All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 134: Halp

Harold packed his belongings without too much of a rush. After all, he hadn't brought that much with him in the first place, and there was still plenty of time before the caravan moved out. Once he gathered his clothes from the laundry, he would be ready to go.

Honestly, he wouldn't miss the dank College of the Undead one bit. Though his time here hadn't been nearly as awful as he had feared. It turned out there was a decent amount of assistance his outside perspective could give. It was limited by thousands of other factors, but they had still made progress, even if minuscule. Not that his contributions would be noted down for the histories; mages a thousand years from now would likely never know or care.

That was because most of the advancements weren't magical or scientific in any way. They were just simple process improvements in the synthesis workflows. Still, that made mass production of some of the purification potions and the infection cures slightly more efficient and much more manageable by someone with less expertise.

There had been a surprising amount of pushback from the other mages regarding his changes too. They complained that he was taking the "mystery" out of the magic. That with his methods, any capable peasant could turn the mages into machines or make the arcane processes. With Percy's help, they could mostly squash such complaints, and things tended to move on.

Harold was somewhat sympathetic to their concerns. No one wanted to be made less special; these mages had spent decades building their place in the world. If not famous and loved, they were at least respected. Who would want to lose that?

What he didn't understand was "the taking the mystery out of magic" complaint. Was that not the whole point of studying magic? To understand how and why it worked, bend it to your will, and force it to work for you? The alchemist and demon practitioners had always achieved this by making precise recipes with repeatable results. The undead mages apparently had a less….formal tradition.

Still, despite all the hurdles, just standardizing things had increased output to an incredible level. That wasn't the only thing he had a hand in accomplishing, even if it might have ended up being the most impactful. No, what he was most proud of was some advancements in the undead defenses. Working with a small team, they were able to develop much more permanent talismans that could ward off wraiths or shades for almost a week.

They weren't very common undead and didn't normally pose a lethal threat to people. Still, they were hard to get rid of, and long enough exposure could sap the will and mind of even the most stubborn warriors.

A knock at the door pulled Harold away from his thoughts. Opening it a crack, he found a skeleton holding a hamper of his folded shirts. A simple command and the servant set it down just inside and left him alone. It had taken some getting used to, but the undead could make very effective tools. As long as the mages made sure they never developed their own will and stopped listening to instructions.

Moving the fresh laundry to his bags, Harold hefted in saddlebags over his shoulder. He was still a bit earlier than he needed to be, but Arthur's message had worried him. Arthur was not a man known to exaggerate, and seeing that a message had come from a man hurrying on horseback told Harold more than the messenger had.

The situation sounded dire, but Arthur was a legend. The fact that a message came from him directly instead of a reinforcement order from the crown meant that Arthur's reports weren't being given the full seriousness they deserved. It would be the only reason for him to contact people like Harold directly, hoping that they could provide some assistance.

Harold could only hope they were doing enough as he walked down to where the contingent was about to depart. They were bringing as many of the new countermeasures they had made, as well as many of the more standard tools. They should allow the soldiers to fight back more efficiently. It had to be enough.

---

I was sitting on my favorite rug, trying to recreate the pattern of the fibers below me. It was a lot harder than it looked. Even with nearly complete control over the contents in my dustbin, I still had to start over constantly. Things just didn't want to stay in place. The whole ensemble would knot up or fall apart once I stopped controlling it.

Was it that my skill and control were just not advanced enough? Or maybe there was some intermediate step I was missing. Silas had mentioned something about spinning, but I couldn't figure out how that fits into the process. In a moment of frustration, I spun in a circle on the rug while trying to force the sheep fibers into the complicated shape. I was sure it wasn't what he meant, but still. It was worth a try.

After a few hundred revolutions, the spinning had no noticeable effect on my efforts, and I stopped. Needing a chance to reset my caches, I let my attention leave the void inside of me. Instead, I let it wander over the castle, and I found many things that could use my attention. The children were still doing incredibly dangerous stuff they probably shouldn't have been, despite the warnings of myself and the women.

