The Bee Dungeon

The First of the Fifth buzzed her wings. Her First Daughter stood before her, also buzzing her wings. The two of them both had to calm themselves down, lest they cause a feedback loop between queen mother and empress daughter that would compound until it agitated the entire hive of hives.

King had left his realm and without a sufficient escort by the bee army. Vinoi would certainly sting anything that dared attack him, but she was just one bee and a relatively small one at that. She could not swarm and distract an enemy alone, so there was a possibility King would be hurt before her venom brought the enemy down.

However, the Conduit had declared bumble helper and flower one as trustworthy, both of whom had proven themselves in battle. So, the First of the Fifth did her best to distract herself while King was away.

And what better way to that than to work? She forced herself to stop buzzing and dance with her daughter.

“First Daughter, ok if deliver less swirled honey to hive of hives? Want experiment more, want try evolve more bees.”

Her First Daughter danced a salute…which felt weird, now that her daughter was a monster bee empress. Neither of them were quite sure which of them was supposed to be in charge of the other now…

“Is ok! Bee army queens need more hive mana so raising workers, don’t need as many deliveries. New queens all growing hives, don’t need evolving honey yet. Is good time.”

The First of the Fifth’s antennae twitched.

“Daughter sure? King’s dragon eating honey now too?”

Her First Daughter replied immediately, without so much as a twitch of the antennae or a flutter of the wings.

“Am sure! Second of Seventh sharing honey since moved to light forest, says hive making lots more honey now! Dragon likes Second of Seventh’s honey, even if not swirled.”

The First of the Fifth considered that.

“Hm, harder to swirl light honey. Maybe should try raise shining honeypots.”

Her First Daughter’s antennae twitched.

“Raise new shining queens? Can raise shining honeyswirler?”

The First of the Fifth considered that. She had not attempted to raise a honeyswirling queen directly, much less an evolved variant. Her gut feeling was that the cost in honey and mana of doing so would be…prohibitive, but it may be worth an attempt.

“Can try, once hive of hives ready raise new queens and drones. Want raise cold queen too, send bees to King’s new room, so let know when other queens ready.”

It was a bit unfortunate that King’s cold room only changed after the latest round of new queens. Most queens of the hive of hives wouldn’t be ready to raise new daughters or drones for a while now. The First of the Fifth certainly had the resources to do so herself, but her daughters would need drones to mate with so she had to…wait…

The First of the Fifth froze. Her First Daughter froze at the same time, their thoughts having arrived at the same place.

She slow began to dance, one careful step at a time.

“Wait…First Daughter…evolved drones don’t die when mate?”

Her First Daughter’s dance was equally careful.

“Don’t. Didn’t.”

The First of the Fifth’s dance picked up a bit of speed.

“So…drones didn’t die this time? So…drones still around?”

Her First Daughter’s wings started fluttering.

“Didn’t…so drones still around…”

Both of their wings started buzzing and the two queens began to lift off the ground, flying the rest of their dance.

“So…still have drones ready?! Drones ready mate with new queens anytime?!”

Her First Daughter was zipping around her by now.

“Yes!”

The First of the Fifth joined her, zipping around as fast as her honeyswirler body allowed.

“So, can raise new queens whenever ready?! Don’t need wait for rest of hive of hives?!”

Her First Daughter replied at her maximum speed.

“Can! Amazing, incredible! Evolved drones best drones! Fourth of the Seventh’s drone best drone!”

The First of the Fifth could only agree, the first drone to evolve was truly amazing and incredible. Because now…now she had no need to wait to run as many experiments as she had the honey for.

And she had a lot of honey…

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***

The First of the Eighth resisted the urge to buzz emanating through the hive of hives, for she was in the middle of a delicate process that could not be interrupted. She forced the urge down and kept dancing over a cell of honey, pulling on the honey’s mana with her own. The First of the Fifth’s Third Daughter stood nearby, watching the honey closely.

The great battle against the hive-burners had been…enlightening. The First of the Eighth was no army queen, but as the main supplier of honey with combat applications, she liked to think she was more aware of battle-related matters than her fellow Apiary queens. She had danced with the army queens, she had parsed their memories through the hive of hives, and she had even had some scouts watching the battles while they resupplied traps with maddening honey.

Her analysis was that…the hive of hives was not enough to protect King, not on their own. The fair ones had stopped most of the powerful hive burners, the bee army needed help from bumble helper, flower one, fire one, and King himself to defeat one. Vinoi had slain another with a fair one’s help, but it had taken far too long. The dragon could have burned many hives in the time it took to kill it.

The First of the Eighth had liked to consider herself responsible for much of the strength of King’s realm, being the main supplier of traps and of maddening evolutions for army bees. Therefore, she now had to consider herself as equally responsible for the realm’s weakness. Perhaps if the bee army had deadlier weapons than maddening honey, they could have defeated the hive burners on their own. Perhaps if she had successfully developed a new honey type earlier, then she could have helped Vinoi slay the dragon with far more ease. Perhaps if she had cooperated with the hive of hives from the start, instead of trying to compete with her former rivals, she could have found a solution in time.

