All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 169: Heaven’s Gates

Bee walked back up the column of refugees. She had been a bit worried about their pace this morning, but things had started out alright. The march yesterday had improved on their previous best by a decent amount. But to her surprise, no one had fallen behind.

Despite Gertrude's assurances, there had been lots of grumbling that made its was to Bee’s ears, but nothing serious. They seemed to understand the urgency of getting to th castle quickly. Over the past couple of days, they had improved the rotation schedules of who would ride in the wagons and for how long. Also, people had actually become used to the hard marching to some extent.

To her delight, some of the people had even come to talk to her about Void. She had answered their questions the best she could. Despite her closeness and time with the god, she only had so many answers. Often the best she could do was tell them stories as she had recorded them in the church's teachings.

That was enough for the most part. Not everyone was interested, but most did want to hear about the one that had saved their city and destroyed the army of undead encircling it. Most people hadn't seen the decimation of the undead firsthand, but the soldiers who had described the event with awe.

Many more people had seen Void swoop in and instantly consume the wraith than she had the general had been fighting. Arthur was a respected figure amongst the city folk. He had been keeping them safe against what appeared to be impossible odds for months. His involvement in city matters also made him a well-seen figure, and everyone seemed to have briefly spoken to him at some point.

So the casual defeat of an undead giving him trouble attracted a lot of attention. As she continued with her stories, the awe of Void only grew. On the second morning, she had her first real interesting question. A young woman carrying a small child wanted to know if there was anything they could do to gain the great lord's blessing.

The woman asked with good reason. Her child was weak, and she feared that if he somehow didn't get a class before he was ten, he wouldn't survive. Of course, she didn't have the personal strength to help get a 5-year-old a class yet. Hence why she pled and asked Bee whether there anything they could do to help.

Bee Scanned the woman. She was only level 5 herself, but she had a point. Line Cook wasn't a very powerful class.

Of course, there was something she could do. It wasn’t exactly something to do lightly though. Also, she somewhat feared that suggesting it might cause a chain reaction of people asking for a class change - something they couldn’t afford while traveling. So instead, she had told the woman that she would need to dedicate herself to the decree of the Void, and that it wouldn't be a small commitment.

The lady and her child had left, saying that she would think about it. Bee didn't expect they would return, but she could hope. It wasn't like they would be the only ones asking for favors.

By the time she had reached the front of the column, she had been stopped half a dozen times to deal with small problems. If she was in a hurry, she would have waved them off. But giving out some healing here and there wasn't a problem. The more people she could save from sprains and the like, the faster they could move.

Also, her small actions built goodwill. The refugees were definitely warming up to her as time went on. There even seemed to be a custom of some sort emerging that when she healed a person, they would talk with her about Void. That was something she was always willing to do.

At the front, she reached her normal spot next to Captain Major's stirrup. As part of their usual routine, he offered her a hand so she could mount up and ride behind him. As normal, she ignored it. Walking suited her just fine; she was faster than the horse anyways and didn't want to be above the rest of the group.

"We are making good time." Major noted after a few minutes of silent travel.

"Better than I had hoped for. We are probably only a little more than a week away. We should see the valley entrance late tomorrow." Bee responded. They both already knew this and were just passing the time, but she found chatting with the man was easy once he had relaxed. When they got to the castle, she would have to introduce him to Tony; she was certain they would either be best friends or hate each other.

"I think we will make it before it snows at this rate."

"As long as the rain doesn’t come. If it muddies the roads and slows us down, we’ll fall short. That shouldn't be too likely though."

"With talk like that you’ll bring Desu Vault's wrath down on us." Major groaned, running a gloved hand down his face.

"No. Void will protect us for sure."

—-

Attaching the pulleys was a lot harder than I had expected it to be. The top of the wall was solid stone; when I was placing it, I hadn't left any place for it to attach.

I could bore a hole in the wall for the axle to slot into, but I really didn't want to damage the nice stone I had put so much effort into setting up just right. But when I tried to just weigh the axle down with a loose rock, everything came crashing down.

Zipping through the air, I caught each bit of debris before anyone could get hurt. Pulling back, I decided that I needed to reevaluate how I was going about this problem.

Really, I needed to prop the door up and then lean it into the slots for me to put the hinges into position. The problem was that it was too heavy, and the solution for that didn't have a good way to mount it.

