All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 162: Several Sullied Souls

Chapter 162: Several Sullied Souls

Bee woke up feeling sore all over. Examining the room around her, she found that someone must have moved her into some temporary hospital. The room was small, barely large enough to contain the small cot she was on.

Even the smallest movements pained her as she tried to sit up. The sensation was bad enough that she gave up after just getting her head off of her pillow. She felt her abdominals. Just touching them sent waves of aches all through her torso. Staring up at the ceiling, she wondered how long she had been out for.

Checking in with her skills, she found that the twin repair skills had been working hard. That probably accounted for both how much she had recovered and how dead tired she felt. She focused on directing them to her most painful areas, trying to squeeze out the last drops of energy that she could muster. She let out a soft groan as the pain started to ease, then flinched as a beep sounded from directly below her.

Her involuntary spasm made her extra aware of all the bruises along her body but it also sent a jolt of energy through her. It wasn’t just in her imagination. The skills that had just felt tapped out a few seconds ago were suddenly ready to go. Already the rest of her aches were starting to fade by a noticeable amount.

Void rolled out from underneath her cot and waved cherily at her. It informed her how happy it was that she had made a full recovery. Then it waited for Bee to gather her thoughts.

“Thank you for watching over me, Master.” Bee greeted it with a nod, still too stiff to bow properly. “I hope I did not keep you waiting too long.”

Apparently she had only slept most of the day away. Actually, it was almost nightfall. Void recommended that she should rest some more after eating a bit. With a monumental effort she leveraged herself up and off the cot before doing some extremely light stretches. Finally feeling mostly human, Bee was ready to go find some food. Void followed her out, and soon enough they found themselves at an impromptu soup kitchen run by the soldiers.

Bowl of soup in hand, Void gave her some time to herself. She was grateful for some space to think. Checking out her status after the battle with the wraith, she found that despite not being awake for its defeat she had still gained experience for it. Almost two whole levels worth, pushing her up to level 47. Bee reveled in the feeling of getting so close to level 50. Three levels was still a large gap, especially with her levels already so high, but this was one that she had no doubt she would cross. And soon too.

Level 50 and above was the realm of heroes and demigods. Anyone who got to a third class evolution likely already had stories told about them, but after? Bards started to search them out. She wasn’t even 14 yet. Bee would be one of the youngest ever. She had the feeling that, as she continued following Void, she wasn’t about to slow down at all.

All the levels she got though non combat weren’t really fair. Most people ended up without a combat class, but it was normally so much harder to level than hers. Even Tony’s class had more trouble than hers did. She was an outlier, even if the Devotee of Spot class was overpowered in general. She was curious about what she would know with more data points.

Finishing her meal, Bee considered going back to bed. While she still felt the effects of spending the day unconscious, she wasn’t quite ready to sleep. Heading out of the mess hall she wandered around aimlessly a little bit. She was of half a mind to go and find General Arthur and get the rest of the story of the wraith fight out of him. But she saw him directing the clean up and figured he was too busy. She could wait tomorrow.

Patting herself down, she realized that her pack was missing. Retracing her steps she found that she had left it behind while she was healing the injured. The medical staff had moved it out of the way and it was left forgotten in the corner of an empty building. Luckily, a brief inspection assured her that the equipment in there was intact.

During the battle she had used almost all of her healing and buffing potions. Her acid hadn’t been as effective as she would have liked. Even when she was fighting corporeal foes, it was difficult to incorporate it into her fighting style. She would either need to practice with it or find something else to replace it.

Finding an out of the way building, she started setting up shop. It was never a good idea to be out of healing supplies.

—

Leaving Beatrice to eat in peace I went to go see what I could do to contribute to the clean up effort. I hovered over to where the most of the mess was, near the front gates. However, it was already packed. Many of the soldiers appeared to be following the orders of people they addressed as ‘Engineers’.

What these tyrants did I wasn’t sure, but I did hear them arguing about the gates. How quickly they could get replacement gates, for example, and what would work best as a temporary replacement while they were still being delivered. Apparently, the giant metal gates that we had watched get blown inwards were bent out of shape so much that even if they reconstructed the gate’s housing they wouldn’t fit.

To make things even more difficult, the stones that had made the wall were not in one piece anymore. So it wasn’t as simple as just putting the blocks back. Many of them had shattered and those that were mostly in one piece were chipped or cracked, making them harder to work with.

I watched for a few seconds as the humans were sorting the massive stone block into degrees of usableness. It seemed that they had this under control, so I left them to it. Instead I just started going through the city streets. Each one of them was in desperate need of cleaning.

