Chapter Ninety-Four - Dance Dance Beevolution

“So,” I waggled as we climbed off the cart. It had taken a couple of hours to travel across the entire hive, crossing junctions and tunnels and all sorts of strange underground caverns along the way. It was surprising just how extensive the hive was. “You girls like flowers, huh?”

“Ooo, girl, you have got no idea how much we love flowers.” Henrihock wiggled back. “Can’t farm them inside the hive, so we sniff them out. We make the best honey.”

“So cool,” I said out loud. I shifted my hips and started to dance a reply back. “How do you find all your flowers? We have a mission to find all the best flowers in the region.”

Henrihock made jazz-hands. “We have maps. Here, I’m sure Queen Bee wouldn’t mind.” The big bee reached into her little satchel and pulled out a small square-folded map that she gave to me.

“Whaa,” I said as I looked over a detailed chart of the region, complete with marks for the entrances to the hive ways and little scribbles that showed where different sorts of flowers were. It was made of a strange, waxy sort of paper, like the mache that normal beehives were made of. “Thank you!” I jigged.

I was still poring over the map, Amaryllis snooping over my shoulder, when we exited the hive ways and found ourselves in a little forest. There were plenty of trees around, though there was some room between each, and lots of bushes and fallen branches made the area look hard to travel.

Henrihock spun around, wings beating so hard it made the air thrum. “Here we are, love. If you keep on moving that way for a little while you’ll find that human hive you’re looking for.”

I grinned from ear to ear and jumped over to Henrihock to give her a big hug. She was just as fuzzy as she looked. “Thank you,” I twerked, tears in my eyes. “You were the best bees I’ve ever met.”

The other bee girls thrummed their wings too. They looked a little jealous of the attention Henrihock had received, so I gave them hugs too.

“Stay safe love, don’t let them nasty wood bears go after you, you hear?” Henrihock waggled.

“I won’t,” I ballet’ed sadly. “Thank you again!”

We were waved off, Amaryllis taking the lead to push through the underbrush in a mostly northwestern-ish heading.

“Awa,” Awen said. “That was... interesting.”

Amaryllis sighed and crossed her arms. “It was acceptable,” she said.

I stared at the back of her head for a bit, then hummed. “Why are you in a bad mood? We got to make friends and have fun.”

“I’m not in a bad mood,” Amaryllis said like someone who was in a bad mood. I think she might have sensed that I was staring because she grumbled something. “I just felt rather... useless back there.”

“But nothing bad happened,” I said. “I guess your best skills didn’t come into play. There was nothing to zap, and no one to be condescending to, not unless you learned how to dance-talk a little.”

“I refuse to learn how to speak such a primitive... language.”

I felt a smile tugging at my lips, but suppressed it for the moment. “That’s fair. Don’t worry, I’m sure the next bit of our adventure will have plenty of things that you can zap into submission.”

“Harrumph,” Amaryllis harrumphed.

“What about you, Awen? Did you feel useless? I don’t want my friends to feel like third wheels, it’s not nice.”

“Awa, no, no more than usual,” Awen said.

I pulled Awen into a side hug for a bit before I had to let go on account of the terrain. “So! Do you have any clue where we are?” I asked.

“Yes,” Amaryllis said. “More or less.” She pointed through the woods and to the southwest. “The desert is over there. The mountains behind us are a little bit further, and the ground is sloping up. If I had to guess, which I do, I think we’re nearing the cliffs that lead up to Rosenbell. We’re half a day’s walk from the city.”

“Half a day? So we skipped two days of travel time with the bee girls?”

“Just about,” Amaryllis said. “Two days that we could have used to sharpen any new skills.”

“We could still do that a little,” I said. A look to the sky showed that the sun was well past its zenith and was on its way to rest by the horizon. “We can set up camp a little early, then get up early tomorrow before heading to Rosenbell.”

“That... might not be a terrible idea,” Amaryllis admitted. “I need to see how my new skills function, Awen needs to start down the path of learning some glass magic and you... well, you’re still far behind the curve with your own skills, I suspect. A few hours of training wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Ah,” I said. I was beginning to regret my own suggestion. “Well, okay.”

We continued for just a little bit before Amaryllis stumbled and came to a stop. She brought her talons up and stared at them.

“You okay?” I asked.

“My ring just slipped out of range,” she said.

“Uh. Range from what?”

“The bank,” she said. “The ring’s beacon system can only reach so far. We’ve passed its maximum range. We’ll have to go back a bit. I’ll need to pull some equipment, and some gold.”

I looked to the skies again, it was still bright and blue above, but there were hints that it was approaching night. “Right, let’s find a nice spot to make camp that’s in your ring’s range.”

