Webs & Wards

Benjamin Medrano

Contents

The Story So Far

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Epilogue

Queen’s Move Preview

Webs & Wards by Benjamin Medrano

© 2020 Benjamin Medrano. All rights reserved.

Contact the author at BenjaminPMedrano@gmail.com

Visit the author’s website at benjaminmedrano.com

Sign up for the author’s mailing list at http://eepurl.com/cGPT-b

Cover Art by Domina Art

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This was only possible because of my wife and my Patrons.

Thank you all.

The Story So Far

When Yonra, god of chaos, won the millennial games of the gods, his request startled the other deities in its simplicity. He requested that a new species be created from the giant bees that roamed the world. Though suspicious, the other deities agreed, and named the new species the apis.

Across the world a fraction of the giant beehives turned into apis, no matter where their members were located. This led to the death of several unfortunate adventuring groups, but also stranded a number of apis in high places, such as one apis who was stuck in a giant rose over sixty feet off the ground. Without a way down, the confused apis waited for rescue, one which wasn’t coming, with how few apis could now fly.

Back in the small town of Seldrim, the elven mage Cora woke in the temple after dying in a new apis hive, to her incredible frustration. In order to regain some of the funds lost in her resurrection, the elf chose to team up with Brianna and Stella to search for herbs in the Flower Forest. Somewhat to their shock, they encountered the apis when a giant wasp attacked her, and both combatants crashed to the ground.

The adventurers saved the apis’s life, and to repay them she used her innate abilities to gather the items they needed from the plants, during which time they grew to like her, and named the apis Joy due to her enthusiastic, upbeat personality. They parted a short time later, only for Joy to receive terrible news back at her hive.

Joy returned only to be exiled by her queen, in part because she was too old for a worker, and also as they were hoping she could found a new hive elsewhere, which was why they gave her an item which the apis prized above all others, pure royal jelly. If she could reach level twenty, the jelly would allow her to evolve into an apis queen, with a full century of life ahead of her rather than the mere six months remaining to her. Joy was saddened, but accepted the queen’s decision.

Cora and her friends were surprised when Joy came to town, but after her brief explanation, they chose to welcome her company and began teaching her about the world, as well as helping her change jobs to that of a Rogue. They decided to go on a simple scouting mission to see if goblins had invaded the region again, but that was when everything went awry.

After defeating the goblins, Joy found what appeared to be an ancient teleporter which they believed led to a treasury, so they took it, only to find themselves stranded on the other side, deep underground. Their attempt to escape was further complicated when they realized that they’d been transported into the dangerous Blackstone Mines, and that the mines had been infested by motini, gullible rodent-folk who often worshipped demons as gods.

They chose to attempt to rescue some of the captives the motini had taken, and Joy proved instrumental to doing so, as she freed the prisoners as the others brought down part of a cavern on the motini. A powerful demon named Alethus arrived, however, and he caught Joy. As he questioned her, Cora attempted to save Joy, and Alethus poisoned her with a spell, which distracted Joy long enough to almost stab him in the eye, which caused him to throw her away in a panic.

The group fled, injured and bleeding, but all of their escape routes were blocked, so they went to the dangerous back of the mines ahead of pursuit, hoping to find an exit. Alethus pursued, fascinated by the skill Joy had shown and confident they were moving into a dead end, where the only exit was into a lair of flower minks, which would destroy the low-level adventurers with ease. Joy noticed another exit, and convinced the others to take it while she lured Alethus toward the flower minks, confident that like when she was a giant bee, the minks wouldn’t like the taste of apis.

Alethus fell for Joy’s provocations, believing the minks must be gone if she was in their nest without being attacked, and he stepped into the open. When the minks attacked, Alethus was seriously injured despite being much higher level than they were, and he was forced to teleport to safety, allowing Joy to catch up with the others.

On reaching her friends, Joy found out that Cora was dying, and if she died so soon after her previous death, it was essentially certain to be permanent. The others had no way of saving her in time, so Joy didn’t even hesitate when she realized that she could rescue the elf. She offered her pure royal jelly, which acted as a powerful antitoxin, without explaining what it was to the others. While they realized that it was what allowed her to evolve into a queen, the others were ignorant of her limited lifespan, and they promised to repay Joy for it.

And now our story continues.

Prologue

“Lightning Arc!” Nathaniel exclaimed, his voice echoing loudly in the tunnel, and a bright spark launched from his hand at the chittering mass of motini ahead of Isolde.

The motini looked like three-foot tall marmots, if marmots wore poor-quality armor and wielded crude spears. They’d formed a spear wall in the tunnel, and their eyes glittered in the light with both zeal and terror. Terror that should have been far stronger than it was.

The spark hit a single motini, despite his attempt to recoil out of the way, and burst into terrible, bright arcs of lightning that incinerated the motini before he could even scream, just as they reached out to touch all the motini around him, destroying nine of the creatures almost instantly. Their weapons fell to the ground smoking, and the remaining motini recoiled, chittering in horror as they wavered.

Andrea raised her bow, taking aim as she murmured. “Explosive Shot.”

The arrow lanced into the motini on the left, striking home before they could react. Their armor may as well have been air for all the good it did them, and the motini crumpled. Then it exploded in a brilliant ball of flames that destroyed another third of the motini, and that broke their morale, even through their zealotry.

“Run away!” a motini wailed, turning tail and fleeing, and the others around it ran as well.

“Better than when you deal with them,” Nathaniel muttered, and Isolde Hammerhand snorted.

“You think that’s going to last? Motini are natural zealots. Some of them are going to try to stop us,” Isolde said, adjusting her gauntlets as she moved down the tunnel. As she walked, she glanced back at Tina. “Are you planning to help, Tina?”

“I’m retired, and unless one of you does something terribly stupid, there isn’t a need for it,” Tina replied waspishly, the elderly Priestess glaring at Isolde. “Or if there’s someone more dangerous in here, I suppose. But I’m not wasting my mana when there isn’t a need for it. You could destroy all of these motini yourself, if they’d have the manners to stand still.”

Isolde snorted and looked back at the path ahead of them while she spoke sourly. “That’s the attitude that got the demon a dagger in the eye, from what I heard. I don’t want any of you following his example… damned level forty nearly getting killed by a level ten adventurer. It’s insane.”

“Luck and hubris. They really don’t mix well,” Andrea said, shrugging. Then her eyes narrowed. “We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“We are, so be on your guard. I doubt they’ll try to drop the tunnel on us, but that’d hurt even us,” Isolde said, glancing at the ceiling warily.

The tunnel ahead of them wasn’t in the best shape, with fallen and cracked stone everywhere, and rubble surrounded the exit along with dozens of wooden spars, forming a makeshift wall that led into a much larger cavern, one which was partially illuminated by a blue-white radiance. Spears and bows could be seen over the edge of the wall, and a crude gate had been closed in their path.

“Repel the unbelievers! For our benevolent lord! For dinner!” a thready motini voice cried out from in front of them, just on the other side of the gate.

“For dinner!” the other motini chorused, and Isolde couldn’t help a dark chuckle at their ignorant fervor.

“Juggernaut Charge,” Isolde said, and felt strength surge through her, her skin hardening as she lunged forward fast enough that the motini wouldn’t be able to react in time. She hit the wall like a trebuchet’s boulder, and it exploded outward, sending stone and screaming motini flying across the broad cavern, its ceiling held up by huge stone pillars.

There were the usual ramshackle buildings of motini in the cavern as well, but Isolde wasn’t done, not with dozens of motini staggering back from the gap she’d torn through their defenses. She took a couple of quick steps forward and grinned.

“Rising Impact!” Isolde bellowed, punching the ground hard, and the entire cavern seemed to shake as the motini within a dozen paces were thrown into the air, along with boulders and wood. As they began to fall, Isolde proceeded to the next stage of her attack combination. “Dragon Sweep!”

As Isolde spun in a sweeping kick, mana rushed down into her leg. Fire erupted into the air in the shape of a dragon which roared as it spun around her, consuming all the motini in its path and leaving little but ashes in its wake. Of the four dozen motini who’d been standing nearby, only four were still alive, and for an instant those four seemed paralyzed with shock, their whiskers quivering.

Then they screamed and ran, and the motini in the distance fled as well.

“Told you that you could wipe out all of them yourself,” Tina said, walking through the gap calmly, and wrinkled her nose as Andrea shot a fleeing motini in the back. “Do you really have to do that?”

“They’re a plague, and we’re going to have to clear out the mines anyway,” Andrea retorted, her eyes narrowing a little. “What, do you think that we could just leave them?”

“Possibly,” Tina said, obviously arguing for the sake of being contrary.

“No wonder you retired,” Nathan said, his gaze fixed on the cave entrance off to the left, silver-blue light radiating from it, and he swallowed hard, then asked, “Guildmaster, do you think that it… it’s gone?”

“The chamber’s exposed, and there was a demon. I don’t see any other reason for someone like that to come here,” Isolde said flatly, starting toward the chamber, her gaze flitting back and forth to watch for danger. “If it is… it’ll be bad.”

“How bad? Since, you know, there aren’t any low-level adventurers here to panic?” Andrea asked, a note of tension in her voice. “I know the seal is supposed to be important, but nothing more than that.”

“The creatures Tarngard sealed were all so powerful that they couldn’t kill them. They could fight and slow them down, but not kill them,” Isolde grated, shivering at some of her memories. “I’ve heard of a few of them, and even saw a few lower-level types. I once saw a sand maw destroy over a thousand soldiers, and it took fifty level forty adventurers to kill it, including me. I nearly died in that fight, and a quarter of us did die. It was only level thirty-five… and all the sealed creatures I’ve heard of are over level sixty.”

“Oh, shit. If that’s the case… whatever’s sealed could destroy the entire kingdom, couldn’t it?” Nathan asked, his voice taut, now.

“It could,” Isolde agreed, her lips pressing together tightly. “If the seal is gone… we’re going to have to send a message to Irador. These seals were always broken into multiple parts, so Silverhoof will want to reinforce defenses around the others, while trying to figure out how to retrieve it.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Tina said, sounding much more focused than she had before.

Isolde nodded, glancing around the chamber idly. It was amazing how much damage the low-level adventurers had done, and she could see where the motini had been trying to excavate parts of the cavern that’d been buried. Her attention focused on the cave as they approached, though, and its light drowned out the lantern Tina was carrying.

Stepping around the corner, Isolde stopped dead and grimaced. “Hellfire and brimstone. Looks like we’re going to need that message.”

The cavern before her was filled with luminous titansteel crystals, all around an upraised pillar where the seal piece was supposed to be floating.

The seal was gone, and with it, Isolde’s worst fears were realized.

* * *

“So, you figured out how Yonra won the game?” Fayliss asked, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at Besalk.

“That’s right, and it’s so incredibly simple that I’m kicking myself for not realizing before,” Besalk said, sighing heavily as he took a sip from his cup, the glowing liquid within doing a good deal to help him relax.

“How’d he do it, then?” Xinra asked, frowning as she folded her arms. “The chances of him having a deific flush were incredibly low, and it beggars belief that he’d get it by accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident, but it was by chance,” Besalk corrected, looking at them, as well as Assyran levelly. The deity of justice simply smiled in return, sitting in his chair calmly as Besalk spoke. “Assyran knows how it was done, I’m certain. It’s part of his purview.”

The gathering of deities was small, only the four of them together in one of the gardens they favored for their meetings. All around them was a lush garden and landscape, unimaginable in the mortal world due to its beauty. But that was the benefit of being gods; they could create things that no mortal could imagine, with few limits when they worked together.

“Assyran, is that true?” Xinra asked sharply, looking at the deity with narrowed eyes.

“Yes, of course. It didn’t break any of the rules, and I wasn’t going to give away his secret. It’s up to all of you to lay down the rules. I simply enforce them,” Assyran replied, his smile unchanging.

“Before you ask again, what Yonra did was very simple. He gave himself terrible luck at every game before this one, at least for the last seven gatherings,” Besalk said, and Fayliss blinked incredulously.

“What? How could giving himself terrible luck help at all?” Fayliss asked, pursing her lips as she considered the idea.

“He was tilting the scales. Nature prefers a balance when it comes to things like fortune, and he was consistently weighing down one side,” Assyran said calmly, looking around the table. “As he said, eventually his luck had to turn, even with him weighing down that side. When it did… it balanced out. It wasn’t necessarily going to this time, or the next time, or even the time after that, but when he won, he was going to win impressively.”

Xinra swore softly, the goddess of strategy obviously upset by the information. Fayliss could understand, as she knew the goddess took pride in carefully calculating the odds of success to give herself an advantage. Anything like Assyran had described had to offend the woman on a fundamental level.

“Which unfortunately means we need to lay down some new rules,” Besalk said, looking at them in frustration. “It may not be improving the luck of anyone at the table, but if everyone was doing that, it’d utterly ruin the games. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t abide that.”

“Agreed,” Xinra said instantly and scowled as she added, “What about his creations, though? The apis—”

“Were created perfectly legitimately,” Fayliss interrupted firmly, meeting Xinra’s surprised gaze as she stared back pointedly. “You may not like the strategy Yonra chose, but he won using the rules, not breaking them. I agree that the loophole should be fixed, yes, but undoing the creation of a species simply because you don’t like Yonra isn’t fair.”

“Precisely. I have to side with Fayliss here,” Assyran agreed, his smile turning to a frown at last. “If we were to take back changes simply because someone disagreed with the strategy used to win, you would lose far more than Yonra, Xinra.”

For a minute Xinra was silent, then she sat back suddenly, scowling as she crossed her arms defensively. “Fine, then. I still don’t like it.”

“Speaking of the apis, how are they fitting in? I’ve spent a good deal of time figuring out what Yonra did, so I haven’t been paying attention,” Besalk asked, looking at Fayliss curiously.

“They’ve been doing… oddly,” Fayliss replied, shifting in her chair as she considered what she’d seen over the past week, as well as being inwardly pleased with at least some of Yonra’s decisions. Despite her frequent annoyance with the god of chaos, she did rather like the apis. After a moment she continued. “There aren’t that many regions in the world where they can survive, since for the most part they can only get enough food in the giant flower regions or the jungles. That said, there are over a hundred hives, and aside from expanding quickly to fit their population, most of them are keeping to themselves and continuing as they have been.”

“Really? That’s a little surprising… what about those that aren’t keeping to themselves?” Besalk asked, his eyes brightening.

“The goblins in the Sandstone Mountains attacked a hive in the Viridian Sea,” Xinra interjected, a grudging smile appearing on her face as she continued. “They did decently at first, and in the end they managed to kill about a tenth of the hive before the apis rallied. When they did, though… the apis wiped out the entire attack force, and most of them are nearly level twenty already. Plus, with as fast as they reproduce, that loss isn’t going to last long. I think that the goblins are going to find they’ve met their match for the first time.”

“There have also been a few minor conflicts between the apis and adventurers here and there, but for the most part there haven’t been any large-scale ones. I think most of the priesthoods are suggesting that caution is in order,” Fayliss added, glancing at Xinra speculatively. The admiration in Xinra’s voice at what the apis had done surprised her a little, but she wasn’t going to point that out. Instead she continued. “I don’t believe that anyone realizes how powerful or organized the apis will be. The only thing that really would contain them is their ability to find food. In any case, I’ve mostly been impressed by a handful of individual apis who’ve left their hives. One of them in particular nearly managed to kill an incubus baron who’s over level forty, and she is only level eleven. She’s a clever girl, I must say.”

“That… is impressive. Not unheard of, but impressive,” Besalk said, sitting back and smiling in amusement. “I think I’ll have to have a look at them. I’ll admit, Yonra does have a way of shaking things up.”

“For good or for ill,” Xinra muttered, her smile fading, and Fayliss couldn’t help a nod.

She didn’t like thinking about what Yonra might be up to, but it wasn’t something she was going to dwell on. Not when Fayliss had far more pressing concerns: paying attention to her various worshippers, as well as trying to figure out how to convert some of the apis to her service. They really were rather interesting.

Chapter 1

“They won’t sell it to you,” Joy said, her tone matter of fact, and Cora couldn’t help a blink as she looked back into the apis’s odd eyes, with her bright yellow irises inside black sclera. The apis was pretty, with long blonde hair with black streaks and the odd black antennae protruding from her forehead. Joy’s usual smile was much fainter than normal, though, and she shifted, her translucent wings buzzing behind her briefly.

“Why not? I know that it’s valuable, based on what you told the others when I was unconscious, but why wouldn’t they even consider selling us some of this… pure royal jelly?” Cora asked, a little perplexed at how confident Joy seemed. “Even if they don’t want money, we could always buy them something they would find valuable, I’d think.”

“It isn’t that! It’s that making it is really really hard. Every apis eats royal jelly when we hatch, it’s what lets us grow up so fast,” Joy replied quickly, shrugging and grinning. “Queens eat only that as a larva, it’s why they’re queens! But pure royal jelly takes a lot of royal jelly to make, and they refine it more, kind of like nectar turns into honey. I didn’t make it myself, but I think it took months to make some. My being given some was incredible, and a major sacrifice for the hive. They won’t sell it.”

“Are you saying that we shouldn’t even try? I mean, that’s how you were going to become a queen, right?” Brianna asked, looking at Joy skeptically, her eyes narrowed. “You’re a friend and sacrificing something like that… it’s huge.”

“No it isn’t. I’m a worker, and we sacrifice ourselves for the good of the hive. To me, you’re all kind of like queens,” Joy replied simply, smiling the entire time. “But if you really want to go ask them, go ahead! I just don’t think they’ll sell it.”

Stella glanced at Cora and quirked an eyebrow, prompting Cora to smile wryly, shaking her head as she said. “Well… I can’t not try, after what you did for me. Do you want to come with us?”

“No, no, I want to look around town, and they asked me to leave. It wouldn’t feel right to go back,” Joy said, shaking her head quickly.

“In that case, why don’t I stay here with her?” Stella offered, looking at Cora and Brianna, her eyes warm as the dark-skinned woman shrugged. “It isn’t that far from the hive, and I don’t want someone luring Joy into making a bad decision.”

“I’m not going to just believe anyone I run into! You’ve warned me about that!” Joy protested, but the yellow sheen to her cheeks brightened slightly, prompting Cora to look at her skeptically, recognizing the apis’s blush.

“No, but you also are far too trusting, and I could see someone managing to convince you something was far more valuable than it is. I heard about what happened with the yellow dress, you know… Helen told me that James barely stopped you from paying ten times the price listed on its tag,” Cora said, glancing at Brianna in amusement. “I think having someone nearby to help you is a good idea.”

“Agreed,” Brianna said firmly, grinning as she added, “The two of us can go to the hive while you shop. I just don’t want to hear about you spending all of your money in one place, alright?”

“Alright…” Joy said, looking a little resigned, then her antennae perked up. “Still, tell the workers I said hello! I hope they’re doing well!”

“Sure, we can do that,” Cora said, then laughed softly, a hint of morbid humor welling up as she added, “Assuming they don’t drive me off, anyway! I did attack the hive.”

“We’ll see when we get there,” Brianna said, shrugging. “At least we’ll have time to run, if so.”

Cora nodded, and Stella took the chance to stand, speaking calmly. “In that case, why don’t the two of you go? I know there’s supposed to be that meeting at the guild tonight, and you don’t want to be late.”

“True, true,” Brianna agreed, standing up as well, groaning slightly as she stretched. “Gods, it’s been an eventful few days.”

“Hopefully it’ll settle down a little. That was… unpleasantly exciting,” Cora said, wrinkling her nose. “I’d like to avoid it in the future.”

“See you later!” Joy chirped, bouncing to her feet, and all but dashed for the doors, which made Cora wince, wondering what the apis wanted to purchase so much. With as enthusiastic as Joy was, it could be good or bad.

Stella laughed, nodding to them as she pursued the apis, a warm smile on her face.

“At least one of them is sensible,” Cora murmured, prompting a laugh from Brianna.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t change Joy even if I could. She’s a lovely ray of sunshine in the darkest of moments,” Brianna said, her smile turning a bit wistful as she added, “If it weren’t for her… well, I was worried, you know? I thought I was going to lose you, Cora.”

“I thought I was going to die, too. I had no idea Joy was holding on to something like that,” Cora said, shaking her head in disbelief. When the demon’s spell had been ravaging her body, she’d known she was going to die and there was no way out of it. Then Joy had sacrificed her pure royal jelly to save her, something Cora couldn’t have asked her for, yet the apis had done it without hesitation. That was touching in a way that Cora couldn’t quite describe, and the elf was determined to pay Joy back for it, one way or another.

“Me neither,” Brianna agreed, and nodded toward the door. “Shall we? I’m curious to see just what an apis hive is like, after seeing what Joy can do with her wax. There might not be much to it yet, but who knows for sure?”

“Fair. It was just a hole in the ground when I visited, but that was before they changed,” Cora agreed, and taking her staff from the holder in the corner, then nodded to herself. “Alright, let’s go.”

Chapter 2

Joy leaned down in front of the stand, resisting the urge to salivate as she sniffed gently, barely able to smell the honey within the jars. The honey in each jar looked the same from the outside, but she knew better, since the fragrance from within told the tale, and she half-closed her eyes, inhaling again as her wings buzzed slowly behind her.

“Joy? Is there something strange about the honey?” Stella asked, amusement in her voice.

“Lavender with a touch of clover,” Joy said happily, pointing at the first jar, then continued, moving across the jars. “Honeysuckle and orange blossoms. Peach and apricot. Ooh, pear and plum, that smells good! This one is a nice medley, with a slight preponderance of tulips, too.”

“You can tell all of that from the smell?” the vendor asked, prompting Joy to open her eyes fully again, looking up to meet the bearded man’s surprised gaze. “I mean, I know you’re an apis, but I thought honey was honey.”

“What? Oh no, of course not!” Joy said, shaking her head firmly. “No, the nectar of different flowers is very different, and a good mix of nectar is vital to a good honey. Not that ones made from a single type of flower aren’t particularly tasty, but they aren’t as good for us. That’s what the humblebees said, anyway!”

“Humblebees?” the man asked, blinking several times.

“That’s what the apis call their priests,” Stella explained, shrugging as she looked at Joy. “Are you getting anything here, then?”

“Um, while I’d like to, I think I’ll come back later,” Joy said, looking at the jars longingly, particularly at the pear and plum honey, but forced herself to stand. “While a treat is good, I wasn’t planning to shop for honey. I wanted to see if I could find some silver ore.”

“Silver ore? What do you need silver ore for?” Stella asked curiously, the woman’s expression growing more intent, to Joy’s rising amusement.

“That is a secret!” Joy replied triumphantly, grinning at the human as she rolled her eyes, but the woman couldn’t help her own smile.

“If you say so,” Stella said, shaking her head as she added, “Also, we’re in the wrong part of the market if you want ore. That’s on the other side of the market, near the blacksmiths.”

“Oh, whoops. I just went in the direction of what smelled good,” Joy said, blushing as she grinned at Stella. “Thanks for coming with me!”

“Not a problem,” Stella said, nodding to the man as she added, “We’ll see you later.”

“Sounds good to me,” the merchant said, shaking his head as Joy headed back into the colorful crowds, practically bouncing in excitement while Stella following in her wake.

She had so many plans for the silver, now that she’d passed tenth level. Joy wasn’t sure how she knew that she could use it, but the possibilities were exciting.

* * *

“Ack!” Cora exclaimed, diving out of the way of the superheated spray of foul-smelling liquid, and dirt ground into her robes as she rolled behind a huge leaf.

Sizzling and bubbling sounds filled the air as there was a sound like heavy raindrops slamming into a forest, and Cora flinched as she saw the leaf bubbling where the spray had hit it.

“You okay?” Brianna asked breathlessly, then yelped. “Ow! Stop it, you oversized bug!”

Cora peeked out from behind the leaf and blanched as she saw the beetle Brianna was on top of pull away from the rocks it’d just slammed her friend into. The horse-sized beetle was yellow with mottled red spots, and it was swaying back and forth violently, trying to dislodge Brianna as well as the sword buried in its back.

Another beetle was nearby, and its abdomen was curled around to point in Cora’s direction, which prompted Cora to quickly pull her head back before it sprayed again. The smell was terrible, but that was what they got for not keeping as close of watch over their surroundings as they should have. Bombardier beetles were one of the more serious threats in the Flower Forest.

“I’m fine! You? This isn’t a rodeo!” Cora replied, standing up again and brushing off her robe, her thoughts racing. The cone a bombardier beetle could spray was rather wide, which made fighting them difficult at best.

“My sword is stuck!” Brianna snarled, prompting a wince from Cora. “Incoming!”

“Crap. Oh shit,” Cora yelped, just as the beetle stepped around the edge of the leaf, its mandibles working as its abdomen arched again. She jumped to the side, and barely in time as it unleashed a boiling, hissing spray of liquid, while she kept running, circling the giant insect.

The beetle turned quickly, the spray continuing for what seemed like an eternity as Cora barely stayed ahead of it, one hand holding her robes high enough that she could keep moving. If the spray hit her, Cora was certain that if she didn’t die, she’d wish she was dead, as the liquid was well past the point of boiling when it came out of the insect. While she ran, her thoughts raced, and she grimaced, gritting her teeth as she came up with an idea.

“Die, you stupid, pain in the ass—” Brianna yelled behind Cora, and Cora caught a glimpse of her friend with a dagger out, viciously stabbing the beetle she was on top of in the head, using her sword as a handhold.

Then the spray ended, and Cora screeched to a halt, spinning to face the beetle that had been attacking, with it far too close for her comfort, pointing her staff at its midsection as she exclaimed, “Lightning Blast!”

An orb of electricity slammed into the insect, causing it to convulse slightly, but Cora knew that wouldn’t last, not based on some previous experience. Instead, while it twitched she lowered her aim and cast another spell. “Ice Blast!”

The orb of freezing cold slammed into the tip of the bombardier beetle’s abdomen, encasing it in a layer of freezing ice, and the creature shuddered, then started to move again. Cora turned tail and ran again, her voice taut. “I hope this works!”

The beetle shook off the electricity and turned to Cora, its abdomen arching around for yet another spray, and Cora ducked behind a gigantic tulip stem this time, her heart pounding as she braced herself for yet another spray.

There wasn’t any sound for a moment, then a muffled bang split the air, and there was a horrific squelching sound as bits began to rain over the forest floor. Brianna gagged loudly, then demanded, “Oh. Oh gods. What did you do?”

Cora peeked around the edge of the stem, and her eyes went wide. The beetle Brianna was on had stopped moving, and her friend was staggering, trying to cover her nose to protect herself from the foul gag-worthy stench that filled the air, and yellow liquid had sprayed across Brianna’s armor and hair. Cora’s stomach lurched a little, and she looked at the spot where the beetle had been.

There wasn’t much in the spot, but bits of yellow gunk had been blasted across the forest floor, including chunks of exoskeleton and a mostly-intact upper body of the beetle that was still twitching from where it was caught in some thorns thirty feet away. Cora swallowed her bile, trying to speak.

“I… I plugged the sprayer,” Cora said, barely able to talk as she shuddered. “I thought it’d… keep it from spraying, not do that.”

“Gods… gods, the smell! It’s all over me!” Brianna said, pulling her sword out of her victim as she retched.

“I… how about we go hit the river first? I… I think you need to wash off,” Cora said, barely resisting the urge to vomit at this point. “We don’t need what they drop.”

“No shit!” Brianna agreed, gasping as she began rushing away from the beetles, and Cora followed her as quickly as she could.

This wasn’t how she’d wanted the trip to the apis hive to start.

* * *

“Um, what the hells?” Brianna protested, stopping in shock, while Cora stood with her mouth agape. Both of them were still a little damp from washing off in the river, but that wasn’t something that felt like it mattered, not under the circumstances.

The last time Cora had been here, there’d been a few honeycombs in sight, along with the odd paper around many hives, but otherwise the hive had been little more than a large cave entrance, nothing more. She’d heard that a few other adventurers had come out to take a look since then, and they’d said that the apis were building, but she hadn’t gotten any details from them.

Now, she could hardly even recognize the area. A huge, hexagonal palisade had been constructed around the area, though where they’d gotten the trees from was a question Cora couldn’t answer, and the trees were connected by thick layers of wax. The base of the palisade was made from stones, and Cora thought that they were mortared together, but she couldn’t be sure. Either way, the ten-foot tall palisade would have been something of a surprise on its own, but that wasn’t the extent of it. It was the towers that truly shocked her.

The interior of the palisade was mostly obscured by the wall, but several towers extended above them, each hexagonal as well, though with timber spars anchoring the corners, while wax walls extended between them. Three towers were nearly forty feet tall, and as they watched, Cora could see a dozen workers on ladders slowly positioning a wax wall against the newest section, which would make it at least fifty feet tall in the end. There were only a few apis with wings, but dozens of them were moving in and out of the gates, scattering to attend to the flowers that surrounded the compound.

“It’s been what, a week? And they’re already building something like that?” Brianna asked, her disbelief palpable.

“Don’t ask me!” Cora protested, looking back at her friend. “I thought we might see a few houses, not something like this! Joy didn’t strike me as… well, an architect!”

“She did build that bridge, though, and without any plans. She even fit the posts into the holes without any way of measuring it,” Brianna said, her shock slowly fading into wonder. “Maybe they’re just natural architects, and we didn’t realize it.”

“Maybe so,” Cora admitted, her gaze moving to the apis, and as she did, she shivered as she realized something. A couple of the guards were keeping an eye on them, she noticed, but that wasn’t the issue. Instead, she nodded at the workers leaving the hive and spoke. “Ah, Brianna? Are you seeing what I am? About all the other apis.”

“What… oh,” Brianna said, blinking as she looked around, then frowned as she asked, “Do they all resemble one another?”

The workers coming out of the hive were eerily similar, in Cora’s view, a fact which wasn’t helped by how all of them wore essentially identical armor and weapons. Each had chitinous black armor like full plate that hugged their figures, while they had rapiers at their sides as well. They also had yellow hair with black highlights, black eyes with bright yellow irises, and black antennae extending from their hair. For that matter, over nine out of ten of the ones she saw had the same style hair that Joy did, down to the length. Only a few had shorter hair.

“It’s certainly eerie,” Cora said, blinking several times, then frowned unhappily as she admitted, “In fact, it makes me sort of understand why she thinks workers are replaceable. When they all look interchangeable…”

“I suppose, but—” Brianna began, then paused as her gaze rose and she spoke sharply. “We have company.”

At the same time she spoke, Cora spotted the six flying apis that started in their direction. Half of them had heavier-looking armor than most of the apis possessed, and in their hands they held long, wicked-looking spears. The other half wore armor more like Joy’s, which was a bit lighter, and they had rapiers and bows, which disconcerted Cora a little. The idea of flying apis with bows didn’t exactly make her feel better.

“I see them. I’d say we should just wait and see what they do. If they attack, we can always run,” Cora replied after a moment, feeling just a little tense. Or a lot tense, since she remembered one of those apis stabbing her in the back the last time she was here.

“Sounds good. They are level ten, though, based on what Joy said,” Brianna murmured, but she didn’t draw her sword, simply watching the apis approach.

The tension seemed to grow as the women approached, and Cora worried a lot, wondering how to explain the situation if they were allowed to speak. Her worries lasted right up until one of the lancers came into easy earshot, though.

“Hi! We’re here to find out why you’re out here. Are you just wanting to look at the hive, like the others?” the apis asked cheerfully, her mannerisms and voice so similar to Joy’s that Cora almost did a double take. On the other hand, the apis sniffed, then her nose wrinkled as she looked at them more closely.

Brianna’s mouth was slightly open, and after a moment the Swordswoman closed her mouth and swallowed before speaking a bit hesitantly. “Ah, no, that’s not why we’re here at all. We actually were wondering if we could meet with someone in the hive, to discuss buying something.”

“Oh, like the merchant!” the apis replied, looking at her companion, who nodded in agreement.

“In that case you’re going to want to meet with an attendant,” the second apis said, pointing her lance toward the hive as she smiled, seeming far too much like Joy as well for Cora’s comfort. “They only meet inside the hive, so you’ll have to come in and wait. They’re busy, most of the time.”

“That seems reasonable to me,” Cora agreed, looking at Brianna as she asked, “Bri? Your opinion?”

“I’m fine with it. After meeting Joy, I’m a bit more comfortable with the idea… even if I still find what happened with you apis strange,” Brianna said, looking up at the women as she added, “No offense is meant; it’s just that you appeared practically from nowhere.”

The apis all laughed, some louder than others, and then the first spoke, grinning as she did so. “None taken! You can’t be as surprised as we were, and there’s a lot to learn, now that we’re apis. There’s just one thing we have to make sure of, though. You aren’t going to cause trouble, are you? We had one person try to take our things without asking, and we really don’t want to have to stab you.”

“Um, no, of course not,” Cora said, a bit taken aback at the thought, blinking up at them. “We’ve been traveling with an apis, as a matter of fact. Joy, though I was told she had to leave the hive.”

“Oh, we know. We could smell her on you,” the apis replied, waving off the comment airily, then grinned. “I’ve heard about her! She’s the first one to get a name in the hive, even if she left afterward. Just head for the gates, then, they’ll tell you where to wait. Bye!”

“Goodbye,” Cora replied, a little stunned as she watched the six apis flutter off, then looked at Brianna in confusion. It took her a moment, then she asked, “Did that just happen? I expected them to be… I don’t know, stern or something.”

“Yes, it happened… and stern? Have you met Joy?” Brianna replied, her tone teasing as she grinned back at Cora, then admitted, “True, I didn’t expect them to be quite so cheerful either, but I think we should’ve realized what they might be like from her attitude. That might change in the future, but I’m certainly not going to object to this.”

“True enough. Most demi-humans that stick to themselves are rather xenophobic, so getting a meeting would be hard,” Cora said, her emotions calming down as she started toward the hive.

Brianna nodded, circling a flower as she did so. As they walked, Cora caught sight of a group of apis outside the palisade, at least thirty of them, and she slowed down marginally as she realized they were using what looked like hoes to tear up the ground. She wasn’t sure what they were doing, not entirely, but it looked like they’d thoroughly churned the soil for several dozen feet.

It took Brianna a moment to realize that Cora had slowed, and her friend paused, following Cora’s gaze, then blinked, putting her hands on her hips as the human murmured, “What is going on there?”

“They’re tilling the ground!” an apis voice interjected, causing Cora to jump slightly, then she looked up to see an apis looking down from a dandelion about ten feet over her head, smiling brightly at them. “The humblebees said that we could do something called tilling, and plant our own flowers, so that we could get nectar more easily.”

“Oh, that makes sense; we call it farming,” Brianna said, blinking up at the apis. “Thank you for answering the question.”

“You’re welcome!” the woman chirped, then her wings began buzzing, and the apis took flight, heading for another nearby flower.

Cora watched the woman go, then laughed, moving forward again as she murmured, “That was startling. I didn’t even realize she was in the flower!”

“There are a lot of them, and it makes it hard to keep track,” Brianna agreed, leading the way as she added, “I really hope the town manages to befriend them, since the apis seem to be nice, for the most part.”

“You and me both,” Cora said, looking up at the wall as they drew closer, then focused on the apis guarding the door, nodding to her as she said, “I’m Cora, and this is Brianna. We were told we might be able to meet with an attendant?”

“Of course! You’ll need to wait in the dining hall, though,” the guard said, and looked at a nearby worker, who looked up from the container she was moving: a big, six-sided wax crate. “Would you take these two to the dining hall?”

“Sure!” the apis said, her eyes brightening as she set the crate down and straightened, looking at Brianna and Cora curiously, then nodded toward the big center building with a grin. “It’s right this way!”

Chapter 3

Cora was bemused as she stepped past the guard and into the central compound, confused and impressed by what she was seeing.

All around them, apis were working industriously, reminding her of the phrase ‘busy as a bee’. There were a couple of apis in a hole in the middle of the compound, along with a pile of dirt next to where they were digging, making her suspect they were digging a well, while the buildings she’d seen were just the start, with several adjacent structures built or under construction, each of them fairly large and with the six sides the apis seemed to favor.

Many of the apis were swirling around the compound, especially near a structure built over the location where Cora recalled entering the hive the previous week, a thought which startled her. The apis certainly didn’t seem to care about personal space, and—

Cora’s thoughts jarred to a halt as she did a double take, seeing a figure that was distinctly different than the apis she’d seen so far. The man almost blended in, with his similar coloration and clothing, but he stood out nonetheless, with an elegant figure and muscular arms. It was the first male apis she’d seen, and despite herself she found her lips pursing in surprise.

“Cora! Where are you going?” Brianna interrupted, and the moment that Cora’s gaze pulled away from the apis, he vanished into the crowd.

“Sorry, sorry… I just got distracted. I saw a male apis,” Cora said sheepishly, shaking her head as she forced down the impulse to blush.

“Oh, one of the drones? They’re around, and helping! The change means they live longer, so we’re having to figure out what to do with them,” their guide chimed in, heading toward the double-doors leading into the building.

“Why didn’t they live very long?” Brianna asked, fortunately speaking for Cora.

“They died after mating,” the apis said bluntly, shrugging as she continued. “We’d go to other hives and let them have our drones, and they’d send out theirs… it worked well enough. Now we have to find other apis to trade drones, which will be a little more difficult. The queen said she’s going to figure it out, though!”

“A-ah,” Cora said, blinking as she thought about the attractive man dying, then shook her head firmly. She was not going to think about that more, not when she found both male and female apis rather mesmerizing. Fortunately, most of the apis struck her as too innocent for her to be terribly attracted to. “I didn’t know that, obviously. Now, this is the dining hall?”

“That’s right!” the apis confirmed, opening the door and gesturing around. “Choose a spot where you want, and the attendant will find you. I don’t know how long it’ll be.”

The room was fairly large, but it was filled with tightly packed tables and benches, while in the back was a table with a pair of apis behind it. There was a huge container next to one apis, who was dishing honey from it into bowls, while the other apis handed the bowls and spoons to apis who’d lined up in front of the table. All the dishes were made of wax, and with the walls made of the same substance, Cora was starting to have a hard time telling apart the floor from the walls or furniture. Worse, from her perspective, the apis were packed together tight.

“Thank you,” Brianna said for them, and Cora belatedly nodded, opening her mouth to speak, but the apis was already gone, waving as she headed back toward the gate, where another apis was moving the crate she’d had initially.

“That… was quick. Well, shall we?” Cora asked, gesturing at the nearest empty spot, and Brianna nodded, stepping forward to slip onto the bench.

While Cora joined her, the human studied the table, then rapped on it and nodded, murmuring. “This is a lot like that bridge Joy made, don’t you think? The outside is a bit more opaque, but I can see the hexagons inside it. I’ll bet its light, too.”

Cora looked more closely, and after a moment she saw the honeycomb that Brianna had mentioned, though it was hard to see through the mostly opaque exterior. She nodded in agreement, looking around as she replied quietly. “You’re right, and I agree about the weight. For that matter, what do you think, are the walls the same way? They’re just thick enough that it’s hard to tell for sure, but I think they’re made the same way, just with larger hexagons.”

Brianna nodded, but didn’t say anything. It was probably because the apis were watching them at this point.

It was obvious, since the apis would just look directly at them, and Brianna and Cora stood out like sore thumbs, with how much like one another the apis were. Cora couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be for almost anyone to infiltrate the hive, though she was sure that it was possible. The right abilities could make up for almost anything, and getting a disguise would be difficult, but definitely possible. That was the one advantage to them all looking so much alike, she suspected.

The apis continued with their meals, though, and the conversation Cora could overhear was… strange, to say the least. The apis discussed the best ways to build walls, containers or cells, as well as taking each other’s advice quite seriously, while others talked about the best places to harvest nectar and pollen, still others were talking about the activity of giant aphids attacking some of the flowers, and wondered aloud if they were going to be sent to clear up some of the infestation. It was both like and unlike discussions in towns, and yet… the harmonious attitude around them was the strangest thing. There weren’t arguments at all, and she hadn’t heard a single name spoken.

“So you’re our guests. Welcome to the Tulip Hive,” a woman said, startling Cora despite her attempts to keep alert, and the woman circled the table to take a seat on the bench opposite them.

The woman looked little different than the workers, save that she was slightly taller, had a subtly different pattern to her armor, and she had a flowing, diaphanous gown that descended from her waist. The woman looked at them curiously, then tilted her head expectantly.

“Would you be the attendant, then?” Cora asked, forcing down her curiosity and trying to ignore all the apis around her.

“That’s right. I’m one of the queen’s attendants, and am tasked with taking care of many things throughout the hive,” the apis agreed, nodding as she added, “I’m told you are called Brianna and Cora. From previous encounters with non-apis, we’ve learned that names are important to your people, so I have been given the name Emissary.”

“I… see. Pardon me if I’m surprised; I just didn’t expect what we found here,” Cora said, smiling wryly as she added, “Neither of us did, actually. We never expected you to have built so much in such a short time.”

“Of course, we entirely understand. As for us, we’re working hard because we have to,” Emissary said, gesturing at the door as she continued. “We’re halfway through spring, and our requirements for space have increased threefold so we must prepare for next winter. If we do not have shelter, many apis will die in the winter, and we require more food during the winter, as we’ll be active more. Because of that, we need additional stores of food, and activities with which to keep ourselves busy. Time is precious, and the hive cannot afford to waste it.”

Cora wasn’t sure if that was a hint to get on with things or not, but she chose to take it as one, since she didn’t want to upset the apis. Taking a deep breath, she considered how to approach the subject briefly, then spoke.

“Well, the reason we came here is because of one of our friends, Joy. She was a member of your hive not long ago, but was told to leave,” Cora explained, shrugging as she added, “Joy joined us afterward, and we ended up in a dangerous situation by accident.”

“Joy, I remember her,” Emissary said, smiling warmly as she added, “I was the one who told her she was no longer a member of the hive. I somewhat envied her chance to see the world, in truth. Hearing that you were in danger, though… that is more troubling. I assume you made it out safely, though. I smell her scent on the pair of you.”

“You can smell her? And that she’s alive?” Brianna asked, sounding as taken aback as Cora felt.

“Of course we can. Much of our nature is based around scent; it allows us to follow the trail of other apis, as well as find flowers more easily,” Emissary said, shrugging as she added, “Determining if an apis we’ve followed has died is also rather important, so we can tell when they aren’t producing pheromones. It wouldn’t do to fly into a spider’s web, after all.”

“Ah. I… hadn’t thought of it that way,” Cora replied, feeling oddly self-conscious now. She cleared her throat, then continued. “Yes, we managed to get out alive, but only because Joy made an incredible sacrifice for me. I was poisoned by a demon, and nothing we could do could stop the poison, so she gave me something of hers. She gave me her pure royal jelly, to keep me from dying.”

The sudden silence that enveloped the room caught Cora off guard, as every apis stopped moving at the same time. Most of them were looking at her, and a couple even stopped in the middle of raising their spoons to their mouths. It was eerie, and Cora tensed, looking at Brianna in confusion. The pause was only for a moment, though, as the apis quickly went back to what they were doing.

“Ah,” Emissary said, her smile fading into an expression of sorrow. “We will mourn her sacrifice, then.”

“What? But she isn’t dead!” Brianna protested.

“No, but she will be,” Emissary replied, then paused, looking at them closely for a moment before asking, a touch hesitantly, “Or… do you not know?”

“Not know what? We know she gave up her chance to change into a queen, and that’s why we came here. We wanted to see if there was a way to purchase more of the pure royal jelly for her,” Cora said, an icy sensation starting to creep around her heart. Something about Emissary’s reaction was terrifying. “Even if you don’t value coins, we thought that there might be something else you might want that we could get for you.”

“Mm, I believe I understand,” Emissary said, then murmured, “It’s so hard to be cheerful when speaking of this, but… I suppose I must.”

“Speaking of what?” Brianna demanded, her annoyance growing stronger, which simply worried Cora more.

“Of death, of course,” Emissary said, her voice cheering up as she placed a smile on her face, shrugging at them. “As you don’t know, it’s only right to tell you. Our queens have a lifespan much like those of humans, though in a different manner. Unless slain or taken by disease, our queen will live for a full century and be able to perform her duties for all that time. That is not the case for attendants, drones, or workers, though.”

The icy sensation was growing stronger, as was fear within Cora, and she swallowed before she asked, softly, “How long do you live for?”

“Attendants and drones live for approximately three years. Workers live for two and a half,” Emissary replied, looking at Cora and Brianna calmly as she continued. “Our hive has approximately thirty thousand apis in it, and to keep up with those we lose daily, at least thirty apis hatch each day.”

Cora choked, suspicions rushing through her about what Emissary was getting at, but the apis hadn’t finished yet. “For workers, half their life is spent entirely in the hive. Only those who no longer produce royal jelly are sent out foraging, which is the second half of their lifetime. Joy has less than six months left, which was part of why she and a dozen other apis were exiled.”

“No…” Cora breathed, her thoughts flickering to Joy’s bright, happy face, and how the apis had delighted in her new dress the previous day.

“What about becoming a queen? Doesn’t that extend your lifespan, then?” Brianna demanded, leaning forward. “If we gave it to her—”

“Assuming she reached level twenty, yes. It would give her the full lifespan of a queen, another full century… at least in theory,” Emissary replied, meeting Brianna’s gaze with a shrug. “Unfortunately, our stock of pure royal jelly was all but depleted when we sent out the exiles. We don’t have enough of it to give any away safely, and making more takes time. For a hive of our size, we can create one vial of pure royal jelly every six months.”

The explanation was like a punch in the stomach for Cora, and she gasped, gulping down air for a moment, then she quickly asked, “You don’t have any?”

“I didn’t say that. I said that our reserve was almost depleted,” Emissary corrected, shaking her head unhappily. “We have enough for an emergency, but only just. If we were to lose the queen, we must have some on hand. Otherwise the hive will perish.”

Cora couldn’t say anything to that, utterly numb, now. The sheer weight of what Joy had given up for her was suffocating, and she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.

“There’s no way we can get any in time, then?” Brianna asked, her voice shaking. “I mean, if she has less than six months, and it takes you that long just to make more…”

“Why would you say that? I just said, for a hive of our size, we can’t do it,” Emissary said, smiling at Brianna, and her expression caused a spark of hope to kindle for Cora. “But the bigger the hive, the more efficient it is. Hives get up to about twice our size, and they can make pure royal jelly twice as fast as us, just as we can make it twice as fast as a smaller hive. You could find one of them, and they might be willing to trade the jelly. I have no idea what they’d ask for it, probably materials of some kind, but they might. Or you could find one of the other workers who left and see if you could purchase it from them. There are options, but I’m afraid that we can’t help you.”

“I see. Well, thank you for the honesty, and your advice,” Cora said, her voice shaking slightly as she blinked back tears. “I wouldn’t even know she had that little time left if you hadn’t told us. She never said anything.”

“Of course she wouldn’t. For us, every day is a chance to live to our fullest, so why would she dwell on how much time she has left?” Emissary said, shrugging slightly, then added, “Besides, that she gave it to you is quite telling. It tells me that she regards you as a member of her hive, and that is high regard indeed. Any of us would give our lives for another member of the hive, or for the hive itself. What she did tells us much. You will be welcome here to speak with us if you ever have need, Cora.”

“Um, thank you,” Cora said, blinking several times as the apis rose from her seat, then headed toward the door.

Brianna didn’t move, and the shock on her face matched how Cora felt. For a minute they just sat next to each other wordlessly, a minute that felt like an eternity to Cora.

Finally, Brianna stood, and offered Cora a hand. Cora took it silently, letting her friend help her up, and they headed outside, as worry and just a hint of hope swirled around within Cora’s heart.

“Have you heard anything about these other exiles?” Brianna asked when they were halfway to the gate.

“No. The only apis seen traveling on her own that I’ve heard about is Joy. The rest were obviously members of this hive,” Cora replied automatically, her gaze playing across the apis she saw rushing about. She’d likely live as long as two hundred of them put together, or even more. She’d already lived as long as any ten of them would manage, even if they were attendants, and that was horrifying.

“Neither did I, but I hoped,” Brianna said, nodding to the guard as they left the palisade, her voice shaking. “I thought that what she did was incredibly selfless before, but now… what do we do?”

“I…” Cora paused before saying anything, her thoughts racing, then she took a deep breath and let it out, continuing more levelly. “I think we need to move on. Even if it’s a bit risky, we’re only a week from Irador. We can find out where a bigger hive is there, and that might give us a chance to save her. By all the gods, I’m not going to let her die if I can help it.”

“Fair,” Brianna said, nodding in agreement, then cracked a smile as she added, “First we need to chastise her for not telling us, though.”

Her comment prompted a laugh from Cora, and she looked at her friend incredulously.

“You think that’ll do any good?” Cora asked, skeptical that anything could darken Joy’s mood, or convince her to do something she didn’t want to.

“No, but it’ll make me feel better,” Brianna replied, shrugging.

* * *

“So, another of them has failed,” the queen said, letting out a faint sigh as she shook her head.

“Not necessarily, but most likely,” Emissary agreed, bowing her head as she stood in the queen’s chamber.

The room was far different than it’d been the previous week, much as most of the hive had been changed. There were furnishings to make the queen more comfortable, along with the attendants and drones that lived with her, and the numerous cells where she could lay her eggs. Rather than having her come to the cells, the hive had decided it made more sense to bring them to her, and replace them as needed.

Still, the situation wasn’t promising, in the queen’s opinion. Of over a dozen apis who’d been sent out in the hopes of founding new hives, they’d already found the bodies of half of them, their precious pure royal jelly either destroyed or vanished, which was a terrible thing. At least with Joy the loss had been for a good cause, but it was saddening. She couldn’t fault Emissary’s handling of the meeting, either, as nothing she’d said was untrue.

“Perhaps they’ll manage to save her. If not, and if they return here near the end of her time when she’s high enough level…” The queen paused, then shrugged. “If they do, we can give them one of our last vials. It won’t be a great risk at that point, and we’ll almost have another. Do not tell them that, however. Our need is great as well.”

“As you say, My Queen,” Emissary agreed, raising her head, then departed from the chamber.

The queen watched her go, and internally she hoped that the adventurers would save Joy. Her feelings weren’t for the worker’s sake, she knew that much, but it was for the species.

The more hives there were, the greater the chances that the apis would survive.

Chapter 4

Joy looked up from her armor as Brianna and Cora opened the door, grinning broadly as she spoke. “Welcome back! You don’t look happy, so I guess I was right?”

Then Joy paused, sniffing, then wrinkled her nose as she asked, “What’s that smell?”

“Don’t ask,” Brianna said, glaring at Cora for a moment before she closed the door and leaned against it, folding her arms. Brianna didn’t look happy, which worried Joy a little, and the auburn-haired woman glowered at Joy for a moment before she asked, “Why didn’t you tell us that you had less than six months to live?”

“What?” Stella yelped in shock, the dark-skinned woman looking up from her book at Brianna, then at Cora and Joy in turn as she demanded, “What are you talking about?”

“The attendant that met us, who went by Emissary, explained that worker apis have a lifespan of about two and a half years, and part of the reason Joy was exiled was due to how little time she had left,” Cora said wearily, looking at Joy in a way that brought a hint of pain to Joy’s heart; she looked so worried. “Giving me the pure royal jelly… if she’d turned into a queen, it would give her a century of life. Why, Joy? Giving that up… I just don’t understand why you’d do it.”

