BD - Chapter 347 - Unanticipated Bee-inforcements

Once their lives began to fade, Heigiosa ordered the surviving bees back to her Tower. She forced a smile on her face as they returned through the shortcuts.

"Thank you, brave champions of light. Thanks to you, we won the battle. Thanks to you, my people have been saved."

The bees tried to dance a salute but Heigiosa quieted them, urging them to preserve their strength. She, along with the two queen commanders, then personally guided the worker bees along their last flight. She and the queens led them to a field full of stone pillars wrapped in flowering vines, a room where the sun never set. Where warm light shown down on glimmering crystal sarcophagi placed out in the field.

Where her fallen defenders rested in the embrace of endless light.

The bees began to drop from the sky, no longer able to beat their wings fast enough to stay aloft. Heigiosa spread out her hands, inviting as many of them as she could to land on her arms and creating barriers to hold the rest.

She led them to a new, uncovered sarcophagus and a new pillar. The sarcophagus was filled with every piece of honeycomb the hives could spared. Heigiosa gently placed the bees on her arms and barriers down on the honeycomb. Their two queens landed among them and urged them to eat. Some began to lap up the honey, but most had stopped moving at this point.

Heigiosa stood in silence, watching over them until the last one stopped moving her life faded away. The two queens took off and flew beside her, confirming the workers had all passed. Heigiosa nodded and several of her human acolytes waiting quietly nearby moved to lift the top of the sarcophagus and put it in place.

Heigiosa then clasped her hands and looked to the sky.

"Thank you again, brave champions of light. Rest now in the God of Light's embrace."

A column of light shone down upon the sarcophagus, causing it to glimmer and shine with all the colors of the rainbow. Bright spots of light appeared on the stone pillar by the sarcophagus, carving words into the stone.

Seventy-six thousand four hundred and twenty-five worker bees from the Queen Commander of the First Hive, champions of the God of Light, who gave their lives defending the City of Light…

Seventy-five thousand eight hundred and ninety-two worker bees from the Queen Commander of the Fourth Hive, champions of the God of Light, who gave their lives defending the City of Light…

***

In a world of light, thousands of monster bee workers began to appear in flashes of light. They began to mill around, crawling into each other and looking every which way.

“Where am?”

“Where queen, where Oracle?”

“Where hive?”

“No queen? No Oracle?”

“What do?”

They soon began to buzz and dance increasingly quickly. But, as they started to grow agitated, a door of light appeared above them.

And out flew a monster bee queen, one who never had a chance to build a hive of her own in life.

All the workers locked their eyes onto the queen as soon as she came into their view. Once she had their attention, she started to dance.

“Hi, bees of Hive of All Light! Am Fourth Queen of the First Dynasty of the First Spawner of the First Bee Dungeon of the Hive of All Bees! Queen of All Light and Queen of All Bees asked to take care of until Hive of All Light has queen!”

The workers immediately began to fly over to the queen and rub their antennae against her to remember her pheromones. The First of the Fourth then directed them to start building a hive. Fortunately, there was plenty of plant life in the Hive of All Light, and all the light they ever needed to grow, so the bees had all the flowers they could ever want.

The God of Light and the God of Bees watched the scene together.

“Thank you, God of Bees, for your assistance. Both in this matter and in the war below.”

The God of Bees danced about.

“Need take care of bees, workers need queen to be happy. Happy can help Light's bees.”

The God of Light smiled.

“It heartens me to see a god more concerned about their people than their pride. You have done more for me and for World One in these months since you gained a dungeon than most of the pantheon has in over a thousand years. Now…let’s make sure your people are taken care of too.”

The God of Light and God of Bees then turned their attention back to World One…

***

Mission: Help General Rippotis return to the Conclave completed!

Reward: One Monster Choice, One Room Choice, Three Room Feature Choices, Three Perk Choices, +1 room slots, +500 max mana, and a Blessing of Light for a suitable defender.