We started to search for an area, all the while aiming northwards a little bit. It was Awen who pointed out a cliff that poked out above the woods. It had a nice little rocky clearing at the top that, once we climbed to the top, afforded us a sweeping view of the region.

Awen volunteered to pick up branches and such while Amaryllis plopped herself down on a rock and started writing notes to send through her ring. I dropped my pack and decided to help Awen find some wood and the like.

Soon we had a big pile of branches all stacked up to one side and we moved some rocks around to clear room for the tent and a little fire pit. I pulled out some food and started cooking with a bit of magical help from Awen who knew a fire starting spell.

My tummy had been quick to remind me that breakfast had been a long while ago and lunch had never been.

Beans cooked in a little pot, some strips of salty meat, and some bread. Not the food of kings, or even anything that could be compared to the food at most of the inns I’d been in, but it was filling enough.

“Right,” Amaryllis said as she set a backpack of her own off to the side. She had a few things packed away in there that seemed handy. “I need to see how my new Thunder Slap skill works compared to Thunder Clap.”

“Awa, I, I think I can work on some, um, glass magic? It’s supposed to be part of my new class’s skills, I hope.”

“What’s glass magic like?” I asked. “I mean, we kind of saw a bunch of it in the dungeon, but still.”

“I’m not too sure, but, but I hope I can make things with it. Um. Small glass constructs would be very nice.” She lugged her crossbow over and onto her lap, then pulled a bolt out of it. “See?”

I looked at the arrow, the tip was made of a piece of glass... so was the shaft and even the fletching. “Huh,” I said. “That’s nasty.”

“I want to be able to make these out of magic.”

“Can you make stuff out of magic? Permanent things, I mean?” I asked.

Amaryllis hummed. “More or less. The cost is far, far greater, exorbitantly so. Turning something from one material to another is a lot cheaper mana-and-effort wise. Awen here could start with some sand.”

“Awa, I thought of that!” Awen said. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a small purse that was filed with glassy sand. “I, ah, took some from the valley with the dungeon.”

“Then start there,” Amaryllis said. “Imbue it with your mana while turning your mana into glass aspect. Then try to sculpt the sand into something simple. A ball, perhaps?”

“I think I can do that,” Awen said.

I tapped my chin, then dove into my backpack until I found my copy of A Guide to Manipulating the Essence that was tucked at the bottom of all my other stuff. The book had taken a bit of a beating at the bottom of my pack, but it was still fine.

I skimmed ahead, looking for anything about mana sculpting and the like. There was an entire chapter about it towards the end of the book, but the instructions looked like they built off of a bunch of previous lessons and I couldn’t really get it.

“Here,” I told Awen as I handed her the book opened to what I hoped was the right page. “That might help.”

“Awa! Thank you!”

Awen set the book on her lap and started reading it while a small glowing ball of magic formed in her hands and started to slowly shift colours. Awen might not have gotten all that many opportunities to work with her original class, but I couldn’t imagine her not receiving plenty of training in the use of basic magics.

I was almost envious... okay, I was definitely envious.

But that just meant that I had to practice more myself! “Amaryllis! I need to get even better at magic. Teach me!”

Amaryllis sighed and made a back-up sort of gesture. “Go over there and start practicing your manakinesis. Try to figure out an aspect other than cleaning while you’re at it.”

“Um. Like fire?” I asked.

“That’s... a possibility. Perhaps water aspect. Hitting a foe with cleaning magic does very little. Water aspect can at least impart some physical force at higher concentrations.” She grinned. “Also, you’re less likely to light the forest aflame.”

“Alright!” I said before bouncing down the hill a little. There was a particularly large rock with a nice flat top to one side, maybe a meter and a half across and nearly even. I hopped onto it, made sure it was stable, then paused as I realized that I wasn’t actually sure how to start.

Pushing mana out of my body along with motions seemed to trigger physical manakinesis, at least a little, so I started with that. Smooth twirls that had cleaning magic flowing after my hands like streamers, kicks that fired off weak blasts, and finally little punches that sent balls of cleaning magic racing ahead.

That was fairly easy, and it felt right. But switching from cleaning magic to something else would be tricky, an entire level of difficulty added atop of what I could already do.

I grinned. I had never really been the sort of girl to chase after challenges like that, but it was a whole lot of fun to play with new magics.

An hour or so passed with me focused on a pool of my own magic while I tried to think watery thoughts. When I would start to grow tired I’d try some new things. Kicking with bursts of magic felt right, so did firing a blast of cleaning magic on a jump.

In the end, just as the sun finally set and the only light around was our little campfire, I was rewarded with not one, but two new prompts from Mister Menu.

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Physical Manakinesis skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!

Rank E is a Free Rank!

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Dancing skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!

Rank D is a Free Rank!

“Oi, moron! Come back over here or I’m giving you middle watch!” Amaryllis called over.

“Coming!” I said.