All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 224: Night Raid

Daedalus motioned for me to move forward and made brief introductions. After, Thucydides turned to me. "I haven't talked to a godling in a very, very long time. I wasn't even aware the world had enough magic to produce them anymore. As the ages go by, it's been harder and harder to grow."

A melancholy silence started to settle on the three of us before Daedalus broke it with a gibe. "Is that why you still haven't cracked 50 yet? Honestly, if you weren't my little brother, you'd be an embarrassment."

Thucydides glared at Daedalus. "You know how hard it is to gather mana nowadays? Why, I haven't been able to condense my power in a very long time. Especially with everything fading so much recently."

I turned toward Daedalus with a question: "How did Thucydides have trouble gathering power when it was so simple? All you had to do was kill strong things. Demons and the like."

Daedalus shook his head and offered an explanation. "Thucydides has a bit of a weird class. He doesn't get power from killing or defeating enemies. He has to meditate and gather the energy of the world. It was great when we were hatchlings, but..."

Thucydides sighed. "Back then, mana was so rich throughout the world, all I had to do was breathe and I'd level up."

Daedalus bobbed his head in agreement. "Yeah. The magic of the world has been getting thin over the past several millennia. I'm not exactly sure why, but it started long before the demons came, and it's been declining ever since I was born. It's one of the reasons humans can thrive so much now. Ten or twenty thousand years ago, they would have been overrun by stronger races. But now? I mean, we dragons get sleepy so easily that we have no choice but to hibernate and leave them alone. It's also why no new gods have showed up. Not since we drove the last ones off this plane."

I wasn't about to question that, so I exchanged a few more polite words with Thucydides, then left the brothers for their reunion. I was not exactly sure what I needed to do, so I went back to talk to the snowmen. As the dragons conversed, their rumbles echoed through the valleys surrounding the mountains. I saw a few stones clattering near the edge of the settlement. In fact, many of the snowmen were lined up and listening to the distant sound as I approached.

They turned their attention to me and welcomed me with deep bows. I made my way into the village and searched around for any help I could offer. As I swept through their collection of shelters, I did my best to clean what I could. It wasn't too hard to better pack the earth and carve out channels for the rain to go through. They'd probably be useful if this snow melted soon, as well. The snowmen didn't seem to understand what I was doing, but they didn't get in my way either. If Daedalus took a while, maybe I'd try to teach them.

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"High Preistess! Come quick!"

A sudden pounding at the door woke Bee from her slumber. Groggily, she rubbed her eyes and rolled out of bed. This was the first time she'd had a chance to grab a few hours of rest in the last several days. She didn't have to sleep very often anymore, but she still needed it occasionally.

With all the preparations for the coming army, There was just too much to do. And that was even with her staff and council performing their duties extraordinarily. She could only be grateful for all the support and work that went into preparing for the siege. Without people like Arthur, Trent, Mary, and Susan, she would have been crushed by responsibility several times over. But that didn't mean that she didn't have endless things to do herself. Most of them boiled down to just being visible and keeping people's spirits and morale up. The rest of it was training.

Every last person who would fight was trying to eke out another level or get to that next skill that might make all the difference in the coming battle. And with her being the highest level person present, fighting with her was the best way of getting those levels. At least for combat classes. So, for at least eight hours each day for the past week, she had been fighting against multiple high-level opponents, each one usually above level 35. Anything else would not have been worth her time. And she had been doing so publicly in the arena.

Many would watch to learn techniques that Void taught her with the broom. As much as she had discouraged the unorthodox weapon, it was often popularized among the non-soldiers who were trying to learn basic defense techniques. It was quite impractical, and only because of her personal connection to Void did she think she was able to achieve such mastery with it. Between her level and her practical experience, she was able to equal, if not best, an opponent with a more traditional blade around the same level of physical ability. Of course, that didn't stop anyone.

All the followers of Void preferred to use its favorite weapon. Only those who had already spent a vast amount of time training with another weapon were refusing to switch.

As Bee stood, yawning, she padded over to the door and wrenched it open. Beyond stood a practically frantic mother.