The God of Light offers a medium blessing.

A non-patron god, the God of Light, offers her blessing! The God of Light will be added to the Shrine in some rooms. Accept?

A non-patron god, the God of Light, wishes to offer you multiple quests. Accept?

Belissar couldn’t help but blink as a stream of messages appeared before his eyes. He hadn’t expected to complete the God of Light’s mission until General Rippotis got home, but it seemed she considered it sufficient that he had helped General Rippotis leave. And…what a mission it had been, apparently. He didn’t even know it was possible to receive that many rewards for a single mission!

And the gods weren’t even done yet, as Velebee sent him a dance.

“Hive-Builder! Queen of All Bees says Queen of All Light says thanks for helping! Will help protect Hive-Builder’s hives from Hive-Burners now!”

“Tower Keeper Belissar, is something the matter?”

Belissar turned his attention back to the war council as Wardmaster Varilold addressed him. He and his allies had gathered to discuss the battle they had just fought and what Starami might do next. Belissar smiled and shook his head.

“The opposite. The God of Light has just thanked me for helping General Rippotis. She’s apparently siding with us now.”

Nenavann’s eyes widened a bit and he nodded.

“Ah, so that’s why I received a quest offer from her.”

Tarwantrad smiled as well.

“Oh, me too!”

Tamosmed grunted and nodded. Lomedys chuckled and shook his head.

“Ah, so that is why the light of the divines shines on those who shed blood in the dark. Even the light now calls for the blood of mortals. This shall be a glorious day indeed.”

All eyes turned to Hesfalle. She shrank on herself.

“…yes, I received a quest offer too. I was confused as to why.”

Wardmaster Varilold made a small smirk.

“Well, a bit of divine assistance won’t hurt. Masters of the Circle, feel free to return to your dungeons if you need to make additions. That goes for you too, Tower Keeper Belissar, as long as you don’t mind if we discuss our defensive arrangements with your bees and sworn defenders without you?”

Belissar shook his head.

“No, go ahead. I’ll…probably need the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter and Chief Rohsuak to come with me, so maybe we can have one of the battle meadow queens and Metsaitti join instead?”

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter danced a salute.

“Will call First of the Second!”

Chief Rohsuak rose to her feet as well, nodding at Metsaitti as he was already participating in the war council. He walked over to take her place.

Tarwantrad walked over with a grin.

“I’ll come with you too, if you don’t mind? We should coordinate the rewards if we get both get flowers!”

Belissar smiled at her. Tamosmed rose as well, glancing at Forgemaster Ughlarer. But the Forgemaster said nothing, so Tamosmed walked over.

“I’ll coordinate with you as well, if you’ll have me.”

Belissar nodded at them both, and then the group departed. Belissar couldn’t help but make a big grin. Tarwantrad giggled.

“You get something good, Belissar?”

Belissar shook his head.

“No…well, yes, a lot of good stuff, but that’s not all. It’s that…the God of Light is the god the Conclave reveres the most. They taught us that she was the one who gave the world the Towers in the first place. All my life, she’s been the god to honor and pray to. She’s was that god for everyone I ever knew back then. And now…she’s siding with us, wholeheartedly. I…use to worry a lot that I was doing the wrong thing when I started breaking the Tower Lords’ rules. So…the God of Light herself blessing us with all this…now I can definitely say I was doing the right thing all along. Even the most important god in the Conclave approves of us.”

Tamosmed grinned.

“I agree with you there. It’s a lot easier to deal with the forgemaster’s disapproval when the gods apparently agree with me.”

Tarwantrad crossed her arms and made a smug smile.

“I told the Compact that was the case from the start!”

The three dungeon masters laughed and then picked up their pace to Belissar’s usual council spot. They now had a lot to do before Starami’s next assault…

***

A spiderkin captain frowned as her warband rushed through the tunnels.

