BD - Chapter 444 - Bee-coming Better Queens? (Patreon)

RETCON ALERT: Thank you all for reminding me of this, but the memorial Flower Meadow is indeed the original battle meadow and the one with Frelis's original thorny rose patch. The current battle meadow was a replacement, but since the thorny roses Frelis planted weren't a room feature, Belissar wouldn't have been able to move them. I do dislike retcons, but in this case I made a factual error that's relatively easy to fix, so I'm adjusting Chapter 442 accordingly. It'll specify that it's the replacement battle meadow Belissar's repurposing into the first challenge room and that Frelis' thorny roses are not a part of it. Thanks again for letting me know, it's almost like I'm a silly non-bee who lacks memory bee support.

Now to the chapter!

***

Belissar breathed a sigh of relief as he wrapped things up with the Tower Guard…or City Guard, apparently. It was very fortunate those City Guards had stopped by to help, he should have known Conclave villagers wouldn’t trust monster bees even if they could form words.

Fortunately, things had worked out. Belissar also may or may not have agreed to meet with the Oracle of Light, High Councilor Heigiosa herself, but he had been too focused on preventing a fight to worry about that. Besides, he had already met the God of Light and General Rippotis, another famous High Councilor, so he found that he wasn’t as nervous about meeting the oracle as he thought.

In any case, it was time to turn his attention back to his own Tower. The bees had needed him both to write out human words and to translate the humans’ responses, so he hadn’t been paying much attention this morning. Not even to the Tower messages hovering in his vision.

A monster has evolved!

Warrior Monster Bee Queen now available!

A monster has evolved!

Monster Bee Combcaster now available!

But Belissar couldn’t even search for the new bees yet, for there was another pressing task as well! He hadn’t explained his new challenges or the reorganization of the Tower even to his own defenders, much less the sigmaka and fair folk challengers that had already arrived! Fortunately, Niobee and the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter took care of notifying the hive of hives about all the changes, the workers bees were already scouting out the new layout and adjusting their foraging routes.

The non-bees were his duty, though, so Belissar called Chief Rohsuak, Hirkolos, and First Spiderkin Queen, then made his way to the first room of his dungeon. The sigmaka and fair folk challengers were just entering the Tower, so Belissar was able to catch them before they moved in. He explained the new challenger’s branch, which the sigmaka and fair folk thanked him for…as well as the Firstborn’s First Daughter, who was there too for some reason. Belissar left the challengers to get started and explained the rest of the Tower’s new layout to his sworn defenders.

Only once that was done was Belissar able to turn his attention to the new bees. The first was easy enough to find, the army queens were all crowding around one of their number who had grown much, much larger. The First of the Fourth was now as big as a bumblebee soldier, coming up to Belissar’s waist! Her body had changed as well, her chitin was now a tough shell of thick, angled plates with spikes and edges. Her mandibles had grown dramatically, her front legs now had edges like a monster bee blader’s, while her stinger was even bigger than a lancer’s. Interestingly, her abdomen hadn’t grown as much as the rest of her body, so it no longer appeared oversized, she looked more like a giant soldier than a queen.

Belissar walked over to the Beecity, then through to the army queen section to greet her in person. The big queen noticed him quickly and tried to take to the air…but her bigger wings now bumped into a nearby tray. She ultimately decided to dance her salute on the ground instead.

Belissar gave her a big smile.

“Congratulations on evolving, First of the Fourth!”

“King is best king!”

Belissar realized he would not be able to carry the big bee on his hand, so stepped forward and rubbed her head instead. The First of the Fourth vibrated in place, careful not to wave her new bladed appendages around while Belissar was close. Belissar took the opportunity to review the details of her new evolution.

Warrior Monster Bee Queen

Vitality: Average

Strength: Average

Speed: Above Average

Magic: Below Average

Defense: Average

Resistance: Below Average

Special: Average

Notable Skills: Poison Sting, Poison Slash, Heavy Bite, Body Enhancement, War Buzz, Brood Mother, Command Offspring

Evolves From: Monster Bee Queen

Spawner Upkeep: 60 (30 with Blessing of Bees)

Description: A monster bee that has evolved specifically for battle. Warrior monster bees focus their evolutions on strengthening their bodies, growing stronger and tougher as a result. Warrior hives thus produce bees that can fight head-on against larger enemies, though each individual bee is more expensive as a result.

This one is a queen who can raise and lead a hive of warriors. A warrior monster bee queen is not just the mother, but also the fiercest fighter in the hive. She takes advantage of her mana reserves to boost the capabilities of her larger body, allowing her to match humanoid opponents in raw strength. She can also unleash a war buzz which reverberates through her hive, strengthening herself and her children while frightening adversaries.

This does come at a cost to her brood mother abilities, however. The warrior monster bee queen produces less eggs than even a base monster bee queen, while requiring more honey for herself. Warrior hive thus tend to be small, focusing their efforts on supporting their queen and a handful of soldier-types. To help compensate for this, warrior monster bees are capable of performing multiple roles. Worker-types are larger and more capable of fighting, while soldier-types retain some foraging and honey-making instincts.

As an evolved monster bee queen, the warrior monster bee queen does have a superior ability to raise evolved bee types, but her reduced egg count and hive size makes it difficult to support more than a few of them. Most warrior hives thus focus on bee-types that will support their queen in battle.

So, the First of the Fourth had evolved to fight personally, to an even greater degree than the Firstborn had. Belissar was going to advise her to be careful…but held himself back, deciding to trust the queen and the hive of hives to manage the risks. Instead, he kept smiling and patted her head once more.

“I look forward to seeing what you can do.”

The First of the Fourth vibrated again…until she couldn’t help but break out into a happy dance.

