Chapter 107
Ellen didn’t like lying, and she was pretty sure no Ellen liked lying. Maybe Stage or Whisper, but they seemed different from most of the Ellens… and Stage probably considered it all a game. Something wasn’t quite right with that girl, but she didn’t seem dangerous like Dungeon.
“How did your meeting go? What were you deciding?” Leona asked, bringing Ellen back to the current problem.
“Last minute ideas about the birthday, and which ones will be taking lessons,” Ellen replied quickly. That had been the agreed cover story, though she wasn’t sure Theodore was buying it. Once again some disorientation hit, missing the expected backup of one of her self-sisters. It had been less frequent of late, but still hit her from time to time.
Theodore crossed his arms and stared at her. “Did you really teach yourself enough magic to cut off the dungeon like that? You haven’t had any tutors? By you I mean your clones… I understand you’re new.”
“Of course,” Ellen agreed. Theodore wasn’t stupid, he probably already guessed what the duplication process involved. That didn’t mean Ellen had to confirm it for him. She did want to give him some information though… a satisfied mage was a less dangerous mage.
“When we are first formed, every Ellen has a period of accelerated learning,” she explained. “We don’t know everything about how it works yet, but from what we’ve been able to see, learning things in this period gives us years’ worth of training and practice in just a few hours or days. Scholar wasn’t the first one to do this, but her chosen specialty was dungeon-related magic… she focused most of her spare time on figuring out how the dungeon worked.”
The older mage raised an eyebrow, then nodded. He wasn’t satisfied, but it was enough that he’d leave Ellen alone for now. That was all she wanted at the moment.
“The Academy looks about finished,” Leona observed. “I’ll be staying here to teach classes for now, but we should get a specialist from the Academy itself. When did you want to start that?”
Ellen gestured at the road in progress further down the hill. It had been cleared of trees, but making it a proper packed earth road still required some work on it… work that Reshape Terrain might be able to handle, but would still need some time. Both mages got her meaning though… she’d been pointing toward the village nearby.
“After our birthday celebration,” she explained. “With the dungeon closed off, Merchant and others think a party will help keep the adventurers from getting too restless. It’ll buy us some time, and hopefully the dungeon will open up soon after. Better make it a day or two after… I think Carpenter and Domestic are still putting together the last few pieces of furniture for the school.”
“So soon?” Leona blinked and glanced at the Academy building again. “I would have thought it would take much longer to furnish it.”
With a shake of her head, Ellen dismissed the compliment. “Not fully. We’ll have enough basic tables and chairs to start, but anything nicer will take a lot longer… Carpenter is still only Tier 2. And it will take time for anything like cabinets, drawers, and so on… a few of the inner rooms won’t even have doors for a while.”
From behind her, Ellen heard another Ellen approaching… and then a warm bump against her ankles, which was definitely not an Ellen. Squatting down she lifted the purring black cat up into her arms, cuddling the feline with light pettings. Healer, back when she had still been trying to keep the entire community hale and hearty, had insisted on frequent baths and cleaning of the stray cats that called Onroc Anroll their home. Ellen had no fear of fleas or ticks these days.
“I will be joining you in these classes,” Priestess said, stepping up beside Ellen. Her hands folded together, and she gave a small nod to Theo and Leona. “My shrine should be finished soon after your Academy, but I have chosen Mana Manipulation, so I would like to learn more with the others. I know divine magic works a little different, but it can’t hurt to know more, can it?”
Theodore frowned at Priestess, glanced at Ellen, and then scratched at his beard. “I don’t have a problem with it, but you… Ellens… have never seemed particularly faithful to the gods. Is this some of the drift between personalities you’ve mentioned?”
“Mmm, you could call it that,” Priestess said, bowing her head. “Every Ellen has a leaning toward Celeste already… we’ve always drifted toward her. Choosing to be more devoted is less of a drift away than you might expect. If I had chosen to devote myself to Bomar, it would have been a greater surprise.”
Ellen chuckled, “Well… not that great of a surprise, since the original Ellen wanted to be an adventurer. Maybe not that far off, really.”
Priestess just smiled back at her. “Yes, I guess that could happen. If we ever get more that choose the Acolyte path, maybe that will happen. It wasn’t the best example, but I think it got the point across, don’t you?”
The cat in her arms squirmed lightly, and Ellen petted her head again, soothing the demanding feline. She wasn’t sure when the cats had adapted to their presence so much that they’d started seeking company… but she wasn’t going to complain about it. Bookkeeper liked them for keeping vermin out of storage, but every Ellen liked having something to pet.
“That cat has an unusually large amount of mana,” Theodore noted, interrupting Ellen’s thoughts. He raised his arms immediately as Ellen narrowed her eyes, and he quickly added, “I was just checking the local mana levels, you can’t blame me for that with all that’s happened, can you? It’s gone up measurably of late.”
You have no idea.
Aloud, Ellen just smiled and asked, “I won’t raise a fuss if you can teach me that spell as one of my first ones. I’m going the learned wizardry route, I should be able to learn it, right? Could Sorceress learn it even though she’s focusing on combat wizardry? Miriam—the one who originally tutored us—wasn’t completely clear about that.”
