Epic of Bee

Riza and Miasma followed me up top, and I went over to my chair. Everyone was working or studying something, and I wanted to talk to them all, but the last two sections came first.

Joni and Messia both came over to join us as Miasma helped me sit down. I asked them to give me a moment, and they asked that I just come over to see what Gamble has been working on.

I agreed and then opened up the ship's menu. I could access it from anywhere on the ship, but I needed to be in the chair in order to be able to use upgrades and other things of that nature. 

[Menu Options]

<Summon Map>

<Select flight path>

<Deactivate Lab>

<Current Hive Tasks>

<Hive Upgrades>

<Hive Shop>

[Total Hex Points] 1

[Total Hive Points] 15

I selected the Hive Shop quickly and opened up the Subjects Shop, and I was startled by what I saw in Strength.

<Strength>5 (Beezli Strength Blessing +5)

No wonder everyone was ripped now; I guess she forgot to turn down the blessing on that one, or maybe she didn't. I wasn't really sure what Beezli's game was, but so far, it had only been beneficial on my end.

There wasn't a whole lot that I could do about it even if I wanted to, so I just had to hope that our interests aligned. I still needed to talk to Hilda about their conversation, but there were other things that needed to happen before I got to the Raccoon village, which was about 2 hours away.

I went back in my menus and then opened up the Hive upgrades section and accessed the bank of different things that I could build. The list was stupid long, and there were ten things that didn't make sense for every one thing that did.

Like, liquid butter room, a place to turn hard butter...soft. The idea was as flaccid as most of the other things I saw like, paper plane maker shop, DE hatchery, with ??? description, and the list went on.

Granted, I am sure that there are a lot of valuable things there, but thankfully there was a thing that let me search by thought. I was able to pick out the Crystal Flower Farm and Clinic that I had talked with Hilda about easily with that feature.

Then, I was taken to a three-dimensional overlay of the five Hex-Combs like I had been before with Hilda's help. Now, She was holding back from helping me so I could get used to it while I had the time.

It was pretty easy to use, and for these two Hex-Combs, there were no changes that I had to make, so it was just me watching the slowly rising golden walls and counters in the Clinic, but the Crystal Flower Farm had only golden soil, but then I got a warning.

[Warning!]: Soil, Water, and Crystal Flower Seeds are required to activate this Hex-Comb.

That made sense, and we would need water for everyone, so that would be something to go in one of the next Hex-Comb. As for soil, we would just have to find some and take it if no one owns it. 

I exited the projection and placed my single point into Field of Vision for the Hive, and it gave me fifteen hundred meters of vision in every, except for in the ground. I closed everything and then opened up my map and smiled broadly and the new expansive sight.

"Woah, you upgraded how far you can see! Good thinking, now if we could just see this all the time and you didn't have to monitor it, then that would be the best," Miasma said thoughtfully, and she was right. 

The map wasn't locked to me, but only Hilda or I could summon or dismiss it. I reached out to Miasma, and she helped me up, then I looked around the room.

I found a large empty table that was perfect for the map, and it was still close to my chair, so I would still be able to see it. Riza had gone over to join Joni, and I could see that she was standing pretty close to her.

I stretched the map out to be about a hundred and fifty centimeters wide, and it sat as a three-dimensional project of the outside world as we passed it by. I turned and took Miasma's hand, and we walked over to the table where everyone had crowded around.

Upon getting close, Riza noticed me and got everyone to move back, and I also noticed how she grabbed Joni's shoulders as she moved back. Joni even turned her head and gave Riza a cute smile that made Riza let go of her in shock, almost making me laugh.

After everyone moved back, I got to see what all the fuss was about and then still didn't know what I was looking at. It was like a metal fish that kind of looked like a ski-doo, and it kind of reminded me of a movie I saw as a kid called Journey To Atlantis or something like that.

"Is this like some kind of flying vehicle?" I asked with interest. "How does it work?"

Gamble looked excited, and all of his not wanting to look at me was gone. The man stared me right in the eyes with intense excitement that was almost palpable.

"Your lovely Royal Wife Talli, bless her Wind magic, was able to charge a Levi-Stone. They are stones gathered from dead sky fish. No one knows how they are born with them or how they are created, but only the sky people with wind magic have been able to use them in the past," Gamble said excitedly.

"So that means we can make more of these fish things? Where do we get more stones? If you can figure out how we can make these in mass production, we could make more, but what is their advantage other than flight? I know there are a lot of our people that still can't fly, but are they worth making a bunch of?" I asked.

"I have these," Gamble said, pulling out a large sack about the size of his head and then pouring it into a stone bowl.