All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 237: Blowing Things Out of Proportion

A whopping 59.34 hours later, Thucydides and I finally spotted a change in the monotonous landscape. Over the next snow field, we spotted a large shadowy shape looming a quarter mile away from our most recent checkpoint. My advanced sensors couldn't pierce the unnatural darkness that seemed to surround it. Luckily, my Spiritual Cleanse sense had increased its range significantly in the past few months.

My front touch sensors were nearly triggered as we got closer. The energy was so much more intense that it felt like physical pressure. Inside that looming pillar of smoke and shadow, I saw a flickering flame in the shape of a man. It was just standing there. Judging by the burns around it on the bare stone of the mountainside, it had been standing there for a while. What was it doing?

My thoughts were interrupted as Thucydides glanced toward me as we flew, baring his teeth in a partial sneer.

"They're not so tough, are they?" The white dragon boasted. I let out an unconvinced beep. That monster seemed nearly as powerful as the mountain that Daedalus had spoken to. It was so much more powerful than the first Lieutenant I had fought that I had trouble believing they were on the same level.

I had to remind myself that the one we faced was significantly weakened. Still, even if this was stronger, I wasn't going to let it get away without a fight.

"Let's go get it." I projected in the air above as we came to a stop a little ways away. The creature hadn't reacted at all to our presence, so I thought we could take the time to plan. I started showing tactics where I would come in low, and the ice dragon would come in and hit it with ice breath from above, giving me an opening to start trying to consume it.

He went back and forth with me a few times, adjusting the plan, but I put a stop to it when we started getting to the precise angle of his descent. The young dragon was just stalling. I gave him a push forward with my Air Manipulation as he took to the sky, and we made our approach.

The demon didn't seem to realize we were there until Thucydides was nearly on top of him. The white dragon was already exhaling before the demon had a chance to react. It didn't show any surprise; instead, it casually lifted a hand of flame to block the ice breath. The hand, made entirely of fire, managed to melt the ice attack as it got closer, but I could see the limb's radiance dim slightly.

I followed in after the attack, getting in close. As I entered the pillar of smoke and shadow, my sensor range greatly diminished, and I lost awareness of everything happening outside 30 yards of the fight.

Now in range, I immediately started trying to consume the demon. Unfortunately, I could only rip little bits of flame away from its body every few seconds, much less than 1% of its mass. And it regenerated relatively quickly, as Daedalus had warned. I kept at it, though, unwilling to give up; even this little bit of damage would build up given enough time. Pulling out my Divine Sword, I went to slash, but the fire of the demon's body parted around the blade with no apparent damage. It appeared that it wasn't quite corporeal, almost like an earth demon.

Thucydides came around with another breath attack. This time, the demon blocked with one arm and pointed with the other, sending a burning bolt up at the dragon. The young dragon rolled out of the way to dodge and had to flap hurriedly to avoid crashing into the ground. As the dragon circled around, the demon turned his attention to me. I quickly ran through my options, trying to think of something that might have an effect.

An old ability came to mind first. Popping up my Spray Bottle, I unloaded as much water as I had in me at the demon Lieutenant. The torrent fizzled, sprayed, and steamed as it approached the demon but siphoned off its heat well, and I could feel its radiance dim. I kept the stream up, shooting at his face as I tore through the massive reserves I had in my limited dustbin. I zipped around him, covering all angles, trying to stay ahead of the random sprays of fiery bolts it sent all around itself.

With my Spray Bottle, I managed to dodge or neutralize most of them in midair. The rest I redirected into my dustbin with Air Manipulation. I could feel it strain my ability and my dustbin to catch such powerful blasts. Still, I was able to store them and slowly dissipate their energy to later transmute it for my own purposes. All the while, I pulled in a steady trickle of the demon's mass.

My barrage of water was clearly frustrating it, if not actually damaging the enemy. It was able to avoid its half-hatred grabs for me, but it was enough of a distraction that I was not able to start some of my more complicated options. I had hoped that it would break through eventually, but it seemed we were mostly in an impasse right now. And I wasn't about to give up my slightly superior position without a good reason.

Then Thucydides had recovered and dove in with his icy breath. The blast caught the demon Lieutenant in the back, full-on and unprotected. This time, the lance of cold speared through the flaming demon, and the Lieutenant scattered into a thousand pieces scattered throughout the pillar of darkness. I immediately took advantage and was able to suck up a significant proportion of the demon's mass as it tried to re-form, dousing many more of the small flames with water.

However, the demon reformed in an odd way. It didn't all rush toward one point. Instead, each tongue of flame paired up with another and merged into a larger one. Then, the process repeated over and over. Soon enough, I was surrounded by many smaller versions of the demon scurrying across the landscape.

I zipped about to try and consume the smaller versions of the Lieutenant, but they seemed to still have some sort of ephemeral link to the whole that made them hard to pull. However, that didn't stop me from getting some of them, but I couldn't consume them outright like I had the minuscule versions.

Thucydides worked with me. Hovering above his breath, attack snuffed out one after another of our prey. But there were still at least 3482 more of them that I could see, far too many of them to vanquish quickly even as they continued combining. We focused on cleaning one area of the flame fragments at a time.

