The Bee Dungeon

Chapter 363 - Bee-coming Knowledgeable

In the woods surrounding Belissar’s Tower, a group of dusk elves in black clothing slipped in and out of the shadows. They made no particular attempt at sneaking, boldly striding forward as if strolling through their own home, yet their dark clothes and pale skin melded into the shadows and what little moonlight filtered down through the canopy.

They gathered into a circle, giggling and cackling all the while. The oldest among them, Curuhaxa, sneered off into the distance.

“Now, let’s begin”

They joined their hands and started to chant. A deep distortion rose, covering their natural voices and obscuring their words. In the middle of the circle, grass began to wilt and turn brown. The decay spread in jagged, crisscrossing lines, forming a ritual pattern out of dead plants.

A gray fog lifted out of the dead grass, but it did not spread out of the circle. It swirled within, growing denser and darker as it hung in place despite the lack of obstacles. When the fog had nearly turned black, the dusk elves ceased their chanting. The fog lifted up into the sky and then began to fly...against the wind, a dark shadow blotting out the moon as it moved.

It flew towards Belissar’s Tower, and then began to spread, lightening back to gray as it thinned out and covered the sky. Once it had completely surrounded Belissar’s Tower and blocked out the moon and the stars, it fell down to the ground...

In Starami’s camp around the Tower, the world began to turn pale and grey. The fog not only blocked out the stars and the moon, but even started to obscure the light of the fires and light crystals illuminating the camp. The lights turned pale as the fog surrounded them, coating the area in gray as if the fog were draining the color from the world. Tower Guards on night watch glanced around as the dark crept towards the camp, the lights receding into the fog. Their noses twitched as the scent of decay hung on the air, a foul aftertaste lingering in their throats after each breath of air.

The fog caused them no harm, but the Tower Guards frowned all the same. Their conversations shrank down to whispers...whispers speaking of condemnation and the wrath of the gods. Rumors about the God of Light and the great elemental gods, of the defeat of their champions and of their master slaughtering his own without care. And as the fog separated one soldier from the other and made them think of death, each of them began to wonder what their fate would be.

The fog remained even as the sun rose, leaving the camp in an endless twilight...

Belissar took the night to rest, knowing the bees would not rest well if he worked through the night. After a good night’s sleep, he awoke bright and early to a beautiful day within the tower. The sun shined through the windows of his bedroom while Niobee and his memory bees buzzed around him.

After the report from Niobee and the memory bees, Belissar traveled to the Bee City and met with the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter.

“King have orders for hive of hives?”

Belissar nodded.

“More of a suggestion. Now that we have time, I think the hive of hives should resume your evolutions, if you haven’t already. I know one of the queens and one of the communers were ready to try and evolve when the attack started, right?”

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter bust out into a happy dance.

“King is best king! Will let Fourth of the Seventh’s first communer and Third of the Third know!”

Belissar smiled.

“Great! Besides that, we have a few more rewards now, which I’m pretty sure will include some new bees, so let’s discuss that after the hive of hives organizes their evolutions. But, before that, I wanted to ask you if you can still contact the communer you sent with General Rippotis?”

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter spun around to confirm.

“Can!”

Belissar’s smile grew.

“Great! Could you ask General Rippotis if he has any advice about raising dragon hatchlings?”

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter paused for a moment, her antennae glowing.

“King...Fourth of the Seventh’s scouts have question. Want to know if can tell nice hive-burner about hive of hives, how King raised bees?”

Belissar blinked but quickly smiled again and nodded.

“Sure, that’s a fair trade, I think.”

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter happily spun around again.

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“King is best king! Will tell them!”

General Rippotis leaned back in his saddle, chewing on some salted meat as he watched the communer in front of him dance. Raklasi spread his wings wide but did not move them, simply holding them in place. In the sky behind him, the nomadic bees were all flying in formation with Queen Vanieskon at their center. They beat their wings as fast they could, faster even thanks to the pixie queen’s enchantments, creating a massive gust of wind that propelled them forward...and Raklasi with them.

General Rippotis had quickly realized that the best way to utilize the bees on this trip was not to try and boost his dragon and wyverns’ top speed, but to let them cruise along with minimal effort, giving them a chance to rest while still moving forward. Then, once they were replenished, the dragonkin could fly as fast as they could while the bees rested in their golem hive. By trading off like this, the group could continuously move forward at each half’s top speed.

Thanks to that, they were making excellent time. The closer they flew, the better General Rippotis’ connection to his subordinates grew, allowing him to get an idea of what was going on back in the Conclave. The situation was...better than he had feared, but worse than he had hoped. Through liaisons he and Heigiosa sent to each other’s Towers, he knew that Heigiosa had come under attack as well, but appeared to have fought it off. He didn’t have all the details yet, but knew that while she was under siege, she had managed to evacuate the City of Light. That was a great relief, Heigiosa’s Tower wouldn’t be broken by any army in the Conclave, including his, so if she had pulled her people inside she and they would all be completely safe. The siege would still need to be broken if she were to rally the Conclave to their side, but that could now be done at leisure.

