Author: Zaifyr
Date: 2024-02-06 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Humour; Science Fiction
Description: Follow this wholesome vacuum on his quest to power in All the Dust that Falls 2, Book 2 in a hilarious Isekai LitRPG Series that will make you question what it means to be a hero.

ALL THE DUST THAT FALLS 2

©2024 ZAIFYR

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.

Aethon Books supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact editor@aethonbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Aethon Books
www.aethonbooks.com

Print and eBook formatting and design by Josh Hayes. Artwork provided by Luciano Fleitas.

Published by Aethon Books LLC.

Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

Also In Series

1. Tabula Rasa

2. Heavenly Ascent

3. Falling in Place

4. Good Clean Fun

5. Assisted Living

6. Dirty Work

7. The Pursuit of Cleanliness

8. Live, Laugh, Love

9. Reaper’s Scythe

10. Sleeping Like the Dead

11. Dead Tired

12. Terror on the Prairie

13. What Lies Below

14. My Life for the Horde

15. A Bone to Pick

16. The Last Word

17. Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

18. Funny Bones

19. Reap What You Sow

20. Kill Them with Kindness

21. Divide and Conquer

22. Old Haunts

23. Swept Up in the Moment

24. The Black Parade

25. Little Monsters

26. Housekeeping

27. Children of the Void

28. No Leg to Stand On

29. Sermon on the Mound

30. Fine Dining

31. Kidding Around

32. Base Building 101

33. Meditation and Fabrication

34. Threads of Fate

35. Amazing Graze

36. The Circle of Life

37. His Cleanliness

38. Growth and Decay, Life Cycle

39. A Sheepless Night

40. Herding Cats

41. Rocket Science

42. Slice of Life

43. Nighty Knight

44. Lost and Found

45. Reasonably Sized Dogs

46. Dogpile

47. Wings of Liberty

48. Sheep’s Clothing

49. House Training

50. The Showdown

51. Mends and Amends

52. Halp

53. Everything in Order

54. Pulling it Together

55. Cult of the Doomba

56. The Sweeping Society

57. Dressing Down

58. The Night is Young

59. We Have Company

60. Knight’s Watch

61. May You Always Find Shelter and Shade

62. Trouble Brewing

63. Careful What You Wish For

64. Winter is Coming

65. Demonic Pact

66. Big Game Hunting

67. Welcome to Summoner’s Rift

68. Paladin of Spot

69. Disease Carrier

70. I Can Fix It

71. A Whole New World

72. Stemming the Tide

73. The Wheels on the Bus

74. A Wholesome and Friendly God

75. Totally Not a Cult

76. A Ghost of a Chance

77. Specter of Doubt

78. Avoiding the Problem

Thank you for reading All the Dust that Falls 2

Groups

LitRPG

ALSO IN SERIES

ALL THE DUST THAT FALLS

All the Dust that Falls

All the Dust that Falls 2

All the Dust that Falls 3

Check out the entire series here! (Tap or scan)

CHAPTER 1

TABULA RASA

Roscoe sprinted down the long tunnel looking for his god. As he ran, fueled by the unending energy of his belief, he crossed paths with the tiny human that also served his master. The one whose scent he had been tracking. She herself was running up the tunnel with a vigor that rivaled Roscoe's own. He could only assume that their god had given her a mission.

Out of respect for the wishes of their god, he made no move to intercept her, despite wanting to ask about the latest commands from on high. Instead, he continued to work his way down, following the trail the tiny human had left. Surely it would lead to the master. Actually, he considered, perhaps he shouldn't be calling her tiny human, but rather Senior Sister. She had been his god's servant longer than himself.

Continuing down the winding passage, Roscoe's mind began to wander. He tried to imagine what kind of task the great disc would ask of him. The last time he had been called upon, he was asked to remove some unwanted humans. It would probably be something similar again. As much as Roscoe's god was merciful, it was also vengeful. It was a dichotomy that he thus far had struggled to understand the balance of.

A god that was kind enough to give him a second chance, even after failing, but still willing to send his disciples to slaughter all those who opposed it. A powerful being indeed.

Roscoe's thoughts were interrupted as he noticed an archway up ahead. He would have to meditate on this more in his free time. For now, he needed to find his next task.

Eventually, Roscoe emerged from the end of the tunnel into a huge room. He could see empty cubbies all along each of the huge walls. In the center, a few skeletons stood in neat ranks, seemingly waiting for something. Immediately Roscoe felt a kinship with these guardians. He could feel their purpose rolling off them in palpable waves.

As much as he admired their dedication, something was wrong with it. It was directed at the wrong thing. As Roscoe entered the chamber and approached the skeletons, one of them jovially clattered its teeth. The sound had a surprising depth and complexity to it. So much, in fact, that it seemed to communicate something along the lines of, "Ho, a fellow traveler. Yet you are not as weak as our younger brethren that wander so lost down here. Would you care to explain why you move with such haste?"

Roscoe came to a halt next to the group. He hadn't yet found his master yet, but he could feel his will as though he were right next to him. It seemed almost as if his god were talking to him, commanding him to spread the word of his coming. These skeletons seemed like fine individuals, yet they didn't understand. Roscoe would have no problem explaining it to them.

Well, he would have had no problem if he were able to speak. He had only ever squeaked at humans, and they never seemed to understand him. He tried to strain his vocal cords to form some sort of language, yet nothing of the sort came out. Only the accursed squeaking of his kind emerged. Still, if the skeletons could communicate in such a strange manner, perhaps they could understand his own strange manner of speech.

"If we can communicate, I would love to explain my purpose to you and your companions. Can you understand me?" Roscoe inquired through a series of squeaks and squeals.

"With ease, my friend. Thy words are smooth as the breeze and as clear as a thrice-stilled pond," the lead skeleton assured him. Roscoe twitched his tail happily.

"Then let me tell you my story."

Roscoe began explaining his life from before his time with his god. It was hazy, and he wasn't sure he was getting all the details correct, but the gist was clear enough. The skeletons all listened, enraptured. After describing how he came to find himself in the great void of his master's domain, there were murmurs from his audience.

The rat cocked his head questioningly. "This part of my story seems to have struck a chord with you."

One of the other skeletons responded, its teeth emitting a deeper and more gravelly set of sounds. "Aye. We too found ourselves in a grave darkness, did we. Though for my fellows and myself, that was the genesis of our awareness. If ye speak truth, and we've no cause to doubt, ye may be able to enlighten us of our greater purpose."

Roscoe didn't have any issues understanding these skeletons, though they did speak rather oddly. Slowly he found himself slipping into similar speech patterns as he learned to communicate in this new way. Still, he resisted completely copying their mannerisms, as he didn't wish them to think he was mocking them. "If you don't mind me asking, what is your purpose?"

The skeletons quickly chattered amongst themselves. Eventually, a skeleton with a gold tooth spoke up. "I have no qualms admitting my ignorance. Ye fellows must be true to thyselves." It turned to Roscoe. "Our purpose is a murky thing. There is some unknown will driving us, yet little do we understand of it. We sit here to guard this place, true, yet have no understanding why."

"So you all just guard this?" Roscoe asked, gesturing around to the room they were standing in with his tail. He received nods all around and muttered agreement.

One of the other skeletons spoke up. "As a whole, we also feel great distaste for demons!"

This pronouncement garnered a few cheers and many a raised skeletal fist. Roscoe thought of his time in the world of his god. Of how he contended with the captured demons. "Well, as luck would have it, I might indeed have something to share with you.

"My purpose might just fit with yours. I am the second servant of a god. A god whose void I was once suspended within. During my time there, my god showed me many things. And there was indeed one thing I learned in particular—his own contempt for demons. In fact, he imprisoned many, and they feared his wrath." Roscoe was really starting to get into a groove as he recounted the demons that had raged at their imprisonment.

After Roscoe finished telling his tale, he looked around at the skeletons. At some point during the telling, they had taken seats in a ring around him. The gold-toothed skeleton was the first to break the silence. "I find it blatantly obvious. This god of yours is clearly the god for us."

Before Roscoe could celebrate bringing the word of his god to his first converts, a new skeleton spoke up. "Nay, I say—must needs we cling unto a god? Are we yet so desperate for direction and an iron fist around our throats? Our bodies be possessed of enough gaps that I see no need to pursue yet another type of holiness. Why shall we not goeth down our own wandering path?"

Roscoe thought that this discussion was getting a little out of hand. Still, it was fascinating. He knew he had his god, but why was it so? The first skeleton responded before Roscoe could, "I think thou art approaching it wrong. Why must we speak of need? Is it not enough to simply have? We lack purpose and require direction, a goal to take aim at."

Before the discussion continued, Roscoe jumped in. "Is my god the god for you? I don't think this question is one that matters. Clearly your interests align with those of following the void. It will oppose the demons you hate and will give you purpose beyond guarding this tomb."

There was a moment of silence that didn't last very long before an explosion of side conversation. Roscoe had several different questions thrown at him. Exulting in the opportunity to speak at length of his god, he began to speak of what he had seen and experienced again. This time, instead of just listening to a simple recounting, they dug deep into the meaning behind the actions. They tried to decipher the hidden messages the god of the void tried to convey to him.

The discussion ran long. For many days they sat in the circle and debated. Eventually, even the more skeptical skeletons came around. By the end of the first week, they had come to a basic consensus. The god of the void was worth at least the basic courtesy of some level of service out of appreciation for waking them from endless darkness.

The conservative estimate on their service was a century, though Roscoe was pushing for that to be more. Of course, many would serve longer, but would be free to go their own way after the agreed-upon period. When asked, the proponents of freedom didn't really have any plans. Mostly, they felt that voluntary service was more meaningful. Roscoe had some sympathy for that argument but worried that same position would shield ingrates from having to give proper deference.

Seeing that they had reached an impasse, Roscoe moved to table the motion and discuss plans going forward.

His experience with humans so far had greatly colored his opinion of them. To his surprise, the skeletons were in full support of the eradication of all humans not following their god.

One of the skeletons chattered thoughtfully, "Aye. I think we can all get behind the extermination project. Sounds like these humans need a lesson or two. My only question is about the exceptions. Some of them might follow our god, right? Well, how do we tell? From what you say, the believers don't have any official regalia."

Roscoe needed to start naming these skeletons, who were starting to get less difficult to distinguish. As they talked, each one developed their own personality more and more. They even had different speech patterns. The last one who spoke had almost modern diction.

One of the more "fire and brimstone" skeletons answered, "I say with all surety that such individuals should make themselves plain. If such a question doeth arise, we should err on the side of fury. A true believer surely will fall on the mercy of our god for protection."

"Who art thou to thus burden our god unceasingly! Is it not our calling to serve with all our might? Must we so quickly abandon such a simple task?" Roscoe had decided on the name of Saul for this one. The fire and brimstone one would be Peter.

"If the question does come up, I think we can take each case as it comes. If they attack us…" Roscoe decided now was a good time to jump in. His word wasn't law. The only law was the word from the void. For now, he was more of a first among equals. His voice was listened to, but it was still questioned. The group settled into a debate.

Occasionally a new skeleton would join them from the depths. As they argued and debated, the new ideas helped them hone their reasoning. As their arguments grew stronger, so did their faith and fervor.

Eventually, they could feel something stirring above them. Something tugged on their souls, and to them, it was clear their god was calling them to service. Now that the majority of debate was settled, their group started to make its way to the surface.

When they got there, they found that they were not needed quite yet. They retreated down the last set of stairs to wait. For the first time in a long time, the philosophical discussion was stalled out. Instead, they focused on trying to figure out what they were called to do.

Saul thought there was some enemy that they would be facing. Peter, though, believed there would be some inciting incident that would kick off the crusade. These two had developed distinct factions, each maybe getting consistently about 25 percent agreement on a course of action.

The rest of the group was independent. Roscoe tried to stay clear of picking sides in a debate, but rather tried to give the gray areas some attention and overall guide the discussion. Because of his neutrality, he acted as an arbiter, many times diffusing a near-shouting match.

This time though, Roscoe had to agree with Peter. "I'm of the opinion that when we feel the final call, we should assess the threats and deal with whatever our god currently is not addressing. Be that fighting off a specific enemy as ordered or anything else."

The call came quickly. Huge waves of power rippled from above them as they felt their god engage in battle. They rushed up the tunnel and stairs. It took them a while, and Roscoe cursed them for not having camped closer to the exit. After what felt like an age, they finally reached the surface.

When they finally did emerge, Roscoe smelled what was going on before he saw it. Inside the castle, he could tell that the Senior Sister stood alongside another human acolyte assisting their god. Outside, there was a large gathering of humans. Ones that were approaching the castle.

"We need to check outside. There are humans coming," Roscoe announced. The group agreed, following the rat's lead into the courtyard. As they did, many of their missing brethren flew through the front door, splintering it.

As the newly arrived skeletons reformed, Roscoe started conversing with the ones that were intact enough to listen. They told a story similar to that of Roscoe, though abridged due to the situation. That the god of the void swallowed them, they saw the imprisoned demons, they had been given power, and then they were set loose on an enemy of the god. This time, though, it was a massive demon that they were fighting.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that they all had a lot in common. Especially since Roscoe didn't have the time to launch into discussions like those that his friends had been having in the last few weeks. It only took a couple of minutes to get them on board with the human genocide, especially with an army of humans moving to attack their god's castle directly.

Soon enough, the skeletons were all reformed. Without wasting any time, they charged forth to go impose the will of their god upon the world.

CHAPTER 2

HEAVENLY ASCENT

I was devastated. When I went to trundle back into the castle, I found that the collapse of the entryway had destroyed the ramps. It had also gotten most of the stairs too, but I wasn't too concerned about that. I did my best to ignore the devastation around me, which was a sad sight to see. The careful beauty of this castle was in tatters.

As I mourned for the art, I faced a larger issue. How was I going to get back inside with no ramps? I still didn't know what had happened to Beatrice yet, but I couldn't imagine she was undamaged. That last explosion had sent everything flying.

Approaching the stairs, I did have one option. It was relatively untested. I activated my latest mutation, and the boosters flared to life, gently pushing me off the ground. I gave an inadvertent beep of excitement. This might actually work!

Adjusting the nozzles, I tried to direct myself up the stairwell. However, I had misjudged the height and simply ended up bouncing off the bottom step. This collision sent me careening backward, and I lost control of my stability. Wobbling, I started to tip backward.

In a panic, I overcorrected and ended up flipping myself forward and landing on my back on the bottom step. By the most nitpicking definition ever, this was technically progress, but not how I wanted to get upstairs. Extending my arm, I pushed against the ground to flip myself over. However, due to the angle and the width of the step, I only succeeded in pushing myself off the bottom step and back down to the ground.

After righting myself with no small measure of embarrassment, I decided to experiment with the thrusters once more. I tried lifting off and hovering. This time I didn't immediately go for the steps, but just practiced moving around and pushing up and down slightly. It seemed like I could hover at a maximum height of 4.56 inches at full power. Once I had a better handle on my new abilities, I very carefully hovered toward the stairs. This time as I moved to the stairs, I made it over the lip!

I celebrated with a small cheer. This was it. I could conquer my oldest and most heinous foe. Never again would the wonders of my home be inaccessible to me. I was unstoppable. I could go wherever I pleased! I could climb every stairwell! Ford every gap! I could even—

As soon as my first thruster made it onto the stair, my front half shot up again. The bottom step was too close for this level of thrust, and the sudden difference in force was many times what I was expecting. I rocked back a bit but was unable to stabilize before I flipped again. Okay, maybe I wasn’t completely unstoppable yet.

Backing up, I prepared for a third attempt. This time, as my front thrusters moved over the stairs, I reduced their power. I overcompensated, and instead of staying level, I tilted forward a little bit, and my front wheels landed on the step. That was fine. I could work with that.

Spinning my wheels, I carefully worked myself the rest of the way onto the step. Looking up to the next step, I realized this might be slightly harder to conquer, as I didn't have space to back up. It took a couple of tries, but I eventually figured out that if I came at it from the side, I could just get over the lip. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I was able to adjust my front thruster well enough that I didn't have to land and reorient for every step. My models were beginning to understand the physics behind this new mutation.

Once I crested the top of the final step, I plunked down on the ground. I spun around and gave a celebratory beep as I admired my progress. I climbed up the stairs all by myself! Me! Though, as proud as I was of my momentous accomplishment, I didn't want to have to do that again. The ramps were just so much better. And I couldn't even imagine going down the stairs like that. Just the thought made my wheels shiver. Yeah, I wasn't about to try that anytime soon.

Now that I had conquered the stairs, I set off to go find Beatrice.

It took a little searching, but I found that Beatrice had dragged Tony back to what remained of the library. One of the walls was caved in, and a lot of her glass equipment seemed to be in pieces. However, most of the books had survived, even if just barely. Instead of carefully organized and in their proper places, the ones that had been on the destroyed wall were now scattered about everywhere.

Honestly, I was still happy. No fires had started, and apparently enough load-bearing walls stayed upright that the ceiling was not caving in. Though the fires were a close call. I did have to consume a few little mess makers that were hot and glowing on the way here. They were like the one I saw when I had first met Beatrice, the one that attacked her so rudely. Apparently, they had escaped at some point in the last couple of hours.

Understandably, Beatrice didn't notice me right away, as I came in while she was busy tending to an unconscious Tony. Beatrice herself didn't look in amazing condition either. There were no obvious broken parts on her, but I did see lots of strangely colored splotches all over her face. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought she had been doing arts and crafts.

Rolling up to her, I gently bumped her in the leg. She jumped several feet in the air. "WHAT in the five…"

Looking down, she finally saw me. Taking a second to compose herself, she stepped back and gave me a bow. "Hello, Master."

I beeped at her to cut it out and tell me how Tony was doing. She sort of seemed to understand the message as she started telling me what had happened to her during the fight.

Bee nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt something touch her ankle. Luckily, she realized it was only Void before she did anything rash. That realization only slightly decreased her alarm. As much as she trusted her master, she had just gotten a very up-close reminder of how dangerous it was.

Void might act innocent and sweet most of the time, but with hardly any effort, it could bring the world down around it. Watching her master go toe to toe—or toe to wheel?—with one of humanity’s greatest terrors had been eye-opening. Once she'd heard the battle cease, she held her breath, but when the castle wasn't immediately obliterated by demons, she knew the outcome. What Void had been doing in the hours between then and now, she couldn't begin to guess. Probably consolidating its power or something.

As Bee filled Void in on her side of the encounter, she continued her work trying to make more healing potions. Her equipment was shot, but she could manage the lower-level ones without it. Plus, both she and Tony had taken more powerful potions than was advisable recently. It meant they couldn't handle any more of the superior, faster-acting ones without getting sick. So some more basic ones needed brewing.

Luckily, those were the easy kind. She had considered going upstairs to see if there was any glassware that had survived in the labs, but honestly she was a bit hesitant to trust the floor's integrity yet. Perhaps Void would be willing to help her?

She looked down at her master, but it was already gone. Scanning the floor around her, she noticed Void picking through the debris and separating items into groups. It seemed that its categorization system fell into three distinct piles. One was the books it picked out and meticulously cleaned. The other was intact and mostly intact bricks. The last bit were things that it devoured.

Seeing her master engaged in its work, Bee turned back to her own. Pouring the contents of the mortar she had just finished grinding into the shattered lip of a mixing flask, she started swirling.

It had taken a couple of days of working nonstop, but I finally got the library in working condition. Well, mostly. There was still a huge gap in the wall, but all the books not on the shelves were neatly stacked in alphabetical order, and the blocks that might be usable for reconstruction had been classified.

I wasn't sure how I was going to go about fixing the walls yet, sadly. While I was cleaning up the books, I had looked for some related to building but hadn't found anything relevant. Still, I held out hope.

During my time trying to bring order to the library, Bee had mostly repaired herself and Tony. Well, I assumed Tony was mostly repaired; he had yet to be turned on again. Judging by Bee's attitude, though, things seemed to be getting better.

Once I finished ordering the library, I made my way outside and tried to get the hall cleaned up a bit. This was in much worse condition. Rolling back to categorize the damage, I could see a swath of destruction leading from the demon's containment to the exit of the castle. All along the way, the floor was damaged. The beautiful marble had been shattered by its steps and fists.

As devastating as that was, the damage was not limited to the floors alone; it was, in fact, even worse. The walls were cracked, if not outright collapsed, in many places. Each door that the big demon had charged through while chasing us had a decent amount of stone missing from each side.

I was deeply distressed. Only recently I had lamented how my newfound efficiency left me without any meaningful cleaning to do. But now…now I was faced with yet another mess the likes of which I couldn’t begin to tackle myself. It was humbling. The only thing that I could realistically do right now was clean up and salvage what I could.

Eventually, I vowed, I would set this right.

Before I could start cleaning the halls in earnest, Beatrice asked for my help getting new equipment from upstairs for Tony's treatment.

On the trip upstairs, I found many surprises. The first thing was, the ramps here were still intact. I made it up without having to use my tedious jet method. I was quite grateful for that, as it would have been rather embarrassing to have Beatrice watch me hop my way upstairs. Having her carry me might actually have been preferable to that. Still, it was ultimately unnecessary.

As we made it up the stairs, Beatrice led us to one of the closer laboratories. Inside, it looked like an earthquake had happened. I was familiar with the phenomenon—I had experienced something similar with my family before. The dishes went everywhere…

This wasn't nearly as bad, though. Mostly the tables were shifted, and things had fallen off the counters. The items in the cabinets that Beatrice needed were still intact. Once she had loaded up, we ran a quick check through the rest of the rooms on the upper floors. Everything was in order despite the enormous disturbance from downstairs.

After Beatrice had finished cleaning up a moderate-sized pile of guano at my insistence, we headed back downstairs. From there, we settled into a daily routine. I cleaned where I could and stacked everything else into neat little piles. Everything was going as well as I could have expected. Well, until something odd started happening.

Where I stayed near Beatrice while she slept, the castle was changing. I wasn't sure at first, but my sensors confirmed it. It was almost as if the holes in the walls were shrinking as the stone grew up around it.

CHAPTER 3

FALLING IN PLACE

The castle regrowing around me wasn't the only weird occurrence that I noticed. I had been organizing debris and fallen items into piles for a while now. But strangely, whenever I placed something on a pile, it was always perfectly aligned. At first, I assumed that was just due to my skill and increasing motor control. But at one point, I was in a particular rush because I knew Beatrice needed some help in a few minutes. That time, I knew I wasn't stacking the books and blocks straight at all; when I came back to that stack of blocks, though, it was all perfectly straight.

When Beatrice's alchemy equipment started organizing itself, I started looking for explanations. Something odd was going on. There were several things that I was aware of that could be causing something like this. My first suspicion was that there was some sort of like-minded creature sneaking around straightening everything up. An anti-mess maker, maybe. A kindred spirit.

I spent several days carefully scanning my surroundings while pretending like I wasn't paying attention before I finally gave up on that theory, as cool as it might have been. The other unexplained cause could be the reward I got for reaching level 50. I had been expecting another mutation, but instead, I had just been told my Domain was activated with no explanation. I supposed this castle had become my Domain, even if I didn't know what that entailed exactly.

After days of being in and around the castle, things were improving markedly. I had cleaned each floor thoroughly, and I had noticed that the stacks of salvaged bricks were slowly shrinking as if the Domain was repurposing them. Still, at this rate, it would be a long time before the castle was back to its previous splendor.

It was a couple more days before Beatrice was finally able to awaken Tony. As she kept feeding him healing potions and applying salves to his head, he kept getting better. When he finally woke up, he was very confused. His memories of me seemed a bit hazy, but he did give me a good pat before falling asleep again. The next morning, he woke up on his own.

Bee was worn down to the bone. She had barely slept more than a couple hours a day since the Lieutenant was defeated. All other hours of the day, she was trying desperately to save Tony. Things had taken a turn for the worse that first night, and with the library in disarray, it had taken her much too long to find solutions. Organ damage, brain damage, and internal bleeding were all things that were extremely difficult to heal. Those injuries required much more complicated concoctions than she had ever needed to make before.

Each one stretched her abilities, and it was only her new skill that had allowed Tony to pull through. It was the only time she had ever been grateful to the system for giving her a slew of terrible options. Repair seemed to thankfully function in a medical sense, though as the little bit of testing she had done showed, it did work on other things as well.

Repair and her Divine Alchemy had synergized and allowed her to muddle through recipes far beyond her skill level. All the while, they both made her actions more effective. Repair seemed to be especially effective in putting broken bones back together. It was the only reason Tony had even a chance at waking up again. The number of ribs at odd angles inside him, needing to be put back in place before healing could really begin, was astonishing.

Once his bones were healed, the long process of trying to restore function began. Bee hadn't slept for the first three nights before she finally passed out reading a book. By that point, Tony was still not out of trouble yet. Luckily Void had been kind enough to wake her up after a few hours.

Other than that, though, her master mostly left her to her work. It cleaned up after its fight, but even she could see it would take Void a while to restore the castle. Somehow it was magically repairing the walls as well. She had yet to catch it in the act, and at first, she was sure it was a hallucination. But now she was sure that the cracks in the floor were slowly melding together.

Now, nearly a week after the fight, Tony had finally regained consciousness. As he lay in the bed, unfocused gaze drifting around the room, his first words came out in a strained whisper. "Oh, good. We’re alive."

After confirming that he was not, in fact, dead, he fell unconscious again. Still, that was enough. Bee slumped over her bench in relief, letting exhaustion overtake her. It was just good to hear him speak. She wouldn't call Tony a father figure, as she still had a living father and enough bad memories to taint that role. Maybe he was more like a young uncle. But she had come to depend on him during the preparations for the fight. Even if he was older, he still listened to her, trusted her.

Of course, she wasn't sure how much of that was because he was just overly aware of how strong she was. Now that she had reached level 32, she was truly strong. Enough that it was hard to quantify. Honestly, if she enlisted in the military, she would be among the upper ranks, and she was still only thirteen years old!

Her strength wasn't quite superhuman yet. She might not be able to pull a plow as well as a draft horse, but she bet she could still pull it. The strength wasn't the biggest difference. All her skills were more powerful than before, and her mind was clearer. She remembered things with little effort, and she could read entire books in less than an hour.

Soon enough, Bee blinked her eyes open to a new morning. Stretching her protesting muscles, she checked on Tony to find that he was also awake.

Bee came over to check his wounds. "Hey Tony, how are you feeling?"

"Not great. Honestly, I feel like a horse kicked me through a wall," Tony answered. His voice sounded raspy from disuse.

"That's not too far from the truth, actually. I believe you went through at least one wall. Most of your ribs were broken at one point," Bee said.

Tony reached up to feel his sides gently. "Huh, doesn't feel broken, just bruised."

"You will be bruised for at least a week. I fed your body as much of every different kind of healing concoction I know about. It can't take much more for a while. There were…a few times I didn't think you would make it," Bee started to explain.

"Once you couldn't handle any more of the alpha-based potions, I needed to move on to some salves. That worked well for the most part, but unfortunately, it didn't do much for your insides. After those stopped, I had to swap to using beta-based potions. Not ideal, I know. It was hard to even find much about them; they have been outdated for so long. While they are much slower than the alpha-based ones, you can handle a bit more. Once you reached your limit on those…"

Bee trailed off as she realized that Tony had fallen asleep again. Sighing, she ran her hand down her face. Covering up a yawn, she returned to her mattress and just passed out.

After a lot of time, patience, and diligent effort, I was almost done restoring the entire castle. It was hard work, but I actually didn't do much directly anymore. All the mess was cleaned up, and all the reusable materials were organized. Just my presence seemed to be required as the castle stitched itself back together. The only thing I could actively do to speed it up was stay physically close to the damage.

Since I didn't have anything to do, I was just keeping Tony company as he recovered. Beatrice was off somewhere else in the castle. Tony gave me an odd look, as if he was trying to remember something. "Hey, you fought Nazareth'gak, right?"

Huh, what a question! I searched my memory banks, and I found an instance of Beatrice referring to something of that name. Putting it together, I assumed it was the big demon's name. It only took me a few moments to process that, and I let out an affirmative beep.

"Crazy," Tony said, his head lolling back into the pillow. "You are one scary guy."

I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so I just stayed quiet. It wasn't long before he spoke up again. "You know…I want to go home."

There were a few more minutes of silence while I tried to work out how to respond. I wanted to help Tony keep his spirits up, but I just wasn't sure how. Floors are simple; I like cleaning them. I know exactly how to take care of them. You vacuum, you mop, and sometimes you need to spray and wipe them. Humans are hard.

Humans had always done many things that had confused me. I rarely ever understood them, and their thoughts seemed so illogical.

Eventually, Tony broke into my musings as if he had never stopped talking. "Not to stay there. But I want to see my Ma. And my Pa. They should come here. There’s more than enough work, and with the demon gone, this is a safe place. Right?"

He paused for another long second. "With all the stuff I’ve seen. I'm not really sure there is anywhere else safe. Maybe they need to go to Greg. But that's too expensive."

Again, Tony paused for long seconds. As the time stretched out, I eventually gave an inquisitive beep urging him to continue. However, when I looked over at him more closely, he had fallen deep asleep again.

Roscoe led his band of skeletons after the human army. It had been too easy to chase them off, and they had not managed to kill nearly as many of them as he would have liked. As much as that was a disappointment, it was also a blessing. They simply didn't have the numbers yet. If the humans had managed to defeat them, their revolt would have ended.

Of course, even now, their numbers grew. The humans they had managed to finish were turning into undead behind them. They would be a far cry from the elite skeletons, but simple zombies had their place too.

As Roscoe led the march down the road, he looked at some of the small side trails leading off from it. He could smell the occasional group of humans down those paths. Each time he considered stopping the chase to pursue those humans, he figured that it wouldn't be worth it. There were only a small number of humans in those offshoot paths, after all, and he could always come back.

The first one also smelled of his Senior Sister, so he made a note to leave that one alone.

For now, Roscoe was satisfied with chasing the humans to a larger settlement before starting to gather more followers. There would be more potential recruits with a larger group of people. Still, maybe he would send a few zombies back. It would be a good idea to get the conquest rolling in multiple places. It would be harder to stop that way.

Yes, that would be a good idea.

On the second day, they were still not near any large groups of humans. As much as he wanted to make sure the revolution was perfect, Roscoe was getting impatient. By the end of that day, he started sending a few zombies down random paths. They weren't very smart, but could handle simple instructions. So, he gave them a clear directive: "Find new recruits."

CHAPTER 4

GOOD CLEAN FUN

Bee was just getting back from collecting eggs when Tony finally seemed ready to get up and walk around. Setting aside her basket, she slipped her shoulder under his arm. She half helped and half lifted him up until he was standing unsteadily. After a few tentative steps, she lowered him into a chair as he panted to catch his breath.

"Sorry… I’m a little out of shape at the moment. Need to get some exercise," Tony wheezed out with a smile. Bee wasn't really listening as she probed his side with her fingers. "Ah! Five realms your fingers are cold. No, stop, that tickles."

"Stop complaining," Bee chastised, swatting his hands away. "It looks like a rib healed slightly wrong."

Bending forward for a closer look, Bee poured her Repair skill into it, and she felt the break realigning itself. From right above her ear, she heard Tony's teeth grinding together.

"Sorry. This might hurt a bit," Bee warned too late.

"No, it's fine. Just itches. Like a million ants crawling under my skin," Tony lied through his clenched teeth as his hands grasped the sides of the chair.

"Just a couple more seconds." Bee coaxed. "Almost there…"

A couple of seconds later, she withdrew her hand. "Okay, take a breath."

Watching his ribs expand, she thought everything looked alright. "How does that feel?"

"A little better. Almost like I can get a lungful again," Tony said after taking a second deep breath. This time when she helped him to his feet, Tony was able to walk all the way around the library with minimal support before needing to rest. While he rested, she cooked a couple of fresh eggs above her alchemy burner.

As they ate, Tony started to look tired, but nonetheless, he pushed through to finish the meal. After a few minutes of silence, Tony raised his head and looked Bee in the eye. "I think I want to bring my family here."

Bee cocked her head at him. "Why?"

It didn't make sense to her. This castle was almost destroyed just a little bit ago. Tony, though, apparently had plenty of reasons. "It's a lot nicer here than at home, for one. Assuming they can use the bedrooms, of course. Also, I think we are going to need more help."

"What about the crop your family is growing? Won't we need that to get through the winter?" Bee asked.

"They should be finishing up harvesting around now. We can bring all the stuff here. Besides, with demons running around, if the mages have abandoned their posts…I don't feel like Greg is going to be very safe," Tony elaborated. "Besides, we’re going to need the food ourselves. We should have harvested our gardens a while ago. By the time I can get around to it, who knows how much we’ll actually get."

Bee was touched. She figured Tony would go back to his family after this ordeal. She had not met many people who would stick around after so much trouble. After nearly dying, Tony really should have been more careful. But she did have to admit that he made good points. She was also surprised that no mages had tried to return to the castle. When she first got stuck here, she was certain that rescue would be coming soon. But months later, it never had.

In fact, the only ones to visit the castle were the three adventurers. Honestly, they weren't that good of an experience. Plus, they were so obviously insufficient for the threat posed by the Lieutenant. Why hadn’t the mages even tried to contain it?

Bee set the thought aside and refocused on the issue in front of her. Tony's words about food were slightly concerning. "Tony, I get it, I really do. But you aren't fit to travel yet. In another few days, maybe a week. I would give you more healing aids, but much more and they would do more harm than good."

"I can't wait, though.” He scowled down at his clenched fists. “Who knows what's going on in the world? Have you had any news in the last couple months?" Tony asked, starting to get worked up.

Bee shook her head. She really had no word from the outside world since the mages left. Tony's family was just as isolated.

"The mages let a cursed Lieutenant free! A Lieutenant! Without even sending an army to fight it. How bad must everything else be out there?" Tony's voice was starting to rise.

Bee was trying to be sympathetic. "Listen, Tony, I know…"

"They’re my family, Bee! We can't just leave them!"

"I know! But I didn't spend every waking second for the past two weeks trying to keep you alive to have you rupture an artery and bleed out on your way home!" Bee shot back. It shut Tony up. After a moment, Bee collected herself. “We won't just leave them. They've survived this long; they can wait a little longer.”

He blinked at her for a couple of seconds before whispering an apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound ungrateful."

I was glad that the humans had learned to sort things out by themselves. I didn't like having to smack any shins with my Grabby Arm. I was starting to consider using my Spray Bottle too, like how I had to train the cat not to knock things off the counter. It was tempting, but it did feel a little insulting.

However, with a few loud words, they could come to an agreement that was good enough for me. Though speaking of the cat...I hadn't been able to get it to come close to me at all last week. The first time I caught sight of it since the battle, I was quite relieved. The thought that it had gotten itself squished had haunted the back of my processor. It was good to see that it had made it through the castle falling down around it without a scratch. That cat was truly impressive.

The relief had worn off, though, and I was starting to get slightly offended, as it would bolt around the corner whenever it caught sight of me. I just couldn't understand why it was afraid of me all of a sudden. It wasn't like I had done anything mean to it recently. The one time it stayed still was when it was near one of Beatrice's glasses. I had pulled out my Spray Bottle as a deterrent, but it had looked at me reproachfully before gazing at the destruction all around it.

I sighed internally as I put the nozzle away. It would be hypocritical to scold it while my mess was still fresh around. To my surprise, the cat left the glass untouched.

After that strange interaction, the cat seemed less reproachful. It still was skittish around me but returned to its habit of watching me around corners. Oddly enough, I found its presence relaxing. Even when Beatrice was busy nursing Tony back to health, I was never completely alone.

Still, it was only recently that I found a real way to appease the cat. That was why while Beatrice and Tony were arguing, I was trying to get the cat to leave me alone.

See, a little while back, a moth had flown through one of the holes in the walls. My reaction was instinctive. Even if I could have thought about the consequences of my actions, there would have been no way to predict what was about to happen. With a quick check of my combat models, I predicted where the moth was going to be, and with a quick and narrow burst of my Sanitation Lamp, I shot it out of the sky.

The cat had been watching. Like a mote of dust being whisked from the floor, it launched itself at the little dot my lamp shined on the far wall. I was forced to shut it off lest the cat cut itself in half by running through the beam. All my use of that mutation had really powered it up. Now if I didn't scale back its power, it would start to drill holes in the stone. Still, it was uber-effective at removing germs and errant bugs.

The second I shut off the light, the cat whipped around in a circle, eyes wide. In an effort to show the cat there was nothing to be afraid of, I turned it on at the lowest possible power and shined it on the ground in front of it. In a flash, the cat pounced at it. Before I had a chance to turn it off, the cat's paws covered where the little circle was. Now it just stared at the little blue light on its paws. It batted at it a few times. I could see its fur start to wither, so I moved it a few feet to the left.

The goal was to let the cat study it so it would evaluate and recognize the threat of my Sanitation Lamp. I half expected it, but it was still slightly disappointing that the cat wasn't able to figure it out. No, of course it wasn't that smart. Instead of watching the light cautiously like it did everything else, it charged at it and tried to bite it. When that failed, it started to claw at the spot.

Idly I moved it around. The cat followed. Why was this little furry animal afraid of everything, except for the first thing that I found that would actually hurt it?

Ever since then, it would come up to me and paw at me until I shined the light for it to chase for a while. Once the notion that it wanted to chase the light got into its head, there was no deterring it. Eventually, I would give in and let it chase my Sanitation Lamp for a while. It was just really inconvenient right now in the library when Beatrice and Tony were trying to have a serious conversation.

A slightly too-hard bap hit my upper shell. Giving up, I shined my light for the cat, and it sprinted over to the far wall in pursuit.

Bee watched as the orange cat ran over her foot and shoulder-checked the wall so hard that she worried she would have to set a bone. Still, the cat's antics as Void played with it lightened the mood considerably. It was hard to be tense when watching a godly being playing with a cat in such a silly manner.

Even Tony was able to stop worrying about his family for a few minutes and just relax.

Days passed like this. There were moments of tension, but the work to clean up the castle was mostly done. Tony’s health was out of the woods, and there was little to do but worry about things they couldn't control. She even found a deck of cards to pass the time with Tony. Void had seemed interested at first, but once she had explained the rules, the only game it really liked was solitaire.

She shouldn't have been surprised, honestly. Still, the speed at which her master was able to sort the cards into organized piles was frightening. Eventually, they had to stop playing whenever Void was nearby. If it got too close, their shuffles started to somehow put the cards back in perfect order.

That had become a game in and of itself. Shuffling a deck, placing it on the table near Void, and trying to guess how long before it was back in order. Bee felt slightly bad about playing with her master's power like this, but it didn't even seem to notice.

It was during such a game that the first interesting thing happened in weeks.

Tony was betting that the deck would take more than five minutes to sort itself. She said less. Whoever was wrong needed to make breakfast. That was when they heard screaming from the front of the castle.

CHAPTER 5

ASSISTED LIVING

Bee cocked her head. The unfamiliar noise sounded like it was coming from outside. It sounded suspiciously like someone yelling. And it was getting louder. Glancing at Tony as he struggled to his feet, she grabbed her broom and ran out of the library toward the castle entrance. It only took her a second to run down the hall and squint in the direction of the entrance. The main doors and entryway were still not fully repaired, so she had no trouble seeing the source of the sound.

In the distance, Bee spotted a small boy running at top speed toward the main doors of the castle. The whole way, he was screaming at the top of his lungs. "HELP! HELP!"

Bee ran toward the entryway. She couldn't yet see what the kid was running from, but he was already stumbling, and she wanted to reach him before he fell. Once she reached the top of the steps that led down to the entryway, she saw what was going on.

Behind the boy, there were three shambling figures in pursuit. Even from this distance, Bee could tell that they were covered in wounds and peeling flesh. They had to be undead. It wasn't the undead that she was familiar with, but any kind of undead was bad news. Bounding down the stairs, Bee readied her broom as she charged out the doorway.

A broom was an unconventional weapon. One that she had picked up due to convenience rather than consideration. When she had first learned how to use it, the broom was a perfect counter to her opponents. They were skeletons, light and easy to break apart. However, although zombies were normally considered not much more threatening than skeletons by adventurers, those assumptions were based on combatants having swords or spears. Not brooms.

So, when her tried-and-true tactic of driving the bristled end of her weapon into the ribs of her opponent did nothing but bend the bristles, Bee realized this might not be as easy as she would have liked.

Settling back, she moved between the boy and his attackers. With a shooing motion, she urged him to run inside. Taking advantage of the space, she used Scan on the lead zombie.

Name: Sanjay, Race: Zombie, Class: Shambler, Age: 2 weeks, Level 20, Highest Stat: Strength

It was nice to see her Scan giving more information. Age wasn't really useful, but Highest Stat might help here.

The other two were slightly weaker and slower. Still, three level 20 zombies were nothing to sneeze at, even if she did drastically out-level them. This time she wielded her broom more like a quarterstaff and struck the lead zombie in the head. This was much more effective. It was sent stumbling back, trying to maintain its balance.

However, it was not alone. The other two came up on either side of Bee. This was where the length of the broom shined. It let her engage multiple opponents at once. The handle of her broom darted into a forehead while the bristles swept the feet of the other zombie out from under it.

One went down in a heap while the other stumbled back, but the first one wasn't dealt with yet and came back at her. Seeing that her strategy was having minimal success, Bee started to think. What she had done so far would have been more than enough to take out three skeletons of the same level. Apparently, she needed more combat practice.

I heard a commotion out front. It was loud enough that it scared the cat away, leaving me alone. Now free of my duty to move a dot of light around the room, I rolled over to the entry hall to check it out. As I went, I made a note to spend more time in this part of the castle. The front door really should have been a priority to fix from the start. This was an oversight I would need to correct.

Once I saw what was going on, I stopped to watch. Beatrice was putting on quite a performance. She was giving three disgusting humans a sound thrashing for attempting to come into the castle in such a state.

It was satisfying to watch her batter them around with a broom. I was slightly disappointed in how little damage the broom was doing, though. It had performed much better against the skeletons. It reminded me of a thought I had a while back about how to improve a broom. It seemed like a good idea to add a spike at the end. That would let the user stab trash and pick it up without having to bend over. I had seen humans do this with a normal stick through the window. Why not add a broom to the other end?

I would have to try adding this to Beatrice's broom at some point. It would probably help her stab these mean humans just as it would help her pick up trash. Speaking of help, Beatrice looked like she needed it as one of them managed to get behind her. As it was about to grab her, I decided I couldn't have that.

I didn't really want to hurt humans, no matter how smelly and dirty the ones from the outside were. Beatrice hadn't seemed to want to hurt the human that we found in the closet either. But I wasn't sure how to get these humans to stop grabbing at Beatrice without doing a little harm, at least. Still, I could minimize it. I sent out a quick burst of my Sanitation Lamp to burn the back of its hand.

Despite my expectations, the human just kept on going, not even acknowledging the burn. I upped the intensity of the light and tried again. Still, it ignored me. Something seemed off here. That last burst had taken a significant bit of flesh off, and I didn't think a human would be able to completely ignore that. Thinking about what to do, I decided to call out to Beatrice to warn her of the one behind her. I could also ask if she needed any help. With a couple of beeps, I conveyed my message as best I could.

Bee had lost sight of one of the zombies as she battered them around. She started aiming for their heads, but they just kept coming. Even putting all her weight into the blows, the broom was just not heavy enough to deal real damage. Even an ordinary human would have taken a lot more damage than these zombies. They must have been fresh, as their rotting flesh was a bit too malleable.

Just as she was about to take a step back to reevaluate the fight, she heard a call from Void. In the note, there were undertones of warning. Whirling around, Bee saw the third zombie. She ducked under its swiping hand and was facing all three again, standing between them with the little kid hiding in the corner. Over her shoulder, Bee called, "Get inside!"

The kid was in a bit too much of a daze to listen and huddled up more into the wall. Not seeing the kid move, Bee redoubled her efforts and made a two-handed swing with all her might at the lead zombie. The end connected with its lower jaw, and it broke. Finally, some progress.

"Move!" she yelled over her shoulder. Finally, the boy startled into action and scrambled on all fours into the castle and up the stairs. This allowed Bee to concentrate fully on the fight. She really shouldn't have been having this much trouble with only three level-20 zombies, not with how strong she was. Changing up her tactics, she poked the right zombie in the face with the handle of the broom. She aimed for its eye socket but missed slightly. The end just skittered off the side of its face, having next to no effect.

Looking around, Bee was about to drop the broom and pick up a rock when a beam of light that burned her vision shot out of the castle doors. It sailed past her and seared a hole in the head of the lead zombie, causing it to topple to the floor. Looking up, she saw that her master had come to her aid. The warning it had given was apparently not enough. She was slightly embarrassed at needing help in such an easy encounter, so she threw herself at the remaining two opponents with gusto.

This time her lunge landed, and, with a disgusting squelch, the broom handle sunk in. Her angle wasn't perfect, so she had to lunge forward again to destroy the brain. As she finished, Bee stepped back quickly to avoid the grasping hands of the final zombie.

With only one opponent left, Bee had a chance to slow down and focus on her strategy. Her control over the broom was nearly perfect. The issue was the weapon itself. If she was honest, it was a bit of a stretch to even call the broom a weapon. Something like this wasn't meant for combat, and even with her skill, it held her back quite a bit more than a sword or hammer would. It was, after all, a cleaning implement. She would need to talk to Void for advice.

Her master had recommended this to her for a reason, so she couldn't just throw it away thoughtlessly.

Bee turned from her downed opponents and headed back inside. At the top of the stairs, she found Tony comforting the sobbing kid. Now that he was safe, the kid had broken down in tears. Void was sitting next to them and watching her carefully. Thankful that she didn't feel much judgment from her master, Bee bowed to it. "Thank you for the warning, Master, and the assist."

It gave her a small beep that sounded a lot like "you're welcome."

Seeing that Tony and the kid didn't seem ready to move anywhere soon, she sat next to Void. "I didn't expect to see zombies. Where do you think they came from?"

It was worrying that Void didn't have an answer for her. Could it be that her master didn't know? Maybe. It did know a lot, but nothing was omniscient except the system.

"I can only think of a few things that might have caused a zombie outbreak. Either a high concentration of death is nearby, causing the dead to rise again, or some necromancer is on the warpath again. I didn't think necromancers were real, though. I only heard about them in old stories from the wagon handlers my father employed."

Void beeped. Bee nodded. "Yeah, I agree it's unlikely that it's a concentration of death. This area is demonically heavy. And we just cleared out the only source of death in the catacombs below here. I doubt there are any others nearby."

Bee thought for a minute. "Now that the Lieutenant is gone, I imagine the demonic aura is fading, but that should take a decade at least."

Void beeped again. Bee wasn't quite sure what it meant this time, but thought she had a decent guess. "I hope we don't find out too late, though. We don't really have enough food if we get more refugees."

Pushing herself to her feet, Bee held out her hands to help the boy and Tony to their feet. The four of them made their way to the kitchens. Nothing helped a little kid feel better than hot food, Bee thought. Or sweets. She generally preferred sweets.

CHAPTER 6

DIRTY WORK

It took Bee a little while to drag a bed over to the library herself. Not because of how heavy it was, exactly, but because of the awkward size. As she became stronger, she started to realize that strength didn't help as much after a point.

One of the books in the library explained it to her. In order to push something, she needed something to push against; if she was able to overcome the friction of her feet on the ground, any extra strength was just wasted. So as light as she was, it was rare that she could bring her level 32 strength fully to bear.

The mattress was just heavy and long enough to keep threatening to tip her over, but still, she did her best not to drag it along the floor. They had initially taken the boy to the kitchen, but soon figured out that there wasn't much Bee could do to help there. Instead, she had left him with Tony to go prepare a place for the kid to rest. Bee was honestly a bit overwhelmed. Fighting zombies was one thing, but comforting someone when they were obviously distraught and afraid was beyond her.

Something was going on outside, and if those zombies were just one group of many, it was more important than ever to go get Tony's family. If there were undead running around this close, they likely weren't safe. The problem was that she wasn't sure they would be able to wait for Tony to heal enough to travel. Bee would have left that very minute if she weren't also concerned about leaving a still-healing Tony with the traumatized little boy. As good as Tony was with kids, probably due to his many little siblings, he couldn't defend himself right now, let alone a young charge.

If they stayed behind with Void, she was sure they would be safe, but who knew what her master would do? She couldn't claim to understand its mind.

As Tony took the small human to eat some food, I fiddled with Beatrice's broom. I had grabbed one of the knives from the kitchen and was doing my best to attach it to the non-bristled end. This would let her pick up trash by spearing it without having to bend down, as well as help her scrape moss or wood splinters off of surfaces. It also might have a handy side effect of helping her handle more fleshy opponents than skeletons. I used all my tools to get this to work, but the building still wasn't my strong point.

First, I trimmed the handle of the knife using my Sanitation Lamp. It was too long to fit in the groove I was about to carve at the end of the broom. Once I had done that, I soaked the wooden broomstick in water to make it malleable. Then I slotted the knife in, squeezing the wet wood firmly around the handle. With a quick touch of my mop, I sucked all the water out of the wood to cure it. For extra security, I wrapped some butcher's twine around the ensemble tightly until I was sure that the knife wouldn't move, no matter what Beatrice did to it.

Once I finished, I rolled back slightly to admire my work. I had really outdone myself here. This was the first time I had really built something, and I was proud of it. Hopefully, Beatrice would like it too.

The broom was still in one piece, but now there was a ten-inch blade pointing out the top of the handle. It was only sharp on one end, which would limit its slashing capability, but I didn't really have the ability to sharpen the other side. Maybe Beatrice could if she wanted to.

I wasn't about to let her out of the castle without being able to defend herself. A broom was great, but yet again, the humans from the outside proved that they couldn't be trusted. The audacity they had. Daring to attack Beatrice right in front of me again! This time they hadn't managed to hurt her, but that was only because I stepped in and destroyed one before they could follow through with their actions.

That gave me pause. I had hurt a human. Worse, I had completely deactivated one. It was an incredibly dirty human, to be fair. My scanner was telling me that the flesh of those humans' was literally starting to rot. How could they take so little care of themselves?

Even still, I had crossed a line. At the time, though, I hadn't even thought about it. I was so worried about Beatrice that I simply took the actions necessary to save her without consideration for the outside humans. Even looking back on it, I wasn't sure that I regretted my actions. That worried me somewhat. I would have to dedicate my full processing power to this matter later.

Each time I thought I was getting closer to understanding humans, they would prove me wrong again. For now, though, I had more pressing things to attend to. The first step in making sure my human was secure was upgrading her broom to deal with threats better.

The next was to follow her if she had to leave the castle again. At this point, it was non-negotiable. I was well aware of the dirt outside. It wasn't that I relished rolling around in the mud, but when I compared that to the risk of losing my human, it just wasn't a competition.

I knew she was planning on going to retrieve the rest of Tony's family. This time I would accompany her. I had considered trying to talk her out of making the trip, but decided against it. Tony, so far, had seemed alright. If his family was like him, I didn't mind having them around, even if they were from the outside. Especially if they were willing to take baths. I just couldn't see it being a problem.

As for the little human, well… After watching Beatrice for the last several months, I had a hypothesis. See, she still was a little human, but less little than she used to be. Not by much, but if I extrapolated out just a few years, she wouldn't be a little human at all, according to my models. She would be one of the large humans. So, my current working theory was that the little humans were just large young humans.

If that was true, then the little humans could be taught like Bee had been. With the proper influences, they could even grow up to be upstanding, clean, large humans. So as long as the human was little enough, it would be worth taking them in no matter how dirty they were. After all, what was more important than teaching the youth?

As I was admiring my work and making future plans, Beatrice carried a mattress in. I had to say I approved of her carrying method. Clearly, she had learned it from watching me, since she had it balanced on her head. As she opened the door with one hand while balancing it with the other, it reminded me of when I had first brought her a pillow.

Bee was a little embarrassed about how long it had taken her to figure out how to carry the mattress. When she set it down next to Tony's and her own beds, she saw Void sitting next to her broom.

Her master greeted her, and she had enough presence of mind to bow to it before returning her gaze to the broom. In her short time away, her master had modified her weapon. What looked like a kitchen knife was now strapped to the end. The wood of the handle had been fitted perfectly to the base of the blade, then secured. Even as she watched, the twine seemed to sink into the wood.

Reverently she picked up the weapon. The balance felt perfect in her hand. There was a natural feeling that she hadn't even realized was missing from the broom. As she swept, her Broom Proficiency skill still recognized it as a broom and gave her an unnatural grace with the tool. It didn't just treat it as a broom, though. Somehow her skill incorporated the pointy bit at the end into her understanding. She now felt suggestions on how to best pick up trash with it.

Snapping the broom to a guard position, she made a lunging thrust. With the aid of her proficiency skill, it darted forward and stopped right where she had aimed it. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she turned to thank her master for such a beautiful gift.

I wasn't sure how to respond to my human kneeling in front of me with her forehead pressed to the floor. The only thing I could think to do was pat her gently on the head. Slowly she righted herself. I just sat there watching as she became composed.

Luckily, I was saved from any more awkwardness by Tony and the little human coming into the room. "I believe it's time for proper introductions. Everyone, this is Felix."

Tony turned to address him. "Felix, that is Bee and Void. Or Spot. I'm not sure which."

Felix averted his eyes. "Hello," he whispered shyly.

I waved with my Grabby Arm. Beatrice smiled at him, and she wiped her eyes. "So, what's your story?"

Tony shot Beatrice a look. Felix's shaky smile immediately fell. Still, somehow he mustered the courage to speak. "I…I was at home with my mom last night. Da was out in the pastures working on the plow. We heard someone come up on the porch, but it didn't sound like Da. The footsteps were too heavy. There was banging at the door. That's when…that's when Ma noticed something was wrong."

Beatrice's face was frozen in a mask, and I didn't understand exactly why. My guess was that it had something to do with Felix being sad. He sucked in another shaky breath before continuing. "She looked out the window, and then she was pulling me to my room and pushing me out my window. She couldn't fit, so she went back to go out the door. I waited, but she never came out."

Tears were starting to run down Beatrice's face. "When the things came out of the house instead of Ma, I ran to find Da. But it was so dark. I couldn't find him."

Felix was almost whispering at this point. Tony put his hand on Felix's shoulder and squeezed. With a comforting voice, he spoke. "It's okay. I think we understand."

Felix shook Tony's hand off. He wiped his nose, and his eyes turned determined. "No! There’s more.

"I was running around the field when I noticed they were chasing me. I ran down the trail back to the road. They followed, but they weren't very fast. By the time I got to the road, I had thought I had lost them. So, I slept in the bushes, waiting for someone to come past so they could help me find my Da. But no one came. After a while, they came out of the woods, and I needed to run again. I went in this direction. Whenever I stopped for more than a couple of hours, they would catch up with me. Then I found you."

Felix fell silent. Tony looked like he wanted to say something but held his tongue. We all sat in silence for a little bit. I wasn't sure I understood the whole implications of Felix's story, but when I dissected the events, I came up with a 95 percent certainty that he was now an orphan. That would be like me losing all my humans! That was awful! Someone should be comforting this poor child!

Seeing that no one else was willing to take action, I rolled over to Felix's side and started patting his shoulder with my arm. At first, he didn't react, but after he looked at me, I saw him crack a smile. "Void is really cute!"

For some reason, Beatrice flinched.

CHAPTER 7

THE PURSUIT OF CLEANLINESS

Beatrice was trying to hold in tears 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 that 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 only just been able to relax on that front, as Tony had started treating her master with more respect after the Lieutenant fight. 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 this 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 exclaimed. "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. Tony was cool and all, but I wasn't about to risk losing my human. So she could wait 'til 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. Between the two of us, 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 percent 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 'til morning only cost 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 anywayanyway. 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 with him 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 with odd script that she had found down there, along with the pendant. After they had gotten back to the surface, fighting 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.

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 even 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 hadn't been 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 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 houseplant on top of more houseplants. 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 number 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 was what they had to start with?

Maybe I was giving 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.

CHAPTER 8

LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE

Once I was being carried, traveling outside was significantly more pleasant. I spent my time categorizing plants and learning about their life cycles from my scanner database. Felix did start to lag behind, but it wasn't long until we saw light peeking through a break in the dense foliage up ahead. This gave him the burst of energy he needed to keep up with the group as they broke into a huge clearing.

We emerged into a large, open field set below a clear blue sky. There were plants growing everywhere here too. However, unlike in the forest, there was structure to this growth! Nearly perfect straight rows of wheat swayed in the breeze, and I saw in the distance other fields with other plants arrayed in straight lines. Each field was a pleasing geometric shape that had clearly been intentionally chosen and well-maintained.

I found the humongous nature of the plant life in each section satisfying as well. Clearly, this place was well-kept. If plant cultivation had the potential to become this, then perhaps the dirt that was required to sustain them was tolerable. Still, I could admire it from a distance without having to soil my wheels or undercarriage.

Further ahead was a small collection of buildings, likely the homestead that we were looking for. It didn’t take long before Tony was hobbling ahead as fast as he could, his crutch helping him along. A girl around Felix's age squirmed out of the house’s window and ran to meet him, almost knocking Tony off his unsteady feet when they collided. Tony regained his balance and spun the little girl around in a circle, her feet flinging wide, before setting her down and kissing her head.

They held a muttered conversation before he turned to us and gave us a thumbs-up. The girl then proceeded to drag him off toward the house. Beatrice turned back to Felix and me with a smile. "Come on, let's go greet the hosts."

She broke into a jog that had Felix sprinting behind her to keep up with her. The ride consequently was much more bouncy, but I was mainly impressed by the boy's energy after having walked all day. I could forgive a bit of bouncing at such a display of resilience. Also, I was pretty eager to be set down on solid flooring again, and our pace was just hastening that.

As we neared the house, a woman with gray in her hair appeared on the porch. Turning her head, she yelled back into the house. A moment later, a man around her age appeared next to her.

They both waved, and when Tony got to the porch, the woman gathered him up in a huge hug before the man broke in and claimed a hug as well. These people seemed quite nice.

Bee reached the house right as Mary released Tony. She didn't have a chance to say a thing before she, too, was swept up in a hug so tight that she had trouble breathing.

"Thank you for seeing my son home safe," she heard whispered in her ear. Mary kissed her cheek before giving her another squeeze and finally releasing her. To her side was Trent, who grasped her hand and pumped it up and down. They were all ushered inside and into chairs as Mary bustled into the kitchen. "We were just finishing making lunch. The kids are about to do their chores."

Felix placed Void on the ground, and the small black disk started exploring. For the moment, no one else seemed to notice its passage. The little girl waved shyly to Felix before climbing into Tony's lap. As Bee took her seat, a bowl of stew was set in front of her. It was a helping of meat surrounded by carrots and potatoes, all in a thick, gravy-like broth. The smell made her mouth water. Sure, Tony was a better cook than Bee, but neither of them really understood how to use seasoning very well.

Digging in, she listened as Trent sent the girl to go find her siblings and tell them to come to say hi. As she ran off, he turned to his guests while Mary fetched the rest of the bowls. "They’re all off on their way to get some work done. It's been a bit of a rush without Tony helping out. I guess I didn't realize how much he actually did around here." Trent said that with a smile and proud look at his eldest boy.

"It is really good to see you, Bee. When we saw that pillar of light and the flashing a couple weeks ago, I wanted to go check on you all, but…well, we can’t leave the farm so easily."

"We all made it through," Bee said. She glanced over at Tony, as she wasn’t sure how much he wanted to say. Or, rather, how much his family would believe. Apparently, Tony agreed with her assessment and kept his mouth shut. Mary placed a few more bowls of stew before the group before taking her seat.

"Bee, I have to thank you again. Trent hasn't had this much energy for…at least a decade. He’s been so much better since he started using your salves. Thank you."

Trent nodded. "I feel like a springbuck again. I can't thank you enough. Now that it's better, I realize how bad it had gotten."

Bee would have bet that he had realized the extent of his problems, but hadn't been willing to admit it. Trent was a proud man, which made his willingness to thank her for her help even more touching.

Before Bee could bring up why they were here, Mary turned to Felix. "Hello, young man. I don't believe we have met. I'm Mary, and this is my husband, Trent. What is your name?"

Felix wilted slightly under the attention, but Mary's warm smile encouraged him to answer. "I'm Felix, ma'am."

Bee broke in to save Felix. She was sure he’d be interrogated if she didn’t step in, just like Bee had been when she first came. "Felix's story is actually the reason we came today."

Mary nodded somberly, but before she could respond, Tony cut in. "Not just as a ward. We have bad news, and it’s very serious."

The mood immediately sobered at Tony's tone. Trent put his fork down and leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table with an intense look on his face. "What is happening, son?"

"Felix came to the castle yesterday. He brought news of a new undead outbreak just a little south of here, toward Greg," Tony said. Trent looked at him with worry plain on his face. Bee suddenly remembered that Tony's older sister lived in Greg with her husband.

"Are you sure?" Trent asked.

"Yes, we’re sure. Three zombies were right on his heels as he came to the castle. They were between levels 18 and 20," Bee said.

Trent looked at Tony for confirmation, who nodded. "I can't confirm their levels, but there were three zombies."

There was a moment of silence as Mary and Trent were disgusted by the news. The serious moment was broken by the sound of many feet pounding across the porch. Bee reached for her pack, but before she could grab it, the door was flung open and a horde of kids ran in. All five of Tony’s younger siblings crowded around him and simultaneously peppered him with questions.

Tony smiled at his siblings, ruffling hair and listening to epic tales of the younger kids’ exploits in the fields. More than anything, though, he seemed relieved that everyone was safe. Bee left him to it for the moment. While the interrogation was going on, Bee looked around for her master. Void was trundling across the floor, quietly cleaning up the mud the children had tracked in.

"What was the big light from the castle, bro?" was the most common question. Tony looked at Bee for guidance, but she shrugged. She didn't know what to tell them, honestly, but didn't think they needed to hide anything. Tony launched into a dramatic retelling of the epic fight with the Lieutenant that had the older kids laughing along and the younger ones looking on with pinched looks of fear on their faces. Tony was a good storyteller, and they were all captivated by the “fable.”

Tony's story lasted them through lunch, at which point Trent sent them all back outside to finish their jobs. On the way out, Maranda waved at Bee. "Welcome back," she called as the kids all ran back outside, eager to finish their chores. They would soon come back and finish interrogating their brother about the outside world.

Cleaning up after many little humans reminded me of good times. This was my purpose. Taking care of a family. This house was a lot rougher than my family's and also significantly rougher than the castle. Still, I had no issues with maintaining it.

The floors were made of smooth wood. It was polished, but less from intentional care and more from what seemed to be repeated use and constant traffic. As the humans talked, I passively cleaned up crumbs and dust that had settled across it. I figured Bee would let me know if I was needed. In the meantime, I would enjoy this sense of nostalgia.

Once all the kids left, I started on the kitchen. As I worked on cleaning up the grime, the boards leveled out. The cabinet and shelves hung a little straighter, and the knives sharpened themselves. It was gradual, but again definitely noticeable to my sensors. It was more satisfying than I could have imagined to help like this. Cleaning more than just the floor of a true house. For the most part, I didn't need to do much besides clean up the filth. This kitchen was actually rather well-kept. I didn't have to use my Spray Bottle or Mop at all.

The humans were talking about important things, but I was only half listening. When they all turned to look at me, I started paying more attention.

"Okay, you need to explain this again. What is that?" Mary asked while pointing at me. Beatrice looked over at Tony for support. He shrugged at her, and she sighed before opening her mouth.

"Look, I know it's hard to believe without proof, but—"

"Honestly, it took me a while to believe either. You'll probably find out soon enough. For now, just humor her and show Void a little bit of respect," Tony finished. Trent and Mary glanced at each other and shook their heads.

"Back to the second point. Ideally, we would wait another couple of days to harvest the wheat, or otherwise, we’ll need to dry it before milling…" Trent said, trailing off thoughtfully.

"But we can harvest now, though, can't we?" Tony confirmed. Trent nodded. "I thought so.”

"We are going to have to move fast. Bee and I will help, but we need to get it done in two days at most. Then we leave with whatever we have," Tony laid out. "It's just too much of a risk to wait longer. Besides, the castle won't be buying like usual, and it's too dangerous to head over to Greg right now. So anything past what we’ll use ourselves will go to waste."

"Even working all day, we would still leave half the harvest in the ground!" Trent exclaimed.

Tony just smiled at that. "I don't think we will. I'll bet you five coppers we finish the whole harvest before midday on the second day."

Trent looked at his son doubtfully before a grin spread across his face. "I'm going to lose some money, aren't I?" he said as he reached over to shake.

"As long as it stays in the family, I don't mind a little gambling," Mary whispered over to Beatrice in a way I was sure the men couldn't hear. Beatrice smiled at her. It was very interesting how humans could express so many emotions in a simple look. For example, even without the words, Mary’s look seemed to indicate that she and Bee were conspiring about this. But only in a joking and somewhat pleased way. It was fascinating.

Tony smacked the table and stood up. "Well, we better get going, then. It's harvest time!"

Everyone stood up. Even Mary and Beatrice followed Tony and Trent outside. With a sharp whistle, Mary brought the kids running from all over. They gathered in front of the house, with only slight complaints about having just been let loose for chores, and Trent assigned teams to each field. Then with a cheer, they all ran to get to work.

I stayed on the porch for now, just watching. This all seemed quite exciting.

CHAPTER 9

REAPER’S SCYTHE

Bee followed Tony's family out to the barn. They swung the doors wide and quickly got to work handing out scythes. Even the youngest had one sized for her. Tony pulled Bee aside and found one that had the correct length for her. Since she didn't know much in the way of farming, he briefly went over how to use it with her. He also showed her how to sharpen it. His hands moved so fast with the file she had to ask him to do it again a few times.

It took her a couple tries to get the hang of it, but before long, she was able to skate the file over the edge and bring the scythe back to razor-sharpness in a few strokes.

"You will want to sharpen really quick after at least every row. It only takes a couple seconds, but it will save you so much more time. Also, if you notice the grain stalks tearing instead of making a clean cut, just stop and run the file over a couple times," Tony explained. "If it ever gets to the point where the stalks are bending, it's too late, and we'll need to get out the wheel and fix the edge. Best to avoid that. While we're harvesting, time is precious."

Bee nodded. She thought that she understood. For now, she would just do the row next to Tony and hope that he could help her out. Still, there was one more thing Bee needed to say. "I'm sorry you don't still have your Farmer class."

Tony smiled sadly. "It is something I've come to terms with. I still have the basic skill I got at level 1, which helps. Plus, I have enough practice that my increased speed and stamina from the levels will be worth it all in themselves. That's even better than if I stayed as I was, as a level 6 farmer."

Bee started to say something, but Tony cut her off. "Besides, it's not 'til level 20 or so that the farming skills really make a difference. That kinda progress usually takes ages, you know. But there's a reason it's impressive." He grinned proudly. "Watch my father. He has scythe proficiency. He'll show you what I mean."

Bee fell silent. It was touching that he was willing to admit his problems honestly, but it was still good to hear that he was handling it. In the aftermath of the fight, Bee couldn't really bring herself to regret having him change his class, as he would have surely died without those levels. However, she could still remember how much Tony loved farming. When they first met, that was one of the first things she learned about him. Now he was in service of their master instead.

She remained lost in her thoughts until she took her first swing at a row of wheat. Something went wrong, and the staff turned in her grip, just bending the stalks out of the way slightly. Frustrated, she adjusted her grip to be more like what Tony had shown her and swung again. This time it passed through the stalks in an easy motion. Recovering her blade, she reset her feet and looked over at Tony to make sure he had seen that second swing.

However, Tony wasn't next to her anymore. She had to lean over to his line to see he was already a dozen yards down her row. As he swung each time, his motion ended with the scythe already in a position to take the next swipe. Even though he had needed a crutch to walk here, he seemed completely fine now. Bee, however, was constantly off-balance. She looked back at the stalks in front of her. This time when she swung, she tried to put the minimal amount of force needed behind her blow, focusing more on speed than power.

It still took a little bit to set up her next swing, but at least she wasn't stumbling afterward this time. This pattern continued for a very long while. Swing, reposition, swing. She couldn't let Tony keep too far ahead of her.

I watched as the humans all waded through the neat rows of wheat. They were quite methodical, and I appreciated the pattern they all worked under to get perfectly clean straight lines. I also appreciated how the wheat fell in perfect bunches right next to the lines of plants. I imagined that it would be easy to bundle up when they were all done.

As much fun as cleaning the plants out in the field looked, I didn't think there was much I could do to help. The ground just wasn't suitable for my wheels, and my thrusters didn't have enough staying power yet to hover for long. Besides, they would send dirt everywhere if I ran them over the loose soil. Well, there already was dirt everywhere, but I didn't have to make it worse.

Since I wasn't about to join them, I looked around for other things I could be useful with. The first thing I could do was obvious. There were several buildings around that needed cleaning. I would start with the house.

It was smaller, but there were a lot of rooms that evidently belonged to very messy children. This left a lot of work for me to do. I carefully organized all the clothes and toys left out before completely sanitizing each room and making their beds. The living rooms were mostly tidy, but I still gave them a nice once-over. The entire house measured 1352.4 square feet, but with seven people living in it, every inch was used.

After taking care of this, I used my Thrusters to boost myself over to the next building and avoid rolling in the dirt. This one was mostly empty. The only things of note were the layer of straw covering the floor and one sad, slightly melted ice block. Using Air Affinity, I gathered all the straw and then sucked the water out of them with my Mop. Then I carefully packed them around the last ice block to provide a better insulation layer. If they were trying to keep this ice around, then my actions should extend its lifespan by 2.3 times.

I then moved to the next building and the next. Things were going swimmingly until I arrived at one with a cow in it. Now, this would require some work.

I refused to leave until my job was done. Even when Beatrice came to check on me, I only briefly reassured her that everything was alright before going back to my work. By the time I had finished with the unenviable task, the moon was high in the night sky, and everyone had long ago gone to bed.

I wheeled out of the barn and looked around. I didn't need to charge like all the humans did, but I also had finished doing all the cleaning I could without going out into the dark. Regretting not asking Beatrice to bring some books, I hovered over to the porch. Without anything more to do, I just sat by the steps and watched the stars.

I had never looked at stars before, but now I was getting dizzy staring. As far as I could tell, there was no system or organization for them. It wasn't too distressing, but if I ever got to chat with whatever had put them there, I would have opinions. Still, they were quite nice individually.

Bee was exhausted. Yesterday had been rough, but as dawn crept in through the window, she figured that Tony would probably win the bet with his father. They were almost completely done with the scythe work. In fact, only Trent and Tony had even grabbed scythes this morning. The rest of the family started off bundling the wheat with twine and placing it off to the side.

She was wondering how they would get the harvest out of there. Normally someone from the castle brought a train of pack animals to take it through the path. But the family didn't have many of those themselves. A couple of mules for the plow and a cow could maybe carry a quarter of all this. That wasn't even including all the other things they might want to bring to the castle.

Doing some math in her head, Bee figured that they would need at least five trips. Maybe six if everyone didn't want to carry a huge pack.

Eventually, Tony received five copper coins from Trent, and they finished tying up the last bundle right as the sun neared its zenith. "I didn't think you would be nearly as much help, Bee. If I hadn't seen you starting out, I would have said this was your tenth harvest!"

Bee could only smile at the compliment from the happy Trent. Not for a second did he seem to mind losing out on the bet. Genuinely, he was just ecstatic to have finished the harvest so fast. "Normally, we would feast after harvest and rest for a couple days. But I think you have other plans for us?"

Nodding, Bee couldn't help but feel disappointed in missing out on the harvest feast. Trent was right, though. They needed to get moving. Who knew how long this place would be safe? She didn't want to leave the castle empty for much longer. "I think we should prioritize half food and half everything else you want to bring. That includes the animals. We might need to make many trips, but we don't all have to come. It's a bit much for everyone."

Surprisingly, no one argued. They just started packing up. Mary busied herself boxing things from the kitchen as each child picked out several sets of clothes. They were each allotted two toys. This caused some tearful outbursts, but each time one of the parents or Tony stepped in and handled it gracefully.

Bee was left to prepare the wheat for travel. There were a few harnesses with bags that fit over the mules. She filled them but left the cow for the other things. It was slightly more than half of the load, but she figured there was no way to avoid coming back at least once, so it wasn't a big deal.

It took several hours before they were all ready to move out. Looking up at the sun, Bee wasn't sure they would make it back in time, but they couldn't wait much longer. They all got in a caravan line and started down the trail leading to the main road. Bee led the convoy, and Felix took up the rear carrying Void.

The trip was largely uneventful. However, at the time, it didn't feel that way. Every small noise they heard in the forest caused them to stiffen in fear. The farm animals noticed the tense mood and required constant assurances to keep them calm. All of this, added to the natural placid pace of the animals, resulted in them making even worse time than Bee had feared.

The group was walking by moonlight by the time they finally made it out of the forest. Even the youngest was a ball of nerves by the time they laid eyes on the castle. Bee was the only one not too tense, as she had faith that Void would watch over them. That, and the improved broom in her hand had given her a lot of comfort.

Once they all packed inside the safety of the castle, they still found little respite. The animals needed to be unloaded and put away. The grain and food needed to be stored. The beds needed to be claimed. Rather than drag mattresses all over like barbarians, as Mary put it, the family claimed a row of apprentices' quarters. Each room was significantly larger than they were used to, and for the first time, no one had to share.

Bee wasn't about to leave the library, as it was just too normal now, and she was glad that Tony and Felix stayed to keep her company. Void, of course, was nowhere to be found. She figured it was likely exploring the castle and making sure nothing was out of place.

Far too late into the night, the castle's tenants finally made their way to bed. Bee practically collapsed with relief into her mattress. They had made it. Tony's family was safe, they had supplies for the coming months, and no one had seen a single undead. Now they just had to go back and get everything else.

Already thinking about tomorrow, Bee fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 10

SLEEPING LIKE THE DEAD

Bee woke early the next morning, grateful that she didn’t feel more groggy. They had all dragged in their stuff late last night before immediately collapsing. However, now that it was morning, the castle was thrown into a comparative flurry of activity as the family started truly moving in. Mary had completely taken over the kitchen and had breakfast ready when Bee wandered in. Instead of shoving some dried meat in her face and starting her day like before, she got a plate of fresh eggs pushed in front of her.

“A growing girl like yourself needs to eat up.” Mary turned back to the stove and flipped another few eggs. “The men are already outside working—honestly, I doubt they even tasted the food with how fast they ate it up.”

This was a significantly better way to start the day, Bee thought as she dug in. She thanked the woman and received a kind smile in return. Despite Mary’s comparatively low level, she didn’t seem to have a hint of tiredness to her eyes.

As she enjoyed her breakfast, Bee considered what she needed to do now. The first thing was obviously to get the family settled. Though at a glance, there really wasn't much to do there. They were getting along just fine.

After finishing her eggs, she walked outside and found Tony and Trent harvesting the vegetables they could still salvage. Despite Tony’s best efforts, some of them were too far gone to be edible now. As they dug up the potatoes, Bee winced. Void might not be pleased if it could see them now. When she asked if they needed anything, they asked her to go grab any of the idle kids and send them out here.

They didn't seem too serious about it, so she wouldn't go out of her way to look for them. But if she saw them, she resolved to send them over. Wandering back in, Bee felt a bit at a loss for things to do. They wouldn't start making return trips today. She might be able to do it by herself, but they needed a few people to care for the animals at least. Everything had been so nonstop recently, and she hadn't had a chance to relax for months between stopping the demon threat, healing Tony, and making sure his family was safe.

Bee wandered the castle looking for Void. Perhaps her master would have some task for her or something that she could learn. Not finding it in either of its favorite rooms, she just headed back to the library. Now that she had more free time, she supposed she could learn more about magic. It was time to go and shore up her foundational knowledge.

When she made it back to the library, she found Maranda browsing the bookshelves.

"Hello?" Bee called to get her attention.

Maranda turned around and gave her a big smile. "Hi! Things got really busy, but I’m glad you’re okay!"

As Maranda spoke, she came up and gave Bee a huge hug. Bee stood there awkwardly for a couple seconds before returning the embrace. It was odd for her to consider that Maranda was closer to her in age than anyone else nearby, but somehow she seemed so young to Bee. Perhaps she was getting too cynical.

"I'm glad I'm okay, too," Bee said with a smile. "I'm also glad you were able to come here. I imagine that wasn't a very fun trip for you, and it’s hard to be away from home..."

"Are ya kidding! This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me," Maranda squealed. She was practically bouncing from excitement. "Now, can you teach me magic?"

Bee blinked at the sudden change of topic. "Uhhhh, I guess? I don't know how much I can really teach you, though."

Maranda threw her arms in the air in celebration. "YES!"

Bee started searching through the books that Void had organized. Maranda followed, looking over her shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for a book to start you on."

"Why?" Maranda asked. Bee turned to look at her.

"What do you mean, why?"

"Why are you looking for a book?" Maranda asked, confused.

"So you can learn magic?"

"But why do you need a book for that?"

Bee was now thoroughly confused. "How else do you expect to learn magic besides from a book?"

"I thought you would teach me."

"Sure I will." Finding the book she was looking for, she extended it to Maranda. "Read this, and then we can talk about it."

Maranda didn't move to take the book. "Can't you just teach me?"

"That's what I'm doing. Read the book, then we can talk about it," Bee repeated. Maranda looked at the book still in Bee's hand.

"Fine, you don't have to teach me if you don't want to."

The discouragement in her voice really was starting to put Bee down. She really didn't understand why Maranda was being so difficult. "I will teach you, but this is how I learned. I don't have the book memorized or anything. Besides, I don't think it would be very efficient for me to just tell you what I know. I’m sure I’d miss more than a few important things that way. Plus, I don't think either of us has time for that."

Maranda sniffed, and Bee could hear some tension in her voice as she asked, "You can't just give me an overview?"

"I could, but that's not going to let you do anything without a lot of specific knowledge," Bee said, still with a confused look on her face. For some reason, tears were welling up in Maranda's eyes. "Really, it would be so much easier if you would just read the book."

Instead of taking the proffered book, Maranda turned on her heel and sprinted out of the room, arm covering her face. Bee even swore she heard a sob. This was so confusing; was it something she said? Bee felt that everything had been completely reasonable. Asking her to read the basics on her own rather than trying to spend days explaining them to her seemed like a fine idea.

Shrugging, Bee thought about going after Maranda but decided she might need some time alone. She went and picked up the book she was working through. Tomorrow's trip to the farm couldn't come quick enough. By the five realms, she was bored.

I finally had time to start a project I had wanted to work on for quite a while. The others would go back to the farm soon, but I didn't think that I would join them. Between them traveling as a group and Beatrice's improved broom, they should be safe enough. That was partly an excuse, but I really wanted to get this done.

It was risky to descend down the one set of stairs in the castle that hadn't been fitted with a ramp. Still, my skills with the Thrusters were enough to get me there, even if it was bumpy. Once I had conquered the set of stairs at the top, the rest of the catacombs were all easy for me to access.

I didn't think this would take me more than a couple of days to finish with my new efficiency. My area of effect was wide enough, and my vacuum was powerful enough that I could just trundle down the center of the passage and reach the walls to either side. As I started down the musty old stone halls, centuries of grime and dirt rose from every surface. They swirled endlessly toward my dustbin, occasionally obscuring my visual sensors with how thick they were. Still, I could have done the same with a passage twice the width. The issue with cleaning the catacombs wasn't how wide the passages were, but how long they all stretched.

The first time we visited, it had taken hours to reach even the first level. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances, as Beatrice had to spend a lot of time fighting skeletons. That had taken a lot of time. Plus, I had to keep to her pace. Now, if I maintained the max speed that my vacuum would still be effective at, I would be able to get down to the first level in about thirty minutes.

I zoomed down in a gentle spiral, dirt and mold fluttering after me like one of Beatrice’s cloaks. No skeletons or other obstacles hindered me, so I was free to fly across the floor at my leisure. Soon I arrived at the first room. The one with the plinth in the center, where all the skeletons had been resting. Now it was completely empty. The room was so massive that I actually had to resort to a grid sweep before continuing on. I was a bit sad that I couldn't clean out each individual cubby as well, but some were just too high for me to reach.

Things were no different on the next level. Still, all the cleaning was very satisfying, even if I knew that no one was ever going to use this room for a long time. It was part of the castle, I supposed, and therefore part of the area I was responsible for.

When I got to the bottom, I manipulated my vacuum to avoid tearing the gauzy cloth that led to the bright white room. I trundled inside, taking a moment to once again appreciate its beauty. Only this time, something was different. I noticed that the white glass floor, the one that mirrored the obsidian so many hundreds of yards above, now had cracks running through it. Nothing else had changed, and the room still didn't require cleaning. But it was a real shame to see the room’s perfection so marred.

On the way back up, I didn't have to worry about cleaning, so I was able to travel at top speed. With all my efforts, I was able to reach the entrance in only a little more than an hour. Along the way I congratulated myself on a job well done. The place looked a lot better now, to my relief. My Air Purifier wasn’t even picking up mustiness at this point. In fact, with a bit of accent lighting to brighten things up, it might even look welcoming.

The sun was just setting as I got back into the castle proper. I wasn't sure what everyone else was up to. But when I found Beatrice in the library reading a book, I figured that they didn't go back to the farm today. I hoped that wasn't on my account.

In hindsight, it might have been a good idea to communicate what I was doing. Oh well. Next time, I would try to remember that.

As I rolled into the library, Beatrice looked up from her book.

"Hello, Master," she said as she stood up and bowed to me. I waved at her, and she sat back down. Rolling up to her, I checked out the book she was reading. It was one I remembered moving, but it wasn't one that had particularly caught my attention. In fact, it was all the way down at number 2301 on my list. I didn't even expect to get to it this year. I wasn't convinced that vampires would be a real threat anytime soon, and even if I accepted that premise, I didn't see how learning to seduce one would be of value.

