BD - POBee 445.2 - Hunting Bee-licious New Cuisine? (Patreon)

“Essence everything. Essence what tells larva how grow, tells how evolve. Tells how body works, how make leg or antennae or stinger. Gives instincts, teaches how move, how hunt. Is mana but also not mana, tells mana what do, how change, makes mana work with body.”

The First Bloodsucking Bee Queen of the First Dynasty of the First Bloodsucking Spawn, the first of her line…or, the First Bloodsucking Sister as her big sister had decreed…listened as the new little sister explained essence to Big Sister First Butcher. Big Sister First Butcher vibrated and spread pheromones.

“Amazing, incredible! Is like good meats!”

First Bloodsucking Sister thought it sounded more similar to blood, but Big Sister First Butcher always preferred the tough, solid, fleshly bits for some reason. First Bloodsucking Sisters wasn’t paying that close attention to the new little sister’s pheromones in any case…for she was far more concerned with the new little sister’s intentions.

First Bloodsucking Sister’s hemolymph stirred and her tongue extended slightly. She could smell bloodthirst in the air…coming from the new little sister, a known predator of hives, who was fixated upon Big Sister First Butcher. First Bloodsucking Sister stayed close to Big Sister First Butcher and shook slightly, shaking up her hemolymph and speeding up her mana. If the new little sister tried anything against her big sister, First Bloodsucking Sister would be ready. The new little sister’s hemolymph and mana were weak, First Bloodsucking Sister could drain her in an instant if she had to.

But the new little sister was wise enough not to make a move…or had been commanded by Biggest Brother King not to. First Bloodsucking Sister stayed on guard, but pulled back her tongue. In the meantime, the conversation had moved from what essence was to where it came from.

“Oh! Comes from bee meats? Ok! Normally just eat moltings, but will share next ones with new little sister!”

First Bloodsucking Sister questioned the wisdom of granting this suspicious little sister their essence…but that was just who Big Sister First Butcher was. When First Bloodsucking Sister was but a hatchling without a worker to her name, Big Sister First Butcher had taken her in and fed her with more blood than she could ever drink, letting her share bloodbags she had not hunted. First Bloodsucking Sister fully anticipated she would do the same for the new little sister…even if the new little sister wanted to eat them. Though, to be fair, Big Sister First Butcher and First Bloodsucking Sister could both also eat other bees if they wanted to, or if Biggest Brother King told them they could.

Still, First Bloodsucking Sister quietly sent word through her hive, asking the other butcher and bloodsucking sisters to keep an eye on this newcomer. Anyone who would take advantage of Big Sister First Butcher’s generosity was nothing more than meat and blood for the hives.

But should the new little sister remain wise enough not to betray Big Sister First Butcher outright…then First Bloodsucking Sister would have to accelerate her plans. She would have to ensure she outgrew the new little sister, so that, should worst comes to worst, she could teach her who the real predator was.

She turned her attention back towards her hive, where the broodtenders were helping a new bee hatch. With Big Sister First Butcher letting her drain the blood from her hive’s kills, First Bloodsucking Sister had access to vast resources even without investing in a workforce. She only need workers to gather the blood, she need no soldiers to hunt bloodbags more aggressively. She, thus, could concentrate her resources on anything she wanted…such as raising the strongest types of evolved bees.

And who was the strongest bee in the hive? Who had stung the greatest foe, who had won the mightiest victory, who had hunted the strongest blood?

Vinoi the Dragonslayer…a monster bee assassin.

Big Sister First Butcher couldn’t raise assassins. The butcher bees lacked stingers or venom, the sole focus of assassin bees. But the bloodsucking bees could…and so First Bloodsucking Sister had. The first bloodsucking assassin had just hatched and was being fed with the best blood in the hive. She would be First Bloodsucking Sister’s contribution, the perfect complement to Big Sister First Butcher’s soldiers and glaivers.

But First Bloodsucking Sister’s plans extended beyond their hunting room, or even beyond Biggest Brother King’s realm. Big Sister First Butcher expressed a desire to hunt meats out in the Beyond, where meats with powerful mana and no allegiance to Biggest Brother King dwelt. Big Sister First Butcher had been forced to delay those plans, though, more and more spider-bloodbags were moving through the Beyond these days. Biggest Brother King did not want them to assault his realm again, so all overt expeditions had stopped.

But the bees that could remain hidden were allowed to stalk the tunnels below, keeping an eye on things for the hive of hives. So, if First Bloodsucking Sister raised an assassin, she could send it down below, have it evade the spider-bloodbags…and then start the hunt. A lone assassin would be fully capable of bringing down powerful bloodbags alone, as Vinoi the Dragonslayer had proved.

Then First Bloodsucking Sister could start bringing back more powerful blood than the mana-less bloodbags they currently hunted. And, if she could get some help…she could bring back powerful meats for Big Sister First Butcher. She could be the one feeding her big sister this time, hunting where her big sister couldn’t.

And she could grow powerful enough that no new sister would ever dream of harming Big Sister First Butcher.

But to make her plan a complete success, she would need help. An assassin could sneak through the Beyond and even hunt a bloodbag on her own…but would not be able to bring back the meat for the butchers. Bees numerous and large enough to carry meats would have to go down to retrieve the kill…but such bees could not hide effectively. First Bloodsucking Sister did not have  a solution to that problem…but there was someone in the hive of hives who did.