There was no time for regrets, though. The First of the Eighth decided it was time to stop holding back. That nothing, least of all her own pride, should delay the development of the new honey type any further. The bee army needed to get stronger. The First of the Eighth needed to supply them with a type of honey that would help them do so.

So, the First of the Eighth called upon the First of the Fifth and her Third Daughter and asked them for help. Not merely to discuss the dances, not merely to ask for their opinion, but for a full collaboration.

The First of the Fifth’s Third Daughter came over right away to watch. The First of the Eighth showed her everything she had achieved so far, the method with the most promise, one she had not yet shown to any bee outside of her hive.

The Third Daughter vibrated as she danced her assessment.

“Amazing, incredible! Is like dangerous one’s alchemy!”

The First of the Eighth buzzed her wings.

“Still something missing. Trying make poison stronger, can fill poison with mana but doesn’t change. Honey just swirled, not different from First of the Fifth’s.”

The Third Daughter’s antennae twitched about for a bit before she replied.

“How about try make honey help things?”

The First of the Eighth paused.

“Make honey…help things?”

The Third Daughter’s dance picked up and she sent memories over the hive-link.

“Dangerous one uses honey help things! Make poisons stronger, medicine better, bombs explode more!”

The First of the Eighth did not reply at first, instead devoting her attention to the shared memories. She watched as dangerous one mixed honey with poison, then danced to manipulate their mana. The mana of honey and poison joined together, elevating the other. Dangerous one’s mana worked through the honey, using it to act upon the poison. Like when workers would lock legs and use their bodies as a scaffold to guide wax-making workers…

Up until now, the First of the Eighth had been trying to swirl the poison within her honey directly. That hadn’t worked…but perhaps she didn’t need to change the poison directly? Could she perhaps change her honey, not to make the honey itself better like the First of the Fifth did, but to make the honey help the poison within it?

“Will try that. Will First of the Fifth’s Third Daughter help?”

The Third Daughter happily spun about.

“Ok!”

The two queens got to work immediately, dancing over cells of maddening honey and trying to manipulate the mana in new ways. They used dangerous one’s methods as a guide, trying to replicate dangerous one’s mana manipulation through dances. The First of the Eighth had attempted many different methods of swirling honey which the Third Daughter evaluated. They selected the one that brought the honey to a state similar to honey in dangerous one’s mixtures, then tried to see if they could make a stable honey type. The Third Daughter’s help was vital, her experience working with dangerous one allowed her adjust the First of the Eighth’s dance steps and shape her mana in the appropriate manners. Neither swirling honey nor dangerous one’s mana manipulations were entirely intuitive and the two queens were ultimately making something different altogether, there would be no other method than trial and error to determine the final steps.

So, they got to work, trying step after step, ruining cell after cell of honey with mixtures that either collapsed or burst. The First of the Eighth was not surprised, she had been working on this for a while, so she did not expect quick success. She was pleased, though, that they were making progress, more progress than she had made in a while. With the Third Daughter able to envision what a working honey should look like, they were able to determine which trials were outright failures, and which trials brought them closer to success. Thus, they were able to continue building the dance, working out each new step one at a time.

As the day grew late, the First of the Eighth tried once more. At this point, she was just trying new methods one after another without even pausing to evaluate them. The Third Daughter was better at that, so she left it to her fellow queen.

As such, she nearly missed the Third Daughter starting to dance.

“Amazing, incredible!”

The First of the Eighth stumbled.

“Huh? What amazing…?”

She turned back to her previous attempt…and found that it had not burst or collapsed. The honey’s mana was stable.

Her antennae twitched. They had done it. They had successfully worked out a new method of swirling honey.

But had it done what she wanted? Or was this merely an alternative for the First of the Fifth’s swirling? She stepped forward to evaluate the honey.

Then the honey started to glow.

The First of the Eighth crawled back. All mana honey had a soft glow, swirled honey more than that, but never had any honey she had made lit itself up like this one. But before she could question it, the glow faded, gone just as quickly as it had come. The First of the Eighth carefully crawled forward, wary of the honey becoming volatile.

Eventually, she reached the honey and extended her antenna towards it…and then froze entirely.

What was in the cell…was not honey. Not truly. The former maddening honey had bonded with the toxic compounds inside it and…changed them. Both the honey and the toxic compounds had become something else.

And in the process, their mana had grown.

“Amazing, incredible! Is just like dangerous one’s poisons!”

The First of the Eighth started to tremble as the Third Daughter danced. Had they done it? Had they made a new type of honey? Had they made a stronger poisonous honey?

Her mana pulsed within her, surging through her body. Her instincts pulled her, telling her to curl up in a cell. They whispered to her, telling her that…

She had succeeded in doing something new. And so would she become something new, like the First of the Fifth before her. And as soon as she did, she could supply new, powerful weapons to the hive of hives once more.

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