Chapter 223: Chapter 223

The Fourth of the Seventh zipped about, but one of her scout communers stopped her.

She spun about and sped at the communer’s dance until she saw it. Several of her scouts hovered over a patch of dirt just before the Tower. Grooves had been carved in a large, circular pattern. The pattern occasionally pulsed with a soft green light that was easy to miss amongst the grass and flowers.

The Fourth of the Seventh danced happily about.

“Great work, everyone! Will tell King we found it!”

But just as she was about to relay it to the King, the pattern shifted. The soft green light turned into a bright red. The Fourth of the Seventh reacted immediately.

At her command her workers immediately flew away from the pattern. The Fourth of the Seventh did likewise, knowing that the workers wouldn’t evacuate before her. A moment later, the pattern pulses with a light too bright to see.

And then it fell silent and glowed no more.

A group of monster bee soldiers and honeybee workers hatched out of wax cells on the floor of the Hive of All Bees. They glanced around and buzzed their wings, spinning around in confusion. But as they did, four hives of bees flew towards them, led by four queens. The soldiers prepared to fly at first…until they recognized the mana of the queens. In addition to their own, individual mana, the queens each held an identical mana within them, a mana that each of the soldiers shared as well.

One of the queens landed and began to dance.

“Hello! Am First Queen of the First Dynasty of the First Spawner of the First Bee Dungeon, the first of her line. Welcome to Hive of All Bees, fellow bees of the First Bee Dungeon. Thank you for protecting our home.”

Elsewhere, the Queen of All Bees watched as the queens greeted the incoming bees. Normally, she let bees who arrived sort out their own place and role, as was normal for bees to do. In this case, though, the newly arrived bees deserved a bit of extra consideration.

That Niobee’s former queen had grown enough in mana and awareness to provide the Queen of All Bees a second hook into the word was a pleasant miscalculation. That said queen’s new awareness and the loss of Niobee had caused her to lead her hive towards starvation was not. The Queen of All Bees had thus done all that she could to ensure the queen’s survival. Fortunately, there was a group of humans that just so happened to be looking for her dungeon, so it had worked out. She had no doubt her favored dungeon master would welcome her new follower with open arms, even if they hadn’t already been acquainted. That her dungeon master and conduit would both be overjoyed to reunite with the queen pleased her as well. ṝÄꞐố𝐁Ëṣ

Unfortunately, the humans that carried the queen were hive-burners and enemies of her dungeon master and conduit alike. And establishing her first ever oracle in order to speak directly to the queen had burned through most of her accumulated authority, not to mention answering the humans’ divination. The offering they had made didn’t even come close to paying back the authority spent, but she had no other choice.

It was unfortunate as well that the human empire would become aware of her dungeon’s location if this plan succeeded, given that she had little influence among them, but they were far enough away that she felt it was worth the risk. With how difficult the journey had been for the group that carried her oracle, she knew that an army had no hope of making the trip anytime soon. Time during which her favored dungeon would only continue to grow, which she would encourage with all the authority she could muster.

Of course, that meant she did not have the authority available to answer the humans when they had actually arrived at her dungeon. And even if she did, she cared little for their fate. They had already burned hives and assaulted her favored dungeon master. They may have carried her new oracle through a long and dangerous path, but if they chose to repeat their crimes against bees, in the dungeon that bore her symbol no less, then they deserved whatever fate befell them. She left it to her favored dungeon master to decide, the strength of his hive more than sufficient to hand them either grace or justice as they deserved.

Still, she could not help but feel some responsibility for the casualties that resulted. Part of her was amused that her favored dungeon master got so worked up over a handful of workers or soldiers, those who purpose it was to spend their lives for the hive. But in the end, her dungeon master’s grief on behalf of bees struck right at her very core. How could she not resonate with one who cared so deeply for even the least of the bees? How could she not be moved by one who spared no effort to preserve every bee that he could, and who did all that he could to honor those he could not save?

“Belissar best dungeon master!”

She had to calm herself from her spontaneous dance before resuming her train of thought.

She would, therefore, not spare any effort to ensure that those bees he had not saved were taken care of as he would have wished.

But in the end, the prize had been worth the cost. She now had an oracle to call her own, safely housed within her favored dungeon master’s halls. She could now make known her will directly to the world at a fraction of the cost in authority. Her ability to assign missions and offer blessings would expand dramatically as well and extend beyond her dungeon shrines. And most of all, now that she could interact more directly with the people of the world, her name would grow among them. One day she, too, would be able to act beyond the reach of her few direct hooks.