Tamosmed left after promising to bring by some metal mana flowers as soon as possible. The black elves apparently considered them as a weed and purged them regularly so he didn’t have any on hand, but assured Belissar that they always found more.
Belissar wasn’t particularly worried about the delay, but more flowers were always nice so he awaited Tamosmed’s return. Besides, he had another idea on how he might acquire either metal slime bees or metal golems. Tarwantrad was still hanging around so he ran it by her.
“I just thought of this, but what about the thermal mining bees? The description says they mix minerals and metals into their wax, so maybe we could hybridize them with the slime bees? Or would making golems with their wax work?”
Tarwantrad’s eyes widened.
“Oh…I hadn’t considered that.”
“I think Tamosmed will be in for another big surprise when you show him. I’m not an expert on golem crafting or mining and slimes for that matter, but I imagine either of those options would be of great interest to him and his people.”
“In that case, would you like to check on the thermal mining bees with me? I was going to head over there to place this mithril anyways.”
Belissar nodded and read out the description of the ore, the available rooms, and the costs involved. Tarwantrad crossed her arms and hummed to herself again.
“We’ll have to ask Tamosmed for the specifics but…if I had to guess it is likely that the Dirt Tunnels and Lava Fields are both too mundane and don’t fulfill the mana density condition. The only room you’ve showed me that might are the Fairy Groves.”
“But it’s not available in those?”
Tarwantrad rubbed her chin.
“No, but perhaps you could make use of them? Perhaps if you placed a Dirt Tunnels or Lava Field close by, with as many entrances between them as possible, and then added as many mana-producing features as possible, you could increase their mana density? It would probably be easier with the Dirt Tunnels, though the Lava Fields lend themselves better to mineral creation.”
Belissar tilted his head.
“Don’t take my word for it though, I only concern myself with geology to the extent that it impacts soil fertility. I’ll ask Tamosmed again and see if he has any advice.”
The two arrived at their destination as they finished their conversation. The thermal mining queen, the First of the Fourth’s First Daughter, flew out to greet them. Belissar smiled at her.
“Hi there, do you mind if we check on your hive?”
Needless to say the thermal mining queen had no issue with that whatsoever. Belissar walked over and removed the stone slab door from the subterranean hive. He and Tarwantrad were able to step right inside.
The First of the Fourth’s First Daughter had been busy. He found a swarm of workers flying in and out. Some had the usual pollen pants indicating they had been foraging from the flowers, but others carried little pebbles or chunks of ore instead. To Belissar’s surprise, both of these delivered their quarry to the honey production lines. The thermal hive had raised a few honeypots as well…and some of the workers delivered little ore chunks to them, using their heated mandibles to vibrate the ore and break off pieces small enough for the honeypots to swallow.
The honeypots then began to glow like the embers in the center of a fire. Bits of smoke bubbled off depressions in their abdomens before the honeypots blew them away with their wings. Honeypots that finished the process gave hot little bits of wax to the workers to carry away.
The workers then added to these the growing trays of honeycomb. Honeycomb that, rather than the usual yellow, was varying shades of dull, metallic colors, largely gray. Belissar leaned over towards one and poked it with a finger.
The honeycomb felt as hard as iron to him.
He turned to find Tarwantrad staring at the honeypots with wide eyes.
“They’re…they’re like little forges. Tamosmed would freak out if he saw this.”
Belissar and Tarwantrad soon left them be. The thermal mining bees were building their hive at a slower pace than the other bees, likely due to the more involved process required to make their combs, so Belissar didn’t ask them about golems or hybridizing with the slime bees just yet. The slime bees themselves had just moved to the Bog so Belissar wanted to give both hives a chance to expand their numbers first. But, suffice to say, Belissar now very much looked forward to the day the thermal mining bees could build a golem out of their wax…
With mithril waiting on Tamosmed’s recommendations and the thermal mining bees still building up, Belissar decided to tackle Nenavann’s advice first. But since several bees had already moved into the existing Bog, Belissar decided to add a second for the sake of defense. The first floor had an empty room slot so he added it to the defense rooms there, placing it after the battle Fairy Grove. He added a vaporous hemlock node for the poison mist and then spread out ten Pit Traps around the room as Nenavann recommended. He finished off by adding the usual shortcut to the Orchard’s travel wall.
Next, he added a Dirt Tunnels room to the currently empty fifth floor, then placed water stone and mana flower nodes within it, right next to each other. A Flooded Tunnels sounded like an excellent defensive option and was apparently necessary if he ever wanted to convert a Bog into a Fen, so Belissar decided to get started on that now.