All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 301: The Towers of Babel

Chapter 301: The Towers of Babel

Bee followed Maranda out of the lab. She wasn't sure what help the girl was referring to or who could help her with such an odd skill. But at this point, she was willing to try almost anything.

It was with equal parts surprise and chagrin that Bee followed Maranda into the Nighty Knights' training area. Of course. That was something she should have thought of herself. All these kids had extremely odd skills, most of them being completely unique and highly specific to their god. Of course, some of them probably had trouble adapting. At the very least, they might understand what she was going through better than anyone else.

Maranda called over Leanne, who had been working with some of the younger kids on marching. Their overly-serious expressions and stiff postures were just the most adorable sight Bee could think of. Leanne came over and listened to Maranda's explanation as Bee waited nearby. Afterward, the young girl looked at Bee kind of oddly.

"I'll do my best, but I dunno. What's the skill's name?" Leanne asked.

"My skill is called Void's Breath," Bee volunteered. She wasn't sure if Leanne had heard of it before, but the fact that she was asking gave Bee a little bit of help.

"Void's Breath? Neat!" Leanne nodded. "What's so hard about it?"

"I just... it doesn't come naturally to me. I know how to use it, but I can't mentally make myself do it." Bee looked at Leanne. "Have you had any problems like that?

Bee tilted her head slightly, thinking. "Problems? Um. Sort of."

Leanne shrugged. "I was always able to use mine, but it's pretty bright."

Leanne blasted lasers out of her eyes briefly at the wall, boring a pair of neat holes through it. Bee blinked as spots formed in her vision. She noticed that Leanne was also rubbing her eyes. "At first, I really wanted to squint when using it cuz it felt kinda like looking at the sun. But my eyelids made the beam come out narrower and weaker. So I had to learn how to keep my eyes open."

"How did you practice that?" Bee asked, worrying that the little girl had spent hours staring into the sun.

"I kept trying!" Leanne said. "But it did help if I was in bright light already, so it wasn't such a big difference."

Bee frowned. That made some amount of sense, but she was struggling to think of a corollary of how it would help in her case. Eventually, Bee just shrugged and asked directly. "Do you think something like that could help my situation?"

"No, I don't think looking at bright light will help you," Leanne answered. Maranda smacked her sister's shoulder, and Leanne just giggled. "Kidding! But maybe you should do something smaller than a rock. Something you can actually inhale without it being too bad."

That made sense. Bee felt a little stupid for not thinking of it once again, but it should be pretty simple to do. Leanne brought them over to a water barrel that the kids had been using to drink from and gave Bee a ladleful. "Try to inhale that! If you actually accidentally breathe in some water, it should be pretty easy to cough out. Better than a rock."

"You are wise beyond your years," Bee told the little girl, who just smiled.

"Thanks! And I'm not even the youngest kid around anymore," Leanne said with a grin.

Maranda rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. I was so happy when you were born."

Bee just shrugged, not being able to relate to their experiences. "All right. Fine. I'll try this."

She took a sip of the water to steel herself. Yes, it was just water. It wouldn't be that big of a deal. Right?

After a final exhale, she breathed it in, focusing on the skill halfway through. The water began to move, shooting toward her mouth in a stream. Bee stared it down with trepidation. For a brief instant, her focus waned, and she bent over, coughing.

Maranda thumped her on the back. "You okay?"

"Fine," Bee choked out. She had spit out a bit of water, but not all of it. The rest was inside of her. Not her lungs, either. Inside a space she could see with her mind's eye.

Suddenly, she could more acutely sense the space her skill had granted her. A black cube around five cubic feet seemed to float inside of her, its dimensions impossibly large. However, Bee was somehow certain it sat within her. And in its corner was a small puddle of water.

Bee marveled at the discovery. "I think I did it."

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"Great!" Leanne clapped as Bee finally recovered enough to describe what she felt. "Good job!"

Maranda shot Bee a thumbs up. "See? That was easy! But... now, how do we get it back out?"

---

I missed Beatrice.

It was nice having her around to take care of so many problems. Without her around, so many people suddenly came to me for help. I liked helping humans, of course, but I was much happier just cleaning the city. But when the petitioners came in, someone had to talk to them. So I had stood in for Beatrice. Not that I manually handled all of them, but I watched and would sometimes help with the requests.

And help I did. At one point, some of the innkeepers brought up a concern with overcrowding. Apparently, they had been quite enjoying an excess of people staying at their inns due to the invasion and other conflicts abroad. However, many of those people were running out of coin, yet still were unwilling or unable to leave the city. The innkeepers weren't sure what to do about it.

