All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 310: Tag

It took a moment for Bee to get through the initial rounds of greetings, though not as long as she'd feared. Soon enough, she made her way over to Tony and Susan just as Void left to speak with the Nightly Knights.

Tony gave her a wave. "Hey, Bee! Wow, don't I feel popular with all these bigwigs coming to see me all of a sudden?"

Susan snorted. "You're kind of hard to ignore."

"I am, aren't I?" Tony grinned, his solid blue eyes flashing with light.

Bee chuckled. "Glad you made it. Let's go inside. We have a lot to talk about."

They headed into the castle, picking up the rest of Tony's family members on the way.

Mary started off by asking how long Bee planned to stay if she wanted anything special for dinner, and all the normal stuff. The mother insisted on going through it before they could get too deep into any sort of important conversation, and Bee honestly appreciated it. It gave her a chance to just relax and remember how much she cared about the people she worked for and why she did what she did.

Of course, that didn't change the fact that there were important things to talk about. She was going to need Tony back in the capital. She hadn't realized how big of a role he had played in keeping things together in his own right. At least not until she had been missing him for months. He had been a bridge between Void and the people in many ways that she couldn't be, especially while she was busy ruling.

It was easy to forget that he was Void's second follower. It meant that he held a lot of authority in people's eyes, even before his class change. He'd need to get out there and help talk to people for the church, and part of that meant getting his powers under control.

Susan had been doing a decent job of helping with that, but Bee worried that they weren't quite where they needed to be. She was glad that he was getting a hard-earned break, especially after the Lieutenant fight. But still

An explosion sounded behind Beatrice. She moved forward, spinning around and ready to face the danger. But there was no threat. Instead, she saw one of the Nighty Knights bathing Void in a column of flame as the little warriors ran around.

"What is going on?"

The column of flame ended just in time to see another Nighty Knight burst from the ground in a shower of rocks. The momentum took the child well clear of the earth and launched him at Void.

Her master flashed to the side, but the knight followed with a swift change of directions. Bee saw off to the side a little girl digging her heels in the ground with her hand flung out. As she pushed the tunneler toward with a gust of air, Void, her heels left furloughs in the ground.

Bradley appeared behind her in a blur as he pushed his shoulder into her back. All around Void, other Nighty Knights converged and blocked its escape. Void tried to dodge upward but bumped into a falling knight coming from above. The kid rolled off of Void's back and landed on her feet in a crouched position. The game paused for a split second.

As soon as clear contact was made, all the Nighty Knights scattered. There was a black flash as a couple of the Nighty Knights froze with groans of disappointment, and then Void was off after the rest of them.

Bee watched as several of the Nighty Knights snuck through the well-manicured grass, each using various skills to keep them hidden. She wasn't sure how effective they would be against her master, but her all-seeing eye skill pierced right through them. When one of the hidden Nighty Knights lifted their frozen comrade just slightly off the ground for a few moments, both of them ran away again.

"Yeah, that happens sometimes," Trent put his hands on his hips. "The kids can get a little excited with their games. We usually tell them off, but if Void's ok with it..."

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They watched for a few moments longer. Interestingly, Bee noticed that Void was moving significantly slower than usual. She'd seen what her master was capable of in real fights, and this wasn't it. But as the "game" continued, it got faster and faster. The Nighty Knights were ramping up, too, using more and more skills to keep up and combat Void's tactics.

She was honestly impressed. Even if she was going all-out, she would be hard-pressed to avoid taking damage fighting against these children. She could only imagine what they would be like in several years when they were nearing her age.

She had to talk to Arthur about that, too. Technically, the Knights wouldn't be adults anytime soon, but that didn't mean they couldn't help out somehow. They were eager to, at least. She knew that a lot of the noble children went off to military academies at a young age and would sometimes even fight in conflicts, depending on how stern their families were. She wasn't sure if it was a great solution. Still, it would almost certainly be an impossible task to prevent the Nighty Knights from getting into real trouble until they were older. But if some of the kids were to get into places that could actually help train them, then perhaps they would be able to actually be involved in defending their homes.

If they wanted to, of course. She still hoped they grew out of fighting so much and turned to other options instead. But watching them go, those weren't the sort of skills you could unlearn. She needed to find something for them to do that wasn't so terrible and combative. In the meantime, they would also likely need to keep practicing. Perhaps she could go talk to some of the local branches of the Adventurers' Guild for ideas.

Bee finally dragged her eyes away from the show, coming back to the conversation as Tony asked her a question about how the church outreach was going.

"Yeah, most of the city so far," she answered. "I don't mean to change the subject, but how are your powers coming, Tony?"

He gestured to the six inches he was hovering off the ground as he knelt. "Well, I have more control. But I'm still weaker. I'm only level 29 now, not the level 40 I was."

Bee blinked. He'd gained around four levels in the past six months. "Wow. You must be slacking."

She was teasing him, obviously. He'd needed plenty of rest after the battle, and she supposed there hadn't really been many combat opportunities for him to take advantage of. So all that experience must have come from cleaning.

She crossed her arms in thought. "That means we still don't know if you get new skill options when you hit level 30, though."

"That's too bad," Tony nodded. "I think I will, but there's always a chance I won't. But I've also played around with what I can do myself. I can float and have some general telekinetic powers that don't come from any skill description. I imagine it comes from my class. I also have some odd energy powers that I haven't fully mastered"

Bee looked at him askance. "Energy powers?"

"I figured out how to do that. There's a certain amount of energy I can sacrifice from experience to turn matter into energy. I get more energy out of it than I put in, but I can't use that energy to level up. It can be used to power my skills at a higher level, though."

Bee's eyes widened. "That's insane."

Tony nodded. "Right? Now, I just need some good offensive skills, and I'll be a real powerhouse. Maybe enough to match some of these kids," he said as he inclined his head toward the increasingly fast-paced game of tag. At this point, their forms might as well have just been indistinct blurs and afterimages.

Bee was mesmerized by another few moments watching their coordination. The kids didn't fall into perfect lockstep or anything like that, but they moved in a way that showed they understood each other. They could anticipate each other's moves and the fluid tactics that varied on the fly with minimal instructions from their commanders. It impressed her. In small-scale engagements or against monsters, these kids would be a nightmare.

"Yeah. To be honest, they only really care about how cool my flight is. For now," Tony added.

"But..." Bee nodded. "How have the Nighty Knights been doing?" she asked Mary and Trent.

"They've been staying out of trouble," Mary shrugged. "For the most part."

"For the most part," Trent agreed, "They've started to help other people get their first level so that they can join the church and level up doing cleaning. Nothing too dangerous, and there's always a few low-level monsters in the forest nearby."

Bee frowned, not liking that they put themselves in danger. But nothing in this forest could really endanger them. Not that she had seen.

"We make sure they go with supervision. And some soldiers, too." Trent assured her.

"We would put a stop to it, but I don't think we could," Mary added.

They continued discussing what the Nighty Knights' future would be like. Bee remembered her conversation with Arthur about exposing the kids to violence. But Trent had pointed out that Tony had learned how to hunt when he was six, and they were doing the best they could. It wasn't too bad between going after weak monsters, their high levels, and their substantial backup. Bee wasn't sure if it was the best solution but understood that they would probably get into worse things if they didn't channel the children's propensity for training somehow.

Before anything could be decided, dinner was called, and everyone gathered up to eat. The Void and the Nighty Knights had to call off their game to settle in for a banquet.