Chapter 498: Chapter 498

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter danced in the center of the Beecity. She was joined by her queen mother, the Fourth of the Seventh’s first communer, and the First of the Second from the battle meadow queens. All of them occasionally buzzed their wings, only for the others to rub their antennae and calm them down.

After all, King had not only left the Tower today, he had also gone to the Beyond, where the karnuq had been attacked by shades and spider-King things both. He would be staying there for a long time, in the presence of the fair-King things and the skunk-King things, the former of which King had been warned to be careful around and the latter of which even considered attacking King in the past. The bees had deployed the bulk of their army to protect him, including the Firstborn herself, but they would remain unsettled until he was safely home.

And yet, the bees gathered with the First Daughter continued their dances, for they had much work to do and could not delay it for their anxieties. Her queen mother danced next.

“All foragers from hive finished, having Fifth Daughter’s foragers go next.”

The First Daughter danced an acknowledgement.

“Ok, sending rest of Second of Sixth’s hive to go with. How battle queen hives doing?”

The First of the Second buzzed as she danced her reply.

“Not good, falling behind. All hives distracted. Making mistakes.”

The First Daughter paused for a moment. She directed her focus through the hive-link to the battle meadow queens, considering both the current state of their hive as well as their overall goals and methods. She then danced her command.

“First Communer, send other communers from Fourth of the Seventh’s hive. Queen mother, can send workers too? Fourth of the Seventh’s communers help battle meadow workers organize selves, queen mother’s workers tell how be efficient.”

The First Daughter stopped for a moment as both the first communer and her own queen mother danced salutes. The hive of hives had discovered that, even though King had moved their entire hives for them in a single instant, there was still a great deal of work needed to get the hives settled. Notably, every single bee in the Beecity needed to do an orientation flight to memorize the way back to their new home, preferably before they went and did any work outside of their hives.

This was made all the more urgent because of the nature of the Beecity. The hives were now all in one place and each of them now shared an exit with at least one other hive, most of them more than that. The exits were large and numerous enough that the hives wouldn’t block each other too much, but the hive of hives needed to arrange organized methods of entering and exiting in mass to avoid inefficiency in doing so. And…from the outside all of those exits were now holes in the ground, the hives themselves were no longer visible from the air, so the workers needed to memorize the exact layout of the flowers around their hive’s exit.

Then there were the flowers themselves. The King had consolidated all of the flowers from the Apiary into the former battle meadow, providing the hive of hives all the abundance they’d require in a single place that was right outside the Beecity’s entrances. That, however, meant that every hive was now sharing a foraging location. Even though the days of hoarding individual flower patches for a single hive’s use were gone, the hive of hives still needed to organize its foraging for efficiency’s sake.

And then within the Beecity production lines needed to be reorganized, trays needed to be allocated for specific hives and purposes, and communication and honey delivery networks needed to be reworked now that the hives were in close contact. Not to mention…now that a sufficiently numerous group of drones had evolved, the hive of hives needed to raise new queens immediately and decide where they would live. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel(ꜰ)ire.net

But the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter was up to the challenge. Her new abilities could give her a detailed understanding of any part of the hive of hives and what they needed, while her own experiences with her joint hive taught her how to handle multiple hives in the same place. The battle meadow hives, for example, often had to operate without their queens present, so instead of reigning in the queens distracted by the bee army’s operations in the Beyond, the First Daughter decided to have their workers organize the orientation flights on their own. This would in turn improve the battle meadow hives’ ability to function autonomously like the Fourth of the Seventh’s, freeing up the queens to focus on commanding the army…or on learning to fight personally if they wanted to follow in the Firstborn’s flight path.

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Speaking of the Fourth of the Seventh’s amazing, incredible hive, the Fourth of the Seventh’s first communer was incredibly helpful in the effort. She was not only managing the joint hive while the First Daughter focused on the wider hive of hives, she was also assisting in sending messages and gathering reports through the hive link, a task she was pulling off with remarkable efficiency. In fact, the First Daughter now took a moment to observe the first communer more closely. She was performing even more efficiently than should have been possible, even with the communer buffs that the First Daughter had given her immediately after evolving into an empress.

