BD - Chapter 447 - Expanding Bee-sources (Patreon)

Belissar walked back from the gateway, surrounded by pixies.

“Human, human! Is it true?! We can have honeybee hives?!”

Belissar nodded.

“If they choose you and you promise to take good care of them and make them happy.”

The pixie in question through her hands up to the sky.

“YES! I’M GOING TO EAT SO MUCH HONEY!”

When Belissar asked Captain Karpakynne, she went and reported to Henilett. He was then joined not only by the Royal Pixie Guard, but by the pixies’ own beekeepers as well, plus some pixies who wanted to move into his Tower or to the purified area beyond. Belissar agreed to teach them all, he had already made an Apiary for them, after all.

Belissar tilted his head and glanced at Captain Karpakynne.

“If you have beekeepers, then shouldn’t you also have some bees of your own already?”

Captain Karpakynne’s expression turned grim.

“We do, but only stingless bee hives. They’re great, but they don’t produce nearly as much honey as the honeybees you humans were fond of. With the sheer amount of people crammed into the land of the fair and the amount of flowers available…we’ve been under strict honey rationing for a long time…”

The pixie beekeeper made a dreadful expression.

“Can you believe that I was commanded not to eat my body weight in honey?! Who do they think has been gathering the honey in the first place! Look at this, I’m practically skin and bones!”

Belissar considered that…and now realized that he hadn’t received any honey from the resident stingless queen just yet. He was fine with that, though, not all of his bees needed to give him honey. Not all of his bees even made honey these days, the God of Bees was showing him all kinds of different bees besides the ones he grew up with.

“I see. Well, just make sure to keep taking care of your stingless bees too, ok? They deserve to be happy too.”

The pixie beekeeper grinned.

“Oh, don’t worry, human! Those are my moms bees, I don’t even have my own hive yet!”

Belissar was suddenly much less confident in letting that pixie take care of his bees. He guessed that was why she was here to learn alongside the former Tower Guards…

Still, he was glad that there were so many people interested in the bees. At this rate, he might have to make another monster bee queen spawner so they could all have a hive. That or ask the queens of the Ninth Spawner to raise some daughters, or maybe ask some of the other queens to act like base honeybees…

Belissar paused. Base honeybees…didn’t the Fourth of the Seventh find a hive of them in the purified area? They were already part of the hive of hives, in fact. Belissar hadn’t brought them inside because he wanted them to propagate outside of his Tower, but maybe when they swarmed the new beekeepers could try to entice them? If only there was a way to spawn them, like with monster bees…

Then, Belissar’s eyes went wide. Wasn’t there a way to spawn them? Wasn’t he already spawning other mundane animals, like rabbits and deer? Why, then, couldn’t he spawn mundane bees in the same manner?

The only reason he could think of was that he hadn’t unlocked the option yet, whether by gaining it from a reward choice…or by absorbing corpses. Reward options were random and by no means guaranteed. Belissar would never hurt the bees, not even to spawn more of them…but, did he need to? Mundane honeybees died all the time, their lives were short in general…and the honeybees normally just dumped their dead outside of the hive. Belissar might be able to acquire enough corpses just from that.

He did feel a bit uncomfortable absorbing bee corpses, wondering for a moment if he should play them in the Memorial instead. He shook it off, though, this was probably the place he should draw the line. Mundane honeybees died all the time and weren’t particularly concerned about their dead, the health of the hive took precedence. There wasn’t much difference between absorbing them into his Tower and letting nature take them…and Belissar probably couldn’t hold a funeral for every wild honeybee out there. He should probably reserve that honor for his own Tower’s defenders.

Though, now that he thought about it, he realized he might not even need corpses. The chimeric queens could operate by consuming larva moltings instead of live bees…could the Tower’s absorption ability do the same? He could acquire plants by absorbing seeds, maybe moltings would work the same?

“Niobee…can you ask the hive of hives if they could gather some larva moltings from the honeybees outside of the Tower? I want to see if we can unlock them for all the beekeepers.”

“Ok!”

If this worked…then Belissar could have a lot more bees. A lot more, if the rabbit spawners were any indicator. The Tower could be filled with even more bees than the hive of hives could raise! And he could gift a hive to every beekeeper he trained without needing a monster bee queen to play pretend!

