Belissar finally made it home after a long day with the Compact. He went straight to the Apiary’s farmhouse, took one of the chairs outside, and plopped down where he could see the Bee Apartments. He spent a while just watching the Apiary bees come and go, buzzing and dancing as they delivered nectar and pollen to their homes. His fatigue washed away as a smile broke out on his face.
He was thus ready when it came time for the daily purification. He watched intently as the Hunger coalesced, waiting to see which of the expansion shades they’d face today.
A high-pitched snarl tipped him off.
“It’s the fire fox again!”
Belissar turned to Chief Rohsuak. Last time, she had shielded the karnuq with her fire magic, rendering them immune to the fox shade’s attacks so they could stop it with a shield wall. Belissar assumed that would be the plan again…but to his surprise, Chief Rohsuak shook her head.
“I suggest someone else try to deal with it…”
She turned instead to the Third of the Sixth. Belissar nodded in understanding, they had planned to have the Third of the Sixth try to shield the bee army against the ant shades, but they stopped the ant swarm before the bee army had to engage openly. He supposed now was as good a time as ever to try it out.
“Third of the Sixth, think you can coat the army with fire?”
The Third of Sixth zipped about as she danced a salute.
Belissar resolved himself.
“Then do it. We’ll use the Bog to fight, should be hard for the shade to move in or set fire.”
Belissar moved the battle Bog so that it’d be the very next room after the initial Dirt Tunnels. The Third of the Sixth flew there with much of her hive. The bee army deployed as well, though the karnuq hung back this time, waiting with Chief Rohsuak as a reserve. Soon, they were ready, and all they needed to do was wait for the fox shade to make it through the Dirt Tunnels.
As before, the fox shade was fast enough to jump over Pit Traps and its flame-coated body could burn right through the sticky honey trap sprays. It reached the candle tunnel…and ran right through. Belissar thought it might be swaying a bit from the maddening smoke but the swaying was faint enough he might have imagined it.
Then it reached the incline trap. The wards triggered and walls rose to seal off both ends of the sloped tunnel. The fox snarled and hurled balls of flame at the walls…but they remained standing. The shade’s flames did not burn stone particularly quickly. It was trapped.
Belissar blinked for a bit before shrugging. He activated the sticky honey traps to flow down the incline. The fox burned through the honey as before…but the honey began pooling up at the bottom. Soon, there was enough that fox couldn’t burn through all of it. The fox snarled and snapped but it was drenched in maddening honey nonetheless.
Fortunately for the shade, it managed to corrupt the ward maintaining the wall in front of it before it drowned and so managed to escape. Unfortunately for it, it had been drenched in enough maddening honey to visibly affect its balance as it stumbled through the rest of the Dirt Tunnels.
It thus failed to leap over one of the Pit Traps and fell to the bottom with a yelp. It was sprayed with honey by a trap and tried to burn it, setting the pit on fire, though the shade wasn’t harmed by the flames.
Belissar shook his head with a chuckle.
“Sorry Third of the Sixth, the shade got stuck in a pit so looks like we won’t need that fire cloak after all.”
The Third of the Sixth saluted, but seemed a little down. Belissar’s heart clenched at that…but he was still pleased that no bees would be at risk today. In fact, after having that thought, he had an idea.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
“Hey, everyone, I’d like to try something since the shade is trapped. Is that ok?”
After confirming with everyone and waiting for the fire in the pit to die down, Belissar made his way to the Dirt Tunnels and approached the trapped shade, though he stayed a safe distance from the pit given that this shade could throw fire around. He then started to cast a spell, creating a larger honeycomb pattern than he ever had before. He focused his mana into a spell-bee egg, knowing that would cut down on the cost, and waited to see if it would hatch successfully.
A moment later, the spell-cell waxed over, and then a spell-bee chewed through it and climbed out. It took to the air and began hovering rather than crawling onto Belissar’s hand…for this one was too big to fit in his palm. Belissar smiled. He had successfully created his first ever spell-bee lancer.
