We moved in to examine the slumbering queen. Chief hovered over our shoulders, nervously flitting around the room.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking, Count Boogula?”, Phoebe wore a grim expression.

  “I hate to say it, but yes”, I sighed. “Deep, neverending sleep. Honey flowing upwards and pooling on the ceiling. A profound sense of wrongness hanging over the chamber. This can only mean one thing…”. I breathed in. “Somebody’s trying to establish a new cursed spot without me! The nerve of this hack to not even invite me as a background character! How dare they!”.

  Phoebe blinked. “...Yes, well, it is clearly a curse of some sort. Hey, Chief! Any ominous pentagrams of evil around?”.

  Chief shook his head. Then he frowned in thought. Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. “Surely you’ve checked every room nearby… right?”.

  “Well… there izzz one plazzze we can’t go…”, he said slowly. “…The Catacombzzz”.

  “Bingo, there’s our target. Nothing like an old creepy cavern to drag sacrifices into. Ghosts love that sort of thing”. She looked at me. “Uh, evil ghosts, I should clarify”.

  “I’m actually quite partial to old caverns myself”, I replied. “Virtually zero maintenance, and they can be even creepier than a haunted house if done right. Only flaw is that you hardly get any visitors to scare”.

  “Wait”, Chief said. “You can’t go there. The Catacombzzz are a zzzacred burial ground. Only the queen may enter”.

  “Well, this is an emergency”, Phoebe shot back. “If you think a sleeping queen is bad enough, just wait ‘till she wakes up. This is possession magic, and the caster knows what they’re doing”.

  “…Alright… I will let you enter, under one condition. You muzzzt complete the Trial. I apologize, but thizzz izzz the only way I can truzzzt you”, he bowed deeply.

  Phoebe shook her head. “Always a sidequest. It’s like you don’t want us to help. Alright, Chief. What do we have to do?”.

  “You muzzzt bring me the perfect flower”, he said solemnly. I noticed then that all the bees in the chamber had long since grown quiet, and were watching us intently.

  Phoebe waited. “…Well? What kind of flower? Where does it grow? I need more info than that”.

  “That izzz the point of the Trial. You can try azzz many timezzz azzz you like. That izzz all I can tell you, I’m afraid”.

  “What is this, a personality test?”, she retorted. “I didn’t come here to pick flowers!”. The bees watching us buzzed angrily, but Chief simply bowed his head once again.

  “We understand”, I responded, reminding everyone I was there. “We’ll do our very best to find you the perfect flower, save your queen, and stop this horrible ghost”.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  We turned and left. “Thank you, adventurerzzz”, Chief said after us. “You are more than we dezzzerve”.

  “You can phase through walls, right, Count Boogula?”, Phoebe said. “It’d be dangerous to go in there alone, but if you just figured out the way in…”. “No”, I replied.

  She stopped. “What? Don’t tell me you want to spend hours out here while that time bomb keeps ticking away under their noses. This is for their own good!”.

  “There’s a right order to things. You know, I’ve worked at haunted houses for a long time, and I’ve seen all sorts of customers, good and bad. But the absolute worst one… ooooh, you know what he did? He grabbed a ladder and broke into the second story. Entire rooms of buildup gone to waste, just because he wanted to ‘skip to the important part’. Why, it still makes me mad after all these years!”. I turned to Phoebe, only to see an expression that was best summed up as ‘Seriously?’.

  “Point is”, I quickly concluded, “These bees asked us for help. They invited us into their house. Whatever we may think, clearly this Trial is important to them. If we ignore them and just break into their basement to ‘get to the end’, can we really say we’re trying to help them?”.

  “Yes. This spirit is a grave threat to their hive. They have no idea how much trouble they’re in”.

  “Maybe so. But we’ve already started this quest with one enemy. And if we betray our allies, then we’ll end it with another. ‘Dirtbound’ is what they called us today, but tomorrow is up to us”.

  “Fine. If they complain to the guild, they probably won’t let us advance in rank anyways. Ok, let’s do it”.

  Flowers of all kinds surrounded the city, each more beautiful than the last. Sunflowers, roses, tulips, and all those other kinds I didn’t know the names of. There aren’t exactly many flowers in a haunted house, at least not living ones. Maybe they could use some color after all, I thought.

  Interior decorating plans aside, we had no lack of options for our ‘perfect flowers’. Before long we returned to the palace.

  Chief appraised the plants carefully. “What made you choozzze them?”, he asked matter-of-factly.

  “A four-leaf clover for luck. Because we’ll need it to excorcise that ghost”, Phoebe answered.

  “A black rose, a symbol of death, yet a living thing itself. It would make for great decor!”. I could already see it now, our next guests filled with terror as they beheld our gardening skills.

  Chief blinked. “Exzzzellent choicezzz. However, I am afraid thezzz will not do”. He handed the flowers back to us. “Any hints?”, I asked hopefully. Chief shook his head.

  “Darn, this might be harder than I thought”, I said as we walked out. “What makes a flower ‘perfect’, anyways?”.

  “I think I’ve got it”, Phoebe responded. “He already gave us a hint, after all”. I turned to her, surprised. “Really? How so?”.

  “I keep forgetting this, but remember, bees are a very collectivist species. They all try to better their hives and serve their queen. That is why he handed our flowers back to us, as if to say, ‘these are your perfect flowers, not mine’”.

  “Oh, I get it. So he wants us to consider what kind of flower he would like. Maybe one filled with the best nectar?”.

  We looked at each other and turned back to a palace to ask a bee about his food preferences. What a strange day this was turning out to be.

  “…Congratulations, you pazzz”, Chief said, now looking much more bloated. “I hereby grant you both the title of ‘Honorary Worker’”. He paused. “Thizzz izzz a good thing, to clarify”. The bees broke out into raucous applause, cheering us on.

  I turned to Phoebe. “See? Earlier today we were ‘dirtbound’, now we’re… ‘honorary workers’. Not thrilled with the title, but I guess it’s an upgrade”.

  Phoebe nodded. “I’m looking forward to ‘saviours’. Let’s find that ghost”.