All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 135: Everything in Order

Bee spent several hours working with Maranda to get her set up with the basics. It had taken longer than expected, but not by too much - the girl was laser focused on every word that came from Bee's mouth. After a few near-misses, she managed to guide her "apprentice" through the recipe for a lesser contusion balm. Now that she had finished her first successful brew, the only thing left was repetition. Lots of repetition. Bee left her to it. Technically she could have gone back to her own alchemy at that point. She was tempted to. But, in the end, her sense of responsibility decided that this was more pressing.

Things were getting a little out of control around here. Not that anything bad had happened yet, but Bee felt like she was going to drop the ball on something at any moment. No matter what she was doing, it felt like someone was counting on her or needed her input for something else. They needed to work out a system.

Her teachings from the book of Void were all good and useful, but there was one thing above all that they emphasized. She wasn't sure how she had missed the lesson for so long, but now that she made the connection, it was something she wanted to rectify as soon as she could.

Bee found Tony talking to his twin brothers by the fields. "Do you mind if I borrow Tony for a bit?"

They nodded emphatically, and Tony straightened from what he had been doing to follow her out of the room. "What's up, Bee?"

"We're looking for Susan, but I just realized something about how we are running the…." At a loss for words, she just gestured to the area around her.

Tony nodded his understanding. "Ma and Pa are doing a decent job holding everything together, but I can tell they're getting a little tired. Remember, they lived with just them and their kids on a farm alone for decades. They like their space."

They checked a few more rooms before they finally tracked Susan down. Then Bee led the three of them went to Void's room. Hopefully, their master would join them and give his input. If not, then they would just have to trust that it was giving its implicit approval.

Sitting down at the desk, Bee started right into the core issue. "We need to turn this castle into a functional organization."

She looked at the two other members for their little secret meeting; they had no objection to what she had said so far, so she continued. "So far, we have been just skating by doing what needed to be done to make it to the next day, but we should think further ahead. We already have a book and set of teachings. Our patron stands for the order of all things. Surely we can do better on the management side."

This elicited nods and murmurs of agreement. "This society… organization, cult? Eh, we can figure that part out later. Well, we're near the center of something important. Something that will change the world. Void's coming is as big of an event as any of our recorded history, and as its first followers, we should properly prepare the rest of the people for its arrival. So things go as smoothly as possible."

Susan was nodding along with everything that Bee was explaining but now had something to say herself. Bee acknowledged her with a nod. "It is as you say. Transitions of power are always dangerous, and all the human rulers will likely try to cling on to their petty power even in the face of true divinity."

Bee rubbed her chin. She hadn't even thought about that; she was thinking of just spreading the news and maybe teaching the way to any who wanted to learn. However, Susan brought up a very good point. "That is true, I think. The nobility and the rulers may cause us issues, perhaps even sooner than we would like. But I was thinking maybe that we still need to worry about some of the initial steps."

"Well, I hadn't thought about that," Tony admitted. "Is Void really interested in challenging rulers for the control of whole nations? I mean, he doesn't even want to be too involved in running this group."

Bee had to admit that Tony had a point. So far, Void had been a very distant god in some ways. No smiting or judgments to those who strayed from the path or anything. Though it did fight the Lieutenant and others who threatened its people, so maybe there just hadn't been any other reason for it to act yet. Susan, though, had an answer.

"It's not really about whether Void challenges them or not. I tend to agree with you. Our master may have no interest in the affairs of men. However, the rulers will not see it that way. Us teaching the story of Void's coming will be threatening enough that they will act to protect their power regardless of what else we do. If Void wanted to get involved, things would actually be much simpler.

"If Void stepped in and squashed all opposition, then it would be simple. However, I think we need to be prepared to protect the faithful ourselves, and the most certain way to do that is to ensure that the faithful are in control." Susan said with a passionate fire behind her eyes during what was essentially a world-domination speech.

"That may very well be true," Bee hedged, needing to think about Susan's words a bit. "But I think we have more immediate concerns."

"I agree. This could be the far future for our little group, but there are many things we need to figure out first." Tony backed her up.

"We should just keep it in mind while we're planning." Susan allowed. "Should we start with listing the issues we think we need to solve now?"

"Sure, there are a few general categories and a lot of subcategories that we could think about," Bee said. "For major categories, I'm thinking: Castle upkeep, Food, Training, Teaching, Defense, and Information. We are more isolated than I would like. Finding out about Greg the way we did was unavoidable, but I don't think we need to repeat it."

