POBee 188.1 - Can Bee Build It?

POBee 188.1 - Can Bee Build It?

Belissar had a quick chat with Niobee and Chief Rohsuak about their impressions of Tarwantrad. He felt quite positive about her, for once, but he wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Chief Rohsuak agreed that Tarwantrad had been perfectly friendly and it seemed beneficial to forge a positive relationship with her, though advised him to treat any conversations with the Compact the same as the ones with the sigmaka. Even further deals with Tarwantrad personally needed to be considered carefully.

Niobee’s perception was simpler. Tarwantrad hadn’t hurt him and had offered them mushrooms, so it was acceptable to continue talking with her. The bees would continue to watch her closely, but they did so with everyone. They still escorted Belissar even when he spoke with the karnuq, much less someone outside of the Tower.

In any case, Belissar had a few adjustments to make as a result of the talk with Tarwantrad. He went ahead and enabled the new mushrooms in every applicable room and had Niobee inform the queens and gardeners of the change. Then, he was about to move the battle Fairy Grove to be the first room of the dungeon when he paused. On the one hand, he wanted to put it there as long as the nexus door or whatever Tarwantrad had called it stayed open, just in case it turned out the Compact wasn’t as friendly as Tarwantrad had been. On the other hand, he realized that might leave the door vulnerable to shades, and he wasn’t sure if it would close permanently if a shade corrupted the area. He didn’t want to break the deal by accident.

After a few moments of thought, Belissar decided to compromise. He put the battle Fairy Grove second, right after the Dirt Tunnels but before the Lava Field. Hopefully that would give them enough time to either deal with a shade before it reached the nexus door, or to respond to an attack by the Compact before it reached the battle meadow. The Dirt Tunnels would also buy time to rearrange the rooms in case of a big emergency purification.

After that, both the bee army and the karnuq posted sentries to keep an eye on the door, and then everyone returned back to their business. Impending negotiations with the fey or not, the work went on.

Speaking of ongoing work, the Third of the Third found that her chosen task was far more complicated than she had ever imagined. Her original cooperation with the carpenters bees had gone well, that much was fine. The carpenters, while they could not perform the dance language her hive could, could still follow instructions and process wood into whatever shapes and sizes she desired.

It was then she hit the first unexpected problem: what exactly was she going to build? There was no way she could ever match the magical palaces built by the King, so she wouldn’t even try to build one of those. The karnuq, as well, had their own methods, and had taken to using stone rather than wood. They had mostly completed their hives as well, and did not require as much assistance from the bee army.

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The Third of the Third stopped pacing and gave the next order. Her workers wrapped weaved stems from the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive around the stake and around the soldiers, including two bumblebees. The air hummed as the two bumblebees beat their wings and took off, the smaller soldiers following along. The stake slowly rose into the air, then began to tilt upward as one of the bumblebees stopped and hovered in place while the other continued to rise.

Then, slowly, surely, they began to move the stake forward. The Third of the Third locked her eyes onto it, forgetting even to move her abdomen to keep the air flowing through her trachea. One of her communers stood by the hole in the ground, helping the bees overhead align the stake on the center of the hole before they slowly lowered it down. Eventually, the stake stopped moving as it hit the bottom of the hole.

And then came the moment of truth. The bumblebees and soldiers hovered closer to the stake, allowing the weaved stems to go slack. The Third of the Third began to buzz her wings as the stake seemed to sway...but then it stopped. A tiny bit of adjustment and it remained still. It remained upright, pointing its sharp point into the sky.

The Third of the Third broke out into a happy dance. The effort had succeeded, this project would pay off after all.

The digging bees began to push dirt into the hole and send some Ground mana down through it, packing its walls a bit more densely together to hold the stake in place. The workers began to remove the weaves from the stake so they could prepped for the next one. And the Third of the Third’s mind began to race.

She had borrowed bees from the hive of hives for this experiment, but now that the concept was proven she needed to arrange a permanent allocation. She would have to trade honey with the Fourth of the Fifth so she could raise a digging soldier squad of her own, as well as work out donations for the bumblebees to make up for using their soldiers long term. She also needed to ask the Fourth of the Seventh, or her partner the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter, if they could teach her hive how to weave the stems together as well. All of that would take time, negotiations, and expanded honey production.

But once she had it all arranged...she could then improve the hive of hives defenses, replicating the work of the King himself. And that was an effort worth pursuing.