The Bee Dungeon

“Hi, can hear?”

The Firstborn swayed midair and loss control of her mana. Instead, she focused on the wave of mana that had just hit her, very much like that of a communer’s. So, once her drones had deciphered the message, she had them respond.

“Fourth of the Seventh?”

A moment later, another surge of mana hit her.

“Wow, can hear Firstborn! Amazing, incredible!”

The Firstborn could not help but join the Fourth of the Seventh in a celebratory dance. She instinctively understood what the power of the Fourth of the Seventh’s mana she felt implied, much less the fact that the Fourth of the Seventh could now send her mana all the way through the shortcuts without the aid of a communer. The Fourth of the Seventh had evolved. Truly a cause for celebration, a great victory for the hive of hives and one of her fellow queens.

When she had finished dancing, the Firstborn took a moment to groom her antennae as she organized her thoughts. It was no surprise that the Fourth of the Seventh had been the first to succeed, the Firstborn had expected it would be either her or the First of the Fifth. And it was well-deserved, who else had innovated new ways of running and organizing hives? Who else had determined how to make the hive of hives a practical reality? What other queen would dare to scout the Beyond personally, exposing themselves to the dangers beyond the King’s realm?

The Firstborn finished her grooming and took off once more. As before, she began to concentrate her mana not within her stinger, but around the exterior of it, as the karnuq had explained to her.

The Fourth of the Seventh’s evolution was proof that she was on the right path. It demonstrated that a queen could indeed evolve by going beyond her instinctual role, changing to fit the desired focus of her hive. So, the Firstborn threw herself back into her training with no further doubts. All she needed to do now was fly forward as boldly as the Fourth of the Seventh and join her children in the task she set before them.

Frelis awoke and crawled out of her cell, shaking her body and her wings. She began to groom herself but paused as soon as she caught sight of her leg.

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She had changed color. Her chitin was now a combination of bright purples and pinks.

Then she continued her grooming. New color or not, she had work to do. She had slept for far longer than she had intended.

She quickly greeted her queen mother before setting out. She wasn’t sure how long she had been in the cell, so she needed to check on her charge.

She quickly arrived at the pond and her flower began waving its vines towards her before she even landed. The moment she touched one of the vines, a surge of mana leapt into her body. Part of it belonged to the flower itself, but part of it was…something different. A purple-pinkish mana different from any she had ever felt, save once.

The blessing of the Queen of All Flowers.

She found she could not only hear the flower telling her what it needed, she could feel the flower, in a similar manner to how she felt her queen mother or her sisters. And her mana could now reply…and more. Her mana flowed into the flower and remained there. New instincts whispered and she began to dance. The mana danced with her and intertwined with the flower’s. The flower grew before her eyes as her mana began to nourish it directly.

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The flower responded by wrapping its vines around her and wiggling about. As it did, tiny little vines began to grow across Frelis’s body, intertwining with her hairs and legs. Soon, tiny little flowers began to bloom across her body.

It seemed she truly had joined the Hive of All Flowers.

The Third of the Sixth pushed her wings as hard as she could as she flew towards her destination. The Fourth of the Seventh’s message shook her to the core. A queen had evolved!

Had it been the Firstborn or the First of the Fifth who had done so, the Third of the Sixth might have been tempted to excuse it. They were older queens who benefited from the King’s gifts from the very start. It would only be natural if they had evolved before she.

But instead, it had been the Fourth of the Seventh. A queen even younger than she, who also had not received one of the King’s magical palaces until later in life. The Third of the Sixth thus had no excuse. She had promised to give her utmost for the King, to use the magical palace and the fiery room he had given her to their full extent. And yet, here she was, content with having evolved once with burning honey, but in truth little different than any other queen. The Fourth of the Seventh had just proven that they were capable of far more.

And then she had learned of Frelis, one who had earned the favor of the Queen of All Flowers and a name from the King. Frelis was not even another queen, but one of the gardeners, and yet she had done what no other bee had yet.

The Third of the Sixth would not fall behind again.

And so, she flew to one of the lava rivers in the room. There, sitting on a rock in the center of the river, was the karnuq queen herself. She had her eyes closed and a smiled on her face as she inhaled deeply, taking in the burning air all around her. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at the Third of the Sixth. Р

“Are you ready to begin?”

The Third of the Sixth immediately danced her salute. She had remembered, recently, that she had only taken the first step on the path of fire. After evolving with the burning honey, fire no longer scorched her. She could handle truly immense temperatures that no other bee could, she could drink the hottest nectar with ease, and she could fly right through flames without harm. Her very blood and mana ran hot.

But she did not breathe fire. She did not command the flames. She did not have fire running through her veins or her mana.

The karnuq queen did. And had received blessings from the Queen of All Fire to boot.

And now she would teach the Third of the Sixth how she did it.

The Fourth of the Seventh’s soldier danced about happily, as did every one of her sisters. Their queen mother had evolved! She was now the biggest queen any of them had ever seen and could talk them all from anywhere! It was amazing, incredible!

The soldier did have to wonder, though, what this meant for her. She looked down at the stems she had been weaving together. She was her queen mother’s first soldier, and still worked on the task she had been born to do. She picked the flax flowers, processed and dried them as the King had done, and then wove them into vines the hive of hives could use to carry things. Her queen mother had personally instructed her in this task at first.

But her queen mother had only grown, along with her ambitions. She not only uncovered the wonders of the King’s realm, but now flew through the Beyond. She had set up a second hive, a feat no other queen had accomplished. And now, she had evolved to fly further and faster than ever before, to set up her own hive of hives until her children flew to every corner of the Beyond.

The soldier’s heart swelled and her wings buzzed at the thought. But then, she had to wonder…should she continue on her original task? Her task didn’t seem particularly relevant to conquering the Beyond and she was a soldier. Shouldn’t she abandon these stems to go escort her queen mother?

She was a bit worried she wouldn’t be able to change jobs well. She hadn’t trained to fight like the soldiers of the Flower Meadow queens, nor had she spent much time flying far and fast. She wasn’t sure she could keep up with her queen mother anymore, and wasn’t sure she’d be able to protect her from the dangers of the Beyond.

It was then that she felt her queen mother’s mana jumping from sister to sister, until eventually it focused on her.

“Wow, soldier is good at weaving stems! Amazing, incredible! Can make stem pollen baskets, like karnuq?”

And just like that, all of the soldier’s doubts vanished. She immediately saluted her queen mother and began asking the communer to put her in contact with the scouts. Her queen mother not only wished for her to continue her task, but had assigned a new goal for her. Now, the only thought on her mind was to complete it.

She did not notice some of her queen mother’s mana remaining in her body, soaking and absorbing into her own as she devoted herself to the task assigned by her queen…