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 Post Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:27 pm 
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Arkady comments: "The hive we took intact is very angry right now. The others, not so much. With the guard bees dead, the rest are quiet. Has anyone noticed two kinds of blood bees before?"

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 Post Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:52 pm 
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"An orchard, you say?" Felix ponders, nodding his head. "Failing countermeasures and the abundance of available food would certainly explain it."

"Further note, double score!" He cheers. "The possibility of edible honey, and we happened across an already planted orchard? This is our lucky day! We'll have to notify the Captain immediately and survey the surroundings to see what the place can offer."

Looking over to Arkady, he continues.

"Maybe Blood Bees are like ants? They have worker bees and soldier bees? I mean, it's not like they aren't strange already..."

On that note, Felix starts examining the trees, taking samples and notes from what Zalasbra says. He's also very careful to make note of any of these countermeasures Zalasbra mentioned before. If there's a chance of replicating them, that would be great.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:45 am 
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"More than two kinds," says Zalasbra, absently. "But the change in behaviour you describe is not a change in kind. It is... there are dangers that may destroy an entire hostile swarm, like the fiery breath of a dragon. Within the hour, should the hive survive, a number of these 'docile' blood bees as you describe will become belligerent and form a new, albeit smaller, swarm. This keeps the hive protected while it works to regain its previous size."

Zalasbra hasn't actually mentioned what countermeasures he has in mind, but he doesn't seem to be flagging any of them as potentially dangerous to anyone human-sized. However, looking through an overgrown thicket, Felix does find the ruins of a stone wall - possibly part of an old farmhouse?

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 Post Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:22 pm 
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"Alright, then that just means we have to get these bees to their new home ASAP before it becomes more of a chore. Let's finish this business quickly," Felix says. "In the meantime, we should bring in some extra hands to help us go over this orchard and set it up for future use. I'll call David."

Felix steps aside to call David. He informs him that the threat has been neutralized, a hive has been contained for future use and study, and that a bounty of edible trees in an abandoned orchard have been discovered. Felix requests that spare hands be sent over to help go over it thoroughly. Maybe even see if it's worth it to establish a small outpost here to care for the trees full time. Maybe set some hunters and gatherers up.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 11:04 pm 
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Arkady blinks. "Fiery. Breath. Of a Dragon. Roger, please mention that to the captain; we should be getting ready before we attract the attention of one."

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 Post Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:18 am 
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"Oh, did we not mention it before? Yeah, Dragons are apparently a thing here," Felix shrugs. "Not seen one myself, but before you woke up we did end up fighting and killing a Manticore and a pack of Cockatrice. Mythical creatures exist here for some reason."

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 Post Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:55 am 
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"Mmm. Manticore. Good eatin' once you get past the stinger."

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 Post Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:48 am 
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David (on a separate call) wants to be sure that the immediate danger has been dealt with before sending others to face it. He won't send anyone else into the orchard until all the blood bee hives are either destroyed or sealed away.

He does suggest the possibility of preparing some more containers and sending someone to bring them to - well, to a good few hundred metres from the orchard, so that someone in a space suit can handle the matter of getting them into the containers.

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 Post Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 4:49 am 
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Felix informs David that the hives are docile for the moment (all the hostile guard bees have perished and according to Zalasbra it will apparently be a little while before they reform a garrison from the survivors), and that the faster the containers are brought the easier the process will be. He makes arrangements to start seeing to relocating the hives to their new homes and follows through on that until it is finished.

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 Post Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 4:49 pm 
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Arkady looks at the other two. "Dragons are apparently a thing here? Isn't that sounding too much like 'fighter-bombers are a thing here' to anyone but me?"

Arkady gets ready to recharge the smoker in case of need, and otherwise just looks out for timber wolves, earth worms, and dragons...

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 Post Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 4:11 am 
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"Base defenses are definitely something I'd like to beef up the very second we get the manpower for it," Felix replies. "Walls if we can manage it. Cameras. Patrols. Outposts. Radar. I'd like to relocate various sections of the ship's solar panels to cleared fields so we can mount machine gun nests and various high power responses to the side of the ship so our guards can just run out of the airlock onto walkways and respond from the high ground and cover to any threat we might face."

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 Post Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 4:24 am 
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"Fighter-bombers are only a problem if you happen to be inside the blast radius of their munitions. Stay out of their crosshairs and out of the blast radius, and you don't have anything to worry about. In any case, I've dealt with fighter-bombers before, and at a random guess, I'd say a dragon would have to get alot closer to you to do any damage then most warplanes. That gives us an advantage."

Nate wanders around the orchard, panning his helmet cam around so the viewers at home can get a good look at everything.

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 Post Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 5:50 am 
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Teresa Baker comes from the ship with four spare containers, one for each Hive. By the time they get there, the four untrapped Hives have united their spare blood bees into a new, aggressive swarm (interestingly, just one swarm, despite coming from multiple hives) - which, like the prior swarms, still can't get through the space suits. The four remaining Hives (three of them damaged to a greater or lesser degree) are placed in containers, and some work with the herbs and the smoker deals with the new swarm easily enough.

There are still a few odd Blood Bees around, but it's probably safe to take of the Suits at this point - there's not enough bees left outside the containers to swarm anyone.

When asked about dragons, Sir Bevier does have some good news to share:

"You won't find them around here. One on one, yeah, a dragon can cause a lot of damage; but any dragon stupid enough to go after a human settlement knows it'll get tracked to its lair and have a few hundred Church Knights turn up while it's asleep. Even a dragon can't survive a concentrated hunt like that, and, fortunately, they have a lot of trouble co-operating with each other. So... you're in the middle of the Elene Kingdoms. I imagine you're probably safe... though I guess one of the smaller dragons might come by to see what the big thing that fell from the sky was. But, even then, he'd probably be more curious than actually hostile."

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 Post Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 12:50 am 
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Felix sets about organizing the efforts to establish the new home for the blood bees in an area that's safest for everyone as well as putting together a team to come look over the orchard as a food source and possible Hunter/Gatherer Outpost to support the colony.

Having people here to maintain the orchard as well as serve as a base for hunting and gathering wild edibles could provide a massive boost for the ship and an immediate source of food to wake up additional colonists.

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 Post Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 3:28 am 
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Over the following day or so, the group manage to build artificial hives for the blood bees and try to transfer them to their new home. Nathan and Arkady each take one of the undamaged hives, using the bulky space suits to avoid bites:

Nate: Survival: +4 Spacesuit gloves: -2 Roll: +0 Total: +2
Arkady: Survival: +1 Spacesuit gloves: -2 Roll: +1 Total: +0

Target: +4 for a completely undamaged Swarm. Less than +0 will completely lose the Swarm; anywhere inbetween gives the Swarm some or other negative effect

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