Tamosd grunted as he finally stepped through the nexus door once more. He had spent an entire day exchanging heated words with the Forgemaster, but he was once again a smith of the black elves. Sort of. He had been demoted back to a junior apprentice with the bare minimum concessions necessary to work with Belissar per his oath…and that only with many repeated reminders that the consensus of the signatories obligated the Forgemaster to permit that cooperation without obstruction.
Tamosd himself had nearly rejected that insult of a reinstatent, if not for the pixies having spoken to him beforehand. He took a deep breath and reminded himself once again that he had ultimately won this fight. The Forgemaster had been forced to accept his cooperation with Belissar and any breakthroughs Tamosd made as a result would be handed over to his people, which had been Tamosd’s goal all along. If he could handle the dishonor of being completely disinherited and losing all rank, he could handle a petty demotion. His mission was ultimately more important than his pride.
Besides, he may not remain an apprentice for long. He was surprised by just how many of the other black elves had been overjoyed at his reinstatent…for his dungeon provided a great many products and resources for their people. Products and resources only a smith was allowed to offer. And products and resources…that an apprentice could not unless each and every individual product was personally inspected and approved by the apprentice’s master. Tamosd smirked at that thought. He did not envy whoever was assigned to be his master, for he fully intended to drop the entire stock his dungeon had accumulated since his disinheritance all at once. The black elves’ joy at his reinstatent would soon turn to frustration when the previous flood of goods returned as a re trickle.
But Tamosd had spent long enough dwelling on his place within the forge. Now, finally, it was ti to get back to work. Belissar ca to greet him and Tamosd reached out his hand. He clasped Belissar’s when the human extended his in turn.
“Tower Keeper Belissar, it is good to see you again. I owe you a debt once more, thank you for bowing to the Compact to restore my rank and honor. I swear I will not forget this.”
Belissar took a minute before shaking his head.
“You’ve helped out a lot, so I’m glad if agreeing helped you.”
Tamosd nearly smirked again. Belissar was much different than the scheming pixies who held every favor over him or the prideful Forgemaster who kept a long account of every debt or grievance. He couldn’t help but worry about the boy…but he also didn’t dislike him.
“You’ve no idea what it ans to a black elf smith, but I’ve already sworn to help you with all I am, so I for now I will redouble my efforts. Speaking of which, may I visit your sli and thermal mining bees? I would like to check on their progress.”
Belissar agreed and off they went. Tamosd was prepared to wade through a bog this ti…only to find a newly built pier to walk on instead. Dungeon Master Nenavann’s work, he presud.
At the end of the pier was one of Belissar’s beehouses. A wax golem waded in the water just in front of the pier, stretching its hand out to the beehouse. A sli bee worker climbed out of a hole in the golem’s hand, pulling golden honey-sli with it and into the beehouse. The golem turned its head as he approached and began vibrating. Sli bees began oozing out of it, their sli bodies wobbling as they buzzed at him. Tamosd, rembering his first interaction with the sli bees, held up his hands to show he didn’t have any tools or knives this ti.
“Easy there. I won’t touch your golem this ti. I just want to talk…and help you to build new ones, as promised.”
The sli bees stopped buzzing, but continued watching him warily. Tamosd rubbed his chin.
“Is this the only golem you’ve made?”
One of the sli bees began to dance with its sli.
“Queen mother says yes.”
Tamosd frowned.
“Really? It’s been a while since I visited, I thought you could make them much faster…”
“Queen mother says can, but uses lots of honey. Need honey for more workers, wants to raise honeypots and broodmothers first. Thought evil one wanted raise queens and drones with Fourth of the Fifth’s First Daughter? Need bigger hive, more honey.”
Tamosd balked.
“Evil one?”
The sli bee buzzed.
“Destroyed mobile hive, is evil.”
Tamosd grimaced. He decided he’d best try to change the sli bees’ opinion with deeds rather than arguing the point.
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“Right. Sorry about that. In any case…sounds like you have a good handle on things. Let know the next ti you build another golem, I can show you so designs I ca up with.”
The sli bee buzzed again but danced a confirmation.
“If King wants.”
Tamosd sighed as he backed away from the sli bees. It seed he had a lot of work to do to earn their trust. Hopefully he could make up for the bad first impression once they started building more golems.
The conversation also raised points he hadn’t considered before. He knew, of course, that slis wouldn’t be able to craft golems out of nothing, they would have to get the sli from sowhere. But, as long as sli-crafting had been a fantasy, no one had considered the actual logistics that might be required to make it practical. A pure sli would’ve been crafting out of its own body, in that regard he was fortunate to be working with sli-bees instead. But even they used their honey sli as their hos, food supply, and working appendages. Sli-crafting might be more expensive to them than he thought.
Unfortunately, feeding and growing slis and bees wasn’t his area of expertise. He would just have to trust that Belissar and the bees themselves could help with that. He decided to do just that as Belissar led him out of the bog.
