Belissar decided to wait until the next day to implement any of the rooms Nenavann talked about, since it was just about time for the daily purification. Sadly, rest zones did not conveniently appear as a reward option this time, so he took more mana as usual.
The next morning, Tarwantrad arrived with a newcomer in tow. The newcomer was relatively short and wore a blacksmith’s apron. The pointed ears marked him as some sort of elf, but clearly different from Tarwantrad as he had dark blue, almost black skin and black hair. He was currently scowling with his arms crossed. Belissar made his way over to greet them. Tarwantrad smiled at him while the newcomer kept scowling.
“Hi Belissar! This is Dungeon Master Tamosmed."
Tamosmed’s scowl deepened.
“And forge adept and golem crafter.”
Tarwantrad rolled her eyes.
“And this is Belissar, tower keeper and beekeeper and beehouse inventor and savior of all that is fair, while we’re at it.”
Belissar wasn’t sure how to respond to that so decided to just greet the new guy.
“Hello, nice to meet you.”
He then glanced around Belissar at the Seventh Daughter.
“That…coherent language and asking permission to act? That might be confirmation already. Still, I must be sure.”
He turned back to Belissar and put away his knife.
“Dungeon master, may I run one further test? I swear the slime will not be harmed.”
Belissar stared at him a moment more.
“I’ll hold you to that. And…you need to apologize to the First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter for destroying her golem that she made to show you.”
Tamosmed glanced back at the dismantled golem and then at the Seventh Daughter.
He turned and walked back over to the golem and picked up its severed hand. He stuck it back on its arm and flared his mana, leaving the hand reattached. He then stuck the core in his hand back inside the golem’s chest. He placed his hand over the hole in its torso and flared his mana, then the hole closed itself up. The golem came back to life a moment later and resumed trying to punch him, though he caught its fists immediately.
“There, good as new…First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter, was it? Could you command your golem to stop attacking now?”
The Seventh Daughter turned to Belissar instead and he nodded at her. A pulse of mana later and the golem stopped moving. Tamosmed stared at it for a moment longer before shaking his head. He reached into his apron and pulled out a ring with all sorts of complicated patterns engraved into it, then stepped forward and placed it on the ground in front of the Seventh Daughter’s hive.
“Can you replicate that?”
Belissar nodded at the Seventh Daughter again. Her hive buzzed at the elf until he stepped further back before crawling over to the ring. She engulfed it in her honey slime and her workers crawled around it. The workers then began swimming around another part of the honey slime that began to condense and harden. It took a bit of time, but eventually a ring made of wax formed. The workers pushed it out of the honey slime and plopped onto the ground. Tamosmed waited for the Seventh Daughter and her hive to pull back before moving to pick up both rings. He examined them both closely.
After a few minutes, he slowly turned to Belissar and then bowed.
“You have my deepest apologies for my doubt, Master Belissar.”
It took Belissar some time figuring out how to respond while Tarwantrad puffed up with a smug grin.
After a bit, everyone had calmed down enough for Belissar to explain a bit more about the Seventh Daughter. Tamosmed sat back down with a thoughtful expression.
“I see, so you weren’t attempting to craft at all. You just wanted to raise a new kind of bee based on slime flowers, and then happened to get beeswax golems as a dungeon reward later?”
Belissar nodded and Tamosmed rubbed his chin.
“Fascinating. The monster bees already link to their offspring so they were able to take on the role of a slime core, birthing a truly intelligent slime monster. And bees making wax golems, it seems so obvious now.”
He leaned back, shaking his head.
“And we never would have figured it out. Who knew that the secret to true slime crafting would involve flowers and bees?”
Well, Belissar could only shrug at that. He still wasn’t entirely sure what the big deal was, and Tamosmed got entirely too animated trying to explain it. But Belissar didn’t need anyone to tell him that his bees were amazing so he just accepted it as that.
Tamosmed took another deep breath, then leaned forward on the table, crossed his hands, and rested his chin upon them.
“It would be unfortunate if they were limited solely to wax, though. We’ll have to try and see if we can raise a metal slime bee. Not sure how, though, metal slimes form from mana-imbued ore veins rather than slime flowers.”
The smug grin Tarwantrad had worn this entire time only grew.
“Then why not raise metal mana flowers and cross-pollinate them?”
“Metal mana flowers? Those weeds that…”
His eyes slowly widened.
“…that steal the metal right out of the veins and into their leaves. That…”
He suddenly leapt to his feet with a huge grin.
“That could work! Slimes can take on anything so if the slime bee can drink metal straight from the flowers, then we could evolve fully intelligent metal slimes! We could create designs that are impossible to complete by hand and then we could produce them in an instant! We could build entire legions of golems each equipped with masterpiece weapons overnight!”
Tarwantrad poked him, still grinning.
“You mean that…Belissar could do all that.”
Tamosmed furrowed his brow for a bit until his eyes widened again.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lump of silvery ore, placing it on the table.
“My offering to you, Tower Keeper Belissar, assuming you have not already surpassed it. This is mithril.”