Chương 15

Builder Ellen Ellen scratched at the back of one leg as she looked over the ruined house. She was breathing hard, flushed from the exertion, but it was one more task complete. She was proud of this one, as it was a major step toward making the whole place livable for winter.

"Uuuuuugh." Adventurer Ellen's groan was loud, and not far off.

"This wasn't what I ever imagined doing when I ran off to be an adventurer."

"Me neither," Ellen agreed in a light tone. She tossed the last of the dirt and debris into the pile nearby, looking over it with satisfaction. Once winter passed, this pile would make a great garden that could feed a dozen people, easily. Not far off, Adventurer Ellen continued to thrust the sturdy, mostly-straight stick she was holding into the ground. Last night's rain had been miserable for the three girls huddled under the tent fabric, but the morning had been great for working on the town.

The sun was out, and although it wasn't incredibly warm, it was bright enough that a hard-working Ellen wouldn't catch a chill. Most importantly, the earth was soft without being soaked and muddy. Adventurer Ellen may have preferred to be fighting something or at least practicing with her spear, but she wasn't. Instead, she was turning and prying at the earth, fighting off the high grasses that had taken over the town in its decades-long abandonment.

"I hope I don't end up getting penalized for spending time on this," Adventurer Ellen grumbled.

"You already chose Fighter, didn't you?" Hunter Ellen leaned out of the crumbling window of the house that she was helping clean up.

"It shouldn't matter as much past Level 6. If it counts for anything, it'll be strength training. You're basically stabbing the ground like you'd stab with your spear, right?" Ellen tuned the two out as they continued arguing about how best to spend all the banked experience. It was a lot of words and energy spent on an idea that was unproven, really. True, it seemed likely given how quickly she was getting a sense of how to put things together… but it wasn't certain.

She stepped back several paces and considered the building. The one chosen for the Ellen 'home' was larger than most, and in good condition. Now that they'd painfully scraped out and hauled the dirt from the floor off to the side, she could tell it was probably some kind of inn or common hall, except that she was pretty sure eighty years ago when it was built, they didn't have the modern inn. That made it harder to guess at. Or maybe she was wrong.

She hadn't paid much attention to details like that when she was taught history, and even Uncle Anroll could be wrong about things. The stone floor was definitely useful, and the hearth would be great in winter, if she could get the chimney cap repaired. That might be beyond her skills, but she'd give it a try before she'd risk hiring someone else to come and do the work. She liked this being a private hideaway for Ellens… especially as there were now five of them.

Twins or even triplets people might believe, but quintuplets out of nowhere would be a stretch. The stone shelving and workplaces—probably for a kitchen—were usable again, but the house wasn't long-term livable. She'd had Hunter Ellen make some cord out of the local grass and bark, but it wasn't strong enough for real construction work. It was barely holding up the tent fabric that they were using as a makeshift roof, and that didn't cover the whole house.

The previous night's rain had been miserable for that reason. At least the lintels were stone. Most of the doors and windows were intact and not in danger of collapse, they were just gaping holes in the structure that let in the air. The original builders had thoughtfully left the sides of each building facing the prevailing winds solid, so they made good windbreaks, but that wouldn't help the escaping heat in the winter.

"Hunter Ellen, how close are you to getting nice usable furs and hides?" Ellen frowned in thought as she asked that. The two other Ellens immediately stopped their bickering and looked over to Ellen. Like most of their arguments, they were largely superficial and done more to pass the time than to actually change someone's mind.

"If you don't need a tanned hide, I can get you some now." Hunter Ellen shrugged and walked over to join Ellen.

"Depends on what you need, and how much. I have a bunch of squirrel and rabbit pelts in the workshop, but some of them are in pretty bad condition. I'm still practicing. Why? I was going to try selling some eventually for things like salt and stuff." Ellen gestured to the building.

"You won't get much for them. Maybe save your nice-looking ones for that, but if we can get a deer hide or something that'd be ideal. Maybe stitch together a few smaller ones? I'm not sure I'll have the time to get doors and shutters on this, so we'll need some furs to keep the cold out and the heat in. Not to mention blankets… though I hope the blankets smell better than what you have in there." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Hunter Ellen laughed.

"Don't worry, that's just the preservation process. Once it's done I can scrub them down and they'll be fine." She scratched the back of her head.

"If we can find something to stuff them with—oh! I'll do that tomorrow."

"Do what?" Ellen blinked, looking at her other self in confusion. Usually they could figure out one another's thoughts, but she'd noticed that anything related to their chosen professions would be much harder to guess.

"Cattail fluff." Hunter Ellen pointed down toward the river.

"I saw a bunch of cattails while I was exploring, but it'll be gone soon if I don't gather it now. I'll find a dry place to store it while we wait. Maybe one of those covered jars we found, if we can patch it up." The idea was sound. Ellen nodded to it.