I went into all the narrow winding streets finding all sorts of filth that I shuddered to even think about. As I went I found many humans. Some saw me and were quite alarmed, but I mostly went unnoticed. Staying close to the the ground and the shadows cast by the setting sun helped hide me quite well.

As I traversed the streets, sucking up all sorts of free stuff that didn't belong on the cobbled paths, I started to pay more attention to the people. Not just their appearance and what they were saying, but their spirits as well.

This was a delicate part of each human, it seemed. Perhaps I was wrong about that assumption, but from my observation and tinkering with the zombie spirits, it seemed to be quite essential. I didn't cleanse the souls that I passed by for now. I didn’t want to mess with anyone else’s until I knew for sure what I was doing. Beatrice was an exception because her soul was so obviously close to perfect cleanliness already. So for now, I just observed.

For the most part, everyone's Spirit was a bit darker and dimmer than Beatrice's. Some seemed to be more covered in dark dirt, while others just exuded a less bright light. Most were some combination of the two. The only times I found things that matched her purity was when I looked at little children. I wonder what had kept her so bright when everyone else around here looked beaten down? Would she stay that way as she grew up, or was this a temporary thing?

When I was passing through one of the dingier parts of town, I noticed a small grouping of unusually dark souls in the basement of one of the slightly leaning houses. They weren’t nearly the same blackened balls as the zombies’ had been, but they were still far worse than anything else I had seen so far. Only the slightest bit of dim light was visible behind a layer of gunk.

Listening in, I heard them talking about where the army kept their coffers. I wasn't sure what a coffer was, but the way they talked about it, they certainly wanted some. However, it appeared they had reached the conclusion that the army would not simply give them one if they asked, so they were thinking of a way to steal it.

Stealing was bad; it made people feel unclean and just all around felt nasty. Looking at their dingy spirits, I could see why they were looking to steal. Or perhaps I had the causation wrong; maybe they were dirty because they stole? That was an interesting bit of philosophy. What came first, the dust or the dust bunny?

What should I do? I hadn't bothered messing with anyone’s soul because it seemed risky, but this might be something. If I could cleanse their Spirit from the desire to do bad things like this, perhaps I could make the world a better place? Truly, cleaning up potential messes without violence would be a wonderful thing.

Reaching out with my new skill, I touched the closest of the four men. I kind of shrank back from the disgustingness of all the black gunk on his soul. It was a weird mix of mucky mud and flaky bits of ash and thick dust. I couldn't figure out a good technique to clean it, so I started off simple. My will pressed forward and beneath the layer of grime. I slightly pried up bits of flaky blackness, and as they left the glowing orb, they started to fade away.

While I was focusing on this, I wanted a place to sit. I found a small alcove underneath some steps leading up to a door. I maneuvered into the space gratefully and found myself sharing the spot with a quite annoyed cat. After a quick back and forth, it decided to vacate the spot and leave it for me. That was very nice of it, and I thanked it accordingly as it ran away.

Now in a comfortable position, I steadied myself. This might take a while. I worked on removing the gunk from one man's soul while they continued to talk.

It was long and grueling work that took up most of my focus. But eventually, I managed it. Most of the darkness on the surface of the glowing spiritual orb was gone. However, the soul didn't match Beatrice's. Not by a long shot.

Hers was still much brighter. This man's spirit appeared dim and dark, as if some of the dinginess had sunk into it. I couldn't see anything inside the soul, but it was definitely less bright. My sensors also couldn't feel anything else. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out a way to polish or brighten them any further.

Still, at least I had done something. Now having one clean, I listened to the conversation, waiting to see if there was any change. To my disappointment, the man was still very much in favor of their plan, not even once showing any signs of discomfort or second thoughts.

That was troubling. Maybe my skill didn’t do anything aside from making souls more pleasing? Instead of just spending time cleaning all four of them, I decided to set my research aside in favor of preventing their theft. Or maybe I could just find Arthur and let him know of the plot against his army's coffers.

All that left the question, though, what was the use of this new skill? If it didn't seem to really fix anything by cleaning people's spirits, did it have a practical purpose? Maybe souls weren’t that important? And if it didn’t do anything, then was I just cleaning things that no one else could see aside from me? If they were just as bad as they were before, what was the point?

Seeing souls had already helped me identify a problem with those humans though. I supposed being able to see who was trustworthy and not was valuable in itself, but the skill wasn't called Truth Sense or Moral Sense. It was called Spiritual Cleanse.

Well, I was quite happy that I was able to cleanse the spirit and remove the imperfections. The fact that it had no other obvious effects did make me feel a little bit cheated though. This was going to take some work to unravel. Perhaps Beatrice might know about it. Or one of the books I hadn’t read through in the library.

It was definitely going to be a long time before the souls of humanity were all clean under my care.