All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 89: The Pursuit of Cleanliness

Beatrice was trying not to cry for the second time that day. At the same time, she was trying not to put her fist through the wall. Self-control was harder than she thought. The only thing that kept the table in front of her in one piece was the thought of Void's disappointment with the mess it would make.

When she saw her master start comforting Felix, her heart clenched. When Felix said, Void was cute, a cold rush washed through her. Void had put up with Tony's antics, but she never really knew how benevolent it was. She had just been able to relax on that front, as Tony had started treating her master with more respect after the fight with the Lieutenant. Now a new person was coming along to upset that stability.

Still, Felix was a child and a very fragile one at that. She could only hope that Void would take pity on him and continue being its benevolent self. Putting the matter aside, she started thinking about what she wanted to do next. Tony was right. They needed to get to his family as soon as possible. She just hoped it wasn't already too late.

Once that thought crossed her mind, she knew she needed to act right now. There was only one thing that had kept her alive in the past three months. Well, two things, really. Void's mercy and her willingness to act. When she needed to, she moved, and there was no time to change that.

Standing up, Bee moved over to her pack and started putting away her alchemy equipment.

"What are you doing, Bee?" Tony asked.

"Getting ready to leave. If I head out now and run, I can reach your family's farm by morning. Stay inside the library until I get back. The front door is still broken." Bee answered over her shoulder.

"You can't go by yourself!" Tony explained. "What if there are a lot more zombies out there?"

"I can deal with them. Void gave me an upgrade." Bee said as she picked up her broom, showing Tony the new tip. "I'll be fine. I'm more worried about you."

Bee moved to leave the library, but Void appeared, blocking her path. "Master, please. I need to go. Tony is too injured to come, and Felix needs to recover."

Still, Void didn't move. "Look, I know I struggled with three zombies, but with these broom improvements, I won't have the same issues."

Void let out an insistent beep.

---

I wasn't about to let Beatrice go out on her own. I didn't care how much better she would be with her improved broom. I didn't care how much it risked. Tony was cool and all, but I wasn't about to risk losing my human. So she could wait till the morning, and we would all go together.

These particular bad humans seemed to be called zombies. If they were already here, surely they had already passed the place with Tony's family. Either we were too late, or they were doing fine.

I tried to explain this to Beatrice, but she was insistent on not listening. Eventually, Tony understood what I was getting at, and I received some support. Eventually, we convinced her there was no point in leaving now as she couldn't bring them back in the dark anyway. We would head out first thing tomorrow and bring them back the same day.

It wasn't until Felix joined in and asked her to stay and protect him that she finally gave in. I was pretty sure Felix didn't understand how fragile Beatrice was since he had just watched her fight three humans much larger than her. But I knew better; Beatrice was one wrong step from breaking again. She had to be repaired so often that I would be questioning her factory's quality assurance standards if I hadn't seen so many other things here be just as poorly constructed. This castle was the only exception.

Still, who would have ever thought I would have to deal with a group of strange humans invading my home? Certainly not me. Humans were weird.

***

True to our word, we all headed out at first light the next morning. Beatrice had already been up for a couple of hours making sure that we could leave the second the sun broke the horizon. She was carrying most of the group's things in her pack, allowing Tony to walk with his crutch and Felix to be unencumbered.

As the sun broke over the horizon, she put me down at the bottom of the stairs leading down from the entrance of the castle. I wasn't exactly ecstatic to be on the dirty cobblestone again, but I supposed it was fine. As I moved, the stones began to subtly straighten themselves and level off. The surface smoothed out to the point where it would be much easier to roll over if it continued. Sadly the process wasn't fast enough to keep up with me. But it was 0.7% more even when I reached the next lip.

This made the travel slightly more bearable. Only a few times did I need to boost myself over an obstacle. I was so focused on the path in front of me that I wasn't paying attention to the others, but I was sure that they would be fine.

---

Bee was still fuming about being made to wait a day. The one thing she hadn't seemed to make Tony understand was that it would take them most of the day to get there, and then they still wouldn't be able to come back that day. No matter what, they would need to spend a night at the farm. Waiting till morning only costs them a day.