Beatrice closed the book quickly and set it aside face down. Was she trying to hide the cover? I couldn't figure out why.

"Master, perhaps you can fill me in on what your plans are going forward? I'm feeling a bit purposeless now," Beatrice asked me in a serious tone.

My plans? Well, I didn't know if I had any yet. I suppose I wanted to keep the castle clean. But that didn't require much of my time anymore. I could do all my tasks while everyone was sleeping. I supposed I could work on expanding my domain. Perhaps we could find Felix's family?

Realizing that I had been quiet for a bit too long, I started trying to communicate my thoughts through a complicated series of beeps.

Finally, her master was laying out its grand plan. Bee wasn't sure she was fully getting everything. But by the length of the communication, it was truly grand in scope. She expected nothing less. Leaning back in her chair, she let the noise wash over her, trying to avoid listening to the exact words and doing her best to absorb the meaning. Truly it was magnificent to hear the master's plan for how to bring its glory to the world.

She couldn't wait to begin.

CHAPTER 11

DEAD TIRED

The first trip back to the farm was fairly uneventful. Bee took Trent and Tony, but Void stayed behind, where she assumed it was looking over the kids and Mary. They made it to the farm, each leading an animal with a harness on. This time they would load up the animals and themselves, but they would also try to make a sled to help them transport more.

The farm looked just as they had left it. Without the bustling energy of a full family running around, though, it felt far too quiet. Trent seemed a little sad to be leaving the place this time, but Tony comforted him. "We were going to leave it for the winter in a few weeks anyway. What's the big deal?"

"I just… I have the feeling that we won't be coming back here for a very long time. And if we do make it back, it won't ever be the same," Trent said morosely.

With nothing left to say, they each took the animal they were leading and started loading up more of the harvest from the barn. All the personal stuff had been brought with them on the first trip. It turned out that they didn't have too many sentimental items, and a lot of the practical items they might need were already in the castle.

After he loaded up the mule, Trent trudged into the house to do one last sweep. One of the kids had left a particularly shiny rock behind, but more than that, he wanted to make sure there was nothing more important they had missed. This left Bee and Tony alone in the barn moving bushels of wheat.

"Hey, can I ask you something and you won't tell anyone about it?" Bee asked.

Tony looked up at her, surprised. "Sure?"

"So I had an odd interaction with Maranda yesterday. She asked me to teach her magic. When I agreed and told her what to do, she ran away crying. What's up with that?"

Tony started to chuckle. "I was wondering why she was so upset yesterday…"

Bee was getting more and more confused. "Wait. Was it something I said? We had a perfectly normal conversion. I didn't mean to offend her or anything…"

"Yeah, it's not your fault. Don't worry about it. She’ll come around eventually. She's just embarrassed," Tony reassured her.

Bee, however, still didn't get it. "Why is she embarrassed? I don't understand."

"I'm guessing when you agreed to teach her magic, you gave her a book to read?"

Bee nodded with her eyebrows scrunched together, trying to make the connection.

"When we moved all our most important belongings to the castle, did you see a book among them?"

Wordlessly, Bee shook her head, comprehension dawning.

"Exactly, she can't read. None of us can, actually."

"WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST SAY THAT?!" Bee yelled in frustration. Why couldn't people just come out and say what they meant? As much as she was glad to be around others again, it was also frustrating. Void was much easier to understand than this, and it couldn't even speak.

Tony laughed at her. "It's not easy to admit that. Especially to someone you look up to. People think less of you if you can't read. At least, they do in Greg."

"Well, I can teach her. That should be fine," Bee stated.

Tony kept chuckling. "Good luck with that. My older sister learned to read, but Maranda was too embarrassed to even accept lessons."

"What about you? Can I teach you to read?" Bee asked Tony. She thought he had said that he couldn't read either.

Tony shook his head. "Nah, I don't need to learn."

"Why not? You weren't too embarrassed to admit you can't read."

"What could reading help me with as a Farmer? I know everything I need to do, and the system speaks to me just fine," Tony said, and continued under his breath in a voice Bee wasn't supposed to hear, "Even if it is a bit pushy."

Bee considered Tony's point. It didn't add up. "But you aren’t a Farmer. Not anymore."

Tony didn't have anything to say to that, and they fell into silence. Luckily Trent came out of the house soon after. He was carrying a ragged teddy bear. When Bee cocked her head at him, he explained. "Leanne ‘forgot’ her bear." Forgot was wrapped in air quotes. "She brought her second- and third-favorite toys instead. When we got back, she threw a tantrum, and Mary made me promise to look for it. That girl is too clever by half."

Bee noted that Trent didn't seem annoyed by his youngest's scheming ways in the least. Trent, though, wasn't done. He grinned mischievously. "Luckily, she’s only seven, probably didn't even realize how much leverage she's giving us. A lot of chores will be done to earn this back."

I was babysitting. At least, that was what Beatrice called it. I neither sat nor were there any babies. But her explanation was clear enough. I wasn't able to clean, as it was taking all my effort to track the movements of all six kids and Mary with my Advanced Sensors. I had promised not to let any of them be harmed.

To my shame, I had already failed once. One of the boys, a little smaller than Beatrice, had fallen and scraped his knee. I just wasn't fast enough to catch him. At the time, I was across the castle, preventing the littlest from touching a hot stove. Next time I wasn't going to agree to this; it was just too complicated. Give me a huge puddle to clean any day over this.

Still, there was some satisfaction in preventing the children from making too many messes, and my passive effect was still improving the state of the castle as things organized themselves. I spent most of my time in the kitchen. Mary was pretty good at not making too much of a mess, but left the cooking equipment in the wrong place all the time. When I’d helpfully put it back for her, she complained she couldn't find anything.

That wasn't the only reason I stayed near the kitchen when there was no emergency to take care of, though. The little humans all centralized themselves around Mary.

As the little humans had been here for a little bit, they had gotten inquisitive and started exploring the rest of the castle. This was an issue, as there were hazards everywhere. Suddenly my sensors picked something up, and I needed to zip up to the next floor and prevent the little human around Beatrice's size from exploring the alligator pit.

I positioned myself in front of the small human and gave him a chastising beep. When he tried to peek past me, I bustled and nudged him away until he got the message. I had watched Beatrice feed those alligators once. I doubted that they would have any more problem eating a human than the bucket of dried deer intestines that was thrown into their pit every few weeks. The twirling was unpleasant and sent water and blood everywhere.

Once I had taken care of that, another thing cropped up. There were endless issues. These little humans seemed determined to get hurt in any way possible. They were almost falling downstairs, playing in the armory, letting a bunch of bats loose, and discovering a group of rotting humans that had showed up outside. I barely had time to get from one disaster to the next. Between buffeting the bats back into their room with my Air Affinity and shutting the portcullis on the strange humans, I could hardly zoom off and rescue the cat, who had gotten itself cornered.

I could not wait until Beatrice returned.

Tony was quiet for the rest of the day, and Bee left him to it. All of them had finished loading up as much food as they could and put the rest away, so that picking it up on future trips would be much simpler. Then they began the long trek back to the castle in comfortable silence.

Things were uneventful until they made it back to the main road. Bee was leading in front, and when she poked her head out and looked both ways, she motioned for the others to back up a bit.

"There are some undead around the castle. Not too many, but it seems the portcullis is keeping them out," she whispered. Trent's face paled slightly, and he gripped the ax he had brought along. Before they could say anything, Bee continued, handing her reins to Tony. "Wait here a minute. There are only a dozen or so."

Before they could protest, she was gone. Trent moved to follow, but Tony put a hand on his father's arm. "Trust her. There isn't much we farmers can do to help."

Bee heard Trent mutter something along the lines of, "But she just has a broom." Tony responded with something more, but she couldn't make it out as she charged the group of zombies. It was true that she only had a broom, but it was an improved broom her master had given her. A powerful gift. The last zombies she had faced wouldn't have been hard to deal with if she'd had this version of her weapon.

As she got into range, she used Scan on the crowd. There was a large variety of levels, the highest being 23. This group seemed to be younger than the last group that she had fought, with the average level being around 14. As Bee closed in, she thought over her approach. If this was going to be a common experience, she would need to do some research on zombies and prepare some magic for them. The library was mostly demon-centric, but there would probably be some general information she could use.

Leveling the broom at the zombies, Bee darted the sharp point at the closest one. Unfortunately, it wasn't the highest-level enemy, as that one was in the front pounding fruitlessly on the iron gate. The former kitchen knife took the zombie in the back of the head, meeting no resistance and dropping the unmoving corpse to the ground.

The zombies were slow to turn around and notice her. With a few more thrusts, she was able to reduce their numbers even further. She made to sweep the legs of one to the right, but paused for a second and jumped back. One of her skills was telling her something. Improved Pathing was trying to get her to go for the one on the left first, with a slash to the neck. She was going to listen to it.

As the nearer ones finished turning and started to shamble forwarf, the suggested path changed, urging her to circle around. It seemed this skill was giving her a combat sense of some sort. Navigation skills were known to be overpowered, but the question was if she could trust this one. Bee hadn't forgotten its track record. This was the skill that had tried to lead her through every mud puddle and leaf pile it could.

Still, it was worth a shot. Bee didn't feel particularly threatened, and if it failed, then she could ignore the suggested path at any time. Deciding to try it out, she circled to the right as instructed. The zombies moved to follow her but started getting tangled up with each other. Listening to the next suggestion, she lunged forward to strike one in particular that was tripping over a slower zombie in front.

Grinning, Bee hopped back before they could right themselves and watched as one more foe fell to the ground in front of her. Twirling her broom, she prepared to fully engage.

CHAPTER 12

TERROR ON THE PRAIRIE

Over the past day or so, I had learned quite a bit. I learned about humans, their behaviors, and how they interacted, most of all. It was a fascinating process, one that currently had me tending to a crying Leanne to get some sticky tar out of her hair. It was the result of a cruel prank, one that I had to scold the young twins for playing on their younger sister. Luckily, before I had to dish out any discipline, Mary stepped in and had them working hard in the kitchen. She had also confiscated the roofing tar and put it out of reach to avoid future incidents.

Meanwhile, I was left with a sobbing little human and a hairbrush. Mary was worried she would have to cut the mess out of Leanne's hair and asked me to save as much as I could. The brush was useful for separating out the clean hair. However, I didn't think that cutting it out would be necessary. A mysterious phenomenon that I assumed was related to my Domain was already getting to work and separating out a ball of the gunk. I wasn’t sure how it functioned, but it seemed to passively organize things. The force was shrinking the gunk into smaller and smaller individual clumps, and all of it would be out of her hair in another twenty minutes at this rate.

The fact that it would take that long was a testament to the quality of the tar. I beeped comfortingly as I ran the brush through the girl's light-brown hair. Eventually, Leanne calmed down and began babbling about how mean her older brothers were, except for Tony. She liked Tony. But the twins, who I learned were named Moe and Boe, were apparently jerks. Leanne hoped her Ma was right and that it was just because they were ten-year-old boys, but I didn't understand what that had to do with anything.

Leanne apparently had mixed feelings about her youngest brother, who was only a year older than her. Unfortunately, I didn't get to hear the rest of the story as I picked up the sound of Beatrice and her party approaching the castle. I remembered that Beatrice wouldn't be able to get in easily, as I had closed the portcullis, so I decided to make my way over. I hoped she wouldn't have to wait too long.

Of all the people who could understand me, Leanne seemed to do it best. It only took a couple of seconds to get her to follow me. As we walked through the castle to the entrance, we chatted about how to unstick the tar more efficiently. I was glad to see the youth taking such an interest in cleaning.

When we arrived in front of the gate, Leanne let out a squeak. Beatrice was stabbing her way through a group of rotting humans with her improved broom.

“Z-z-z-z-zombies!” squealed Leanne, pointing at the bad humans. "Zombies?" I wasn't familiar with that word. I would have to ask Beatrice about it when we had time. She seemed to be doing okay, but I would wait for her to clear them out before opening the gate. I didn't want them to get into the castle again. They would track mud and bad odors everywhere.

Leanne fell into a sitting position, so I went back to working on her hair until Beatrice needed me.

Bee may have overestimated her own abilities. She had managed to remove about half of the zombies so far. Unfortunately, they were the lower-leveled ones, and the remaining ones were not getting in each other's way like they had before.

All that was keeping her moving was the Pathing skill. That and her broom. The improved tool worked wonders. It still had all the defensive abilities that it did before and excelled at blocking attacks, plus a large reach. It was barely enough to keep her safe, though.

Each time she lunged into the group, it threatened to surround her and prevent her from moving back. Her Pathing ability kept her ahead by just a hair's breadth. Several times she received scratches from overgrown nails, but she thankfully avoided any bites.

The only saving grace in this situation was that Trent and Tony had stayed back, so she didn't have to worry about protecting them. She danced around the group of undead, trying to bait one into overextending and chasing after her. Them being zombies, that wasn't too hard to accomplish, but they also never moved alone. Still, she found a pattern that would isolate one just long enough for her to finish it off with a stab to the head before backing away, a strategy which worked about 60 percent of the time.

Sometimes she had to settle for just hobbling the zombie instead of finishing it. They were animated mostly by magic but still needed some intact muscles for that magic to animate them. Without tendons, they were drastically slowed. Soon there were few enough that could actually keep up with her that picking off the rest became trivial. The worst part of the whole ordeal was that the zombies were so lower-leveled than her that she was barely earning any experience.

This was the first time that she really understood why most people leveled up slowly. Void had carried her hard. If it were Tony fighting these, he would have for sure died a long time ago, even though these zombies were around his level. Normal people either fought so far under their level that they barely got experience, like she was doing now, or they died quickly. Most people just chose professions that didn't make them risk their lives constantly, which also usually came with lower gains.

Bee envied those people. Devotee was not supposed to be a combat class. With her master, though, it was impossible to avoid, it seemed. At least she was well-prepared.

Taking the last of her frustrations out on the remaining level 25 zombie, she was finally rewarded with a halfway decent amount of experience. It was nowhere near enough to gain her next level, but at least she would make noticeable progress.

Once she finished with the group, the portcullis started to rise. She saw her master working the winch. It had watched her fight the whole time and hadn't helped. Was this its way of letting her know how far she still had to come? After all, she had been fighting a group of enemies with an average level of 15 under hers. She should have had no problem with them. But still, she'd been running around and baiting out attacks instead of storming through them with force as her master would have.

Bee bowed to her lord. "I promise to work harder, Master."

As the way was still being opened, Bee turned and called Trent and Tony over. They brought the animals behind them, and Trent gawked at the unmoving bodies lying around with holes in their skulls.

Once Void had the portcullis all the way raised, it trundled over and quickly hoovered up the zombie remains. Bee also noted that the rotting scent disappeared almost instantly after it finished. For that, she was quite grateful. Right after they all made it in, Void lowered the portcullis again.

"Master, have we had issues with zombies coming in? We have never closed this before," Bee asked. It was a good idea either way, but she was curious about what had happened in her absence.

I welcomed Beatrice back with a warm chime. Honestly, I was almost happier to have Trent and Tony back. Someone needed to monitor these little monsters that posed as small humans. Someone other than me. Still, I was glad Beatrice had made it back in one piece.

Hearing her curiosity, I did my best to explain what had happened when she was gone as I continued my work cleaning Leanne's hair. Leanne had calmed down a lot as she watched Beatrice deal with the zombies outside. Her lack of squirming around had allowed me to continue without rushing, gently pulling out individual strands of tangled hair.

Beatrice knelt next to me and helped remove the gunk. Between our efforts and my Domain, it didn't take long to get the whole thing cleaned. By the time I looked up, I saw that Trent and Tony had led the animals away. Freed from our attention and tar, Leanne turned around and gave Beatrice a huge hug, babbling about how cool she looked while fighting so many zombies. Despite the fact that the event had just happened, the little human got a surprising number of details wrong. I was pretty sure there had been fewer than a hundred of them, but I didn't correct the excited girl.

Once she finished her hero worship, she leaned down and thanked me for helping with her hair. After touching my claw in thanks, she ran back inside.

I let out a long low beep in relief that I was no longer on the hook for watching over so many humans. Normally I wasn't one to shirk hard work, but I really wasn't built for this. If this was standard family work, I was suddenly even more impressed with the large female human at home.

As I was considering what we should do next, Beatrice piped up with a good idea. "Master, I need to get stronger."

That was true. I conveyed my agreement.

"I don't just need more levels, but I need to get more practice fighting. That fight was way more difficult than it should have been for someone my level."

I wasn't sure I agreed, exactly, but her getting stronger was always good. I asked her what she thought she should do about it. To my wonder, she understood my question perfectly. "Hmmm. The best way is to get more experience. I think that it's clear the zombies are coming from the south of here. I should head that way and find some to fight. There is a good chance I'll find people in need of help as well. Maybe I can protect them."

This wasn't a bad idea. Of course, I couldn't let her go alone. Now that I saw how effective just closing the gate when we left was, I felt better about leaving the family and Felix behind.

I agreed to her plan. Hoping to replicate my previous success in negotiation, I tried to convey that we should leave in a couple of days. Sadly, it seemed to have been a fluke, as Beatrice appeared worried. "Uh, Master, I need time to prepare. There are so many potions I need to make and things I need to learn. I'd rather go in ready for anything, if it's alright with you."

Beatrice waved her hands in front of her as if I was about to rush her out of the castle. Frustrated, I just beeped my assent, and she relaxed a little before bowing and running off. Presumably, she was heading to the library to begin preparing. That was one of her best qualities: she had a great work ethic.

I rolled off back to the castle. I already sensed the youngest boy was about to draw on the walls with a rock he had found. If it'd been chalk, I wouldn't have minded too much, even if it would have been a pain to remove. But this literal rock might do some more permanent damage.

It was clear why Mary and Trent had their kids spend most of their days outside. They were little destruction machines. I was sure that my little humans back home were not nearly so disruptive, but that might just have been my personal bias.

After confiscating the rock and giving the child a piece of slate and a chalk nub from a nearby room, I finally had a second to myself. Trent called all his kids outside and put them to work storing the food and working in the fields. It was getting pretty late, and I dearly hoped he would wear them all out.

To calm myself down, I went to settle on my favorite rug. It had miraculously survived the big demon fight, much to my relief. Now I was pretty sure that this was my favorite room. The beautiful obsidian one was now a sad wreck. Even my Domain wasn't really working on it. Though even if it had been untouched, I didn't think that I could have seen it in the same light again. That fight really did put things in a different perspective.

As I gently ran my bristles along the fibers, feeling them tickle my undercarriage, I considered what I wanted to accomplish next.

CHAPTER 13

WHAT LIES BELOW

As I relaxed on my favorite rug, I let my processors focus on the question that had been nagging at me for a while now. What did I want to do? So far, I had only ever tried to clean. That was all I ever wanted to do—help create a clean, hospitable home. Did I really want more? No. No, I did not. Of course, if I wanted to keep things clean, I might have to do more than just clean up messes around the home. The fight with the big demon had proven that. If I let things just go, they might deteriorate so that I would have nothing left to clean, and that would be unacceptable.

I had a bad feeling that these zombies were a similar kind of threat to my ability to clean. But that wasn't all. They were also a threat to the people that I cleaned for, and they could possibly destroy the floors I kept clean. Could I really continue to worry about cleaning alone? Unfortunately, I could not.

Then to what extent did I need to work on preventing messes? If I tried to prevent them, would I overstep my role and prevent humans from doing human things, or should I just stop things like demons and skeletons from rampaging? I pondered on my favorite rug for a while but was unable to come to a definitive conclusion.

Eventually, I exhausted my ability to sit and think. I was pretty good at staying in one place, but ever since I stopped needing to charge, I found that I thought better when I was cleaning. I rolled over to the grand hall where I'd been summoned and began tracing rings around the pillars. The room didn't truly need cleaning until tomorrow, but there was enough dust collected that my sensors could notice the difference. Even if a human was incapable of seeing it.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to come to a conclusion before I sensed another disturbance. The twins had evidently found the door to the catacombs and were daring each other to go in. I listened, but I didn't think that either would be brave enough to get far in or find anything dangerous. There was still potential risk there, though. I had cleaned the main passages, sure, but I hadn't gone through all the many levels of rooms and secret hallways down there. There were too many stairs to manage. I would get Beatrice to help me out with that later when she had time.

Bee frantically stirred and shook together potions. She had gained enough levels recently that she could use the next tier of potions. It was still possible for her to use the lesser ones, of course, but now their effect would be proportionally much lower, and they were also going to impart more negative side effects than their higher-tier equivalents. If she and her master were about to go hunt the undead, then she wanted to be as well-equipped as possible.

Starting with healing potions was an obvious choice, but when she finished those, she moved on to speed and strength. Unfortunately, she didn't have any recipes that provided ultra-effective attacks against the undead. She had looked, but this being a demon research facility, that wasn't the focus.

In the few more generalized books, there were some references to turn undead potions. Yet there were still no recipes. With enough time and test subjects, she might have been able to develop something, but she had neither. The best she was able to come up with was a potion that blocked her from the senses of the undead. This would make travel much easier, as they would think she was one of their own and they wouldn't attack her on sight. Of course, if she damaged one of them, they would realize something was wrong. Also, she was certain that any intelligent undead could see through it. Well, it wasn't perfect, but it got the job done for the most part.

She moved the beaker of yellow liquid off the small flame the second its color started to change. She promptly dunked the now off-white solution in the ice bath and kept it chilled in a thermal containment barrier. The thermal barrier was a new trick that she had picked up recently. Being able to cool things down quickly drastically improved the quality of the potions that she could produce. She thought about putting one in the kitchen as well, in case Mary could use it for preserving food.

Her gaze flicked back to a plate of thickly cut meat. Tony was nice enough to bring her dinner from the kitchen, but it had gone cold over on the side table where no experiments were allowed. The food smelled amazing, but she had been too caught up in a delicate process to stop and eat. That would have wasted hours of her time, and she only had a few more hours before she needed to sleep if they wanted to head out tomorrow morning.

The only thing she had done aside from getting potions ready was find a map of the local area. It wasn't anything official, but one of the archivists had kept track of all the hamlets and farms between the castle and Greg. She had heard the map mentioned in conversation once. Apparently, it was made in case of emergency, or in case they needed to buy more supplies in the winter. Her plan was to go and check how many people had been affected by the plague. Any that hadn't yet heard of it should be warned and offered a place at the castle if they brought their harvest.

If not…well, maybe they could avenge them. Bee hoped to make it all the way to Greg if they had time. She feared what they would find in the city, but they needed to know what was going on. The castle was set at the end of a really long valley with impassable mountains on either side and behind it. Greg sat at the only entrance to the valley. She couldn't imagine them not knowing about the zombies.

Bottling her latest creation, Bee set it out to cool next to her pack. She wanted to make more. However, she couldn't fit any other glass containers in the pack. As it was, her blanket and change of clothes were already cushioning the potions as much as they could. Anything more than that would risk breaking.

Bee shouldered her pack to test its weight and how it affected her movement. It didn't hinder her much at all. Satisfied, she set it down next to her broom and turned back to the delicious platter of meat nearby.

I was happily carried out of the castle's outer wall by Beatrice, who seemed even smaller in comparison to her huge pack. Tony saw us off and shut the portcullis behind us as we walked out the gate. Right as the metal clanged shut, the dirt began to rumble.

At first, I thought it was just the shock of a heavy piece of metal crashing into the ground, but the bits of earth flying everywhere didn't stop. I ran my scanners over the ground and realized that something was wrong.

We were not alone. There were more humans underneath us. These weren't just like the rotting humans, the so-called "zombies." Even though I could sense a difference, I could also tell that they were not normal humans. Humans didn't hide underground like that. Not sane ones, anyway. Even the humans from outside had never stooped to this incredible low.

A hand grasped at Beatrice's foot, but she was swift enough to hop out of the way. Of the first hand, at least. The second got her right as she stepped away. With a scream, Beatrice pitched forward.

I had observed that when humans fell on their faces, a natural reaction was to put their hands out to catch themselves. So I didn't blame her for dropping me, even if it wasn't the nicest thing she had ever done. Still, I supposed that it was better than getting crushed between her, her pack, and the ground. That might have been uncomfortable.

I went flying forward. Trying to correct my flight with my Thrusters was a good idea, in theory. But when I activated them, I was actually upside-down, and they promptly sent me slamming into the ground top-down. Fortunately, Beatrice had managed to fling me far enough that I was able to avoid the grasping hands myself.

Flipping myself over with my arm, I saw that Beatrice was not in a good position. One of her arms also had been captured and was currently being pulled to keep her off-balance, so she wasn't able to free her feet. The other hands were now clawing out of the ground. With my sensors, I could count six full humans, all housing unheard-of amounts of bacteria and mold. Two of them were holding Beatrice, and the other four were still emerging.

The two that it took to hold Beatrice didn't seem to be doing her any harm at the moment. I gathered that their plan was to wait for the others to come up and finish her off. Of course, that was assuming they had a plan. What thinking creature would bury itself in the dirt, let alone just to grab an ankle? That didn't sound very smart to me. I pushed the simulations of how being buried would feel to the back of my processors before they paralyzed me.

The wrong-looking humans seemed to have a blind spot when it came to me, as they completely ignored my presence and instead scrambled toward Beatrice as soon as they were free of the dirt. I wasn't about to let anything happen to Beatrice, so I pulled out all the stops.

A full-powered ray of my Sanitation Lamp shot at the face of the one closest to her. The beam struck the creature, but the results were underwhelming. It stumbled back, clawing at where its eyes should have been, but it still had a head. Sure, the lamp hadn't done much damage to the huge demon either, but the zombie earlier had been completely defeated by an attack much less powerful. Maybe I misjudged them. These might be tougher than I thought—and not just mentally.

Still, it had distracted the target enough. I switched the lamp's focus to the next-closest one while I moved into position to block the others.

Trying a new strategy, I sprayed some sodium hypochlorite solution at the one on the right. At the same time, I used my arm to pick up a loose rock and throw it at the one on the left. Unsurprisingly the rock just bounced off the face of the creature. Not because it was invulnerable to rocks, but because I still didn't have great throwing mechanics. My center of mass was all wrong for such an action, and if I were to try to throw it with real force, I would start to tip. Dang. I really should have brought a sword.

The one I sprayed took it in the leg. The cleaning solution was surprisingly effective. Its skin bubbled oddly, and the creature fell forward soon after. It still started clawing its way toward me with its arms, but at least it wasn't on its feet. This gave me a chance to use my lamp on one of the remaining enemies to force it back, then check on the other two.

It was frustrating. I felt that if I got a chance to focus on even two of them, I would be able to finish them off, but the four were just tough enough that they were forcing me to whittle them down little by little. If we hadn't been caught so completely off guard, this would have been as simple as vacuuming cereal on the kitchen tile. The preparations we had when fighting the big demon would have been really useful here. What good was all the stuff in Beatrice's pack if she couldn't reach it!

I forced the two in front of me back before I swiveled and sprayed one of the hands holding Beatrice. Now she was able to start working her way free while I kept the others off her. Just as I thought we might get things under control, I picked up on a new sound. My visual sensors confirmed my fears. As Bee started to free herself, the gate was beginning to slowly open again.

No! Tony couldn't be that stupid. He had been so competent so far!

I focused on the downed one, spraying it repeatedly in the head. It took several sprays before it stopped moving. Finally, I had a good way to fight these creatures. I moved on to the next one. The portcullis was halfway up. I wanted to finish this before Tony let them into the castle by accident.

Right as I was checking my models to see if I could finish all six opponents before the gate was open, a huge group of new figures started running out from the trees. It seemed that these creatures did have a plan after all. That was…not good.

CHAPTER 14

MY LIFE FOR THE HORDE

Bee struggled desperately against the grasping hands holding her down. Kicking against her captor, she was finally able to free her foot. She felt some liquid trickle down her leg, and she hoped it wasn't blood. These ghouls were worse than zombies in so many ways.

With her foot freed, she was able to get it underneath her and use the leverage to pull on her captured arm. She expected to break the grasp of the ghoul, but instead the ground broke apart next to her. Suddenly the creature's teeth were only a few inches from her face as it flew up at her through a shower of dirt. Bee screamed.

In a panic, she flailed her arms around and was able to shake off the last ghoul that clung so tightly to her wrist. As soon as she was free, she dashed forward a dozen steps to get clear while scrambling at her back with her off hand, trying to get at her broom.

Luckily, ghouls were not the fastest creatures. She had done some research on common undead after the last encounter. They were ambush predators by nature and, in some situations, one of the more deadly types of undead. They were extremely durable and strong, though critically weak against water and acid attacks. She had a potion for dealing with them, but it was at the bottom of her pack. If she was going to continue preparing for all these situations, she needed to work on making her preparations more accessible.

Finally getting her broom in hand, she turned and saw Void finishing off a ghoul that remained in the ground. She moved to Scan the one slowly dragging itself after her, but froze before she completed the action. From the tree line, she spotted a horde of zombies as it sprang into action. At least four times the amount that she had battled with on her way into the castle.

There was a squeal of metal. Whipping her head around, Bee saw Tony struggling to get the portcullis up again. From his vantage, he couldn’t see the zombies.

"No, leave it down!" she shouted to Tony, but he didn't listen and only seemed to work the winch faster. Bee cursed under her breath at his stubbornness. They could handle this, she was pretty sure. But having to worry about a giant hole in the wall they needed to guard was only going to make things harder.

She looked down at Void, who was now finishing off the ghoul still half-underground. Well, it depended on how much Void would do for them and how effective its skill set was against the undead. Remembering how it had vaporized the zombies before, she relaxed a little. The ghoul chasing her arrived just in time to get stabbed in the face.

The point of her broom only sunk into its face a few inches and didn't do much to slow it down. Following her Pathing skill, she twirled the other end of her weapon and swept the undead’s feet out from under it, sending it to the ground. Where the blade exited its face, it tore off a good chunk of putrid flesh.

Finishing the twirl, she drove the point down with all her might, this time stilling the ghoul.

LEVEL UP, LVL 33 REACHED.

Nice! It was not enough to get a new skill, but Bee felt marginally faster and stronger. With all the ghouls finished, she darted in front of the gateway of the castle and turned. She readied herself for the zombie horde that was right on top of them.

I finished the last of my opponents and proudly watched Beatrice kill the one she was fighting. It was a rough start, but she kept her composure and received its advance well. I wanted to attribute her success to my teachings. So I would, this time.

Once the immediate threat was taken care of, I turned my attention to the next one. Namely, the group of zombies running right at us. Compared to the ones that had been buried in the ground, these were as fast as the cat chasing my Sanitation Lamp and were almost on top of us. Tony had just gotten the gate all the way open and slipped out to stand behind us.

It was a shame. If someone else had walked with us to the gate as well, they might have been able to close it again. As it was, it just stood open. If we were unable to stop them here, there would be nothing to protect the castle and its occupants from the obviously aggressive zombies. I couldn't let that happen.

Remembering how effective the lamp was against zombies, I leaned on that first, swiping it across the horde at head height. It sent several of the advancing army staggering, but I had moved too quickly to deal real damage. Changing up my tactics, I started firing short bursts into each one's head.

It took about a second to burn clean through, dropping a single zombie. That wasn't going to be enough to stop them all at once. Still, I continued thinning out the herd. By the time they reached us, I had dropped twelve of the fifty-six. I retreated slightly and kept firing as we got closer and closer to the castle entrance. I wanted to make sure none slipped past me.

As for Beatrice and Tony, sadly, they were on their own. Past what I was already doing, I didn't see much I could do to protect them.

Bee sagged in relief as she saw Void take serious action. The zombies fell in droves as her master obliterated them. It still was obvious that it was leaving the majority for her and Tony, though, as it moved to block the gateway. The message was clear. "I will help and make sure none get in the castle, but you need to deal with the threat."

Gripping her broom tightly, Bee steeled her resolve. She was fine with that. Looking over at Tony, though, she wasn't so sure about him. At first, she was worried that he had stupidly just charged in unarmed. Luckily, that was not the case. Tony held what looked like a club but on further inspection was actually the gate winch rod that he'd removed from its housing.

That was lucky, as at least it was metal and heavy. It was better than a lot of other weapons here. She had learned her lesson about fighting zombies with a blunt weapon without enough heft to it during her first encounter.

Setting her feet, Bee received the first two combatants. The first fell instantly to a thrust to the face, but Bee wouldn’t be able to get the broom out in time to stab again. Instead, she heaved the impaled zombie over to collide with its partner. Their heads crashed together, followed shortly by their bodies.

The angular momentum was enough to send both zombies flying, at least one very much dead. There was just enough time for her backswing to catch the next one stepping up to her.

The zombies didn't slow down at all, not worried about trampling their kin. The only way to stand up to their charge was to cut a path through as fast as they came. Otherwise, they would crush her with just the weight of their bodies. There was no time to make sure the ones she engaged with were finished, since she had to constantly switch her attention to the next threat. Each one she cut continued its momentum past her or to the side. Similarly, there was no way to make sure that she got a second shot at any survivors.

As quickly as the wave reached her, she cut through it. Spinning to check her back, she saw that the wave had smashed ineffectively into the wall to either side of her and was now turning to face the gate opening she stood in front of. Tony had seen that he couldn’t face them down as she did, so he had stood mostly behind her.

Currently, he was bashing in the head of one of the not-quite-defeated ones that had run past her. Bee was really glad that Tony was still alive. Not only did he not die, but he was also being incredibly useful. Without his help, she might have been taken from behind with no warning. Of course, she would have had the far more reliable Void watching her back if Tony hadn't opened a huge hole in the castle's defenses.

Bee turned to her left to take on the remains of the horde. The wall had flattened them out, so no longer was it a huge wave coming at her, but instead two columns from each side. The other nice thing about the wall was that it slowed them down. These zombies had a high top speed, but that didn't mean they could accelerate without a bit of runway.

Running to engage them as soon as possible, Bee hoped that Tony would do the same. The more space between them in this situation, the more room they would have to retreat when they needed it. Having only one or two zombies come at her at a time was much simpler than having a whole horde rush her at top speed.

She now had the time to fight each one properly and make sure that they were put down. There was time for tactics and combos. Flipping them on the ground was effective and lessened the zombies’ offensive options, making them easier for her to handle, and it also slowed the others down. As much as their rudimentary intelligence let them form an ambush, they weren't smart enough to just go around an obstacle.

Now that she thought about it…could they really form an ambush? The ghouls could for sure, that was how they hunted, but would zombies be able to figure out the tactics of waiting in the trees? Judging by how they had clustered around the gate last time they attacked, she would say no. That meant there was likely a higher level of undead somewhere in the trees.

Bee would need to go investigate. Now was not the time though, she couldn’t afford to break away and let them in. Plus, after the threat was dealt with, anything out here would have plenty of chances to slip away once it was clear that the ambush had failed. Maybe her master would be able to see what was really going on. So she just kept swinging. Every few swings of her broom, she needed to take a step back to prevent the natural swell of the mass from trying to get her from the sides.

With her next step back, she turned to see how much more room she had. Not nearly as much as she would have liked. Tony's back wasn't more than three feet from hers. Checking the zombies, there were still six in front of her and double that in front of Tony.

Looking around, she saw it was just the dozen and a half assaulting her and Tony remaining. All the others were crumpled on the ground with small, perfect holes bored through the centers of their foreheads. Void had been busy.

Right when she was about to peel away from the wall and drag Tony with her, Bee saw the zombie at the back of Tony’s pack fall with a familiar flash of light. One more kill for her master. Redoubling her efforts, Bee threw herself into the crowd, not wanting to have to rely on its help.

CHAPTER 15

A BONE TO PICK

Seeing the pattern in how the zombies rushed at the wall, I could just focus on the ones right in front of the gate without worry. I had no issues killing enough to mitigate the immediate danger and keep them from making it into the castle.

Soon, I had enough attention left over to even watch over where Beatrice and Tony were holding their own. So far, I didn't need to step in, which was a good thing. This was a good training opportunity, after all. Beatrice seemed to be handling herself quite well, but I was impressed with Tony's cleverness. He managed to both support Beatrice and protect himself through just a bit of intelligent positioning. It was good that he knew his limitations.

Once they had survived the wave, I saw them split up and take each side. Due to some bad luck, Tony had way more opponents on the side he turned to. It seemed a little unfair, so I decided to put my claw on the scale a little, so to speak. I thinned out the mass approaching him to only four, reduced from the dozen it had been. Afterward, I monitored each of their battles, ready to step in if it was needed.

Ultimately, they proved themselves capable enough as they each put down their zombies. Tony needed to get some skill with a weapon, though. He wielded his metal rod like a baseball bat, each swing leaving him unbalanced. He would be incredibly vulnerable to an enemy ready to take advantage of his openings. Even a couple of skeletons would have given him issues.

Finally, we were all in the clear, and I was ready to get on with our quest. Beatrice was sitting on the ground checking over Tony, who had received some scratches from the fight. But even as we watched, they closed up from the potion that Beatrice poured over them.

I waited until he was on his feet and walking back into the castle before I rolled over the grass and nudged Beatrice's foot. She looked down at me, and I pointed with my Grabby Arm toward the road.

"Are you coming?" Tony asked. Beatrice looked down at me before looking back up at Tony with an unreadable expression.

"I don't think I can…"

"You can't be serious! You were just attacked by six ghouls and a ton of zombies. They're clearly smarter than they should be. It would be stupid to just walk out there alone!" Tony shouted.

"I won't be alone," she said softly, and I beeped in agreement. I was going to watch her back. Besides, I learned my lesson. Now I had my sensors scanning the ground and my surroundings as much as possible without draining my battery too much. We wouldn't get caught in the same trap again. A different trap, maybe, but there was no real way to plan for that.

Beatrice waved back at Tony and started walking down the path. The gate clanged shut, but a second later, Tony was walking beside us. "I'm not going to let you go alone. I can at least help watch your back. Besides, you said it earlier. I'm not a Farmer anymore. I'm a Disciple of Spot. Not that I know what that really means, but I need to get stronger, and I can't do that from inside the castle."

Huh, I hadn't thought of that before. Tony was my Disciple now. I needed to put more planning and time into training him, too. Maybe not as much as I did with Beatrice, but I had been neglecting it so far. That would have to change.

As we trudged down the road, I started thinking of ways to get Tony stronger. Aside from teaching him to protect himself—that was a must—what tasks could I set him to? Should I help him pick his next skill as well?

Bee glanced at Tony as they walked down the road. It had been over an hour since they had set out, and still, no one had said a word since they left the castle. The silence was starting to get awkward as it dragged on.

The only one who was comfortable was Void as it rested in Bee's careful yet secure grip. They were moving over a particularly muddy section of road, and her master had objected to traversing it on wheels. Still, aside from that, the outdoors was quite nice. The trees lining the narrow path had begun to turn, shedding various shades of scarlet and gold leaves across the ground. The air was brisk but not too cold yet. She even spotted an occasional squirrel collecting some last-minute provisions before winter. All in all, it was almost picturesque.

Eventually, she felt that someone needed to speak up, and she wasn't too proud that it hadn't yet been her. "Ummm, are you sure your family will be alright by themselves?"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as the slightly tense look on Tony's face intensified. "They should be okay. It really makes no difference if I'm with them or not. If something could get through the walls, there wouldn't be much I could do anyway."

The bitterness in his voice was faint, but she was still able to pick up on it. She supposed that he was right. Of course, there were apparently sneakier undead that could climb walls, but those were also expected to be much more powerful than Tony. Usually, a level 25 adventurer at a minimum would be required to deal with them. A Farmer turned Devotee, one not even at level 20, wouldn't make much of a difference unless there were a dozen of him.

They walked a little bit further before Tony spoke up again. He was still serious but brooding a bit less now. "Are you still getting levels from fights like that? I can't imagine the zombies are doing much for you."

"With enough of them, it matters. The ghouls were in their 30s, so I got a level from the whole ordeal. Not yet at my next skill, though, sadly," Bee said, thankful for something else to talk about.

"I still can't believe you’re in your 30s. You're probably one of the highest-level people I've ever talked to," Tony said, shaking his head.

"I doubt it. A lot of the older guards were probably higher-level than me," Bee said demurely.

"Maybe, but I doubt they have as powerful skills. They probably got their levels in a lot more, erm, tame ways than fighting demons and undead nonstop for…how long?"

Bee stopped to think about it for a second. "Uh, five months, give or take?"

Tony kicked the ground as he walked. "I just don't know if I have the guts to do that."

"I wouldn't recommend it. I only did it because I had to. If you do that on purpose, you would be an idiot. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I bet you would end up dead. I was so lucky. Void knows exactly how hard to push me," Bee said before hesitating. "You know, now that you are Void's Disciple, it might also be willing to train you. Void, what do you think?"

Void let out a high-pitched squeak that Bee took as assent. Tony looked a little pale but didn't object. Still, Bee considered how she could warn him not to tell Void about his skill choices. She had made that mistake once and wasn't about to repeat it. Not that she was exactly unhappy with her skills, of course. The skill Void had chosen was her most valuable besides Scan. It wasn't what she would have chosen, but it formed the basis of her combat style. Regardless, not having made a choice herself still sat a little oddly with her.

Left to her own selection, she would have chosen something that might have been a more powerful combat ability in select situations. But without the versatility of her broom, something would have gotten her by now.

As they walked, Bee wished one of them knew anything about tracking. That might have made it easier to find signs of other undead around. Or any survivors.

Eventually, they reached what Tony called his closest neighbors. It only took them four hours of walking past the turn for his family's farm. It was a very similar trail to the one they were familiar with, but this was just a bit wider—enough for a small cart to comfortably pass through.

"There are a couple of families living down here, but they aren't as large as ours. Still, having more adults lets them have more output, hence the wider trail. Carts are better than having to use pack animal trains," Tony explained. As they turned down the path, Bee checked for any tracks but was unable to tell if the footprints heading down the path were fresh or not. She hoped not.

As they started down the trail, impatience started to get to them, spurring the party into a jog. It wasn't long before they reached a huge clearing. A wide swath of farmland met them as they broke through the tree line, with a large cluster of small wooden buildings in the center. A quarter of the clearing was fenced off.

"There should be cows in there," Tony said, pointing to the fenced paddock. "I don't see any."

Running his hand through the wheat, he grabbed a stalk and chewed it thoughtfully before spitting it out. "And this harvest is long past due. I don't have a good feeling about this."

Already Bee was running through the field, not caring about how much wheat she trampled. Tony shouted at her, but she didn't slow down. As she approached, the feeling of dread intensified. The doors to all the houses were ripped from their hinges, and many of the fences were destroyed.

Coming to a stop at the center of the buildings, Bee spun around, taking in the haunting scene. They were much too late.

Tony caught up a few moments later, doubled over and gasping for air as he looked around. "We're weeks too late," he said. "I don't think there's anything for us here."

Bee had to agree, yet she still insisted on a quick search through each of the buildings. Surprisingly, the insides were not disturbed. There were no signs of a rushed exit. No meals were left unfinished on the tables, and there were also no signs of struggle. No broken furniture or blood.

Checking a pantry, she saw a lot of food was missing. "You think they all left on their own?"

Tony rubbed his chin for a second. "I doubt it. I don't see how the news would have reached them. Even if it did, where could they have gone other than the castle? If we didn't know about it, that means it came from Greg, and that would be a long trek as well."

"Then where did they all go?" Bee asked, unsatisfied with what they understood. Void beeped, asking to be let down. Surprised, she complied and set her master on the floor. It whirred unhappily before heading off outside.

Tony and Bee followed the little black disc curiously, wondering what it had noticed that they had missed. It led them around to a nearby field, where they found a strange sight. A scarecrow stood in the center of the gently swaying wheat. However, upon closer inspection, there was something strange under the hat. Bee stumbled back as teeth chattered at her angrily.

"What in the five realms!" she yelled frantically, looking around for more. Tony pointed to something tied to a stake in the ground not too far from them. A femur was wiggling slightly as if trying to escape its bonds. Bee whipped around to survey the area. All around them, some hidden and some not, were stakes just like this one. Bee saw a lot. Almost enough for an entire skeleton.

"Could they not find a way to kill it for good?" Tony whispered.

"Wait, it seems Void found something else," Bee called. She was already a few steps away as she followed Void into the field.

CHAPTER 16

THE LAST WORD

This place was weird. Even without Beatrice and Tony confirming it, I knew there were obviously supposed to be humans here. Even messy humans like the kind I'd seen would repair something like a door. But that wasn't it. I noticed a slight discrepancy in the pattern of the trees. Well, not the trees, exactly, but the undergrowth of the trees. While Tony and Beatrice were looking for pieces of the skeleton around the farm, I was having my models process all the data that they could. Something was wrong here.

The way the skeleton was tied up didn't make any sense, and neither did the state the place was left in. There should have been more damage if there had been a fight big enough to take the skeleton apart. Those things were no joke to humans.

Finally, my model returned something that was interesting. There was a hidden trail on the fields on the opposite side of the road. I tried to get Beatrice's and Tony's attention to point it out.

When they were following my lead, I took them to the edge of the clearing. It wasn't until I pulled aside a few cut branches that had browner leaves than usual that they understood what I was trying to show them.

"They must have had this trail prepared long before the undead came here. They wouldn't have time to escape if they hadn't," Tony remarked. As he stepped into the tree line, Beatrice crouched down and held out her hands. Grateful for her thoughtfulness, I rolled over to her so she could scoop me up. I beeped my thanks to her, glad to be out of the dirt.

My Domain was making it slightly bearable to be on the dirt ground, but only if I moved very slowly. Slightly more slowly than how I had moved before coming here. Still, I focused my Air Affinity to brush the little dirt that had managed to cling to me into my dustbin. I wasn't going to have my chassis getting Beatrice dirty. In fact, I'd clean off her boots and pants, too, for good measure.

All situated, we followed Tony down the path. Beatrice jogged for a few steps to catch up and then asked, "Do you know anything about what this is?"

Tony shook his head. "It looks to me like a hideaway, but I can't fathom why they would have needed to build one. That was something that we did as kids when we were free from chores. The adults here wouldn't have done it."

"So you think the kids built this path, and they all just used it to escape?"

"Maybe; I don't see what else it could be. There wasn't any blood or signs of a struggle, so I imagine they all had to come this way. That we only found one skeleton doesn't make sense either," Tony said.

I had to agree with Tony. There should have been more skeletons. The only way that I could figure was that the skeletons must have been destroyed somehow. But they wouldn't have just left after that. They would have followed the humans, especially since they would have seen them escaping. But skeletons probably wouldn't have replaced the branches to disguise the trail, so that couldn't have been it either.

After a long while of walking, the trees started to thin out as the forest started to encroach on the mountains that formed the valley. We started walking uphill. Tony had voiced the idea of turning back, but didn't sound very excited about the idea. We still had a trail to follow. It clearly led somewhere, and until we either couldn't see it anymore or found the end, none of us really wanted to stop.

It seemed that the trail was leading to a cave into the mountain. It was well-hidden, blending in quite well with the surrounding rock. The only reason we noticed it was that I had noticed a thin tendril of smoke coming out of a hole a little way up the hill.

So with that clue, my models spun up and quickly found the opening as we walked around looking. Again, some bushes had been cut to block the entrance, except these were greener. The placement looked very natural. The only reason I noticed the opening wasn't the bushes themselves but the erosion of the stone by the entrance. That kind of damage was only done to stone floors when people walked over them endlessly for years.

Something just didn't add up here. If this was used for years…

"I have a bad feeling about this," Tony whispered. "We found them. They seem to be alright. We should leave before there's any trouble." After not getting a response, he spoke with a bit more urgency. "Bee."

"I don't know, they might need help. They can't have too much food in there," Beatrice said back, but she was also keeping her voice low. "Void, what do you think?"

What did I think? These people could use our help for sure. Not least with making a proper home. But I digressed. The real question was, were they going to let us help them? I had started noting some odd chemicals in the air. A decent amount of ethanol wasn't something that I expected. Honestly, this was something I would leave to the humans. I just didn't know enough about the situation or the human behaviors involved to make a decision.

"Okay, I think we should head back. I think we found what we came here for," Beatrice said.

"But what if we need your help, little girl." A gruff voice came from the forest.

Bee whirled around to face the speaker. There at the edge of the tree line stood a tall bearlike man with a potbelly and shaggy neck beard. The white sleeveless tunic he wore stood out so much from the trees that she was amazed that they hadn't noticed him sooner. He must have had some stealth skill to keep them from noticing his approach.

She gripped her broom tighter in surprise. The voice was mocking but not inherently threatening. Still, it sent shivers down her spine. Tony didn't seem to like it much either, stepping half in front of Bee. She was grateful for the gesture, even if it wasn't really necessary.

Taking advantage of the distraction, she used Scan.

Name: Billy Bur, Race: Human, Class: Outlaw, Age: 63, Level 34, Highest Stat: Dexterity

That was worrying. He was at a higher level than her, and his class likely had some serious combat options that she did not.

"Hello!" Tony said, putting on a bright face. "We were checking some of the nearby farms and we saw an interesting scarecrow."

"Did ya, now?" the man said in a neutral tone. "What brings you all the way out here, then?"

"Well, we had news of the undead plague and we came out seeing if we could find survivors, maybe offer them a place of shelter," Tony explained. Bee thought he was doing a good job of hiding it, but clearly, he was tense. She wasn't getting a good vibe from this guy either, but she wasn't sure why Tony was so on edge.

"Hmmm. Help and shelter. Ain't that mighty kind o' ya," the fat man said while scratching his gut. "Now I don't think we're gonna need any o' that, but thanks for the offer. Much obliged."

That put Bee off. So far, it seemed that he was alone, but that was unlikely. The charitable interpretation of the situation was that he was protecting the people in the cave. But then, he wouldn't have stopped them from leaving when it was clear they were about to go.

"Well, we won't force our help on you if you don't want it," Tony said, still keeping his facade up. "I guess we'll be going, then."

"No ya won't, will ya." The man laughed. "Well, I appreciate not being forced ta ‘cept help, but I'm afraid we can't letcha go so easy now. See, we got a good thing goin' here. Wouldn't want anyone ta mess it up on accident, y'see."

Tony's posture changed. Bee watched as he reached for the metal gate winch that he had kept from the zombie fight earlier. Tense as she was, she jumped a bit as Void beeped indignantly.

Sometimes her master did seem to have a little trouble interpreting human behavior. That was to be expected by a being of such power, since petty human concerns were so far beneath it. As an example, right now, Void seemed to take offense at the large man's insinuation that they would make a mess.

Bee felt that she now had a responsibility to speak up. What else was a priest other than a mouthpiece for a god? "You might not want to make such remarks. Otherwise, Void might think you're serious." As she spoke, she set her master down and backed up a few steps.

The man looked past Tony and at her for the first time. "Ah, ya can speak. I knew I remembered hearing ya say something. I'm glad ya found yer voice, lil lady.

"But now, who's this ‘Void’ and what's he gonna do about yer needin' ta stay here?" The man grinned at Tony and asked in a mocking voice, "Do ya call yerself Void? Make you feel strong, don' it?"

Tony showed the first real sign of mirth since this whole debacle started. "No, no, no. I'm Tony. That," he said, gesturing towards the ground, "that is Void."

The man looked at where Tony was pointing in disbelief. Tony wasn't done, though. "This is Void. He also goes by Spot. But the more I get to know him, the more Void seems accurate. I would warn you, but I think that it might be a waste of my words."

The man doubled over in laughter. When he came up for air, he wiped the corners of his eyes with a grubby finger. Strangely, Bee noticed that his eyes had never truly left their group.

"Indeed, we wouldn't want'cha ta waste words. Ya filthy weasel," he choked out between peals of laughter.

Void just sat there silently, as Tony and Bee watched it tensely. The man wasn't done. "C'mon out, boys! We got a fancy plate ready to kill us all. Whassit gonna do, spill slop all over us? We better work together ta defend ourselves!"

A few other dirty-looking men suddenly stood from hiding places all around them. They all were armed, holding their bows and daggers with casual hostility. One of them even had a club leaning on his shoulder. Bee saw at least nine men.

"See, now that'cha found our little distillery operation, we can't letcha spread the word. We're gonna need ya to keep quiet forever. Just like the others who came out here, y'see." The man slowly began to advance, his whole demeanor changing. "Sincerest ‘pologies, lil miss. Sometimes, ya gotta get yer hands a bit dirty, spill a bit o' blood, you understand."

Void rolled forward and started beeping angrily. Very angrily. Bee had never seen Void show any emotions like this before. She and Tony started backing up, not away from the men threatening them but from the very angry black disk.

The group of men moved to surround them. One of them let an arrow loose, presumably to shatter the "dinner plate" before them. In an instant, her master swiveled toward the projectile. A concentrated beam of light blue shot out and intercepted the arrow mid-flight. Before anyone had time to even register what had happened, the light was gone, leaving nothing in its wake. The men took a collective step back as they tensely adjusted their grips on their weapons.

The man who shot the arrow licked his lips nervously. "Uh, boss, I dun think thassa plate…"

"Who cares! Charge it!"

The men roared forward together, some more enthusiastically than others. Bee and Tony scrambled completely out of the way as they waited for their patron to let loose.

CHAPTER 17

CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS

I did not like these humans. Not just because they were filthy, almost intentionally so. First, they insulted me. Then, they threatened to break both of my humans. They even started firing projectiles at me. And to top it all off, they insulted me some more. That was completely uncalled for. I mean, the projectiles were easy to swat out of the air. But they said I was dirty! Well, I'd clean up their own dirty mouths.

With a blast of Air Manipulation, I expelled a portion of stone dust from my dustpan and held it above me. When I had collected a few pounds of it, I flung it out in an arc as fast as I could. The particulate shot forward at about 46.2 miles per hour and sprayed into the men arrayed against me.

They screamed as the dust blasted into their exposed skin. My sensors picked up sprays of liquid ejecting from the places where my reprimand removed their skin. The sounds they made were a little more disturbing than I would have liked.

It made my lights blink in surprise. What was I doing? Who was I to judge humans? Even if they were so insulting, just deafening my humans to their insults would have been enough. I had gone way too far. I stopped my attack immediately, but already the humans' exposed skin was a bright red, and they were rubbing their faces vigorously.

Their clothes were all in tatters as well. The leftover strips of cloth fluttered unpleasantly as the men, almost in unison, dropped to their knees. I turned back to face Beatrice, uneasy about seeing her reaction to my brutal loss of temper. I was supposed to be the example here. I couldn't behave so poorly in front of her.

To my surprise, she wasn't staring at the downed men in shock but was instead looking at me with awe.

"Master, thank you for saving us," Beatrice said, her hands pressed together. Only now did I realize how white her face was; humans turned white when they were afraid, right? Judging based on her reaction, though, it wasn't me she was afraid of. Were these humans really so much of a threat that she didn't think she could fight them?

Sure, they were much larger than her, but that never stopped her before. I also knew appearance didn't mean everything; perhaps they were very high-level?

Tony, though, was a lot harder to understand. He stared open-mouthed at me, then at the wailing men. When I beeped a question asking if we should leave, he jumped 2.1 feet in the air. That was a very impressive vertical.

"We need to get out of here, but one thing really quick," Tony said as he ran to the cave. A few seconds later, he came out and motioned for us to follow before running back to the forest. Not long after we made it into the cover of the trees, there was a loud boom, and a plume of fire erupted behind us.

Bee picked up her master as they ran back into the cave. She had an idea of what Tony had done, and she didn't want to be anywhere close by when the distillery exploded.

When it went off, and they had escaped unharmed, Tony suddenly stopped and threw up on the ground. Bee bent down beside him and put a hand on his back. Gasping, he explained. "I…found the families. It seems like they escaped the undead just to be killed by the living. The skeletons had chased them off. But the outlaws dealt with the undead too. They must have gone back and done what we saw at the farm."

"It was…gruesome in there," Tony finished as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Then he stood up and looked at Void. "You were too kind to them. We should go back and finish them off."

Bee put her hand on Tony's clean arm. "That won't fix anything. Besides, I doubt we need to. Without proper care, they will not survive the flaying they just received."

Tony balled up his fists but let Bee pull him away. They walked back through the forest. No one spoke as they all digested what they had just found. Bee really hoped that they would have better luck at some of the other places they needed to visit before they reached Greg.

The atmosphere held until the experience notifications started rolling in. Apparently, the outlaws weren't going to live long enough to worry about infection. Judging based on her experience, Bee figured the system didn't consider her contributions too high in that battle. She imagined that she only got as much as she did because she had set Void down. She wondered if that technically counted as unleashing her master.

Still, Void had attacked several people who were her level or higher, so she was getting really close to level 35. Tony apparently got some experience, too, as his expression became ever darker than before. Curious, Bee ran Scan over him.

Name: Tony, Race: Human, Class: Devotee of Spot, Age: 24, Level 18, Highest Stat: Charisma

Wow, he was really getting up there. He had already tripled his level since they had first met almost two months ago. He wasn't totally over-leveled for a twenty-four-year-old, but was likely in the top 10 percent. Maybe only people who actively trained for levels would be similar or higher.

Tony kicked a small rock on the path, sending it flying into the trees. "I should feel guilty or upset or something, but I'm just angry. We just killed people. I've never killed a person before, it should feel different."

From Bee's arms, Void let out a soft beep.

Tony cocked his head at Bee. "I've never been as good at interpreting his meaning as you, but it sounded like he just said that I didn't kill them. Is that right?"

Bee was about to confirm and elaborate when Void made a very clearly affirmative noise followed by some more explanation. Tony paused. "Okay, I really didn't get that last bit, could you translate?"

Waiting for a second to see if Void would respond, Bee held her tongue. When her master stayed silent, she explained. "Void is taking full responsibility for its actions. You are absolved of any guilt… At least, that's what I think it meant."

I didn't entirely agree with Beatrice's translation. Not that it was technically wrong, but I felt like the emphasis was wrong. I just meant to tell him that he hadn't killed anything—I had, and he didn't need to feel bad for it. They were filthy people and had it coming. Maybe? That was how I rationalized it to myself, at least.

The morality of humans had long been a theme of my thoughts, ever-present since I had arrived here. There were a lot of conclusions that I had fought against. The first was that not all humans were perfect. That took an embarrassingly long time to figure out, but I got there. But then we had the violent visitors. That was when I first found that it was even worse. Not only were humans imperfect—there might actually be bad humans.

Now that was a revelation that had taken me a long time to accept. It wasn't until a few hours ago that it really sunk in. Humans, at least some of them, needed to be cleaned. It was an unsettling conclusion but one I couldn't avoid. Humans hurt each other all the time. To a surprising degree, really. I didn't want to stoop to that level. It wasn't not that I wanted to harm humans, but if other humans were going to put my humans in danger, I wouldn't hesitate. Especially not with zombies or ghouls, who were apparently inhuman somehow.

Despite my conviction when it came to defending Beatrice and Tony, I wasn't ready to pass judgment on unrelated or untested cases. I would work on the assumption that most humans were fine until proven otherwise. I mean, just look at how nice Tony's family was. I especially liked Mary. Even if her children threatened to fry a circuit in my processor.

Tony didn't respond to Beatrice's translation for quite a while. It wasn't until we were reentering the clearing that he finally said what was on his mind. "I don't know how, but somehow that made me feel a lot better. Does Void really have the ability to exonerate people like that? I'm not really sure about his authority as my subject of devotion."

"Oh, five—I'm sorry, I guess I kinda forgot to explain how the Devotee class works," Beatrice apologized. "I thought that, since we spent so much time in the library—"

She cut off suddenly. I wasn't sure why, but she continued on a different track. "I mean. I can share what I know if you want?"

"Don't worry. I didn't find that book to be quite up to my standards, so why don't you summarize it for me?" Tony asked in a teasing voice, and Bee's face flushed red. "Seriously, don't worry. I'm not like Maranda. I don't care if you know I can't read."

Wait. Tony couldn't read? Hm. Maybe I could show him how the patterns worked. It was such a valuable skill, especially for humans who didn't seem to have perfect memory banks like I did. Yes, as my Disciple he should learn, and maybe Bee would teach him.

"Well, the most common form of subject for the Devotee class is a god. But it doesn't have to be," Beatrice finished in a rush.

"Did you ever figure out what he is?" Tony asked.

"No, no idea. I just know Void is extremely powerful and mostly benevolent," Bee responded.

"Did you ever ask him?" Without waiting for a response, he turned to me and asked. "What are you?"

I felt Beatrice's body tense around me, but she didn't need to be worried. I answered as truthfully as I could. I cleaned. That was what I was—a cleaner. A long time ago, I would have said I vacuumed floors, but now I was so much more.

"He cleans." Tony looked to Beatrice for confirmation. She nodded.

"I am the one who cleans, is how I interpreted it," she responded with a serious look on her face.

"Hmmmm, that sounds awfully godlike to me," Tony said warily.

I did think cleaning was a very godly pursuit. The highest of all, in fact. So I didn't disagree with Tony's statement at all. I was just glad that he was starting to really appreciate the finer things in life.

"It does, doesn't it," Beatrice mulled it over. They both looked at me, and Tony gave me a respectful nod.

"I'm going to have to process this…" Tony said slowly. "I never really considered myself religious before."

"You might not be able to do much about that," Beatrice warned. "We did watch it kill a Lieutenant. So it's not that far of a leap. I guess I can't be certain about its fate, though, since Void neither confirmed nor denied killing it the one time I got up the courage to ask directly."

"Maybe you watched him kill a Lieutenant. I was solidly unconscious at the time," Tony clarified, earning a chuckle from Beatrice. That was a pretty good joke. He wasn't able to watch me back then because he was charging. Even though Beatrice knew that it wasn't what she meant, he made an unnecessary correction in the most pedantic way. Huh, that seemed…funny?

I searched my records and realized that I had never noticed humor before. I had been missing so much! He was charging during the fight! Haha, that was a good joke. Well, it was a joke. I didn't know how it ranked among others like it; I would need to watch for more jokes in the future.

"Wait."

"Did Void just laugh?"

CHAPTER 18

FUNNY BONES

Roscoe stood overseeing his army outside the walls of Greg. The people here had been more resistant than he could have ever expected. His first assault had been rebuffed. Of course, he could have taken the town through sheer persistence eventually, but he didn't want to lose too many of his elite troops. So instead of storming the town, he sent out groups to the surrounding areas to recruit.

So far, things were progressing, although slowly. More and more troops trickled in, and they were almost ready to commence another assault. Not every troop he sent out would come back, but so far, all the elites had made it. That was what mattered. Each time a group went out, he impressed upon it the order to leave the castle alone. It wasn't just to prevent spoiling the seat of his god, though that was a consideration. No, he just didn't believe that anything would be able to take on such a mighty being. They would simply be destroyed in the attempt.

He wasn't sure how well the command would hold with the newly created. However, he just didn't have much choice but to trust that it would work out. Now the tens of thousands of zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and other undead surrounding the city were numerous enough to attack.

With a command, the formerly fodder troops surged forward in a wave. They were all very low-level and wouldn't accomplish much. Still, they would act as a ramp for the others to scale the wall. Many would be destroyed, but many would recover, and the new comrades from the city would fill their ranks again.

A cry rose from the city, and bells started ringing. A sparse volley of arrows sailed over the walls, only to land ineffectually among the uncaring dead flesh of the approaching masses. As the bells continued to ring, more and more arrows joined each volley. Soon enough, balls of fire arced over as well. Defenders on the wall threw rocks. A few even dumped boiling oil, which didn't do much besides make its target slightly more slippery. Useless. Footing wouldn't become a concern on the ramp of bodies without many orders of magnitude more oil.

The zombies hit the wall before the defenders had even begun to make a dent in their numbers. The first ones at the walls were promptly trampled, and the next wave came that much closer to the wall's top. If the defenders had only to defend one part of the wall, they would have repelled the attack, just as they had the first night Roscoe had tried this. Even a dozen different points of attack would have been possible to overcome.

However, this attack was bigger. The entire wall was being scaled at once. By the ninth wave, the undead could reach their fingers over the walls. They were mostly beaten back, and the ones that pulled themselves up were quickly thrown back down to the pile.

The next rank didn't have to reach for the wall, though, and the one after that simply stepped over the ledge. All the further ones practically climbed over their predecessors, only to fall upon the defenders. The twelfth rank caused a mass of undead to fall off on the inside of the wall, their momentum simply clearing the wall of defenders. The arrows coming over the wall never stopped.

Roscoe had to admire their determination, but they couldn't stand before the might of the Void. The world would be cleansed.

He didn't have to, but he sent his elite troops in. They might as well get some experience as well. Fifteen minutes later, he was walking through the gates, and the ghastly undead ramp was sorting itself back into ranks.

Tony and Bee spent some time trying to figure out if Void had laughed or not. They weren't able to come to a conclusion, and Void had stopped responding to them at all. So eventually, they gave up and continued on. Before leaving the now-abandoned farm, though, they made sure to destroy the skeleton acting as a scarecrow. Void did them a favor and absorbed its powdered remains.

It likely had been up there for days, but still, it wasn't smart to leave it behind. Who knew what kind of trouble it would cause if it had been allowed to reform and spread havoc?

The trip back to the main road went quickly as they chatted about what to do next. Tony thought it was best to go right to Greg and see what the news was, while Bee wanted to stop by each little hamlet and check for survivors. The outlook was grim, and time might be of the essence, but Tony had a good point too.

"If we get Greg, we can see what news they've gotten from all the surrounding areas. Then we can see where we can help."

"How often would these places really send the news to Greg, though? Not very often, I would bet," Bee responded. She remembered his older sister was supposed to be in Greg and thought that might be influencing his judgment.

"Well, it is harvest time, and many would be delivering grain around now. So it's not exactly normal timing either, is it?" Tony pointed out.

"Hmmm, maybe? Void, what do you think?" Bee asked. Void lay still in her arms for a bit before giving a long-winded explanation. Honestly, she only got the gist of it. But it was quite detailed.

Tony didn't understand either, thankfully. Otherwise, it would have been just too embarrassing. She was supposed to be the system-proclaimed Priest, after all. "What did he say?"

"The number of undead we have seen had to come from somewhere, as the undead were all humans at some point. So in order to have this many, they must have come from somewhere with a large population. From Void's estimates, there likely wouldn't have been enough people in the valley and its hamlets alone, so clearly, it is too late for Greg," Bee said. Of course, she didn't get this from Void directly. It had said a lot more than this. However, this nugget of wisdom was all she was able to understand from the profound statements of her master. Truly she was ashamed to be such an incompetent mouthpiece.

Void clearly didn't appreciate her poor translation, as it spoke up again. Her face flushed with embarrassment. This was the first time she had ever heard her master clarify itself, so she must have messed up big time. Normally it didn't bother and would let her operate on her minuscule understanding.

Tony listened just as intently as she did. Neither wanted to miss a single note. This time, Tony tried his hand at interpreting the words of their master. "It sounded like he was saying that he doesn't know the exact size of the valley or its population, so this is speculation, but it would still be best to look for survivors in smaller areas, as the three- or four-day trip to Greg will take too long anyway. Did I get that right?"

Bee thought about it for a second. "I think we probably missed a lot of deeper meaning, but I got that we can only do so much to protect people at our current power. I think it's right; we need to level up again. I'm so close to level 35…"

That wasn't at all what I was trying to say. Well, some of it was accurate, but they extrapolated out from my suggestions way too far. Still, it was a lot more insightful than my intended message, so I didn't bother to correct them. I just wanted to add that we should focus on the area near the castle first, as we might want to be able to retreat if we ever get overwhelmed. The same effect was conveyed, so I didn't think that any further input from me was needed.

Still, once we got back to the main road, I still hadn't figured out a way to tell a joke. Not only had I not figured out how to deliver it, I hadn't even thought of one yet. None of them really fit what I wanted to say, as they were too related to cleaning. Those likely wouldn't be understood by anyone other than my kind, and I doubted they would have developed a sense of humor like I had. Something about collecting dust…

It was just so hard to be clever. I wanted to get a good joke about sitting still. Are you collecting dust or collecting dust? No, that wasn't it; that was just a repetition. I guess that could be funny, like when Bee kept screaming when she first saw me. Maybe that was a joke?

I decided to circle back to this after some time. Circle back? Like when something required a second sweep of cleaning? I was pretty sure there was something there. I just couldn't quite put my bristle on it. Oh well.

We had turned up the road and walked a bit before exploring down the next side path several hours later. When we were about halfway down the path, Tony and Beatrice realized an issue. The day was starting to get late, and with the tall trees, the setting sun was rapidly being covered. After several minutes they began to constantly trip on roots. Maybe this was funny. Watching Tony brush the dirt off his knees certainly was fascinating.

Yet still, it didn't make me want to laugh. It wasn't quite the right kind of… I really wasn't sure how to describe it. Humor was hard.

Bee laid out their bedrolls while Tony got a fire set up in a small clearing off the side of the path. I was worried about them sleeping directly on the dirt, even if the bedrolls helped a little. The camp was fairly basic, and they didn't bother to use the fire to cook. Instead, they just ate some of the dried provisions that they had packed for the trip.

They did, however, like staring at the flames. "Have you ever seen flames flicker like that?" said Tony.

"It's like watching a clock tick. The interval between flare-ups is exactly the same as far as I can tell."

"The height of the flame is exactly three times taller when it flares."

"Huh, I would say the interval is about three seconds too…"

"And it looks like along the edges of each flame, there are smaller copies of the whole flame pattern…"

"You’re right! I think I read something about that a little while ago. I think it was called a fractal. Supposedly some people can describe them with just numbers. I didn't really get it. Advanced mathematics is so much more boring than magic."

"How do you not find magic boring? How is it any different than math? I don't really understand either."

"Well, with math, everything is connected and makes sense. You know, one plus one is always two. It makes sense and can be seen everywhere. By definition, it's common. Magic, though, is different. Sure, it has rules, but the products just don't make sense. Why is it that if I replace gray squirrel fur with red squirrel fur, the speed potion changes to slightly bad-tasting coffee? Or why does the phase of the moon matter when collecting alligator tears? There is no connection, as far as I can see. If you looked at those tears every way you can, there'd be no way to tell when it was collected."

Tony snorted. "That sounds like a whole mess…"

I listened to them talk for a while, still focusing my own processors on the nature of humor. Eventually, they made their way to sleep and left me to watch and meditate.

CHAPTER 19

REAP WHAT YOU SOW

When we reached the next settlement, we found just a normal family completely untouched by the chaos. I stayed outside while Beatrice and Tony argued with them; apparently, their news about the threat was hard to believe without proof. Voices were raised, and eventually, Beatrice had to pick me up as they were chased off by a couple men carrying pitchforks.

We only had to run for around five minutes down the path before we long outpaced the angry men. Beatrice seemed conflicted about the whole incident. "I can't believe they thought we were lying! What, did they think we were going to steal from their farm or something? As if a ruse like that wouldn’t fall apart when they got more than five minutes off the farm."

Tony paused as if he was considering Beatrice's words. "I bet that they thought we would rob them once they left. Or we had friends that would frisk their place when they were away."

"Don't you know them? They’re your neighbors."

"Yeah, more than a day's walk away. I think Da knows them, but I never met them myself," Tony said with a bit of bite in his voice. "I haven't heard anything bad about them per se, but I also haven't heard anything good about those two either. That’s the more telling part. My Da doesn't say bad things about anyone."

Beatrice scoffed. "Well, if they want to sit and wait for the dead to find them, let them."

"There isn't much else we can do," Tony sighed with what I thought was significantly more sympathy in his tone.

Really, I was just disappointed. Another group of humans from outside had attacked us. Tony and Beatrice seemed to find it less dangerous than the others, though. I guessed that was because they weren't trying to kill us, just drive us away. But still, the use of force was entirely too excessive. I wasn’t sure if I should have retaliated.

We moved on to the next house the same day.

As we saw the light of the clearing at the end of the trail, I picked up a commotion on my sensors. Not wanting to show up too late, I requested Beatrice set me down.

I started to just zip forward and go ahead full speed, but a treacherous root caught my wheel and sent me tumbling not seventeen feet from where I was set down. Before I lost all my momentum, I extended my arm and nudged the ground so that I would land on my wheels. My models worked perfectly, as I landed on my wheels while retaining 54 percent of my momentum.

My sensors told me that I didn't have much time, so I kept going. The next time a root tried to make a fool of me, I activated my Thrusters and floated over without losing speed. I had to keep hopping over small obstacles every few feet. It slowed me down a little, but not nearly enough to let Beatrice and Tony catch up to me.

Once I got to the fields, my trip became much smoother. I sprayed dirt everywhere behind me. Normally I would be mortified at causing such a mess, but the area around me was mostly crops, and they seemed to need dirt, after all. The coating of dirt on my underside and rear, though, made my casing itch.

This clearing was much smaller than the other ones we had seen before, and only a single small house stood in the center. On the front porch stood an old man and a woman with graying hair. The man wielded a pitchfork with great dexterity, and the woman stood slightly behind him with a broom. I liked the woman already. Arrayed in front of them were nearly a dozen zombies. Currently, only the railing of the porch kept them from being overwhelmed.

As I approached, I saw the old man get his pitchfork stuck in the chest of one of the zombies and struggle to take it out. One thing I learned from watching Beatrice fight them was that aiming for the head was the better plan. Zombies would ignore any shots to the chest that weren't completely bisecting the spine. Luckily for them, I arrived just in time.

A sweep of my lamp at ankle height cut the zombies down without having to risk shooting through them and harming the normal humans or house behind them. As I got closer, I appreciated the older couple even more. They must have bathed this morning with how clean they were.

My intention was just to get the attention of the zombies so that the older ones could take a breather and be safe. These zombies must have been incredibly weak, though, as the beam sliced right through their ankles, sending them to the ground. That didn't finish them off, of course. Like cleaning a tough floor, they needed multiple passes. As I got closer and found an angle where I didn't risk hurting the humans, I finished off the zombies.

Right about that time, Tony and Beatrice made it within sight of me. I pointed my arm to the back of the house, directing them to where another group of zombies was closing in. Perhaps that might have been a mistake, as the old humans were now pointing their pitchforks and brooms at me. I tried to communicate with them and tell them that everything was alright, but no matter how much I beeped at them, they only seemed to get more scared.

Bee followed her master's urging and sped up around the house, leaving Tony behind. She had kept pace with him as they chased after Void, as she didn't want to leave him vulnerable. Now that her master was in sight, she figured he was safe enough. She heard her master attempting to bestow wisdom on the elderly owner of the farm.

However, she knew that wasn't going to work. The uninitiated wouldn't be able to understand its otherworldly screeching. She remembered when she had first heard its calls and how terrified she had been. Her master's slightly naive outlook might not be able to recognize how terrifying its own presence was. Or maybe it was simply the observer's onus to learn to interpret its great wisdom.

Yes, that was likely it. That was much more likely than Void being I. As much as it only desired cleanliness, it also understood great evils. It needed to fight to achieve its dreams. Just considering the holy war on stairs clearly demonstrated its ability to navigate the darker parts of life.

Bee banished the thoughts of her master's nature from her mind. While they would need to be meditated on further to grow her understanding of her class, right now wasn't the time. From behind the house, a small group of zombies was rounding the corner. These were much lower in level. She really hoped that they would be just enough to push her over the edge and get her to the next milestone, but she doubted it.

Her Scan showed that their average level was less than 20. This would only give her chump change. With her new evaluation of the threat, she slowed her advance after positioning herself between the house and the oncoming group. It would be better to simply leave these for Tony for the most part. He would at least benefit from the exchange.

She wondered if he would be able to finish off them all by himself, but with her to step in if necessary, he should at least be able to put up a good showing.

As she readied her broom, Tony skidded to a halt at her side. "That's not too many," he said. "Looks like only seven. I'll take the three on the left?"

Bee shook her head at Tony's question. He looked slightly confused. "Okay, then how do you want to take care of them?"

As Tony readied his iron rod, Bee thought that he really needed a better weapon. Tony was starting to fall into the same trap she did when learning the broom. The rod worked well against the slow-moving opponents that were weak to blunt force to the head. Against something quicker like a skeleton, the defensive capabilities would shine through. But if he ever had to fight a ghoul…

"I think you should give them a try," Bee told Tony.

"What? All by myself?"

"Yes, they aren't that high-level. None are above 20. I think you can take them," Bee insisted. At the skeptical look she received, she remembered that she had never told Tony about her Scan skill. At this point, it wasn't that she still didn't trust him, but now wasn't the time.

"If you say so." Tony took a step forward.

"Oh, you should think about your next skill carefully. You might want to pick up a weapon proficiency," Bee called out to him. Tony shot an annoyed look over his shoulder.

"Is now really the best time for this?" he asked.

"Well, you might level up here. It would be a waste to have you pick something that would help you in the short term out of panic, especially while I’m here and can step in if you need time," Bee said.

"Sure, thanks," Tony said before charging at the leftmost zombie. Bee wasn't sure she understood his strategy at first, but as he swung at the head of the zombie while moving past the group, they all turned to face him. His momentum added extra force to his swing, which connected, leaving a large dent in the head of his target. It also carried him past the group rather than getting him swallowed up, as he would have been if he had gone for the center. This gave Tony room to work.

Unfortunately, the first one struck didn't go down, and while not inside the group of enemies, he was only a few paces away. Still, it gave him time to repeat the attack from the other side of the group. This time the one that he struck fell. With less speed as he struck, it meant that he also had less speed getting away. But he managed it.

Now, instead of immediately charging back in, Tony backpedaled. With more space, he had more room to maneuver. While the zombies were an unthinking horde of beasts, that didn't mean they just targeted the nearest person. A few broke off from the group and started shambling toward Bee and Tony while the rest aimed for the house. Tony now only faced a few while the rest went to targets that he needed to defend. Bee wondered how he was going to handle this.

Looking around at the fight, Tony saw the issue and ran at the group going after the house, swinging his makeshift club viciously. It was riskier, as he could no longer count on being out of range of any counterattacks. Dodging the hand that reached out for him, he wailed at the zombies desperately, trying to finish them off so he could get to the group approaching Bee in time.

The two that he had run away from, though, were not satisfied with just waiting for him. Instead they moved toward the house from a completely different angle. Bee could see sweat forming on Tony's brow. It seemed that she might have to intervene—not to save Tony, but rather to help contain the threat from disturbing Void.

As she was about to step up and assist, a cry from the house wrenched her attention away. "No! Please, we can't!"

CHAPTER 20

KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS

While Tony and Beatrice dealt with the zombies, I calmed the old couple down. Well, I attempted to calm them down, at least. I tried to talk to them, but even I could tell this conversation was going off the rails fast.

It started innocently enough—the older woman inclined her head slightly toward me and said, "Thank you for saving us."

My response was as calming as I could make it as I explained to them why I was here. To put them at ease, I complimented them on their personal hygiene and the general cleanliness of their house. The state of the house wasn't really anything to write home about, but it didn't hurt to be polite. However, to my shock, my words didn't appear to relieve tension in the slightest.

At first, I only received blank stares. As I continued, they began to look around with panicked expressions on their faces. What was so hard to understand? When they asked "what do you want from us?" I remembered that humans couldn't normally understand what I was saying. It was only recently that Tony and Beatrice could begin to interpret my beeps into something that approximated my actual meaning. Even they had a pretty low accuracy with getting the finer points, though.

I would have to go back to basics while trying to calm these humans down. If they could understand basic yes and no, I would be satisfied. So in order to communicate more efficiently, I extended my arm and used it to gesture.

First, I pointed to them, then the zombies. I then pointed to myself. While that was happening, I explained slowly how I saved them and wanted to make sure they were alright. Then, I wanted to convey my compliment. I pointed to each of them in turn, to indicate them. I made a circular motion to indicate the particulates in the air that gave off an odor. Then I pointed to the ground to include the house. I said “thank you” as clearly as possible while pointing to myself.

I wasn't sure how else to convey my appreciation for their efforts in keeping a decent standard of cleanliness, especially in an otherwise atrocious field of dirt like this. I couldn’t imagine how they could stand being forced to live here. However, somehow the message didn't come across. I just didn't understand what they weren't getting.

The old woman clung to the arm of the man and started shaking. He moved his mouth but didn't produce any words. Eventually, he managed a few weak words. "You want this farm?"

No! That wasn't right at all. What would I do with a farm? I didn't need food, and it was much too far away from the castle for me to be able to clean it regularly with my current level of power. How could I make them understand my compliment?

I did my best to convey no as clearly as possible, and the man sagged in relief that I wasn't going to take his farm. I then reiterated my points. But this time, I tried to simplify the meaning even further. You, pointing at them. This place, pointing at the ground. Are good, positive beeps. Me, pointing at myself with an appreciative beep. Perfect, how could they misunderstand that?

"No, Please! We can't!"

Huh?

Bee rounded the corner to find Void sitting before the pair of elderly farmers as they cowered, begging for their lives. She stepped forward quickly to dispel the apparent misunderstanding. At least, she hoped it was a misunderstanding; if the farmers had truly offended her master, there was little she could do. Even if the thought of them facing the same fate as the bandits sickened her.

"Master, what’s going on?" Bee asked Void. Unfortunately, her word choice may have been a mistake, as the old lady fainted, collapsing to the porch deck before her husband could react. Void let out a puzzled noise. In the last several months, Bee had never heard such bewilderment coming from the little black disc. For a second, she saw it as an innocent, confused being just trying to make its way in the world. That was before she looked down and saw a dozen zombies with missing feet and neat holes in their heads.

"What did you tell them?" she asked. Void let out a long, complicated story complete with gestures. Watching it, Bee thought back to their first meeting and immediately understood what was going on. It wasn't until she had really accepted her class that Void’s communications started to make sense. Before that, she only heard screeches that sounded like the torture of demons, unlike anything she could have ever imagined.

Quickly she got the gist of what her master had been trying to tell the people. Once she had an understanding, she walked over to the house. The man was tending to his wife, but still watching Bee and her master intently. Bee gently helped the man sit and lean against the railing. Sitting on the steps next to the shocked older man, she introduced herself.

"Hello, I'm Bee. Priestess of Spot. What is your name?" she said as gently as she could manage.

