IWUAaDNW: Exploit 4.4, 4.5

I started my experiments by trying to find the limitations of my bees’ brand new ability: vomiting a kind of grayish-brown liquid which dried into wax. It wasn’t as disgusting as it sounded; I’d seen and done a lot of weirder and grosser shit with normal bugs when I’d still had a body.

Already, without my control, my bees had busied themselves making little mounds of wax in their honey storage room. They didn’t look like much, and in fact couldn’t really be called ‘sculptures’, but I could feel each of my bees’ pride in their work as if each of the amorphous piles of wax was a perfect one-to-one replica of an antique statue. It felt a bit like I was looking at the masterpieces of a small class of kindergarteners.

Well, they were adorably earnest about it, so that’s all that mattered.

Outside of the honey storeroom, my bees had no impulse to build their wax works. I assumed that was what the anchors were for. I was afraid for a moment that my bees simply wouldn’t be able to make wax anywhere but on anchors and in bee-specific rooms, but it turned out that they could, they just didn’t feel the need to.

That was fine.

The wax they created, once dry, was heavy and sturdy, but sadly soft. The first wall I made as an experiment held its own weight upright, but one of my normal spiders was easily able to punch through it with a fang––something that my bees did not appreciate, but I kept control of them so they couldn’t act on their righteous anger. Making thicker walls just created more soft material that could be dug through with a modicum of effort, so that wasn’t an option if I wanted to stop someone strong and motivated. On their own, it looked like wax walls didn’t have much potential at all.

Fortunately, I had other tools. Namely, spider web.

I brought one of my webweavers into the honey storeroom so it could spin a web, then had my bees spit up wax over it. It was clumsy work, but the resulting wall was exactly what I’d hoped it would be: it could be dug into, even through, but the parts of the wall that were built over web may as well have been reinforced with steel rods for how little give they had. I sent another webweaver down to experiment with different web lattices, taking the full knowledge of spider webs I already possessed and scaling it up.

With the ability to build my own walls, I would have more freedom to build fortifications and choke points without having to rely on the dungeon system. It didn’t look like the system was screwing me over yet, but I was keeping an eye on things just in case; the infobox said that the webweavers could make “web traps” for a cost and that the webs would not last forever, but so far none of what I’d done had cost me anything. Was it because I was using their raw web as a resource instead of using their abilities? In which case, would this web last forever?

I didn’t think it would, but I was hoping. If the worst happened and the webs broke apart after a few hours, I could always use more spiders and more bees, and just constantly rebuild the walls; a hassle to be sure, but not an insurmountable or even particularly troublesome one thanks to my unlimited multitasking and the fact that my bees were essentially free.

—IWUAaDNW: Exploit 4.4



Overnight, my bees finished the tenth wall section I’d had them work on. The speed wasn’t very good, but I only had a handful of bees at this point, and wax generation was the biggest constraint. The walls I’d made were six foot by six foot slabs, nine inches thick of wax and spider web layers. I’d found that adding multiple layers of web was far more efficient than just piling on more wax. The resulting slab was far too heavy for my spiders and bees to carry, but my ants were built from sturdier stuff than them both; four of them working in tandem could lift and carry one even down the bug chutes. Just in case, I was using ropes made of web to ferry them down, though.

The hardest part was that my bug reserve halls were a bit tight; the slabs had to travel upright while in the halls themselves. The chute exits proved to be too tight for the slabs to fit through, but that was nothing a few of my ants digging together couldn’t fix. The roof repaired itself within moments, but that gave my slabs enough time to come down.

So far, the first wax wall I’d built was still looking good, even after most of a day. I had a few of my idle wasps break it apart so I could inspect the state of the webs, but they didn’t look like they had frayed at all. In fact, the web sheets I’d used as makeshift tents were showing more signs of decay. Was the wax somehow protecting the webs? That was interesting.

I moved the second completed wall outside as an experiment. Would the rate of decay be faster outside? I was thinking yes, but testing cost me nothing but an expendable wall.

[...]

I checked back on the wall I’d left on the surface. It was already starting to dissipate. The yellow wax and pale white webbings were volatilizing in little motes of mana. Well, that was about what I expected.

—IWUAaDNW: Exploit 4.5