Chapter 442 - Bee-organizing the Branches

After the council meeting, Belissar waited for everyone to return to their homes, then set off to start working on reorganizing the Tower. He had Niobee with him as usual and had asked Finnakynne to accompany him as well. For once, the three of them went to his core room, since apparently the core could display parts or even all of his Tower for Finnakynne to see as well.

Belissar was about to get started when a stray thought made him hesitate. Finnakynne tilted her head.

“What’s the matter, Beely? Something on your mind?”

Belissar slowly nodded.

“Yeah. I was going to connect all the branches to the first room of the Tower but…do you know what happens to an entrance to a branch if the connecting room gets fully corrupted? The shortcuts shut themselves off, but we couldn’t close the main exit of the corrupted room. So…would entrances to branches act like shortcuts, or would corrupting the entrance room force them open?”

Finnakynne blinked, then crossed her arms.

“That’s a good question, Beely. Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer. From what I know, the Circle has never dealt with fully corrupted rooms before, so it’s never come up for us.”

Belissar hummed for a moment, then eventually nodded to himself.

“In that case, better safe then sorry, right?”

Finnakynne could only agree with that, so Belissar changed some of his plans. He would leave the new challenger branch connected to the first room of his Tower, both for easy access by visitors and to test what would happen if the first room ever was fully corrupted, but the branches for the denizens of his Tower would connect to the end of his defenses rather than the start.

With that in mind, he got started. The new layout was as follows:

The first three floors of his Tower would be his defense floors, set up in a continuous line of rooms and floors like before. The Tower started with the trapped Dirt Tunnels, as usual. Then came the new challenger branch, Belissar moved the original battle Flower Meadow next to the Dirt Tunnels, placing its entrance right next to the Tower’s main gate at the start of the Dirt Tunnels. The current battle Flower Meadow wasn’t getting much use anymore with all the new defense rooms Belissar had access to, especially with the fair folk’s help. Since the wardens could take advantage of a Fairy Groves’ fairy circles to cast spells, Fairy Groves just made for better battlefields now.

The battle Flower Meadow, however, already had some traps set up, so it was perfect to convert into a challenge room. All he had to do was rearrange a few of the traps and add in some resource flower nodes for a couple of valuable plants. He focused mostly on basic mana flowers, as the unattributed versions were more rare and valuable in the wild than the others, though he added in some various herbs and edible plants in easier locations.

All in all, he had spent about seventy mana which left him with…four hundred and twenty remaining. Belissar blinked mana seemed to be pouring back in now that the Tower was conducting daily purifications…and especially since he had been distracted with other tasks. In any case, though, he had all the mana needed.

Belissar considered that…and then added a second Flower Meadow to the branch. He then placed an Overgrown Trap Field over the second room. Thorny roses covered the room, save for a handful of narrow safe paths Belissar designated. Further into the room, Belissar let patches of gravilions grow as well, and even created a Pond. The Overgrown Trap Field was able to spread across the Pond, letting Belissar grow vaporous hemlock in a corner of the room, recreating a miniature version of the battle Bog’s defenses.

Deeper into, Belissar started adding more. He paid the additional five mana to enable vampire roses, red vines curling amidst their thorny kin. He then glanced at the other option available…and eventually shrugged. He decided that, as long as he was using all of the trap flowers, he may as well add-in some slime flowers too, paying the extra ten mana for them.

Belissar placed twice as many mana flower nodes in this room than the previous, eight in the first Flower Meadow, sixteen in the trap field. Finally, there, at the very end of the room, within the vaporous hemlock mist and surrounded by vampiric roses, slime flowers, and gravilions, he placed a single universal floriculture pot. Then, he brought up the options to see if he could place a flower that shouldn’t be able to grow there…

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His face cramped. He could indeed place a Star Core Flower in a universal floriculture pot and grow it anywhere…for the cost of one hundred mana. He quickly placed it before he could change his mind…and then winced as he watched as his previous four hundred available mana drop to barely over one hundred.

He really hoped the challengers would appreciate the new room.

Belissar decided to distract himself by returning to the room reorganization. The first floor held the Dirt Tunnels, the two challenge Flower Meadows in a branch, then the battle Bog, the Tornado Plains, the Sparkling Desert, the Acid Lake, and the Stormy Coast guarding the way further up.

