The Bee Dungeon

Belissar decided to wait until the next day to implement any of the rooms Nenavann talked about, since it was just about time for the daily purification. Sadly, rest zones did not conveniently appear as a reward option this time, so he took more mana as usual.

The next morning, Tarwantrad arrived with a newcomer in tow. The newcomer was relatively short and wore a blacksmith’s apron. The pointed ears marked him as some sort of elf, but clearly different from Tarwantrad as he had dark blue, almost black skin and black hair. He was currently scowling with his arms crossed. Belissar made his way over to greet them. Tarwantrad smiled at him while the newcomer kept scowling.

“Hi Belissar! This is Dungeon Master Tamosmed."

Tamosmed’s scowl deepened.

“And forge adept and golem crafter.”

Tarwantrad rolled her eyes.

“And this is Belissar, tower keeper and beekeeper and beehouse inventor and savior of all that is fair, while we’re at it.”

Belissar wasn’t sure how to respond to that so decided to just greet the new guy.

“Hello, nice to meet you.”

“Let’s get this over with. Now, are you going to insist on wasting my time?”

Tarwantrad let out an exasperated sigh.

“I’m sorry, Belissar, but Tamosmed here refused to believe your slime queen can make golems. Could you show him her work?”

Belissar shrugged as he called for the First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter.

“Sure.”

Tamosmed grumbled under his breath and plopped himself down at the nearby table without asking. Tarwantrad sighed once more and apologized again. Belissar just shrugged it off. Sure, Tamosmed hadn’t exactly been friendly so far, but if he was here to grant a boon then Belissar would put up with it.

A short while later, the Seventh Daughter arrived in her beeswax golem. Tarwantrad smirked as she held out her hands towards the golem.

“See?”

Tamosmed scoffed.

“See what? A slime mimicking human form while hardening its exterior? Please, every single golem crafter thinks they made a breakthrough with that trick. I did it myself, all I got for it was a beating. And even if that is a golem, there’s no proof the slime was the one that made it. And even if the slime made it, it doesn’t matter if the dungeon master commanded it every step of the way. What you’re showing me here is your sheer ignorance, Tarwantrad.”

Tarwantrad growled.

“Your skull is thicker than your anvil, Tamosmed! I already told you I was there when he selected the option from the Tower and it clearly said golem! Fine, be that way! Belissar, please have your bees make another golem right here!”

Belissar shrugged as he turned to the Seventh Daughter.

“Could you make another golem for us?”

The golem ran around in figure eight pattern while the Seventh Daughter’s honey slime oozed out of it. Tamosmed sighed before turning to watch.

“Fine, if it’ll shut you up.”

He rolled his eyes as the Seventh Daughter and her workers arranged the honey slime into humanoid shape and hardened its exterior into wax. Tamosmed scoffed.

“See, hardened slime, just as I thought…wait.”

He narrowed his eyes and leaned on the table as the Seventh Daughter condensed a core and finished the process. He slowly rose to his feet as the golem began to move, rubbing his chin.

“Dungeon master, get your slime out of the shell. Instruct it not to leave a single drop of slime inside.”

Belissar glanced at Tarwantrad. She shrugged and then nodded, so Belissar relayed those instructions to the Seventh Daughter. She and her workers oozed out of the golem and waited. Tamosmed grunted and poked the golem.

“Holding its shape, harder than the usual slime. Mana flow is…need to test.”

Tamosmed pulled out a large knife and cut off the golem’s hand. The golem reacted by punching with its other arm but Tamosmed caught its fist. He didn’t even look at the golem trying to pull its fist back as he watched the severed hand on the ground. His eyes began to widen.

Stolen story; please report.

“Holding its shape even after being separated…so…not a slime? Attacking like a humanoid, repetitive behaviour…”

The Seventh Daughter and her hive began buzzing, causing her honey slime to vibrate. Belissar glanced at Tarwantrad. She sighed but shook her head, so Belissar told the Seventh Daughter to wait.

Tamosmed stabbed his knife into the golem’s torso and cut out a hexagonal prism of wax that was glowing softly. The golem stopped moving while the Seventh Daughter’s buzzed even louder. Tamosmed held up the prism to his eye and stared at it for a good minute before glancing back at the wax body. His eyes slowly widened and he began to tremble.

“This is…it’s really…”

He swung his head over to the Seventh Daughter and then he began to mutter.

“An insect instead of a core? Intelligent…or told instructions ahead of time? Dungeon master, I need to run another test.”

He approached the Seventh Daughter with his knife. The other beeswax golem moved and grabbed the elf from behind while the Seventh Daughter’s honey slime began to take the form of stingers.

“Evil one destroyed mobile hive, coming to attack! Can sting now?!”

Belissar stepped in front of the Seventh Daughter, stirring up his own mana and preparing to create spell bees if necessary. He glared at the elf.

“The golem is one thing, but do NOT hurt my bees.”