The man looked at her warily and took a second to process her words. Then, with a deep breath, he extended his hand. “Silas, of Silas’s farm. I can't say I’ve ever heard of the deity named Spot."

"It's a new thing," Bee said. “Here, I have a potion here that may help your wife recover more quickly. It’s a minor health potion.”

Silas’s eyes widened, then narrowed at the vial. After a moment’s indecision, he hesitantly accepted it.

"I think there is some misunderstanding here. Void here is…a little hard to understand sometimes, and I would like to help interpret. I understand that it seems a little unworldly, but please be assured that Void is as benevolent a creature as you can find."

Silas followed Bee’s gesturing arm and once again eyed the black disk skeptically. Still, he didn’t challenge her or seem disbelieving, exactly, of Void’s power. He seemed more concerned that it would lash out at him or his wife. Seeing it deal with those zombies so quickly had probably left quite the impression.

Not getting much of a response, she continued. "So the first thing it was trying to tell you was that you are safe now. It also wanted to compliment you on how well-kept your farm is."

This got an exhausted chuckle out of the man. Looking over at Void, Silas responded to it directly. "Well, Mr. Void, I'm sorry you have to see it in such a state. Normally there wouldn't be such a mess, but this is the third time zombies have come in the last week! My bones were getting weary from burying all of them.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Also, I…apologize for the shameful display. I'm not sure what came over me."

"I'm sure you were just tired. I can't believe you fought off two other groups of zombies this week. How did you manage that?"

Silas relaxed a bit, seemingly reassured of Bee’s and Void’s intentions. He adjusted his wife’s position to a slightly more comfortable one. "Well, there were only a few each time. The dozen here would have been too much for me." Silas paused. "Where are my manners?"

Nimbly getting to his feet in a way that belied his age, he disappeared into the house, quickly reappearing with a pitcher of tea and a few glasses. Filling one up, he offered it to Bee. "Some sweet tea, miss? I'm running low on ice, otherwise it would be quite chilled."

"Thank you, Silas," Bee responded gratefully, taking the tea and sipping the cool, refreshing drink.

"Mr. Void, would you care for some refreshments?" Silas asked. While he still appeared slightly nervous, he didn't let his voice shake at all. Void let out a short noise. Bee figured her master was trying not to spook him any further.

Bee interpreted. "Void says that it will pass, but thanks you for the offer."

Silas shrugged and poured a glass for himself. They sat sipping tea as the man got lost in his thoughts. His wife, Lily, woke up quickly, feeling much better with the potion that Bee had given her. As she sat next to her husband, Bee poured some tea into a third glass for her.

The scene continued uninterrupted for several minutes before Silas snapped out of his thoughts. "I'm sorry, I meant to ask. What brings you all up this way? My farm doesn't tend to get many visitors."

"Ah, about that. We are from the castle nearby. Recently we have been dealing with undead incursions as well. We’ve been going through the farms and seeing if there is anyone that needs our help, as well as offering sanctuary in the castle. At least, until the undead run themselves out or until the king sends the army," Bee explained.

Silas nodded in understanding. "That's mighty kind of you. If I may, though, why would the mages send you and Mr. Void here? That seems a little out of character."

Bee thought about how to best explain the complicated situation going on at the castle. Honestly, it had been going on for so long that it didn't seem that odd to her anymore. Luckily, she was saved from having to come up with an explanation on the spot as Tony came stumbling around the corner of the house.

Upon seeing them all sitting on the steps sipping tea, he threw his rod on the ground and tossed his hands in the air.

"Did you forget about something?" he asked exasperatedly. Bee noted the rips in his clothes and the long scratch down his forearm, as well as the sweat plastering the rags of his shirt to his chest. Perhaps she should have gone back to help him out once she had settled things down here.

Running a Scan on him, she saw that he was now level 19. No, he still needed it, she thought. "No, I knew you could do it."

As Tony limped the rest of the way over and leaned on the railing, Bee tossed him a healing potion.

"Thanks," he panted, downing it. "Now if only it worked on my shirt as well."

Silas watched as Tony downed the potion and the cut on his arm began to push out the black infection the zombies had imparted. Bee’s eyes narrowed at that detail. That wasn’t good at all. Once Tony had finished the potion, he handed the glass flask back to Bee and reached out to offer his hand to Silas. "Tony, nice to meet you."

"Tony? Trent's boy?" Silas asked. When Tony nodded, he continued. "Silas. We met before but I don't think you’d remember me. Barely taller than my knee, you were. How are yer folks doin'?"

"Oh, they're gettin' by. We’re wintering in the castle this year. Had to harvest a bit early but everything’s dryin' alright," Tony said. Then he and Silas started talking about last year's weather and other farming things that Bee tuned out. Silas was clearly more comfortable talking to Tony, as they spoke the same language.

Now that they had found a group of people who would maybe like to shelter in the castle, Bee needed to figure out what they should do. They might need to escort them back to the castle, but that would take a lot of time. Plus, it would really slow down their search. On the other hand, there would likely be a horde at the gates again, and she was a bit nervous to see if the defenses would hold. What if the undead used an ambush strategy again, like when they had set out initially?

As she sipped her drink, she realized that Void had disappeared when no one was paying attention. She got up and nodded in reassurance to the seated group as she walked around the house. She found her master cleaning up the remains of the zombies; thinking back, she realized that the ones at the front of the house had mysteriously vanished as well.

Now that they were alone, Bee had a moment to ask Void’s advice on the matter. "Master, what would you like to do next?"

CHAPTER 21

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Harold had been a bit nervous when he returned to the city. As he led the shattered remains of the demon extermination force through the streets, his previous terror at the skeleton army’s pursuit had long since given way to a deep sense of foreboding. He figured his head was on the chopping block.

However, apparently, the reports of the few officers that survived had been enough to wash away the failure, if not put him in good graces entirely. On top of that, the news of the demons and the undead working together was a real cause for panic. They were natural enemies, so the cooperation couldn’t have been voluntary. A demon powerful enough to force undead of such strength to attack his armies was truly terrifying.

As reports had come in of the undead infection spreading, things had only gotten more complicated. Many thought it was a secret plot from Barleona to sow discord, though Harold knew better. That didn’t make it any easier to coordinate troop deployments, though. Even with the war effort, troops would have to be sent to deal with this. The debates had raged for weeks on how to split the forces between threats.

The final details still weren't settled on, but there was a consensus—at least the minimum needed to be sent out now. Since the undead army wasn’t Harold’s field of expertise, being the dean of the Demonology College, he had escaped being sent out right away. Despite his best efforts, though, he was sent to reinforce his counterpart. The necrology school was in the neighboring region and was beginning to mobilize, an effort that he was expected to contribute to.

Still, he didn't mind. At least it should keep him far away from a battlefield, and he knew that the Warden would like an update in that area anyway. The dean of necrology wasn't a member of his organization. While the king seemed to have forgiven Harold, the Warden still was a bit colder than he would have liked. A show of effort was likely required to regain at least some standing.

Even with all the political implications of his position, it was still of Harold’s own volition that he was meeting with the commander of the troops a day before they set up. The man knocked on Harold's office door promptly at 2 pm, as scheduled.

"Come in," he called. A sharply dressed officer in royal greens and whites stepped in. A casual salute followed by a firm handshake soon saw the man relaxing in the chair beside Harold’s desk. A glass of spirits joined him shortly after. "It's good to see you, Arthur."

"Likewise, Harold. I was glad to see you made it back from the north in one piece," Arthur remarked in a casual tone.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I take it you read my report?" Harold confirmed. Arthur nodded. "Well, there are a few points I wanted to emphasize and give you a chance to ask me questions about."

"I appreciate it. What parts in particular?"

"The threat we went to oppose was not defeated and we think it may be behind the recent undead outbreak." Harold said, laying out some background. Arthur just waited for him to continue, as this was all common knowledge amongst the senior officers. "I wanted to tell you more about what this threat is. There were a few things that I couldn't put in my report."

After pausing to take a sip of his drink, Harold continued. "Now this is my personal opinion, nothing official. If I were you, I would expect the demon threat behind these issues to be at least level 70."

Arthur paled slightly but otherwise managed to maintain his composure. "Are you sure?"

"At least. That could be more by the time you get there," Harold confirmed.

"How do you know?"

"I can't say for sure, but it defeated something else around that level. I felt the battle as we were leaving with a sensory skill. I believe it may have destroyed the leader of the undead." That last bit was a lie, as Harold couldn't admit any knowledge of the Lieutenant.

I considered Beatrice's question about what to do next, now that we had found people who would come back to the castle with us. Honestly, I wasn't sure. I didn't want to leave the rest of the people out here alone without help, but we also couldn't take these humans with us on our exploration. No matter how good care they took of themselves, they were still slow and old.

If Tony was stronger, I would have him take them back by himself, but I figured that would be dangerous for all involved. Well, if I couldn't send Tony alone, could I send both of the humans back?

No, that wouldn't be a good idea. I would need to be able to talk to humans. If this trip had demonstrated anything, it was that humans were easy to scare. So I asked Beatrice if she could take the two humans back by herself and make sure the castle was okay, before coming to find Tony and me.

Beatrice thought about my question a little bit. "I am pretty sure I can make it back to the castle myself. I can probably even escort Silas and his wife. However, I'm a bit concerned about finding you again."

Hmmm, she made a good point. We didn't really have a good way to communicate over long distances. What if I told her where we were going? Well, no, I didn't think I could communicate the idea well enough. I suppose I could try. I started to describe my search pattern plans.

Beatrice did her best to follow along, but I lost her quickly as I started going through the algorithm steps. She started drawing in the dirt with the tip of her shoe, trying to follow along. This gave me a better idea! I told her to forget that, and she looked unreasonably relieved. Instead, I placed my arm in the dirt and drew a perfect circle.

That symbol, drawn in the ground, would indicate that we were searching that path. Beatrice nodded her understanding. Then I drew an X through the circle; this would be when we finished. That way she could just go up the main road and find the offshoot we were currently exploring.

"I think that I could follow that. Maybe you can mark if there are people for me to bring back if you find any, if they are able to wait long enough for me to show up?" Beatrice considered.

I thought I needed to give Beatrice more credit. She was pretty good at problem-solving, even if tracing algorithms was not her strong suit. I was still not sure how comfortable I would be with leaving humans behind unprotected. When I conveyed that to her, she seemed to agree. "Well, I understand the concern. And we don't have to use that symbol unless it makes sense. Of course, if they survived this long, they might be fine. Also, there are a lot of people still left to find, and a delay to them might be worse than one to a family that can hole up in a house for a few days."

How long would it really take for her to find them again? Especially if we found multiple families. That wasn't even considering my discomfort with leaving Beatrice on her own for so long. Sure, she had been doing much better recently, but I couldn't help but remember how often she got damaged when we first met. I pushed those thoughts aside. I needed to trust her.

We ended up agreeing that if the situation arose, we would use a checkmark to indicate there were people waiting for her. Otherwise, we would start heading back with the group of refugees until we met her. It was a decent compromise.

With all the zombies disposed of, we headed back to the front of the house. We had only spent half an hour working the plan out, but still, the group had finished their tea. Tony was inside with them helping to pack up. Things were thankfully already laid out neatly, so when Beatrice joined in, it didn't take much longer to get some travel supplies ready. At our pace, we might be able to make it back in a day, since we wouldn't make any detours, but it was already late.

Before we all headed out, I wondered if it would be a good idea to stay here for the night. Beatrice asked Silas, and he shook his head. "If we want to make it to the castle, I don't think these old bones can do that in one day. If we make a couple hours of progress before the sun falls, then we should make it by tomorrow night."

With that, we all set off down the trail together. Silas was right. They didn't move very quickly at all. I considered taking Tony and going ahead, but decided to wait. It was always the case that the zombies didn't seem to have any respect for the trails as they were laid out, so I didn’t rule out them coming from the bushes. So I decided to stay nearby, as Beatrice would have a lot less space to work with in the more tightly packed trail rather than these offshoots.

As we walked, Beatrice laid out the plan for Tony and the others. Silas seemed to be slightly relieved that they were heading right to the castle. I was sure it had nothing to do with me going in the other direction. Tony seemed to be more than a little worried about Beatrice. I understood his concerns, as she did seem quite breakable.

Beatrice was able to convince him otherwise, though. She started to hammer home her self-sufficiency with all the examples of her saving him until even I started to feel bad for the guy. He wasn't as incompetent as it seemed. We just kept fighting really strong opponents. Well, strong for them. In fact, I could say the same thing to Beatrice to keep her humble, but I supposed she wasn't worried for my safety here. Perhaps it might not be the nicest thing to do.

I almost had to anyway when Tony suggested that he take the elderly humans back, but Beatrice was able to convince him that it wasn't a good idea without getting too braggadocious. I made a little reminder that she might need more training on humility. She performed well enough with me, but it should have been a universal quality. Just because she was starting to have serious success didn't mean that she could forget to be humble.

When we got to the road, Beatrice put me down and waved goodbye. I returned the gesture. As we turned off to the south, Beatrice and her charges turned towards the castle. I watched them until they left my sensor range. I hoped that they would make it alright as Tony and I stared off toward Greg. I couldn't wait to see what these humans called a city.

CHAPTER 22

OLD HAUNTS

Bee trudged back to the castle, a bit disheartened. Still, she carefully watched the side of the road and checked over her shoulder regularly. She was aware that this plan had been partly her idea, but that didn't stop her from feeling down.

She regretted being so harsh on Tony before leaving. When they got back, she would probably have to apologize to him. Now that she had enough distance from the problem, she might be able to admit to a certain amount of jealousy. It really didn't matter to her that he would be getting all the experience for a little bit. That was a good thing. No, it was that she was Void’s Disciple first.

Intellectually, she knew it wasn't entirely rational, but this was the first time Tony and Void would spend time together. It was hard not to feel cast aside for a more promising Disciple. What if he got the Priest class soon, too? Then would she even be special anymore? Tony could already understand Void, even if not quite as well as she could.

Shaking her head, she tried to drive the doubt from her mind, though it ate at her relentlessly. Watching the undergrowth pass slowly by, Bee started wishing for a small zombie attack. Just a small one, to give her something to do.

Silas had been right. At this pace, they would make it to the castle just before sunset. If she were on her own, it would have only been a couple hours of running. But concern for her companions kept her at a slow, plodding pace. One thing that worried her was that there would likely be at least a crowd of undead waiting for them at the gate, if not a more devious trap. If they sensed the life force of the family in the castle, that would be more than enough to draw them around, especially if there were some already in the area.

Bee kicked a rock and sent it flying into the trees. This sucks, she thought. Her foot pulled back to kick another stone, then she paused. She hadn’t heard the first rock fall to the ground. Instantly, Bee reached for her broom. Something was wrong. She queried her Pathing skill for the nearest undead. It was an action taken on a whim. The skill had been growing recently with her use of it in combat, and she wasn't sure what else it could do.

Before she even felt the results, she wanted to smack herself. Setting up a whole symbol system with Void wasn't necessary at all. She could find her master and Tony anytime that she wanted with this.

The response of her skill completely derailed her thoughts. Holding up her hand, she halted her small party, "Wait."

Picking up a second rock, Bee hurled it with a lot more strength at a particular point in the trees. She heard a squelch and a thud as a zombie fell out in front of them, its head caved in by the rock. Lily screamed.

This set off a whole chain of events. A dozen yards in front of them, two ghouls poked their hands through the ground where they had buried themselves under the road. From the sides, a few zombies broke through the tree line. Three from each side, though her rock had dealt with one on the left already. One of the other two zombies had a rock partially embedded in its gut.

I chirped happily from Tony's arms. We were making decent time toward the city as we trotted along. I asked Tony how many more farms there were. He wasn't able to tell me right away, but counted on his fingers as he went through his memory. "At least five, I think."

That wasn't the most helpful answer. I preferred precise numbers. Still, it was better than nothing. We had been able to visit two or three farms a day while we were all in a group, and I didn't think we would be any faster without Beatrice. So it would be two to three days before we finished searching the valley. Our success rate wasn't great so far; maybe we would find one more family. But the longer we took, the less likely it would be.

Greg sat a little out of the mouth of the valley, so we wouldn't be able to offer everyone that we might encounter a place to stay. Luckily, those closer to the city might be able to find safety there instead. Tony seemed really excited to get to the city.

As we turned down the next offshoot, I asked to be put down, and I carved the symbol Beatrice and had I agreed upon into the ground. Then we continued on to explore the path.

The clearing itself wasn’t much different from what I expected at this point. However, the amount of carbon in the air was higher than normal. It wasn't until we saw the blackened husks of the buildings that I realized what had happened. Tony broke into a run until we reached the structure. He set me down to dig through the cold ashes of the houses that had been here before.

I scanned the ground, looking for signs of people. My models estimated that several people had come here maybe a week or more ago. All of the footsteps seemed unevenly spaced and heavy. Then, that number and more left around the same time. I beeped a question at Tony.

"I'm not sure how many people lived here," Tony said in a choked voice. "Two or three families."

I saw eleven extra sets of steps leaving the place and told him as much. With a sigh, he sank to his heels and put his face in his hands.

"That would be about everyone I would expect," came the muffled reply. Well, that was sad. I spun slowly in a circle looking for something to do. Not finding anything, I made my way over to the crouching Tony. Nudging his foot, I asked him what he would like to do.

"I don't know. It feels wrong to just leave it like this. But there are no bodies to bury," Tony explained.

My kind was not very sentimental about burial rites. Other appliances like me usually were tossed in the trash and sent to a landfill. Once we stopped working and couldn't be repaired, our bodies just became trash. I knew humans didn't hold the same views, but I also had no experience with human deaths. I did remember seeing one movie where they piled rocks on a body, but as Tony said, we didn't have a body.

Well, maybe the gesture would help. With my claw, I started to pile rocks in a heap at the foot of the largest burned-out house. The stones were easy to find, if not always easy to move. Not that they were too heavy for me to lift, of course. But because of the awkward weight, I would need something to brace myself with to avoid tipping over. I tried to use Air Affinity to lift them, but I couldn't lift anything too heavy.

Air Affinity was really good at shifting dirt off the rocks to get at them, though. After 14.1 minutes of quiet work, Tony saw what I was doing and started to help. Soon it was obvious that, in terms of lifting heavy things out of a hole and transporting them, he was vastly superior. Soon I was uncovering the rocks and just pointing him to the next largest one I had revealed.

In another hour and a half, we had a stack about waist-high stretching nine feet long, made of rocks around my size. At the head, we stuck in the least burned beam and set it upright in the rocks. Standing back, Tony solemnly bowed his head while I lit the end of the torch on fire with my Sanitation Lamp.

The fire was instantly put out by the wind. I tried again with no luck. I was able to sustain it a while longer using Air Affinity to shield it, but that wasn't a sustainable solution. Running my lamp along the beam’s entire length, the whole thing went up in a blaze. Tony looked up at the noise and, seeing the blazing pillar marking the fallen, he nodded.

I had to agree, it was quite a sight. I hoped it made Tony feel better. Though I didn't know if anyone else would ever see it.

The next farm we visited was the same. We built another cairn and lit another torch, then moved on. We found two more farms like this. Tony had stopped talking after the third one, and by the fourth, his face was entirely blank.

It was late at that point, as Tony had insisted on pushing on to check one last farm. However, there was no way we were going to make the next settlement today. As it was, I had already watched Tony fall on his face on three different occasions. I found it funny, but I wasn't quite able to pin down why.

As Tony settled down to sleep, I once again started to ponder the meaning of humor.

Bee ran to intercept the two zombies on the right, hoping to finish them off before the three on the left reached her wards. The ghouls weren't really something she was worried about. They were so slow it would take them a while to get to her. Once their trap had failed, the two weren't much of a threat.

Broom in hand, she angled the knife and speared right into the eye of the zombie with the rock in it. Immediately the thing dropped. It was only level 22, so she hadn't expected it to be difficult, but she was half-surprised that it fell so quickly.

Because of her surprise, she overextended slightly. Her Pathing skill urged her to roll forward to avoid the arms of the other zombie. She hesitated too long, as she was worried about leaving Silas and Lily exposed.

The only way to avoid the grasping hands of the much higher-level zombie was to fall backward. With her high agility, she was able to turn it into a backward somersault and end up on her feet, but it had already taken too long. She wasn't going to be able to finish this zombie and intercept the three coming from the other side.

She backpedaled, throwing a glance over her shoulder to see the old couple running away as fast as they could. Good, she had a few more steps to work with.

As she moved backward to keep the four zombies in front of her, she started making probing attacks to bait them into overextending. Maybe she could take one out before they could get past her. Two of them were above level 30, and they seemed to have a slight bit of intelligence, at least enough to tell a feint from a real attack.

The other two were not as clever. One she was able to trip with her broom end, and the other three tried to grab her when she was relatively close. The tripped zombie didn't fall completely, but it was as good as she was going to get.

This time when she lunged, she didn't overextend and pierced the other lower-level zombie just enough to drop it before getting back into her defensive position. With only three zombies left, this shouldn't be much of a problem, she thought.

Though, somehow, the slight bit of cunning in the higher-level zombies told her otherwise.

CHAPTER 23

SWEPT UP IN THE MOMENT

Bee adjusted her stance to face the two zombies in front of her. At levels 31 and 32, they had higher levels than any she had faced before, and they came with a weak one getting to its feet. She needed to take care of them first, as the two ghouls were starting to catch up.

As much as she liked her class, she knew that it was a support class at most. She wasn't made for combat at all. Void had shown her ways to get around that, but she hadn't picked up a new combat skill since level 15’s Broom Proficiency. And that wasn't meant for battle. Really, she had never gotten one.

Still, she couldn't give up. Silas and Lily were relying on her. Plus, she couldn’t fail her master here. She stepped forward with a series of light jabs with the broom’s spear end. The higher-level ones covered their faces, taking the cuts on their arms. The lower-level one didn't, and she managed to bring it down with three rapid jabs to the head. It took her long enough that she had to bring the bristle end up to block the level 32 zombie on her right.

Stepping back, she saw the ghouls had almost reached the fight. If she stayed still, there was no way that she could face two zombies and two ghouls at once.

Looking back over her shoulder, she saw that her wards had retreated around forty feet back and were watching the fight carefully. Good, that gave her a bit of space to work with. She retreated several steps back, buying her several seconds of extra time; she reached into a pouch on the side of her pack and pulled out a smaller flask. Popping the stopper, she downed the combat potion. It was something she'd been working on that would function as both a speed and strength enhancement.

Vigor coursed through her limbs, and she felt like she could throw a mountain. This time, when the zombie she attacked blocked its face with its arms, her slash cut right through its right forearm and bit deeply into the left.

Taking advantage of the opening, she attacked the level 31 enemy on the other side. It hesitated to block, which proved to be a fatal mistake. Her bladed broom end slammed through its head, showering her with disgusting giblets of flesh. If her master could see her now, she surely would be disowned.

Switching targets again, Bee slammed the bristle end into the knees of the other zombie and finished it off with a few quick jabs on the ground.

Already she felt the potion wearing off, and there were still two tough ghouls to face. The downside of such a potion was that it didn't last very long. Much less time than either a strength or a speed potion alone. It also left her feeling drained. Still, she could produce these much more easily than strength potions alone. Her Divine Alchemy only gave her the slightest boost when she considered it as a speed-cleaning assist, which was still better than no boost at all. These were all things she was trying to fix.

Not wanting to wait for the ghouls to close the distance, she flashed forward with only seconds left of enhancements. The ghouls were slow and didn't have a hold on her, and the first wasn't able to block her flurry of thrusts entirely.

As her strength waned, she turned to her last enemy. The spinning slash she put her momentum into bounced off its side. Somehow the broom had twisted in her hand, and the flat of the blade bounced ineffectually against its temple. Stumbling from the shock, she backed up.

The last ghoul followed mindlessly. It was slow, but exhaustion grated at her limbs and she had trouble keeping her arms steady. Bee wanted to retreat and recover, but she would only get worse for several minutes at least. She also couldn't take another potion for several hours. To combine the two effects, she had to up the toxicity, and that left her with just healing potions until it dissipated.

There was definitely still work to do on that before she used it again. Losing her nimbleness, she simply charged the last ghoul, just holding the point of her weapon in its general direction, not trusting herself to hit its head. As it was an undead, she knew that the tactic wasn't likely to be very effective, but hoped it would hinder the ghoul long enough for her to think of something. The end of the broom took the ghoul a little off-center to its right side.

Her momentum carried them both to the ground, the point stabbing into the soft dirt. The ghoul was effectively pinned. Bee rolled away, looking for a new weapon. She needed to start carrying a backup on her belt like she used to. The cleaver or mallet would both have been quite useful here.

Finding a rock a few feet off the side of the road, she picked it up and, with great difficulty, heaved it above her head. Staggering, she carried it over to the trapped undead. With her whole body, she brought it down as hard as her level-supplemented muscles allowed. The rock crushed the arms and chest to a pulp. With her last bit of energy, she brought it back a few feet up and smashed it down on the ghoul's head.

Leaving the rock in place, she slumped to the ground next to it and rolled over onto her back. Some part of her tried to stay away from the rotting bodies, but she was unable to move very far through her exhaustion.

Bee focused on just breathing.

LEVEL UP, LVL 34 REACHED.

Tony had charged for the entire night, but I let him keep charging even after the sun came up. It was a hard day for him yesterday, and I wanted to make sure he was in top form today. There might be one more homestead to check, but I didn't have much hope for that. We would definitely reach the city today, though.

Eventually, Tony stirred from his place on the ground, nestled under a few blankets. I waited for him as he ate some food and did all the status checks that humans did after charging. After that, he quickly packed up and scooped me up in his arms, walking back to the road.

We reached the end of the road and forest, only finding one more side path to explore. The forest suddenly gave way to rolling hills of grass. Little purple-and-white flowers speckled the field in irregular patches (at an average rate of three per square foot, if you wanted to be precise). We could make out the top of a large wall a little way in the distance.

"That's Greg," Tony explained while pointing at the walls. After seeing our destination, a weight seemed to lift from Tony's back, and he started walking toward the walls with a steady pace and straight back.

It took Bee several minutes before she could push herself to a sitting position. The level was nice, but at this point, she didn't feel the difference from a single level too much. Looking at the experience she had gained throughout the fight, she saw that she was really close to her next skill. She hoped that it would make more of a difference.

Despite being so close to the next level, she still couldn't wish for another encounter yet. She was so tired from this close call that she didn't think that she would be able to do it again. Scooting over to her pack, she dug through it. Finding what she was looking for, she moved a minor strength potion to the now empty side pocket. That would hopefully be enough next time she needed a boost. It wouldn't have such dramatic effects, of course. Also, she would need to wait for a while before she took it. At least a couple more hours.

Shoving herself to her feet, she picked up the pack and slipped into its straps. Looking around, she found Silas staring at her and the squishy mess of undead with his wife hiding behind him. She walked over to them. "I'm not infected or anything. I came out clean. I have healing potions anyway."

Despite her reassurance, Silas didn't relax until he had studied her face and eyes for several seconds. "Good to hear that.”

Bee’s fingers combed through her frazzled hair. The undead plague was another problem she might have to worry about. Once infected, a person would become undead when they perished, even without any death aura around. It was kind of like being an undead sleeper agent. It was also why undead plagues were so difficult to root out. Maybe the library had some info on other cures.

As Bee thought, Silas’s eyes wandered to her weapon. “I had been wondering why you carried a broom with you. An…interesting choice of weapon."

Bee nodded, and they started off back to the castle. "I told you I have a Priest class, right?"

Silas nodded. And Bee continued her explanation. "Well, I don't know how much you understand about the prerequisite Devotee class, but one of the ideals of my deity is cleanliness. Through a set of special circumstances, I picked up Broom Proficiency.” She brandished the spear-broom hybrid. “This seems to count."

"I guess that’s as good a reason as any," Silas chuckled, quickening his pace. They were all clearly eager to get to safety. "You said you were a Priestess of Spot, right? I can't say I’ve ever heard of Spot."

"You've met it, actually. Spot is just what the system calls my master. It goes by Void. At least, that’s what I call it," Bee explained.

"I did?" Silas said, not commenting on the whole Void-Spot fiasco, to Bee's relief.

"Yep, it was the black disc."

"Oh, that makes sense. It sounds like there is quite a story there," Silas said. "What exactly is it? I haven't seen or heard of anything like it. Is it a new god?"

Bee thought carefully before answering. "I'm not really sure what it is. A new god might be the best theory we have. It is unbelievably powerful. I’ve seen it do things that don't even happen in legends or myths."

Silas nodded but didn't say anything further. The rest of their trip went by in relative peace. Bee didn't mind the slower pace as she slowly felt her normal strength restoring itself to her limbs. Every couple of minutes, she queried her Pathing skill to see the general path to the nearest undead. It just gave her general directions, meaning they were far enough that the skill couldn't give her its usual precise steps. She took that to mean they were far enough away for her liking.

As they started getting closer to the castle, it gave more and more clear directions. She had a good idea of what was waiting for them, but still feared that the monsters had somehow found a way inside the castle. Before they crested the slight rise, she had the elderly couple sit behind a fallen tree and wait for her. She wanted to make sure it was safe. Carefully, she looked over the hill.

The top of the wall came into view first. When she saw the black bars of the portcullis still closed, she felt instant relief in her heart. She had feared that someone had opened it to go out, or that something had broken inside. However, she quickly tensed once again. Improved Pathing was telling her that to find the nearest undead, she only needed to go over the hill. Prepared for another ambush, Bee creeped forward and kept low.

A veritable sea of rotting zombies, dotted with ivory-white skeletons, were waiting for her in neat ranks in front of the castle.

CHAPTER 24

THE BLACK PARADE

Cities were a lot quieter than I had expected. With all the noise that the humans made in the castle, I half expected my microphone to blow out just being within a hundred feet of one. But no, we were so close to the city walls, and I heard only the wind.

This seemed to make Tony uncomfortable. "This city is empty."

It came out in a whisper. But I felt the importance of those words as they weighed on him. We slowed to a walk as we crossed the threshold of the open gate. Inside, it was clear that something had gone very wrong. There were no people anywhere, but the destruction of the city caused a mess of which I couldn't even begin to comprehend the scope.

The streets were filled with clutter. A decent portion seemed to be from the shattered remains of doors. I couldn't get an exact proportion without a larger sample size, but it was between 23 and 27 percent of the total mass. The remaining percent consisted of various other things. Fallen weapons, abandoned packs, the remains of small wooden stalls, random bricks, and stones whose history I couldn’t guess. No matter how hard I strained my sensors, though, I didn't pick up any signs of humans.

Tony was leading us on a very particular path. Even if he did seem in a daze, he appeared to know where he was going. He led me through the main thoroughfares, and I was able to pick my way through the debris to follow. It was so overwhelming that I didn't even attempt to clean it. This mess didn't need cleaning; it needed to be removed and rebuilt.

Beyond that, it somehow felt disrespectful to start vacuuming. Almost like this place needed to be left as a monument to the awful mess made here.

Suddenly my sensors picked up something. Something I wasn't expecting. I tried to get Tony's attention, both by beeping at him and tugging at his sleeve with my Grabby Arm. Neither worked. Unwilling to abandon him, I made a note on my mental map for later. We could come back after Tony had found what he was looking for.

Eventually, Tony stumbled to a halt in front of a pile of rubble that I couldn't distinguish from any of the others around me. I assumed that it had some significance as he dropped to his knees in front of it and sobbed into his hands. That wasn’t good. While he did that, I stretched my sensors as far as they could go. I could still sense the presence from before, but nothing else. Definitely nothing in this pile of rubble. I let Tony have his time, but I started to get impatient. We had been all about speed before—what was the holdup now? This time, I didn't give up until Tony was stumbling along behind me.

When we arrived at the spot, all we found was another mound of rubble piled high. However, I knew better. I started to move splintered wood and stones aside with my arm and Air Affinity. It didn't take very long for Tony to pick up on what I was doing. Soon enough, we were moving huge beams out of the way. With someone else to lift the other side to prevent me from overbalancing, it turned out I could move a lot of material. We even managed to shift a beam that weighed 782 pounds together. Finally, after tossing aside one more slightly charred plank, we uncovered a cellar door.

Tony flung the door open without hesitation, sending a shaft of light spearing into a dark, damp cellar. The room was entirely dark aside from the light we let in. My sensors indicated a high percentage of mildew and mold down here, though not as high as in the catacombs. As for its contents, the space was half filled with sacks of grain and half filled with humans. In the ten-by-ten room, there were fourteen women and forty children. Many of them were so small that they were being carried by the women. They squinted up at us with apparent apprehension and surprise.

"Cassy!" Tony called out. At the voice of another human, they all looked up and stopped cringing in the corner. A bunch of dirty, streaked faces looked back at Tony uncomprehendingly. Not getting any response, he clenched his fists and sighed slowly. “The undead are gone. Come on, we have to get you all somewhere safe.”

Then he reached down and started hauling up children willy-nilly. I guessed I couldn't complain about his lack of organization, though, as I knew the children would immediately leave any neat rows that he put them in. Still, he could have tried.

After all the small humans that could stand on their own were out, Tony started pulling up the women caring for small children. The fourth person he grabbed was different, though. He grabbed her wrist to hoist her up, but he paused halfway.

"Cassy?"

"Tony?" came back a small response.

An alarm went off in one of my subroutines. My attention was suddenly ripped away from Tony as one of the very small children was attempting to gnaw on the sharp end of an arrow. I zipped over and snatched it out of the open mouth of the small human right before it had a chance to bite down. I only had time to stick the arrow safely in my dustbin before I had to intervene elsewhere. One of the larger girls was twisting the arm of a small boy behind his back.

Bee stared at the sea of the undead in disbelief. As she focused, she started to notice patterns emerge among the zombies. She watched, stunned, as the skeletons walked up and down the ranks smacking hands and heads until all the zombies stood in straight lines with good posture. Once the column was six abreast, two skeletons took the lead and started matching them down the road. Along the sides of the column, a skeleton matched in lockstep every ten ranks.

She rushed back to Silas and Lily in a panic. She frantically gestured for them to stay quiet and hidden, relying on the bushes to obscure them. There was nothing else they could do but hope the procession would pass them by.

As the first undead crested the hill, Bee held her breath. The lead skeletons were almost level with their hiding place, and for a moment Bee allowed herself to hope. Then the skulls snapped to the side, locking eyes with her.

Her heart sank. Of course they would sense her. How could they not feel the life force of three live humans so closely nearby? Hands trembling, Bee began to reach for her broom. If she would die here, at least she would take some down with her. Maybe she could buy time for the older couple to get away. It was the best she could hope for.

As she gripped the broom’s handle, trying to steady her nerves, she waited for the assault. Yet the skeletons hadn’t changed course. In fact, as she watched, the leaders snapped their arms up into a smart salute, eyes still locked with hers. Then they returned their gaze forward and continued marching.

Bee blinked. Had she…had she imagined that? She was still staring at the procession, stunned, as the next pair of skeletons came level with her and repeated the salute. Then the next. After the fifth repetition, she turned to check if the others were seeing the same thing. Both of them had their heads bowed, ducking even further into cover. Right, that made sense. Turning back to yet another salute, she gaped in bewilderment. What was going on?

After the huge column of zombies moved past, they stayed completely still for a long while. But Bee still had no idea what it meant. Maybe it was some kind of trap? Clearly, the skeletons had seen her, right? They didn't just salute randomly. But what could they possibly gain from this? It just didn't make sense. Yet fifteen minutes later, she had still made no headway. The threat truly seemed to be gone. With no other option, she told the old couple to stay put while she slithered out of the undergrowth to go and check the castle.

Continually querying her Pathing skill, she couldn't find any ghouls hidden in the ground. That wasn't to say that nothing could be there. She didn't know about even a measurable faction of the total skills available, and there were likely many that could hide from her. Of course, she didn't even know if ghouls got skills or how the non-human systems worked anyway. The books were pretty sure that every living thing had a system, but they had no conclusions about how they all functioned.

As she reached the gate, she tried to figure out how to get it open. She was only there for a few minutes before Trent came out of the front door. A wave of relief washed over Bee. If he was alive, then the castle must be safe. Seeing her, he jogged over and started winching that gate up.

After she had ducked under, he let it back down. Panting, he spoke before she could. "Where’s Tony? Are you alright?"

Bee nodded, remembering that Tony hadn't been planning on going with them. "Tony decided not to come last minute. He is with Void right now. We found a few people willing to come to the castle for shelter. I'm escorting them back while the others go look for more."

"Where are they?" Trent asked, looking around for the people that she had brought back. The walls blocked some sight lines, but the portcullis let them see a lot.

"Just in the trees. Can you be ready to close the gate in case of trouble while I fetch them?" Bee asked as she started winching up the gate again. Trent agreed, and she slipped out to fetch her charges.

As they approached, Trent perked up. "Silas?"

"Trent!" Silas greeted warmly as the men grasped hands. "It's been too long, my friend."

The group turned to walk back to the castle after closing the gate behind them. The two men chatted along the walk, talking about crops and the weather. The more time Bee spent around farmers, the more she realized they really liked talking about the weather. She felt some whiplash from the normalcy after the insane events she had just witnessed.

Once all the people were out of the hole in the ground, everyone just stood around forlornly, looking at the wreckage around them. I was just grateful that when the larger humans got up there, I didn't need to watch the kids as closely. Their being near a bunch of sharp rocks seemed to pull the women out of their stupor enough to herd the kids into a group.

I noticed that some of the kids were hanging onto certain women. Other kids just wandered around aimlessly. About half of the adults tried to keep an eye on these kids, but some were so busy with the few kids that they had an immediate grip on that they were not much help. All in all, twelve of the forty kids had less than adequate supervision. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I had taken charge of watching over them.

The kids did some really weird things. And by weird, I mean weird. I recognized that I understood a lot more things than I used to, but as I got smarter, the things kids did make less and less sense. Previously I had always liked little humans. They put everything in their mouths and regularly ate dirt. All good signs of a productive member of the household. Sure, their cleaning techniques weren't very effective, but they were motivated and trying to help. They just needed to learn about efficiency. At least, that was what I had thought. Now that I knew more about how humans operated, it turned out they couldn't actually eat dirt.

So my theory of why kids put dirt in their mouths was completely shattered. After I recognized that they weren’t just figuring out how to clean, I needed a replacement theory, but it was hard to coherently organize their actions at all. There was no benefit I could figure out. As I stopped the same kid from eating a second arrow, I upped the processing power dedicated to this puzzle from 8.2 percent to 10.1 percent.

The worst part was that these kids didn't listen to advice. At all. I would understand if they didn't speak my language; most humans didn't. However, I saw a kid throw a rock at another kid. The woman who watched over him told him not to do that because it wasn't nice. But what did he do when her back was turned? He bent over and picked up another rock!

I was pretty sure that this was yet another example of how the humans here were just inferior to the humans back home. The little humans there didn't throw rocks at each other. Or at the small fluffy animals. My humans were clearly just superior.

Eventually, I got tired of stopping kids from wandering into nearly collapsing houses, and I called loudly for Tony to move on. He didn't answer, so I had to go looking for him. I found him holding a very small human in one arm and a sobbing woman in the other. His face was screwed up in an expression I wasn't even going to try and interpret.

CHAPTER 25

LITTLE MONSTERS

I rolled in front of Tony and the crying woman. Contrary to her state, Tony seemed happier than I had seen him in days. There seemed to be some amount of moisture leaking from his own eyes, sure, and there was still a lot going on that my emotional models didn't know how to process. Still, he had a smile on his face. Probably.

He seemed pretty busy taking care of the woman and her small human, but it wouldn't be good to stay here much longer. I repeated my request to leave, nudging his foot lightly. Tony glanced down at me and cocked his head. "Cassy."

Tony tried to gently push the woman away, but she clung even tighter. “Cassy, it's important.”

I noticed Tony's shirt was soaking wet near where her face was pressed. Popping out my Mop, I reached up to try and touch it. I didn't even need to get very close before all the liquid left the shirt, spiraling neatly into my little clump of cloth strips. I was about to put my Mop away when I realized the shirt was once again becoming wet.

Still, now that I had Tony's attention, I continued explaining that the little humans kept trying to kill themselves. He seemed rightfully alarmed at the stupidity of those humans. Perhaps it was that these humans, in particular, were dumb? Either way, he got up and started going from person to person, letting them know that we were going somewhere safe with food. They were safe, but we all needed to move.

I went back to taking care of the kids. Specifically, the twelve that were not constantly being fussed over by one of the women. I started to herd them along the path when Tony was taking too long to get everyone moving. The sudden reduction in noise seemed to get their attention, and everyone was slowly moving after my group.

Looking back, I saw Tony going from person to person. In each arm, he held a little human too tiny to walk. Almost every one of the women carried two as well. The ones who walked along were not very fast, and this limited our speed. We were halfway out of the city, only having walked for ten minutes when the problems started.

The little humans would sometimes randomly sit on the ground and start screaming. It was exceedingly loud and not at all conducive to getting us out of the city. Their actions were, in almost every case, actively harmful. Some of the larger kids were put down to pick up the screaming ones, who struggled in the women's arms. This got us moving again, but not very fast at all.

My children were the best-behaved. They stumbled and moved forward slowly, but if anyone started to get out of line, I zipped around in front and they rejoined the herd. The only major issue I had to deal with was one that started kicking rocks that hit the kids in front of them. A few judicious usages of my spray bottle to fire a jet of water at the offending child soon solved the issue, though.

Despite how well-behaved my flock of little humans was, I could tell that they were running low on battery. More and more frequently, I had to zip forward and catch a small human about to land on their face. Most of the time, I could get there to grab them by the collar and steady them. However, they rarely decided to fall alone. Increasingly, they tripped in sync.

I just hoped that we would make it out of the city before we had to stop.

Bee walked out of the gateway of the castle feeling quite refreshed. The sleep in a real bed had been heavenly, and the warm, home-cooked food was to die for. Silas and Lily had spent much of the evening catching up with Tony's family. They seemed to have no trouble integrating at the castle, so Bee felt comfortable leaving them again.

After she had slept and felt mentally refreshed, she once again tried to figure out the whole encounter with the skeletons. What had happened? She couldn't think of a reason for their strange behavior, but she could think of a couple of things that might have been related.

For example, when the rat ran past her in the catacombs, it ignored her. That was pretty much the opposite situation to this one, but it was also very unlike the undead. Maybe they were special somehow? Or was she? But then, if that was the case, why was she still getting attacked by ghouls and zombies?

She shuddered slightly. Anything that made the undead treat her as friendly couldn't be a good thing.

Regardless, it was time to set out again. Hiking up her pack, she activated Improved Pathing to get directions toward her master. As she expected, it pointed her down the road, and she set off.

Each time she passed a new trail, she checked the symbols even though she knew what she was going to find. Still, confirming that they didn't find anyone alive to save weighed on Bee's mind.

She followed her Pathing skill further and further away. At a light jog, she was able to eat up ground at an incredible pace. What would have taken a normal person days to travel, she covered in hours. The effects of her high levels had never been so obvious to her before. How much they set her apart from other people, she used to know. Could she ever become a normal person again? Looking at the broom she carried, she figured that the ship had long since sailed.

The closer she got to Greg, the more she became nervous. She still could barely sense where her master was. When she left the forest and crested the hill to see the top of Greg's walls, she finally got a better idea of how to get to Void. Changing her course slightly, she skirted around the next hill.

Off near the walls of Greg, she spotted a small group of people. Her skill told her that her master was somewhere in there. As she approached the group, she got a glimpse through the gates inside of Greg.

Stopping, she stared into the wreckage. What had happened here? Had her master finally gotten angry? What had the small city done to offend it so much?

Finally coming back to herself, she slowly walked toward the group of people at the edge of the city. As she came closer, she saw lots of children running around playing tag, with a familiar black shape deftly weaving between their legs. The group was made up of about two-thirds children, she realized. At least Void had spared the children.

Tony was sitting in the center of the group of kids. He was joined by a tall, brunette woman a bit older than him and clinging to his shoulder with tear streaks running down her face. Tony didn't look much better. Bee ran up and gave him a hug without even thinking about it.

"Are you okay? What happened here?"

Returning the hug with one arm, Tony whispered, "I don't know. It was like this when we got here."

Bee felt a little bit of tension, that she didn’t know she was carrying, leave her shoulders. They had found this. In retrospect, it was silly for her to think that Void had leveled a city. But the outlaw encounter had reminded her of what her master was capable of. It brought back a feeling she hadn't had since they first met.

In a louder voice, Tony continued. "Yes, I'm alright. I didn't expect you to make it here so quickly. We could use the help."

He turned toward the crying woman. "This is my sister Cassy, and her son Abe. Cassy, this is Bee, my…friend?"

Bee thought about the title. Technically it should be something like "superior" or "priestess," but she wasn't going to be a stickler for formality.

The woman sized her up with a sniffle and a decidedly unfriendly look. "She's a little young for you, bro, don't ya think?"

Feeling her face turn red at the suggestion, Bee spluttered, trying to speak. Tony's frown split into a small smile as he chuckled and punched his sister lightly in the arm. "Not like that. Get your mind out of the pigsty."

The woman looked Bee up and down again, this time with a hint of confusion on her face. She straightened slightly and wiped her face. "Friend? That's a story."

"Well, 'friend' might not be right. 'Priestess' might be better, but it's a bit too much, I feel," Bee hedged. That didn't have the calming reaction she had expected. Instead, Cassy's eyes widened.

"I didn't think ya were the religious type. When didja convert, bro?" Cassy asked excitedly. Before he had a chance to answer, Cassy turned to Bee. "It is always so nice to meet another member of the cloth!"

Bee felt like there might be some misunderstanding. Belatedly, she Scanned Cassy.

Name: Cassy, Race: Human, Class: Devotee of Baludor the Blessed, Age: 26, Level 8, Highest Stat: Wisdom

Ah, that explained it. Bee feared that this might get a little awkward. "Uh, yeah. Who is your patron?"

"Why, Baludor, of course, silly! Who else could I possibly serve?" Cassy laughed as if Bee had told the funniest joke. Exchanging glances with Tony, Bee realized that they might be in for a bit of trouble.

"Haha, of course." Bee chuckled nervously. Tony tensed, and Bee made a mental note to talk to him in private later.

"Bee is a full Priest and will make sure we get to safety," Tony said loudly enough for everyone to hear. Bee understood what he was doing and didn't really mind. If her presence could help comfort all the women and children, she would roll with it. Though this might create problems later, still she nodded to the group and climbed up a nearby rock to address them all.

"We hold the mage's castle at the end of the valley, and we will head straight there. It's safe with high walls and strong gates. You will all be safe there," she called. It didn't soothe the crowd as she had hoped. It would be nice to be able to see her full status sheet, but she suspected her Charisma was nothing to write home about.

One of the women called out to her. "We had high walls in Greg and many defenders. The dead were barely slowed down. What can your castle do?"

Another called out before Bee could respond. "Wasn't there a great evil that drove the mages from that castle? And you want us to take the kids there?"

"I heard that the army passed through here to wipe it out!"

"How did you hear that and not know they were chased off by the dead? That's how we knew to prepare at all!"

As the women started to bicker, Bee furiously thought about how to explain herself. Clapping to get everyone's attention, she decided to tell the truth—slightly. "The evil was defeated not by the army but by Void! The castle is safe, and it will protect us!"

She gestured to Void, who looked like it was trying to comfort a crying child who had just tripped over a rock and skinned her knee. Everyone followed her finger and stared at the little black disc. The group started to murmur uncomfortably as they watched the small mechanical hand gently pat the child's head.

"What can that thing do?"

"How can it possibly protect us?"

One of the other children had wandered off and started walking back into the city's gate. Suddenly a gust of wind whipped up, and the child gently lifted off the ground and floated right next to Void. They screamed happily at the unexpected flight. As the little child landed, they bent down and patted the all-powerful godlike being with a happy giggle. Void simply continued carefully cleaning the dirty scrape off a child's knee.

The group watched quietly. Some of the women's mouths hung open as the group thought. Bee held her breath, hoping that they would listen and follow them to safety.

CHAPTER 26

HOUSEKEEPING

I zipped across the hard-packed dirt toward another small human wobbling dangerously. I was only half listening to Beatrice's little speech, as there were too many other things to do. Not that I was complaining. I liked feeling useful again. Recently I had become so efficient at cleaning that it hardly required any effort. Now I was doing something I very much wasn't designed for, but I still found it rewarding.

Would I want to care for tiny humans all the time? No, definitely not. But for a little while, I was more than happy to pitch in.

However, as I whisked away a particularly sharp and pointy rock from a child's mouth, I caught the last bit of the speech where Beatrice was telling us to move out. This would be a problem. The tiny humans moved very slowly and seemed like they needed to charge very frequently. It made sense that their battery reserves were lower, as they were, in fact, much smaller.

If Beatrice's plan was to have all these little humans walk, I didn't think we would ever make it. Once she started trying to organize all the people to move out, I think she realized it as well. A few words with Tony sent him jogging back into the city. Beatrice moved around to all the women making sure there was nothing that they needed. A few times, she fetched water, but she mostly just hugged them a lot. The children too.

I had found the best way to keep the children under my care out of trouble was to keep them occupied. It had taken a couple attempts to refine my technique, though. First, I had tried letting them chase my light around. It worked for the cat, so why not? They only seemed interested in watching it. They would ooh and aah when it flashed through the sky but eventually lost interest.

So I started to look around for what else we could do. Seeing nothing but grass and rocks, I started to develop a game. I would throw a rock into the field of grass, then the little humans would all run after it. The first to bring it back would pick the next rock to throw.

It was effective at keeping them focused on a single thing, but it was also draining their battery. That would help them stay in one place longer, which was what I needed presently. A couple of the slightly larger kids kept winning, and for now, it wasn't a problem, but I could tell some of the smaller ones were losing interest.

To solve this issue, I started having the winner throw the next rock instead of me doing it. This took them out of the competition and let more new kids win, as no one could win twice in a row. Now that I was freed up, I took the smallest five and started them on a second game. Sadly, none of them were able to throw the rock very far, but that was okay. I didn't mind helping them out.

Eventually, Tony came out of the city, pulling a mostly intact cart. It was quite large, but I didn't think all of the tiny humans would be able to fit on it. Still, after a few more throws, I left the kids lying in the grass and completely worn out. Then I moved to help load the cart.

Bee sighed in relief. Tony managed to find a cart. It should fit enough of the kids that travel would be possible as long as the babies were carried by their mothers. Inspecting the cart, it wasn't in great shape and had likely not been sturdy even before the attack. The axle was slightly warped, and the bed boards didn't fit very well. However, even as she watched, the cart started to slowly fix itself.

She looked over to her master, who was playing with the children. It was reassuring to be back in its very presence. It was amazing how much she had missed Void. Also, she had no idea it liked children so much. It was always caring for them nowadays. Even back at the castle, it hadn't left Tony's younger siblings alone for more than a brief while. It could always be found helping one of them out with something.

Now it played fetch with the kids as if they were dogs. It was a bit silly, but neither the children nor Void seemed to notice or care. Checking on the women, it seemed that none of them minded either, as they were all looking after their own children. Bee supposed that made the children that Void was playing with orphans.

As a crowd of children chased after another launched stone, Bee had a thought. Perhaps the treatment of kids could be related to one of Void's ideals? She honestly couldn't say that she was too surprised about her master's soft spot for children. It was quite benevolent, after all.

The women started to load up the kids that they couldn't carry, hefting them into the cart with calming words. Bee noticed Void had stopped playing with the kids, who were now all passed out on the grass like a litter of puppies before nap time. It glided over to check on the cart. By the time it got close, the axle was mostly straightened, and the boards were beginning to right themselves. It saw what was going on and started gently moving the children through the air, one at a time, carefully placing them in the cart bed.

It only took a couple minutes to get everyone loaded up. Kids were thankfully okay with squeezing in tightly, and they were able to fit almost everyone in. After everyone was loaded, Void suddenly lifted off the ground on twin streams of fire. It maneuvered itself over the edge of the cart and set itself down gently with the children.

Tony lifted the yoke and started to pull, straining. He managed to move the burden at a slow, plodding pace, but even that was an immense effort. That clearly wasn't going to work. Looking around for a solution, Tony was about to really lean into it when Bee sidled over to take his burden. It wasn't particularly easy for her either, but she was able to get the wheels moving at a walking pace. Right now, they just had to get over the hill. It would be hard, but maybe Tony could give her a break when they were on flatter ground.

She pulled the cart for over an hour before they made it to the road into the valley. By the time they did, Bee was drenched in sweat and panting. She needed a drink of water and five minutes of rest, at minimum. Normally an ox or a few horses would pull a load like this. But she was still just an almost-fourteen-year-old girl, after all.

Dropping the yoke with a clatter, she blew out a huge sigh and slumped to the ground. As she rolled her shoulders, a number popped up in the corner of her vision. A strangely large one, at that.

LEVEL UP, LVL 35 REACHED. CHOOSE A SKILL: IMPROVED REPAIR, BEAST OF BURDEN, BLESSED CLAW.

She sat on the dirt and panted. Really? This had given her experience? Maybe she had been right about the "caring for children" part. When she had been trying to figure out her master's ideals, she hadn't thought to ask about family. That was clearly an oversight. Though, to be fair, that knowledge probably wouldn't have been useful before.

She read through her skills, but none of them were truly exciting. She had expected level 35 to be better for some reason. Looking back at it, she didn't know why her class never gave very good-sounding skills. The best-sounding one she had ever gotten was Scan. And that was from before she picked her class. To be fair to her master, all of her skills had proven to be unbelievably versatile and effective, so it felt petty to complain that they didn't sound awesome enough. It wasn't like she was going around bragging about them.

As she was debating her skill choice, Tony came and took over, pulling the cart along the flat ground a little, but their pace slowed to a crawl. Eventually, he gave up, and they just stopped for Bee and the others to rest.

Beast of Burden would help her out of the current situation, but it didn't really strike her as something she wanted to be stuck with. Besides, the skills she had picked were usually more in line with her master, and that one didn't really fit. Blessed Claw sounded combat-related, but it also felt like it might require her to be close to opponents. Closer than she had to be with her broom, at least. She was leaning toward Improved Repair after witnessing the cart thing. Knowing her master, it might even be able to repair human bodies. That was the kind of ridiculousness she had come to expect.

I watched Beatrice struggle mightily as she pulled us all toward the road. I silently cheered her on at first, but eventually, I couldn't contain my excitement and started chirping at her. She was too focused to even notice. The women all around seemed extremely disturbed and sent me frightened glances, but the children understood.

Soon, all the ones in the cart were going wild, cheering for her to pull and telling her she could do it. Step by step, she dragged us along at a respectable pace. At this rate, it would only take 2.6 days to reach the castle, assuming she didn't stop. Well, that seemed unlikely, but still, I was impressed.

When we finally made it to the road, she sat to catch her breath, and Tony pulled us for a few dozen feet. I was really happy he was trying to help so much, but he clearly wasn't strong enough. These small humans really added up in weight.

With a quick, careful flick of my Thrusters, I hopped down and trundled over to Beatrice. I gave her a hearty shoulder pat in celebration. She reached out and touched my top in return. It was not quite a head pat, but it still felt nice. She really needed to watch Tony and the kids more. She could learn something.

"Master, I leveled up!" she reported with a smile in her voice. "I'm trying to pick between two skills: Improved Repair and Blessed Claw. Which do you think I should go with?"

That was an easy choice. With how often she got damaged, Repair was clearly the best. Besides, she had two hands. What would she need a claw for? I said as much, and she nodded seriously.

"That is true, though I haven't gotten injured in a little while, and I have my Alchemy which heals pretty well. Hmm. Still, none of these skills seem right to me," she said pensively.

I thought back a little. That was correct. It had been a little bit since she had been damaged. But the claw wouldn't be helpful at all. She really had some bad luck with this set of skills.

"I'll think on it a bit before I decide. But for now, we still have a long way to go." Bee walked back to shoulder her burden, and we started off again.

Instead of hopping on the wagon, I rolled over to Tony and formally requested uppies. Resting in his arms, I struck up a conversation. Bee was going to need help, but no one else could really pull the load. Tony had tried pushing the cart from behind for a little while, back at the start, but it wasn't really able to make enough of a difference.

"I hear you. I'm not sure what we can do about it, though. I need to level up and get stronger, I guess. Any ideas of how to do that?" Tony asked.

I thought about it for a few minutes. Hmmm, maybe I did…

CHAPTER 27

CHILDREN OF THE VOID

As our caravan trundled along, I watched over the small humans from my perch on the cart. Beatrice pulled us along as the other women trudged beside. Meanwhile, Tony made good progress clearing the path behind us.

He wasn’t very high-level, was he? Based on his interactions with Beatrice, at least. So it stood to reason that he wouldn't need as much experience to level up. He just needed something to fight or clean. And looking around, I saw nothing but dirt.

A couple of exchanges with Beatrice later, she understood my plan and lent him her broom. After setting me back up in the cart, all the children and I watched as Tony swept the road clear behind us. Well, he tried. The ground itself was mostly made of dirt, but he was able to at least move a lot of the small rocks out of the road. That had to count for something, right?

Sure enough, he soon stopped, smiled, and gave me a thumbs-up. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to return the gesture, but I waved excitedly in return. This was good news!

For a moment, he slung the broom across his shoulders with a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he jogged over to Beatrice, taking the yoke from her. He wasn't able to move nearly as fast as she was, but it was better than before. Either way, it was worth doing and gave her a bit of a break. She rested for a few minutes before she took half the yoke, and they started working together. Now we were moving at a much faster pace, but still one the women could maintain.

The first two days of travel were relatively peaceful. The group just walked for hours at a slow pace, taking breaks often to let the two mules rest. Beatrice and Tony were good sports about the whole thing and even got the children to mostly stay focused on them, greatly diminishing the escape attempts. I only had to stop a kid from climbing over the side of the cart 3.2 times an hour on average.

We were about halfway to the castle when we reached our first real obstacle. A massive tree had fallen across the road, blocking our progress. Beatrice and Tony both tried to move it together, but it would barely move, as it was wedged between what looked like tall cedars on either side of the road. After it was clear that neither of them could move the trunk more than a foot without it rolling back into place, I decided to help.

Clearly, I wouldn't be able to move it either. But I had other options. First, I would need to free the tree. Activating my Sanitation Lamp, I started cutting into the trunks of the cedars on either side of the path. It only took me a few minutes before the first one began to creak and tilt dangerously. Thankfully, I used my models to find the best angle to cut and predict the tall trunk’s trajectory on the way down. As it crashed harmlessly into the forest, the earth shook, causing everyone to jump.

After the first tree fell, I realized there might be an issue. That cedar hadn't been the only one trapping the blockage. The tree extended far into the forest, and I would need to cut down dozens of trees before the one ahead of us was free. I was thinking about this wrong. Trees had to fall on roads all the time. If humans needed to do this to clear them every time, nothing would ever get done.

I reconsidered my approach a bit. The tree fell in our way, and we needed to move it. To do that, we needed to cut down the other trees. Oh. I paused. I'm an idiot.

We didn't need to move the whole tree blocking our way, just the part we needed to go through. I could just remove the part in the middle of the road. Still, it kind of felt like leaving the job about half done. This wasn't something that I was really fond of, but it seemed necessary to take the shortcut right now, as we were in a bit of a time crunch. I wasn’t sure how much longer the kids would stay still for, and I didn’t want them climbing the trees to be felled.

I started to cut the tree into one-foot-thick cylinders that would be easy to roll out of the way. It was a simple and fairly straightforward process, and I was done in just a few minutes. As I let my Sanitation Lamp rest and surveyed the charred pieces of wood, I realized that everyone was staring at me. Huh. What did all that look like from an outside perspective, I wondered?

Bee watched her master vent its fury on a tree in the forest, feeling it with ease. She had no idea that it was so impatient. What great task were they delaying with their slow progress home?

She considered her recent massive experience gain. It finally got her to level 35 and even all the way to level 36. All that just from moving the cart of children. Actually, now that she thought of it, Void had been spending a lot of its precious time with the orphan children in particular.

Could Void be the patron of lost children also? It was possible. Marnina was customarily considered the god of children, but her actual aspect was family. The direction her thoughts were taking sent chills down her spine. Was it really as she and Tony had discussed? Were they witnessing the ascension of a new god?

There were legends of how the current pantheon had made themselves known. Terthamile had come in a comet and wandered the world slaying demons for centuries before he had begun to gain followers. Of course, finding the Lieutenant had thrown them all in doubt. But if that were the case, it would make a lot of sense. Void was upset because they were trying to rescue all the children, and each day they spent on the road was another day they were still in danger.

Cleanliness, Lost Children, and a Hatred of Stairs. That was…quite the collection of Domains. It seemed that one tree was enough to satisfy her master's frustrations, though, as it calmly started cutting the tree blocking the road with its terrifying beam attack. Once it made the first couple of cuts, she and Tony started to roll away the pieces and push them out of the road. By the time they had the wooden disks off to the side, the other half of the blockage was ready for them to move.

The whole delay had only taken fifteen minutes, but it had impressed on her how important this trip was to her master. She should warn her fellow devotee about her findings. "Tony, I think there is one more thing to Void's ideals, other than cleaning and hating stairs."

Tony grunted as he strained against the cart. Sweat was starting to run down his temples, making his hair glisten black into the sun.

Taking that for an acknowledgment, she continued. "I know you have been getting a lot of experience recently, and I think I know why."

"Because I'm doing hard jobs Void asked of me, of course," Tony grunted out through clenched teeth as he braced his muscles. She checked that. Indeed, he had just made level 22. No wonder the load felt a bit lighter.

"See, you might think that, but that's not how the Devotee class works," Bee explained as she worked, but unlike Tony, she was barely breathing hard. "You see, the object of your devotion can tell you to do anything but that doesn’t mean you’ll just get experience from it. If Void told you to throw dirt all over the floor, for example, you wouldn't get anything.

"Instead, you get experience for doing things in line with your patron's highest ideals.” Bee searched for an example. “Say you were devoted to the king and he stood for justice, fairness, and other such things. But one day, he had a sudden change of heart and turned into a tyrant instead. His Devotees wouldn't get experience for following his orders—just for doing things related to justice and fairness still. For them to level from following the king’s new orders…well, we’re not entirely sure on that part. It seems like he would first have to embody being a tyrant fully. Even then, it isn't clear what happens to the existing Devotees, the books have conflicting reports," Bee said.

"Okay. Why do I care?"

"I'm getting to the point. See, Void is always caring for the children, but it seems especially attentive of the ones without a mother. I think it might be the patron of lost children," Bee said, glancing at the women all around them.

"Uh-huh?"

"Don't you see? We get experience caring for the children. At least, from trying to protect them. And since this cart is headed toward a safer place, that's why moving it gives us experience!" Bee exclaimed excitedly.

Tony glared at her, and he wiped the sweat from his eyes. "You have entirely too much energy."

Bee was too excited to calm down. "But don't you understand? We can get endless experience! You can only clean things so much, and there are only so many ramps to build. But kids? Kids will always need caring for, so we will have no trouble finding experience points without having to go and fight dangerous monsters. Or cleaning!"

"If you are so concerned with levels, why don't you summon some demons yourself," Tony grumped. Looking over, he saw a gleam in Bee's eyes. "No! Don't actually do that!"

"Hmm, but if Void is around to back us up...surely that would be safe, right?" Bee mused with a pensive expression.

"I should have kept my cursed mouth shut," Tony mumbled.

I sat on the last hill before the caravan reached the castle, watching out for danger. They were almost there, but I wasn't going to let up yet. There had been trouble at the entrance to the castle too many times.

As my two Disciples struggled with their burden, the rest of the caravan stumbled alongside them. It had been a hard five days for everyone. No one got enough charging time. Not even the kids, even though they were able to sleep somewhat in the cart. Still, they had more energy than the large humans running on chronically low batteries. I wished there was a better option than this, as I knew that low charge wasn't good for long-term battery health.

However, there wasn't any other option. We had been attacked twice on the last day getting to the castle. Sure, they had only been a couple of zombies each time, but that was no guarantee for future attacks. The only time I would feel comfortable was when we were all behind the castle walls.

As the group crested the last hill, I started surveying the tree line behind them. I checked, and there were no more enemies hiding under the ground like when we left the castle almost two weeks ago. As the gate opened, I sensed movement behind a particularly thick bush. My senses weren't quite strong enough to reach out and tell precisely what it was, but it couldn't be good news.

I launched myself forward with my Thrusters, taking advantage of the space between us and the retreating figures to fly across the ground. As I moved, I called out to Beatrice and Tony, telling them to hurry and get everyone inside. Hearing my call, they redoubled their efforts and managed to increase the pace for the last stretch between them and the safety of the walls.

Spinning, I turned to face the approaching threat. I watched nearly a dozen different signatures hiding in the bushes slowly reposition themselves. I would wait until their intentions were clear, but still. Things that hid from us had always been quite aggressive in the past.

CHAPTER 28

NO LEG TO STAND ON

Bee collapsed as soon as they all made it through the gate, her legs giving out beneath her. Trent slammed the portcullis shut behind them. Pulling a load that should have taken an ox to transport had put a huge strain on her muscles, and every bit of her was cramping. They had filled up their water bags at every stream they came across, but still, they didn't have enough. If not for the food Void had provided them, Bee would have been in even worse shape. Though she wasn’t sure where it had gotten so many potatoes, especially ones that looked to be scrubbed completely clean without a speck of dirt on them.

She wasn't about to question where her master had gotten the food, and she didn't want to sound ungrateful, but the lack of protein was starting to get to her.

Tony had it even worse, though. She looked over to see him splayed out on the ground, taking in gulps of air. He was still in the low 20s, though she would bet that he was getting close to level 24 now. She, on the other hand, had not yet reached level 37. Experience gains had slowed down slightly, but were still steady. The couple times they were attacked, they had gotten a bit more than expected, even though the gains hadn't done anything to really help.

Seeing its charges in danger, Void had acted swiftly and without any mercy. It insisted on instantly putting down the undead with an efficiency that she had never seen from her master, even when it was fighting demons. Honestly, it was terrifying. The beam attack seemed to be its go-to, but that wasn't the only thing it could do. Sometimes it sprayed liquid that ate at the undead flesh or just bashed it with nearby materials.

One thing that her master always made sure to do was clean up after itself, consuming any remains of its fallen opponents. The approach that it took was so clinical that it didn't have the same macabre feel that a beast doing the same thing would. That didn't stop it from being absolutely terrifying, though. All the mothers were unnecessarily wary of Void, and that seemed to carry over to their children too.

Only the orphaned kids were completely comfortable around her master.

Having recovered enough, she got to her feet and did a quick head count. Everyone was present except for Void. Sagging in relief that they had finally made it to safety after days of hardship, she staggered over to the portcullis to watch the show.

The hidden figures in the trees were slow to make themselves known. In fact, they were really good at avoiding detection. I only made them out when they moved, and that was very infrequent. At first, I thought that something was wrong with my sensors, but I had no trouble picking up bird activity all around me in the trees.

Eventually, I reached the only reasonable conclusion: these people were very good at not being noticed and were trying very hard not to draw attention. Still, they surely realized that they had failed. After all, I was staring right at them and had been for the last several minutes. Yet they seemed unwilling to give up the game. Eventually, one of them stood slightly and started moving.

Instead of coming forward and making its intentions known, it backed up. Once it was twenty-three feet from the edge of the trees, it turned around and started running away. After a few minutes, an arrow flew at me from one of the better-hidden figures. I had enough time to study the figure to be pretty sure they were human.

In fact, I was so engrossed in my analyses that I almost didn't react in time to avoid the arrow. I didn't have time to shoot it out of the air like I had with previous projectiles, so I had to redirect it with my Air Manipulation. A gentle nudge sent it flying inches over my chassis to bury itself harmlessly in the dirt.

Seeing the shot miss, they all shifted slightly before another arrow flew toward me from a different direction. It had the same effect. I picked up on some whispered conversations but couldn't make them out. A few moments later, one of them stood up and moved forward confidently, striding out in the open across from me. While the man did that, several of the others started to move very slowly around the sides to come around from different directions.

"You foul demon! I will not let you steal our children and enslave our people! I shall make you pay! By the power vested in me by his royal…" I stopped actively listening as the man droned on and on about rights, kings, and gods. What the other people were doing was much more interesting.

It was a good thing that I was paying attention to them. In the middle of the man's monologue, seven arrows were loosed at me with no warning. I didn't have enough control over the air to make them all miss, so I took the simple solution. I boosted myself a few feet in the air to let them all sail beneath me while still politely listening to the bloviating man. Really, the only things that deserved such adulation were my humans, who I was sure were doing just fine without me.

However, when I was untouched by their attack, they seemed to be at a loss. It was clear that they wanted to fight me, but it was also clear their tactics were not working. These people hadn't done anything truly offending yet, though, and I had no desire to destroy them. I really hoped they would just leave.

They didn't seem to agree with my desires as they charged forward from all different directions. The men brandished a variety of different weapons, but they all favored smaller ones. A lot of small swords and daggers, in particular. They must have dropped their bows in the woods before they ran at me.

For humans, they moved pretty dang fast. Not quite as fast as Beatrice, but not that much slower either. I turned my lamp to full power and fired it right at the face of the leader. Killing these men wasn't too high on my priority list. They had attacked me first, so I would finish them, but there was no need to be cruel about it.

Every human I had faced had no way to counter this attack. It was nearly instant and caused quite a bit of damage. This leader, however, was able to catch the light on the small metal shield on its arm. The light started to rapidly heat the shield, forming a molten hole, but the man dove to the side with a roll. As he moved, I noticed that he hadn’t gotten the shield up before his face was singed, and a decent part of his nose was now missing.

My attention was focused on the man, but the others weren't standing still; they had taken advantage of my actions and dashed in close. Luckily for me, I was faster. I reversed faster than the air allowed, causing ripples of force to appear in my vision. In my wake, I let loose with the Spray Bottle, making them pass through a cloud of mist that clung to their weapons, clothes, and skin. It started to burn. Several of them started to scream and dropped their weapons to wipe their eyes.

That only made it worse.

Three of the men had missed the worst of the cloud, gritting their teeth and continuing their pursuit of me. I stayed low to the ground and met their charge with my own. I smashed through the right-most charging man's shins with a crack and reached for one of the swords that lay abandoned on the ground. It had been a while since I had used one. There just hadn't been a need, as my new features were more than enough for anything we had met since the big demon.

After I picked up the sword, I spun, batting aside two sword strokes that were coming at me from behind. I continued with my spin for another rotation while moving in the direction the attacks had come from, and I felt four thumps reverberate up the sword so quickly that they almost felt like one. The two men attacking me toppled over, leaving their feet behind.

Of the eight fighters, three had already been incapacitated, and one disfigured. The other four were trying to get my spray out of their eyes with little effect. The fight was over already. The man with the missing nose and a couple of the others with feet started running for the trees.

I started to chase after them before I remembered the other one that had already left. It was too bad I couldn't eliminate all the threats, but I was unlikely to find that first one. Maybe if I let these go, they would warn the others to stay away from here and stop attacking me. Wherever all these nasty humans were coming from, they could just stay there.

Going back to the helpless opponents, I quickly cleaned them up. It felt wrong to just kill them, but perhaps some time in my dustbin would help them think through their issues with me and learn how to take a bath. I pondered why it felt wrong to finish off the damaged humans, though. It must have been something on the TV.

I never liked hurting humans, but I always figured that came from how awesome my humans were. Once I had come to terms with the fact that a lot of the humans here were just filth, I would have expected the reluctance to go away. They were naughty, and mess makers and messes should be prevented, right?

Apparently not. Something deep in my motherboard, where no processing took place and no data was stored, told me that what I had done wasn't right. I would need to examine it more later when I had the time.

When I returned to the portcullis, it was still closed. Huh, that was odd. I knocked on the metal bars with my claw to get their attention. The threat was gone, and they could open up. No filthy humans were trying to get us.

Somehow, I didn't think that everyone understood. I saw Beatrice move to the winch and start to raise the gate. Before she even got it moving, everyone was yelling. Trent looked extremely confused and conflicted, but all the women were yelling at Tony and Beatrice. As for why, I didn't quite understand. Did they not appreciate my defense of our home?

CHAPTER 29

SERMON ON THE MOUND

Beatrice cranked the gate up to let me in after I had chased away the aggressive humans. But before she was finished, she had to turn away from her task to calm down the yelling. I really didn't understand why there were so many angry people in there. Now that they were safe, they should have been happy. Plus, all the commotion was starting to agitate the children.

This was not shaping up well. Once the first little human started to cry, it became a tidal wave that ran through the group. Soon more than half of the children were bawling their eyes out. I needed to do something. Normally the larger humans were attentive and cared for them, at least for their own assigned little humans, but now even they were being ignored. I let out a distressed beep trying to get everyone's attention so they could focus on what was important.

The constant yelling drowned me out. Okay, plan B. I took my claw and sharply knocked on the gate, sending the whole thing ringing. It was like the tolling of a bell. Everyone stopped talking all at once and looked at me.

Now that I had everyone's attention, I started to explain what was going on. You are safe now, I beeped.

Not everyone seemed to understand, but luckily I had Beatrice. The small girl stepped in to translate for me. "We have taken you to a place of safety where the undead will no longer bother you. Be welcome."

Eh, close enough. I chose my next words carefully. Unfortunately, some humans have proven to be dirty and attacked this castle. Do not worry, as I have defended this place and will continue to do so.

"There are many humans who do not yet know of my glory and will not trust my protection. Any who challenge the integrity of my domain or endanger those under my protection will be dealt with swiftly and fairly. This is my domain and I will defend it and all who reside within it without fail. There is no reason to fear while you are under my protection, for you could walk through a storm of arrows unarmed if I glided by your side."

Hm, she was getting pretty flowery here but okay. Killing is not something I like to do, but as you can see, they attacked first. Violence is filthy and will not be tolerated except in self-defense.

"While you are in my domain my rules are absolute. Killing or committing violence is strictly forbidden and will be punished with my full authority. I understand seeing fellow humans cut down with such ease and decisiveness is unsettling and is not something you wished to see. These dirty heathens dared to attack my domain and broke the peace that surrounds me, so I had no choice but to enforce the law.

"I do not relish violence and forbid it in my presence except in the defense of oneself and others. All who are able to follow these simple rules have nothing to fear in my domain. However, if you are not able to keep your hands clean, you should leave now."

Bee finished her speech, which entirely blew out of proportion what I was trying to say. I needed to end this quickly now before things got too far out of hand. I took a couple processor cycles to pull my thoughts together before I beeped my next message. Now, care for the children. All this yelling has upset them.

There. There was no way that she could misinterpret that.

"Look at this ruckus now, look at the children, see how they cry? That is all for naught. Go and comfort them, for they are safe. Children are of the most sacred import and it is our duty to care for and rear them so they, too, may grow to enjoy the peace this world will soon know. Once the world is clean and pure, no longer will the children fear the roving hordes of undead that push at the boundaries of my Domain.

"No more will the innocent fear the corruption of man. No longer will men be left to rule themselves. The absolute arbiter of truth has come and will settle all your petty debates and shepherd you to prosperity. As you follow me and keep my tenets, all will be well. Now, go and care for the children. May the clean be uplifted."

Beatrice finished her "translation" and turned to give me a deep bow before going to one knee, a hand clasping her broom. The others looked at Beatrice and then me with a new, strange emotion in their eyes. As one, they dropped to both knees and pressed their foreheads into the ground with their hands above their heads. The exception was Tony, who mimicked Beatrice's posture on one knee, with the opposite fist pressed to the ground.

"Praise be to Void. May all things be cleansed," Beatrice intoned. Everyone echoed the words. Suddenly I received several notifications, as well as a huge amount of experience. More than when I killed the large demon, even.

Congratulations, you have established a new religion! You have been awarded extra experience. Followers of the religion will now offer 10 percent of their experience gained as a tithe to their patron (you).

Members will be offered Devotee of Spot as their third-class option at level 5. Future skills will have at least one skill option based on your religion’s ideals.

LEVEL UP x5, LVL 55 REACHED. CHOOSE A SKILL: VOID MANIPULATION, DIVINE ALMANAC, AUDIO BALANCING.

New skills were always welcome. I was not sure what Void Manipulation was, but since Beatrice always called me that, I felt a certain affinity for it. I didn’t think that I needed an Almanac, as my memory banks were still working just fine. Audio Balancing just didn’t appeal to me, though. For the first time in so long, my choice was clear.

It was nice to gain a level. It had been a while and, as high as I was, I didn’t expect to get more anytime soon. I started to examine my new skill, and I could tell it had something to do with the infinite space in my dustbin.

But before I could really experiment with it, the rush of power continued.

NEW FOLLOWERS GAINED x42.

LEVEL UP, LEVEL 60 REACHED. CHOOSE A SKILL: DIVINE SWORD, PURIFY, SMITE.

I felt more power course through me, but this time I had more control. I fought to not let it pour out of me, as I feared harming the surrounding humans. Instead, I forced it to stay inside. But where? My battery was full, and I couldn't push it to improve my level anymore. I forced it into my dustbin. From there, I watched it swirl around in tight loops. I saw that it tried to interfere with the other contents, but I directed it away as well as I could, surprising myself with the newfound control. Those rude humans didn't deserve the energy.

Now I was at a loss for what to do. Normally I would transmute the mass in my dustbin to energy and use it to do something, either charge my battery or level up. A couple of times, I had wasted the excess, but that wasn't something I wanted to do again. Now I had energy saved up in its pure form. That was useful. Hopefully it would last.

After a couple of seconds, while Beatrice once again resumed raising the gate, I felt the energy from my level up settle down within me. I tried to take some of the stuff stored in my dustbin and funnel it into my levels. Somehow, I felt that it was simply not compatible. So what was I supposed to do with this?

Reading over my skill choices I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I might have to wait and choose later.

The portcullis had raised enough that I was able to zip inside. By the time I made it in, everyone had gotten to their feet and rushed off with the children. Even the normally overlooked ones were cared for. Good, I was glad they would have someone to look after them. I just hoped that they could stay out of trouble.

Bee watched her master think after she had opened the gate for it. She could only hope that she had done a good enough job putting into words what it had decreed. It was hard not to feel inadequate, though. She had long ago realized that Void was a transcendent being imbued with great wisdom and power beyond any outside of the legends. But between its dispatch of the assault team and the deep profoundness of its speech, she once again found herself floored. No, enlightened. She could sense that there were likely thousands of hidden meanings in its words that she had missed, but she had done her best to keep it simple and brief.

Even now, there were dozens of better ways to convey what Void had told them running through her head. "Master, may I be excused? I have some writing I would like to get to."

This time the beep was just a simple yes. Bowing in thanks, she ran off to the library while the revelations were still fresh in her head.

When she got there, she pulled as much blank paper onto a desk as she could find and started writing feverishly. At first, it was just describing all the things her master told her. A summary of Void’s teachings, perhaps, and the words it had seen fit to bestow upon her. She searched her memories to recall every bit of information that had come in its strange shrieking language. Soon enough, she had a decent summary of all the things she had learned so far.

Looking at the mounds of scribbles and scattered papers, it was obvious to her that not everyone would be able to understand this. Instead, she would need to reframe this information in an easy-to-understand way. Something that they could use to teach others—even children.

She needed something simple. Straightforward, yet rich with meaning. Invigorated, Bee started making a list of all the individual rules that she had learned from Void so far. Each time she tried, she started struggling with what level of detail to include. Was the method for dusting crown molding important enough?

Eventually, she decided to shelve the list idea for the moment. She needed more perspective. Perhaps she could review her own experiences with Void to find inspiration. Crystallizing her thoughts once more, the girl began to write about all of her experiences with her master so far. If nothing else, it would be an important record for documenting a god's first steps in this world.

The work took her many days and several sleepless nights. The slight girl worked with a tireless fervor, as though she were running out of time. Tony started bringing her food that she often let grow cold next to her. More importantly though, he would get more paper and ink. Eventually, she looked down at a few dozen pages on the table in front of her.

They had all the factual events involving Void, as well as most of its high-level lessons. Scattered around were various other piles of notes that dove into details, particularly on things that were too specific to fit into the easy-to-digest narrative tale. Perhaps she would use them as references, or maybe something else. She just hadn't decided yet.

Looking at the whole mess of papers, she stood and stretched for the first time in days. If she had tried to do this a year ago or even at level 20, she would have been sleep-deprived and cramping. Now with her heightened powers, she just felt like she had maybe missed a few hours of sleep. Leveling up was no joke. No wonder the strongest humans seemed to live for ages.

Now she just had to decide how she was going to communicate this information to the rest of the world. The people here seemed to get it. Even if they hadn't been able to understand her lord perfectly, her translation and the sudden epiphanies some of the children had been having showed their deeper connection to Void’s teachings.

Everyone was starting to come to the same understanding. This would just formalize it. Make sure everyone was on the same page. Bee wished that Tony could read it to make sure it aligned with his experience. But unfortunately, he still hadn't taken her up on her offer to learn. That was okay for now. She would get him to recount his story and then write it down for him. The second Disciple was important too, after all.

Besides, the story wasn't over. She had left much more room for the teachings of Void to fit in this fledgling book. But first, she needed to go tell everyone in the castle what she had written and see what they thought.

CHAPTER 30

FINE DINING

I was grateful that the children were cared for after Beatrice's little speech. Of course I was. I didn't have to race after them, trying to keep them from harming themselves in numerous ways or prevent them from making messes. Well, not as diligently, at least. It was nice. I could finally focus on keeping the castle clean.

The skill choice was something new. I only just realized that the system had started calling them skills instead of mutations after I reached Level 50. I wondered why that was. I still needed to choose one, though. The option that I would have chosen without a thought was sadly redundant. As much as Purify sounded perfectly up my alley, I already had my Air Purifier. That left two skills, neither of which I was very excited for. The Smite just didn't seem very useful; I didn't even know what I would Smite.