Belissar was starting to get very excited about all this…

***

“All right, listen up you maggots! You think you have what it takes to join the Order of Hive and Stinger?”

Captain Karpakynne hovered midair, planting her feet wide on empty space with her hands on her hips. She hovered by Belissar in front of a row of pixies, karnuq, a few spiderkin children who saw the gathering and came over, Hirkolos, and four other humans who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the moment. Belissar said nothing, though, the four would have to get used to being around beastkin and fair folk to work in his Tower, pixies included. Besides, he wanted to introduce the idea of the Order of Hive and Stinger and Captain Karpakynne was the best to do that.

Captain Karpakynne glared at the whole group, especially at any pixie who started to giggle.

“You think you have what it takes to fly with the bees and sting like them too? You know nothing! You have no idea what you’re getting into! And that’s why…”

Captain Karpakynne abruptly spun around.

“Tower Keeper Belissar will teach you!”

Belissar blinked, then gave Captain Karpakynne a stare. Captain Karpakynne hovered over to him and whispered in his ear.

“Don’t look at me like that, Tower Keeper! I wasn’t actually part of the Order of Hive and Stinger, I know there’s this oath and stuff but have no idea what they actually did besides sting bears and eat honey! You’re the bee dungeon master, right? Surely you can think of something a bee order should do!”

Belissar held back a sigh, apparently Captain Karpakynne wasn’t the best to introduce the Order of Hive and Stinger. It fell to him to once figure out something he knew nothing about. Belissar considered it for a moment…before deciding to go back to his original intention.

“Well, I think we should start by learning to take care of the bees. It’s the order of hive, then stinger, right? You should understand the hive before you try to fight with the bees.”

Captain Karpakynne reassumed her prior position.

“That’s exactly right!”

The pixie beekeeper Belissar spoke with before tilted her head.

“But you don’t know anything about beekeeping, Captain Karpakynne?”

Captain Karpakynne turned a ferocious glare upon the other pixie.

“Shut it, Nionlare! Do you want to join the Order of Hive and Stinger or not?”

Nionlare shrugged.

“I’m just here for the bees. You can keep the fighting and dying part.”

Meanwhile, Soltiotis glanced at his fellow humans.

“…are we sure we aren’t in some sort of pixie illusion? Maybe we’ve been trapped in a dreamworld since the time we surrendered…”

Hirkolos shook his head.

“That’s just what it’s like working with the Royal Pixie Guard. You get used to it, they don’t make mischief on Tower Keeper Belissar or his sworn defenders.”

Germistis grunted.

“That’s exactly what a pixie illusion would say.”

Just then, the group heard a giggle behind them and stiffened. One of the pixies now hovered in between them.

“Oh no, this is all real! We don’t mess with the sugar and Tower Keeper Belissar is the best source of it! But, if you want to know the difference, I could show you what a real pixie illusion is like! For educational purposes!”

All four former Tower Guards immediately began shaking their heads with all their might, refusing to even speak out loud lest the pixie misinterpret their words. The pixie sighed.

“Aw, suit yourselves then.”

At that point, Belissar decided to intervene and try to get things back on task.

“That’s fine, even if you don’t want to join the Order of Hive and Stinger, you can still earn the blessing of the God of Bees. Paisijik here earned the blessing of the beekeeper just by taking care of the bees. So, let’s start with that. Those of you who are interested in the Order of Hive and Stinger can train with the bee army afterwards. Paisijik, could you and the First of the Ninth help me?”

Paisijik saluted. Belissar thus started to train a new generation of beekeepers…after a bit more pixie-wrangling…

Author’s Note:

Wait, we’ve had resource animal dens this whole time. And you know what’s an animal that makes lots of resources? Bees, that’s what! Bee resources best resources! So why, then do resource animal dens not come with best resource animals?! That’s silly, I tell you, silly!

Thankfully, best dungeon master has realized this and is on it. Now we can have even more bees! Amazing, incredible!

Anyways!

Will best dungeon master obtain best resource animal? Will the silly non-bees learn to take care of bees? Can King revive the Order of Hive and Stinger? Tune in next time, to find out!