"Have you seen the Nighty Knights? Do you know where they are? I haven't seen my son since last night. He wasn't in his bed for breakfast, and I couldn't find him on those stupid patrols they go on...." The woman rambled in an endless stream of words, not giving Bee a split second for a response. It wasn't like she had anything to add.

"No, I have not seen them." Bee interrupted, causing the women to finally pause. Her mouth hung open mid-word in surprise. "Who else have you asked?"

"Um. Well, I assume many of the other mothers know…?" Came the uncertain answer.

Bee put her hand on the woman's shoulder, comfortably interrupting the tirade from continuing, and spoke in her most comforting voice. "We'll find them, don't worry." With that, she rushed past her.

The smart thing would have been to go look at Susan or Captain Major first. One of the scouts would probably have seen the Nighty Knights wherever they were going, but if they were actually gone?

As a group, they were probably too skilled for many others to catch up to. If they had really wandered off and they didn't want to be found, Bee had a sneaking suspicion of what they were up to. This might be something that she has to take care of personally.

While Bee's role was important, it wasn't essential, and others could cover for her. These kids took precedence for a multitude of reasons. She was already pulling her broom in front of her as she made her way quickly through the halls.

A quick circuit around the castle to investigate revealed that they were, in fact, gone. Once that was certain, Bee made haste to track them down. Between her pathing skill and her faith sense, it was easy to find the general direction of the Knights. Soon enough, she was running down the road away from the castle.

As her skills led her further and further from the castle, her heart sank. She didn't want to be right about this. As competent as the Nighty Knights were, they were still children. True, most of them had seen awful things in the undead plague or had other horrible experiences - far more than any children should have, in her opinion. The loss of their homes and everything in them was enough to traumatize practically anyone. But seeing them train had not only shown their incredible resilience but also how much they were still children at heart.

Bee couldn't in good conscience let them be on a battlefield. A real battlefield where they would be in real danger. They might get hurt, but worse, they might have to hurt others. Do things when they didn't fully understand the consequences.

When she had talked to Mrs. Chadwick about the disappearances, the woman had been eerily calm as she sat at their family's dining room table and served her a cup of tea. Apparently, when she had woken and found the flaming sword missing from where she had hidden it, she immediately knew what had happened. She just hoped that her two children would come back. But in her own words, she had said they were "too much like their father. They're not willing to let injustice..."

She had trailed off, biting her tongue. Bee had just placed her hand onto the woman's, where it trembled. She was barely holding it together.

"Don't worry, we'll get them back," she had said. Bee could only hope she would get there in time.

The flying carpet could have lent her more speed but at a cost. They likely didn't take the road, meaning her vision and maneuverability wouldn't be as good as on foot. Not that Bee was an expert tracker or anything, with how much she relied on her skills, but she hoped that she could take advantage of her speed to catch up before anything happened.

As the sun rose and began to fall once more, she realized that something was wrong. The Nighty Knights trail blazed clear through the forest ahead of her. But she wasn't catching up. Somehow, something was allowing them to run at a speed that she could barely maintain by herself. That the children were barely above level 15 in some cases should have prevented them from having any sort of ability like this.

Perhaps this was new or something they had hidden. Who knew what powers their faith in Void had given them? The fact that Felix and Leanne had started to develop command-type abilities so early meant that something like a group buff would not be out of the question.

It was on the second day that she finally broke out of the forest, and she still hadn't caught up with any knights. She had finally managed to make up some ground on them, but they were still hours ahead of her by her skill's estimation. Yet she had to keep going.

As dawn turned the sky a rosy hue, she noticed something new on the horizon. Clouds of smoke are just visible over the next few hills.

She forced down her exhaustion. As she crested the next rise, she was treated to the sight of a camped army sprawling out as far as she could see. Bee was careful not to expose herself too much in the morning light. But the smoke wasn't just coming from the campfires. In addition to those, several wagons off to the side were currently ablaze, causing soldiers to pour out of the tents like a kicked-over anthill. They rushed to put out the fires as Bee frantically scanned the encampment for a group of small prisoners. But she didn't see any.