All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 160: Avoiding The Problem

Chapter 160: Avoiding The Problem

When I finished mopping up the last of the zombie horde, there were a few irregular things to clean up. There were some more skeletons that acted strangely. Again, instead of attacking me like they had in the catacombs, these skeletons bowed to me. Others got on their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor.

The last skeletons around here had done this same thing. It also looked remarkably similar to some humans I had seen. I didn't understand what they were doing, but it didn't change the fact that they needed to be locked away. I wasn't too worried about keeping them in there for a while. They had spent enough time in my dustbin before without seeming to get changed. A little more probably wasn't going to hurt them.

Clearly, I couldn't just unleash them like I had done last time. Even though I had a very good reason to do so at the time, perhaps it hadn't been the best idea. It seems that I may have played a small role in the destruction caused by this horde, as some of its members were once under my watch.

I'd have to be more careful about what I released from my dustbin. I thought back to the humans who were serving a timeout sentence. If the skeleton's behavior was any guide, it wasn't going to be simple to just release them. In fact, I should maybe consider tracking down the rest of the things I had stored away for various reasons. Who knew what they were up to now?

As the dozen or so skeletons zipped into my dustbin, I looked around. Seemed like everything was cleared up. The field outside of the city was newly spotless. And just in time. Checking back in with Arthur and Beatrice's fight, I hurried over. Things were not going well.

I'd been monitoring them, but there hadn't been any immediate danger up to this point. At least, not enough to cross my subroutine's danger threshold. Maybe I should have set the threshold lower or dedicated more predictive modeling processors to the task.

As I drew near, I watched Beatrice get flung against the castle walls at an alarming speed. I reached out with air manipulation to cushion her landing. Still, I didn't have enough time to decelerate her completely, and she crunched into the wall with a quite painful-sounding landing. That looked nasty.

And she had been doing so well with staying out of trouble lately too…She would be ok, of course, but still. Things like that made me regret never fully figuring out spare human parts.

I recalled my previous view of the "spare parts" matter. It actually made for quite a good joke since I realized humans didn't use spare parts. They grew their own. I was only able to laugh because I could sense that she was still alive, and clearly, she would be able to heal with a little bit of assistance as long as she didn't fully break.

It was so funny when I didn't know what things were. Again I chuckled at my own ignorance. Spare human parts. Seeing how much I didn't know was continually humbling, and I was sure glad I was figuring things out. The people at home had never even mentioned things like that. Whenever they got hurt, they just went to the doctor. In my defense, it was fair to think about the doctor in that context as just a human mechanic. In reality, they were just skilled magicians who helped humans regrow their parts. So I was close.

Anyway. I set the digression on humor and misunderstandings to the side for the moment. Arthur needed my help, so I didn't linger on Beatrice's fallen form longer than it took to verify that she was stable. And dedicate a few more subroutines to ensuring that nothing would come close to disturbing her.

The human army commander stood unbroken in front of another dark spot on my sensors. This one was a more dense-looking void shaped like a human. Arthur's shoulders were set back defiantly, his sword held up if not in a perfect guard form. His exhausted posture was still better than most of the kids' best attempts.

I couldn't help but admire his grit and determination. This man had a job to do and would see it through. I could respect that. I felt the same when I first started cleaning a particularly nasty room. Of course, I hadn't had a challenge at that level for quite a long time.

As much as I respected his stand, it was clear that he wasn't going to be able to do this himself. Otherwise, I would have gladly rolled aside, but I couldn't spare his pride for the cost of his life. Many people still counted on him. So I trundled over and reached out with my Void Manipulation.

The dark ghost had really ignored me up to that point. To be fair, I did look a lot less threatening once all of my extra tools were put away. As I neared, though, it tried to turn and face me to take a better look. The Void moved faster.

The second the bubble of void touched the side of its shoe, it froze. I could feel it struggling, but its energy was only partially under its control now.

"What-"

With inexorable slowness that only lasted a fraction of a second, it dissolved, whatever strange matter it was composed of being pulled into my void. It barely had a chance to get a word out. It was going to be a long project to reform it if that was even possible. Still, if it wanted to get out of the timeout, then it would have to be taught a lesson. First, I'd have to teach it that doing what it did to Beatrice was not acceptable. That would be a very satisfying lesson to teach.

My battery plummeted as a result of the brief exchange. Luckily, I had learned and transmuted a huge chunk of matter in advance. Keeping the Void close enough that I could bring it back in quickly also saved me a great deal of overheating. Still, it took all my concentration for several ticks of a clock before I could focus on the outside world again.

Arthur was staring at me. His sword lowered until the point rested on the ground, and his mouth hung slightly open.

With a slight questioning beep, I prompted him to speak. Clearly, he must be wanting to ask a question, right?

He blinked a few times before clearing his throat. "That was… Thank you. Er, Void."

I beeped a happy note to convey that it was no problem at all. However, I still had things to do.

Rolling towards my human, I settled next to Beatrice and waited for her to repair.

—

Roscoe reeled back into a sitting position when he felt his bond to the wraith snap. What had gone wrong? He had left Gerald specific instructions about maintaining the siege while Roscoe was away recruiting. It should have been simple: there was pretty much no case where the humans could gather enough might to actually crush the wraith.

His tail twitched with irritation. Gerald was strong. Almost too strong. Roscoe was fairly certain that he would be able to destroy the wraith if things came down to it, but only because of his dark magic. Only recently had he started to reach a similar level of power. Plus, the inherent incorporeal nature of Gerald's body should make it nearly impossible for him to be killed. Not without very specific magic and counters.

The door swung open with a bang against its hinges as one of the elite skeletons entered. He had a panicked look about him. If a skeleton could truly look panicked, at least. "Reverend Father, hast thou felt the disturbance? 'Tis as though many of my brothers have absconded, fled this plane for another. Their connections to me severed all in a single swoop!"

