Ultimate Level 1

Chapter 225: For The Love of Honey

“Looks like a swarm of bees up ahead,” Cordellia said, as she used her hand to shade her eyes. “Maybe five or six. I can’t really tell as they fly up and down around the bend we’re coming upon.”

“Bows and spells?” Max asked, as he looked at the rest of the group. “Fowl you okay being up front a little in case one comes while we’re using the bows?”

Fowl shrugged as he nodded. His shield and weapon appeared in his hands as he moved ahead.

“Alright, I guess we’ll pick a target and try to shoot multiple ones. No idea how much health they have, but we should be able to knock them out of the sky if you can take their wings off.”

Cordellia nodded and nocked an arrow as they moved along the winding mountainside trail.

When they were within bow range, Max whistled and both of them started loosing arrows at the bees, unsure how many were going to end up coming at them but wanting to use the distance to cut down on that number if possible.

The group of bees flew toward them, and everyone saw the dark red bands along their body between the black sections. Large pincers lined their mouths and red eyes that looked like rubies locked on the group that had assaulted them with arrows.

An ice spear flew up the incline and blew a hole in the middle of one bee, causing it to flutter and fall, crashing to the ground before rolling off the edge of the trail.

Max’s arrows peppered the bee he was shooting, and he summoned an ice spear as Tanila had, sending it at the same one, killing it while it was about thirty yards off.

Cordellia had killed hers already and was sending ice arrows at the one on the right, leaving just one more coming right toward Fowl.

Max fired arrows at Cordellia’s target, trying to ensure it was down before it reached them and saw the one about to engage with Fowl stop approaching.

A bright orange light grew in its mouth and suddenly flames erupted, sending a thick stream of fire at their dwarven warrior.

Fowl held up his shield, the flames spilling around the edges, splattering to the ground and burning like a thick liquid that didn’t want to go out.

“Help me! It burns!”

Fowl’s hit points weren’t really falling that much, and Max could see that the fire the bee had sprayed out was sticking to his shield, still burning. The flaming goop on his armor was running down his plate mail slowly, leaving a trail of fire everywhere it touched.

An empowered shot from their ranger connected with the bee's head, cutting off the flow of flames and exploding in a shower of burnt gore.

“Drop your shield!” Talina shouted as she raced toward their warrior. When she got close and his shield hit the ground, her Ice Nova went off, blanketing the area in frost, quenching the fire on his shield and armor.

“That hurts so bad! Like when a hot piece of metal that flakes off when hitting it with a hammer and slips down your shirt while forging. You can’t get it out fast enough and burns like the gods!”

“Well, that’s new,” Batrire said as she moved to where Fowl was breaking off the hardened goop on his armor. “The damage wasn’t bad as your health barely moved, but I can imagine it gets worse depending on how much you’re covered with.”

“It’s like a flaming honey,” Cordellia said as she bent down and chipped a piece of extinguished goop on Fowl’s shield. “Part of me wants to taste it, but the other part of me doesn’t want to possibly die.”

A few chuckles came and Fowl shook his head at the ranger in disbelief.

“That’s rule number two of adventuring. Don’t stick random stuff from the dungeon in your mouth.”

Cocking her eyebrow, she looked at Fowl and sighed.

“I’m afraid to ask, but what’s rule number one?”

“Don’t let your healer die.”

Batrire nodded and grinned as she gave a deep bow.

“Ok, enough chatting,” Max said as he waited for Fowl to break the stuff off his shield. “Store some of that and we’ll see what uses it might have. Honestly, something that burns and sticks is a pretty cool item if one uses it right.”

Tanila groaned as she flicked some black gore from her hands, holding up one of the ruby eyes from a corpse that hadn’t exploded as she harvested its head.

“We need to collect these. Seth, why don’t you try opening one of the bees away from us and see if there is a pouch of this liquid they shot inside? That would be fantastic if so.”

Sighing, Max moved and did as Tanila asked, knowing he had the regeneration and resistance that if something went wrong, his chances of dying were way less than the others.

Ten minutes later, he had harvested three pouches that were a little bigger than his hand. Each one dripped of the liquid that smelled like honey. Having put a few drops on the ground and using magic, the liquid burned and stayed lit until he used ice magic to extinguish it.

“Even the water didn’t put it out,” Fowl muttered. “Man, that makes it some nasty stuff.”

Nodding, Max moved to where the four of them had been standing and held his bow out.

“I guess we’ll go into range mode and see what we can do about limiting the number of bees we face.”

***

Hours passed as swarms of five to eight attacked, yet after the first group, Max and Tanila worked together to freeze two of the bees in larger groups while summoning air walls that caused the insects to slam into them as they flew. One test showed the air wall could stop the stream of fire and when it finally broke, all the goop that had been sticking to it fell straight down to the ground.

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“I swear I’m going to make you all buy me a hair potion,” Fowl grumbled. “Look at this! I’ve lost a foot of length on my beautiful beard.”

Batrire sighed, and Max could only imagine how much that mattered to his friend.

“We’ll see what can be done,” Max stated as he gave his friend a pat on his armor. “No one appreciates what you do more than us.”