“Why not?” Joy asked, smiling back at her and shrugging, setting aside the armor and the bits of silver she’d extracted from the ore. She could deal with that later, and the others seemed to need her attention right now. “I’m a worker. From the time I hatched, I knew that my life would be short, but it would be fulfilling despite that. If I reached level twenty, if I drank the jelly… what does that matter? Those are ifs. They could have happened. I knew I could save you, so I did. That’s all there is to it.”

No one else spoke, though Joy saw Brianna reach up to rub her eyes, while Cora and Stella were looking at her in shock, Stella’s more pronounced than the others. It took a moment, but Joy realized that was probably because Cora had had time to get used to what she’d learned. On the other hand, part of the reason Joy hadn’t talked about it was because of how upset she’d seen others get over someone dying permanently.

“You… you can’t be serious? Please?” Stella asked, her voice trembling as she looked at Joy for a moment, then looked back at Cora. “You found out a way to save her, right? The hive could make more of the jelly in time, couldn’t they?”

“It takes six months, Stella,” Brianna replied softly, shaking her head. “They won’t finish until it’s too late.”

“Which isn’t to say that we don’t have other leads. There are other apis who were exiled with their own pure royal jelly, and we could try to buy it from them,” Cora said firmly, looking around the room, then focusing on Joy as she spoke flatly, in the sort of tone Joy imagined the queen might have used. “We aren’t giving up on you, Joy. You saved my life, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up on you. Emissary said that it’s possible for other hives to make pure royal jelly in as few as three months, so Brianna and I came up with a plan on our way back.”

“Oh?” Joy asked, perking up a little at the information, and her enthusiasm growing at the thought of seeing other hives. “You’re thinking of going to visit other apis? That would be neat!”

“To be accurate, we’re planning to go to Irador. That’s only a week away, and is the biggest city in the region,” Brianna corrected, exhaling slowly as she admitted, “It’s a touch early to leave the area, but there’re other places in the region we could level as well, and even if we can find out where another hive is, pure royal jelly won’t do any good if we don’t get you to twentieth level. We figure we can gather information in Irador while trying to pick up quests and level, and once we find out where a hive is, head there.”

“The only question is, do you want to join us, Stella?” Cora asked, then laughed, shaking her head as she added, “Well, I should ask Joy that, too, but I know you weren’t planning on something like this, Stella.”

“If you think I’m going to abandon you in a situation like this…” Stella began, sounding faintly outraged, then glowered at Joy as she paused, then continued. “Joy, I’ll have you know that I’m very upset you didn’t say anything about this! It’s one thing to offer to help, but sacrificing something like that without even speaking a word of it… that’s just cruel. How do you think we’d feel if you just… fell over dead, one day?”

Joy opened her mouth, then closed it, blinking a couple of times as she looked at Stella, then the others. A part of her simply couldn’t comprehend why they were so upset, it was just strange to her. Alien, perhaps. So, she tried to verbalize what she was thinking. “But… but I’m just a worker. I’m like any of my tens of thousands of sisters, and could be replaced by any of them.”

“Joy—” Stella began, her outrage obvious, but it was Cora’s cool, calm voice that cut her off.

“No they couldn’t, Joy,” Cora said, her voice oddly precise as she stared into Joy’s eyes, and there was something about her pheromones… it was hard for Joy to place, with how weak they were compared to other apis. “You are the one who’s been with us for all this time. You make our lives brighter just by being here, you saved our lives, and if one of your sisters tried to replace you, she couldn’t. Because she wouldn’t remember the things you did, and that would make her someone else. You’re you, not just anything. So I don’t want to hear a word about you being ‘just a worker’, do you hear me?”

Joy opened her mouth to reply, then paused and shrugged, instead smiling back at Cora as she spoke obediently. “Okay! So, when do we leave?”

“Not today. We still have that meeting at the guild tonight, so we can’t leave anyway,” Brianna said, and glanced down, considering for a moment, then asked, “What are you doing, anyway? Is that silver?”

“It is. She extracted it from some silver ore… I do wonder why she didn’t simply keep the metal we got out of the broken teleportation platform, but it’s her choice,” Stella said, her tone still troubled as she looked at Joy in concern.

“Because I didn’t know I needed it!” Joy replied, then held up her armor a bit proudly. “See, when I woke up I found out my armor had upgraded to level ten! So did my weapons. Problem is, they didn’t improve that much. My armor only has a defense of eight, my rapier an attack power of ten, and daggers an attack of eight.”

“That… isn’t very good,” Brianna said, frowning as she looked at the armor. “I thought that your innate armory would give you weapons and armor appropriate for your level, and that would let you avoid having to buy equipment, by and large.”

“It does! Well, sort of,” Joy said, smiling at the armor as she continued. “See, I can upgrade it! Their descriptions tell me I can use silver or iron at this level, and once upgraded, if they break I get the same upgrades when I make new ones. Or I can take another weapon and… fuse them, giving my stuff the weapon’s properties. Or armor, I mean.”

“I… see,” Cora said, then smiled slightly as she added, “I suppose that means that your innate armory is a slight boost, but not something to make everyone envious, in the end. It does help, though… so why silver, anyway?”

“It looks pretty,” Joy replied instantly, setting the armor down and picking up the bits of silver again. “I’m hoping it adds neat swirls or stripes to my armor!”

Her response prompted a ripple of laughter from the others, and Brianna nodded, then said, “Well, you’d better hurry, Joy. We’ve got that meeting soon enough, and I don’t want to be late.”

“Alright!” Joy agreed, and quickly focused on her task, humming as she worked. At the same time, though, she thought about the idea of traveling, which made her excited.

It also made her want to come up with some other lyrics to her song, though what was an entirely different question.

Chapter 5

The guild was packed with people, something which always made Cora want to leave, as she didn’t deal well with large crowds, especially when they were loud. It couldn’t be helped in this case, though, as no guild house she’d ever visited could comfortably fit all the members in the area. Usually a large portion of the guild was out on quests, so there simply wasn’t a need for that much space.

They’d at least arrived early enough to get seats at a table, which was better than most of the adventurers had managed. Rukar had taken the last chair at their table, which made Cora happier, since the green-skinned orc was a polite, reasonable conversationalist. Even better, Brianna had been the one explaining what had happened over the last few days. She could see James, Eda, and Helen at a nearby table, along with the other women they’d rescued, Jean and Marilyn. They’d nodded politely, but fortunately they hadn’t decided to come over to chat, though Cora suspected that was out of fear that their seats would be stolen the moment they left their chairs.

In all honesty, the only ones who seemed to be enjoying the number of adventurers packed into the room were the bartender and Joy. The bartender was making drinks as fast as he could with coins disappearing into his lockbox, while Joy was just looking around and humming to herself, her wings occasionally fluttering as she sipped at the water in her mug.

“—and straight into a nest of flower minks! I didn’t know they nested to begin with, since minks are supposed to be territorial, but apparently they do,” Brianna said, gesturing at Joy with her mug.

“I’m glad they don’t like the taste of bees, or of apis!” Joy said, grinning as she shifted in her chair, her armor now adorned with thin, subtle silver stripes. “One sniffed me, and I was worried until it pulled away.”

“I believe that,” Rukar said, reaching up to stroke one of his braids thoughtfully. “Still, it does open up some other possibilities, now that we know that. Perhaps—”

“Quiet down, you lot!” Isolde’s bellow cut through the hubbub almost effortlessly, and in seconds the room quieted, as everyone looked toward the Guildmaster.

Isolde was a big woman, and Cora had a healthy respect for her, as the woman likely could have killed the demon they’d encountered without breaking a sweat. The human was older, with cold eyes and a serious personality, which meant the meeting likely wasn’t going to be pleasant, particularly not since Isolde and several other retired adventurers had delved into the Blackstone Mines after Cora and the others had made it back to town and reported in. Anything that got them to come out of retirement… that worried her.

“Alright, so by this point most of you know that something happened in the Blackstone Mines.” Isolde finally spoke, looking around pointedly as she folded her arms in front of her. “A demon around level forty brought an entire clan of motini into the mines and made it a deathtrap, one which killed at least a half-dozen adventurers that we know of, and nearly killed another nine.”

The ripple of surprise through the room was almost palpable, along with fear at the mention of the demon, and plenty of people glanced in Cora’s direction, causing her to tighten her grip on her staff. Fame wasn’t always good, since it could often prompt envy as well, and adventurers… well, they weren’t always nice people.

“Regardless, some quick thinking on the part of those trapped in the mines managed to turn things around. Half the motini were killed when they collapsed part of a cavern on them, then the demon was drawn into a flower mink den, where he was forced to teleport away,” Isolde continued without pause, smiling a little as she added, “The motini haven’t been completely cleared out, unfortunately, so there will be quests going up to deal with them. We don’t want a demonic cult of them getting entrenched nearby. Unfortunately, we have another major problem.”

Isolde’s smile vanished, and a chill ran down Cora’s spine as she spoke. “This region was once the domain of a kingdom called Tarngard, which was a fairly powerful kingdom in its time. They fought against three different demon lords over the years, and were successful in part because they controlled the Blackstone Mines and had a steady supply of luminous titansteel. Unfortunately, the goblins took them off guard when they were fighting another war, and the kingdom fell. The problem is that Tarngard couldn’t destroy all of the things they fought over the centuries, so in some cases they sealed them away.”

“Ah… what do you mean? What sort of things?” one of the other adventurers piped up, his voice a touch concerned.

“A wide variety of them, from a legendary Demonic Juggernaut to several Fallen Angels, all of them were higher than level sixty,” Isolde explained bluntly, and she scowled as she continued. “Unfortunately, one of the sealing stones was hidden in the Blackstone Mines. The guild found it decades ago and hid the entrance to the sealing stone. It couldn’t be moved, as that would weaken the seal, so it was best hidden entirely. The demon stole the stone, which is one of several.”

“Oh shit,” Brianna muttered, paling slightly, and Cora swallowed.

“Yeah, that… that would explain why he was in the area,” Cora agreed, and Joy’s eyes were wide at this point, as the apis looked around the room in fascination as she took in the worried adventurers.

“I’m not telling you all about this to worry you, but it’s concerning,” Isolde said after a moment, pacing back and forth. “I don’t know what the particular stone seals away, but I’m going to need someone to take a report to Irador in the next few days. Also, if you see anything that looks like it could be the activity of the demon, I want you to report to me. If it is, there’s a good-sized award waiting for you. Don’t attack the demon, as you’re not likely to survive it, just let us know. We want to cut this demon off at the knees before he manages to free whichever monster is sealed and put the sealing stone back where it belongs.”

“Thank Mother Moon,” Stella murmured softly, closing her eyes as the woman let out a soft breath. “I was afraid we were being called on to hunt the demon directly.”

“Yes, that would be bad. Not that this isn’t terrible enough as it is,” Rukar said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “It also gives quite a bit of context, and none of it good.”

“What sort of context?” Joy asked, looking at him as her eyes shined brightly. At the same time, Cora could see Isolde answering someone’s question up front a good deal more quietly than normal. “I do understand that he’s mean, and that those creatures getting out is bad, but I’m not sure what you figured out.”

“Well, one of the things that isn’t quite as well-known is that Dark Lords aren’t just born that way, though often they are. Rather, some of them gain their title and power by performing deeds of sufficient power and destructiveness that they attract the notice of the dark gods,” Rukar explained, and let out a soft sigh as he shook his head. “It’s very, very likely that such is this demon’s goal. That’s what I meant by context.”

“Oh! That’s right, Brianna and the others told me about Dark Lords… so he’s really mean, got it,” Joy said, nodding enthusiastically. “I don’t know if we’re going to see him again, but I’d really rather not. He wasn’t very nice to me.”

“You mean he grabbed you by the throat and was strangling you,” Cora interjected, her tone dry, and just a hint of bitterness rushing through her. It was her throwing a spell at him that had led to her being poisoned, though Cora wasn’t sure what else she could have done, since Joy might not have survived if he hadn’t been distracted.

“Yes, that’s right,” Joy agreed, then paused, tilting her head as she pondered. “He also seemed really confused by me. I think he hadn’t heard about us apis yet.”

“That would make sense, if he was in the mines that entire time,” Rukar said, nodding slowly.

The sound of Isolde clearing her throat distracted them before he could continue, and Cora’s gaze rose as the Guildmaster looked around the room for a moment, then spoke. “Alright, as there don’t seem to be any major questions, I’m calling the meeting done for now. If you want to take the dispatch to Irador, come see me, and let me know immediately if you have information on the movements of any demons. There shouldn’t be any in our region to begin with. Try not to panic, either, as there are at least two seals for things like this, usually more. That gives us time to send out groups to protect the others and nip this in the bud. Be safe out there, all of you!”

The rumble of conversation abruptly increased, but at the same time people began streaming toward the front doors, to Cora’s relief. She was about to get up when Stella cleared her throat, meeting Cora’s gaze.

“Do you think we should let Isolde know we’re going to Irador?” Stella asked, having to speak loudly to make herself heard. “If we’re going there anyway, it seems like it’d be a good idea. If she wants to go with someone else, she could, but more income never hurts.”

“True!” Cora said, looking at the others, and Joy just shrugged, grinning, while Brianna laughed and stood.

“I’ll go let Isolde know. How about you go to the temple, Cora? You may as well get the token for your job change,” Brianna suggested, grinning. “We’re a good part of the way to level fifteen, so you never know when we’ll hit it.”

“I was going to save that to buy—” Cora began, only to have Joy interrupt.

“Go ahead, Cora!” Joy said brightly, smiling at her. “We have to find someone who has the jelly, first, and I got a lot of coins from the sales! I’d rather you were able to get your job, than miss it if we could afford the jelly anyway.”

“You heard her,” Brianna said firmly, making a shooing gesture. “Now go!”

“In that case, I suppose I’d best get back to the inn as well. I need to discuss what to do with my group,” Rukar said, standing and nodding to them as Brianna headed toward Isolde. “Have a good journey, all of you.”

“I’ll try!” Joy chirped, standing and all but diving into the flow of people heading toward the exit. It shocked Cora how easily she moved through them, though considering how busy the hive had been, she supposed that it wasn’t that shocking.

Stella laughed and stood, looking at Cora as she said, “I’ll come with you, Cora. I’d like to pray at the shrine, and someone has to keep an eye on Joy.”

“Especially now that she can fly,” Cora agreed, grinning, though she found her emotions tinged with more concern than she could rightfully explain.

In either case, they quickly hurried after Joy, or as much as they could with people crowding the exit.

Chapter 6

“Alright, here you go, Cora. Be careful with this, you hear me?” Ryan said, offering her the wooden token carefully. “They aren’t that common outside of elven lands, you know.”

“I know. It’s half of the reason I came to Seldrim to begin with, since I knew that the temple here had the tokens,” Cora said, taking the token and studying it, then added, “They aren’t that fragile, either. Unless you target them with death magic, they tend to be really sturdy.”

The token was made of polished, gold-veined wood that’d been carved with a complex magical symbol, a circle with seemingly endless interconnecting lines within it, and even the touch of it made Cora feel better. It was the innate life energy of the token, she knew, and she mentally reached out to the item.

Token of the Tree of Life (Level 15)

Made of the wood of the Tree of Life, this token has had a fragment of the tree’s magic imbued into it. The possessor of this token may choose to consume it to take one of several rare jobs on reaching level fifteen or above.

“If you say so. I know we’ll try to get another, just because it’s nice to have those on hand for the people who’re going for rare jobs, but it will probably take a while,” Ryan said, shrugging and glancing at Stella, who was at the small shrine to Mother Moon behind some of the more popular shrines. “I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving, though.”

“There’s no real choice, at this point. If we want to help Joy, we have to,” Cora said, internally debating on whether or not to tell him how much time the apis had left. Before she could make a decision, he spoke again.

“Speaking of Joy, where is she?” Ryan asked, looking around curiously. “Is she with Brianna?”

“No, she said she wanted to see what the view was like from on top of the church spire, so we left her outside,” Cora replied, and couldn’t help a smile as Ryan opened his mouth, then shut it, looking at her in confusion.

“Ah… the only way to the top of the spire is through the bell tower, and that’s not accessible from outside,” Ryan said, looking at a side door for a moment. “She didn’t decide to climb the exterior of the church, did she? That would be dangerous.”

“No, of course not,” Cora said, her private amusement growing stronger as she decided to take pity on him and continued. “She has wings now, Ryan.”

Ryan’s mouth snapped shut, and his embarrassment was entertaining enough to make Cora smile.

* * *

Joy balanced on the spire, happy it wasn’t too narrow. The copper rod sticking out of its peak puzzled her, but it didn’t respond to her mental prodding, which meant it wasn’t an item she could figure out that way. Since she couldn’t, the apis decided to ignore the rod to admire the view as the sun settled toward the horizon.

The light this late in the day was closer to orange than to yellow, with hints of red that played off the clouds above her, and Joy breathed in slowly, enjoying the fresh air as she looked out over the town, with the glow the sun gave the buildings and the growing shadows they cast. It was beautiful and fascinating, one of the things she enjoyed about being an apis. As a bee, she didn’t really see red before, and pausing to take in the beauty of anything other than a nectar-rich flower had been completely beyond her. It had been practically incomprehensible, in fact, which was a little saddening, when she thought about it that way.

Still, she could enjoy it now, and that was what mattered to her, looking across the sky as she took deep breaths of the lovely air. The world was so huge, and she was so small compared to it. It made her happy that the others wanted to extend her life, because Joy wanted to see all of it.

As she thought, Joy spotted a bee go zipping by, wavering back and forth through the air due to the gusts of wind, and she wondered what it was doing up so high, but all she could do was laugh and hum at it for a moment.

“Fly, little bee, fly!” Joy said, grinning broadly.

“Joy!” Cora’s voice was tiny, and the apis looked down to see the elf and Stella in front of the church, or rather, a bit off to the side so they could see her. Cora was waving, and called out. “Come down, we’re done!”

“Be right there!” Joy said, then laughed at herself as she murmured. “Bee, indeed!”

She took flight, abandoning the setting sun as she headed for the ground and her friends.

Chapter 7

The fires throughout the encampment were being kept small, like Major Damaris had ordered, but they still produced more smoke than she liked, and the human tapped her leg unhappily as she considered them for a moment, then let out a sigh and shook her head.

“No matter, I suppose,” Damaris murmured.

“Lady Damaris?” Velk asked, the big orc sounding a touch confused. “Is something the matter?”

“Oh, I was just considering whether the smoke would give us away or not,” Damaris said, waving a hand dismissively. “Lord Alethus commanded us to move quietly to begin with, after all.”

“Ah, of course! Do you want me to have the fires doused?” Velk asked, glancing around the encampment as he rubbed his chin, pausing rather than honing his beloved axe further. Few people took as much care of their weapons as he did, something which amused Damaris much of the time.

The camp wasn’t enormous, not with the relatively small number of soldiers they could slip across the border, but the people Damaris had weren’t the common riffraff that most armies were made up of. Most armies had level seven or eight soldiers as standard, with level ten and above being relatively rare, but that wasn’t the case where Alethus’s soldiers were concerned. Every soldier in the camp was at least level ten, all four hundred of them, and the squad leaders were level fifteen. Even better, this was only one of Alethus’s battalions, not even close to his entire army, and he’d equipped them with excellent gear.

The soldiers themselves were about as varied as could be, though. There were demons, dwarves, elves, dark elves, humans, orcs, and even a couple of giants and trolls among their number, though hill giants were the biggest she’d dared bring with her, at about nine feet tall. Any bigger and she’d have a hard time hiding them, which was a touch vexing, but Damaris did what she had to. The majority of her soldiers were human, but that was to be expected, as one of the most common species.

“Don’t bother. We’re nowhere near any towns, so at worst some adventurers will come investigate, and that’ll go poorly for them. This is a level five region, from what we’ve heard,” Damaris said, shaking her head. “No, we should be fine. Are the officers gathered yet?”

“They are,” Velk replied, nodding in understanding. Damaris was just glad he’d gotten over his arguments with some of the elves in the battalion, as he was an excellent warrior. She’d have hated to give him up to another commander, and for more reasons than just his fighting prowess.

“Excellent, then it’s time to get to work,” Damaris said, turning toward the command tent and nodding inwardly, happy that it wasn’t too ornate. It’d been hard to convince the quartermasters to be subtle.

She made her way through the battalion and into the tent. A makeshift table had been unfolded, on which was a map of the region. Around it were the four captains that led her companies. Two men and two women waited for her, the men a handsome human and a brown-bearded dwarf, while the women were a scarred half-elf and a pretty, silver-skinned dark elf. Damaris trusted all of them, and she smiled as they saluted.

“At ease, there’s no need for that here,” Damaris said, and nodded at the map as she added, “That said, I know all of you have been wondering what we’re doing here. We’re pretty far from home, and without much support.”

“Well, yeah, of course! Getting hustled through a teleportation portal in the middle of the night does kind of make the troops wonder, let alone me,” Egan said, the dwarf tugging on his beard as he grinned. “Not that I’m not looking forward to some action, mind you! Training is good, but it gets stale, from time to time.”

“There also are the rumors that Our Lord was injured making the rounds. The troops are concerned,” Ovlin said, the dark elf’s voice sharper than her appearance might have indicated.

“Yes, well, it’s time for me to tell you,” Damaris said, and her smile vanished as she continued. “Now, first of all, Our Lord is fine. He was injured, yes, but it wasn’t anything permanent, and Minna informed me that he claims he was overconfident when facing a level ten woman who, unfortunately, possessed luminous titansteel. Still, he completed his objective, which is why we’re here.”

There were looks of concern between the others, but they held their tongues, obviously trusting that Damaris would get on with it. She appreciated that, considering the situation, and she reached out to touch a dot that indicated a town.

“This is our target, Bearton. It’s a town bordering several areas that are primarily good for level five to ten adventurers, and most of the locals don’t exceed level ten,” Damaris explained, and grimaced as she added, “The exception is the head of the local adventurer’s guild, Abigail the Red. She’s a level twenty-four Pyromancer, and we’ve been asked to capture her if at all possible, to give her the chance to turn. The rest of the town should be easy to deal with, as long as we avoid the Teeming Jungle to the south of the Bearwood.”

“I’m guessing there’s a lot of bears in the area, based on the names,” Leah said, the half-elf looking a bit dour.

“Yes, but again, they aren’t too dangerous,” Damaris said, smiling in return, then looked around the table. “Now, as to our goal. We’re here to search the guild’s records and find the location of the hidden sealing stones from Tarngard. It’s not going to be an easy job, likely as not, which is why we were sent. Leah, Thomas, you two are going to be in charge of setting up a perimeter around Bearton when we get there, along with security after we take it. I don’t want anyone getting out with word that we showed up, if at all possible. Thomas will have command, just to be clear.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Thomas said, the blond man bowing his head graciously while Leah nodded.

“Now, once we have the town, Ovlin will be in charge of recruiting. If we’re here, we may as well give it a try, as Our Lord does love recruiting those with good potential,” Damaris said, resisting the urge to smile at Ovlin’s look of disgust, since she knew why the woman disliked the job. Her company had a slightly larger number of beautiful women among them, which gave them an edge in recruiting, even if Ovlin didn’t like it. “Egan and I are going to focus on getting the information we need, and his company will be the primary pathfinders when we figure out where the sealing stone is. Shala is good at cryptography, so she should be able to break any code they have, given some time.”

“Sounds good to me, and it explains why they chose us. My lads and lasses are solid scouts, that’s for sure,” Egan said, tugging on his beard thoughtfully. “May I ask what this sealing stone is for?”

“Of course. Supposedly it’s one of the keys to release a monster unleashed by the Orthid Empire, ages ago, though which one I’m not sure,” Damaris said, shrugging slightly. “I don’t know where the creature was sealed, but I know this is the only remaining key Our Lord hasn’t located. The other… well, that’s why we have an army. Once we have this seal, he’s intending to march on the last one. If he releases it, then the Kingdoms of Light will be in serious trouble.”

“And then he’ll likely rise as a Dark Lord,” Leah murmured, smiling slowly. “So we’re the instrument of his will, in this case.”

“Precisely. And we will not betray his trust, is that clear?” Damaris said, looking around the table fiercely.

Their rumble of agreement improved her mood immensely, and after a moment Damaris nodded and spoke. “Now then, we’re still several days away from Bearton, so how do you suggest going about this, Leah, Thomas? Do you want to detach and cut off the road separately, or travel together?”

“I think traveling together will increase the odds of us being spotted,” Thomas said, his voice calm as he tapped a spot on the map. “If we split up around here, a little over a day out from the town, I suspect we could get closer without being seen, which…”

The others quickly began chiming in with their own advice, and Damaris nodded in satisfaction.

Chapter 8

Cora resisted the urge to laugh as she watched Joy prancing along the low cobblestone wall a farmer had built along the edge of the road, singing under her breath, just loud enough for everyone else to hear her.

I’m a bee, I’m a bee, but not a bum-ble-bee.

I’m a bee, I’m a bee, and I’m a trav-el-ing!

We’re on the road and there’s so much to see,

The world’s so huge and it makes me so hap-pee!

I’m a bee, I’m a bee, but not a bum-ble-bee.

The song was incredibly silly, and Joy wasn’t the best singer, with her voice wavering on some of the longer lines, but it was incredibly upbeat, just like the apis was. If there’d been more people within earshot, Cora might have been a little embarrassed by Joy’s singing, but she wouldn’t have stopped Joy either way.

They weren’t near anyone else, though, as the farmer was on the far side of his field, and the area was sparsely populated. There were several sturdy farmhouses in line of sight, but the farmers themselves were busy, and they were well away from Seldrim by this point. Grasslands stretched out in front of them, creating a long tapestry of green and gold. It wasn’t the sort of terrain that Cora preferred, but it showed they were going in the right direction.

“Joy?” Brianna finally interrupted, her tone questioning.

“Yes, Bri?” Joy asked, hopping off the wall, her wings fluttering to make it an unusually high jump before the apis landed softly on the road, barely raising any dust when she did.

“Why do you sing that you’re a bee, when you’re an apis now?” Brianna asked, looking at the apis curiously. “I didn’t think anything of it when you were in the flower, back when we first heard you, but it’s been about a week, now.”

“Oh, that’s easy!” Joy said, grinning as she spun around, her arms outstretched. “I may be apis, but that doesn’t rhyme as well! I’m not good at coming up with words for a song to begin with, so I’m trying to use a tune I already figured out.”

“Maybe you should have been a bard. That might have helped you come up with better words,” Stella suggested, a bubble of amusement in her voice.

Unfortunately for Cora, she couldn’t quite keep herself from laughing at that and shook her head as she spoke up. “I don’t know about that. Have you heard some of the lyrics that bards have thought were a good idea?”

Stella paused, thinking for a moment, then conceded. “A definite point.”

“Where are we going, again? You called it, um, Irador, right? The same place that we’re taking Isolde’s message?” Joy asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she thought.

“That’s right. Irador is the biggest city in the region, and while we normally wouldn’t be going there quite yet, this isn’t too early, either,” Brianna said, pausing for a few seconds before she continued. “The nice thing is, it also gives us a chance to get the titansteel ore you gathered melted down into ingots, then we can have it made into something useful. No one in Seldrim would be able to process it, let alone forge anything out of it.”

“Oh, good! So, what’s Irador like?” Joy asked eagerly, continuing along the road. “Is it like Seldrim? Or the Ragged Keep?”

“I’d say it’s closer to being like the town, though the city has some similarities…” Stella began, then her voice trailed off as she considered for a moment, looking at Cora curiously as she added, “You know, I don’t think that we’ve ever told Joy about the country we’re in, let alone anything else. Given everything else we’ve explained, it might be a good idea to give her some of the background on the region.”

Cora opened her mouth, then shut it again, feeling a little annoyed with herself. Of course Joy wouldn’t have any idea about the rest of the world, when her entire short life had been inside the Flower Forest. She’d been so excited by leaving town and seeing regular plants that Cora really should have known better, but it simply hadn’t occurred to her before.

“You’re right,” Cora said, smiling wryly as she shook her head. “I didn’t think about it, so never even considered explaining it. I’m sorry, Joy.”

“Don’t be! I mean, do you know much about how a hive works?” Joy asked, obviously rhetorically, as she continued immediately. “I don’t expect to know everything; that’s why I ask about it!”

“Fair,” Cora said, marshalling her thoughts as she pulled out a waterskin to take a drink, which gave her a few moments to figure out where to start. Then she continued. “So, we’re in a kingdom that’s predominantly ruled by humans, named Astonia. To make that a little clearer, it’s ruled by a king or queen, a bit like your hive might be, but there are groups of… think of them as subsidiary hives beneath them. Irador is the capital of the Duchy of Dorma, where we are. The man who rules it is Duke Dorma, and his family has ruled for about a century and a half.”

“Ooh…” Joy said in awe, her eyes huge. “That’s amazing, that people can control areas for so long! You said we’re a week from Irador, so does that mean the… the duchy extends that far in every direction?”

“No, the borders are a bit more irregular than that,” Brianna chimed in calmly, nodding to the east, which was somewhat to their right as she explained. “The border with the Kingdoms of Darkness, or whichever group claims those areas this year, is only a few days east of Irador. I’ve heard that the duke officially claims some of the lands they’ve occupied as his, but they haven’t been ruled by Astonia in over fifty years.”

“That’s right. The wars between each side cause the border to shift every so often, but for the most part it stays fairly close to where it was, except in the rare cases a kingdom is conquered or defects,” Cora said, thinking sourly about the creation of the dark elves and the loss of the lands they’d taken with them. The worst part about them, in her opinion, was that while some of them could be identified by sight, with more unnatural skin colors, most dark elves were virtually indistinguishable from elves. She shook off her distraction after a moment, though, continuing. “Either way, there are close to fifty kingdoms on our continent, which is a huge landmass in the middle of the sea. There are other continents as well, but for the most part those are the destination of very high-level adventurers, if anyone.”

“We’re also in one of the kingdoms that’s relatively easy for low-level adventurers to progress in,” Stella added, “Most kingdoms have areas where anyone can level reasonably well, but I believe the most dangerous area of Astonia is appropriate for level forty adventurers.”

“Interesting!” Joy said, considering for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful. “That means the demon guy… Alethus? He was really strong for the kingdom, wasn’t he? Could a group of powerful bad people just… walk in and destroy the kingdom? Like the sealed monsters that they were talking about.”

“Well… in theory, yes,” Cora admitted, a little troubled by the thought, but she forged through it, trying to explain what everyone knew. “The thing is, both sides are relatively evenly matched on the whole. While a group of high-level soldiers could come and rip through Astonia with ease, they wouldn’t be able to take over the entire kingdom before Astonia’s allies could respond. They just can’t move fast enough to do something like that. On the other hand, if they left the areas they’re currently in, their opponents in that region would take advantage and do the same thing to them as they were doing to Astonia. It just isn’t really worth it for them to try.”

“I see! Well, hear,” Joy said, nodding vigorously as she tugged on a lock of hair. “That makes sense. It’s sort of like another hive trying to take your territory by moving workers from another spot, and you just take their spots while they’re distracted.”

“Yes. To answer your earlier question, though, Irador is big, Joy. It has lots of buildings that are much larger than anything in Seldrim, and large stone walls they can use to defend it,” Brianna said, smiling. “It won’t have nearly as many people as you’d prefer, but it’s fairly crowded compared to Seldrim. I even think they have a few greenhouses with unusual flowers that you might be able to go see.”

“Ooh, flowers? What sort of flowers? And what are greenhouses?” Joy asked eagerly, perking up at the information, prompting a laugh from Cora.

“All sorts, Joy. There are flowers from areas far away, ones that normally wouldn’t grow around here,” Cora said, shrugging as she admitted, “I personally don’t know a lot about them. A greenhouse, though… think of a house with glass walls. It’s designed to make it warmer, and they can make it more humid inside, to help grow plants year-round.”

“Oh, that’s amazing!” Joy said excitedly. “I can’t wait to see it!”

“You’re going to have to wait about a week, Joy,” Stella said, chuckling softly as she did so. “We also have to cross a couple of areas with more monsters, so don’t forget to keep track of your surroundings, hm?”

“Alright, I can do that!” Joy agreed, and quickly turned to head along the road, obviously eager to get there.

Cora followed at a more sedate pace, along with the others. Even if Joy seemed to have an inexhaustible source of energy, they didn’t, so they had to pace themselves.

Thinking about it, Cora asked softly, “Do you think Joy ever gets tired?”

“I’m not sure,” Brianna replied, glancing at Cora in amusement. “She did say that she could stay up for a day or so without issues. Maybe that’s why they don’t get fat off honey?”

“I wouldn’t say that she doesn’t get tired, but I don’t think she’d say anything even if she was. Joy’s the type to do everything she can to keep from depressing other people,” Stella said, shrugging idly. “In any case, I’m sure we’ll see, eventually. She has to sleep sometime, after all. We saw it in the caves.”

“True enough,” Cora admitted, and let out a breath, murmuring, “I’m not letting her die.”

“Agreed,” Stella said fervently.

Chapter 9

Damaris let out a breath, stretching as she stepped out of the guild house. When her back popped she let out a soft grunt, but it felt good, so she relaxed after a few moments, looking around Bearton with a smile. Only a faint tickle of smoke teased her nose, which showed that they’d taken the town with a minimum of destruction. That was good, since it meant that it was less likely for anyone to notice that they’d taken the town.

Not impossible, though, and Damaris’s smile faded as she recalled the message she’d gotten from Thomas, reporting that a single elven archer had managed to slip by them. They’d hit her with a poisoned arrow, but had lost the woman’s trail before long. The chances of a low-level adventurer surviving a poisoned arrow weren’t good, but they weren’t impossible… and that concerned Damaris a great deal. She’d rest easier if the woman revived in the temple, but that hadn’t happened yet.

“Ah, well. Spilt milk, and all that,” Damaris said, looking around a town that was oddly deserted, considering it was the middle of the day, aside from her soldiers, of course.

Bearton wasn’t huge to begin with, and its wall was the only impressive thing about it, in her opinion. The wall was stone and about eight feet tall, plus it was kept in good repair. Unfortunately for the locals, it hadn’t done much good when it’d only been patrolled by a handful of guards who’d been wishing they were back in their beds rather than keeping an eye out for enemies.

There were only six hundred inhabitants of the town, all told, and a lot of its economy seemed to be based around the adventurers who got their start in the region, between plots of herbs for brewing weak healing potions, basic materials for crafting their gear, and the minor shops that dotted the small town square, along with a reasonably sized adventurer’s guild and a decent temple.

The only people that had put up much of a fight had been the Guildmaster and several of her subordinates, but they’d been outmatched by Damaris, Egan, Ovlin, and Velk. Any one of them had been higher-level than most of the defenders, with better gear, so the group of them together had taken down the Pyromancer before she’d managed to more than singe a couple of them. The Guildmaster was currently cooling her heels in the guild prison, something Damaris found bitterly ironic, considering it was normally reserved for adventurers who started attacking locals.

“Lady Damaris? We’ve searched the last of the buildings, and are fairly sure all the adventurers are in custody. We’ve also confiscated most of the weapons in town,” Velk said, almost surprising Damaris as she looked away from the silly statue in the center of the town square, an eight-foot-tall bronze bear, both paws raised as though it was going to maul someone.

“Excellent. I was wondering if it would take most of the day, but you got it done quite efficiently, Velk,” Damaris said, smiling and nodding to him in approval. “Did the locals give you any trouble?”

“A few of the younger ones dragged their heels, but the older folks told them off, saying that this wouldn’t be the first time the town changed sides,” Velk said, and grinned toothily as he added, “I think they expect that we’re here to occupy the town permanently, not just on a raid.”

“Hm, not a bad assumption, honestly. A lot of these little towns have had that happen. I mean, think about the midlands,” Damaris said, nodding to the south before she added, “The cities there have switched sides so many times over the years that everyone rules them with a light hand. It isn’t worth destroying cities that might be your breadbasket for a few decades a couple of years down the road.”

“I suppose so,” Velk admitted after a moment of thought, shrugging and looking at her curiously. “How long do you think we’ll be here? I didn’t get a chance to see the records room.”

At that Damaris’s smile faded and she grimaced, shaking her head in annoyance.

“Unless we can get their record-keeper to talk, Shala says it isn’t going to be easy. Probably a week, maybe two, which will be cutting things close,” Damaris admitted unhappily. “They have a lot of records, and it’s going to take time to wade through it and find what we’re looking for. If we’re lucky we’ll stumble across it early on, but they don’t have an index that we could find.”

“Alright, then. If you don’t mind, I’ll deliberately try to give the locals the impression we’re here to stay,” Velk said, rubbing his chin as he looked around, then admitted, “It isn’t a bad town, I have to say. A little smaller than I’d like, and not enough challenges in the area for people like us, but that’s the case of a lot of these sorts of places.”

“Unless we go into the Teeming Jungle, anyway. From the warnings I saw on the board inside, that is appropriate for adventurers of level fifteen and higher,” Damaris said, shrugging as she glanced at the guild house again. “Not something to really challenge us, but there’re plenty of things in it that could be a threat. I even saw a notice that there was one of those new apis hives in there, somewhere.”

“Really? That could be interesting. In fact, I’d bet that the sealing stone is there, rather than in the other areas around town,” Velk said, grinning. “I’ll bet you a thousand coins, if you want.”

Damaris blinked, staring at him for a moment before demanding, “How in all the gods do you reason that, Velk? We haven’t even started going through the records!”

“Simple. The boss got the first one from some mines in the Flower Forest, right?” Velk asked, tilting his head as he waited for confirmation.

“Well, yes, that’s true,” Damaris agreed, starting to piece together his logic.

“See? The Teeming Jungle is another of those places with lots of huge plants and insects, though it has nasty animals too. It has an apis nest near it, too, though I’m not sure if that has anything to do with it,” Velk said cheerfully, and shrugged. “Anyway, if I’m going to try to figure out anything that’s similar about the areas they’re in, that’s what I’m going to guess.”

“Hm… I don’t know, but you could be right,” Damaris admitted, considering what he’d said, then shrugged. “Ah, heck with it. I’ll take your bet, Velk, and I’ll even focus on the records about the Teeming Jungle first. If you’re right, I’ll consider it coin well spent, since it’ll at least have cut a huge amount of time off our trip.”

“Fair!” Velk said, grinning back at her. “And if I lose, I’m wrong. Either way, I’m not too worried, Major. I’ll keep the town in order, promise.”

“Good enough. In that case, get back to work, you big lunk. I’m not convinced that the townsfolk are as cowed as they may claim,” Damaris replied, grinning up at him as she patted him on the shoulder. “It’d be just like them to try to lure us into a false sense of security. Go ahead and call in the majority of Thomas and Leah’s people, too.”

“Alright,” the orc agreed, and he headed off to get to work.

Damaris laughed under her breath, then turned back to the guild house. She had her own job to do, and she’d rather get it done before anyone came to screw up their plans.

Chapter 10

“Joy, down!” Cora said, and Joy dodged downward instantly, trusting the elf knew what she was doing.

A bolt of fire flew through the spot Joy had occupied a moment before, slamming into the man-sized bird’s chest. It let out a pained squawk as it fell from the air, and Joy quickly spun around as she heard the rush of wings from behind her, dodging to the side and stabbing instinctively. Her blade bit into the bird briefly as it passed, its talons closing on open air. She let it go, panting as she did so. Hopefully her venom would deal with the bird, like it had a couple of others.

Fifteen of the dappled brown birds had attacked them from nowhere only a couple of minutes earlier, and Joy was still trying to get her bearings. With Brianna and Stella only having melee weapons, it’d been left to Cora and Joy to thin the numbers of the birds before their swooping strikes did anyone in, since Joy could at least fly. She wasn’t as fast as the birds, but she was more maneuverable, which had saved her from several attacks. As it was, Joy had taken a couple of nasty scratches so far, and all of the others had a few injuries as well.

Bouncing through the air, Joy kept moving, her head turning quickly as she tried to take everything in. There were times she missed the wider field of vision that she’d had as a bee, but there was nothing she could do about that.

A flicker of movement from below caught Joy’s attention, though, and she dove suddenly as the bird lunged up over a treetop, aiming for Cora. Joy slammed into it just in time, burying her blade in its back, then twisted and recovered her sword as she glanced around. Cora smiled at her briefly, but extended her staff in the opposite direction.

“Lightning Blast!” the mage exclaimed, and a bolt of lightning launched from her hands at a fleeing bird, dropping it from the sky.

“Is that all of them?” Stella asked warily, her shield still raised, and the bodies of two birds that she’d managed to fell when they came too close around her. The human was bleeding from a gash in her shoulder, but she didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

“I don’t know,” Joy said, glancing around nervously. “I don’t hear any of them, but I saw about fifteen. Did we get that many?”

“I think so,” Brianna said, shoving a quartet away from her with a boot. “I see seven here, and Cora just took care of two, which leaves six. I’m pretty sure that each of you took out at least three more apiece, but I’m not entirely sure. You scattered them across the area.”

Cora nodded and slowly lowered her staff, letting out a soft breath as she spoke. “That sounds right, yes. I suspect there were sixteen, not fifteen, since I’m sure Joy took out four, aside from this one. Ironbeaks aren’t fun… they must be trying to feed their hatchlings, with this many coming after us.”

“Hatchlings?” Joy asked, blinking, then frowned in worry, suddenly growing concerned as she wiped off her rapier, then sheathed it. “Should we get rid of them? If we’re getting close to Irador, aren’t they a threat?”

“No, there’s no point. Ironbeaks nest in hard to reach sections of the mountains,” Brianna said, pointing off toward the looming mountains to their south. “We’d have to go really far out of our way, and we might run into entire flocks of them. Besides, the city will be fine.”

“Oh?” Joy asked, her eyes brightening a little as she looked at the woman, hearing hints of another explanation. She loved hearing more about the world, and the towns and villages they’d passed through over the past several days had been fascinating. “Why is that?”

Stella laughed quietly, smiling as she murmured, “Minor Healing.”

A light wreathed the human, healing her injuries slowly, but Cora cleared her throat, distracting Joy as she pointed off into the distance, down the road. “Do you see the shimmer in the air, Joy?”

“Um…” Joy looked down the road, squinting slightly. The sun was still to their east, which made it a little hard, so she shaded her eyes for a moment, then smiled as she exclaimed, “Ooh, yes! There’s a sparkle in the sky!”

That’s exactly what it was, too. There were rolling green hills in the distance, and in front of them were faint sparkling motes, almost like she’d see on the surface of a river, or on rocks like quartz. It was strange seeing it in the sky, but delightfully pretty.

“That’s the repulsion barrier,” Brianna said, nodding to Stella as the Acolyte started healing her. “It’s not something that’s put up around most cities, building one is just too expensive, but it gently urges monsters above level four to leave the barrier. I think it covers what… a ten-mile radius around the city?”

“Something like that,” Cora agreed, nodding happily, then added, “Not that it’s a perfect defense, Joy. Monsters that are determined can enter it just fine, as can those commanded by magi. It just makes the environment around the cities safer for starting adventurers or common folk.”

“Ah, okay! That seems useful!” Joy agreed, and grinned as Stella finished healing Brianna, adding, “Thank you, Stella! It’s really nice of you to heal us.”

“You were defending all of us, so it’s the least I could do,” Stella replied, smiling warmly in return. “Minor Healing.”

The soft mist of green light left Stella’s hands to wrap around Joy, and the apis let out a breath of happiness as the pain of her wounds slowly eased, then vanished. She really did like healing magic, after some of the injuries she’d had before.

“It’s still appreciated,” Cora said, her voice gentler than normal as she spoke. “I think we don’t say it enough, on the whole… but thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Stella said calmly. “Still, we should get going soon, if we’re going to reach the gates before sundown. Do we want anything off the ironbeaks?”

“Their talons are prized in some crafting, as are some of their feathers,” Brianna suggested as Joy opened her eyes again. “We don’t have a lot of inventory space left, though. I’d say just their talons, since those will sell better.”

“I’ll gather those, then!” Joy chirped, and quickly rushed off to the nearest ironbeak, belatedly realizing that she’d been standing practically on top of one of them. Her embarrassment only lasted a moment, though, as she decided to come back to that one in a minute.

Cora laughed, then called out. “Just watch out for any other monsters! Where there’s one type, there can always be others!”

“I will!” Joy replied cheerfully, then got to work.

She didn’t particularly like harvesting from creatures, but it was the nature of being an adventurer, she supposed. She’d far prefer harvesting from flowers, but none of the ones outside the Flower Forest had been very large, so far, and it wasn’t worth the time to go through an entire field of tiny flowers. Besides, those had their own hives of bees nearby, and she didn’t want to steal their nectar.

* * *

“Wow! Those are some big buildings!” Joy exclaimed, looking at the city in awe.

It was much later in the day, and Irador had come into sight a couple of hours before, but she hadn’t really been able to tell how big it was until they were closer. It was only when she saw the men patrolling the walls that she’d realized they were close to thirty feet tall, and that made the immense buildings at the center of the city nearly four times that tall, which boggled her mind. The buildings were made of stone, too, and trying to get it up that high was astounding to her. In particular, the one with the four immense spires impressed her, along with all the glass in its windows.

“When we visited your old hive, it looked like they were well on their way to matching the cathedral,” Cora said, glancing at Joy in amusement. “They were working on a fifth floor to one tower when we were there, and that’s about half the height of the buildings here.”

“Yes, but that’s wax. This is all stone, and I have no idea how you’d go about building it!” Joy exclaimed, gesturing at the big buildings in excitement. “Sure, maybe the hive will be able to make something like that eventually, but that doesn’t make those any less amazing! Can we go look inside them?”

“We’re going to have to, if we’re going to make sure that we resurrect here rather than in Seldrim, in case of death,” Brianna said dryly, nodding at the big building. “The cathedral will likely be busy, but we can always go in the morning. The other buildings… well, the palace is going to be well and truly off-limits, so there won’t really be an opportunity to go there.”

“And don’t think about flying up to take a look, Joy,” Cora said quickly, looking at her with just a bit of worry. “The guards rarely have a sense of humor, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they simply shot you.”

“Alright, I’ll just treat it like it’s another hive,” Joy replied immediately, almost bouncing in her eagerness. “Can we go? I want to see as much of the city as we can!”

“Sure,” Cora said, visibly relaxing as she nodded. “We’ll probably go to the guild first, then find a nice inn for the night.”

“That sounds excellent. While the one in Seldrim wasn’t bad, it wasn’t good either,” Stella said, stretching as she grimaced, then admitted. “I think the inns here aren’t as nice as ones out west. On the other hand, they do have some good aspects… the places back home tend to have more people using drugs that they shouldn’t.”

They started down the road, and as they did so, Joy blinked, thinking about what Stella had said. While she hadn’t heard the term before, she knew what drugs were, as it was one of those things that’d popped into her memory when she turned into an apis. And as it did, she frowned slightly, mulling over the concept of them, and the idea of addiction.

“Why would they even use drugs? I haven’t thought about them before, but I know a little…” Joy said, tilting her head as she thought. “They can add special abilities, or even boost your body at a price, right? Or just make you feel good, but they also tend to ad… addict you, yes?”

“Essentially, yes,” Stella said, looking at the others curiously. “Do you want to handle this one?”

“Sadly, it sounds like you have more experience with drugs than we do,” Brianna said, glancing at Cora. “Oh, my dad got addicted to strength drugs for a while, he liked how strong they made him, but in the end my mother put her foot down. I honestly don’t even remember it happening, but she was adamant that I never even try them.”

“As for me, my mother is an Alchemist, as I mentioned once before. If I so much as looked like I might get addicted to something, she cut me off entirely,” Cora added, wrinkling her nose unhappily. “That made the time I broke my arm really unpleasant. She didn’t let me have any potions to deal with the pain, and I’d been taking a few too many healing potions, so I got to heal the natural way.”

“Ooh, that couldn’t have been fun,” Stella said, wincing sympathetically, but paused, thinking for a moment before she continued. “I grew up in an area that was largely desert, Joy. Not many plants, little water… I imagine it would be hell for an apis. Anyway, the only plants that really grew easily are those that are easy to process into drugs. Oh, some of them can be medicines as well, but when a lot of people are looking for ways to stop caring about their troubles, they sometimes turn to drugs. It… isn’t pleasant to watch, much of the time.”

Joy blinked, then opened her mouth to speak before thinking better of it. She thought for a minute, then spoke softly. “We’re really different, aren’t we?”

“Joy?” Cora asked, blinking at her in confusion.

“Apis, we’re really different,” Joy explained, looking back at her as the apis felt just a hint of sorrow for the others. “In our society, we have our place, yes… I’m a worker, or was a worker, and I was considered expendable. However, at the same time, the hive would never simply abandon me if I was injured or unhappy. The other workers would give me company and cheer me up, and so long as I did my part I’d always have somewhere to rest and honey to eat. I even heard that the humblebees had started healing the injured workers when they came back to the hive. Even when they exiled me, they sent me off with enough food to last the rest of my life, the supplies necessary to survive while I tried to find my place in the world, and the opportunity to become a queen as well. That… isn’t what it’s like for the rest of you, is it?”

“Well… no, not really,” Brianna admitted, letting out a soft sigh as she shook her head. “I think there are a few major things that cause the differences, Joy, but there are some similarities you might not be seeing.”

“Oh? What might those be?” Joy asked, cheering up a little as she looked at Brianna, her mood improving at the reassuring tone.

“A huge part of your people is that without your queen, you’ll all die. That gives you a focus that other species really don’t have, at least not among any of the species I know of,” Brianna explained. She gestured at the city ahead of them as she continued. “On the other hand, just about any human or elf can continue the species with another of our people, provided one is male and the other is female.”

“As long as you don’t mind inbreeding,” Stella muttered sourly.

“Shush, that’s beside the point,” Brianna scolded, to Joy’s amusement. “The point is that we can. And that means that we have far more reasons to be selfish than the apis do, since we don’t have the survival of the entire species resting on our shoulders. On the other hand, we do have families, and those often act a bit like the apis hives, even if they vary a good deal more.”

“True!” Cora said, her eyes brightening. “Like Joy said about the apis, as long as we try, most of our families will do their best to help the others get by. Unless the entire family is in a bad position and barely surviving, it won’t usually abandon a family member.”

“Ah! I didn’t realize that it worked like that!” Joy said, enthusiasm rushing through her as she nodded. “I’ve only really seen all of you adventurers, and a few shopkeepers! I thought you were all really, really independent, like me. Or a little like me.”

The others were quiet for a few seconds, then a chorus of laughter rippled through them, Brianna running a hand over her hair as she smiled in amusement. Their reaction confused Joy a little, but she couldn’t help laughing along with them, delighting in their amusement.

“Well, that’s what we get for only letting you interact with adventurers. We’re all away from our families for this, Joy… think of us a bit like you when you were out gathering nectar,” Brianna explained, grinning at the apis. “We form sort of miniature families inside the guild to help us, but most of us have families to go back to. Mine just isn’t anywhere near Irador.”

“Nor is mine, as I’m from up north, like Brianna,” Cora added, smiling as she added, “After we get you the jelly and you’re a queen, maybe you’d like to come visit? It’s a beautiful forest, and I think there’s a spot nearby that might be worth considering for a hive.”

“I’d like that!” Joy exclaimed, her eyes brightening with enthusiasm, delighted by the thought of meeting the families of the others. Even if they weren’t hives, it made her happier to know that they had people to go back to.

“Regardless, let’s get into the city, shall we? We can point out a few families while we’re there, just to give Joy an idea of what it’s like,” Brianna suggested, grinning broadly.

