Chapter 401: Bee-fficient Room Usage |
After Belissar wrapped up the finishing touches on the new Tundra Meadow, he received word that Tamosmed had come to visit. Tamosmed gave him a grin as Belissar met up with him.
“Got yourself a mine, huh Belissar? A Mystic Mine at that!”
Belissar nodded.
“Yes, thank you for your advice yesterday.”
Tamosmed shook his head.
“No, I’m sorry a quick note was all I could send you. The golem crafters are a needy lot, I’m starting to understand why my father was willing to give me this job. But enough of them, let’s talk about the mine. So, instant explosion?”
Belissar grimaced.
“Yeah, thankfully only Niobee and I were checking it out at the time.”
Tamosmed chuckled.
Belissar tilted his head but nodded as well.
“Yes, how did you know?”
Tamosmed made a self-deprecating smile.
“Because I did the same thing, with the same exact results. I mean, who wouldn’t? Five free mithril nodes in a single mine, it’s a crafter’s dream! Hundreds of mana worth of the best materials out there, handed to you for a mere forty mana before you even take blessings into account.”
He shook his head.
“We’ve both learned the catch, unfortunately more mana means more explosions. In fact, nowadays I would recommend only using one or two nodes for the rarer metals and going for mana-imbued mundane materials for the rest. That’ll cut down on accumulating mana and minimize the explosions, then you just add more mines if you need more mithril.”
Belissar’s eyes widened.
“Ah, I didn’t know that. I also don’t know which materials I should add…”
Tamosmed gave him a smile.
“That’s what I’m here for. My recommendation would be a mana iron vein, a mana coal vein, a mana silver vein, and then mana salt for the last one. Mana iron is a good, strong material with reasonable mana conductivity, while mana coal is necessary for making magical alloys. You can use them together to make mana steel, the material we use for most enchanted weapons and armor. Mana silver is weaker than mana iron or steel, but has much better conductivity without requiring too much extra mana to form, so it makes for an excellent enchanting material when performance is preferred over durability. Both would be better for you anyways, your smith is learning well but he’s not going to be able to work with mithril anytime soon. New smiths start with those materials, should be easier for your bees to work with too.”
Belissar nodded along.
“And mana salt?”
Tamosmed smirked.
“I only recommend that one for your bees, it’s a favorite of monsters of all sorts and I know you’ll want something for them. Well, it’s also quite good on our food too, especially since you have the Chef’s Blaze perk.”
Belissar smiled at that, then implemented Tamosmed’s advice. He left the closest node to the entrance as mithril, since the metal mana flowers had already started spreading their roots there, then converted the other four nodes to the recommended materials. Tamosmed also gave him some advice on the layout of the mines, where to add tunnels and caverns and how to shape them to encourage mana not to condense by the nodes or the entrance.
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Tamosmed then left to meet with the thermal mining bees and the karnuq. He would explain to them how to gather ores from the mystic mines, particularly what signs to watch out for that the room’s mana was condensing to critical levels. Belissar accompanied him as he had something he wanted to discuss with Chief Rohsuak.
He found her sparring with the karnuq hunters and the spiderkin children…most of which were on the ground and groaning. The First Spiderkin Queen was running around Chief Rohsuak wielding a small spear, skittering about quickly to stay away from the bigger karnuq. As she did that, Noigakkuq appeared behind the chief, a purple bee stinger forming around the tip of her spear. Chief Rohsuak just reached behind herself and grabbed the spear, then swung the karnuq around to knock her into the spiderkin, sending them both down in a heap.
Chief Rohsuak shook her head.
“You’re still focusing too much on yourself, Noigakkuq. You need to time your attack with your allies and hit me when I can’t respond. Same with you, First Spiderkin Queen, your job was to keep me distracted, so you needed to keep the pressure on.”
Chief Rohsuak then noticed Belissar approached and grinned.
