All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 144: Trouble Brewing

Bee felt reasonably good about leaving Tony to watch over the band of men they had just welcomed into the castle. Not that Tony would be able to fight five people close to his level, but she trusted that he would be able to tell when they were out of line. Truthfully, Void wasn't even necessary to enforce order here, even if its presence was comforting. No, herself or Susan should be enough; she just hoped no violence was necessary.

By the look of them, they might have been soldiers. Maybe town guards of a relatively prosperous town. Either way, if they were from nearby, then they were likely deserters or dodging conscription. Honestly, she didn't mind too much. Who really wanted to fight the undead?

Of course, it did make it a little harder to trust them, but they were strangers after all; she didn't trust them in the first place. They would have to earn it. And not just her trust, but Void's. If her master could accept them, then she could too.

But with Tony watching them, it freed her up to do one of the many things she needed to attend to. Bee and Maranda were hard at work in one of the laboratories. They had a little assembly line going and everything. The renewed presence of strangers and the recent organization had pointed out a glaring flaw in some of their procedures, or lack thereof.

When they were bringing in new people, it was rather haphazard. They were just… brought in, given a place to sleep, and fit into life in the castle. So far, this hadn't produced any problems, but she didn't think it would work with large groups. If someone was sick or infected and made it in, they could have endangered many people. With most of their population being women and children, they weren't really set up to defend themselves.

So now newcomers would go through a general screening process. They would put together a stock of general disease potions and be inspected for bites or other toxins. For this to work, though, they needed a rather large stock on hand. Both of the general potions and cures for various undead infections.

Right now, they were producing the most basic one, the zombie cure. The "cure" name was a bit of a misnomer. It wasn't really a cure for zombies as it was a cure for infected people. Once someone actually became a zombie, they were dead. Only gods could cure death.

Bee froze for a second. Could they? Could Void?

So far, Void had given no indication that it could pull souls back from beyond the veil, but what would that look like anyways? If someone in the castle died, could it bring them back? Would it?

She shook herself and grabbed a few more empty bottles. It was best to assume that wasn't one of Void's powers until it was proven otherwise.

Well, while she couldn't make a real "cure," this would have to do. The potion could stop the infection before the death of the patient, and that was the best she could hope for. So far, she had only needed to use one on Tony a while back. She didn't think she would always be that lucky, though, so she was teaching Maranda how to make them herself. It was a fairly simple potion, even if the materials were quite expensive. A relative beginner should be able to learn the recipe with a bit of supervised practice.

Marnada was grinding ingredients and aliquoting everything into pre-measured tubes while Bee actually took care of mixing it all together. If it seemed like she had kept the easy job for herself, that was because she had. It was also the one that needed the most care. Getting the timing of the stirs right was difficult and hard to learn, but to her, it was nearly second nature. This left her free to watch over Marnada as she learned every other step of the process without wasting time or ingredients.

Bee picked up the tube of ground spotted beetle shells and checked the measurement. There was a touch too much. "Maranda, what would happen if I put too much beetle shell in?"

The girl looked up from where she was titrating a colored liquid with a look of concentration on her face. "Uh, I suppose it might be a tad too aggressive. Might cure faster, but the person who drank it would probably also get the stomach cramps for a few days."

"Very good. I don't think it would be anything permanently harmful, but it's not worth testing either." Bee said, reaching a spot where she could pause. "Does this look right to you?"

Bee slid the vial over to Marnada. The girl picked it up and studied it for a second. Then she stepped hurriedly over to her notebook and compared it to her notes. She turned a little pale and hastily adjusted the amount, pouring the excess back into a pile of pre-ground shells.

"Sorry, that won't happen again."

"Don't worry too much about it. We learn from our mistakes." Bee reassured the girl, feeling like she was much older than she really was. When they weren't working, Maranda treated her like a friend. They teased each other and made jokes, which was honestly quite refreshing. Bee hadn't truly had a friend in… well, quite a while.

But once they were in the lab, they both assumed the roles of master and apprentice. Bee was much too inexperienced to be a master, in her own opinion. Both in alchemy and in everything else, she was an amateur. But she was the best they had on hand. Still, it didn't mean that she would ever be comfortable with the role.