“That sounds good to me,” Stella said, picking up the pace, and Joy joined them as Cora laughed.

Chapter 11

“I don’t like how much stone there is, and there’s not enough plants, but at least there’s lots of people!” Joy said, seeming to sidestep a porter almost effortlessly.

Cora envied the apis’s near-instinctive grasp of how to move through the city crowds, since she often had a harder time, and had been knocked over a few times over the years. On the other hand, Joy also was craning her neck, trying to look every direction at once.

They were in Irador, approaching the guild house, and the streets were crowded. Shops dotted the sides of the street, selling everything from potions and alchemy supplies to weapons, armor, camping equipment, and magical charms. The last was something that slightly tempted Cora, but she firmly stepped on the impulse to purchase something she didn’t really need when they were going to get better gear soon enough.

The guild house was looming ahead of them, and the sight of it was a welcome one to Cora. It was an impressive building with three large floors, all of them sturdy masonry, along with several magical lanterns hanging from the eaves. Most guild houses had at least two floors, but few of them took as much space as those in large cities, where hundreds of adventurers often were based out of, and she did enjoy visiting them, even if they were loud and the quests went quickly.

“You really like crowds, don’t you?” Stella asked, sounding almost as amused as Cora was.

“Of course! I don’t like being alone, as even when I slept back at the hive, there were dozens of us in the same room. Having a room on my own makes it hard to sleep, especially in those big rooms we’ve had on the road,” Joy said, and her shiver didn’t look feigned, which made Cora blink a couple of times.

“Really? I didn’t know that, and you didn’t say anything before this,” Cora said, looking at Joy in askance, a bit distracted from the sight of the guild house. “Most adventurers prefer having their own rooms, in my experience.”

“I didn’t talk about it because you all seemed quite happy to be at inns,” Joy said calmly, giving a slight shrug as she added, “I preferred the campsites, personally. Even if they were colder, the company was nice.”

Cora opened her mouth, then shut it again, shaking her head wryly. Joy confused her sometimes, but she was starting to understand the apis a little better, now. Joy was cheerful, enthusiastic, and more than willing to ask questions about just about anything. On the other hand, the apis was also reluctant to do anything which she felt might cause problems or upset others, so she’d just not talk about something except when asked, like they’d just done. It was mildly frustrating to Cora, but only mildly, when compared to how Joy had kept her lifespan to herself.

“If you’d said something, it’s entirely possible that someone might have been willing to room with you. There have been plenty of times when I roomed with a couple of other people, even if it’s mostly to save money,” Brianna said dryly, looking at Joy with a grin. “Heck, me and Cora have done it a few times, for that matter! It’s just that most people like the privacy, and we didn’t want to intrude.”

“Oh!” Joy said, and her cheeks turned a slightly brighter shade of yellow as she blushed, then bowed her head. “I’ll remember that! I didn’t think about it that way.”

“It’s fine, Joy,” Cora said, then focused on the door to the guild as they approached it.

The guild hadn’t bothered with closing the inner door, leaving it propped open for people to enter and exit, which also probably helped get fresh air into the building. From the music she could hear, along with a lot of people, that was probably a good thing. Joy’s nose wrinkled as well, which Cora suspected was probably because she could smell the copious amounts of alcohol from inside. Joy’s aversion to fruit juice that ‘had gone off’ amused the elf to no end, but she tried not to tease the apis about it.

They entered the guild, and a wave of noise and warmth washed over them. The tavern area was much larger than the one in Seldrim, and at the back of the room was a stage where a quartet was performing music. Servers were tending to dozens of adventurers, and Cora only gave them a glance before going back to what she was doing, since none of the adventurers looked like they were people she knew, and they weren’t particularly unusual species, either.

Instead, she headed for the desk where the secretaries were, and as she did, Cora resisted the urge to smile. The one in the center was a bit more unusual than most, as they were one of the lizardfolk. She thought they were male, since their scales were a muted brown, but the lizardfolk looked up at her approach, blinking through spectacles with amber eyes for a moment.

“My apologies, but if I’m not mistaken, one of your number is an apis,” the lizardfolk said in a deep, distinctly male voice as he looked at Joy, then took off his glasses, polished them, and put them back on. “So far as I know, there’s only one apis adventurer so far. Might you be her?”

“Hi! I’m Joy!” the apis replied, grinning as she looked at the lizardman in fascination, then asked, “Who are you? And what, I should ask. I’ve never seen someone like you before!”

“Ah, in that regard, we’re alike,” the lizardman said, giving a toothy smile. “I’m named Viperbite, or Viper for short, and I’m one of the varanus, more commonly known as lizardfolk. We most commonly live in lakes and swamps, so aren’t the most common species in these parts. I must say, I’m surprised to see you here. Last I heard, you were only level seven.”

“I’m afraid we went through a lot of difficult situations after that, and leveled a fair amount,” Cora interrupted with a smile, drawing Viper’s attention. “I’m Cora, and my companions are Brianna, Joy, and Stella. We’ve brought a dispatch from Guildmaster Isolde of Seldrim, to be delivered directly to Guildmaster Silverhoof.”

“Ah! I think I saw something about that, but I wasn’t told who would be bringing it,” Viper said, nodding firmly as he added, “One minute, please. Let me see what the instructions were.”

“Of course,” Cora said, and waited patiently as Viper shuffled through papers.

As he did, a bunch of other adventurers were looking over at them curiously, and Cora was rather certain she knew why they were looking. Elves and humans weren’t anything out of the ordinary, not among adventurers, so it pretty much had to be Joy they were looking at. The rest of them weren’t pretty enough to get that kind of reaction.

She was just glad that none of the adventurers seemed inclined to come over and interrupt, since that would be awkward. On the other hand, Joy was openly staring at different people and objects as she turned in place, examining the room. It was amusing, in Cora’s opinion… as was the way Stella was keeping a close eye on the apis.

“You find something interesting, Joy?” Brianna finally asked, eyeing the apis as she tried, and failed, to suppress a smile.

“I’m just looking at the building and people. There are so many more people than in Seldrim. Plus, there’s a lot of interesting bits on the ceiling and walls… those are nails, right?” Joy asked, her gaze intent as she examined the ceiling above them closely, and Cora looked up to see the faint, glittering ends of nails flush with the boards above them.

“Yes, that’s right,” Cora said, a grin creeping across her face. “Is it the first time you’ve seen them?”

“Nope! I saw some at a blacksmith’s shop, when I was searching for ore, but I hadn’t really looked for how they were used,” Joy said brightly, looking back at Cora with her customarily cheerful expression. “I wonder if I could do that?”

“Possibly, but unless you’re willing to change jobs to something like a carpenter, you probably wouldn’t be very good at it,” Brianna chimed in, and Joy wrinkled her nose unhappily.

“A carpenter? Um, no, that would make leveling harder for me,” Joy said, shaking her head firmly. “Besides, how would I travel with you if I did?”

“An excellent point, which many people don’t consider when they think about changing jobs,” Viper interjected, looking up from the papers and adjusting his spectacles. “I found the document in question, and it appears that we were told that a detailed dispatch was on its way, as well as the fact you were witnesses to at least some of the… incident.”

Viper stressed the last word, glancing toward the main room warily, and Cora blinked in surprise, then frowned. His caution surprised her, considering that Isolde had told the entire guild what was going on back in Seldrim, but she wasn’t about to annoy him by saying something.

“I do understand. In that case, may we see the Guildmaster? Or is he away?” Cora asked, glancing at the others speculatively. All but Joy seemed to be more cautious, now.

“Oh, he’s here. In fact, I believe he’s dealing with the last of this week’s paperwork, which he never enjoys. It’s part of why I was hoping to avoid interrupting, to let him finish up and relax,” Viper said, standing and nodding. “If you’d follow me, I’ll take you to him.”

Cora nodded, and stepped out of the way, allowing Viper to circle the desk, then he led them away from the tavern floor. Since the stairs were on the other side of the tavern, Cora debated internally. Given the Guildmaster’s name, she’d been wondering whether he was a centaur, faun, minotaur, satyr, or some other more esoteric species… or if he was just a human with an odd name. Considering the direction, she suspected that he was either a centaur or minotaur, as stairs would be more difficult for those species. She could still be wrong, but she’d be willing to bet money on it.

They followed Viper to a door, which he opened to show a rather wide, tall hallway. He led them down it, explaining. “These are the offices of the guild leaders in Irador, though I should caution you shouldn’t expect to meet with them often. Most of them are far too busy to help in most situations.”

“Fair enough,” Cora murmured, then paused, considering for a moment, then asked, “Actually… you might be able to answer one of our questions for us. Do you know if any large apis hives are in the region? Aside from back in the Flower Forest, I mean.”

“Well… yes? We’ve gotten reports about different apis hives, but how big is an entirely different question. See, we know of at least five within Astonia, if not more. Amusingly, there are four inside the duchy, or on its borders… but I digress,” Viper said, rubbing his chin as he paused outside a door. “The problem is that they’ve all started a lot of construction, so no one knows how large a hive is to begin with.”

“Ten thousand would be a small one, but anything above sixty thousand and the hive splits,” Joy replied instantly, prompting everyone to stop and stare at her. The apis looked at them, then asked, her cheer fading slightly. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No… I’m just surprised you can determine the numbers that precisely. Do you know how big your hive was?” Cora asked, a little shocked despite herself. She didn’t know Joy knew that much about numbers. “The attendant told Brianna and I how big it is, but… I’m just curious if you knew.”

“Well, it’s just part of being an apis. Making honey is easier, the more apis you have, just like with bees. If they could, a queen would make a hive that was huge, but they can’t sustain more than sixty thousand apis,” Joy said, cheering up visibly. “I bet they’d try to make cities together, but queens can’t stand one another. They’d fight to the death, so splitting up is the only way to make it work. But, my hive was about thirty thousand apis, if I remember right. Probably a bit lower, now.”

“Hmm. That is a lot of apis,” Viper said, adjusting his spectacles again, and an obvious frown on his face. “I didn’t realize there were quite that many of your kind in a hive, though it does explain a few things.”

“I’m glad I could help!” Joy said brightly.

Viper knocked on the door at the end of the hall, then opened it, clearing his throat, but not before someone else spoke, in a deep, angry voice. “Damn it, Viper! I’m almost done with these reports so don’t you dare rush me!”

“That isn’t why I’m here, Guildmaster. The dispatch from Seldrim has arrived, and the adventurers who brought it are required to hand it over in person,” Viper said calmly, as if he were yelled at every day. On the other hand, when Cora thought about adventurers, that was entirely likely.

“What? That… well, send them in, then,” the man huffed, obviously somewhat put out, though why was another question entirely.

“Of course, sir,” Viper said, stepping out of the way and gesturing into the room with a toothy smile. “Here you are, ladies.”

“Thank you, Viper,” Cora said, nodding graciously to him, then stepped into the room.

The first thing Cora noticed was that she’d been right, the Guildmaster was a centaur. Silverhoof was a tall man, with long, dark hair done in braids, bronzed skin, and had a sable coat of hair on his lower body. He was behind a large desk, and she had to crane her neck to look at him, he was enough taller than her. There was also a door in the wall behind the desk, which she suspected was probably a private exit, since she thought the wall was against the stables. Silverhoof also looked a touch grumpy.

On the other hand, his expression brightened a bit when he saw Joy, looking curiously at her as he asked, “Say, is that an apis with you?”

“Yep! My name’s Joy!” she replied, grinning up at him. “What are you?”

“Hmm… you’re an odd one. As for me, I’m a centaur. Have you never seen one before?” Silverhoof asked, just as the door shut behind them. Cora opened her mouth to speak, but Joy beat her to it.

“Nope!” Joy said, considering a bare moment before asking. “Do you really have silver hooves? That sounds heavy.”

Only Joy would dare ask that, Cora reflected, as Brianna snickered softly beside her.

Chapter 12

The man blinked at her, and for a moment he looked perplexed, which didn’t make sense to Joy. Her question had been simple, at least she’d thought so. At last he answered, a note of confusion in his voice.

“No, they aren’t. My hooves were bright white when I was born, so I was given the name Silverhoof,” the centaur said at last, one of his hooves clopping against the floor.

“Ah, Guildmaster? I’m Cora, and this is Brianna and Stella. We’re companions of Joy’s, and have a dispatch for you,” Cora interrupted, drawing Silverhoof’s attention away from Joy as she pulled a packet out of her pouch, one that had been wrapped in thick brown paper. “It’s from Guildmaster Isolde.”

“Of course. I was told a message was coming, but magical communication doesn’t provide much detail,” Silverhoof said, extending his hand, and Cora handed it up to him. The centaur set it on his desk but didn’t open it, somewhat to Joy’s surprise. Instead, he looked at them and asked, “So, I’m given to understand that you faced a demon when you were trying to leave the mines? I did learn at least that much.”

“That’s right,” Cora said, glancing over at Joy and hesitating, then she smiled awkwardly as her cheeks colored, and she continued. “Alethus is a level forty-eight demon, according to another person he captured, but we rescued. I didn’t have a chance to use Analyze on him, so I can’t be sure, but he looked like either a hellion or incubus to me.”

“Most unfortunate that you encountered someone like that in an area like Seldrim. It’s even more unfortunate that Isolde couldn’t catch up with him, as she’d have dealt with our problem one way or another,” Silverhoof said, letting out a sigh of frustration. “She’s the most powerful guild member in the duchy, and most of the kingdom for that matter, so… well, never mind that. What do you know of his goals?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Stella said, speaking up calmly. “Guildmaster Isolde told us that he stole a seal placed by Tarngard to contain a powerful monster, and that she knew there were at least two more seals, but not much more was known when we left.”

“He was also manipulating a clan of motini in the mines, who were going to eat or sacrifice intruders,” Brianna added, her arms crossed in front of her. “I hate to think about what would have happened to the captives, had Joy failed in her rescue attempt. We sure wouldn’t have been able to fight our way over to them once he appeared.”

“Truly?” Silverhoof asked, his eyebrows rising as he looked at Joy again, looking quite curious. “How did you manage that?”

“I’m a Rogue, so I kept to the shadows and waited for a chance. Once Cora started breaking the pillar, I killed the guards and freed them,” Joy said, then paused and admitted, “Then a rock hit me in the head, and everything went fuzzy. I think that’s why I missed when I tried to stab him in the eye.”

“You what?” Silverhoof demanded, suddenly focused on her. “Tried to stab who in the eye?”

“The demon, Alethus. He had me by the throat and had just cast a poison spell at Cora. I panicked, and tried to stab him in the eye with a piece of titansteel,” Joy said, and shrugged, letting out a sigh. “I missed, and he threw me away from him.”

“You still almost put his eye out, which is damned impressive for someone almost forty levels lower than him,” Brianna said, her voice calm. “Then you drew him into that trap with the flower minks, too. Don’t sell yourself short, Joy; you were the most valuable person in the mines by far.”

“I couldn’t have done it without any of you, though,” Joy replied, smiling back at the human happily. “I couldn’t have broken the pillar, and they’d have caught me without all of you distracting them.”

Silverhoof cleared his throat, stopping their argument as Joy looked back up at him, and he smiled, a glint of something different in his eyes as he looked at Joy, speaking gravely. “Regardless of who contributed, I must agree with… Brianna, was it? Managing to inflict that kind of injury on someone of so much higher level than you is an incredible feat, and you shouldn’t sell it short. Well done, even if you didn’t kill him.”

“Thank you,” Joy said, blushing slightly. “It was all I could think of to do at the time. He was way too strong, and they told me about weak points before.”

“Then you learned well,” Silverhoof said, nodding firmly, then looking around at them. “Now, is there anything you needed to ask me? I need to finish reviewing these reports, then the dispatch.”

There was something odd about his voice, which indicated that he was probably dismissing them, but Joy hadn’t taken more than a step when Cora spoke.

“Actually, yes. We left Seldrim because we’re looking for another apis hive, one that’s larger than the one outside Seldrim,” Cora explained, shuffling her feet slightly as she hesitated, then continued. “It’s for Joy. She used an incredibly valuable item to heal the poison I was afflicted with, and the hive there didn’t have any more of it to spare. We’re trying to find a hive that’s bigger since they can make it more swiftly.”

“Oh? Well, I don’t know about bigger, but there are two hives beside the one near Seldrim in the duchy that I’m aware of,” Silverhoof said, a note of surprise in his voice as he glanced at Joy curiously, continuing. “One is down in the Teeming Jungle near Bearton, while the other is in the Shimmerwood, outside Clarion. Would that suffice? If not, you should be able to get more details from Viper. He keeps up on all the current reports, though how is beyond me, as busy as the lizard is.”

“I see. Thank you, Guildmaster, that’s very useful,” Cora said, smiling and bowing to him. “We’ll leave you to your work, then.”

“You’re welcome,” Silverhoof said, and Joy took the chance to open the door for the others, still a little giddy that they wanted to help her so much. Even if she didn’t quite understand why.

“Come on, let’s go get our reward, then we can get a room at the inn and plan,” Brianna said, her voice eager as Joy closed the door behind them, her eyes bright. “Now we have leads.”

“If you say so!” Joy chirped happily, as Brianna’s enthusiasm was rather infectious.

* * *

About an hour later they were in an inn, and Joy sat back, having enjoyed a meal of honey while trying to ignore what the others were eating. She simply didn’t want to know, though with her sense of smell she had her suspicions.

“I think the only real option is Bearton,” Brianna said, pausing to take a sip from her mug before continuing. “The area there is suited for low-level adventurers, but the Teeming Jungle… according to what Viper said when I asked him, it’s considered appropriate for adventurers of up to level twenty, so it’s a good deal more dangerous than even the Blackstone Mines.”

“If we hadn’t leveled, it wouldn’t even be worth considering,” Stella murmured, tapping her index finger on the table slowly. “As it is, that’s a dangerous area, but one we can handle, if we go in and out quickly and carefully.”

“What about the Shimmerwood? That was where another hive was,” Joy asked curiously, holding her mug in both hands as she drank the water inside, which she’d mixed a little nectar into. She’d gathered just a tiny amount of nectar along the way to Irador, and it gave the water a pleasant flavor. It did set her antennae to twitching happily, too, but she ignored the odd looks people were giving her.

“That’s too dangerous. Clarion is a fortress city, and the areas around it are suited for level twenty-five to thirty, generally speaking,” Brianna said, shaking her head firmly. “The Shimmerwood is at the upper end of that scale, which makes it a choice of last resort. If we have to do that… I don’t know how we’d get to the hive.”

“We’d probably have to hire a group of higher-level adventurers to take us there,” Cora murmured, finishing her bowl of soup with a contented sigh. The elf eyed her bread, then picked it up, tearing off some of the crust as she continued. “I suspect that wouldn’t be too expensive, if it came to that… but Bearton is at least someplace we can go on our own, and the Teeming Jungle… who knows? We might even level more quickly, since it is dangerous.”

“As long as we don’t die,” Stella said, looking at Cora pointedly, and the elf coughed, blushing as she looked away.

“Well, yes, of course. I don’t want to die, mind you, but I think we can manage this,” Cora said, quickly eating the crust as she squirmed a little. “As long as we avoid any teleportation portals or high-level demons, I don’t think there’s much to be concerned about.”

“It does sound interesting!” Joy exclaimed, grinning broadly, and tilted her head for a second, then asked, “So, what’s a bear?”

“A big animal with fur and a thick hide, a little like a mink, but not as long. It does have longer limbs, though,” Brianna replied, shrugging as she added, her tone turning teasing, “They also like breaking into beehives and stealing honey.”

“What?!” Joy yelped, her eyes going wide. “That’s horrible! How can you abide creatures like that?”

The others laughed at her response, and after a moment Joy blushed, then laughed with them.

* * *

Cora hung her cloak on the peg and let out a breath, a tiny part of her nervous about what she was doing. Behind her she could hear Joy humming softly to herself, sounding even happier than she had through most of the day, the floorboards creaking as the apis bounced along with her rhythm.

“Are you sure you want to room with me, Joy? Brianna and Stella both seemed perfectly happy to share a room as well,” Cora said, turning in place, then almost froze, blinking at the apis in surprise.

Joy was still bouncing idly, but in the time Cora had taken to set her staff in the corner and take off her cloak, the apis had mostly undressed. While Joy wasn’t naked, as she had some thin underclothes, it was the first time Cora had seen her without her armor or other concealing clothing, and Joy was stunning.

The apis’s skin looked virtually flawless, with a healthy color to it, even though Cora knew that she didn’t have red blood. Cora really didn’t understand why the apis had such a full figure, considering that they didn’t have to nurse their young or anything of the sort, but she appreciated the apis’s beauty regardless.

“Of course I do!” Joy chirped, looking over at Cora and grinning widely at her. “I enjoy all of your company, of course, but tonight… well, there really only was one choice, in my opinion.”

“Oh? Why is that?” Cora asked, shaking off her shock, and forcibly tearing her gaze away from Joy.

“I can’t smell meat on your breath,” Joy said simply, and the explanation made Cora blink a couple of times, then she laughed.

“Of all the reasons I might have imagined, that wasn’t one of them,” Cora said, smiling a little more as she stepped away from the door and leaned down to open her pack. She had a nightgown inside it, and she particularly wanted it if she was going to have company. As she pulled out the silky garment, she added, “I suppose there’s something to be said for eating vegetable soup, isn’t there?”

“I certainly think so!” Joy said, grinning, then looked at the bed, shrugged, and the apis slipped into it, leaving her armor and weapons neatly stacked in a corner. “I just don’t like the smell of meat. Or most food, but meat is worse.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” Cora said, turning away to disrobe and slip into her nightgown. It was a little awkward, changing in front of Joy, but Cora honestly didn’t mind that much. She’d had to change in front of other adventurers enough times that modesty was secondary, even if she preferred privacy most of the time.

Joy laughed, smiling as she moved over to the wall, almost cuddling into it, and once Cora had changed, she slipped into the bed, feeling just a bit awkward.

After a few moments, the elf murmured. “Rest well, Joy.”

“You too!” Joy replied happily.

It took a while, but Cora eventually drifted off to sleep, feeling the warmth of the other woman behind her.

Right up until, in the middle of the night, Joy latched onto her, waking Cora for a bit as she caught the faintest scent of honey on the apis’s breath. The woman was warm, but fortunately the night was cool enough that Cora wasn’t about to overheat. She considered asking the apis to move away, but after a bit Cora decided against it, instead biting her lip as she tried to get back to sleep.

That was hard, with Joy cuddling against her as if in search of warmth.

Chapter 13

Cora yawned, and as she did, Joy blushed, a flicker of guilt rushing through her as she glanced at Cora. She did smile sheepishly as she apologized again. “Sorry, Cora… I didn’t realize I’d keep you awake.”

“As I said the last couple of times, don’t worry about it. It isn’t as though we’re going out hunting or anything today, so being a bit tired won’t hurt,” Cora replied, glancing at Joy with a smile, even if there were faint circles beneath her eyes. “Though I do think that separate beds are in order. You latched onto me like a child onto their mother.”

Stella giggled, the smile on her face wide as she glanced at Joy, looking like she was about to say something, but changed her mind. Joy simply shrugged, even more embarrassed than she had been.

“It isn’t like I have any way to know that!” Joy said, gesturing widely. “I didn’t have a childhood. The idea of spending so much time in a larval state is weird to me. It only takes thirty days for us to be ready to work, and that’s important, considering the size of our hives.”

“I believe you, Joy. It doesn’t make this any less amusing, though,” Brianna said, smirking at the apis, her eyes glittering with mischief.

“Either way, it doesn’t make much sense to tease her too much about it,” Cora said, shrugging and looking around the street. “Let’s see… where’s that smithy Viper recommended…”

“Sharpfang’s Armory,” Joy said immediately, perking up as she asked, “Do you think that they’re a varanus too?”

“Possibly, given the name,” Brianna said, standing up straighter, as if trying to look over the crowd. “Hmm… I don’t see it offhand.”

They were on one of the numerous streets of Irador, and if it weren’t for her innate sense of direction, Joy might have found the city confusing. Instead, when she compared it to the Flower Forest it wasn’t that hard to navigate, and it was certainly smaller. The best thing would be to explore most of the city so she could figure out the best route, and from what Joy had learned, that wasn’t likely to happen.

This particular street was home to armorers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths, and weaponsmiths, among other professions, and Joy had simply shrugged off the confused look Viper had given her when she asked why armorers were on the street when every other profession he’d mentioned had smith in the name. She was used to the reaction by this point. On the other hand, she did not like the smell of smoke that pervaded the air, even if there were brightly shining stones in attractive colors in some of the windows, and other items that she recognized as good gear, based on what other adventurers used. Left to her own preferences, though, she would’ve avoided the section of town like it’d been infested by wasps, since a few streets back she’d smelled a lot of fascinating flowers.

“There it is,” Stella interjected, pointing at a sign down the street, and Joy blinked at the sight of it, as the sign had the image of a dagger and mace protruding from the mouth of a cat.

“Why doesn’t it have the name on the sign?” Joy asked, honestly curious as the others started toward the shop, circling around a man haggling with a merchant, with two mules behind him.

“Many people aren’t able to read, including a modest number of adventurers,” Brianna replied idly, then paused, looking at Joy as she frowned. “In fact… suddenly that makes me wonder. Why can you read? It isn’t like you had need to as a bee!”

“No idea! I just can,” Joy said, grinning in return. “Maybe it’s just that I was changed? Or maybe apis can from when they hatch?”

“Good question, and not one we can answer. We can ask when we reach a hive, so let’s go, hm?” Cora interjected, smirking back at Joy. “I’d like to finish this part, so we can go to the cathedral and visit those greenhouses. I saw you slow down when we came near the flower district, Joy.”

“Ooh, yes, yes!” Joy said, clapping her hands together, and quickly bounced forward, eagerly heading for the shop. As she caught sight of the window she saw several odd pieces of armor, like a pair of gauntlets with open fingertips, and a helmet with an elongated front, but before she thought further, she bounded into the shop, then paused, blinking as she looked up at the man behind the counter, who was wearing a finely tailored red shirt and a pair of black leather trousers.

The man was seven feet tall, and she almost gawked at him, as he had a mane of orange and black striped hair, large cat-like ears, and a long black and orange tail behind him. The man also was incredibly muscular, with darker skin, though not as dark as Stella’s, with thin black stripes across his skin at regular intervals. He also looked like he could pick up a wagon to Joy. Or maybe a house.

“Good morning, welcome to…” the man began, then his deep voice trailed off as his amber, cat-like eyes blinked at Joy, and he continued a moment later. “Well, aren’t you unusual? Welcome to Sharptooth’s Armory, how may I help you?”

“Hi! I’m Joy, an apis!” Joy replied, looking at the man curiously, and she couldn’t help wondering how soft his fur might be, though she resisted any urge to check. She also looked around the room, her eyes brightening as she did so.

Fine weapons hung on racks around the room, ranging from polearms and greatswords to numerous types of swords, daggers, and hammers, among many other styles as well. There weren’t only weapons, though, as she also saw there were different types of armor, chain, plate, and even one suit that looked like its scales had been made of wood. More interesting to her, several of the suits of armor looked like they’d been made for a variety of species, like one suit of chain for a centaur, or another that had armor for the front edge of a wing. Not that it would be useful for Joy, as fragile as her wings were, but it was fascinating.

“Ah, I see why Viper sent us here,” Cora said, looking around and smiling broadly as she looked at the big man, adding, “My apologies, but we were just told that you might be able to help us, and don’t know much about you.”

“Viper, that explains it! How’s the lizard doing?” the man exclaimed, grinning broadly, which revealed teeth that were more like those of a predator to Joy, and he glanced at Joy speculatively, murmuring, “An apis, hm? You’re a new one, but I don’t think you’d be too much of a challenge to make armor for. Your wings look far easier to work around than a tengu’s, which is encouraging.”

“Viper seems to be doing well, as far as I could tell. Are you the smith here, then?” Brianna asked, looking around as she smiled. “I must say, this is impressive work!”

“Me? No, no, this is all my wife’s work. She handles the smithing, and I handle customers. It keeps her from biting anyone’s heads off, and me from breaking the anvil in frustration,” he said, grinning broadly as he nodded. “No, I’m Draegur Sharpfang, and my wife is Resha. We specialize in making gear for species who’re a bit more unusual. Tails, claws, wings, ears, or even unusual faces… we deal with all of them. Not to say that we’re bad at supplying elves or humans, mind you, but it isn’t what we’re known for.”

“Ah! That’s why Viper sent us to you, then!” Joy said, clapping her hands together as she finally figured out what Cora had been saying.

“Precisely!” Draegur said, smiling broadly back at her. “Now, may I ask what you’re here for?”

“Joy, would you get the ore?” Brianna asked, looking at Joy with a grin. “This should be interesting.”

“Why would… ah. Oh my.” Draegur’s confusion vanished as Joy unslung her pack and pulled out the first jagged chunk of luminous titansteel ore and set it on the counter. His eyes widened enormously as she pulled out one after another, until all thirty-six chunks were resting in front of him. He blinked at it, then asked, “Am I mistaken, or is this luminous titansteel? I suppose it could be moonstone…”

“No, it’s definitely luminous titansteel. We accidentally got teleported deep into a mine with deposits, and since we were there, we thought we might as well gather it,” Cora explained, smiling wryly. “We nearly died getting out, but were fortunate.”

“Besalk bless you, then. Which he obviously did, for you to gather this much of it,” Draegur said, carefully sorting through the pieces curiously, and nodded. “Thirty-six pieces. That’s exactly enough for each of you to get a weapon and suit of armor. Was that intentional?”

“Yes, it was. Though partly coincidence,” Stella said, sounding oddly satisfied. “If we could’ve gotten more, we would have.”

“We’re hoping to have equipment made from it!” Joy added excitedly, bouncing in place. “Can you do that?”

“Of course!” Draegur said, looking up abruptly as he smiled. “Sharpfang Armory can provide up to level twenty-five weapons and armors, I’ll have you know, and baseline luminous titansteel gear is level fifteen. It is rather delicate, mind you, and would take some time to work with, though. It’ll probably take a couple of weeks for Resha to work through our backlog and make gear for four of you, too.”

“That seems reasonable to me,” Cora said, glancing at Joy and the others as she added, a bit of amusement in her voice. “It’d give us time to go look into the Teeming Jungle a bit, which is probably for the best, since none of us are actually level fifteen, yet.”

“True!” Joy said, nodding eagerly, though the idea of it taking a couple of weeks to make the equipment did disappoint her a little. As little time as it’d taken her to modify her armor, she’d been hoping to get the luminous titansteel made into equipment much more quickly than that. “We can even meet other apis, which will be interesting!”

“The only question is how much it’ll run. I know that most level fifteen gear is, what… a thousand coins per piece, on average?” Brianna asked, tilting her head at Draegur curiously.

“If you’re buying it off the shelf, yes. That’s about the price for a high-end level fifteen piece of equipment, but in that case we’re also supplying the materials. With you supplying these, the price would come down. Normally, I’d charge you about a third of the total, or about three-hundred and fifty coins, but luminous titansteel is delicate to work with,” Draegur said, tapping a finger on the table speculatively, and for the first time Joy noticed that his fingernails were instead long claws, and she wondered how she’d missed that, at least until one of them retracted. “I think we’d have to charge you about five hundred each, in this case. Or four thousand coins for all of you.”

“Hm, that doesn’t seem too expensive… we certainly have the funds to cover that. Or at least I do,” Brianna said, glancing at Joy and the others as she asked, “What do you think?”

“Sure!” Joy said, bouncing again as she looked around curiously, trying to take in the sight of everything around her. “I don’t use my coins much anyway!”

“You really shouldn’t say that in front of most shopkeepers, Joy. Some of them will try to take advantage of you,” Stella scolded gently, but nodded to Draegur as she smiled. “But yes, I’ll pay as well. We were fortunate enough to encounter a cache of level forty equipment that we sold.”

“Ah, that would certainly do it!” Draegur said, grinning at Joy in amusement as he added, “And she’s really right, young lady. I’m not going to change the price on you, but even I’d be tempted to raise the price if I’d known that beforehand.”

“Oh, okay,” Joy said, blushing and fidgeting, then she admitted, a bit sheepishly, “It’s just that apis don’t use coins among ourselves. Maybe we would between hives… I don’t know, though! That would be neat to find out!”

“If you say so, Joy,” Cora replied dryly, shaking her head and laughing. After a moment she focused on Draegur and nodded, though. “As to that, yes. Assuming you can provide a staff and robe, at least. Or a tunic and trousers, assuming that robes aren’t possible.”

“Well, let’s find out! Resha! We have customers!” Draegur called out, prompting a muffled growl from the back room, before the door suddenly popped open, letting a blast of hot, smoke-infused air into the room, which prompted Joy to recoil ever so slightly.

In the doorway was a woman, and she looked a lot like Draegur, except that instead of a fine shirt, she was wearing a sleeveless brown tunic that was marked with soot, as was she in several places. Her hair was a lighter orange with the black stripes, and her skin was a touch darker than his. The real difference, aside from her being a woman, was that the woman looked even stronger than Draegur did, with muscles that rippled with every movement. If Draegur looked like he could pick up a house, Resha looked like she could do so with one hand.

The woman’s eyes darted across the group piercingly, and she spoke without pausing, at least at first. “Four women. Two humans, an elf, and an…”

Resha’s voice trailed off as her gaze settled on Joy, and she frowned a little. Draegur spoke a moment later. “An apis, dear. She’s an apis, and has wings. Additionally, they brought you a challenge. Look at what I have here.”

“What are…” the woman began, looking a little annoyed, then her gaze lit on the titansteel and her eyes widened slightly. Resha straightened a little, not saying anything for a moment, then smiled widely. “Luminous titansteel. It’s been three years since I saw any of the stuff, let alone this much of it! I see what you mean. Right, so what do you all want? Prospective heroes, are you?”

“Oh, goddess no!” Cora exclaimed, blanching visibly. “No, that’s a good way to get ourselves killed. We happened to come across it, and Joy has Advanced Harvesting, so we thought we might as well collect it.”

“Joy?” Resha asked, blinking.

“That’s me! I’m Joy!” Joy said, waving at the woman as she grinned. “By the way, you look like you could throw a house at someone!”

The woman blinked, then laughed, which was a deep, rumbling sound that sent a shiver through Joy, one that reminded her that these two were likely predators. But Resha smiled as she murmured, “A cheerful one, aren’t you? As for that, unless it was a really small house, I couldn’t throw it. But thank you, I’m proud of my strength.”

“You’re welcome!” Joy chirped, fluttering her wings a bit as she calmed down.

“As for heroes, I can’t say that you’re wrong. They do tend to get themselves into trouble a lot of times,” Draegur said, picking up a jagged piece of the titansteel, then frowned. “Does this have blood on it?”

“Joy… did you not clean off the piece that you stabbed the demon with?” Stella asked with exaggerated patience, turning to Joy slowly.

“I never put the piece back in my bag! I was thrown into the wall!” Joy protested, blushing brightly at the implication as she fidgeted, then admitted, “I also never checked on it until we got here. There were the right number of pieces in my backpack, so I didn’t worry about it.”

“Ah, I seem to recall just tossing it in her bag when I was grabbing her,” Brianna said, sounding a little embarrassed as she ran her fingers through her hair. “I’ll remind you we were getting swarmed by motini at the time.”

The two shopkeepers looked at one another for a moment, and Joy could see the surprise in their gazes, which she had half-expected. She just smiled at them and shrugged, prompting a chuckle from Draegur.

“It sounds like you’ve had an interesting time of things,” Draegur said, smiling wryly. “As for what they want, only the elf decided what she wanted, a staff and robe, or trousers and a tunic if we couldn’t make a robe.”

“That’s right,” Cora agreed, clearing her throat as she nodded toward her staff. “A mage’s staff, to be precise. I’m hoping to become a high mage… oh, and I’m Cora. My apologies, I should have said. These are Brianna and Stella.”

“Good to meet you, but if you’re wanting a robe, the answer is no,” Resha said bluntly, crossing her arms. “I don’t help magi commit suicide.”

“What? Why would a robe be suicide?” Joy asked, looking at Cora as the elf blushed.

“Have you ever tried running in a robe or dress?” Resha asked, gesturing at Cora. “Oh, you can, if you hike up the hem enough, but with your hands full? Good luck with that. Robes may be traditional, but that doesn’t mean they can’t trip the wearer in the field. No, I refuse to make them for adventurers. If you want trousers and a tunic, sure, but not a robe. You can find another smith for that.”

“Ah, I… didn’t think about that. I bought a gown, and it would be hard to run in,” Joy said, thinking for a moment, then grinned. “I could fly just fine, though!”

“Yes, but I don’t have wings,” Cora replied, looking at Joy in amusement as she shrugged, then turned her attention back to Resha. “As to that… as you like. I enjoy robes, but I’ll admit they aren’t always practical. What about the staff? Could I have a focus stone added as well?”

“Certainly, though it’ll add a bit to the cost,” Draegur interjected, glancing at Resha as he added, “A hundred coins, I think… and you’ll have to decide on a type.”

“A ruby, if you please,” Cora said, nodding in obvious agreement.

“Good. Now, you, Brianna,” Resha said, looking at Brianna closely, then smiled. “A Warrior, hm? Good.”

“Swordswoman, actually, but close enough!” Brianna said, grinning as she shrugged and tapped her armor. “I don’t want anything too different. A corslet, greaves, and the like, something which gives me a good degree of mobility. For a weapon, though, I’d like a sword that can be used one or two-handed. While I’ve liked my hammerblade, I’ve run into a few situations where I wish I’d been able to wield it one-handed, or even been able to use a shield.”

“Easy enough to do, and I don’t blame you on the sword. Adaptability is good,” Resha agreed, then looked at Stella, raising an eyebrow. “Well?”

“Something similar to Brianna’s armor, though preferably which I can add vestments to Mother Moon to as well, then a morningstar. I prefer to be on the front lines, with a shield,” Stella said calmly, tapping a finger on her side as she hesitated, then shrugged. “I don’t suppose you could also make a matching shield, just in general? One with the emblem of Mother Moon? I’d happily pay the appropriate price, and if I’m going to be upgrading my gear anyway…”

“Hm, dear? How long did you tell them this would take?” Resha asked, looking at her husband. “I’ve got a lot on my plate as it is. Gargoyles aren’t easy to equip.”

“I know, which is why I told them two to three weeks. They’re going to be heading to Bearton to investigate something, which is pretty ideal where timing is concerned,” Draegur replied calmly, nodding. “It’s up to you.”

“Right, that’s something I can do,” Resha said, nodding in satisfaction as she looked at them, explaining. “Honestly, I’m expecting it to be on the low end of that time, but I never know when an emergency will come up, and don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. I’ll make your shield happily. It’s good to see a follower of Mother Moon in these parts.”

“Thank you. May her light shine on you always,” Stella said, smiling warmly at Resha.

“Thank you,” Resha replied, nodding slightly, then focused on Joy. “Now then, you. What is it you’re after? If I’m not mistaken, your armor and weapon weren’t really crafted at all. It doesn’t have any of the marks I’d expect.”

“No, it isn’t! I have an ability called, um, Innate Armory, or something like that. It lets us apis grow our own equipment, though it’s weak until we add other ores, at least at level ten,” Joy replied, grinning at Resha as she shrugged. “It works well for me, though! I added silver to this, and I like how it looks!”

“It is rather pretty, yes,” Resha agreed, looking at Joy patiently. “Now, what sort of gear do you want? Armor like that, with a rapier?”

“Yes!” Joy agreed, nodding vigorously, then paused, hesitating for a moment as she considered getting a different weapon, then shook it off. “No, no, I don’t need a different weapon. I can get plenty of daggers. A rapier would be great!”

“Right, then you lot need to pay Draegur, and I need to get measurements,” Resha said, her tail flicking slowly behind her as she smiled at Joy. “Particularly from you, Joy. I need to see those wings in use so I can make sure the armor won’t interfere with them.”

“Sure!” Joy said, grinning as she quickly opened her belt pouch, looking at Draegur as she asked, “You said a thousand coins, right?”

“That’s right,” the man replied, looking a little amused as Joy pulled the coins out.

She had a bit over twenty thousand coins, Joy noted, and she smiled even more as she pulled out the number she needed, considering how she really didn’t know what to do with all the coins.

Not that it really mattered, so she just handed the coins over to Draegur, while the others were pulling out their own payments.

Chapter 14

“So, what species were Draegur and Resha?” Joy asked, pausing to sniff a flower, and Cora tried to suppress the urge to laugh at the broad smile on Joy’s face, and was only partly successful. The apis had quite firmly folded her arms behind her back and grabbed her wrists when they’d entered the street, which told Cora that the apis was trying hard not to collect any nectar or pollen from the displays.

The street was a riot of color, with dozens of florists hawking their wares to anyone who came close. Cora thought that many of those present were merchants or nobility, though she saw people in less expensive clothing patronizing a few of the stands with less impressive flowers or pots. Beyond several of the shops, Cora could also see the destination that she had in mind. Three large buildings bordered the street, each of them metal frames with incredible numbers of thin, clear glass windows that enclosed the buildings. Those were the greenhouses, Cora knew, and kept flowers growing inside them year-round, including many that didn’t usually grow in Irador’s climate.

“They’re members of the beastfolk tribes, which are… diverse, to put it mildly,” Cora replied after a moment, shrugging as she admitted, “I can hardly begin to keep track of them, but I know that they’re the type like tigers, which explains why they’re here readily enough.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” Joy asked, switching to a different flower, this one a huge purple blossom, then she inhaled and exclaimed, “Ooh, that has really nice nectar! I bet the bees love it!”

The merchant standing nearby paused at the exclamation, blinking at Joy as he opened his mouth, but Cora decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed, instead speaking over him, even more amused now. “Because tigers don’t get along with one another, Joy, kind of like your queens. From what I’ve heard, if they stay too close to one another for long periods, they make each other angry. Unless they’re mated, anyway… but that’s beside the point, really.”

“Yeah, which is why most cities only have a single pair of tiger beastfolk living in them. Or, in cities like this, there’ll only be one or two per district,” Brianna agreed, nodding firmly as she walked along the street, looking around curiously. “The lion beastfolk are a lot more like you apis, and they stick together a lot of the time… there’s a huge variety of them, really. They certainly aren’t all cats!”

“That was going to be my next question!” Joy said, then paused, blinking several times as her antennae perked up, her head turning as she looked around curiously. “I… what is that? Something smells…”

“What?” Cora asked, feeling a touch taken aback by Joy’s sudden focus. If anything, the apis was usually difficult to convince to focus on one thing, but the apis was looking down the street intently, almost like a hunting dog that was on point.

“I’m not sure! It’s coming from… there!” Joy said, pointing at the nearest greenhouse on the left, and before Cora could react, the apis bounded down the street, not quite at a run.

“What the… what got into her?” Brianna asked, blinking in surprise, then began trying to move down the street more quickly.

“I’ve no idea,” Cora replied, following as quickly as she could, though they weren’t able to make progress nearly as quickly as Joy could. Despite how relatively few people there were on the street, there were still enough of them that Cora had to be careful not to run into someone, and she didn’t possess Joy’s ability to move through crowds easily.

Fortunately for them, Joy reached the door of the greenhouse and stopped, talking to the merchant there. It wasn’t like they let just anyone inside, so it gave Cora time to catch up.

“…not sure what you’re talking about with the smell, as we have a lot of flowers in there, but we certainly don’t have any beehives. That would lead to people getting stung, though we occasionally get a druid to guide them in to pollinate the plants,” the human merchant said as Cora came into earshot, though it didn’t really explain anything to Cora.

“Joy? What’s going on?” Stella asked first, an instant before Cora could speak, and the elf looked at the other woman in the tiniest bit of annoyance, but held in the impulse to snap. It wasn’t like she had priority on speaking to Joy, after all.

“It smells like there’s a beehive in there; that’s why I came over here quickly. It smells like a big one, but it’s also in danger!” Joy said, her voice uncharacteristically frantic as her gaze darted to the door of the greenhouse, fidgeting and looking nervous. “Can I help it? Please? I’m worried about the hive, and if we don’t—”

“Joy, calm down,” Cora said firmly, frowning as she glanced at the man and apologized. “I’m sorry, sir, but she was a giant bee until a couple of weeks ago, and this is the first time we’ve run into this. Would you mind letting us look around the greenhouse? We wanted to show her foreign flowers to begin with, which is why we came here. Maybe we can even figure out what’s causing her reaction.”

“Well… I suppose so. Normally we charge two coins per person to enter, but if you damage any of the plants, you’re going to have to pay for it,” the merchant replied, his brown mustache oiled and curling upward toward the ends. “Are you willing to do that?”

“Sure!” Joy said instantly, quickly pulling out the coins for all of them and all but throwing them into the man’s hand. Before she could rush into the building, though, Cora grabbed the apis’s arm to stop her, and Joy paused, blinking at Cora.

“Joy, why do you think there’s a hive in there? I can’t imagine the people who take care of the greenhouse not noticing a large hive of bees,” Cora said, making sure to keep her tone patient.

“Because of the smell! A queen has a scent, one which helps guide bees back to a hive, and this one is really strong,” Joy said, her voice anxious as she looked at the greenhouse again. “There’s another smell, too; it’s the one the hive guards make when the hive is under attack! Well, not quite, but the smell is close.”

“Ah, I see,” Cora said, blinking a couple of times, and glanced at Brianna. The merchant looked puzzled, Cora noticed, or possibly a bit put out. Brianna, on the other hand… she simply looked concerned.

“In that case, let’s go inside and look around, and see if we can’t find out why you’re smelling that. If there is a hive in there, I’m sure the owner would want to know about it,” Stella interjected gently.

“Okay… I can do that. I just need to… try to calm down,” Joy said, fidgeting nervously, and it was enough to make Cora really concerned.

“If there is a hive in there, we’ll have the druids come take care of it,” the merchant added, frowning as he continued. “There shouldn’t be, though. There really shouldn’t.”

“We’ll find out, then,” Cora said, and let go of Joy, adding, “Let Brianna go first, though? I don’t want you breaking anything.”

“If you say so,” Joy said, blushing and fidgeting. “Just… quickly, please?”

“Sure, Joy, just keep behind me, hm?” Brianna said, glancing at Cora in amusement, then headed for the door, one hand on her belt near a dagger. Cora wasn’t sure how much good that’d do against a swarm of angry bees, but she wasn’t going to argue.

Instead, since Joy was almost crowding Brianna, Cora followed closely, wondering just what was going on. If there was a beehive in the greenhouse, she imagined people would be running, if anything. Not meandering around inside it.

Brianna opened the door to enter the greenhouse, and a wave of moist, hot air greeted them, along with the potent scent of flowers and the tropics. It was enough to make Cora blink and cringe, since she suspected she was going to need a bath before too long, with how incredibly humid it was inside the greenhouse.

Brianna stepped inside, Joy right behind her, and as Cora followed them, she listened closely, expecting that there would be the sound of buzzing if there were bees inside, yet she didn’t hear much of anything. Just the clamor of the market behind them, which was muted as Stella closed the door, the murmur of other people in the greenhouse, and the faint sounds of birds outside.

The greenhouse itself was lush, almost like a miniature jungle with rows of plants running down the center, along with larger gardens around the edge with trees planted in them. There was even a second floor, though it wasn’t so much a floor as a balcony around the edges, and hanging vines provided an odd curtain for several feet. More importantly, though, the greenery throughout the room was festooned with color, with thousands of flowers and exotic smells around them.

“What… is that?” Joy asked, distracting Cora after a moment as the apis stared at a tree.

Cora blinked, then looked at the tree, frowning a little. The tree was a bit different from most of the ones she’d seen, with huge fronds at the top rather than having lots of branches with tiny leaves, like was normal for their region. Even more interesting were the clusters hanging from it, of dozens of green pods that curved down, then upward, forming a strange sort of cylinder.

“I’m not sure,” Cora said, looking at the tree thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen that type of tree before, and those pods…”

“They aren’t pods, Cora. They’re fruit. Have you never seen a banana tree before?” Stella asked, and Cora blinked.

“Banana tree? But bananas are yellow!” Cora protested, looking at the fruit tree incredulously, as she only remembered having a banana once in her life. The pods did look similar, but they weren’t nearly as big as what she remembered.

“They’re still growing, and obviously aren’t ripe, yet,” Stella said, shrugging. “There are some native to the region I grew up, at least of one type of banana.”

“That is an evil tree,” Joy announced, glaring at the tree with narrowed eyes, to Cora’s sudden shock. She’d never heard that much venom in the apis’s voice before.

“Er, why?” Brianna asked, looking at the tree in confusion, then at Joy. “It’s just a tree, right? Not one of the ones that eats people… it even has fruit!”

“The fruit smells like danger,” Joy said, obviously miffed as she crossed her arms. “It’s just like the smell that the hive defenders give off! Well, not just like it, but really, really close! And it’s even worse because of that tree!”

Joy pointed at another tree, and this one Cora recognized, since she’d seen lemons far more than bananas. It was closer to a traditional tree, though, and the fruit was actually somewhat yellow. Cora opened her mouth, then shut it as she considered.

“Um, are you saying that apis queens smell like lemons?” Cora asked hesitantly, a little incredulous at the idea, but given the commentary outside that was the only conclusion she could come to.

“Those are lemons?” Joy asked, looking at Cora and blinking.

“Yes… yes, they are,” Brianna said, hesitating for a moment, then asked, “Lemons, really?”

“Well, um, yes? That smells a lot like a queen does!” Joy said, gesturing at the tree and wrinkling her nose. “I wouldn’t have gotten so panicked if they weren’t in the same room as one another!”

Cora wasn’t sure who it was that started giggling first, but one of them did, and she couldn’t help herself, as the idea of an apis queen smelling like lemons had never occurred to her. The others all laughed, all but Joy, who just kept her arms crossed, looking at them unhappily. Stella was the first to recover, though she was grinning when she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Joy,” Stella said, a burble of amusement in her voice. “I shouldn’t laugh, I know I shouldn’t… but the idea of bees smelling like lemons, and their alarm smelling like bananas… it’s just a bit funny from our perspective. Bananas are something of a treat for a lot of people!”

“Not for me!” Joy said, shaking her head vigorously, then shivered. “Even the smell puts me on edge, like something’s about to fly out of the bushes and attack!”

“Well, I’ll just have to protect you from that, then,” Brianna said, grinning as she glanced at Cora, then continued. “How about we take a quick look around, since we’re here anyway, while Cora lets the merchant know what it is? If more apis come to the city, it’s probably best to give him warning.”

“That… is an excellent point. And not one I would’ve thought of,” Cora said, blinking as she considered the idea, then winced. If an apis panicked enough at the smell of a banana and lemon tree, it could cause a lot of chaos, and she resolved to let Viper know as well. “I’ll be right back, alright?”

“Okay,” Joy said, watching the banana tree distrustfully, her hand on the hilt of her rapier. They probably needed to get Joy out of the greenhouse soon, Cora reflected, but turned to leave for the moment, trusting the others to keep an eye on Joy.

Stepping outside, Cora took a moment to adjust to the different air, then nodded to the merchant, who was looking at her curiously, tugging on one end of his mustache gently.

“So, find any bees?” he asked, a touch of humor in his voice. “What was that about her being a bee, anyway?”