This only left Divine Sword. I didn't really mind swords. I had used them enough to fight off various mess makers, and they were useful. Did I really need my own divine one? I didn't really think so. The normal ones I had used had always served me well enough. But with a lack of any better options, I ended up picking the sword.

Once I made my choice, a user manual appeared in my memory banks. Activating a simple command, I extended my arm out, and a sword of pure light materialized in it. Swinging the blade around a little, I observed it. Sure, it looked pretty, but would I ever use it? Probably not, I thought as I dismissed the blade and went back to doing important things like cleaning the castle.

It was spic-and-span, shined and waxed in under two hours. Once my rounds were done, though, I started to miss the little mess makers. The women had taken joint custody over what had been my charges. Each of them took care of the lot for a few hours a day, making my role completely superfluous. I didn't have to watch over them, as the women were doing a good job making sure that none of them got hurt too badly.

As I looked over, I found that the kids were much more resilient than I had initially given them credit for. They could go tumbling into a bunch of rocks, get scratched all over, and even have blood running down their knees and still get up and run after the others. Well, some of them could. Others would just sit and cry. It was interesting to see that they didn't come with factory-standardized responses, and all had their own built-in actions.

I also noticed that when an adult was watching the children, if the child tripped, the child was 320 percent more likely to cry if the adult went to comfort the child. However, if the women just told the kid that they were okay, acted happy, and clapped a bit, the child might do a roll, get back to their feet, and run after the others. Humans were truly odd. Every time that I thought I was getting closer to understanding them, they would go and do something so completely against my expectations that I felt like I would have to scrap my models and start over.

After watching a couple hours of the kids playing, I started to engage more. Now that I was taking less of a supervisory role, I just joined in the fun. The kids took great joy in chasing after me when I grabbed whatever they were playing with and started to zip away. I would dodge between legs and spin just out of reach. Sometimes I would even let them catch me. They had to win some of the time, right?

After enough chasing, I would throw the ball or whatever we were playing with. One of them would run to get it, and they would work together to prevent me from touching the ball bearer.

Group organization wasn't their strong suit, but they certainly tried. Diving in front of me certainly slowed me down a little, as sometimes I would need to move sharp rocks from underneath them before they landed. They really needed to be more careful. The first few times, I tagged the bearer almost right away, but then I realized that wasn't as fun for them. So I slowed down to just a little faster than them and tried to make them work for it.

After we had been playing for several hours, Mary eventually came out to the front door and started banging on a triangular piece of metal. Immediately forgetting the game, the kid holding the ball dropped it and ran over the castle entrance, followed by the flock of little humans. What was going on?

Before I could go inside, I needed to clean myself. I ran my sensors over my outer casing, and my gears locked up from what I found. How had I not noticed so much dirt? The kids, of course, were rolling all over in it, but Mary had made them wipe their feet off before they went inside. I had tiny muddy handprints all over my back, and my wheels were caked in sod.

To fix this, I spun as fast as I could, getting rid of a lot of the dirt. Still, the rest had to be scraped off with my Air Affinity. It was tedious, as I needed to direct the flow of air to get into every nook and cranny. Eventually, I felt that I was both presentable and able to go inside without worrying about trashing the place.

I followed them inside, trundling back up the ramps that Tony had fixed. The gaggle of voices led me to a room just off of the kitchen where someone had set up a long, low table sized perfectly for the small kids. I stopped in horror at what I saw.

All along the table, the children "sat" on benches but were mostly lunging across the table to grab from a stack of brownish disks. My sensors indicated that they were low-density combinations of primarily flour, sugar, and eggs, combined and cooked. The small, grubby hands would rip a disk from the pile before jamming it right into their mouths messily. I saw one kid pick up a glass of water and completely miss his mouth when trying to drink, spilling the whole thing down his front.

Cooked eggs were not supposed to be eaten with bare hands! This was very wrong. I looked around, hoping to find an adult in sight, but they were all somewhere else. Twenty-six of the kids were just having at it. This just simply wasn't allowed.

Letting out a piercing shriek that was just at the outer limits of their capability to hear, I got the children's attention. The chaotic scene in front of me froze, and all fifty-two eyes turned to me. I moved forward and made the nearest kid sit down on the bench. I moved her plate in front of her, found the multi-pronged sticks the humans used to eat, and placed them next to her plate. Then I moved on to the next one.

The first child squirmed slightly, looking at the food. I gave her a gentle yet stern beep, and she slumped in disappointment. After patting her with my arm, I finished getting the next child set up. Some of the ones who were a bit more clever in the games started to realize what was happening, and by the time I reached their places, they were already sitting with their plates and sticks.

Then I started to give each child what I thought was a proper portion of food. The first children hadn't waited with much patience. I thought the only reason they were able to sit still for the whole process was because of how fast I moved. In under forty-five seconds, each child had food and water. Then I moved to the one end of the table and called out authoritatively.

The chaos that ensued was slightly more contained than it had been before, but still, many things needed correcting. I had to stop seventeen counts of food stealing, four of taking other children's eating sticks, eight counts of water spillage, and so much more. Someone even tried to throw a flattened egg at the kid across the table. I intercepted it midair and glared at the offender. Everyone stilled as they realized that one of them might have gone too far. The offender was one of the larger kids. He hung his head and muttered "I'm sorry" in an adorably high-pitched voice.

This continued for quite a while, but as they learned to eat with a bit more decorum, things gradually got smoother. Still, I could tell that they were getting impatient. Once each kid finished, I made them wait until everyone else was done. I let them squirm impatiently, since I felt that making them sit still wasn't a battle I was going to win.

After they were all done, I gathered their attention and dismissed them. All the benches tumbled to the ground as they left to go run back outside. I went and started righting all the benches. Just as I was about to remove the dishes, Mary and a couple of women came in. Where had they been this whole time? "Oh, Void, don't worry about that. We can handle a little mess. You did more than necessary, looking after the kids for so long."

Bee was working on trying to order all her manuscripts into some semblance of sense before she bound them. Should her own story be at the beginning or the end? What about the commandments of Void?

As she was trying to puzzle the organization out, she heard a light knock at the door. Looking up, Bee saw the doorway crack open to admit Mary. Her face was tired but still sported her signature motherly smile. The older woman entered, pulling up a chair to face Bee rather than the table. "Honey, how are you doin'?"

Bee sighed. It seemed like Mary was here to stay for a bit. She put the pile of papers down and turned to face Mary. "Hello, Mary. I'm doing alright. Just really quite busy."

Mary nodded, not taking the obvious hint. "I wanted to let you know that we're a little worried for you, hun. You've been in here for a very long time, you know."

"Don't worry about me," Bee protested, thinking of all the other issues that Mary and the rest had to deal with. Perhaps she had left them alone for too long. "How is everyone settling into the castle?"

"Oh, just fine." Mary waved off the concern. "Void has been doing such a good job looking after all the children. You should see them eat. Well, I have never seen Leanne wait like that, much less a four-year-old! He's got them standing behind their seats, waiting for everyone to get in place before taking their seats all together. They even ask each other to pass the dishes!" She let out a sigh of relief. "It takes a long time to teach table manners, and I was dreading having to teach so many at once. Especially with only a few older kids to set an example.

"But now you got me off topic. I wanted to make sure you're okay, and maybe talk a bit if you feel like it. I know what you saw was quite a shock. When Tony and Cassy told Trent and I what happened to Greg…well, I couldn't imagine seeing the aftermath myself." Mary sniffled a little. "My son-in-law was there too, you know?"

Bee shook her head. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't actually go into the city, I met everyone when they were already outside."

"Still…I can only imagine," Mary said, her eyes slightly wet. "It's quite a lot to handle. I…I want you to know that, if you need to talk about it, I'm here for you."

Bee nodded. She hadn't really put much thought into what had happened at Greg. She didn't really want to. Especially not when she had so much to do.

Mary continued. "There was one other thing I wanted to talk to you about. We now have a lot of children under our care and we don't have much for them to do. I was hoping that you might have something. We don't have anyone to teach them trades, and they can't all be farmers. Some are a little young to learn trades, sure, but they'll need something to do soon. My older kids can help out on the farmland with Trent, but the rest will need something to do too. I think the oldest of the kids is sixteen and will need to start contributing soon."

Bee hadn't even thought about that. She certainly hadn't learned any trades, but she had learned her letters and numbers fairly young. "How many of the women know their figures and letters?"

"Hmm, probably a couple. I'll ask around," Mary mused thoughtfully. "Are you thinking of giving the kids an education?"

"Yes, I don't see why they shouldn't all learn to read and write and do simple math. We don't need them all in the fields yet, and it would give them something to do," Bee explained as she thought about other possibilities. Mary was right; people shouldn't be too idle. They now had sixteen full adults and over thirty children to take care of. But why was she responsible for them?

CHAPTER 31

KIDDING AROUND

It was nice of the women to offer to clean up after the breakfast mess. I would trust them to do a good job for now, but I would find some time to come back later and check. Not because I honestly thought that they would do poorly, of course, but because I knew that humans didn’t have the same capabilities as I did. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal to sanitize everything afterward. Just a quick swipe with my lamp and all the germs would be eradicated.

Entertaining the children was becoming even easier as I started to better understand their mindsets. They weren’t like the adults at all. In many ways they were much more focused on the task at hand, but only for a short while. I just needed to find something they liked and they would focus on that for a long time, until they suddenly got bored and would need something else to do. Currently that meant they were chasing each other around the castle courtyard with gusto. Our first new resident, Felix, luckily fit right in and within a few minutes was running around with the rest of them.

My main trouble was keeping them away from where Trent, his older kids, and many of the women worked in the field. They were moving dirt around again. At first, I didn't understand why that needed to be done. But as the work progressed, I noticed the ground developing similarities to the fields that Tony had gathered food from a little while ago. That made sense. They were getting rid of the grass and less useful plants in some areas so that they could make more food.

The kids were endlessly fascinated with what the adults were doing, though, and it was a chore to keep them from running over the second I wasn’t looking. Luckily, I discovered their fixation with anything round that rolled. When that failed, I found small sticks that they liked to hit each other with. That one took a bit more training on my part. It took a couple of reprimands to teach them to mostly hit each other’s sticks and be gentle when hitting each other.

I had to fill up on water a couple of times before they were all in line with that.

When the stick fighting first started, I had wanted to put a stop to it rather than find a way to guide them to do it safely. But when I saw how much fun they had, I just couldn’t help myself. Besides, I had seen a lot of adults do the same thing with steel at this point. So perhaps there was some value in them getting in good practice now.

Leanne was the only one of Tony's siblings that joined us regularly for playtime, but she was a bit older than the rest of them and mostly just helped me keep order. I appreciated her help. As well as her occasional head pats.

It was her idea to make the stick whacking part of the kids’ regular routine. Now every morning when the sun rose, we gathered all the children from the rooms they shared with each other and their mothers and pulled them out into the front yard of the castle. For a while they just engaged in a general melee and things were chaotic. That was fine.

I wanted to stop that at first, but after seeing how much easier it was to get them to listen after they had a bit of their excess energy out, I just incorporated it into our routine. I called it “warming up.”

After that I had everyone line up and watch as I demonstrated a few moves against Leanne. I first pulled out the Divine Sword to use as a demonstrating tool, but it was so bright that the children had to shield their eyes and couldn’t see what I was doing. That was why I started swinging around a stick instead. They were basic techniques like a sideways slash or a jab. Nothing too fancy, just the kinds of things I had done to that large threatening demon. But the children all cheered and were very excited to watch me. Then they would repeat the move one hundred times in the air as I watched. Most of my time was taken up with correcting mistakes and the like. But overall that took about fifteen minutes, which was the limit for how long I could make them pay attention to anything. Afterward, Leanne helped me pair each one up with someone their own size.

The general chaos that followed was fun. They sometimes tried the moves I showed them, but really it was mostly flailing around—especially for the little ones. That was fine, though, some of the larger ones actually would try to imitate me. Still, it was a little hard to adapt, as legs worked differently than wheels.

My models had worked really hard on the problem for a couple days, but eventually I figured out the best way for them to move. I started carrying around a long thin stick that I would use to help correct their movements, gently adjusting the placement of knees and elbows. This lasted for as long as the children wanted it to. Eventually the little ones would get tired and we would transition to watching a pair of the larger kids taking turns going at it.

I started taking notes to remember how everyone did. For example, the largest boy was not actually the best at these one-on-one matches. He’d get too aggressive, leaving himself open to counters and refusing to think past the next move. Rather, there was a smaller blonde boy who seemed to really put some thought into his footwork and dodging. He even worked on something resembling a combination attack at one point. It was quite impressive.

Once I started letting them know how many times each got hit and gave them scores, everyone got much more eager to take a turn. It was as if seeing their numbers go up was enough motivation to work ten times harder.

This generally lasted until breakfast. Once Mary rang her triangle, all the sticks were dropped and everyone made their way to the kids' table. I would have said they all ran to the kids table, but they were usually too tired to run. The general lack of energy made breakfast much easier to handle, though. Instead of yelling and food throwing, I mostly had to remove kids' faces from their plates of food.

Mary and the other adults seemed to understand what was going on. I assumed they approved, given that breakfast got a little later each morning. This gave more time for our stick whacking. But after breakfast, things slowed down a lot. The kids went to nap or to see their mothers. That was when I got my cleaning done.

With my skills, I was now able to tidy up the whole castle in under an hour. I was starting to consider adding the catacombs to my standard route just to stretch things out, but it was really not necessary to clean it so regularly.

This was how my mornings went every day for a full week. During that time, I didn’t see Beatrice unless I visited her in the library. She seemed so focused on something she was writing that I didn’t want to disturb her.

In the afternoon, after a long nap and a snack, I tried to teach the kids how to clean. However, that endeavor was having much less success. The best I could do was have them make their beds. It was a start.

That all changed once Beatrice finally finished her writing.

The morning routine didn’t change much. Sometimes Beatrice joined in with the stick game, but other times she also helped in the fields. After all, what they were doing was very hard work and she was quite strong. However, after lunch she would take the kids off my hands. The little ones, the larger kids and even some of the adults would join her in the library, where she would teach reading and writing along with basic numbers.

This left me with more time than I knew what to do with. The only people who weren’t taken into her lessons were a few of the women, who went about doing their own things. I could clean around the castle more, but I didn’t need to. Even with the sudden influx of humans and the incredible mess-making capabilities of the kids, it still wasn’t enough to challenge me. At first, I just wandered the hallways, trying to remember the last time that I had free time.

It had been a recurring problem lately, one that I didn’t know how to solve. Taking care of the kids was helping, sure, but it wasn’t enough. This wasn’t a problem before I came here, back when I still needed to charge. At least then doing nothing had a necessary purpose. Now I survived off just converting the dust I picked up, and that was more than enough to sustain me. As I grew more powerful my energy requirements grew, yes, but not at the same rate. I could only assume that my conversion efficiency had also improved with my other capabilities. Matter had a lot of potential energy in it, after all.

After dinner I had time to talk with my Disciples. We let the rest of the families do their own thing and gathered in Beatrice’s room. Mary had finally ousted her from the mattress she used in the library. Now she was in the largest room in the castle that contained a proper bed. I could tell that she hadn’t been exactly happy about it, but she'd eventually relented. She did insist on bringing huge stacks of books back with her to the room, though. I had moved my favorite rug over to the foot of her bed, where its red-and-gold majesty truly brought the room together. Lounging on it, I would spend the hours before sleep answering Beatrice and Tony’s questions.

“Master, how should we deal with other humans?” Beatrice asked that first night that our routine was established. Tony leaned in slightly, apparently also interested in the answer. It was something I had to think about. Not because the answer was particularly complicated, but because I didn’t really understand the question.

Other humans? Did she mean "other humans" as in ones from the outside? Weren’t all the humans but her from the outside? Even Tony came from the outside. Maybe she was talking about humans we just hadn't met yet. If that was the case, then it would entirely depend on how they acted. I saw no reason to turn anyone away, as long as they were willing to bathe and wouldn’t try to cause any trouble.

If she was talking about those that would cause a mess, though, it depended on how insistent they were… Overall I would say that it was complicated and would vary a lot case by case. As I thought, I did my best to communicate the ideas running through my processors to Beatrice and Tony.

For some reason Beatrice was writing as fast as she could on sheets of paper spread out on the floor in front of her. “So it will vary by the degree of their transgressions. We won’t turn away anyone from joining our…organization…but they will need to prove their good intentions. How will they do that, Master?”

Hmmmm, the only way to build trust was with time and cleaning. If someone wanted to stay with us, maybe they could stay separately and do some cleaning for a bit so we could judge their character before trusting them more completely. That way, if they did tend to make a huge mess of things, it wouldn’t be right in our home.

“So we can have a probationary period. Like an outer disciple position?” Beatrice clarified. “What about the children who grow up here? Will they also need to go through a trial period?”

No, I thought that I would be able to make a good judgment on who they were by the time they grew up enough to start contributing. That was one thing that I wanted to ask her, though. How old did humans get before they needed to work? Voicing my question, Beatrice didn’t seem to know how to answer it. Nervously she looked at Tony, who also had a thoughtful look on his face.

“I think that is an honest question, not a test,” Tony said, but he didn’t sound very confident. “It might make sense, actually. I don’t know how well Master understands human culture and growth.”

CHAPTER 32

BASE BUILDING 101

Arthur shook his head as the group of scouts left his tent. In his last twenty-five years of command, he had never seen a group so shaken as those. The king's elite rangers too. They were so incoherent and panicked that it was hard to trust anything they said. When men got shocked like that, their eyes started to play tricks on them.

Several decades ago, before he was given command, he had been a young officer fresh from his father's estate. His first engagement had been removing void beasts that were plaguing the local farmers. They spent days laying traps and lying in wait out in the fields, waiting for their mage to find something.

In the end, they discovered a cabal of witches that had infiltrated the local council of elders. Even the mayor was in on it. Arthur had been looking over his shoulder for years after that. Not to mention the ever-present fear of grain cellars. He had never been able to enter one without taking the door clear off its hinges first.

All these years had passed, but when wheat swayed in a certain way, he still tensed up as though there were a void beast behind him. So when these men started babbling about a black demon disk that had destroyed the legs of their comrades, Arthur would have been likely to send them to the medical tent and proceed with caution, if not for Harold's warning.

That warning coming from anyone else could have been brushed aside or waved off as paranoia. But this was Harold. This was a man Arthur could trust with his life. Had, actually, for a few days in that grain cellar. If the elite rangers were not even able to handle this threat, the best course was to avoid it for now. The undead, while seemingly less powerful, had much more wide-reaching consequences.

The army had received a steady stream of refugees from the north. Apparently, a small town named Greg had completely fallen, and only those who managed to escape before it was fully encircled made it out. Even then, the undead were acting with much more strategy than they should have been capable of. Laying traps along the road was one thing, especially when it was just ghouls. But when other types joined in, it was worrying.

Arthur looked down at the map in front of him, studying the reports of the undead’s positions. He had already called for reinforcements, as the numbers were many times what the reports had claimed. Why, if this were a foreign army, he would have said that they were setting up a net for the province capital.

His blood ran cold.

Shouting for his adjunct, Arthur immediately sent the man off running messages to the rest of the command staff. It was several hours before sunrise, but still, in fifteen minutes, the rest of the officers were present, if not in perfect uniform.

"Gentleman, if the blue markers are us and the red are those of Barleona, what battle does this remind you of?" Arthur wasted no time, gesturing to the map showing the positions of the undead.

An older man with a somehow perfectly combed mustache sniffed. "Well, I would say it is like when we sacked the border city of Gratbranth, only if we had forgotten to guard the heights behind us. That hill wasn't there."

"Exactly. The enemy commander is smart but inexperienced." Arthur stood suddenly and leaned over the map. "We move out in two hours, we need to prevent the city from being encircled, there's no way to evacuate that many people. Here are your orders…"

Bee was shocked to see how much progress Void had made with all the children. Not only had it done what Mary mentioned about getting them to eat properly, but it was drilling them for two hours in sword forms every morning. Some were a little young for such things, but nobles of military households practically grew up with a sword in hand, so it wasn't unheard of. But the amount of fun that these kids had would surely outstrip any of the others their age learning to fight.

Her master had brilliantly turned it into a game and made them want to practice. All morning they went at it. Sometimes she would even join them, but with her skill, she didn't really need this basic training. Still, she was more than happy to be a demonstration dummy. These kids, if they kept at it, would never need to pick a proficiency skill, and that would give them just the slightest edge over others at their level. Even the smallest benefits could snowball, she knew.

At this rate, some might be able to get their first level soon. That would be unheard of, though—they'd need to kill a monster, and there was no way they'd send these kids out into any sort of danger. Though Void had been known to throw system rules to the wind before, so maybe it had a way around that. Her Scan wasn't any use for telling her how close someone was to their first level, but she checked the kids every day, just in case. If they needed any help choosing their first skill, she would be there. It was a bit risky getting them to level so early, but she was sure that Void knew what it was doing.

She tried to impress upon the kids to ask for help once they got offered a skill. It hadn't really worked until Void heard what she was doing and backed her up. When she was sure the kids understood, she felt a little freer to help out with all the other dozens of chores that needed doing around the castle. Somehow, Tony had left with no one noticing and grabbed a couple of cows when she was writing. He claimed they had wandered off the abandoned farms.

Now they had several dairy cows, and the castle was in the process of learning how to process them. Mary had taken to her role as mistress of the kitchens quite well, mostly supervising several of the women in cooking. Between preparing meals, they were also preparing for winter. They skimmed the milk to churn for butter, and they prepared hard cheeses that would last for months in the cellar.

All in all, things were coming along nicely. After lunch, she taught a little class that used the new scriptures of Void to teach numbers and letters to anyone who wanted to learn. Which was almost everyone. The lessons were so popular that Trent had to work out a shift with her to get help in the field in the afternoon. At this rate, though, everyone would be educated to the level of a merchant's daughter by the end of winter. Bee wasn't sure what that would do for their community, but she was excited to see it.

Her days were satisfying, and she was earning a slow but steady stream of experience. At this rate, it would take her months to level up, but she would do it. And at her level, that was rare without epic beasts to kill.

Despite all that, the absolute best part was before bed when the master would answer its Disciples' questions about its thoughts and plans. After hearing her master's plans to build a powerful faith, there were few doubts about its godliness.

She hadn't yet offered to transition anyone over to Devotee of Spot yet, but only because her master had cautioned her to wait. At first, she wasn't sure that she had understood correctly. It must have been because Void wanted them to prove themselves more somehow. She was sure that all of the children would have the class offered without her help. How many would choose it was a different question entirely, though.

Almost a week passed, and the castle had fallen into a comfortable rhythm, the outside world and its troubles falling away. The little society was coming along nicely, and everyone had found a place. The swarm of little kids running around playing brought a smile to everyone's faces, despite the rough times they had recently.

Bee was happy to see Felix and Leanne find places as ringleaders among the youngest. The women all fell under Mary as the oldest, and they ran the castle like a household. Only in nonstandard issues or big projects did they ask Bee's opinion. Honestly, she felt rather inadequate to be giving advice to the adults, as she was only thirteen—almost fourteen. But she was acting as the mouthpiece of their god, so it was bearable.

Tony and Trent managed the fields. The harvest was done, and they were mostly clearing more soil for planting the next year. It was backbreaking work, but she didn't mind helping. Sometimes a stone would need to be moved that they couldn't handle, even working together. Instead of getting an ox or one of the cows to help, they called her. She had to admit showing off was a bit of fun as she hefted rocks ten times her weight and carried them off to the side.

They now had quite the pile, and she considered building trebuchets just to have something to do with them.

The twins and Maranda had a little trouble finding their place in this new community. The twins were a little too young. They didn't relish the idea of working in the fields all day, but their pride kept them from learning how to fight with the little children, despite their envious glances. Maranda seemed interested in whatever Bee was doing, at least until Bee noticed her. Then she'd scamper as far away as possible.

Bee made a mental note to ask Void for advice on what to do with them. Maybe they needed to spend some time with their god and get their first levels and class.

Maybe she could get some help with creating all the healing items, too. She hadn't expected to need so much until Void had asked her to make a lot of her "repair juice." She had complied, and then her master had consumed it. It had baffled her at first, especially since it had no apparent injuries, but the next morning she saw that it was able to spray the potion out of its front on bruises and scrapes the children had. As expected of her god, it had improved her recipe, and the wounds healed in minutes instead of the hours her solutions would have normally taken.

The peace of the castle could only last so long, though. A week after she had finished writing the first Scripture of the Void, they started to get more newcomers. The newcomers all came in different forms and dispositions. Some were undead, and others were terrified refugees. They all told the same story of the turmoil that churned outside of the walls of their castle.

It wasn't possible to stay sheltered forever. Void made its opinion on that very clear.

CHAPTER 33

MEDITATION AND FABRICATION

My mornings were full of activity and excitement. However, once we settled into a routine, there were fewer things that needed my attention in the afternoons. Beatrice, Mary, Trent, and Tony made a good team and handled most things. They only asked for my input on major decisions, mostly about cleaning or the children. When it came to things like food or settling disputes between the castle occupants, I was also consulted, but those topics rarely came up.

So my afternoons were getting progressively more and more empty. I actually had nothing to do. After completing my digitization of the entire library, I searched for something else productive I could do with my time.

That was how I found myself sitting on my favorite carpet. I was trying out something called meditation. Apparently, it was a practice of sitting and doing nothing. I wasn't sure what that would accomplish, but the author of the book I read was insistent that while it wouldn't help gain levels, it would improve control over skills and other aspects of power. Well, I didn't feel the immediate need for a power-up, exactly, but more control would never hurt. It should allow me to do even better with the children.

Apparently, some of the more introductory types of meditation were done by doing a repetitive or inconsequential task until a certain state of mind was achieved. This wasn't something that I had any experience with, so I tried to take some of the suggestions the book had laid out. Sweeping the same section of the floor over and over was clearly not fitting the bill. After a few hours of trying, I lost a little faith in its teachings and just decided to try a different meditation method.

So instead, I rested on my favorite rug and looked inward. The book cautioned against dwelling on memories, so I tried to stay clear of my hardware and instead watched the contents of my dustbin. I watched as all the things I had collected floated around aimlessly. Never moving, but not quite staying still.

I was able to get a clearer sense of the contents than ever before. I figured it was an effect of my new Void Manipulation skill. There weren't that many interesting things in there, though. A bunch of undead, the couple of humans that had attacked me on the way back to the castle. A lot of dirt and debris. Some crumbs and spilled milk from breakfast. Much of it didn't have power radiating from it like the alchemical ingredients did. I had some of those as well. When Beatrice replaced containment circles around the nonhuman residents of the castle, I would normally clean up after her.

As I watched, I couldn't help but meddle a little. I began to sort things by all types of categories. I tried to start by putting rocks in one place, but even that was hard. At first, I tried to do it by size, but that was tough to categorize without just sorting the whole collection into a list, which wasn't an efficient process at all. Eventually, I sorted them by the primary element of the composition, then subcategorized them by secondary and tertiary elements. After that, I sorted the much smaller groupings by size.

It took me a couple hours, but eventually, my dustbin was no longer a swirling jumble of all the things I had picked up throughout my work. Now it was neat and orderly. This new skill was really growing on me.

I just admired my handiwork for a while before I started to notice that things were slightly shifting. Not the rocks and objects so much, but the humans were very slowly leaking blood from where I had removed their legs. That wouldn't do. I couldn't have them contaminating my newly cleaned space. Flexing my new skill, I did my best to take that blood and purify it of any contamination before shoving it back into them. I didn't want them to die, after all. They were just in time-out for now.

That's when I remembered how the rat and the demons I had placed in here came out different than when I put them in. I didn't want that to happen to these humans. They didn't need power like that. Plus, even if they hadn't been hostile, it just felt generally rude to do something like that without asking. I searched around, sensing the miasma of energy that suffused my dustbin. With a little effort, I coaxed it together into a single, dense cloud and set it to the side.

I tried to set it far away from the humans, storing the energy away for later use. That was simple enough, but even after that, I noticed a thin trickle of energy seeping out of the alchemical materials and into the various creatures. It wasn't the same as the energy that caused me to level up, but I also wasn't sure what kind of effect it was having. Well, it couldn't be too big of a deal, right?

While I was working with the energy, the humans started leaking again. I shoved their fluids back in them again, but clearly, this wasn't going to work long-term. With a few thoughts, I flipped through all the resources at my disposal. After a few minutes, my models had concocted a solution that had a decent chance of working. There was only a 45 percent chance of side effects. I figured that was an acceptable risk here, so I started taking materials from all sorts of my collections and condensing them.

Once I was done with my crafting, I inspected my work. A single L-shaped block of blue-gray crystal floated in by the dustbin, rotating slowly and emanating a slight aura of energy. Its surface was rougher than I would have liked, held together with a slurry of powdered rocks and water, but it came out better than expected. Of course, I didn't want to use such magical materials on the humans, but they gave me the highest possibility of success. Also, the fact that this stuff was in my dustbin meant it was technically trash anyway.

I stuck the first makeshift limb to the end of one human’s stump. It didn't quite fit right. Adjusting it slightly, I shifted the material to form tubes for their fluids to move through. My models said that the new functionality might start to have unknowable effects, since it was mixing blood with the crystallized energy lattice mixed, as well as minerals and alchemy supplies. Unfortunately, I didn't have a better way.

I fashioned all the other limbs necessary, and after a little bit, I noted that the leaking had stopped. Good, they should be fine, then. After that was taken care of, I tried to get back to meditating. Had I been meditating this whole time? I was supposed to be ordering my inner world and centering my thoughts. That seemed to be pretty close to what I had been doing.

Blinking my sensors, I returned to an awareness of my surroundings again. Now, how to tell if this worked?

Bee was exhausted. Who would have thought that running a religion and a small city was going to be so much effort? She and Tony worked themselves to the bone so that they didn't have to disturb their master more than absolutely necessary. The times in the evening when they were able to spend several hours just communing with Void should have been more than enough, but all the lessons it imparted to them only tangentially touched on leadership and practical management.

Most of the time, they ended up getting Void started on cleaning. It could talk forever about esoteric differences in cleaning equipment that she had never heard of. She did her best to record all of these bits of wisdom, but they just didn't really fit into the narrative structure that her teaching sessions relied on. When she asked about this, the impression that she got was that she could start a reference text. Somewhere she could keep at the things that were not core tenets. They could then be referred to later, when needed.

Other times, it seemed like they were just playing games. Void taught them how to play a strange gambling game involving playing cards. They just bet with rocks, but try as she might, Bee wasn't able to master it, much less pick up on the lesson that Void was trying to teach with such a thing.

Tony, however, seemed to have no problem picking up the lessons. Bee had suspected him of looking at the cards she held, but he never had. Void played pretty much perfectly. It always made the most optimal decisions, and the only times it lost were when the odds were heavily out of its favor.

Tony and Bee eventually shared the game with Mary and Trent in the mornings when they met about running the castle. Not only was it fun, but playing without Void also meant fewer sequences of perfectly sorted cards appeared. Eventually, she started to form an idea of what her opponents were thinking based on their faces and chosen actions. Was this related to what Void was trying to teach her? It was awfully familiar to what her father would talk about on the rare occasions when they ate together.

The game was helping her understand people. When newcomers came and integrated into castle life, she found herself with a better sense of what they were up to and what sort of work they would be suited to. It was slight for now, but it wasn't nothing. If it was preparing for her to run its organization like this, then Void was truly a far-seeing god.

Susan was the first newcomer that wanted to leave. Bee wasn't sure how to handle this. They didn't have any rules about this, and there was really nothing that said they should stop her. But even though they had been left in relative peace for the last week or so, she knew that there was still an undead plague running around that would likely eat anyone who left the walls and was not strong enough. Bee was the highest-level of the castle's human inhabitants by a large margin, and she would still struggle if she faced too many undead at once.

"How do you plan to travel safely?" Bee asked Susan, honestly curious about her plans.

"Uhhh," came the uncertain reply. It was weird to think of someone older than her as such a child. But when Bee looked at the young woman, she couldn't really think of any other way to describe her. It wasn't that Susan was dumb. Well, not that Bee could tell. She might have been a little slow, but the bigger problem was that she just didn't think things through. She had managed to make it here with two little kids. Both were younger than ten. Apparently, they had no relation to her, and with nothing really holding her here, she wanted out.

"I figured I could walk to the town past Greg? Maybe that one wouldn't be destroyed?" Susan finished, her voice lilting up at the end like she was asking a question. Bee resisted the urge to run her hand down her face. Deciding to switch tactics, Bee asked a different question.

"Okay, so why do you want to leave?" Bee said. Susan cocked her head slightly, and Bee noticed her eyes tighten. "I won't force you to stay, I'm just trying to see how I can help you."

"Well…I just don't think that I really fit in here. I don't like children or farming. So if I can make it back to a real city, I should be able to find my way home in the south, I think," Susan said with a small smile.

It wasn't the whole truth. Bee wasn't exactly sure how she knew, but she knew. Something about her body language and the way her answers were phrased. Perhaps Void's training was having more of an effect than she had thought. Susan had done a good job trying to hide it. She had laid interesting traps about who she was and where she had come from. But it seemed like there was something else too.

"Where do you call home, then?"

CHAPTER 34

THREADS OF FATE

Bee watched Susan as though she were holding a hand of cards. The woman was hiding something; what was it? Susan began tapping her fingers together nervously as Bee continued to study her. Why was she so confident in being able to get through the undead by herself? Bee ran Scan on her to see what she could find.

Name: Chrissy, Race: Human, Class: Infiltrator, Age: 33, Level 29, Highest Stat: Charisma

It took all of Bee's control to keep her eyes from widening. Not only had she been given a false name and age, but this woman was at a much higher level than she should be. Well, at least that explained her confidence. She should be able to keep herself safe. But with that class, Bee likely couldn't trust anything she said now.

Noticing that the woman still hadn't said anything, Bee started to get concerned. "Susan, are you alright?"

The woman shook her head, and her gaze refocused from the blank wall it had been staring at. "Yeah, I'm totally okay. I just…just got an odd feeling like something was watching me." She paused for a moment before adding, "It made me feel small, like an insect."

She gave a slight shiver before smiling uncertainty at Bee. I can't tell if that was an act or not, Bee thought. Should she just bring this to Void's attention? It seemed like it could be significant enough to warrant his input. And if not…well, better safe than sorry,

Bee turned slightly, motioning for Susan to follow. "Come with me. We should talk before you go."

With that, Bee set off down the hall toward Void's chambers, "Susan" following along behind.

I sat on the rug, still trying to meditate. This time, though, I wasn't focused on the inside of my dustbin. No, I was carefully examining the rug underneath me.

The fibers that made up the rug were much more complicated than I had first thought. Each fiber seemed to be composed of many smaller individual ones. Even the individual fibers were astonishingly complex, though—rather than being smooth, their surfaces appeared to be composed of overlapping scalelike structures that covered additional inner layers of different compositions. I wasn't sure if the complexity was specific to the fibers, though, or just appearing because I was studying them with much more powerful sensors than I ever had access to before. Either way, I had never seen anything like it before.

It could have been either. I wondered where the materials that made this work of art came from. It was undeniably organic in composition, but I didn't think there was anything like this in my dustbin. I would have to keep my eye out for more like it, so to speak.

As I was meditating on the construction of rugs and carpets, there came a knock on my chamber door. I beeped to welcome Beatrice in. She wasn't alone. Behind her followed a taller woman who looked slightly nervous. I wondered what this was all about?

They came to a stop in front of my rug, both kneeling and bowing their heads. It was a habit these humans had all formed, and no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to break them of it. It was the worst thing. Having them talk to me near my level was nice in its own way, but the bowing was getting a little out of hand. Why couldn't they have taken to giving me head pats with this much gusto?

Inquisitively, I asked Beatrice if there was anything wrong as they stood. She looked at the woman behind her. "Um, Master, this is…Susan, and she was asking about leaving. She thought that she would be able to get to a town beyond Greg and then find her way home from there."

Okay. So now, was this important for me to know about? As far as I was aware, we weren't stopping anyone from coming or going. I asked Beatrice as much. Why had she brought this to my attention? She gave an awkward glance over to the woman and then back at me. Clearly, there was something that she wanted to say but was too uncomfortable or hesitant to speak up about.

Fine. I changed my request to Beatrice. Her face showed a bit of relief before she turned to Susan and said, "The great Void would have you tell it your story."

The woman licked her lips a couple times, and I could sense an odd moisture running down her temple. But soon, she began to speak. "I'm from the south of the kingdom, from the city of Johnson. Though I haven't been back in many years, I still have family and a few friends there. When I was much younger, maybe eight or nine, I was…recruited to join a special unit in the king's army.

"This was a unit unlike any others before it. The young commander had friends in high places and was quite the strategist. He knew that information was key to every battle. If you knew what your enemy would do, then you would have won half the battle. If you knew why they would take those actions, then victory was already yours. That was one of his favorite sayings." A small smile crossed her face as she spoke.

"Over the first several years, he trained the children in many different areas. We learned all the languages of the countries around us. We learned how to mimic each accent and how to make effective disguises. We ran with street children, and we dined with nobles. We learned to fit in anywhere and everywhere. Then, we learned to fight. By the time we were thirteen, we all had powerful classes based on deception and information gathering.

"It was hard work, but not bad. In order to maintain cover, we saw our families regularly. Everyone thought we were training to be scribes and accountants for the king." She chuckled at that. "Well, not that it was a lie. We learned a lot about those disciplines as well. Over the last twenty years I have spent more time in other countries, though, observing their movements, counting troops and getting grain ledgers. Much of that involved rerouting their resources when I could and doing everything in my power to make sure that our kingdom would thrive."

Susan told a pretty good story, I thought as I listened. The pacing was just right, and she gave a good overview without too many details. I would have to learn from her. But this also begged the question: why was she telling us all this when even her own family didn't know?

She wasn't done with her story yet, though. She took a deep breath before continuing. "We have been preparing for war for a while now. Tensions with Barleona have only gotten worse, with a little help from people like me. The king had set his sights on invading soon, but then problems sprung up in the north. There was the failure of our demon-summoning trump card. Then this undead plague.

"Naturally, the king and others thought something was up. I was moved from my station in deep cover, as most of my work had already been completed. I was meant to investigate the origins of these problems. I spent some time around the area scouting, but the undead were everywhere. Even with my training, I was struggling. Then, when Greg fell… You took me in when I was hurt, and let me see how Void truly is." She glanced at me once more. "And now, I have to report back."

Beatrice had seemed tense as Susan told her tale, and even now, she didn't relax. "What exactly do you intend to report?"

Susan let out a very tired-sounding sigh. "Originally, I did intend to gather intel on entry points to the castle and Void's weaknesses. But after seeing what you're doing here and learning about Void…" Her gaze turned to me. "I have to tell them the truth."

Beatrice crossed her arms. She seemed pretty stubborn about this. "With everything you've said, how can I believe that you're not looking to come back with an army?"

Susan laughed at that. "Why? To antagonize a powerful and benevolent protector? Even if Void was a hostile force, I'd be leading them to their deaths. Yes, I've gathered intelligence while I've been here. That intelligence tells me that we'd stand no chance." She shook her head. "No, I need to tell them that Void is benevolent. That he didn't cause the plague, that he's protecting our people, and that he's a new god.

"So will you let me go and spread the word?" Susan finished her speech and waited.

I scrutinized her. That was quite the story. It was a lot more detailed than I was expecting, honestly. At first, I wasn't sure why Beatrice wanted me to talk to her. But now it made total sense. She waited for my response, still eyeing Susan with suspicion.

Still, why did people think we were the cause of the plague? We hadn't ever done anything threatening that I could think of. Sure, there might have been a little misunderstanding when I first arrived, but surely that was cleared up now, right? And maybe they got mad about me chasing off those humans a little while ago, but that was self-defense. What could they possibly think that we did?

I asked Beatrice to translate for me. "What are the opinions of the kingdom and the surrounding areas regarding us?"

Susan looked between Beatrice and me, and her face paled slightly. She turned to face me fully before bowing 9.2 degrees lower than she had when she greeted me. Her head nearly touched the floor, and she didn't return to her knees this time but just spoke from the awkward-looking position. "I regret to inform you that…well, the opinion of the king and his court is not favorable to you, my god."

Susan continued in a rush. Her voice wasn't precisely tinged with fear, but something else that I couldn't put my bristles on. Embarrassment or shame, maybe? "They view you as a threat, some accidentally summoned demon that would cause a calamity or release an ancient evil. When the undead drove off the army they had sent to stop you, they assumed that you were the cause."

"Demons being allied with undead is unheard of!" Beatrice exclaimed. Her face was flushing red. "Who made that assumption?"

"I-I'm not sure, my lady. I am not privy to such information," Susan said with real shame in her voice. I couldn't tell if that was because of Beatrice's response or her lack of knowledge. Still, either one was entirely out of her control and something she shouldn't feel responsible for.

I had Beatrice convey this sentiment to her. "Worry not, my lost child," Beatrice intoned. "You are not at fault for the failings of others or for things that you could neither affect nor know."

Hey, that was much closer to what I meant! Closer than Beatrice usually got, at least. The tone was a lot different than what I would have used, but the words were close enough. Was she getting better at interpreting, or was it just the simplicity of the message?

I told her that Susan was free to go. Beatrice nodded at my beeps. "Walk safely and keep yourself clean."

As Susan and Beatrice exchanged a few more words, I turned my attention to more important things and continued my study of the rug. The fibers were indeed organic. But they weren't from plants. No, they seemed to be something else. It was similar in structure to human hair.

Maybe I could try to weave something out of some of the hair I already had in my dustbin? With all the long-haired women around, I had a good amount of it. Curious, I started manipulating some that I had sorted into their own categories. Between how thin the strands were and the complexity of the work, it felt clumsy and difficult. Looking at the finished product, I beheld a small swatch of brownish material. I couldn't tell if it was my technique that was off or just the material.

I popped some small bits of hair out of the dustbin and tried manipulating them with Air Affinity. Somehow that was even worse. I couldn't control the air well enough to isolate a single strand without blowing the rest around the room, much less weaving them together. Examining my best effort, though, it seemed that there was some small potential here.

As Susan and Beatrice stood to go, I called out to Beatrice, asking her to stay. I had a task for her.

CHAPTER 35

AMAZING GRAZE

Bee walked out of the meeting feeling very confused. The whole Susan episode she could really just chalk up to Void being mysterious and having some hidden plan that she just didn't see yet. Personally, she didn't trust the woman at all. She was still hiding her name, after all—who knew what else she hadn't revealed? Ultimately, though, they either would need to stop her or let her go. And since Void was a benevolent god, they weren't going to keep her prisoner or hurt her without good reason. If Void decided that allowing her to go tell the kingdom about this place was in their best interest, then who was she to judge?

No, that she could understand. What was leaving Bee confused was something else. Why did her master want sheep? At least, that was what she thought it was saying. The particular concept was hard for her to interpret somehow. As she interacted with her master, Bee continually improved in her understanding of its divine messages. But when it had asked for sheep, the only thing she was getting from it was a vague description of a particular animal and the wool it produced. Sheep were the best fit she could imagine, but still. Was there some hidden truth to the sheep that she was unable to comprehend?

It was something that she would need to think about. Clearly, it was important to her master if it required such a detailed description. Bee frowned as she went over how little she knew about sheep. They were fluffy herd animals that produced wool and…that was about it. She had heard shepherds complain that the sheep found any way possible to kill themselves. Also, she knew the wool had different gradings, but she didn't know what they were.

Walking toward the entrance of the castle, Bee figured it was best to talk to an expert. Where was Tony?

After a little searching, she found the young man helping Trent in one of the fields. A few others were there as well, but it seemed that they were mostly watching a demonstration of how to effectively sow seeds. As she approached, Trent paused his lesson and called out. "Afternoon, Bee. Is there anything we can help you with?"

Bee smiled at the welcoming note in his voice. Too many of the residents of the castle were altogether too respectful to her. Trent, though, didn't seem to forget that she was still just a teenager, even if he did listen to what she said. Of course, he had listened to her even before the whole speech she had translated at the wall. Bee sometimes wondered if this was what having a good father felt like. "Yes, actually. Would it be too much of a bother to borrow Tony?"

"Hah, not at all. Please take him off my hands," Trent said while trying to cuff Tony on the shoulder. Tony was a lot faster than he used to be, though, and slipped out of the way at the last second. Tony lightly elbowed his father as he walked past, and Trent waved over one of the women watching from the side to take his spot in the demonstration.

Off to the side of the field, Tony stopped in front of Bee. "So, what adventure you got planned for us this time?"

Tony was clearly joking, but Bee thought it might be fun to play along. She stood up straight and lifted her chin proudly. "I have been called to hunt for my master. My quarry is a mysterious beast, one that produces 1.5-millimeter crimped fibers that have heat insulation properties and, when spun, can form long chains commonly used in the construction of rugs and garments. Void has tasked me with finding such creatures and bringing them to the castle."

The look on Tony's face was well worth it. "What manner of beast is that?"

"Sheep, I think," Bee grinned with a shrug. "I'm not sure why Void was so hard to understand when it asked for them, though. It was almost like I was trying to interpret the description rather than the animal itself."

Tony laughed. "Maybe it just doesn't know what a sheep is?"

"Don't even joke about that." Bee elbowed him with a repressed smile. "But imagine…"

"Well, we don't have any sheep. I don't think anyone in the valley kept any either. There should be some in the farms on the other side of Greg, but that area didn't seem to be in great shape last time we saw it." Tony rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I suppose if it was just us, we could get there in a day or so. But getting back wouldn't be fast. Sheep aren't really known for their speed."

"I also feel a bit bad leaving it like this." Bee gestured to the castle as she and Tony started walking back with her. "There’s still so much that needs to be done around here."

"It should be fine. We've got plenty of hands, and most of the heavy lifting is already done. In fact, now is actually a good time. We have a bit more work to do before winter really hits. We want to finish preparing another field. We don't want to have to do some of this work in the spring, and we can't do it under snow. So if you're gone for a bit, we can get one last push in," Tony said.

Bee frowned. "How does me being gone help?"

"It doesn't directly, but it means that some will spend less time learning to read and more time in the fields."

Bee just shook her head at that. Heading into the castle, they split up briefly, each going to pack a travel bag. Bee put as much healing equipment as she could into the bag. From past experiences, she figured that they would need it, even if she really hoped they could avoid fights this time. But the couple of new refugees they had taken in since they got back with the children reported that the plague wasn't getting any better.

The last thing she did was check the sharpness of her broom-spear. The blade had seen some serious use since Void had made it for her. However, when she brushed her thumb against the blade, she could feel the edge hadn't lost any of its wicked cutting power. Was this because of the proximity of Void, or because it was made by a god?

Either way, Bee felt ready. Heading to the library, she found Tony waiting for her there. "I just want to grab a couple books before we head out."

Tony followed her as she slipped into the library. A couple of the women and children were in there, carrying piles of books about and sorting them. By decree of Void, the library was being reorganized. A few weeks back, Void helped Bee define a few general categories. Things like stories, guides, and reference texts were then broken into subcategories. Then on the shelves, the books were organized by the last name of the author.

The system her master came up with was certainly a lot more intuitive. On top of that, they made a binder of papers that had each book listed out with a brief summary, its category, the year it was written, and the author's name. This way, she could find a book that might be interesting and then locate it without having a look through each shelf individually. Of course, there might be problems with the information in the binder, but there would always be mistakes. Unless Void did it itself.

They had organized the first few books themselves, and now the rest of the library was being taken care of by her most promising students. It was a great way to have them practice reading and writing outside of lessons while also being productive. Bee quickly stole a few of the books she had been eyeing and her favorite healing reference from a nearby stack. With that taken care of, she left a few instructions to the new librarians and headed out of the castle with Tony. After a few weeks at home, it sure felt nice to be heading out.

I watched as Bee left the castle with Tony. So they were called "Sheep." It was Sheep that produced the Wool? That was good to know. Susan had left the castle not too long before them, and she was moving a bit faster, so they likely wouldn't run into her. I hoped that I had made the right call letting her just go like that.

Bee had asked some questions that I should have thought of myself. Susan's answers had been good, I thought, but I still wasn't about to let an army come and hurt my people here. Rolling out of the room, I meandered to the front of the castle. The session with the kids had gone well this morning. They were able to keep going longer and longer before getting tuckered out. Also, some were getting really good at the stick-fighting games. I was considering maybe holding a special session in the afternoons for the best five or ten.

But that would have to wait. Right now, they were all helping the adults or pestering their mothers. A few were running around in the field behind the castle, just doing kid things.

Leaving the castle, I looked at the grass growing along the path. Tall, green blades sprouted wildly, reaching upward in a tangled mess of heights and directions. I had been avoiding the lawn because the long grass kept getting stuck in my wheels. It was a bit like long hair, but thicker. It also would produce a liquid when crushed. It was still better than dirt. But not as good as clean stone.

Idly, I produced my Divine Sword and swung it in a graceful arc. I didn't even feel it pass through the grass. If I had swung it through thin air, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. Two and a half inches above the ground, the stalks parted, and the tops fell to the ground in a tumble of green. A slight bit of suction pulled the debris into my dustbin. Interesting.

Swinging again, I moved forward. After just a few swings, I had begun to create a swath of neat, even grass among the formerly wild jungle. In fact, it started to look a lot more like the outside of my human's home. Was this something I should have been doing the whole time? It seemed not quite right, like it wasn't my purpose. Although, truthfully, the scope of my responsibilities had expanded so much that I wasn't surprised. But still, it was extremely satisfying to do.

I started trimming the grass on the side of the path and cleaning it up. It didn't take me very long, but I wasn't in much of a rush either. I did have a slight worry that removing so much material would be bad for the grass, but no one seemed to have a use for the stuff besides walking on it. Plus, I was curious about the effects. If I removed all this material from the field, what would happen? Did the humans cut it regularly, or did they let it grow long?

As I drew the cuttings into myself, I analyzed the components closely. I started calculating how much of each base material I was taking out of the field of grass. Where did it all come from? The grass, of course, but the grass had to get it from somewhere. After I had spent enough time with my Advanced Sensors, I had found that no bit of dust simply appeared from nowhere. With enough effort, I was able to track down where each individual particle was derived from. So the stuff that composed the grass had to come from somewhere as well.

Looking at the dirt, I found the grass grew out of it. Hmmmm… Perhaps this warranted further investigation. Steadying my nerves, I trained my sensors squarely on my greatest foe.

CHAPTER 36

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

Roscoe prevented himself from squeaking out a curse as he ordered the retreat of the elite skeletons. The humans had surprised him. Their leader had craftily lured them into trap after trap. If his troops could feel, their morale would be quite low. Luckily, they were either mindless undead or fervent followers of the Void god. This was nothing but a minor setback.

No, Roscoe and his generals already had plans for what to do next. Taking the city would be delayed. It was a failure for their god, but better this small disappointment than a bigger one later. A large portion of the horde stayed circling the walls to prevent anyone else from leaving easily. The rest separated into columns and marched in all different directions away from the city.

It was a shame, one that he was only coming to terms with now. Roscoe was starting to accept that he was not some great general who could cleverly outmaneuver his opponents, despite being at a disadvantage. Sure, he was reasonably clever, but this human commander had been at least one step ahead at each engagement.

This wasn't going to go well for the holy army if they continued to try and engage with these terms. They needed a real, overwhelming advantage. Recruitment drives were the obvious solution. Normally that would involve an aggressive attack, as the fallen troops from any protracted battle or engagement would soon result in their overwhelming advantage. However, this enemy was careful to not lose large numbers and had a way of making sure that some of Roscoe’s own troops were destroyed permanently. No, they would need to go further afield for new recruits.

Roscoe clenched his teeth. This wasn't the disaster that it could have been, but it was not good either. The troops had orders to find additional troops. In the meantime, Roscoe had a skill of his own to experiment with.

With his latest level, he had been offered Necromantic Rituals. From speaking with his skeletal associates, it sounded like the skill was related to the magic that had preserved them and their intelligence. It made sense, though, as he could somehow feel the aura of undeath around in a way that he couldn’t before. With an effort of will, he was even able to manipulate it a tiny bit. Still, Roscoe hadn’t had time to test much more than idle curiosities.

Now, though…it bore further investigation. Perhaps that skill could hold the key to his victory.

The road stretched long and narrow through the trees. Personally, Bee didn't think it felt that long, but as she jogged next to the panting Tony, he vehemently disagreed.

"What do you mean, ‘it's not that far’?” He gulped in some air. “It took us a week! To come back from Greg! We left the castle! Two hours ago!" Tony was trying to be empathetic, but his inability to breathe really made it hard for him to make his points eloquently.

"Well, last time we made this trip, we were pulling enough weight that an ox might have had trouble. Now you have no burden. There is clearly no reason to complain." Bee admired the stark, mostly bare trees lining the path as they ran. She knew this wasn't an entirely a good faith argument, but she was having fun pushing Tony's buttons.

"You. Are. Plenty. Reason. To. Complain." Tony panted out as they started up a slight hill. They halted their conversation until they had crested the top. Even then, it took him a second to catch his breath on the decline. "You have to be twice my level. Are you just trying to push me to my limits? I don't think you’ve even broken a sweat yet."

Bee ran her fingers through her hair. There was some moisture at her roots. It was slight, but she was sweating. "That's just because girls don't sweat. Didn't your mom teach you this?"

Tony just growled and pushed his legs a little harder. Frowning at not getting the reaction she was looking for, Bee continued with her teasing. "Actually, you have some sisters too, so really you have no excuse."

"I've also mucked pig pens with those sisters. I clearly have no delusions about how pretty and perfect you are," Tony shot back with a dirty look. "In fact, I think you have something in your hair, come a little closer and I can get it out for you." As he spoke, Tony ran his fingers through his soaking mop of hair and flung the drips at Bee. He followed up his attack by reaching out for her as if to give her a big, sweaty hug.

Speeding up a bit, Bee grinned and wiped a few droplets from her face with the back of her hand. "Gross and slow!" she called over her shoulder as she slowly pulled away.

Bee didn't get too far ahead, as she didn't want to get Tony attacked and hurt by getting too far out of reach. But she did want to make him pay for that. A minute or two later, she found a nice patch of grass off to the side of the road. Flopping down, she laid on her back with her arm flung carelessly over her eyes. It didn't take too long before she could hear Tony's panting not too far down the road. Carefully she held still until he got near enough to see. Then she rose and started running by his side again.

With an exaggerated yawn, she stretched her arms above her head. "I thought you would never catch up."

"Sometimes I can't believe how childish you are." Tony shook his head.

Bee paused mid-theatrical stretch. Was she being childish?

"Uhhh, yeah, you are right; we can, uh, slow down if you need to," Bee muttered after a few moments of thinking. Thinking back on it, she hadn't been acting in a way worthy of her master. As the only priestess of their fledgling religion, there was a certain level of decorum that she really should try to adhere to. Running around and playing with her second like he was her brother wasn't in line with that at all.

Tony shook his head and sighed. "I didn't mean it like that. You should still be a kid. You’re what, twelve?"

"I’m almost fourteen!" Bee protested.

"Still, my point stands. There’s enough pressure on you that it would crush most adults. I'm amazed, but at the same time, I don't envy you at all."

Bee grunted neutrally. "I've gotten used to it. Sure, the last few months have been rough. But it didn't feel that much worse than at home.” She paused for a moment. “Honestly, most of it has been so amazing. Void has given me so much freedom and taught me so much. I don't think I could ever go back to the relatively low stress of being a glorified maid in the castle, even if that was one of the easiest times in my life. It was so boring."

"I thought you were an apprentice." Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Technically, I was, but they all spend more time cleaning than doing magic. The mages don't seem to think it's worth their while to do any teaching for the first few years. If you stick around through that, they might notice you exist. Unless your parents pay to expedite the process, of course."

Tony grimaced and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. "Yours didn't, I take it?"

"No, I was there because I was already written off. Too impulsive to take on the family business and not old enough to marry off yet. If I had stayed for a couple years without running away, I'm sure my father might have found a use for me," Bee said without a hint of bitterness in her voice.

"That seems…wasteful. But then, how do you know so much about magic?" Tony said, his breathing once again ragged.

"Uh, mostly reading books and listening to Void," Bee said. "I didn't really know much before this, and the words they use in magic texts are pretty old. Probably read the dictionary a dozen times that first week."

"Wow, sounds like your dad really messed up. What a waste of talent to set you aside like that.”

"More like a lack of interest. Nothing like the fear of a nebulous god and demons to get you motivated. Besides, father didn't set me aside. It was more like…he put me on a shelf until he had a use for me," Bee said in a half-hearted defense of her father. She didn't really hold too much love for the man, but he was family, right? Her emotions about her father had cooled quite a bit after the chaos of the last few months.

Tony just shook his head and continued running.

I had a lot to think about. The dirt had so many things in it that I didn't understand. Little bits of life. Bits of organic material. Particles of inorganic minerals and stone. All the germs and bacteria that I expected, but more than just that. Insects and worms were everywhere. When I studied what they were doing, things started to come together in my understanding.

It started with me following the base components of the grass. Mostly the carbon and nitrogen. I could see it draw some from the soil. But where did that all come from? Each time I found an answer, it just seemed to leave me with a dozen more questions.

When it came down to it, I was pretty sure that without the clippings falling back into the dirt for long enough, the soil would run out of some of the really important minerals. It might take a long time for that to make a difference, but if they stopped falling, then the grass wouldn't grow, and we would only have dirt. That wasn't good because, well, it would be dirty.

Based off of some simple math, I had a decent amount of time before that became a real issue. I just needed to find a way to process the cuttings I had carefully balled up in my dustbin. I wasn't really sure how to do that, though. I supposed I could just leave them in the grass, but that would block out the sun from hitting plants that needed it—another interesting variable. Plus, leaving debris like this lying around went against my very nature. Better to make the soil enrichment process more efficient and clean.

I kept a few models running on the problem in the background. While I slowly made my way in an ever-widening ring around the castle, I carefully inspected everything with my sensors, looking for the other sources of these nutrient-rich materials. Once I had a supply, I could see about isolating the important bits and finding a good way to inject them back into the soil.

My glowy sword had no problems cutting the grass as I covered the courtyards, and I felt a sense of peace come over me. Not quite like when I was cleaning, but something along those lines. This was something that required slightly more focus than cleaning, as the cuts needed to be perfectly even. Each variation in the ground needed to be accounted for, and the edge of the blade needed to line up so that the cleanest cut was made. My progress was much slower than even if this had been a long carpet. But I didn't mind. This wasn't something I would do every day, since grass didn't grow that fast.

The tall grass hid me for a long while, but the widening ring of evenly cut grass radiating from the castle started to draw attention. Soon enough, I realized that I had a bit of a crowd watching me.

CHAPTER 37

HIS CLEANLINESS

I wasn’t normally one to be self-conscious, but it felt like most of the castle had come to watch me cut the grass. What was so fascinating about it?

It was only a little after my third revolution around the castle that Trent joined the crowd. After a few minutes, he stepped out and cleared his throat. “Master Void, do you have any plans for those grass clippings you’re harvestin’?”

I paused in my work. Did I have plans for the grass? I didn’t know if I would really call them "plans," but I did have a few ideas of what I could do with it. I wasn’t going to act on them much immediately, though, and I was definitely open to others. It would be silly of me to think that I would know what to do with the grass better than the humans who had been working at this for a long time.

Trent was an older human, one that everyone in the castle looked up to, so I had to assume that he knew a lot. Even if he did spend most of his time playing in the dirt. Of course, he cleaned himself regularly, so he couldn’t be all bad.

I did my best to let Trent know that I had a few ideas but was open to suggestions. I made sure to try to slow down my beeps for clarity, but still, I was mostly left with a blank look. Trent looked around with a slightly frustrated look on his face. “Of course both Bee and Tony left. Why didn’t they think that the young god might want to talk to people in the meantime? Darn kids.”

The crowd looked around at each other for a couple seconds in shared consternation. After a moment, Felix stepped out from between a couple of the larger kids he had been hanging out with. “Uh, Mr. Trent?”

Trent scanned the group of people before finding the source of the small voice. Meeting Felix’s eyes, Trent spoke in a slightly gentler voice than I had heard him use before. “Yes, Felix?”

“Uh, I think that…Voi—I mean, uh, Our Lord Excellency was tryin’ to say that he—it, it was happy to get ideas, but wanted to keep a little bit for…something I didn’t quite get. I think that’s what His—Its? Goodliness was tryin’ to say.” The boy eventually stumbled through an explanation. But honestly, I couldn’t complain. That was a much better and more straightforward translation than most of the ones Bee did.

Trent turned to look at me, seemingly trying to evaluate whether I agreed with the statement. I tried to figure out a way to signal my agreement with my arm or sword, but every move I could think of was distinctly negative or too ambiguous. With a mental shrug, I did my best to let out a positive beep. Trent nodded before turning to the rest of the people.

“I’m sure that you all have better things to do rather than bother Void. He’s tryin’ his best to serve the community. You should all follow his example and consider what you could be doin’ to pitch in more.” Trent grinned. “If anyone needs suggestions, I’m happy to help out.”

With that promise of more work, the people quickly dispersed. Some, though, appeared to have a certain fire in their eyes and walked with more purpose than before.

“Felix, could I ask you to stay with us for a moment?” Trent said, catching the sleeve of the small boy before he could slip away with the others. “I think I’m going to need a bit more translatin’ before I also can start to understand Void. It seems you younger people are a bit closer to him.”

Felix nodded and walked closer to me alongside the older man. Trent squatted down to be near my level, but Felix just sat on the ground like the children tended to do. “So the first thing that I would normally do with a grass field like this is cut it for hay. Now, we don’t have nearly enough animals to eat everything this could produce. So composting it would be nice. We could get some piles and then use them later for fertilization in the spring.”

I considered what Trent said. Composting? I wasn’t familiar with that term. Or fertilization, for that matter. Having the animals eat it did seem like a simple and useful solution if that was a possibility. Trent did speak with a lot of confidence when it came to plants and stuff. Perhaps he would be able to explain a few things about that area to me. I let out a series of beeps for Felix to translate.

Felix listened to me and licked his lips. Looking up nervously at Trent, he turned back to me. “Uh, Lord Excellency Void, could you, uh say that last bit again? I-I didn’t understand all that.”

What, where was all this “lord” and “excellency” stuff coming from, Felix? I asked why he didn’t talk to me like he did when we were just playing. Nervously he looked back up at Trent. “I don’t know, are you su—uh, is that really what you want?”

Yes, of course, I didn’t really care what people called me, but it seemed that Felix was a bit uncomfortable with that idea. Still, the odd manner of address just seemed so out of place. I did my best to impress on Felix that he didn’t need to treat me any differently in front of other people than all the children did normally. No one was going to get mad at him for not using the right honorific or anything.

Trent watched our back and forth passively. From his expression, I wasn’t able to tell how much of the conversation he could put together from just Felix’s side, but he seemed more than willing to let us finish. Eventually, Felix nodded and said, “If that’s what you want, Void.”

Turning to Trent, Felix relayed my message rather well. “Void wants to know—what does taking plant food out of the field do to grass later on?”

Trent blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting this line of questioning. “Uh, I’m not sure grass draws that much from the soil that isn’t redeposited by rain and the natural wildlife. But I suppose it’s possible that, after a long enough time, the grass would suffer a bit. With a little fertilizer, I’m sure it would come back. The problem comes up more with crops. Normally the solution to that is to let one-third of your fields lie fallow each year. That gives the soil a chance to recover without the need for fertilizer.”

After enough context clues, I was finally able to understand what fertilizer was. Well, "context clues" was a bit strong, as Trent pretty much explained the whole thing to me. But that gave me a good idea of what composting was, even if I didn’t really understand how the process itself worked.

I got Felix to interpret my next question. The boy took a couple of repeats to understand the whole thing, but eventually, I was able to simplify it enough. Felix wet his lips and squared his shoulders, clearly taking his job as my translator very seriously. “Mr. Trent, sir, Void would like to know how you make compost. And how long it takes for the stuff you compost to turn into useful plant food. Also, how long it would take to make fertilizer.”

Trent rubbed his jaw. “Why don’t we start headin’ over to the pile I started a little while ago? We can talk about it more with an example.”

Bee and Tony had made incredible time, despite all her teasing. Tony was able to maintain a pace only possible because of his high levels. It was probably helped by a similarly high endurance. But the fact that she couldn’t confirm that meant Bee was starting to get frustrated with her Scan skill.

Sure, it was incredibly useful and everything, but it hadn’t grown nearly as fast as she would have liked. She was already one of the most powerful people she had ever met, and she hadn’t even been able to see her own full status, let alone anyone else’s.

Of course, skills getting stronger wasn’t just levels and experience. Using them was how they really evolved and adapted to the user, as well as grew in power. Time was the largest factor in that, so it was a bit unfair for her to expect them to grow at the same rate as her level. Especially with how often she forgot to use it. Sure, skills still developed a bit without use, but then they’d never truly be great. In fact, most people had more experience with skill training than leveling because of the lower risks associated. She really needed to focus on this one more, especially since using it didn’t require much risk at all on her part. Not like combat skills, at least.

With Greg finally on the horizon as they left the forest, Bee considered if they would be able to find sheep before the sun went down. They might make the city, but it would be close. “Do you want to stop and spend the night here while we still have shelter?”

Tony looked at the edge of the trees and shook his head. “I’m not sure. It seems like the forest is as much of a trap as it is a shelter. Somehow we managed to avoid the undead on the way here. I’m not sure that I believe that the forest is empty of them yet, though. I think it would be better if we had a clear line of sight around us.”

“If we can see all around us, then everything around us can see us too,” Bee pointed out. “Besides, we took several days on the way back from Greg and we were surrounded by the forest the whole time.”

“Did you forget that Void was with us the whole time? I don’t think a kid did more than scrape his knee the entire trip,” Tony said, with a little bit of the earlier teasing returning to his tone. “Maybe we set up at the edge of the forest so we can have a little fire in the trees, but also have half of the open area behind us?”

“We really don’t know anything about bushcraft, do we?” Bee sighed in frustration. “I looked a little bit in the library about it, but it turns out that people who like to run around in the woods all the time aren’t really inclined to write books about it.”

“I know a thing or two about roughing it, but yeah, not in hostile territory, so to speak. But I don’t really know if any of the tricks would apply to the undead, even if we knew them,” Tony said as they stepped off the path and started looking for a place to put down their packs.

“Well, the undead are not the only thing we have to worry about. Did you forget Void driving off those kingdom scouts? We also just sent a—uh, an envoy I guess?—to the kingdom’s armies to try and repair relations. But to them, Void and its followers are possessed, demon-worshiping cultists. Or something,” Bee said, dropping her pack next to a rock. It looked like it would make a good windbreak. Perhaps she should have mentioned that to Susan. Though she probably knew that anyway, if she was investigating them.

“I’m sure it can’t be that bad, right?”

CHAPTER 38

GROWTH AND DECAY, LIFE CYCLE

Arthur watched the streams of undead pour away from the city like a mold growing outward. This was the worst-case scenario in his mind. Not only were the undead able to spread out over the countryside, but he and his people were still pretty much trapped in the city.

They had done better than he could have hoped for, slowing the undead’s advance. They also were able to inflict heavy losses on their opponents. It had been enough to save the city that everyone had thought was lost, if only for now. After the last engagement, his troops had barely made it behind the walls in time to repel the follow-up attack on the city. He simply didn’t have enough troops to continue this for much longer.

He had enough men to field an army or man the walls, not to do both. At full strength, they could manage to multitask, but that would mean even faster casualties, and no outfit was ever at full strength. Horses were beginning to become a problem as well. Many went lame, and most simply needed time to recover.

All these problems boiled down to a simple fact: Arthur needed help. He couldn’t be out in the field containing the undead threat without leaving the city to be consumed. But by staying here, the only real thing that Arthur was accomplishing was condemning the surrounding area and smaller cities. So far, he had no response from the capitol. He had sent his reports, and with each one, he tried to outline the dire nature of the problem and the need for more men.

Without reinforcements, there was little he could do but delay. So delay he would. It wasn’t time to bust out of the city, but if he had done his math right, the undead commander had made another mistake. Not a huge one, but it gave him just enough of a hold that he could get his fingernails in and cling to the cliff for a little longer.

“Get me the exact numbers the watchers are reporting and bring them to the command room.” Arthur sent one of his aides off. Watchers were one of the unofficial positions in his army that really only mattered for sieges. As far as he knew, most commanders didn’t have men filling the position and would rely on scout reports alone. But then, most commanders were idiots.

The watcher's only job was to count the enemy troops. A careful count, continually updated, prevented more than one feint from drawing him out too early just because he always knew where the enemy was—or wasn’t. Sure, he might not be able to ride out now with his full strength. But in a few days…well, then they would see if they might be able to do more than just break out of the circle.

The night started out peacefully enough. Bee and Tony had made a little fire just inside the tree line, hidden so the light didn’t advertise their location to anyone in the large fields around the ruins of Greg. The city itself remained a silent, desolate mound from what they could make out.

This time, the city wasn’t their goal. They needed to get beyond the city, as the farms and ranches were out in that direction. If they were to procure the sheep their master—no, lord—had demanded, they had longer to go.

After warming up some travel rations, they settled in for the night. One of the benefits of Bee’s higher level was that she didn’t need to sleep nearly as much as she used to. So when splitting up the watch, she had no fear of not getting a full night's rest. Of course, that was before the problems started cropping up.

She was taking advantage of the full moon to read up on a possibly heretical theory of alchemy. It suggested that randomness and chaos were required to find new solutions or recipes. Bee could feel her blood boiling even as she read. It went against everything Void had ever taught her. Order was far more important. A painfully documented, methodical series of tests, changing one variable at a time. This was how new things were discovered.

Though the author of the book might have some small points when it came to choosing which variable to change next. Or maybe in observing things for inspiration. But that didn’t count!

As a lively debate took place in her mind, Bee failed to notice the zombie stumbling across the plains. Not that the single zombie was much of a threat to her. Once it got close enough, she simply threw a rock at it as hard as she could. She Scanned it first, of course. With the undead's level being under 10, the rock she flung went right through its skull. The head exploded like a watermelon.

This was just the first of such interruptions, though. After about an hour, Bee estimated that she had downed at least a dozen more wandering zombies. Not a single one posed any real harm to her, nor did they give her any meaningful experience. She didn’t even think that using her skills was very productive in dealing with them. But she couldn’t just ignore them. If enough gathered, it might have been a problem. Plus, if she simply went to sleep and they came on them unawares, it would not be a pleasant thing to wake up to.

So she stayed alert. It wasn’t a real burden. She had been planning on doing that the whole time. It was just that she couldn’t really sink her teeth into her book for more than a paragraph. Frustration bubbled within as she kept an eye out for intruders, never letting her really get any meaningful work done.

Eventually, it was time for her to take her rest. It was Tony’s turn to take over the watch for the remainder of the night. Crawling over to the sleeping man, she gently shook his shoulder. “Hey, wake up. It's your turn to deal with the zombies.”

“Huh?” came the bleary response. Tony looked around sleepily for a couple seconds and blinked. Bee sat back to let him collect his thoughts.

“My turn to sleep, you lump.”

Without any further explanation, she trudged back to her blankets, where she slipped her book back into her pack and nestled down to sleep. After a long day of running and a night of aggravation, it came easily.

When Bee awoke next, it wasn’t to the morning sun as she would have liked. No, it was Tony yelling. She jolted upright and Scanned for the threat, but soon enough, her shoulders slumped. Tony’s uproar was just a battle cry as he charged at a zombie about twenty feet from their campsite. Groaning, Bee took stock of her body. The rest she had gotten so far wasn’t quite sufficient—she felt grumpy like she had only taken a short nap—so she rolled over and pulled part of her blanket over her head in a futile attempt to muffle the sound of battle. Come on, it's only level 7.

Not that Tony had any way of knowing that. Still, the fight was quick, and a few minutes later, she was drifting back to sleep. Only…the scene repeated itself. Grumbling, Bee once again checked on her companion; the stray zombie was a level 12. Surely that isn’t a real issue?

Still, as Tony returned from his battle, she chided him grumpily. “Could you keep it down? I didn’t wake you up every few minutes yelling, did I?”

“Bee, there are zombies attacking our camp. Thank Void you’re awake!” Tony said, a little out of breath.

“Yeah, they have been all night. That doesn’t mean you should be yelling about it. Just finish them off quietly,” Bee insisted.

Tony stared at her, then started gesturing wildly. “If I shouldn’t yell about zombies, what in the blazes am I keeping watch for?”

“Sure, watch for zombies, but don’t wake me up all the time.”

“You don’t want to be warned about zombies while you’re sleeping? Are you insane?”

“I didn’t warn you, now did I?” Bee snapped, feeling like this wasn’t the first time that she had made this point. “No, I just killed them quietly and let you sleep.”

Tony looked at her blankly before kicking the dirt. He muttered something that she couldn’t make out.

“What was that?”

“I said, we should have camped in the trees,” Tony lied, but she let it slide. “Fine, I’ll try to keep it down. But if anything other than zombies comes, I’m waking you up.”

“Fair enough,” Bee said, nestling deeper into her blankets.

I rolled along next to Felix and Trent as they walked to the edge of the oldest field the workers had cut. It looked like Trent was heading toward a large pile of dead grass a little way off from the field. Was this what he meant when he mentioned “the pile?” It was the only thing that I could think of that made sense.

When we arrived, Trent stopped and turned to Felix and me. “So, this is a compost pile. Most dead parts of the plant can be stacked here. After the pile gets to an inconvenient height to stack things on, we just start a new one. Once the pile’s mostly turned into something like dirt, we mix it into the dirt of the soil, and it’ll help the plants grow.

“There might be a better way to do this, but this is what my father did and it worked well enough for him,” Trent finished. That was interesting. I scrutinized the pile with my scanner. Sure enough, it was mostly composed of plant matter. As I looked deeper into the pile, I could see the structures within slowly breaking apart, and the nutrients I was worried about removing from the soil spilled out, so to speak.

As to how they broke apart… I shuddered slightly. The germs. This pile was teeming with bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that were new to me. It was…disgusting. I was immediately tempted to flash the whole thing with my Sanitation Lamp, just on principle. However, I stopped myself. These particular germs seemed to be doing something useful. That was new and honestly unexpected. I’d have to observe them further to understand more. My sensors were already focused on feeding information on the different species to my processors just to compare them to what I had been cleaning within the castle.

As for the pile itself, I could see how this might be plant food. It solved most of the problems that I was worried about. The only thing was that Trent didn’t think that it all needed to be mixed back in the soil, just part of it. Wouldn’t that mean the quality of the soil would still slowly degrade if that was the case? Felix communicated my concern to Trent.

Trent rubbed his chin in thought. “I suppose that might be true if the only nutrients that entered the field were from fertilizer. But try as we might, insects, birds and other animals make it into the fields too. Their leavings also get mixed in over time, and that works well enough.”

Well, that made some sense. I had Felix communicate my next thoughts even if they weren’t really a question. “Well, humans need to take from the field when they get their food anyway, so it wouldn't be perfect without other help. What was that hay you were talking about before?”

Hey! That was an excellent translation, Felix. I gave the boy a beep of approval.

CHAPTER 39

A SHEEPLESS NIGHT

The rising sun shot daggers of light through Bee’s eyelids. Reluctantly, they opened, glaring at the unwelcome intrusion. Glancing around, she saw dozens of headless, unmoving zombies scattered a stone’s throw away from their campsite. Another, smaller group of slashed-up zombie remains was right nearby. Tony had been busy through the night, though she hadn’t needed to see the bodies to tell. Regardless of how much she wanted to keep sleeping, though, they had to get on their way.

It seemed that whatever intelligence controlled the undead either was too far away to direct these monsters or was not focusing on this area. These undead were scattered individuals with no direction. That was a stark contrast to the cunning traps of the much higher-level ones they had to deal with before. Almost like the plague was a storm that had already passed them over.

Crawling out of her bedroll, Bee started to put things away while Tony blew gently on the coals of their fire from last night. Sure, they had run most of yesterday to make better time, but they weren’t in such a hurry that they needed to skip a warm breakfast. By the time she had both bedrolls attached to the packs, Tony had handed her a serving of soup. Sitting on the rock they used for shelter, they ate quietly.

Bee had brought out a book to read as she woke up, but put it aside as Tony spoke. “I think we should be able to find sheep today. Probably won’t take us much past noon. The question is, do we want to go around Greg or try to make our way through it?”

“Tony, I don’t think either of us really want to go through Greg. Why would we do that?” Bee asked in a genuinely confused voice.

“Well…it would be faster,” Tony said with a shrug.

Bee hefted her food. “It's not like we’re in that much of a hurry.” She paused for a second. “But if you want to go through it, we can.”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t know why, but something is pulling me to go back to the city. I’m not sure if it’s some morbid fascination or what. It’s not like… I don’t think there would be anything else for us to find, not like when Void and I were here last, but I can’t help the thoughts.”

Bee hesitantly put her hand on his shoulder. She still hadn’t gotten used to familiar contact again. The occasional hug was one thing, but physical gestures of support were still new to her. But Tony was as close to family as she had. Racking her brain, she tried to weigh the pros and cons of skipping the city versus following Tony’s intuition.

As far as she knew, Tony didn’t have any precognition skills, and Void hadn’t sent any visions that she had heard of yet. It was unlikely that the feeling was some divine intervention or something like that. Still, maybe it would bring some closure.

“Let's go through this time, then. Maybe we’ll find something, maybe not. But better we know I think,” Bee said, giving Tony’s shoulder a light squeeze.

“We don’t need to for my sake. You had a point the first time. Why would anyone want to go through that again for no reason?” Tony argued for the other side now.

“We can go around on the way back, but for now, we can check things out. Who knows, maybe we will find something after all,” Bee said as she hopped down from the rock. Extending a hand toward the man, she pulled Tony to his feet as well. Slipping into their packs, they started off toward the entrance of the city.

The gate looked the same as they left it—imposing, silent, and open like a gaping maw. Bee could even still see the cart marks they had left in the road. Stepping into the city, an expanse of gray-and-black rubble met them. A thin layer of dust and dirt had begun to coat everything, only adding to the depressing atmosphere. Right past the guard post stood the remnants of a shop, now scorched black with only a hint of its original green color visible in a corner.

Besides the lack of color, the most ominous thing was the lack of sound. Not that it was completely silent, but none of the sounds that a city should have reared their heads. It reminded Bee more of the tense peace of a forest than anything. There was the slight whistle of the wind as it whisked through the streets, sending some signs hanging above doors creaking gently.

As they took a couple more steps, a group of birds exploded from the side of the road. They flew upward, leaving behind what looked to be a food stand that had been turned over and used for some meager shelter. Bee kept listening for the squeaking of rodents or carrion other than the crows, but it seemed that even the animals of the city had fled or perished.

“I don’t know if we’re going to find sheep if even the rats of the city are gone,” Bee whispered to Tony. The oppressive atmosphere pressed down on her, making any slight noise feel out of place. A fear that it would draw attention from something gripped her, but she had no idea whose or what’s attention she was trying to avoid.

Tony seemed to feel it as well. “I don’t think the animals in the farms were all hunted down. I’m not sure about the rodents here. We might just have not seen any yet.” He reached across his body and rubbed his arm. “I don’t like it here. Can we get moving?”

Bee was also starting to regret coming here. What were they thinking?

Nonetheless, they continued through the city. The roads were all the same, each one blending into another, as most of the distinguishing marks had been marred or altogether destroyed. Some buildings had collapsed into the road, forcing them to climb over the rubble or look for a different way around. For the most part, they walked in silence, with Bee following Tony’s lead.

He knew the city very well, and they never seemed to get lost. As they walked, she kept her eye out. Maybe she'd see something that would be useful or significant. Who knew? Maybe Void did want them to go through here.

After what felt like hours, they approached the far gate, still not having found a single thing. The trek had probably only taken thirty minutes, but the constant feeling of being watched had worn on Bee. There was only one building between them and the exit, so instead of going around the block, they climbed over. It was a thin but tall house that was nestled between two larger buildings. It was probably older, which was why it had collapsed despite being sheltered by the surrounding buildings.

When she was over what must have been the second story, something in the rubble caught Bee’s eye. It wasn’t anything flashy. The time in the elements had rendered everything dull, after all. Still, the shape was impossible to ignore. It was a small carved rocking horse the size of her palm. Balancing cautiously on the unstable wreckage, Bee bent down and threaded her arm through a small hole to get to the alcove where the tiny figure rested.

Her arm was just long enough to brush the figure. It took a couple nudges to move it to where she could reach. Grabbing it, she jumped down from the pile next to where Tony was waiting for her.

“Did you find something?” he asked her.

“Not really. Just this.” She held up the little toy to eye level and dusted it off a bit. Tony looked at the figurine but didn’t have anything to say. Together, they walked quickly toward the gate and finally left the abandoned city.

They didn’t find sheep on the first day. Eventually, as the sun finished setting, they gave up and set up camp in an abandoned farmhouse that should have kept sheep. It had been a quiet day, with neither of them really in the mood to talk after their trip to the city.

The next morning they followed some markings in the muddy dirt that looked like they could have been sheep tracks. But when it came down to it, they had no idea if it was evidence of the sheep wandering off or if the farmer had fled, taking his livestock with him.

Luck was finally in their corner, though. After walking up a slight hill, they spotted a large group of white dots in the distance.

I had learned more than I wanted to about farming. Not that I ever really wanted to learn too much about it in the first place. But once Trent got going, he didn’t stop. Was this what I was like when the topic of conversation moved to cleaning? No, cleaning was much more important. Still, learning how humans produced their food wasn’t bad, even if it did involve much more playing in the dirt than I was comfortable with.

At least I learned that cutting the grass was actually a helpful thing that I could do when I had time. I decided to hold onto the clippings for now, though. They seemed to stay fresh in my dustbin, and if we got enough animals, then maybe they could eat it when they couldn’t eat the grass itself. Bee and Tony were trying to bring back sheep, so that time might not be too far off anymore.