Roscoe shook his head and chittered back. "No but I felt the passing of Gerald. Clearly something went very wrong back in Caleb."

"Should we harken back?" The skeleton asked, readying himself to go send messages.

"No. Now I don't think we should. If an opening was given, that human commander would have no doubt taken it and I assume our forces are no more. If we were lucky they must have weakened the humans greatly. But even then, we are nearly starting over. There are many more humans to recruit over here. They gather much more densely just a little south." Roscoe smirked. "Who would have thought? Such a wealth of soldiers, and so much to be purified."

"Yes, Reverend Father. Truly a work worthy of the great darkness itself. Then how should we proceed?" The skeleton snapped to attention, waiting for orders. Roscoe had been careful to only take the most zealous of his followers with him. He needed complete loyalty for these plans. Some of the others had expressed doubts that this crusade was really the will of their Lord and Master. They were a bit uneasy about the recruitment drives he left to pursue, as well; those doubts might slow him down. Not that it mattered anymore, though, if they were gone.

"We'll press forward. step up the efforts and we will start with the greatest population centers this time. We're not going to repeat the same mistakes and allow the resistance to build this time." A wide grin split his narrow face, whiskers twitching in anticipation of their great works.

—

The Warden made a familiar trip down to his conference room in the bowels of the King's Castle. To call it a conference room was a bit grandiose. Still, the small fireplace and old wooden table and chairs were his favorite meeting place for his operatives.

This trip was slightly different. He normally didn't like to hear bad news, but this time was worse than normal. Judging based on who had summoned him and the time frame, he could figure out the news he was about to get. And it wasn't good. In fact," not good news" was such a vast understatement that he could only shake his head at the thought.

As The Warden made it through the final door and slid into a seat, he looked over at the once-rising star of their little organization. "This doesn't look good Harold. I'm sure you understand."

Not only had the man already run away from major trouble twice, but it seemed that he had failed for a third time.

Harold winced. The Warden wielded his disappointed tone like a knife. He didn't speak, but it was clear he understood how precarious his position was.

"You were given a fairly light punishment from your last failure. All you had to do was help the Undeads College for a little bit. If you just kept your head down for a few months, we would have been back here under much better terms and the Demon's College would have begun a reformation." The Warden stopped looking at Harold and gazed into the fire.

"How in Deusvult's name did you mess something that simple up?" It was an honest question. After nearly two decades of working with Harold, the Warden wouldn't have called him anything but competent; the last year had certainly called that into question.

Harold gathered himself before speaking. Clearly, he had some planned-out excuses. The Warden didn't really want to hear it, but he would set him straight after the tap ran dry.

"The Undead College tenure went well. With some small assistance from me, we achieved a couple of breakthroughs that allowed us to be significantly more effective in the fight against this plague." The Warden's face remained impassive. He hadn't honestly expected the words of a politician to come out of his subordinate's mouth. The man should just own his mistakes, not butter them up with words. His time as a dean had clearly dulled the edge he'd gotten from his years of combat service.

"We received calls for aid from Caleb. Clearly, Arthur was not getting support in his fight against the undead. After some internal debate, the Undead College decided that its very existence was based on its ability to aid in the control and prevention of the undead. So we made as many countermeasures as we could possibly transport and rushed over to assist. I have to say that, though I'm sure you will take my words with a grain of salt, it was a good thing we did. If we had not come in time, Caleb would have fallen much sooner and more completely than it did.

"After we broke through the siege into the castle, we helped hold it for many days. We repelled attack after attack and only through our countermeasures were the incorporeally-natured undead repelled."

"And yet the city still fell." It wasn't a question. The Warden knew it hadn't, but did Harold know? Though he'd have to verify himself how effective the college's countermeasures had really been. Still, it clearly wasn't enough.

"Yes. it still fell. But not because of the undead. Well, not entirely." Harold took a deep breath. "They had blown off the gate but we were in the process of stemming the tide. I believe the city had a decent chance of still standing but then… It appeared. The monster that has plagued me these past several months showed up. Right outside of our walls. That's when I knew we were doomed. Preemptively, I decided that it was best to get as much of the civilian population out while we could and get a message to you and the King." Harold said, his jaw tight and his eyes fixed ahead on the fire.

In a low and dangerous tone, the Warden asked a pointed question that made it clear that he understood what Harold was skating around. "Do you not know what a messenger is?"

"I-I didn't think there was any hope of the city standing with that beast there and saw no reason to throw my life away for no gain." Harold stuttered. The Warden couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or afraid. Maybe both.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. That dang headache was back. "Well, news has arrived. The city has not fallen. At least according to Arthur's pigeon."

Stiffening in his chair, Harold looked over, surprise evident on his face. "How?"

"It appears they received some assistance. The description of their savior seems familiar."

Harold nearly choked, his eyes bugging out in panic. "We must act. If it took the city and subverted the northern army… Things are worse than I feared."

"This news is the only reason we are having this meeting. It appears your actions were not so unjustified, even if they do not cast you in a favorable light. You are lucky we have so many other problems now that I can't afford to waste even an incompetent Operator."

Harold flinched at the news of his demotion from Dean back down to Operator but took it with remarkable grace.

"It seems several of our neighbors have found out that our army's attack might be more delayed due to internal strife. Many of them have decided to preemptively launch an offensive themselves. Or find other ways to fortify their defenses. Normally they would not be our concern, but there are a few other resting places of Lieutenants where unusual activity has been reported." The Warden said, tightening his fist. How could everything be collapsing around him like this? After so many years of keeping it a secret?

"So. I want you to go with the infiltrator and see what you can find out. Seems that I'll have to take personal control of dealing with the mess you left here."