“Oh, you hadn’t heard? The gods created a new species a couple of weeks ago, the apis. They transformed numerous giant beehives into the apis across the world, and Joy is one of them,” Cora said, blinking at the man in surprise, then chided herself internally. It wasn’t like most people needed to know about changes like that, unlike adventurers.

“Really?” the man asked, his eyebrows rising abruptly. “That… well, that’s something, isn’t it? I hadn’t heard anything of the sort!”

“They did, and they’re an odd people. Joy is happy and enthusiastic most of the time, which was why this concerned us so much. I’ve never seen her react like that before,” Cora explained, glancing back at the greenhouse, considering for a moment, then added, “That said… you’d better be prepared for it if other apis visit the area. There weren’t any bees inside, but the problem is your banana and lemon trees.”

“What’s wrong with them? They’re perfectly healthy, I’ll have you know!” the merchant said, straightening suddenly. If anything, he looked outraged, and she quickly headed that off.

“No, no… there’s nothing wrong with them!” Cora explained, waving her hands as she tried to placate the man. “No, the problem is how they smell to apis! Your lemons have the same scent they associate with their queens, and the banana tree makes them think that a hive is under attack. We thought you’d want to know, for if more apis visit.”

“They what?” the man demanded, his hand dropping away from his face as he stared at her, drop-jawed. For a moment he didn’t say anything, then he asked suspiciously, “Are you serious, or just trying to play a prank?”

“I’m completely serious. Her hand hasn’t left the hilt of her sword since she entered your greenhouse, and Joy loves flowers. She normally has to force herself not to bound over a fence to smell them when we’re traveling,” Cora said, a smile creeping onto her face at the memory of one afternoon when Joy hadn’t resisted. “This is very, very strange for her.”

“Huh. Well, at least I found out now, rather than later. And I’ll have to let my gardeners know… not that it’ll make much difference. There’s no way I’m getting rid of one of them,” The merchant said, his tone turning musing as he tilted his head. “Still, I wonder how she’d react to lemonade?”

“That… is an excellent question,” Cora said, blinking a couple of times, then smiled as she glanced back into the greenhouse, where she could just barely see the others approaching a set of large orange blossoms. “I’ll have to find out.”

Chapter 15

As it turned out, Joy loved lemonade. The apis had a happy, almost drunk expression on her face as she took a sip from her mug, humming blissfully under her breath. Oh, she’d added honey to the mug after claiming it ‘wasn’t sweet enough’, but that had been Joy’s only complaint, and it’d also been the first thing Joy had eaten or drank that wasn’t honey or water since Cora had met her.

“This is so good!” Joy said happily, cradling the mug in both hands as they sat at the table.

Cora resisted the urge to giggle, instead continuing to eat her sandwich, which definitely didn’t suit Joy’s tastes, as it had a slice of ham on it, along with her usual variety of vegetables. While Cora preferred to eat vegetables and fruit for the most part, she did like a bit of meat here and there.

“I’m glad you like it! And that the merchant suggested it,” Stella said, smiling broadly as well as she swirled her cup, taking a sip of her own lemonade, since all of them had chosen to order some. It was a touch expensive, Cora admitted, but fairly good. Stella continued after a moment. “Do you think you’re going to try other fruit drinks?”

“I don’t know! This one is good, but I don’t know about others. If they’re… what did you call it, Bri, fermented?” Joy asked, tilting her head slightly, and at the human’s nod, since her mouth was full, the apis grinned and continued. “If they’re fermented, no. It smells like its gone bad. This… with honey it tastes enough like nectar that I like it. I don’t know if it’s as good for me, though. I’ll have to sniff others, first!”

“Fair! If you like them, and apis start frequenting cities, I suspect there’ll be a few more places that start serving drinks that apis enjoy,” Cora said, taking another drink as she watched the apis in amusement. Hard lemonade definitely wouldn’t suit Joy, she was sure.

“The only question is, will they? From what I’ve heard, Joy’s the first apis to reach Irador, so I’m beginning to wonder if more than a handful will ever leave the hives,” Brianna said, now that her mouth wasn’t full. She hesitated, then shrugged. “I mean, it’s not unknown for a species to be rather insular and xenophobic.”

“No, they’ll have to travel, some!” Joy interjected, smiling broadly at Brianna. “If nothing else, they’re going to send delegations with drones to other hives, to trade them. A queen never mates with drones from her own hive, and since there isn’t another apis hive in the Flower Forest, the queen will probably send a group to one of the other two. Or they’ll send some to her, and find which drones want to leave or stay.”

“Ah, I… wait, didn’t you say something about that before?” Stella asked, frowning. “I could have sworn you did…”

“Probably! But it’s worth repeating, if Bri didn’t remember,” Joy said, shrugging and taking a deep draw off her mug, and letting out a happy sigh. “I think most workers are like me, so they’d be happy to meet people and try new things. As long as it’s for the good of the hive… and being a good neighbor probably would be good for the hive. Once the hive is properly built and defended, anyway.”

“Hm, well, that does make sense, then. I wasn’t sure if you were normal for an apis, though when we visited the hive…” Brianna paused, looking at Cora for a moment, then asked, “What did they call it, the Tulip Hive?”

“That’s right,” Cora agreed, stopping as well as she considered. “Really… what need would they have to name the hive if they weren’t planning on contacting other hives, anyway?”

“Exactly!” Joy said, grinning broadly. “Plus, it’s a good name! There are lots of tulips in that area.”

Brianna chuckled, shaking her head in amusement, but changed the subject after a moment. “Anyway, what I was saying was that when we went to your hive, I was startled at just how similar to you most of the apis were. They didn’t feel quite the same as you do, Joy, but at the same time, most of them looked like you and have the same sort of enthusiastic, pleasant presence. I was a bit surprised, since I honestly thought you had to be different.”

Joy paused, blinking at Brianna over the rim of her mug, then lowered it, licking her lips to clean them off, then put a spoon into the mug as she swirled it around. When the apis spoke, her voice was bright as she looked at Brianna in obvious amusement. “I don’t see why you’d think that, Bri! I’m just a worker, like all my sisters. Even if you like to think I’m special, I’m really not. I don’t know about other hives, they might be different, but…”

Joy’s voice trailed off as she looked at them, then shrugged and spoke gently. “At least with my hive, I can tell you that as long as you aren’t mean to the hive or something like that, if you were in danger and asked for help, or went to the hive, they’d protect you. It’s just our nature, to protect the hive. Now that we aren’t just bees, that’s going to change, too. I would never have considered the idea of you three as my hive when I was a bee, but now that’s changed.”

Cora stopped, looking at the apis and trying to understand what she’d just said. It wasn’t as though it had been anything too out of the ordinary, not for Joy. Another person might even think that it was casual conversation, for that matter, but there was something about Joy’s voice that made Cora pause, and made her throat tighten a bit.

It was because Joy didn’t say anything just for show, Cora realized. Many people wouldn’t truly mean something like that, or they wouldn’t be speaking what they considered the absolute truth. Joy… was who she was, and didn’t like deceiving others, so it made it hard to know what to say at times.

“I’m glad that you changed, Joy.” Stella was the first of them to find her voice, and the woman smiled warmly at Joy as she shrugged. “Sure, it’s caused a number of difficulties for us, like Cora dying, but at the same time… you’re a good friend, and I wouldn’t give you up for anything. That’s just another reason to head to Bearton soon, hm? We’re going to find your pure royal jelly, then we’re going to get you to level twenty as soon as possible.”

“Damned straight we are,” Brianna said, grinning broadly. “I’m not one to back down from a challenge, and while it’ll mean pushing our limits a bit, I’ll bet you we could manage ten levels in a month if we really tried.”

“I think that’s going a bit far, if you ask me,” Cora interjected, amusement bubbling up in her as she continued. “While it’s not impossible to level that quickly, it does tend to mean putting ourselves in a lot of danger. It wouldn’t do us any good to get ourselves killed instead.”

“Right! Safety comes first, especially since Cora hasn’t recovered from her last death fully, yet,” Joy said firmly, her wings buzzing behind her. “I have the better part of two seasons left, anyway! We can take a bit more time.”

“A definite point, though by the time we reach Bearton and get back, the chances of me dying permanently will be far lower,” Cora admitted, smiling at Joy in amusement. “In any case… shall we finish up and go to the cathedral? You wanted to see it up close, didn’t you?”

“Ooh, yes yes yes!” Joy exclaimed, and picked up her mug as she tried to down the remainder of its contents in one long pull, prompting a ripple of laughter to escape Cora and the others.

* * *

Joy stopped, staring upward in shock. The cathedral had been impressive enough from the outside, but the inside utterly shocked her. She’d expected it to have dozens of small rooms, the way that a hive might, or all the other buildings she’d seen did, but the cathedral was different. Oh, she was quickly identifying areas where the exterior was larger, so there were probably more rooms, but the majority of the building was given over to a single massive space that could have fit practically the entire hive inside it. Well, all of the rooms, anyway.

The room was as tall as a building with five or six floors, at her guess, and the reinforced buttresses were fascinating to Joy, since she hadn’t realized that a building could be made to hold such an open area. It was also a waste of space, in her opinion, but it didn’t mean it was any less impressive. As were the statues around the room, for that matter, each of them depicting a different human-like figure, though some were different.

“Impressed, Joy?” Brianna asked, her amusement obvious, and Joy’s attention snapped away from the statue of a dragon on its hind legs, its forward arms crossed in front of it and its claws raised upward.

“Yes, of course! I don’t know why it’s so big, though! At least the glass gives plenty of light,” Joy said, looking at the windows, which were made of stained glass that depicted dozens of scenes which she couldn’t identify. She was sure they had some sort of significance to other people, but she just didn’t have the context to understand them.

“I’ve always heard that temples are something of monuments to the gods. We build them to be large and impressive, with rooms that are supposed to reflect their power, and give a sense of… of awe to the faithful,” Stella explained, her voice soft as she nodded ahead of them, where they could see dozens of people praying before different statues, as well as other people in robes that some common folk were speaking to. “The statues are common depictions of the deities, usually drawn from the rare divine visitation. The gods can change their appearances, and sometimes do in different regions of the world, but their visits are rare enough that many of the statues are the same everywhere.”

“To which I should add, almost all of the statues here are of the gods of light, as well as the ones that’re neutral in the conflict. Oh, there’s a couple of statues to the dark gods, but they aren’t really venerated here,” Brianna added, nodding toward the statues. “Not that we disrespect the dark gods. They’re simply not our gods… and it’s generally a really bad idea to upset them. Not worth the trouble, if you ask me.”

“Which is why there are statues of them in storage in some of the border cities,” Cora said, laughing softly as she glanced at Joy, and smiled as she explained. “Neither side is foolish enough to destroy a temple, that’s just a bad idea in general. They do often replace the statues with those of their own deities, however. Some of the border cities simply took to keeping them in storage, since there’s a need to swap them every so often.”

“Oh, right! I guess that would make a difference… and there are a lot of statues. How many gods are there?” Joy asked, looking around the cathedral as they moved forward slowly, giving her time to look around. It was obviously deliberate on the part of the others, which made Joy even happier with them.

“That… I honestly have no idea. Stella? You’re the Acolyte, so maybe you could answer?” Cora asked, looking at the human curiously.

“Just because I’m an Acolyte, you think I’ve studied all the gods?” Stella asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically at Cora, and Brianna laughed.

“To be fair, I think she just meant that you were the most likely to know, out of all of us. I can name a dozen of them, maybe into the thirties if I put my mind to it, but I haven’t studied them,” Brianna interjected, smiling wryly. “I’d guess… a hundred?”

“Brianna has the right of it. I know a few more than her, I think, but not that many,” Cora said, shrugging helplessly. “It isn’t a question I ever thought about, honestly.”

“A fair point. I didn’t study all the gods, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know a bit,” Stella admitted, considering before she added, “Growing up, my mother often talked about the hundred and eight gods of heaven and earth. I’m fairly certain that’s not actually how many gods there are, mind you, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it isn’t close.”

“Interesting!” Joy said, more fascinated by the way the others were interacting than the actual answer she’d gotten, and she hesitated before asking, “So, um, do you mind if I ask which of them you follow? Each of you, I mean.”

“I don’t mind at all. My chosen goddess is Fayliss, goddess of beauty,” Cora said, gesturing in the direction of one of the statues, that one depicting a stunningly beautiful woman with roses woven into her hair. The flowers instantly made Joy’s opinion of the goddess improve, even if she thought roses would be dangerous to place like that. Cora wasn’t done, though. “While she’s the one I primarily venerate, I also pay respect to other gods as well, like Besalk, the god of luck. Each deity has their own realm of concern, so respecting them is paramount, in my opinion.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to get a deity cursing your luck on something,” Brianna said, shivering, then nodded to the side, “As for me, I follow a pair of gods for the most part. Cavrin and his wife, Xinra. Between them, they’re the gods of nobility, strategy, and warfare, and they’ve been patrons of my family for several generations.”

The statues Brianna had nodded toward were those of a man and woman, also both human, Joy noted with interest. The goddess was smiling, while wearing a fine dress and elaborately done hair, while holding a tiny figure that looked like it was from a game Joy had seen a couple of adventurers playing, while the god was in full plate but without a helm, a sword planted in front of him sternly. He reminded her a bit of James, really.

“Wait, your family? Are you nobility, Brianna?” Stella asked, looking at the other woman suddenly, looking rather startled. “From the way you talked before this, I didn’t think you were.”

“Because I’m not,” Brianna said, then scowled at Cora as she snorted. “I’m not! My family has been knights for four generations, sure, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be knighted, too. My parents might be a bit disappointed if that happens, but they’re not going to get upset with me if it doesn’t.”

“Ah, much is explained,” Stella said, her confusion fading, while Joy’s grew more potent.

“Um, what’s a knight, and why does that explain it?” Joy asked, looking between them. “I don’t understand.”

The others looked at each other, and in the end it was Cora who decided to explain.

“Knights are a particular type of nobility, Joy. They’re chosen by those who were born nobles, and given a title that lasts until they die. It isn’t passed to their children the way most titles are. It’s also the only way to get the Knight job,” Cora explained, nodding to Brianna as she continued. “The job is a bit better when it comes to defensive abilities, so it’s rather popular. Plus, since most of the time it requires the person to pledge fealty to the nobility of the nation they’re from, the nobles like to knight others. It helps ensure the safety of the nation.”

“Yeah. My biggest problem with the idea is that I hate the idea of being tied down to a single country. It’s too stifling, so I haven’t decided if I want to become a knight in the future,” Brianna agreed, shrugging uncomfortably. “Of course, that assumes I’d be given the chance. I will earn glory for my family, though.”

“Ooh, I see! I wonder if an apis queen could knight someone…” Joy murmured, her thoughts going off in yet another direction, since they’d said that apis queens were the equivalent of nobles.

“That… is a very good question. It might be worth asking, when we visit the next hive,” Stella said, blinking a couple of times. “Still, we got sidetracked again. I worship Mother Moon, who you can see there. She’s the goddess of the night, but the enemy of the horrors therein. She is the one who provides safety in the darkness, and whose light shines down on us in the hours that evil lurks.”

Joy looked at the statue Stella was pointing at and blinked, her mouth opening, then it shut again as she considered the statue. It was of a beautiful if matronly woman who was smiling gently, wearing flowing robes and with a necklace that wasn’t carved. The necklace was silver, with a circular disk that shone with soft white light.

“The moon? That’s really the only time I ever went out at night as a bee, when the moon was full and the sky was clear. It gave enough light to gather nectar even in the dark,” Joy said, her voice soft as she considered her memories, then nodded as she added warmly, “I think I understand why you’d follow her, as nice as she sounds.”

“Nice might be a bit of a strong term for it,” Brianna said, frowning a little. “I don’t know that I’d call any of the gods ‘nice.’”

Stella scowled at that, a hint of anger on her face, inhaling sharply. Before she could say anything, though, Cora hurriedly interjected. “Please, don’t argue! Theology is a sensitive subject, and I don’t want differing opinions to drive a wedge between us. Brianna, that wasn’t very nice of you. Unless you’re also saying that ‘nice’ isn’t something that adventurers are allowed to be, either?”

Joy looked back and forth between Brianna and Stella for a moment, worry welling up inside her as she took in their expressions. Stella looked angry for the first time since Joy had met her, and that wasn’t something she liked seeing. Worse, Brianna had a stubborn look on her face, and the sight was… incredibly unpleasant for Joy. Suddenly she realized just why queens likely didn’t get along, because they were far more individual than workers were, and it meant that their opinions could clash. Then, just as Joy was beginning to worry, Brianna’s expression softened slightly.

“I… sorry, Stella. I’ve just… never mind that,” Brianna said, letting out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

Stella paused for a moment, then nodded as she replied. “Apology accepted. Your opinions are your own, of course, but I have my own as well. I… will leave it at that.”

“As you like,” Brianna replied, her tone cool.

“Err…” Joy looked between them, utterly at loss as to what had just happened, other than the two getting into a disagreement. The worst disagreement she could remember encountering was when she’d wanted to harvest from a flower at the same times as another bee, and they’d simply raced to be the first one into the flower.

“Come on, Joy. Let’s get attuned to the cathedral, hm? I’d hate for something to happen and then end up all the way back in Seldrim,” Cora said brightly, but her enthusiasm was obviously forced. Still, if she was going to ignore what had happened, Joy wasn’t going to argue.

“Alright! Am I introducing myself to a rock again?” Joy asked, moving forward alongside the elf as she headed down the aisle between the statues.

Her question caused Cora to smile, while Brianna chuckled softly. Even Stella’s mood looked like it improved to Joy, brightening her spirits.

“Yes, that we are. Though you really don’t have to do so. It doesn’t hurt on the other hand, so why not?” Cora replied happily, relaxing a little as she paused, bowing her head to the statue of Fayliss, then continued toward the back of the building.

Joy looked at the statue more closely, and marveled at how much like real roses the statue’s adornments looked. They almost looked like someone had turned real roses to stone, which impressed her. Even more importantly, she looked at the statue and was struck by the kind smile on the woman’s face, which made her think better of the goddess. Seeing the bowl in front of the statue, where a handful of coins were piled, Joy hit on an idea and quickly reached into her belt pouch to pull out a few coins.

She wasn’t certain how many coins she put in the bowl, at least a dozen, but Joy did so, then paused, nodding to the statue as she spoke sincerely. “Thank you for all the pretty flowers!”

With that she followed the others, humming happily as Cora laughed.

Chapter 16

The worker paused in the midst of the trees, freezing as she heard something from up ahead, then chided herself again. She wasn’t a worker anymore, she was an apis scout, and that was something she had to get used to. More importantly, the sounds were coming from the same neighborhood as where several workers had disappeared, which was why she was investigating.

Worse, the scent of alarm and danger pervaded the air ahead of her, which indicated that the missing apis had run into something dangerous. Coupled with what she thought were words, the apis thought she had a good idea of what the danger might be.

Still, she was a scout, so she drew on her enhanced senses and slowly, cautiously approached, her bow out and drawn, while her wings beat virtually soundlessly.

She didn’t like the strange other people that kept intruding into the hive’s territory to begin with, and if they were killing workers, the queen was going to be very upset.

* * *

“Damn it, why won’t these stupid apis just surrender?” Egan spat, scowling as he pulled a surviving bolt out of the apis’s body. Of his crossbow bolts, only one of the five had broken during the fight, so he was doing his best to recover them, even if there was a decent reserve back in Bearton.

“I don’t know, boss. Hell, I’ve never seen anyone fight so fearlessly even when they were obviously outmatched,” Reina said, shaking her head as she cleaned her axe off. “For that matter, have you noticed that all of them have been hostile after we met the first one?”

“Yeah, I have,” Egan said, glowering down at the body for a moment, then let out a sigh as he looked around the Teeming Jungle warily.

Damaris had run into a few indications that this might be where the seal they were after was located, so she’d sent Egan and some of his people on a scouting mission, particularly to see if they couldn’t find any ruins from the old kingdom that had once been in the area, but the trip had been frustrating so far.

The Teeming Jungle didn’t look that bad from the outside, at least in Egan’s opinion. Oh, it was a nasty mess of gigantic, gnarled trees with more flowers than he could believe, but that hadn’t been enough to put him off. Neither had the fact there were leopards, giant insects, or spiders… at least, not until he’d gone into the damned place. Then his opinion had slowly changed.

Two days in the jungle had proven that he’d underestimated it. One of his soldiers, confident that he was more than high enough level for the area, had gotten himself eaten by a giant spider. Egan wasn’t sure if Jack had revived or not, but if he had, the dwarf was sure that the quartermaster was going to verbally rip a strip off the soldier’s hide, along with the massive hole in the man’s purse the death would leave. It was rather idiotic, in Egan’s opinion, since the area was appropriate for level fifteen and higher adventurers, which should have made the man think before wandering out of the camp to relieve himself.

Finally, Egan had decided that he was sick of tromping about aimlessly, and he’d seen one of the apis buzzing about, and who’d just happily waved at them before going on her way. Since the apis likely would know more about the landscape of the jungle, he’d decided to capture and interrogate one of them, and had waited until one of the women was suitably isolated before springing his trap with a net.

The results hadn’t been what he’d expected, though. The apis had refused his demand to surrender and instead fought viciously, and her bright smile through it all had shocked Egan, as two of his people had been injured before they’d been forced to kill the apis. Even with a crossbow bolt through a leg, and one of her arms crushed by a mace she hadn’t backed down, which was more than he’d ever seen from someone who was barely level twelve.

The next seven apis hadn’t been caught off guard, either, instead meeting his people with their weapons in hand, which was perplexing, to say the least. Egan would’ve expected that if they’d encountered the apis within sight of their dead companion, but that hadn’t happened. No, the apis had been on guard from the instant they’d appeared, and not one of them had shown the slightest inclination to surrender, which was simply baffling.

“I’m beginning to think we’re not going to get any information out of these apis, and we’re probably not going to get one to take home to the Lord, either. Not unless one of the magi can incapacitate one of them,” Egan said at last, looking around grimly. “Still, we’ve learned enough to give an initial report, I suppose. The jungle’s more dangerous than we expected, and Damaris is likely to want to hear about it. I damned well hope our goal isn’t in here, but if we do return, I think we’d better come in force.”

“Seems like a good idea to me, boss. Plus, with you and the other captains, it’ll be a lot safer around here. I’m barely high enough level for this,” Reina said, rolling her shoulders, then slung her axe behind her back.

“True enough. Come on, let’s get out of here,” Egan said, and gestured to the other soldiers, leading the way as they headed northward.

* * *

The scout’s eyes narrowed as she considered what she’d heard. She didn’t know a lot about the world outside the Teeming Jungle, but when she’d become a scout, she’d been directed to speak with the apis priests, who had explained much about the world the gods had brought them into, as well as the factions involved in it. The adventurers she’d seen avoided the jungle, though, so she’d settled for observing them for a time instead… which also made her suspicions grow firmer.

These intruders weren’t from the usual neighbors, she suspected. No, they had to be from the so-called ‘Kingdoms of Darkness’, with how they’d slaughtered a handful of apis for information. If they’d simply asked, the workers likely would have told them what they wanted to know, but instead the hive had been attacked, and they were talking about taking members of the hive for their own Lord. And that… that was something which she needed to report to the queen.

“A war between hives isn’t good. It isn’t good at all,” the scout murmured, and watched as the handful of ground-bound intruders headed toward the edge of the jungle. That was the only reason she wasn’t attacking them, with how the pheromones of the deceased apis clung where they’d injured their attackers.

So she followed them until they reached the edge of the jungle, and the apis paused, considering them for another minute, then returned to the queen.

Likely as not, the hive would be preparing for war before the day was out. Another war.

Chapter 17

“Joy, are you ready to go?” Cora asked, slipping on her pack and studiously ignoring the apis’s side of the room. The apis had absolutely no issue with disrobing in front of others, and Cora had taken to avoiding looking as much as possible, just to be safe.

“Yep! I have everything packed, and have six jars of lemonade ready to go!” Joy said, drawing Cora’s gaze over as the apis grinned, holding up a stoppered flagon. Cora couldn’t help a chuckle at the sight of the flagon, since she’d never expected that to be the result of letting Joy try lemonade.

“I see that it agrees with you, even if you do make it quite a bit sweeter than we prefer,” Cora said, smiling at Joy warmly, happy to see her friend so enthusiastic, after her obvious worry the previous day.

It’d been quite obvious that Joy didn’t know what to do when people argued. The apis had been almost walking on eggshells between Brianna and Stella, and the dimming of her normally sunny attitude had been remarkable, though the apis had obviously tried to be cheerful anyway.

Brianna and Stella had noticed rather quickly as well, and to their credit they’d tried to behave more like normal afterward. It didn’t completely calm things down, but Joy had bounced back relatively quickly, to Cora’s relief. She’d never expected a disagreement over something as simple as Joy calling Mother Moon nice. Fortunately, Joy didn’t know about Cora’s thoughts.

“It does! Oh, I don’t think it’s as good for me as pure honey, but it tastes good, and it reminds me of being back in the hive,” Joy replied happily, slipping the flagon back into her pack, which still bemused Cora.

The oversized, hexagonal wax jar was perfectly designed to fit between the apis’s wings, and Cora found it amusing that the pack could hold slightly more than a normal backpack in a single stack, though it didn’t have quite as many inventory slots as most backpacks. There were tradeoffs to everything, the mage supposed.

“If you say so. Shall we, then? It isn’t like Bearton is going to get any closer while we wait,” Cora suggested, and Joy quickly nodded, grinning broadly.

“Sure! I’m excited to meet this other hive, it’s also why I bought so much lemonade!” Joy said, slipping on her pack and adjusting it, then nodded firmly. “I’m sure they’ll like it too.”

Cora laughed, opening the door to lead the way out. She’d already had breakfast, so the only thing they needed to do was find Brianna and Stella so they could leave. In fact, somewhat to Cora’s surprise, neither of the other women were waiting for them upstairs or in the common room. Cora considered, then shrugged, instead returning the key to the innkeeper, which the ruddy-faced man accepted with a smile.

Joy almost bounced over to the window, peering through the open shutters as she hummed and bounced to herself, and the scratching of a maid sweeping the floor was barely audible over the conversations of the inn’s other guests, most of whom were fellow adventurers. From the sound of things, Cora suspected that most of them were just getting started in their jobs and were primarily learning by hunting the low-level monsters around the city.

A minute later Stella came down the stairs, giving a gentle nod as she returned her key to the innkeeper as well, then approached Cora, her voice calm. “Are we waiting on Brianna, then?”

“That’s right. Once she’s here, we can get moving,” Cora confirmed, glancing at Joy as she considered, then asked, “How bad do you think the Teeming Jungle will be? I’ve never been to a jungle before, and with it being suitable for up to level twenty adventurers… well, I’m a bit nervous.”

“You were gathering information too,” Stella pointed out, and Cora couldn’t help a slight blush, but the human just shrugged. “That said… from what I heard, it shouldn’t be too bad. Not many adventurers go there for the most part, just a handful at any one time since it doesn’t have many useful ingredients compared to other areas appropriate for the level.”

“Mm… that isn’t too different from what I learned, either. There are enough other areas in the kingdom for that level range that are considered better to adventure in that it just isn’t popular, coupled with how close it is to the border,” Cora agreed, letting out a soft sigh. “Still, we aren’t that far away, on the whole.”

“True, and—” Stella began, then fell silent as Brianna entered the room, looking more awake than she had at breakfast. Brianna headed straight for the innkeeper, and Stella watched her, an impassive look on her face.

Cora sighed, looking to make sure Joy wasn’t too close. The apis was watching a bird in the street outside in fascination, so Cora spoke softly. “You’re still having trouble with Brianna?”

“She disrespected my faith and my goddess. I can’t say I’m… upset with her, but I also don’t trust her like before,” Stella said calmly, glancing at Cora and giving a reluctant smile. “I suppose I shouldn’t be so frustrated due to a single comment, but… I’ve had trouble with it before. It’s another part of why I came east.”

“I’m sorry,” Cora replied, wincing in sympathy for Stella, her worry growing stronger. She’d honestly thought that they were getting along well, and had hoped that the four of them might form a more permanent adventuring group. Even if Joy ended up leaving after she became a queen, there was always the hope of getting another companion, but if Brianna and Stella didn’t get along… well, it wasn’t something she could do anything about.

“Don’t be. You haven’t done anything to upset me, and you can’t control anyone else,” Stella replied, looking away from Brianna and smiling a little more warmly, then nodded toward Joy with a grin. “Just like no one can control her. Goddess knows what’s going through her head some days.”

“Yes, well, I think it’s fairly straightforward, most of the time. Joy just wants to enjoy life, in the time she has. She’s mentioned that enough times,” Cora said, then nodded as Brianna approached. “Hey, Bri. Ready to go?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Brianna said, smiling broadly and rolling her shoulders. “I suppose it’s time for us to run into a challenge, for a change. Well, aside from the nightmare of the mines… but how were we supposed to prepare for that?”

“True, true… but that’s why I bought a couple of potions, just to be safe,” Cora replied, cringing when she thought about how much the two potions had cost. One was a potent antitoxin, while the other was a healing potion, which would have saved her life the previous time around, but they also cost about as much apiece as the staff she’d ordered. It was ridiculously expensive for their level, but she wasn’t going to leave things to chance if she could.

“Indeed. Shall we go?” Stella asked, and at Cora’s nod, the human raised her voice slightly. “Joy! We’re ready, are you?”

“Oh, right! Sure, let’s get on the road!” Joy replied cheerfully, turning away from the window abruptly, her wings fluttering slightly behind her. The apis nodded, and asked, “How far is it to Bearton?”

“It’ll take us about four days to get there since the road meanders a bit heading to the town,” Cora said, shrugging as she added, “If we could go in a straight line it’d be easier, but there’s a rather nasty swamp that the road goes around.”

“I see! Not too far, compared to Seldrim,” Joy said, nodding a couple of times as she thought, then shrugged. “Let’s go! Not that I know the way, so, um, could someone show me?”

“Sure, I can do that,” Brianna spoke up, grinning, and the redhead quickly headed for the door, with Joy following her.

“Time to get moving,” Cora said, adjusting the straps of her backpack, then followed Joy at a more sedate pace.

While the elf was confident in her endurance, she’d come to terms with Joy’s seemingly bottomless well of energy. There was no point in wearing herself out trying to keep up with the apis.

Chapter 18

Abigail the Red resisted the urge to growl in frustration again, though she was quickly beginning to despair of anyone coming to her rescue, or of getting out, for that matter.

She’d often taken pride in how well-maintained she’d kept the guild prison, despite how rarely it’d been used, but her diligence had backfired in this particular case. The cells were sturdy, built with enchanted materials intended to keep anyone from a minotaur to a motini confined, and that meant brute strength wasn’t enough to escape them. But that wasn’t all her captors had done, of course not. No, they’d brought a collar with them that drained her mana and locked it around her neck. Oh, given enough time she could overload the device, but that was why they came by to drain the mana from its crystal every few days. She’d tried removing the crystal, but couldn’t get it to budge.

Worse was how their leader came in to taunt her, and often to go through documents taken from the archives in front of Abigail. It was obvious that the woman was trying to get Abigail to give information away, but that didn’t mean that the treatment wasn’t effective, since every so often Abigail simply couldn’t help herself.

Damaris wasn’t the prettiest human Abigail had seen, but neither was the woman plain. She had a slightly stronger jaw than Abigail would have preferred, and her brown hair was neatly braided and coiled around her head, which was obviously meant to make it easier to wear a helmet. The most striking aspect of the woman were her bright hazel eyes and lips that were somewhat fuller than normal, as well as her large, athletic figure. She only wore a dagger and relatively normal clothing when she came into the cell, which was split in two by iron bars, but Abigail remembered facing the woman in her near-black armor as she wielded a sword. How outmatched Abigail had been was galling, but to be expected when she was outnumbered six to one, and hadn’t had time to gear up properly.

“You know, I’m glad we attacked when we did. We got a letter via your message book last night, warning you that the seal I’m looking for is being threatened,” Damaris said idly, looking at a document calmly, and glanced up as Abigail’s right eye twitched. “They asked if you’d seen anything out of place in the region, and asked if you needed any reinforcements. I’m very happy that offer didn’t come through before we arrived… as it is, I’m also glad I have an excellent forger and plenty of examples of your handwriting. I doubt any reinforcements are going to come riding to the rescue, Abby.”

“Eat shit and die,” Abigail replied caustically, glowering at the woman, then sat a little farther back in her chair. “You’re not going to be able to keep what happened here secret for long.”

“No, I’m not. I’m happy that they haven’t figured it out after a week, but two… at that point it’ll be pushing it, somewhat. Still, by the time they learn, we’ll probably be gone, along with you,” Damaris replied, grinning as she added, “See, My Lord asked me to bring you back with me if I could. On the other hand, if you’d just tell me how to break this code, I’d be more inclined to misplace you on the way back.”

Abigail glowered back at the woman, biting back the comments she wanted to make, along with a little fear.

She wasn’t sure who Damaris served, not exactly, but the skill of the soldiers that had attacked Bearton was obvious and sobering. They’d crushed the defenders almost effortlessly, and the leaders had beaten Abigail and her assistants easily enough they had to be at least level twenty to twenty-five, if not even higher in a couple of cases. There were enough tales of things the Kingdoms of Darkness did to captives that being taken with them was something Abigail feared, especially since she knew she was considered rather beautiful. She did not want to end up the plaything of some nobleman.

On the other hand, there was no way in all the hells that she was going to tell the woman what the code was for the reports she was examining. There was too much sensitive information kept in that code, and Abigail knew that anyone after the seals from Tarngard didn’t have Astonia’s best interests in mind. Any of the creatures that the ancient kingdom had trapped would be devastating if they were released, so she wasn’t going to help the woman find them.

“No? Well, then. We’ll figure it out. At least I can tell enough of what this is saying to know that Velk was right about it being in the Teeming Jungle,” Damaris said, smiling at Abigail wickedly. “Even if we can’t decode this, my people are going to search for it and find it. It’s just a matter of time.”

“I hope they all die there,” Abigail retorted, crossing her arms and glowering at Damaris still more as she inched backward.

Damaris simply laughed, her smile broadening as she murmured, “I doubt that will happen.”

Chapter 19

“Gabe, something feels off to me,” Felix said, his voice soft in the hush of the Teeming Jungle.

“No, really?” Gabe replied sarcastically, looking around nervously. “What was it, the lack of birds? Or other animals, for the most part? Oh, wait, maybe it was the fact we haven’t run into anything since we got here?”

“Gabe, shut your mouth,” Dramond ordered, the orc’s deep voice cold as he looked around the forest warily. “We know something’s wrong, and don’t need you distracting everyone.”

“Sorry, sir.” Gabe replied, swallowing hard as he turned back to watching the jungle around them nervously. The fronds were thick, making it hard to see very far, and Gabe didn’t like how little light there was filtering through the upper canopy. Gabe had never been in a jungle before, so this was a lot darker and more crowded than he was used to.

A sudden snap made Gabe jump, then he realized one of the others had stepped on a twig, prompting Gabe to laugh nervously, then continue forward through the jungle, wondering why it felt so much like he was being watched.

* * *

The scout rested on a branch, watching the humans, orcs, and other species slowly advancing into the jungle. The big one in the back was of particular concern, so the scout intended to focus on it. They hadn’t noticed any of the apis, but that was to be expected, after they’d taken pains to paint all their armor black and set up proper hiding places.

On the other hand, as much as she wanted to attack them then and there, it wasn’t time yet. The scout wasn’t the one in command of this strike force, so she simply held her bow, an arrow nocked and ready.

The intruders really were ignorant, as well, the scout noticed. There were several indications that a giant spider had made its lair here, at least until the apis had dealt with the creature, and they didn’t even seem to notice as they drew steadily closer to where its trapdoor was. Not that the spider was around to teach them their errors, unfortunately. The apis almost wished that it was still around to surprise them, but not really. Spiders were evil creatures, after all.

Their leader raised her hand in the corner of the scout’s vision, and she tensed, quickly and quietly drawing the string of her bow as she took aim at the creature that one of the priests had called a giant.

The invaders were about to get a most unwelcome surprise.

* * *

Gabe wasn’t sure what made him dodge. Maybe he was just so nervous that he dodged at the slightest hint of movement or sound, but it really didn’t matter. He simply dodged, then heard the hissing sounds and thumps of arrows slamming into the ground and flesh, and the bellow of pain from Kadrin was deafening.

“The hells?” Dramond exclaimed, and when Gabe glanced over, he saw the orc tearing an arrow with a barbed black head from his armor.

Far more shocking were the others, though, as nearly half the squad had been hit once or twice, and far more of the arrows had punched through their armor than Gabe would have expected. In the back, Kadrin staggered, then fell backward, with a dozen arrows protruding from the giant’s face. The impact of Kadrin’s body hitting the ground shook the earth, and Gabe focused on himself. He hastily raised his shield, just in time for a belated arrow to bounce off it, and a chorus of female voices rang out.

“For the hive!” the apis exclaimed, and with that they descended from the branches above, causing Gabe’s eyes to widen in shock.

Unlike the apis they’d been told about, these weren’t simply women with black and yellow hair in similarly colored armor, nor were they only armed with rapiers. These women’s hair had been dyed black, and black paint had disguised their armor to help them blend in. Oh, they were still beautiful, but that was a cold comfort as over thirty of them descended with spears, rapiers, and even a pair of them armed with wicked chitinous battle-axes, while more apis stayed in the trees with their bows.

“Oh, shit!” Felix gasped, clutching at the arrow buried in his arm, but the man hastily grabbed his sword, obviously planning to fight as well.

Before they could do anything else, Dramond shocked Gabe by snarling out, “Retreat!”

“Minor Healing Aura!” Jaime added a moment later, the priestess cowering behind the orc as he started to fall back, and a glowing green aura rippled out across the group, partially healing their injuries.

Gabe swore, quickly trying to fall back, but with the apis descending on him, he didn’t dare turn tail and run. Not unless he wanted a spear or arrow in his back, and he quickly raised the shield again to deflect the first attack.

This was going to be really unpleasant.

* * *

The scout stopped firing as the intruders retreated past the border of the forest, nodding firmly to herself. The queen had commanded that a message be sent, and this should suffice, the apis suspected. At least three of the intruders had perished, possibly four, but their companions had dragged them out of the jungle with them. All but the giant, at least. It had been big, but that made it a large target, too.

Oh, the enemy had done well enough in return, as one of the apis had been severely injured during the attack, but the scout thought the woman would be able to survive until they got her to the priests.

“Here!” one of the warriors said happily as she flew up, offering the scout a handful of arrows. “These smell like they’re yours!”

“Oh, thank you! It’s much easier when I don’t have to make more of them,” The scout replied, nodding in appreciation as she took the arrows, examining them closely. A couple of the arrows looked like they’d need to be repaired, but they looked like they were in good shape. “How far did they run?”

“I’m not sure. They ran around a pile of rocks, so we couldn’t see them anymore,” the warrior replied with a shrug, glancing behind them.

“Ah, that would do it. Well, I hope they got the point. The queen wanted us to send a message,” the scout said, smiling and shrugging. “They can’t just kill our workers and expect us to ignore it!”

“I’m sure they did. They got a lot of points, after all!” the warrior replied, grinning broadly, and the scout couldn’t help giggling at the woman’s reply.

“True!” the scout said, and glanced toward the edge of the jungle before nodding. “I’ll help the injured warrior back to the hive. See you there!”

“Yep!” the warrior said, and turned away, heading down to where more arrows were buried in the ground.

For her part, the scout considered the edge of the jungle again, then shrugged and turned to help the injured apis. She didn’t want the other apis to die, after all. That’d be sad, if it could be prevented.

* * *

“Hells, their weapons were damned well poisoned!” Felix said, his face horribly pale at this point, and Gabe quickly tightened the tourniquet they’d fashioned.

“No shit, they were bees! Did you think that the apis would lose their venom just because they changed?” Gabe demanded, glancing over at Jaime nervously. The priestess was helping some of the others, but he thought she’d be able to get to Felix in time. “How bad is this poison, boss?”

“It’s a bit nasty, but it doesn’t take effect that fast, assuming you don’t get hit somewhere vital. Then you’re probably dead, like those three,” Dramond said, nodding at the fallen grimly. “Hopefully they resurrected back home, but no way to know for sure… You’ll be fine, Felix, just bear it for a minute. Unlike Kadrin.”

“I’ll try,” Felix agreed, the dark-haired man sweating a lot as he swallowed and took deep breaths, muttering, “Poor bastard. They focused on him.”

“Why’d they even attack us, anyway?” Gabe asked, looking back toward the jungle, shaking his head incredulously. “They came out of nowhere!”

“They attacked us because Egan’s an idiot,” Dramond said, and Gabe flinched, looking at the lieutenant in shock.

“Sir! Egan’s one of the captains, you can’t—” Jaime began, only to have Dramond interrupt.

“I don’t care, when he’s an idiot, he’s an idiot. I’m going to report to Velk about this,” the orc retorted, shaking his head as he scowled. “Bees are somewhat territorial, sure, but for the most part, if you don’t attack them they leave you the hell alone. Attack them, though, and you rile them up. Assuming apis are the same way, they now have a long memory, so we likely just ran into a response to his attempts to capture some of them.”

“Crap.” Gabe muttered, paling a little as he thought about what that meant. “Do you mean we’re going to run into an ambush like that every time we try to go into the jungle? We barely injured one of them!”

“I have no idea. We’ll just have to find out,” Dramond said, grimacing and letting out a heavy sigh. “Besides, we had no idea what we were getting into this time. If we’d known, I’ll guarantee we wouldn’t have been hit so hard. We walked right into an ambush, when all we expected to be dealing with were some wildlife and monsters.”

Gabe opened his mouth, then shut it as he nodded grimly, looking at Felix in worry. He might argue with him a lot, but Gabe enjoyed his friend’s company.

Hopefully the others who’d died had resurrected, but there was always a chance they hadn’t, which was galling.

Chapter 20

“Your orders have been carried out, my queen,” the attendant said happily, kneading the wax between her hands calmly as she continued to work on making another storage container.

“What were the results?” the queen asked, looking up tiredly. It had been a long day for the queen, and she wasn’t getting any younger. It was odd to think about, but transforming from a bee to an apis had only increased her stress, which was odd. It didn’t help that the other creatures in the Teeming Jungle had not cared for their transformation, either.

“Several dead among the intruders, only one of your warriors was injured,” the attendant replied immediately, looking up to meet the queen’s gaze. “The warrior was returned here, and the priests saved her. We don’t know anything more.”

“I understand. Well, if they choose to respond, we will have to as well,” the queen murmured, shrugging and letting out a soft sigh. “Hopefully they won’t cause too many more problems. We already have enough problems with the ants and spiders; we don’t need to worry about an entire second front.”

“Agreed,” the attendants present chorused, continuing on their work, and the queen looked over them fondly.

All of them were her daughters, and were also so terribly short lived that it saddened her. It wasn’t like it was their fault, but it was one of those things that made her wonder about her choice to evolve yet again. At the same time, they took such happiness in their new state that she couldn’t honestly say her choice was bad. Instead, the queen turned her attention to another subject.

“How is the search for metal deposits going?” she asked, not expecting much in the way of news.

“Poorly!” an attendant chirped, looking up with a smile. “While a couple of workers have gotten the Miner job, the ground here isn’t good for digging in a lot of places. The chances of us finding the ore needed aren’t good, from what they say.”

“Unfortunate, but not completely unexpected,” the queen said, considering for a moment before adding, “At least we have plenty of nectar in the area. We’ll have to keep an eye out for other options in the future. In the meantime, I want the patrols to focus on defending the southern border, with only the necessary forces to the north. Any workers are to keep their distance from intruders, just to be safe, and retreat at the first sign of hostility…”

She continued giving her directions while the attendants listened closely, cleaning the cells that adorned her chamber.

* * *

“Egan, what were you thinking?” Damaris demanded, turning to the dwarf incredulously.

All of her captains were present after the reports of what had happened in the Teeming Jungle, and Damaris was not happy, since it set back her plans significantly. They were running short on time, as far as she was concerned, and that was frustrating. Worse, she wasn’t sure they had time to break the code on the messages she needed from the archives, and Abigail was frustratingly reticent.

“How was I supposed to know they’d actually figure out who’d done it? Or that they’d react like that?” Egan protested, spreading his arms widely. “I’ve never had to deal with giant bees, so I didn’t know they weren’t territorial unless you attacked them! I just wanted to speed up our search.”

“Instead, you got a couple of soldiers killed, and might have made our job that much harder,” Ovlin said waspishly. If the woman’s look or tone could kill, Egan would be dead several times over. “Thank you so very much.”

“I don’t see you going into the forest and looking for the seal, so I don’t want to hear—” Egan began hotly, right up until Damaris slapped her hand down on the table, silencing them instantly.

“Enough!” Damaris said, scowling at them for a long moment, then she looked at Ovlin. “How have your recruiting efforts gone?”

“They’ve been… modest. We’ve got about forty adventurers of up to level six on the high end, most of them are level two to three,” Ovlin admitted, considering Damaris for a moment, concern growing in her gaze as she hesitated, then asked, “You aren’t planning to send them into the jungle, are you? They wouldn’t last long.”

“No, nothing of the sort. I think we ought to send them and a detachment back home. If we’ve got new people, they should get to where they can be trained to be of use,” Damaris replied immediately, shaking her head firmly as she looked down at the map, tapping it a few times.

The surrounding environment wasn’t one that made Damaris happy. The swamp to the northwest was useful, as it made it easier to keep track of the locals and keep any of them from making an escape, but the adventurer who’d escaped still worried her. The woman hadn’t died, and the messages they’d gotten didn’t indicate that the woman had made it to any authorities, but that simply left her a mystery, and that was a threat.

“Nathan, Leah. How have your sentries been doing?” Damaris asked at last, glancing up at them.

“Quite well,” Thomas said, smiling at Leah as he continued. “There haven’t been many people coming along the road, so they haven’t had to take many people into custody. Only one group of new adventurers tried to fight, and they were easy to disable.”

When Damaris looked at Leah, the half-elf nodded marginally, her voice soft. “He’s correct. We haven’t had any issues with the locals trying to run after the first few days, either.”

“Good. In that case, I want a squad from your company to escort the recruits back home, while the remainder of them take up security in town,” Damaris said, looking at Thomas levelly, then glanced at Leah as she asked, “Would that stretch you too thin, Leah?”

The woman pursed her lips for a moment, then shook her head, her voice slow but calm. “I don’t believe so. It does mean we won’t be able to have as many sentries in a post, but I believe we can handle it.”

“Good,” Damaris said, nodding firmly as Thomas grinned, then turned her attention to Ovlin. “Now, I want you to assist Egan. The losses were primarily due to our people not expecting to run into hostile apis, so at least we know it could happen, now. I want the jungle scoured for that seal; we don’t have time to waste here.”

“What about the apis, though?” Ovlin asked, frowning. “If they keep attacking…”

“Defend yourselves, but otherwise leave them the hell alone. I’m hoping that they attacked as a reprisal and warning, then will leave us alone. Why else would they stop even attacking after Dramond’s people left the jungle but were in clear sight?” Damaris said, straightening a little, then glanced at Velk as she added, “If you are attacked frequently, though… defend yourselves in whatever way you have to. Call for reinforcements if it comes to that. Velk, you’ll be in command of any response.”

“Of course, sir,” Velk said, grinning toothily as he nodded. “I’d be happy to show them that we’re not pushovers.”

“Only if it’s necessary. We’re here for a seal, not for a war. That comes later,” Damaris cautioned, and he nodded quickly.

“Yes, sir, I hear you,” Velk agreed.

Damaris looked around the room once more, then at Egan, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. Finally, she let out a soft sigh.

“Mistakes happen, Egan. I wish you hadn’t let this mistake happen, but there’s nothing else to be done about it. Just find the seal so we can finish up here and get out. We’re running out of time,” Damaris said, firmly stepping on the anxiety trying to take over in the back of her mind.

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best,” Egan agreed, letting out a breath as he straightened. “We’ll get the job done, one way or another.”

“Excellent. Now, you all have your jobs, so let’s get moving,” Damaris told them.

As they left, a tiny part of her considered sending Abigail back to Lord Alethus with the recruits, but Damaris decided against it after a moment. She couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t change their minds and free her, and that could be disastrous. No, she’d just take the woman back with her.

She looked around the office again as the others left, then Damaris rubbed her forehead and sat down to pore over the documents again. Shala had the important ones, but Damaris was trying to figure them out, too. Maybe there was something in them that would help.

Chapter 21

Guildmaster Silverhoof finished going over the document and let out a sigh of relief as he signed it. He hated having to collate the various expense reports for his superiors, but Viper absolutely refused to let Silverhoof foist the task off on him. Of course, that was probably for the best, since his superiors would have been incredibly irritated if he’d slacked off.

On the other hand, the sudden pounding on his door nearly caused Silverhoof to punch his ink pen straight through the document, and he cursed, quickly pulling it away as he hastily blotted the excess ink off the page.

“What is it?” Silverhoof snapped, his gaze rising to the door angrily.

“Sir, we have an emergency! Bearton has fallen!” Viper exclaimed as he opened the door, looking uncharacteristically flustered as he fidgeted with his glasses. Still, it took a moment for Silverhoof to really process what he’d said.

“Bearton has what?” Silverhoof demanded, straightening suddenly and looking over at the shelf of message books that linked to other guild houses. Obviously, Viper hadn’t heard from those, since Bearton’s was still on the shelf. “How’s that possible? We got a message from Abigail just a couple of days ago!”

“I know, but we have an adventurer here, and—” Viper paused, taking a deep breath, then let it out and spoke more calmly, though his voice was still taut. “Sir, you need to come see her. She isn’t in the best of shape, and you need to hear this for yourself. She’s in the infirmary, which is where she belongs.”

“Right, I’ll be there momentarily,” Silverhoof said, pushing aside his shock as concern rippled through him.

He hesitated, then reached over to take the message book and opened it to the place marked with a ribbon, only to have his concern grow. There weren’t any new messages, just the same one in Abigail’s bold handwriting, acknowledging his warning and reporting no movements in her area. She’d even declined the offer of reinforcements, which had been a tiny bit surprising, but in character for the Pyromancer.

“Hells,” Silverhoof muttered, then closed the book and slipped it into his belt. He really hoped the adventurer wasn’t right.

* * *

The infirmary was large enough to fit Silverhoof and other larger species easily, which was a relief. The woman who’d arrived didn’t look like she was in good shape, and Silverhoof had to wonder how she managed to get to the guild without being stopped by the city guard. Tina looked half-dead to him.

The elf had waxy, pale skin that normally would have been tanned, but was currently sickly at best, and she looked like she normally was fit, but hadn’t been eating well recently. Her brown hair was stringy and clumped, and their healer was tending to the angry red mark on the woman’s shoulder, a look of concern on Vana’s face. Still, the elf was forcing herself to sit up as she swayed in place, her green eyes mostly in focus.

“Can you tell us what exactly happened?” Silverhoof asked, trying to keep his tone patient. Panicking the woman wouldn’t do any good, and she looked like she wasn’t especially stable.

“It’s why I’m here,” the elf said, her words slurring ever so slightly, and she took a deep breath, then let out a whimper at a prod against the injury. Eventually she managed to speak, though. “It was… a week ago? Close to that. We’d gone hunting a couple of grizzlies in the north wood, trying to get new armor for Dean.”

“A week?” Viper asked, looking up sharply from making notes. “Are you sure?”

