The Bee Dungeon

POBee 375.7 - No Flower Left Bee-hind!

As Starami’s forces marched through the room, his Tower Guards spread to the edges of the formation. Starami himself was burning a path through the room, but it fell to his weaker Tower Guards to guard the flanks and to keep the monsters away from the Air aligned guards pushing back the toxic fog.

All the while, giant toads lobbed toxic mucus towards them, schools of monster piranhas swarmed their feet, and deadly snakes slithered among them. One flank was attacked by a giant crocodile that snapped up a Tower Guard before the rest could respond. The Tower Guards managed to repel most threats in the end...but between the ambushes, the toxins, and the difficult terrain, they took casualties each time. Casualties they could ill-afford.

And amongst the monsters defending the Bog were Tower Keeper Belissar’s own. Frelis sat on top of her venomous slime rose, the plant’s rose barely rising out of a particularly large puddle as it lied in wait. Surrounding the plant’s body under the water was a swarm of swimming and slime bees, ready to sting any enemies the slime rose managed to drag into the small swamp pond.

Frelis soon caught movement in the mist ahead and started dancing.

“Get ready, hive burners near!”

Frelis stirred up her mana and sent it into the slime rose, strengthening it for the battle ahead. Before long, a group of Tower Guards marched along the muddy banks of the pond, eyeing it warily for any ambushes.

As such, they didn’t notice the slime rose’s vines already hidden in the mud beneath their feet.

In an instant, the slime rose’s thorny vines exploded out of the mud and wrapped around the nearest Tower Guard. The slime rose then pulled with all its might, intending to drag the guard down into the murk where the bees awaited.

The Tower Guard didn’t budge. The slime rose’s thorns didn’t penetrate his barrier, much less his armor, and even in the mud the Tower Guard had solid enough footing to stand his ground. He pushed against the vines with his shield, loosening them enough for him to swing his sword and cut them away.

Frelis was buzzing and spinning in a panic, but then a slime bee reached up with her honey slime, engulfed Frelis, and pulled her down into the water. The slime rose had started regenerating its vines...but before then, the Tower Guard took a deep breath and unleashed his fire breath.

Dragon fire burned through the pond, the mundane water of the Bog no barrier before its mystical might. The main body of the slime rose was set ablaze, its vines writhing as the water around it boiled.

“Flower!”

Frelis acted on pure instinct. She immediately began flying towards her burning rose, the slime bee protecting her moved along with her after feeling her intent through the hive of hives. They reached the bottom of the slime rose, the part not yet ablaze, and Frelis chewed her way through the rose’s exterior. She squirmed her way inside, ignoring both the heat of the flames above and the water pouring into her spiracles.

There, in the center of the rose, was the slime core. Frelis swam through its internal slime as best she could, using her connection to the rose to create a current in the slime. She managed to reach the slime core and grabbed it with her mandibles, then rushed to escape.

The slime rose was losing control of its own slime as it spent its mana trying to regenerate through the fire and Frelis moving its core didn’t help. The slime stopped obeying its commands...and therefore Frelis’s. The slime now became an inert mass...one that blocked Frelis’s path. She tried to beat her wings and flail with her legs, but she was no swimming bee. She could not swim back out through the slime...and the fire was quickly burning through the rest of the slime rose’s body.

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But Frelis was not alone.

Golden honey slime pushed through the slime roses’ green was the slime bee reached into the plant’s body. Now that the slime rose had lost control over its slime, the slime bee could begin assimilating it into its own. The slime bee thus took control of the slime around Frelis and then pulled her into its own honey slime body, using its slime to push slime and water out of Frelis’s spiracles.

Meanwhile, the swimming bees launched themselves out of the water, swarming around the Tower Guards and stinging them as they could. They made little impact against the Tower Guards’ barriers, but they did divert the humans’ attention up and away from the pond. They only stayed long enough for the slime bees to grab Frelis and retreat from the area, before they too dove back down into the water.

Not all of them managed to escape the blades and fire breathes, though.

The slime bees found a safe patch of dry ground deeper in the room to let Frelis out on. Frelis barely noticed as she buzzed her wings and flooded the slime rose’s core with as much mana as she could. She didn’t stop until she saw the core absorb some nearby bog water and begin growing a new little root.

She nearly collapsed in relief, but the slime and swimming bees reminded her they weren’t safe yet, so she grabbed the slime rose core and then made for the nearest shortcut.

Neither she, the slime bees, nor the swimming bees were eager to dance as they made their way back. Though most of them managed to escape...they had not managed to stop even a single hive burner...

***

Starami managed to reach the end of the swamp with his army, finding another exit with an environmental seal. They could not stay here, though, so he had a Tower Guard step through with a dragon coat.

On the other side, he beheld a forest, much like the one where the fey ambushed his elites during the first assault. But this one...this one was not the same one they fought in.

Mana nearly choked the atmosphere, so dense it was almost visible with regular vision. There were no lights shining up above, but instead dark clouds with shifting rainbow glows. Bolts of pure mana rained down and struck trees, huge waves of mana surged through the room at random intervals.

Starami was facing yet another mana storm, this time one seemingly compromised of wild magic. It was not as focused as the Water and Dark mana of the water room...but that just meant it would be even more unpredictable. Starami had no idea what to expect from this next room, no idea what tricks the fey would have in store for him there.

But he also had no time to figure it out. His Air aligned guards’ mana was draining by the minute and the monsters of the room hadn’t stopped probing at his flanks. They had to keep moving or die.

So, he ordered all of his army to create protective barriers and dragon coats as best they could, then marched into the next room.

The moment they moved from the entrance and approached the forest, one of the trees came alive and barred their path. Starami ordered three of his weaker Tower Guards forward and they unleashed their fire breath upon the living tree.

A bolt of pure mana struck one of them, leaving a charred corpse in an instant. The ground opened up beneath another, trapping him underground. The fire breathes that did make it to the tree burst into butterflies that did nothing to their foe, the tree responded by swiping at the remaining Tower Guard with an arm made of twisted branches. He was sent flying through the air, smashing into another tree with a great crunch.

That tree he hit then exploded.

Starami grimaced. The mana in the room was too unstable to permit any external applications, even intuitive ones like fire breathes. Even the dragon coats they formed outside were starting to crackle as they attracted the ambient mana. Starami had no choice but to let his own dragon coat drop, the rest of his army soon following suit.

They would have to endure this room purely with the strength of their own bodies.

Starami stepped forward towards the living tree. It swung its branch arm at the Tower Lord, but Starami caught it with ease. He ripped off the branch and then swung it against the tree, cracking one of its legs.

Fortunately for him, an army of dragons and Dragon-blessed champions had quite strong bodies indeed. He could make it through this room more easily than the water room.

The living tree then began to fall over when a wave of mana passed over it once more. Its leaves turned into glass...which shattered from the impact when it fell over and showered the Tower Guards behind Starami. Without their barriers, any exposed skin was subjected to shards of mana-imbued glass.

It seemed...he and his army could make it through the room, but they were going to take yet more casualties. Casualties they had no way of avoiding as they could not bring their own magic to bear.

But Starami had no more choice now than he did before, so onward he pushed, into the forest of magical chaos...