His own forces were not so fortunate. Two massive armies of both Tower Guards and monsters now besieged his Tower and encircled the Dragon Banner Army, cutting them off from both each other and the rest of the Conclave. The coup forces were using the respawning monsters to put heavy pressure on both, slowly but steadily attritting away at his Tower Guard. High Councilor Stadvolous was personally leading the battle against the Dragon Banner Army along with true dragon monsters, allowing him to counter General Rippotis’ elites if they tried to make a decisive move. Without his leadership and the individual might of both himself and Raklasi, they were having a hard time breaking the deadlock.

Initially, his top subordinates reported they already sent out a call to the Tower Lords General Rippotis had personally trained, so they initially planned to stay on the defensive and wait for reinforcements. But, in just the past day, Stadvolous had picked up his offensive, now using his own Tower Guard to make aggressive moves. The Dragon Banner Army could not wait long before they would be forced into a decisive battle.

General Rippotis could not affect the battle from here, the Hunger was still interfering with his communications too much for him to try and micromanage tactics. But he was making good time and he trusted in his subordinates, having raised them into the finest soldiers he could. They would hold long enough for him to get back, he’d worry about winning the battle when he arrived.

So, with many centuries of experience with war and campaigns, General Rippotis forced himself to relax while he could, saving his strength for the great challenges to come. Since Raklasi was just gliding along at the moment, the ride was relatively smooth as well, giving General Rippotis and his riders a chance to rest along with their mounts. Best of all for the general...Queen Vanieskon was off helping the bees, so he had a reprieve from her presence. She had been perfectly agreeable and had not done anything harmful yet...but the general simply couldn’t relax in the presence of the pixie queen. Even though they were allies, he could not help but stay wary of her.

So, he focused on small talk with the two bees in front of him to keep his mind of the ongoing war, speaking with communers from different hives who weren’t needed help the dragon fly. One was from the same hive as the nomadic bees, the other was connected back to a hive that had remained with Tower Keeper Belissar. He had asked them about their hives, but they paused, saying they had to ask their king first.

General Rippotis noted the non-nomadic communer’s antennae light up...and then she began to rapidly dance.

“King says can talk about hive of hives! Asks if general can teach how raise light dragon larva!”

General Rippotis blinked. Tower Keeper Belissar...had a dragon? A baby one from the sound of it?

He laughed when he thought about it. A baby dragon that the Tower Keeper would ask for help with...it was probably a new addition to his Tower. And the bees said it was a light dragon...if that was the case, General Rippotis could infer where it probably had come from. The God of Light was apparently not pleased with this coup, or the patron of the Tower Lords behind it.

“I would be happy to help and I would greatly appreciate any advice with raising bees in turn. First of all, if your king hasn’t done so already, I recommend he demonstrate his strength to the hatchling. Dragons are proud creatures, so he needs to give it a reason to listen to him. That does need to be carefully balanced with affection and care though, the goal is for the dragon to consider him a prized possession to preserve when it grows too strong to overpower.”

Raklasi snorted underneath him. General Rippotis chuckled and patted the dragon.

“Not you, Raklasi. I’m fully aware you tamed me, not the other way around. But other dragons aren’t as capable as you, now are they?”

Raklasi snorted again, but did not object any further. General Rippotis grinned, then continued his lessons on caring for dragon hatchlings. In turn, the nomadic bee communer happily began describing how Tower Keeper Belissar had raised his bees. She made great emphasis on a “hive of hives” idea, where the Tower Keeper encouraged the hives to cooperate rather than compete, allowing them to grow greater than the sum of their parts. The communer from the other hive then jumped in, excitedly telling him how the nomadic bee hive had saved hers when they were about to starve.

General Rippotis listened attentively, absorbing every detail in their story. He had decided that, both to defeat this coup and to begin tackling his own fears and prejudices, he would need to raise a monster army of his own when he returned. Dragons and fire monsters were the obvious choice for him...but dragonkin took a long time to raise, tame, and train, at least if he didn’t want to waste them as fodder like Starami had, and he had no experience with other fire monsters.

What he did have, though, were two monster bee queens waiting in his Tower and the ability to spawn more. Along with a Tower Keeper who had raised a well-trained monster bee army from scratch in just a few months, likely faster than that given that he’d have been facing purifications from the very start.

So, if General Rippotis wanted to quickly raise a large army of monsters that were loyal, cooperative, and disciplined...there was only one choice he could make...