If I had an extra block, I would be able to add a temporary one with a hole in it at the top to attach the pulleys too, but I had used them all in rebuilding the gate towers. I stopped. Wait. I didn't need it to be the same blocks that were in the towers to start with. Instead, I could go get a new block.

This revelation got me quite excited. It could also solve my other worry about the block not being secure enough, so I just needed something bigger and heavier to keep it in place.

Exiting the city, I made my way a little into the forest in search of a nice, large, dense boulder that I could cut down to the right size and bore some holes in. There were lots of options, but none were quite big enough for my purposes near the treeline. I moved further in.

Soon enough, the sky was 56 % obscured by the sticklike branches and needle-like foliage of tall trees. While I was searching in the darker undergrowth, I came across a fairly unnatural clearing. In it, stood a very messy sight that seemed to have many fancy symbols drawn in the dirt with black liquid.

These didn’t look anything like the symbols around the castle demons, nor like standard language. Hm. Remembering the fiasco with the demons when I first came to this world, I decided to leave fancy drawings alone unless I knew what they were for. It rankled to leave a mess like that though, so I marked its location in my memory. Perhaps I could come back and ask Beatrice if she had any idea what it was.

Moving on, it didn't take me long to find a large granite boulder. It was already slightly block-shaped, so I only needed to cut it down a little. When I was done, the new sharp-edged rectangular prism was four feet high, eight feet wide, and twelve feet long. It was just about the dimensions of the top of the tower.

I had originally made it taller, but that was too heavy for me to lift, so I had to shave a few inches at a time off the top until I was confident that I would be able to get it to the top of the tower safely. If I dropped this thing, anyone around me could get seriously hurt by flying bits of crushed rocks. I should really insist that anyone near my work areas should wear rigged helmets with padding in them to prevent head trauma. Humans needed their brains to be in working conditions.

Thinking over a few other safety protocols I considered enforcing, I made my way back to the city. The large block floated slowly along behind me.

When I reached the edge of the forest, I could see some of the soldiers pointing in my direction and shouting over the wall. A few moments later, there was a thundering of hooves as several riders streamed out of the still-missing gates.

As the riders approached me, they were able to make out more than just the giant block of stone floating along the ground. They circled around behind me as I continued forward.

"Uhh, Lord Void?" The leader asked in a tentative voice. "What is the rock for?"

I didn't have high hopes for the man understanding me, but I tried anyway. Pointing at the gates, then the top of the tower, I beeped out an explanation. Watching the man with my Advanced Sensors, I saw him turn toward the squad and shrug. Then he waved to the people on the wall.

We continued a little way further in silence, the horsemen choosing to trot alongside me instead of rushing back into the city.

Once I got inside, I didn't waste any time lifting the block into place. Then I removed my improved pulleys from my dustbin and slotted them into the series of holes I had pre-drilled.

It was a little more effort getting the rope fully threaded through correctly, as Air Manipulation was a lot easier to use on stiff things, but I managed it. I tied the rope into place and started to pull.

Quickly I found out the major difference between lifting things and hoisting them. I wasn't nearly heavy enough for this task, even with the pulley doing a lot of the work for me. Popping out a few of the heavier things from my dustbin, I adjusted my weight, and slowly the door began to tilt off the ground. To assist and make sure I had good control over the movement, I helped lift with my Air Manipulation.

Right as the sun reached its zenith, the gate was hanging as vertically as the pulley system would allow. It only took a few more moments to get everything lined up and the hinge pins slotted in. Now just one more.

When both gates were hung, I let out a small cheer, pumping my arm like I had seen some of the soldiers do. I assumed that it was a sign of celebration and I was apparently right. Others on the wall and below it joined in on the cheer. Apparently, there was something universally fascinating about moving large things.

My moving of the stones had drawn a good amount of attention when I first started it, before everyone got bored and back on track with other projects. But the gates were apparently new and interesting, as it felt like most of the city was watching.

While I had everyone's attention, I wanted to show them that the gates worked again, so I rolled up to them and pushed them open one at a time. On perfectly balanced hinges, they swung open with very little force. Well, little for me.

Scanning the crowd, I found Arthur standing just inside the doorway of a nearby building, also watching the completed project.

Now that I finished this task, I should probably go see how else I could help.