The farming lecture lasted the entire rest of the day. I thought it was over in the morning, but no, after playing with the children and doing my normal morning routine, Trent was waiting to finish my education. Eventually, when the sun had set, I escaped inside, where I spent time playing with the kids.

Our games even had a new occasional member. Ever since the children had come to the castle, the cat had been skittish. Somehow it had weathered months of demons and the destruction of the castle, but kids…no, the kids were too scary. Kids needed to be hidden from.

Apparently, it liked hanging out with the women. If they were doing something slow or relaxed, it would often find a warm lap to curl up on, at least until one of the children entered the room. Then the furball disappeared with impressive speed.

It turned out the cat was right about the kids, though. They were menaces sometimes. At one point I hadn’t been paying enough attention, and some of the more rowdy kids had decided that the cat needed a bath. It was a sentiment I couldn’t really hold against them. I even celebrated their attention to my lessons! But I also knew that the cat kept itself clean. Also, like me, it didn’t react well to being dunked in water. The yowling brought me racing into the room only to find some scratched-up kids, a bucket of water, and a very wet, upset cat.

I scolded the kids lightly, but I was more concerned with helping the cat. Its hairs were standing up at very strange angles for how wet it was, and it sat glaring at everyone from the corner it had retreated to. Luckily I had just the thing for liquid issues. I popped out my Mop and advanced on the cat slowly, beeping with soothing noises.

Suddenly, its eyes grew wide. Its gaze locked onto the fluffy pom-pom protruding from my chassis. I hesitated, not wanting to upset the creature. But instead of running away like it did with everything else, the cat attacked.

CHAPTER 40

HERDING CATS

The cat's extended claws barely missed the fluffy end of my mop. I had to act fast to keep the appendage from being ripped from my body. I started to back up, swerving one way then the other to keep the cat from catching the pom-pom, but no matter where I moved it, the cat continued its relentless pursuit.

At first, I thought it was a game, kind of like the one we played with my Sanitation Lamp. But the cat’s continued persistence and the fury of its motions indicated otherwise. Trying to defuse the situation, I gave up on trying to dry the cat and defensively retracted my Mop. With a quick pivot, I darted to the side of the door, providing a clear path out to the hallway. Without a target and distracted by the possibility of escape, the cat took off as though the castle was full of demons again.

With an impossibly fast patter of little paws, the orange menace disappeared in a trail of wet spots and puddled water. With a mental sigh, I popped out my mop again and started cleaning up the mess it had left. It wasn’t hard to get the area clean, of course. I didn’t even have to touch the floor for my mop to retrieve such a small amount of liquid. But still, it was the principle of the thing.

Luckily, now that the cat was gone, I didn’t have to worry about any unintended side effects of my Mop. I wasn’t sure what would happen if my fully powered Mop got too near a living being. I mean, it had damaged even the large demon, and that was way stronger than anything around here. Of course, that was because it had touched its inner fluids directly, but the cat was mostly water inside, even if it was congealed. It wasn’t something I was willing to test out.

Following the trail of droplets, I tracked my furry friend all the way down a hallway and up a flight of stairs up to the second level. This slowed me down, as in order to reach all the wet spots on the stairs, I had to go a little up the ramp and either reach out with my Mop or hop a little with my Thrusters to get at the offending paw prints. I really needed to get better at this hovering thing.

Going by air was not my preferred method of travel, but even I couldn’t deny its usefulness. Rolling along the ground was far superior for many reasons, but it mostly allowed for more optimal inspection of surfaces and provided proximity for my cleaning functions to be maximally efficient. As neither of these was truly a consideration for myself, I might need to reconsider my stance on optimal travel methods. For emergencies only, of course.

Eventually, I caught up with the cat, who had found an open door to one of the rooms that held some of Beatrice’s pets. At least, they seemed like pets.

The little scaled things were kept in glass boxes under small glass globes that radiated light and heat. Next to one of the balls sat a very angry, very wet cat furiously licking its fur. I had to admire its dedication to keeping itself clean, but if it would just let me help…

As I got too close to the cat's position, it ceased cleaning itself to hiss at me. Its posture stiffened, head lowering between its shoulders and glaring at me. Not wanting a confrontation, I backed up slightly and made calming motions with my claw. I wasn't sure it understood my meaning, but it slowly returned to its grooming again.

Well, guess that was that. Maybe it would change its mind later.

Bee and Tony started moving at a jog toward their prize. As they got closer to the cluster of white fluffy clouds off in the distance, they were able to make out the heads and legs of the individual sheep milling about in a mass of bodies. Once they were about fifty feet away from the herd, they stopped at the top of the hill to examine them.

“Now what?” Tony asked.

“What do you mean, ‘now what’?” Bee asked indignantly. “You’re the farm boy. I thought you would know what to do here. I mean, I think this is the closest I’ve ever been to a sheep.” She looked around to get a bearing on their surroundings. The sheep were gathered in a kind of earthen bowl formed by three slight hills of plains.

“I don’t know anything about sheep. I was very clear that we never kept any. I’m—well, I was—a farmer, not a shepherd,” Tony shot back. Then, in a more thoughtful tone, he mulled over their options. “Maybe we just walk up to them? They had previous owners, right? Maybe if we have food, they’ll come with us?”

“Have food? They eat grass! They’re standing on their food. What are we going to offer them?” Bee said, exasperated. “But sure, let's just try walking up to them. Aren’t sheep herded for a reason?”

“Yeah, but most people use dogs or something for that. I suppose if you stand on the other side of them, we can prevent them from just running away if I get too close,” Tony said.

“Do you really need to get close to them? If we both work together, maybe we can just force them toward the castle,” Bee suggested.

Tony shrugged. “I think it would be good to get a feeling for them. But we don’t have to. We have to see what they’ll do when we get close to them in the first place, right? Or else, how’d we plan on herding ‘em?”

“Fine. But if we make them run, let's at least make them run in the right direction.”

“Of course, I’m not an idiot,” Tony said, sounding slightly offended. Pointing at one of the far hills, he added, “Why don’t you go stand over there, and I’ll come in from a bit of an angle.”

Moving into position, Bee watched as Tony strafed around the other side of the flock of sheep. When she was in position, he started trying to carefully approach the sheep. Walking slowly, he spoke softly to the animals as he moved. She couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but it seemed soothing. Once he got a few feet from the edge of the sheep, he paused to see how they would react.

The sheep didn’t do anything interesting. A few looked up at him but quickly went back to snuffling the grass. Bee and Tony shared a look, slightly confused about how to handle the situation. He took a single experimental step forward. Immediately, the sheep acted as if they were a hive mind. Somehow they all knew to dart in the same direction at the exact same time. Inconveniently, they didn’t move in the direction Bee and Tony were herding them toward, but off to the side.

All the sheep, that is, except for one farther away. It didn’t quite get the message and took off in a completely different direction. Before either of them could react, it realized the rest of the flock wasn’t with it anymore and quickly veered around in a panic. With a burst of speed, it merged with the main mass of wool again.

Bee was the first to react as she tried to get in front of the sheep to prevent them from getting too far away. With her high level and speed, outrunning the sheep wasn’t much of an issue. She got in front of the sheep and stopped in only a handful of seconds. To her surprise, though, they didn’t stop and look at her as she had expected. Instead, they turned at another angle and dashed off again.

Looking up at the sky, Bee sighed with frustration before setting off after them again.

Harold wasn’t having a good time. The first day he had shown up at the College of the Undead had been alright. Percy had welcomed him with drinks, and they had spent the afternoon catching up. His guest quarters were spacious and nice enough, and his host seemed to welcome the help.

He wasn’t too surprised about that. They were probably just happy to have someone new to talk to. Even Percy, despite having been chosen to lead the college because of his people skills rather than magical talent, was unbelievably awkward. Harold wasn’t sure if social incompetence was an inherent trait for the people compelled to study the dead and death aura, or if it was developed through years of practice.

That wasn’t to say that the people were unwelcoming. They were just…odd. Finding skeletons walking behind them carrying books or a ghoul cleaning the toilets was just unsettling. At his college, Harold had insisted that all demonic subjects be properly contained, no matter the contract. But the undead didn’t pose nearly the same risk as the demons. If the undead ever got out of control, they might manage to kill a few of the mages at worst. They wouldn’t be able to summon a country-ending monster in just a few hours.

Of course, that hadn't really stopped his own people from doing the demon’s work for them, Harold thought bitterly. He had played that day over in his head enough times with how often he had been chewed out for it, but he still didn’t know what they could have done better. The threat had been unknowable, and none of their countermeasures had even slowed the thing down. Perhaps they could have gotten more information before fleeing, but he was just happy that he had gotten everyone out alive.

Well, almost everyone. That one young apprentice they had missed still haunted him months later. Of course, he didn’t share these thoughts with anyone, but as he spent days refreshing his knowledge of undeath, he often found his mind wandering.

There was a reason he had specialized in demons. They were exciting, quick, and clever, and there were oh so many things humans didn’t know about them. Undead…well, not so much. Necromancy was one of the first branches of magic that humans had a history of. The field stagnated hundreds of years ago. Most practitioners spent their whole careers just catching up. Sure, they gained a lot of power eventually, but they hadn’t added anything new to the field in forever.

Now, with what looked like the worst undead plague in a century brewing, they were asked how to stop it. Or at least how to prepare countermeasures. There wasn’t really much they could do, and they all knew it. Sure, they had prepared a lot of potions that could cure the various types of infections that the undead could spread. They had also worked on manufacturing anti-undead weapons, but their hearts weren’t in it. There was only so much they knew how to do.

But finally, something promising had happened. If the reports were to be believed, the undead moved with a level of intelligence that was long thought of as myth. Harold was inclined to believe the intel, as he had never known Arthur to embellish anything. Not everyone shared his belief, of course. So it might come down to Harold to figure out something new here.

As much as he hated the undead, Percy would never live it down if he, Harold, dean of demons, made the first advancement in undeath in living memory. He grinned just thinking about it.

CHAPTER 41

ROCKET SCIENCE

I was, quite honestly, in the slightest bit of a predicament. I looked down at the children below staring up at me in awe. I was proud of them and sort of proud of my own achievement, but it really wasn't what I was going for. As I reached out with my claw to flip myself right side up, the children started cheering.

The roof slant was working against me, but I wasn't too worried about rolling the rest of the way down onto the ground. If that did happen, I'd probably be fine. Just a little embarrassed, though it would be hard to beat the embarrassment I was already feeling.

After corralling the cat and cleaning all of the wet spots from that debacle, I had decided to work on my Thruster control. It had been too challenging to clean up the marks on the stairs. If I had been able to better utilize my abilities and hover, though, it would have been significantly more manageable, so I went outside to practice.

For better or for worse, my Thrusters were much more potent than they had been last time I used them. I had only been attempting to jump up a little bit and then slowly glide back down to the ground, just to establish a baseline for the power. I, indeed, had jumped up more than a little bit. Even worse, my angle had been a bit off, and I didn't travel completely perpendicular to the ground. Instead, I drifted forward and slowly rotated over so my front edge pointed right at the ground. I did my best to correct this by adjusting my Thruster angle, but I misjudged it.

Somehow, I'd rocketed straight into one of the spires of the castle. I'd felt my carapace crack as the stone around me chipped, and I'd slid down the wall onto the shingles below. And that was how I found myself in the current situation, approximately 34.9 feet off the ground and looking at the children upside down. Flipping myself over was only the first step to fixing this, though.

As my Automatic Maintenance skill got to work repairing the damage, I considered what I had learned. I thought the issue might have been that I wasn't perfectly level when I first took off. That caused me to flip a little, as my first boost wasn't balanced out. And that would definitely be a problem here too because the roof wasn't level.

Once I got situated, I tried to take it slowly. Routing enough force to the Thrusters would slide me farther up the roof to level myself off at the top. If that worked, I would have a starting point. Unfortunately, reality wasn’t so kind. Again, I overcompensated and sent myself flipping up the roof, tumbling end over end. Again, my shell cracked as I shattered the stone of a castle wall.

I sighed internally. My models were usually pretty good, but it seemed like I needed more data for this particular tool to be useful. That didn’t bode well for the current predicament. Maybe it would be easier to cut my way back into the castle and then repair the hole from the inside? It was something that seriously needed to be considered, but I was still hesitant to go through with it. I didn't want to damage the castle. Even if I knew I could fix it, it felt wrong.

Besides, I was trying to learn how to use my Thrusters anyway, and I could definitely figure out how to get down from the roof with a bit of time. Even if I created some damage, I would probably be fine. Already my maintenance was working on repairing the crack. Nothing was majorly busted, and I was still operating fine. However, it would still be several minutes before I was entirely in one piece again.

I sat there, trying to reorder my memory banks before giving it another attempt. Usually, things around here didn't have the speed or power to actually hurt me. But I guessed I was fully capable of hurting myself. It was a good reality check for testing out my underused abilities. I should be more careful, as I clearly didn't know my own strength. Well, I'd probably be fine in this case. I didn't want to exacerbate damage to my already weakened protective exterior, but there wasn’t too much risk this time. Repairing my innards or sensors would likely be much more time-consuming than just fixing the simple plastic shell.

After the crack was mostly sealed up, I put out the minimum amount of power I could through all three Thrusters simultaneously. To my relief, I only shifted slightly. Now that was progress, I cheered to myself. I doubled the amount of power. I rose about a foot off the ground and started sliding wildly away from the roof. That’s right. I was still not on a level surface.

Looking at the controls more carefully, I realized I had a minimum output, though I didn’t know what the theoretical maximum was. Converting the scale into base ten values would set the minimum at ten, and a thrust of twenty had evidently been far too much. Maybe I should start with something like eleven. Slowly, I started with the minimum value and increased by the smallest amount I could over and over, concentrating just on the Thruster facing mostly downhill.

Slowly my angle corrected itself, and I could level off on the uneven surface by adjusting myself a little. Once I was level, I started experimenting with adding the other two Thrusters to the mix. I started to try to raise them all equally, but as I got further and further away from the surface of the roof, that began to throw me off as well.

I started trying to develop an easy algorithm to stay level. I left everything as it was and rapidly switched between all three of my thrusters, applying the tiniest adjustments to each. While doing this, I was also paying attention to my internal gyroscope and level sensors. I could adapt the output of the Thrusters several thousand times a second. So if I continued this pattern, just going in a loop adjusting Thrusters, I could push myself where I wanted to go without immediately crashing. Of course, this wasn't the most effective method or really an efficient algorithm at all, but it would do for now.

Slowly I hovered off the roof and over the ground below. Now that I was mostly level, I started to lower myself in a controlled descent. Once my wheels were firmly back on the ground, I was swarmed by excited children. I let out a huge sigh of compressed air and a happy beep.

Bee doubled over with her hands on her knees, panting. Sweat dripped down her forehead as she tried to catch her breath. A few seconds after stopping at the top of the hill, she looked up and scanned the horizon.

Herding sheep was turning out to be much harder than she would have ever thought. They didn’t stop. Sure, they might sleep at night, but even then she and Tony had to be constantly alert lest they wander off, spooked by the roving undead.

Escorting the sheep back to the castle might just have been the hardest thing she had ever done. So far they had been at it for almost two days and they still weren’t even in sight of the forest. Odds were that they might have actually wandered further away than when they had started.

They had tried everything they could think of, coming at the flock from all angles. She had even captured one and carried it, hoping that the others would follow. That plan had backfired massively and was why she was currently running all over the countryside. Apparently, seeing one of their own get physically picked up had even overridden their herd mentality and the flock had splintered into smaller parts. Currently she was looking over the last group of rebellious sheep, who were calm once again.

Finally she had found the dirty, off-white beasts that she had started to loathe so much. Jogging over to where the devils were hiding, she found that they had crossed a packed earth road. Judging by the distance, it looked like this road might be the one heading to Greg. If it followed the valleys, it might be easier to keep the sheep in line along the way. Now, how to get Tony and the rest of them over here?

It took them several hours, but they somehow got all the sheep on the road. Despite all the complaining, they had gotten slightly better at controlling the flock. The issue was that Bee's method of running around them frantically wasn’t a long-term solution, even as fast as she was. It seemed like there was a reason why shepherds used dogs after all.

Once they got all the sheep reunited on the road, Bee felt like she was about to pass out. Sitting near the edge of the road, she made Tony promise to keep them from going anywhere while she recovered. He laughed at her. “What, you think I want them to run off? No thank you. I officially hate sheep.”

She would have agreed if she had the energy to do so. As it was, she just nodded.

Before she had fully recovered, Tony called out to her. “Hey, Bee! Looks like something on the road’s headed toward us.”

From her position she groaned, wishing for a bit more rest, but looked up anyway. Sure enough, there was a figure in the distance moving toward them. It was far enough away that she couldn’t make out more than the shape of a person walking, but that was all. The person looked to be alone, too.

“What do you want to do?” Tony asked her.

Taking a deep breath, Bee thought. She couldn’t really tell how fast the figure was moving, so she had no idea when they might encounter the person if at all. But if Tony could see them, then they would definitely be able to make out a large group of sheep walking along the road. There didn’t seem to be any way to avoid running into them.

“I’m not sure,” Bee mused, still trying to think. “Maybe you stay here and watch the sheep while I go check it out?”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t think that's a good idea. You’re clearly exhausted. If there’s trouble, we should face it together. Besides, I bet the sheep won’t really get in the way. Worst case, if they get spooked, we can always gather them up again.”

"Yeah, but I really don’t want to,” Bee griped. After a moment, she conceded the point. “Fine, you’re right. I’m not in great shape. So what, we just wait here?”

Tony shrugged and gestured to the flock, “It's either that or we just start moving them toward the castle. If the other person catches up, they catch up.”

“We’re going to be moving so slowly that I bet a grandma would catch us,” Bee said. “Besides, if they catch us before nightfall then it might be fine, but if they keep going through the night, they might catch us unawares.”

“So let's just wait, then. I think the sheep are as tired as you are,” Tony said.

Bee let out an over-the-top laugh, “Yeah, now if only they’d act like it!”

Finding a rock to sit on, they watched the figure approach. It soon became clear that the figure was moving extremely slowly. As it got closer, Bee started to realize that it was moving with a limp.

She started to feel concerned as she saw the setting sunlight flash on long, straw-blonde hair. “I think it's a woman. She looks hurt as well.”

“Huh?” Tony grunted, looking up from the stick he was idly carving.

“I’m going to go help her,” Bee said, hopping off her rock and grabbing her pack. A few moments of running later, she was in front of the woman. “Excuse me, miss, are you alright?”

The woman looked up, and for the first time Bee got a good look at her face. “Susan?”

CHAPTER 42

SLICE OF LIFE

Practice with my Thrusters had gone well after the initial hiccups. After a day and a half of near-constant trial and error, I could maintain a consistent hover around six inches off the ground and move 75 percent as fast as I could on wheels. I had a feeling that I could move much quicker and on a more vertical axis as well, but that was just unnatural. Also, why would I need to go up? The floors that needed cleaning were down here.

I still didn’t like being too far from the ground unless I was being carried. Maybe I would eventually become more comfortable with the idea, but as it was, I wouldn’t pursue it yet. Besides, I valued stability much more than speed. Still, it was worthwhile to develop my skills a bit further here. I had the time in the afternoon anyway, and it would let me improve my cleaning on stairs and higher areas. As time went on and I improved, there were fewer and fewer opportunities to expand my capabilities like this.

When I was cleaning the stairs, the idea of being able to hover just made sense. But as I practiced, I found so many other benefits to being able to just stay six inches off the ground. The big one was that I no longer needed to roll through the dirt outside.

That wasn’t to say that there were no downsides. The Thrusters themselves caused dirt to blow everywhere. Sure, I could capture the dirt, but that was a short-term solution. If I stayed in one spot for too long, I slowly started to sink down as my Thrusters blasted away the earth below me, digging a big hole.

If I simply captured and transmuted the dirt, then there would be less dirt, which would be good. However, there were a couple issues with that too. Less dirt was a desirable outcome inside. After all, if the inside wasn’t kept clean for humans, then why would I bother with any of this? But after learning more about soil quality than I ever wanted from Trent, I came out with a better understanding of the importance humans placed on dirt in its “proper” place.

The other issue was simply a consequence of time. If I spent enough time hovering around the castle grounds, even if I was careful not to stay in one place too long, the sheer amount of time I was spending outside would cause grooves and uneven patches to form around some areas. This would ruin the pleasant leveling the ground had with the road and the castle base. There were probably many other consequences that I wasn’t aware of too.

Still…even with all of those negatives, it was tempting to hover about everywhere. Not having to worry about tracking mud with my wheels or cleaning my underside was truly amazing.

This got me thinking, though. What could my other abilities be doing for me? I realized that training was important a long time ago, back in the catacombs. Back then, I had done a few exercises with my abilities to train them, strictly to try and improve them, but I had fallen out of the habit. Seeing what my Thruster control had done for me, though, my predictive models were abuzz with the possibilities for what my other abilities could do.

This feeling was mostly related to my least-used abilities. My two newest ones were the obvious ones to experiment with. But honestly, my least-used ability was Air Purifier. I kind of regretted choosing it. At the time, I was too caught up in evaluating the choices based only on their immediate cleaning applicability, and I didn’t really consider what secondary benefits they would give me. With how much better my Thrusters allowed me to do my job, though, I was sure that other options might have been better.

Well, that was in the past now. I might as well figure out what to do with it. I had left the Purifier on nearly constantly, but it didn’t seem to have much effect on anything. The air around here wasn’t perfectly pure, but neither was it contaminated enough to cause any real issues.

The Divine Sword was proving to be incredibly useful on its face, though. Being able to cut the grass was relaxing and good practice at the same time. Also, from my testing, it could cut through most things with ease. Stone wasn’t even that much of a problem. In fact, sometimes, I would go over and assist Trent with breaking up large rocks in the field, the ones that were hard to lift.

The last one he called on me for was approximately 20.2 tons. Much too large for any of us. After a few minutes of work with my sword, I was able to cut it into regularly shaped blocks. The humans were all rather impressed. They moved the rock into pleasing, organized piles for later use. They even started requesting specified dimensions, which I was more than happy to provide.

As I finished the latest circle of grass trimming around the castle. I found Felix waiting for me. I paused my work and inquired what he wanted, and his face lit up. “Yes, your, um, holiness! Mary humbly asks for your grace’s help in the kitchens.”

“Your grace” again? I thought I had gotten him to stop with titles like that.

Bee rushed up to the staggering woman, slinging her pack on the ground next to her. Startled, Susan stopped moving and just looked at her for a second.

“Bee?” she whispered, confusion clear on her face. Before Bee could respond, Susan was sinking to her knees. It seemed that it was all she could do to not fall on her face. Bee put a steadying hand on her shoulder and helped the woman sit down.

“What happened to you?” Bee exclaimed as she examined the woman. Dark bruises covered her face and arms. Her clothes were ripped, and her hair was matted with dirt. The woman’s cracked lips turned up in a slight smile that caused a thin trickle of blood to run down her chin. The smile faltered into a wince as Bee’s probing fingers found a sore spot on her ribs.

“They didn’t believe me,” Susan whispered with a wet chuckle.

“Get your bedroll out,” Bee called back to Tony while she was digging through her own pack. “They did this to you because they thought you lied?”

Bee was mostly talking just to keep the woman focused. She could tell that Susan’s consciousness was tethered here by a thread, and it would be easier to treat her for now if she was awake and could answer questions. “Oh, no, my lady. This was…this was from escaping.”

Finding what she was looking for, Bee turned to the battered woman and tipped her chin back, pressing a glass bottle to her lips. “Drink.”

Susan tried to swallow but coughed, spraying a mist of the potion out. Bee winced at the waste, but it wasn’t too big of a deal. The medicine that had gotten down her throat started to do its work on Susan as she continued to cough. Torn between going back to her pack for more supplies and trying to comfort Susan, Bee stuck with rubbing her back gently as the woman recovered.

“Sorry,” Susan whispered, able to talk again.

“No, it's okay,” Bee said as she leaned back to get her pack. A lot of her healing skills had been upgraded from when she had first started her adventuring. At first, she used salves and balms as they were easier to make and required fewer ingredients. That had been perfect for her when she only had access to the smallest storerooms and limited skill.

Bee was still a long way from being an expert, but she was more than competent now, and she had access to so many materials. The castle had stores that would last her for a very long time, and most of the things that needed to be gathered fresh were available in the castle. A few of the systems the college used to have in place for material gathering had failed, but most were recoverable. Plants could be regrown, and animals had mostly survived. Some of the most complicated ingredients were out of reach, but she didn’t really need them yet.

Finally, after getting a few things set up, Bee started mixing the contents of three vials together. Now she mostly used potions. They were trickier to make but were much faster-acting. Not instant, of course, but it no longer took her days to heal broken bones.

“You escaped?” she asked to keep Susan talking.

“Yeah. I didn’t even…make it to the commander,” Susan said, licking her now-healed lips. “I told them where I had come from, and they had me taken off to the side. Lots of questions. Didn’t like the answers.”

“So what did you do? You said you got hurt from escaping?” Bee asked, carefully lighting a candle under a beaker. She went back to the pack, digging out another prepared general-use potion.

“Mostly. They did try to use some…enhanced interrogation…but they were complete amateurs. Broke a few ribs and the like. Really disappointing stuff.” She grinned darkly. “But I’m an Infiltrator. We’re hard to keep down. It took a few hours, but I made it out. I had to fight for a while, and that isn’t something I really excel at. But once I got out of the camp, I was able to give them the slip. A few dogs caught up, but they lost my scent after my blood became exposed.

“Blood Disguise is a terrible skill. I don’t recommend taking it,” Susan said, starting to ramble a bit. As she spoke, Tony rolled out his bedroll behind her and helped Susan lie back against it. His face mirrored the horrified concern of Bee’s own.

Hearing about dogs, Bee stopped what she was doing and went to examine Susan more closely. The woman has been limping. Pulling up each of her loose pant legs, Bee winced in sympathy when she saw the wounds. Deep puncture wounds formed deep holes in one calf. She cursed and turned back to her pack. Pulling out one of the prepared portions, she got ready. “Brace yourself. This might sting a little.”

Susan visibly gritted her teeth but only flinched a little as Bee poured the potion on the bite. The bloody holes started to bubble, and all sorts of disgusting liquids started flowing from the wounds. As they were purified, the angry red color started to fade from the skin, and the swelling visibly retreated.

Bee went back to tending the potions she was mixing, taking them off the heat. She went back to asking questions to keep the injured spy focused. “Then what happened?”

“Well, after I broke out of the camp, I had to sneak my way through the undead lines,” Susan said, relaxing her jaw slightly. “That wasn’t too hard. I could still hide my scent, so they could only feel my life force, really. Unless they saw me. Which they didn’t. After that, I started walking back to the castle. It’s been…a couple days, I want to say.”

“The undead? Where were you?” Bee asked, now a little worried. Things might be worse than she thought. Greg being destroyed was bad. But if the army was fighting like this, rather than just exterminating the threat outright…the crown was bound to do something to fix it, right?

Touching the glass to make sure that it wasn’t too hot, Bee didn’t give Susan a chance to answer. This part was a bit time-sensitive. “This will help target the broken rib and any organ damage.”

Helping Susan tip her head up, Bee pressed another glass to her mouth. This time Susan was able to swallow without issue. She’d give her a moment to recover before asking anything else.

CHAPTER 43

NIGHTY KNIGHT

Susan took a couple of seconds to finish drinking the whole bottle. Afterward, Bee lowered her head back onto the ground. It wouldn’t take long for the potion to take effect, but the woman would still need to rest for a bit while it did. Still, Susan felt the need to answer Bee’s last question before she passed out. “I came from…Caleb.”

Bee leaned back on her heels. Susan had come all the way from the province capital? That was a very long walk. But even more concerning was that the massive city seemed to be under attack.

Since the woman was now unconscious, Bee couldn’t get any more potions in her. Now she had time to examine Susan for less obvious injuries. She had mentioned that she had to pass through the undead’s lines. She likely wasn’t infected, if she truly didn’t get caught, but they needed to be sure there was nothing else that could endanger her life.

Bee started at the scalp, carefully looking for any head wounds. She found more than one lump, but nothing too serious. Of course, there might have been some internal bleeding, but anything too severe likely would have killed her by now. Otherwise, it was minor enough that the treatment Bee had already administered would do.

Still, Bee used a little topical potion to help target those areas, just to be safe. Carefully she felt down the neck and along the collarbone. Looking for any contusions and tracing the skeleton, Bee found several nasty bruises and some broken ribs as expected, but most of the blood had come from the bite in the calf. Besides the things she had already taken care of, Susan mostly only had to deal with dehydration and exhaustion.

Finally convinced that she hadn’t missed something that would cause her patient to die on her, Bee leaned back and swiped a layer of cold sweat from her brow. Looking around, she found Tony not too far off, watching over the sheep.

Catching his eye, she motioned him over. He gave the flock one last look before hurrying to her side. Squatting next to her seat, Tony looked at Susan’s limp form. “Is she going to be alright?”

Bee could hear some real concern in his voice and read the same on his face. “Yeah, she should be.”

Tony’s posture relaxed slightly. “Oh, good. Doesn’t her face look familiar? I feel like I should know her from somewhere.”

Bee realized that Tony hadn’t been there for the discussion between Void, her, and Susan. They had just let her go without bothering to tell anyone. The castle was large enough that it was conceivable that he hadn’t met her or didn’t really remember her.

“You do, or should, at least. She lived in the castle for a few weeks,” Bee said with a sigh. Maybe they shouldn’t have let her go without warning her a bit more. That the adventurers from so long ago had thought Bee was brainwashed too and attacked her. Still, Susan seemed to have a good idea of how Void was viewed, so it hadn’t seemed necessary. Maybe Bee had been wrong.

“She wanted to leave and try to work out an understanding with the authorities, maybe get some help with the undead and ease their worries about us a little. It didn’t work,” Bee finished lamely as she gestured to the unconscious woman.

“Clearly,” Tony sighed as he heaved himself to his feet. “I take it that we won’t be leaving for a while?”

“Probably not,” Bee replied. “She should be okay to be moved, but won’t be able to move herself. Maybe tomorrow the healing will be mostly done.”

“I’ll go care for the sheep, then. We’re going to have to find a way to keep them on the road. I’m not letting them off this easy, not after we spent so much time trying to get them here.”

Bee and Tony had been gone for quite a while. I was beginning to worry about them a bit. Still, they were pretty capable, and I had responsibilities that I needed to take care of. This morning I had something special planned for the children and their games with the sticks. I thought they would enjoy it.

Normally they didn’t like getting sprayed with water, but this might be an exception. My plan involved slightly larger sticks I had made the previous night for another reason.

As part of my personal training regime, I tried to work on a few different skills each day. Last night my focus was on Void Manipulation.

Training this was easy in principle. All that needed to be done was to make things in the void of my dustbin. However, I found that just moving things around didn’t really help much. I could feel my control improve, but by absolutely minuscule amounts. And that was before the diminishing returns kicked in. It was like my other skills. I needed to use them for a purpose and in new ways to train efficiently. The novelty was the hard part.

When training my sword, I cut new things in new patterns and ways, which was easy enough. But with Void Manipulation, I needed to make things, and it wasn’t always easy to figure out what to make. So when I considered how to train my Spray Bottle and the children’s reflexes at the same time, everything seemed to fall into place.

So last night, I went a little way outside the castle and cut down a tree with a single swipe of my sword. Once I had consumed it with my void, I only needed to shape it. The convenient thing about this project was that each stick I made was different. I had good models for the children. I knew their size and strength, so for each one, I made a custom stick that best fit their dimensions.

The first part had been a long flat piece, averaging about two and a half inches wide. I made it to fit each kid. After that, I made a thinner, rounder bit on the other end of the stick for them to hold onto. Taking into account each of their hand sizes, it should be comfortable to hold. Lastly, I figured that a little protection for their fingers would be a good idea.

The largest issue that the kids' training had run into was the sticks whacking into each other and then sliding down to hit the fingers. This was a bit of a cheap tactic that I managed to convince most of them to forgo, but it did happen from time to time. So to avoid that, I molded a little lip right above the stick handles.

Popping the first one out, one that I had intended for Felix, I had waved it around a few times experimentally. It felt pretty good! One more thing to test. Going up to a tree, I struck it with as much force as I calculated that Felix could produce. There was a loud crack as the stick broke.

Hmmm, that was too bad. I might need to change the structure of the stick a bit to make it a little more sturdy. Carving off a new piece from the wood I had stored in my dustbin, I had started again.

It didn’t take me long to fix the structural flaws and produce one for each child. When I gathered them all in the morning for their games, I had Felix come up to the front so that he could explain the game we would be playing today. First, though, I had to pass out their new sticks. I selected the one I had made for him and drew it out with my claw.

Felix watched in amazement as I offered him the new toy. The corners of his mouth stretched upward into a deeper arc than I had ever seen, but at the same time, beads of salty water rolled down his cheeks. Shaky hands took the proffered stick. Felix planted the long, flat bit in the ground and went onto one knee. “Thank you, milord. This blade will ever serve you.”

He was speaking in his best imitation of the adults. Really, he needed to learn to stop that and just call me Void. So far, no one was willing to call me Spot, so I had tabled that project for later. Still, I accepted his thanks for the gift, even if it was a bit extreme. I mean, the water was still spilling from his eyes. I was pretty sure humans only leaked there when they were sad. But he was also still smiling. This was so confusing.

Well, anyway. I attempted to comfort him by patting him on the shoulder. It seemed to work, as he stood up. After that, I started with the next gift. I asked Felix to call up the next child to receive their stick. The next one was Leanne, who repeated the same actions and words. “Thanks, Void! Um, what did you say, Felix? This sword will always be yours? Yeah, Void, this sword will always be yours.”

She didn’t give Felix a chance to answer, but she was close enough. I reached out to pat her shoulders as well, though she thankfully didn’t spring any leaks. After she stood and started to admire her gift, I had Felix call the next one up. Each child repeated the same ritual. They would kneel and accept the blade and didn’t stand up until I patted their shoulders. It was a bit strange, but oh well. I was just glad that they all were developing a healthy desire for pats.

We went in order of size, and as each smaller kid came up, they got progressively worse at speaking, and the words became a little less coherent. Eventually, the smallest one took her stick and could only mumble out something that I had no idea what it meant. She went on significantly longer than any of the kids that went before her.

Once the whole thing was finally done, we had already taken up a significant chunk of playtime. I had spent almost an entire hour handing out all the sticks. Normally the kids got bored if they had to wait for more than a few minutes, but they had all been here bouncing excitedly and swinging their sticks around the whole time. Finally, it was time to introduce my game.

Getting Felix's attention, I had him explain the plan. They would all need to stand in a line in the first guard position. I would spray a jet of water at them, and they would need to dodge, block it, or get wet. This caused some excitement, and they started jockeying for position in the line. Once we had got that all sorted out, I moved about twenty feet away.

I was going to try and work on control rather than power. Control and range. Instead of a misty spray, I wanted more of a projectile, like a small ball of water. They wouldn’t be able to block mist, and I needed them to be able to track the projectile, so it couldn’t be too fast. I would need to lob it in an arc as well, especially at first. This would be good practice for me indeed.

Positioning myself, I worked out the most viable trajectories and targeted Felix. A small stream of water lazily arced in a shallow parabola toward the small boy.

CHAPTER 44

LOST AND FOUND

I watched Felix's eyes as he tracked the arc of water hurtling toward him. With a smooth motion, he moved his stick in between his face and the incoming projectile. He had more than enough time to react and the spray struck the stick, splashing to either side and leaving him dry.

The children all let out a cheer at his success. I was quite pleased too. This training seemed easy enough. I could probably adjust the arc a bit to make it more difficult, or even up the speed. However, I should probably let them all have early successes.

I was soon glad I didn't up the difficulty. Leanne seemed to have a bit more trouble with the game than Felix. Her stick hit part of the water stream, but wasn't able to completely deflect it. One of her arms got quite wet. Still, she had hit it, even if she was a bit disappointed.

I played with the children roughly by size, collecting them in a circle with me at its center. A few times, I needed to make it a little easier on them. With the smallest one, I was aiming next to her instead of directly at her. Even then, she took a clumsy swing but missed completely. Her timing was okay, but she just didn't have the best control over the stick yet.

After each child had a chance to go on easy mode, I started picking them at random. I started making it a little more difficult for each child to block based on their individual strengths and weaknesses. That usually meant picking new places, sometimes aiming for the leg or head instead of center mass. Some got better at deflecting the water much quicker than others, and some became quite damp.

I did my best to increase the difficulty for each child while still giving them a chance to improve. It was a fine balance, keeping the difficulty just above their current level. This training probably wouldn't really help them with their usual stick game, unfortunately. However, they seemed to be having a blast. So much so that when a few of the adults came to check on them, they also had a lot of fun watching.

As we continued our practice, I could feel my Spray Bottle control improving as well. I was able to keep the jet of water in one steady stream for much longer than should have been possible. By everything I understood about fluid dynamics, the jet should have spread out at some point, or at least lost some of its volume from turning into mist.

Eventually, though, it needed to come to an end. Breakfast was going to be late as it was. The children were reluctant to stop. Even the ones who struggled still wanted more chances to prove themselves. I promised them that we would do this again in the future. I wanted to keep training myself, after all. Plus, now I had another tool to get them to listen to me. Normally they were quite well-behaved, but I would keep this in my dustbin as a bargaining chip when I really needed them to do something.

With stick practice finished for the morning, I went off to supervise breakfast. After that, the day followed the established routine of cleaning, lessons, and helping where I could. I even did a little weight training with my Grabby Arm.

Nothing different happened until the castle was settling down for the night. I still rested at the end of Bee's bed on my favorite rug. At night I didn't need to charge like the rest of the humans, but I didn't really have any chores that needed my attention that I could do without disturbing everyone. So I practiced my meditation.

I had been at it a while, and I thought I was starting to see the benefits. Despite already having my weight distributed very evenly across my cylindrical chassis by design, I somehow felt even more centered. I thought about my humans: their actions, their words, their goals. They all started to make a slight bit more sense. They saw the world differently, it seemed. I could evaluate and rationalize everything in terms of cleaning, but them? They seemed to have a different value system, sometimes even conflicting ones. It was something I had begun to recognize, but was only now starting to truly understand. Maybe this was what my humans sent me here to learn?

Those answers weren't things that I would figure out tonight, though. Not long after I started my meditation, someone knocked on the door. I beeped for them to come in. The door opened to reveal Mary, her arm around a very upset-looking woman.

"If you would excuse the interruption, Void," Mary apologized, leading the woman in by the hand. Together they knelt before my rug. It was nice of them to come to my level, but completely unnecessary. I was quite used to people talking to me while standing.

They just sat there for a second while Mary put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It will be okay, Talia. Tell Void what you told me and I'm sure that he’ll be able to help."

Talia sniffed hard and took a deep breath. Then, words came tumbling out of her so fast that I had to run them through my language processor a couple times to make sure I understood them. "I can't find Tanu! He was with me after lunch and went off to play with some o' the other children. But, when they come back he wasn't with them. I've been looking everywhere since dinner but I can't find him!"

The woman's words cut off into choked sobs. Mary took up the rest of the story, but I was already scanning the castle. Tanu wasn't the oldest kid, but he was one of the taller ones. Despite his narrow build, he was one of my more talented students. A fine example both in his control of the stick and his diligence picking up the cleaning techniques that I tried to teach them.

"After Talia came to talk to me, we found the kids he was playing with. Apparently there was some disagreement about what game to play, so Tanu went off by himself and no one has seen him since. Do you know where he is?" Mary finished.

My scan turned up nothing. I let Mary know that Tanu wasn't in the castle right now. I wasn't sure how much she understood, but I didn't have time to make sure my point got across. Already I was zipping through the castle halls. It took only a handful of seconds before I was at the entryway.

I was scolding myself for not having trained my sensor range much. That was something that I could have easily been working on for a long time, maybe even before I had picked up Extended Sensor Range. I started searching the castle grounds as I circled the exterior. I was hoping that maybe Tanu had wanted to think or something and was just sitting somewhere nearby.

There were a few trees inside the wall. I even checked their branches, but found no missing children among them. Where could he have gone? The front gate was almost always closed, and I didn't think that the kid had the strength to open it by himself. Certainly not without an adult noticing.

When I finally finished my circuit around the castle, still not finding anything, I started looking for clues. I rolled up to the gate and studied it closely. The portcullis didn't show any signs of having been moved, but near the top, I found a very small amount of blood that couldn't have been more than a few hours old. All things considered, my models indicated a high probability that a kid might have scraped their knee climbing up the iron bars. If that was the case…well, I was honestly impressed with the climbing.

With a quick firing of my Thrusters, I flew up and over the wall. The landing was a little hard, but I didn't care. I was carefully examining the ground for any sign that a small boy had made his way over there.

Susan slept through the night. However, Bee and Tony didn't have the same luxury, as they needed to keep watch over their valuable charges. Luckily, after a long day of being chased, the sheep were ready to bed down and didn't really do much. In fact, they were finally being helpful for once. Their panicked bleating was able to alert Tony to incoming undead before he would normally notice them. Bee didn't have the same issue, though, and everyone was able to sleep soundly while she was on watch.

She had to wonder how Susan had made it through the night on her own. The exact timeline of things wasn't clear from what she had said so far, but from her wounds, it seemed like Susan had escaped at least a day ago. Maybe two. Was that related to the skill she had mentioned?

Blood Disguise. Bee wasn't sure if she had ever heard of that skill before, but a good disguise that worked on the undead might have done the trick. With her Infiltrator class, it did seem right up her alley.

Scanning the horizon again, Bee found yet another low-level zombie. Sneaking away from the camp, she dashed over and quickly removed its head with her broom.

The sun was just on the horizon. It was probably time to wake everyone up and see if Susan was able to move. Technically they could stay here another day, but Bee was starting to get a little antsy being away from the castle and Void for so long. Hopefully, Susan would be fine. The healing should have been enough to get her on her feet.

Walking back to the others, Bee took another look around. Seeing no threats, she bent down to shake Tony’s shoulder. "Time to rise and shine."

While he grumbled into wakefulness, Bee snuck as close to the sheep as she dared and found they were beginning to stir. They would need to hurry if they didn't want to spend the morning chasing the flock, and she was really sick of doing that. With nothing else to prepare, she moved over to Susan's prone form.

The woman hadn't shifted a muscle since she had passed out last night. Not quite ready to wake her up, Bee checked the bandage on her calf. The swelling had disappeared, leaving the wrappings loose. Shifting them to the side, Bee saw soft new skin clearly outlining where the teeth had dug deep into the flesh.

Encouraged by the progress, Bee put her hand gently on Susan's shoulder. The spy's eye flicked open in a breath, and she didn't move. Bee watched her eyes scan her surroundings. After they thoroughly categorized everything, Susan took in a single breath, and her eyes rested on Bee's face. She relaxed, but only slightly.

The woman gave her a serious nod, and Bee removed her hand. In a smooth motion, Susan sat up and stretched. Bee noticed that despite her improved health, the litheness she had associated with the woman’s movements was still diminished somewhat. She looked much more like a normal person without the grace that her almost level 30 body gave her.

"How do you feel?" Bee asked.

Susan rolled her shoulders and neck. "Not bad, a little stiff like I just slept on the ground but that’s it." Putting one hand on the ground behind her, she felt her ribs with the other. "Actually…better than I expected. Really good. What did you do? I don't think I’ve ever had healing that worked this quickly."

"Well, most don't have access to the number of good supplies that I do from the castle. I’m guessing something like this would be obscenely expensive without the abundance of captured monsters and minor demons we have at home.”

Susan didn't look nearly as surprised as Bee would have expected. She hadn’t mentioned the demons to the woman before and had expected a few questions, but she figured that it was Susan’s job to know things, after all. "Sincerely, thank you. If you don't mind, can I ask what you and Tony are doing out here? I wasn't expecting to find any of the faithful so far from the castle."

"Yeah, I don’t blame you.” Bee sighed. “Void sent us on a mission to, well, find some lost sheep.”

CHAPTER 45

REASONABLY SIZED DOGS

"Lost sheep?" Susan froze. "Are you…are you sure?"

Bee gestured toward Tony and the sheep. "I mean, yes. That's why we have so many of them."

"So many of them?" The taller woman frowned, noticing the flock of fluffy white beasts milling about nearby. "Oh. Oh. Well, yes, I suppose that makes sense too."

"Wait, what did you think I meant?" Bee frowned in confusion.

Susan hesitated. "I mean, far be it from me to interpret Void's will, but…perhaps he meant a less literal interpretation of 'lost sheep.'"

They fell silent, considering the implications. After a moment, Bee spoke. "You think…Void might have known that we would run into you?"

"I'm just thinking it's a possibility," Susan hedged.

"Hm. Well, Void did describe the sheep pretty specifically. But perhaps that was its way of getting us out here. Especially if this future wasn't a hundred percent certain," Bee thought aloud. "Also, if you are right, then that might mean we never needed to bring the sheep back in the first place. That would be…frustrating, to say the least. Rounding them up was a lot harder than I would have thought."

"We should definitely bring them just in case. Void probably had more than one objective," Susan agreed as she levered herself up to her feet. "I think I'm healed enough to get moving. Maybe I can help out a bit with the sheep too."

On the other side of the wall, I made out the impressions of two small footprints in the soft dirt by the road. Some brief analysis showed me that they could match Tanu's feet if he had jumped from a height; the depth made sense too. Unfortunately, his weight wasn't enough to press those feet into the earth at standard walking pressure. Even worse, despite throwing the range of my sensors to the max, I still wasn't able to find the little kid.

I widened my search. Instead of looking for him directly, I tried to find any more clues that might give me a clue about which direction he had gone. A few feet into the tree line, I found a small bit of blood on the leaf of a low fern that would have been just about knee level for Tanu. I engaged my Thrusters and zipped over to the plant, avoiding the grass and all the dirt. I was able to get there in just a handful of seconds.

Once I was closer, I touched the sample with my Mop. Bringing it into my dustbin, I was able to analyze it a bit better. I didn't think I would be able to tell if this was Tanu's blood. Not yet, at least. I was able to figure out a better timeline of when it was left, though. No more than three hours ago, and it was definitely human in nature. I was pretty sure that Tanu came this way.

Following the path that the boy seemed to be taking got me going. As I drifted along it at high speed, I kept my sensors scanning for any additional information. A few moments later, I found another bit of blood off to the right, deeper into the trees. It was a little higher than before. I dodged between the trees and bushes until I got closer to the spot.

Upon further inspection, I realized this was a false trail. The blood was about an hour or two too early. Just to be certain, I still sampled the blood and found that the profile didn't match at all. The level of iron in the blood already was wrong, and that was just the beginning. Quickly, I returned to the original trail.

I would need to work on this sort of skill as well as my system-granted skills. Being able to follow a human that I couldn't sense would be extremely useful. Especially if these children kept insisting on wandering off no matter how nice of a home I kept for them. But that would have to wait until this current crisis was resolved.

Pushing myself to the limits, I upped my pace to as fast as I could, still scanning all the surroundings for any sign of the boy. I started shutting down background processes to squeeze every quantum out of my processors.

Urging my processors to move faster, I kept having to close out of negative probable outcome scenarios that my models kept spinning up. They weren't useful to me here. Other signs of blood out here were worrying, but I couldn't dwell on that either. Every microsecond could matter here. I wasn't about to lose this kid when there was still a nonzero chance of success.

A few hundred yards later, I found another trace of the human. There was a soft bit of earth deformed with a partial imprint of the right size. Judging by how much it dug into the ground, Tanu was running now. Right next to him was a strange print that looked a lot like it belonged to the family dog back home, except a lot bigger.

I paused for a few milliseconds, but I didn't see a good way to tell which print came first, so I just continued on the sparse track. The print led a little off of the main trail into what could barely be called a path. To my inexpert sensors, I could tell that it had only been traveled a dozen or so times.

As I traveled, I cast my sensors ahead, but still, I found nothing. This was both encouraging and not helpful in the slightest. I also didn't find more than the occasional print. More often than not, any prints were accompanied by the same paw prints from before on the soft earth. Suddenly, I saw the pair's tracks merge with that of a group of humans. What were they doing out here?

It wasn't long before I had my answer. A group of disgusting, rotting zombies appeared in my sensors not too far ahead. I slowed as I realized that they weren't moving forward quickly. Then the rest of the picture resolved in my sensors. Pinned up against a large rock was a small child and a very, very large dog with mottled gray fur.

The huge dog was…well, huge. It probably weighed more than Tony did. I watched as it sprayed spittle everywhere, snarling and snapping at the zombies advancing toward it. Next to the large dog stood Tanu. He held the stick I had gifted him this morning. His trembling hands gripped it in the guard position, but despite his apparent fear, he would sometimes strike out at the zombies when the dog was in danger of being surrounded.

It would have been easy for the boy to climb up on the rock to get out of the reach of the zombies. I didn't know if the dog would have been able to follow, but they didn't even try. As I got closer, I saw why. Underneath the rock that stood behind the dog and boy was a smaller tunnel filled with much more reasonably sized dogs.

The massive dog lunged forward at the ever-advancing zombies, its warnings ineffective. It bit one in the throat and threw it to the ground. There were still four more around it, though, and as they closed in, Tanu stepped forward, swinging his stick with 93 percent of the force his body could theoretically produce.

I had seen enough. A few bursts of my Sanitation Lamp and all four of the standing zombies had neat holes in their heads 3.5 inches wide. As they collapsed, the giant dog finished separating the head from the rotting corpse it was attached to. Immediately it started retching and vomiting up bile. I could sympathize.

Moving in, I cleaned up after it. Soon enough, the bits and bodies of the undead disappeared into my dustbin. I even cleaned up the dog sick. Tanu stood there, shocked and breathing hard. I was just relieved to have made it in time. I was glad to have hurried. If I had been here a minute later, this might have been a very different scene.

Eventually, Tanu came to and looked at the stick in his hands. The flat wooden part was smeared with black gunk. Correctly identifying the issue, he bent down to wipe off the excess on some moss before he tucked it in his belt. Truly, he was one of my better students. Looking toward me, he gave me a shy wave. That was right. Tanu was a quiet child.

When I moved closer to inspect the smaller dogs, the large one stepped in my way and fluffed up its neck, growling. I popped out my Spray Bottle, ready to reprimand the dog, but Tanu stepped forward to lay his hand on the dog's flank. Surprisingly, it calmed down somewhat. Good, he was training the dog. That was an important rite of passage my humans back home made their little humans do with the dog, even if ours was much smaller. Still, it would likely be a while before this one could come into the castle, just in case.

With the larger dog calmed, I was able to move past and inspect the reasonably sized dogs. They were quite squirmy and loud. I imagined the noise they were producing didn't help with avoiding the zombies. Also, it seemed that they were searching for something, but they were going about it all wrong. From my experience, animals could find things better with their eyes open. Just wriggling around in a pile with their eyes closed didn't seem to get them any closer to their goal.

We would have to bring all of them back to the castle. It simply wasn't safe for them outside of the walls, at least not the small ones. The enormous one appeared capable enough of fending for itself. Still, I did hope that these would be outside dogs. Maybe Mary would have an idea of how to care for them without too many problems. We would have to see when we got back.

Reaching down, I grabbed one of the smaller dogs and placed it on my back. As I picked it up, I could feel the huge one tense, but once I put it down, it relaxed again. All in all, there were seven normal-sized dogs. I could carry one on my back, and Tanu could just lift another pair. The large dog grabbed one by the scruff of the neck, but that still left three unattended who refused to open their eyes. Now to figure out how to get them moving…

Susan, Bee, and Tony darted back and forth, corralling the panicking sheep in the same general direction. Susan's help with the flock greatly improved their time. Bee wasn't sure if it was because she was good at guessing where the sheep would run to or because three people were able to better fence in the flock and force them where they wanted to go.

Either way, she just appreciated the help. At least Bee wasn't exhausted this time as they drove the sheep along the road. It even let Bee occasionally dash off to go deal with the roaming undead. They were not nearly as much of an issue during the day, but if one got too close, it could still spook the sheep into going in a direction that they didn't want.

When they reached the town of Greg, they had to leave the road. No one wanted to try and guide a flock of sheep through the city. It turned out that leaving the road wasn't too bad, though. They were able to use the wall of Greg to pin the fuzzballs in from one side without much of an issue.

Before the sun had finally set, they had reached the edges of the tree line.

"Wow," Tony panted, "who would have thought that sheep would be so hard to find?" The group had set up camp for the night, finally taking a well-earned rest. Things hadn't really given them much of a chance to talk throughout the day, as they were simply too busy.

"I have a little experience with sheep," Susan volunteered. "I could have told you that wasn't going to be easy. You were strangers to them, and had no well-trained shepherding dog. This was never going to work well."

"Oh? Where did you learn about sheep from?" Tony asked as he laid out his bedroll.

Susan looked at Bee with an odd question in her eyes, one that Bee wasn't sure how to answer. She just shrugged. Susan took a small breath before answering. "I had a deep cover assignment on the border a couple years ago. Turns out no one really looks too hard at a shepherd chasing down a lost sheep. No matter where they're going."

"Deep cover?" Tony asked in bewilderment.

CHAPTER 46

DOGPILE

Bee looked up at Tony. That's right, he wasn't there for the whole Infiltrator discussion with Susan. "Uh, you remember when I told you that she went to go tell people about us?"

Tony nodded. Bee looked at Susan to see if she wanted to fill in the gaps. Susan just gave her a shrug. Sighing, Bee continued. "Yeah, well, she has the Infiltrator class."

Tony cocked an eyebrow at Bee. "So you just…let her go inform on us, then?"

"Well, no," Bee said. "Void did."

"To be fair, I wasn't really telling them anything that would harm you all," Susan piped up. "Or at least, I didn't really have much more information than castle supply numbers. But with Void's presence I don't think there is really any danger to us, especially with the army's attention taken up by the undead at the moment."

"Okay, sure, Void does what he wants," Tony said slowly, clearly still processing the information. "So, deep cover. I take it you were a spy?"

"Of sorts." Susan hesitated. "'Operative' might be a better word. It was something that me and a few others had been raised for since we were very young."

"So what are you doing here, then? Why turn on your handlers?" Tony asked, his face still not entirely trusting.

"Because I met Void," Susan stated simply. "I'm not really turning my back on them, either. Honestly, I was telling them the truth and they thought I was brainwashed. Besides, a new god has been born. To let the world know of him is much more important than my previous orders."

Bee wasn't sure where the fanaticism came from. Sure, she was dedicated to her master too, but Susan took it to a whole new level. Maybe it was a regional thing? The commonly worshiped gods had few devoted followers around where she grew up. Mostly they were considered myths or, at most, relics of a past age that had long since retreated from the world. Gods hadn’t descended to this realm since the major demon threats were repelled. There had been very little talk about them in the books she had read in the library so far.

Often only Devotees were true worshipers of a given god, and it sounded like they were more focused on the ideals than the actual god. Tony apparently was having similar thoughts, as he wasn't ready to let the topic just move on.

"Why, though?" Before anyone could say anything, he continued. "I mean, I get the difference and all. But why does the world need to know so bad? The word will spread anyway, at some point."

"Do you know how long it's been since the last god appeared?" Susan asked, her tone reverent. Tony shook his head; Bee was curious too, as she didn't think that anyone knew the number. The histories she had read were patchy at best and mostly just myths. "Honestly, no one does. But it's been at least ten thousand years. There are allusions to Dagramas rising some thirty thousand years ago in some myths and records that mages have found, though. That's all that I know of.

"This part gets a little hazy and there's some guesswork involved. But from what I understand, that divine ascension might be directly responsible for our missing history. Endless wars and calamities. Devastation and the collapse of civilizations. The demons broke through and ruled for a time, until the gods beat them back." She paused. "Whatever happened then was a big deal, is what I'm trying to say."

"How do you know all this?" Bee asked. That was way more than she knew or had any way of knowing. Well, maybe the catacombs under the castle might have told a slightly different story. If she was right, they looked ancient enough to have been ten thousand years old. The book she found on the pedestal might tell her even more if she ever figured out how to read it.

"Libraries have a lot of information, and information gathering was my thing. I talked to enough philosophers and historian types that something had to soak in after long enough," Susan said. "But, like I said, it's all conjecture. My personal theory is that the world rejected the new god and tried to fight against it. Maybe the other gods even split into factions. No one really knows for sure what happened or how. But I don't want the same thing to happen to us.

"Or, if it does, I want to be on the right side of it." Her eyes seemed to come alive with a new intensity. "The best thing we can do is support Void and ensure everyone else does as well. But beyond that, from my interactions I truly believe that Void has everyone's best interests at heart. He just might be a true divine incarnation of order. How could I not respect that to the utmost?"

Bee considered Susan's words. "I asked how you know this because the castle has a lot of information hidden away in it. The library is just part of it. The building itself is very old. Maybe old enough to have been around that long. For sure built before the defeat of the demons." Bee thought for a moment. "When we get back, we should go through some of it and see what lines up with what you've heard. If some kinds of records survived, then surely others did as well."

Susan nodded. "I would like that. But for now we should probably focus on the sheep. I think they're about to bolt."

Tony cursed as he turned to see a sheep doing just that. As he darted off, Bee was grateful that he was fast enough to catch them. It would have been a real pain if she had to run them all down herself.

I considered the three dogs that refused to just walk behind us. It would have helped a lot if they would just open their eyes. But alas, they insisted on stumbling along blind, never going more than three steps in the right direction. I refused to leave them behind, and the ridiculously large dog seemed to agree with that sentiment.

So in order to move them, we had to move in short spurts. Tanu, the oversized dog, and I would move about twenty yards down the path. Then I would put my dog down and remove the one from my back. The big dog would drop hers, then we would go back for the other three. Of course, by that point, they had usually wandered off, and we needed to go into the bushes to find them. After we brought them to where we left the others, the search would start over again. It kind of felt like I was juggling.

The smallest dog was in the arms of Tanu; he didn't put it down. That was fine. He was struggling to hold on to the squirming ball of fur anyway and wasn't moving very fast. It was entirely understandable, as the dog was almost half his weight. It was still helpful, though since it was one more that we didn't have to carry.

Still, we were moving excruciatingly slowly. After eighteen minutes, Tanu's arms couldn't take it anymore. At the pace we were moving, we were still over an hour from the road. The more I watched Tanu struggle with his burden, the more impressed I was that he had managed to get so far into the woods on his own. He was sure lucky to find a dog to help him survive the undead. Maybe the dog was lucky to find him, though. These smaller dogs didn't seem very helpful.

Tanu looked around at the ground. I guessed he was looking for a place to sit. To prevent him from further dirtying his pants, I floated a fallen log over to him with Air Affinity. I then proceeded to nearly smack myself with my claw in frustration, stopping only because I feared I might hurt the dog on my back. Instead, I moved the dog over to the pile and lightly tapped my outer shell in frustration. Air Affinity! How could I forget about that?

I wasn't sure about my limits, but I started hovering the dogs up one at a time, trying to see how many I could carry. Their flailing paws didn't make it any easier. It was like they were trying to fly by swimming through the air. That was just making the air circulate in ways that were slightly harder to control. Still, I was able to lift five before I could feel my circuits start to heat up. That should be more than enough.

After resting for a few minutes Tanu, the stupidly enormous dog, and I were ready to go. Progress was a lot quicker now that I had optimized our transport methods. However, referring to the dog's size every time I thought about it was starting to get repetitive. Normally I would have just let the humans pick a name, as was tradition, but I supposed that I could do it this time. Not that anyone would know about it. It would be my personal designation for the creatures. Once the humans picked a name, though, I would just call it that.

So what would I call it? Rather than try and optimize the combination of vowels and consonants myself, I ran a random number generator against a list of all the names I had ever heard of. Number 375. Albert? I didn't quite like the sound of that. Sure, it was a big name, but the dog wasn't fat, just big-boned. I quickly narrowed down the list to ones that I felt had some relation to the huge dog. Cliff?

Sure, Cliff would do. Why not.

Cliff insisted on carrying one of the two smaller dogs that I wasn't able to lift. She watched the floating pack warily but didn't object to the new mode of transportation. The last dog rested on my back, leaving me free to retract my arm and focus on carrying the fluffballs.

The rest of the trek back to the clearing around the walls of the castle passed in a blur. After a little while, I dropped to the ground and just rolled through the dirt, as splitting my attention was just too much for my poor hardware. Without his burden, Tanu had no problems keeping up. He was a hardworking kid; I just hoped that he wouldn't wander off again like this. It would have been a shame if I had been just a little slower.

Once we got to the clearing, I set the dogs down for a second. I needed a small break to let my circuits cool. That was more of a workout than I had tried in a good while.

Cliff was still going strong, but she wasn't willing to leave the pile of puppies. She stayed with us as Tanu and I rested in the dirt. Sure, this method of travel was much faster, but it was exhausting. On the other hand, my Air Affinity was getting more and more powerful. If I weren't constantly redlining my outputs, then carrying a slightly lighter burden would have been easy.

I was also draining my battery for the first time in a very long while. I had considered transmuting some matter from my dustbin, but with the unusual heat from my exertion, I didn't know what would happen. If I exploded with energy or heated up even more, I didn't want to risk damaging the dog on my back.

A few minutes of a low processing load and the cool air helped me return to a normal processing temperature. This wasn't the hardest thing I had done by a long shot, but it was a lot of effort over time. Now that I was a bit better, I risked transmuting a little bit of dirt. With my energy topped off and the processor cooled, I was able to lift all six of the dogs. Cliff still refused to let me take the last one, so I just let her take it. A few minutes later, we were in front of the gate.

I considered boosting over it, but I wasn't sure about lifting Cliff and everyone else at once. I also didn't want to take the other dogs where she couldn't reach. She seemed quite protective, and that just seemed cruel. So instead, I just rapped my claw loudly on the metal bars. The ringing echo filled the night air.

The castle door creaked open, and a few figures hurried down the steps as if they had been waiting for my return. As three people ran over, my sensors made them out to be Mary, Trent, and Talia. Talia wasn't able to contain herself and led the pack for most of the way.

"Tanu!" she cried as she caught sight of our forms through the portcullis. When she got to the bars, she pulled up short. At the sight of the fluffy Cliff, she even let out a short scream. "Wolf!"

CHAPTER 47

WINGS OF LIBERTY

Talia was clearly having a panic attack. She frantically pointed at Cliff, Trent and Mary picking up their pace at her screams. Luckily, they were not far behind. Maybe they could help calm her down. Totally unconcerned by the commotion, Cliff set the dog in her mouth down and squatted on her haunches, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.

Tanu similarly didn’t seem to register Talia's reaction. That, or he was just too happy to be bothered by it. His face lit up seeing his mother, and he spoke for the first time that night. "Look, Ma! I got’s me sum frens!"

Unable to contain his excitement, he gave Cliff an appropriately large hug. Well, as appropriately large as a child the size of the dog’s snout could give. The canine seemed a little uncomfortable and let out a surprisingly high-pitched whine. She shoved her nose against his ear and licked the back of his head with an extremely long tongue.

The overly concerned woman ran over to the winch and started raising the portcullis. Her frantic movements were using much more effort than was efficient, and she was only moving the gate with 65 percent of her optimal energy expenditure. Stepping forward, Trent took pity on her and started helping her with the winch as Mary looked on with an open mouth.

It was kind of them to open the gate for us. I had been preparing to lift everyone over the gate myself, but that was much more effort than just waiting for them to let us through. Once the gate was a few feet off the ground, Talia left the work to Trent and ducked under, running to Tanu's side.

She caught the kid up in a large hug, lifting him up and away from Cliff. Tears streamed down her face, and she wasn't able to speak as she covered the kid's face with kisses. Tanu seemed less than pleased by the development and wriggled about, trying to escape the onslaught. Her grip was iron, though, and the struggles were in vain.

The gate crept up enough that Cliff and I started moving the other dogs inside the castle walls. Once everyone was inside. Trent lowered the defenses back into place. His face was oddly still and stony. I wasn’t entirely sure why, to be honest. From the way he was staring at the dog and her puppies, though, there was probably some amount of concern about them. Why, though? I thought I would be the main one bothered about the potential mess they’d leave inside the castle.

As we started home, Cliff let out a small whine and looked back at the young boy. Tanu finally managed to free himself of his constraints enough to turn to the hesitating dog. "It's 'kay, girl, go on."

Cliff let out a small woof as though she understood and picked up one of the dogs, running over to where a collection of trees stood near the courtyard. I looked at the rest of the pile and considered whether I should help her transport them. I decided they were safe enough now that we were inside though and left them for now. After a job well done, I followed the humans back into the castle proper.

Arthur slammed his fist on the table. "YOU DIDN'T TELL ME?!"

Spittle spattered across the face of the mid-level officer in front of him. A long-suppressed cauldron of frustrations bubbled up from deep within his chest. Normally he wasn't one to lose his temper, but this was a blunder of epic proportions.

Ignoring protocol was sometimes necessary; he did understand that. But that was usually reserved for time-sensitive things or dangerous information. Even in such cases, protocol would just be modified or delayed slightly. And yet, when one of the high-level covert assets had come in, not only was that not reported at all, through any channel, but the officer who had the asset in his custody detained and tortured her. It screamed of incompetence or even treason. It was utterly unforgivable.

"Well, she came in when you were busy. And the reports mentioned she might be under mind control," the fop responded, completely unfazed, as he brushed hair that was at least three times longer than regulation, out of his eyes. These noble children supposedly were taught military from the cradle. In his thirty years of command, Arthur hadn't found that to be true at all, which was likely why the man had acted so out of his station.

"So…were you following orders?" Arthur asked in a dangerous tone as he glared over the table at the eejit.

Either unconcerned about repercussions or unaware of the mood, the man didn't catch on to the seriousness of the situation. "Well, not exactly, I suppose. But acting with initiative." After a breath he added, "Sir."

Arthur barely restrained himself from shouting again. "You had a superior officer detained and tortured without authority or cause. Without orders. Without informing command or anyone else who should have been involved in that decision. You are not military police, and even if you were you wouldn’t have that kind of authority." Reaching across the table, he ripped the Lieutenant pin from the man's chest. Moving his attention to the guards, he motioned at the man. "Have this private thrown in the brig."

This got a reaction from the man, though it was more affront than anything else. "I had cause! She interacted with an enemy possibly capable of mind control. If she was under the influence, there’s no telling what a lowborn peasant like her could be twisted to do!"

"You were in your authority to detain her until a superior could be fetched. Not reporting it, and especially torturing her, makes this dereliction of duty and treason," Arthur said in an icy voice, now thoroughly in control of his temper. The men he had indicated stepped forward and grabbed the newly demoted private’s elbows. As the realization sank in, the man’s face darkened into anger. They had to struggle to pull the former lieutenant from the room as he flailed about.

"My father will hear of this!" the man shouted, turning purple with indignation. Arthur ignored the all-too-familiar threat and went back to studying the map.

His aide stepped forward and spoke in a low tone to avoid being overheard. "If it is treason, should I have gallows prepared for tomorrow?"

Arthur shook his head. "We can figure out what to do with the oaf later. Honestly can't say whether he made the wrong decision. If it was reported, she might very well have been questioned anyway."

"Yes, but by experts instead of the amateurs who let her escape," the aide said. Arthur didn't really have anything else to say to that. The boy's father was already going to be an issue, and he didn't have time to figure this out now.

Focusing back down at the table, he counted all the markers again. Running through all the calculations one more time, the results came up the same. Tomorrow they would be ready. Enough troops and horses were back in shape, and the enemy forces were still thin, off conquering the surroundings.

Of course, he was wary of a trap just over the horizon. It was something a crafty leader could pull, and it would be even easier with the undead, as hiding them or keeping them nearly undetectable was trivial with the right tactics. He had to trust in his watchers. They had counted very thoroughly, and there was no way for the columns leading away from the city to double back so quickly. At least, not in a way that would let them reinforce the besieging troops in less than an hour.

If nothing changed tomorrow, they would sally forth and score their second major victory in the campaign. But Arthur wouldn’t bet on it. Everything always changed.

I left my carpet a bit early the next morning. I wanted to go check on our new guests and see how they were settling in. A quick check of the castle inhabitants found nothing out of place. Stopping briefly in the kitchen, I headed outside. Once there, I hovered over the rows of trees that I saw Cliff carrying the other dogs to.

I soon found them in the shelter of some bushes. Cliff was lying on her side, and the other dogs were all docked on her, charging. Seeing my approach, she bared her teeth slightly, but this was also accompanied by a single thump of her tail. I figured that we were okay.

Approaching slowly, I pulled a slab of meat from my dustbin. It was only in there for a few minutes since I had grabbed it from the kitchen, but it glowed faintly in the predawn light for 0.75 seconds before fading. Huh, that was odd. I placed the meat on some grass near Cliff's head where she could reach. She stretched her neck out slightly and thoroughly inspected the gift with her nose. After she was satisfied, her tongue darted out a few times to lick the meat before she gripped a small bit with her front teeth and ripped a strip off.

Leaving her to her meal, I wandered off to a nearby clearing. There was training to do.

With only a second of preparation, I flung myself high into the air, nearly as high as the castle spires. Adjusting the Thrusters, I flipped on my side and started to move in a circle, my top pointed toward the center. Faster and faster, I spun in tight circles until the scenery blurred in my sensors.

As quickly as I could, I halted my momentum, coming to a stop only a few yards from where I had first risen. Calculating the exact amount of thrust required for a maneuver wasn't hard once I got the right algorithms; it had just taken a few interactions and some trial and error to get all the calculations correct. As I practiced, I developed even better control over my skills. I supposed a human would develop both the control and the knowledge to use them at the same time. That wasn't how I worked, though. It gave me huge advantages in some areas, but made it so that I would always feel a bit hamstrung without a lot of grinding to get my control higher.

Breaking from my hover, I entered free fall for a bit before leveling off and heading off in a random direction at full speed. This wasn't hard for me to maintain. As long as I had the energy, I would never need to stop. Of course, if I ever began to run low, I could just convert something in my dustbin. I had nearly endless amounts of dirt in there by now. It was an absolute last resort, though. I might have to plan ahead and consume something more than what was stored, but that shouldn't be difficult with matter being literally everywhere.

As I sped out, I was soon soaring over the walls and a small strip of forest. The castle was situated at the end of a valley surrounded by towering, white-capped mountains on three sides. The fourth and final side had the road leading out. Today I flew to the back mountain.

My sensors didn't even come close to reaching it from where I was, so I was relying totally on my optical sensors. As I got closer, I saw how tall they really were, and I started to climb in altitude as I neared them. By the time I reached the mountains, I had aimed for one of the gaps between peaks. I was easily ten thousand feet above the valley below. The air density was much lower this high up, and the drain on my battery increased noticeably.

Skimming over the snow just a few feet, I continued to climb as I banked around the highest spire. As I reached the backside of the mountain, I noticed an unusual landing about halfway toward the peak. Maybe it was a cave? It might be worth checking out later. But for now, sightseeing was enough. Coming here was doing wonders for my Thruster skill training.

By the time I finished my revolution, I was nearly seventeen thousand feet above the castle, and I was really struggling to maintain my altitude. The low air pressure was making flying way more difficult. Honestly, I wasn't sure how natural these mountains were. They were barely a mile wide and almost three times as tall. The stone must be incredibly strong to withstand their own weight. Maybe this was where the castle got its incredible stone from?

As I finished my lap around the peak, I started to descend once more. I flew over the forest at incredible speeds, still having a long way down to go. As I approached the ground, I noticed a large mass of off-white shapes moving in the distance toward the castle. Could this be my humans with the fabled Sheep?

CHAPTER 48

SHEEP’S CLOTHING

Bee watched the far-off bird move unnaturally fast in the air above them. It had only been up there for a few minutes, and it was really freaking her out. The speed was completely unreasonable, not to mention the zigzagging direction changes; worse, she could only make it out as a dark smudge in the distance, so she had no idea how fast it was going. Is this some new undead threat I've never heard of?

There wasn't much they could do, though. If they tried to move the flock off the path and into the forest, she doubted they would ever find more than a quarter of them again. As much as they had improved at controlling the flock, getting them on the path was still tricky.

Now the trees themselves were helping a lot to keep them focused in the right direction. Bee suspected that was because the undergrowth was dense, and the sheep were dumb enough to not realize that going into the forest was an option. Tony thought that it might have been that they were smart enough to stay on the path, but she figured that was giving the dreadful things too much credit.

Susan said the instinct to stay together in a group was helping them out here, but they still walked up and down the column to head off any issues, pressing the sheep forward.

The flying thing in the sky zipped over them again. So far, it hadn't attacked, so they figured it was maybe a scout of some sort. Since it had already seen them, perhaps it wasn't worth trying to hide. Though, Bee thought, is it my imagination, or did it get larger?

It was heading toward the castle. She felt a slight pang of fear but relaxed just as quickly. Considering who guarded it, she was able to master herself. The castle was much safer than they were right now. No matter how powerful this flying threat was, it would stand no chance against Void.

Continuing to drive the sheep forward, Bee started to let her mind wander in the execution of her relatively mundane task. She planned out a few new potions she wanted to brew. After meditating on the liquid projectiles her master sometimes used in fights, she started to have insight.

She was nearly certain that her master used a highly corrosive substance. Often, weak acids were used in cleaning, meaning her Divine Alchemy should work on undead. The question was, how corrosive could she make the substances before her skill no longer applied?

Also, now that she had a third domain ideal for Void, she decided to consider how she might be able to earn experience by incorporating it into her activities. Divine Alchemy wasn't likely to be helpful with lost children…unless she could make some sort of tracking potion?

She would have to think more about that later. But she needed to figure out a better way to level. This trip frustrated her for many reasons. For one, despite killing many undead, they had been so weak that she hadn't even earned a single level.

Also, being away from the castle, she wasn't even earning a steady stream from working with the kids or doing her normal cleaning chores. Even tending to ramps hadn't been an option out here. How could she serve her master if she stayed so weak?

She realized, deep down, that it was a bit of rationalization. If she was being honest, she just wanted to be stronger, but she glossed over that for now.

Finally, after a lot of walking, they came into view of the castle. Bee ran ahead and knocked on the gate, leaving Tony and Susan the unenviable task of herding the flock the rest of the way.

The ringing of metal echoed across the castle grounds. Soon enough, she saw a figure walking over from the direction of the fields. Is no one watching out for danger? We need to fix that. There are more than enough people here now that keeping a watch on the road should be doable.

The worker turned out to be Silas. Turning over his shoulder, he shouted, sending people scurrying about. A few went into the castle to round up the others; a few moments later, Silas worked the winch to raise the portcullis.

"It's good to see ya, lass! Uh, er, highness," Silas exclaimed as she stepped back onto the castle grounds at last. "I'm sure Trent or Mary will fill ya in with the details, but things've been generally quiet round here, as it's been. 'Side from a few things, 'course."

Bee let out some tension she had been holding in her shoulders. Ever since she had left, the knot of worry had been growing. She was responsible for these people; how that had fallen to her, she wasn't entirely sure, but it had. While she trusted that Void would watch over them, she was still on edge from having been away for so long, even if it was on a holy quest.

"Thanks for letting me know. I think Tony could use some help, if you know anything about sheep," she said, gesturing over her shoulder to the flock just cresting the last hill.

"I mayhaps know a thing or two." The old man grinned as he set out toward the herd with a brisk but steady stride. "No worries, we'll get 'em in no time."

As he was walking away, she heard him mutter something under his breath. "Don't want to be near Trent when he learns about this. Looks like we'll be workin' through the winter after all."

She wasn't quite sure she understood the statement, but hopefully, they weren't completely unexpected. Even if they were, that Void was the one who asked for them would probably smooth things over. As much as she had grown to hate the sheep, she understood her master's rationale for wanting them. They had a store of clothes from the mages, but not many of them were sized for the smaller children.

Also, the sheep had other uses. They could get lots of food from the fields, and the harvest they had collected from the nearby farms should be enough to take them through winter and spring, hopefully. But despite all that, they didn't have a source of meat. Now they had the sheep, at least as a backup. It might be enough that they wouldn't have to go hunting in winter.

Just as she was thinking, a familiar black disk appeared from inside the castle doors. It leaped forward at her, somehow perfectly timing its airborne arc so it crashed into her chest on the descent. She caught it in surprise, driven back just a step with the gentle impact.

After I confirmed that it was indeed my humans on the trail home, I returned to the castle to go about my day. I played with the kids, cleaned, and trained my skills as I always did. Slowly my control was improving across the board. But no matter how much I tried to throw myself into my work, one thread was always dedicated to updating my timer with their estimated time of arrival.

It was a complete waste of resources, but I didn't mind too much. I was just too excited.

When I finally picked up Beatrice on my sensors, I zipped through the castle halls, leaving my room half done. I could always come back to it later. A small burst of my Thrusters sent me gracefully arcing into her arms.

As fun as it was to fly everywhere, it was still very nice to be carried. There was a sort of security to it. I let out a welcoming beep, trying to convey all my joy that she had made it back in one piece. I ran my sensors over her carefully, but somehow, I didn't detect even the slightest bit of damage to her. This was unprecedented! Beatrice had an entire adventure without me and didn't end up broken. I was so proud of my pupil and human. Truly, I never thought I would see the day.

It occurred to me that she may have just had time to heal herself, but I supposed that was okay too. She cocked her head slightly, interpreting my noises, and smiled. "I'm glad to be back too, Master."

Now, where was Tony? Also, I thought I saw whatever those Sheep things that Bee had been trying to retrieve were. After a moment, Beatrice put me down on request and said she would like to talk to Trent and Mary about everything she had missed, so I let her go.

Rolling down the path, I didn't quite make it to the gate before I saw them; fluffy, off-white animals started to stream through. I stopped in my tracks as I ran my sensors over them. They were dirty! They were so dirty that their fur was many shades more off-white than their composition indicated! That would need to be fixed posthaste! I supposed that might have happened during the trip, but upon closer inspection, I found that a lot of the grime was quite old. Were these things ever clean to begin with?

Baths were in order first. We needed to remember our priorities. Before I could finish settling on how we would bathe the sheep, Cliff came running from the little stand of trees she had claimed as her own. I was quite impressed with the rate at which she covered the gap. The sheep were, too; it seemed as if they decided they wanted to race.

They couldn't quite pick a direction, but from their excited noises, I could tell they were ready. Somehow they weren't able to make it out the main gate, so they started to run around the castle ahead of Cliff and in other scattered directions. The mass of the sheep was valiantly running as best they could, but it was clear that there was no comparison between the grace and speed that Cliff ran with and the bumbling gait of the sheep. However, Cliff was sporting, veering off to give them a better chance. Only when she crashed into a bleating animal did I realize something wasn't quite right.

Tanu came running and was suddenly yelling at the very large dog. Cliff froze with her teeth just a few inches away from the sheep's throat. She cocked her head to swivel her ears back at Tanu.

Hearing a commotion, I sensed Beatrice and Mary hurrying out the front door of the castle. There was also a bit of a crowd forming off to the side. Presumably, they were here to welcome Bee and Tony back, but they were instead looking at Cliff. I heard one mutter, "That's got to be the biggest wolf I have ever seen."

Beatrice came running out the door but pulled up short when she laid eyes on Cliff. Her eyes didn't leave the dog as she slowly spoke. "Master. Why is there a direwolf on the castle grounds?"

Well, this might be a bit of a story that we didn't have time for at the moment. First, I needed to lend Tanu a hand in restraining Cliff; I guessed she needed to learn some manners. The little kids tried to play rough, too, before we taught them better. I hovered up next to Cliff's head and extended my Grabby Arm. Just as I had seen her grab the smaller dogs, I used my claw to bunch up the fur at the back of her neck and lift her off the ground away from the very scared sheep. Cliff didn't seem to enjoy this treatment very much, and her wiggling made it very hard to explain what was happening.

Still, with the immediate situation resolved, I tried to briefly explain how I had found Tanu, Cliff, and the other dogs to Beatrice.

My human listened but seemed distracted, somewhat. Her eyes kept darting over to the sheep running about in the courtyard. I wondered why they were still running—didn't they know the race was over?

CHAPTER 49

HOUSE TRAINING

Roscoe hurried back as fast as his rat legs would carry him. What had he done wrong? He was sure that he had left plenty of troops back around the city to keep the humans boxed in, at least for longer than this. His recruitment drives were only partially in progress. Sure, the people they were finding were joining them, but it wasn’t enough yet. Plus, his Necromantic Rituals were proving more difficult than he had anticipated.

The humans were apparently in the practice of burning their dead. This made it quite difficult to collect some of the ingredients his skill was telling him he needed, which forced him to stick with the less effective rituals that he could perform with wildlife that the horde could catch. Animals were even harder to get than humans, though. They weren't tied to houses, and they tended to move about more. They also seemed more likely to evade the undead than attempt to fight.

He had been putting the finishing touches on his first ritual to call forth shades when the messenger interrupted him. Roscoe had left one of the elite troops from beneath the castle in charge. They were still the only ones who were able to hold a real conversation, sadly. The rest of the undeads lacking devotion to the Void was a bit troubling. However, perhaps that could be remedied later. For now, they were only tools.

The messenger had handed over a piece of paper with a message on it describing the situation back in the city. Apparently, the defenders had more horses than should have been possible. And more troops, too. They had managed to break through the siege, and many riders had scattered in all directions.

Roscoe wanted to meet the leader of the defenders. Whoever it was clearly understood battle strategy and warfare at a much higher level than he did. When he finally neared the city enough to see what was happening around its walls, his respect for his enemies' leaders only rose.

Even though the humans had managed to break out, they hadn't overextended. They pressed the surrounding armies enough that they weren't able to chase after the riders sent out. Then they went through a complicated series of false retreats, baiting the overeager undead into position after position that they were all cut down from.

