After a great victory celebration focused on the Firstborn, Belissar and his council gathered to discuss the God of Bees’ rewards. The karnuq had built and set up tables for the celebrations at this point, so they sat around one of those. A bowl of the sleepy chamomile infusion sat out for the queens to drink once the meeting started winding down, given its propensity to make them sleeping.
Belissar had a huge grin on his face.
“Let’s pick some new bees.”
He opened the reward as the queens all danced happy salutes.
Please select a Bee-type monster:
- Monster Bee Dancer (Rarity: Rare, Type: Bee)
- Goliath Bee (Rarity: Epic, Type: Bee)
- Bloodsucking Bee Queen (Rarity: Epic, Type: Bee, Blood)
Belissar gaped. Two epics! Two! Belissar just sat in elated shock for a moment as he basked in the words before him. He had a feeling this would be a difficult choice in the best of ways.
If he could justify picking it over two epic options, that was. Belissar furrowed his brow. Would he pass on dancers yet again? At this rate, it felt like he might never get it if he didn’t grab it now. He looked over the dancer’s description once more as he wondered…
- Description: Monster bees, by nature of the quantity of magical creatures gathered in one area, produce an ambient mana that links them together. Communers can tap into this mana to expand this link. Monster bee dancers take this a step further, adjusting the mana itself to affect the rest of the hive in turn. Their dances resound through the hive’s mana, boosting the other bees in various ways depending on the dance. While they are not incapable of combat, they are not specialized in it and are most effective when kept from harm.
In addition to evolving from existing communers, new monster bee workers may be raised as dancers, though this requires notably more resources from the hive.
Belissar tilted his head. That process sounded familiar. His eyes widened as he thought of the different types of bees in the Tower. In fact, wasn’t there multiple bees that reminded him of this? The drones were taking mana from multiple hives and blending them together, the honeyswirlers were manipulating the mana in honey to change its nature, and the battlecasters dealt with mana directly. The Firstborn had grown as powerful as she now was because she learned to strengthen herself with mana. And wasn’t Niobee already doing something ?”
Belissar turned to the bee queens.
“Hey, don’t lots of you affect each other or your hives or other things with mana? Would it be possible to try and learn to something like what dancers do? Niobee, you do something similar, right?”
All the queens froze solid. A moment later, the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter immediately linked them, causing a kaleidoscope of flashing lights as all the queens began dancing and flaring their mana at once. Niobee flew in front of him and danced a salute.
“Do! Will try to teach!”
With that, the queens’ mad mana dancing quieted down. The First Daughter danced a salute as well.
“Hive of hives will try to learn!”
All the other queens joined her in the salute. Belissar smiled at them.
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“Great, thank you all. In that case, let’s check the other choices.”
Indeed, with the possibility of gaining dancers or something like them with the bees they already had, Belissar could inspect the two epic choices with no further hesitation.
Vitality: Above Average
Strength: Above Average
Defense: Above Average
Notable Skills: Depends on species evolved from
Spawner Upkeep: 80 (40 with Blessing of Bees)
Evolves from: Bee species capable of growing to large sizes
Description: Some bee monsters prefer to confront their predators directly. When bee monsters capable of great growth have access to abundant resources, the goliath bee is the result. Larger than any of a bee’s usual predators, the goliath bee battles its enemies with sheer bulk and strength. Its wings give it surprising mobility for a monster its size and it retains all natural weapons of its ancestor species scaled up to match the rest of its body. It is larger enough that communal bee species can build their nests on its body, allowing it to carry its entire nest away from danger in a pinch.
Certain bee monster species may evolve into goliaths but note that this requires a massive amount of resources beyond what most communal and solitary bee monster species have access to.
This one was simple: it was a big bee. A really big bee. The preview showed Belissar either a bumblebee or lumber bee that stood taller than a karnuq and twice as tall as Belissar himself. They had no special abilities or skills…but they didn’t need any. Their sheer bulk would become a weapon no other bee could match, a bee like that might just crush a shade outright. Not to mention that their stingers, and in the case of the lumber bee version their mandibles, were as frighteningly large as the rest of their bodies.
And the resources required wouldn’t be as much of a problem thanks to all the honey the monster bee hives could put out, especially the swirled honey. The flowers in the bumblebee meadow were already growing larger as well. His bees could raise them together…which is how they would have to since he didn’t see a honeybee version, so they’d be limited to bumblebees and carpenter bees for now.
Not that it mattered, even one of those goliaths would make a massive difference.
And then, there was the final choice. The one he once passed and feared he’d never see again had returned.
Bloodsucking Bee Queen
Notable Skills: Drain Bite, Poison Sting, Brood Mother, Command Offspring
Spawner Upkeep: 30 (15 with Blessing of Bees)
Description: A sweat bee queen evolved by mana to seek other fluids. Drains sustenance and mana from the blood of living creatures, and has anticoagulant venom along with enlarged stingers to encourage the flow of blood. This one is a queen, and capable of building a hive of monster bloodsucking bees.
The bees with sharp, pointed mandibles and bloody stingers were back. And this time, Belissar could legitimately consider choosing them. He now had rabbits he could use to feed them, so there was nothing stopping him from raising a bloodsucking bee hive. Maybe they could even team up with the butcher bees to hunt!
That did raise a question: were they all that different from the butcher bees? He guessed they did have stingers and venom, which the butchers didn’t, so there was that. Perhaps their evolved forms might diverge? The butcher soldiers had big mandibles for biting and tearing compared to the monster bee soldiers, after all. Come to think of it, could the butchers even raise sprayers or lancers when they didn’t have working stingers? If not, maybe these bees could.
They’d just have to wait and see. Waiting being the word that made him hesitate. They’d be starting an entire new line of bees and hives if he went with this choice. It would take them time to scale up, time he might not have depending on how far away the incoming Tower Lord was.
Belissar wasn’t sure…but it also wasn’t his choice alone. He watched the queens light up with mana, waiting for their conversation to finish before he addressed the First Daughter.
“What does everyone think?”
“Goliaths powerful…but hive of hives can try evolve? Give bumblebees and lumber bees lots of honey?”
Belissar’s eyes widened.
“Ah, that’s a good point. The bumblebees are already growing bigger with the flowers, so maybe? In that case…should we take the new bees?”
The First Daughter danced a salute.
“Whatever King chooses, will welcome to hive of hives if want. Excited to see if choose.”
Belissar nodded with another smile before checking in with the karnuq and humans.
“Everyone ok with that? With adding bloodsucking bees?”
Chief Rohsuak just chuckled.
“You already have flesh-eating bees, Tower Keeper. We’ve had no problems with them so I don’t foresee any problems with these.”
Belissar smiled back.
“Got it, then let’s go with those and see what they do.”
Bloodsucking Bee Queen now available!
And so Belissar added the first epic bee to the Tower.