All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 128: Dogpile

Bee looked up at Tony. That's right, he wasn't there for the whole infiltrator discussion with Susan. "Uh, you remember when I told you that she went to go tell people about us?"

Tony nodded. Bee looked at Susan to see if she wanted to fill in the gaps. Susan just gave her a shrug. Sighing, Bee continued. "Yeah, well, she has the Infiltrator class."

Tony cocked an eyebrow at Bee. "So you just… let her go inform on us then?"

"Well no," Bee said. "Void did."

"To be fair, I wasn't really telling them anything that would harm you all." Susan piped up. "Or at least, I didn't really have much more information than castle supply numbers. But with Void's presence I don't think there is really any danger to us, especially with the army's attention taken up by the undead at the moment."

"Okay, sure, Void does what he wants." Tony said slowly, clearly still processing the information. "So, deep cover. I take it you were a spy?"

"Of sorts." Susan hesitated. "Operative might be a better word. It was something that me and a few others had been raised for since we were very young."

"So what are you doing here then? Why turn on your handlers?" Tony asked, his face still not entirely trusting.

"Because I met Void." Susan stated simply. "I'm not really turning my back on them, either. Honestly I was telling them the truth and they thought I was brainwashed. Besides, a new god has been born. To let the world know if it is much more important than my previous orders."

Bee wasn't sure where the fanaticism came from. Sure, she was dedicated to her master too, but Susan took it to a whole new level. Maybe it was a regional thing? The commonly worshiped gods had few devoted followers around where she grew up. Mostly they were considered myths or, at most, relics of a past age that had long since retreated from the world. Disappeared ever since the major demon threats were repelled. There had been very little talk about them in the books she had read in the library so far.

Often only Devotees were true worshipers of a given god, and it sounded like they were more focused on the ideal than the actual god. Tony apparently was having similar thoughts, as he wasn't ready to let the topic just move on.

"Why though?" Before anyone could say anything, he continued. "I mean, I get the difference and all. But why does the world need to know so bad? The word will spread anyway, at some point."

"Do you know how long it's been since the last god appeared?" Susan asked, her tone reverent. Tony shook his head; Bee was curious, too, as she didn't think that anyone knew the number. The histories she had read were patchy at best and mostly just myths. "Honestly, no one does. But it's been at least 10,000 years. There are allusions to Dagramas rising some 30,000 years ago in some myths and records that mages have found, though. That's all that I know of.

"This part gets a little hazy and there's some guess work involved. But from what I understand, that divine ascension might be directly responsible for our missing history. Endless wars and calamities. Devastation and the collapse of civilizations. The demons broke through and ruled for a time, until the gods beat them back." She paused. "Whatever happened then was a big deal, is what I'm trying to say."

"How do you know all this?" Bee asked. That was way more than she knew or had any way of knowing. Well, maybe the catacombs under the castle might have told a slightly different story. If she was right, they looked ancient enough to have been ten thousand years old. The book she found on the pedestal might tell her even more if she ever figured out how to read it.

"Libraries have a lot of information, and information gathering was my thing. I talked to enough philosophers and historian types that something had to soak in after long enough." Susan said. "But, like I said, it's all conjecture. My personal theory is that the world rejected the new god and tried to fight against it. Maybe even the other gods split into factions. No one really knows for sure what happened or how. But I don't want the same thing to happen to us. Or, if it does, I want to be on the right side of it." Her eyes seemed to come alive with a new intensity. "The best thing we can do is support Void and ensure everyone else does as well. But beyond that, from my interactions I truly believe that Void has everyone's best interests at heart. It just might be a true divine incarnation of order. How could I not respect that to the utmost?"

Bee considered Susan's words. "I asked how you know this because the castle has a lot of information hidden away in it. The library is just part of it. The building itself is very old. Maybe old enough to have been around that long. For sure built before the defeat of the demons." Bee thought for a moment. "When we get back we should go through some of it and see what lines up with what you've heard. If some kinds of records here survived, then surely others did as well."

Susan nodded. "I would like that. But for now we should probably focus on the sheep. I think they're about to bolt."

Tony cursed as he turned to see a sheep doing just that. As he darted off, Bee was grateful that he was fast enough to catch them. It would have been a real pain if she had to run them all down herself.

—

I considered the three dogs that refused to just walk behind us. It would have helped a lot if they would just open their eyes. But alas, they insisted on stumbling along blind, never going more than three steps in the right direction. I refused to leave them behind, and the ridiculously large dog seemed to agree with that.

So in order to move them, we had to move in short spurts. Tanu, the oversized dog, and I would move about 20 yards down the path. Then I would put my dog down and remove the one from my back. The big dog would drop hers, then we would go back for the other three. Of course, by that point, they had usually wandered off, and we needed to go into the bushes to find them. Bringing them to where we left the others, the search would start over again. It kind of felt like I was juggling.