The second floor held the battle Lava Field, the battle Muddy Seabed, the mana storm Fairy Grove, the trap field Floating Islands, the Abyssal Trench with the Bog it was draining into, and a Lava Field that was draining into a Dirt Tunnels as an experiment.

The third floor completed his defenses with the Fairy Grove with the wards that he or Tarwantrad could use to cast giant spells and the Hall of Purifying Light, which now led directly to the core room. The Farm with the former Tower Guards was placed on this floor as well, on a branch connected to the Fairy Grove…just in case any of them got any ideas. Belissar was starting to trust Auschias and those who had surrendered early, but a few of the Tower Guards held there had fought with Starami until the end and still had blessings.

It was here that Belissar discovered that his Tower’s floors did not need to be sequential. He was thus able to make three separate staircases to the Hall of Purifying Light, each leading to a separate branch of the Tower. One led to the karnuq’s floor, with their Flower Meadow, Orchard, and Dirt Tunnels. Belissar, having discussed with this with Chief Rohsuak, also made the karnuq floor the first test of forming larger rooms, enlarging the entrance between the Flower Meadow and the Orchard until the two rooms merged together.

A second branch led to the fair folk’s floor, with the Fairy Grove holding the Dungeon Gate and the Apiary he had granted to the pixies. Most of the floor was still empty, though Belissar guessed that would change in the near future.

The final branch led to the floors for the bees. There was the Orchard floor, with the shortcut Orchard that the spiderkin still camped in, the Fairy Grove where the chromatic bees lived, the Apothecary’s Hut, the butcher and bloodsucking bees’ Flower Meadow, and Death Flower Meadow, and the Dragonvein Aurora Forest, with two empty rooms.

The next floor held the new Tundra Meadow, where the chilling bees were setting up their hive, the Lava Field that held the burning bee hives, the Dragonvein Volcano, which Belissar decided to place near the burning bees’ home, the Bog that the toxic, swimming, and slime bees called home, the Floating Islands for the gravity bees, and the Muddy Seabed where he had planted flowers. There were still two empty rooms on this floor as well.

The final floor held the Apiary Belissar called home, the Flower Meadow with the Memorial and the hive of the fallen, the bumblebees’ Flower Meadow, the Beecity, the Dirt Tunnels for the digging and blinding bees, and the Mystic Mine with the metal flowers, along with two empty room slots.

Belissar looked upon his new Tower and smiled. Now, there would be no risk of the Hunger destroying bee hives. The karnuq, the spiderkin, the fair folk, and even the humans would all be safe as well. In exchange, his core room was more exposed, but it had been hit by a shade before and survived. Besides, if the Hunger made it that far, all his defenses would have been broken anyway…

Belissar then paused and tilted his head.

“Hey, Finnakynne…why didn’t the fair folk tell me about dungeon branches before? Couldn’t we have made the nexus door completely safe by putting it in a branch?”

Finnakynne made an awkward smile.

“The thing is, Beely…we thought you already knew. And back then, we thought it was intentional that you didn’t put it behind a branch as insurance. You know, because then the Compact would be forced to protect your Tower from purifications if one broke through to the door…”

Belissar blinked.

“Oh. I guess that makes sense?”

Finnakynne shook her head and flew over to pat Belissar on the shoulder.

Then Niobee began to dance.

“King, need leave, go see hive of hives. Ok?”

Belissar blinked but nodded right away.

“Of course, Niobee. I’ll see you when you’re done!”

Niobee danced a “King is best king!” dance and then flew off. Belissar wondered what was going on and considered peaking into the hive of hives, but decided he’d let Niobee handle it and tell him if she needed his help…

The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter stood completely still, not even moving her abdomen for breath. Her communer was trying to contact her, the one assigned to the children the Fourth of the Seventh had sent with the hive-burner and pixie queen. The urgency of the report had the First Daughter drop everything to establish a long-distance link.

And now the details had come in…the Fourth of the Seventh’s children had encountered and engaged a hive-burner while meeting new bees. Bees which were now a part of the hive of hives…and under threat.

A new front had just opened up between the hive of hives and the hive-burners, one the hive of hives was poorly positioned to intervene in. The Fourth of the Seventh’s children were requesting orders…and were in danger.