Chapter 106
Usually, the rare meetings of the Council of Ellens were relatively quiet. Even with all their distinctive paths, they fell into sync rather quickly when they needed to get something done. Ellen was used to just raising her voice a moment and everyone would listen to her, since she and Bookkeeper had ended up in the lead roles.
She cleared her throat again, loudly, but the muttering didn’t stop. The other Ellens had broken into small clusters to talk about what had happened, although the topics diverged more than their normal discussions. Some were trying to guess why Dungeon had done this, while others were posing ideas for what to do about it, and a few were arguing that the Council should have brought Anroll or even the two mages into the debate.
“HEY!”
Militia’s shout did what Ellen’s less aggressive means couldn’t. The other Ellens all quieted, turning their attention to Militia first, then over to Ellen where she stood next to Bookkeeper and Whisper. Everyone was here, including Village… with the obvious exception of Cobbler and Hunter, as they were still on their trip. Ellen missed Hunter’s presence… she could usually count on that Ellen’s level head.
Shadow was the only other Ellen missing, having been left in the half-finished house that they’d hastily converted into a prison. Ellen suspected Dungeon could escape from the barely-livable structure with ease, whether Shadow was there or not, but at least with an Ellen there watching they would quickly learn if Dungeon left. The not-quite-Ellen had not tried to get away after the murder, anyway.
“Thank you, Militia,” Ellen said quickly. She turned to the rest of the crowd and sighed. “Whisper, who brought Dungeon Ellen here, kindly helped Shadow and Bookkeeper interrogate her about what she did and why she did it. The answer is not what you want to hear, but neither is it as terrible as it could be.”
In unison, the two newest Ellens scowled. The twins born of Smith were still in a sour mood, and Ellen couldn’t blame them. Smith had settled into a pretty relaxed rhythm, and she’d been working toward her next Level when this happened. She’d been in no way prepared for another split. Unlike when Hunter had died to create her, Smith didn’t have any specific plans and hadn’t even settled on names or roles. Each of the new Ellens had agreed they’d be some kind of crafter.
Ellen wasn’t totally sure how Hunter had spawned a crafting line. Maybe she’d liked doing the tanning and fur preparation a lot more than Ellen thought she had. Maybe Smith had just changed that much during her own time in her new role. After all, Ellen was very aware that she was quite different from the Adventurer that spawned her… she just didn’t care to analyze the philosophy behind it.
Another thing Hunter enjoyed doing.
“Why did this have to happen now?” she muttered to herself, rubbing her forehead. The restless shuffling of her other selves had already begun, and she couldn’t blame them. She’d just promised them answers, then paused to collect her thoughts before she could give them.
“Calm down, everyone, we’ve already gone over what we learned and I’m going to share it with you,” Ellen continued, raising her voice. “We only know what Dungeon told us, but we have reason to believe that she did not intend to deceive us nor see this as a betrayal. We still need to figure out what to do with her.”
One of the Ellens yelled out, “How could it not be a betrayal!”
Ellen paused, squinting at the one who had shouted. The others were already nodding along, but it took a moment to get a clear enough view to notice the obvious extra curl to the hair on her left side, and the slightly softer curve to her cheeks that contrasted the otherwise fit body. Domestic Ellen had been the most successful in breaking away from the Adventuring Party’s mindset, despite her supposedly passive role. She was fiercely individual, with only Militia coming close to standing out as much from the other octuplets.
It took a moment for Ellen to remember that it had only been a few days since that split. In that light, Domestic’s differentiation was incredibly fast.
Bookkeeper stepped forward and took over speaking. “There is still a lot we do not know, but Dungeon said that she needed more than one who could form mana crystals. She knows a lot about how we replicate, but her knowledge has holes in it. For one thing, she thought that we carried all of our knowledge instantly, and she doesn’t quite understand Levels the same way. She did not see killing an Ellen as death, since two more would return.”
The crowd started murmuring, but they quieted when Bookkeeper raised a hand. She continued, “Many of us have had passing thoughts of whether or not we could split on purpose. We can’t say that a new person who doesn’t know anything about how the world works was completely wrong to think about this. I’m not making an excuse for her… but it gives us an idea about how the dungeon thinks.”
“What happened to our body?”
That was one of the Smith twins, and Ellen winced at the question. She’d been informed of the answer, but she had to let Bookkeeper explain it. The answer was one of the more painful facts they’d gleaned from the interrogation. Even Whisper shuffled uncomfortably nearby.
“Dungeon can… for lack of a better word, she eats mana,” Bookkeeper answered. “There are apparently complicated rules about what she can eat, like the fact that she can’t just eat any of us unless we are already dead… like what happened with Smith. And she can’t do it with normal humans. She said Smith was difficult, but we now know that right after we are um… born… we are mostly shaped by mana. The longer we live, the more our bodies turn to normal humans.”
