POBee 394.1 - Educational A-Bee-viements |
The Second Queen of the First Dynasty of the Second Spawner, the first of her line, had a bit of a conundrum. Her antennae twitched about as she watched one of her sprayers crawl into a big cell filled with swirled honey. When the army queens reviewed the balance of the army and assigned specializations, they realized they had far more soldiers and far less evolved types than they wanted. Soldiers, and to a lesser extent sprayers as well, were the easiest combat bees to raise. Therefore, every army queen and all of their daughter queens had raised lots of soldier and sprayer bees when they were growing, so that they could join the work of the bee army as quickly as possible.
That, in turn, curtailed the growth of their worker force early into the development of their hives and left them without the resources to evolve more than a few of the other types later on. They were attempting to address this now, every queen not specifically assigned to raising soldiers or sprayers was focusing on expanding their worker force and then evolving their existing soldiers. The Second of the Second had been assigned archers, so she was working on evolving her soldiers into sprayers and then sprayers into archers.
She could see a looming problem, though. Archers took a lot more honey and mana to maintain than soldiers or sprayers. There was simply no way she could afford to turn all of her soldiers into archers, even with her growing worker count. Her swirled honey allocation from the hive of hives was already generous, she could not expect more. Not when every other army queen was in the same situation. And it wasn’t just a matter of feeding them. Archers had a lot more mana than a regular soldier bee, if a queen raised too many of them her own mana might start to get lost within the hive.
Fortunately, the hive of hives provided, as always. A solution was found just this morning, when the Fourth of the Fifth finished her evolution. King and the Fourth of the Fifth had spread word of her success to the hive of hives…along with a critical piece of information. The Fourth of the Fifth could now raise and evolve assassins with less honey and mana than other queens. Additionally, the Fourth of the Fifth had evolved because Vinoi’s mana had grown too strong for her hive, becoming a more powerful queen had solved that issue as well.
That was the solution to the army queens’ problems! If they could evolve into queens capable of raising the bee types they wanted to specialize in at a discount, then they could evolve many more of their soldiers more quickly, and could maintain them even with their stronger mana. The hive of hives was amazing and incredible as always!
That, however, brought the Second of the Second to her current conundrum: how was she supposed to evolve into an archer queen? The Firstborn had evolved by joining the fight, but that wouldn’t work for her. A queen assigned to lancers could try to learn how to dive really fast, a queen assigned to glaivers could try to learn how to slash with her stinger, but the Second of the Second could not shoot her stinger from her body like an archer could. There was no way for her to act like an archer prior to evolving…
The Fourth of the Fifth hadn’t personally acted like an assassin, either…but she had Vinoi. An assassin bee that had achieved such amazing, incredible things that King had given her a name. An assassin that had grown so powerful she nearly overwhelmed her queen mother’s mana. The Second of the Second did not have an archer with those kinds of achievements. Besides, achievements by their children did not necessarily help a queen evolve. Beero had evolved and been named, but that hadn’t resulted in the Firstborn evolving into a battlecaster queen. The Second of the Second couldn’t count on replicating the Fourth of the Fifth’s method.
So, the Second of the Second did the only thing she could think of and watched her sprayer’s cell as closely as she could. She focused her attention on the sprayer within, observing the process of her child evolving from start to finish. She would try to learn as much about the archer evolution as she possibly could, perhaps there would be something there that might inform her own evolution. She didn’t know if it’d work, but it was the best thing she could think of for now.
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Beero and the First Dronecaster were hard at work once more. There were a lot of new members of the hive of the fallen to train, but at this point there were enough battlecasters that Beero didn’t need to train each one herself. Beero had at least some time each day to experiment owith her own magic.
She and First Dronecaster were standing before a group of workers donated to the hive of the fallen. Beero’s attempts to teach the workers magic had stalled, recently. She and First Dronecaster had actually managed to complete a ward, one that would create a magic stinger when filled with mana. However, so far, the workers had failed to replicate it.
They could make the shape of the ward without issue, whether by digging it in dirt or by building it with wax. They were even more precise with their worker than Beero or First Dronecaster were! And yet, the workers couldn’t turn the shape into a functioning ward. They were having trouble passing their mana into it. When they tried it with a wax ward, the mana just went into the wax like when workers needed to repair or reprocess a comb. When they tried it with a ward made of dirt, the workers couldn’t put mana into it at all. It seemed that workers only knew how to use mana to complete their usual tasks.
Beero was a bit surprised that there was something workers couldn’t do, they had always seemed so capable to her before. Whether it was finding good flowers, making honey, building homes, or taking care of the brood, workers just seemed to know what to do, in a way that neither she nor First Dronecaster did. But it seemed there were some things even the workers didn’t know…and it was now up to Beero to help them.
She pondered the issue. She could try to give them fire or lightning like she did with the hive of the fallen. But…the workers were much smaller and much less resilient than a soldier bee. She wasn’t sure she could give them fire or lightning without hurting them. The process of joining the hive of the fallen hurt soldiers too, they just were able to endure it. The very last thing Beero wanted to do was hurt the workers. But then…how would she teach them?
A buzz then shook her out of her thoughts. She refocused and found First Dronecaster trying to get her attention.
“Beero…think have idea.”
Beero’s antennae starting tapping the dronecaster’s.
“Oh? What idea?”
First Dronecaster started off slow, but his dance picked up speed as he went.
“Think…can combine Beero and workers’ mana, like battlecasters do for big spell? Then Beero can make ward and workers can feel how shape mana?”
Beero immediately burst out into a happy dance.
“Amazing! Incredible! First Dronecaster best dronecaster! Always helps! Let’s try!”
First Dronecaster got to work right away and it didn’t take him long. He had already been the one forming the hive of the fallen into a pseudo-hive, he was easily familiar with connecting Beero to her workers at this stage. The workers didn’t know how to respond at first, but First Dronecaster was able to teach them how to let him connect their mana, all they had to do was concentrate their mana around their wings so that it would be accessible from the outside.
First Dronecaster soon danced a salute to Beero.
“Workers ready! Beero can make ward now!”
Beero then took the joint mana and used it to activate a ward the workers had made. She gently guided the mana along the path laid out by the ward, forming it into the shape of a sting spell. The spell activated and a mana stinger shot out from the ward.
First Dronecaster then dropped the link. He and Beero both turned their attention to the workers to see how they responded. The workers immediately started dancing.
“Oh, that how!”
“Make mana go out? Make move like this?”
“Like when mixing honey!”
The workers then started to crawl over the ward. Beero could see mana leaving their bodies. One tried to put in her wings and fan it over the ward, one tried putting it in her antennae and tapping it on the ward. The mana didn’t do what they wanted in those cases…but the workers had succeeded in moving their mana outside of their bodies in ways they had never done before.
Then, one of them concentrated her mana in her tongue. She started to crawl over the ward while licking it, leaving mana behind with each brush of her tongue. Another worker landed behind her and followed her, adding her own mana to the mix. Soon, all of the workers gathered in a line, tracing the path of the ward with their tongues.
Then, the ward started to glow…and a tiny mana stinger shot out from it.
Beero immediately started zipping around at her max speed.
“Workers did it! First Dronecaster did it!”
Worker bees had just managed to cast a spell.