“That’s what the hermit said. I lost three days to the fever while he was takin’ care of me,” Tina said, pausing and frowning. “No, eight days. Five days here, three days for the fever.”

“Viper, don’t interrupt,” Silverhoof interjected, glowering at the man for a moment. “You can ask questions afterward. Now, Tina… please, continue.”

“Right, um… well, we were heading back to Bearton around noon. Nathan noticed that there weren’t many farmers out, which seemed odd, but we were distracted. Then we saw the people at the walls, and the busted gate. There were orcs and the like, so we ran, figuring Bearton had been taken by the Dark Kingdoms,” Tina said, swallowing hard as she paled even more, hesitating for a moment, then admitted, “We ran right into an ambush. There were eight of them, ’n there was no way we were getting through. Dean yelled for me to run, and they blocked them. I… ran, since my arrows just bounced off. Theirs didn’t, though, ’n it was poisoned, too. I had to go into the Fog Glens to lose them, too.

“The poison got to me before long, though. I lost consciousness, and probably would’ve been eaten if it weren’t for a hermit. He dragged me back to his hut ’n kept me alive through the poison ’n fever. He… he told me to stay there, ’cause I might kill myself tryin’ to get here, but… but my friends trusted me, ’n…” Tina looked up at Silverhoof, her breathing growing ragged as she begged. “My friends, I left them back there! Please, please help them if you can! I… I…”

“Shh… calm down and don’t stress yourself. You’ve been through a lot, Tina, and you need to rest and recover,” Silverhoof interrupted, despite the sinking feeling in his stomach. Still, he continued after a moment, glancing at Vana. “We’re going to help your friends, but the best thing you can do is make sure you’re well enough when they show up, alright? Just let Vana treat you, and get you back on your feet.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much, I just can’t…” Tina began, rapidly blinking back tears, and Vana rested a hand on her unhurt shoulder as she interrupted.

“Now, now… let’s get you laying down, hm? You’ve pushed yourself quite far enough, and your body needs time to recover,” Vana said firmly, giving Silverhoof and Viper a pointed look. “Further questions can wait.”

“Agreed,” Silverhoof said, looking at Viper grimly and tilting his head toward the door. “Come on, Viper. We need to figure out how to respond to this.”

“Of course, sir,” Viper said, and followed as Silverhoof headed for the door.

They left the infirmary quickly, and Silverhoof debated, then decided to step into the nearest empty room instead, waiting for the man to follow him in and close the door. The situation was grim, in his opinion, and it wiped away all his frustration with paperwork. As much as he hated paperwork, it was far better than something like this.

“I don’t think she’s lying, sir. Mistaken… possibly, but that isn’t likely. She was too emotional, and you’d have been told if something like that happened. It’s four days from Bearton on foot, at worst we should have gotten word three days ago,” Viper said, looking up at Silverhoof in worry. “There’s no reason for Abigail not to have told us about something like that, where an adventuring party fought someone.”

“Unless she’s entirely delusional, but I don’t think so,” Silverhoof said grimly, shaking his head. “No, we’re likely seeing the attempt to take the seal near Bearton, and that is frightening. I should’ve damned well sent reinforcements anyway, but no, I just had to give Abigail the option. What do we have available, Viper?”

“Not much. Most of the local adventurers are too low-level to do much good, but we’ve got two groups of level twelve adventurers that likely could be hired, along with a level fourteen… well, prospective hero, so he’d probably be willing to help out,” Viper said, grimacing and sighing before he continued, adjusting his spectacles again. “There’s the staff here, of course, and I could contact the duke. I’m pretty sure we could get a few companies of soldiers to help out.”

“Do it. We have to get to Bearton quickly, and I’m going to be leading the charge,” Silverhoof said bluntly, shaking his head firmly as he suppressed his worry as best he could. “This could be disastrous, Viper.”

“Ah… is it truly that bad, sir?” Viper asked, pausing and looking up at Silverhoof in trepidation. “I don’t have access to the records regarding the seals, but…”

“It’s a level eighty-nine apocalypse spider, Viper. If that gets free, it’ll shred all of Astonia before a group of adventurers who’re powerful enough can get here to stop it,” Silverhoof said bluntly. “There isn’t a group in the country that could stand up to the thing.”

“Oh. Oh dear,” Viper said, and his scales were slightly paler than normal, then he paused and cursed. “Ah… I just remembered, but the messengers with the apis? They were going to Bearton as well.”

“Well, hopefully they manage to get away alive,” Silverhoof said, considering for a brief moment, then shook his head. “If Abigail could be taken down without getting a message off to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“As you say, sir,” Viper said, and quickly turned to leave the room, moving with marked alacrity.

Silverhoof hoped it’d be enough.

Chapter 22

Brianna paused and vigorously brushed off the upper portion of the waystone, cleaning off the dirt and moss that had adhered to it. Cora noted the words carved into the stone and smiled as Brianna sighed loudly and stretched.

“Oh, thank the gods! I was beginning to feel like we’d never get to Bearton!” Brianna groused, wrinkling her nose as she added, “At least we’re far away from that swamp. The smell was… bleh.”

“It wasn’t that bad! Sure, there was a lot of rotting plants, but there were lots of flowers, too! I even got some tasty nectar!” Joy replied happily, looking at the waystone curiously as she considered, then asked, “What does the three mean? Three what?”

“Three miles, Joy,” Cora said, laughing softly as she pointed down the left fork of the road. “The town is probably obscured by the trees over there… I’d guess it’s an orchard, as regularly spaced as the trees are. Still, we aren’t far from town.”

“Oh! Okay, I understand now!” Joy said, fluttering her wings and lifting off with a buzzing sound, though the apis only flew twenty feet or so into the air before she paused and added cheerfully. “Yep! I can see a temple spire and some other buildings from up here. I think it has a stone wall, too… not a wooden one.”

“We’re near the border, which is why they probably built it out of stone. Usually, only big, wealthy cities tend to build stone walls since they take ages to build, Joy,” Stella said, putting her hands on her hips as she looked upward at the apis in amusement. “It also takes a lot of stone in the area, so some areas tend not to use them even if they’re wealthy. Would you come back down here?”

“Sure!” Joy agreed happily, flying back down again, and the loud buzzing of her wings ended. The apis adjusted her footing as she landed, then added, “The fields look strange, though.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” Cora asked, pausing just as she was about to start down the road.

“There were lots of people in the fields out around Irador and Seldrim, but there aren’t any I saw here, even though there’s lots of fields,” Joy explained, waving her hand toward the town casually. “I just thought it was odd. I hope they aren’t going to let their harvests go bad…”

“What?” Brianna asked sharply, her head jerking upward and her eyes narrowing. “You didn’t see anyone?”

“No? Maybe a couple on the walls, but that’s it. The fields looked really empty, which was why I noticed that no one was there,” Joy said, blinking at Brianna, then looking at Cora and Stella as they exchanged worried looks, prompting the apis to frown, then she asked, “Is… that strange?”

“Very. It’s the middle of the day, and farmers tend to work for almost as long as they have daylight,” Brianna said, frowning as she glanced around. “For the fields to be abandoned… that’s a really bad sign. You didn’t see smoke or anything like that coming from the town, did you?”

“Nope! Well, I saw some, but no more than I saw from Seldrim,” Joy chirped, looking hopeful as she added, “Maybe there are some nasty monsters outside, and they’re just staying where it’s safe?”

“While I suppose that’s possible, I don’t think it’s very likely,” Cora murmured, frowning as she looked toward the town, beginning to grow concerned.

“Come to think of it, have we seen any travelers coming from this direction? Some of them came from the other towns along our way, but I don’t think I saw anyone coming from Bearton,” Stella said, looking at Cora and Brianna. “Am I wrong?”

“No… I really don’t think you are. Which is a bad sign,” Cora said, looking at Brianna in concern. “I suppose it’s possible something happened since we left Irador, but this feels wrong. Most Guildmasters in areas like this are higher level than us, so I doubt it’s a monster.”

“We could be wrong, though. It could be a festival or something,” Brianna said, scowling as she tapped her foot, then nodded. “Still, best to be cautious. Why don’t we head for town, but keep an eye out for anything dangerous? Gods know what’s going on, but it’ll almost certainly be safer in town.”

“Alright! Do you want me to fly?” Joy asked, almost bouncing in place, her eyes bright with curiosity. “I have a lot better view from above!”

“Yes, but it also makes you an obvious target, Joy. Especially in the middle of the day, in that armor. Black stands out,” Cora said dryly, nodding toward Joy’s armor. “No, I think you’d best stay on the ground, just to be safe.”

“Indeed. I’m just glad you said something, Joy. If you hadn’t, we might have walked right into danger,” Stella said, reaching down to adjust how her mace hung from her belt, and checking her shield as well.

“You’re welcome! I never know what’s normal or not, so I thought I’d just ask,” Joy replied happily, not seeming too focused on their worries.

“You seem awfully happy for a situation which could turn out to be dangerous, Joy,” Brianna commented, shaking her head. “We could be in trouble, you know.”

“Well, sure! But we could be in trouble anywhere, so why not enjoy our time together?” Joy replied with a grin. “A wasp could eat me later today, after all! If we see bad things, that’s when I’ll worry.”

Cora laughed, her anxiety easing slightly at Joy’s comments, and she nodded, murmuring, “That’s a definite point, even if I don’t really want to think about being eaten. Come on, let’s go, but cautiously.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Brianna agreed after a moment, her tension relaxing slightly. “We’ll just keep our eyes open.”

“Well, of course! How else can we see?” Joy replied, looking perplexed.

Both Cora and Stella broke out into laughter at Joy’s confusion and the look on Brianna’s face as the human tried to figure out how to respond.

* * *

Lethe blinked as she saw the group coming down the road, opening her mouth, then she shut it, considering for a few seconds more. The group was an odd one, though she’d mostly have taken the four adventurers in stride if it hadn’t been for the apis in their company.

“What the… is that an apis?” Jacob asked, leaning forward slightly. “Analyze.”

Lethe gave him an annoyed look, then replied tartly. “You tell me, hm? You’re the one with the ability.”

“Er, right. And yes, she’s an apis. A… level eleven apis Rogue, as a matter of fact. While her friends… let’s see,” Jacob said, and quickly checked the others before continuing. “A level fourteen Acolyte, a level twelve Swordswoman, and a level thirteen Mage.”

“Hells, what are they doing here?” Lethe demanded, her voice rising ever so slightly, but she quickly forced herself to be quieter as she hissed, “This area is for low-level adventurers!”

The two of them were part of Captain Leah’s company, and had been stationed to watch the road since about noon. While there were other teams in the area, they were spread out far enough that getting assistance would take a little while. More importantly, both of them were level twelve, which was why Lethe was concerned. They were more than powerful enough to deal with any of the locals, or the handful of level four and five adventurers or merchants who’d wandered in over the last week, but this group was an entirely different matter.

On the other hand, they had a good hiding spot along the road, partly hidden behind a large boulder and some bushes, so it was unlikely that they’d be spotted easily. That also gave time for them to decide what to do, with the casual pace of the adventurers.

“I don’t have the slightest clue. Still, they don’t look like they’ve spotted us, and—is that apis bouncing?” Jacob demanded, his tone turning incredulous.

To Lethe’s shock, Jacob wasn’t wrong. The apis was bouncing along the road, hopping from one stone to another along the cobblestone fence as she hummed loudly, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Someone less like the stories Lethe had heard from Egan’s company, where the apis had attacked murderously from the shadows without warning, was hard to imagine. The woman looked practically harmless, even with a rapier and a couple of daggers sheathed on her belt.

The other adventurers were normal by comparison, though the broad smile on the dark-skinned Acolyte’s face showed that the apis’s antics amused them as well. They also seemed to be rather distracted by the woman, which gave Lethe an idea.

“How about we try to take her or the mage hostage?” Lethe suggested, nodding toward the red-robed elf. “Both, if we can manage it. That’d likely delay them long enough for some of the others to get here, and even if we’re a bit lower level, it isn’t that big of a difference.”

“Well… sure, that seems doable. The apis should practically come right on top of us, so if you’re quick, you could grab the mage while I go after the apis,” Jacob said, nodding slowly as he looked at the apis contemplatively, fingering his knife. “She doesn’t look like she’s paying that much attention to her surroundings, anyway.”

“Exactly. And with Speed Burst, I can get to the mage before they can react,” Lethe agreed, relaxing a little. “I just hope the others saw them coming, so they react quick enough.”

“Eh, even if they didn’t, no adventurer is going to risk the life of a friend, and if they aren’t that close, they’ll probably just run,” Jacob said, grinning. “Let’s do this.”

“Agreed! Hells, we might even level off it,” Lethe agreed, smiling brightly, a hint of anticipation rising in her. It’d been a while since she’d leveled, and the idea improved her mood.

“We can always hope,” Jacob agreed.

Chapter 23

Joy hummed happily as she hopped between one stone and the next, but anyone thinking she wasn’t paying attention would have been quite mistaken. Her antennae were at full extension, and while she was watching her footing, she was also watching her surroundings, while wishing she had her eyes as a bee again. She’d be able to keep an eye out for danger far more easily, and she rather regretted the more limited sight she had now.

Still, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t keep track of things around her. Every brush of the wind against her antennae told her its story, bringing with it the scents and sounds of the world around her. For instance, she could tell that there were a lot of blooming bluebells to the southeast, ones that she’d have immediately gone to investigate as a bee. As an apis, she merely felt a faint longing, but far more important were the other smells interspersed with the scent of flowers, and not merely the hints of smoke from Bearton.

It was the scent of sweat and a little oil, along with soap as well. It wasn’t what Joy considered a pleasant smell, but she supposed it was better than how others smelled when they didn’t wash often. She rather preferred bathing in pure, clean water herself, but the lavender scented soap Cora had bought for her wasn’t too bad, and was something Joy could tolerate.

Still, the scent told her that there were other people nearby, and she looked around, still humming as she tried to see if she could spot them, like the others had taught her to. They’d also told her not to make it obvious that she’d noticed someone was nearby in a lot of cases, which was the only reason Joy didn’t speak about it. Instead, she reached up and adjusted her backpack, just like they’d suggested, as a warning.

The road was nice enough, though, and Joy glanced up, grinning as she saw a group of sheep in a pasture ahead of them, just past a large rock and some bushes. To her it looked like one of the fields was separated from the others by bushes, which she approved of. The bushes had plenty of flowers, and that was one of the most important resources for nectar, in her opinion.

She didn’t see anyone else, though, and by this point even Joy would’ve been growing concerned about the lack of people even if the others hadn’t warned her. Joy knew that the others thought she was frivolous at times, but she didn’t mind, as she liked to enjoy herself. On the other hand, when it came to the safety of the others… well, she’d rather put herself in harm’s way first. She’d just have to make certain not to let the others know she could’ve gotten out of the way since that might upset them.

Jumping off the fence and onto the boulder, Joy noticed the smell growing stronger, and she braced herself for what she suspected was coming, since she couldn’t see why someone nice would have hidden themselves. The others were just a short distance behind her, too.

“Speed Burst!” a woman exclaimed, and the next instant an elf with blue skin and black hair erupted from the bushes, a short blade in one hand, while she wore dark leather armor much like Joy’s, though it wasn’t quite as ornate.

She moved past Joy so quickly the apis barely had time to start reacting. More importantly, right behind the woman was a man in leather armor who had a dagger in one hand. He was human, and wasn’t very remarkable to Joy’s eyes, though his armor was much like the woman’s, as both had a red emblem on the armor that she didn’t recognize. He lunged at Joy, and unlike with the woman, she did have time to react.

The man grabbed Joy’s right arm, and she didn’t try to stop him, instead drawing her dagger as he pulled her down toward him, growling out, “If you don’t want to lose—”

His dagger wasn’t quite to Joy’s throat when Joy flipped her dagger around and slammed it back and up, a word escaping her lips as she did so. “Stab!”

The man gasped in pain as the dagger slid under his breastplate, jerking away from Joy, and her dagger pulled free in the process. She went for her rapier, but as she did, she heard Brianna behind her. “Power Strike!”

“Fire Blast!” Cora exclaimed, and there was a meaty thunk, followed by a scream and a blast of fire behind Joy.

She didn’t look, though, instead looking at the man, whose eyes were wide as her rapier cleared its sheath. He spoke quickly, his breathing hard. “Now, don’t you dare touch me! I’ve got friends coming, and they’re—”

“So do I,” Joy replied, smiling and raising her rapier as she asked, “Should I stab him more?”

“Yes!” Stella said, her voice frantic. “There’re others coming!”

“No!” the man exclaimed, turning and scrambling away, but Joy didn’t hesitate, instead stabbing quickly.

Her first two attacks bounced off his armor, to her annoyance, but the third one pierced deep into his leg, and Joy heard him cry out in agony before he got through the bushes, but before she could pursue Brianna spoke.

“Joy, time to go! Too many are coming,” Brianna called out, a note of worry in her voice as the man escaped.

Joy looked away from the man, and as she did she felt her antennae shrink back slightly. The woman who’d darted past her was laying on the side of the road, one of her arms partly detached, while she’d been charred by a blast of fire. Worse, she could see a couple more people racing across the field to her north, and when she looked south she could see still more of them, all in similar armor.

“Joy?” Cora prompted, and Joy shook off her distraction.

“Right!” Joy agreed, quickly jumping back over the boulder and out onto the road. Sheathing her rapier, she quickly asked, “Where’re we going? And who are they?”

“This way!” Brianna barked, and rushed back along the road without hesitation.

Joy blinked, but Cora and Stella didn’t hesitate, instead following Brianna quickly. Without many other options, she rushed after them, wondering just what was going on.

They quickly raced down the road, and for a minute the others were silent. Joy glanced back to see some of the people she’d seen pursuing, then looked forward again, just in time to see Brianna cut into an orchard, the others quickly following her.

“This way!” Brianna said, waving Joy over. “They probably have bows or the like, so we need to get into cover.”

“Who are they?” Joy demanded, following the directions. “You seem to recognize them!”

“They’re part of the Kingdoms of Darkness,” Cora replied, having paused to catch her breath, and the elf was pale. “I don’t recognize the emblem, but there’re enough different factions that isn’t unusual. They must have captured the town.”

“And they’re probably going to try to keep us from letting the word spread, so we need to keep moving,” Brianna said bluntly, shaking her head. “We’re not that far away from them.”

“Yes, but where? They’ll probably head straight for the road back to Irador, and we’re tired from traveling all day!” Stella said, looking around worriedly.

Brianna glanced back nervously, but replied bluntly. “I don’t know! We don’t have time to—”

“The hive?” Joy interrupted, her tone hopeful as the others stopped. “I think they’d help us, if we asked. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

“…Hells, why not?” Brianna said after a moment of thought, tilting her head. “They’d never expect us to run south.”

“Sure,” Cora said, nodding in agreement. “We don’t have time, and it’s better than nothing.”

“West, then south,” Stella added quickly. “I hear them, so let’s go!”

Joy nodded, smiling as she said, “Sure!”

The sound of men and women yelling was getting closer, but the others quickly started through the orchard, and Joy followed them. A tiny part of her was a bit embarrassed that she rather liked the excitement.

* * *

“What happened?” Leah demanded, looking at the handful of soldiers in shock and anger.

“A group of adventurers were coming along the road, so Jacob and Lethe tried to ambush them. Jacob was injured and poisoned, but he’ll probably recover, while Lethe was killed, Sir,” Oliver reported, his expression showing his frustration. “He was conscious long enough to report they were level eleven through fourteen, that there were two humans, an elf, and an apis, and that they were trying to take them hostage. I have two squads after them, but the group is headed west quickly, and I don’t have many reports.”

Leah hissed under her breath, resisting the urge to swear, then shook her head and snapped, “Well, isn’t that just wonderful. Send a squad to block the road and keep them from getting back to Irador.”

“Already done, sir. Fourth squad was dispatched immediately,” Oliver replied, and Leah relaxed at the word that it was her highest-level squad that he’d chosen. “The others are trying to track down the adventurers, and hopefully they can pin them against fourth squad.”

“Excellently done,” Leah said, relaxing as she scowled slightly. “Still, adventurers of that level… damn it, I wish we hadn’t had to spread our sentries so thin. I wasn’t expecting people of that level to show up. They should’ve just let the adventurers past, then gotten the sentries to pin them against the walls. Too late now, though.”

“Agreed. I’ll keep you informed of any additional information, sir,” Oliver said, saluting.

“Excellent. I’ll let Damaris know, and maybe she can get us some additional soldiers,” Leah said, nodding to Oliver, then turned away and studied the wall around Bearton for a moment before snorting softly to herself.

She couldn’t wait to get out of here, but first they needed to accomplish their goal. More personally satisfying would be if she could catch the adventurers that had hurt her people, but Leah wasn’t going to hold her breath on that. It wasn’t as though she could punish them appropriately, after all.

Finally, she headed for the gate, and for the guild house within. Damaris would want to hear about this.

Chapter 24

“Ow!” Joy yelped as the rapier cut through her gauntlet, cutting into her left palm. It hurt, but she didn’t let it distract her as she thrust her rapier into the man in turn. Fortunately, his armor wasn’t much better than hers, and the rapier punched through his shoulder.

“Gah!” the dark-haired man exclaimed, staggering backward, and Joy hastily retreated, looking at the others.

They’d managed to throw off the pursuit for a few minutes, but the enemies had come after them anyway, resulting in the decision to ambush them. Unfortunately, while their ambush hadn’t gone as poorly as the one which had been sprung on them, it hadn’t gone well, either.

As Joy watched, Brianna swung her sword hard, cutting deep into the chest of the human woman she’d been fighting, and sending the woman flying back into a tree. Then her friend snapped off the arrowhead that was sticking through her right arm and pulled out the shaft, hissing as she did so.

“Lightning Blast!” Cora snapped, throwing an orb at the enemy archer again, and Joy shook off her distraction, glancing at the man she’d stabbed, then shrugged and jumped, her wings snapping out to take flight as she flew up and over him, following the orb of lightning. Besides, his face was turning a weird color, which meant that he’d succumbed to her venom, or would soon.

The archer had dodged Cora’s spell, but the woman looked a bit panicked, and her hair was definitely shorter after an earlier fire spell, to Joy’s private amusement. She also looked up just a bit late, and yelped as she saw Joy coming, scrabbling for her sword. She was too late, though, and Joy smiled at her.

“Sorry!” Joy said, and stabbed the woman mercilessly, several times just to be certain. The woman fell after the second stab, but Joy made sure to finish the job.

“Minor Cure.” Stella’s voice was soft, and barely audible, but the sound of it brought Joy’s head up as she looked back, her wings still buzzing.

There’d been four of the enemies, and their opening ambush had allowed them to take down one of them, which meant that all of the enemies were accounted for. At least once Joy looked to be sure the other man hadn’t moved. The foam on his lips was a little gross, she had to admit.

Stella was next to Brianna, with magic dancing from her friend’s fingers and into the injury, so Joy quickly flew back, and settled onto the ground, looking at Brianna in worry as she asked, “Is something wrong? That’s the poison-fixing spell, right?”

“They poisoned their arrows,” Brianna said, almost grinding her teeth as the woman breathed slowly. “Probably wanting to keep anyone from getting away, the bastards.”

“Fortunately, it’s something I can cure. Lower-level adventurers would be in trouble, though,” Stella said, glancing at Joy as she asked, “Did they shoot you?”

“Nope!” Joy replied, relief rushing through her as she raised her hand, which was dripping yellow blood as she added, “I got cut, but nothing from arrows! I feel fine, too.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re alright, but… we don’t really have time or the mana to worry about it,” Stella replied after a moment studying Joy, worry in her gaze as she spoke. “If you start feeling ill, I expect you to tell me immediately, alright? I’ll close our wounds, at least. Minor Healing Aura.”

A burst of green light washed over them, and the minor injuries that everyone had taken closed, including the gash on Joy’s hand. She could still feel the dull ache deeper in her hand, but at least she wasn’t bleeding, so the apis admired her hand, and looked at Stella gratefully.

“Thank you! I’ll tell you if I feel weird, promise,” Joy said, nodding rapidly, then gestured to the south. “Should we keep going? I don’t smell any apis yet.”

“Definitely,” Cora said promptly, looking behind them nervously. “If they sent four, more of them will be along soon. While we’re good, we didn’t get through that unscathed. If a dozen of them catch up, we’ll be in trouble.”

“Which is just another reason to get moving,” Brianna said flatly, nodding to Stella. “Thanks. I’ll thank you properly once we’re somewhere safe, alright?”

“Shush,” Stella replied, shaking her head. “I’m just doing my part, so let’s go.”

Joy giggled, but nodded, this time taking a position in the rear as they rushed southward, leaving behind still more bodies of their attackers.

* * *

“Four adventurers, and one of them an apis?” Damaris demanded, her gaze jerking upward in her shock, and she could see the surprise flicker across Leah’s face, though the woman quickly hid it. Damaris continued quickly. “Were all of them women?”

“Ah, yes, they were, Sir. An elf, two humans, and an apis, from what I heard,” Leah replied promptly, obviously unsure of why Damaris was asking. “I don’t have full details, but it sounded like the apis was more like a Swashbuckler or Rogue, the humans were a Swordswoman and either a Warrior or Acolyte, and the elf was a Mage. Is that important?”

“Possibly,” Damaris said, her lips pressing together as she considered what to say. Leah’s expression helped her decision, though, as she admitted at last, “Lord Alethus was nearly killed by an apis and a group that was similar, as I recall. They also had other companions, but they were part of different adventuring groups.”

“Oh. Oh,” Leah said, her eyes going wide, then her gaze hardened. “Well, in that case I suppose we don’t really need to take them alive, do we?”

“If you can, do it. His Lordship was honestly impressed at how the apis lured him into a trap. She played decoy and walked into the nest of a group of giant minks, which is what injured him. He’s curious about her, and would love to convert her if possible,” Damaris said, shaking her head, her mood turning cold as she continued. “However, that’s merely if possible. If you can’t, don’t bother. They’ve proven themselves dangerous and resourceful if they managed to survive encountering Our Lord, so don’t treat them lightly. No matter what, don’t let them get to Irador.”

A flicker of rebelliousness crossed Leah’s face, but the woman quickly suppressed it as she saluted, nodding. “As you wish, sir! Last seen they were heading south, anyway. I’m not sure why, but with your permission I’ll reinforce their pursuit. If they’re as dangerous as you say, the soldiers will need the help.”

“Agreed. While caution is in order, try not to lose them,” Damaris warned, and watched as Leah turned and quickly left the room, tapping the desktop nervously.

For a minute the room was silent, save for the soft sound of the clock in the corner keeping time, and Damaris ran through the current situation internally. It truly wasn’t that bad, she had to admit, but the appearance of the same adventurers who’d injured Lord Alethus set her teeth on edge. She couldn’t be sure it was a coincidence, and that made her nervous. She honestly didn’t believe that the adventurers would be dangerous as long as her soldiers could pin them down, but until that happened, she wasn’t going to take them lightly.

“Sir? Is something wrong?” Velk asked at last, his voice almost causing her to start. “I thought that Shala was close to breaking the code on the records.”

“She is,” Damaris replied, taking a deep breath as she looked over at Velk, then smiled wryly. “She is, which will certainly help. The scouts certainly haven’t found anything, even if they haven’t run into any more ambushes by the apis since then. I hope, anyway.”

“If it was easy to find, we probably wouldn’t have been sent,” Velk said, his tone relatively philosophical, but he was watching her in concern. “I’m just concerned about you, sir.”

“I’m… concerned, I’ll admit. I would be if any adventurers of that level happened across us with the timing this close, but those adventurers in specific?” Damaris said, shaking her head as she considered further, then admitted, “I… well, you know Our Lord’s goal as well. He wants to become the next Dark Lord. If he does, that almost guarantees that there will be a Hero to oppose him. What if there’s a potential hero among the adventurers? Trying to capture them could be a mistake.”

“Umm…” Velk’s eyebrows furrowed at that, his relative complacency replaced by concern as he hesitated, thinking. Eventually he nodded slowly. “I think I get it, sir. That would be bad, but… what are we supposed to do? If he wants us to capture her, we should do it if we can. But like you said to Leah, that’s only if we can. Blood of the gods, even killing her isn’t a solution, anyway, since she’ll probably resurrect! The best way to deal with a captive is to force them to link to a nearby temple and kill them when they come back, but if they’re stubborn enough, it’s not possible.”

“True, true. Worrying about it won’t do any good, either way,” Damaris admitted, shaking her head. “No, I think what I should do is make the rounds to check on our security, then see how Shala is doing. If we run into the apis, I’d like you to make her a priority. I don’t like Our Lord’s interest in her any more than Leah does, but better that she’s in chains than running around in the wild.”

“Yes, sir!” Velk said, giving a large, toothy grin as she saluted, causing Damaris to relax slightly.

He was competent enough that it eased her mind to have him on the job. In the meantime, Damaris picked up her sword belt to go out. If the adventurers decided to break into town, she did not want them getting in easily.

Chapter 25

Their escape had been far, far more hectic than Joy would have preferred, as just when they’d thought they’d lost the trackers at last, a couple of the enemies had started firing at them with their bows. Joy had been hit in the leg, necessitating both a spell to purge poisons and another healing spell, and they’d practically run into the Teeming Jungle, which had a very, very obvious border between it and the forest. Joy wasn’t sure if the wide clearing was natural or not, but it certainly made identifying the jungle easy.

They’d immediately rushed across the clearing and into the trees, then laid an ambush, at which point Joy had seen the trackers stop instead of rushing into it. For the first time she wished she had a bow, since it would be nice to make them have to jump and dodge. Instead, they were just hovering back in the forest, keeping an eye on them. It was quite frustrating.

“We can’t just sit here. Every minute we wait, their allies are going to get closer,” Cora hissed, slowly catching her breath. The mage had a few nicks on her arms and legs, mostly from branches, but one of them had come from a nasty plant which had tried to strangle her when they passed. At least the plant had delayed the attackers once they’d gotten away from it, Joy reflected.

“Really? I’d never have guessed,” Brianna retorted sarcastically. “It’s almost like we’re on the run!”

“Do you really need to bicker at a time like this?” Stella interjected tartly, looking at Joy. “Joy, do you smell any apis around here? It would be nice to have a direction to run.”

“Um, let me see!” Joy said, blinking, then raised her antennae as she took a breath of air, closing her eyes.

The Teeming Jungle was like and unlike the Flower Forest in many ways. For one thing, there had been virtually no trees in the Flower Forest, which made the sight of the immense trees surrounding her oddly alien, as did the canopy which blocked out so much of the light from above. Yet at the same time, the forest was awash with the scent of plants and flowers, many of which smelled like they’d be wonderful to collect nectar from.

Of course, beneath those familiar, pleasant scents were others that weren’t as nice. She smelled spiders, mites, beetles, and wasps as well, each of them sending a tingle of worry through her. And yet… she also smelled something else. Something pleasant, that spoke of home, while at the same time being unfamiliar, and Joy smiled. That was the scent of a queen, and she opened her eyes.

“I smell a queen! The hive is probably that way,” Joy said, pointing deeper into the jungle, and slightly to their east. “I’m not sure how close, though.”

“Then we’d better go,” Cora said, visibly relaxing at the information. “Do you think we’ll run into other apis first?”

“I don’t know. Maybe!” Joy said, and smiled. “I’ll see if I can’t find some!”

“Wait, Joy!” Brianna exclaimed, but it was a little too late, as Joy took flight.

It was darker than she’d like, but she could see reasonably well. Joy definitely wouldn’t want to be out after dark, though. It’d be too dark to see easily. Behind her Brianna cursed, but quickly followed along with the others.

At least the people who’d tracked them were slower to follow, though, which relieved Joy. Taking flight had been a risk, but she thought they’d have had a hard time picking her out of the shadows, with how her armor would blend in. She was happy to have been right, and quickly moved deeper into the jungle to avoid further attacks.

As the forest surrounded her, Joy’s sense of how different the forest was grew even stronger. This wasn’t what she knew, and it was someplace completely different. Much like scouting out a new field of flowers, it was someplace that deserved caution, even if the smell of the hive gave her a direction to go. The problem was that she didn’t have time to move at the slower speed she’d prefer.

While the others followed, using the trees as cover along the way, Joy buzzed between the limbs and leaves, the occasional spots of dappled sunlight shining brightly on the forest floor. She avoided those spots, since they would reveal their passage far more easily.

Minutes passed, then Joy heard the pursuers behind them cursing in the distance, and she smiled. It sounded to her like they hadn’t noticed them leaving, so they’d fallen behind. Hopefully they wouldn’t be able to catch up, but Joy wasn’t going to rely on that.

Slowly the jungle grew quieter, save for the soft sounds of birds and the occasional insect, but that didn’t really make Joy any happier as she led the way. The worst problems came from nowhere, in her experience. Glancing down, she saw that Stella was lagging behind slightly, and she paused, then descended down to near their level.

“Do we need to stop for a bit?” Joy asked cheerfully, looking at them in concern, but smiling anyway. Brianna looked the best of her friends, but both Cora and Stella were breathing hard. “I can’t hear them anymore, and you look tired.”

Cora was standing up, leaning against a tree with her staff in both hands in front of her, while Stella was leaning over, resting her hands on her knees. Brianna was the only one who looked like she could easily keep going, and sweat was beading on her forehead.

“That… doesn’t mean anything,” Cora said, unknowingly agreeing with what Joy was thinking. “They might just… be quiet.”

“I don’t know. They were rather loud earlier, and if they’re trying to move quietly, they probably fell behind. We probably can take a breather,” Brianna said, wiping her forehead as she nodded to Joy. “What do you think?”

“Um, probably? I don’t know, really. I’m just worried. This is a different place than around the Tulip Hive,” Joy said, looking around curiously. “I don’t know where anything is, so I wish I had more time to look for danger. Do you mind if I, um, scout? While you’re resting?”

Brianna looked at the others, and Cora nodded, while Stella took her hands off her knees, straightening as she spoke. “That… seems like a good idea. We just need a minute… maybe two.”

“Okay! I’ll be back soon,” Joy said, taking flight again, though this time she kept closer to the ground as she started checking the area ahead of them. There were a few rock outcroppings in the area, and the trees made it hard to keep a good watch on everything around her. That was worrying.

As she flew away, Joy heard Brianna ask, “How is it that she doesn’t seem tired at all?”

“Former worker bee, remember?” Cora said, her voice still strained. “She said they worked a lot.”

The comment brought a smile to Joy’s face, pleased that Cora had remembered where Joy had come from. For her, the little acknowledgements were almost more important than outright praise. That was mostly embarrassing, at least for her.

“A bee does her part,” Joy murmured, pausing between a pair of trees, her antennae up. She was mostly glad that Brianna and Stella hadn’t argued since they left Irador.

There was something about the area that made her uneasy, though, and she couldn’t quite place what it was. It didn’t help that she was feeling rather strained. She probably needed more water and honey, she decided. She’d eaten two days before, and normally she wasn’t moving quite this much.

A roar and shriek from behind her caused Joy to whip around, though, and her eyes widened as she realized she couldn’t see the others, not through the cluster of trees she’d circled. So she did the only thing that made sense to her, she bolted upward, circling the trees even more quickly than before.

A moment later she came into sight of the others, and her eyes widened as she took in the situation. Cora had a gash in her arm where claws had cut her, while she was holding back a large, spotted feline with her staff, which she’d managed to shove into its mouth sideways. A leopard, Joy recognized an instant later, which was doing its best to get at Cora. At the same time Brianna was fighting another leopard, which had knocked her onto her back.

“Ack!” Joy gasped, and she instantly decided to support Brianna, since Stella was going to Cora’s aid, and darted forward.

The next instant Joy ran into something fibrous and sticky, and her wings came to a sudden stop as they got tangled, yet she didn’t fall. Her hand was stuck halfway to the hilt of her rapier, but Joy’s eyes widened as she looked down, and she saw the near-invisible glitter of a massive web. A web she was in the middle of.

“Uh-oh,” Joy whispered, a flicker of fear rushing through her.

That did explain what had felt wrong, though.

Chapter 26

“Get off me!” Cora exclaimed, shoving the leopard back hard, though she was having a hard time. Its fangs were shaving off splinters from her staff, and she barely managed to dodge as its claws lashed out at her. She’d already been gashed on the arm and could feel blood oozing out of the wound.

Then Stella’s mace hit the leopard in the side of the face, and it jerked sideways, finally backing off slightly. Cora gasped in pain, but took a step away, trying to get a little distance between her and the leopard, then snapped out, “Analyze!”

Jungle Leopard (Level 13, injured)

Attack Power 12

Defense 11

Abilities: Camouflage, Pack Attacker, Lunging Strike

“Power Strike!” Stella snarled, her mace glittering slightly as she invoked the ability and brought it down on the leopard, audibly breaking one of the feline’s ribs, and it backed up more, hissing angrily.

“They’re pack monsters! There might be multiple, do not let them gang up on you!” Cora said, spinning around and swearing as she saw Brianna on the ground. The woman had taken several cuts, and was barely managing to keep the leopard off her throat. Taking quick aim with her staff, Cora exclaimed, “Fire Blast!”

Fire exploded from the tip of her staff and lanced out at the leopard, hitting it practically in the face, and the animal recoiled abruptly, jumping clean off Brianna as it let out a high-pitched roar of pain. Cora flinched at the sound, but it wasn’t as though she had time to worry about her hearing. Brianna took the chance to roll to her feet, nodding at Cora.

“Thanks,” her friend said breathlessly, and her lips pressed together. “Shit.”

Cora looked up, and as she did her face paled a little as she whispered, “Oh, crap.”

The leopard may have slunk back slightly, but it certainly wasn’t dead, and neither were the two additional leopards behind it. Cora glanced back, and to her relief there was still only the one on Stella’s side, but that was a cold comfort, with two more leopards crouched and preparing to pounce.

“I’m not sure if we can deal with this, not while running from the damn scouts,” Brianna murmured, and Cora nodded, making a snap decision, and extended her staff.

“Fire Blast!” she said, and another bolt of flame launched at the leopards, which shrank back as it exploded in a wide burst. “No, but at least they don’t like fire! Joy? Where are you?”

“Uh… in trouble?” Joy’s voice was a little more distant than Cora would’ve preferred, and she spun, then froze, a curse on her lips as a bad situation became even worse.

Joy was about a dozen feet off the ground, caught in a large spider web, one that Cora wouldn’t have been able to see if Joy wasn’t partially tangled in it. The apis was obviously struggling, from the way the web was distorted, but she was definitely stuck. Far, far more important to Cora, though, was the faint figure she could see in the distance, of a huge, eight-legged creature creeping out from behind the trees.

“Crap, I hope this doesn’t hurt you, but… Fire Blast!” Cora used the spell again, and an orb of fire lanced out and exploded below Joy, igniting the web as the apis yelped. Then a roar and curse came from Brianna’s direction and she didn’t have time to worry about Joy for the moment.

The leopards had lunged at Brianna again, and the Swordswoman was barely keeping the three at bay. Just as Cora was about to support her, though, Brianna spoke.

“No! Help Stella, then both of you help!” Brianna snapped out, taking a quick step back so a tree covered a flank, while on the other was an unsteady-looking log. She blocked the snap of one leopard’s mouth with her sword, and barely managed to avoid another.

“Right!” Cora agreed, spinning around, and winced at the sight before her. Stella hadn’t been idle, but neither hand the leopard. It was bloody and injured, one of its legs barely moving, but Stella wasn’t in the best of shape, as it must have gotten around her shield to savage her arm at some point. As Cora turned, it lunged forward, and she acted.

She launched an ice bolt instantly, but this time not at the leopard, but rather the ground where it was about to step. Ice formed where the bolt hit, and the leopard’s lunge turned into a mad scramble to keep its footing as it slid toward Stella.

The human growled, and instead of retreating, Stella took a step into the leopard, leading with her shield and bashing it in the face. While the animal was stunned, the woman promptly brought her mace down on the base of its skull with a crunch that made Cora flinch. It fell to the ground, though, and Stella spun, nodding to Cora as blood trickled down the woman’s cheek.

Neither spoke, instead turning to the rest of the fight, and Cora’s fear grew. This was taking too long, and it was definitely too loud.

* * *

Joy tried to ignore the bubble of panic prompted by the fire below her eating through the web, and she was surprised at how easy it was. Her friends were under siege by leopards, all of them were injured, and there she was, stuck in a web. Useless.

That made her… startlingly angry, honestly. Joy knew she was in danger, since no spider left its web unattended, really, but that was a minor concern. If she were the one in danger she’d be far less concerned, but her friends? No. She would not let the web stop her.

As she thought, Joy thought she caught a hint of recognizable fragrance over the smoke, but it was gone almost as quick as she caught it. Besides, at that moment another strand of webbing snapped, and Joy was finally able to move her right arm enough to reach her rapier.

The apis drew the rapier as quickly as she could, and with two slices she cut the strands of the web closest to her that were on fire. While she would prefer to be free, not having her wings burn was also rather important to her. As her panic started subsiding, she turned her attention to the rest of the webbing, cutting herself free as quickly as she could.

It did startle her when she fell down several feet, and stopped with a jerk, swinging on a final strand, but Joy didn’t let it stop her. Not even the sight of eight spindly legs behind her, attached to an immense body, slowed her down. If anything, the sight of the panic-inducing figure gave her impetus, and she cut herself loose with another swipe of her sword. It was a good fifty feet away, anyway, and that gave her at least a few breaths of time to help her friends.

“I hate spiders. I really hate spiders. And you are bad kitties!” Joy exclaimed, charging toward the leopards since her wings were still tangled in webbing. The nearest leopard recoiled a little as she approached, but she didn’t have time to wonder why it seemed worried at the sight of her.

Joy didn’t worry about it, instead pincering the leopard between her and Brianna, distracting it from the human, who managed to give it a solid cut, while Stella and Cora held off another. Of course, that was when the third leapt down out of the trees and knocked Brianna off her feet again.

Stopping wouldn’t have helped anything, so Joy simply stabbed the leopard in front of her, which snarled and swiped at her in response. Then she caught another hint of the scent from earlier, and hope rushed through her.

“Some help would be nice!” Joy called out. “I’m not a bad bee! Bad apis?”

“Joy, we’re kind of busy!” Stella yelped, then was thrown back by the leopard with the burnt face.

“Wasn’t talking to you!” Joy said, backing out of range of a set of claws, and glancing back nervously as she heard the spider approaching. At the same time, the scent was getting closer.

“Then who were you talk—gah!” Brianna began, only to cry out as a pair of jaws closed on her leg. For an instant Joy was worried about what might happen to her.

Then the buzzing filled the air, and two winged figures in black and yellow armor dropped on the leopard that was mauling Brianna, rapiers in hand. Several more apis dropped in moments later, attacking the leopard in front of Joy and the one Stella was fighting, and war cries filled the air.

“Stab!” one exclaimed.

Another was behind Joy, and she grinned at the vengeful tone of voice. “Die, spider!”

“For hive and honey!”

Joy pierced her target’s throat and looked at the nearest apis, exclaiming happily, “Thanks!”

The apis grinned back, looking back toward the spider as she spoke up. “We were hunting the spider, so thanks for playing bait! That was going to be my job.”

“Um, what?” Cora asked, pushing a tangle of hair back from her face as she looked around.

“I was talking to them,” Joy explained helpfully, then frowned. “Um, but doesn’t Brianna need help?”

“We all need help,” Stella said grimly, looking at the two apis who’d finished off the leopard she’d been fighting, then turned away as she moved toward Brianna. “First an ambush, then this.”

“Ambush? You mean those nasty people following you?” the nearby apis asked, her smile fading a little. “They killed a few of our workers. After we killed some of them, they stopped.”

“Yeah, them. They stole the town from the local… well, think of it as a big hive, and attacked us. We were coming to talk to your hive,” Joy replied, nodding firmly, then glanced at the spider, which now had dozens of arrows sticking out of it, along with a few spears, and added, “May we?”

“Um, sure! Why not?” the apis said, smiling again. “Just don’t attack us!”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Brianna groaned, sitting up as Stella’s magic played over her leg.

This wasn’t how they’d planned to meet the apis, but Joy supposed it wasn’t a bad way to go about it, in the end.

Chapter 27

“Ah, crap,” Milton said, stopping in place as he came into sight of the adventurers, and promptly took a step back so he was properly in the shadows.

“What is it?” Trith demanded, the half-elf flicking her braid back in irritation, then wiping her forehead to clear the sweat that had been beading there. At least she hadn’t stepped out into the open, to Milton’s relief.

They’d left most of the rest of the scouts behind in their efforts to keep up with the fleeing adventurers, and it hadn’t been easy, with how they’d lost several people to an ambush the women had set. He and Trith had been keeping their distance to ensure they didn’t get killed as well, but that had almost led to them losing the adventurers. At least until combat had broken out in this direction, anyway.

“Apis. They’ve joined up with a group of damnable apis,” Milton hissed, jerking his thumb toward the tree, and the scene on the other side of it.

Trith blinked, her mouth opening, then it shut again as her lips pressed together tightly and she carefully leaned forward, looking past Milton. He took the chance to glance around the tree himself, his hand tightening around his bow.

The adventurers were only about seventy feet away, at a guess, no more than twenty paces if someone was moving quickly, and they weren’t in good shape. Why was obvious, with a couple of large, dangerous-looking leopards laying in the open, along with the huge carcass of a spider in the background, one that’s main body was the size of a horse.

However, around the adventurers were a multitude of apis, armed with bows, spears, and rapiers. He wasn’t sure how many of them there were at a glance, but there were at least twenty of the apis, and he could see some of them buzzing about as an overwatch, keeping an eye on the area, while the adventurer apis chatted with one of them excitedly, her hands moving in broad gestures.

“Crap. There’s no way we’re catching them if they’ve got an escort like that,” Trith whispered, her face paling a little. “Maybe the apis will leave, and we can follow the adventurers…?”

“If they leave them, sure. But I don’t know if that’s going to happen. Plus, they’re scary enough that tailing them makes me nervous. Aren’t standing orders to leave the apis the hell alone?” Milton asked, glancing at his partner nervously. “I’d rather not get killed, too.”

“Duh,” Trith said, rolling her eyes and letting out a sigh as she leaned back again. She chewed her lower lip gently for a few seconds, and he let her think. Eventually she nodded, murmuring, “Right, the orders are clear, thank the Oathkeeper. Let’s watch them, and if the apis leave them, I’d say we try sniping the adventurers. They’re in bad enough shape that we might be able to take them out, or at least disable them. Hells, maybe reinforcements will show up in time to make it easier. But if they leave with the apis, we see what direction they’re going and back off. Agreed?”

“Definitely,” Milton said, relief rushing through him at her plan. While he’d been thinking something similar, possibly even trying to tail the apis if they moved with the adventurers, he wasn’t nearly as confident that they wouldn’t get in trouble for backing off. Trith understood Leah better, though, so if she was confident they could do it without getting in trouble, he was willing to take her word for it.

Trith nodded, leaning back out to keep watch, and as she did, Milton took the time to calm down and rest. Even if they ended up not being able to follow the adventurers, resting would help.

For a few minutes nothing happened, really. Milton stole a couple of glances at the adventurers as they patched up their warrior enough that she could walk, while the apis collected some items from the dead monsters. Then Trith tensed, obviously nervous as the apis packed up… and swore as the adventurers left with them.

“Well, that sucks,” Milton muttered, watching them start off into the forest, heading more to the southeast instead of the south. “Do you think they’re heading toward the apis hive?”

“I have no idea,” Trith said grimly, letting out a sigh. “Still, let’s watch them, then go report in. The captain isn’t going to be happy.”

No one was going to be happy, in Milton’s opinion, but he didn’t say that. It wasn’t like Trith needed the reminder.

* * *

Cora was a little bewildered by the apis, despite her interaction with the Tulip Hive and Joy. A tiny part of her had expected the apis in the Teeming Jungle to be different, somehow, especially since she’d Analyzed a couple of them and found that they were all over level ten, which was a little intimidating.

Instead, they acted a lot like Joy did, happily chatting with her and looking at Brianna, Cora, and Stella curiously. The major difference between them was that the apis appeared to be almost frighteningly competent when it came to moving through the jungle, as a group of them stopped in mid-sentence and pounced a bush to the side, murdering a giant beetle that’d been laying in wait there.

“Um, pardon me for asking… but why are all of you so violent?” Brianna ventured at last, gesturing at the remains of the beetle. “We met Joy’s former hive, and they didn’t seem nearly as warlike as you are.”

“Really?” the apis who seemed to be the leader asked, blinking at Brianna, then looked at Joy. “I didn’t think we were that different.”

“Me neither. But your jungle is scarier than the Flower Forest. I also don’t see nearly as many flowers,” Joy replied, shrugging a bit. “We don’t have trees at all, just giant flowers.”

“Oh, that would be nice! Getting enough nectar for honey is something of a concern, though we’re pretty sure we can manage,” the leader said, nodding in understanding, then she focused on Brianna. “But we fight because we have to. There’s a colony of ants in the center of the jungle, along with several other types of creatures, and none of them seem to like us. At least they don’t like each other, either. We’ve been fighting them a lot since we turned into apis. That’s why the queen sends us on patrols, to kill the spiders and other predators that are too close to the hive.”

“Ah,” Cora said, not sure how else to react. Brianna looked up though, speaking quickly.

“Wait, ants are giving you trouble? I know Joy said there were some in the Flower Forest, but they didn’t interact with her hive much,” Brianna said, frowning. “Why would these be problematic?”

“They came into the jungle a few months ago, which is when we originally saw them. They eat a lot, and while they aren’t very strong individually, there are lots of them,” the apis leader explained, shaking her head unhappily. “We know two hives are gone already, and lots of other insects are fleeing them. It’s a constant battle, which is why there’s so few of us to secure the area.”

That caught Cora’s attention, and a sudden sense of dread washed over her as she swallowed, then asked hesitantly, “Ah, if I may… what type of colony do these ants have?”

“What do you mean?” the apis asked, turning her head toward Cora as her eyebrows furrowed.

“Well, some types of ants burrow, creating tunnels and passages, a permanent colony. Are these ants making that sort of colony?” Cora asked, hoping desperately that it was the case.

“Nope! They ripped apart a huge part of the forest, burrowed a hole, and made a weird colony that consists of a lot of them together, holding onto one another,” the woman replied, dashing Cora’s hopes, and the elf swore under her breath.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Joy murmured, looking at Cora, one hand idly tugging at some of the webbing stuck to her wings as they walked.

“No, it doesn’t. Care to enlighten the rest of us, Cora?” Stella asked, looking a bit worried.

“Because it isn’t,” Cora said grimly, worry rushing through her. “Army ants. That’s the colony of army ants.”

The blood drained from Brianna and Stella’s faces, while the apis around them looked at Cora in confusion. That startled Cora, but only for an instant. It wasn’t like they had reason to know about army ants.

“That’s… okay, that’s really bad,” Brianna said, swallowing hard, then looked at the apis as she demanded, “How have you not been overwhelmed?”

“We’ve fought, a lot, and used our flight to our advantage,” the apis replied more calmly than Cora could believe, nodding to the other apis from her hive as she added, “The queen has also been replacing us as quick as she can. They’re really mean, though.”

Stella swore, and Joy looked around, then asked, “What are army ants? Why are you that upset to hear about them?”

