Over the next few days, I had a blast. Other than what the soldiers had started calling "The Hot Springs Incident," everything had been rather routine. I followed behind the army, cleaning up the best I could. Sotis Arthur would ask to co to spend so ti upfront with him, and we would talk.
Well, he would talk. As we moved, I would write by engraving words on a large flat stone with my lamp. After I was done, I would erase the surface by blasting it smooth with a more broad beam. It was surprisingly efficient, and over ti I got faster at this than at actual writing with my grabby arm. After a few ssages, though, I needed a new rock. Engraving and erasing like this systematically shrunk any stone I used over ti, especially with how deep my engravings needed for the optimal reading experience.
These breaks were nice. As fast as the army was able to march, I was able to clean much faster. This gave them plenty of ti to accumulate large amounts of work for . Then, I could do them all at once. It was much more efficient than if I was following along right at their heels.
Arthur and I would talk about all sorts of things. It would start off with so basic questions and answers, but Arthur seed to enjoy just speaking about his past. He'd tell stories about past campaigns or skirmishes he had been involved in. In return, I'd ask questions about tactics and leadership and how he made sure that all the waste and kitchens were cleaned properly in ti to march. Overall, it was a nice exchange. I wouldn't say we were becoming friends, but it seed like sothing close. There was definitely respect between us.
During the night, my duties beca more typical of my usual experience. I previously would have wandered the castle, taking care of small tasks. I would wander the camp doing the sa. This was a necessary job as we moved on quickly in the mornings. It was important not to leave any unfinished business behind when we did.
It wasn't much, but it gave sothing to do. Besides, I didn't like leaving the camp dirty, even if it was only going to be seen for a short stint in the morning while everyone packed up. It always beca ssier when we packed, and then I'd have to wipe the area clean afterward anyways. This pointless work was a bit disheartening, but I did take solace in it. At least it kept working on my skills. By now, I could level up a dirt patch so that I could barely tell the microns of difference in height from one side to the other. I was rather proud of this fact.
Several nights after The Hot Spring Incident, the first real disturbance occurred. I heard so odd noises outside long after everyone went to bed, and as I worked my way over on my cleaning route, I ran into a sleeping human. Well, I thought he was sleeping at first. Still, after a closer examination with my advanced sensors, I realized he was not breathing. Also, he was leaking a lot of his internal fluids. Blood, I corrected myself.
This leaking fluid was forming a puddle around his head. Odd. I did my best to repair him with my domain and poked him in the head a couple of tis, but there was no response. It seed I had found a broken human.
Now what? I really didn't know what to do next. I had seen so dead humans, but not many. Only the zombies and those few troubleso an humans that tried to threaten the castle. I'd never seen just a body like this before, and I didn't know what to do.
After a few seconds of processing, I realized it was probably important to find out why this human had died. So I scanned the site extrely thoroughly. I did notice several things. Several sets of footprints passed in between the tents where I found the body. I couldn't really tell the freshness, but I had just cleaned this area 15 minutes and 46 seconds ago, so none of them were older than that.
Unfortunately, all the footprints were of the sa military issue boot. I only had the size to go off of, and the military was rather stingy about making proper footwear. There were only four basic sizes, but I could tell that one was from a large man and two were from a dium man. Looking at the soles of the shoes on the dead human, I realized that it was one of the diums, so I was looking for one larger man and one average size man. Neither of them had the narrower soles that the female soldiers left.
On top of that, the majority of the leakage was clearly from a wound inflicted by a knife to the throat. It looked like the attack had been from a stabbing motion into the side, but I couldn't tell if it was from soone standing behind the dead human or in front of it. I wasn't sure how I could tell. I'd have to compare it to a lot more stab holes, and I don't think anyone would be down for testing that. Maybe I could try and model that so other way later.
Okay. What else could I see? I scanned the body carefully again. I couldn't place the exact ti of death, but I could tell that it was within the last ten minutes. I also knew that I heard sounds from around here, but I couldn't tell if that was from it being stabbed or from soone moving the body. Judging based on the scuff marks, the body had indeed been moved. But I didn't think that kind of action would produce the sounds I had heard.
