All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 282: He Knows If You've Been Bad Or Good

"I can't believe it. How did you manage to do all that?"

Beatrix's eyes shone with a mixture of astonishment and pride as Bee finished speaking. The more detailed recounting of her recent exploits seemed too fantastical to be real, even to Bee herself.

"Well, I didn't do it alone..." Bee demurred. "I've had plenty of help along the way."

"Yes, but still..." Beatrix leaned back in her seat. "Wow. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to blow my cover before the city was... settled. I'm sorry for leaving so much out."

Bee's voice was tinged with regret, her gaze shifting uncomfortably.

Beatrix waved her hand dismissively, her smile warm and understanding. "It's alright, Beatrice. I understand. Why, I've had to do much the same with some of my more sensitive deals, although... well, I doubt I've ever had anything quite so interesting to tell." Her hands settled into her lap once more. "I'm sure your father will be proud."

As complicated emotions roiled inside of Bee, her aunt continued. "Now, can we talk about some of the supplies your army needs?"

The conversation shifted to logistics, a topic Bee found far less exhilarating than her recent adventures. She barely managed to avoid selling her master's new kingdom away to her ambitious aunt and eventually managed to pawn the rest of the nitty-gritty details off to logistics officers.

Feeling drained, the conversation once again reminded Bee of how important delegation was. She would need to keep her aunt at bay in trade negotiations, and she didn't have anywhere near the experience to handle that responsibility yet. Technically, she might have had the power to make decisions like this, but she wasn't prepared to wield it, not on this scale.

"Well, I'm sure you'll put in a good word, honey," Her aunt said, finally leaving after their prolonged discussion. "Be sure to let me know if you need anything. I'll be around for quite a while. After all, there's plenty of opportunity to be had here."

As the woman strode out of the room, Bee didn't feel rested, but at least she felt a bit better. Her chamberlain, a tall, stern-faced officer of Arthur's, appeared to announce the next person in line.

"These were a pair of adventurers who helped us close the summoning circles. Without them, we would have had significantly more trouble stemming the tide, so I granted their request for an audience. I hope you don't mind."

Bee waved it off, intrigued. It would be fine, as long as it didn't take too long. Showing a little gratitude to those who helped them was never a bad idea. Perhaps they'd come to request a reward for their services, as adventurers so often did. If so, she was more than happy to dip into the treasury. As long as they weren't too unreasonable.

As the adventurers entered, Bee studied them with a careful eye. One was a surprisingly old man who walked with confidence, stepping into the room without the aid of a cane. He looked quite steady on his feet if a little pale as if recovering from a long illness.

Her scan indicated that the older man was a level fifty-five Magus, which made her eyes go a little wide. That was impressive, to say the least. It was no wonder he'd been a help. But it was the figure behind him that really caught her eye. It was a face that Bee recognized, one that made her stare in shock.

The pair came to stand before her. A few moments passed before Harold exclaimed, "Don't I know you?"

After I got into the groove of cleaning, I remembered that I had a lot of new skills to experiment with. The thought excited me. I could feel them within myself, potentially swirling and ready to be activated at any moment.

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The problem was they didn't come with instructions.

I tried to catalog the skills by activating them one at a time. However, this didn't always lend me insight, either. Some of them simply seemed to do nothing, or perhaps they were application-specific enough that I simply couldn't observe their effects at the moment. It was all very frustrating. How was I supposed to organize what I could do like this? I couldn't just activate all of them every time I did anything to see what worked. That was terribly inefficient!

The only reason I had been able to use Beatrice's skills right away was because I had seen her use them many times. I knew what they were and what they did. But the rest of these? I didn't even have names to go by.

I dedicated some memory to finding a better solution as I worked through the city. I'd managed to take care of the roads and houses, working my way up to the roofs. I peered at a particularly nasty chimney. I was disgusted. It couldn't have been cleaned for decades, at least. That was simply unacceptable.

As I prepared to remedy this tragedy, I felt a slight tug within me. It was as though one of my skills was trying to get my attention. Interesting. Activating it, I looked at the chimney again. I felt a tingle as though I were being guided to clean the chimney in a certain way. A different way than usual.

The technique was fairly basic - in fact, I didn't think it was as good as my own, to be honest. But it was worth a shot. Maybe it would improve over time. Deciding to try the skill out, I started to spin in a circle as I jammed myself down the chimney. Years' worth of soot and ash disappeared into my dustbin as I scrubbed the shaft clean. I had to move slowly. Even with my incredibly powerful suction and other physical abilities, the skill was still new, and I made lots of mistakes. Also, there was just so much soot that I had trouble keeping up. But several long moments later, I popped back out of the top of the chimney with delight.

I had done it. I'd identified another skill! With a quick mental note, I categorized it. Perhaps if they continued to tug at me like that when they were relevant, organizing them might not be so hard.

I celebrated my achievement by cleaning more chimneys and bobbing happily across the rooftops. I briefly recalled a movie my previous humans had watched at home. I probably looked just like one of the chimney sweep characters in it. Except for the singing...

Another skill began to tug at me. As I activated it, I discovered with more than a bit of delight that my beeps had gained a bit more range in what wavelengths I could emit. And so, I started happily beeping the song I remembered with a "chim-chimney, chim-chimney chimin chim charoo."

A few houses in, I began to notice trends in the cleanliness of the houses. My scanners were able to pick up their interiors as I worked. I quite appreciated how many of the children kept their rooms neat and tidy. Perhaps I'd start leaving presents for them. As a reward and an incentive for good behavior. Though I didn't think Daedalus had enough presents for every kid in the capital, especially if I wanted to do it regularly

For now, I decided to start small. I left a nice apple near the fireplace for all the children in tidy rooms. Hopefully, they will enjoy them.

As I moved through the city, I started activating other skills as they tugged at my senses. All of them felt fairly inefficient and weak, for now at least. But I made an effort to catalog them all and train the ones I could. Perhaps they'd become useful with a bit of investment.

At one point, I accidentally scratched a very nice table, and a woodworking repair skill popped up. It informed me that I could use some beeswax to repair it for the most part. But I didn't have any. I was mortified and left a stack of gold coins next to the scratch with a simple note apologizing. Hopefully, the owner would forgive me.

One thing I did focus on was Beatrice's Scan ability. It was not the most useful so far. It only gave me names and levels, but it was interesting to see how low-level every human was. In fact, I only found three were above level 20 while searching around the ordinary citizens. But the skill's current state was ok. If it leveled with use, then I could use it with no problem.

After nearly 12 hours of continually scanning everything I came across, I started to get a little more information. I had made a subroutine that would scan everything within range of my sensors at least once. It made improving the skill extremely easy, and soon, I could find out more about their age and classes. My growth slowed down eventually, but hopefully, in a few more days, I'd be able to determine a lot more about people.

All the while, I continued cleaning. Cleaning, training my skills, and rebuilding the city.

The city repairs, in particular, ended up being great for training. In fact, my road paving skills had increased by leaps and bounds, making it so that my mere presence combined my domain and the skill to efficiently create roads. It was way better than just fixing uneven cobblestones.

It was all so exciting. Who knew where I'd be once I'd powered all of these skills up?

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