Belissar left it to the army queens to dance with her and decide how to integrate her into the bee army. As for himself, he still had another evolution to look for. He didn’t find them within the Beecity…but he had an inkling as to where they could be. He threw his Tower sight up above the Beecity, to the memorial Flower Meadow above.

Lo and behold, he found Beero, First Dronecaster, and all the hive of the fallen with restored wings zipping around a group of workers. He had found the new bees.

The workers didn’t look much different at first glance, save for a slight glow underneath their bodies. Twisting his Tower sight around, Belissar found the workers had glowing scales underneath their abdomens…right where they normally formed wax.

Monster Bee Combcaster

Vitality: Minimal

Strength: Minimal

Speed: Average

Magic: Small

Defense: Minimal

Resistance: Minor

Special: Average

Notable Skills: Dance Casting, Group Cast, Mana Imbuing, Mana Wax, Mana Poison Sting, Death Blow, Brood Offspring

Spawner Upkeep: 10 (5 with Blessing of Bees)

Evolves From: Monster Bee Worker

Description: A monster bee worker that has learned basic spellcasting and enchantment. The monster bee combcaster focuses her abilities into the production of mana wax, a type of beeswax optimized for holding and conducting mana. She may then imbue this wax with mana to create wards and enchantments. Monster bee combcasters may thus build magic right into their homes, turning the hive itself into a focus for spells and enchanting it against harm.

Monster bee combcasters, like other monster bee spellcasters, are also capable of casting spells themselves, or in groups. However, their mana reserves are notably smaller than other spellcasting types, so they are better at enchanting their mana wax, a task they can perform cooperatively and over a longer period of time. Additionally, as evolved workers they retain the ability to do all jobs base monster bee workers can and are notably better at any task requiring mana, such as imbuing nectar to create mana honey.

In addition to existing monster bee workers evolving, monster bee workers may now be raised as combcasters.

Belissar smiled. The workers of the hive of the fallen had been rewarded for their ward-making efforts, now becoming even better at the task. Belissar found the nearest shortcut, making his way to the Flower Meadow and to the hive of the fallen so he could congratulate the new bees.

“Hi Beero, hi hive of the fallen! Looks like the workers evolved?”

Beero kept zipping around in a max-speed happy dance even as she tried to fit in the salute steps.

“King! Did! Amazing, incredible!”

Belissar grinned and held out his hand for the combcasters, making more spell honey for them as they flew over to his palm.

“Amazing, indeed, congratulations all of you! I think these are really going to help the hive of hives!”

Indeed, the more Belissar thought about the combcasters, the more excited he became. Could the Third of the Third raise fortifying combcasters, bees that could make tough wax that also contained wards? Or, maybe the First of the Fifth might like them, the Tower’s description said combcasters were better than normal workers at making honey. Would a honeswirler combcaster be even better than that? There were so many possibilities!

So now, he had a queen that could fight and workers that could cast magic. Despite the earlier commotion, today was shaping up to be a great one.

***

Beero, however, came to an abrupt halt, struck by the words of King. Combcasters…helping the hive of hives? She could feel hints of King’s thoughts through the hivelink, glimpses of combcasters…born of other queens. Hatching directly from eggs.

Was it possible to hatch such bees directly? If so, would that not apply to battlecasters as well? Beero had seen the hive of hives hatch sprayers and lancers and even archers directly, why couldn’t they do the same with battlecasters?

Beero had never thought of it because she didn’t lay eggs herself…but if the other queens could raise battlecasters, then why hadn’t they? Was there an issue with hatching battlecasters? Or…had they thought Beero’s instruction was the only way to do it?

After all, the hive of hives would certainly benefit from having more battlecasters, dronecasters, and now combcasters, and Beero would be happy to teach them all the spell-dances. So, why hadn’t any other queen tried to raise any?

Beero considered it…and only one possibility came to mind. She realized that the hive of hives relied on specialized queens to hatch specialized bees. It was possible for her queen mother, the Firstborn, to raise digging or burning bees if she had the right honey. Yet, her queen mother let the Fourth of the Fifth raise digging bees and the First of the Fourth and Third of the Sixth raise burning bees.

And Beero had been declared the queen of the hive of the fallen and of the battlecasters, treated as a queen by the hive of hives in nearly every aspect. So…was the hive of hives relying on her exclusively to raise battlecasters, treating her as the battlecaster queen?

If so, that was a major problem…because Beero couldn’t hatch new battlecasters. She could only teach the bees that joined her hive, she could lay eggs and hatch them directly. The hive of hives would never be able to raise new battlecasters without bees getting hurt, which made King sad.

But what could she do? Beero couldn’t lay eggs, so all she could do was dance with the hive of hives about this and point out that she couldn’t do what they were relying on her to do…

At that moment, Beero looked back at the new combcasters, the bees now specialized in making wards. Persistent spells that could keep running long after the dance had ended. And King’s own magic, that could create spell-eggs that hatched into spell-bees.

Beero…started to get an idea. Maybe, just maybe, there was something she could try first…

Author’s Note:

New bees! Thank bee-ness the silly non-bees stopped distracting King, we might’ve needed to give them the sting if they had kept it up!

But now we have bees that can make magic hives! Just like King! Amazing, incredible! Bees can now be Hive-Builders too!

Meanwhile First of the Fourth can…lay less eggs? Um, First of the Fourth, are you sure that’s what you want? Look, Beero over there would like nothing more than to be able to lay any eggs, and now you’re doing your job…less? You know that honeybees execute their own queens when that happens, right? Well, maybe that’s why she’s also getting better at fighting…

Anyways!

Is it good for a queen to fight instead of doing her job? How will the new workers contribute to the hive of hives? Will Beero manage to fulfill the hive of hives’ expectations? Tune in next time, to find out!