“Army ants are voracious; they can destroy an entire forest or town, and they’re considered a threat to entire regions,” Cora said flatly, shuddering slightly. “I’ve heard of both Kingdoms of Light and Darkness teaming up to stop them. Their colonies can have hundreds of thousands or even millions of ants, and they tend to go out in extreme force when they decide to forage. As in thousands of them in a single force, if not more. They usually overwhelm their opponents with sheer numbers, and they’ll march right over the corpses of their fellow ants to get at their enemies. They’re terrifying.”

“Ooh, ick,” Joy said, wrinkling her nose and looking at the apis in concern. “Are you alright, then?”

“Mostly! We lose some apis every battle, but we’re getting better all the time, and fight from range when we can,” another apis interjected, patting her bow. “Plus, we have priests, now! They can heal us, and we’ve even gotten some apis who can use magic to kill them! Lightning is really pretty!”

A murmur of agreement rumbled through the apis, most of them looking surprisingly enthusiastic to Cora, considering they were talking about fighting army ants, of all things. On the other hand, the idea of apis with magi… while some demons could fly and do similar things, not many nations could field many flying soldiers. She could hardly imagine what a full hive of them could manage.

“Ooh, you have magi and priests?” Joy asked eagerly, her eyes lighting up. “My old hive only had priests! Does your queen call them humblebees too?”

The apis leader blinked, then grinned as she replied. “No, she doesn’t, but that sounds amusing! Why did she call them that?”

“Because they’re supposed to be humble, or something along those lines. One of the workers also said that they hum a lot, and—” Joy spoke excitedly, completely breaking the tension in her enthusiasm, though Cora suspected that the apis weren’t exactly tense, it was only her, Brianna, and Stella that were anxious. But then Stella spoke.

“Oh. Oh my… what is that?” Stella asked, her voice filled with awe, and Cora looked up, her eyes widening.

She’d seen beehives before, at least on a small scale. She’d never seen one for giant bees, but that was mostly because they tended to nest underground, and none that were above ground were in areas near where she’d lived. This wasn’t one of those.

The immense, paper-like exterior reached up to the uppermost canopy of the jungle, and with as dark as the area was, Cora couldn’t see where it ended to either side of them. If she had to guess, and the hive continued unbroken to either side to form a sphere, it would be possible to fit an entire town inside it, even ignoring the upper levels of the hive. What surprised her most was the soft glow she could see from an entrance, and a few dozen armed apis who were positioned near the base of the ramp leading into the hive.

“That… isn’t anything like the Tulip Hive,” Cora said, looking back and forth at the immensity of the structure, then asked, “Um, was your hive like this before you changed?”

“Oh, no, of course not! It was much smaller at the time. We just expanded it,” the apis leader said, grinning as she added, “Welcome to the Shadebough Hive! If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to our priests for healing. Hehe… humblebees… I’ll have to tell the queen about that!”

Cora was struck speechless, but she followed the apis toward the entrance, while Joy led the way, obviously eager to get inside.

For her part, the elf just wondered what they’d find within, and if the apis could help them. She certainly hoped so, for Joy’s sake.

Chapter 28

“What’s going on?” the queen asked, resting after another long day. She wasn’t the youngest queen in the world, and hadn’t been even before most of the other giant beehives in the jungle had been destroyed. Still, even if she was tired, that didn’t mean she didn’t notice when something had the members of her hive abuzz.

“We appear to have visitors,” an attendant replied quickly, turning to the queen and bowing her head slightly. “From what has been passed along, the four are adventurers. There are two humans, an elf, and an apis, my queen.”

“An apis?” the queen asked, instantly perking up at the word, curiosity and hope rushing through her. “Not one of our lost apis? I want to be clear.”

“No, she’s from a foreign hive called the Tulip Hive, located in someplace called the Flower Forest,” the attendant explained, a smile on her face. “Apparently, they were coming to visit us, but were attacked by the same intruders who killed some of our workers. Then they had the misfortune to run into a spider we were hunting and some leopards. The priests are currently healing their wounds.”

“Ah, that’s most unfortunate. Still, a foreign hive is promising. I was beginning to worry about what would happen if we couldn’t exchange drones with other hives,” the queen said, relaxing ever so slightly, a hint of relief rushing through her. “Perhaps we could even ask them to help us contact the nearby… nations. If we’re to survive, we cannot face our foes on our own. We simply do not have the resources.”

“I understand, my queen,” the attendant said, her expression growing a little more solemn for a moment, then brightened significantly as she added happily, “I’m not certain where the other hive is, as of yet. On the other hand, one of the warriors mentioned that apparently the Tulip Hive queen titled their priests ‘humblebees’. They thought the name was much more appropriate, and mentioned it to me.”

“Humblebees?” the queen asked, blinking a couple of times, then smiled, amusement running through her as well. “That… is entertaining, yes. Let that be the new term for them, then. Why not follow the example of another queen?”

“As you wish,” the attendant said, a smile on her face. “Would you like me to have someone speak with the apis, and learn where the other hive is?”

The queen quickly came to a decision, and shook her head. “No.”

“No?” the attendant asked, looking shocked, as did several other attendants who were in the room. She hesitated, then asked, “Um, why?”

“Because I wish to speak with them myself,” the queen said, her voice calm as she looked at them and saw the panic rush through them. She headed it off before they could speak, though. “We’re already raising a queen to replace me, so the danger is limited, and I wish for guards to be present. I am not helpless, and if we’re to survive, I wish to speak and judge for myself.”

The other apis hesitated for a few seconds, and the queen briefly wondered if this would be another of those occasions when the apis disobeyed her for the good of the hive. The first time that had happened she’d been a bit amused, but also shocked, since it’d never happened when she was a giant bee. However, after a bit the apis settled down and the attendant nodded.

“As you wish, my queen. Shall I go speak with them?” the attendant asked, sounding particularly nervous.

“Please do. Allow them time to be healed and fed, if that’s what they want,” the queen said, and glanced at another attendant as she added, “Please gather a dozen warriors to stand guard. I doubt the apis will attack us under these circumstances, but it is possible. The others are even less predictable.”

“Yes, my queen,” both attendants chorused, and quickly moved for the exit.

The queen watched them go, then slowly levered herself off the floor, wincing at the way her body ached. She had only a few years left, she suspected, but hopefully it would be enough to ensure the hive would prosper. First, they had to survive the ants, though.

* * *

“This is very different from the other hive,” Cora said, looking around in surprise, then shrank back against the wall again as an apis walked past, holding a large wax container in both arms.

The chamber was reasonably large, about twenty feet across, but it certainly didn’t feel like it was to Cora, with how many apis were using it as a thoroughfare. She and the others were back against one wall, while several apis who looked little different than the others used magic to treat their wounds. Mostly they were focusing on Brianna at this point, since the redhead had taken the heaviest injuries during the battle.

The hexagonal chamber had openings in three walls, with translucent gold cloth separating them, and to Cora it looked like one opened into a tight stairwell. The problem was that everything was yellow, save for the apis themselves, and the light shining through the wax washed everything out still more, making it hard for Cora to judge distances inside the hive. At least the one she’d been in when she’d died had a fair amount of dirt and stone around it, but this one disoriented her. Add to that how warm it was, and Cora wasn’t exactly comfortable. Not that she’d rather be out being hunted, but it was certainly making her close her eyes frequently.

“Oh?” Stella asked, looking at Cora curiously. “How is that?”

“It’s just… the other one was underground, so there was more dirt and stone, which helped me keep my bearings. Everything here is yellow, and I’m having trouble,” Cora admitted, looking down at her hands.

“Huh, I’m not having much trouble… maybe it’s just the differences between species? I’ve heard that elves have keener sight than humans,” Stella suggested, prompting a wince from Cora at the thought. If it was that, she definitely wouldn’t be happy visiting an apis hive.

“Perhaps, though I’m hoping that isn’t the problem,” Cora said, but as she did, her gaze drifted over to Joy, who was happily chatting with several other apis like they were old friends.

“…have any idea what they do to honey?” Joy asked, a note of eagerness in her tone.

“No, what?” an apis asked curiously, and Cora had noticed that the local hive seemed to be hanging on every word Joy said.

“They mix it with milk and let it go bad!” Joy exclaimed, prompting gasps of horror from the apis, one of them going so far as to cover her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide. “They call it mead, and then they drink it!”

“That’s horrible! How could they do that to perfectly good honey?” one of the others asked, sounding honestly distraught.

It was so amusing Cora almost smiled, a little incredulous at the things the apis found terrifying. Based on what she’d seen and heard, the apis were more horrified by the idea of honey going bad than they were of death, and that was something she found almost impossible to comprehend. At least she could make out Joy because of her subtly different armor, though, since the other apis didn’t have the silver patterns on their armor. It was strange how similar even the apis of different hives were.

“Because they like the taste,” Joy said simply, then paused for a moment before admitting, “Really, they do make some things that even we might like! There’s a type of tree that has fruit that smells like our queens called a lemon. They squeeze out the juice and mix it with sugar and water, and it tastes good. It reminds me of home. Of course, it tastes better when I add a lot of honey!”

“Ooh, that sounds good!” another apis said, which Cora thought had been one of the priests who’d healed them.

“She looks like she’s having fun.” Brianna’s voice was quiet, and almost startled Cora as she looked over at the human. Her leg looked like it’d been entirely healed at last, and there was a pensive look on her friend’s face. “I wonder… does she really like being with us?”

“Of course she does!” the apis priest who’d just straightened said, looking at Brianna chidingly. “How can you doubt that?”

“Ah, she does seem like she’s more comfortable among apis. Besides which, all the other apis seem to enjoy her company,” Cora ventured, and the priest just clicked her tongue in disapproval.

“Oh, she’s enjoying herself, and she’s fascinating to us. We have no idea what it’s like outside of the jungle, so what she’s saying… it’s like a whole different world to us,” the apis explained, turning to look at Joy enviously. “I’d hate to leave the hive, but to see even half of what she’s seen… that would be wonderful. She doesn’t belong here, though. She’s apis, but she doesn’t bear the scent of a queen. She’s a lone apis, out in the world and exploring. And the way she acts toward you, it’s the way we act for our hive. Your Joy enjoys speaking with us, but she knows she isn’t of our hive. You are her hive, and if we threatened you, she wouldn’t hesitate to draw her stinger in your defense. Have you not noticed that she’s been watching us treat you the entire time?”

Cora blinked, then looked over at Joy, realizing that the apis was facing toward them, and she looked at Brianna and Stella, seeing the surprise on their faces. She spoke after a moment, her voice soft. “No… I hadn’t. Did either of you?”

“I didn’t,” Stella said, while Brianna shook her head. The thought that Joy had been keeping watch on them even when chatting with the apis helped ease the knot in Cora’s stomach, and she let out a breath.

“Well, now you know. I like Joy, and she’s an inspiration, but she’s your friend,” the priest said, smiling broadly. “Now, maybe I can ask her a few questions, and—”

The priest cut herself off as another apis entered the room, drawing the attention of every apis in the area. They didn’t stop moving, but Joy ceased talking, turning her head toward the apis. With the difficulty she had seeing, it took a few moments for Cora to realize what made the apis different, but eventually she realized that the woman had an outfit much like the one Emissary had possessed, with the see-through skirt attached to her armor.

“Welcome, guests. I greet you on behalf of the queen of Shadebough Hive,” the attendant said, nodding to them as she smiled. “I’ve come to make sure that you’ve been healed, and to ask if you need time to rest or eat.”

“Hi! I’m Joy, and I’m healed! These are Brianna, Cora, and Stella, my friends!” Joy chirped happily, nodding to the woman before she looked at them. “Are you all okay?”

“I am,” Cora said, and the other two nodded in agreement as she hesitated, then admitted, “I’m a bit hungry, but I’ll be alright for now. Something about the light and colors is making me a bit queasy, so I don’t want to eat right now.”

“Yeah, maybe in a little while, but not right now,” Brianna agreed, letting out a breath. “Thank you for the healing, though. We didn’t expect to be in such a bad situation when we got here.”

“You are welcome. You helped us in dealing with a threat, and you are the friends of another apis. That gives good reasons to help you,” the attendant said, smiling slightly. “However, I also bring a request. The queen would like to meet with the four of you, if you are willing.”

“What? The queen wants to meet with us?” Joy yelped, a look of utter shock crossing her face.

“Yes, she does,” the attendant confirmed, smiling slightly. “Your reaction is much like my own.”

“I… I take it that’s unusual?” Stella ventured, looking around at the other apis, most of whom looked worried.

“The queen is the most important person in the hive!” Joy said, turning to face them, her wings flicking nervously. “I wouldn’t think of asking to speak to her in person!”

“Oh. That would explain your shock. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you that surprised,” Brianna said, looking at Cora wryly. “What do you think, Cora?”

“I think that meeting her is an excellent idea. With the invaders attacking them and us, it means we can discuss more than just what we came for, and that… well, it’ll be easier if we’re not passing it through someone else,” Cora said, looking at the attendant as she hesitated, then added, “We met a queen’s attendant once before, who Joy’s former queen had named Emissary. While we learned what we needed to, the meeting wasn’t as useful as it could have been, I believe.”

“Perhaps not. Names, though… they are an interesting concept,” the attendant murmured, her gaze thoughtful. “I doubt we’ll ever name all of our number. That would require a great number of names. Still, do you all wish to meet her?”

“Yes!” Joy said, excitement in her gaze, and she looked at Stella.

The human laughed, then nodded. “Of course I would. I’m curious, now.”

“Good! If you would follow me, I’ll take you to meet with her,” the attendant said, turning away.

How quickly she decided to move caused Cora to have to stand rather hastily, almost slamming her head against the low ceiling on her side of the room. The delay let Stella get ahead of Cora, which was surprising, since the elf had expected Joy to take the lead, but then she saw Joy was waiting for her and Brianna, bouncing impatiently in place.

“After you, Bri,” Cora said, gesturing her forward, and the woman chuckled before rushing after Stella, who was at least easy to spot among the swarming apis. That was a term Cora had never expected to use regarding other people, but it was the closest she could think of for how tightly packed the apis were.

“Come on, Cora, let’s go!” Joy said, her excitement infectious as she bounced.

“Why are you so happy? Haven’t you seen a queen before?” Cora asked, trying to suppress a laugh, but failing as she quickly followed Brianna.

“Yes, but not as an apis! I’ve never seen an apis queen before, and I can’t wait!” Joy replied, almost crowding Cora from behind. “The only reason I’m following you is so you don’t get lost!”

That prompted another chuckle from Cora, but she didn’t reply, instead turning back to follow Brianna as she thought back to when she’d been killed in the apis hive. She vaguely recalled the apis queen being somewhat larger than the other apis, but she hadn’t been that impressive… had she? Cora honestly couldn’t say, as hazy as the memory was.

Either way, she wasn’t going to rain on Joy’s parade, so Cora tried to follow as quickly as she could. At least the apis were as good about swirling around her as they were at moving between gaps.

Chapter 29

What surprised Cora the most was their entrance. The attendant led them to a chamber separated by a thicker curtain than most, and which was only distinct because there were several apis outside the entrance, and she walked straight in without announcing them or anything else. Cora had thought that the room must be a passage leading to the queen’s receiving room or something like that, but she’d been wrong.

The room they entered was much, much larger than any other that Cora had seen in the hive, though it was still small compared to most churches. It had honeycombs lining the walls, each sealed by thin layers of wax that showed the honey within, or something like honey. Across the room from them was a pile of pillows that had been made to look like large, vibrant blue and purple flowers.

More important to Cora, they were also surrounded by apis lining the walls. There were more than thirty of them, she knew that much, and while half of them appeared to be attendants, the others were a mixture of warriors and an apis who had a staff similar to Cora’s, though the woman’s was made of chitin and had a gold orb atop it. They were watching the group like hawks, their nervousness obvious.

Settled on the cushions was the queen, and this time Cora couldn’t mistake her, not after traveling with Joy for as long as she had. The queen was almost half again as tall as any other apis, standing nearly eight feet tall, and her figure was full and statuesque. More than that, the apis’s eyes were a brighter yellow, almost gold, and the pattern of her armor was more complex than the others possessed. Also beside the queen were a quartet of male apis, also armored and armed, and for a moment Cora was tempted to Analyze the queen, but she decided to refrain. She had no idea how that would be regarded, and didn’t want to upset the queen.

“My queen, I have brought the visitors,” the attendant said, not bowing or doing anything else that Cora would have expected for someone going before royalty. “They are named Brianna, Cora, Joy, and Stella. I believe that names are important to them.”

“I understand,” the queen said, her voice both like the rest of the apis, yet stronger at the same time, with a confidence that pervaded the woman’s every motion. She looked at Joy first, then examined Cora, Brianna, and Stella in turn, obviously curious about them and not attempting to hide her examination.

“Hello, Your Majesty. I am Cora, and thank you for your hospitality,” Cora said at last, unable to bear the wait, taking a step forward as she bowed.

“You are welcome,” the queen replied simply, looking at Cora curiously as she paused, then continued. “There is no need for you to take such actions, though. While I may be the queen of the hive, I am not a queen as your species considers the title. I rule the hive because without me or another queen, the hive would die. No more, and no less.”

Cora paused at that, blinking, then slowly straightened as she considered, then replied cautiously. “You… appear to be more knowledgeable than I expected. When we visited the other hive, the Tulip Hive, they and Joy didn’t seem to know that sort of thing.”

“Perhaps they did not, but the gods did not change us without giving we apis the tools to learn,” the queen said, looking at Joy again as she paused, obviously thinking. After a minute she spoke further. “Queens were given more knowledge than workers or drones, due to our place in society. The priests, a newly created type of apis, brought divine revelations to tell us what to expect. It took time to learn, and perhaps the Tulip Hive has reached the same point. I have tried to learn what I am able, and to pass on what I can. What I can’t do is ensure the hive survives if I cannot find other apis. Will you tell us where the Tulip Hive is located?”

Cora was nodding in understanding as the queen spoke, marveling at the complexity of her speech and thoughts, so much more measured than Joy’s were, at least until the queen abruptly changed the subject, and her thoughts skipped a beat. That was very like Joy, when she saw something which intrigued her, and it took Cora a moment to gather herself. Brianna spoke in that time.

“What do you mean, you can’t ensure it’ll survive without other apis? Is it because of the army ants?” Brianna asked nervously, standing almost at attention. Cora realized that a good part of her friend’s nervousness was due to how all the other apis were standing nearby silently, watching them.

“The ants are a threat, yes. One which might destroy the hive if we are unable to fend them off. However, that is simply a short-term threat. I am far more concerned about the future,” the queen said, looking down at one of the men beside her and running a hand gently through his hair as she smiled sadly. “I am old, for a queen. I do not have many years remaining to me, so a new queen will replace me soon. When she does, she will need drones, mates that are not of our hive. Without them, the hive will slowly atrophy and die. That is why I ask where the Tulip Hive is.”

“Oh! I… I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was what you were asking. Joy mentioned that apis would need to meet one another, though, so…” Brianna said, her eyes widening as she looked at Cora, and at Cora’s nod, she continued. “Well, if you follow the roads north of the forest to Irador, then take the path from there to Seldrim, you’ll find the Flower Forest. It’s about eleven days by foot, and I’m sure you could cut off some of the time if you went directly there.”

“There are some dangerous areas between here and there, though,” Stella spoke up softly, looking at the queen in concern. “I would probably follow the roads if possible.”

“There… there is the other hive, too. The one near, um, the Shimmerwood?” Joy suggested, her voice unusually nervous, and at last Cora realized that the apis had been silent until now, and her eyes were wide as she watched the queen worshipfully. “I don’t know how far away it is, but there’s supposed to be a hive there!”

“Of course, I almost forgot the Guildmaster told us about that!” Brianna said, gently slapping her forehead, then looked at Joy with a grin as she added, “Joy’s right, and that hive is closer, but in an area suited for people of around level twenty-five to thirty. It’s about seven days away, following the roads again. There’s supposed to be another hive near the northern edge of the duchy as well, but we didn’t get much information on it.”

“Thank you, that will help immensely,” the queen said, nodding and looking like her tension had eased. At the same time, a rustle went through the other apis, who Cora saw look at one another and whisper among themselves, smiling most of the time. The queen wasn’t finished, though. “I have other questions for you, but those can wait. I know you came here looking for us, so I should ask why.”

“It’s because of Joy,” Cora said softly, prompting a squeak from the apis, who flushed a brighter yellow and hid behind Brianna, prompting a smile from Cora.

“Oh?” the queen asked, looking at Joy, a smile playing across the queen’s face. “She does seem quite attached to you, but I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Well, in some ways it’s my fault. We encountered an opponent we couldn’t fight, and he poisoned me,” Cora said, taking the plunge as she winced at the memory. “I was going to die, and due to a recent death… it probably would have been permanent. Joy used an item to save me, one which had been given to her by her former queen when she was sent out of the hive. Pure royal jelly.”

The apis almost all went still as their gazes focused on Joy, who blushed, but the queen’s gaze didn’t waver from Cora’s, unnerving the elf as she swallowed, then continued. “I wanted to try to replace it, but her hive didn’t have enough to spare, and couldn’t make it in time to let her become a queen, even if she reached level twenty. They did say another hive might be able to, though. I… we came here in the hopes we could either purchase or find some form of trade to get some from you, or even to go to the other hive in the Shimmerwood if this fails.”

“Ah. I see why she cares about you,” the queen said, smiling and nodding as she looked around the room. “However, while we have pure royal jelly, and in amounts we could spare, you realize that it is truly precious to us, yes?”

“Of course we do. We were told a lot about it, but…” Stella hesitated, then swallowed as she spoke passionately. “Joy’s our friend. She gave up almost a century of life for Cora without hesitation, and I know she would’ve done it for any of us. If we can give her that back…”

The queen just watched them silently, and Cora shifted from one foot to the other, nervous that the queen would outright deny their request. The fact she hadn’t already made her hope, yet she feared that her hopes were about to be dashed. Even the other apis were waiting for the queen’s decision, watching her as they occasionally glanced at Joy curiously.

“I am willing to allow you to trade for the jelly,” the queen said at last, sending a wave of relief through Cora, and she felt her face light up as she looked at Brianna, inhaling, but then the queen continued. “I have some conditions, however, and it will not be inexpensive.”

“We entirely understand that; the only question is if we can afford what you’re asking,” Cora said, her stomach tightening again, though not nearly as much as it might have.

“We do have quite a bit of coin, though I’m doubting that it’s something you want,” Brianna said, grimacing slightly as she added, “We had that discussion before, that money isn’t very valuable to you.”

“No, it isn’t. However, what we don’t have is the ore we need to upgrade the weapons of our warriors, which would make the battle against the ants easier,” the queen explained, nodding to the side, then looking at Joy as she continued. “If I believed you could acquire it, I’d ask for enough iron or silver ore for all of them, but that isn’t reasonable. Instead, my requirement has two parts.”

The thought of trying to get enough ore for even thirty thousand apis was enough to make Cora flinch, let alone if this hive had as many as sixty thousand members. Based on what she’d seen of Joy’s work, the apis had been able to upgrade her weapons and armor with three pieces of ore. If they went with iron ore, which was cheaper, that would likely cost nine to ten coins each… and the sheer cost of that much ore made her head hurt, assuming they could even find that much.

Fortunately, the queen hadn’t stopped speaking, so Cora’s worries eased rapidly as the apis spoke calmly. “The first is enough ore to upgrade the weapons and armor of five hundred warriors. I believe that would require one thousand, five hundred pieces of ore, which might be difficult to provide, but possible. The second part is a little embarrassing, perhaps, but we are not certain how to make contact with outsiders. I want you to make contact with those in charge of the nearby community, and assist us in setting up a trade agreement.”

“That…” Cora began, then paused, looking at the others, worry welling up inside her.

“The first part should be possible. Iron ore is about ten to twelve coins, on the high end,” Stella interjected softly, but she looked troubled as she hesitated, then admitted, “The second part is what concerns me. I think we’d be able to help you with a trade agreement easily, if things were normal, but… Bearton has been taken over by the Kingdoms of Darkness. I don’t know that we can get back to Irador, let alone help with a trade agreement.”

“Um, unless you could help us?” Joy said, sounding hopeful as she looked at the queen.

“Oh?” the queen asked, tilting her head at Joy, who blushed again. “How would that be possible? We’re currently fighting a war, and don’t have many apis to spare.”

“Yes, but… well, I don’t know how many of the darkness people there are, but there can’t be that many, right?” Joy asked, looking at Cora and Brianna hopefully. “You said that towns are small, compared to hives.”

“Well… Brianna?” Cora asked, looking at the redhead, winding a lock of hair around a finger nervously. Stella looked cautiously hopeful as well, she noticed.

“I… am not sure. Armies can be in the tens of thousands, Joy, though it’s relatively rare. Most of them are a couple thousand soldiers at most. A lot depends on whether this one was a raiding party or something bigger,” Brianna said, tapping her leg nervously. “It could just be a couple of companies of soldiers, which would be only a few hundred people.”

“Mm. They have been exploring the jungle, and not in great numbers. If there are that few of them, things might change,” the queen said, and looked at an attendant. “I believe it is a bright night, from what has been said, so send a few apis to scout the town, and see how many are guarding it. They are to remain unseen.”

“Yes, my queen,” the attendant said, and quickly trotted off.

Cora was a little taken aback by the queen’s casual order, and how promptly it’d been carried out. She opened her mouth, then paused and added, “Um, while I should have thought about it earlier, I should say that if you do help, that’ll likely gain you a lot of good will with the locals, which would help with any trade agreements or the like. It’s also pretty likely you could get reinforcements to help fight off the army ants. They’re considered a plague by most nations in the world.”

“Interesting,” the queen said, and smiled a little as she nodded to Joy. “In that case, the suggestion is well-received. Thank you, Joy. If we can help in a way that does not endanger the hive, I will see what I can do. However, your companions appear to be tired. Would you like to rest here for the evening? I should have enough information to make a decision by dawn.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you very much,” Cora said, relaxing again as she thought about their situation. She smiled at the queen and bowed her head respectfully. “Your assistance has been helpful beyond words.”

“You are welcome,” the queen said, nodding slightly as she looked at another attendant. “Please give them a resting chamber to themselves. I believe that they find too many others in the area to be uncomfortable.”

“Yes, my queen,” the attendant agreed, and quickly stepped forward, smiling as she spoke to them. “If you would follow me?”

“Of course,” Stella said, smiling as she took the lead alongside the apis.

As they walked away, Cora saw Joy taking sidelong looks at the queen before they left, the fascination in her eyes obvious. The elf had to wonder just what it was that had Joy so enthralled, but she didn’t ask, not here.

The one thing Cora hoped was that the room they’d be resting in wouldn’t be too bright.

Chapter 30

“The adventurers ended up where?” Damaris demanded angrily, her good mood shattering at the information, and she saw Leah flinch. The reaction told Damaris that she’d overreacted, and she immediately moderated her tone as she continued. “I’m not blaming you, Leah, but I want to be sure I heard you right.”

“I understand, sir,” Leah said, taking a deep breath before speaking again, her tone ever so slightly grating. “I lost most of the scouts that were following them, but two managed to stay on their tail all the way into the Teeming Jungle. The adventurers were ambushed by leopards, and looked like they would either lose or be left as easy pickings for the scouts when they were rescued by a group of apis. From what they said, the apis adventurer asked for help, and they gave it. Then they escorted the adventurers back to their hive.”

“Gods damn it!” Damaris hissed, inhaling sharply as Leah confirmed what she’d thought she’d meant, though in a little more detail this time. Looking up, she spoke sharply. “Velk!”

“Yes, sir?” Velk replied, ducking through the doorway, then came to attention.

“Could we get through the defenses of the apis hive?” Damaris asked, though she was quite certain of what the answer would be.

“Not a chance,” Velk replied, blinking in surprise at the question, but his voice was serious. “We got a look at it, and the hive is the size of all Bearton, if the town went upwards, too. Maybe bigger. With as many of them as there are, even if we had all four companies we’d get torn to shreds.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. That means we can’t get to the adventurers, damn it, and there’s no way to know that their apis won’t rush off to warn the authorities. I wish the menaces couldn’t fly, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Damaris said, taking a moment to steady herself as she considered, then nodded firmly. “Right, nothing to be done for it, we’re going to have to speed things up.”

Both of the others looked surprised at that, though Leah’s eyes widened more. She looked at the desk, hesitating, then cleared her throat. Damaris looked at her pointedly, which prompted the woman to speak.

“Ah, sir… I thought we didn’t know where the seal was, though,” Leah said, looking confused. “How can we speed up?”

That made Damaris let out a barking laugh, and she turned to the desk behind her, grabbing a map and unrolling it as she spoke. “Earlier, that was true. However, Shala broke enough of the code to find it a bit less than an hour ago. If you’d managed to pin down the adventurers, that would have been damn near perfect, but we’ll work with what we have.”

The map showed Bearton and its environs, but more particularly, it showed the northern part of the Teeming Jungle, and Damaris pointed at a red x-mark that was deep in the jungle, scowling at it.

“It’s here, much deeper than any of us thought it’d be, which makes our lives difficult. Egan could probably get there with his people eventually if he was careful, but we don’t have time to take the subtle approach,” Damaris explained quickly.

Leah’s lips pursed as she looked at the map, visibly wincing as she nodded. “I see that, sir. What do you need me to do? Keep up the perimeter?”

“No. At this point it’s essentially pointless, I’m afraid,” Damaris said, letting out a breath and shaking her head. “No, pull all of your company back to town and post guards, while the rest of you get ready for the trip back home. Pack up what we need, and prepare a couple of wagons to carry Abigail and the other prisoners. Come morning, I’m taking everyone else with me to retrieve the damned seal.”

“Yes, sir!” Leah said, her eyes brightening as she saluted.

“Don’t get too comfortable, though,” Velk interjected, grinning as he added, “You’re in charge of packing all the plunder we got here, and there’s a lot of it. You might need to pack a few extra wagons while we’re gone.”

That made the half-elf’s nose wrinkle, but she nodded firmly, looking at Damaris. “Yes, but we’re making progress! That’s worth more than a bit of drudge work. Do you think it’ll be too difficult to get the seal, Major?”

“It shouldn’t be, not with our levels, but there’s always room for being taken off guard,” Damaris said, looking at the map a last time, then rolled it up again. She needed to put it in a scroll case for the trip, and she reminded herself to find one as she continued. “Now, get moving. I want your people as well-rested as we can manage before we leave.”

“Yes, sir!” Leah acknowledged, and quickly left to get to work.

* * *

It was all the apis could do to keep from humming the tune that she’d learned from Joy, as entertaining as it was. She’d been teaching it to a few dozen of her friends when the attendant had told her she was needed for the scouting mission, so it was at the top of her mind, and far more pleasant than the sight before her.

“I’m a bee, I’m a bee…” the apis whispered under her breath, looking down at the human town in confusion, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

She’d expected the structures to be strange, so that wasn’t the issue, and neither was the odd tendency to waste space. She didn’t understand why only two or three individuals would live in a space that would’ve housed two dozen apis comfortably, but that was fine. She was less fine with the smoke coming up out of their chimneys, but she grudgingly supposed that fire was necessary for people who wanted to cook their food, as much as she hated to admit it. Heat would be easier if they lived together, but she couldn’t force sanity into an entire other species.

No, the problem was that the only ones who were outside were armed, the apis realized at last. A woman had just opened her door, a bucket in her hand, then quickly closed it again at the sight of a couple of soldiers on the road outside. When she looked again, the apis realized that all of the people outside were armed, and most of them were armored. Not that there were very many of them, and the apis made a quick count of all those she could see, including a couple that were moving in and out of a building which held some four-legged, hooved creatures. There were a couple of wagons out front, which she barely recognized from some of her previous scouting trips.

“A hundred and twenty? Maybe a few more inside… with as few people as they put inside, maybe two hundred… not that many,” the apis said, a bit nonplused by the thought. The idea of a hive, however minor, falling to that few enemies was mind-boggling to her. Perhaps they’d been a lot stronger than the defenders, though. Still, she wasn’t going to make decisions on her own. She was one of a dozen scouts, and she was sure the attendant would want to hear from all of them.

With a shrug, the apis turned around to head for their meeting point. She was sure the others would be along shortly, then they could head back to the hive, where it was snug and warm.

Maybe she’d even make it in time to hear some more of Joy’s stories. The thought of that brightened the apis’s mood.

The world outside a hive was just so interesting.

* * *

Silverhoof circled the perimeter of the camp at a trot, nervousness making him far more restless than he’d like, but he was unable to stay still. What he wanted was to keep rushing toward Bearton through the night, but he couldn’t do that, not if he didn’t want to lose time in the end. He glanced at the camp, and the sight of it eased his mind somewhat.

The duke hadn’t taken Silverhoof’s words lightly, and he’d immediately mustered half the Knights in the city. Doing so had taken half the day, unfortunately, but it was time well spent, in Silverhoof’s opinion. Four hundred armored, mounted Knights were nothing to take lightly, not when every last one of them was level fifteen or higher, and also with them were twenty priests, twenty-five magi, and a group of messengers. The horses of the last probably could have gone through the night, but heavy warhorses needed their rest.

Adding that force to close to a hundred adventurers was more than enough to deal with most incursions, Silverhoof had to admit, but only if the town was still intact. That was his main anxiety, though the supposed messages he’d received from Abigail made him think that they’d occupied the town instead.

“I can hope. I can only hope,” Silverhoof muttered, circling a rock along his path, keeping an eye out for trouble. With the need for rest, it would take him a day and a half more to reach Bearton, which he hoped would be fast enough. It should be, but one never knew with the Kingdoms of Darkness.

However unlikely, it was possible that all of this was an elaborate ploy to draw them out of position, which was why the duke hadn’t sent more soldiers with him. Instead, the duke was putting the various garrisons around the duchy on high alert, and informing His Majesty of the threat as well.

If that wasn’t enough, Silverhoof didn’t know what would be.

Chapter 31

“Mmmm!” Joy said, stretching hard as her back popped, a happy smile on her face, then opened her eyes and blinked as she met the level, slightly annoyed gaze of Cora, though she could barely see it in the room. Joy looked at her for a moment, then said, rather brightly, “Good morning, Cora!”

“You grabbed onto me again. Why me? Stella was right there!” Cora said, her tone helpless. “I thought I was going to melt, I was so warm!”

“Oh, sorry!” Joy said, blushing, and hesitated as she took a sniff, then continued in the same bright tone. “You smell like flowers and nectar, I think. That’s probably why I come after you.”

Cora let out a sigh, then sat up, murmuring. “Well, at least I got some sleep.”

The room was mostly dark, with no illumination in the walls. Instead, the only light filtered through from other rooms through the fabric curtaining off the chamber. It was warm, snug, and Joy rather liked it, even if it could’ve slept three times as many of them. Even better was the smell pervading the hive, in her opinion. The scent of a queen was incredibly comforting, and she couldn’t help her excitement due to that. Even if it wasn’t her queen.

The other apis had been wonderful to socialize with as well, and Joy had stayed up late, telling stories about what she’d seen in Irador, what Seldrim had been like, the creatures along the roads, the way the world was so huge, and even about the Flower Forest and the Blackstone Mines. The other apis had been fascinated, and she’d been deluged with questions. She’d nearly given a container of lemonade to an attendant for the queen, with the right ratio of honey added, of course, but she’d decided to wait until she’d rested. Joy didn’t want to drop one of them, and she’d been quite tired when she’d gone to bed. And latched onto Cora, apparently.

“Why would Cora smell like a flower? Or flowers?” Brianna asked, yawning slightly as the woman stretched, covering her mouth with one hand. “I’ve never noticed anything like that.”

“I don’t know! She just does. It isn’t much, just a little,” Joy said, holding the fingers of one hand close together as a demonstration.

“I don’t use perfume, so it definitely isn’t that. I have no idea why I would smell like a flower,” Cora said, sighing again as she looked over. “How’re you, Joy? You stayed up late.”

“Oh, I’m great!” Joy said, smiling broadly as she started pulling on her armor. “I got to talk to lots of apis, and they wanted to know all about what it’s like in the cities and other hives. Then I slept, and now… now we can help the hive! I hope, anyway.”

“We’ll see,” Stella said, looking significantly more worried, now. “If there are a lot of invaders, it’s possible we won’t be able to do much, and I’m worried about what’ll happen if that’s true. We don’t have all the time in the world, after all.”

“True, we could be trapped here… but then again, we also could level up a lot, I think. The jungle here isn’t exactly tame,” Brianna replied thoughtfully.

“Either way, no reason to worry too much!” Joy said, trying to distract them as she grinned broadly. “Today’s today, not tomorrow! Let’s do what we can now!”

“As you like, Joy,” Cora said, smiling indulgently, then stood up, rolling a shoulder as she muttered. “I shouldn’t have slept on that. Anyway… time to find out what they learned, I think.”

“Yep!” Joy said, her smile broadening as she stood up, then waited as she realized that Brianna wasn’t ready yet.

It took a few minutes for the others to get ready, during which Joy was practically bouncing in place, her antennae out, tasting the pheromones in the air. The hives weren’t quite the same, with the pheromones a little different, but they were similar enough that Joy could get the gist of what was going on. It was too hot in the upper levels, so some of the apis were moving water up to help cool it while others were probably moving to an entrance to circulate in cooler air, they needed more workers to help feed the young, and someone had found a particularly nice flower patch to the east. The last was most intriguing to Joy, but she knew better than to interfere. The nastiest fights between hives were over flower patches, in her experience.

Besides, she didn’t need much more honey. Possibly if she got the pure royal jelly, but Joy wasn’t going to count on that until it was in her hands. Even the offer of the queen to let her get it made Joy almost tremble with excitement. The queen had been so beautiful and regal, in her opinion.

“Alright, there we go,” Brianna said, standing up. “I’m ready to go when you are.”

“Good! Let me see if I can find the nearest attendant…” Joy said, pulling the curtain aside and taking a sniff of the air. She hadn’t been thinking about finding a queen’s attendant before, so she hadn’t really paid attention to where one was, but it didn’t take much to notice them. While their pheromones weren’t hugely different from other apis, they were rather distinct, so she pointed to the left in the warmly lit halls. “This way!”

Apis were already hard at work, and Joy passed several workers cleaning cells along the walls, ones that had held honey, at a guess, and went down a few ramps on her way into the lower levels of the hive. They’d been resting in the middle levels, which tended to be safer from what Joy remembered. The spots near the entrances were dangerous in the case of attacks.

“Is it always this busy in a hive, Joy?” Stella asked, her voice barely audible over the chatting apis, the sound of wings fluttering, and footsteps. Joy looked over her shoulder and grinned back at Stella.

“Pretty much! It’ll probably calm down in the winter, though. We don’t hibernate anymore, from what I heard, but if we aren’t active, we won’t eat as much and we’ll live a little longer,” Joy explained cheerfully. “There’s always work to do, though!”

“Ah, that explains it. A bit, anyway,” Stella said, staying close behind Joy as they threaded through the crowd. Not that it was threading, really, but more that the other apis just sort of flowed around them, and Joy did her best not to interfere with those moving the other direction.

Soon they reached a lower floor, and Joy’s eyes lit up as she spotted the attendant after a moment. The woman was in an alcove with a pair of apis, examining a table which they’d built. It was different than most of the tables that she’d seen other species make, without a proper base, but she thought that the pole on one side was supposed to attach to a wall, and that it was narrow enough to be out of the way most of the time.

“…I do think it will work, for this purpose. We need you to focus on some that stand on their own, though,” the attendant said, looking at the apis seriously. “In some cases they might be needed outside the hive, and detaching them from a tree or rock would lose quite a bit of wax.”

“Of course, we’ll work on a new type immediately!” one of the workers promised, and the other apis nodded her head vigorously. Then the woman saw Joy and her eyes brightened, exclaiming, “Ooh, you’re Joy, aren’t you! Can I touch your hair?”

“Sure!” Joy said, amused at the worker’s reaction.

“What the…” Brianna muttered from behind Stella.

The apis reached out and touched Joy’s hair, stroking it once, then nodded, pulling away as she grinned. “I was right, your hair is smoother than ours is! I just wondered, since it looked different!”

“Maybe because we’re from different hives,” Joy said, nodding in understanding, though she noticed that all three of her friends looked perplexed.

“Most likely, yes. You were looking for me, I think,” the attendant said, looking at Joy with a smile. The other two workers took the table and moved away, chattering happily among themselves.

“We were! Did the scouts get back safely from their trip?” Joy asked, fluttering her wings a little. “They didn’t get hurt, I hope.”

“No, they didn’t. I wasn’t the one who talked to them, though. You’ll want to go to the attendant organizing things around the entrance,” the attendant said, pointing downward, then explained to Brianna, Cora, and Stella. “Today I’m in charge of expanding the hive and furnishings.”

“Alright,” Brianna said, looking mystified still, and Joy grinned.

“Thank you!” Joy said, bobbing her head happily, and the apis nodded in turn, her own smile wide.

“You’re welcome!” the attendant said, then paused as she added, “Oh, and before I forget… the queen decided that she liked the name your old queen used for the priests. They’re now called humblebees as well. It improved the mood around the hive immensely, so thank you!”

“You’re welcome!” Joy said, the news improving her mood instantly, then she paused, and quickly spoke, reaching into her pouch. “Oh, I forgot about this last night, but I have something for the queen!”

“Oh?” the attendant asked, stopping as she’d been about to leave, looking at the wax container Joy pulled out. “What is this?”

“Lemonade with honey!” Joy said, grinning broadly. “I wanted to give it to her last night, but I couldn’t convince myself to talk! She’s just so pretty!”

“Ah, I do understand!” the attendant said happily, her smile warm as she took the jar. “I’ll give this to her when I next see the queen.”

“Thanks!” Joy said cheerfully, then looked at her friends as she continued. “I’ll lead the way, since you all seem to get lost in here!”

“It’s hard to keep my sense of direction,” Stella admitted, looking around. “I never realized how it would look inside a hive, but this explains why some of the other adventurers thought it was easy to get lost.”

As they started moving again, Brianna nodded and spoke. “Agreed, it’s definitely different than I imagined. Especially since the Tulip Hive was building towers like I’d expect in a human city.”

“Mm, different hives do things differently! Their smells are different here, as are their bodies. It’s neat!” Joy said, glancing back with a broad grin. “I’d never have met them if you hadn’t suggested this, and it’s really interesting!”

“Is that why they seem so fascinated with you? I know I was confused when the apis wanted to touch your hair,” Cora said, her voice a little subdued. “It’s almost like you’re famous here, or something like that.”

“I… well, I guess I am!” Joy said, pausing as she considered the idea, which seemed incredibly strange to her, but she shrugged again. “Bees never really leave their hive unless it splits, so for them I’m just… I’ve been places, and seen things that they might never see! I’m an apis from another hive, and the only ones who they’ve met who might be like that are from hives in the jungle, or drones. But all of them were bees, too, so they aren’t really different. They just want to see what I’m like, and talk, ask questions, and that sort of thing! Maybe some of them will even choose names… I doubt it, though.”

“Why wouldn’t they choose names?” Stella asked, looking confused again.

“Apis don’t need them. I could identify every apis we’ve met just by smell, though I can recognize their faces, too,” Joy said simply, and grinned as she saw an apis from her storytelling last night, proving the point as she spoke. “Hi, again!”

“Hello!” the apis replied cheerfully, passing at a quick pace, a container under one arm.

They were in the lower levels of the hive now, and the number of apis in the area had increased, making it almost impossible to move past one another without jostling each other a little. It made her friends uncomfortable, Joy noticed, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Instead she continued leading the way, having noticed the scent of another attendant in this direction.

“I had no idea you could do that, Joy. Could you tell us apart by our scents, too?” Brianna asked, sounding a little disconcerted.

“Um, maybe? You don’t smell like apis… not many pheromones, compared to us,” Joy said, a little distracted by the thought. “If we were close together, maybe. Or if you used a particular soap, I might be able to follow you. Apis have lots of pheromones, though.”

“Interesting,” Cora murmured, barely audible.

“There’s the attendant!” Joy announced, spotting the woman and grinning.

The apis saw her in turn, and smiled as she spoke. “Ah, there you are! Good timing, we just barely got together the apis you’ll need to take the town.”

Chapter 32

“Wait, what?” Cora asked, her thoughts trying to catch up at the sudden change of subject.

The attendant blinked, looking at Cora in confusion for a moment before she spoke. “You did want help with freeing the town from invaders, didn’t you? We gathered enough apis to assist you that you should be able to. Were we wrong?”

“Um, no, that isn’t what I meant. I’m just surprised. I thought you would be talking to us about what you found in the town, not just putting together a group of apis to help us,” Cora said, looking over at Brianna helplessly. “Bri?”

“Why’re you dumping this on me, Cora?” Brianna protested, looking the tiniest bit exasperated, but the woman quickly straightened and looked at the apis, considering for a moment before asking, “May I at least ask what you found, first?”

“Of course!” the apis replied, her confusion clearing as she nodded, speaking quickly. “The scouts examined the town from the air, and the walls appear to be undamaged, while the people inside town appear to be staying indoors as much as possible. There were a bunch of armed people in town, likely from the Kingdoms of Darkness based on their armor, and the scouts saw approximately one hundred and thirty of them. Based on that, we believe there are about two hundred invaders in the town, in addition to approximately a hundred and fifty that have been exploring the jungle. Sending five hundred apis to assist you is something we can easily do, and they should be enough to overwhelm the guards with minimal losses.”

Cora’s eyes widened at the description, as she hadn’t been expecting to hear the apis indicate that an entire battalion of soldiers had come into the area. Almost worse was how the apis seemed to consider that a minor number of soldiers, and casually offered several hundred apis to help them.

“Um, wow, that’s… well, it’s more than I expected,” Brianna said, blinking a couple of times, then asked, “What level are your apis? The guards we ran into were level ten to twelve, as I recall, so that could change things if you aren’t high-level enough.”

“I’d really rather not have to heal too many of them,” Stella agreed, her voice soft, even as her gaze flickered over the attendant.

“Of course. While the apis I’ve gathered are not all warriors, and they haven’t fought the ants, they’re all level ten or higher and possess wings. I wanted them to be able to go over the walls,” the attendant said briskly, grinning broadly as she nodded to Joy. “We’ve seen how the ants have to climb over their dead to get over barriers we’ve dropped in their way, and don’t want to do the same.”

“I… well, of course,” Cora said, a tiny bit of bile rising in the back of her throat at the thought of apis stacked like cordwood. It was a terrible thought after as kind as most of them had been so far. “It sounds like you’d be able to deal with the invasion on your own, honestly.”

“I doubt it,” the apis said instantly, shaking her head as she grew a little more serious. “I think we could fight them, but figuring out what to do after… the people in your town aren’t apis. We don’t know how to talk to them, and would have a hard time figuring who the enemy was without you telling us. I wonder if some of the hives have allied with the Kingdoms of Darkness?”

“Probably,” Joy said, nodding surprisingly happily, though her smile dimmed a little. “I’d hate to fight other apis, but it’ll probably happen.”

“Agreed,” the attendant said, the certainty in her voice chilling Cora’s blood slightly. She hoped they were wrong, but after seeing how helpful most apis were to those around their hives, she didn’t have much confidence in that.

“Either way, I think that answers the question of whether it’s possible to take the town or not,” Brianna said, looking at Cora as she nodded ever so slightly. “The only question is, do we have time to eat first? I know apis don’t have to eat every day, but we need to eat a few times per day.”

“Oh, sure! The others are just outside, waiting for you, and I need to get another attendant anyway,” the attendant said, smiling broadly. “We’ll get ready soon, then we can free the town!”

“That sounds like a good idea. Thank you,” Cora said, smiling, then paused as the woman left, looking at Joy. “Um, wait… is she coming with us? I thought she was a queen’s attendant. Why would she go outside?”

“Sure she is! She’s probably just following orders, to report to the queen,” Joy said happily, grinning in return. “Plus we have changed, so things are going to be different in the future!”

“Ah. Well, shall we go outside and eat? I doubt we have much time, as fast as the apis seem to move,” Stella prompted, glancing toward the exit. “I wasn’t expecting to even have a report yet.”

“Very true,” Cora agreed, starting for the door at the reminder. “Still, things are looking up! I just hope that this is about it for our encounters with the Kingdoms of Darkness.”

“Agreed,” Brianna muttered, following closely behind Cora as they headed for the exit.

The moment they left the hive, Cora found herself blinking to try to adapt, though, as she’d forgotten how dark the jungle was compared to the hive.

She did feel better, though.

* * *

Damaris watched the soldiers stream through the gate, tapping the horn of her saddle idly as she watched them move. She was taking Ovlin and the rest of her company with her, which would add nearly a hundred soldiers to the search party, which should be enormously more than enough to get to the seal, but she wasn’t going to count on that after the other problems that had cropped up. Shala’s translations had mentioned something about defenses around the seal, so she was trying to be cautious. At least she could guarantee that the seal got back to Lord Alethus once they had it.

“Nervous, sir?” Velk asked quietly, standing next to her.

“A bit, yes,” Damaris said, looking south as she considered, then admitted, “I hate having to move this quickly, but I don’t see much choice. If we’d managed to break the code last week, I’d have taken this more cautiously, but it’s entirely possible someone has noticed that some of the merchants haven’t come into town to get their orders at this point. Every day we wait, things get more dangerous.”

Velk nodded grimly, looking around them as he spoke. “I can’t say that I blame you, sir. Still, unless something goes terribly wrong, I don’t see that anyone can stop us. Maybe if the adventurers rally the apis against us, but I don’t see that happening so quickly.”

“That’s part of the reason I brought so many soldiers with us,” Damaris said, shrugging uncomfortably. “I don’t see how they’d know what we’re up to, but with close to three companies together, they’ll probably be hesitant to attack. They’d better be, anyway, or I’ll see if we can’t torch their damned hive. Sure, we might die, but most of us should resurrect back home.”

Grimacing, the orc nodded reluctantly at that, speaking slowly. “True, even if I’d rather not risk it. There’s always the chance that we won’t resurrect.”

“I know. But I suspect that Lord Alethus already knows some of what’s occurred, with the deaths already,” Damaris said, taking a deep breath. “If we fail him… the consequences don’t bear thinking on.”

“As you say, sir,” Velk agreed, saluting sharply, his gauntlet clanging as it hit his breastplate.

Damaris reflected internally that the consequences wouldn’t come from their lord, but rather from their neighbors once they’d realized what Alethus was planning. While the Kingdoms of Darkness were willing to unite against the Kingdoms of Light, they also weren’t willing to allow their neighbors to gain power over them if they could avoid it.

If Alethus succeeded, it was all well and good. If he failed, though… the devastation would be terrifying.

It was just another reason for her to not fail.

* * *

“They were killed by what?” Alethus asked, turning away from the parade grounds abruptly.

“An apis and three other adventurers. An elven mage and two humans, one with dark skin, the other with red hair,” Minna said, her eyebrows rising slightly. “You seem surprised, My Lord.”

The parade grounds were filled with his soldiers, most of them preparing for the march. Building up an entire division of soldiers for the expedition had been difficult, and Alethus had no illusions that his realm could survive a determined assault if it was attacked while he was away, but the potential reward was worth it.

His soldiers were varied, of course. A unit of Knights were preparing their horses alongside the Priests and their Acolyte assistants that were packing wagons of medical supplies and tents. Elsewhere, a group of trolls were handing over their weapons to the smiths for final examination, while the spellcasters were clustered together, looking to Alethus like they were adjusting their unit structure yet again. He hoped he wouldn’t have to step in to correct their changes again, but the magi were always prone to experimentation.