The smallest dog was in the arms of Tanu; he didn't put it down. That was fine. He was struggling to hold on to the squirming ball of fur anyway and wasn't moving very fast. It was entirely understandable, as the dog was almost half his weight. It was still helpful, though since it was one more that we didn't have to carry.

Still, we were moving excruciatingly slowly. After 18 minutes, Tanu's arms couldn't take it anymore. At the pace we were moving, we were still over an hour from the road. The more I watched Tanu struggle with his burden, the more impressed I was that he had managed to get so far into the woods on his own. He was sure lucky to find a dog to help him survive the undead. Maybe the dog was lucky to find him, though. These smaller dogs didn't seem very helpful.

Tanu looked around at the ground. I guessed he was looking for a place to sit. To prevent him from further dirtying his pants, I floated a fallen log over to him with Air Manipulation. I then proceeded to nearly smack myself with my claw in frustration, stopping only because I feared I might hurt the dog on my back. Instead, I moved the dog over to the pile and lightly tapped my outer shell in frustration. Air Manipulation! How could I forget about that?

I wasn't sure about my limits, but I started hovering the dogs up one at a time, trying to see how many I could carry. Their flailing paws didn't make it any easier. It was like they were trying to fly by swimming through the air. That just was making the air circulate in ways that were slightly harder to control. Still, I was able to lift five before I could feel my circuits start to heat up. That should be more than enough.

After resting for a few minutes Tanu, the stupidly enormous dog, and I were ready to go. Progress was a lot quicker now that I had optimized our transport methods. However, referring to the dog's size every time I thought about it was starting to get repetitive. Normally I would have just let the humans pick a name, as was tradition, but I supposed that I could do it this time. Not that anyone would know about it. It would be my personal designation for the creatures. Once the humans picked a name, though, I would just call it that.

So what would I call it? Rather than try and optimize the combination of vowels and consonants myself, I ran a random number generator against a list of all the names I had ever heard of. Number 375. Albert? I didn't quite like the sound of that. Sure, it was a big name, but the dog wasn't fat, just big-boned. I quickly narrowed down the list to ones that I felt had some relation to the huge dog. Cliff?

Sure, Cliff would do. Why not. Cliff insisted on carrying one of the two smaller dogs that I wasn't able to lift. She watched the floating pack warily but didn't object to the new mode of transportation. The last dog was resting on my back, leaving me free to retract my arm and focus on carrying the fluffballs.

The rest of the trek back to the clearing around the walls of the castle passed in a blur. After a little while, I dropped to the ground and just rolled through the dirt, as splitting my attention was just too much for my poor hardware. Without his burden, Tanu had no problems keeping up. He was a hard-working kid; I just hoped that he wouldn't wander off again like this. It would be a shame if I had been just a little slower. Once we got to the clearing, I set the dogs down for a second. I needed a small break to let my circuits cool. That was more of a workout than I had tried in a good while.

Cliff was still going strong, but she wasn't willing to leave the pile of puppies. She stayed with us as Tanu, and I rested in the dirt. Sure, this method of travel was much faster, but it was exhausting. On the other hand, my Air Manipulation was getting more and more powerful. If I wasn't constantly redlining my outputs, then carrying a slightly lighter burden would have been easy. I was also draining my battery for the first time in a very long while. I had considered transmuting some matter from my dustbin, but with the unusual heat from my exertion, I didn't know what would happen. If I exploded with energy or heated up even more, I didn't want to risk damaging the dog on my back.

A few minutes of a low processing load and the cool air helped me return to a normal processing temperature. This wasn't the hardest thing I had done by a long shot, but it was a lot of effort over time. Now that I was a bit better, I risked transmuting a little bit of dirt. Energy topped off, and the processor cooled; I was able to lift all six of the dogs. Cliff still refused to let me take the last one, so I just let her take it. A few minutes later, we were in front of the gate.

I considered boosting over it, but I wasn't sure about lifting Cliff and everyone else at once. I also didn't want to take the other dogs where she couldn't reach. She seemed quite protective, and that just seemed cruel. So instead, I just rapped my claw loudly on the metal bars. The ringing echo filled the night air.

The castle door creaked open, and a few figures hurried down the steps as if they had been waiting for my return. As three people ran over, my sensors made them out to be Mary, Trent, and Talia. Talia wasn't able to contain herself and led the pack for most of the way.

"Tanu!" she cried as she caught sight of our forms through the portcullis. When she got the bars, she pulled up short. At the sight of the fluffy Cliff, she even let out a short scream. "Wolf!"