All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 173: Unexpected Showers

Getting my domain to work the way I wanted was a bit harder than I had expected. When I had fixed particular parts of the castle before, I just told it to focus on repairing certain areas. Now though, I was trying to get it to do something precise.

Having it simply create a hole clearly wasn't working. So I went back to my original idea of better altering the composition of the rock so that it was more dense, thus giving space for the liquid to escape. Clearly much easier.

My plan worked almost as well as I had expected. The shaft that it created wasn't perfectly straight, but it gracefully followed the natural curves of the rock formation. I suppose that was good enough. More orderly in a kind of way, too. Just because things weren't straight didn't mean they weren't clean. The natural density of the rock was more important than a straight shaft.

As soon as the endpoint of the shaft connected to the reservoir, it created an escape path for the pressurized liquid. The searing hot substance exploded out of it. With less interference blocking my sensors, I could determine that the underground reservoir's contents were simple water. Very, very hot water. In fact, the only reason it wasn't boiling was because it was under so much pressure. The pressure that I had just released.

I was starting to regret my previous assessment of the quality of this idea.

All that bottled-up liquid needed somewhere to go and go it did. Moving at 71.4 miles per hour, the water shot straight up out of the ground, rising high into the sky and fanning out over the entire camp.

It seemed that I had created a fountain. Except, this fountain didn't have a basin or anything at its it's base, so it was making quite a mess. I quickly looked for some way to contain the water but didn't find anything.

The humans around me, for once, acted rationally and yelled about the mess that was being made. Many of them got out of the way of the falling water before it hit, but some didn't and further became upset about getting soaked.

I thrust my mop into the jet of water, and temporarily, the flow ceased. It wasn't long before it soon overwhelmed the ability of my mop to soak it up, shooting past with as much force as before. Retracting the appendage, I quickly wrung it out and extended it again. After a few repetitions, my mop managed to block most of the water, and the flow eventually slowed down to a steady burble.

Even though the flow slowed down, that wasn't to say that it stopped entirely. The hot liquid kept flowing like a small fountain from the earth below; it just didn't blast into my mop at full force. That was more acceptable. There didn't seem to be an end to the flowing water, unfortunately. As much as I mopped, it just kept spilling across the ground and seeping into the dirt around my wheels. But the immediate danger of the mess was dealt with, at least.

After a few minutes of this, I began to think that the flow would never end. I started considering ways to seal the hole back up, but did I even have a way to do that? I didn't think so.

I inspected the liquid more closely. The water appeared to contain a surprisingly high concentration of minerals. However, it certainly wasn't the missing oil I was looking for. What a waste.

Eventually, I managed to reduce the flow to a bare trickle. It would have to do for now. Frustrated at the nearly catastrophic mess I had unleashed, I rolled away from where I made my hole. I spun in a quick circle to get most of the water off me, and my various other functions took care of the rest. After I was dry, I joined the humans crowding around the tiny puddle in the center of their camp.

I had done what I could. There were still soldiers around with soaked clothing and a few spots of dampness around the camp that I needed to take care of. That wouldn't be too hard to deal with. Still, I was concerned about the camp's new fountain.

My domain worked on putting things in more order, but I wasn't sure how I would make the rock more ordered than it already was. I supposed I could easily widen the hole I was creating, but now that I had envisioned that as more orderly than it was previously, I didn't think I could undo what I had done. Maybe we'd have to live with the little trickle for now.

—-

Bee stared at Gertrude in shock and felt the need to clarify again. "I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you correctly. Do you want me to leave the children sick?"

The old crone let out a breath and shrugged her shoulders. "In essence, yes. But it's not like I want you to leave all the children sick and dying all of the time. You see, you're healing all the children, even the ones that don't need it.

"That's understandable. You've never had a kid, obviously. Likely don't have that much experience with babies, either. Many of these mothers don't know the difference between a life-threatening illness and a common cold, and they'll come to you for any little runny nose they see. But most things babies will just get over. They're tough. And it's important that they do, that we let them get over it themselves if they can. It helps build strength.

"From my experience, if a child is treated too much with alchemy products, they will have a generally weak Constitution stat. I've never been able to prove that with numbers, 'course. Scan is so rare that it's hard to test. But I think getting sick is a large part of a child's development." Gertrude finished in a characteristically direct manner, leaning on her cane.

Bee didn't respond right away. Instead, she considered Gertrude's words. The old woman was correct; she didn't know much, if anything, about babies. But her system theory was pretty decent, and that wasn't even taking into account her age. It was very possible that the developmental stage, where stats were gained naturally before one's first level, would rely on things like overcoming sickness to determine Constitution.