It was too bad they didn't have more anti-undead countermeasures. Right now, they were heavily reliant on Void for protection. Bee could handle things for a bit, but if the castle was ever attacked in force, she wouldn't be able to do anything meaningful about it. She would probably escape, but she wouldn't be able to get everyone out with her. As much as she trusted Void, she didn't want to burden her master if she didn't have to. Especially if it ever wanted to travel and leave the castle to itself for a bit. They couldn't rely on divine intervention alone.

She was pretty sure the reason they didn't have more books on the undead was that this castle was focused on demon research. It also explained why they didn't have some of the ingredients for the recipes she did find. So they were stuck with the basics for now.

Bee continued to supervise Maranda for another hour. She was doing much better than Bee had when starting out, but she supposed having a teacher was useful. After an hour with almost no mistakes, Bee decided it was time for her to start taking over the whole process.

She insisted that Marnada prepare everything ahead of time and double-check each ingredient as it was added. It should have produced a protest from the normally impatient Maranda, but she had her work face on and simply nodded, taking the task with the utmost seriousness. It made a sense of pride well in Bee's chest.

Meanwhile, Bee started on her own project. She kept an eye on her apprentice nonetheless, but so far, things were going alright. It would have been wonderful to continue working on some more advanced anti-undead alchemy, but that wasn't her current focus. Instead, she was refining her acid. It was getting close where she could just feel Divine Alchemy affecting it, just barely enhancing it. Right on the border of a cleaning agent and a lethal weapon, the acid was unreasonably effective.

Her work was really paying off. When she tested it out with a throwable flask against a broken chair, the acid ate through it with incredible speed. The hope was that it would work even better against an already rotting undead opponent. Please with the results of her research, Bee started filling glasses that were designed to be thrown and break on contact.

---

I watched as the gruff new men followed Tony. Mary had set up a separate dining room for them, and there was a hearty breakfast waiting on the tables. They fell upon it like staving members of Cliff's family. I was a bit shocked by the mess, honestly. It was not as bad as the children, but these were grown adults, so I hadn't expected it to be nearly this much. It shouldn't have even been comparable. Tony didn't seem bothered at all, though. He even joined in some of their conversations, though he didn't eat more than a piece of toast.

The conversation wasn't nearly as serious as the one-sided affair I had with Mat just a few minutes ago. Instead, it seemed that every word out of their mouths was either a joke or an insult. Somehow though, no one got even the slightest bit angry, no matter how ruthlessly the others tore into them. Maybe this was some sort of humor I didn't get?

After studying them a bit longer, I still wasn't sure. Though I had decided that it was a type of humor, it didn't suit me very well. I didn't think that I would try to work it into my own routines.

Breakfast was a jolly time, but I could tell they were all avoiding a topic, even Tony. No one even whispered a word about what came next. There were many possibilities that I was aware of, but the implied outcome based on their agreement with Beatrice yesterday was that they would leave. Breakfast wasn't even part of the deal. Yet not one of them touched the topic at all.

Eventually, it had to come to an end. When the door opened, I wasn't surprised, though I was a little confused about who opened it. Susan gave me a respectful bow before turning to the group. All five of them were openly staring at her while Tony frowned into his steaming cup.

Her eyes passed over the room, seemingly taking in every detail like one of my scans. There weren't too many humans with that level of attention to detail, even from home. It helped her be diligent in cleaning even the deepest nooks and crannies of a tile floor. Her eyes lingered on Tony for a second until he looked up. They exchanged a quick glance before she continued her scan of the table's occupants while Tony frowned at the wall.

Susan pulled out the one remaining chair from the table and positioned it at the head. Sitting down, she commanded all the attention in the room. "Well, we have a few things to talk about. Don't we?"

The men looked at each other, clearly not understanding. Their leader seemed to be a little more clued in, thankfully. More clued in than me. I was busy last night and hadn't had time to keep tabs on any plans being made.

"Look, I can guess that you were deserters from the siege of Caleb. I'm here to tell you we don't really care." She said in a neutral tone, her piercing eyes pinning them all to their seats as they tensed. "We have an offer for you that you might like a little better than standing guard on the walls, besieged by the undead. Would you like to hear it?"

The leader nodded slowly. "We aren't in any rush to be anywhere, we can hear you out."