All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 293: Rainbow Radiance

Harold hadn't made it too much further in tracking the Lieutenant before the promised backup had arrived. It was Susan, the demon's... No. Lord Void's intelligence officer. It was still hard for him to think of Void as anything but a horrific demon that wanted to consume his very soul. However, many times, the Warden corrected him, but the fear was still instinctive.

Having met the strange creature, or godling, as some would call it, Harold did have to admit that he had probably been wrong about its intent. But he was certain of its power. And that alone justified his reaction. They'd been dealing with a circle meant for summoning demons, and he was rather proud of his reaction speed when it had first breached the summoning circle. Anything coming out of a summoning circle with such ease, from a demonic plane, with that level of power Well, the odds of it being friendly were incredibly low. He was just happy to have gotten almost everyone out. Besides, it was a demon-summoning circle. What else was he supposed to expect? A bunny?

Of course, not everyone saw it that way, and he had to admit that they might have had a point. But it still gave him the creeps. Susan, though, at least, was something he understood. Intelligence and counterintelligence were intuitive things that he had picked up over his years of work in the field.

The guards fanned out and watched the forest, leaving Harold the ability to focus more on the tracks. Susan walked beside him. "The messages are all sent," she said. "We should expect the responses to come in tomorrow at the earliest."

Harold nodded. Her skills were very interesting. She was relatively secretive about what her actual abilities were, but several of them seemed to be perfectly suited for maintaining a large information network, something that Harold had envied. He had known one member of the organization who had had some sort of long-distance communication, but Susan also had other abilities. A lot more. In fact, at her age, being at her level was practically insane. He didn't know what it exactly was, but it couldn't be any lower than his own, and he was 20 years her senior.

"Good. I think the ones we need to worry about most are the most remote agents..." They fell into a technical discussion about what kind of concerns and secrecy they needed and where problems could arise. Harold also took the opportunity to introduce her to more of the organization's protocols. Not all of them, but enough that she would have access when she needed it. It was amazing how similar their methods of information gathering were despite having come from completely different organizations.

A couple of hours later, he stood up and sighed. "It's still going in this direction, but judging based on the time, we haven't caught up one bit at all. How long do you think Lord Void wants us to continue?" He asked Susan.

She shrugged. "He didn't say. But if we're not catching up, I don't think it'll matter too much. Knowing Beatrice and Lord Void, they've likely already found them. But I'm not willing to take that risk. Still, you can't keep doing this forever."

Harold nodded. "Well. I don't know if anyone else can follow the trail."

She grimaced and looked up at the sun dipping below the treetops. "Let's make a mark here. We'll come back tomorrow morning if there's no more news."

They made some signs discreetly on a nearby tree so that they could find their location again, as well as mark their path back to the city. The return trip passed much more quickly than the tracking itself had.

A large part of Harold really hoped that he wouldn't have to spend all tomorrow walking through the forest again. There were so many more interesting things he could be doing.

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I looked at my skill choices in the fraction of a second it took for the others to realize the fight was over. Thousands of branching possibilities ran through my head as I considered my choices. For the first time in a while, it seemed that I had gotten all good skills.

Gravity Well did seem a little underwhelming for reaching a level as high as 85. But even then, it probably was a very powerful skill. Any sort of manipulation of gravity would be very interesting to work with, and if it grew like my other skills did, to the point where I could use it for something outside its purpose well, then it had real potential after all.

Meanwhile, Holy Water made my brushes bristle on instinct. On one side, I had gotten a lot more comfortable with water and its applications in proper cleaning. On the other, I had just destroyed that water demon for a very good reason. I had some useful abilities that used liquids with my spray bottle, of course. But the best applications of those didn't even use water. They used Beatrice's special concoctions and other specialized cleaning supplies.

But this, well... it was still water. Holy Water, though? What might that do?

It could be interesting. Traditionally, holy stuff was generally good against demons. But if I could use it as a weapon against demons at all, that seemed like a good idea. Especially considering we still had more of them to fight.

Still, I was hesitant to choose it. Blessing of the Void was the most cryptic skill on the list. I have really no idea what it did. Was it something that I could give to other people and bless them? Would it interact with my Void Manipulation? Would it change me in some mysterious way? I had no inkling. The only reason I was even considering it was because it had the word "void" in it, one that was associated with my most powerful ability. That, and it was my nickname. Both of those things suggested it would be pretty good.

When all else had failed, it was Void Manipulation that I turned to. The void bubbles I used were honestly the most destructive and powerful abilities that I could manage. But they were hard to control and slow, and I simply hadn't practiced enough with them.

I regretfully struck gravity well off the list. As fascinating as it sounded, I just wasn't sure how useful it would be. Besides, I could already fly and make things levitate or move with Air Manipulation. I didn't expect that particular skill to expand my abilities too much. It left me with a very difficult choice between two other good options.

It pushed against everything I thought I had stood for, but I was leaning towards Holy Water. If my hunch was right about it being useful against demons Well, that seemed to be the most immediately useful effect anything could have. Blessing of the Void could be useful, too, in that way, but I just didn't have enough information. Not to mention that it kind of sounded like something out of my old humans' sci-fi movies. I didn't want to become some eldritch horror that turned people into insane monsters by accident.

So, after making my decision, I selected Holy Water and felt the reservoir of my spray bottle change slightly. Now, I had three options: one to spray good old-fashioned sodium hypochlorite, one to expel any liquid from my dustbin, and one to spray a new substance, what I assumed to be Holy Water. Interestingly enough, the reservoir felt incredibly large. I hoped that it worked like the sodium hypochlorite and regenerated automatically. I'd have to experiment with that later. But for now, it appeared that the others had finally reacted to the demons fleeing.

Beatrice ran over to Archibald and laid her hand on his shoulder, fixing him up. Several of his cuts began to scab over and mend as Daedalus wheeled around, checking for other threats. His gaze soon settled on me.

His eyes flicked over to where the Flame Demon had been, then back at me before he huffed out a decent amount of smoke from his nostrils. he said. "You think they're gone?"

I replayed the image of the two lieutenants that had run away above my chassis. "I do," I agreed.

"Good riddance." Daedalus huffed.

Archibald sat down on the floor with some help from Beatrice, and I watched as his left arm straightened. Apparently, it had been a more difficult fight than it had appeared from a distance, but still, he seemed to be smiling.

Daedalus and I made our way over to them. As we moved, the dragon mumbled to me. "Spot, my friend. I think we need to talk about what's inside your dustbin."

I gave him a questioning beep. Why would we need to do that? I had already transmuted the Lieutenants, and everything in there was quite well organized. I reassured him of that, but Daedalus still kept a wary look on his face. "When I was in there, before the fight, I saw some things. Also," he gestured with his head to himself and his prismatically-tipped scales that tinkled slightly as he walked. "It kind of changed me."

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