Chapter 250: Chapter 250

Belissar spent the rest of the day gathering materials and working on the Memorial hive. Upon Beero’s request, he would build a second Bee Barracks like the first, positioned just before the Memorial. The Bee Barracks would be largely as the first, but Beero and Belissar did come up with some new ideas.

The karnuq helped him carry lumber and stone to the battle meadow. At first, Belissar wasn’t going to bother then seeing as they had wounded to take care of, but when he went to ask them for material Chief Rohsuak insisted. There were plenty of karnuq who hadn’t participated in the battle, such as Muuraqi, and Chief Rohsuak reminded Belissar that working for the bees was precisely what the God of Bees wanted as her trial.

The karnuq quickly brought over the necessary materials. Muuraqi’s mana could cut through stone like a hot knife through butter, or stick separate pieces together like they had been solid from the beginning, so with his help the new barracks took shape rather quickly. The soldier bee army also flew over to help once they saw what was happening, dramatically speeding up work on the roof. By the end of the day, Belissar hadn’t finished all the frames, but the basic structure was already complete.

Belissar was thus able to implement the new ideas. First, Belissar made the roof flat, with an entrance and a ramp directly up to it, so that the wounded soldier bees would have a place to perform their magic dances. Beero specifically requested platforms for them, and so he obliged. Belissar also placed a stone parapet around the edges of the roof to help shield the bees from spines, breaths, or any other long-range attacks a shade might come up with. His hope was that, should a shade reach this barracks, the wounded soldiers could rain spells down on it without exposing themselves to danger, even if they couldn’t fly.

Belissar’s own idea was to place a shortcut directly within the Bee Barracks, now that he knew he could. He linked this one to the Bee Apartment the Second of the Sixth lived in, so that her medicinal bees could fly directly to Beero’s hive when they wanted to check on the wounded. Both Beero and the Second of the Sixth enthusiastically approved of the plan when he proposed it, and even now he could see medicinal bees exploring the new structure.

Now all he had to do was finish up the trays and convert the structure into a proper Bee Barracks feature and the Memorial hive would be complete. To Belissar’s chagrin, though, the time for the purification arrived before he finished. Still, the wounded bees now had a roof over their head, so Belissar could tolerate finishing up tomorrow.

Because like it or not, his Tower needed to grow, lest there be far more wounded next time…

Metsaitti stood alone in one of the larger caverns within the Dirt Tunnels. With the casualties in the bee army and most of the karnuq’s veteran hunters wounded, Tower Keeper Belissar had considered skipping today’s purification. Metsaitti had stopped him by volunteering to face this one personally.

It would be good for him, both to fulfill his duty to the Tower and to face challenges on behalf of his patron gods. But, well, if pressed Metsaitti just might admit that he was also excited to use his new blessing in battle. He had explored his new abilities since the trial, but he would not be able to take their full measure until he had used them to slay an opponent in a true battle.

Monster Carpenter Bee Spawner

Monsters: Monster Carpenter Bee

Cooldown: 34 minutes/1 hour 12 minutes

Current Monsters Spawned: 20/80

Oh, so the carpenter bee spawner had a much higher limit and much lower cooldown than the monster bee queen spawners did. That made sense, now that he thought about it.

It also made it a bit more urgent for him to come up with an idea for a carpenter bee home. There were now twenty carpenter bees sleeping outdoors! Though, from what he’d seen in the wild, that wasn’t particularly uncommon for them.

He thought about as he left the carpenter bees to carpenter bee business, and made his way over to the karnuq. Time to see if the monster bees could learn honeybee business…

Paisijik lumbered forward towards her hive, eyeing the bees at they flew in and out. She was currently wrapped in her winter gear, with a heavy fur coat around her body, fur pants tucked into tightly strapped boots, and a scarf and fur hat covering her face. She was sweating up a storm, but these were the thickest garments she possessed, with as few gaps as possible, as the Tower Keeper had recommended. So, she bore with it, ignoring the heat as best she could as she lugged a small jar towards the beehive.

Yesterday had been…humbling. The Tower Keeper made it look so easy, and she could understand the bees’ own language, so she assumed it’d be the same. She’d just walk up, say hi to the bees, and do as the Tower Keeper her taught her.

Then the bees attacked.

She supposed if it was going to be that easy that the Tower Keeper wouldn’t have bothered with the lessons. She tried talking to the bees but they seemed to ignore her. And so, she had no choice but to run off.

But that would not deter her today.

She stepped forward cautiously, keeping an eye on the bees, waiting for the moment they began to react to her. As she stepped within ten karnuq paces of the hive, the bees began to turn towards her and buzz. She slowed down, very gently taking her next step.

The bees had frightened her yesterday. She had heard what they could do, how they swarmed over shades that even the hunters couldn’t handle. She thought she was dead when they swarmed around her, buzzing from every side. But they had not stung her, mostly just charging at and headbutting her. In hindsight, she realized she wasn’t truly in danger.

But that didn’t mean that they liked her or tolerated her presence. And until they did, she would not succeed.

So, she reached back into her own memories, of stories her parents had told her. They had been herders, once, before their exile. Most of their herd was lost when they were kicked from their home, the rest did not last long on the sojourn. Her family had thus been at a loss, unable to put any of their skills or craft to work. They were little more than laborers, unable to truly contribute to the clan.

That would change now, if she had anything to say about it.

Her family had certainly never interacted with bees, much less monster bees, but Paisijik believed that they were animals deep down. And if they were, then some of what her family knew of animals should apply. Paisijik thus decided to approach today by following the most basic rules of domestication there were.

She took a few steps forward. The buzzing grew louder and some of the bees began to take off from the hive, slowly hovering towards her. A few began dives towards her direction from a distance. She took that as her cue to stop. She knelt to the ground, place the jar down, and opened the lid.

Wild animals mostly considered other beings as either threats or food. If she didn’t want to be considered a threat, she needed them to associate her with food. So, with the Chief’s permission, she brought a jar of honeydew.