Whether people's Constitution was shown by getting over illnesses or they were being awarded more Constitution for overcoming diseases… it was a bit of an unsolvable paradox.

"Hmmm, that is an interesting point." Bee conceded. "I could see that being the case. However, I'm not sure what I can do about it. I can't just tell the moms that their baby isn't sick, or that they'll have to fend for themselves when they clearly don't." Bee said. But before Gertrude could say anything, she continued. "Also, you're right I don't know anything about babies. I would have no idea which ones would recover on their own and which ones would need my help."

"Oh, I don't think you need to worry about either of those things. A lot of us old people know a thing or two about babies. We can help bring the ones to you that really need healing and let the mothers know why. Of course, if we're wrong, you should always be able to step in later. Besides I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than spending it all brewing potions for a bunch of worrywart mothers."

Gertrude's last point definitely rang home for Beatrice. She had been spending a lot of her time and ingredients brewing recently. She was close to running out on many things she had brought from the castle. Things that weren't necessarily easy to replace. If she could minimize that without any real harm being done, then it would be great. Her time, though… well, it had kept her busy. What else would she do with more time?

By now, everyone was pretty used to the routine of walking and setting up camp. The only thing she needed to do was kind of be there. Just her standing around and supervising seemed to give everyone a bit of comfort. But really, did she ever have to tell anyone what to do anymore? After the first few people understood their place in the caravan's management, for the most part, the group worked as a well-oiled machine. Most of her time recently was spent just talking to Captain Major because they were the only two who shared the burden of command.

Bee agreed to Gertrude's suggestion. That left her with the unenviable task of finding something else useful to do. Sighing, she supposed that she had one more thing in common with Captain Major now.

—

Arthur followed at a jog behind the slightly panicked man. They made their way toward the center of the camp, where a large crowd was milling. It seemed that the disturbance still hadn't gone away.

A few quick shouts and the crowd parted enough for him to walk through. In the center of the camp was now a small steamy pond that kept growing.

"Did anyone see what happened?" Arthur asked. He wasn't so sure that really anything happened, but a spring just appearing out of nowhere seemed rather unlikely.

The soldiers exchanged looks with each other briefly before one tentatively raised his hands. "Uh. Sir I don't know if anything happened. A huge geyser of water spurted from the ground, then it sort of stuttered, and… Now there's a puddle. Lord Void was here when it started. It seemed like he stopped it from shooting into the sky the whole time. I'm not sure what else he did though."

Of course, it was Lord Void, Arthur thought. So it didn't make any sense why. Had it really been that there was a geyser or natural spring under the camp the whole time, and it just happened to erupt right when Void was nearby? The odds of that seemed fairly unlikely. But he also didn't understand why the deity would do this if it had been done intentionally.

Looking around, he saw a little black disc sitting among the soldiers. No one else seemed to notice it. At the moment, it was actually sitting between someone's legs.

"Lord Void?" Arthur called over to the black disc with a hint of a bow.

The soldiers all around him jumped. They obviously hadn't realized that the god was still amongst them. Within half a second, a free space had cleared up around the area where it said. Void turned to look at Arthur before giving a small beep, followed by another series of sharp noises that he didn't quite understand.

How was he going to get the story out of Void? Would Void be willing to write it down for him? Well, might as well ask. But at the same time, maybe out in the open wasn't the place for this. "Would you mind accompanying me?"

Arthur was well aware that he couldn't give Void orders. But this was as close as he could get to telling the god what he wanted while still having it remain a request. Luckily the little godling didn't have any problems following him back to his tent.

Once they were better situated, Arthur sent his aide to speak to his lieutenant. He would have to continue the interrogations alone. Arthur had full confidence in the man's ability to get the truth out with or without his help. When he got a chance, he would read a report and join if needed. But for now, whatever was going on here was more important.

"So… what happened?" Arthur asked the black disc that alighted on his desk.

Void let out a few familiar beeps before eventually just picking up the quill and finding some scrap paper. In large blocky letters, it wrote out a message. "No oil. Hot water underground came up."

Arthur leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. So it was a geyser. He wasn't sure why Void used such simple words and wrote in such short sentences, but he was sure there was likely a reason. It didn't seem lazy or anything, but perhaps it was just expedient. The blocky letters kind of reminded him what a child would write they were first learning. He pushed the likely blasphemous thought out of his mind for the moment.

"So, you just happened to be around when a new geyser formed?"

Void moved side to side, shaking his claw horizontally. Was that no?

"I'm sorry you're going to have to explain a little bit more. I'm not sure I understood that."

The little black disk seemed to slump slightly as it picked up the quill once more.