Bookkeeper gestured toward the forge. “Smith was old enough that she had a hard time erasing the body, and someone like Village might not even be possible, if she’s telling the truth. She insists she didn’t want to make a mess, so she tried to clean up. The way she frames it, she was trying to help us all.”
“Do you actually believe that?” Militia asked in a flat tone. She crossed her arms, scowling at Bookkeeper. The question started a wave of murmurs from the others, and Ellen could understand why.
“I do,” Ellen replied, holding her hand up before anyone could object. “But it doesn’t matter whether or not she’s telling the truth. If she’s lying, she’s a danger. If she’s telling the truth… she thinks even less like a human than we knew, and even worse she doesn’t know what it is to be an Ellen even if she looks like one. She’s dangerous either way, but I’m not sure what to do with her. I’m not even sure any of us can kill her, let alone should.”
It was a moral debate that Ellen wasn’t looking forward to. It was also something that Whisper had suggested putting last, after the reveal that their bodies weren’t fully human. The realization that they were mana constructs wasn’t as shocking as it would have been before winter, but having a suspicion like that confirmed—or mostly confirmed—was still a lot to deal with.
The problem was that the other Ellens were alike in a lot of ways, but many of them were more able to process the idea of being constructs than some of the others. Ellen hadn’t expected so many to take it well, but when roughly half of the girls milling about barely paused to think it over, she knew there would be a problem. The other half were turning and distracting some Ellens as they all whispered about the news, but enough were still alert to scowl at her.
She winced. They’d caught on to the attempt to push the decision aside. Oh well, it was worth a shot. The question would have needed to be addressed eventually anyway.
Ellen braced herself as Village stepped forward—only for a shrill whistle to sound from her left. Mason had called everyone’s attention. Every Ellen turned toward the architect who had been working on all their houses and quieted down.
“She eats magic, right?” Mason asked, though the question was more rhetorical than anything else. “So if we find a place to keep her, we can see if we can learn anything about the dungeon. We don’t have to decide if we should kill her right now, but I think some of us won’t want to do that when she’s basically a child. It’s awful for Smith, but we did get these two new Ellens… she probably really did think it wasn’t something bad.”
“She killed one of us!” Militia shouted, making a swift cutting motion with her hand. “When we set out to be an adventurer, we all knew we might have to fight and kill bandits or murderers or worse! I don’t see why we’re going easy on her. She killed someone, deliberately! Even if she excused it by the copying making new ones, that’s dangerous!”
“We never asked to be doubled!” one of the Smith descendants called out. Ellen flinched, but fortunately no one called out the fact that there was no way Smith could be sure of that. Dungeon had admitted that Smith had been “curiously unwilling” already, but that information hadn’t been made public yet.
Ellen would tell everyone eventually, she didn’t believe in keeping secrets from the other Ellens these days. It just wasn’t the time with all the other things going on. She’d have to feed the information out slowly to give some of the less pragmatic Ellens time to handle each piece individually.
It was Mage who stepped forward and raised her hand. “Quiet. As Bookkeeper said, some of us have considered the idea of our death-copying as a blessing, not a curse. I’m surprised Militia spoke out so fiercely… she should remember Healer and Apprentice and their thoughts about this. Even as far back as Healer, we considered the idea that our lives should involve copying more freely.”
A few Ellens shifted uncomfortably upon hearing that, but none of the eight descended from the Healer and Apprentice pair objected. Not even Militia, who grimaced instead of arguing with the idea. Her angry expression softened and she nodded reluctantly.
“The ones you call the Adventuring Party knew this,” Mage went on. “When we were like that, we didn’t seek death… but we knew it would be likely, and we accepted that it meant we would just try again once we’d reorganized. We achieved our goal, so it wasn’t needed, and we all became different Ellens instead of operating as a trusted unit. But the idea was there, and Dungeon just expressed it without understanding. Her problem is lacking our viewpoint, not malice.”
Ellen suspected that some of the eight preferred being a single unit, but she didn’t interrupt. That was a worry she had to deal with later. She really should have chosen a different moniker… Merchant just didn’t describe her job any more.
“So she should just get away with murdering us?” one of the unnamed Ellens asked. At least it wasn’t a shout. She didn’t look happy, but her sister-self was holding her hand to calm her.
Mage shook her head, “No, I am not saying that. I am saying we don’t punish her for it yet. We don’t do it hastily. We can learn from her, learn more about why she did it… and we can make an informed decision. It’s not as if we know how to kill her right now anyway.”
The crowd started to calm as the words sank in. They might disagree in some ways now that they’d diverged so much, but each one was ultimately an Ellen. They could figure out how to see things from that perspective.
Then Mage smiled. “In the meantime… we can learn how the dungeon thinks.”