Someone who was watching even now. Neither butcher nor bloodsucking bee could see them, they made no sound and gave off no pheromones…but First Bloodsucking Sister knew they were there. She could smell their hemolymph, light and faint…and full of mana.

So, she had one of her workers quietly crawl towards a pile of bones, to a small gap between the debris, and unleash her pheromones.

“Hi First Guardian Angel Sister, know you have worker watching. Have request, can help?”

***

The Second Daughter of the Fourth Queen of the First Dynasty of the Seventh Spawner, the second of her line, zipped through her home, the Fairy Grove as King called it. She flew along a river of mana, following the path even when it ran straight into a tree. She knew, though, that the mana was just playing…and just as she expected, the tree wasn’t real! She flew straight through it without any harm.

That’s why this forest was amazing and incredible! The mana did whatever it wanted, creating new things all the time! And her children had adapted to it, learning how it flowed and how to sense when new things were about to happen! Thanks to the mana, each of her children were also born different, each worker something new! She had burning bees and shocking bees and chilling bees, she had maddening bees and toxic bees and blinding bees! She also had bees she couldn’t identify yet, but she was working on figuring it out!

But, lately, she had begun to wonder if that was all there was to the room and to her children. They had absorbed the mana of the room and adapted to it…but that was it. Another hive could do the same thing by foraging flowers with mana, as the burning bees and shocking bees and chilling bees and all the rest already had. The fair ones, meanwhile, had shown they could do a lot more with the room’s mana. They could cast spells, fill the room with flowers, or help King create entire hives of spell-bees! Bumble helper even said they could eat the mana and live off of it, without even foraging flowers!

The Fourth of the Seventh’s Second Daughter had thought that was a fair one thing, something only beings as big and powerful as they could do. But then…King had described to them new kinds of bees, amazing, incredible, and slightly scary bees! In particular, he had described to them the phantom cuckoo bee, a kind of bee that apparently ate hive mana.

Proving to the Fourth of the Seventh’s Second Daughter that it was possible for bees to eat mana, like bumble helper could.

The Fourth of the Seventh’s Second Daughter arrived at her destination, one of the nexuses where the rivers of mana both came from and flowed to. If she could learn not just to adapt to the mana, but to absorb and eat it, then maybe she could become a new kind of bee! A kind of bee completely new to the hive of hives, one that would make her queen-mother dance “Amazing, incredible!” when she showed her!

The only question was…how should she eat mana? She knew she could absorb mana from nectar or honey when she ate it but mana itself was…hard to grasp. She tried sticking her tongue into one of the rivers of mana, but the mana just passed through it. It tingled, but she didn’t absorb anything. She thought maybe the rivers were too small, so she tried it now with the nexus.

It tingled a lot more and her instincts said she shouldn’t get any closer, but she still couldn’t drink the mana. She buzzed her wings, this was proving to be harder than she thought it would! She considered if she should ask Beero and the hive of the fallen, they did a lot with mana too, after all.

But as she was thinking, the nexus began to swirl, its lights glowing brighter and changing more rapidly. A brilliant spark of mana broke off from it and drifted to the ground, then sprung up…into the shape of a flower. A flower made of pure mana, like King’s spell-bees or the hive of the fallen’s spell-stingers!

The Fourth of the Seventh’s Second Daughter froze, then gently hovered over to the flower. She poked it with her antennae…and like any other spell, she was able to touch it, despite it being made of pure mana. And if she could touch the flower, then couldn’t she forage it…and the pure mana shaped like nectar within?

She began zipping around at maximum speed. The room was helping her!

“AMAZING, INCREDIBLE! ROOM IS BEST ROOM!”

After zipping around a bit, she landed on the flower. And, just as she had hoped, she was able to drink from it, filling the nectar turn to pure mana as it hit her tongue.

This…was perfect. The nectar was dispersing back to mana even as she drank it. She could feel the transition from physical nectar to tingling mana…and could feel her body absorb the mana even as its physical medium vanished. If she kept this up…maybe she’d learn how to drink the mana without a physical medium at all.

And if she did that, maybe she could become a brand new kind of bee! She couldn’t wait to find out, so she started drinking even faster. All the while, more spell-flowers fell from the nexus and began to sprout all around her, letting her workers drink too…

Author’s Notes:

First Bloodsucking Sister says it’s bold for someone full of bee blood to call her or her big sister prey. Although, it would also be foolish for anyone made of meat to mess with said big sister. Trying to infiltrate butcher and bloodsucking hives is…a bold move, huh?

Fun fact: this would have played out the same with phantom cuckoo bees too…because the bloodsucking bees also drain mana along with blood. Which might have been more than a little disturbing to any phantom queen that set her sights on the butcher bees.

But well, why have silly bees that drink bee mana, when we could have amazing, incredible bees that drink non-bee mana? In fact, as it turns out, we already have two hives trying to drink non-bee mana! As usual, the bees are already doing the amazing, incredible thing! Bees are best bees!

Anyways!

Can First Bloodsucking Sister pull off her plan? Will First Guardian Angel Queen help? Can Fourth of the Seventh’s Second Daughter become a new kind of bee? Tune in next time, to find out!