The field was full of roses that grew wildly on either side of the road. Each rose was deep blue and glowed with a dim blue light that was calming on the nerves while also giving enough light to see the surroundings. There was an open space in the middle of the field with a stone firepit off to one side with dried logs on its side.
As the caravan started to set camp for the night Boruk came over "Beautiful isn't it, no matter how many times I see it I don't ever get tired of it."
"Yeah, it's a gorgeous sight. The thorns also keep most monsters away, so we don't need much of a night watch. How can I help you Boruk?"
Boruk spoke with a sigh "well I haven't seen any deer in the area today and it has me worried. There is a high chance of a significant change in this area. This is just my suspicion, but I think it happened at the village we're going toward. If something does happen me, Toma, and the elves are going to stick together. Would your group like to join us?"
Chronos pondered on it for a minute before responding. "That works for us, but our final goal is the capital. Once we are away from danger we will go our own way."
"That works for me. Having a few extra fighters can make a world of difference in an emergency."
After chatting for a short time Boruk went back to his carriage for dinner while Gregory prepared their group's food.
Once dinner was done Sariah set down the barriers and alarm spell once more.
Early the next morning the alarm went off. As Chronos jumped out of his bedroll he could hear a strange buzzing sound. It was coming from all around them.
Grabbing his axes he took up his position on the right side of the carriage with Gregory on the left and Sariah in the back of the carriage.
"Anybody see the creature!" Chronos called out.
"No, just buzzing. It's coming from multiple directions." Someone shouted from the far side of the camp.
"There flying in the dark above us. Get the lamps up, we need the light."
"Yes captain."
The lamps were lifted as high as possible but only faint fuzzy round objects could be seen flying above them.
Chronos had a slight scowl on his face "Gregory didn't you say that the next village primarily practices beekeeping?"
"Yeah, but these are too big to be bees. Sariah, can you give us a light up there?"
"Of course." As Sariah's light spell was cast and rose into the sky it revealed hundreds of bees nearly a foot long each with a stinger that could easily pierce leather armor. Causing her face to go pale. "Those are way too big. Did they mutate into monsters?"
"Looks like it, but they aren't attacking us, they must be peaceful. Hey captain, their honeybees don't attack them or the flowers, we don't want to provoke a group this big."
The rest of the camp suddenly gasped as they saw the sight above them. That many bees could kill a unit of knights and the guards here were not knights.
As the camp waited to make an escape the bees seemed to come to the conclusion that this caravan was not a threat and began to descend onto the flowers for their daily collection of nectar.
While the bees worked the rest of the camp had a cold breakfast and waited for them to leave or give them an opening to escape. Just as the sun started to touch the fields most of the bees finished their work and flew toward the village down the road.
Brynn stepped forward to get everyone's attention. "I think it is safe to move on now. I will continue towards the village, but I have a new rule for the caravan. Nobody is allowed to attack the bees, if you attack the bees I will abandon you without hesitation. Understood?"
"We understand but do we have to go forward?" Called out one of the guards.
"Let me clarify, I am going forward if you don't want to come with me you can turn around right now. I will not hold it against anybody here."
"I think we should keep moving. I have relatives in the village and want to see how the village is doing. If they have bees that large, they must have some special honey as well." Ilra Vexx the tiefling reagent seller said to a couple of nods.
"It should be safe. They didn't attack us and seem to be quite docile." Added Boruk.
After some more discussion the caravan decided to keep going even if it was just to bury the villagers. The bees shouldn't attack them if they stayed away from their hive.
As the camp was packed Chronos noticed something he had failed to see in the dark. "Hey Boruk, have the flower vines always disappeared into the air like that?"
Looking carefully at the surroundings the other members finally noticed what none of them could see in the dark. The vines of the rose plants faded into nothing in midair. They didn't look cut off, they just slowly faded until they disappeared completely. Even some of the flowers looked faded in the morning light.
"No, they haven't. Now that I can see the bees in daylight, I see that they have six wings. That is new as well."
"We'll need to talk to the village chief once we get there. With this many changes it definitely needs a name." Gregory chuckled as he spoke.
Most small villages in Faengsel were too small or didn't have a defining feature to name the village after but now there was no reason not to name the village. The village chief just needed to let lord Mathew, the local lord, know about this.
As they moved down the road they would occasionally see bees come out of the forest and every now and then one would be carrying a small animal. They seemed to be following the caravan but were trying to hide it.
When the sun reached its peak the gates of the village came into sight as did several carriages in front of the gate.
