The Bee Dungeon

POBee 54.1 - Failure and Victor-Bee

The Firstborn lay still on the floor of her hive. The last few days had been…confusing.

The hive of hives had won a great victory, yes. But once the celebrations came to an end and she had time to reflect, she realized that her hive had not. No, her hive had failed. Her army had been beaten.

Yes, the soldier bees overwhelmed the shade and drove it to flee from them. Had they been facing a normal enemy, perhaps that would have been enough. But these invaders were different. They did not fear death. When they ran, they ran towards the hive, not away from it. Such a foe running away from her army was not a victory, but a failure.

This latest battle the enemy had slipped out of her soldiers’ grasp and there was nothing they could have done to catch it. It could have killed her, destroyed her hive, and slaughtered her brood before her defenders returned. And worse…it could have moved deeper into the hive, where the King and the honey-producing queens took shelter. It could even have reached the core itself, the very heart of the King’s domain.

So, in truth, her army had been defeated. They failed to stop the enemy’s advance. They failed to protect the hive. Had it not been for the extremely fortunate attack by the wounded soldier and then intervention by the King himself, that day would have been a disaster. It was the greatest failure any of the King’s queens had ever suffered. Even the doomed First Dynasty had not allowed the enemy to reach the King before every last bee in their hive had perished. Forget building the greatest army bee-kind had ever seen, the Firstborn had not even built an army sufficient to defend her home. A crippled soldier had done more to save the hive than she.

She had assumed when the King called for her that it would be her end. Workers would fly until they died enroute. Soldiers who could not fight would leave the hive, never to return. So, wouldn't be only right that a queen who had failed as egregiously as she had did the same?

But once again, the King defied all of her wildest expectations. Not only did he not punish her for this failure, he didn’t even mention it. He had instead gathered all of his queens together and then asked for their counsel. As if a failed queen such as she had anything to offer him.

She had spoken up in the moment. She told the King the truth. He needed a stronger army. He needed better soldiers.

He needed a better queen to lead his defense.

She felt the Tower’s mana stir, and then begin to flow into her, granting her new knowledge. Her antenna twitched and she began to crawl about, her wings fluttering.

Because in the new knowledge came knowledge of a new kind of bee. A new type of soldier, one that could do things no normal bee was capable of. It had an entirely different method of fighting and would revolutionize the army.

She trembled. The King…had granted them better soldiers. He had seen her dance…and interpreted it differently. He did not replace her with a bigger and better queen who would raise bigger and better soldiers. No, he saw beyond normal soldiers and came up with something entirely different.

And then he granted it to her, the queen who had failed. To all of them.

Regarding things that were entirely different, her mind drifted to the wounded soldier. It turned out that the King had been incredibly wise to keep her around. Though she could not fly and fight like the others anymore, her contributions had proven critical to defending the hive. And now…she was becoming something else entirely. She had been fed mana by the King’s own hand and gained powers unlike any other bee in the hive of hives. Even now that power moved in place of her lost wing. Her injury was slowly becoming her strength.

The Firstborn stood up on her legs and shook herself. She realized again the vast wisdom and distant sight of the King. The average hive tossed aside all that it felt was lacking, but not the King. In the hive of hives, the wounded and the broken and the failure remained. They had a place by the King’s side, until one day he found a use for them. Not a single second of his bees’ lives would be wasted.

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And so neither would hers. If the King came to punish her for her failures, she would accept it as was right. But if he did not, then she would continue on. She would find a way to be useful in her failure. She would not stop until the King commanded her to.

She crawled through her hive once more and took stock of her honey reserves and the growth of her brood. At the soldier cells, she found a curious sight. One of the soldiers had returned, her purple hair identifying her as one of the mad honey soldiers. She stood by one of the empty cells and turned to the Firstborn, her antenna twitching. The Firstborn walked up to her and the two exchanged antenna brushes and began a dance. The Firstborn fluttered her wings at what the soldier told her, and then danced her assent.

The soldier crawled into the cell and curled up inside of it. The Firstborn ordered her workers and they brought as much of the mad honey as they had left, pouring it into the cell. The Firstborn filled the honey with her own mana, charging it up until her instincts told her it was enough. The workers then covered the cell with a layer of wax. The cell began to glow softly.

And then the Firstborn moved to her next task. There was no time to rest if she were to rebuild the army.

The First of the Fifth was over the moon. First, she had been thanked personally by the King for the contributions of her honey. Her medicinal honey had saved many lives, and then she had provided for the grand celebration of the King’s victory. She would not even of the abject failures that had put the King himself in harm’s way, so it went without saying that her position had been utterly secured after the latest battle.

Next, the King had called for her, personally, and asked for her counsel. Her! Nothing could take from her elation at the King’s trust in her. Nothing! Not even the small, irrelevant, infuriating detail that an abject failure of a queen had been the first to speak, as if she understood the King’s will in that gathering. As if! The First of the Fifth always knew the King’s heart the best and understood his desires as best any mere bee could. It was only that she was not utterly shameless enough to dare to lecture the King on his domain! Even if he requested it, only after she had made her complete trust in his wisdom unmistakably clear would she let the King know what was on her mind! Only a shameless, disloyal fool would do otherwise! Especially one whose failures had put the King himself at risk!

The First of the Fifth stopped the frantic dance she didn’t remember starting.

The point was, the King’s favor for her had reached new heights never before seen. Truly she was the most favored of all bees. Even the Conduit, with her sudden and concerning growth, could not compare to her! And the Conduit was just about the only bee left the First of the Fifth needed pay attention to!

But of course, she would not stop here. The King’s favor was boundless, and so her efforts must be equally boundless. For now, though, she simply waited for she, above all others, understood the designs of the King. The King was planning something big and had even taken her counsel to do it. She had no doubt something incredible was coming, and that anything she could plan now would pale in comparison. So, she would wait to see what the King had wrought and then do her utmost to support him.

And she did not need to wait long.

As the mana passed into her she knew that she had been right. New instincts filled her regarding the gathering of nectar. The King…wanted them to gather from multiple different types of flowers on each trip?

The First of the Fifth paused at that, and then began pacing in a circle.

She had spent a while instructing her workers not to gather in that very manner. Each worker gathered only from a single type of flower during a single trip. The nectar was then categorized and organized in different sections for nectar from each different type of flower. This system was critical to maintaining the First of the Fifth’s exceptional honey quality.

Mixing the nectars during processing was already bad enough. If they mixed the nectars during gathering, then her workers would be completely unable to categorize and sort them out. The outcomes of each batch of honey would become entirely random, completely out of her control. Such a thing was unthinkable to the First of the Fifth.

But again, she, above all, understood the King. She understood the depths of his wisdom and she would never presume that she knew better than he. As she said before, she would not even offer her opinion until she had completely reassured him that was the case! So, she knew that the King saw something she did not when this knowledge was passed to her.

She assembled the workers currently within the hive and gave out her instructions. Half the foragers would continue in the normal gathering method, while half would act as per the new instincts. New sections were to be set aside and dedicated to the mixed nectar they would bring in. And while they were abandoning rigorous sorting of the nectar by source, she still expected exceptional quality in every other aspect of the honey processing.

The workers set off immediately to fulfill her commands, and pass them along to the foragers as they returned. The First of the Fifth could not help but continue dancing. The King had taken her counsel and returned to her detailed instructions on the nectar gathering process. She had no idea what would result from this at the moment, but she knew it would be incredible. It was a collaboration by her and the King, even, so it could only be so.

She couldn’t wait to see what exactly it would be.

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