Grumbling a little but appeased at those words, Fowl sighed and motioned up the path where a sharp bend was.

“I guess it doesn’t matter. No one said climbing a tower would be safe for one's beard. Regardless, we're moving at a good pace and the shade of the mountain helps with the heat of that sun.”

Each of them nodded, moving along the path. As they got closer to the edge, the sound of insects in the air gained their attention.

“Let me scout it out first.”

Max Stealthed and moved around the corner, finding that about twenty yards away were four dragonflies., Each of them was about six feet in length and had a deep red body. They were taking turns ripping off chunks of a dead bee on the trail.

Moving back to the others, Max popped out of stealth.

“So there are four dragonflies eating a dead bee. I’m not sure if they’ll attack or not, but we have to go up the path. Thoughts?”

“Most insects and animals aren’t passive,” Cordellia replied. “We’d be taking a risk by walking up to them and hoping they are friendly. I mean we could send Fowl in first and see if they like dwarf instead of bee but that’s your call.”

“I agree, kill em all,” Fowl growled as he glared at their ranger.

“I can attack and kill from stealth. Maybe even get close with my weapon in melee range and take down two.”

Tanila smiled and pointed at the bend up ahead.

“I guess we’ll see if they like humans as well. Now go be a warrior and take the risk.”

His halberd cleaved through the first dragonfly that was near him and as he moved towards the other near it, his attack managed to slice off the wings as it went airborne, sending it into a spin before crashing down onto the ground.

An arrow pierced the eye of the one on the right as an ice spear tore through the body of the one on the left.

The one that was partially blinded let out a weird noise that made Max’s sonar skill fizzle for a second, and then the stinger in its tail turned white as it flew higher.

A beam of light shot from the stinger at Cordellia who dodged to the side, finding a stone wall barely summoned in time by Tanila as the attack began boring through the stone.

Unable to reach the wasp with his melee weapon, Max quickly swapped it out for his bow, sending arrows at it while forming an ice spear.

With his sonar working again, he knew Fowl had moved to where the attack that was still coming from the wasp’s tail was aimed, using his shield to block the attack.

After his ice spell took off the dragonfly’s head, its attack immediately stopped as it plunged toward the path.

Charging the last dragonfly that was still struggling to get airborne, Max’s halberd appeared before it came down, cutting the insect's body in half, his blade sinking into the dirt of the trail.

“What in the gods was that?” Fowl cried out from behind. “Look at my shield!”

Max turned and saw that there was a glowing red spot from the concentrated attack. The stone wall had a hole that was almost completely gone from where the dragonfly had attacked.

“Ok, I’m not sure what the next four floors hold, but I just want to go on the record that this stuff isn’t fun,” Cordellia said. “Bees that shoot flaming honey. Dragonflies that use a ray attack. What the hell is the tower thinking?”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Fowl muttered as he picked up the red gem that had appeared from the first one Max had killed. “For now, I just want to make it through this floor without finding myself losing any more facial hair.”

Max chuckled and went to work, cutting off the stingers from the corpses.

***

Six hours later, they found themselves nearing the top of the mountain.

“For the last hour that buzzing has gotten noticeably louder,” Fowl complained. “Tell me this can’t get any worse.”

Max chuckled as a rock from behind bounced off their warrior's plate armor, tossed by Batrire who it appeared had stored a few in her dimensional necklace.

“Stop talking like that,” their healer called out. “One day you’re going to curse us.”

Max glanced at Fowl who appeared frustrated at her statement, but the dwarf said nothing else.

“You ok? Something seems a little off.”

Clearing his throat, Fowl nodded once.

“This stuff scares me if I’m honest. I’ve been doing some reading–”

He stopped talking, seeing how Max’s jaw had dropped.

“I read… not a lot, but I have. Tom gave me some books to help me prepare like you do. These things aren’t normal for our level. Everett is right. We’re fighting above where we should be.”

“Unfortunately, I think you’re right. Which begs the question what are we really going to face down the road?”

Shrugging, Fowl pointed at the top of their path and at how it curved around a bend.

“Whatever we’re facing is up ahead and my brain almost hurts from the constant sound of buzzing. Either there is an army of them up ahead or something much bigger awaits. Either way, I can’t imagine it being good for us.”

***

“Holy elf tits,” Batrire muttered as they stood on a flat clearing at the top of the mountain. Five hundred yards or more of a square flat space stretched before them and in the air had to be at least fifty of the bees and one giant queen bee.

It was over twenty feet long and had red, black and purple sections on its body. The pincers above its mouth reminded them of some of the other insects they had faced.

Pairs of bees were bringing dragonfly corpses to the queen, and it only took two bites for her to eat the charred body. The swarm of bees were all about fifty yards or higher in the air and after feeding the queen, the pairs would fly back to the left and over the mountain.

“Maybe I should apologize for my earlier words,” Fowl muttered. “Perhaps I did curse us.”

Max shook his head, well aware that what they were looking at had been here since the tower floor was created.

“No, it wasn’t you. Now we just need to figure out how to finish this floor.”

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