“Belissar, it seems like the sli bees need a lot of honey to make the golems. Do you think it’ll be possible one day for them to make armies of golems? To make enough honey-sli to afford that?”
Belissar humd in thought.
“Probably? The First of the Fifth’s Seventh Daughter hasn’t been in the Bog that long, so I think she’s still getting started. Once she has honeypots she can make more and better honey, then if she raises broodmothers she can expand her hive and forage more. If she needs more nectar, the gardeners can plant more flowers in the Bog, or I can add more flower nodes if we need them faster.”
Tamosd smiled. So, as he had hoped, it was just a matter of giving the sli bees a chance to expand their hive. Additionally, the material issue could be resolved just by raising more flowers, which would be far cheaper and faster than finding more ore ever was.
“Ah, perfect. Thank you, Belissar.”
Belissar then led him to the thermal mining bees’ hive. Workers from the hive zipped around them as they approached.
“King! King with evil one? Need to sting?”
Tamosd grimaced again.
“They call evil too? Did I offend them?”
Belissar shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so but…the bees talk and work together…”
Tamosd’s face fell even further. So…his bad first impression with the sli bees had been spread to all the bees? He apparently had even more work to do than he thought.
In the anti, Belissar placated the hive.
“No, Tamosd’s here to help us, actually. Please don’t hurt him, he won’t destroy anymore hives…right?”
Tamosd quickly shook his head as Belissar glanced back at him.
“Of course not.”
Fortunately, the thermal mining bees imdiately replied “Ok!” and allowed him to approach. Tamosd checked out their hive for a bit, then turned to Belissar.
“Hey, I don’t see any mithril, are they unable to mine or process it?”
Belissar suddenly froze, his eyes going wide.
“Oh, right. I…never placed any.”
Tamosd blinked.
“What?”
Belissar glanced away.
“Well, it was really expensive, and then there was a lot going on…”
Tamosd was about to question him on how he could have forgotten mithril before realizing that he hadn’t even asked Belissar about it until now. He forced his mouth closed, took a deep breath, giving himself a mont before responding.
“…ok, expensive, was it? I’m guessing you don’t have any subterranean rooms besides the Dirt Tunnels, and no Mines or anything?”
Belissar shook his head. Tamosd rubbed his chin.
“I see. The Lava Fields are your best bet, but you’d need to up the mana concentration enough to turn the room mystical. That’d probably be more expensive than just adding a node, so might be better to aim for room choices. If you set up a Lava Field and Dirt Tunnels so the lava rivers empty into the tunnels, you might eventually turn it into a Lava Tubes room. You would still need to up the mana concentration to make it suitable for mithril, but it might be worth a try…plus, filling a tunnel with molten rock makes for a good defense.”
Belissar’s eyes lit up.
“What about a perpetual mana storm? If I put one in the Lava Field would that work?”
Tamosd’s eyes widened.
“You have perpetual mana storms? As a feature? You certainly don’t lack for courage, Belissar.”
Tamosd then thought about the idea of applying a mana storm to a volcanic region. He let out a sigh.
“Well…a perpetual mana storm would certainly give you the necessary mana concentration for mithril…but how you would safely mine I couldn’t say. Plus, mana storms are incredibly unpredictable. You might place a mithril node in a room with one, but you may get sothing else entirely whenever you try to mine it.”
Belissar frowned.
“So, it wouldn’t work?”
Tamosd was about to agree…but he crossed his arms as he worked the idea in his head.
“…it would be dangerous and unpredictable…but the materials produced would beco more mystical, not less. Or otherwise mana-resistant. That…if we could safely mine from the nodes…”
He thought it over for a couple of minutes before sighing.
“I’m curious as to what would happen, but we’d need a safe way to travel through a mana storm first. And since we’d get different materials each ti we mine, it’d probably be better for custom jobs than mass production. I’d say you should try working with normal mithril before trying anything like that.”
Tamosd then smiled and let out a chuckle. Belissar tilted his head, so Tamosd explained.
“You have so fascinating ideas, Belissar. I’ve got to say, the more I see of your Tower, the more I want to work with you.”
Belissar smiled back at that. The Tower Keeper soon had to leave to plant so flowers he got from the pixies, including the tal mana flower Tamosd passed to Henilett, and so parted ways with the black elf. As for Tamosd, both the sli bees and thermal mining bees needed to expand their hives, so for now he headed on over to the karnuq to continue his work there. As an apprentice, he technically wasn’t permitted to give evaluations or teach apprentices of his own…but there was no rule against training where the karnuq smith could watch him, or reviewing his own lessons out loud.
He shook his head. Those pixies were rubbing off on him a bit too much lately, he was starting to think quite dishonestly. But well…it was thanks to Belissar that he had regained any honor at all. He’d now give his all to ensure Belissar and his fascinating bee dungeon stuck around.
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