The sight of them was a distraction, though, and Alethus shook it off to focus on Minna, who was armored in her heavy black plate, the massive claymore she favored slung behind her.

“I am, since I recognize them. Mostly I’m surprised they were in that area, and because it’s a damned big risk for adventurers of their level,” Alethus said at last, frowning. “I poisoned the elf, so she should have died, and there’s no way that she’s recovered in this amount of time. Moving to an area like Bearton… they have to be interested in the higher-level areas around it, and that’s risking death. I don’t understand why they’d travel there.”

“Perhaps they realized what your goal was, My Lord?” Minna suggested, stepping toward the balcony to look down at the courtyard critically.

“No, that wouldn’t make any sense. They’re level fifteen at most, not even enough to fight Damaris in a head-on fight. No, if that were the case, the duke would have dispatched his own soldiers to help, and we’d have a lot more soldiers resurrecting,” Alethus said, shaking his head firmly. “No, whatever they’re doing they can’t have realized what we’re planning next. The adventurers guild, though… they probably have an idea, and we’re going to be looking at a serious fight ahead of us. Hopefully Damaris can capture the miscreants, but if she can’t, so be it. I doubt that they can affect our plans.”

“If you say so, My Lord,” Minna said, bowing her head slightly. “We should be ready to leave within the hour.”

“Excellent. Clarion awaits us, along with the last of the seals,” Alethus said, straightening and nodding. “Prepare my mount. It’s time to show the Kingdoms of Light that the status quo is meant to be broken.”

“As you command, My Lord,” Minna said, her own smile of satisfaction faintly cruel. “I look forward to seeing my homeland again.”

“Of course you do,” Alethus said, laughing as he leaned forward to give her a brief kiss, which she returned happily.

As she left, Alethus turned back to the view, pondering what he saw before him, as well as the handful of adventurers. They really didn’t matter in the overall scheme of things, but it had been years since someone managed to injure him as heavily as the apis had. That she had overcome such an enormous gap in power between them was remarkable, and he had to admire that.

Not that it’d keep him from killing her if she got in his way. Even if he would prefer to make her one of his servants as well.

Chapter 33

“Um, don’t the walls look kind of… poorly manned to you?” Brianna asked softly, and Joy glanced over at her, a little confused.

They’d made it through the Teeming Jungle easily enough, and in the woods only a single bear had been foolish enough to challenge their group, which had died in moments after the apis realized it was a threat.

Traveling through the fields had been surprisingly easy, with how the apis’s armor blended in with the crops, which pleased Joy and the attendant. The issue was that she didn’t really understand what Brianna meant, since she could see several people on the stone walls around Bearton. Fortunately, it seemed that Cora did.

“You’re right. If they have about two hundred soldiers, I’d expect there to be more sentries than that,” Cora murmured, looking up at the wall contemplatively. “They certainly wouldn’t be spaced that widely.”

“Could they be nocturnal? You did call them the Kingdoms of Darkness,” the attendant suggested, looking at Brianna curiously. “I wondered if they might move at night, since we saw a lot of them.”

“No, both sides prefer the day, by and large. Except for a few species like dark elves or motini, anyway,” Stella explained, shaking her head. “I’m not sure, but maybe they were preparing for an expedition or something?”

“That might be the best explanation. And if they are out, it’s also the best time to take the town,” Brianna said, glancing over at Joy, then shook her head. “I was thinking it might be worth scouting, but even if you blend into the fields well, if you take flight you’re going to be really obvious, Joy.”

“Yup! You talked about my armor before, it’s too dark,” Joy agreed, nodding happily at the human. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine, Joy,” Brianna replied with a wry smile, glancing at the town, then asked, “What do you think, Cora?”

“I think we don’t have much of a choice, not if we want to get out of this intact. Stella?” Cora said, looking at Stella, her hand a little tight around her staff.

“You’re right. If we’re going to do this, we’ll want to do it now, I think,” Stella said, then frowned. “That said, we can’t fly, and the gates are closed. How are we supposed to get in? I’m not that good at climbing, and they won’t just sit there.”

“I can get the gates!” Joy said, smiling broadly at that. “Once we’re attacking, I think they’ll be too busy to worry about them!”

“All we need is for you to tell us when to attack,” the attendant agreed, a broad smile on her face. “We’re ready.”

“Right. Um, just… try not to kill anyone who isn’t in the armor of the bad guys?” Stella said, looking at the attendant. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you scared the people in town, if you appear suddenly.”

“Sure!” the attendant agreed, and looked toward the other apis as she added, “Pass it on, please.”

The other apis nodded, and one after another they began relaying the message through the apis hidden in the field outside the town. From what Joy could hear, they were relaying the message perfectly, including the ‘um’ part.

“In that case, once you’re ready… well, go ahead,” Brianna said letting out a soft breath as she added, “Good luck, and try not to get hurt, please.”

The attendant nodded, looking at the apis again as she said, “Once I go, all of us attack.”

“Yes, attendant,” the nearby apis replied, and as they laid their hands on their weapons, Joy gripped her hilt, then paused as Cora laid a hand on her arm.

“Cora?” Joy inquired, looking at the elf curiously.

“Be safe?” Cora asked, looking a bit helpless. “We’re doing this to help you, so I don’t want you getting yourself killed. There’s no way to be sure that you’d resurrect.”

Joy blinked, then grinned and decided to do something she’d seen in Irador. She quickly hugged Cora, whose eyes went wide as she did, and the apis spoke softly. “I’ll be careful, promise! You be careful too, though. You died recently!”

“I’ll try,” Cora said, belatedly hugging Joy back, then pulled away as she murmured. “Though you nearly gave me a heart attack. The guards could’ve seen that, you know.”

“Maybe they did!” Joy said, grinning as she pulled away, sniffing the air. “Does it matter?”

Brianna opened her mouth to reply, looking a little amused, but she didn’t have time to say anything, not before the attendant moved. At that point, Joy didn’t have time to worry about how Cora’s pheromones had changed.

* * *

Cork hated being on watch. Not as much as he hated having a partner teasing him about his name, but he still hated it. He also hated… well, most things, but mostly being poor. That was why the short elf had joined the army, only to learn that it led to more jokes about his name. Of course, demonstrating a few of his lessons from the gutters had generally put an end to the worst of the jokes, but it didn’t make him any happier about it.

Still, Cork supposed that being on watch was better than loading the wagons or packing the other supplies that the captain wanted packed. It was also better than chasing after murderous adventurers who didn’t have the good graces to surrender, and who were far too high of level for the area they were in. This had been supposed to be an easy mission, relatively speaking.

Under the circumstances, Cork also knew that no one was going to be coming by to check and make sure that he was keeping watch properly, so he was leaning against the ramparts, occasionally glancing over at the fields as he yawned. He was looking forward to getting the hells out of Dorma, particularly after some of the rumors he’d heard of what Lord Alethus had planned. Part of the reason Cork had joined the army in the demon’s domain was because Lord Alethus had a reputation for not starting fights, and for surrounding himself with pretty women. The latter was definitely true, but the former was—

“What’s that?” Cork said, the sudden eruption of buzzing jarring him out of his thoughts. He poked his head over the rampart, and Cork’s eyes suddenly widened in horror as he fumbled out his horn, trying to get it to his lips.

Dozens, no, hundreds of yellow and black-clad figures had erupted from the fields around Bearton, armed with spears, swords, staves, bows, and more. Sure, they were beautiful women, but Cork almost lost control of his bowels at the sight of them.

He didn’t manage to sound his horn before the first of them reached him, and her rapier plunged into his shoulder, sending him staggering back, then off the edge of the wall. Halfway to the ground, he did hear another horn sound, though.

Then he hit the ground, and everything went black.

Chapter 34

“Welcome to the jungle, sir,” Egan said wryly, his skin spattered with dirt and grime as the dwarf nodded to her.

“Why, thank you, Egan,” Damaris said, examining the man warily before continuing. “If I didn’t know any better, I might think you were trying to flatter me before breaking bad news. You aren’t, are you?”

“Well, if you mean breaking terrible news, you would be more accurate,” Egan said, grimacing and spitting on the ground as he asked, “How do you feel about army ants?”

Damaris stopped suddenly, a chill running down her spine as she looked at Egan, hoping that he was joking, no matter how bad of taste the joke would be. Unfortunately, the dark look in his eyes and the way his soldiers were on edge told her that he wasn’t joking.

She looked around the tiny clearing for a moment more, then she let her breath out as she focused on Egan again. “They’re a plague on the world, of course, and hearing you talk about them makes me want to burn the jungle to the ground. Now explain.”

“Right,” Egan said, taking a deep breath as he nodded southward. “I got your message and sent scouts south this morning, figuring it’d help to plan our expedition for the site you mentioned. They got about halfway there when they came across a swathe of the jungle that’s been shredded. Worse, they almost ran straight into the mandibles of an entire swarm of the ants. I thought that the apis were bad, but they’re nothing compared to those menaces.”

“Gods damn it,” Damaris said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose and inhaling deeply, then exhaled. “Dare I hope their path was at an angle? Or was it perpendicular to our route?”

“Perpendicular, alas,” Egan said, looking even unhappier. “Fortunately, most of the ants are level five or less, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous.”

“No, it doesn’t. It just means those of us with higher-level armor can shrug off their attacks until they immobilize us and one of them finds a weak point,” Damaris said grimly, glancing over as she asked, “Velk, did you bring a table? One of the traveling ones.”

“I didn’t, but one of the others has one. I’ll get it, sir,” Velk said, an unusually grim look on his face as he turned away.

It only took a minute, then he had the table set up in the dim light of the jungle. One of the scouts raised a lantern for Damaris as she unrolled the map on it.

Egan leaned over the map and traced a line across the map with a dirty finger, explaining. “This is where the line was. Damned ants took down a swathe of trees thirty feet across, at least, and the scouts had to retreat.”

“Wonderful,” Damaris said, examining the map closely as she tapped it. The line almost perfectly cut them off from where the seal was supposed to be, and she hissed, then asked, “Where’s the apis hive?”

“Over here,” Egan said, moving his finger to the northwest of the ants a bit and tapping the map. “They haven’t let us close, but we’ve gotten some glimpses of the hive. At least they don’t attack us outright, but none of them seem to trust us.”

“Unsurprising, considering you killed some of them. At least they aren’t so close that I think they’re likely to hit us from behind,” Damaris said, and grimaced as she looked up. “Velk, get the other captains here. This is going to be unpleasant.”

“Sir?” Velk asked, pausing for a moment, obviously curious about what she had planned.

Damaris looked down at the map as she spoke grimly. “The ants aren’t going to get out of our way, so we’re going to have to cut through them, and have the troops keep an escape route open.”

“Oh. I’ll go get them for you,” Velk said, wincing and turning away, making Damaris feel at least a little better. Misery loved company, and she was feeling a little miserable.

“Sounds like I’d better check my equipment,” Egan said, paling under the grime on his face.

“Yeah, you’d best do that, considering that we’re going to be spearheading the charge,” Damaris agreed.

Egan didn’t look any happier, but he pulled out a crossbow and began looking it over while Damaris waited.

* * *

The horn echoed through even the dense walls of the prison, and Abigail’s head jerked up at the sound. She quickly quashed her hopes, though, shaking her head firmly. “No, it’s probably just another group of adventurers about to get mauled.”

She hated that she’d said it a second later, but it was only the truth. The people who’d taken Bearton were just too powerful for those who regularly visited the town to deal with, and the chances of them escaping were terrible.

Of course, then came more sounds of horns, three of them from the west, and Abigail’s hopes began to rise again, even as she tried to hold herself in check. Instead she moved to grip the bars, hoping that reinforcements had arrived at last, and that Dorma’s army was descending on the attackers in force.

“If they have, maybe we can stop those psychopaths before they get to the seal,” Abigail said, waiting impatiently.

* * *

Leah cursed, ducking an arrow as she called out. “Fall back! Back to the guild house!”

One moment she’d been helping prepare the wagons for the trip, and loading one with the equipment they’d found in the guild’s storeroom, and the next she’d heard the horn. She’d barely had time to grab her bow before she heard the war cries drifting on the morning wind.

“For the hive!”

“For the queen!”

“Stabstabstab!”

“Where in all the hells did they come from?” Leah demanded, drawing her bow and taking aim, then loosed the arrow.

It lanced out in a deadly arc, slamming into her target, an apis with a staff who’d just launched a bolt of purple energy at some of her soldiers. The arrow pierced deep into the apis’s chest, sending her spiraling downward to the ground. While satisfying, the terrifying thing to Leah was that the rest of the apis didn’t even slow down, instead continuing to swarm her disorganized, terrified troops as they fell back in a near-panic.

“I don’t know, sir!” Isdur said, the male elf taking cover behind a barrel as he reloaded his crossbow. “None of the sentries got away before their posts were overwhelmed!”

“I wasn’t asking you! Now get back to the guild house, go!” Leah snarled in response, nocking another arrow as she quickly began to dance back toward the town square as well.

A wickedly barbed arrow bounced off her armor, prompting a hiss of discomfort, but at least Leah’s armor held. The apis’s equipment didn’t seem to be very high-level, which was the only saving grace for her. Isdur wasn’t as fortunate, as an arrow sank into his back, and Leah swore unhappily.

Now she just had to hope that Damaris wasn’t being attacked like this, and that they’d be able to repel the assault.

Chapter 35

Joy popped her head over the fence, glanced either way, then waved the others forward as she chirped. “This way!”

While she felt a little pity for the people who were getting injured or killed by the other apis, Joy really didn’t feel that bad, especially since she’d seen a few fallen apis along her way. Most of them were injured, but she was regretfully certain that some of them were dying or dead. Their pheromones were rather telling in that regard.

Brianna took the lead in hopping over the fence, followed by Stella, then Cora, and Joy flitted forward past the horses, which looked rather wild-eyed at the buzzing that filled the air. As Joy moved, she saw an apis pause above the church and fire an arrow, then dodge as a bolt of fire lashed out past her.

“You really think that they’ll have prisoners?” Stella asked, looking around warily as they reached the side door of the guild house.

“Yeah, of course. If nothing else because they want sacrifices, and if they were trying to keep word quiet, they wouldn’t want to risk the possibility that the Guildmaster is linked to Irador for resurrection,” Brianna said, testing the doorknob, and swore as she added, “Damn it, locked! Joy, have you learned to unlock doors?”

“Nope!” Joy said, shaking her head, then looked up. “There’s an open window. Want me to—”

“Power Strike!” Stella interrupted, and there was a sound of splintering wood. By the time Joy looked down again, the human was pulling her mace out of the wreckage of the knob as the door creaked open, and Stella spoke bluntly. “We don’t have time for stealth against these people.”

“Fair,” Cora said, nodding and jerking the door the rest of the way open. “It’s faster, anyway.”

“Oh, um, right,” Joy said, flushing as she followed Brianna inside. She caught sight of a woman in the hallway past Brianna, and heard a curse of surprise from her.

The sound of a sword being drawn cut off with a meaty thud, and the woman fell to the ground as Brianna swore, then said, “Alright, the staircase heading down should be in the back. Hopefully there aren’t too many of these people in our way!”

Joy nodded, following as closely as she could, and moments later they emerged into the main room of the guild house, which looked a lot like the one in Seldrim, Joy noticed. It was just a good deal dirtier, like no one had cleaned recently, and no secretary was behind the counter. The trio of armed soldiers in the middle of the room were a distraction, though, as was the enormous sword the orc in the lead was wielding. He had it in one hand, too, which made Joy’s eyes widen enormously.

“Intruders!” the orc bellowed, and he rushed forward as the two adjacent to him hastily spun to face their group, one a man in leather armor, and the other a woman with a bow.

Rushing forward, Joy yelped and ducked into a roll as the orc unleashed a horizontal slash, rolling under it. The clash of steel echoed through the air along with Brianna’s grunt as the human blocked the blow, and Joy bounced to her feet just as the man in leather armor was aiming at her with a wand.

“Lightning—” the man began, but Joy punched him in the throat, causing him to gag.

“Sorry!” Joy said cheerfully, then stabbed him in the stomach. The man croaked, his hands going to his stomach instead of his throat as he fell over.

“Ice Blast!” Cora’s voice echoed through the room, and an orb of ice flashed out of her staff to hit the woman with the bow.

The woman staggered, but didn’t fall, at least not before Stella reached her and struck with her mace. The bloody display made Joy wince, and she turned back to the orc, who was exchanging blows with Brianna. Her friend was on the defensive, and Joy paused, looking for a good opportunity to jump in, while Brianna was driven back a couple of steps by the man’s fierce attacks.

Her chance came only seconds later, and Joy lunged forward, her arm fully extending as she exclaimed, “Penetrating Strike!”

The rapier pierced the back of the orc’s knee unerringly, and he bellowed in pain as his leg collapsed beneath him. Joy looked away just as Brianna swung her sword, recovering her rapier as the man’s voice cut off, and was followed by a thump and rolling sound.

“Damn it,” Brianna panted, the sound of weapons coming from outside as she hesitated, then spoke. “I’ll hold the doorway, so they don’t get reinforcements! Go find any captives and get them out.”

“But—” Joy began, only for Stella to interrupt.

“I’ll back her up. You two be careful,” Stella said, her eyes narrowing as she followed Brianna toward the door. The Swordswoman slammed her shoulder against it while scrabbling to set the bar in place, though with how quickly Stella had disabled the other door, Joy wasn’t sure that would last long.

“Come on!” Cora urged, turning to rush toward the back, and Joy reluctantly turned and followed her, surprised at her reaction. The idea of just leaving the others felt wrong to the apis, and she couldn’t help feeling guilty.

Still, she had a job to do, and that helped Joy focus. Every apis had to do their part, so she rushed toward the door Cora was approaching, focusing on keeping the mage safe above all. She couldn’t afford to do otherwise.

The door opened easily at Joy’s touch, as it hadn’t been latched, and as she did, she heard a woman cursing from below, down a flight of stairs. “Hurry up, already! They need the flasks now, not after we’re overwhelmed!”

“I’m moving as fast as I can!” a man snapped in reply, his voice muffled. “If those intruders come down the stairs you’d better—”

Joy didn’t hesitate at that, and instead of taking the stairs, since they doubled back halfway down, she jumped over the edge and spread her wings.

At the bottom of the stairs was a blonde elven woman in the armor of the intruders and with a key ring hanging from her belt, a mace in one hand as she looked away, through a doorway that was heavily reinforced with iron bands. The room beyond her had shelves all through it, and a brown-haired half-elf was holding a large crate with brown glass bottles. He saw Joy and his eyes widened.

“Look out!” the man exclaimed, and the woman recoiled, turning back just as Joy lunged forward.

“Stab!” Joy shouted, thrusting viciously forward, but the woman dodged just enough that the blade nicked her throat instead. Joy yelped and dodged the woman’s counterstroke, pain lancing through her as the woman clipped her left arm, but Joy didn’t let it slow her down.

Joy didn’t narrate her follow-up, and this time she didn’t miss. The rapier plunged into the woman’s throat, and she fell, clutching at her neck as the man finished setting down the crate, pulling out one of the bottles as he straightened. Joy had to wonder what the man had in mind, since she had no idea what the bottle did, but she didn’t want to find out. Instead she drew a dagger with her left hand and flipped it to hold the blade.

“Flurry of Blades!” Joy said, throwing the dagger at his arm, mentally frustrated that her aim was a bit low, but her arm drew back again as a shadowy copy of the blade appeared in her hand, aiming at the man’s neck, this time.

As Joy released the second dagger, the first slammed into the man’s wrist, punching through his armor, and the bottle slipped from his fingers. His eyes widened and he lunged for it with his other hand, letting out a panicked. “No!”

Joy’s second dagger didn’t penetrate the man’s armor, bouncing off, then dissipating, but it did rock him back as he tried to catch the flask and missed. The apis only had an instant to wonder why he’d looked so terrified before the bottle landed on the crate it’d come out of.

The bottle shattered, and the next instant it was like a massive hand had swatted Joy backward, as an eruption of fire and smoke slammed into her.

Chapter 36

An explosion rocked the entire guild house, and Abigail’s eyes widened as the very bars of her cell creaked and dust filtered down from the ceiling. She had no idea what had just happened, but it’d been in the very next room, and… then her eyes widened more as dread rushed through her as she realized it was in the guild’s secure storeroom.

“No… they couldn’t possibly have been that stupid, could they?” Abigail murmured, her thoughts settling on the store of inferno flasks that the Guild had kept on hand for sale to adventurers. Individually the flasks were useful for dealing with most of the monsters in the area, but the explosions weren’t too serious. If multiple flasks exploded at the same time, the results were far more catastrophic, though.

She just hoped it wasn’t what she thought it was.

* * *

Leah deflected a spear with a bracer and retaliated with her sword, half-impaling the apis in the process. She quickly retrieved her sword, having learned that the apis were not averse to trying to trap weapons in their own bodies to allow their companions to deal with their killers. She’d seen that happen at least twice so far, and one example had been particularly vivid. She hoped Alice resurrected so she could lecture her later.

Then the explosion rattled the ground beneath her, and Leah staggered, then hopped back to use a wagon as an approximation of cover. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was as good as she was going to get, and she glanced toward the guild house and her eyes widened.

Smoke was pouring out of several of the building’s windows, and she could see the foundation bulging toward the front, even as a couple of her soldiers were fighting someone in the broken doorway of the building.

Fallen apis littered the town square, but even more numerous were her own fallen, which made Leah pale a little. There were less than forty of them left, and she hissed to herself.

Then she caught sight of the woman in the doorway, and Leah froze almost long enough for an apis to kill her. The woman’s arrow glanced off Leah’s armor, but it didn’t change the fact she’d seen a human redhead that matched the description of an adventurer from the previous day.

Rage welled up inside Leah, and she changed her plans, pulling out a magic resistance potion. The apis were going to overwhelm her sooner or later, but the least she could do was wipe out the damnable adventurers first.

* * *

The wave of hot air and smoke rocked Cora back on her heels, almost knocking her over, and the Mage took a second to recover, her ears aching from the deafening explosion. She had absolutely no idea what had happened, and wasn’t about to walk into a wall of smoke. It took a few more seconds before the smoke cleared enough for her to see anything, and Cora stopped, her eyes widening as she blinked, taking in the sight before her.

“Oww…” Joy’s voice was tiny through the ringing in Cora’s ears, and the apis had definitely seen better days. She was on her back against the stairs, her wings splayed out and with numerous holes burnt through them, and the apis’s entire front was covered in soot, at least the part that wasn’t covered by a large, iron-reinforced door that’d been torn off its hinges.

“What happened?” Cora asked, a little appalled by the sight, but moved forward to drag the door off Joy, which was heavy enough to require her to use two hands.

“A guy had a crate with bottles in it, and set it down to pick one up. I threw a dagger at him, and hit him in the hand. He dropped it, and the crate went boom,” Joy said, looking a little dazed as she looked at Cora, then asked plaintively, “Do most bottles go boom? I don’t think I like bottles.”

Cora winced at the description, picking up her staff and offering a hand to Joy as she glanced into what had to be the storeroom. There was a somewhat charred corpse in the hallway nearby, as well as another very charred body in the room, which was now on fire.

“No, they don’t. I think he was moving explosive flasks, Joy. You’re lucky you weren’t next to him when it exploded,” Cora said, helping the apis to her feet and looking at her in disbelief. “That could’ve killed you!”

“Might hurt less?” Joy said, her tone questioning, then shook her head. “But I’m alive! Um, prison, where do you think it is? Ack, fire!”

“Which is another reason to get the prisoners out quick,” Cora said, glancing around, and her gaze settled on a door a short distance down the hall, one with a much more heavily reinforced door, and a heavy lock, one that seemed even more complex than the lock on the door laying on the floor. She pointed at it, and said, “I think that’s it. The question is, where are the keys?”

“Keys? She had keys!” Joy said, pointing at the nearby body, and scurried forward, pausing as she looked into the storeroom, then shuddered and looked away. “Nope, not getting that dagger back. I’ll make a new one.”

Cora didn’t entirely understand what Joy was saying for a second, then she remembered that Joy had thrown a dagger at the man whose corpse was in the room and winced. She really didn’t blame the apis for not wanting to go into a fiery room to get the dagger back. Instead, she headed for the door she’d pointed out, hoping that Joy was right about the keys.

The apis quickly retrieved the key ring from the woman’s body, then raced over, looking slightly triumphant as she offered them to Cora. “Here you go!”

“Thank you, Joy. Now to find out if they’re the right ones…” Cora said, taking the key ring and testing one soot-blackened key, then another. As she worked, her hearing was recovering, and from above she could hear the sound of fighting, which made her worry grow stronger. They really needed to hurry to support Brianna and Stella.

The fifth key turned out to be the right one, and Cora’s eyes lit up as she opened the door. She belatedly tensed as she realized that there could be a guard inside, but relaxed again as she saw the guard room was empty, and beyond it were five cells, only one of which was occupied.

In the cell was a beautiful, busty blonde woman with bright blue eyes, who was wearing spartan clothing that looked like it hadn’t been washed in days, though it looked like the woman had tried to clean herself with water frequently. The woman’s eyes were bright with anger and worry, and her hands were manacled to the wall, and a silver choker was around her neck, a large blue stone set into the front of it.

“Who—no, that doesn’t matter, you obviously aren’t with the Kingdoms of Darkness. Get me out of here!” the woman barked, her voice carrying an air of authority as she stood up. “What was that explosion?”

“Um, my friend hit a soldier and he dropped a flask on a crate of other flasks, which exploded,” Cora said, a little taken aback, but she started forward anyway.

“Who’re you? I’m Joy! Are there any other prisoners?” Joy asked, her words rapid as she turned to look at the other cells.

“What? I’m Guildmaster Abigail the Red. You didn’t know that?” the woman asked, looking a little confused now, though Cora quickly tested different keys on the cell. It didn’t take as many tries this time, but that still gave the Guildmaster time to speak. “The others are in the town prison, not here. The invaders didn’t want to risk them managing to get out and free me, damn it all.”

“Guildmaster?” Cora asked, her eyes widening just a bit, then she flushed and apologized. “Sorry, we nearly were captured by the soldiers yesterday, and don’t know what’s going on, exactly. We got reinforcements, but I don’t know how the fight’s going upstairs, so—”

“Give me that!” Abigail said sharply, snatching the key ring from Cora’s hands, and immediately chose the correct key as she added, frustration in her voice as she unlocked the manacles. “None of these are the keys to my collar, either, which means I’m nearly useless. What reinforcement? Where could you get them? I thought that Silverhoof might be here, but that sounds wrong.”

“The apis decided to help us!” Joy chimed in helpfully. “They’re fighting ants, and want to trade with all of you!”

“Silverhoof is in Irador, as far as I know,” Cora continued, flushing a little as she looked at the collar, realizing that it had a lock on the back, and she asked, “A mana suppression collar?”

“Mana draining, which is a little better. I just don’t know how to get the crystal out of it, which would be enough, combined with a mana potion,” Abigail said, looking a bit frustrated and even more confused as she looked at Joy. “What do you mean, the apis helped us? Why… no, we don’t have time for this! I need to get this off, and deal with some of these invaders!”

“Let me try!” Joy suggested, and quickly stepped forward, sheathing her rapier. Cora saw Abigail nearly recoil, but before the woman could do anything, Joy’s hands were on the collar. Joy’s expression grew more focused after a moment, as she murmured, “Oh, that’s different. And that’s there… where is… ah, found it!”

With a clicking sound, the crystal popped free, and the expression of shocked amazement on Abigail’s face was oddly satisfying, after how rude the woman had been so far. Joy grinned, opening her mouth, but she was interrupted by noise from above.

There was a scream of pain, which wasn’t surprising, followed by Stella’s voice, which was. “Cora, Joy, help!”

Cora’s blood chilled, and she cursed. Before she managed anything more, Joy was off like an arrow, her rapier leaving its sheath as the apis called out, “I’m coming!”

“Here, my emergency potion!” Cora said, fumbling out her emergency mana potion and giving it to Abigail before turning to chase after Joy.

She just hoped it was enough to help the Guildmaster.

Chapter 37

Joy dashed up the stairs, frustrated that the scorched holes in her wings made them useless for now. They’d heal, but that would take a couple of days, and she wanted them now.

Instead she bounded over three stairs at a time, jumping off the back wall to continue up the stairwell without slowing down. It hurt, with how her body was aching, but she didn’t dare move slower, even when she saw some flames flickering between the floorboards of the hallway ahead of her. Instead she darted over the fire and into the main room, just in time to see Stella stagger backward, her shield arm limp as blood streamed from a gash on her bicep.

Brianna was a couple of feet away, blood on her cheek below a sealed cut, and her armor had a couple of holes in it. Brianna was panting and wide-eyed as she staggered back from her opponent, who was just finishing drinking a bright red potion, and the air seethed as she exuded a thin red mist.

The woman in the doorway was a half-elf with blue eyes and light brown hair, but she had an odd sneer on her face, which was marred by jagged scars from claws, and was wielding a large, black-bladed sword in one hand, a bow slung behind her back. She was wearing a black metal corslet and leather below that, all of it virtually unmarred. Worse, through the front door Joy could see combat still raging, with more apis than she cared to think about on the ground, most of them unmoving. It looked like more people in black were on the ground than apis, but she couldn’t be certain. She didn’t want to be certain, either, not with the traces of yellow blood she saw on the woman’s sword.

“Speed Burst!” Joy exclaimed, and she was able to move much, much more quickly for a few seconds, just as the woman snarled and swung her sword at Stella, the blade moving in a deadly arc.

Joy wasn’t fast enough, even with her ability. For an instant it felt like something in her chest would burst, and Joy’s eyes widened in fear. Not for herself, but for Stella. Then metal flashed as Brianna grunted, and metal clashed on metal.

Brianna and Stella staggered backward, and Brianna’s sword fell from her hand, her fingers trembling and a deep notch cut into the blade from where the woman’s sword had cut into it. The half-elf snarled angrily. “Just die, you—”

It gave Joy enough time, though. Her ability wore off just as she reached the woman, and Joy interrupted in the only way she could think of.

“Stab!” Joy exclaimed, thrusting directly toward the woman’s armpit, the spot she’d learned was usually lightly armored at best.

The woman turned just before her rapier hit, and it bent as it pressed against the armor, skittering off the woman’s breastplate harmlessly. Joy didn’t slow down, instead slamming into the woman, and avoiding the slash of her sword more by incident than by design.

It didn’t save her from getting hit by the woman’s elbow as they staggered, though, and it was like being thrown by the demon again, as the armor on Joy’s side gave way and she went flying into the wall, hard.

“Another of you damned pests?” the woman demanded, spitting and growling as Joy slid halfway to the ground in a daze. “You must be that adventurer apis. To hells with it, I don’t care what Lord Alethus wants, you need to die!”

The woman lashed out angrily, and Joy tried to dodge, but her legs just weren’t working. Brianna’s were, though, and the human kicked the woman in the back of the knee, drawing her dagger as she yelled. “Get away from her!”

“You just don’t know when to quit!” the woman snarled, spinning and kicking Brianna away, tearing the dagger out of the Swordswoman’s grasp, her sword knocking Stella back just as the Acolyte was raising her mace. Before anyone could react, the woman ruthlessly drove the dagger through Brianna’s shoulder, pinning her to the wall, the dagger up to its hilt in her shoulder. “Stay put!”

Brianna’s eyes bulged, choking back a scream, and Joy’s eyes widened as she saw the woman turning on Stella.

“Legs, move. Move!” Joy whispered, drawing her dagger as well as she dragged herself to her feet, wishing it didn’t feel like her legs were made of softened wax.

“Lightning Blast!” Cora’s voice echoed through the room, and a bolt of lightning lanced across the room and slammed into the half-elf, staggering her as electricity arced across the woman’s armor.

“Cora, you got—” Stella began, glancing toward the elf in relief, but Joy’s relief vanished as she saw the half-elf straighten and lunge.

“Stella!” Joy yelped, and threw her dagger at the woman desperately, not taking the time to use her ability.

The dagger hit the woman’s arm, bouncing off the armor, but it gave Stella enough time to react and raise her shield. Not that it helped when the woman’s sword crunched straight through the shield and slammed into her shoulder, driving Stella to her knees as the sound of breaking bone filled the air.

“I thought I’d run into you, so I took measures,” the woman snarled, looking a bit unsteady, but she grinned as she continued. “Too bad you’re nearly ten levels too low. I suppose I’ll just kill your friends, then you!”

Joy’s breath caught as the woman turned back toward Stella, and she charged forward, exclaiming, “Stop it!”

“Fire Blast!” Cora’s voice came at almost the same time, and a ball of fire slammed into the woman, scorching her hair but doing little more than that.

Joy’s legs almost gave out, but relief rushed through her as the woman turned toward her abruptly, swinging her sword ruthlessly, and Joy closed her eyes, hoping she’d resurrect back in Irador.

“Inferno Blaze!” another woman snapped, and a blast of heat hit Joy hard enough she stumbled to a stop, just as the half-elf screamed in pain.

Joy opened her eyes and blanched at the sight of the half-elf, who was almost on her knees, her skin blackened and the floor a charred circle of wood beneath her. Behind Cora was the Guildmaster, Abigail, her eyes blazing with anger as she spoke. “You were saying something about being low level, I believe? Well, I am not.”

“You… how did you get out—” the woman gasped, straightening slowly, her attention focused on Abigail. Joy barely hesitated, since she was already in reach. And this time she didn’t speak.

No armor protected the woman’s ear, and Joy cringed as her rapier penetrated it, quickly retrieving her weapon and taking a step back as the opponent staggered, her eyes wide as her mouth worked, then she fell to the ground.

Abigail blinked, looking at the fallen woman, then at Joy. A moment later she spoke, her voice like iron. “Well, I suppose that works well enough. Now, let’s deal with the others and get someone to keep my guild from burning to the ground. We don’t have much time.”

“A… a little help, here?” Brianna gasped, her face as pale as a sheet.

“Coming!” Joy said, and Cora rushed toward Stella.

Joy ignored the notice in her head, instead focusing on helping Brianna.

Level Up: Apis Rogue Level 12

Chapter 38

The aftermath of the battle was nauseating, even for Cora. Or possibly especially for her, as they looked around at the dead. While the apis hadn’t taken as many losses as they’d feared, at least sixty of the women were dead, and the apis had calmly gathered their fallen. It was strange to Cora how readily they took their losses, even if she saw grief on many of their faces.

It hadn’t taken the apis much longer to get rid of the invaders, and Cora quickly learned that nearly half of the dead apis had fallen at the hands of the woman who’d nearly killed Brianna and Stella, which was a chilling thought. At least Abigail had managed to rally the locals into saving the guild house, though the building was going to need significant repairs.

The Guildmaster had also been kind enough to give each of them a potent healing potion from the guild’s supplies once she’d reclaimed them from the invader’s wagons, even if Cora hadn’t needed hers and Joy had been healed by Stella, and the woman had given Cora a much nicer mana potion than the one she’d had before. Abigail had also found her own gear and changed into it, a flamboyant, bright red outfit with a broad-brimmed hat, and with a staff topped by a red gemstone.

Unfortunately, Cora had also quickly learned that they weren’t done, as they gathered with other freed adventurers in the town hall while Brianna tested a replacement sword, this one not quite as large as her previous one. All of them had leveled up, and Stella looked a little odd, with a silver crescent moon symbol on her forehead, with the widest part at the bottom. That was probably from her job change, Cora thought, but she hadn’t had a chance to chat with Stella about it yet. The only one of them that was relatively cheerful was Joy, but that was to be expected.

“We have a major problem,” Abigail said, her voice taut as she looked around the room, regarding the thirteen present levelly, not counting the queen’s attendant. “The soldiers who were defeated here were only a quarter of the total force, and the captain that was defeated was one of four, with two even more powerful individuals in command over them. We’re fortunate that the apis came to our aid, but if they attack here, our situation is not promising.”

“While we are happy to help where we can, and would like to trade with you, I’m afraid that the hive is currently in rather dire straits as well. The army ants in the jungle are taking most of our resources to hold back, and keeping up with the losses we’ve taken is difficult,” the attendant replied, shrugging as she looked around the room. “Freeing your town was one thing, but the hive will need us back. If nothing else, some of us need to take our own places on the front lines.”

“Thank you for what you have done. If I have any say in the matter, you’ll get assistance, not just trade. The army ants are a threat to everyone in the region, and we didn’t know they were there,” Abigail said, and her expression brightened as she continued. “The one note of good news is that I got a message back from Irador, and an adventurer escaped and warned them that something had happened here, so Silverhoof and the duke dispatched forces to assist us. They’re coming in force, and should arrive tomorrow morning. The problem is that the invaders came here for a reason, and we can’t let them succeed.”

“What do you mean, Guildmaster?” a man who was wearing heavy plate asked, and with a couple of scars barely visible around his neck.

“They came here for a seal hidden in the region. One of a set, which I’m told that a demon lord stole from the Blackstone Mines near Seldrim recently,” Abigail said, her gaze drifting up to meet Cora’s eyes, and the elf’s stomach tightened, feeling almost like the floor had dropped out from under her. The Guildmaster continued without pausing. “There are three seals in total, and with any taken, the barrier they’re maintaining will slowly degrade and eventually break. That would be catastrophic. The more that’re missing, the faster it’ll fail. We need to stop them from taking the stone if at all possible.”

“Uh-oh,” Joy muttered beside Cora, and the elf closed her eyes, frustration and disbelief rushing through her.

“You have got to be kidding me! If the same guy we ran into last time is here, we don’t have a chance,” Brianna exclaimed loudly, drawing the gazes of the other adventurers to her.

“What do you mean?” a human woman asked, adjusting her armor, a suit of light plate ornamented with the symbol of Xinra. “You know these people? I mean, we lost last time, but there were hundreds of them, and they attacked in the middle of the night. If we hit one small group of them at a time, I think we can do some serious damage.”

“We were part of the group at the Blackstone Mines. We barely got out alive,” Stella said, her voice relatively clear as her gaze rose to meet Abigail’s. “The question is, who’s their leader? Is it a male demon named Alethus?”

“What? Alethus, Lord of Skyfish Valley?” Abigail asked, her voice suddenly sharp, and Cora couldn’t help blinking.

“Um, possibly? We didn’t exactly get an introduction. If I recall correctly, he was level forty-eight and nearly killed us all,” Cora said, her voice a bit hesitant as she looked around the room, and saw the adventurers pale. “If Joy hadn’t lured him into a den of flower minks, we’d have died.”

“Gods preserve us,” a man muttered, pulling out a holy symbol and kissing it.

“Fortunately for us all, it is not Alethus, nor any high-level demon in command here. What we have is bad enough, but not utterly hopeless,” Abigail said, prompting Cora to relax slightly, at least for a moment. “No, we have two major threats. The leader of the invaders is a human woman named Damaris, and she’s a level twenty-eight Demonic Knight. Her second-in-command is an orc named Velk, and he’s a level twenty-six Demonic Berserker. I didn’t have time to figure out what level the other captains were, but they all felt about as powerful as Leah, the captain we defeated, and she was a level twenty-three Ranger.”

“Hellfire,” Brianna muttered, taking a deep breath, then let it out. “Well, at least it isn’t likely that they’ll have taken strength potions. She wouldn’t have done nearly as much damage without that to ruin our day.”

“Oh, that’s what she drank?” Joy murmured, then looked at Cora. “Um, what should we do? I think we should help stop them from getting the seal-thing. I don’t like the idea of Irador getting squished by something big and ugly.”

“I don’t think anyone does,” Cora replied, and glanced at Abigail as she asked, “Do you have a plan, Guildmaster? While I’m happy to help, we are rather low level to take on an entire army like this.”

“That’s the one thing that may work in our favor. From what I’ve learned from the apis, the area around the seal has been overrun by army ants, and that means they aren’t going to have an easy time getting to it,” Abigail explained, her expression hardening. “They’re almost certainly going to have to spread out their soldiers to hold open an escape route, and they’ll be worn down by the time they can get there. Not to mention there are potent traps over the seal chamber, ones that’ll injure even level thirty adventurers, let alone them.

“The one fortunate thing about the invaders looting the guild is that they moved almost everything valuable from the storeroom before it was inadvertently blown to bits,” Abigail continued, and Cora suppressed a laugh at how Joy’s cheeks colored. “That means we have the guild supplies, and I’m going to be generous with them under the circumstances. I can give each of you several healing, mana, and stamina potions, a couple of different strength or magic boosting potions, and I have a crystal with an imbued spell of Meteor Strike I can use three times. That should allow us to overpower the common soldiers of their army, and to match their leaders if we’re careful.”

Cora nodded at that, feeling far more at ease at the idea of them having multiple potions for healing and the like to help. It still wasn’t good, but it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as trying to fight a small army when they were almost all lower level than their opponents.

After a moment, Abigail asked, “Any objections?”

One of the men raised a hand and spoke up. “Is there any way I could take back my retirement and get back to actively adventuring? I don’t know about you, but that seems a lot less dangerous than a guild position right now.”

Laughter rippled through the room at his joking request, and Cora couldn’t help joining it, as even the Guildmaster cracked a smile.

“You aren’t the only one thinking about that right now, but as we have adventurers in company, I don’t think that’d save you, Carl,” Abigail said, looking at the attendant hesitantly before she asked, “Is there any way that you could assist us with this? While I know your task was just to help the town, if your people could even guide us through the forest, that would be immensely helpful.”

“Guide you, definitely! Fight the soldiers, though, with the army ants right there… I don’t know,” the attendant said, looking at the map thoughtfully. “I don’t really know how to read the map. Don’t have time to learn, either. But I can send a message to the queen and ask for instructions. We should get a reply before you reach the ants, if you move like most wingless people do.”

“Thank you,” Abigail said, and glanced at Cora and the others as she asked, “Are you four coming with us?”

“I will!” Joy said instantly, then blushed as she looked at Cora, then Brianna and Stella as she added, “Well, if you’re okay with it?”

Cora hesitated, looking at the humans curiously. Brianna shrugged and sheathed her sword, looking at Stella as well, and the Acolyte nodded slightly.

“While I’m not happy about going into such a dangerous area, we can’t just ignore what’s happening. I still think it should be your decision, though. You’re the one in the most danger, Cora,” Stella said, standing up on her toes for a few seconds.

“Oh?” a nearby adventurer asked, looking at Cora closely. “Is something wrong?”

“I died shortly before we ran into the demon, which made things… dangerous. I still have about a week before I’m confident I can resurrect,” Cora said, wrinkling her nose unhappily as she thought. Part of her hated the idea of putting herself in danger again so soon, but at the same time, part of her took what the demon lord was doing quite personally at this point. His influence kept showing up near them, and if they could wreck his plans, she’d take distinct satisfaction in it, since he was indirectly responsible for Joy losing her pure royal jelly. After a few seconds she nodded slowly, looking back at Abigail. “We’ll come with, Guildmaster. I’m afraid that I need to be a bit more cautious, however.”

“Good, since we won’t be useful to anyone if we’re dead. Go get ready, I’ll distribute the potions at the southern gate in ten minutes,” Abigail said bluntly, glancing around the room. “Make it fast, people. I hope we aren’t too late.”

Chapter 39

Damaris beheaded one of the army ants with a single blow, resisting the urge to curse as she kicked another hard, sending it flying backward, its exoskeleton cracked where she’d hit it. The ant she’d beheaded didn’t let go even after it’d died, though, its mandibles clamped tight around her leg, and it cost a few precious moments to cut it free, allowing her to move freely.

Beside her, Velk roared as his axe tore through three of the ants in a single blow, scattering them across the jungle floor and the ants behind them. Not that it was comforting, with the horrifying sight before Damaris.

A fireball detonated in the jungle ahead of her, scorching dozens of army ants to crisps instantly, but their bodies were buried as dozens more ants swarmed over the bodies of their predecessors. Each ant was five feet long, with a spindly body, wire-like legs, and oversized mandibles, but there were just so many of them that it had to be seen to be believed. Worse, they came at Damaris like a nearly silent living tide. The only sounds were from her soldiers and the occasional chirp from the horrifying mass of insects.

Damaris, Velk, Egan, Ovlin, and Thomas were spearheading the attack, with the squad leaders backing them up and the common soldiers cleaning up the stragglers. They were fortunate that the ants were so low-level, as their mandibles couldn’t pierce the armor of any of them over level fifteen, but that was only usually. Ovlin had been forced to fall back when an ant had launched itself into her face, nearly managing to cut her throat before the dark elf had killed it. A priest had healed Ovlin and she’d returned to the fight, but it had been far closer than Damaris liked. It wasn’t as thought they’d been as lucky in all cases, either, as a few of the soldiers had fallen so far.

The only good thing, such as it were, was that the majority of the ants were attacking Damaris and the commanders as well. She had to assume they had some way of communicating that the biggest threat was with her, or maybe they were just going after the largest food source, but it meant that the sentries trying to protect their path back out of the hellscape were only encountering a handful of ants, by comparison.

“Ye gods, is there no end to them?” Egan demanded at last, hammering an ant’s skull, then exclaimed, “Tornado Throw!”

The dwarf threw his hammer, which spun through the air like a top, crushing ant after ant in a broad arc before returning to his hand, dripping with ichor. The action gave the dwarf a brief reprieve, but only for a few moments before still more ants surged into the gap.

“They’re army ants! What do you expect?” Thomas replied, whipping his sword back and forth as he cut his way into his opponents. “They’re practically countless!”

“Less talking, more killing,” Damaris interrupted, glowering at the ants since she couldn’t spare the time to look at the other soldiers. She did hesitate, then said, “Velk and I will clear the area, so keep it open.”

“Yes, sir!” Thomas and Egan chorused.

“Which side, sir?” Velk asked, calmly splattering a few more ants across the desolate jungle floor.

“You’re on my right,” Damaris said simply, and saw him nod in the corner of her vision, adjusting his stance. She adjusted as well, drawing on her mana as she inhaled, then exclaimed, “Hellfire Eruption!”

She reversed her sword and stabbed it into the earth as she activated the ability, and Velk used the same ability a heartbeat later, though instead he slammed his axe blade into the dirt like it was his opponent. Mana surged and boiled through Damaris, rushing into her sword rapidly as a large portion of her reserves vanished.

The ground shredded in front of her as an eruption of red-black flames exploded out and upward in a rapidly expanding cone that obliterated all the army ants in its path, a cone which she’d deliberately angled to the left, since Velk’s cone had been angled to the right so that they just barely overlapped.

Trees creaked and groaned, then fell as they were toppled by the attacks, crashing down on the remnants of the ants, and a swath of the creatures thirty yards long had been annihilated, giving them precious breathing room.

Before Damaris could finish standing, the others rushed into the gap. She retrieved her sword and followed them quickly, trying to catch her breath as she nodded at Velk. He grinned as well, hurrying forward. She knew he was a little winded too, though, since the ability took a lot out of her.

It’d been worth it, though. Even if the ants were swarming back into the gap they’d opened, the largest concentration had been immediately in front of Damaris, so they were far fewer in number, at least for the moment.

“Keep pushing! We’re almost there!” Damaris called out, rushing into the fray once more.

She just hoped that the traps around the seal weren’t as bad as she feared they might be.

* * *

“My queen, we bear news,” an apis warrior said, bowing her head before the queen, and she paused, looking at the apis curiously.

“Speak, then,” the queen said, studying the pair that were in her presence as she set down the cup of lemonade she’d been enjoying. She’d have to thank Joy for the gift if she got the chance, since it was quite pleasant.

Both of the apis showed faint signs of combat, mostly hints of smoke and a couple of cracks in their armor, though the one not speaking had lost a finger-width of her left antenna. At least that much would heal over the course of a few days, unlike limbs.

“The town has been freed of invaders, and we lost just over sixty apis, mostly from one of the leaders. There weren’t as many invaders as we expected, either,” the apis reported rapidly, but her expression was surprisingly serious for reporting a victory. “The attendant says that’s because they’re here in the jungle, trying to get into an area the ants have taken. They’re trying to get some type of rock called a seal, and if they get it, it could release a horrible monster that’s trapped somewhere in the duchy.”

It was obvious from the way the apis spoke that she only had the vaguest idea of what a duchy was, and the queen made a mental note to have one of the attendants explain the idea of nations to the workers. While Joy’s stories had expanded the knowledge of the common members of the hive immensely, they’d lacked the details to allow the apis to fully understand, especially when not all the apis were able to hear the full explanations.

“That is a bit scary. If they’re having to deal with the ants, it won’t be easy, though… it might explain why reports from the front lines said that the ants haven’t been as aggressive today,” the queen said, looking at them patiently, considering their pheromones before she continued. “Is there more?”

“Yes. The Gu-gul… the fire lady said that it’s in a ravine near the termite nest and the weird giant tree,” the apis explained, changing the word after stumbling over it a couple of times. “She asked if we could help stop them. The attendant sent us to ask you, and is leading them to the edge of the ant territory nearest it.”

The queen was a little perplexed about who the ‘fire lady’ might be, but from the context, she suspected she was one of the leaders in the town. The request, though… it was another risk, and one she was hesitant to take, if she were being honest with herself. Yet she’d already risked the apis to rescue the town, and that sacrifice might be wasted if the monster was freed. Besides, the ants had been less aggressive that day, which meant that they hadn’t taken as many losses.

Glancing over at the lemonade, the queen made a decision and nodded. “Tell the attendant that she can assist if she believes it will help them succeed. If you lose more than half your numbers, I expect you to retreat.”

“Yes, my queen!” the two apis chorused, and they turned to rush out of the room.

The queen watched them go, then shrugged, turning back to her lemonade as the attendants brought her another cell for the next egg, murmuring, “I hope they succeed.”

“As do we all, my queen,” an attendant agreed.

Chapter 40

“This looks bad,” Brianna said, pausing for a moment while the other adventurers cleaned up after the fight.

They’d run into a small detachment of the invaders just outside of the Teeming Jungle who’d been guarding the mounts of the other soldiers, and that would have given Joy a good idea of how many enemies they were up against, even if Abigail hadn’t been able to give them some information. They’d dealt with the guards, and a few of the horses had fled during the battle, though Joy wasn’t entirely sure why they’d panicked.

Still, going into the forest hadn’t been a challenge, and they’d just run into another group of soldiers, only eight of them, and the fight had been short and brutal. Joy and the others had killed a pair of soldiers without injury, but not all of the adventurers had been quite that lucky. Still, it looked like things had gone well to her, which was why she looked up.

“What’s wrong?” Joy asked, looking around intently, watching for danger.

“There aren’t any monsters, Joy. We haven’t run into a single leopard, spider, beetle, or even giant mouse,” Cora said, looking around in concern. “That means they probably cleared out the area… or scared everything so much that the creatures ran. Either way, it isn’t good. Even if we do catch them while they’re weak.”

“Oh. Um, well… yeah, you’re right about there not being many creatures,” Joy said, looking around and blinking again. She just wasn’t used to the Teeming Jungle, so she didn’t have any idea how often they should be running into enemies. She thought about asking, but Abigail spoke first.

“Alright, we’d better move! We’re obviously catching up with them, and we’re getting near the territory the ants have infested,” Abigail said, her voice carrying to everyone as the mage looked around at them, a grim look on her face. “Keep an eye out for danger, as we don’t know that the ants haven’t invaded even further.”

