The Bee Dungeon

Chapter 196: A Forest to Bee

With one new flower now planted, Belissar had no excuse not to address the second. He took a deep breath, steeled his heart, and then made his way to the core room with Niobee, the First of the Fifth, and some gardeners. He walked to the pedestal in the center and crouched down where he left the flask of ambrosia, picking up the Heart of the Forest from the top of the flask.

He blinked as he looked down at the seed in his hand.

“Was this glowing before?”

The seed appeared to have a soft glow of mixed gold and green light. Niobee danced with the other bees before replying.

“Didn’t see when King left here! First of the Fifth and gardeners say was glowing when they saw!”

Belissar blinked again.

“Huh.”

He ended up shrugging. He had no idea what, if anything, it meant for the seed to glow. It was clearly already a special, magical thing he didn’t understand. But since it had been glowing when the gardeners arrived, he figured they’d have warned him if it was anything dangerous.

He turned to them now.

The gardeners zipped about.

“Flower Meadow!”

Belissar raised an eyebrow.

“A Flower Meadow? Why there?”

He would’ve thought some related to forests would do better in a Fairy Grove or an Orchard…though he caught himself before he mentioned them. He didn’t want the bees to think he already had an idea in mind, though he did want to hear their reasoning. His heart clenched when he saw the gardeners slow down at the question, but he forced himself to wait for their reply.

“Seed…wants space. Wants to grow own trees.”

Belissar gave them a big smile and nodded.

“Got it, that makes sense. We’ll plant it in a Flower Meadow then. Thank you, gardeners, great work.”

His heart relaxed as the gardeners resumed their zipping about.

“Anything else we should know about this seed? Anything it will need to grow well?”

Several gardeners began different dances all at once.

“Water!”

“Honey!”

“Mana!”

Belissar tilted his head, for one of those things was not like the others. Water and mana he understood…but honey? A seed…wanted honey?

But he shrugged once more. Who was he to say that a magical heart of the forest didn’t drink honey? If that’s what his gardeners said, then that is what he would do.

“Got it. Thank you all for your help, you as well, First of the Fifth.”

Belissar then paused for a second as he watched the First of the Fifth and the gardeners break out into happy dances. He had just been thinking about how he might reward the First of the Fifth for all he asked her to do when his eyes landed on the ambrosia flask. And then, he had an idea. A ridiculous, terrifying, and possibly blasphemous idea. But one that refused to leave his mind.

He gulped, trembling as he reached for the flask. It felt slightly lighter than last time, but he hardly noticed as his thoughts raced. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his heart pounding in his chest. It…should be fine, right? This came from the God of Bees, so surely it wasn’t too blasphemous to offer it to bees, right? He himself couldn’t think of any better possible use for it, so he just had to hope the God of Bees agreed with him…or at least would tolerate him if he was wrong.

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Hoping he wasn’t about to offend his own patron, he waved to the First of the Fifth, who instantly ceased her dance and flew up to him.

“So, you’re good at analyzing honey types, right? Seeing if they can be used to evolve bees, right?”

The First of the Fifth danced the affirmative.

“Know good honey. Other queens work to evolve, but can help them decide which honey to use.”

Belissar nodded and took another deep breath. He slowly opened the flask and carefully, ever so carefully, dripped a single drop onto the palm of his hand. He held it out for the First of the Fifth. The golden dropped began to sparkle in the light of the core.

“This…is honey from the God of Bees, if I’m not mistaken.”

All dances in the room immediately ceased and the buzzing of wings dropped to the absolute minimum necessary to remain airborne.

“Could you…check this?”

The First of the Fifth trembled but slowly began to wobble forward. She gently landed on his hand, crawling one step at a time towards the drop. She slowly unfolded her proboscis and gingerly extended her tongue to take one, single, small lap from the drop.

And then she immediately began to dance as rapidly as she could. The steps were unintelligible but Belissar could tell she was happy. After a few minutes she suddenly came to a halt, before beginning a solemn dance.