Hidden among the number scattered everywhere, one underneath Thucydides did something unexpected. It transformed into a pressurized jet of fire as it sent itself streaking upwards. The lance of fire speared through the base of an unsuspecting Thucydides's left wing. The dragon's breath cut out as he let out a roar of pain that turned into a squeal. He fell from the sky and crashed into the ground, sending a shockwave of dust and debris rippling across the hillside.

I increased my efforts, trying to spray down all the fire surrounding Thucydides. Repositioning, I hovered above him, shooting down anything that got near and consuming anything that was left. This frantic defense of my vulnerable friend went on for several minutes as the Lieutenant tried to Approach the downed dragon. Thucydides struggled to get to his feet, but the damaged wing was making it nearly impossible. Fear was clear in his eyes as he lay vulnerable on the ground, claws scrabbling at the bare stone.

Suddenly, the assault stopped. My sensors indicated there were no more little fire demons left. Checking my dustbin, I found that I had nowhere near enough to account for all of it. Less than 20% of the demon's mass was inside me. The rest was simply gone.

I didn't for one second believe the enemy was destroyed, especially based off of Daedalus's explanations of their impressive regenerative abilities. Rather, I found it was far more likely that it had fled while we were distracted. It must have sacrificed a large portion of its mass to keep me occupied while it got away.

But I couldn't pursue after the injured Lieutenant to finish it alone. Not with my companion hurt. Descending toward the dragon's prone form, I examined the injury with my extremely limited medical knowledge.

"How does it look?" He croaked out at me.

"Not great." I flashed. "How does it feel?"

"I've had worse." He said with a tough face that looked a lot like he was trying to imitate his older brother.

---

When Bee eventually made it out to the castle walls, she found that she simply wasn't needed. There had been a few assaults since she had been rendered unconscious, but Arthur and the rest of the soldiers had taken care of them without her assistance. Relief washed over her at the discovery that everyone was safe. But at the same time, it was a little disappointing to know she wasn't needed.

She quickly squashed that immature feeling. Just because she wasn't needed yet didn't mean she wouldn't be soon. And besides, it was better this way. At least it meant they weren't in real danger.

After a brief conversation with Arthur about tactics, apparently, the best place for her was alongside Maranda. That was how Bee found herself back inside the castle and climbing up into the laboratory. The hallways leading towards the laboratory were a crowded mass of people carrying stones in stretchers and buckets through the tight stairways. The ramps that Tony had installed to please Void would have been extremely useful, but no one trusted them to hold up with such heavy loads. Plus, they were a little too steep for something like a wheelbarrow full of bricks. It'd be easy to lose control of that. A cart of bricks speeding down one of those ramps would be extremely dangerous for anyone below.

At the same time, Bee spotted enchanted missiles slowly being brought down as well. They were not enchanted in the same way Bee could. Still, Miranda had apparently found her own solution to creating exploding rocks while Bee was out fighting.

A crew of nervous men carefully maneuvered the rocks about. A simple cork stopper jutted out from the top of each, marking it as dangerous. Instead of enchanting the stones themselves, Maranda had taken to hollowing them out and stuffing explosive liquids inside. The result acted like one of her fireworks, just on a much larger scale. It made Bee even more nervous than her own method.

This extremely crude method wouldn't work for long-term storage. Bee would have to make sure that every single one of these was tracked down after the battle to make sure that they didn't have explosive ordnance sitting around the castle. The thought of someone mistaking them for regular rocks made her shudder. However, they would work rather well for projectiles. She just hoped that none of them actually exploded before they left the catapults.

As Bee set up her workstation, she asked what Maranda was up to. The fledgling mad scientist flipped open her notebook and turned it for Bee to see.

"I've had an idea for mass producing some of the boosting potions." She said with a smile.

Bee looked over the designs. "Hmm, do we even have enough powdered caterpillars for that?"

"No," Maranda said dejectedly. "I asked Arthur if they could find some for me and he told me that 'as happy as I would be with such equipment to provide my troops, it is simply more effective to make more explosives.' So boring."

Bee couldn't help but agree as she started carving away at the stone blocks as she pulled them off a pallet. She started with a basic, simple enchantment for light or something along those lines to practice her actual enchanting abilities. Then, she would add a few lines to make it unstable before placing it on a separate pallet and grabbing the next brick.

Hours went by with them barely noticing. Both pallets of bricks were replaced periodically as they emptied or filled and moved toward the field. No messengers came, so she assumed she wasn't needed somewhere else urgently. That meant she was simply able to lose herself in her work.

Around dinner time, food was brought up to both of them. Miranda had finally gotten it through her head that safety protocols were to be followed in the wake of their dangerous work, so they reluctantly left their work behind to wash down in a separate room. Neither of them wanted to risk eating explosives on accident or contaminating the lab. It was a quick affair of roast lamb in freshly baked bread, but Bee hadn't realized how hungry she was.

As they finished up and headed back to work, someone dashed up the steps to the second floor and called out. "Miss Bee!"

Bee glanced around in surprise. It wasn't a messenger from any of the military operations but rather one of the mothers who had taken it upon themselves to maintain the castle's cleanliness while their children were running about. "Miss Bee, high priestess. Come quickly, there's someone you need to see."