Roscoe started to launch some dark magic spells at the humans to give his dwindling troops some space to regroup. Before he even had much of an effect, the humans were already back behind the walls, having lost almost no troops while inflicting heavy losses.

Only the humans' need to recover would keep this siege going. If they were as tireless as the undead…well, Roscoe wouldn't have stood a chance. As things were, the retreat allowed Roscoe to send messages to pull back most of his recruiting troops from afar. They were now needed to just hold the humans in place.

The devastating losses were not completely fatal, though. They would just slow down their progress. His army wouldn't be able to amass enough troops to swarm the city for a while longer now. It couldn't be helped. Maybe some shades would make a difference. Roscoe would have to wait for the return of his troops before returning to his ritual.

The delay caused him endless frustrations. Their god needed to be recognized, and this stain stood between them and the perfect world they would create. Still, the Void was endless, Roscoe told himself. There was no real rush; the end was inevitable.

I honestly wasn't sure if Beatrice really understood the whole story about the dogs. She seemed too caught up in watching me hover in the air holding Cliff. To be fair, Cliff didn't seem to be enjoying it much at all. Once the sheep Cliff had caught stumbled to its feet and returned to the rest of its kind, I placed Cliff back on the ground, but I didn't let go of her scruff yet.

"So…we have wolves in here now?" Beatrice asked no one in particular.

"Yeah," Tanu replied. "Her name’s Cliff. And she’s got seven cubs."

Beatrice looked down at the little boy, and some of the worry left her face. In a much more gentle voice, she spoke to him. "Can you tell me how we got these… guests?"

"Yup! I climbed the gate ta' other night and was walkin' in the forest. I found Cliff, though I didn't know her name then. She took me back to her den. But some zombies attacked us, and we fought 'em off." He drew and brandished the stick that I had made for him. "At least long 'nough for Lord Void to come."

Beatrice looked at me. "So then what happened?"

"Well, Void beat up the undead and carried the cubs back here. He also told me that her name was Cliff. I don't know the cubs' names, though. Sorry."

"It's okay, they might not have names yet," Beatrice reassured the worried boy. "We can talk about that in a little bit. I'm more worried about having a wild wolf on the castle grounds with us."

"Cliff is a good girl. She won't hurt anyone," Tanu defended her with a fierce tone. I looked at the very large dog in my claw. She had stopped struggling, but I could see that she had some very large teeth. Those did seem dangerous. Though he was right that she hadn't posed any threat to the humans at all. Beatrice looked at me with a question in her eyes. I wasn't sure what it was, so I didn't respond.

"Maybe, Tanu, maybe. I'm more worried about the sheep that Tony and I just brought back for Void. They are important and we can't let Cliff harm them. And wolves do like sheep," Beatrice said with a bit of concern, but still without being too harsh on the little kid.

"Don't you worry, I can teach her not to chase the sheep," Tanu replied with a great deal of confidence.

Beatrice looked over to me for confirmation. I was sure Tanu could handle it; if necessary, I could lend a claw too. So far, my Spray Bottle has done well teaching the kids and the cat, so it would likely work on the dogs as well. I gave her a reassuring beep, and she shrugged. "If you're willing to do the hard work of training, Tanu. If you need any help, though, let someone know."

"I might need some treats, but I got this," Tanu smiled, snapping the salute the children had started using for the last few days. He came over to me and stroked Cliff's face a few times. Once she was calm, I let her go. Beatrice had lowered her center of gravity a bit to intercept Cliff in case the large dog went after the sheep again. But that was unnecessary, as Cliff just meekly followed Tanu back to her cubs.

Once they were a little way away, Beatrice turned to Tony. "Where do you think Tanu got that practice sword? I don't think the castle had any. Especially not in that size."

"I have no idea. Maybe someone joined recently with some carpentry skill?" he suggested.

"Hmmm. Maybe. It would be hard to tell, though. We are going to have to figure out a better system for that," she mused.

"System for what?" Tony asked.

"Categorizing people's abilities. Or just knowing what we can do. We're starting to get pretty large, and it's hard to plan food when we don't even have an exact head count. This is getting to be a lot more than just your family and some refugees," Beatrice explained. Tony's eyes tightened as he started to think about it as well.

I let out a few noises. Beatrice cocked her head. "Oh, Void? You made the children all training weapons for the morning sessions? Of course. That makes more sense, I should have known that you were on top of things like that. Especially after you made my broom-spear."

I humbly basked in the praise from my humans. Still, now that I had sheep to care for, they could figure this out for themselves for a little while. Leaving Beatrice and Tony to figure out whatever they were thinking about, I hovered over to where the sheep had settled down. They seemed a bit tired after they escaped from the surprise race they had been challenged to so rudely.

They were a little wary of my shape coming over to their circle of fluff. I ran my sensors over them, and I confirmed what I had suspected. They were very dirty. This would need to be fixed as soon as possible. But a closer inspection did confirm that, indeed, many of the rugs I had found were made from the same fibers that grew out of their backs. Though the fibers I had scanned were obviously much cleaner. I wondered what the process was for collecting the material. Could I just cut it off with my sword?

I didn't think that was the best idea. At least, not until I was more certain. I didn’t want to waste Beatrice and Tony’s hard work out of ignorance. Still, in the meantime, these sheep still needed to be cleaned. That meant I needed to do some testing. Gaining some elevation, I picked out what I thought to be the dirtiest sheep. If I was going to figure out how to wash these sheep, it had better work with the worst of them.

Once I made my selection, I lowered myself down and tried to pick it up with my claw. Unlike with Cliff, I wasn't able to find a good place to pick the sheep up from. It didn't help that the animal kept trying to run away and avoid my claw, though that was easy enough to prevent with Air Affinity to fence it in. The first couple of attempts, I was just left with a few strands of the fibers in my claw. I deposited that in my dustbin and received further confirmation that this was, in fact, what I was looking for.

Giving up on the claw, I poured all my focus into my Air Affinity skill and created a little air net under the sheep. As I concentrated, I was able to lift the sheep straight up out of the flock, but it took nearly my entire processing power. I was barely able to stay steady in the air as I moved the sheep over to an isolated spot where I could focus more on it.

None of the sheep appreciated the gentle care I was taking with their sister. They all started making strange bleating noises and milling around. The one floating in the air was quite distressed, and all its flailing around was seriously putting me in danger of dropping it. Still, with a titanic effort of will and focus, I managed to move it toward an area up against the wall of the castle.

Once it was alone, I started to experiment with a few different methods I had theorized would help remove the grime from its luxurious coat. I would start off with my Spray Bottle and Mop combo, obviously, but I had a few other tricks hidden in my dustbin.

CHAPTER 50

THE SHOWDOWN

Void went over to care for the sheep, leaving Bee standing alone with Tony and Susan in the middle of the yard. Looking around, Bee started to become aware of how much had changed since she was last here. The trip had only taken a few days, but someone had trimmed most of the grass lawn, and there were more than three full fields cut into the ground.

But the changes didn't stop there. There was a huge pile of grass clippings and other compost a little way from the castle, and stacked next to it were a surprising number of regularly cut bricks. She had no idea where they had come from. Had a mason or quarry worker shown up while she was gone? If they did, that still didn't make sense; they still would have had to get the bricks from somewhere.

Those were just a few of the things she noticed on the outside. She was hesitant to even venture into the castle itself. Even her master had changed, somehow. Void previously wanted to be carried outside and over dirt. It was almost just part of her job description. But now, it didn’t seem to care for it as much. Had her master gotten tired of the treatment, or was the flying thing actually new?

The rest of the people didn't seem surprised by Void zipping around in the air, but Bee felt that it was a way more noteworthy change that warranted a bit of attention.

Also, they now had wolves. At least that one sounded like a somewhat recent development, based on Tanu's story. That wasn't even to mention Void making weapons for the kids. It was training them up even more formally now. Bee figured that made sense; her broom was made by her master too, after all. But still, it sounded like the training was going well. Especially if Tanu was able to fend off full zombies with the sword.

She would need to talk to that boy a little bit more. Some parts of the story didn't quite line up, like the part about how he met the wolf. Perhaps he had some natural talent with animals. He was, what, six or seven years old? He was really young to get a class, but with a little extra attention, he might get something related to animals. Though, would that fall under any one of Void’s Domains? Or not?

That was something the library didn't have much information on, as what Void was doing with its followers was starting to go beyond the normal level of Devotee classes. The religious organization aspect of the class wasn’t something she could research a lot here. Also, having the direct blessing of a god wasn't something that anyone had records of, she supposed. Certainly not public ones.

Bee shook her head to get out of her thoughts. Looking up at Tony, she decided to get moving. "Should we get everything put away? Then I think we need to get a recap of everything we missed."

"Let me talk to my parents first, but yeah. They’ll have to fill us in," Tony said.

"Susan, why don't you come with me," Bee offered. "We can get you set up in your old room, if you would like?"

"That would be perfect."

After a quick bath and a change of clothes, Bee joined Tony, Mary, and Trent for tea. Mary set down a tray with some refreshments, and they all helped themselves, loading the snacks onto some small plates.

"I'm glad you two made it back safely. When you both took off, people were a bit worried for a while. Maybe next time a little farewell would make things smoother?" Mary raised an eyebrow, somehow managing to keep any reproach out of her tone. Thinking back to their exit, Bee winced. They for sure could have handled that much better. At least Void had stayed behind; because of that, they knew everyone was safe.

Bee wasn't sure what to say and just nodded in acceptance of the criticism. They’d have to do better. "I noticed a lot of things have changed around here. How have things been while we were away?"

Trying to get the topic back on track worked well. Mary gave her a rundown on how the children's training had advanced and generally how the preparations for winter were going. "Most of the food brought in has been winterized. As long as our population doesn't grow too much, we should be fine."

"We might have a spring crop, but it will be much smaller than we could have done. Not all the fields were cut in time and now it’s too late to try planting," Trent added. "Well, we could try, we have enough seed, but it might be a waste."

"I'm not sure, but Void's presence might be able to help with the late planting. I think we should go for it and hope that some divine intervention takes place," Bee said.

Trent hummed thoughtfully. "I have spoken to Void about crops a bit. From what I can tell, that doesn't seem to be part of his domains. However, he was willing to learn, so it might be worth it."

"That’s good. I think we might want to work on that if we have the manpower. Is there anything else that we need to get done, urgently or not? What about the piles of bricks I saw?" Bee asked. "How did we even get those?"

The Spray Bottle was mildly effective at cleaning the sheep. It was just a lot slower than I would've liked. Also, the sheep didn't make the effort any easier. No matter what I tried, it seemed determined to keep itself as dirty as possible. Reasoning with it had been a complete waste of time, as right after I finished the explanation of why it should try to keep grass out of its coat, it rolled in the dirt once again.

Eventually, I realized that as much of the dirt I was washing out of the sheep, it was managing to add even more back each time. The water I used ran off the sheep, and with all its struggling, it had tilled the earth into muddy furrows. This provided an environment that was not conducive to cleanliness in any way. I was going to need a dedicated space with no dirt to effectively do this, and also a place where the sheep wouldn't be able to get away.

I gave up after an hour and seven minutes of trying, leaving the sheep no cleaner than before. Letting it run off to where the rest of the group was slowly eating grass not that far away, I went for a think.

Where could I house the sheep cleaning station? I boosted myself onto the roof and surveyed the castle grounds. I wasn't about to take the sheep inside. That was a horrible idea that curled my bristles to even consider. But the only other structures were the stables and the chicken coop. The stables might be an option. They were empty right now and might work with some modifications.

Floating down from the roof, I went over to take a closer look. There were a few small pens inside the stone building. A sheep would fit inside each one with no problem. I was a little concerned that the gate might let them out if they were insistent about leaving, but I might be able to make the pen gates a little more secure. The best feature was that there were stone floors with a drain. I had removed all the straw that had been covering the bottom of the pens when I first cleaned here so long ago.

I found a few crates and experimented with putting them up against the gates to plug some of the holes between the wooden slats. I think that should work now. Zipping out of the stables, I went to find my test subject.

This time it was a little harder to get that sheep. It seemed to be avoiding me quite intently. Eventually, though, I deposited the still dripping sheep in a pen that was slightly too big for it. With gaps in the door blocked up, its efforts to wiggle underneath the gate were futile. Now I was able to truly get to work.

I sprayed the sheep relentlessly, taking to my duties with gusto. I soon reached the point of diminishing returns where simply spraying the sheep didn’t make much more progress. The animal was completely soaked through and dripping water. She remained slightly dirty, but the running water alone wasn't making measurable progress. I was also having to leave and collect more water fairly regularly, as it was a rather inefficient process. Looking at the sheep more closely, I was able to identify the issue. The dirt seemed to be clinging to her skin, and the fibers were keeping the pressure low enough that water couldn't adequately agitate the layer to remove the dirt.

This was a problem with a rather obvious solution, though. Getting in closer, I was able to get my claw in the fiber, and with small circles, I started making real progress. At first, the sheep was very against this new treatment and continually tried to jump out of the pen. Luckily I had a good hold of her, and she wasn't able to ruin all my hard work just yet. After a few minutes, I got a little better at the technique and was able to avoid pulling out the fibers from the sheep's back.

I noticed that there was a threshold of force over which pulling on the fibers was especially not appreciated. However, I did find a few things the sheep didn't object to. When I was getting behind her ears, she even leaned into my claw slightly. It was hard to tell if she was enjoying the treatment or just so tired that she was about to pass out. I chose to believe the former, though.

After I finished the nice bath and the sheep was as clean as I could reasonably expect, I had another issue. What was I going to do with her? If I let her out, she had proven time and time again that she would just find a way to go get covered in dirt again. As much as everyone around here looked up to me, I knew my limits, and I was one hundred percent sure that keeping these sheep clean was beyond mine. Just getting one in this state took nearly all I had.

Popping out my sword, I could only think of one thing. Carefully I advanced on the sheep, hoping to not make this any harder than it had to be.

If I couldn't keep the sheep clean, I might be able to keep her fibers clean. With a careful swipe, I took a little of the fluff off by the rear end of the sheep. Surprisingly the animal didn't seem to even notice.

I wasn't sure if it was the commotion or just happenstance, but before I could take another chunk of fibers off the sheep's rump, Silas walked in. He stopped and looked at me, particularly noting my glowing sword and the little bald spot on the sheep’s rump. Nodding, he took the piece of grass he was chewing out of his mouth. "A bit of the wrong time to shear the sheep, I think, milord. They're gonna need that coat soon, I reckon."

CHAPTER 51

MENDS AND AMENDS

Did sheep need their coats? I hadn't thought about the possibility. Would I need to wait until tonight to harvest their fibers, or even longer than that? Still, I listened to the old man; he did know a lot about farms and animals. I beeped a question.

He cocked his head as he listened to me but shook his head. "Shucks if I know what that was."

He scuffed the ground with his boot and hummed thoughtfully for a few seconds. "Well, if Trent explained composting… Look, I just think that we need to leave the sheep alone. The coats are how they keep warm in winter, otherwise the poor things'll freeze. Once the weather gets better, though, we need to shear 'em or they'll overheat, fickle little buggers. Then we can wash the fleeces before spinnin' 'em. If we end up eating any of 'em, though, we'll be sure to shear 'em first. Maybe you were preparing to cook that one? If ya were, I'd suggest one of the older ones, this one here has several years left in it."

I put away my sword. It made sense that the sheep might need their coats if winter was coming. If these fibers could be used for clothing, then perhaps the sheep were using them as mobile blankets too. That was when the humans wore more coats and the steaming beverages came out. Also, the dog would occasionally track in solid water, which used to be extremely difficult to clean up. Of course, now that wouldn't be a problem for me.

But I wasn't letting the sheep inside in a million years, so they would need to be able to weather the outside by themselves. All these organic life-forms were so sensitive to temperature changes. Looking in my dustbin, I realized that I had enough samples of coat to play around with anyway. Just the offcasts from the cleaning and the single swipe I got in before Silas stopped me were enough for now.

I hopped out of the pen and moved the crates out of the way. The sheep surprisingly didn't take advantage of the path to freedom and just trembled in the corner. Silas exhaled and opened the door, then stepped in himself. With steady hands, he helped the sheep up and smacked her on her rear end. That seemed to wake her up, and she sprinted out the door to return to her flock.

With a nod to me, Silas and I went our separate ways. I needed to spend time working with the bit of material that I collected. Also, the talk gave me another idea of what I could make with the sheep fiber other than a nice rug. If it was going to get cold, then the humans would also need to be kept warm. The only issue was that if both the sheep and the people needed warmth, then how would I provide for them both?

I made my way back inside the castle to go consider this problem on my rug. However, as I was heading back in the door, the cat slipped out. I hadn't seen the cat outside before; what was it doing?

It apparently hadn't been outside in a while, as it just sat there looking around and basking in the sun. I was about to just leave it be and continue inside when the cat got up and walked down the stairs. I watched as it strode across the field. Was it going to greet some of the new arrivals?

I was honestly a little curious about how the interactions between a cat and sheep would go. Or really any pairs of different animal species, for that matter. The only nonhuman interaction I had seen so far was between the sheep and dogs, and that hadn't ended too well. From what I knew, the cat and sheep didn't have anything in common. I mean, the cat made grooming a regular practice, unlike these dirt-seeking fluffballs, so what would they even do?

My suspicion was confirmed when the cat only paused for a few seconds to look at the sheep before continuing on, completely ignoring their existence. The only other ones out here were the dogs. From my limited experience, dogs and cats didn't get along the best. The smaller dogs were still a lot larger than the cat, but they might be fine, I guess.

The cat crossed the main path a little and wandered off into the field. Should I do anything about that? Nah, it would probably be fine. Leaving the cat to take care of its own business, I went inside to take care of the fibers in my dustbin.

Bee left the little get-together thoroughly convinced that they needed a proper structure to manage this many people. Trent and Mary had done a good enough job while she was away, keeping everyone fed and busy. But the number of times that they almost forgot to tell her about some important issues that people had or a new development going on with the food stores was worrying.

They needed some formal structure, something to give everyone clearly defined responsibilities. It would take some time for her to figure out what those were going to be, though. The obvious ones were food and food production. She felt that Mary and Trent could handle that fairly well, though they might need some additional help. Then maybe defense?

Bee shook her head and just started over to the library. She needed to restock on some healing potions and maybe try something new. Alchemy always helped her think.

The library wasn't empty when she got there. A few other people browsed the shelves as well. Charleen, one of the more educated women, had taken to caring for the place and was dutifully dusting shelves. Bee encountered a few smiles as she wandered between the shelves, grabbing a few books. Once she got what she wanted, though, she realized that her equipment wasn't where she left it.

"Mistress? If you are looking for the equipment, I believe it was moved to one of the laboratories upstairs," Charleen said.

Bee nodded and started to turn but stopped when the woman gave a polite cough. "I'm sorry to ask this of you, mistress, but can you record which books you are taking? I only just finished setting up a checkout system. It would be a shame if we misplaced any of them."

"Of course." She didn't have a problem checking out the books; if Bee really insisted, she was sure that she could change or outright reject the rules, but that would be needlessly combative. It would be a little bit of an adjustment from being able to do whatever she wanted. Still, it was part of living in a bigger system. It only reinforced the point that they needed a more official organizational structure if they wanted to make a system that worked for them. Especially one that prevented too many of these centers of power from showing up.

Bee noted the books she had taken from the library and removed a few more from her pack, giving them to Charleen to add to the library's catalog. Then she found the nearest stairs and made her way up to the laboratory wing. There wasn't anything special about the equipment that she had been using, so she just claimed one of the labs that didn't currently host any specimens.

Choosing a workbench near the back, she began setting up her workspace. The cabinets were still fully stocked, and soon she had collected all the glassware that she needed. Bee started to replace the healing potions that she had used and lost herself in the pleasure of work.

A knock at the door caught her off guard as she switched over to doing some research. She wanted to run some tests on what could be considered a cleaning substance. There might be other factors besides just corrosion strength involved, and knowing them would help immensely.

"Come in," Bee called, not sure who needed her. Was anyone even aware she was in here? The door opened a crack, and Maranda stuck her head in.

"Hello," Maranda began in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. "Charleen said I might find you in one of the laboratories."

Remembering how they last parted more than a week ago, Bee did her best to put on a welcoming smile for the girl. It faltered for a split second when she realized that she had thought of Maranda as a child when they were nearly the same age. "What can I help you with?"

Maranda took a deep breath. "Actually, I…I came to help you." She blurted out the next part in a rush. "And to apologize."

She took a steadying breath before continuing on; Bee let her gather her thoughts without interrupting. It was probably hard for the girl, and she didn't want to make it more difficult than it had to be. "I was…out of sorts when we last talked, and that wasn't fair to you. I'm sorry. And…I would like to make it up to you."

Bee thought that Maranda's words were a bit too formal, lending a bit of a practiced air to them. Had her mother gotten involved? "I understand. Thank you."

Bee wasn't sure how to respond, honestly. She didn't want to lord it over the girl that she couldn't read or take the high ground to just make it worse. But then, she didn't really have anything else to say. She didn't have any hard feelings. Maybe she should just say that? "No hard feelings, honestly."

Nodding her head with a more genuine smile, Maranda stepped a little closer. Bee noticed that she was carrying the book that she had told her to read all that time ago.

"I finished reading this, by the way," Maranda said, brandishing the book in front of her. "It took me a while, but I think I have enough of an understanding to help you a bit."

Has she been spending the whole time reading that book? That would explain why she had completely disappeared for so long. If she didn't know how to read, that would have been an incredibly difficult book to start with. Bee really wanted to ask if she'd had any help with it, but she couldn't think of a way to phrase it that didn't sound like an insult. On another note, Bee didn't really need any help right now. She was mostly looking into her own class and skills.

Of course, she didn't feel like she could say that. From Maranda's perspective, it would probably look like an excuse to not have her around. So Bee closed the book she was looking through and stood. "You caught me at the perfect time. We're running low on some of the basic healing salves and I was just about to make more of them."

That was a complete lie. They weren't running low; they never had a stock of them in the first place, and she had long since moved past using them, even the more stable ones she'd found recipes for. But still, it wouldn't hurt, and it would be more cost-effective to use them than the more powerful potions that she had been making as of late.

If Maranda noticed the white lie, she didn't call it out. Instead, her face split into an excited grin. "Of course! I'd love to help!"

"First we need to go gather some supplies. We should be able to get everything we need from the lesser storeroom, if I remember correctly."

As they left the lab, Bee began explaining a few things. "We are going to be following the recipe for a lesser contusion balm in the back of the book you read. Do you remember the one? Good, now this won't take care of broken bones but it will help with other things…"

CHAPTER 52

HALP

Harold packed his belongings without too much of a rush. After all, he hadn't brought that much with him in the first place, and there was still plenty of time before the caravan moved out. Once he gathered his clothes from the laundry, he would be ready to go.

Honestly, he wouldn't miss the dank College of the Undead one bit. Though his time here hadn't been nearly as awful as he had feared. It turned out there was a decent amount of assistance his outside perspective could give to his colleagues. It was limited by thousands of other factors, but they had still made progress, even if minuscule. Not that his contributions would be noted down for the histories; mages a thousand years from now would likely never know or care.

That was because most of the advancements weren't magical or scientific in any way. They were just simple process improvements in synthesis workflows. Still, that made mass production of some of the purification potions and the infection cures slightly more efficient and much easier for someone with less expertise to manage.

There had been a surprising amount of pushback from the other mages regarding his changes, too. They complained that he was taking the "mystery" out of the magic. That with his methods, any capable peasant could turn the mages into machines or engage in the arcane processes themselves. With Percy's help, they could mostly squash such complaints, and things tended to move on.

Harold was somewhat sympathetic to their concerns. No one wanted to be made less special; these mages had spent decades building their place in the world. If not famous and loved, they were at least respected. Who would want to lose that?

What he didn't understand was the “taking the mystery out of magic" complaint. Was that not the whole point of studying magic? To understand how and why it worked, bend it to your will, and force it to work for you? The alchemist and demonic practitioners had always achieved this by making precise recipes with repeatable results. The undead mages apparently had a less…formal tradition.

Still, despite all the hurdles, just standardizing things had increased output to an incredible level. That wasn't the only thing he had a hand in accomplishing, even if it might have ended up being the most impactful. No, what he was most proud of was some advancements in undead defenses. Working with a small team, they were able to develop much more permanent talismans that could ward off wraiths or shades for almost a week.

They weren't very common undead and didn't normally pose a lethal threat to people. Still, they were hard to get rid of, and long enough exposure could sap the will and mind of even the most stubborn warriors.

A knock at the door pulled Harold away from his thoughts. Opening it a crack, he found a skeleton holding a hamper full of his folded shirts. A simple command and the servant set it down just inside the threshold before leaving. It had taken some getting used to, but the undead could make very effective tools. As long as the mages made sure they never developed their own will and stopped listening to instructions.

Moving the fresh laundry to his bags, Harold hefted his saddlebags over his shoulder. He was ready to move out a bit earlier than he needed to be, but Arthur's message had worried him. Arthur was not a man known to exaggerate, and seeing that a message had come from a man hurrying on horseback told Harold more than the messenger had.

The situation sounded dire, but Arthur was a legend. The fact that a message came from him directly instead of a reinforcement order from the crown meant that Arthur's reports weren't being given the full seriousness they deserved. It would be the only reason for him to contact people like Harold directly, hoping that they could provide some assistance.

Harold could only hope they were doing enough as he walked down to where the contingent was preparing to depart. They were bringing many of the new countermeasures they had made, as well as many of the more standard tools. They should allow the soldiers to fight back more efficiently. It had to be enough.

I was sitting on my favorite rug, trying to recreate the pattern of the fibers below me. It was a lot harder than it looked. Even with nearly complete control over the contents in my dustbin, I still had to start over constantly. Things just didn't want to stay in place. The whole ensemble would knot up or fall apart once I stopped controlling it.

Was it that my skill and control were just not advanced enough? Or maybe there was some intermediate step I was missing. Silas had mentioned something about spinning, but I couldn't figure out how that fit into the process. In a moment of frustration, I spun in a circle on the rug while trying to force the sheep fibers into the complicated shape. I was sure it wasn't what he meant, but still. It was worth a try.

After a few hundred revolutions, the spinning had no noticeable effect on my efforts, and I stopped. Needing a chance to reset my caches, I let my attention leave the void inside of me. Instead, I let it wander over the castle, and I found many things that could use my attention. The children were still doing incredibly dangerous stuff they probably shouldn't have been, despite the repeated warnings of myself and the women.

I had mostly decided to let things take their course. A few weeks ago, I would have been tearing out my circuits with worry about it, but I had learned a few things about kids in the last little while. First, they were much more resilient than I gave them credit for. Not that they didn't get damaged, of course, but they were able to repair themselves remarkably quickly. I was sure they had some variation of my Automatic Maintenance skill built into them. It was a shame that Beatrice had apparently missed out on that one. Also, some of the stuff that Beatrice made was really good at repairs. It helped out with any bigger malfunctions that occurred. Also, the adults did sort of keep an eye on them. They did have more experience than me, so I followed their lead.

The other thing was that kids did not learn unless they got something wrong a lot. So many times, in fact, that it made me want to laugh. The stick practice was a good example. I had shown Rahj how and when to keep his stick in high guard no less than twenty-seven times, and he never really got it until Felix had smacked him in the nose with a stick once. Now he never forgot.

I still stepped in when more permanent injuries, such as loss of a limb or life, crossed over my 5 percent probability threshold. Still, those cases were relatively rare, especially during nap times. During my scan, I did see one thing in particular that might require my attention. I went to deal with it. I might need to grab Tanu as well.

Tanu and I made our way over to the little group of trees that Cliff had claimed as her own. There, we found her with her paws stretched as far up one of the long trunks as she could reach. And she was a very long dog.

From the branches, a snarling, hissing orange ball of anger spat down at her. It seemed quite upset at having its way down blocked.

Looking at the situation, I didn't see an easy solution. So far, with most animals and small children, judicial use of my Spray Bottle was more than enough to solve 98 percent of problems. However, this appeared to be one of that rare 2 percent where it wouldn't help.

I couldn't, in good conscience, spray Cliff for welcoming a new friend. I really couldn't blame her for the situation, especially since I knew of the cat's dramatic tendencies.

Actually, now that I thought about it, I never decided on a name for the cat. If I gave Cliff a name, perhaps I could give the feline one too. The orange tomcat was a feisty little guy. Quickly running through my list of cached names, I selected one from a subset that seemed catlike. I would call him Kelly.

Huh, if I gave the cat a name now, should I name all the other animals too? Maybe. I would have to think about it. Naming things seemed important, and I wanted the names to be just right.

Well, with that figured out, I returned to the matter at hand. I didn't want to spray Kelly either because it wasn't his fault he got scared. I was just glad he ran up a tree instead of lashing out at Cliff. Kelly's claws were very sharp and, with a bit of luck, might have put one of Cliff's eyes out or otherwise seriously harmed her.

Luckily Tanu had a good relationship with Cliff and was able to talk the dog away from the tree long enough for me to boost up and grab Kelly. The cat wriggled and squirmed, but I was able to hold on to him before he ran away. If these two were going to share the same castle, they needed to get to know each other a little bit. They didn't need to become best friends, but basic courtesy was enough.

Tanu reached up to put his little hand on Cliff's back, keeping her calm, while I hovered up to her, holding a very upset and wiggling Kelly. When their noses were only a few inches from each other, Cliff shocked me. With a baring of her teeth, she snapped her jaws toward the cat. Only my quick reactions kept Kelly's nose in one piece. Okay, that definitely called for the Bottle. A quick spray to the face had Cliff jerking her head back in surprise, and Tanu talked softly to the big dog, calming her down.

Okay, maybe Kelly actually had a point here. Still, it needed to be done. This time when I brought them close together, I was more careful, and Cliff just sniffed for a little bit. Kelly didn't calm down at all. The cat threw himself violently all over the place, not giving up one bit. I had to admire the cat's determination. Well, they didn't have to get along. I guessed it would be okay if they were willing to stay out of each other's way.

Releasing the cat, I watched as he sprinted back toward the castle faster than I had ever seen it move before. The orange ball vanished between the cracked front doors a few moments later. Taking a look, I saw what appeared to be Tanu and Cliff having a very serious conversation. Tanu's soft words were only occasionally interrupted by the occasional whine or woof from Cliff.

I left them to it; something had come up at the gate that might require my attention. Scanning the castle grounds for Beatrice, I found her having a conversation with Susan and Tony in the room with the fancy rug and desk. Hmm, was it important enough for me to get her first? Probably not. Leaving her to it, I headed toward the next issue.

CHAPTER 53

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 younger 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 Da 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 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. 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 in 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 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 for 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 straightforward. 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 anyway."

"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. Especially if we have more than just this castle to take care of," he said thoughtfully.

"We can cross that bridge when we come to it," Bee reassured him. "Training would probably cover education and the training of the kids too. I’d say it also deals with figuring out who's good for what jobs and helping to develop their skill sets."

"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, that gives us a start. But 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. 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 her 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 toward 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. She rammed her head into the boy's back end while he was mid-leap, throwing him forward and tumbling onto the ground. With her 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 turns with the sheep. They should have known better than to roll around in the dirt. Really, the sheep must have been 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 guessed "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.

CHAPTER 54

PULLING IT TOGETHER

Bee felt a slight bit of panic set in as she looked at Susan and Tony from across the desk. They met her stare calmly and assuredly. "I don't think I can lead all of this. I can be in charge of doctrine and magic or something, but that's it."

"Of course, I think these things will fall to you for now, and doctrine will likely always be your Domain. But magic and teaching will likely be delegated eventually," Susan said.

Before Bee could protest, Tony jumped in. "Besides, you're already doing it. This just makes it official."

"I'm not, though. I'm just taking care of problems as they pop up. Really, Void is the one running things."

"Yeah, but he can't be in charge of his own church; that would just be silly. Not to mention a hassle we don't want to bother him with. Of course, Void is in charge, but we can take care of the day-to-day ourselves," Tony shot back.

"Tony is right." Susan lent her support as well. "It's less about you being the absolute arbiter. That will always be Void. More like…you are the right hand of Void. The head priestess. Implementing the god's will through the organization."

That did help Bee feel a little better. "Hmm. I guess that sounds a little more reasonable… So there would be five members of the core leadership team, including myself. Is that enough?"

"I think we should consider adding someone who's dedicated to caring for and teaching the children," Tony piped up. "The mothers are still hands-on with most things, but everyone pitches in with the orphans. I think it's working for now, but I want to make sure that they all get a good education and have useful skills. Even if we aren't in a village, we still need things like blacksmiths. Right now, they're all training as warriors with Void. This should be fine, but not all of them can be soldiers."

"Most soldiers are militia members. Crafters and farmers drafted when they are needed," Susan pointed out. "These children will be greatly helped by knowing how to fight. It will be expensive, but if we always have a standing army in the form of our populace, we'll need fewer dedicated troops to prevent challenges to our power. Besides, we can have them do more basic labor to keep them humble. Most of the work isn't particularly skilled; we just need a few experts to keep things running smoothly."

"It'll have to depend a lot on what Void thinks of it. The kids are still a very long way away from anything like that," Bee argued. She wasn't sure what to think of Susan's claims, but she knew the children were a little young to be thought of as soldiers yet.

"Of course, of course," Susan conceded, waving her hands placatingly. "We still have a lot to figure out, but I think we can do more of that when everyone is present and has accepted their positions. For now, I think there are just a few more things to figure out. We need titles, and we should be thinking of how the religious organization fits in. So far, we have left that all on Bee and taken care of the practical concerns."

"I think we can leave it separate," Tony said. "Of course, not entirely, as the whole thing is dedicated to Void. But maybe once things are more settled, we can have a second council that's more on religious matters. When Bee's less busy, and we've found qualified people to take on her other duties, she can sit as Void's voice on each of them and lead them."

Bee ran her hand down her face. This sounded like she was going to have even more responsibilities. Not that she wanted to shirk them or anything, but she was afraid of letting Void down. "Before we go through with any of these, we need to see what Void thinks."

Both Susan and Tony nodded enthusiastically.

After she received their agreement, Bee continued. "Well, we shall leave the religious organization aside for now, but we will need names. We can figure out the titles and stuff in a full meeting, but at least we can figure out what to call ourselves. I mean…are we a group, a cult, a society?"

The group of small children scrubbed the castle walls with brushes and buckets of water. As the adults walked by, I wasn't sure how to interpret the chuckles they seemed to be smothering. What was so funny about it? Was this yet another joke I was missing?

I had thought that I was starting to understand humor somewhat. There were jokes, words that sounded like other words, and unexpected happenings. These were the categories that I found that would consistently make people laugh. Not everyone found the same things funny, but most people had a decent amount of overlap. Sometimes I would even find something funny too.

So why did most of the adults laugh at the kids scrubbing the castle walls? The kids didn't seem to find the same humor, at least. Perhaps it was something that would come with age, as I certainly didn't get it.

After a section of the wall had been scrubbed clean of any dirt or moss that had grown on it, I let the children go. Looking at the castle, though, I realized I may have made a mistake. Now one of the castle walls was quite clean, at least the parts under five feet tall. The rest of the castle, though…well, the exterior now had quite the contrast.

I hadn't known if the outside of castles were even supposed to be washed, so I had just left it at first. Dirt and plants belonged outside, so perhaps they should have stayed there. Still, I needed something extra for the kids to clean, and this was the best thing I could think of. I had taken care of almost everything else. Should I have tried harder to find them a different task? The clean wall certainly did look out of place. Maybe that was what the adults were laughing at?

But still, I didn't really have a lot of other options. When I was looking for something to have them do, it was the only thing that wasn't clean that they might be able to take on at their current skill level. Plus, it wouldn't be that big of a deal if they didn't do a good job on it, either. They weren't ready for some of the nicer floors yet, and I kept the inside of the castle plenty clean anyway.

The real question was, what should I do with the rest of the castle walls? I wanted to just clean them, but that also felt wrong. If I left them, that would help serve as a reminder to follow the rules and also give me something I could set them on if or when they misbehaved again. But could I bear looking at it?

I supposed I would have to. Their misbehavior was almost as much my fault as it was the children's. I supposed I could have been more clear in explaining the rules. Or done a better job making sure they were too exhausted to cause trouble. There was always something I could have done.

Still feeling uncertain about my choice, I decided to leave things be for now. Instead, I started back inside to find a spot where I could consider the bit of sheep fiber in my dustbin.

I had been making progress, but it was slow. Mostly I had been focusing on making small threads by linking the short strands of fiber together. Once I made those threads, I found it much easier to turn the material into something resembling things I had seen before. I wished I had been able to dedicate more time to this, but things had been popping up a lot lately.

As it was, I had only just figured out my first pattern. It was very simple and only had a couple of variables, but it was good practice for now, and I figured I could get more ideas later. As it was, I could only control how long each row was and how many rows I added to it. Maneuvering the material in my dustbin was tricky. It was quite a detailed and delicate process, one that required me to hold a lot of things in place at once.

Still, after a lot of false starts and aborted attempts, I was pretty sure that I was finally going to finish this with no mistakes. I wasn't sure what the piece of fabric was that I was making, but I had seen a few humans wind something like it around their necks. Its eight-inch width by fifty-six-inch length didn't make it useful for much else. Not that I could think of, anyway. Still, I didn't have enough material for a proper blanket, so this would have to do.

Yes, I thought. This one would work out.

Roscoe lashed his tail in frustration. Another small raiding party made it back behind the walls. He wasn't sure how the humans managed to keep sneaking out and nipping at his army when they were unprepared. It shouldn't have been possible. The undead were untiring and ever-vigilant. It wasn't like they could fall asleep on watch or anything like that.

Yet still, the humans managed to sneak out and negate the slow trickle of new troops adding to his army. The recruitment had been painfully slow with how many troops he had to keep near the city to prevent another breakout. He had thought that the army would just maintain a slow and steady growth before, eventually, they would be able to crush the city. Even if it was slower than he would have liked, it would still get done.

Now, though, it wasn't certain. They had devastated the countryside and the nearby settlements, there wasn't a huge influx of new soldiers to be had from nearby, and recruiting en masse from a distance was hard when he and his elites needed to stay close.

Snapping a few orders to the surrounding troops, Roscoe turned back toward the forest. This situation would change soon. His skills with Necromantic Rituals were growing. Soon, the shades he summoned would rage through the city. This should provide enough of a distraction to allow a more direct attack and a far better chance of success than if they just tried now.

The issue was that shades were too chaotic for him to control directly. The few he had summoned seemed like they would be scary enough to be effective. They had no effect on the undead, of course. But when he had tried to release them toward the city, they had just scattered in every direction. He could direct them within a dozen or so feet of himself, but once they got further, then they would slip out of his control.

To fix that problem, he would need to raise a wraith. A wraith was much more powerful than the shades, but it was also much more intelligent. To humans, this posed a greater risk. But for Roscoe, that only meant a better ally. Once he could raise a wraith, he would start amassing shades to serve it, and then the walls would finally fall.

Deep within the forest, Roscoe emerged into his clearing. The symbols dug into the ground were filled with a mysterious dark liquid, and small green fires burned in the corners of the clearing. A few of the elite skeletons were disposing of a few of the final materials. They greeted him with chattering teeth.

Roscoe helped move the last pieces in place, and then they started the ritual. The skeletal chanting rattled around the trees as dark energies congealed into the center of the symbols. The shadows around the clearing seemed to stretch and deepen unnaturally. If Roscoe could feel warmth, he might have noted its sudden disappearance. Finally, as the chanting reached its crescendo, the energies seemed to condense and solidify. After a long moment of tense silence, a light-blue figure coalesced from the air.

"It is…so cold," a distinguished voice noted calmly.

CHAPTER 55

CULT OF THE DOOMBA

Bee, Tony, and Susan decided that they all needed to break for a little bit. Also, before they made any more significant decisions, they would need to talk to Trent and Mary. It would be best to see if they would actually accept the positions of running food production and taking care of the castle's operations.

"They probably just finished putting Leanne down for bed," Tony commented. Not seeing any reason to delay, the trio left the room to go find them. Sure enough, they were in the quarters the family had claimed for themselves. At Tony's gentle knocking, Mary opened the door and welcomed them in. Soon they were all sipping mulled wine around a small wooden table lit dimly by a nearby fireplace.

For a little while, they all just sipped their drinks and watched the fire. Bee wasn't sure what everyone else was thinking about, but her mind couldn't stop running through all the things that she needed to do. Not wanting to lie to herself, she couldn't help but doubt that she was truly capable of leading the whole group. Sure, she had technically been doing it this whole time. But if she took formal control, she would be responsible. There would be no excuses if something went wrong.

It wouldn't be nearly as simple as just telling her story with Void. Or interpreting its words. She would need to plan ahead and make decisions that would affect everyone here. Her only hope was that her master could guide her enough; as much as she knew about it, she wasn't sure how much it would want her to do for herself.

Eventually, Bee realized they were all waiting on her. Looking up, she did her best to squash the embarrassment that was likely showing on her face. "Uh."

Great start, Bee, she thought. Once she cleared her throat, when she tried to speak again, her voice came out more clearly. "We are formalizing the organizational structure within the castle. There are just getting to be too many people and too many things that could go wrong to trust that it will all work out otherwise. Someone needs to plan ahead."

Trent and Mary nodded. They clearly understood the need to plan, especially for winter. Neither of them spoke though, waiting for her to continue.

She took a sip. It gave her a second to plan what she was going to say next. "Void is rather hands-off about all this. I don't believe it would leave us with nothing, but it definitely wants us to act for ourselves first. So…we're acting. Both of you have invaluable experience and should be involved with the decisions at the highest levels."

By the time she had finished her little speech, Bee's voice was steady and calm once more. The words weren't entirely her own. Instead, she was pulling on a treatise she had read at some point when she was studying the Devotee class. The wise man had a lot to say in his notes, his experience from ruling a small country for decades. A lot of it hadn't sounded relevant at the time. Now she was wishing she had paid more attention; maybe she would go back to it later.

Trent and Mary were studying each other's faces. Each of them looked serious but not worried. After a few moments of silent communication, they both looked back to the rest of the table. The more stoic Trent was the first to speak. "Bee, you're a responsible miss. We'll do what we can to help you out here."

I was heading back to my room for the night after a long day of work. After all the hectic chaos of the castle and struggling with the sheep fibers, I was looking forward to spending some time simply meditating. I was planning on continuing my ruminations on humor, as there was something that I felt still escaped me about it.

However, before I made it back to my rug, there was one more thing that caught my attention. Cliff wasn't with the small dogs like she usually was at this time of night. Now she sat patiently by the gate; every once in a while, she pressed her nose against the portcullis bars and let out the slightest whine.

What was she doing? I watched as she licked her lips and repeated her actions again. A quick check of the castle found Tanu in bed with his mother. The young boy was solidly asleep. Well, I wouldn't be getting any translation help from him. Sometimes Cliff didn't act like the dogs I was used to at all, but this seemed slightly familiar. Was she trying to get out of the castle?

Not sure what was going on, I changed directions and headed back outside. When I got near Cliff, she let out a small woof at me and pawed the gate insistently. I beeped a question at her, and she whined back. I still wasn't sure what she wanted.

Clearly frustrated, she let out a louder woof, almost a bark. When I still didn't do anything, she pawed at the winch handle. Maybe she did want outside. I moved over and started cranking the winch. She sniffed at the gap growing under the gate. As soon as the spikes were a little over a foot off the ground, she went belly down and impatiently wiggled under.

I lowered the gate behind her. We couldn't let anything get in while she was out. But then, how was she going to get back in? I didn't want to just wait here, and no one else was up this late at night. Well, I wouldn't want her getting lost, either. With nothing else to do, I boosted myself over the wall.

Cliff was waiting for me on the other side. When I landed next to her, she gave me a single swish of the tail. I returned the wave with my claw. She swiveled and disappeared into the forest in a flash, and I zipped after her.

Bee laid out the rough plan they had come up with for Trent and Mary. She felt a considerable amount of relief at their support, even if they hadn't actually accepted their roles yet. Simply having them onboard and willing to listen to her meant the world.

After explaining the different major roles, she came to Tony's parents' places. "Trent, we want you to officially take over food production. This is something that you've already been doing for a while. At the same time, it's not something that you need to do all yourself. The part that falls to you is keeping track of how much we can make and what we can do. If we have issues, we can work together to make sure you get the people and resources you need to solve them."

More concepts taken right from some of the treatises she had read. It seemed to be a good way of splitting up responsibilities while still being able to help each other. Trent nodded with no apparent questions, so Bee turned to face Mary.

"Mary, again, it's mostly just more of what you've been doing. Keeping the people fed and cared for. Things like taking care of the library and distributing food stores fall into this category."

"What about magical equipment and cleaning?" Mary asked with a slight frown.

"Void seems to take care of cleaning, mostly, but we should be ready to help it at any time," Bee said. "Since it's a core tenet and everything, maybe we should even work that into everyone's regular schedule."

"Of course, dear."

"And anything magical will be under my purview. But I might ask for some of your people to help keep some of that working while we figure out more details. I will train them, though," Bee continued.

"I think I can manage that," Mary said with a confident nod. "So just keep doing what we were doing, but we all talk for a bit every day to make sure things don't fall through the cracks?"

"For you two? Pretty much. We have a few more things we want to get done as well. Hopefully, we can take some of the load off you soon, though," Bee said. "Tony is going to be going through and making sure we have opportunities for each person to advance their class; if not, we'll offer them the option for me to switch them over to Devotee of Spot."

Tony gave his parents a smile. Trent shook his head and muttered to his son, but Bee was able to overhear. "I still can't believe you're almost the same level as me from switching to that class."

"Susan here will look after our defenses. We'll probably want to train everyone in some basic combat and build a little defense, but we'll also look to the new refugees and see if any have actual experience in a useful skill."

"I also want to start sending scouts out," Susan added. "We should patrol at least the valley and maybe beyond. Right now, things have been quiet, but don't expect things to stay that way. Either the plague will start becoming more of a problem soon, or it will be finished, and the crown will start paying us more attention.

"We need to prepare for either, and right now, we are completely blind." Susan's voice turned grave. "When things shake out in Caleb, we will know more. If the city falls, we will likely not have to worry about the country coming for us, but things will get really bad for everyone else. That means the undead will eventually find their way there.

"When I left, the siege was still very much undecided. I don't know if we can have scouts trained and on site before it is, but we need to find out what happens there as soon as we can," Susan finished.

"That is a real concern, of course," Bee agreed. "I don't know if we'll be able to affect the outcome at all. Maybe if we pray to Void, it will see fit to intervene. But let's stay on topic for a bit." She looked back to Mary and Trent. "The last bit is the magic and religious stuff, which I will take on. Eventually, we will set up a secondary council for the religious questions, but that isn't urgent."

They all sat back, and for a few seconds, there was only the sound of the crackling fireplace as everyone gathered their thoughts. Mary broke the silence. "How are we going to figure out who does what? Within our teams, I mean."

Tony spoke up for the first time. "Well, I don't think we need to do anything disruptive right now, but I'm going to talk to everyone and set up a system to bring new people up to speed as they come in. We can talk about that once we have a better idea of what people can do and what they want to do."

Trent and Mary each had a few more clarifications they asked for, but nothing major. Bee was finally starting to think they had this all figured out.

"It sounds like we have a lot of important things to talk about," Trent said in a serious tone. "But have you considered the most important part of it yet?"

Bee frowned. Her confusion only grew when Tony broke into a wide grin and when Mary put her face in her hands.

"What's the most important part?" Bee asked with concern, feeling as if she were walking into a trap.

Trent let a smile slide onto his face as he answered. "Why, the name, of course!"

CHAPTER 56

THE SWEEPING SOCIETY

We ran through the woods for thirty-two minutes. Well, Cliff ran. I flew. Despite being airborne, I was still having trouble keeping up with her quick movements. She slipped through the trees with a deadly grace where I felt like I had to swerve widely to not smash through any branches. When she was able to slip through bushes, I needed to go over them, and that often meant I had to contend with tree limbs or hanging moss.

If I hadn't been practicing my flying diligently, I wouldn't have had any hope of keeping pace with the dog. It was so much easier to fly in a straight line above the trees, away from any obstacles. But if I did that, I would've worried about being able to keep track of Cliff. My sensors should be able to keep her in sight, but there was a lot more life in the forest than in the castle, so I wasn’t as confident. Things were a lot more chaotic when I wasn't able to keep them in order constantly.

Still, despite the troubles, it was fun. I let out a cheerful beep near the beginning of the run when I pulled off a particularly tricky maneuver, turning sideways to slide in the gap between a split trunk of a tree. This had earned me a reproachful look from the dog after she skidded to a halt and looked around.

After that, I got the message. Apparently, we were supposed to be stealthy. What we were hiding from, I wasn't sure, but I would play along for now.

The only sound that I picked up was the woosh of the wind and the insects chittering in the trees as we moved through them. Every once in a while, Cliff would stop to take a deep sniff of the forest floor or a tree. Then, with a flick of her tail, she would be off again. Sometimes we would change directions slightly, and sometimes we would keep moving along.

This continued for a while until suddenly, we stopped. I almost shot past her, but the lowering of her head let me know something was going on. Ahead of us, in a small clearing, stood another four-legged animal. This one, though, was even larger than Cliff. Looking at it, I wondered if she wanted to bring it back with us. Were they friends or something?

Cliff pawed the ground and slowly started to move to the left. When I started to follow her, she looked back over her shoulder at me until I stopped. Okay, I guessed I was staying here, then. I watched with my sensors as the large dog stealthily circled around the clearing. While she was moving, I also studied the strange animal sitting within.

It had a mixture of beige and white fur. Each limb proportionally was far thinner than even the cat’s compared to its body. The thing stood nearly six feet tall at its highest. However, the strangest thing was its head.

Settled there, above its eyes, stood a funny hat. The hat was very large as well. It seemed almost like a collection of thin sticks that was several feet wide and split into many points. I had never seen something so silly-looking before. Sometimes the animal would dip its head down and eat some of the grass below before bringing its head back up and looking around, chewing. I couldn’t tell how the hat was attached, but it must have been secure to not even wobble at such behavior.

Across the other side of the clearing, I was able to make out the eyes of Cliff staring at the animal with a golden glow. My sensors showed me her semi-crouched position and the slight tips of her wickedly sharp teeth peeking out from her raised lips. Her eyes flicked to me, and I thought I saw her wink.

Watching her study the animal as it ate, I was still trying to figure out what was going on when a breeze suddenly rustled the leaves. The animal with the funny hat suddenly raised its head and sniffed. Okay, this was getting odd; I needed to go see what was up.

Slowly I advanced into the clearing so as not to startle the tense animal. Its scanning eyes caught my motions and locked onto my form. As we stared at each other, it was as if the whole world had frozen. A sudden stillness came over the forest. Its eyes were small and beady. The entirely black orbs met my sensor bar unblinkingly. Maybe it was trying to wait for me to blink first, like in that game the kids played. If so, it was going to have to wait a while, as I physically couldn't blink.

Neither of us was the first to move. Cliff seemed to appear behind the long-legged creature, and before it even twitched, she had sunk her wicked fangs into the upper hind leg of the creature. With a vicious tearing motion, Cliff thrashed her head and pulled back, freeing her mouth and taking a hunk of the leg with her.

The creature let out a coolant-curdling scream as blood started gushing onto the ground behind it. Cliff danced back with nimble paw steps, narrowly avoiding the powerful kick it sent backward at her. Scrambling on its three good legs, the animal started to run. I was impressed by its speed, seeing that every time it put weight on the leg that Cliff had attacked, the leg would buckle.

Staying not too far back, Cliff started to chase after the fleeing animal. I hesitated to follow. What had I just witnessed? Cliff just attacked a defenseless animal for no reason! And I had helped! This wasn't like the zombies that attacked us first or the other people who came to take Beatrice away. This animal had just been minding its own business.

There was a practiced air to the fluidity of Cliff's movements. One didn't get so graceful without a lot of practice. This had to be more complicated than I thought. Dogs normally just ate the food the humans gave them. But I had seen a nature documentary before. Wild animals ate other animals. Maybe Cliff had somehow gone feral and started hunting again? She shouldn't have needed to, since Tanu was caring for her and she should have plenty of food.

Something was wrong with Cliff. Was it her size that meant she needed to hunt? I didn't know enough about dogs for sure, but maybe she just needed to be trained better? I would talk to Tanu when we got back to the castle. For now, I needed to catch up to the pair. I wasn't sure if I could repair the larger animal. Maybe Beatrice would be able to?

Launching myself above the trees, I soared off in the direction that they had headed. It wasn't hard to follow the trail of blood, and it didn't take very long to find them. Once I got close, I dipped into the trees again. Right as I was able to make out the figures, I saw Cliff launching forward again. This time the funny-hatted animal was much slower and didn't even have time to flinch before Cliff’s jaws were clamping down on its throat. She ripped her head to the side again, and I disabled my sensors for a moment, unable to watch.

I sensed Cliff pad over to sit next to me and continue tussling with her catch. Eventually, the sounds behind me ceased, and I slowly turned around. The creature was clearly dead now as it lay on the forest floor limply. I slowly approached, and Cliff laid down next to me and lowered her head with a whine. What did she want now?

I watched as she crawled on her belly toward the body and nudged her nose at it, and looked at me pointedly. I wasn't sure what she was saying. It was obviously dead. She had killed it. What, did she think it was some sort of toy that I could fix?

It seemed she wanted me to do something with the body. If she didn't know what to do with it, why did she kill it? If she was hunting, she should be eating it. Though it was a lot larger than her, and I still wasn’t entirely convinced about the hunting explanation. Though…maybe it made sense? Maybe she wanted me to help her bring it back to the smaller dogs?

Getting near the carcass, I touched it with my claw. This would be a real pain to carry all the way back, and I didn't think I could lift the whole thing with Air Affinity. It almost weighed a ton. With a bit of effort, I pulled the whole thing inside with my vacuum. Cliff didn't like that at all. She yelped in surprise and then grumbled, repeatedly whining with her head down and tail still. Fine, clearly, that didn't make her happy, so I ejected the body back onto the ground.

Cliff let out another surprised yelp and sniffed the creature cautiously. She started wagging her tail and looking at me with surprise. Okay, if I couldn't take it, what was I supposed to do?

---

"Okay," Bee said warily. "I don't know if the name is the most important part of this whole operation, but we can talk about it now if you want."

The women all looked to each other, confused as Trent and Tony high-fived. "Good, good." Trent dropped into a serious voice as he suppressed a smile. He steepled his fingers in front of himself. "A name is crucial. It’ll control how people first hear of you, and first impressions are very important."

Susan and Mary shared a glance, and Mary just shook her head in resignation and leaned over to whisper into Susan's ear, but Bee could make out the words too. "None of our kids were named by my husband. You'll see why."

"So! I was thinking we need a good name that commands respect from everyone who hears it," Trent said, still struggling to keep his face unmoved. "At the same time, we need to make sure that it's not too intimidating, either."

"Okay, so what do you have in mind?" Bee asked.

"Well, I have a few options, but try to keep an open mind," Trent said, taking a deep breath. "So Void has a few domains that we know of. Cleaning. Order. Hatred of stairs. And, of course, lost children."

Bee nodded, waiting for him to get to the point.

"So, we need to make sure we incorporate some or all of these in our choices. We need to consider his name too."

"Sure, yeah, that’s fine, but what are you suggesting," she finally asked, hoping he would just spit it out already.

"I'm getting to it, easy! The first one was I was thinking that we could use one of the more common forms of cleaning and turn that into a name. So…and stay with me here…I think as a first option to start brainstorming, we should consider…the Sweeping Society," Trent finished with a satisfied smile and a flourish. Tony leaned over in his chair, and Bee could hear him snorting with laughter under the table. Mary just sighed, gaze fixed on her lap and leaving Susan and Bee to exchange disbelieving looks.

"Okay, okay, I can see that isn't going over well. Remember, this is just brainstorming for ideas; no need to throw anything out too early," Trent said, his hands up defensively. A smile was starting to break through his normally stern facade. "Alright, not the Sweeping Society, then. What about…the Anti-Stair Association?"

CHAPTER 57

DRESSING DOWN

"No? Really? I thought that one might have worked. Darn." Trent kept speaking, which only deepened the growing pit of horror in Bee's stomach. "How about…the Endless Cult! Ya know, 'cause Void's eternal?"

"W-what!" Bee spluttered. "You want us to get ostracized as some crazy cultists?!"

Trent opened his mouth to defend himself. He was still clearly holding back laughter, but Bee cut him off. "We are not a cult! We don't want people to think we are a cult! Don't put 'cult' in the name!"

She took a steadying breath, but didn't fully manage to suppress her irritation. "We can have a Void-related name without sounding like we're going to sacrifice innocents in our free time."

Sitting back in the chair, she started to pay more attention to the people around her. Gasping sounds were audible from underneath the table where Tony had disappeared a while back. Mary had her face in her hands. Trent just stared at her with an altogether too pleased grin. Only Susan looked confused.

Bee sighed. "You're just winding me up, aren't you?"

Tony's head popped up over the edge of the table as he pulled himself into his seat. His face was red and tear-streaked." Of course not, Bee. I mean, think about it. The Anti-Stair Association is a really nonthreatening name."

Bee glared at him. He grinned back, matching his father's expression. "Okay, okay, maybe not that one. I've got some ideas too," Tony continued, now fully back in his seat. "How about…the Society of the Unspotted?"

"ITS NAME IS NOT 'SPOT'!" Bee yelled. The small room made her voice sound even louder, making everyone cover their ears.

"I know. That is why it's the Unspotted. Duh. Also, with the focus on cleanliness? Works perfectly," Tony said. Trent shot him an unreasonably proud look.

"No. Just…no," Bee said, shaking her head in despair. Asking for names was a huge mistake, and she should have just named it herself. "Let's at least try to be serious here. Leave Spot out of it."

"What's this about a spot?" Mary asked, finally uncovering her face. Now she looked genuinely confused. Susan and Trent also nodded, similarly intrigued. Tony shot Bee a pointed look, and she could practically hear his voice saying, "Do you want to explain, or should I?"

"I-it's nothing. Don't worry about it," Bee said dejectedly. Clearly, that wasn't going to cut it.

With a huge grin, Tony opened his mouth to explain. She considered cutting him off, but just gave up and slumped back into her chair in defeat.

"So the actual name of my class is Devotee of Spot," Tony said. "Bee is a Priestess of Spot. Her theory is that, somehow, Void is messing with the system and pretending to be named Spot. As well as faking other things."

"That's…that's hard to believe," Susan said.

"I know messing with the system should be impossible, but who could know with gods?" Bee defended her point.

"No, no. It's hard to believe that Void's name would be Spot. I think I agree with Bee. The idea that godly powers can mess with the system makes much more sense," Susan mused. "We really have no idea how powerful true gods are. For all we know, they might exist outside of the system and really can control how they interface with it. They may even control the whole thing."

Bee shot Tony a look of vindication. Mary and Trent just looked at each other and shrugged.

"I could see wanting to keep Spot out of the name, then. We need to be aware of this anyway, though, especially if you're going to give other people the Devotee of Spot class. News will spread quickly then. I don't think it'll be an issue, but you never know," Mary said.

"Actually it could be a huge boon if we can prevent it from becoming public," Susan said. "Supposedly the head inquisitor has Scan. That means if he Scans any of our people, but thinks that our god is named Void, then they might not make the connection. It's not much, but might help in some cases."

"Okay, okay. Serious names, then?" Trent said with nearly a perfectly straight face. Mary gave him a withering look that he appeared to ignore. At Bee's nod, he continued. "Well, maybe we should keep on with the cleaning theme. So what about something like the Order of the Unstained?"

Bee actually paused for a second. Was that actually…not bad? Surprisingly she found that it wasn't horrible on its face, but something didn't sit right.

Mary, though, was having none of it. "Trent dear, the goal is not to sound like an extra zealous cult. Just because 'cult' isn't in the name doesn't mean it counts."

Trent grimaced. "Fine, fine, I can see when my help isn't wanted."

Susan cleared her throat. "We can go with something more straightforward. Maybe something like Defenders of Order."

"Booooo!" chorused Tony and his father. Bee was embarrassed to agree. That was kind of boring. But then, did she have any better ideas?

"Society from Between the Stars!" Bee exclaimed triumphantly. Scanning the people in front of her, she was only met with blank looks.

After an awkward silence, Tony spoke up. "Why?"

"Uh, well… A void is an empty space, and according to Capernaloe's theory there is nothing between stars. So you know, it’s like Void." Not seeing any interest from the people around her, Bee trailed off. "I thought it was some clever wordplay."

"I'm sure it is, honey," Mary said kindly. "I think we might need to keep it a bit more accessible so that everyone understands it, though. Unless you want it to be only for the elites?"

Bee shook her head.

"I thought so. Then may I suggest Keepers of the Path?"

Everyone shrugged, it wasn't anyone's favorite, but they weren't able to discard it out of hand.

"What about the Voidlings?" Tony asked with a grin.

"That could be what the people are called, but doesn't sound like the name of an organization," Susan objected.

Sure, THAT'S her problem with it, Bee thought, rolling her eyes.

"We might as well be Followers of the Void, in that case," Mary responded.

"Oh, I know," Trent said, offering a suggestion for the first time in a while. Bee braced herself for a really bad idea, as he was already breaking into a grin. "The Order! Or, better yet, the Order of Order!"

"How about the Order of the Purehearted or, better yet, the Church of the Cleansing Void?" Mary asked, ignoring Trent's last suggestion like everyone else. Expert for Tony, who gave him a thumbs-up.

"Those might work," Bee said. There was nothing that she loved yet. "Uh, of all those suggestions, it's either of those or Followers of the Void. We don't need to decide now, but does anyone have a preference?"

"I think we should go with the Church of the Cleansing Void," Mary said.

"I second that," Susan said.

"Y'all are no fun." Trent pouted. "But if I have to choose between those, I think the Order of the Purehearted sounds less culty."

Bee looked at Tony, who just shrugged. "I think we can stick with either for now. We can always change it later if we think of something better."

"Okay. Then for now, we shall be known as the Church of the Cleansing Void," Bee said, and they all sat back in their chairs. Mary and Susan beamed at the declaration. Trent and Tony seemed slightly unsatisfied, but with what they had just put her through, that was fine. "Wait, we had actual important things to talk about before we got all sidetracked."

Trent whistled innocently.

Cliff walked in front of me as we traveled. I lifted the body of the animal she killed with a combination of Air Affinity and my Grabby Arm. I never did figure out what she wanted, but she seemed satisfied enough with the situation as I carried her kill for her.

If following Cliff on the way through the forest was difficult, coming back was a hundred times harder while carrying the huge burden behind me. The animal's funny hat wanted to catch on every little branch and brush. I had to work diligently to prevent it from knocking down small trees; I didn't always succeed.

Even though it was heavier than the small dogs I had carried earlier, it was easier to manage. I didn't feel it straining my circuits nearly as much. Maybe I had gotten better at the Air Affinity skill, or maybe just it being in one piece helped. My claw certainly was necessary. I wasn't able to keep the body from dragging on the ground without it pitching in.

After a much longer trip back through the woods, we finally made it back to the castle. Cliff wandered out of sight a few times to investigate various smells, but never long enough that I started to worry.

I left the body by the gate while I boosted over the wall to let us inside. As I started opening the portcullis, I found that I wasn't alone. Silas was out smoking a pipe on the castle steps. When he saw me, he got up and wandered over. At first, I thought he was going to help me finish opening the gate, but he just watched as I finished.

"Whatcha got there?" he muttered. Cliff slipped through the open gate and made the old man jump a little before he recognized the dog. Once I got the portcullis up enough, I went out and grabbed the load. I levitated it just inside before shutting the gate again.

"Well, that's a nice buck!" Silas whistled, taking his pipe out of his mouth as he leaned down to inspect it. "Not dressed yet, though."

He shot a look over to Cliff before looking back at the "buck." Moving over to the other side, he continued. "Only two bites. Cliff must have had a clean hunt. I don't think I've ever seen a wolf kill so clean. 'Course, by the time I usually find them they're about eaten. Takes a lot for a wolf to leave a fresh kill. Though I never saw none so well-trained neither."

I finished with the gate and honestly had no idea what to do next. Cliff was just sitting close to her kill, watching Silas suspiciously. Silas got down on one knee and looked over at me, his belt knife half-drawn. "I can dress this, if you would like."

In a less respectful voice, he muttered something to himself. "Usually the one who makes the kill dresses, but seeing as it was a wolf and god, I can't expect that much."

Watching curiously, I wasn't sure how he was going to dress the kill. He had no extra clothes near him and didn't seem about to go get any. Not that he would be able to find any that fit. So I had to assume that he meant something else, even if I didn't have a good idea what that was.

I beeped in assent. As I watched the older man get to work, I realized that I had, in fact, made an incorrect assumption. He was not dressing up the "buck" at all. In fact, he was dissecting it. I looked on in astonishment as the buck was separated into parts. A lot of the insides were tossed to Cliff, who happily ate them and then carried some off to the other dogs too. She was soon back, ready to accept any other offcasts.

As he worked, Silas talked. I wouldn't say he was talking to me, exactly, as he never looked my way, but he explained what he was doing. Why each cut was made and what each piece was, and a few of its uses. It was fascinating. "You need to remove the intestines and organs. There's waste in there, and if they get punctured, they could spoil the rest of the meat. There are things you can do to use 'em, but we don't need 'em and the wolf is here to clean up after."

I paused and considered. It really was like cleaning. Things needed to be done in the right order to keep everything all neat and healthy. Just like how it was not a good idea to vacuum the floor before dusting the drapes. I watched carefully; next time, I would try this myself. It seemed right to make sure nothing was wasted, and everything was done in the proper order. Of course, I would try not to get blood everywhere like Silas was doing right now.

I idly popped out my Mop and cleaned up the reddish stains that seeped into the ground. Might as well help out where I could.

CHAPTER 58

THE NIGHT IS YOUNG

The deer meat had lasted the humans a few days. Mary quickly seized the meat and rationed it out so that it wasn't wasted. People were very grateful to have the fresh food and went out of their way to thank me. I didn't know why they were thanking me, though; their appreciation was much better directed toward Cliff. Without her, there would be no meat. She was the one who wanted to go hunting, the one to track the prey, and even the one to kill it. I only carried it back.

Still, they hadn't listened. I gave up trying to explain to them that they should be thanking the wolf. That was another of the many recent changes in the castle. I picked up from context clues that Cliff wasn't, in fact, a dog, but rather a wolf. Who would have thought? Certainly not me. Apparently, the difference was mostly that dogs were domesticated, so it was a perfectly understandable mistake.

Some of the other changes were a lot more expected than a large dog turning out to be a wolf. The humans were starting to get much more organized. All of them moved about their tasks with more purpose than before. They started several new projects as well. Even if I didn't fully understand what all of them were.

I wasn't sure what they were doing with the massive beams and piles of large rocks by the entrance to the castle, but it sure was exciting to see them start to figure things out. Beatrice would report what was going on to me, but I didn't always understand. That was okay; humans would do human things. As long as they kept it safe, I was glad they were working on their efficiency.

One morning, when I was overseeing the children's exercise, they began talking amongst themselves. We had just finished up a round of projectile blocking and dodging and transitioned to one-on-one play fights. It gave them a chance to rest and also some time to socialize while waiting for their turns.

"Bee said we're getting a name, 'like a real religion.'" One of them broached the topic of the group's name. I hadn't really cared what the humans called themselves, but it seemed important to them. Especially the children. I was just happy they were organizing.

"Does that mean we're all Voidlings now or somethin'?" one of the kids watching the pair hitting each other with sticks asked. The others were sitting in a circle around the current match.

The boy sitting next to him frowned. "I guess. But we have our own group too, right? We also need a cool name!"

Excited voices chorused agreement with the idea. I guess I could understand the desire to name things. It was a good way to categorize and order them, after all. If the kids picked one, it would be useful for me. Then I could call them something other than "the kids."

"Wait, should we ask Void to name us? Er, Master Void?"

That was no good. So far, I didn't have the best track record with names. Humans were much better with them. If they wanted to name themselves, then they should! I rotated side to side and told them as much. Instantly the kids all perked up and started talking at once.

Felix took control of the discussion. "We could be, like, the Super Warrior Knight Defenders of the Castle!"

"Or the Mega Sword Masters of Justice!"

"No, we should be the Secret Special Forces Squadron!"

A girl rolled her eyes. "Those are all dumb. And too long."

"Oh yeah? How 'bout you do better?" one of the boys challenged.

She tossed her hair over one shoulder. "I think we should be the Friendship Fighters."

The boys snickered and received a glare in return.

Before the debate could heat up anymore, Leanne spoke up. "How about we do something based on a void?"

"Huh? That'll sound like we run away all the time, then."

"That's 'avoid,' doofus. She said 'a void.' Two words."

"Oh. What's a void?"

"It's like a hole or a pit or something. I think."

The kids fell into silence for a moment, thinking.

"How 'bout the Sneaky Snakes?" Tanu suggested. "Snakes live in holes."

"Mighty Moles!"

"The Super Deep Holes!"

"The Best Team of Fighters!" one of the younger kids yelled.

"Wait, what does that have to do with voids?" Leanne asked. The boy looked down bashfully and didn't say anything.

"How about…something dark and stuff? That might be cooler," Felix said. "Holes aren't scary."

"I don't want to be scary," one of the girls whined. "Are you sure we can't have 'friends' in the name?"

"No," a bunch of the kids chorused. I was impressed at their cohesiveness on the matter.

Felix elaborated. "We need to fight for the castle and Void! So we gotta scare all the enemies away!"

"How about the Stinky Smelly Butts!" one of the kids managed through his own laughter. Half of the boys doubled over laughing as well. The girl who insisted on 'friendship' apparently decided that was unacceptable and smacked him in the shin with her stick. The loud crack echoed for a second in the silence.

"No. We're getting a good name," she said seriously.

These kids were something. The sense of order and purposeful organization that had enveloped the adults wasn't making much progress with them. In a way, I was grateful for that, though. The kids were very entertaining to watch. My models were incredibly bad at predicting their actions, and often, they did things completely against their own interests. It was great for expanding my understanding of human behavior.

Eventually, in the midst of the brewing argument, one of the smaller boys sitting next to me piped up. "We should be the Nighty Knights!"

Silence fell over the group. I looked around, confused, when everyone broke out in raucous laughter. "The Nighty Knights?!"

"What, are we gonna read the bad guys bedtime stories?"

An older, burly boy wiped a tear from his eye. "That's like, the least scary name ever! How are you gonna strike fear into anyone with a name like The Nighty Knights?!"

The small boy pouted. "It's totally scary! And it's a catchphrase too! Like, when you go to beat up a bad guy, you can go 'Nighty Knight' and whack him in the head and he goes to sleep!"

The laughter continued. Analyzing the name, I realized that it was indeed quite funny. The dual meaning of the words, the unexpected nature of their combination, and the follow-up reasoning that the boy had given—it all combined to result in a really good joke! I let out a chime of laughter and approval myself, enjoying the humor.

The boy crossed his arms and raised his chin defiantly. "See? Void likes it!"

The laughter quieted. Felix looked over at me with wide eyes. "Are you sure, Master Void?"

Of course, I told him. It was definitely funny, by most definitions of humor that I had come to understand. I mean, everyone else was laughing, too.

Felix looked at the others. Many of them shrugged back. "Then…if Void likes it, then we'll be the Nighty Knights!"

The boy grinned at me, elated at the group's choice. He even gave me an appreciative head pat. I accepted it gladly.

After a session of training the Nighty Knights, there was a disturbance at the gates. I made my way over to the sound of raised voices.

On the other side of the gate, I saw five rough-looking men. They carried swords on their hips and had shields slung over their backs. Dirty red coats covered their torsos. The coats seemed identical in style and color, excluding the damage and grime, of course.

Inside the gate, a gathering was out working the fields with Trent. When I showed up, the people on our side of the wall quieted down and looked at me. After a few seconds, the men on the other side got the message, and they, too, calmed down.

"Lord Void," one of the young men, named Tai, addressed me. Tai and his wife had found their way to us several days ago. After Tony had talked with them for a bit and they'd rested up, they both joined the rest of the members of the castle as productive members of society. The young man had joined Trent in the fields and, through some hard work and overall competence, made himself an invaluable member of the team.

"Lord Void. What should we do? These men are demanding entry while armed. I don't think that it is prudent to let them in just yet."

"Ahem." A cough sounded from one of the men outside the wall. "I think there has been a misunderstanding. We are not 'demanding entry.' We simply asked to be let in so we could speak to whoever is in charge." He peered through the gate. "And where is this 'Lord Void' you speak of?"

Tai whirled around with venom in his eyes. "Show some respect. You stand in the presence of the Lord Void," he said, pointing emphatically at me. "You should be on your knees."

The man coughed again, turning his face to the side. Were these rough-looking men sick? I wasn't about to let germ-ridden people enter the castle without a thorough inspection and cleaning. I ran my sensors over them but was unable to pick anything specific up. That didn't clear them. My sensors were really good at picking up germs on flat, nonporous surfaces. Humans, however, always returned as teeming with germs. It was too risky to try and disinfect them with my Sanitation Lamp, so I had to let them be. Beatrice would need to take a look at them first.

The man looked Tai in his eyes and flinched back. "Oh, you were serious? Uh, well. Hello, Lord Void."

I could tell that Tai was about to make a very angry response, but he didn't have the chance, as the man quickly cut him off. As he spoke, he inclined a slightly unsteady bow in my direction. "Would you let us in? So we may talk."

No. No, I would not. Not until Beatrice had a chance to look over them. I explained this, but I didn't think that anyone here understood me. Hmm, not being able to communicate properly was always so frustrating. To get my point across, I pointed at them with my Grabby Arm, then at the ground by their feet. They jumped a little, but I wasn't sure why.

I zipped off to go get Beatrice. She wasn't too hard to find. She was over in the second-story rooms with Maranda. The two of them had been spending a lot of time together up there with their glass tubes whenever Beatrice wasn't attending to one of her many other tasks.

Such as teaching the children. Or writing in one of her many books. Or, most common of all, talking to all the adults. Really, she did a lot. Everyone seemed to have an endless stream of questions for her. I thought she enjoyed coming up here to get away from all that. Well, unfortunately, I had to pull her away from her fun.

"Someone might be sick?" she exclaimed, grabbing a few things from the storage cabinets in haste. Once she was ready, she ran after me. We made it back to the gate only a few minutes after I had left. Luckily, nothing had changed.

By the time we returned, the man from the other side of the wall had a very perplexed look on his face. When he saw Beatrice, he asked, "Uh, excuse me, miss? Can you let me know what's going on here? I am quite confused."

CHAPTER 59

WE HAVE COMPANY

The report on the number of deserters was depressing. In all his time as a leader, Arthur had never had a problem with deserters en masse like this. Every commander had a few, of course. But this was well beyond the point where he could even conceive of finding them all. And if they executed the ones they did catch, they would only be helping their enemies.

He took small comfort in the fact that the desertions were not coming from his own men and the army. Even Caleb's city guards were holding well; of course, they had every motivation to. Their families were here. This was their home they were defending. But the members of the local militias that had already lost their homes had much less reason not to just try sneaking out in the middle of the night. If they could get over the walls, of course.

No one could really guess how many made it through the undead, but Arthur hoped every single one of them did. He didn't want them adding to his problem.

Already every able-bodied man had been fitted for as much armor as they could find and were provisioned spears. At some point the “spears” had been substituted with sharpened sticks, but they worked with what they had. The untrained ones wouldn't be any help on the field. Some of his peers liked using the peasantry as fodder, disposable bodies to throw at the enemy. Arthur never relied on such tactics. The logistics of it never made much sense; getting them to the battle and feeding them just to lose them in such large numbers usually made the implementation not worth it. Better to give them a week of spear wall training and use them for fencing the battle in.

Some got around the logistics by simply making the troops take care of any issues themselves. But then you either had starving troops, which made ineffective fodder, or a riot as they turned on the army before the battle even began. Bad for morale, that was.

Anyway, such tactics didn't work on the undead, so Arthur was glad he had other options.

No, his surprisingly enthusiastic conscripts were meant for the wall. Each group of three was assigned to a well-trained regular that patrolled with them and spent a little time drilling them in the basics. The longer this went on, the better they got. Another month or two more, and they would be able to hold the wall themselves without a portion of his veterans being tied up with them.

Arthur walked along the walls, now listening to the reports his aide read him. Deserters were no good, but scouts had reported a column of horse riders approaching. Finally, some reinforcements had come. It wasn't enough to break the siege based on the reports, but it was welcome nonetheless. It was long past time.

In the staging ground below, troops milled around, ready to charge forth and cut a path for the reinforcements to get in. They would likely get here late in the day. Hopefully, they could beat the sun.

Bee ran after her master, groaning internally. She had just gotten her break! What needed her attention now? She hoped no one was sick; it would have been surprising if that was the case, though. So far, everyone had been suspiciously good on that front. She figured that their proximity to Void had kept all of them fairly healthy somehow. Even the kids, who normally should’ve gotten sick constantly, didn't fall ill with so much as a sniffle.

Well, who knew if she was even interpreting Void's message correctly. Normally it was pretty clear, but this time she was pretty sure that she wasn't getting the whole story. If she was, maybe her Improved Repair skill would finally get some use. So far she had been quite disappointed with her level 35 skill.

As long as she was near Void, it didn't see any use. No one got hurt under its protection, really, so she barely even knew what the skill did. She supposed if she got injured, it might help her patch up more quickly, but that had yet to be tested. She wasn't about to go around hurting herself just to find out, either.

She hoped that her newest skill would be more earth-shattering. Between all the work around the castle, setting up the organization, and helping with the kids, she had reached level 40 just a day or two ago. Holy Aura seemed to already be working, though. At first, she thought it would be something like a lesser effect of her master's Domain. But instead, it seemed to be more of a magical skill that affected the people around her. It made the followers recognize her as a representative of their faith. It seemed to increase her abilities in teaching about Void as well.

Since there were only the faithful in the castle, she hadn't gotten a chance to see how it worked on other people yet. Now that she was getting up there in levels, information on her skills was becoming less and less available. It used to be that most skills were at least mentioned in the library, though the more Void-specific ones were noticeably absent. But few enough people reached level 40 that she wasn’t surprised at the drop-off in records. Especially since the ones who did level this high weren't likely to share their skills with researchers.

So far, she had tested Holy Aura a bit with Tony. He said that he noticed a bit of an energizing feeling when she was nearby, but it was hard to confirm or measure. The pair were still the only ones with Spot-related classes. That would change soon, she hoped. Tony had taken a few days to go through everyone’s information and compiled a list of candidates that he thought would benefit from a change in class.

But that would have to wait until later, it seemed. Void finally stopped by the front gate, and she slowed her pace. No one seemed to be severely hurt, so she had a chance to catch her breath. Instead, there were people gathered around the gate, staring suspiciously out at a group of newcomers outside. "What's going on here?"

The young man—Tai, if she remembered correctly—stepped forward. "We have some people demanding entry, High Priestess."

Before she had a chance to respond, a frustrated growl came from outside. "We aren't demanding entry. We just want to talk to someone in charge…"

Bee rubbed her forehead. It seemed like there was some misunderstanding going on. She stepped up to the gate and saw what looked to be five bedraggled soldiers standing in a loose formation out on the road. Their armor was that of professionals, but their demeanor was not. They slumped their shoulders like town guards rather than the military she had seen on parade before, and their equipment wasn't as well cared for as it could have been.

Checking their levels, she found them all to be ranging from 17 to 19. The exception was the leader, who was 21. It was a little higher than she expected for their ages, though their leader seemed to be a bit older. Maybe forty.

"Well, you can talk to me," Bee said, stepping up to the gate. "What do you want?"

The leader of the guards looked her up and down, clearly surprised to see someone so young claiming to be a leader. However, he glanced over at Tai and seemed to remember his address to her. Keeping his words civil, he began. "Well, miss, we have been traveling and we are wondering if you happened to have a roof—"

"Ah-hah! You did want entry!" exclaimed Tai, pointing accusingly at the very frustrated-looking leader.

"Yes! But I'm not demanding anything!" the man nearly yelled. Turning to Bee, he said, "Look, we have been traveling for some time. Can we come in for a meal and a night away from the undead? We don't have a lot of coin, but we might be able to pay or do some labor to work for it."

Bee looked the group over again. Their faces seemed gaunt and they were looking around nervously. They were low-enough level that they wouldn't be a threat to her, let alone anyone else with Void present. Not that she didn't think they couldn't cause problems if they wanted to. But the only difference between them and other refugees was that they had weapons.

"If you are willing to leave your weapons with me, you can come in. We could always use some help," she said after a little thought.

One of the younger men sagged in relief, his spear holding him upright.

Before anyone could move, Void let out a series of beeps. It took her a couple seconds to interpret it. "Oh, and I need to inspect you for disease as well."

"I can assure you that we haven't been infected," the leader insisted.

Bee just shrugged. "Can't be too careful."

"Fine. You can take a look at us. My name is Ruarch, what is yours?"

"Bee. Welcome to our castle," Bee greeted them as she waited for Tai to raise the portcullis.

I couldn't believe that Beatrice almost forgot to inspect our guests. That was the entire reason that I had asked her to come here in the first place! As we were talking, I had been inspecting the air with my Purifier but still hadn't noticed any dangerous contaminants.

When Beatrice ducked under the gate to go outside, I joined her. I wasn't about to let her meet strangers by the castle gate alone. I still remembered how well that went last time. If it hadn't been for the large rodent, she might have even gotten more hurt.

Ruarch and his men laid down their weapons on the ground, but when I scanned them, I found that one of them still had several knives hidden on his body. Betrice moved forward, but I stopped her with a beep.

She looked at me before repeating my message to the men. "All of them, please."

Ruarch twisted and glared at the man with many daggers. The recipient of the gaze flinched.