The spell lancer flew over the pit and clung to the roof of the tunnel, gaining as much height as possible in the tunnels. The fox shade noticed and threw a ball of fire…that went far to the side and hit the wall of the tunnel rather than the roof. The lancer let go of the roof and beat its wings to dive as well as it could. The shade tried to dodge, but stumbled and fell instead.
The lancer didn’t manage to get up to anywhere near full speed…but it didn’t matter. The fox was no turtle shade, the lancer’s stinger pierced right through it when the spell bee thrust her abdomen forward. And, just like that, the purification finished.
Belissar grinned. Though he didn’t intend to fight himself since it would upset the bees, he was glad to know he could if he needed to.
With the purification concluded, Belissar chose more mana and then began preparations for the usual victory celebration. Aredlig joined him to advise on teas and herbal infusions…or herbal teas, as the fair folk apparently called them. They were just setting up some pots when Niobee flew over with the Third of the Fourth following her.
“King! Third of the Fourth has request!”
The Third of the Fourth swayed about, so Belissar gave her a reassuring smile.
“Of course, what is it?”
The Third of the Fourth hesitated but Niobee flew over to brush her antennae and then she began to dance.
“King…can help make tea? Want to learn, want to help!”
Belissar’s smile grew.
The Third of the Fourth immediately burst out into celebration.
“A bee brewing tea. Can’t say I ever imagined I’d be teaching a bee.”
The Third of the Fourth called her hive over and immediately started making herself useful. The burning bees not only helped light flames, but stayed in the fire and used their mana to help it grow. Aredlig smiled as he watched them.
“Bees with Fire mana and resistance? Can you control temperatures precisely?”
The Third of the Fourth danced the confirmation.
Aredlig’s smile grew to a full grin.
“That’s perfect for tea-brewing.”
The Third of the Fourth began a happy dance in response. Before long, Belissar, Aredlig, and the Third of the Fourth’s hive had several big pots of tea brewing, while Aredlig went over the brewing process for them. Belissar also noted the burning bee’s mana mixing into the flames…and then into the brewing teas above. He smiled, guessing that was the Chef’s Blaze perk at work. The art of tea was apparently perfect, exciting the Third of the Fourth, making something tasty for the bees, and helping the whole Tower to grow stronger. Belissar turned his attention back to Aredlig with renewed focus…
After the celebration, Belissar held his usual council. He reported on his dealings with the Compact and informed everyone that they’d likely receive more visitors in the days to come. At first, he thought that would be all they needed to address…but then Belissar recalled it had been a while since he last checked his DP, so he did so while he had everyone around.
Belissar blinked. It…had been a while after all.
“We have enough DP to buy anything in store, everyone. So...is there anything we need right now?”
Belissar considered it on his own while the bees and karnuq discussed it among themselves. He didn’t think they needed any room features with all the flowers they were getting from the Compact lately. More rooms or more bees could always be useful, though there was no pressing need there either. As for a room slot, he double checked his current Tower layout and found he had four empty room slots across different floors. That was a whole floor’s worth…but it could also fill up quickly if he got new rooms or made more deals with the Compact, so it might be worth considering. Finally, perks were always useful and didn’t need much effort to implement, but it was also the most expensive choice.
The others finished their discussions quickly and reported that they didn’t need anything in particular, and so left the choice to him. Belissar consider it…and decided that four rooms didn’t feel like a lot. Additionally, the only other way to get more room slots was to take on another expansion…and the last one had a big jump in difficulty. So, Belissar decided he’d take another room slot now. Each of his seven floors got a new slot, so now he had eleven to work with, more than enough for the time being.
The room slot had increased in price from five thousand DP to six thousand so he was left with a bit over four thousand afterwards. He still had enough to buy another room, room feature, or monster…but he decided that he’d wait and see for now. The Tower had enough to do as it was and they could buy choices from the DP store whenever they wanted, after all.
And thus, a long day came to an end.