Tamosmed glanced down at the knife in his hand and then started. He quickly waved his hands in front of him…breaking out of the remaining golem’s grip in the meantime.

“Ah…it’s a misunderstanding, I do not intend to harm the slime.”

He then glanced around Belissar at the Seventh Daughter.

“That…coherent language and asking permission to act? That might be confirmation already. Still, I must be sure.”

He turned back to Belissar and put away his knife.

“Dungeon master, may I run one further test? I swear the slime will not be harmed.”

Belissar stared at him a moment more.

“I’ll hold you to that. And…you need to apologize to the First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter for destroying her golem that she made to show you.”

Tamosmed glanced back at the dismantled golem and then at the Seventh Daughter.

“Ah.”

He turned and walked back over to the golem and picked up its severed hand. He stuck it back on its arm and flared his mana, leaving the hand reattached. He then stuck the core in his hand back inside the golem’s chest. He placed his hand over the hole in its torso and flared his mana, then the hole closed itself up. The golem came back to life a moment later and resumed trying to punch him, though he caught its fists immediately.

“There, good as new…First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter, was it? Could you command your golem to stop attacking now?”

The Seventh Daughter turned to Belissar instead and he nodded at her. A pulse of mana later and the golem stopped moving. Tamosmed stared at it for a moment longer before shaking his head. He reached into his apron and pulled out a ring with all sorts of complicated patterns engraved into it, then stepped forward and placed it on the ground in front of the Seventh Daughter’s hive.

“Can you replicate that?”

Belissar nodded at the Seventh Daughter again. Her hive buzzed at the elf until he stepped further back before crawling over to the ring. She engulfed it in her honey slime and her workers crawled around it. The workers then began swimming around another part of the honey slime that began to condense and harden. It took a bit of time, but eventually a ring made of wax formed. The workers pushed it out of the honey slime and plopped onto the ground. Tamosmed waited for the Seventh Daughter and her hive to pull back before moving to pick up both rings. He examined them both closely.

After a few minutes, he slowly turned to Belissar and then bowed.

“You have my deepest apologies for my doubt, Master Belissar.”

It took Belissar some time figuring out how to respond while Tarwantrad puffed up with a smug grin.

After a bit, everyone had calmed down enough for Belissar to explain a bit more about the Seventh Daughter. Tamosmed sat back down with a thoughtful expression.

“I see, so you weren’t attempting to craft at all. You just wanted to raise a new kind of bee based on slime flowers, and then happened to get beeswax golems as a dungeon reward later?”

Belissar nodded and Tamosmed rubbed his chin.

“Fascinating. The monster bees already link to their offspring so they were able to take on the role of a slime core, birthing a truly intelligent slime monster. And bees making wax golems, it seems so obvious now.”

He leaned back, shaking his head.

“And we never would have figured it out. Who knew that the secret to true slime crafting would involve flowers and bees?”

Well, Belissar could only shrug at that. He still wasn’t entirely sure what the big deal was, and Tamosmed got entirely too animated trying to explain it. But Belissar didn’t need anyone to tell him that his bees were amazing so he just accepted it as that.

Tamosmed took another deep breath, then leaned forward on the table, crossed his hands, and rested his chin upon them.

“It would be unfortunate if they were limited solely to wax, though. We’ll have to try and see if we can raise a metal slime bee. Not sure how, though, metal slimes form from mana-imbued ore veins rather than slime flowers.”

The smug grin Tarwantrad had worn this entire time only grew.

“Then why not raise metal mana flowers and cross-pollinate them?”

Tamosmed scowled.

“Metal mana flowers? Those weeds that…”

His eyes slowly widened.

“…that steal the metal right out of the veins and into their leaves. That…”

He suddenly leapt to his feet with a huge grin.

“That could work! Slimes can take on anything so if the slime bee can drink metal straight from the flowers, then we could evolve fully intelligent metal slimes! We could create designs that are impossible to complete by hand and then we could produce them in an instant! We could build entire legions of golems each equipped with masterpiece weapons overnight!”

Tarwantrad poked him, still grinning.

“You mean that…Belissar could do all that.”

Tamosmed furrowed his brow for a bit until his eyes widened again.

“Ah, right.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lump of silvery ore, placing it on the table.

“My offering to you, Tower Keeper Belissar, assuming you have not already surpassed it. This is mithril.”

Belissar gasped.

“The metal from the stories? I thought it was a myth…”

Tamosmed nodded.

“It’s rare enough that it might as well be. But your achievement is rarer still, so I can think of no other boon that is suitable for you. Just promise me that you will raise a metal slime bee someday and give me the chance to fair price for one once you do. I will work with your bees and craftsmen now, in fact, in preparation for that day.”

Belissar nodded with a smile. He couldn’t exactly say he fully understood what was going on, but he did know that mithril was amazing. And, metal slime bees would be more amazing still. He’d try to raise some even if no one asked him to.

Gaining the assistance of a fey craftsman and dungeon master for something he would have done anyways? Now that sounded like a good deal to him.

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