"Great. If it needs done fast, recruit Adventurer Ellen over there before she sulks herself into a fit. Maybe Village Ellen if she has a day off, too. It'd be nice to hear from her again anyway."

"Hey!" Adventurer Ellen called out.

"I heard that!" She stomped her foot, but it was all just a display… she knew she wasn't very useful being an adventurer yet. The other Ellens did actually need her help. The melodramatic act was dropped a moment later. Adventurer Ellen tapped her chin.

"It sounds like it's going to be a lot of work to get this place fixed up. Once the other Ellen comes back with the money, did you ever think about just splitting it up and we all go different ways? I still want to adventure so I do want to stay here, but I can stay with Tobias and Lauren if the rest of you go. We could all meet back once in a while and talk about seeing the world."

"I don't know," Ellen mused.

"Where would we go? What would I do? Go apprentice myself to a carpenter or something?" She shook her head.

"We're still like you, we're just doing it differently. You want to be an adventurer, but I think if I'm going to do carpentry, I'd like to work on building a whole new town up, not just make cabinets for rich merchants every day." Hunter Ellen nodded.

"Yes, and this is basically my home now. Surviving out here all by myself—I mean, you're all here too, but you know—is pretty nice. It feels… I don't know, free. I don't really want to go back to a city to live in. If I'm going to be 'Hunter Ellen' I'm going all in."

"You've done a pretty good job keeping us all alive," Adventurer Ellen admitted.

"Speaking of which, do you need to hunt for dinner, or are we having potato and broth again?" The exasperated sigh that left Hunter Ellen's mouth was genuine, this time.

"Don't worry, I was practicing my snares and managed to catch a partridge this morning. I need to finish cleaning it, but I'll wash up and do that in a minute. Just don't throw the bones in the grass this time, it'll attract the scavengers and I can use them for stock if we save them."

"Rowr," chimed in a ginger tomcat watching them. He'd perched on the inside of a window, and was watching the entire conversation as if judging the trio.

"And maybe there will be enough to feed the local beggars," she added. With a clap on Ellen's shoulder, Hunter Ellen wandered off toward her workshop to cook. It was one of the sturdier buildings around, and also had a fire pit. Not to mention a forge, and a smelter right next to it. All those were made of stone and recoverable, though the smelter needed cleaned out badly. They'd already found an intact anvil, which was a great find if they ever got desperate and needed something to sell…

or if one of them took a blacksmith path. Ellen shook her head. It was bad to think of things like that. She knew she shouldn't consider the thought of more Ellens appearing, since it would mean one of them had died. Maybe they were getting too casual about the idea, despite watching the previous Adventurer Ellen die in her arms. Twice.

"Do you think Uncle Anroll would approve?" Adventurer Ellen cut into Ellen's thoughts suddenly with the question. She was back to poking the ground with the stick, slowly making the beginnings of a proper path between buildings by damaging the roots of the grass. It was a good question. Ellen had to genuinely think about it, distracting herself from her plans of remodeling the main building. It was also an odd question, coming from the normally enthusiastic Adventurer Ellen…

but trying to be the adventurer is what had led to three deaths out of the four they'd suffered. Getting a little bit of cold feet was natural.

"I don't think even Uncle Anroll would know what to do about this," Ellen admitted. She looked up at the sky, where the clouds briefly obscured the sun that eased down into the embrace of the mountains.

"But I have to imagine he'd be okay with how we're handling it. He always told us to pursue what we felt was our honest desire, right?" She stepped toward the building and ran her hand down the rough masonry.

"Isn't that what we're doing? You're being the adventurer we always wanted to be. I'm building something that lasts. Village Ellen is just enjoying life. Merchant Ellen is making money. And Hunter Ellen is…" Ellen paused, as she wasn't sure what aspect of their desires Hunter Ellen represented. The other Ellen was the 'oldest' of any of them now, and always seemed so grounded and considered things the rest hadn't thought of yet. What did that make Hunter Ellen?

"I think she's the part of us that doesn't want to listen to anyone," Adventurer Ellen finished.

"She's the part of us that doesn't want to feel obligated to any path. Or maybe the part of us that just wants to get away from everyone else? I don't know. I don't think we can really split it up like we're just one piece of the original Ellen." Adventurer Ellen snapped her mouth shut as soon as the words left her mouth. It was a topic that they'd all danced around. The idea that none of them were actually the original Ellen. In a way they all were, but none of them had her limitations, either.

"I get what you're saying." Ellen tried to be reassuring by accepting the premise, not the words.

"We're more complicated than that. It is funny that we didn't all fight to be the Adventurer Ellen though. Maybe I just felt that building a town was an adventure all its own." Her other self shrugged.

"Maybe it is."