“Yes, Guildmaster,” Cora replied, glancing at Joy as she lowered her voice. “And that means you, Joy. You’ve been jumping headfirst into danger at every opportunity, it seems like.”

“I don’t mean to!” Joy protested, flushing as she shifted from one foot to another. “I just want to help! You warned me earlier, too!”

“You can help by not giving me a heart attack every time you dive forward,” Brianna interjected, starting forward, her hand on the hilt of her sword, and testing a shield she’d taken from one of the soldiers. “I swear you have no sense of self-preservation.”

“I don’t want to die!” Joy protested, but followed the Swordswoman as she moved with the group.

“No, but sometimes you can fool me into thinking you do,” Brianna retorted. “Like when you attacked the demon!”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Joy said, hopping over a log while keeping watch.

“This isn’t the best time for this,” Stella said, her tone dry as she glanced at Joy. “Just try to be safer, Joy. I’d rather none of us woke up back in Irador later today.”

“Huh? But why would we—” Joy began, and stopped as her mind caught up, and she realized what Stella was saying. They hadn’t changed their resurrection point to Bearton, since they’d be going back to Irador anyway, so she blushed and nodded. “Oh, right.”

Cora didn’t speak, and the others fell silent as they got moving more quickly. Joy had noticed that most of them couldn’t talk as easily while they were moving fast, and she always wondered why, but hadn’t asked yet. She never seemed to breathe as hard as they did, which she found curious.

As they moved, she noticed the pheromones from ahead of them. They weren’t pheromones from the hive, by and large, though there were some from apis somewhere up ahead. These were ones she didn’t like, which tasted wrong. She frowned, noticing that there were fewer plants on the ground, almost like the jungle floor had been scoured clean recently.

“Ants ahead!” an apis chirped above them, an arrow on her bowstring.

“Hells,” an adventurer nearby muttered, shifting his grip on his flail, and Joy glanced at him curiously, wondering why his skin was so much paler than normal.

A pair of apis darted out of the trees ahead of them, and Joy perked up, recognizing their pheromones now, and realizing they were the ones the attendant had sent to the hive. The two flew past the other apis and to the attendant, speaking to her softly and quickly, and the attendant listened, then nodded.

“The queen has allowed us to help you, Guildmaster. If we lose half our numbers, we’re to retreat to the hive,” the attendant said, looking down at Abigail as the group of adventurers slowed, and Joy followed suit. “How would you like us to help?”

“Wonderful!” Abigail said, and Joy saw the relief on her face as the human dabbed at the sweat on her forehead with a cloth, continuing. “If you can back us up when we attack, that would be best, as well as helping keep an escape route open. We don’t have enough people to attack them and to open a gap in the ants if they swarm us.”

“Right!” the attendant said, looking at the apis as she nodded. “You heard her!”

“I saw some people in black over there,” an apis who’d been waiting said, pointing ahead and to their right. “We saw them when coming to meet you.”

“Ah, they must not have known the best route there,” Abigail said, and glanced around as she added, “Now might be a good time to take your stamina potions, and I’d suggest getting out one of the ones to make you stronger.”

Joy nodded, reaching down to pull out the stamina potion at the same time as the others. She looked at the amber vial dubiously, since it smelled nothing like honey, and popped the cork while the others opened and drank their own. The smell that wafted out of the vial didn’t smell too bad to Joy, mostly like some of the plants she remembered gathering nectar from, with several she didn’t recognize, and she decided to go ahead and take a drink. That was a mistake.

The foul taste caused Joy to gag, and her stomach heaved as it quite firmly made her aware that the mouthful tasted terrible and didn’t belong in it. Still, Joy knew that she was supposed to drink it, so she ignored her stomach and forced herself to swallow, tears seeping from her eyes as she did so.

The taste faded slightly after swallowing, but her stomach didn’t stop twisting as Joy gasped and shuddered, her wings vibrating behind her unhappily as she blinked the tears away. A sensation of warmth washed out over her, filling Joy with even more energy than she was used to, but compared to the taste… she shuddered.

“Joy, are you alright?” Cora asked, looking at Joy in concern.

Joy gave a weak smile in return, putting the cork back in the vial and putting it away, which bought a little time for her stomach to settle a bit more. If she talked immediately, she wasn’t sure what would happen. Only when she was certain she could talk safely did she speak.

“That was horrible. I never want to drink one again, ever,” Joy replied weakly, glancing up at the other apis as she added, “If you’re ever offered a stamina potion, don’t take it. Unless you have to.”

“Okay,” the nearest apis agreed, and Cora looked at Joy in confusion.

“What are you talking about? It’s just a stamina potion. It doesn’t taste good, I’ll admit, but it isn’t that bad… is it?” Cora asked, looking at Joy like she’d grown another head.

“I’d rather get hit by the mean lady with the sword again,” Joy replied bluntly.

Cora’s eyes went wide, and Stella choked, then demanded, “You’d rather nearly get killed than drink a stamina potion?”

“I didn’t say that! I said I’d rather get hit by her again,” Joy corrected, blushing a little at the incredulous looks she was getting. “It tasted terrible!”

“You apis are insane,” a nearby elven man said, looking at her in confusion.

“Leave her alone. It isn’t like she was saying you couldn’t—” Brianna began, but she was interrupted.

“Army ants!” Abigail called out, and everyone’s attention snapped forward.

The ants were nothing like the giant ants that Joy had seen back in the Flower Forest. The ones she’d seen were shorter than these, perhaps three feet long and with black carapaces, and a blunt, sturdy frame. They were also deadly enough in swarms, but few bees had ever tried to fight ants, since they tended to prefer different food sources. These were larger, with spindly bodies, mottled red carapaces, and truly enormous mandibles by comparison. Joy instantly decided she didn’t like them, as a few dozen of the ants swarmed toward them and Cora skidded to a stop.

“Ice Blast!” Cora snapped, pointing her staff at the nearest group of ants, and the gem flashed blue as a bolt lashed out and exploded, slowing the ants down as their legs were covered in ice.

Brianna reached the ants first, and she let out a soft grunt as she cut clean through the head of one of them, while in the corner of Joy’s vision she saw other adventurers destroying the snapping, swarming ants.

“Stab!” Joy said, thrusting hard at another ant which had just opened its mouth, and her rapier lanced in through its mouth and out the back of its head. She recoiled as it tried to snap at her anyway, barely getting her wrist out of reach before the mandibles snapped shut on her rapier. It didn’t get a good grip, fortunately, so she danced backward, pulling the weapon free as her eyes went wide. “Bad ant!”

Stella stepped up next to her and brought her mace down on the ant’s head, shattering its exoskeleton and slamming it into the dirt. The human spoke, her tone slightly breathless. “Precision isn’t as good against these, Joy! Let us handle them, and save your energy for the soldiers!”

“Oh, okay!” Joy said, and fell back a few more steps, wincing as she saw the adventurers tearing through the ants. A few apis were helping, she noticed, but mostly those with spears.

“Maybe what they really need are hammers,” Joy muttered, restlessly shifting from foot to foot, then her eyes brightened as she saw the thin legs of an ant, and whipped her rapier around to cut a joint.

It didn’t do much to slow the ant down, but that was why she started cutting more legs. It was something she could do to help.

Chapter 41

“Gah!” Egan cried out, even as the crackle of electricity blasted through his body. The dwarf staggered backward, jagged black marks across half his face and an arm limp as he fell to a knee, gasping.

“Dammit, Ovlin!” Damaris barked, cutting down another ant, then booted its body into some of the others that were approaching.

“On it!” Ovlin replied, turning away from the fight and toward Egan as she added, “Moderate Healing!”

A white glow surrounded the dark elf’s hand, then rippled out over Egan, and his injuries began to rapidly recover.

They’d cut their way to where the seal was hidden, and Damaris really wished that they had time to approach it carefully, as the location would have been defensible against almost anything other than what they were dealing with. The stone cliffs to either side were relatively sheer, and usually she’d be happy to have an obvious bottleneck, but the ants didn’t care that it was mostly vertical. Most of them came down the throat of the ravine, but a large number were also coming down the sides, which made defending themselves difficult.

The entrance to the seal was well-hidden, to the point that Damaris wouldn’t have found it without the directions from the adventurer guild’s notes, with several hidden buttons on the cliffside. Unfortunately, the notes hadn’t explained how to open it without setting off the lightning trap, which was why Egan had been injured.

Damaris hesitated, then gritted her teeth and ordered. “Velk? Break it.”

“Sir?” Velk asked, barely pausing in his sweeping blows through the ants, as he’d practically built a barricade out of their bodies.

“Break the damned door. If your axe breaks, get one from someone else. Lord Alethus will replace it if he has to,” Damaris said, hesitating, then nodded as she added, “I’m going to thin this herd, so make it quick.”

A ripple of shock and reluctance crossed Velk’s face, and Damaris really couldn’t blame the orc. Velk treasured his weapons, and the idea of deliberately damaging them was anathema to him, but she knew he’d understand, no matter how much he hated to do it.

“Yes, sir,” Velk said grimly, and stepped back as Damaris adjusted her position to take his place, popping the lid off a stamina potion and downing it in a single fluid motion. Energy coursed through her, and behind her Velk spoke. “Everyone, stand back! Demonic Rage!”

Red light flickered across the ravine walls, and Damaris heard a roar, followed by a peal as metal struck stone once, twice, then three times. The sound of cracking stone was loud enough to hurt her ears, but with the living tide in front of her she didn’t dare turn away, instead drawing on her reserves, and she grinned at the ants as she spat out, “Hellfire Eruption!”

* * *

In the distance a column of dust and fire rippled through the air, and Joy flinched as she drove her rapier into the man’s side, leaving him open for Stella to hit him with her mace. The man crumpled with a gurgle, and Joy quickly bounded toward the woman that Brianna was fighting.

“What was that?” Joy asked, rolling through the grass and springing to her feet as she reversed her rapier and drove it into the woman’s armpit, while a rumble echoed through the jungle.

The apis was shocked at how the strength potion she’d drank made her feel. She was far stronger than she normally was, hitting enemies incredibly hard and fast, which had taken a few seconds to get used to. The only problem with it was that the potion had tasted just as bad as the stamina potion, though at least it was more useful to her. Not worth drinking, but useful.

They’d cut their way through the initial army ants, and now they were well into the territory the ants had cleared. The others didn’t seem to fully understand how terrible it was, but Joy could smell how virtually every flower and plant had been plundered, and how the creatures in the area had been killed as well. They’d also encountered the enemy soldiers, who’d spread out into a long line as they fought off more of the army ants from either side, and they’d taken ruthless advantage as they killed every ant and soldier in their path, the apis spreading out to keep a path open behind them. Joy was also impressed by just how many dead ants were scattered across the jungle floor, as there had to be well over a thousand dead that she could see right that moment. It made her worry about fighting the people they were here to stop. A tiny part of her was tempted to call them Skyfishers, if they were from Skyfish Valley.

“An attack skill or spell!” Cora called out from behind her, just after throwing a ball of lightning at a soldier ahead of them. Their team was leaping past another group of adventurers, which Joy knew would be leaping past them in turn. It gave them a chance to catch their breath after each battle. “Once you hit level twenty, you can learn some wide-area attacks, but they tend to eat a huge amount of mana, plus they tire you out.”

“Shut up and die, you damned—” an enemy soldier began, popping up from behind a bush, aiming a crossbow at Cora.

Joy lunged forward, but she wasn’t quite as fast as Brianna was. The redhead took two lightning steps forward and swung her sword, knocking the crossbow upward just as the man fired, causing the bolt to arc off into the jungle before the crossbow hit him in the face. Brianna took another step and brought her sword back down, cutting his arm clean off.

“Gah!” the man screamed, and Joy winced, jumping forward and stabbing the man in the throat.

“Sorry, can’t take prisoners! We’re in a hurry,” Joy said, recovering her weapon as she nodded at Brianna, who was surrounded by a red mist, just like Joy and Stella were. “That was amazing!”

“Lots of practice,” Brianna replied, nodding and smiling grimly as she tried to wipe some blood off her face, but instead smeared it around. “Lots of people try to shoot you when you’re a bit out of reach. They usually forget their weapon is closer.”

“Right,” Joy agreed, nodding and making certain to remember that. The other adventuring group raced past them toward the next group of soldiers, but Joy’s smile faded as she saw that the enemy soldiers were starting to fall back, opening a gap for the army ants to pour into, and she added, “That looks bad.”

“Yeah, it does,” Brianna agreed, and called out. “Guildmaster?”

“I see it! Everyone, pick up the pace!” Abigail said, rushing forward and raising her staff as streamers of fire swirled along its length. “I was hoping not to use this yet, but… Inferno Wave!”

Fire exploded out of the Guildmaster’s staff with such force that Joy couldn’t help flinching, but fortunately it wasn’t aimed at her. Instead it formed a wave of fire that surged and slammed down on the jungle floor ahead of them mercilessly while a second wave formed, then a third. Each wave went farther, scorching ants, trees, and Skyfishers alike. The smell of cooked soldiers made Joy’s nose wrinkle, and she shuddered, but headed forward into the gap, almost at a run. As she did, a thought occurred to her.

“Hey, you don’t eat them, do you?” Joy asked, nodding at one of the enemy bodies, and recoiled as a nearby ant exploded in a spray of ichor.

“What? No, of course not! That would be disgusting!” Brianna protested, almost tripping in her shock.

“Oh, good,” Joy said, letting out a breath of relief.

That possibility had definitely turned her stomach.

* * *

“Oh no. No, this is bad. This is…” Letha began, then fell silent as she looked around the resurrection chamber in horror. She almost wished that the Acolyte hadn’t come to get her when he’d noticed that something was wrong.

The chamber was like virtually any resurrection chamber she’d ever seen, even when she wasn’t in the Kingdoms of Darkness. Oh, the deities depicted along the ceiling were different, but the glowing green crystal above her was normal. So were the three dozen biers for the dead to resurrect on.

The reason for her horror was that every single bier was occupied by a soldier who was slowly reforming, magic flowing outward from the crystal to their bodies. One of them was Leah, one of the captains who’d accompanied Damaris, which would have been bad enough on its own, but then there were the dozens of glowing sparks orbiting the crystal, with more appearing with every passing moment. Each of those sparks was a soul who required resurrection, and it indicated a disaster like she could hardly believe.

“Corey, go get a runner. As soon as we have a report, we have to let Lord Alethus know that something has happened,” Letha said at last, her gaze settling on Leah again. If anyone could tell her what had happened, it was the captain.

“Yes, Your Holiness!” Corey said, bobbing his head, then turned and practically ran from the room.

Letha wished she could pace, but she didn’t want to make the other Priests and Acolytes even more nervous, so she forced herself to stand still as she murmured, “Leah, please hurry up. We need to know what’s happened.”

Chapter 42

“Door’s open!” Velk exclaimed, and Damaris let out a breath of relief, savagely cutting an ant in two as she fell back, glancing to the north.

She wasn’t certain what she’d heard, but it’d sounded like someone had destroyed a lot of ants, which was worrying. Plus, she was seeing movement from the soldiers holding the rear lines. That wasn’t a good sign.

Looking behind her, she winced at the sight of Velk’s axe. The haft was cracked, there were numerous nicks in the blade, and it was entirely too likely that it would break before long. The orc didn’t look happy, and Damaris couldn’t begrudge him that, not after he’d done what she asked him to.

The cliff face had been cracked open, and from inside she could see a blue-white glow, one that set her teeth on edge. It was a holy radiance, and ever since she’d become a Demonic Knight, those sort of places had been uncomfortable for her. She wanted to rush inside and finish the job, but she didn’t dare until she knew what was happening.

“Sir, we have trouble!” a man exclaimed as he approached, a little blood seeping from a gash in his armor on his right side, an injury which looked like it was from an ant to her. He’d come from the direction of their escape route, and looked panicked.

“Really? I never could have guessed,” Damaris replied sarcastically. “Report, soldier!”

“Y-yes sir!” the man said, flushing slightly as he saluted. “Adventurers and apis are attacking! They’re rolling over the sentries, and most of the adventurers have the aura from strength potions. Galvan told us to pull back, but they unleashed a wave of fire, and are approaching quickly. I—”

“Gods damn it!” Damaris hissed, and her gaze darted over to Velk, Ovlin, and the others before growling. “Order them back! Pull everyone back here and hold them off! Velk, you’re in charge of the defense!”

“Yes, sir!” Velk replied, and bellowed. “Everyone, form defensive lines around the entrance! Make room for the others as they arrive. Magi, use shields to defend us from enemy magi! Move!”

The soldier who’d reported to Damaris turned and sprinted back toward the others who’d been holding the rear lines, likely to relay the order, and the other soldiers began moving as quickly as they could while still fighting off the ants. With them moving, Damaris headed for the sealing chamber, nodding to Velk as she passed.

“This should only take a minute. Hold them off, then we’ll counter-attack,” Damaris said, resolve steeling her against what was likely coming. They were going to lose a lot of soldiers, most likely. But no matter what, they would not fail.

“Yes, sir,” Ovlin said, pulling more arrows out of her backpack and refilling her quiver while Egan loaded his crossbow.

Velk didn’t say anything, instead striding toward the front lines with his axe over one shoulder, and Damaris nodded to Thomas as the other captain hurried to assist his men.

Damaris turned and hurried through the entrance, and even under the circumstances she almost stopped at the sight of the chamber, as it was shockingly beautiful.

It was like she’d stepped into a massive geode with luminous, blue-white crystals all around her. The interior was only thirty feet across, and much of that was taken up by huge crystals that extended out into the chamber. It felt a lot like dozens of tiny, biting ants were crawling across Damaris’s skin, but that much she’d expected. Most particularly, she focused on the object floating above a pedestal formed of dozens of crystals in the back of the chamber.

The object looked like half of a circular stone disc, a couple of inches thick, and with a hole in the center of the disc itself. There were glittering white runes across the surface of the stone, as well as a small hole about the size of a thumb through the disc.

“Analyze,” Damaris murmured under her breath, and information appeared in her mind.

Ancient Seal Fragment (Level 90)

This is a fragment of an ancient seal. If all pieces are collected, the user can assemble the seal and release what it is trapping.

“Good,” Damaris said, her worry easing, and she reached into her backpack and shuffled about for a moment until she found and pulled out an iron coffer.

The coffer was heavy, and Damaris grunted as she adjusted her grip on it and looked at it, the entire surface of the coffer covered in runes. Lord Alethus had created the item himself, and Damaris knew that it was incredibly expensive, even if the coffer could only be used a single time. Anything that she placed in it before activating its magic would be transferred to the coffer’s twin, which was in Lord Alethus’s possession. Her task was vital, and even if she died, Damaris was determined to succeed and show that he’d been right to trust her.

As she opened the coffer and stepped forward, Damaris heard yelling from outside, followed by an explosion that caused the ground to shake beneath her feet, and she muttered, “What the hells?”

Paling, she glanced behind her to see only dust and smoke obscuring everything, but she barely hesitated. As much as she wanted to help the others, she had to send the seal away first.

Chapter 43

Joy was on her second strength potion, and she really, really wished that she didn’t feel like she needed to drink it. Unfortunately, she was quite certain that she did, especially once they’d come into view of their opponents, who were surrounded by a berm of dead ants. The enemies were located in a broad ravine, above which was a huge, gnarled tree that would’ve taken thirty apis with outstretched arms to encircle.

A quick glance had given Joy a count of how many opponents were left, and she had not liked their odds. There were close to two hundred soldiers in the ravine initially, and they were in a semicircle around a cave entrance in the side of the ravine, and some of the enemies were huge, almost nine feet tall. The apis archers and some of the spellcasters among the adventurers had attacked the group, only for Joy to see something else new, as the enemy spellcasters threw up glowing barriers in the path of the spells, negating the attacks for the most part, while their archers had managed to fell several apis in return. Briefly Joy wondered how they were going to deal with their opponents, particularly with the ants swarming toward them as well as the Skyfishers. There were a lot of ants.

“Everyone back!” Abigail exclaimed, stepping forward with a glowing red crystal in one hand, and she hesitated before adding, “You might want to brace yourselves, too.”

“What? Ack!” Joy asked in confusion, then yelped as Cora dragged her back and down.

“Get down, Joy!” Cora exclaimed, and glanced upward as she added, “You might want to fall back! She’s going to use her Meteor Strike!”

The apis looked confused, but they obeyed, immediately scattering backward, most of them still flying. Joy blinked, looking toward Abigail as the woman raised the red crystal aloft, and asked, “What’s Meteor Strike?”

Beside them, Stella hunkered down behind a fallen tree, while Brianna cut down a pair of army ants that had been approaching. All around them the other adventurers took cover as well, making Joy still more confused.

“A level forty spell. It isn’t as powerful as if she were—” Cora began, but before she could finish, the crystal in Abigail’s hand blazed like a star, prompting another yelp from Joy as she averted her gaze, blinking rapidly.

The light went up into the sky, then there was an immense roar from above as something huge and fiery came down, something which was bright enough that Joy couldn’t see it properly, though she could certainly feel the heat on her skin. The fiery object came down in the ravine like a pouncing spider, then erupted.

A wave of pressure and heat almost knocked Joy over, and she staggered, holding onto Cora for that moment. Ants went flying every direction, apis were sent weaving through the air, and smoke roiled out of the ravine.

“Attack, quickly!” Abigail ordered, and Joy let go of Cora as the elf climbed to her feet, offering a hand to help Joy up in turn, then followed as Brianna led the charge into the ravine with apis racing in overhead. The smoke started to clear by the time Joy was halfway down the path, and as it did, shock rushed through the apis.

The soldiers were scattered around a circle of scorched earth, many of them unmoving, and those who were still up weren’t moving quickly. They were scattered and disorganized, which made it the perfect time to strike, which the other apis seemed to agree with. Joy saw them swarming the biggest enemy soldiers, as well as those who hadn’t recovered yet.

Brianna let out a loud yell as she reached the enemies, her sword lashing out ruthlessly into the torso of a man. His armor held under her strike, but she hit with such force that he was thrown back into another soldier.

“Speed Burst!” Joy exclaimed, bounding past Brianna to finish the man off. She didn’t dwell on the action, instead glancing around as the other adventurers cut into what was left of the defensive lines, at least until she spotted a quartet of people near a glowing doorway into the mountainside, and she pulled out a dagger.

One of them was a huge man with green skin who had tusks protruding from his mouth, wearing a breastplate, greaves, and vambraces, and with a huge, jagged axe in his hands. The others were eclectic, with a blond human man with a rapier, a brown-haired dwarf with a crossbow in his arms, and an elven woman with silver skin and black hair who was wielding a bow. Only the orc had metal armor and all of them were scorched, but something about them made Joy tense. They felt a bit like the demon she’d nearly died to, she realized an instant later.

“Rallying Cry!” the blond man yelled, and Joy could see his shout travel through the dust in a spherical pulse. Across the battlefield the other soldiers began to perk up and move more quickly, which sent a ripple of alarm through Joy.

The dwarf took aim at one of the other adventurers and grunted as he fired at almost the same time, and the bolt punched clean through the woman’s breastplate, slamming her back several feet, and that was enough to turn Joy’s alarm into outright fear, as the elf’s gaze lit on Stella, who was fighting a man nearby.

“Explosive—” the elf began, drawing her bow back, but Joy’s dagger left her hand before the woman had more than parted her lips, and the elf choked as the dagger slammed home in her throat, slipping right over her gorget.

“Ovlin!” the dwarf exclaimed in horror, spinning around as he pulled out a potion, but Joy didn’t dare pay attention to the dwarf. Not when she’d gained the attention of the orc, and he looked angry.

“Damnable apis. I’ll start with you,” he rumbled, and deep red light surrounded him as he shouted, “Demonic Rage!”

The fire blast which shot past Joy and slammed into the dwarf was almost a side note, especially as the orc rushed toward her at blinding speed, almost too quickly for Joy to react. Almost, as she just barely jumped to the side and bounced deliberately off a rock to her left, flipping over the orc with her wings extended as his axe cut viciously through where she’d been standing moments before. She couldn’t fly with the damage her wings had taken, but she could direct her jump, and hover briefly.

“Stab!” Joy exclaimed, her rapier thrusting at the back of the orc’s head, but her blow never connected. The orc didn’t stop his swing, instead spinning in place, and Joy’s eyes went wide as the blade flashed toward her, jerking back as fast as she could. She wasn’t quite fast enough.

The axe caught Joy in the side, and her eyes crossed as an impact even more impressive than the wasp landing on top of her hit her in the side and slammed her into the rock she’d just jumped off of. It felt like something broke, and Joy gasped, twitching as she tried to regain her bearings, pain searing through her with every breath she took.

Snap!

The sound of her rapier snapping in half echoed loudly as the orc viciously stomped on the blade, speaking angrily. “Stupid vermin. Your armor only made this take longer.”

He brought his axe up, and regret rushed through Joy. Regret that she was going to disappoint Cora after the elf had told her to be careful.

Stella seemed to appear in front of Joy, and as she raised her shield the human shouted, “Mother’s Rampart!”

White light radiated from the shield to envelop both of them, just as the orc’s axe came down and hit Stella’s shield. The sound seemed to echo even more loudly than the Meteor Strike had, and cracks spread across the shield and through the light, but neither broke. Instead, it was the orc’s axe that shattered in his hands, and Joy saw the man freeze, ever so briefly.

“Lightning Blast!” Cora’s voice was tiny, but the anger in it startled Joy, as did the expression on the woman’s face as she threw an orb of lightning straight into the orc’s head as he hesitated, causing him to spasm, giving both Stella and Brianna an opening.

The Swordswoman was virtually silent as she stepped up behind the orc and stabbed him viciously, while Stella was even more ruthless, bringing her mace down on the man’s head hard. To Joy’s shock, even that didn’t manage to break his skull, though the orc fell to a knee, spitting up blood.

“I won’t—” he began, his voice angry.

“Be quiet!” Brianna snarled, and stabbed him in the base of the skull, at which point the glow around him finally went out.

“Ow,” Joy muttered, wincing as she started to stand, glancing around. The other adventurers had swarmed the dwarf, elf, and human who’d been near the doorway, and while a couple of them seemed like they weren’t in good shape, she thought they’d be alright, as most of the Skyfishers were down. More importantly, she smiled at Stella, trying not to breathe due to the stabbing pain in her side. “Thanks, Stella.”

“You’re welcome. Now we just have to find the seal and—” Stella said, looking around quickly, only to be interrupted.

“VELK!” a woman screamed, and a pair of adventurers went flying away from the cave entrance, spraying blood from where a sword had cut clean through their armor. The human woman was terrifying, in black full plate that reminded Joy of Alethus’s, though she had a large sword she was wielding in one hand. Her gaze was penetrating, and her rage as she glared at Brianna and Stella was palpable.

“Uh-oh,” Joy muttered, snatching up her rapier, and paused, blinking at the broken stump of a blade, and paled still more, just as the woman charged.

Brianna set herself in front of Stella and Joy, raising her shield, and Cora was moving in the corner of Joy’s vision. Joy quickly grabbed a dagger, one she’d been lent to replace the missing one from the guild house, hoping they could survive another encounter with someone like the orc.

“Flame Lance!” Abigail’s voice interrupted, and a lance of fire slammed into the woman from the side, launching her into the ravine wall. “Hello, Damaris. You can surrender if you’re not up to fighting us.”

“Abigail,” the woman replied, shoving away from the wall and glancing around the ravine in derision. “As if I’d surrender to this. I’ll die, but I’m going to die with my sword in hand, and knowing that unlike you, I didn’t fail.”

“What?” Abigail asked, her face paling. Joy blinked, opening her mouth, but Damaris moved at that moment.

“Fire Blast!” Cora’s spell launched past Brianna at Damaris, but the human ducked, some wisps of her hair that weren’t under her helm scorched by its passage, then she swung her sword hard, as Brianna braced herself.

The sound of shearing metal split the air, as the sword cut off the upper section of Brianna’s blade, and the Swordswoman cursed, falling back as she bled from a nick in her nose. Stella stepped forward, her mouth opening, but Damaris stepped into it, her fist lashing out hard and fast into the Acolyte’s throat. Gagging, Stella staggered, and Joy lunged forward, hoping she could get past the woman’s guard since both her hands were occupied.

The woman’s kick was not what Joy expected, and she felt something else crack as she went flying backward into the rock again. This time she was seeing stars, and Joy looked up as Damaris turned away, backhanding Brianna as her sword cut a spear-wielding apis from the air with vicious efficiency. This was what the others had meant, Joy realized at last, pain making it difficult to think. Higher-level enemies could almost ignore their attacks, and with Damaris in the middle of them, neither Abigail, Cora, nor the other magi could easily attack.

Then Joy’s gaze fell to the woman’s legs, and particularly the back of her knees. Damaris was keeping a close eye on the others, but Joy still had the dagger in her hand. Even trying to move her arm sent a spike of pain through Joy’s body, and she swallowed her whimper, her eyes watering. But raise her arm she did, and when Damaris took a step toward her, Joy lunged forward, stabbing toward the human’s knee.

“Penetrating Strike!” Joy gasped, thrusting hard… and missed, as the woman jerked out of the way at the last second, and Joy slumped onto her side, almost passing out.

“You’re not dead?” Damaris demanded, half-turning to glare at her, then raised her sword, reversing it. “Enough! Hellfire Er—”

Damaris didn’t finish, as Brianna’s sword hammered into the underside of her sword arm and she staggered back, and the human hastily dodged the downward swing of Stella’s mace. It took her a little farther away, and that was when Joy heard several spells.

“Inferno Blaze!”

“Fire Blast!”

“Lightning Bolt!”

Abigail and Cora cast spells almost simultaneously, as did a haggard-looking half-elven man. Damaris started to dodge, but it was too late. Fire erupted from beneath her, and Joy didn’t see the orb of fire or the lightning bolt hit as they slammed into her. The next thing Joy knew, the woman fell to the ground, what little Joy could see of the human blackened and burnt.

“Owww…” Joy gasped, falling backward as she slowly closed her eyes.

“Joy, drink your healing potion!” Cora demanded, her voice rapidly approaching, and Joy reluctantly opened her eyes again, looking up at the elf as she came closer.

“Do I have to?” Joy protested, her stomach rebelling at the very thought.

“We’re in the middle of an army of ants, so yes,” Stella said bluntly, even as Brianna laughed.

“Phooey,” Joy replied, practically deflating, and she reluctantly pulled out a healing potion, barely able to move as she did so.

Meanwhile, Abigail was rushing over, Joy noticed, but she didn’t pay the woman much attention. She was far more concerned with how the potion was about to make her feel.

* * *

“Please be here, please be here…” Abigail muttered, quickly going through Damaris’s inventory and praying to Besalk that the seal was in her possession. She’d already glanced into the sealing chamber, and the stone definitely wasn’t there.

She ignored the gagging sound from Joy, as she found the apis’s hysterics over potions rather ridiculous, and somewhat dubious. If they were honest, she’d have to apologize later, but Abigail didn’t have time for that. Besides, the woman had set her guild on fire.

There wasn’t a seal anywhere in Damaris’s things, so Abigail quickly pulled out the one container that the woman had been carrying in her backpack, a heavy, rune-covered iron box, and opened it. Then her heart sank, as she was confronted by an empty box.

“Gods help us,” Abigail whispered under her breath.

“Guildmaster? What now?” Brianna asked, looking over at her. “Did we get it?”

“Not that I can see. Check the enemies for any sign of the seal, and make it quick,” Abigail said, shoving the box into her inventory with a sigh. “Even if we don’t find it, we’re going to have to retreat quickly. The apis can’t hold our escape route open forever.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Brianna replied, and the adventurers quickly turned to get to work while Abigail glanced up at the apis, and how they were now heroically fighting the army ants without pause, giving her and the others time to recover.

She couldn’t have done this without them, Abigail admitted to herself, and likely would have been dragged away before much longer if they hadn’t come to the rescue. She’d have to find some way of thanking them later.

For now, she went to search the other bodies in the area. Anything valuable enough which they could carry, she’d grab as well. There was no reason not to. Hopefully Silverhoof would be able to help as well, once he arrived.

Chapter 44

“We’ve returned, my queen,” the attendant said, and the queen looked up, pausing at the sight of the apis.

While the attendant looked like she was in good health, her skirt had been burnt away, there was a hole punched through her armor over the right side of her chest, and her left antennae was missing. It was enough to make the queen think she had visited the humblebees to be healed, but if that were the case, the queen would smell them on the attendant. That meant that those they’d aided had healed the attendant, which improved the queen’s opinion of them.

“Good. Were you successful?” the queen asked, setting aside the wax sheet that the humblebees had prepared for her. She’d heard of the ‘paper’ that Joy had described, but the apis didn’t have any yet, so they were using what they did have. The problem was that the sheets were fragile, so she had to be careful.

“We were able to kill or capture the invaders, but they found the seal, and somehow took it away, my queen,” the attendant replied respectfully, nodding to her. “We also killed a large number of ants, which should make it easier on the hive for a short time.”

The queen nodded, considering for a few moments. “That is good. How many apis were lost?”

“Between both fights, seventy-three apis died. The others were able to be healed,” the attendant reported, relaxing slightly. “We were asked to keep the way out open, mostly. They also offered us a gift, in thanks for our help!”

“Oh?” the queen asked, her curiosity roused. “What sort of gift?”

Instead of speaking, the attendant pulled out a wax jar and opened it to take out a chunk of reddish rock. The queen sat up at the sight of the stone, and the attendant explained happily. “They heard that we needed ore from Joy, so they gave us what they had. There are ninety-eight pieces of iron ore, my queen.”

“That… is a wonderful gesture. Give it to our highest-level warriors,” the queen said, relief rushing through her. Then she paused and asked, “Are Brianna, Cora, Joy, and Stella alive?”

“They are. Joy was injured, but was healed after the fight,” the attendant said, nodding respectfully. “I was also told that we probably will get some help with the ants soon.”

“Good. That’s very good,” the queen said, smiling gently at the attendant, and let out a breath of relief as she murmured, “The hive will survive.”

“Yes, my queen,” the other apis murmured, and the queen felt less tension than she had since they’d encountered the army ants.

They had hope at last. Now the only thing to do was to ensure it wasn’t dashed. And that meant contacting the Tulip Hive.

* * *

“I never want to drink a potion again. Ever,” Joy said firmly, laying her head on the table, and Cora couldn’t help laughing.

“Even if they’d save your life?” Brianna asked, sounding a bit amused.

“They’re terrible,” Joy said, lifting her head to look at Brianna in disbelief. “Why would someone do that to themselves? Why?”

“Most people don’t hate the taste of healing potions, Joy,” Stella said, shrugging and taking a drink, wrinkling her nose. “I’m guessing that since apis don’t drink anything but honey and water, they just don’t taste right. Maybe the alchemists could come up with something that wouldn’t taste as bad, though.”

“That’s not a bad thought,” Cora agreed, tapping her chin thoughtfully and trying to ignore the sorry excuse for wine that filled her cup, instead keeping an eye on Joy. The apis was far too prone to getting herself in trouble.

They were back in Bearton, and while they’d managed to escape the Teeming Jungle without any permanent deaths, a quarter of the other adventurers had resurrected in the temple. Even their retreat hadn’t been easy, as Cora had nearly lost a leg to an army ant that hadn’t been as dead as Brianna had thought it was. At least they’d all leveled again, except for Stella, and Cora was planning to change jobs before going to bed. She was a bit envious of Joy, who’d leveled twice, to her amazement.

Once back, they’d received what amounted to a hero’s welcome. The locals were ecstatic about the invaders having been driven off, and Cora had almost laughed herself unconscious the first time Joy had called them Skyfishers. In either case, they’d been given a modest amount of coin apiece and been offered free room and board. The latter seemed like an excellent offer, at least until they’d learned that the enemy soldiers had drank every drop of decent alcohol in the town. They were getting what the soldiers hadn’t been willing to touch.

“Possibly. I’m sure we can mention it to some alchemists, and they’ll figure it out,” Brianna said, shrugging dismissively as she sat back in her chair. “Question is… what do we do now? I’m pretty sure that we’ve successfully opened trade with the hive, so that just leaves the ore.”

“I’m sure we can find out where to find it back in Irador. I doubt they’ll have enough on hand for our purposes, but we have the coin to order it,” Stella said, adjusting her position, wincing, then stood. “Still, I think I need to take a bath and sleep. It’s been a long couple of days.”

“Not a bad idea… in fact, I think I’ll join you,” Brianna said, standing up, and Cora blinked as she watched the two go, a little surprised by how suddenly they were leaving, but picked up her cup to take a drink, debating whether she should go to bed too. She was tired.

Joy raised her head, her antennae rising as she watched the two go, and her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at them, then at Cora. The apis seemed to contemplate for a few seconds, then asked, “Cora? Why did they smell like mating pheromones? They’re both female, so unless they’re planning to find a male, it seems odd.”

Cora choked on her wine, sputtering a little as she did a double take, just barely catching a glimpse of Brianna’s red hair as she headed up the stairs, then gasped, “They what?”

“Did… I say something wrong?” Joy asked, her antennae lowering slightly.

“No, it’s just… they’re…” Cora began, and stopped, taking a deep breath as she calmed herself, blushing as she thought about the two women, and her confusion grew. “Why would they be attracted to one another? They’re nothing alike!”

“Um… I don’t know? And they’re planning to mate with each other?” Joy asked, looking perplexed. “But they’re women!”

“We don’t know that. But whatever you do, don’t ask them,” Cora said, flushing a little as she looked at Joy, and her expression softened. “Either way… some people don’t sleep together to mate, Joy. They do it for pleasure, because they like one another and enjoy it. It’s also a private thing, which is why I said not to ask them. They’ll share if they want to.”

“Oh,” Joy said, looking at the stairs, then smiled, looking at Cora. “I’m sorry!”

“Sorry about what?” Cora asked, the change of Joy’s focus jarring.

“Well, I didn’t realize why you had those pheromones when in bed, and I don’t have the bits. I’m sorry!” Joy explained, and one of the nearby maids did a double take.

As it happened, Cora learned that it was not possible to die of mortification. On the other hand, with the way her cheeks were heating, she might be able to heat a forge.

“Joy… this is the sort of conversation for in private,” Cora hissed, frustration and affection rushing through her in equal measure.

“Sorry!” Joy said, but her words didn’t diminish her smile.

Cora simply sighed in aggravation. Sometimes she wished she could hate Joy. She simply couldn’t.

Epilogue

“They what?” Alethus asked, much of his pleasure vanishing as he read the letter in disbelief.

No one was present to hear his outburst, which he was quite thankful for. They weren’t even across the border yet, but what he’d read was just too surprising to believe.

Damaris and her entire battalion had died, or damned near the entire battalion, at least. Based on the numbers in the report, he was rather certain that there were very few who had avoided dying, and the majority of those missing had been claimed by death permanently.

He could barely believe that it was the same group of adventurers who’d led him into the trap that’d proven his undoing this time as well, though in a very different manner. An entire army of apis joining the one who’d fooled him… that was a shock, and one he couldn’t have anticipated. The army ants were an unpleasant surprise as well, but at least it meant that Duke Dorma would be forced to split his forces. As it was, Alethus wasn’t going to ask for any of those who’d died to join him, not since he didn’t want to risk them dying permanently.

“I think… I’m going to have to see if there are any apis hives near my borders, if this fails,” Alethus muttered, sitting back in his chair and musing, looking at the letter. “If I can bring them under my command, they’d obviously be useful. Self-sacrificing, numerous, fearless… an intriguing mix. Later, though.”

Alethus set the thought aside and let out a sigh, pulling out a sheet of parchment to send a reply.

The only saving grace about all of this was that he got the second seal fragment. Once he had the third, Irador would fall, and in all likelihood, Alethus would be the new Dark Lord.

He smiled at the thought, as he did like the ring of the title.

The End

* * *

I love Joy. More to the point, I love writing about Joy. She’s fun, enthusiastic, and she brightens my day in virtually every scene where she exists. Not every scene, as she is rather brutally ruthless from time to time, but she’s oddly innocent in a lot of ways… and I really don’t see that changing. She’s the type of character who sees the world as it is, nods, and continues doing what she does because what the rest of the world thinks has no bearing on her beliefs. It’s somewhat fascinating to me, how she does it.

Still, Joy isn’t the only main character, she simply seems to steal the show when I’m writing, if I’m being honest. I strive to include more content from the perspective of others, in part to show that while she’s part of the world, she isn’t the only person that matters. Joy, as much as I love her, is a single apis out of hundreds of thousands. But enough about that.

Thank you for reading Webs & Wards! This book was more difficult to write than Sting & Song was, but it was also much more complex in many ways. I have a third book planned, and fully intend to write it at the same time as I’m working on Lilith’s Shadow and my other main projects.

I hope you enjoyed the book, and that you’ll enjoy the next one as well! My next book is Queen’s Move, book 3 of my Lilith’s Shadow series, and you can find a sample of it on the next page.

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If you want to find more of my books, you can find them at the following link.

Books by Benjamin Medrano

If you want to see early drafts of my work or help select secondary characters to be illustrated, you can always join my Patreon, or you can get early chapters of upcoming novels and their announcements through my newsletter, both linked below.

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Also, if you’d care to review this story, I’d greatly appreciate it! Again, thank you for reading Webs & Wards.

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Prologue

Thursday, April 17th, 2031

Earth Orbit, Sol

The satellite wasn’t anything special as far as satellites went. A simple communications satellite, its primary use was retransmitting television signals, though there were enough other functions to keep it constantly in use. It was expected to last another three years, unless its owner paid for a refit. Unfortunately for the owner, it lasted only about ten more seconds.

The mass of metal that hit the satellite took it offline instantly, likely causing a great deal of consternation among the technicians, and the debris also created a much larger blip on the military sensors than the escape pod had generated so far.

As it hit the atmosphere, the escape pod’s sides shuddered and it split into five separate sections, each going a different direction as they plunged into Earth’s gravity well at an angle that would incinerate most human craft.

Before anyone had a chance to react, the five objects landed across the southwestern United States, each of them slowing extremely rapidly before impact, yet still plowing craters into the countryside.

No movement came from four of the pods, and while they opened to give the appearance that someone might have left, it was the fifth one that held an occupant. It took several moments before the figure moved, and then only slowly dragging itself free of the crash webbing. The figure was sheathed in chitinous orange plates that faded toward a dull red at the edges, and it was approximately humanoid in form, with long, cable-like braids extending from the back of its head.

The figure paused, looking around the pod before gathering several pieces of equipment, along with a large crate in one hand before inputting a combination into the console on the wall. Only then did the figure take flight, flickering into near-invisibility as light bent around it as it flew to the north.

Less than a minute after the figure’s departure, the pod and all the copies surged with power, then detonated in a hail of metal that destroyed everything inside them, including two other figures like the one which departed in each of them.

By the time the first reconnaissance plane passed overhead, there was nothing for the military to find but a deep crater in the ground and shattered metal and biological remnants over the countryside.

Chapter 1

Monday, April 21st, 2031

Glendale, Utah

“Hello, inspector.” Lilith said, calmly offering her hand to the man as she studiously ignored the cameras she could see from the roadside. She was unfortunately used to the attention at this point, even if this was more pronounced than it had been before she’d gone into hiding.

Her guest was a man of middling height, with a close-trimmed brown beard and immaculate uniform, which she suspected was unusual for someone coming to inspect a construction site. His brown eyes were fixed on Lilith, and he seemed frozen for a moment before shaking himself and taking her hand. The tag he was wearing said Drew, which she suspected was his first name. She also had to wonder if he was an undercover police officer, with as calm as he seemed to be.

“You must be Lilith Carpenter, based on the pictures I’ve seen.” Drew said, smiling at her as he nodded politely. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but who knows? As long as this is nice and quiet, I’ll be happy.”

“Quiet seems to be a relative term. I barely got here before the news crews showed up, and I’ve spotted at least three heroes in the vicinity as well. It’s almost like they don’t trust me.” Lilith replied, glancing toward the street sardonically, then admitted. “Though it could be that they’re watching for villains to attack me. That would be nice.”

“I certainly wouldn’t object to that! Now, I’m here to perform an inspection of your house. All the non-disclosure agreements have been signed.” Drew said, straightening as he looked past her. “That said, when someone requests permission to visually obscure their construction site, we’re used to them using tarps or the like. Not something like… that.”

Lilith smiled in private satisfaction, turning around as she murmured. “Yes, well, my AI insisted on proper security. She believes that allowing others to see the building while it’s under construction is a security breach.”

The area was quite different from San Francisco, Lilith had to admit, though there was still a faint scent of saltwater in the air. The Great Salt Lake wasn’t that close, but it was near enough that most days she could smell it, and mountains ringed the horizon. On the other hand, she was more focused on her new property, which she’d had ringed with a simple brick and mortar wall that was just over four feet tall. At the moment the ground was barren as well, but her property was two hundred feet on a side, giving a good fifty feet of clearance around what was to be her new home.

Not that anyone could make out the building under construction. The shimmering dome at the center of her property was a hundred feet across, and it completely distorted the view of what was inside, though some movement could be seen. The distortion generator was something only the military normally used, or a few superheroes and villains who could make them, yet Circe had added one to the construction unit without hesitation when Lilith asked her how to build a secure new home.

“Have you had many problems with that?” Drew asked, slowly starting toward the dome, looking a little hesitant. “It’s safe to approach, right?”

“Yes, it’s safe. As for problems…” Lilith paused, considering what to tell the man, then shrugged. “Three minor villains and one major one had made attempts at inserting surveillance devices inside the perimeter, while nine others have jumped the fence to intrude as well. Once the police stationed an officer nearby, the intrusions trailed off, but they’ve been unfortunately common. That’s why there’s a shield that prevents anyone from moving far into the outer shell, then another distortion field just inside that. Getting inside the outer shell doesn’t help at all, and if they do, Circe simply contacts the authorities.”

“Circe?” Drew asked, sounding a little puzzled, which prompted Lilith to blink, then she realized that he hadn’t necessarily talked to the AI.

“Circe is the AI I mentioned. She handles the construction and security here.” Lilith said, and gestured forward. “Shall we? I’m looking forward to being able to move in.”

“Definitely! The sooner we get this done, the happier I’ll be.” Drew agreed, straightening a little.

Lilith smiled at him and started walking toward the shimmering dome, looking forward to getting another formality over with.

* * *

Spark paused and grimaced as her gum finally took on the hard, rubbery texture it always did, eventually. It was a problem with having electrical powers, unfortunately, and she pulled out the wrapper to spit the gum out. She’d asked Decarin to come up with a formula which was more resistant to her electricity, but even it had its limits.

Tossing the gum into a nearby waste bin, Spark reflected that at least there were plenty of people in the area to provide cover, which she definitely appreciated. That, and Lilith Carpenter was one of the best distractions under the sun.

The tall, beautiful woman was walking toward the shimmering dome in the center of her compound as she spoke to the city employee, and every move she made drew the eye. It was even stranger due to how mundanely the dark-haired woman was dressed, which made Spark’s mixed feelings grow stronger. The woman was wearing black slacks, a button-down white shirt, and a jacket of some type, along with simple running shoes and a silver necklace. Despite the simple look, Spark certainly didn’t trust Lilith, which was why she was so unhappy that she was moving into the area.

Spark pulled her gaze away, instead looking at the news crews around Lilith’s property and the other journalists and onlookers, then clicked her tongue unhappily as she unwrapped a new stick of gum.

“How’re your scans going, Dec?” Spark murmured, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably. She hated stakeouts more than anything else, since she liked to move. She was a speedster, after all.

“It’s like staring at a brick wall. Hard, blank, and utterly pointless.” Decarin replied through the communicator, the man’s frustration making his voice oddly clipped. “I should’ve known, but why would anyone use Shadowmind’s milspec gear on a construction site?”

“Shadowmind’s daughter, obviously. I’m still stunned that the president actually pardoned her.” Spark replied, shaking her head in disbelief. She didn’t know what had convinced him to do that.

“Based on how slow she was to come out of hiding, I suspect you aren’t the only one.” Shade interjected, his voice booming loudly enough through the earbud that Spark winced, and he paused, then asked. “Are we certain that she doesn’t have additional assistance? I find it hard to believe that she would come out here on her own.”

Spark blinked, but waited as Decarin hummed, and she could faintly hear the sound of typing in the background. Decarin was their team’s inventor, and he also kept track of other people for them, which was rather helpful most of the time. She sometimes just wished he was more inclined to come out to gather information himself, rather than sending her.

“I’m not seeing any sign of cloaked people or objects in the area, though that isn’t a guarantee they aren’t around. Beyond that, according to my feed from Hypergizmo, Morgan and Warden are both in San Francisco, while Blooming Orchid and Circe Beta are in… Massachusetts, trying to track down Doctor Johnson.” Decarin replied after a moment, his voice a touch distracted, and Spark perked up a little.

“Doctor Johnson? I thought he was being extradited to Iceland!” Spark protested, confused as to why Blooming Orchid would be trying to track him down.

“Last week his transport was attacked by a few dozen assault bots and he escaped.” Decarin explained, his voice a little wry, and she could practically hear his shrug. “It happens, unfortunately. In any case, Warden is supposed to be finalizing the sale of her house, which caused all the property values in its area to explode, from what I’ve heard, and Morgan is helping the new professor get settled in at the university. I don’t see how any of them could be on-site.”

“If you say so.” Shade said, and Spark sighed internally. He simply didn’t have as much faith in Decarin’s explanation as she did, obviously.

Archon wasn’t chiming in, she noticed, not that the woman really needed to. They just wanted to scout out Lilith since she was in the area, just in case the woman proved to be trouble. She was Shadowmind’s creation, after all, and that was enough to make anyone nervous.

* * *

Circe was doing a great many things at once, more than even Lilith would have likely believed, though Amber likely would have come close to understanding. Performing maintenance on the various hideouts was a constant chore, and one which Circe was accustomed to, even with her newfound sentience.

Furthermore, many of those hideouts and bases were restricted from even Lilith’s knowledge. While Amber trusted her daughter reasonably well, the supervillainess hadn’t survived as long as she had by trusting unconditionally. Lilith had access to approximately one-third of the base network, and it was Circe’s task to ensure that the full extent of the network remained concealed.

Even so, Circe never shirked her primary responsibilities, not even when she needed to prioritize Lilith’s safety. Like right that moment, as it happened.

Her systems weren’t affected by the distortion field, and she had numerous scanners on-site, both to watch for intruders and to ensure that the construction was being performed correctly. That gave her plenty of time to scan the face of the inspector, as well as his build, and to compare it to the profile of the man which she’d found inside Glendale’s archives. Certainly, Circe wasn’t supposed to have access to those files, but that hadn’t ever stopped her before.

The data she found was not what she wanted to find. It was what she needed, but it certainly didn’t make her any happier, and as Lilith approached the force field which was between her and the inner distortion field, Circe didn’t drop it, instead sending a message to her and the police, though the content differed somewhat.

She also considered sending a message to the superhero teams loitering in the area, but decided against it. While she knew the man wasn’t actually employed by Glendale and wasn’t one of their employees, she didn’t have confirmation of who he was. Besides, she didn’t want to broadcast on an open channel, and revealing that she’d broken the encryption of two out of the three teams communicators seemed like a bad idea.

Instead, she waited patiently for the glacial human responses to her messages, turning her attention to the hydroponic maintenance report, as well as the construction of the new arctic base.

Hopefully Circe wouldn’t have to intervene herself. Lilith had been most insistent that the construction site not have weapons, but some orders were meant to be disobeyed.

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