All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 100: Funny Bones

Roscoe stood with 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 had come back, but so far, all the elites made it back. That was what mattered. Each time a group went out, he impressed upon it 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 just 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 still 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 became 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 themselves back into ranks.

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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 was allowed to spread?

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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 sounds 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 anyways. 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…."

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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. They began to trip on roots constantly for several minutes. Maybe this was funny. Watching Tony brush the dirt off his knees certainly was fascinating.

Yet still, it didn't quite 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?"

"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 3 times taller when it flares."

"Huh, I would say the interval is about 3 seconds too…."

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

"You are 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.