So. I was going to go with the assumption that this human was killed when I heard sothing. That was 4 minutes and 37 seconds ago. Taking a step back, I examined the body with a lot more detail, focusing on its hands and trying to see if there was any trace of the attacker left. Maybe it managed to put up a fight. Or, at the very least, maybe there were so sort of other marks left behind by the humans.
I found my first clue under the fingernails of the deceased. It was a little bit of skin. Apparently, it hadn't died instantly. The man must have scratched his attacker, either from in front or behind. I continued looking under the body and found a few other clues.
In order to contextualize them, I decided I should make an inventory. Everything the man had on him, starting with the uniform, every piece was there. The sa cap, shirt, undershirt, underclothes, trousers, boots, socks, and belt were all present and standard. Looking at the spot where awards were usually pinned, I noticed that it was relatively light. Only three dallions hung from its breast. However, I did notice that it was an officer.
It looked to be a second lieutenant, which matched the man's age. The body of the deceased also had a few things tied to his belt. The first thing I noticed was a pouch with several gold and silver flat discs inside. I had often seen these disks be exchanged as part of a complicated trading system these humans had. It involved pieces of paper with numbers on them being shuffled about in a complicated system that I had yet to fully understand.
One day I had to look into that, but now I needed to focus. It was odd that those were left. Humans seed to really like them, and whenever they found them, they usually picked them up and put them in their pouches. So if whoever killed this man didn't pick them up, they clearly either didn't care about them or didn't know they were there. But I supposed that ant that he wasn't killed over his money.
The more I thought of this man, the more I saw him as a person rather than a dead body. At first, it was easier for to understand if I just thought of the dead body as an it. But trying to figure out his past was making think of it as a human. Just like Arthur. Just like Beatrice.
It was surprisingly difficult to handle. If I thought of him as a human like this, I also had to think of everything that this human must have done in his life. The things that he would no longer be able to do. Was this why humans beca sad at the prospect of death?
Shaking back and forth slightly to clear my processors and flush my cache, I refocused. It was suddenly a higher priority that I found out who did this.
Another thing he had on his belt was a small knife. I noticed that his hand was gripping the hilt of it when he fell, and it looked like he had pulled the knife out a bit. I was well aware that the sheaths were built to keep knives securely in place so they weren't jostled loose. The strap that would hold the cross guard of the blade in had been popped off by a quick movent of his thumb. So clearly, the man was expecting trouble.
Or I suppose he could have just been lazy. But judging based off of the crispness of his uniform, which I heartily approved of, that didn't seem to be the case. So if the person knew that he would be attacked and had tried to ready a weapon, it stood to reason that the attack must have co from the front. But if there were two assailants, as the prints indicated, then it was also possible that he had been assaulted from both sides and had been surprised.
Without much else to go on, I wasn't sure what to do next. Then I took another look at the footprints. And I was able to solve one part of the mystery.
It seed that there was actually a person in front and behind. I didn't realize it at first, but I could actually tell the weight of a person by how deeply their footprint sunk. And I could tell that there were three distinct weights. Two were pretty similar but off by at least 5%. The last was obviously much heavier. Based on the foot sizes that lined up. And I could see more footprints coming in three sets from one side.
I ran a simulation based on my findings. One person walked and stopped, presumably the victim. Soone blocked his path from ahead - the smaller man, it seed - while the larger man stayed behind him. I could see the footprints of the other two leaving from the other end of the alley, aning the big man had just stepped over this man's body. So it seed that the victim was, in fact, surrounded.
I was actually able to identify whose footprints were within a certain tolerance, depending on the amount of context provided. The information here gave a much more clear picture than I initially thought, though.
Not wanting to disturb the scene, I lifted myself off the ground a bit more so that my jets wouldn't move anything that was important to the scene as I moved. I would co back. Soon. Then I began to follow the footprints away from the body.
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