approached, the scent of decay wafting in both the air and the mana. The ground around the corpse pile had become brown, the flowers nearby had all wilted. The soldiers themselves felt increasingly tired the closer they got to the corpse pile, but they endured until they placed the latest corpse.

The Second Third of the First watched from within her hive. The war against the cutes had finally started going well. It had truly been a struggle at first, the cutes were some of the most fast and agile opponents she had ever faced. Worse still, the cutes did not stand and fight like the invaders did, but immediately bolted whenever her soldiers approached. They would make for burrows they had dug in the ground, where the bees could not chase. The Second Third of the First had tried, once, but in the tight corridors her bees were at a disadvantage. They learned the hard way that the cutes would use their big teeth when cornered.

The Second Third of the First was at a loss initially, but if she ever wanted to live up to her predecessor she had to find a way. She took inspiration from the butcher bees’ hunting methods and the containment formation the bee army used against flying shades, then started making heavier use of sprayers. Fortunately, the cutes were not particularly resilient and lacked mana, so even a glancing hit from a sprayer would be enough to weaken them. All her hive had to do then was wait and make sure the cute didn’t retreat to its nest. From there, they were able to reliable hunt down the cutes.

And yet, the cutes kept coming. It seemed they were endless, appearing no matter how many the Second Third of the First hunted down. They ravaged the flowers and disturbed the workers, the Second Third of the First could only keep a small area completely free of their rampage. This was a fight longer than any invasion by shade or hive-burner. This was a test of endurance and will. This was war.

The Second Third of the First’s hive had fought on and the mountain of corpses near her hive was the proof of their efforts. But now…they were facing a new danger. The corpses had begun to poison the mana somehow, the air around them grew heavy and draining. The flowers had wilted, the bees flew slower. Even in death, the cutes made war against her.

And now that poisoned mana had begun to seep into her hive. Workers crawled sluggishly, honey production had slowed at every step and the honey didn’t taste as good, and the brood took longer to grow and did not grow as healthy. The Second Third of the First was affected as well, the mana was attacking her body and forcing her to lay fewer eggs as she devoted her own mana to survival. Every instinct in her told her to move her hive.

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But she did not. King had warned her this would happen, this was the true goal of her war against the cutes. This was her true test. Perhaps she could not match the First Third of the First’s tactical genius, nor her contributions to the hive of hives. But, if nothing else, she could match her predecessor’s will to protect the hive, to endure any hardship, even unto death, for the sake of King.

So, the Second Third of the First stayed, keeping her hive within the poisonous mana. She did more than simply endure, she tried to embrace the mana. She took it into her body and tried to adapt to it, tried to use it as best she could. She drank the honey tainted with it and told the workers to use it when they made more. She had the workers forage from what few flowers still grew by the corpses, ones planted by the gardeners once the poisonous mana appeared.

More than once, the Second of the Sixth had intervened, bringing her healing honey when the Second Third of the First and her bees had collapsed. But the Second Third of the First went right back to it, using the healing honey to recover so that she could handle even more of the poisonous mana.

Today, she looked over her hive, seeing if there was any sign of her bees adapting to the mana. The brood were truly struggling the grow now, if the mana got any stronger she would be unable to raise any more at all. The workers were moving at a crawl, barely fluttering their wings as they pulled themselves across the hive. Even the soldiers, big and resilient, were slowing down now.

She buzzed her wings as she was forced to face the truth. Her hive was dying. At this rate…they were going to fail. She was going to die…and unlike her predecessor, her death would accomplish nothing.

One of the workers had stopped moving. She was still lifting her legs, trying to crawl, but she no longer had the strength to walk. The Second Third of the First crawled over to her and gently brushed the worker with her antennae.

“Sorry…”

The worker did her best to reply, but she could not even dance anymore. The Second Third of the First just get flooding her with comfort and apology pheromones while the worker fell over and slowly curled up.

The Second Third of the First finally broke. The worker had passed, gone on to the Hive of All Bees. She would be welcome there, she had died doing her duty, working to the death on behalf of her queen. But as for the Second Third of the First…she truly had failed, she never would live up to her predecessor, would she? She could no longer bear to see her children suffer for her failure. She prepared to command her children, to tell them to move the hive, and to beg the Second of the Sixth to come and save them before more perished…

Then the worker’s corpse twitched.

The Second Third of the First backed up as the corpse kept twitching. Its legs began bending at unnatural angles, its body stretched back out. The Second Third of the First could only stare in horror as the corpse rose to its feet. The other workers around them started buzzing, the soldiers started making their way over as fast as they could.

The Second Third of the First was frozen as the corpse started to move, swaying back and forth as its legs reached at the wrong angles. The corpse dipped as it tried to spin around, turning to face her with lightless eyes. The corpse took a step towards her, its wings buzzing at a pitch too low.

And then…the corpse began to dance.

“Queen…okkkk?”

The corpse was clumsy, hitting the wrong steps and lingering too long on the end. But…it was unmistakably a dance. The Second Third of the First buzzed her wings and immediately reached out to the corpse with her mana.

There, she found the corpse was still connected to her. It had lost its full connection to the hive, but it was trying to reconnect to her and the rest of the hive…through the poisonous mana within her body.

As the Second Third of the First tried to make sense of this development, the corpse stumbled over to her and started whacking its antennae against her. It was clumsy, but it…or, rather, she…was clearly trying to comfort her queen.

The Second Third of the First suddenly broke out into a dance.

“That it! Poisonous mana evolve bee after kill! And can make poison mana into hive mana!”

She took the poisonous mana within her body and forced it through her antennae. Her antennae nearly drooped as they lost all strength, but she kept them moving by force of will. She forced the poisonous mana to act as her normal mana would when reaching out to one of her children, and sent it towards the corpse bee.

The mana connected. A new awareness appeared within the hive link. The worker bees stopped buzzing and the soldiers stopped their march. The corpse bee began stumbling around in a happy dance.

And the Second Third of the First’s mana pulsed within her. The poisonous mana began to settle and mix with her own in a way it never had before. Her instincts whispered to her.

She could do it. She could evolve with the poisonous mana now.

She could save her hive and still fulfill the King’s mission.

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