As worried as Tony was, he was still pragmatic about the situation. He pointed out that if they were going to stay at the castle, they needed to finish their harvest to avoid everyone starving. Plus, they probably would have to make a couple of trips to transport all the farm's stuff anyways. Since they wouldn't have the pack animal trains to bring everything in one go, someone would have to go back and forth. Having additional hands helping with that would save more time than leaving Tony and Felix behind. She didn't want to admit that he had a point. She had a thousand arguments about why that was unnecessary. But in the end, her master's insistence won her over. She couldn't go against Void's wishes.

Felix asking for her to stay certainly didn't play a role.

As they stepped through the arch of the outer wall's gate, Bee turned around to look back at the castle that had been her home for the past five months. This was only the second time she had left it, and she was going to the same place. Yet somehow, she was a completely different person. There had been so many horrible things that had happened to her here, yet she couldn't imagine wanting it any different.

Stepping out this time, she knew so much more. That the old legends were real. That her master could kill what even the ancients or gods or whatever had failed to. That she had learned real magic. And that there was magic just below her feet that the mages of today deemed impossible. When she had a chance, she needed to go and examine the spellwork down in the catacombs again.

That reminded her. She still needed to look into the book in the odd script that she had found own there, along with the pendant. After they had gotten back to the surface, the earth demons and preparing for the Lieutenant's awakening had taken all her focus. She would take the time to research those properly as soon as they were all safe. There were still so many things she needed to learn properly.

Seeing Void roll between her legs and somehow hop over the eight-inch gap left for the portcullis brought her back to the present. As far as she knew, this was the furthest that her master had gone from the castle as well. She was by no means certain that the world was ready for it.

Looking back along the path from the main entrance, she could see exactly where Void had gone as those stones had leveled out a bit to make a more level path. Yeah, the world was not ready.

---

After I hopped over the little moat, I landed on the dirt. Not dirty stones, just bare dirt. I shuddered. This trip might be harder than I thought. I crept along as slowly as I could, letting the dirt firm up underneath me. Watching the others pull away, I realized I wasn't moving nearly quickly enough to satisfy Beatrice's quick pace.

If the others weren't completely unburdened, I didn't think they would be able to keep up either. I forced myself to move faster into the loose dirt. This only went on for a few hundred yards before Beatrice stopped. Finally, solid ground. Then she turned off and walked into the trees.

At first, I couldn't tell what she was doing, but soon I made out a narrow trail. This wasn't going to work at all. There were roots blocking my path. The tiny strip of packed earth was barely six inches wide. At least one of my wheels was going to be in straight dirt. I was only grateful that it hadn't rained recently. Otherwise, things might have gotten really nasty really quickly.

Just as I was considering how to burn a path wide enough for me to follow, I felt small hands pick me up. Felix cradled me to his chest. "Don't worry, Mr. Void, I can carry you."

It wasn't the most dignified way to be carried, but I wouldn't complain. I profusely thanked the little boy, who just smiled at me. "We can't have you getting dirty!"

Then he was trotting off after Beatrice and Tony. As we caught up, Beatrice noticed my new accommodations in Felix's arms. "Do you want me to carry you, master?"

No, I'm happy here, I told her with a beep. She looked overburdened as it was. A look of relief flashed across her face, "If you get tired, Felix, let me know, and I can take over for a bit."

"I can do it!" Felix said. I liked the spunk on this kid, but still, I would prefer not to be dropped. We set off in earnest. We made a pretty good time, but honestly, I didn't notice. I was too wrapped up in observing the scenery. I had never seen so many plants! It was as if someone had stacked a house plant on top of more house plants. It was amazing that any of them could get enough sun to survive.

My sensors were giving me a wash of different information about everything we passed. There was so much of it that even my massively improved processor was not able to keep up, and I was dropping records constantly before I managed to store it all in my memory banks. The sheer amount of variables was just overwhelming, the incredible amount of life. And all the dirt!

The dirt was endless. Even the occasional rock that broke up the endless amount of dirt was disorganized. I could even see the material of a few plants being broken down to form more dirt! How did humans ever create something as amazing as clean, polished marble floors when this is what they had to start with?

Maybe I was starting to give the humans here too little credit if they managed to accomplish such impressive tasks. I mean, they still didn't have anything on my humans from back home, but they were a little impressive nonetheless.