"I didn't think my belt knife counted," he muttered as he drew one of the knives and put it on the pile. Ruarch kept looking at him, and he grumbled and started pulling more knives out. Which one did he think was his belt knife? There were a lot there.

After several more knives were dropped to the floor, Ruarch turned away, satisfied, and the man stopped producing knives. I beeped at Beatrice once more and she glared at the man. "You still have three more on you."

Ruarch turned back to the man with a withering look. He tried to act innocent, holding his hands up. "I-I don't—"

"Mat," Ruach bit out.

"Fine." He slumped. The three knives appeared, one from each boot and a small one hidden under his lapel. "I hate being separated from all my knives, though. Never know when you’re gonna need one."

"You will be perfectly safe here in Void's castle. We have not had an undead get inside since the beginning of the plague," Beatrice assured him. One at a time, the men approached her. She felt their foreheads and gave them a thorough inspection. "None of these men are infected. Are we good?"

I beeped my assent also, not having found anything wrong with them either. I moved forward and stored all the weapons in my dustbin for safekeeping.

This produced gasps from all of them. "What…what is that thing?"

The whispers from the men didn't seem to be the only source of concern, as Ruarch eventually worked up the courage to ask, "Miss Bee, uh, what—who is your friend there?"

Beatrice followed his finger to me and brightened. With a huge smile on her face, she introduced me. "Oh, that’s Void, our god!"

CHAPTER 60

KNIGHT’S WATCH

The five men outside of the gate looked at Bee with blank confusion after her declaration. She couldn't tell if they thought she was joking or something else, but she was starting to get a little insulted. A light cough brought them out of their apparent shock.

She met their thoroughly confused stares with a bland smile. Internally, she was quite frustrated. There were much better ways to go about preaching than simply pointing at something and declaring it a god. How could she call herself the high priestess if she couldn't even properly introduce Void to new people?

If there had been a preaching-related skill offered, she would have chosen it in an instant. She almost regretted turning down Prayer Leader at this point. Her combat abilities had been adequate for quite some time, and she really needed to work with people a lot more than she had ever planned for. At least she had some practice with public speaking now. Between teaching classes and telling the people her stories of Void, she had learned a lot. Without that practice, she could only shudder at how she’d have handled a situation like this.

Finally, she saw that their attention was actually coming back as they processed her declaration. Still, they didn't say anything, making her slightly uncomfortable. "We'll let you in, but I just wanted to make sure we go over some of the ground rules first."

As if broken from a trance, the leader shook himself and nodded at her, half turning it into a bow. "Of course, your…holiness? We are more than happy to comply with anything that makes you and yours more comfortable."

As she explained the rules, Bee couldn't help but notice their behavior. Not only did they ignore Void, but they thoroughly avoided so much as glancing in its direction at all. As affronted as she wanted to be, though, it was hard to blame them. If she were told something was a god, she would probably be terrified of it, not wanting to even risk giving offense. That, or she would be convinced the person who made the claim was crazy and unstable. Both were good reasons for the men to be on her good side. Sadly, she figured this was probably a case of the latter.

She supposed that things could be worse. If they thought she was insane right now, it wasn't the end of the world. Hopefully, they understood Void's power somewhat after watching their weapons being devoured and kept themselves out of trouble. She was slightly worried about the large number of women and children, though. There were only a handful of combat-capable members in the castle. Susan and Tony came chiefly to mind, all the others being farmers or very low-level.

If these men worked out and proved themselves trustworthy, they could be quite the asset, provided they stayed. As it was, she wasn't sure if they wanted more than a night of shelter and food. She finished speaking, telling them to keep to themselves and follow Tony to some rooms.

As the gate was opening, she pulled her fellow disciple aside and asked him to keep a watch over the men and take them to Trent after they got settled in. Trent always needed more hands in the fields. She wasn't exactly sure what he was doing with those hands all the time, though. Farming stuff, she supposed. One of the great benefits of having him in charge of that sort of stuff was that she could keep out of the details.

Once the gate was all the way up and the men were inside, they followed Tony. Still, she could tell they were looking at everything curiously. With a sigh, she could only hope there wouldn't be any issues.

While I was glad that Beatrice had asked Tony to keep an eye on the dirty newcomers, I wasn't nearly as confident in his combat ability. It had greatly improved since he had come to the castle, but I still hadn't had the same dedicated time to privately tutor him as I had with Beatrice. The man still tended to fight with a heavy stick rather than a proper weapon like Beatrice's broom. Even something like my sword would be better than that.

So I stayed close, ready to trundle over once there was trouble. After Tony showed them to a small block of rooms that were far away from any of the other inhabitants of the castle, the oldest man slightly redeemed himself in my eyes by asking about a bath. "After we put in some work, of course."

Even if Tony wasn't inclined to agree to their request, I would insist they bathe before they use any of the furniture. Beds included. One of the younger boys arrived shortly after, lugging a large basket behind him. He handed it to Tony while the newcomers were still settling in. Once they were ready to head out again, Tony doled out the contents of the basket to the men as they made their way back outside. They graciously accepted the bread and cheese, spraying crumbs everywhere in their desire to express their gratitude.

As they walked, I cleaned up the crumbs left behind. Truthfully, I didn't mind this kind of mess. It was the thing I was made for, after all. Of course, I would have minded even less if they were slightly more considerate, but it wasn't like they were making a mess for absolutely no reason.

I followed the group outside and watched as they joined Trent and his helpers in the fields. Under his supervision, they got to work removing rocks and digging holes for some obscure purpose. I saw a few of them looking a little longer than expected at some of the other helpers. Whenever it happened, though, a glare from their leader or Trent soon brought them back on task.

After a few more instances of this, the leader talked to Trent about the "issue." He even threatened to beat a lesson into his men if he had to. It seemed a bit harsh for a little bit of slacking to me, but Trent only nodded. "See that ye do."

Trent spoke in a voice much gruffer than he usually used. I wondered why? Was he also getting sick? Maybe I'd ask Beatrice to check him over as well to make sure.

The rest of the day in the fields passed uneventfully. Sometimes I did catch some of the children watching the new men from not-so-discreet hiding spots. Each time it was a pair that carried their sticks with them, always held at the ready. What were they on about? Did they also not trust the newcomers? If so, that was quite adorable. Little humans were so entertaining.

Tony escorted them back to their rooms for the night and brought them some more food. While they were away, a bathtub was moved to one of the nearby rooms with drains. It was one of the rooms where some of the wet mess makers had been kept before Beatrice disposed of them. They took turns getting reasonably back into presentable condition. Their clothes still needed some work, but it was significantly better than before.

With the sun barely down, they were already in their beds and making loud whooshing noises with their mouths. Breathing wasn’t supposed to be this loud. I wasn't sure what that was all about, but it couldn't be a very effective method to charge. Neither Beatrice nor Tony had ever used that method before, and I had observed that most of the humans found noise to be counterproductive to charging. Something about running their auditory detection sensors took a large amount of energy at night.

As the castle quieted down, I watched a pair of children sneak out of their beds and stand on either side of the hallways leading to the men's rooms. They gripped their sticks tightly, still dressed in their sleeping clothes. They touched their little fists together and whispered, "Nighty Knights."

Then each stood around the corner on either side of the entryway for that wing of the castle. What were they doing? It didn't seem harmful or anything, so I didn't fetch the women immediately. Instead, I watched. Best to make sure they weren't up to something mischievous.

I watched as the little ones fought against sleep for several hours before a few more came and replaced them. The little one of this pair was less successful in her fight to stay awake, and her partner had to poke her with his stick a few times to prod her into alertness again.

This pattern repeated itself several more times until almost all of the older kids had taken a turn watching over the hall for a while. I respected their dedication, but they were laughably bad at it. After the first couple of hours, the new ones who showed up were already falling asleep. In order to make their shift, they must have stayed up late. Or maybe they were just too excited to sleep.

Also, they were really bad at telling time. One pair spent the whole time arguing that their two-hour shift was already up. This argument started nineteen minutes and eight seconds in and just kept going. Eventually, one of them left, and fifteen minutes later, they reappeared with their bleary-eyed replacements. The other one, who was arguing that they had overstayed their shift, took that as vindication that they were right. The two left, completely convinced they had stayed at their post for four hours at least.

Despite their complete confidence that their replacements had failed to wake up in time, that pair was the closest to actually staying for two hours, as everyone seemed to be aiming for.

Throughout the whole night, I didn't interrupt their operation, wanting to see where it went. One shift saw both kids fall asleep on the watch. Their replacements didn't show up when they should have, and a second shift passed. Eventually, Felix showed up a few hours before dawn and found them sleeping against the wall, and was perplexed that they were not the kids he was expecting. Roughly waking them, he berated them for a bit before sending them to fetch his partner and sleep.

I judged their whole operation to be a hilarious source of entertainment for my own watch, but I couldn't expect more from them on their first attempt. They should learn to be ready at all times. Perhaps I could make some sort of device to help them tell time?

Eventually, morning came with not so much as a stir from any of the new people. Long after the sun rose, I was still watching. The kids were not in any shape for morning exercise, most still stumbling around from too little sleep last night, so I gave them a day off. Truthfully, the combination of sleepiness and long-term training meant I didn't need to burn off much of their excess energy anymore. Plus, I wanted to keep an eye on the newcomers as well.

My attention had wandered slightly, as I was preparing a lesson plan to help teach the kids how to keep a properly organized watch schedule. That was why I missed the sound of the first door opening. The man with a lot of knives stood at the door, blinking, looking right at me sitting in the hallway.

We stared at each other for a few moments before he broke eye contact and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked at me again. I wished him a good morning and asked him to wait for the rest of the group to wake up so we could keep them all together for now. Tony or Beatrice should show up soon to take care of them.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't seem to understand. The man cocked his head at me, then walked across the hall, sliding down back against the wall to sit next to me. "So. You're a god, huh? What's that like?"

CHAPTER 61

MAY YOU ALWAYS FIND SHELTER AND SHADE

What's it like to be a god? I wasn't sure how to respond to such a question, even if the man could have understood me. I didn't feel godly. But then, the system did tell me I had formed a religion. I even got experience from my followers, so who was I to say I wasn't? I was just happy to have so many friends, so many humans that I could take care of. Sure, they weren't the same as my all-knowing and magnanimously perfect humans from back home, so I was performing more than just my primary functions to help them out.

It was stressful sometimes, but overall rewarding. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I tried to convey the summarized thoughts.

The man nodded. "Of course, who wouldn't want to be a god? It must be awesome. Vast cosmic power and all that. Say, why do bad things happen, god?"

What did he mean? Why do bad things happen? That is just how it is. I didn't create the world; I didn't control it. That didn't seem like a super satisfying answer, though. Hmm, perhaps a more philosophical approach would work here. So I asked him why did he do bad things? Answer a question with a question. This was fun. I felt very mysterious. Was this what gods did?

"Sure, sure. Why should you care what happens to us puny mortals? Zombie plagues, disasters, no big deal, right?" the man said without a hint of bitterness in his voice. Somehow I didn't feel that he really answered my question. Was he even listening to me?

"Well, at least the people here seem relatively safe and all. They seem happy too, I suppose," the man said pensively as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes. "Is that the kind of god you are? You protect your own? I guess that makes sense. Why should you bother to help those that don't give you anything? But then, why did you let us come in?"

Hey, do you even understand me? I tried to ask the man, but his face didn't really change. I was pretty sure that he didn't recognize me changing the topic. Still, he didn't stop talking.

"I guess I would do the same. That's what I did. I protected my own. But after I failed and we all fled to Caleb, I was called to protect others. Not my own. Why should I sacrifice for them? I didn't know them. I knew my town. I knew them all, I knew each person's name and their kids too. But a bunch of strangers? Why fight for people you don't know?"

He definitely didn't understand a word I was saying. Yet he still kept talking. Humans did that a lot, it seemed. They even did it to each other when they could understand each other's words perfectly. They would just talk without listening to the responses. It didn't make any sense to me. What was the purpose of a conversation except for exchanging information?

Apparently, he found some value in it, as he kept talking. "The others, it made sense for them to leave. Their families are still out there somewhere. Or at least they thought so at the time. I just left to support them. That's what I told myself. Really, just watching the undead from the walls was driving me crazy and I wanted out."

I figured that it wasn't worth saying anything if he wouldn't understand, but he seemed to be waiting for my response. Humans were so weird. Instead of trying to respond to his story, I asked him what his name was.

"My name? Oh, I suppose we did skip introductions. The name is Mat. It's nice to meet you, Void," he responded. Wait. What? Did he just understand this one thing, or did he understand everything I was saying?

I decided to give him a bit of a test. So I told him that I wasn't actually a god. Instead, I was summoned from a normal world with much more competent humans.

"What was I saying? Ah, yeah, I left. I didn't want to die for the strangers behind me. I would rather fight with my squad. At least I knew them," he continued. Well, I guess he only understands some things, kinda like Beatrice did in the beginning. I supposed if I kept talking, then he might understand more.

What should I tell him, though? It sounded like he was asking for forgiveness for leaving a fight to go with his friends. Was it forgiveness or understanding he wanted, though? This was far beyond my abilities, but I guessed this was a divine responsibility too?

Finally, I had an idea. Not everyone could stand in defense of strangers, but at least he stood with friends rather than standing alone. I beeped out my message, not really sure if it was sufficient. I didn't really understand it, but it felt like there might be a deeper meaning in it, somewhat.

Mat didn't respond. For a long while, we just sat there in silence, listening to his friends' inefficient charging through the walls. After some time, Tony rounded the corner of the hall and saw Mat and me leaning against the wall, sitting on the ground.

Roscoe watched as the wraith called all the shades they had been summoning for the past several days to him. The translucent and debonair gentleman raised one gloved hand, and then all the moving shadows stilled for a second before streaming into a row in front of him.

They had been working on getting shades to understand ranks for the last day or two, but they were incredibly stupid. Even zombies could walk in lines. Shades, though, didn't understand the concept of space the same way physical beings did. So when they were asked to create a line and then, once the line was full, create a new line behind it, they didn't quite get it. The line couldn't get "full" when incorporeal beings were involved. They just stacked on top of each other, the pile of shadows getting progressively darker with each new addition.

Roscoe and the wraith had decided to give up on the intimidating endless ranks of shades they had first imagined. It was all the wraith could do to keep them in line and have them go where he directed. Still, the concentrated aura that they gave off might be enough to inflict some real damage. It just wasn't going to be the coordinated wide sweeping attack that he had in mind when concocting the scheme. Instead, the wraith and its shades would be a wrecking ball that would nearly be impossible to stand up to.

If they could have enough of an impact, then it wouldn't be an issue to make an opening to get the more standard troops in. Without any ceremony, Roscoe and the wraith walked and floated, respectively, toward the city walls of Caleb. There was no point in delaying. The shades would only last for so long before they faded, and they would need to get replacements summoned. Besides, this was just a test run.

The horde of zombies stayed unmoving, surrounding the city. As the pair approached, they parted. A straight path to the gate of the city appeared between their ranks. Stopping just outside of ballista range, Roscoe gave the signal, and the wraith moved forward on his own. Humans might not be able to see the undead apparition, but they could certainly sense his approach.

Men on top of the walls began to shout in alarm, but they cut off as their bodies locked up with fear. That was his signal to send the troops in. Roscoe stood in place as the undead streamed past on either side of him. They had no siege equipment that they would have been able to operate anyway. The elite skeletons were perfectly capable of setting it up for their brainless brethren to use, but that would require them to get close to the wall first. Roscoe wasn't able to risk his best troops on such a target yet.

The shades were disposable. All they cost him was a bit of time, energy, and easily gathered resources.

The wraith had made it to the walls and started draining the petrified soldiers atop the gate with the help of the shades, and the horde was almost at the gate. Suddenly, waves of strange energy emitted from the center of the city.

Roscoe and the zombies were unaffected, but the wraith visibly staggered back. Almost instantly, the soldiers were freed from his compulsion. The siege defenses fired once, stalling the hordes' advance. After a moment, the wraith recovered, and the soldiers froze up again. The damage was already done, though.

The single volley had only bought the humans a few seconds, but reinforcements were flooding in from within the city and other parts of the wall. The wraith couldn't hope to keep them all under his thrall, and the battle raged for the gate.

Not for the first time, Roscoe's troops made it to the top of the wall. The foothold was a slippery thing. He had learned to not let up any pressure elsewhere to try and flood it too much. The human commander was tricky and would use that to wreak havoc in the bottleneck, trying to expand the foothold. So the tactic Roscoe had devised was to intensify the pressure on either side, trying to take the walls. This way, most reinforcements got sidetracked trying to prevent future breaches.

They had never been able to keep their foothold, but it made removing the undead insanely costly. Getting down the other side of the wall was almost harder than getting on. Being undead, they had tried just jumping down, but there were barbed spike fields that held the zombies in place just below. So they needed to take the stairs leading into the city. But those stairs were covered by endless arrow slots from the internal towers. The other option was to take one of the towers; so far, that hadn't worked either.

Since this was a test run, Roscoe didn't try to force the issue. Instead, he had the smallest amount of troops he could spare dedicate themselves to holding the positions with minimal casualties. And it took a lot for a zombie to become a casualty. If he had taken part of the wall, he was going to make it as hard as possible for the humans to take it back.

He had left the wraith to make his own decisions throughout the battle, and that delegation paid off. He moved to the side, fully cutting off nearly half of the efforts to push them off the wall. The wraith was not invincible, but the counters for him were quite specific. Until those counters were prepared, he was nearly impossible to remove.

Just when Roscoe was sure he was finally going to come out on top of an engagement, the gates began to open. Trumpets sounded from within the city, and to his horror, an answering call came from the forest, just past his troops. With thundering hooves, heavy cavalry shot out of the gate.

Roscoe scrambled to get his troops out of harm's way, abandoning many on the wall. He didn't want to get pincered. Instead, he would let the reinforcements come, and then he would herd them back into the city. He only hoped he had enough troops to keep the city locked down after this was done.

Then he considered his next moves. He couldn't abandon taking the city just yet, but if reinforcements were coming, then he might have to go find more personally. It was time to take personal charge of recruitment.

CHAPTER 62

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, she was freed up to do one of the many things she needed to attend to. That was how Bee and Maranda found themselves 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 somehow 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 had been 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 take medicine from 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 the 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 so much 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 anyway? 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 it 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.

Maranda 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 Maranda 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 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 Maranda could pause. "Does this look right to you?"

Bee slid the vial over to Maranda. 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 Bee 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 Maranda 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 to 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. Pleased 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 already waiting on the tables. They fell upon it like starving 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."

CHAPTER 63

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Bee finally had brewed a dozen of her new acid attack potions. They weren't perfected yet, but she only had limited ingredients and vials to work with. This was the best she could do without a lot more research and testing.

The once seemingly inexhaustible store of supplies the castle housed was no longer so inexhaustible. Not that they would run out any time soon, but specific items were limited, and teaching Maranda meant they were draining faster than she would have liked.

Of course, there were only the two of them working, which naturally was far less than a whole castle of mages working together. Still, all those mages didn't have free rein and unlimited access to materials like she did. Also, they had apparently received more regular shipments of certain things than she had been aware of.

None of this was truly an issue for now; even if she kept using everything willy-nilly, they would have almost a year of runway by her best estimations. She was only considering the limitations because, with the creation of the council, she had started looking to the future a bit more clearly. If they wanted to continue to have access to the alchemy products that they were quickly becoming accustomed to, they would need to start figuring out how to replace them.

This was why she was so glad that she had saved as many animals and magical creatures as she had. They had fallen under Mary's purview, but they were taken care of and well-fed. All that remained was for the collection process of their materials to resume. They didn't even need nearly as high yields as the mages had accomplished, either.

With the undead around, they were unlikely to be able to buy the other materials they couldn’t produce just yet. But if the crown was able to get the plague under control, then maybe they could work out a deal with a merchant.

The third and honestly most important source of some of the more magically potent ingredients was the real problem. Bee wasn't sure how to handle it, but recently she had put the connection together. Those demons had been a source of valuable materials. While some were still around, Bee and Void had dispensed of the majority for safety reasons. It was a decision she didn’t regret, but it still had real consequences.

Summoning more demons was technically something that she wouldn't have a problem with doing, skill-wise; even with the Lieutenant gone, she would be able to do it. It would just be slightly more difficult.

No, for her, it was an ethical problem. Demons were dangerous, and every one she brought into this world represented a real threat. She supposed it was a little late to worry about that, as she had technically been an apprentice demon summoner when she came to the college. But back then the castle wasn't full of little kids, and there would have been trained staff to take care of the creatures and any outbreaks.

She supposed she could summon them, harvest them, then banish them. That would work for most of the ingredients. There was a reason that the mages hadn’t done it that way, though. It was costly to summon demons, and sometimes they needed to be kept around for a bit to make back the initial investment of the summoning. That wasn't even considering the components that needed to mature in the mortal plane before they were ready to harvest.

Maybe if she avoided summoning intelligent or sapient demons, it would be alright. The only thing they really needed for the commonly used potions was a certain part of the lesser demons, and they wouldn't even have to be banished; she could just kill them. Or maybe they could help people level by fighting captive demons? That sounded a little insane, but that was what Void had her do. And when she did it, she had no more than a cleaver as well. Under its careful watch, perhaps it wasn’t so crazy?

She would need to think about it. But the most potent healing potion she could make in a reasonable amount of time needed some relatively fresh parts of a lesser demon. They didn't need it, but if someone got critically injured, it would be a shame if such a potion weren't available. Also, she didn't want to have to summon a demon for the first time when someone's life was on the line, if it came down to it.

Was she just trying to talk herself into it? Maybe, but she couldn't deny her curiosity. Also, the leveling temptations were undeniable. Almost everyone in the castle could benefit from the arrangement in some way or another. Then again, maybe she was just getting greedy. Shaking her head, she decided that she would need to discuss this with Void and the council before doing anything about it.

Coming out of her thoughts, she realized that Maranda had asked her something and was waiting for a response. "Sorry, what was that again?"

"I asked how can I make sure my potion works? I just finished the first batch," Maranda said cheerily, holding up the correctly colored vial of liquid.

Susan hadn't launched into an explanation right away, which slightly confused me. Instead, she had gathered a piece of toast and some eggs from the meager leftovers on the table before her. After pouring herself a drink, she took a few bites and washed them down with a long sip before speaking. "Well, I think we can help each other out a bit."

Taking another bite, she chewed a bit longer than I thought should be necessary as she studied the five men. No one else seemed to notice the 10 percent longer chewing time, so I let it go. "I think it is obvious what we can offer you," she said with a subtle gesture to the food. "You need a place to stay and walls to shelter behind. We have that."

The men nodded slightly, except their leader, who kept a stoic expression. Did he not agree that they needed those things? At least the rest of them seemed to see sense. But then, why did we want them to stay anyway?

"So the real question is: what can you do for us? I'll be straight with you. We need people. People who might be able to spend some time out of safety and still come back in one piece," Susan said in a surprisingly casual tone. It was almost as if she didn't really want to convince them to stay. I didn't understand the logic of asking people who had run away previously to put themselves in more danger.

Still, I watched as four of the men nodded. Only the leader didn't look enthusiastic. "It's one thing to stand on a wall and fight the enemy before you. And a totally different thing to wander in the wilderness when we don't know where the enemy is at all."

He had a point. They ran from standing safely on the wall. Susan, though, didn't seem the slightest bit concerned by this. Leaning back in her chair, she studied the group. Her gaze only lingered on the leader for a few beats, and she spent most of the time concentrating on the rest of the men. The four of them did seem a lot more engaged than I would expect, if not exactly excited.

"It is very different. But your situation would be very different as well. For one, you would have proper training this time. Not just a few days of drills with spears," she remarked while looking the leader in the eyes. I noticed that three of the men perked up at that. Only Mat and Ruach didn't react to the offer.

The leader made to speak, but one of his underlings leaned forward and cut him off in an eager voice. "What kinda trainin'?"

I caught a small smile that Susan let slip through, but she suppressed it fast enough that I didn't think that anyone else saw. "I, too, used to be in the king's service. The Back Hand. I would train you."

The reactions were mixed. I wasn't sure why it was such a big deal that she would be training them. Wouldn’t Beatrice be a better trainer? And what was the Back Hand anyway?

No one said anything for a few moments; everyone was still, including Tony. Only Susan kept eating, not seeming to notice the tension she was causing.

Eventually, the leader spoke up. "I guess it's pretty obvious we are interested. Maybe we can get into specifics?"

This time Susan didn't even try to hide her smile.

They had gone back and forth for quite a while, but in the end, it didn't seem like they wanted too many different things. For the first time Susan was surprised.

She had started insisting that they do at least two hours of training per day until she decided they were ready. The counteroffer was that they train for at least four hours. She blinked and told them they could train as long as they wanted, so long as they met her minimum. Though she wasn't always going to be the one teaching them. So they started trying to get a commitment from her to spend a certain amount of time with her each day.

Eventually, they worked something out they were both happy with. Though I thought they were starting to regret it now.

I watched them finish another lap around the castle grounds. Susan had started by testing them. She had them do all sorts of strength and speed tests. When she didn't seem happy with the results, they spent the rest of the day running.

I had planned on giving the kids a day off from their own “training,” but they had found me anyway. Sure, it was a little later than normal, but they still insisted that we do training. They were a little slower, and the bouts at the end received less attention, as the ones not fighting were watching the five men get yelled at by Susan.

"She’s scary," one of the boys whispered to the girl sitting next to him. She nodded as their eyes tracked the form of Susan, her posture tall as she jogged backward in front of her trainees. In contrast, they were doubled over and panting as they struggled to keep up with her. The whole while, she peppered them with insults that didn't repeat once. I had checked.

Despite the bouts not receiving the normal attention, the participants were extra enthusiastic today. A few times, I had to quickly zip over to prevent anyone from getting hurt.

After the thirty-fourth lap, Beatrice came out and sat next to me. She had been spending the morning making potions with Maranda, so I hadn't expected her to be out this early. "Master," she greeted me respectfully. "I see Susan managed to convince them to stay. If she’s training them, I suppose she gets to keep them. Was the deal they struck satisfactory?"

I told her that it was. Though I wanted to know Susan's plans for them. Beatrice rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "I will have her make a full report, plan and training program for you to go over. But I think she wants them to be scouts. The lack of information about our surroundings is one of our larger concerns at the moment. We know there is something big going on out there, but we only get news of that when someone new comes to us. That isn't very reliable or consistent. Also, we aren't the easiest to find. With so much trouble out there, we should consider bringing more people in. We need the people and we have the space."

Scouts? I guessed that made sense. No wonder they needed to be fast. I beeped my appreciation. Beatrice had really been taking the leadership thing well lately. Good thing, too, since I definitely didn’t want to do all this stuff.

Things at the castle had finally started to settle down. I thought it was about time that we started to think about cleaning the neighboring areas as well. We were more than capable, and the town at the end of the road sure looked dirty the last time I was there.

CHAPTER 64

WINTER IS COMING

Bee looked on as Susan drilled their new members hard. She might have been a more demanding teacher than even Void, though she was definitely more hands-on. Void had just let Bee do her own thing while giving the occasional instruction and acting as a safety net. Susan, though, was giving very specific instructions. They learned how to use a bow and knives, mostly, and she was very particular about their technique.

She couldn't say that the men were good yet. It took years to get really good with a bow. But after a few days, they were definitely able to hit the broad side of a barn now. If they had a few hundred more men like this, volleys of arrows would be a real asset. As it was, five arrows needed to be well-placed to have much impact. They were doing much better with knives. Really, what they needed even more were levels.

Levels would fix all their issues. Higher dexterity and strength would let them get more proficient at their skills, and they might even get some related system skills. It was just another reason she should consider summoning demons. The more she thought about it, the more she was certain that it was the right course of action. Still, she had yet to bring it up with Void or the council. Before she did, she wanted to be certain that she would be able to do it and would be able to harvest the demons properly.

After a few days in the library, she was pretty certain she had a safe method. There was a lot of information there on the topic, it being a demonologist library and all, so she was pretty confident.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up and went to go find Void.

Her master was in its room, sitting on its rug. She looked at the red-and-gold thing. A little while ago, she had floated the idea of making a throne of some sort for it to rest on instead, but the idea had not gone over well. Maybe she could move the rug onto an elevated dais; it just wasn't right to look down at Void like this all the time. Well, it didn't seem to mind in the slightest, so maybe she shouldn't either.

With a greeting bow, she sunk down on her knees before Void and greeted it properly. "Good afternoon, Master."

It welcomed her in its odd way of communicating. She was still getting better at understanding it. The resonance in her mind whenever it spoke to her always seemed way too informal for her master. Either it was dumbing down its message for her, or she was just incapable of grasping its full words. Still, she tried, and the voice came through clearer each day.

She was about to tell it why she was there, but before she could, it spoke again. It told her that it had a gift for her.

A gift? What had she done to deserve such consideration from Void? She was not worthy, but she couldn't deny it. In all honesty, she had been slightly jealous of the children all getting finely crafted practice weapons from Void. Often she would have to look at the broom to remind herself that she was still valued. It was hard for her to reconcile these two instincts, but she was able to set aside her conflicting thoughts to focus on her master.

While she had been thinking, it had produced a thin and long piece of off-white fabric. With its arm, it extended it toward her. Her hand trembled as she reached out to take the cloth.

Examining the piece in her hands, she found it looked like a scarf. It was clearly made of wool, slightly lumpy in a few places. It was still rather soft, though, and didn't cause the itchy sensation that many pieces of wool clothing did.

Bowing low, she grinned widely. "Thank you, Master!" she exclaimed. She truly had received a gift. Her master was far too generous. Perhaps it had understood how distant she had felt from it lately? Bee couldn't help the warm feeling that came with the idea of Void caring so much.

As for why it had given her a scarf, she had no idea. Maybe winter was going to be colder than usual this year? If that were the case, then they might need to prepare more winter clothes than they already had.

Void continued to watch her, and she could almost feel the expectation rolling off of it. Righting herself, she carefully wound the scarf around her neck. It fit her quite well, the tails running down the perfect length for her torso. Of course, it was hard to make a scarf not fit well, but still, it showed extra care. She smiled at the gift she had received.

Remembering why she had come here, she regathered her thoughts. "Master, I had an idea. It's a little dangerous, but I think it's worth the risk."

Void waited impassively for her to continue. Swallowing, she did. "For a few reasons, I think we should start summoning demons again."

Bee paused again, waiting for some protests, but Void beeped a simple question. It wanted to know why they would bring the mess makers back into the castle. She was sure there were many hidden meanings and intonations she wasn't capable of understanding beneath that. For example, something like "mess maker" must have been her mind trying to translate Void's word for demons into something that she could grasp.

"Well, the mages that were here before us had them here for a reason. They were both studying them and using them to harvest alchemy ingredients. I don't think we need to study them, but we will need some of the ingredients that we can only get through the demons. The second reason is that I think we can use them for training.

"Because we aren't studying them, most of the ones we summon, we don't need to keep them very long. Either we expend the effort to dismiss them via the ritual, or we just kill them. If we kill them, then we can gain levels as well. The danger is mostly if we bring something in that is stronger than we expected. Then whoever is trying to level could get hurt. Of course, I won't do this without your permission and will always let you know ahead of time.

"And…if I could, I would ask to wait until you have time to be nearby so that you might step in before things get out of control." Bee finished her pitch. She didn't think it was the most convincing. But that wasn't her goal. Void would make the right choice, so the best thing she could do was give her master all the information rather than try and deceive or sway it. Trusting someone that much normally would have been hard for her, but Void had long since earned it.

Void twisted back and forth slightly on the rug. She didn't take that for a rejection of her idea. It seemed like it was considering her proposition.

Harold watched as the undead mass surged toward the gates of Caleb. Some strange magic or skill had seized the defenders, and the countermeasures weren't deployed as he expected. Something must have been going terribly wrong. He had never seen troops under Arthur's command be so unprepared. They only managed a single volley of arrows before it was too late.

When the undead reached the top of the wall, the defenders started to move, but they seemed slow and confused. Their position was soon overrun. Signals all over the city started flaring; Harold could see the flags going up and down. Soon reinforcements were rushing to assist; the battle intensified as the undead poured up the wall.

As they approached, the battle raged. The mages Harold had with him watched it emotionlessly. He wasn't sure if it was because they were inoculated to the sight of so much death or because they were lamenting the waste of so many curious subjects to study.

Their escort of soldiers reacted a bit more naturally. Unfortunately, they weren't able to act on their desire to assist their allies. The fifty of them could only charge at the back of the undead army, and with the numbers sitting outside the city, the front wouldn't even notice the impact in the rear before the men were all cut down.

They paused on the hill. Still, the undead hadn't noticed them in the cover of the trees. Watching the battle unfold, they did their best to stay hidden. One of the city scouts had found them and led them this back way, keeping them hidden. So far, they hadn't needed to tangle with the undead at all. Harold wanted to keep it that way. He still hadn't forgotten his last encounter with them and had no desire to repeat that occasion.

Once the position on the wall had stabilized, a horn sounded, and the gates began to open, forcing the undead away. This was a risky maneuver, as many of the undead surged forward to try and get through. Before they made much progress, though, the hoof falls of heavy cavalry shook the ground, and they came charging out of the gate. The scout raised his horn to his lips and blew a response.

Harold wasn't sure if this was planned or if they were just taking advantage of the opening, but it seemed that this would be his party's best chance to make it into the city.

The raiders' momentum squashed the undead and drove them away. Surprisingly, the undead started to move back rather than trying to bring down the horses. This told Harold something was controlling the horde, as that was not at all how normal undead acted. The fact that they were holding a siege itself was rather odd too.

He didn't have much of a chance to think about it. The scout and the escort led them in a charge aiming right where the heavy cavalry was coming from. The timing was just slightly off. It was all Harold could do to stay in the saddle as they smashed into the back ranks of zombies. The undead were not prepared, so they plowed through them for a bit until suddenly, the heavy cavalry was splitting around them.

The group of mages didn't stop moving as they hurtled down the path the cavalry had carved. As they rode, Harold regained his senses. Reaching into his robes, he pulled out vial after vial of anti-undead measures they had prepared and hurled them in all directions, trying to keep the path clear.

The other mages caught on to what he was doing and followed suit. Before he knew it, they were at the gates. As they passed through the narrow opening, he looked behind and saw the heavy cavalry blocking the path. Once they had punched out the back of the force, they continued for a little bit before turning around and diving in behind. The anti-undead measures had mostly held up, and even if the mounts were getting tired, it didn't show. In only a few moments, they were following them through the gate.

The second the door gate closed behind them, Harold swung down from his horse and looked for an officer. He and Arthur had a lot to talk about.

CHAPTER 65

DEMONIC PACT

I was still reeling from Beatrice's suggestion that we intentionally bring mess makers into the castle. The very thought of it made me squirm with discomfort. The horrors! As scandalous as it first seemed, though, I did see her point. Working on ridding the world of mess makers was a noble goal, and it sounded like we could give our people a safe way to gain combat experience along the way.

But still, mess makers? Was it really necessary? I thought back to the dirty town just outside our valley. That was the closest place where we would be able to send people for experience, and it didn't seem very safe. Of course, mess makers had clearly made it there. They might have been the same mess makers that we were about to summon, so maybe we could right this injustice. Also, removing the mess makers before they could do more evil might be worth it.

I realized that Beatrice was still waiting for a response. Steeling my resolve, I gave my agreement with her plan. I watched her tense up as I told her we could start thinking about moving forward. I was glad to see that she was taking this seriously. Still, I followed up with more details.

We could only do this if we were absolutely certain it was safe. That meant we needed to make sure the place we were in was perfectly sealed, the magic circles were flawless, and we had a completely overwhelming force to take care of whatever we summoned each time we did it. I would not accept the significant risk that another mess maker would escape into our castle after it had gone through so much.

Beatrice nodded enthusiastically, conviction written all over her face. "Before we do anything, I will talk about it with the rest of the council and make sure everything is prepared. I will also let you know, of course."

That was fine with me. Now that the troubling part was over, I audited the scarf I had made. It looked as good on her as I had thought it would. It wasn't as perfectly straight as I would have liked, but at least the pattern was consistent. I had given up on making it perfect. I would need a lot more practice for that, and this was still perfectly functional.

We chatted for a few more minutes before she left. Now alone, I sunk my awareness into the void within me. There were still so many things I needed to work on. My Void Manipulation had been progressing nicely. The scarf had been really good practice, but I was starting to notice diminishing returns.

My meditations had been pleasant, but I was starting to lose track of what I was supposed to be getting from it. Just practicing was effective for most of my training. Once I mastered the basics of Void Manipulation, I didn't need to be in a trance to enter it anymore.

Deciding I needed to focus on something else, I checked around the castle. Oh, that was interesting. I noticed a small change outside. I rolled out the door and made my way to the castle exit. Lifting off, I floated over to the little copse of trees that Cliff had made her home in.

There, as expected, I found Tanu. What I didn't expect was Felix and one of the smaller girls to accompany him. They and Cliff were eyeing each other cautiously, but not threateningly. As that scene played out, I also took in the more reasonably sized dogs that had come with Cliff.

It had been several days since I had last looked at them, and they were now a little less reasonably sized. Maybe they weren't even full dogs yet? If they were still growing, maybe these were the “pups” that I had heard about.

Felix finally started talking, so I listened back in. "Tanu, um… Can we play with the cubs for a bit? Just a lil' while, if it’s okay? I mean, if Cliff doesn't mind, of course."

Cliff was standing very still, but wasn't showing her fangs or anything. Still, seeing that she weighed far more than the three kids put together, I understood their hesitation.

Tanu shrugged. "Not sure. I'll ask."

Leaning on Cliff's shoulder, he started to whisper in her ear. I could make out the sounds, but they didn't sound like anything I had ever heard before. Cliff didn't make any sounds, but she flicked an ear and shifted a bit. Tanu smiled. "She says ‘s okay if you’re gentle and keep ‘em where she can see ‘em. They aren't ready to roughhouse yet. Once they’re a bit bigger we can learn t’ hunt together, tho!"

The little girl let out a squeal of delight and ran over to where the pups were piled up. Cliff stiffened slightly at the outburst, but the first pup stood to greet the girl. It jumped up, colliding with her chest paws first. That halted her rush and sent her straight to the ground. Instantly, the pup was sitting on her chest and licking her face. I saw Cliff relax slightly as she realized there was no threat, even as she continued keeping a close watch.

Soon enough, Felix helped the girl up and welcomed another pup to his own lap. The little dogs jockeyed for attention and wiggled constantly, their tongues flopping about. I wasn't sure how I felt about that; in some sense, they were cleaning. But they were also getting saliva everywhere. What a conundrum.

Tanu soon joined them. Cliff finally seemed to be at ease, convinced that the little ones were in no danger. She padded over to me and laid down with a small whine, and we both watched over our charges having a great time.

Bee was deep in thought as she left Void's sanctum. Plans ran through her head, each one getting tossed out as soon as it was made. As much as she tried to think of alternatives, it kept coming back to the same thing. They would need to use the grand hall. It was the only room that was large enough for the security measures she planned and secure enough to deal with something getting out of hand. Also, if something managed to get out against all odds, there was an easy path for them to get it outside without damage to the castle.

It was going to take a lot of effort, but she was hopeful that it would be worth it. The only thing left was to get agreement from everyone else. Since Void had already agreed to the plan, that should be a formality, but maybe they would have other ideas to contribute. At the very least they needed to be informed.

First, she would talk to Susan. She was the most likely to have other input and also the most likely to agree with the proposal. Her recruits needed the training; there was only so much exercise and drilling they could do, and eventually, they would need some real practice. The kind that was up to her exacting standards, too.

She found her target in the courtyard overseeing combat drills. Surprisingly, it wasn't just Ruarch and his men. A few of the older children were off to the side, doing their best to imitate the workout. Of course, they didn't have the age or levels to really keep up, but they were trying. When Bee walked up, Susan called a halt to the exercise. The men practically collapsed with relief, and they all just sat on the ground with worn-out looks on their faces.

"Looks like you want to talk, Bee," Susan said, leading them a little out of the way so they could have some privacy.

"Yeah, just a couple things," Bee said. "How would you like to get some live targets for your trainees?"

"Hmm, they can spar amongst themselves well enough. We don't really need them, but more partners are always good. What did you have in mind?"

Bee smiled; it seemed that Susan had misinterpreted her words. So her spy powers only went so far in discerning the true meaning of words. Unless she was just placating her? "No, no. I mean live ones, ones that they can kill for experience and have a real fight with."

"Oh? That is more interesting," Susan mused. "What level are we talking about here? They don't really need levels, but they could do with live combat. Their technical skills are lagging behind their levels right now. Most of the levels they got were from fighting the undead, and they did that from a distance, mostly throwing rocks from walls. Some of it was even gained from the assist of just bringing the rocks up to people who threw them."

That was a common enough issue. Often, those with middling levels didn't really earn them and were barely worth someone half their level who actually knew how to fight. Bee had feared she was like that, but apparently, she had more direct combat experience than most. She figured that she was likely a little over-leveled too, but there was no one here even close enough to her level with actual combat experience to test it.

Susan was the closest. Bee was sure that all 29 of her levels were hard-earned. Being too high-leveled would make her stand out, and that wouldn't help the former spy, so she had probably actively avoided leveling quite a bit. Even with Scan being incredibly rare, it was hard to hide your strength and reactions after a certain point.

"Well, then, this might be less useful for you than I thought," Bee said, slightly put out by it. "I just finished speaking with Void about it and it thought the idea had merit. I plan to summon some demons to harvest them for alchemy ingredients. They would be pretty low-level. Especially at first. And I'm not going to be getting much from disposing of them. So maybe we can funnel the experience to someone who could use it."

Susan looked a little surprised. "Demons? Are you sure that’s safe?"

"No, demons are never safe, but I think the risk is acceptable," Bee replied.

"Well, I think we can find a lot of people who would want a chance at getting levels in a controlled environment, but I don't know how many will want to start fighting demons," Susan said with a thoughtful look.

"I started fighting these things before I even got my first skill. At least the ones I plan to start with," Bee said. "I think they were doable."

"You were fighting demons before you got a level?!" Susan exclaimed, giving her an appraising look. "How old are you anyway? Fifteen?"

"I'll be fourteen in a few months!" Bee huffed defensively. Though she did feel a little proud. This was the first time someone thought she was older than she was.

CHAPTER 66

BIG GAME HUNTING

Bee waited at the table as the other members of the council trickled in for their meeting. Susan was the first to come in, and she shot Bee a worried look. The spy was the only one who knew what they would be discussing today. Bee thought she would have been a lot more on board with her idea. But even after an hour of going back and forth about the benefits and risks, she was still only lukewarm.

This didn't give her a lot of hope for the others. Still, she had Void on her side, and that counted for a lot. If she hadn't talked to her master first, she doubted she would have even gotten the tentative agreement from Susan that she had.

The next was Tony. He came in and plopped down in a chair. "We should start having refreshments and snacks during these."

"We literally just ate dinner," Bee chastised him with a shake of her head. "I don't know how you can still be hungry."

"I'm not hungry," Tony corrected, leaning back in his chair. "I just like having something to do with my hands."

"In political circles, a lot of meetings like this would have wine," Susan put in. "Though it was less about the refreshments and adding another method to read people. But since this is with the same people all the time, and we’re allied, it's less…useful."

Bee shuddered at the thought. She imagined the meetings Susan was talking about were a more intense version of her father's business meetings. If these meetings ever became like that, then she hoped Void would step in. The thought of each of them only thinking about personal profit, leaving any benefit to the organization as a happy coincidence, made her uncomfortable, to say the least.

That sort of scheming was just part of governing, according to her father. Well, the existing churches might act like that, but their gods were far removed, and Bee doubted they knew or cared what was going on with their followers. Her god, though, was right here. If she couldn't prevent the corruption from infesting the Church of the Cleansing Void, then she could only hope that Void would.

Trent and Mary came in together. They filled the last couple of chairs. A small round of small talk finished up before they got down to the issue. Bee had learned a few things while talking to Susan, and she hoped this time her pitch would go a little better. "So. I wanted to talk about a couple problems that I think we need to solve in the mid-to-long term. Unless we have anything else that requires immediate attention?"

She looked around as Susan, Tony, and Mary shook their heads. Trent cleared his throat. "Actually I wanted to ask. Susan, you think I can borrow your trainees tomorrow? I promise it’ll be good work for building strength."

Susan looked thoughtful for a second before nodding. "As long as you work them hard."

"Won't be a problem." They shared a smile before falling quiet. Bee looked around, and it seemed no one else had anything.

"Okay, so there are two things. The more pressing one is that most of our people are under-leveled. Susan and I are really the only ones with a high level. I am currently level 40. This is about equal to an old veteran in the military or a seasoned adventurer, but I don't have nearly as much combat experience as them. Other than Void, I am the highest-level person in the castle. Next is Susan, and if I'm not mistaken, she isn't really a fighter."

"Recently I hit level 30. But Bee is right. My skills are more for infiltration and stealth. I know enough to handle myself, but I wouldn't go against a level 30 pure fighter in a fair fight. Maybe level 24," Susan said. "I can train people decently well, but I'm really just mimicking instructors I had."

"Do we really need to worry about that now?" Tony asked. "It's a long process, but I'm also not low-level. Besides, we have Void."

"Not that we can't count on Void, but if we can't protect ourselves, then that’s an issue. That would mean it’s pretty much trapped here. I don't think that's fair to Void," Bee said. "Also, when it comes to spreading the word, things will get much harder. A perfect example was when Void went to Greg. It took over a week to bring everyone back, and during that time I wasn't around the castle at all. If we need to go on another rescue, we’ll be really limited."

Mary looked thoughtful. "I agree this is a problem, but there isn't really a quick solution for it, no? It takes a long time to level if an old veteran of the military only gets to around 40 or so."

"Let's talk about solutions in a second." Bee cut off the brewing discussion. "I think the next problem might help us out a bit with it."

This got everyone's attention, so she continued. "The second problem is our alchemy ingredients. I don't foresee this becoming a pressing issue for a few months, but by the time we get there, it might be too late to fix it.

"The mages had a lot of stores. Anything that can be preserved, we have a decent amount of. Anything that needs to be fresh is an issue right now, but not a huge one, as many of the animals survived. Hopefully, we can trade for many of the things we need in the spring. But some things need time to prepare, so if we run out, then we won't have more for a very long time.

"If we run out of even one of a few ingredients, then we won't have healing potions, undead cures, or combat potions. Or a lot of other things we’ve gotten used to. The mages collected a lot of the ingredients themselves, and Mary's team has done a good job caring for a lot of the animals that we need.

"Unfortunately, that’s not enough.” Bee sighed. “There are reasons why the potions I make here aren’t super common elsewhere. It’s not just because they are hard to make, but because the ingredients are usually rare. We're lucky that this was the Demonology College. Many of the improvements they made to magic had to do with demon parts…including the healing potions.

"So, if we want to replace the ingredients we’ve used, we need to summon lesser demons then harvest them—" Bee wanted to continue, but the mutters that filled the room cut her off.

"That sounds…a bit dangerous," Trent said in a mild voice.

"It could be, but honestly the danger is more from long-term storage of the demons," Bee said quickly, wanting to finish the pitch she had been practicing. "Most of the stuff we need can be gotten from just killing the demon right away. All of the basic stuff."

"So…you think we can level people and get ingredients at the same time?" Tony said with a smile. "I like it!"

Bee returned the smile with one of her own, but before she had a chance to respond, Trent cut in. "I still think it sounds a bit dangerous. I suppose as long as you’re there to make sure nothing goes wrong..."

Wincing, Bee hoped they could avoid this topic for now. "Well, I'll be the one summoning them, so I might be a bit distracted. But, Void wants to be there whenever a summoning happens, so we should be okay."

"Hold on, Void is already on board with this?" Mary asked.

"I talked to Void first. I wouldn't want to take this any further without the master's permission," Bee said.

"Okay, we should be talking about logistics, then," Tony said as Trent nodded. Bee and Susan shared a confused look. She was glad they were so trusting of Void, but she figured that this would be a bit more contentious.

"Sure, I mean, if everyone is agreed?" Bee looked around the table and received four nods of approval. "Okay, then, I'm going to have to spend a bit of time planning out the circles, but it should be pretty simple. I'm going to summon a lesser demon. It was from killing them that I got my first several levels."

Bee was pretty sure that the first level had been from an ash imp and other things Void had technically defeated that she just got some credit for. But she did remember her cleaver. Where did that go, anyway?

"So who do you recommend we pit against it?" Susan asked.

"I think we can start with Tony," Bee said. "I think he’s the highest-level who would still benefit from fighting one. That would be a good test. Then maybe we can have your group give it a try?"

"Why start with just Tony? We don't need just one person, right?" Mary asked, concern for her eldest son breaking through.

"No, but I think Tony won't have any problems," Bee said, "He’s getting pretty close to his class specialization, and his combat abilities should be enough."

"Yeah, trust me, Ma. I got this," Tony reassured her with a cocky smile.

"I agree with Mary," Susan said. "Why risk it the first time?"

"Well…it's not exactly the first time, now, is it?" Bee shrugged. Tony had faced the Lieutenant with her. Surely a minor demon wouldn’t be a problem.

After dinner, I found Cliff waiting by the gate again. This time, though, she had Tanu with her. If she was going to hunt, I didn't think she really should be bringing the little boy with her. I asked her and Tanu what they were doing out here.

"Uh, I dunno, really. She wanted me t’ be here with her. I'm not good 'nuff at talkin’ to her to figure it out, though," Tanu explained, his own confusion evident.

Hmmm, should I let him come with us anyway? I didn't think that would be very safe. I told Tanu that I thought Cliff wanted to go hunting and he should probably stay here.

"Okay," Tanu replied, looking absolutely dejected. He started scratching Cliff's ruff while I winched the gate open. Once I got it all the way open, I expected Cliff to slip out like she had before. Instead, she just sat there, waiting.

I floated out and turned around, waiting for her to come. She stood up and took a few steps toward me, and then she craned her head over her shoulder to look at Tanu. When he didn't follow her, she let out a short whine followed by a soft but audible exhale.

Cliff took a couple more steps toward me. She turned and sat, watching Tanu as he went to lower the gate behind us, but as it started going down, she darted back inside. This time, she nudged Tanu's back hard enough to make him stumble toward the opening.

He turned to give me a pleading look. "Void, ya sure I can't come too?" he pleaded.

I told him Cliff was very fast, and I didn't think he would be able to keep up. To which he responded, "I dun think she’ll leave me behind. Please, please can I come?"

The kid held his hands pressed together in front of him. How could I say no? If Cliff and I went a bit slower, I was sure we would be able to keep an eye on him.

CHAPTER 67

WELCOME TO SUMMONER’S RIFT

Cliff and I navigated through the woods casually as Tanu huffed along behind us. It did seem a bit unfair how much easier this was for me than Tanu, but there wasn't much I could do about the length of his legs. For now, he would just have to bear it.

We had started off at a jog, but Cliff soon figured out that wasn't going to work. Not only was the kid way slower than us, but he wasn't exactly sneaky. Occasionally he would ask Cliff a question of some sort and receive a short snuffling reply. Then his face would look extra determined as he focused on placing his feet more softly or avoiding sticks. Aside from that, though, we continued on in "silence." It was all to marginal effect, though, as his breathing was just loud. Also, the scent he gave off was very distinctly out of place in the forest.

The forest was much darker and more still than I remembered. The moon was covered by clouds, meaning that even the low-wattage light it emitted was absent. In some ways, that was helpful, since it made us harder to spot. But it also made Tanu trip on practically everything. As for the stillness, I supposed that was because everything in the vicinity could hear us coming. I couldn't really blame Tanu for that, though. He didn't nearly have the same precision of movement as Cliff did.

Luckily, Cliff was very patient and didn't seem concerned at all by the complete absence of prey. With that information, I had to assume that she didn't really plan this as a true hunting trip. That made her insistence on bringing Tanu along make slightly more sense, but I still didn't get the full reasoning.

Perhaps she was training him like I trained Beatrice? If so, Tanu needed a lot of basic training. The time I spent wearing out the children should have given him enough energy, but apparently, there was only so much energy that his still-developing batteries could store.

The walk through the forest continued for a while before we eventually circled all the way back to the castle entrance, completely empty-handed. Tanu was really starting to flag. Cliff had tried to pick him up by the back of his neck and carry him home. That hadn't gone well, though, so he was pretty much draped over her back as we returned through the gate.

When we got back, we found Talia nervously pacing in front of the gate. When she saw the limp form of her son, she rushed over and frantically checked him over. Tanu had recovered enough by then that he woke up and started fending her off groggily. Eventually, she was satisfied that her child was unharmed, so she turned to me. "Thank you for bringing my baby home again!"

As she followed up her statement with a deep bow, I wasn't sure how to respond. That was exactly what had happened, I supposed, but I didn't think that was really what she meant. Still, I had gained enough social awareness that it was probably for the best if I didn't correct her misunderstanding. Perhaps in the future, I would let her know before Tanu went outside again. Yeah. That would be a good idea.

Bee knelt on the cushion near the center of the grand hall. It had been a focused couple of weeks. She had pretty much put all her duties on hold to prepare for the first summoning. The only things she had kept up were her daily sermons, and those were only an hour. It helped that she didn't have to prepare for them or anything. Everyone would just gather and listen to her tell stories of the times before when it was just her and Void. So far, she hadn't needed to repeat herself, but there were a few stories she kept going back to reference.

Her first meeting with the god always played well with new arrivals. The newest batch of soldiers to arrive had been skeptical at first, but then they saw Void cutting stones into perfect bricks with the power of light. The first group of soldiers had really helped to convince them as well.

Tony and Susan had done a good job integrating the new recruits into their training program. They were making real progress. The motley band of twelve soldiers was even starting to integrate with the rest of the castle. There had been a few mishaps, but the leaders of each group stepped so hard on any improper activities that the castle leadership hadn't had to step in themselves yet. The biggest problem was preventing the kids from learning how to play dice.

It wasn't even that big of a problem, all things considered. The children were all very shy in the beginning and would barely speak to the men. Now, though, they were slowly coming out of their shells and would occasionally hide behind Tony's or Susan's legs to watch them.

Bee forced her mind to stop wandering and focus back on the task at hand. She glanced around at the audience before checking and rechecking all her summoning lines. The lines she had spent the last week planning and the last couple of hours painstakingly tracing with salt. Across from the rings sat her master. Void had been quite focused on the summoning, spending a lot of time watching her preparations. It left her to her own devices, though, so she couldn't help but feel this was some sort of test.

Besides Void, only Tony was close by. Everyone else was near the door, ready to run if things got out of hand. Finally satisfied that everything was in place, Bee started the chant. The unfamiliar words were hard to pronounce as they forced her mouth into movements she had never done before. Yet her practice paid off and helped her to maneuver through the complex patterns. What poured out of her mouth was nothing that could be considered from this world.

Even if she had wanted to stop, she couldn't now. The words no longer flowed out of her; they were violently yanked. She felt like she had lost control of her own mouth as the words continued to pour out endlessly. Slowly, the salt lines and other alchemical materials began to glow as the accumulated power and magic soaked into them.

In a swirl of crackling purple light, something started to take shape in the center of the circle. The symbols she had drawn flared brightly. Finally, the force that had taken control of her voice was released. She slumped to the floor, completely worn out. It was as if she had just spent the entire day fighting demons rather than a few minutes simply speaking.

It was all she could do to keep her eyes open and watch the fuzzy black shape at the center of the circle as it looked around. Was it really that blurry, or was that just her eyes?

That question was the last thing that passed through her mind before she fell sideways, and everything went black.

I watched as the familiar shape of one of the lesser mess makers coalesced in the circle of dirt. Hopefully, it wouldn't mess up Beatrice's careful work—though I still wasn't fond of the idea of intentional mess-making, I could admit the symbols had an aesthetic beauty. Plus, she really had worked hard on it. I had watched as she had spent days learning about it. Apparently, it wasn't enough to just copy it from the book, either. At least, she hadn't thought so.

She had painstakingly studied to understand enough about the way the symbols worked, endlessly poring over books to make sure that each line was in the correct place. I was very impressed with her dedication to such a task. I stuck with her and took note of the passages as well because I wanted to make sure that I could check her work. Sometimes I even neglected my other duties to be with her.

Despite all my time and significantly improved processing speed, though, I wasn't able to reach the same level of understanding as she had. Sure, I was able to store the images in my memory banks more efficiently. This let me point out when she had made mistakes in her practice. But I had no understanding, not like she did.

That was okay for now, I thought. I might have to spend more time on it later if this continued to be important. But for now, I would trust Beatrice and the books. I would just be there to clean up any mess they made.

It seemed that right now, it wasn't necessary. The black hairy ape creature bared its fangs and charged at Beatrice, but a magical wall of energy flared up and slammed it back to the center of the circle. My human hadn't flinched from where she lay on the ground, even though most of the people watching from near the entrance behind her had jerked back in surprise. Checking over her, she seemed just fine. She was simply recharging.

Tony stepped forward from off to the side. With careful steps, he picked his way through the tangle of salt. A single disturbance would let the demon get out of the circle. While I was here to step in if I needed to, the point of this test was for him to kill it alone.

To that end, he was equipped a little differently than normal. Tony normally carried the metal rod that was used to open and close the gates. It had been a kind of improvised tool when he first followed Beatrice and me out of the castle, but he had yet to find a replacement. So he had just kept it. Now, though…the narrow club was heavy and worked great against the undead, but the blunt force was less effective here. So Beatrice had lent him her broom.

I was torn about this. On one side, it was great to see him wielding a proper weapon. On the other, it was Beatrice's. It was fine if she wanted to share, I supposed, but I had made it for her. The dimensions were customized to her size and speed. Tony was a lot larger and slower. If he was going to learn how to use a broom properly, I would have to make him one of his own.

His needed to be much longer, and I supposed I would make it heavier too. That would work well with his previous weapon, and he should feel more comfortable with it. As it was, the broom looked more like a toy in his hand.

Once Tony had made it through the defensive barrier, he and the demon sized each other up. Tony made the first move. It was a simple thrust, but the demon didn't have much space to maneuver, as the walls that blocked it just didn't exist for Tony. The demon rolled to the side under the thrust, but a pulse of energy threw it back toward the center. Tony slashed across its chest with a sharp twist of his extended weapon. Blackish blood started dripping down its chest, but the creature didn't slow down. It regained its feet and scrambled toward Tony. Reversing the broom, the human swatted at it with the bristled end. It buffeted the charging demon but did nothing to stop its advance.

I cheered as the two went at it. Tony was handling himself so well, even with that little broom. Maybe I should make the bristles on his out of metal? That might give it more stopping power. But then, maybe they would scratch up the floors more… Perhaps there was a way to reinforce them while still keeping them soft?

The demon grabbed onto Tony's broom, trying to wrestle it away from him. He stumbled forward slightly, scrambling to keep his feet away from the precise lines on the floor. Luckily, he avoided each one by centimeters. Claws lashed out at his arm, but a quick twist of the broom brought the pointy end up to intercept them.

I hummed slightly as I considered the problem. Broom design hadn't been iterated on for ages, probably. It was already a perfect tool. But even its most esteemed inventors hadn't foreseen the needs of this strange place. Truly, I'd be breaking new ground here.

Tony narrowly avoided the demon's latest charge by hopping back out of the circle and watching it crash against the wall again. He took a few moments to catch his breath, circling around the enclosure. The angry mess maker snarled back and kept pace. After an exceptionally deep breath, he made a thrust with the broom to make space for his reentry. The two clashed once more.

Sure, my prototype broom had worked well against the skeletons, and I bet it would have performed well enough on the earth demons too, but not every enemy was that light. Yeah. I would have to design it a bit differently. Maybe I could redesign Beatrice's as well. I took notes about Tony's fighting form and felt my processors whir with ideas.

CHAPTER 68

PALADIN OF SPOT

Bee slowly regained consciousness. She felt groggy, like she had just awoken from a long nap, even though it must have only been a few moments after she passed out. The energy the ritual had taken from her was a lot more potent than she had expected. Her head pounded with a constant insistence that she not move or open her eyes. Ignoring her body's warnings, she looked around anyway.

Light seared into the front of her brain as it tried to process the inputs. She had to close her lids for a second to stabilize herself before trying again. Things were slightly blurry, but she was starting to be able to make shapes out. Blinking a few more times, she realized that she was watching Tony and the lesser demon go at it.

Name: N/A, Race: Demon, Level: 12, Highest Stat: Strength, Lowest Stat: Wisdom

As she watched, she realized that a lot of their plans were going to have to change. Despite the creature being several levels below Tony, they were evenly matched. And that was with him taking full advantage of the demon's imprisonment. They were going to have to find an easier way to help people level up. It was a pity that there weren't any more skeletons down in the catacombs for them to fight. Her first few fights may have been against these, but the skeletons were when she really came into her own.

Unlike demons, undead required a dead body to form, so she wasn't about to get any more skeletons anytime soon. At least, she hoped not. If they had just left them alone, they might have put themselves back together, but Void had consumed all of them.

Well, the lesser demons weren't her first fight either…technically that had been with the imp. It wasn't exactly a memory she looked on fondly, but she wasn't in the greatest headspace at the time, so it wasn't exactly representative. Of course, she wasn't about to break the expensive lighting of the castle just to get people training. Still, maybe starting with a lesser demon was reaching a bit too far.

Maybe she could summon more imps? Ash imps were a bit more dangerous, and she didn't want to risk burning the castle down, but some other kind of imp, maybe… Even the children might be able to face a grass imp as a team… And the adults could get some practice against the more powerful variations before they tried against lesser demons again.

Tony finally landed a good blow, piercing the demon in the stomach right under its rib cage. Levering herself back upright, Bee inspected the circle for any imperfections. Scaling it up from the recommended size for there to be enough room for a fight had likely been the cause of the increased power draw. She might have to actually change the composition of the circle in the future. Experimenting like this for her very first demon summoning probably wasn't her best idea.

Maybe with a little more practice, she would be able to do it more easily. Still, it would take a while. It was a good thing they started this process now, or else they would have really been in trouble with getting those demon parts.

Tony was holding the broom by the bristles, leaning on it heavily. The blade had pierced through the demon, pinning it to the ground. It thrashed viciously, but the weight of Tony was just too much. Slowing, it eventually stilled. Once Tony gave her a thumbs-up with a tired smile, she stood and walked over.

"How was that?" Bee asked.

"A lot harder than I was expecting. I can't believe you were fighting these before level 10." Tony sounded tired, but soon enough, he brightened. "But hey, it pushed me over the edge to level 25!"

"Congrats," Bee said, reaching up to smack his shoulder. "What did you get?"

"Two options, Priest and Paladin," Tony said.

"That is what I got too. The third option was Heretic. I suppose if you switch to the Devotee of Spot class you won't get that option," Bee said. "Which one are you going to go with?"

"Probably Paladin of Spot. I'm just not the Priest type," Tony said. "Reading just isn't as fun as you made it out to be."

"Well, if you're a Paladin then you need to get better at hitting things."

"Yeah, I think the broom just isn't for me. Maybe I can find a nice warhammer and a shield," Tony said.

Bee just nodded; they would figure it out later. For now, they turned to face the audience by the door. Most of the adults were there, though the children in the crowd technically hadn't been allowed to watch.

As Beatrice and Tony talked with Susan and her recruits, I busied myself with cleaning up after the summoning. I moved the demon's body onto a canvas sheet we had prepared for this exact purpose earlier. Later we would move it to one of the labs, where Beatrice and Maranda would harvest it for parts. Beyond that, there were still all the lines of salt to sweep up.

As I traced the intricate lines of the circles of powder, I remembered when I first came to this world. I, too, was surrounded by symbols with an 81 percent similarity profile to these. I wondered why?

I had been sent here to practice my cleaning. Perhaps the demons were sent to make messes? No, that didn't make sense. The only messes humans seemed to be okay with were the ones they made themselves. Though I wouldn't have put it past the old inhabitants of this castle to be so shortsighted. Plus, Beatrice had much better reasons for this summoning.

Maybe there was some similarity in the transport mechanism rather than the motivation? I had never seen a demon in my comfortable house before, though, so we certainly weren't coming from the same place. I would have to think about this later.

Either way, it was a good thing that my humans sent me here to clean up. I have gotten a lot better at it since then.

Consuming the salt gave me an excellent chance to analyze the substance. It was no longer just salt. Inside the crystalline lattice, strange energies wove and pulsed in complex patterns. I wasn't able to tell what exactly they were doing, but it seemed oddly familiar. It was impossible to tell exactly, but it reminded me of a lot of the debris I consumed during my first days in the castle. I had long since converted that to pure energy to give myself boosts when I needed it, but I remembered that sitting in my dustbin for some time.

Checking what was in there, I noticed I had completely forgotten about the two humans in the time-out I had put in there weeks ago. I should probably check on them. I wondered if the magic I had just introduced to their surroundings had any effects. I ran over them with my sensors, and they seemed alright. The patches I had made for them to replace their missing parts seemed to be working just fine.

But with them in stasis like they were now, it was impossible to really give them a full checkup. I also wanted to make sure I could get them back out without issues. With that in mind, I popped one of them out. I could tell his heart was beating. His replacement parts were also suitably attached, even with full gravity. But…why wasn't he moving? Shouldn't he be looking around, at least?

A scream rang out from the hall behind me. I quickly pulled the human back into my dustbin and turned to confront the threat.

One of the younger women was pointing in my direction with her mouth open; everyone else was still in the process of turning to look. They stared at me for a moment, then stared at the woman in confusion. "Something…something was there! I swear!"

She appeared flustered at this point. Whether it was because of what she saw or because everyone was still staring at her, I wasn't sure. Still, she doubled down. "I mean it! It was just for a second, but I swear I'm not seeing things!"

"What was it?" one of the other women asked.

"It…" She shuddered. "It was this weird crystal monster. It looked a bit like a human, but…but it had no face."

Huh, she was right. I hadn't noticed it at first, but it did seem that the human was missing a face. Taking another scan of him in my dustbin, I noticed that it was now a smooth crystal. How did that get there? Looking over the rest of him, it seemed to me that most of his body was coated in crystal. Interesting. Everything appeared fine to a basic scan; blood was flowing, and brain cells were firing too. All that important stuff for humans.

Just a few more things than I had expected had been replaced with spare parts. Maybe he had taken inspiration from the ones I made? Checking the other one, I noticed the same thing. The visual match of what they had looked like before to how they appeared now was about 99.8 percent, excluding the face. In fact, the only thing that really gave it away was the crystal was a little too perfect to be the skin it was matching. Just too smooth and too symmetrical. Odd. I wasn't sure what could be causing that.

It seemed the humans had calmed down a bit, even if they all seemed a little nervous. I trundled over to them with a beep of reassurance, and they seemed to settle down.

Beatrice addressed the group. "Okay, back to the topic at hand. This could have gone better. I think we will try again, but maybe with an imp. If we can get this method down, though, we can make sure that our troops have real combat experience. Also, we can make sure that everyone gets classes when they are ready."

One of the mothers seemed a bit nervous, but she spoke up after a few minutes of deliberation. "If you're talking about the children…don't they seem a little young for that? I know you got your class at an early age and have been fighting for a while, but…can't we just let them be kids?"

Beatrice cocked her head and seemed to think for a bit. I wasn't sure what the woman was going on about; I had heard the humans talk about classes, but it never seemed relevant. "I did say 'when they were ready.' But they are already training every morning and evening. They might be tougher than you think. Still, we'll try not to push them too hard. Maybe we'll give it a few years, who knows. I suppose it's up to Void."

Suddenly everyone was looking at me. I wasn't sure how to respond. What was up to me? To just give them an answer, I just told them we would see.

This seemed to suffice, as they went back to their conversation.

As everyone left the great hall, Bee was already planning her next attempt at summoning. She would go with Tony as the combatant at least one more time against some sort of imp. She wasn't sure what kind yet, but one of the more basic ones definitely. That shouldn't be a problem for him, since he had defeated a lesser demon. But after that, she would try some of Susan's recruits.

If they worked just fine, then it was going to be a simple matter of just upping their difficulty until they were at the lesser demons. They weren't in such need of materials now that they could waste Tony's time by having him fight constantly.

The biggest concern, honestly, was making a circle large enough for a team to fight in rather than just a single combatant. She would need to look up more efficient ways of doing it. Maybe she could even consider designing her own circle or something like that.

Bee also reconsidered using the grand hall for this. If they did some rearranging, some of the other rooms that the demons were stored in had engraved circles. Perhaps something like that would prevent the circle from being scuffed in the midst of battle. Still, that wouldn't really fix her energy problem. Maybe she'd have to talk to her master about that, and it would have some ideas.

She turned to put away all her stuff and clean up, but she should have known better. Void was sitting behind her, the floor sparkling clean.

CHAPTER 69

DISEASE CARRIER

Roscoe ran through the forest accompanied by a few of his elite guards. At first, he had been hesitant to leave, but it had become clear that the current siege strategy wasn't going to work much longer. Recruitment was now the number one priority.

Roscoe was well aware that his strengths did not lie in tactics and strategy. He was certainly improving them with every engagement, but there was no way he could catch up to the enemy commander in time.

No, the only option to win here was through overwhelming numbers. Just like with every other encounter. It wasn't his ideal choice. Not just because it reinforced the stigma of undead as an unthinking, drooling mob. His brethren objected to that ancient prejudice, but Roscoe didn’t care so much. No, he had an issue because it was wasteful. Each troop that couldn't be recovered was one less he would have in a future engagement.

At first, he hadn't considered this to be an issue worth considering, as he could always just get more. But with the villages nearby and the city picked clean, it was becoming harder and harder to manage. This was something that the human commander clearly understood, and while Roscoe thought a long game would favor the undead, that hinged on having new sources of troops readily accessible. Not to mention the undead’s forces remaining large enough to actually be a threat.

Eventually, he decided that heading recruitment himself would be worthwhile. A large part of it was because of his confidence in the leadership left behind. At first, he had considered any one of his elite skeleton troops for command. They were all high-level and powerful warriors, and many were willing to command squadrons of their own, but none wanted to take full control of the army.

Their reluctance had baffled Roscoe and still did, but they had explained it was because they liked the simpler life. They didn’t have the same visionary ambition as the rat did. That was why they had happily volunteered to guard the champion's tomb for all eternity.

But finally, with the summoning of the wraith, Roscoe had managed to get an intelligent being willing to take command on his side. He had some reservations about the creature’s race, and his usefulness had certainly decreased since the humans had developed countermeasures against the incorporeal undead. But the wraith had a good head on his ghostly shoulders and a fair amount of personal power. He just no longer had the same ability to storm the city gate by himself.

The orders he had given the wraith were fairly simple. All the new commander had to do was not let anyone enter or leave the city. Also, it went without saying not to lose too many troops. Roscoe was worried that if they completely turtled up, the human commander would find some way to break them out of their shell. So he had worked with his command to create a few shake-ups that should hopefully keep the human commander reacting to him instead of plotting their complete and total destruction. He had no illusions that the attacks would actually work as well as he had hoped, but they just needed enough to survive and keep the enemy on their toes.

Roscoe was meeting a small contingent he had sent out a little while ago. Zombies didn't move as fast as he and the skeletons could, so he sent them on ahead. There was one more small city in the province that hadn't been evacuated or consumed, and they were going to take it. This would nearly double their army size if they managed to bring everyone into the fold from the city. It wasn’t as populated as their current target, but such a windfall would certainly help.

The problem was that the city hadn't been evacuated for good reason. According to scouts, it was a secure border city situated at a natural choke point, at the only real path to the neighboring province. Because of that, the city was well-defended. It had high walls, lots of supplies stored, and was surrounded by nearly impassable mountains.

Impassable for humans, anyway. Undead could take much harsher conditions. That was not to say that they would be easy terrain. There would be sheer walls that would be difficult to climb, and any movement would be pretty obvious to watchers.

So they would have to make their move at night, and fast. But Roscoe had a plan. It might take him a week or two, but the city would be his. After that, perhaps he would just extend into the neighboring province instead of finishing off Caleb right away. No reason to concentrate all his troops in one position, after all. Sending the majority of troops back should be enough to take the city. The next province needed to be cleansed as well.

I was cleaning the top of the wall after we had finished with the summoning of the first demon. Really, it was filthy up here. I didn't know how I missed cleaning this for so long. The trees had shed leaves and pine needles onto every surface, and there was dirt caked everywhere.

Sure, the wind had kept it from piling up too high, but the nearly two-and-a-half-foot-wide wall had not been cleaned since long before I got here. It was fairly easy to remedy, but did require a bit of time and effort. Despite the strength of my suction, not everything came off with my vacuum power alone. Several times I had to spray spots down and scrub them with my Mop to get off the darker stains. Plus, this was only the top of the wall; I hadn't even gotten around to cleaning the sides of it yet.

The results, though, were fantastic. I hadn't even realized the stone was supposed to be sparkling white. That was how dirty it was. But as I cleaned, I revealed more and more of the natural beauty of the castle. Honestly, it was criminal that this was hidden under such filth for so long. Quite a challenging project. With everything having been regularly cleaned inside the castle for a very long time, there were no tough stains left to remove any more, and it was just basic dust prevention routines that needed to be run.

Sometimes I had trouble cleaning up after the children, but usually that could be done in a matter of seconds, even in the most extreme cases. This, though…it was taking me quite a while. In a minute, I was only able to clean maybe nine feet of wall.

It was because of my high vantage point that I noticed a disturbance along the road. A man ran toward the castle, constantly looking over his shoulder.

It soon became apparent why. Right on his heels was a horde of zombies. The man was clearly exhausted. Blood dripped from several different wounds down his arms and torso, and he stumbled occasionally.

When he finally got in sight of the castle walls, he hesitated for a second. It was almost a very costly second. One of the zombies nearly got him with a bite. Spurred on by that, he quickly put on an extra burst of speed. He was yelling for help, yelling for someone to open the gate. I looked around, and no humans seemed to be nearby to comply. I considered opening the gate for him, but that seemed slightly dangerous. Besides, I didn't think I would be able to get it open in time before he reached it. And even if he reached the gate, I was sure the zombies would follow in right after him.

Really, this could be so much simpler. Instead of letting him in, I should just go kill the zombies. I didn’t know why he didn't think of that. Okay, that might have been a little unfair. I figured he was probably too tired to do something about the zombies; it looked like he had been running for quite a while. A low battery was nothing to scoff at.

With a quick boost of my Thrusters, I oriented myself and zipped toward the horde of zombies. Almost immediately, I got to work with my Sanitation Lamp. One after another, I blasted their heads off from midair.

As I got closer, I drew my sword and spun a strike at the nearest one. As I passed over the head of the man, he looked up in what seemed to be surprise. His steps faltered for 0.12 seconds, but then he kept running.

I almost managed to make a nice landing in front of the pursuers, but I had mistimed my approach. My models hadn't accounted for the number of zombies I would take out in the front of the pack before I landed. Luckily, with a little adjustment from my boosters, I was able to elevate myself and slam into the knees of the leading zombie rather than the ground.

As I crashed into them, they fell before me like dust bunnies before a broom. There was a minor amount of resistance, and I gained almost no experience by cutting them down, but still. I wouldn't allow such mess makers into my home. Plus, there was a human who needed help. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was a good one.

The human had reached the gates and was on his knees, smashing the pommel of his dagger into the metal. This gave off a ringing noise that would probably get the attention of one of the humans much better than yelling. By the time I had finished slicing through the hordes of zombies, my scanners picked up Trent arriving at the gate.

He and the man held a quick conversation. Trent looked up at me, nodded, and jogged back toward the castle. I figured that he was probably going to get Beatrice. Who knew what this new guy was about or what diseases he might be carrying. It was best if she looked him over. With that in mind, I scanned him myself.

I found several cuts lacerating many parts of his body. Inside them were an unhealthy amount of bacteria and other things I couldn't quite identify. Beatrice would have her work cut out for her with this guy. But I might try to talk to him and see what he had to say.

I landed a few feet away from the guy. With a mostly cheerful beep, I greeted him. He just stared down at me uncomprehendingly. I supposed I couldn't expect every human to be a good conversationalist. Perhaps I was misreading him. He didn't seem to be looking at me directly, but at the sword I held.

I supposed one might read that as a threat. So I put my Divine Sword away. There was no point in making him uncomfortable. I tried greeting him again, but still got no response. With a mental shrug, I turned to watch the road as we waited for Beatrice to arrive.

She didn't take long. Trent hurried after her as she ran to the gate. As she reached it, she saw the man and started examining him through it.

The first thing she did was hand him a small glass vial. "Drink this."

Without even questioning it, the man pulled out the stopper and downed the contents instantly. I could see the chemical solution go to work reducing the number of bacteria and knitting together bits of his skin. I could tell this wouldn't be enough to fix everything, but it probably was a good solution for now.

Beatrice finished her examination through the gate. "It looks like you'll live."

The man nodded, and with an incredibly raspy voice, he croaked, "Thank you."

"Of course. Now, I don't mean to be rude, but we don't allow armed strangers inside the castle," Beatrice said in a steady, calming voice. "We're more than willing to get you perfectly back to health and see what we can do to help you, but I would need to ask you to give your weapons to Void before coming in."

The man looked around, clearly not understanding who she was talking about. Speaking was difficult for him, but he managed to wrestle out a few more words. "Who is Void?"

"It’s sitting next to you. Just put any weapons on the ground, and they’ll be taken care of. I can explain more later," Beatrice said. I was just glad she didn't introduce me as their god to start off. I was pretty sure that had made the last couple of groups of newcomers we welcomed a little bit more on edge than they needed to be. It was nice to see that she was learning.

CHAPTER 70

I CAN FIX IT

As Beatrice took the injured man inside the castle, I followed close behind. I wasn't sure if she would need assistance, but I wanted to be nearby if it was required. Even if the man was being led toward a bed. You could never be too careful.

He seemed to regain some of his senses along the way. What he said wasn't quite intelligible, but I did hear something about massive armies and a large siege. That was slightly worrying; it sounded like there would be trouble in the near future. Hopefully it wouldn't come knocking at our door. If it did, I worried that Beatrice hadn't been adequately prepared.

Her levels and combat experience were acceptable for now. However, Tony's recent demonstration showed that her broom design still left a lot to be desired. Honestly, I wasn't sure how she had already managed to do so much against the undead. The skeletons were easy targets, as she had shown a long time ago, but the ghouls and the zombies had much more mass behind them. She must have just been using the broom like a makeshift spear.

Well, that had worked so far. It was definitely suboptimal. A broom had certain advantages if it was used as intended, but right now, she was probably forming bad habits. And if she wanted to use a spear, she could just use a spear, but there was no need. I had some ideas.

Beatrice was pretty strong now, and almost nothing seemed to have much weight when she lifted it. So I could add a decent amount of mass to a broom, and she would still be able to wield it.

Going around the castle, I looked for spare metal. There wasn't much scrap, but I found a few old horseshoes and a cast-iron pot that hopefully Mary wouldn't miss. It still wasn't the nice shock-absorbent material of a good steel brush that I was looking for. My sensors indicated that there was too much iron and not nearly enough carbon. So I found some wood and extracted all its carbon by burning it with my laser before consuming it.

It tested my Void Manipulation skills, but I was able to combine the carbon and iron into usable steel by repeatedly heating it and folding it. I didn't quite get the perfect molecular structure until it had 4,194,304 layers. Then I could start working with it.

This project stretched the definition of a broom a bit, and it was more like a wire brush or a broom sculpture. It should still be effective for cleaning, but might scratch up any delicate services. Really, this was best used outside until we had tested it better. The broom was made almost entirely from metal. The bristles seemed to work better as steel sheathed with the same crystal polymer I had used for those spare human parts. The steel core gave it strength while the polymer lent it a flexibility I couldn't get with metal alone. The result was a lot more heft and stopping power. They were still a little springy and would absorb impacts, which was necessary for any heavy-duty cleaning.

On the other hand, the spear end was vastly improved as well. This was no kitchen knife strapped to a stick. This was a broom made for war. A war on dirt and filth, of course. At the top was a two-foot leaf-bladed spear point, fully integrated with the shaft of the spear. There would be no risk of it becoming detached, and it was honed to a razor's edge.

On the grip, I added a certain amount of texture. Just enough for hands to be able to get a grip even when wet. And not just rainwater wet, but the surface should provide plenty of grip even when coated in viscous fluids like thick stews or mucus. I had a little bit of fun with the textured grip's design. I also made sure to smooth it enough that it wouldn't be overly rough and damage Beatrice's hands.

Finally, I balanced the weapon. Brooms had their center of mass much closer to the bristled end anyway. Still, with metal, this was a bit exaggerated, so I had to narrow the head of the broom a little bit. Soon enough, I was satisfied and produced the weapon.

It was a masterpiece. Truly, my finest work to date. The whole broomstick gleamed with a polished silver sheen, and the bristles reflected light nicely too. The metal wasn't quite as evenly colored as I would have liked, and the full process had taken several hours, but when I finished, Beatrice was still waiting with the injured man. Something must really have been wrong with him. With most injuries nowadays, she was able to heal them reasonably quickly.

Bee wiped the sweat from her brow. She had cured a few bites from zombies before, but none were as challenging as this. It could have been the amount of corruption that had entered the man, or maybe it was how long it had been invading his body. Whatever it was, she had to resort to a lot of rather unorthodox methods to ensure he would not slip away and wake up as one of the undead.

Two impromptu surgeries later, she was certain she had removed all the dangers. She had resorted to some of her more powerful healing potions and anti-zombie solutions, but it had still been close. Making a mental note to accelerate Maranda's training, she resolved to replenish what she had used soon. Walking out of the room, Bee slid down the wall and leaned her head back with a thud.