Finally, I saw something that could really be fixed.

I abandoned the rest of the petitioners to Arthur and the Warden's tender mercies. I had faith that they could handle the job, but they were usually a lot less sympathetic than Beatrice was when hearing out the people. Hence why I'd stuck around. But now, I left them to start on my latest project.

Honestly, I would've liked to put the finishing touches on the sewer system, but for the most part, everything worked. All the waste was washed out of the city into massive underground reservoirs I'd carved out of stone. They would last for hundreds of years, and I was relatively certain I had made it so they wouldn't pollute any of the freshwater that I had piped in, either. Every house had at least easy access to a nearby well, even if most of them didn't quite have running water yet. But that was something that people were figuring out for themselves as fast as I was.

I was no longer the only one working on plumbing. In fact, I could barely compete with the hundreds of people now in charge of maintaining and extending the water piping that I had started. In fact, some of them had even been taking a particularly specific class: Plumber of Spot.

On top of their classes, they were learning techniques that I taught them and expanding on them. Between that and their skills, the city's plumbing was developing quite nicely. Maybe next, I would work on getting everyone electricity. But first, I needed to expand the city a little bit.

That was a pretty big undertaking for such a large city, and I wasn't confident in getting it done quickly. Not to mention where we'd get all the materials. That meant this next project of mine would have to stay outside the city. I wasn't entirely sure how to do it, but maybe having a secondary city growing off to the side might work.

Clearing and leveling some land nearby was relatively simple. It would have to be protected in its own right, but using a lot of the excess stone I had saved up inside my dustbin from the sewer project, I started to lay down blocks.

This would be a concept that I don't think many people have seen. The tallest building I'd encountered so far was about five stories tall. Unless you were counting the castle, which was a bit of a special exception. That, too, was unlike any other structures I'd seen here. But if we wanted to minimize the footprint of a building, it made sense to just go up.

By the time I had added the 10th story, people had begun to take notice. I had drawn a crowd of people watching from the walls and more who had made a pilgrimage out to the work site. I had to set up walls to keep them back so they weren't in danger in case a stone fell or anything like that. But the crowds of people watching in awe as I built my tower blocks ever higher motivated me to be a little bit more precise than I normally would.

I adorned the building with some additional features and decorative flairs. Between the odd cutouts and occasional terraces, the architecture started to get a little elaborate.

Around 30 stories, I started to realize there was going to be an issue with the building swaying in the wind. To compensate, I started to leave room for a specially shaped reservoir full of water, such that when the building tilted slightly, the center of mass would keep it in place and upright. It took a long time for me to crunch all the numbers, but eventually, I got it right.

At 50 stories, I stopped. This would probably be good enough. I started going through and carving out all of the necessities in each room. The layout was fairly simple. Each had a full suite of two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Dozens of the units stood spaced on each floor.

I wasn't able to furnish everything, but I could get most of the basics done, like counters and toilets and things like that. The plumbing was already done, but of course, I hadn't hooked it up to anything yet. I could let someone else take care of that. I was sure that the plumbers would be thrilled to take on that task, and I didn't want to crush the burgeoning industry just yet.

This process took me most of the afternoon, after which I began building the second skyscraper next door. This time, I had a much better understanding of what I was doing and was able to make it up to 55 floors. Although another thought struck me: how were people going to get to the top? I had installed a ramp -- instead of stairs, obviously -- but that did seem like quite a distance for humans to climb.

Realizing my oversight, I went back in and started adding elevators to both buildings. They were all mechanical, so they could easily be powered by magic or maybe some hard work if necessary. Now, people would be able to get to the top without running up literal miles of ramps.

When I finished the third tower the next day, Arthur came out to ask me what I was doing. After I had explained to him my plan to house people out here, he seemed to take quite an interest. He even offered to help organize people and develop infrastructure around the buildings. It was quite nice of him.

I decided to build a few more of these, then I would maybe start thinking about putting up a wall. However, I was a bit surprised by who Arthur brought me as some of the first tenants for my new buildings. It wasn't just the people of the crowded inns that came, but instead, merchants and nobles and other people who had significant amounts of money.

Evidently, they liked the idea of being up high and having a nice view. And they were willing to pay a lot for it. It wasn't entirely the point of my endeavor. Arthur explained that we could use the funds to help the rest of our citizens. Also, I had apparently made plenty of rooms for everyone, so it wasn't like they were kicking anyone out. It was just a matter of getting a bit of extra out of the place. I counted it as a success overall.