“Amazing. Incredible. Queen of All Bees’ honey best honey. Want to make honey as good for King, but can’t.”

Belissar gave her a smile.

“Your honey is amazing. So…we can’t use this honey?”

The First of the Fifth danced one round of a happy dance and then stood still for a bit before replying.

“If bees drink now, can make stronger, help evolve. But bees can’t evolve to make. Not strong enough, not enough mana, and missing…something. Not sure what.”

Her antennae and wings drooped.

“Sorry. Not good enough for King…”

Belissar placed down the flask and used that hand to brush her while shaking his head.

“You’re more than good enough, all of you. Here, why don’t you drink the rest of that drop? You’ve done great. Here, you too, Niobe.”

The First of the Fifth and Niobee immediately began to object but Belissar remained firm even as he poured out another drop. Eventually, the two bees conceded and lapped up the ambrosia drops, immediately taking off and zipping through the air. Most of their dance was unintelligible again, but this time he caught some “King best king!” moves in between. He chuckled and smiled at the bees.

“Then, shall we find a place to plant a new seed?”

All the bees saluted as one.

Belissar made his way to his first potential planting location for the Heart of the Forest. He smiled as he was tackled by a bunch of fuzzy bumblebee queens, rubbing their fur as they climbed all over him.

“I’m happy to see you too.”

Once the bumblebee queens had calmed down, Niobee flew over and conferred with them. It took only a second before the bumblebee queens took off and began zipping circles around him at maximum speed. Belissar was, therefore, not surprised when Niobee gave the verdict.

“Bumblebees say yes! Excited for new home!”

Belissar made a wry smile. Well, he wasn’t entirely convinced the bumblebees hadn’t just agreed since he was asking, but he also didn’t expect them to object. It was the reason he had come here first, after all.

There were three existing Flower Meadows in the Tower that he could plant the Heart of the Forest in, with one empty room slot if he needed to make a fourth. He figured, both from the Tower’s description and the gardeners’ analysis, that the Heart of the Forest would begin turning its surroundings into, well, a forest, so he had to take that into account when choosing where to plant it.

He ruled out the battle meadow since it would place the Heart of the Forest in harm’s way, after Nenavann had specifically asked him to take care of it. Additionally, he wanted to keep the battle meadow’s skies open for the bee army to fly through without obstructions. They already had the battle Fairy Grove if they needed a forest to fight in, so converting the battle meadow into a forest didn’t seem like a good idea. Though, Belissar would have to consider whether the second Fairy Grove could remain a battle room now that he had to keep the nexus door there open…

But that was something to consider for later. Besides the battle meadow were the karnuq and bumblebee meadows. Of those, he felt it would be disruptive to the karnuq to turn their home room into a forest. It was, at least, something he would have to speak to Chief Rohsuak about before trying. He’d have asked if he needed to…but he figured he had a better option available.

Regular bumblebees lived in forests to begin with, so Belissar guessed that the bumblebees wouldn’t particularly mind if a bunch of trees grew in their room. And since the implication was that the Heart of the Forest would make plants around it grow better, Belissar hoped its presence would prove beneficial to any bees around it.

Well, judging by the speed and number of laps the bumblebee queens were flying around him, they at least seemed to be excited by the idea. So, Belissar put aside his contingency plans and smiled.

“Thank you. I hope you’ll enjoy your new neighbor.”

The bumblebee queens continued zipping about as Belissar got to work. Since Nenavann had asked him to take care of this seed, as if it was a person, Belissar decided to do this by hand. He took a shovel the karnuq had given him and dug a small hole in the center of the room, to the depth recommended by the gardeners. He mixed up the soil as best he could and then use his magic to create a small pool of mana honey at the bottom, figuring that could help with both the mana and honey requirement. Then he placed the seed into the soil, just above the honey pool, before carefully covering the hole back up. He created a Pond and placed it nearby to ensure access to water.

“There you go, hope you like your new home. Grow big and strong and make lots of flowers, ok?”

Belissar thought he saw a bit of a glow through the soil as he finished up.