The Bee Dungeon
Chapter 295: New Inha-Bee-tant Agreement

Once Queen Vanieskon and her scouting team headed off, Belissar gathered his council, with the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter acting as the queens’ representative so the others could continue their work. Henilett then presented the pixies’ offer. Rather than any one time payment, the pixies would offer regular tribute to Belissar for as long as they occupied a room within his Tower.

There were a bunch of terms and calculations regarding the exact amount, Belissar just understood it as the more pixies that lived within the Tower and the more resources he created for them, the more they would pay, all on top of a fixed minimum amount. The nature of the tribute could vary from payment to payment based on Belissar’s preference: he could choose currency and precious items for trade with the wider Compact, a portion of goods and products produced within the room, goods sourced from the wider Compact, or services from the pixies if he had specific jobs for them. Henilett clarified that enchanting services with combat applications, specifically the bee armor he requested, would not be counted towards this as they were to be provided as part of the earlier bargain. However, he could request enchantments with uses outside of battle, or any other craft the pixies were skilled in.

Beyond that were terms and stipulations on the behavior of the pixie residents themselves, and who would be responsible for what if any trouble arose. The list of possible scenarios was…extensive, but could be summarized as the pixies agreed to respect Belissar, his Tower, and his Tower’s residents, while Belissar would also respect Queen Vanieskon’s authority over the pixies living there. One scenario specifically stated this did not apply to pixies staying elsewhere in the Tower due to other arrangements with him, so the agreement wouldn’t affect Finnakynne staying with the bumblebees, or, as Henilett pointed out, any pixies he ended up employing personally. Belissar…hadn’t been aware that was an option, but Henilett said they just wanted to avoid unintended restrictions on future arrangements.

This all sounded good to Belissar and was similar to agreements he had with the karnuq, so he saw no issue. His council had no objections either and Henilett had a signed letter from Nenavann confirming he had looked over it. Neither Tarwantrad nor Finnakynne could find any egregious traps in the agreement, much to Finnakynne’s concern. Finnakynne did spend a long time pointing out various pros and cons of specific terms, but none were so bad as to jeopardize the agreement.

And so, Belissar ultimately agreed, and they got to placing the actual room. Belissar described all the different types of rooms he had available and asked which the pixies would like. As he went down the list, Henilett suddenly perked up and shouted.

“Apiary! That one!”

Belissar stumbled back as both Henilett and Captain Karpakynne zipped right into his face, their eyes sparkling.

“Ok? Are you sure? You don’t want a Fairy Grove?”

Henilett leaned in, her eyes going dead serious.

“Tower Keeper Belissar, do you not recall the effect your bees’ honey can have on the uninitiated? Why do you think we want to live in your Tower in the first place? For extra wild magic? Hah! We pixies leave wild magic in our surroundings just by existing! Why would we want more of that when we can get honey?!”

Belissar blinked.

“Oh, ok. You…know the Apiary beehives just make regular honey unless the bees choose to live there, right?”

Henilett nodded.

“And we will do our utmost to convince your bees to stay there!”

Belissar was considering his reply when a third party interjected into the conversation.

New mission received: Revive the Order of Hive and Stinger.

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Belissar blinked.

“So…would that have something to do with the Order of Hive and Stinger?”

Henilett grinned.

“Did your patron just share her opinion on the matter? I’m guessing Captain Karpakynne here told you about them…but only that they used to fight alongside bees, right?”

Captain Karpakynne puffed up.

“Of course!”

Henilett shook her head.

“So, I’m guessing she also neglected to mention that fighting alongside the bees was only one half of the Order’s purpose. The Order of Hive and Stinger were those pixies who swore to take care of the bees and not just by fighting. They tended to the hives as much as they wielded their stingers, jobs both held in the highest regard as the protectors and nurturers of all that is sweet. If pixies live in your Tower, patroned by the God of Bees herself and full of intelligent bees they can partner with directly, there will be more candidates for the Order then you know what to do with.”

Belissar smiled.

“I think I’d like that. Well, I won’t order the bees to live there, but if you can make them happy, I won’t object to them staying in your room.”

Captain Karpakynne cheered and flew about. Henilett tried to stay calm but was grinning as wide as she could.

“As I said before, Tower Keeper, we will do our utmost to make it so.”

Belissar thus proceeded to place the new Apiary. He first reconsidered the order of the rooms. He wanted to place the Apiary by the nexus door room, but the room was on the fully occupied second floor at the moment. He also realized that position was a bit more dangerous than he liked, it was behind all the battle rooms but right afterwards, so would be vulnerable if a shade ever made it past the defenses. He had done so intentionally when he wasn’t sure if he could trust the Compact, but now with all of their agreements and help he felt it was no longer necessary to keep them lower in the Tower.

So, he spoke with his council and rearranged the floors a bit, after giving warning to the Tower’s inhabitants that things were moving around. The first floor, with its defense rooms, remained unchanged with the defense-oriented Dirt Tunnels, Lava Field, Fairy Grove, and Bog rooms, which also meant the moves wouldn’t disrupt any sigmaka currently challenging the Tower.

For the second floor, Belissar moved the nexus door room and any rooms with beehives away, replacing them with the two experimental rooms: the Dirt Tunnels with water stones and the Flower Meadow using universal pots to cultivate cold mana flowers. Since these rooms were currently empty, he figured it would be better if the Hunger hit them first than anything else if it managed to slip past all the defense rooms.

He moved the Orchard, with all its shortcuts, and the other rooms on its floor further up the Tower from its original place on the third floor. Given that he and his defenders used the Orchard and its shortcuts to move through the Tower when fighting a shade, he figured they wouldn’t want it exposed to shades early. All his council and allies strongly agreed with that sentiment.

In its place, the third floor now held three bee rooms: the burning and ash bees’ home Lava Field, the swimming, slime, and toxic bees’ home Bog, and the new Floating Islands the gravity bees were exploring.

The fourth floor stayed the same, holding all the karnuq rooms. The fifth floor was where he moved the Orchard, along with the chromatic bees’ Fairy Grove, the Apothecary’s Hut, and the butcher and bloodsucking bees’ hunting Flower Meadow.

The sixth floor was where he placed the nexus door’s Fairy Grove. He decided to place it as high up as he could, with one exception, as the fair folk were not certain the door could be reopened if a shade corrupted it. He, thus, could not risk it under any circumstances. To this end, and with Henilett and Captain Karpakynne’s encouragement, he placed the pixies’ new Apiary as the first room on the floor and placed both the staircases to the floors above and below within it, with the door to the nexus door room as far away from the staircases as possible. That way, an invading shade would have to go through the pixie room to reach the nexus door and could conceivably reach the next floor without invading the nexus door room at all. Belissar certainly hoped it would never come to that, but he didn’t want to permanently lose contact with his allies by being unprepared if the Hunger surprised him.

The final floor was the original Apiary, the digging, thermal mining, and blinding bees’ home Dirt Tunnels, and the bumblebees’ Flower Meadow. Belissar kept this one as the last floor for his own personal reasons. He liked using the Apiary farmhouse as his room, and he knew the Apiary bees really liked living near the Tower’s core, so he didn’t want to move them if possible. The bumblebee meadow also held the Heart of the Forest, which he had also promised to protect. But, mostly, he did it just to keep the bees happy.

And with that, his business with Henilett concluded. So, finally, Belissar turned to Queen Vanieskon’s gift with a big grin.

“So…tell me what kind of flowers you brought.”

Now, it was time to find out just how happy the bees would be.