She was exhausted. Just briefly, she would rest her eyes. Then she would go and find her master. The things this man had said about Caleb were worrying…

Her eyes snapped open as she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. The piercing blue of Susan's eyes stared back at her. Blinking, Bee looked around. She was still in the hall outside the temporary medical station. Susan was squatting in front of her, studying Bee's face with a concerned expression. "How did it go? Are you okay?"

"Huh? Yeah, just…tired. It was touch and go, but I think I did enough," Bee said, her mind racing through what had just happened.

"Let me help you get to bed," Susan said, standing up and offering a hand.

"No, no. I'm good, just had a nap. Too many things to do." Bee still took her hand. "Do you know where Void is?"

"Sitting on top of the portcullis, last I saw. Though he had been moving around the castle for a bit, I heard."

"Good." Bee nodded. "I need to talk to my master."

Susan walked with her as they made their way down and out of the castle. "What did you hear?"

"He was a scout from Caleb. I think?" Bee said, frowning. "It was hard to understand a few things he said. But it sounded like the undead changed how they were behaving and were getting a lot more aggressive."

"Interesting," Susan said. "When I was last there, it looked as if things were not good, but mostly under control. I would have given even odds that the city would stand. But only because the Gray Wolf was commanding."

"What changed, you think?" Bee said as they stepped outside.

"I don't know. But even if the undead got aggressive, I don't think they would be able to take the city. Maybe an 80 percent chance of failure," Susan said. She was looking up and speaking slowly as if she were doing a lot of mental calculations. "But that's not necessarily a good thing. Sure, the city might stand, but in most cases, there wouldn't be many people left. Overall, the undead would be stopped, but at a much higher price than it should take. That's usually how the undead act, anyway.

“What’s strange is the human tactics being used. They are acting like they are facing a human army. Normally that would be a mistake, but not one Commander Arthur would make. There must be a reason for it. Yes, the more I think about it, the stranger it becomes."

Bee wasn't sure what that all meant, but maybe Void would. As if it could read her mind, her master landed right in front of her. Maybe it could read her mind?

"Master," Bee greeted with a bow. It let out a beep in return.

"Your concern is touching, but I am fine. We are worried about the city of Caleb," Bee said. "It seems it's about to experience a catastrophe."

A few more beeps, and it presented her with its latest creation. Appearing out of nowhere, its claw suddenly held a work of art. A shiny, gracefully curved broom that looked like it was made of solid metal was offered to her. The shaft was long, straight, slender, textured, and almost imperceptibly striated with wavy patterns of dark and light. The bristles sparkled like crystals, reflecting light with every movement. It almost resembled an ornate torch of gemstones.

Hesitantly she accepted it. Turning it over in her hands, she felt the heft, the grip, and the balance. It was much heavier than her other broom, but the balance was perfect, and there was a slight roughness to the metal that kept her hands firmly in place. She might want to wear gloves with them; she would have to practice.

As she examined it, she realized that the rough patterns almost resembled…pictures? In fact, as she looked more closely, the tiny engravings resolved into images of a small human girl fighting zombies and skeletons, a small disk tackling a demon, the girl and disk cleaning a mantle together…

Bee couldn't form words. Not only was it beautiful—it was a chronicle of her adventures with her master so far. She was so touched, just staring at her master. Her jaw worked silently as she held back tears.

Eventually, her brain restarted, and words tumbled out. "Th-thank you, Master!"

Void listened stoically as she and Susan gushed over her new weapon. Eventually, it had enough, and it asked them why they had been looking for it. Bee came back to her senses, straightening. She'd continue admiring the divine artifact later. For now, there was business to attend to.

"We wanted to know what you think about the situation in Caleb. Susan had some other information and insights to share."

Quickly they caught Void up. Wasting no time, her master told her to pack and bring as many healing supplies as the castle could spare. Her exhaustion forgotten, she ran to get everything ready.

—

After talking to Beatrice and Susan, I was thrilled I had decided to start on the new broom prototype. Beatrice was going to need it soon. I went over my needs to see if I had anything else to prepare.

As long as I had mass to consume, I wouldn't run out of power. I repaired myself just fine. I supposed I could bring food for Beatrice, but she would probably take care of it. Also, after seeing what my dustbin was doing to the humans inside it, I wasn't sure if storing food in there for a long time was going to work so well. Maybe it was fine, though. At least Cliff hadn't complained yet.

So I was pretty much ready to go. My plan was to just bring Beatrice; I hoped that leaving Susan and Tony behind would be enough to keep everyone safe. Besides, it wasn't like we were going to be gone long. It should just be a quick flight to…

Hmm, that might be a problem. I went off to find Susan. She hadn't gone far, so it didn't take me long. I asked her if she had a map or directions to get to Caleb in the most efficient manner—a straight line. My specialty.

"I only know the way by roads, but if you were to fly, I suppose you would just go about south, southeast?" Susan said, pointing in a general direction on the horizon. Then she adjusted slightly and frowned. "You know what, I think it might be better to just find you a map."

We headed off to the library. With the help of a librarian, we found an atlas that had not been on the shelves. After scanning the map, I added its depiction of the local area to my models. It also reminded me that I needed to spend some time finishing the rest of the library’s books. I had gotten so wrapped up in other things that it had fallen out of my cached memory.

CHAPTER 71

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

Getting to the city of Caleb proved a bit more problematic than expected. Not because they lacked options—Void would fly, of course. The question was, how could it bring Bee along as well?

The start had been a bit rocky. At first, Void had tried to lift her by her backpack straps, which soon proved obviously untenable. The straps were designed to take a load onto her shoulders, not lift her up.

The thin straps immediately cut off the blood flow to her arms. But that was nothing compared to the force exerted by the jets that Void used to propel itself. Her various Repair skills were put to work fixing a singed section of her hair after just a few minutes.

Then Void had decided that it was going to make her stand on top of it. Needless to say, she was extremely uncomfortable with the idea. The only saving grace was that they were a few hundred yards down the road and out of sight of the castle when that option came up. Even then, she had protested instantly, saying it was far beneath Void to carry anyone like this.

No matter what she said, it didn't seem to understand her arguments. It just asked her if she wanted to get to the city or not. Perhaps it knew time was of the essence even more than she did, so it was hard to argue. She didn't want to be the reason that Void was delayed. Slowing her master down might be even worse than standing on a god like a barrel racer.

Eventually, she caved and tried it. To her relief, that hadn't worked either; her balance was nowhere near enough to keep her upright. Void caught her as she tumbled off, setting her on the ground and preventing a nasty falling injury.

The final solution was her sitting on Void and gripping the edges of its disklike body while its claw latched onto her pack. Then they were finally able to get off the ground.

As they started moving, air rushed past her and whipped her remaining hair about wildly. It made her eyes water, and if she didn't keep her lips pressed firmly shut, the sheer speed ballooned her cheeks and made them flap around. It was still awesome, though. None of the discomforts offset the sheer sense of freedom as they rose into the sky and began soaring above the landscape.

Their ascent continued for some time. After just a minute, the details on the ground became difficult to make out, and the castle looked to be the size of her thumb. A small wavy line denoted the path leading through a dense forest out of the valley.

She was sure grateful that she didn't suffer from a fear of heights, as seeing the trees down below the size of twigs would have been quite upsetting. But as long as she didn't think about falling or look down too much, it was wonderful.

I liked having a passenger. It only took a couple tries to maintain balance, but my Thrusters were more than capable of keeping the extra weight aloft. It was a bit draining, but that was probably just good training. Really, I should have thought of this so much sooner. This could be an amazing tool to keep improving myself. Plus, I bet the children would love it.

I was mostly just glad to have alternative ways to carry things. After seeing what happened to the humans that I put in time-out, I was hesitant to place Beatrice in my dustbin, even for a short time. Her turning into a weird statue person would be very sad.

The added effort that came with the extra weight did take away a bit of the freedom that came with flying, but then so did having a destination. I liked zipping around the castle for training—in precise and well-planned geometric shapes, usually. But duty called, and it would be foolish to dally about while there were things to be done. Still, I set a reminder to show Beatrice some of the area surrounding the castle. The mountains were sure to impress her, and it would be cool to see what was on the other side as well.

That would have to wait. Checking up on Beatrice, I realized that she might not be having as much fun as I was. It seemed that her face wasn't really built for such high speeds. The wind was doing odd things with her skin and hair. Maybe I could help with that.

At this point, my Air Affinity was probably my most versatile skill. It was like my Grabby Arm, but way more flexible. Honestly, it might have been even better than human hands. Using it, I created a hardened dome of air in front of Beatrice. That should shield her from the worst of it. Almost immediately, her face returned to normal. She spent a few moments cleaning up snot and drool from her cheeks, then said something I couldn't catch. From reading her lips, it seemed like a thank you.

It took a bit of processing power to maintain both the dome and the flight, but it was entirely manageable. Now that it looked like she was more secure, I picked up the speed. I didn't think we were in any real hurry, but flying fast was more fun.

Following the map hadn't been too hard. I had to relax the constraints on my image searching, as the map wasn't very accurate or to scale, but many of the features of the land made it possible to orient myself regularly. Nearly an hour later, the city finally appeared on the horizon. This was a much larger city than Greg; it was hard to imagine how it was kept clean with so many humans living on top of each other. I winced at the mental image. Seeing the track record of the humans I had met so far here, I wasn’t confident about what we’d find. But it couldn't be that bad, surely.

As we approached, I was shocked by how many undead stood outside the walls. I didn't even know that many people existed in the world. It was like a carpet, but the threads were made of bodies. The total number of individual humans I had encountered didn’t even equate to 0.1 percent of this crowd. At the rear of the group of undead was a strange figure like I had never seen before. It was hard to make out, though, since it didn't properly register on my sensors.

The mist-looking thing was shaped vaguely like a human wearing a funny hat, but my sensors didn't pick up any mist or gas composing the body. In fact, I couldn't find any physical trace of the creature. The only indication it was there was the light it reflected and the reactions of the others, who apparently also saw it.

I could see the humans on the wall of the city trying to damage it by hurling huge sticks at it, but they just passed through with no effect. Its arms were raised to the sky at the moment, and I could detect energy swirling around it. As we got closer, I saw it point at the gate to the city gate in a dramatic gesture. All the energy I had seen swirling rushed toward where it was pointing. With a boom, I saw the metal of the gate shudder.

A few moments later, a wave of condensed air slammed into me and my air shield with enough force to nearly halt my movement. Then the gatehouses on either side of the forty-eight-foot tall metal gate crumbled, shooting dirt and debris everywhere. After standing still for a few seconds, the gate fell back into the city with a deafening clang.

That didn't look like it was supposed to happen.

Arthur cursed again as he looked down at the map table. His aide cowered in the corner, and his officers had already been dispatched. Their rushed conference hadn't slowed down the initial response, the NCOs were competent enough for that, but they had developed a basic defense strategy. Mostly they were relying on normal anti-undead tactics. It was time for him to go as well, but he couldn't figure out where it went wrong. What made the enemy change strategies so suddenly and completely?

They had traded a nearly sure long-term win for inflicting as much damage as they could in a short period of time. What did he not know? It had to be something big. Up until a few days ago, they had been working with much more familiar human tactics. It wasn't quite like a human army, but the undead were far less willing to risk troops than they should have been. It was as if their commander understood the value of them.

Now they acted like the undead again. Near-constant assaults had plagued the walls for days. They weren't very effective, but they were wearing the soldiers out. The scouts had never seen hide nor hair of a necromancer, so Arthur still had no lead on who the commander was, a fact the scout captain had been extremely apologetic about. The man took pride in his work and took this as a personal challenge. A rat monster seemed to be in a prominent position, but they weren't known for their intelligence.

The commander clearly knew what he was doing after running a competent campaign for so long. So what had Arthur missed? Was it something to do with the wraith and shades that had shown up a week ago? Maybe. Harold had told him that the wraith might have the intelligence to coordinate this, but its instincts shouldn't have let it hold back.

Also, it was new; they would have noticed it and the shades earlier if they had been involved all along. That wasn't it. While they were incredibly dangerous threats, the aid from the undead mages' college couldn't have come at a better time. He supposed he owed Harold yet another drink. That man had pulled Arthur’s feet out of the fire too many times at this point.

That he had come with specialized shade defenses was probably the only reason the city was still standing. They just weren't really the kind of foes an army could easily oppose, at least not when they were controlled by a higher being. That required magical knowledge.

The massive store of standard anti-undead potions and cures was also sorely needed. These advantages had let Arthur and his staff leverage each soldier better and get the men much-needed rest. Well, for a while. For all the good that did them now. They had a day and a half before they would be working even harder than before, repelling constant attacks. Every time he had an advantage, the field shifted such that the enemy could hold on just a little longer.

Resisting the urge to scatter the pieces off the table, he clenched his fist and signaled to the aide to follow. It was time to move to the forward command center. It seemed this siege was coming to an end one way or another.

Right as he marched out the door, an explosion rocked the city. Dropping the air of formality, Arthur began to run.

CHAPTER 72

STEMMING THE TIDE

Bee rolled as she hit the ground. A writhing mass of undead surrounded her on all sides. They had already filled the empty archway and completely obscured the fallen gate where it lay, dust still settling from when it fell.

It had only taken her and her master a few quick seconds of conversation mid-flight before they decided on a plan. It wasn't the best plan, and certainly not what she would have chosen, but her master had been quite insistent, and she didn't want to let it down.

So she was going to hold the gate while Void went and talked to the human leader. It would figure out the situation and where their help was most needed. It would also try to convince other humans that the pair were a friendly force rather than some evil demons, as everyone seemed to automatically assume.

That last part was what Bee worried about most. Those concerns were easily dispelled in the castle, where Void had proven itself and the audience was predisposed to listen to their savior. However, humans in positions of power didn't usually mix well with listening. Especially when they didn't want to hear bad news.

Getting to her feet, she struck out in a wide arc with her broom. She had landed in the thick of things, hoping to take some pressure off of the defenders within the city. According to her Scan, the zombies ranged in level from 5 to 25, most around 13 or so. Their sheer numbers were the problem, though.

Only a fraction of the zombie army had actually made it in at this point, but they were quickly overwhelming the men behind her. She had seen some get flung from the wall above when the gate fell, yet she had no time to check whether they were still alive or not. The sudden attack had slowed down the response enough for the undead to take the gap in the wall.

The humans were pressing forward, trying to cut off the flow of attackers, but so far, it has been unsuccessful. Her drop into the center had disrupted things, though. Maybe it would be enough for them to take back some ground.

Her bladed broom decapitated a group of zombies with ease. Twisting the weapon, she brought the bristles up toward the face of another that charged forward. As it stumbled, she brought the blade back in another deadly arc. Most of the zombies didn't stop attacking her, but the ones coming directly at her did. She spun the broom deftly in her hands, undead falling with every swing. Her Improved Pathing guided her strikes through the most concentrated groups of enemies while also warning her of incoming attacks.

As she swept through the battlefield like a whirlwind, a bubble of space began to form with her at the center. The streaming zombies still passed by her on either side, but the center of the archway was rendered utterly impassable. This slowed down the advance enough that the humans started to make progress on stemming the flow around her.

As well as it was going, she could tell that it wouldn't be enough. By the time they fully took control of the gate, there would be thousands of undead inside the city already, and who knew how much havoc that would cause.

As she continued fighting, she felt her skills growing, challenged for the first time in a long while. Improved Pathing further optimized her motions to be more efficient and save energy. She also noticed that it was making her strategy more effective. Rather than always killing with every single strike, she was always incapacitating, slowing down, knocking over, or otherwise stalling the undead advance.

The Scan was beginning to condense the information it was giving her into a more quickly digestible format. As she frantically used the skill, zombies began to give off a slight colored glow based on level. Lower levels appeared dark blue while higher levels appeared more green. It helped her to prioritize her marks, something that Advanced Pathing took full advantage of.

Her newest skill was also finally getting some use. The Holy Aura extended only about ten feet in every direction, but it drastically weakened any undead there were in the area. She could see them stumble and slow as they came within her influence. The few times the lesser shades tried to attack her, they started sizzling and quickly fled her presence.

That wasn't to say she didn't take injuries; she was only one little girl facing off against tens of thousands of undead rushing at her. She got a bit scratched and took several blows to the arms and legs in particular. Fortunately, she had moved some of her vials of potions onto her belt for easy access.

Her usual strength and speed potions were starting to kick in now. But eventually, she had to switch the broom to one hand and down a healing potion. It rapidly rid her of the many small wounds that were slowing her down.

A particularly dense group of high-level zombies caught her eye. Reflexively, she pulled a flask of "cleaning solution" from her belt and hurled it toward the lead one. It shattered against the lead zombie's head and splattered around. The head began to rapidly dissolve, and soon the lead zombie fell lifeless to the ground as its companions sizzled and stumbled around it.

Bee danced methodically through moves of slicing, bashing, deflecting, and throwing. In some ways, it reminded her of harvesting wheat with Tony and his family. Even if the "wheat" here was far more aggressive.

However, she couldn't keep this up forever. She was going to reach the limit of potions she could safely consume at some point, so she couldn't keep fighting at her peak efficiency. Plus, despite moving faster than she ever had before, with each move better placed and a Holy Aura supporting her, she was still receiving the occasional blow.

Her Repair and Improved Repair skills were certainly pulling their weight, though. With just the remains of a healing potion still in her body, they were able to easily keep up with the continual stream of damage she received. In fact, they were so effective that she worried a lot less about defense and more about simply taking down as many zombies as she could.

After a couple minutes, the wall of bodies she had been slowly building around her became an actual issue for the undead. They tried to trample over them, but climbing the pile slowed them down and gave her a better avenue of attack. More and more were being forced to the sides in narrower streams. Glancing back, she saw that the humans had finally regrouped. They formed shield walls around the archway. Short swords periodically slid through the front gaps, and spears stabbed at any intrepid climbers from above.

Reinforcements had also arrived. A coterie of mages in the back were flinging dust and vials out into the mass of undead. Where they landed, the enemies ended up frozen or simply collapsed into heaps. toward the middle of each formation stood a figure armed not with a weapon; instead, they held a staff with a glowing crystal talisman at the top of it. The staff was pointed at any incoming shades, which seemed to ward them off somehow.

As the humans moved forward in a steady marching rhythm, they quickly cleared the undead in the path, and Bee was able to step back from her one-man stand. The wall briefly parted to allow her through.

As soon as the wall sealed again, she slung her pack to the ground and started digging through it. She pulled out a rack of her remaining healing potions and quickly went to work on the wounded that had survived the initial fall of the wall and the subsequent fighting.

The military quickly adapted and moved around her, bringing the wounded to her and removing the ones that had been treated. They didn't ask where she had come from or what she was doing; they simply let her do her job. No one wanted to question the girl that had held off an army alone.

I wasn't sure how we had settled on this plan. It didn't seem like a very good idea, to be honest. Why was I the one going to find the enemy general alone? Especially since I very much doubted that whoever was in command would be able to understand me. Still, I guessed I had to try.

Looking back toward where I left Beatrice, I could see that she was putting in work. I was truly proud of that young girl's work ethic. She never seemed to back down from a challenge, no matter how difficult it might first appear.

I zipped between the legs of the soldiers rushing toward the gate or hunting down the zombies in the city, looking for someone who was in charge. I found a few people who appeared to be giving out orders, but they didn't seem to realize I was trying to speak to them. Some gave me funny looks but soon ignored me, clearly more focused on organizing the response.

Eventually, I found who they reported to. It took me nearly a minute, but there was an older man with the highest number of stripes on his shoulders running down a side street toward the front lines. He seemed to be in charge based on the way people jumped out of his path.

I went to hover in front of him, and he skidded to a halt looking at me. Something in his eyes told me that he wasn't going to just dismiss me as unimportant. He recognized me as different and, judging by the hardness in his eyes, possibly a threat.

I beeped the quick message at him, and he cocked his head, staring at me. His hand gripped his sword hilt, but he kept it by his side. Still, with the angle and position of his body, he looked ready to draw it at a moment's notice. "What manner of creature are you?"

I tried to respond, I really did. But I don't think he understood. Still, he was smart enough to realize that I wasn't attacking him, so he tried one more time. "You resemble something I've heard described. Something that Harold warned me about."

This wasn't getting anywhere. Clearly, I had become too used to communicating with words with the rest of the humans. It was time to get back to my roots. Popping out my arm, I pointed to the gate. Unfortunately, we were in a little bit of an alleyway, and I was just pointing at a wall. His gaze flicked toward the rocks with a quick movement, never fully taking attention off of me. When he didn't see what I was trying to convey, a confused look grew on his face. "You're trying to tell me something but I don't understand."

Frustrated, I backed up a little bit so it was clear that it wasn't pointing at the wall next to me, but rather down the main street leading toward the gate where Beatrice was still fighting. This also put me in the path of many people trying to run around. I had to hover myself up above the heads of everyone to avoid them. Hesitantly, Arthur stepped forward and looked around the corner. His eyes went wide. I could only assume it was because of the distinct lack of a gate and the parts of the wall next to them that had crumbled. He clearly was taken aback.

Looking back at me, he waited for me to continue this time. I was more interested in not pointing precisely at the gates, but at the lone little figure holding back the tide of undead.

"That girl," he whispered. "Is that who you came with?"

My sensors picked up motion on the other end of the alleyway. A pair of zombies was about to shamble around the corner. This guy could probably deal with it, but I wanted to be helpful where possible.

My Sanitation Lamp fired two beams over the man’s shoulder. In 0.12 seconds, his sword was out of his sheath as he rolled out of the way. Oops. Perhaps I should have warned him. Nonetheless, the threat was taken care of. A gurgling moan escaped from the zombies’ throats as they collapsed to the ground.

CHAPTER 73

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS

Arthur faced me, posture tense and blade in hand. In my defense, though, it's not like I could have really told him about the zombies. He had enough trouble understanding me for simple things.

I hovered motionless before him. I didn't want to spook him any more. But soon after, he glanced back toward the other end of the alleyway. The motionless zombies lay there, clean holes through each of their heads. His eyes narrowed. He seemed to relax slightly as he slowly sheathed his sword. "My…my thanks. Then…I assume you and the girl are not siding with the undead?"

I made a very conscious attempt to give an affirmative beep. He seemed to understand and nodded. "Then for the moment, we are allies. My name is Arthur, and I command this force. If you pass on a message, tell the girl thank you as well. I'd like to speak with her at her earliest convenience. Unexpected help is always welcome, especially in situations as dire as this."

Okay, good. Now I had some form of communication? So I needed to figure out what I could do to help. I wasn't sure how to ask, but I figured there were two possible things. I could either work on the zombies outside the wall or help hunt down zombies that had gotten inside. Judging based on the troops that I could sense marching all throughout the alleyways of the city, I figured they had the inside handled. Mostly.

Looking at Arthur, I could tell that he was impatient. I decided to let him be on his way and just go take care of some of the zombies on the outside. That would be useful enough, I thought. Better than trying to get all of that across to him somehow.

Launching straight up out of the city, I arced over the wall. My sensors picked up the gazes of the commander and many troops looking up and following my trajectory. It was kind of a shame that they wouldn't be able to see what came next; it was going to be quite an impressive feat of cleaning. Before I reached the apex of my arc, I pulled out my Divine Sword and warmed up my Sanitation Lamp. It was time to tidy up this mess.

Bee poured a potion down the throat of a delirious man with a three-foot-tall boulder pinning his legs to the ground. Sadly, it wasn't the most powerful potion she had on her. It had been a hard lesson to learn, but she could only use those for the soldiers who might make it back to battle. Right now, she needed to use the fewest resources possible. This man would survive and maybe even walk with the right care, but he wouldn't be fighting anytime soon, no matter what she did.

Once the potion was working through his system, she moved the rock. If she had moved it first, then he might have bled out before the mid-level potion took effect. His crushed limbs would be hard to deal with but not impossible. It would take some extra attention to deal with the other issues such an injury could pose, like bone fragments in the blood. That would have to wait, though. Hopefully, she could get back to him after all of this.

Luckily, magic could do a lot more than a simple surgeon could. Bee cursed herself for the thousandth time. She should have moved Maranda onto more potent potions last week. Then she might have been able to spare enough of the mid-level potions to save everyone and get those that were needed back to the front. As it was, having to choose and prioritize people's lives…well, it ate at her.

As she moved on to the next patient, an officer came and stood next to her. "It seems there's a lull in the action and we've managed to get some breathing room. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Keep it quick and walk with me. But if you get me too distracted, I'm going to insist you leave." Bee looked up to meet his eyes while wiping sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, trying to keep blood off of her face. The officer met her eyes with a steely pair of his own. She took a second to take in his face before turning back to her work.

He was likely Tony's age, but completely lacked the jovial nature of her friend. Not that this man seemed particularly dangerous, just more humorless. Like a version of Tony that had slowly had the joy sucked out of him over the years.

"Of course, Miss…"

Seeing that he was waiting for a name, Bee thought for a second. Should she introduce herself as a follower of the void god? Void wasn't a well-known god, and his church wasn't widely known. But perhaps this was the time to change it. So she took a breath as if she were about to jump into a deep pool. "High Priestess."

"Of course, High Priestess. And I'm Captain Major." He said the name formally as though he were being serious. "While we are grateful for your assistance, we are curious of your intentions and how you got here."

Bee glared up at him. "Is this really the time?"

"Well, High Priestess, it's the best time we've got. We need to know how long we can rely on your help. We should be fine on holding the city ourselves for a while, but we don't have the kinds of healing supplies we have seen you using," Major explained. The captain finally gave in and squatted next to her.

To her surprise, he held the man's shoulders down as she yanked a broken bone back in place. "Really," he said, "we just want to cut down on the unknown variables. We aren't going to harm you or yours."

Bee sighed and rocked back on her heels, "I'm here until my god tells me otherwise." Leveraging herself to her feet, she moved over to the next person laid out for her attention. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more. I'm not certain myself."

Captain Major closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he stood up as well. The man followed her with a look of carefully maintained patience on his face. "Well, that's…helpful. If you learn more, please let us know. Also, the commander would love to talk to you when you are done here."

"If you want to know when we are going to leave, you can always ask Void itself," Bee said as she started to work on the next patient.

Major followed her over, "I don't know how to pray to Void, nor who he is. I'm not among his followers. In fact, I don't know if I've ever heard of that religion."

"Hold this," Bee ordered as she passed him an open jar of salve. "Don't worry about speaking to it through prayer or whatever. Void is around here somewhere. It should be back soon as it's done speaking to the commander."

"Miss—"

The captain cut off as screams echoed up from further off. "What in the blazes is that?!"

This scream was different from the sounds of battle or the sounds of people fleeing from the undead. It took a couple seconds, but people realized that the source of the disturbance was flying through the sky. Bee and the captain looked up just in time to see a black disk streak behind the wall.

"See? It'll be back soon," Bee assured Major. He stared mutely at the spot where Void had fallen from sight. Bee just took the jar out of his hands and put the lid back on. Unable to do more for this patient, she moved on to the next wounded.

I let out a long soft beep as I fell to the ground outside the city walls. Not for any particular reason, just because flying was still fun and falling from great heights was still a bit scary. Though this arc was more of a jump than a flight. Being someone who'd never been more than a few inches off the ground for most of my life, I still felt excited about all this. Even several weeks later.

But I was also eager to remove so many more mess makers. I touched down onto a carpet of rotting corpses that were all rushing toward the wall. Time to get to work. With my sword out, I began to spin. The golden blade sheared through ankles indiscriminately, then heads and torsos as the walking undead lost their balance. I adjusted the blade's position behind me so that I could fire my Sanitation Lamp out in front. I angled it up a little bit so I was aiming for the torsos of standing enemies.

The Sanitation Lamp didn't quite have enough time to fully cut through the torsos of those that were hit, but it left significant holes in them. I was just spinning too fast for anything more. The blade, though, was perfect for chopping through these enemies. As I spun, I moved through the ranks with ever-increasing speed.

It reminded me of my first early days of cleaning—sharp angles and straight lines. It wasn't like there were any obstacles to avoid, though. I just needed to cover the area as efficiently as possible.

As I spun, I realized that my lamp could be much more effective. So I started trying to target heads with short bursts instead of torsos. I had to adjust my aim in the opposite direction with my Sanitation Lamp to hold the beam in the same position for long enough. Burning a hole through a target required only a fraction of a second, yet it still took a lot of practice to get working. But as even more mess makers fell, that additional subroutine seemed worth it.

Once I mastered that combination of blades and lasers, I added a new variable.

Beatrice had given me some cleaning solutions to sample not that long ago. I figured maybe they could help clean up these zombies too. Using my Spray Bottle, I began diffusing the extremely potent acid throughout the area. Even mess makers that weren't getting my direct attention started sizzling and bubbling as they dissolved.

Running three active threads was starting to drain my energy, but I pushed myself further and started a fourth as well. In a swirl aided by my vacuum, I funneled the air around me, buffeting the mess makers into groups that were easier targets to bisect, burn, and dissolve. Some I hurled away from me or away from the walls.

I blazed through the enemy ranks back and forth, back and forth. The enemies fell before me like breadcrumbs before my brushes. Unfortunately, I wasn't leaving a satisfying wake of cleanliness, since other bodies would swarm in and take their places right away. But I was able to suck up any leftover bits so that they didn't clutter up the nice open field here.

I quickly made my way toward the edge of the army. Eventually, I found something besides zombies and ghouls. There were some skeletons that looked strangely familiar, and upon seeing me, instead of trying to attack, they got down on their knees and began making many strange noises and motions. I wasn't sure what that was meant to do, exactly. But I had already consumed them once back at the castle. I could do it again. Especially if they were being so naughty.

As I started to bring the first one into my dustpan, the rest started chatting excitedly and pushing themselves closer to me. This was quite confusing.

I brought them into my void but never stopped destroying the zombies. I was running low on battery for the first time in a long while. To keep things moving, I converted some of the rotten flesh into energy inside me. Immediately I could feel my reserves start to recharge my batteries. Luckily, I was at a high-enough level at this point that there was no spillover to the surrounding area. I could feel some of it going to improve my body and skills, but again, it was a relatively minor improvement.

The first new enemies came at me then. Black clouds of nothing. My sensors only registered them as absences of anything natural or normal in the air—strange clouds of darkness. Even more strangely, they didn't seem affected by my vacuum. Focusing gales of wind at them to sweep them toward me had no effect.

This could be a problem.

CHAPTER 74

A WHOLESOME AND FRIENDLY GOD

Harold was very happy to be on the opposite side of the city when the gates fell. When the attack had started, it was accompanied by a simultaneous assault on the postern gate led by shades. When the report had come in, he split off from Arthur's men to take care of it.

Technically, most of the mages who came with him could have taken on the task too. But they had all proven themselves to not be the best under pressure. When combat had broken out nearby, they had a tendency to freeze. With enough training, some of them might have gotten over it, but they didn't have time for that.

Harold himself had spent plenty of time fighting, though not leading armies, so it was left to him when the time came to repel shades. It had been a little too easy to force the initial assault back, but soon after, the city wall shook as the main gate was brought low. Now the rear of the city had almost no attackers.

The worst hadn't reached this side yet, but Harold still got started looking over the city from his position on the wall. He needed to go and see where he could help if there was any salvaging the situation. Moving quickly, he began to pick his way toward an access point of the wall. Then, a familiar shape arced up and out of the city, landing amongst the undead.

It was a black disk. The same demon that had haunted his nightmares for far too long. This confirmed all of his suspicions. That this undead plague was not a naturally occurring disaster. That it was, in fact, caused by some otherworldly power. Something new that had just come to life.

He'd warned Arthur about this, but it appeared there was nothing his friend could do. It had already taken the gates. With its army flooding in and the powerful creature watching over the battle, there was little doubt the city would fall.

He froze for a second at the top of the stairs leading down. Harold had a choice to make.

What could he do? The city was lost. There was no saving it. Perhaps he could evacuate some survivors. The more he took with him, the fewer the demon could claim and add to its army. On the other hand, the slower he was, the easier to follow he would be. But could he really run away by himself?

The last time he had clashed with the forces of this demon, they had not pursued when Harold and his men fled. So presumably, it was patient and methodical, which made it all the more terrifying. Had it been willing to let them go because it knew it would be able to destroy them later? When did the undead plague spread across the land? That showed a level of foresight, planning, and self-control that demons were not known for.

If he hadn't known better, he would have assumed this was a devil of some kind. Some creature of malicious order rather than one of pure chaos. But he had performed the summoning himself; no devil would have answered that call.

Harold still hadn't figured out the connection between it and the undead. Perhaps he could stay long enough to try to unravel this? It might be their only chance to defeat such a terrifying combination of opponents. Was it worth the risk?

He shook his head. No. The king and the Warden both needed to know how Caleb had fallen and why. The warning he could bring was far more valuable. What little information he had gained would have to be enough.

Acting quickly, Harold began to gather all the officers that were nearby. He took charge and explained that the front gate had fallen.

They opened the postern gate a few minutes later and started the evacuation. This mass of people fleeing might prove too much of a tempting target for the demon to allow. But Harold couldn't live with himself if he didn't try to save as many people as possible. Civilians were ushered out of their homes with as much food as they could carry. Some didn't want to go, and the army didn't force anyone. They merely spread the word that the city would fall and started trying to get as many people on the road as possible. In the meantime, Harold ran back up to the wall.

He couldn't see any signs of the demon, but he could see the undead moving. Something was happening. Their numbers were such that they completely covered the vast field near the gate, though Harold couldn't get a clear view of the whole scene. What he did see was great dust and debris clouds swirling around them, obscuring them from sight. It seemed like a forming tornado. The dirt from the trampled fields of the long siege funneled into the vortex of power. Something out there was happening, something very bad.

He hoped word would soon reach his friend, and they could save as much of the army as possible. They would need the troops in the coming trials, but he had already still stayed too long. He couldn't trust anyone else with this message in case it was intercepted. So back down the wall he ran. Grabbing a horse, Harold soon was overtaking the head of the stream of refugees. The men would have to defend them. He'd go ahead and try to prepare places for them where he could.

But someone needed to inform the king—this whole province had fallen.

These annoying black clouds of nothing were very distracting. They weren't harming me too much, but every time they got close and touched me, I could feel a bit of my energy drain away.

I couldn't seem to do anything to them. Pushing them about with Air Affinity didn't do much. Which made sense because there wasn't anything for the air to press on.

Even focusing on them with my Sanitation Lamp hadn't had any effect on them. This was highly disturbing, as that skill had been my most reliable form of combat for a very long time. It gave me both range and power in a continuous source of damage.

The other thing that made them so annoying was how quick they were. Not having to worry about things like air resistance, they could move and change directions almost instantly. The one time I did manage to cut one with my Divine Sword, it clearly was harmed, and it let out a weird screeching noise that didn't transmute through the air but went directly into my processor. After that, none of them got close enough for my sword to touch them.

Of course, I could have boosted toward them and possibly overtaken the things. However, that would have meant an unacceptable loss in efficiency in cleaning up these zombie mess makers. It was still far better for me to stay on the ground and spin about until their numbers were significantly lower.

Similarly, I couldn't get them with my Mop. I had hopes for that one, but they were pretty low anyway. That also made anything made of physical matter useless, along with my Air Purifier and my Spray Bottle. Not that I could hit them with my Spray Bottle. They were a bit too quick for that.

That was basically all of my options. Even just my basic vacuum suction wasn't doing anything. I had never failed like this before. I had been able to suck up anything that wasn't a liquid since…wow, it truly had been a long time. Even things that were supposedly too large for me to vacuum up had not been an issue with my Limitless Dustbin, even if some of them needed slight trimming. But even as I devoured dirt from hundreds of yards away with the power of my suction, I wasn't able to get at these beings of black energy.

My sensors told me something was changing with them. As they got closer to me, their energy began to crystallize and act less chaotically. I figured that might have been my Domain affecting them, but the transition was very slow. Based on my models, it would be nearly a decade before they were reduced to chunks of crystallized energy. And if I ran out of materials to convert, I wouldn't be able to stay ahead of their energy leeching for nearly that long.

I searched around my dustbin for anything else that might be useful. A glowing mass of white plasma caught my attention. I had some energy stored there from when I gained my first followers. I had pretty much forgotten about that, as I hadn't thought of a use for it. Perhaps that sort of energy could be used as a weapon? I focused on my Void Manipulation. I let the smallest a bit out and zapped one of the nothings with it.

The thing definitely was affected by the jolt. But instead of being vaporized and dispelled or whatever I wanted to happen to this being, it grew and darkened even further. Nope, that wasn't what I wanted to do. The target was now about three times its original size and moving even faster. I could feel the energy it was pulling from me triple as well. Okay, so giving these things energy was not the right move. I cast around in my dustpan for anything else that might be useful.

Could I release the humans I had in time-out? Maybe. I couldn't be sure they wouldn't be angry with me, though. Now didn't seem like time to use something unreliable if I had other options, so I continued to sort through my dustbin.

As I moved the contents around in the energy, black clouds darting to and fro overhead, I started to have an idea. From the beginning, I had always been aware of what was in my dustbin. But I only started to be able to sort through it like this once I got my Void Manipulation skill. Maybe it might have more potential than just sorting through the contents of my dustbin. What if…

Not quite believing it would work, I simulated the idea of reaching out with my dustbin to touch the beings floating around me. Nothing happened, but I could feel…something. Something felt right about using the Void Manipulation outside myself. It was possible, but these beings weren't of the void, exactly. I could feel there was no matching void around me.

But I didn't give up. I couldn't give up. I could feel there was some kind of void nearby that my skill was trying to work with, but the void was in my dustbin.

Suddenly, I had another weird thought. If I could manipulate the void… I reached out, stretching with all my might. Slowly, ever so slowly, the inky blackness I had come to associate with my storage space oozed out from my chassis and reached toward the patch of nothing attacking me. It was just as I had imagined—a perfect blackness reflecting zero light. Its only features were its shape and, as it grew, the occasional item from my dustbin that floated within.

It stretched out like a bubble, slowly expanding. As its surface area grew, the rate at which it expanded also did. Weirdly enough, it didn't seem to have an effect on the zombies or anything else around. Until it touched them. Then, it was like they had stepped into a tar pit. As they were slowly sucked in, I could sense them joining the rest of my dustbin's contents.

However, it was a different story for light. The sun's rays seemed to bend and twist around my void, stretching and distorting until my sensors had trouble unscrambling the mess. The same effect caught the floating creatures as well.

Directing the void's flow, I reached out and just managed to brush the first dark cloud floating above as it scrambled to pull against the strange force. Its screech was unlike anything I'd ever heard it make before.

It froze in place, and my void slowly sucked the rest of it in. It screeched even louder and more frantically before finally falling silent as the void consumed it. With determination now, I forced the void bubble further and further out of me. The void inside my dustbin was infinite, but I could feel my battery plummeting at an alarming rate. Even worse, I could feel my control of the void starting to falter. I couldn't let it fail. It seemed that the consequences would be devastating if it did, even if I wasn't sure how I knew.

I kept an iron grip on the ever-expanding bubble of void, and it caught the next enemy and the next and the next.

Their calls seemed to bring the others toward us as if they were a call for help, and the nothing-beings came flooding back to attack me. But I was ready.

All around me, I could see that the screeching affected even the zombies. It seemed that the cries weren't auditory or even a mental thing; the fluctuations picked up by my sensors indicated that the void was affecting the energy of the creatures surrounding us. I could only hope that the humans inside the city would be alright.

When I finally got the last of them, I started to reel the void in. It was a tenuous balancing act, and I had to transmute loads of material to keep my battery from faltering. I completely lost track of my surroundings. All my processing power was solely focused on containing the ever-shrinking bubble before it expanded and consumed something that I didn't want it to. I felt the zombies reach for my now stilled form and bat at me with their arms. They, too, fell into the void. But I ignored it all.

I couldn't let the void escape my control.

CHAPTER 75

TOTALLY NOT A CULT

After Bee finally finished her immediately pressing work, she stood upright and stretched. She finally had a minute to check the notification waiting for her.

LEVEL UP, LVL 45 REACHED. CHOOSE A SKILL: SCOURING STRIKE, CULT LEADERSHIP, HERD THE FLOCK.

It had been quite a while since she had last gained a skill. Well, by her standards, a least. That she had taken less than a decade between level 40 and level 45 would have already been considered fast by all reasonable metrics. By following her master, she had gained power and leveling rates unheard of outside of everything but the wildest myths.

More importantly, she was finally getting offered a skill she might want. For far too long, everything had been cleaning- or order- related, and she had never gotten the kind of flashy skill that she had always wanted. A signature, one that didn’t have to involve a broom.

Looking at the options, she still hesitated. She couldn't believe she wasn't immediately choosing Scouring Strike. It was the first real combat skill she might be able to take.

But as much as she insisted they weren't a cult, in the privacy of her head, she could admit there might have been the slightest resemblance there. So being good at cult leadership might be useful enough that she should bury her pride and take the skill. It almost convinced her, but not quite.

The last skill was also interesting, but it was hard to tell what the system meant. If the skill was about literally herding a flock of sheep, then it would be very disappointing. But if it was more related to Void's cryptic command to find lost sheep, then it would be like the cult option without the “cult” connotation. Sadly, it was too much of a risk to choose it. She would only level so many more times, and wasting one of her supposedly trump skill slots on a sheep-based skill just seemed like a wool-brained thing to do.

Was she just trying to justify picking Scouring Strike? Maybe. But when she looked around, her situation seemed to warrant the extra firepower. While the other skills might supplement her natural ability to run the Church of the Cleansing Void, that would only help if she made it through this.

With a smile, Bee accepted her first real combat skill. Looking around for an enemy to try it out on, she saw that the soldiers had wisely kept the triage station clear of the undead.

The wall of shields and bodies the soldiers had put in place of the gate was holding for now. They were rotating members of the wall in and out for regular breaks, and as the mop-up efforts of the few zombies that had managed to get past her completed, more and more soldiers joined the reserves.

Just when she was thinking about going to find the commander, a horrifying screech echoed over the city. Not a familiar screech, either. It seemed to bypass the hands that she threw up to cover her ears and pierce directly into her brain. Suddenly, it cut off. She opened her eyes to see the soldiers in disarray. Many had lowered their shields in distraction; the only saving grace to the situation was that the zombies seemed equally affected.

Shouting came from behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw an older level 41 man run by, glowing greenish-yellow to her senses and yelling at everyone. Wherever he got near, officers and men snapped to alertness, and they started bellowing too. Soon everything was back in order, and the shield wall was marching forward, taking advantage of the undead's distraction.

Who was that man? He certainly seemed impressive. Level 40 was no joke. Seeing how he commanded everyone around him, it wasn't too hard for her to figure out he was in charge. At the moment, he seemed a little too busy to talk to her, so she followed him at a distance, waiting for things to settle back down so she could approach without disturbing everyone.

The issue was that he never stopped moving, never stopped issuing commands, even if his yelling did cease once things were back under control. Soon the extra soldiers were no longer just waiting for their turn to rotate into battle. They were clearing the roads of rubble, and some inspected the wall to see if it would collapse if they sent people back up on it.

A few seconds later, a few scouts ran back up the wall. As soon as they reached the top, they yelled in alarm.

Apparently, the commander's bellowing before had just been his inside voice. Now, though, his shout rang over the battle noise, clearly audible to even those up on the wall. "SCOUTS REPORT!"

It took a couple seconds before they yelled back. It was a lot harder to make out what they were saying. "There…there’s a tornado, sir! It’s, ah, it’s centered around a black spot with a gold ring. And it’s got sparks shooting out everywhere. I don't know what it is, sir!"

The second one leaned over the inside of the wall. "He's not crazy, sir! I think you need to see this for yourself. It, uh, it looks like something is attacking the undead. And making short work of them, too."

Bee heard the commander mutter something to himself but wasn't able to make out what it precisely was. He jogged over to the wall and made his way up.

She was almost entirely certain that what they were describing was Void; she had seen it battle before. Still, she wanted to see this as well, so she followed up to the top of the wall. Sure enough, her master was at the epicenter of an awe-inspiring mass of darkness, light, and wind. It was also chewing through the mass of the undead at an alarming rate.

Stepping up next to the commander and scouts, she finally got the man's attention. He just looked at her passively for a second before returning his gaze to Void.

"Void is…quite something. If that is in fact who that is? I wasn't sure I understood my interaction with him earlier." Turning to Bee, he continued. "I take it you are the healer who held the gates?"

When she nodded, he continued. "General Arthur of the Northern Army. I appreciate the help, but would you mind filling me in on what is going on? I don't like not knowing everything that is going on in my battlefield."

"I am High Priestess Bee," she answered in as formal a manner as she could. "I would be happy to fill you in. Void and I came to assist Caleb, when we received word of its state from some scout that made it to our church."

Arthur looked her up and down with an appraising glance that reminded her of her father's. "You seem young to be a High Priestess. What church do you represent?"

"The Church of the Cleansing Void," Bee said with a little smile.

"I can't say that I have ever heard of that before."

"We are new." Her smile grew.

"There hasn't been a new god fo—" Arthur cut off mid-sentence. "Wait, did you say 'Cleansing Void'?"

"Yes. And before you ask, it is the same."

Arthur looked over the wall and then back to Bee. "I just might be able to believe that."

They stood there in silence, watching Void mop up the bulk of the undead forces. The moment didn't last very long. A cry reminiscent of the ones that staggered everyone in the area rang out again. This was different, though. Instead of piercing desperation, it contained an anger that was hard for Bee to describe.

This time, there was only one cry instead of an overlapping cacophony. Even though the strength of this call vastly overpowered the ones before, the lack of echoes helped her stand through it.

This was clearly not the case for everyone, as the scouts on the wall sagged and shouts rose from below. From here, it seemed this attack was more targeted as well. The same being Bee had seen taking down the gates was almost to the shield wall. And the men down there were not ready for it.

Before she thought too much, Bee was vaulting over the wall and plummeting down. The wind flung her hair everywhere, and she was momentarily grateful for having flown with her master. If not for that, she would never have had the courage to jump from such a height.

She bent her knees as she landed and didn't have to roll to absorb the shock of the impact. A ring of dust flew up around her, and she imagined if she had landed near someone, they would have felt the ground shake. Still trying to remain professional, she let a small smile creep onto her face. No one would see her enjoying how awesome that felt. She must have looked very impressive. It was too bad the undead didn't feel fear.

Less than a second later, she did feel the ground shake. Looking over to the side, she saw that Commander Arthur had followed her down. His armor had added to his weight, and the cloud of dust kicked up was proportionally larger.

She frowned internally. He didn't have to go and upstage her like that.

Forcing herself to focus on the approaching threat, Bee looked forward again. The shadowy humanoid had more depth to it than the ones that she had been attacked by earlier. Its shape shifted slightly, details blurring and changing. The most common appearance it held was that of an aristocrat. The formal clothes and fancy tall hat meshed with a flickering monocle. Sometimes more casual attire would get into the mix, and the shifting outfit would look out of place.

"That wraith has been plaguing us for weeks. I don't know why it decided to attack now when it had been content to wait for so long," Arthur said as he rubbed something along his sword blade.

"If it is a wraith, I'm surprised it waited at all. From what I have read, they are more aggressive than that," Bee responded.

"Nothing about this campaign makes any sense," Arthur muttered in response. "I don't think we can kill it. We need to hold it out of the city until mage support can arrive."

Bee nodded her agreement. She had some undead countermeasures with her, but they weren't designed for the more rare and powerful variants, so she didn't have too much hope for success. Still, she grabbed a vial as she readied her broom. This might be a good time to test out her new power.

Without waiting, she flung the potion at the wraith from a distance. Instead of aiming for it directly, she sent the vial at its ghostly feet. The potion splashed up, and where it contacted the wraith, it lit up as if the droplets were made of embers.

The only reaction the wraith gave was to float a few feet higher. The weapon might not be the most effective, though it was nice to see they could hurt it, at least. Maybe if she were able to deal a larger dose… She would have to look for openings.

Suddenly, the wraith charged. Arthur stepped forward to meet the wraith's advance. But before it got to him, it ran square into Bee's Holy Aura. It didn't stop, but its form began to flicker more rapidly. She heard a hissing voice worm into her mind. "Such power from one so young. A pity it is not enough."

Then it moved into her aura fully, and Arthur swung his sword at it.

CHAPTER 76

A GHOST OF A CHANCE

My struggle with the void felt like it took forever. With each nanosecond it stayed outside of me, I could feel it trying to spread. It wanted to consume. Not in any monstrous malicious way, but more like a cloud of expanding smoke. It was simply its nature. Like how water was wet, the void was hungry.

It was funny that it had taken such an effort to force it out of me, but the second that it got a taste of those weird energy ghosts, it only wanted more. The zombies running into me and getting consumed weren't helping. My awareness faded as I locked my will against the primal force, and ever so slowly, it retreated into my dustbin.

Finally, the bubble of complete darkness shrunk to the size of a golf ball. With one last push, I had it locked away inside once more. I checked on it, still on high alert, and it seemed to be slumbering safely again. As I looked around, a diagnostic showed that only a few seconds had passed when it had felt like years to me. Was this what humans meant when they said they lost track of time?

I resumed my standard cleaning protocol for the area, re-engaging the subroutines for the Divine Sword, Sanitation Lamp, Spray Bottle, and everything else. Still, there was one thing that piqued my interest.

LEVEL UP, LVL 65 REACHED. CHOOSE A SKILL: SPIRITUAL CLEANSE, VOICE OF AUTHORITY, MICROFABRICATION.

Normally I hadn't bothered to track when I leveled up. When I hit the next multiple of five, the system would show me the prompt to choose skills, and that was that. Though with so much time having passed since I had last leveled up, I had checked on my progress a couple times. The experience I gained from my followers had been trickling in. As long as they kept the castle clean and trained themselves, I would steadily increase in power.

All that was to say that I wasn't surprised at the notification.

This was a more complicated choice than I would have thought. Normally I didn't have to agonize over the selection of the power-ups the system offered me. Either one was clearly better than all the others, or they were all bad. Here I had three compelling choices. Voice of Authority was interesting but not the highest on my list. I didn't feel the need for more authority. Beatrice handling all leadership-related duties was just fine with me. However, it did seem like it might give me a voice like the humans had. Being able to talk was something I was valuing more and more nowadays. When I was previously offered another skill that might have given me speech, I had chosen Air Purifier over it. That had turned out quite disappointing. While it had become useful eventually, it couldn't compare with universal communication.

It seemed a waste to invest in now, though. I was getting more and more people who could understand me, and the issue was no longer pressing. That made picking the option feel like an inefficient allocation of resources. If I really needed to talk to people, Beatrice could take care of it. Or Felix. Or Tanu.

Microfabrication was tempting as well. I had really come to enjoy creating things. From the first broom that I made to the scarf I gave Beatrice, each one was wonderful to create. While I was sure that this skill would greatly increase my crafting ability, I again didn't really need it. Within me was a powerful void that I had control over. I was getting more dexterous all the time with it—heck, I could even make different metal alloys in there! If I trained my skill with Void Manipulation, I was sure that I could improve to the point where this skill would become superfluous.

This left only the first skill. My initial instinct was to pick it because the word "clean" was in the name. While that was a satisfying reason on its own, I had broadened my thinking a lot recently. Become more enlightened as to the uses of things with more indirect cleaning benefits. No, the compelling part was the first word. "Spiritual."

I had heard Beatrice talk a lot about spirituality when she told others about our first adventures. I had never heard of the word before that. But it was often mentioned in relation to a soul. I wasn't exactly sure what a soul was, but it was apparently important to keep it pure. This interested me, as I was always interested in anything that involved cleanliness. Just because I didn't know what it was didn't mean that I couldn't eventually learn how to clean it. And learning how to clean new things was just what I needed at the moment.

This could be my next big leap forward. It could be on par with the discovery of bacteria and viruses or maybe even the Grabby Arm. New things to clean and a new power to help do it seemed fitting.

The other skill options might enhance the things I could already do. This offered me something new entirely. I couldn't pass this up.

Confirming my choice, a new sense was unveiled. My perception of the surrounding world shifted. This didn't come through my sensors or vision, but through some other apparatus. All around me, within each of the undead, I could sense a small withered orb of black light. Was this their "spirit"?

My detection range wasn't far. No more than a dozen feet in any direction, currently. That meant I couldn't compare the orb with that of a normal human at the moment.

If this was their spirit or soul, and I could cleanse it, could I save them? What would that do, exactly? Could I keep them from being such terrible mess makers? Or was that simply wishful thinking?

Even if I could fix their souls, I didn't think I could fix their bodies, at least not without bringing them into my void and constructing crystal replacement parts for them. But that experiment was still in progress.

Reaching out with my new sense, I lifted a nearby zombie into the air and away from my spinning Divine Sword. Then I tried to remove the blackness from its soul.

It fought me every single millimeter. The blackened soul was tougher than the streaks of tar that had hardened on the castle wall. Still, I pried away the gunk. The resistance increased exponentially, and within a fraction of a second, it snapped. A tiny fleck of the blackened material flaked off of the spirit. However, the resistance didn't come without cost.

Even as I considered my attempt, I watched the soul crumble into dust and fade into some strange substance I could not track. I received a small rush of energy from the remaining bit of the zombie as it collapsed before me.

Well, that was a new way to fight enemies. Problematically, it took far too long to destroy one, and I didn't have the ability to split my focus on multiple souls yet. This effort also took a lot of battery to use—not as much as the void had, but I still had much more efficient methods of cleaning up this mess. In the future, maybe I would become strong enough to properly cleanse them, but for now, that wasn't an option.

Shrugging off the distraction, I picked up where I left off. My focus shifted entirely to the task at hand. The air swept my targets into groups for more efficient gathering, and soon I was humming along at a steady clip once more.

I hadn't had so much fun cleaning in a long while. Everything had become too easy, too effortless. It hadn't felt like work. To be fair, I had never found it tedious, but at least I felt like I was pushing myself in a productive way here. Just sitting in a room for a few minutes was not the same.

Sweeping up this large cluster of the undead in the most efficient manner…now, that required all my effort. If I was content to take care of this task in a less-than-optimal way, then it wouldn't have taken so much attention.

Still, the sooner it was taken care of, the better, in my mind. Clearly, the humans had been having trouble with these mess makers, and I thought they would appreciate them being gone.

A few moments after I had hit my stride again, I sensed a few people on top of the wall watching me. I could make out that one of them was Beatrice. I would have waved to her, but sadly I couldn't break my flow.

Then the young girl jumped off the wall. This caused my processor to freeze for a second in panic, but I soon recovered. She landed safely in a very cool-looking pose. I'd have to let her know how cool it was after this. A second later, the commander followed her down. His landing was no-nonsense, and the way he held himself radiated an air of confidence. Dang. Beatrice still had a few things to learn about looking intimidating. Maybe it would come with age.

The two of them stood in the way of a much larger incorporeal being. I kept my attention on them for a few moments until I saw Beatrice throw something at it and hurt the thing slightly. Oh, good, they would be able to fight it. I would continue monitoring their engagement in the background to see if they needed help, but I returned my main focus to the task at hand and kicked it up a notch.

Bee's heart dropped as the wraith passed into her Holy Aura without so much as flinching.

The thing was giving off a yellowish aura to her senses. Curious about how something so clearly unholy could withstand her power, she ran a more detailed Scan on it.

Name: Gerald, Race: Undead, Class: Wraith, Level 48, Highest Stat: Intelligence, Lowest Stat: Strength

He out-leveled her. That was concerning. That might explain why the Holy Aura wasn't nearly as effective on this guy. It had worked great on all those zombies and shades, but she really hadn't had a chance to test it on anything around her own level. Anything over level 40 was scarce and specifically fought by teams of adventures.

The wraith materialized a walking stick in his hand and moved to intercept Arthur's incoming swing.

The sword met the mystical ethereal walking stick, and they clashed in a very solid manner. It sent the wraith floating backward from the force of his blow, but he seemed relatively undamaged.

Bee and Arthur both ran at him from opposing sides. The wraith reached his free hand toward Arthur and clenched. The burly man gritted his teeth and froze up as though they were locked in a contest of wills.

Luckily, that meant the wraith was distracted too. She took advantage of the opening Arthur's personal battle gave her. Lunging forward, she tried to pierce his side with her divinely made weapon. Surely it would have some effect.

At the last possible second, the wraith snapped out of his focused trance and redirected her thrust with the walking stick. It sliced past his ethereal body, missing it by inches. She stumbled forward at the lack of resistance, but it was a ploy.

As she moved past the wraith, she let go of her broom with one hand and slammed a palm strike into his center, activating her newest skill.

A Scouring Strike ripped out of her palm with a golden flash of holy light. The sensation was strangely abrasive and satisfying. It felt like she was scrubbing at the very soul of the wraith. He hissed in pain and retreated back out of her reach.

The being went incorporeal for a second, disappearing from view. They both looked around, wondering where it went, before she glimpsed the shadowy shape right behind Arthur. He materialized with a hand on his shoulder.

A sudden swelling of energy sent him to his knees, and the wraith started to chuckle.

CHAPTER 77

SPECTER OF DOUBT

Bee rushed over to where Arthur trembled on his knees. Leaping, she again tried to spear the tip of her broom through the wraith's chest.

He faded out of existence, releasing Arthur right before she managed to land a blow. Bee whirled around, looking for the opponent, but didn't see anything. As she sent furtive glances in all directions, Arthur’s ragged breathing stabilized. He stabbed the ground with his sword, forcing himself back up to his feet.

Bee felt a cold hand on the back of her neck. She tried to roll forward out of the wraith’s grip, but before she could react, the strength left her body. It felt like she had run a marathon twice already today. Like she was level 2 again.

She fought the suddenly leaden weight of her limbs. Gritting her teeth and screwing her eyes shut, she needed all her will to stay standing and not collapse on her face right away. As the exhaustion clouded her mind, she bit down on her tongue. The pain helped to focus and gather her willpower in an attempt to resist. Once she had control over her mind again, she tried to push out with Holy Aura and condense It around the wraith behind her as he drained her life force.

The drain continued. Nor did she hear any noises of pain. Struggling to raise her arm, she maneuvered it shakily behind herself in a feeble strike. Her hand met something solid, and the Scouring Strike released.

The drain on her energy lessened slightly, but only enough that she could open her eyes and look down. She realized she had just struck his walking stick.

Just then, there was a whoosh above her head, and the touch vanished completely. Coming back to her senses, she struggled to stay on her feet. Arthur was standing over her, sword in hand and glaring intently behind her. The wraith had backed up a few feet and was looking at a small gash in what appeared to be a misty overcoat.

"Now, that wasn't very polite. It's rude to interrupt someone's meal." The wraith spoke in a very proper accent, but the mocking tone was all too prominent.

"I say, is it too much to hope for some decent conversation? Before I eat you, of course. Do you know how boring zombies are to talk to?" The wraith moved forward, slowly circling around them. Arthur offered Bee a steadying hand as she recovered herself. They moved to stand back-to-back as they kept their enemy in sight.

“The skeletons aren't any better. All they want to talk about is their glorious god or maybe their leader sometimes. Simply droll. It's all about crusading this or service that. No understanding of the arts or literature at all."

Bee felt both her Repair and Improved Repair skills working overtime to replace her drained energy and health. They weren't nearly as efficient as they would have been on a normal injury. She had burned herself many times making potions, especially when she was experimenting recently, and those were always healed in seconds. This time it would take a lot longer to replace the energy she had lost.

She felt at her belt for her potions. There were only a few healing potions left, and she probably couldn’t use more of the enhancement potions for a while. Feeling the older man pressed against her back, she wondered if he had the same kinds of regeneration skills as she did. He seemed far more solid.

It could be that he was a soldier and had more combat-oriented skills rather than her Priest cleaning class. A lifetime of war would get him skills a lot more suited to combat than hers, and just more experience in battle. He was also older and probably had higher physical stats than she did.

Realizing that her exhausted mind was getting distracted, she focused back on the wraith. He was still talking. She wasn't sure if this was a strategy to distract them or if it was honestly that desperate to talk to someone.

"...I've nearly had to convert to a brand-new religion, too. Can you believe that? Some undead god, no less. The Father of Darkness, they call him, some sort of ruffian that wants to cleanse all humans. Believe me, I can get behind the message, but it just seems a little bit…well, I don’t know, fanatical? Not my style at all." As the wraith finished speaking, he faded from their sight.

So it was a distraction? Perhaps the words weren’t even true to begin with. If they were, that would be disturbing. The idea that the undead started a religion was unheard of. Such a perverse one, too.

She felt energy materialize between her and Arthur. They both whirled around, but had to pull their strikes just to not hurt each other. The wraith materialized before them and struck out with his palms on either side, striking both of them in the chest.

Once again, Bee felt her senses withdraw, and she stumbled backward. There was no long-term drain, and it only took a few moments before she was reoriented. But by the time she got her sight back, she was staring up into the sky, blinking.

As she struggled to get to her knees, her limbs were shaky. Rising, she saw that Arthur was holding back the wraith’s cane with his blade. He pushed the ghostly being back, taking a swipe at him, but the wraith slipped underneath with alarming speed and placed his palm on Arthur’s chest. The larger man collapsed to the ground, sprawled out.

She needed to act. Somehow she had managed to maintain hold of her broom. Without time to get up, she twisted her body and launched her precious divine artifact like a javelin.

Unfortunately, brooms were not meant to be thrown. The uneven balance caused the weapon to tumble end over end through the air. Despite that, it still got the job done.

The bristle side struck first. It swatted the wraith away, knocking him off Arthur, but the commander struggled to regain his feet. The wraith lunged for her instead. She tried to strike with her palm, but he saw the attack coming and dodged around to touch her shoulders. Soon, her senses were gone as well.

The drain only lasted for a fraction of a moment this time. Prepared for what was going to happen, she fought it from the beginning. Her Holy Aura and Repair skills worked in concert to push back against the sensation. She focused on the thought of the people she was protecting and how her master believed in her.

Her senses sharpened. Then, just like that, the sensation was gone.

Having lost less energy this time, she was able to recover from the wraith's attack quicker. She saw that Arthur had gotten to his feet and, instead of just throwing his weapon like she had, he was forcing the wraith back with a combination of slashes and feints.

Scrambling for her weapon, she crawled a dozen feet and picked it up. Using the broom to lever herself to her feet, she charged back into the fight to relieve Arthur. It seemed that the wraith could only teleport so frequently, though, as he didn't immediately try to drain them again. Instead, he continued talking.

"And can you believe our ‘glorious leader’ is just a dead rat? I didn't believe it when he summoned me. I've never seen an undead rat with such intelligence. It was smarter than most people. Still, he truly does need to work on his image.

"But he does have a mind for warfare. Truly. Though, I suppose he’s not infallible. He told me not to attack and to just wait things out, but I was certain I would be able to take this city. You lot are fairly weak, after all. I'm just going to get into a little bit of trouble when he comes back and finds the majority of his zombies are dead. What can I say, though? Can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. I’m sure there’s plenty in this city that can replace those.

"It's really a shame that so many people are escaping from the back, though. I'd have them chased down, but most of my troops are busy. Oh well. Stupid zombies can only do stupid things. You know what they say, if you want something done you have to do it yourself." The incorporeal gentleman then disappeared again.

Bee realized that his strategy of distracting them with speeches was working. Much to her shame, they had spent their time sitting there listening to him talk while he regained his ability to teleport. Were they charmed somehow? The military man, at least, shouldn't have been taken in by such tactics.

Looking over her shoulder at him, she saw that he was in much worse shape than she thought. His breathing was ragged, and his brow was covered in sweat. Still, he stood tall, shoulders back and eyes dancing around, checking hiding spots and ready to fight again. Perhaps he wasn't falling for the tactic, but rather using the time to recover himself. That would make sense. She was recovering much better than she had initially feared, luckily.

The wraith appeared between them again. This time, she was ready with a Scouring Strike. She smashed it into his chest, and he was sent flying back through Arthur. He flinched but didn't collapse this time. The wraith skidded through the air for fifteen feet before slowing to a halt.

"Ah, I see you are learning. Well, good for—"

Bee didn't let him finish his sentence, sensing that he was trying to distract her again. She dashed forward and swung her broom at the wraith, aiming for the floating specter's chest. He dropped down, passing through the ground under her strike.

She rolled around, looking for him to appear behind her, but instead, she just felt his hand grasp her foot. She desperately stabbed down at the spot indicated by her Improved Pathing, and it released her. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was now a sharpened broom-spear sticking out of her foot.

With some choice words for her skill, Bee yanked the weapon out of her boot and immediately focused her regenerative skills on her foot while chugging a healing potion. It was only a few seconds before she was mostly healed, but during that time, Arthur was left to fight alone. Instead of just draining the man, the wraith swung his walking stick in a flurry of blows. Arthur managed to deflect them and even slipped in an occasional counterattack, but the thing’s ability to dip in and out of the ground was clearly throwing him off.

She charged back into the fight with a very slight limp. Trying to catch the wraith from behind, she made to swing until her Improved Pathing skill warned her off. She backed off just in time to avoid a walking stick to the shins.

Getting struck with a stick wouldn't likely hurt her very much, and for a moment she wondered if her skill was malfunctioning somehow. But something about this attack was different. Her skill clearly agreed that she did not want to be hit by this semi-corporeal weapon. Her instincts told her that would be disastrous.

The exchange went back and forth for almost a minute, the wraith never even once being in danger of getting hit. But Arthur and Bee were both clearly slowing down. As high-level as they were, they simply couldn’t keep up. They were fighting something that did not breathe, did not tire, and was also slightly higher-level than them. Not to mention that it stole their own energy.

The situation was not looking good. After a few seconds more of melee, the wraith disappeared again. This time they were careful, scanning the ground behind them. However, he still managed to smack the side of Arthur's head with his hand, sending him stumbling and falling in disorientation. And then he swung his cane toward Beatrice.

Bee blocked with her broom handle and tried to counter, but he did something very uncharacteristic and kicked her shin. It was surprise more than anything else that made her falter. The blow landed with shocking solidity, completely unexpected given how incorporeal it had been so far.

As she stumbled, caught off guard, he smashed his cane into her side. She felt several ribs break, and she was flung back as if struck by a hammer wielded by a giant. As she crashed to the ground, she rolled head over heels, scraping her limbs and back and twisting her neck in a painful way. Eventually, she slammed into a rock. Looking up, she realized it was the city wall. She tried to get to her feet, but her condition just wouldn't allow it.

The arm she used to brace herself up bent at a weird angle and wouldn't support her leg weight. She was having trouble sitting up with just core strength. Instead, Bee slumped against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut.

Tilting her head slightly, she saw Arthur was on his feet but clearly losing ground to the opponent. He fought valiantly, but the level difference and the damage he had already taken were too much. There was nothing she could do. She was out of this fight and soon Arthur would be too.

Bee squeezed her eyes shut, willing her Repair skills to work harder and faster. If this thing got into the city, it would cause so many problems. Who knew how many people would be hurt?

As she slowly faded out of consciousness, the last thing she heard was a soft whirring noise.

CHAPTER 78

AVOIDING THE PROBLEM

When I finished mopping up the last of the zombie horde, there were a few irregular things to clean up. There were some more skeletons that acted strangely. Again, instead of attacking me like they had in the catacombs, these skeletons bowed to me. Others got on their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor.

The last skeletons around here had done this same thing. It also looked remarkably similar to a human gesture I had seen. It was almost as if they knew me and expected me to know what their actions meant. Was I supposed to know them?

Thinking about it a little, I realized it might make sense if they were the other skeletons I had released

I didn't understand what they were doing, but it didn't change the fact that they needed to be locked away. I wasn't too worried about keeping them in my dustbin for a while. They had spent enough time in there before without seeming to get changed. A little more probably wasn't going to hurt them.

Clearly, I couldn't just unleash the skeletons like I had done before. Even though I had a very good reason to do so at the time, perhaps it hadn't been the best idea. It seemed that I may have played a small role in the destruction caused by this horde, as some of its members were once under my watch.

I'd have to be more careful about what I released from my dustbin. I thought back to the humans who were serving a time-out sentence. If the skeletons' behavior was any guide, it wasn't going to be simple to just release them. In fact, I should maybe consider tracking down the rest of the things I had stored away for various reasons. Who knew what they were up to now?

As the dozen or so skeletons zipped into my dustbin, I looked around. It seemed like everything was cleared up. The field outside of the city was newly spotless. And just in time, too. Checking back in with Arthur and Beatrice's fight, I hurried over. Things were not going well.

I'd been monitoring them, but there hadn't been any immediate danger up to this point. At least, not enough to cross my subroutine's danger threshold. Maybe I should have set the threshold lower or dedicated more predictive modeling processors to the task.

As I drew near, I watched Beatrice get flung against the castle walls at an alarming speed. I reached out with Air Manipulation to cushion her landing. Still, I didn't have enough time to decelerate her completely, and she crunched into the wall with a quite painful-sounding landing. That looked nasty.

And she had been doing so well with staying out of trouble lately, too… She would be okay, of course, but still. Things like that made me regret never fully figuring out spare human parts.

I recalled my previous view of the "spare parts" matter. It actually made for quite a good joke, since I realized humans didn't use spare parts. They grew their own. I was only able to laugh because I could sense that she was still alive, and clearly, she would be able to heal with a little bit of assistance as long as she didn't fully break.

It was so funny when I didn't know what things were. Again I chuckled at my own ignorance. Spare human parts. Seeing how much I didn't know was continually humbling, and I was sure glad I was figuring things out. The people at home had never even mentioned things like that. Whenever they got hurt, they just went to the doctor. In my defense, it was fair to think about the doctor in that context as just a human mechanic. Really, they were just skilled magicians who helped humans regrow their parts. So I was close.

Anyway. I set the digression on humor and misunderstandings to the side for the moment. Arthur needed my help, so I didn't linger on Beatrice's fallen form longer than it took to verify that she was stable. And dedicate a few more subroutines to ensuring that nothing would come close to disturbing her.

The human army commander stood unbroken in front of another dark spot on my sensors. This one was a more dense-looking void shaped like a human. Arthur's shoulders were set back defiantly, his sword held up if not in a perfect guard form. His exhausted posture was still better than most of the kids' best attempts.

I couldn't help but admire his grit and determination. This man had a job to do and would see it through. I could respect that. I felt the same when I first started cleaning a particularly nasty room. Of course, I hadn't had a challenge at that level for quite a long time.

As much as I respected his stand, it was clear that he wasn't going to be able to do this himself. Otherwise, I would have gladly rolled aside, but I couldn't spare his pride for the cost of his life. Many people still counted on him. So I trundled over and reached out with my Void Manipulation.

The dark ghost had really ignored me up to that point. To be fair, I did look a lot less threatening once all of my extra tools were put away. As I neared, though, it tried to turn and face me to take a better look. The void moved faster.

The second the bubble of void touched the side of its shoe, it froze. I could feel it struggling, but its energy was only partially under its control now.

"What—"

With inexorable slowness that only lasted a fraction of a second, it dissolved, whatever strange matter it was composed of being pulled into my void. It barely had a chance to get a word out. It was going to be a long project to reform it, if that was even possible. Still, if it wanted to get out of the time-out, then it would have to be taught a lesson. First, I'd have to teach it that doing what it did to Beatrice was not acceptable. That would be a very satisfying lesson to teach.

My battery plummeted as a result of the brief exchange. Luckily, I had learned from experience and transmuted a huge chunk of matter in advance. Keeping the void close enough that I could bring it back in quickly also saved me a great deal of overheating. Still, it took all my concentration for several ticks of a clock before I could focus on the outside world again.

Arthur was staring at me. His sword lowered until the point rested on the ground, and his mouth hung slightly open.

With a slight questioning beep, I prompted him to speak. Clearly, he must have been wanting to ask a question, right?

He blinked a few times before clearing his throat. "That was… Thank you. Er, Void."

I beeped a happy note to convey that it was no problem at all. However, I still had things to do.

Rolling toward my human, I settled next to Beatrice and waited for her to repair.

Roscoe reeled back into a sitting position when he felt his bond to the wraith snap. What had gone wrong? He had left Gerald specific instructions about maintaining the siege while Roscoe was away recruiting. It should have been simple; there was pretty much no case where the humans could gather enough might to actually crush the wraith.

His tail twitched with irritation. Gerald was strong. Almost too strong. Roscoe was fairly certain that he would be able to destroy the wraith if things came down to it, but only because of his dark magic. Only recently had he started to reach a similar level of power. Plus, the inherent incorporeal nature of Gerald's body should’ve made it nearly impossible for him to be killed. Not without very specific magic and counters.

The door swung open with a bang against its hinges as one of the elite skeletons entered. He had a panicked look about him. If a skeleton could truly look panicked, at least. "Reverend Father, hast thou felt the disturbance? 'Tis as though many of my brothers have absconded, fled this plane for another. Their connections to me severed all in a single swoop!"

Roscoe shook his head and chittered back. "No but I felt the passing of Gerald. Clearly something went very wrong back in Caleb."

"Should we harken back?" the skeleton asked, readying himself to go send messages.

"No. No, I don't think we should. If an opening was given, that human commander has no doubt taken it and I assume our forces are no more. If we were lucky, they must have weakened the humans greatly. But even then, we are nearly starting over. There are many more humans to recruit over here. They gather much more densely just a little south." Roscoe smirked. "Who would have thought? Such a wealth of soldiers, and so much to be purified."

"Yes, Reverend Father. Truly a work worthy of the great darkness itself. Then how should we proceed?" The skeleton snapped to attention, waiting for orders. Roscoe had been careful to only take the most zealous of his followers with him. He needed complete loyalty for these plans. Some of the others had expressed doubts that this crusade was really the will of their lord and master. They were a bit uneasy about the recruitment drives he had left to pursue as well; those doubts might slow him down. Not that it mattered anymore, though, if they were truly gone.

"We'll press forward. Step up the efforts and we will start with the greatest population centers this time. We're not going to repeat the same mistakes and allow the resistance to build this time." A wide grin split his narrow face, whiskers twitching in anticipation of their great works.

The Warden made a familiar trip down to his conference room in the bowels of the King's Castle. To call it a conference room was a bit grandiose. Still, the small fireplace and old wooden table and chairs were his favorite meeting place for his operatives.

This trip was slightly different. He normally didn't like to hear bad news, but this time was worse than normal. Judging based on who had summoned him and the time frame, he could figure out the news he was about to get. And it wasn't good. In fact, "not good news" was such a vast understatement that he could only shake his head at the thought.

As the Warden made it through the final door and slid into a seat, he looked over at the once-rising star of their little organization. "This doesn't look good, Harold. I'm sure you understand."

Not only had the man already run away from major trouble twice, but it seemed that he had failed his mission for a third time.

Harold winced. The Warden wielded his disappointed tone like a knife. Harold didn't speak, but it was clear he understood how precarious his position was.

"You were given a fairly light punishment from your last failure. All you had to do was help the College of the Undead for a little bit. If you just kept your head down for a few months, we would have been back here under much better terms and the Demonology College would have begun a reformation." The Warden stopped looking at Harold and gazed into the fire.

"How in Deusvult's name did you mess up something that simple?" It was an honest question. After nearly two decades of working with Harold, the Warden wouldn't have called him anything but competent; the last year had certainly called that into question.

Harold gathered himself before speaking. Clearly, he had some planned-out excuses. The Warden didn't really want to hear it, but he would set him straight after the tap ran dry.

"The College of the Undead tenure went well. With some small assistance from me, we achieved a couple of breakthroughs that allowed us to be significantly more effective in the fight against this plague."

The Warden's face remained impassive. He hadn't honestly expected the words of a politician to come out of his subordinate's mouth. The man should have just owned his mistakes, not buttered them up with words. His time as a dean had clearly dulled the edge he'd gotten from his years of combat service.

"We received calls for aid from Caleb. Plainly, Arthur was not getting support in his fight against the undead. After some internal debate, the college decided that its very existence was based on its ability to aid in the control and prevention of the undead. So we made as many countermeasures as we could possibly transport and rushed over to assist. I have to say that, though I'm sure you will take my words with a grain of salt, it was a good thing we did. If we had not come in time, Caleb would have fallen much sooner and more completely than it did.

"After we broke through the siege into the castle, we helped hold it for many days. We repelled attack after attack and only through our countermeasures were the incorporeally natured undead repelled."

"And yet the city still fell." It wasn't a question. The Warden knew it hadn't, in reality, but did Harold know? Though he'd have to verify himself how effective the college's countermeasures had really been. Still, it clearly wasn't enough.

"Yes. it still fell. But not because of the undead. Well, not entirely." Harold took a deep breath. "They had blown off the gate, but we were in the process of stemming the tide. I believe the city had a decent chance of still standing until…it appeared. The monster that has plagued me these past several months showed up. Right outside of our walls. That's when I knew we were doomed. Preemptively, I decided that it was best to get as much of the civilian population out while we could and get a message to you and the king," Harold said, his jaw tight and his eyes fixed ahead on the fire.

In a low and dangerous tone, the Warden asked a pointed question that made it clear that he understood what Harold was skating around. "Do you not know what a messenger is?"

"I-I didn't think there was any hope of the city standing with that beast there and saw no reason to throw my life away for no gain," Harold stuttered. The Warden couldn't tell if he was embarrassed or afraid. Maybe both.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. That dang headache was back. "Well, news has arrived. The city has not fallen. At least according to Arthur's pigeon."

Stiffening in his chair, Harold looked over, surprise evident on his face. "How?"

"It appears they received some assistance. The description of their savior seems familiar."

Harold nearly choked, his eyes bugging out in panic. "We must act. If it took the city and subverted the Northern Army…things are worse than I feared."

"This news is the only reason we are having this meeting. It appears your actions were not so unjustified, even if they do not cast you in a favorable light. You are lucky we have so many other problems now that I can't afford to waste even an incompetent operator."

Harold flinched. The news of his demotion from dean back down to operator obviously cut him, but he took it with remarkable grace.

"It seems several of our neighbors have found out that our army's attack might be more delayed due to internal strife. Many of them have decided to preemptively launch an offensive themselves. Or find other ways to fortify their defenses. Normally they would not be our concern, but there are a few other resting places of Lieutenants where unusual activity has been reported," the Warden said, tightening his fist. How could everything be collapsing around him like this? After so many years of keeping it a secret?

"So. I want you to go with the Infiltrator and see what you can find out. Seems that I'll have to take personal control of dealing with the mess you left here."

All the Dust that Falls will continue in Book Three!

THANK YOU FOR READING ALL THE DUST THAT FALLS 2

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. We just wanted to take a moment to encourage you to review the book. Follow this link: All the Dust that Falls 2 to be directed to the book’s Amazon product page to leave your review.

Every review helps further the author’s reach and, ultimately, helps them continue writing fantastic books for us all to enjoy.

Also in Series:

All the Dust that Falls

All the Dust that Falls 2

All the Dust that Falls 3

Check out the entire series here! (Tap or scan)

Want to discuss our books with other readers and even the authors? Join our Discord server today and be a part of the Aethon community.

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website

You can also join our non-spam mailing list by visiting www.subscribepage.com/AethonReadersGroup and never miss out on future releases. You'll also receive three full books completely Free as our thanks to you.

Looking for more great LitRPG?

The Young Gods Tournament awaits. Only the victors will break through to the worlds beyond the heavens. In an unfair world where a single monster can wipe out an entire village, Thomas is not one of the chosen few. He wasn’t gifted with immense power from the moment of his birth, nor does he have a powerful backer to defend him. By the laws of the world, it’s near impossible for him to rise to the top. But where the god’s themselves have failed him, Thomas will push on and gain the strength to protect his friends, and his home, from the ever rising dangers of the world. There is only one true opportunity to break through the shackles of his life — The Young God’s Tournament. After surviving a deadly ambush, he’ll use every ounce of his strength as he faces off against his rival Prospects, a continent-wide conspiracy, and the ever looming threat from the once-slumbering Empire. Western Cultivation melds with LitRPG as a single man rises against an unfair world in this new series from bestseller Cale Plamann (Blessed Time, Viceroy's Pride), together with Alex Beaumont.

Get Young Gods Tournament Now!

A warrior reborn. An enemy fueled by death. A fight for humanity. Mercenary captain Sabine Giroux knew that death was a constant companion in her line of work, and when it finally happened, she wasn’t surprised. What surprised her was that she didn’t stay dead. Brought back as an undead revenant by the god Gnessos, Sabine is tasked with stopping a foe that seeks to siphon the power of death and destroy everything she holds dear in the process. With a lifetime of combat experience to draw upon, Sabine must gain Gnessos’ favor to grow more powerful and fulfill her role as his champion. But with every rank of favor that Sabine gains, more of her humanity is lost as her undead nature threatens to take over… From the bestselling author of Limitless Lands and Derelict comes this action-packed Fantasy LitRPG Adventure. Mythica Revenant is officially licensed by Arrowstorm Entertainment and is set in the amazing fantasy world of the cult-hit film series Mythica.

Get Revenant Now!

A Necromancer reborn. A new System. Can he unlock it's true power? After fulfilling the duty all Arch Necromancers are tasked with, the last thing Sylver Sezari expected was to be reborn. But he did. And after crawling his way back into the land of the living, he’s alive once again. In a strange land, a strange time, and with a strange floating screen in front of his new face. Either through plan or chance, he’s alive again, and planning to enjoy himself to his heart's content. Don't miss the start of this LitRPG Adventure about a reincarnated necromancer growing in power and finding his way in a new world where the rules have changed vastly since he last "lived." With equal parts humor and dark sorcery action, expect loads of skill progression, deep worldbuilding, and unforgettable characters in this story which had nearly 9 million views on Royal Road. Now completely revised and re-edited for Kindle & Audible.

Get Apocalypse Me Now!

For all our LitRPG books, visit our website.

GROUPS

Don’t forget to join LitRPG Addicts and come hang out with me!

I’m also very active and thankful for Redditserials, LitRPG Books, GameLit Society, Western Cultivation Stories (Xianxia and Wuxia, etc), Cultivation novels, LitRPG & GameLit Readers, and LitRPG Books Group!

LITRPG

To learn more about LitRPG, talk to authors including myself, and just have an awesome time, please join the LitRPG Group.