If the First Daughter was not mistaken…it might be possible for the first communer to evolve, maybe into an entirely new kind of bee. Her instincts had started to whisper to her about the hive of hives’ evolutions as well, for example she could now tell that the Third of the Third was ready to evolve after helping build the Beecity. Unfortunately, both the Third of the Third and the first communer were needed in the present, the Third of the Third to support King’s efforts and the first communer to organize the hive of hives, but the First Daughter still allocated swirled honey for them to use at the first opportunity.

At that point, the first communer and First of the Fifth had finished their salutes and passing on the commands to the hive of hives, so it was time to prepare the next wave of orientation dances. The First Daughter leapt right back into it…

At least until a report arrived that the Fourth of the Seventh had found something.

The Fourth of the Seventh soared high in the sky above the Beyond. She could see everything, both with her own eyes and her scouts’ eyes! And with other hives scouts’ eyes, thanks to the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter’s hive link! It was amazing, incredible! The First Daughter was amazing, incredible! The queen that organized the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive for her and made it one of the most efficient, and then went on to make the hive of hives a reality!

And she needed the First Daughter’s hive link to see everything today! Because today, King was in the Beyond! So, the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive had to make sure they saw everything in the Beyond to keep King safe! Today they were focused, committed, and immune to any deviation from their purpose…

The Fourth of the Seventh tried her best to see everything. So, of course, she saw everything, including something that now drew her attention. A powerful mana signature, down amidst the ruins of a King-thing hive. She ordered her hive to investigate and ensure it would not be a threat.

And then she zipped as close as she could get without putting herself in danger, eager to see what it was with her own eyes!

The ruins in question had been newly uncovered by the latest expansion and the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive hadn’t scouted it yet. They were large, larger than any other ruins she had seen thus far, and in much better condition. No vines nor trees grew up the stone walls, the structure was damaged but not decayed. It looked more like a hive that had been assaulted by a predator than one that had been abandoned.

A nomadic soldier flew down, carrying breeze bee workers on her back, letting them take off and enter the ruins from an opening near the top. The breeze bees had smaller bodies and wingspans than their nomadic sisters and would have an easier time scouting the ruins undetected. The Fourth of the Seventh was glad she had raised some!

She now watched as they made their way through the ruins. She vibrated each time they saw something new and interesting, but she contained herself. Today, they just needed to identify the mana signature, they’d scout the ruins in more detail on a later day when King was not at risk.

The breeze bees had to find a way to the very bottom of the structure to find the mana signature. The path before them was sealed with a thick wooden gate with only one small opening sealed with metal bars...that the bees easily slipped past.

The Fourth of the Seventh watched the room from her workers’ eyes. There were all sorts of things she didn’t know! One looked like the things King and the karnuq liked to sleep on, but with ropes made of metal instead of woven stems! Interesting! There were a bunch of knives that the karnuq used like butcher bees’ teeth, but in all sorts of shapes and sizes the Fourth of the Seventh hadn’t seen before! And there were those things she had found before…King had called them books and scrolls! Apparently, they were where King-things recorded any interesting things they had seen so that other King-things could learn them! Amazing, incredible!

One scroll was opened and showed a drawing of a King-thing with flowers growing on it! The Fourth of the Seventh couldn’t help but dance an “Amazing, incredible!” at that! King, but with flowers! Like flower one! That would indeed be amazing and incredible to see!

But that wasn’t where the mana signature was coming from, so the workers turned away. There was a part of the room separated by thin metal pillars with a bunch of King-thing skeletons and plant debris, a part of the room with dull crystals, and even a bunch of pots with dead plants! None of these held the mana signature, though, so the bees kept looking. And then, finally, in one corner of the room, in a pot surrounded by countless scratches and carvings on the ground, they found a dead plant. And in the wilted remains of the plant’s last flower…was a seed, glowing with mana.

“New flower! Amazing, incredible!”