Leona perked up. “Miriam? With the Briar Thorns? Good choice of instructor. She’s my distant cousin.”
Ellen’s already high opinion of Leona went up another notch, but she tried not to show that on her face. “Yes, that one. She knew our secret before we revealed it, too. I hope she comes back sometime soon… she was a little grouchy at first, but helpful after a while.”
“Mmmhmm,” Theodore mumbled, rubbing his beard again. “I never taught her, don’t know her. To answer your question, it would probably depend on the exact Class that Sorceress took. Have you even reached Tier 2 on your own, yet?”
The question gave Ellen some hesitation. She had reached Tier 2 earlier that morning, but that would reveal just how swiftly new Ellens could level up. Then again, Theodore already knew that they tended to cap halfway to Tier 3… it might be more useful if he knew they could rapidly distinguish their Class, if desired.
“We have unusual Classes for… various reasons,” Ellen explained. “I chose Lorewright for mine. It specializes in decoding and then teaching magic, so I can learn new spells easily and break them down for others. Sorceress chose uh… Siegesong, which uses music for lynchpins and focusing power to boost spells.”
“And I am a Wakekeeper, myself,” Priestess added. “It’s something like Village Ellen’s Class, in that it’s to protect a community and to preserve its memories. Some of us Ellens have more normal Classes, like Mason Ellen does, but a lot of us who took magical paths have unusual Tier 2 Classes that we’re not sure anyone has ever had before.”
That was a little more information than Ellen had wanted to give, but for all his faults Theodore didn’t seem to mean them ill. Ellen would have to ask any others if they wanted their Class public though. Helpfully, she pointed out a more normal Class. “Cobbler is a Cordwainer, for example.”
Cobbler was also the one she really wished hadn’t gone to talk to their parents. They had a spare set of boots or three, but if any more Ellens died they’d once again be stuck with the ridiculous problem of not having enough footwear. At this rate, they would need a spare Ellen just to keep making shoes.
“And Fisher is a Homesteader,” Priestess pointed out. “That’s a little more rare than the usual Tier 2 Classes, but pretty normal out here on the frontier, I think.”
Theodore was learning. He hesitated before broaching the obvious question. “Would you girls mind if I studied the Class interactions you’re experiencing? It isn’t my area of expertise, but I would like to take a few notes and get someone from the Academy up here to review them. Class mechanics are relatively well-known, so new discoveries and rare Classes like this could be a real boon to Thallis, if we can understand how each is unlocked.”
“Bookkeeper is also compiling a lot of this information,” Ellen replied, and she stifled a chuckle as Theodore and Leona both winced at the same time. “You will have to speak with her. I advise you to appeal to her professional interest, as otherwise you won’t be making much progress. If you can convince her, the others will go along with it.”
Abruptly the cat in Ellen’s arms squirmed and wriggled about, after having remained still and content most of the conversation. Ellen squatted down to let the feline go rather than risk getting scratched, and the dark-furred animal bounded off to who knows where, with its own inscrutable agenda. Cat being cat.
“A lot of mana in that cat… are you sure they’ll be okay? Leona did you ever study mana saturation in wildlife?” Theo asked, his frown now showing mild worry. “I know there have been some studies of mutation or fatalities, but I’m not aware of the actual threshold there.”
Leona shook her head. “I know cats tend to be more resistant than some animals, but I don’t know the thresholds either. This little outpost may need a full staff at this rate. We keep uncovering more anomalies every week, and even with what little we’re allowed to study… this could be worth at least a dozen papers all by itself. The dungeon’s spatial manipulation over the last week alone has given me enough to consider for years.”
“Do we have a lot of mana?” Ellen asked, unsure if she should be asking. That virtually invited an invasion of privacy, but after learning they were partially mana constructs… it would be good to know how obvious that was. If Theo couldn’t tell even though she was a recent Ellen, that was a good sign.
And if he could tell… it would come out eventually anyway.
Theodore shook his head. “You do, but every one of you has an excess. More than the villagers down the hill, but even they’ve soaked up a lot more than most people. This area is just swamped with ambient mana, that’s pretty normal. I suspect with you Ellens that whatever process is copying you leaves a lot of mana on you, because you two have more than the ones I’ve already seen. I’ve been trying not to pry too closely… I know I had a bit of an argument with Bookkeeper over this, but I really don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
That was an improvement, but Ellen wasn’t sure how much she believed the man. “Some of us probably draw in and use more naturally, as well. Mason doesn’t use much magic compared to Carpenter, for example.”
He nodded. “There is that, as well. If any of you start feeling dizzy or nauseous, tell one of us immediately. Mutations start off mild, but if it gets worse you may need to evacuate. This is really an unprecedented situation with this dungeon… even compared to other dungeons. You’re lucky that the crown hasn’t decided to take over.”
Ellen looked back toward the mountain behind her, and the dungeon that everyone assumed was the cause of all this.
“Yeah.”