"Hmmm, I think we can maybe tighten those categories up a bit. But I for sure think that information gathering is really important to focus on, especially with the undead still about. Even then, I don't think that we need to have it on the highest level." Susan said diplomatically.

Tony was less graceful. "Yeah, what she said. Those categories suck, Bee. You just listed problems to solve, and even then, it was a mess."

Bee shot him a glare, "Okay, how would you do it."

Susan stepped in before the bickering could develop too far. "Well, the King has several ministers. I believe the traditional way to break it up is between Magic, Coin, Spies, Laws, and Military. Sure, there is some overlap, but each of them is in charge of an organization that helps balance the influence the others have. They are also led by the King's second."

"That seems a bit overkill for us," Tony said, ticking off each position on a finger. "We don't have enough people to fill all that anyways."

"I hate to agree with Tony, but I do think we can keep it a bit simpler than that," Bee said. "How about we focus on internal versus external issues? Maybe if that isn't a good idea, violent versus nonviolent?"

"Well, it's impossible to completely draw a line. Violence often needs a lot of nonviolent prep work." Susan said. "But I get the idea. Really the areas of focus for us might be Defense, Laws, Supplies, and Training. Those can be broad categories, and they won't always line up with what the kingdom does, but it's a start.

For supplies, we need someone to take care of food and the people's needs. Agriculture would also be in there. I think Trent and Mary have done a good job with that. Tony, what do you think? Will they continue to do that?"

"So far. I don't know if they'll want to do more if we get even more people or have more than just this castle to take care of." He said thoughtfully.

"We can cross that when it comes to it," Bee said. "Training would probably cover education and the training of the kids too, so figuring out who's good for what jobs and helping to develop their skillsets."

"I think I can help with making sure people are in the right places," Tony said. "Though I'll need to be able to pull people from the other divisions to head the training. No way will I be able to teach everything."

"I think me taking charge of defense makes sense. As long as we include scouting and information gathering under that category." Susan mused.

"Okay, where does that leave me?" Bee asked.

—-

Felix had seemingly decided to hold impromptu stick practice with a larger number of the kids. This in and of itself wasn't really an issue. Now that they knew enough to not seriously damage each other or themselves most of the time, that was fine. As I got closer to the ring of children, though, I started to get a better idea of what was happening with the kid and sheep in the center of the loose circle they had formed.

The kids seemed to be having fun. However, I didn't think the sheep appreciated participating. Also, the sheep didn't seem to understand the rules. After watching a little more, I wasn't sure that I understood the rules either. I watched as one of the children held their stick in a guard position as a sheep charged at her. At the last second, the little girl dove out of the way to the laughter of the other children.

The sheep tried to make a break towards the rest of its kind, but the kids in the part of the circle it charged caught it and spun it around. Now it was aimed at another small boy who assumed the same guard stance. The sheep didn't waste any time running head down at the boy.

He managed to jump out of the way, stay on his feet, and lightly touch the bare rump of the sheep with the end of his stick. Excited, he threw both of his arms above his head and started jumping around with a huge smile on his face. The others all cheered.

The sheep didn't join in the celebration and spun to return the blow. It rammed its head into the boy's backend while he was mid-leap, throwing him forward and tumbling onto the ground. With its opponent down, the sheep made another break for it.

This time before the circle could catch the sheep, I let out a piercing beep, drawing all attention to me. The miffed sheep took advantage of the opportunity to slip out and pranced off angrily to the rest of her flock. As she stalked off, she kicked the air behind her as if she was imagining knocking over the kid again.

Who had thought of this foolishness? No less than half of the kids were now covered in mud; they must have failed at their turn with the sheep. They should know better than to roll around in the dirt. Really, the sheep must be bad influences on these little terrors. And here I thought they were learning.

With everyone's attention on me, I made my displeasure clear. With each new beep, the excitement died, and they were hanging their heads in shame as was appropriate. I mean, the state of their clothes! They'd all need to be laundered posthaste if they could be saved at all.

I reminded them of one of the first rules that I had made them promise to follow when I introduced them to the game of sticks. Well, I guess "introduced" was a strong word, as they already had a version before mine. "Formalized," maybe.

"We're sorry, master Void." They all chorused. One of the larger boys glanced around the group and addressed me. "For breaking the rule about not playing sticks with someone who doesn't want to play, we'll all rake the lawn."

I hoped they had learned their lesson. Using cleaning as a punishment wasn't my favorite thing, but it sure was effective.