I had mostly decided to let things take their course. A few weeks ago, I would have been tearing out my circuits with worry about it, but I had learned a few things about kids in the last little while. First, they were much more resilient than I gave them credit for. Not that they didn't get damaged, of course, but they were able to repair themselves remarkably quickly. I was sure they had some variation of my Automatic Maintenance skill built into them. It was a shame that Beatrice had apparently missed out on that one. Also, some of the stuff that Beatrice made was really good at repairs. It helped out with any bigger malfunctions that occurred. Also, the adults did sort of keep an eye on them.

They did have more experience than me, so I followed their lead. The other thing was that kids did not learn unless they got it wrong a lot. So many times, in fact, that it made me want to laugh. The stick practice was a good example. I had shown Rahj how and when to keep his stick in high guard no less than twenty-seven times, and he never really got it until Felix had smacked him in the nose with a stick once. Now he never forgot.

I still stepped in when more permanent injuries, such as loss of a limb or life, crossed over my 5% probability threshold. Still, those cases were relatively rare, especially during nap times. During my scan, I did see one thing in particular that might require my attention. I went to deal with it. I might need to grab Tanu as well.

***

Tanu and I made our way over to the little group of trees that Cliff had claimed as her own. There, we found her with her paws stretched as far up one of the long trunks as she could reach. And she was a very long dog.

From the branches, a snarling, hissing orange ball of anger spat down at her. It seemed quite upset at having its way down blocked.

Looking at the situation, I didn't see an easy solution. So far, with most animals and small children, judicial use of my spray bottle was more than enough to solve ninety-eight percent of problems. However, this appeared to be one of those rare two percent where it wouldn't help.

I couldn't, in good conscience, spray Cliff for welcoming a new friend. I really couldn't blame her for the situation, especially since I knew of the cat's dramatic tendencies.

Actually, now that I thought about it, I never decided on a name for the cat. If I gave Cliff a name, perhaps I could give the feline one too. The orange tomcat was a feisty little guy. Quickly running through my list of cached names, I selected one from a subset that seemed cat-like. I would call him Kelly.

Huh, if I gave the cat a name now, should I name all the other animals too? Maybe, I would have to think about it. Naming things seemed important, and I wanted them to be just right.

Well, with that figured out, I returned to the matter at hand. I didn't want to spray Kelly either because it wasn't his fault he got scared. I was just glad he ran up a tree instead of lashing out at Cliff. Kelly's claws were very sharp and, with a bit of luck, might have put one of Cliff's eyes out or otherwise seriously harmed her.

Luckily Tanu had a good relationship with Cliff and was able to talk the dog away from the tree long enough for me to boost up and grab Kelly. The cat wriggled and squirmed, but I was able to hold on to him before he ran away. If these two were going to share the same castle, they needed to get to know each other a little bit. They didn't need to become best friends, but basic courtesy was enough.

Tanu reached up to put his little hand on Cliff's back, keeping her calm, while I hovered up to her, holding a very upset and wiggling Kelly. When their noses were only a few inches from each other, Cliff shocked me. With a baring of her teeth, she snapped her jaw towards the cat. Only my quick actions kept Kelly's nose in one piece. Okay, that definitely called for the bottle. A quick spray to the face had Cliff jerking her head back in surprise, and Tanu talked softly to the big dog, calming her down.

Okay, maybe Kelly actually had a point here. Still, it needed to be done. This time when I brought them close together, I was more careful, and Cliff just sniffed for a little bit. Kelly didn't calm down at all. The cat threw itself violently all over the place, not giving up one bit. I had to admire the cat's determination. Well, they didn't have to get along. I guessed it would be okay if they were willing to stay out of each other's way.

Releasing the cat, I watched as he sprinted back toward the castle faster than I had ever seen it move before. The orange ball vanished between the cracked front doors a few moments later. Taking a look, I saw what appeared to be Tanu and Cliff having a very serious conversation. Tanu's soft words were only occasionally interrupted by the occasional whine or woof from Cliff.

I left them to it; something had come up at the gate that might require my attention. Scanning the castle grounds for Beatrice, I found her having a conversation with Susan and Tony in the room with the fancy rug and desk. Hmm, was it important enough for me to get her first? Probably not. Leaving her to it, I headed toward the next issue.