This was weird! Given how far they had run, they should have reached the God’s Nest they were looking for…several times over! It wasn’t supposed to be that far from the cavern where the fallen queen made her nest, after all. And yet, even though they had combed through the tunnels time and time again, they couldn’t find any trace of it! Not a single monster, not a single scout! In fact, now they seemed to be lost entirely! They had tried to double back but now they couldn’t even find the fallen queen’s nest again!

The spiderkin captain gulped. Her queen had sent her here as the vanguard and was waiting for the captain’s report so she could deploy her army. She…would already be displeased about the current delay. If the captain failed to locate the target soon…she didn’t want to think about her queen would respond.

…she started to consider if she should just…not return. Pick a tunnel, start running down it, and never look back. Maybe start her own nest, become queen of her own band. She was already lost, right? Maybe the queen would never find her here…

Unfortunately, her band was catching on to her intentions…and watching her with ambitious eyes. If they could usurp her not as an act of rebellion but of loyalty to the queen, they wouldn’t hesitate. She’d have to try to leave them behind…

But that was unlikely. Almost as unlikely as it was for a single spiderkin to survive in the Underway alone for long. No, her best chance of survival was to figure out what in the Hunger’s stomach was going on here!

At this point, she had no idea where they were or where to go. So, she stopped the band and had them make a temporary nest, then sent out scouts to try and slowly map their surroundings. She…honestly wasn’t confident. She wasn’t even sure they could make it back to the temporary nest, much less find anything they were looking for. But…what else could she do?

“Captain, I found it!”

The spiderkin captain spun around and resisted the urge to tie up the incoming scout and pull her close.

“Report!”

The scout grinned.

“I found the cavern again! And the communication line! We made it back!”

All of the warband smiled…except for the captain. Well, that was good news, for sure. They could go back home and report. But…if they had nothing to report other than they had been lost all this time…the captain started eyeing the tunnel in the opposite direction and judging how fast she could run compared to the rest of the band…

But then, another of the scouts appeared in that tunnel as well.

“Captain, I found something!”

The captain quickly hid her despair and steeled her expression.

“Report!”

The scout held up a scale.

“Look! I found a new tunnel…and footprints! Monsters have been going through there!”

The captain blinked…and then her heart started to pound. Had they done it? Was this it? Was it just a random monster’s territory…or was it a sign of the God’s Nest and its defenders? Was there…hope?

“Ok, everyone, prepare to move out! And make sure you set the safety lines properly this time! I don’t want to lose contact with the nest again!”

The band made their way carefully and quietly through the tunnel, ready to draw their bows at a moment’s notice. The scout led them to the tunnel in question until they arrived at a junction where their tunnel intersected with another…and the captain’s eyes widened. Light crystals had been set into the walls of the other tunnel at regular intervals…a clearly intentional and artificial addition. Someone had been here…someone other than the local monsters.

She began to smile as her hope soared. At this rate, the queen might not kill her after all!

Author’s Note:

SCHEDULE UPDATE: Oh look, it's the holidays. As you may have surmised by this chapter's release (Merry Christmas Eve!), we are still running the normal schedule this week. Guess you all were nice this year! I should, however, probably consider all the holiday gatherings about to take place. Don't plan to take too much time off but given the timing of the gatherings it might be difficult to have a chapter ready by Monday. So, let's say Monday the 29th will be a holiday to set expectations. If I manage to get it done anyways, or maybe later in the week, then I'll post it, but please anticipate holiday delays!

Now back to the story!

Good, you better help the bees, God of Light. They’ve started to solve your egregious lack of bees, but at unacceptable cost, so we’ll need to see some sincerity. I’ll admit you’re off to a decent start helping best dungeon master, so we’ll reserve judgement for the time being.

Too bad for the non-bee captain that her silly non-bee queen won’t!

Anyways!

Will the God of Light solve her egregious lack of bees? Will she provide an…acceptable amount of support to the bees? Will the spiderkin captain manage to survive? Tune in next time, to find out!