“Well, it looks like I’m done for now. I expect the rest of you to continue working with each other, I want a better showing next time!”
The hunters groaned. A few of the spiderkin children groaned as well, but First Spiderkin Queen and most of the rest stood back up and saluted. First Spiderkin Queen then jumped on Noigakkuq to immediately begin sparring with her, much to the karnuq’s surprise and displeasure. Belissar glanced at them as they grappled on the ground, Chief Rohsuak chuckled and shook her head.
“The spiderkin are most enthusiastic, they were a bit upset to be left out of the big battle. They’re growing quickly, though, I think you may want to consider letting them challenge some small shades soon. Now then, how may I help you, Tower Keeper?”
Belissar shook his head.
“Actually, I’m here to see if there’s anything you need. There’s four empty room slots on your floor and we have a bunch of new rooms available, like the Farm or the Mystic Mine. I was wondering if you wanted any more for the karnuq.”
Chief Rohsuak blinked.
“Tower Keeper, you mean to say all the rooms on this floor are ours?”
Belissar tilted his head.
“Yes? …oh, we never talked about that, did we?”
It now occurred to Belissar that he hadn’t actually discussed the room slots on the karnuq’s floor after the expansions since they moved in. He had been assuming they belonged to the karnuq like the rest of the slots on the floor…but he hadn’t actually told them, had he?
“…yes. This floor is for your people, so I’ll use the rooms for whatever you might need.”
Chief Rohsuak smiled.
“That is most generous of you, Tower Keeper. Let me think…”
After a moment she shook her head.
“I will discuss it with my people. I think, though, that it is unnecessary for you to reserve those rooms for us, Tower Keeper. You have already permitted us access to the rest of your Tower, we challenge in your defense rooms and we hunt meat alongside the butcher bees. We are willing to accept whatever of the other rooms you are willing to share, you do not need to make separate ones solely for us. I would prefer that you use those empty rooms as you need, we have plenty of room as it is. Maybe one day our numbers will grow enough to need more space and resources, but for now we are happy with what you’ve already given us.”
Belissar blinked.
“I…see. Got it, just let me know if you need anything from the other rooms, then, or you can ask the hive of hives.”
Chief Rohsuak lowered her head with a smile.
“Thank you, Tower Keeper.”
Belissar took his leave, letting Chief Rohsuak get back to sparring, then turned to Niobee as he left the karnuq area.
“Niobee, is there anything I should try with the rooms? Anything the bees need, or maybe the flowers?”
Niobee’s antennae glowed. Belissar felt her reach out to the hive of hives for a bit, then she started to dance.
“Is! Gardeners say new poison tree wants salt in water. King know how put salt in water?”
Belissar’s eyes widened.
“Oh, that’s right! Tarwantrad told me something similar, I think we can do that if we connect a Bog to one of the sea rooms. Let me try that…”
Belissar went ahead and added another Bog to the second floor, connecting it to the Abyssal Trench without an environmental seal. He put the entrance at the bottom of the swamp, resulting in a big plume of water shooting up past the surface of the Bog and up into the air. Hopefully, that would be enough.
He had to move the battle Fairy Grove to the third floor to make room, fortunately that floor still had its empty room slot from the expansion reward so he was able to make it fit. If all went well, he’d have a new room that he could put the machineel trees in. Maybe the toxic bees would like a room like that?
Well, on the other hand, they had already set up their hive in an existing Bog. Maybe if they raised a new toxic queen?
Niobee suddenly began dancing on his head at maximum speed.
“King! Toxic bees did raise new queen!”
Belissar blinked, then smiled.
“That’s perfect.”
Belissar checked in with the toxic bees…then noticed queens and drones flying around the Bog. He looked around further…and found new queens flying with drones all over the Tower. He smiled, then started making his way around the Tower.
“Looks like everyone raised new queens. Shall we go greet them?”
“Ok!”
Belissar’s day was just getting better and better.