"Just an hour till we reach the village. I can see the gate guards already." Everyone in the caravan breathed a sigh of relief as they heard the guard captain call out.
Once they were in front of the gate the guards stopped them "Our apologies but we can't let you into the village, it upsets the bees to have strangers inside. They only mutated last month and aren't used to anybody who doesn't live here yet. You can set up your wares out here and we will let the village know you're here."
"Thank you, the wares we carry are textiles, leathers, glassware, reagents, spices, and a tinkerers cart. Oh, we also have an orcish beast trainer with us if you need some advice on how to care for the bees." Brynn informed the guards.
"Good, we will let the chief know." They said as they headed inside the village.
Shortly afterwards a group of villagers came outside. While most people wandered from carriage to carriage looking for the right goods some of them clearly knew what they wanted. Many headed straight to Mirrelle's glazier carriage to purchase new glass bottles.
Eventually an elderly man, Chronos assumed was the village chief, came out and went to Boruk's carriage. Boruk invited him inside after they had talked for a short time. Whatever they had said had surprised Boruk by the look on his face.
When they came back out Boruk brought the chief over to Chronos. "Chronos, this is village chief Jacob, he has some concerns that go beyond what I can advise him for. Chief Jacob this is Chronos Ulv the son of lord Mathew."
"I ran from home so don't call me an Ulv right now. I need to prove myself first. What can I do for you, chief."
The village chief had a surprised look on his face when he heard that. No one had managed to escape the family in over a decade. Perhaps this young man could be of help to his village now when they were in something of a crisis.
As the village chief began to give an account of the past couple weeks his face went from concerned to hopeful that the young lord could help them. "Well, it's like this, almost a month ago our bees mutated into monsters, but they still recognized us. They still let us collect honey and even produced more honey than ever before, so we weren't too worried. That is until they started building a weird hive on the far side of town. At first nothing was different about this hive however as it came closer to being complete the sky above it started to warp. Now it looks like a badly made mirror and some of the keepers swear that it is further away from the nearest house than when the bees first started making it.
If this continues to happen we may need to move the village for the safety of the villagers. Do you know what is happening to our bees?"
Chronos thought about this for a while before he remembered a story his mother had told him when he was a child. The enemy his mother had faced had used an ability with a similar appearance.
"I might know what is going on but I need to see it for myself. May I enter the village?"
"Yes but we can only take you in. If too many people enter, the bees may become protective."
At this time Gregory stepped forward "I disagree. It is too risky to enter an unknown area alone."
Chronos laughed "Then you can wait by the gate, if something goes wrong you can reach me swiftly from there. If what I am thinking is happening, then there won't be any risk."
"Alright I can accept that."
Chief Jacob led the way into the village and Gregory took up a position next to the gate. Chronos just smiled at his overprotectiveness, this village wouldn't be able to pose a threat to him. Even if the bees helped them, they wouldn't be able to stop him from escaping.
The village was a quaint little place. The wall was a simple wooden one with a ditch on the outside and mud and rocks piled at its base for stability. The houses were old and well-loved, if you wanted to be polite, but they were sturdily built and had small gardens or flower beds in front of them. In the back half of the village there were huts built that had a great deal of buzzing coming from them.
As they approached the bee hives Chronos could already see what the chief meant. The sky looked slightly twisted and there were spots that were clearly reflecting the ground. Once the hive came into view Chronos sharply inhaled at its massive size.
It was already two stories tall and as wide as a small house. The walls were clearly set so it wouldn't expand outwards any further, but the top was not finished. The warping of the sky could also be easily seen coming from six points around the hive. When they tried to get closer than 20 meters from the hive an angry buzzing would come from inside warning them off.
"I see why you are concerned Chief Jacob. I have only heard of these sights in stories, and I have never heard of bees causing them."
"Most people in the village don't think they are a threat and I was inclined to agree with them, but yesterday afternoon something happened and the whole hive went crazy. They all flew out of the village buzzing in anger and the remaining ones refused to let us get close to the hive. They have never done that before. Up to then we were able to approach and even touch the hive without worry. We don't know what changed."
Knitting his brows together Chronos asked "Did someone damage the hive? No that's the wrong question, they were chasing something when they left so did they catch it? Have they brought anything back into the hive this morning?"
One of the keepers assigned to watch the hive responded to him. "No, they flew back in this morning but didn't bring anything with them. They have been calmer since they came back. We couldn't get within 50 meters of the hive yesterday."
As Chronos continued to think about this he suddenly realized something. "Ah, we are surrounded."
Looking around them the village chief saw over 100 large bees sitting on other hives or floating midair around them.