Chương 50

Merchant Ellen Most of the time, sleeping with the other Ellens was surprisingly comfortable. They were warm bodies, and there was nothing weird about cuddling up for warmth under the numerous furs and blankets they'd all collected. Occasionally, she felt a little wobble of discontinuity when she remembered that she was surrounded by bedmates that shouldn't exist… but the fact that she could trust all of them implicitly steadied that feeling. And she did trust them all.

Even the newest quartet, though strange, she just knew had no ill designs upon her or the others. They could keep secrets, sometimes, but every time a secret had been revealed Ellen had immediately seen the logic behind keeping it silent. Each Ellen was also respectful of the others.

Those who needed to awaken a little earlier than the rest always slept on the edges, so they could quietly disentangle themselves from the mass of warm redheads and slink quietly to the side where they could get dressed and start their morning business—whatever it may be. On this particular morning, every Ellen had a much more violent and rude awakening.

"OW!"

"HEY!"

"STOP IT!"

"WHAT?!"

"OOF!"

"EEEEEEEEK!" Ellen felt the breath knocked out of her as one of the four cats that had been lounging about the longhouse landed atop her and bounded off, the quartet of early rising felines yowling as they announced the morning with complaints of their human bedmates still sleeping. She didn't know what had roused them to be so demanding this morning, but they'd taken out their frustrations on every Ellen in the room. All nine of them trying to sleep in bed.

"I'm up."

"Me too…"

"Nnnngh…" It was something of a relief for Ellen that the four new Ellens did not wake up and react with the same synchronization that they'd demonstrated the previous night. They were just as disoriented and bleary as the rest, and only once every one of them was awake and had pushed themselves into a corner of the fur pile did they start their odd behavior. In this case, they immediately began brushing one another's hair and helping one another get dressed, without so much as a word exchanged between them.

Once awake, they moved in perfect harmony, almost as one unit. Ellen shivered. Did they really think I could be a part of that? The thought made her bite her lip. How could they move like that? It was like they were just anticipating what the other Ellen wanted and trusting in that to… Of course they could. If she trusted another her to think like that, she'd have done the same. Just because she liked numbers more than the rest of them didn't mean she couldn't understand everything else, did it?

If we let ourselves be like that, we would be less like individuals, she realized. The new quartet did not care about that. They didn't see themselves as individuals, and in fact saw the idea of being separate people as a detriment. She only started to see differences as the four new Ellens got dressed. Not because they acted much differently, at first, but just because limited clothing was available and they had to choose different things.

"I'm headed out," Hunter announced, slipping into some homemade fur shoes she'd put together.

"I'll go with you," one of the new Ellens offered, hurrying to throw on a cloak.

"I'm going to be starting out with Hunter so it'd be good to get that out of the way." Ellen watched as Hunter waited a moment—strange or not, the other Ellens had to work on their Class advancement and they all wanted to help with that—then both slipped out the front door, revealing that the snow had piled up to ankle-height during the night. Crisp, cold air blew in, and Ellen interrupted her own ritual of getting dressed to toss a few more sticks on the fire, to get it built up.

All four of the cats that had been meowing plaintively bolted out the door.

"Little brats just using us for our warmth," said one of the new Ellens, surprising Ellen with the sudden statement that wasn't done in unison. Not too surprising, though. Every one of the Ellens had said a variation of that statement the last few mornings, ever since Healer had declared certain cats infestation-free and safe to have in the house. She already missed Healer, even if she knew that one of the new Ellens was likely to take up her role.

Hunter seemed just like the previous Hunter, picking up the identity as if there'd been no interruption. Her partial reveal to the village below had been a source of significant rumor, given her different appearance. Ironically, as Pauley was trying to ease the various villagers into the idea that there were more than two quirky redheads, Hunter was losing the slight tan that had differentiated her now that winter was upon them. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen.

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"Be back in a little while," one of the new Ellens announced. She wasn't dressed for the weather—aside from one of the precious pairs of sturdy boots—but as she carried the spear when hurriedly slipping out the door, Ellen suspected she was going to be a Fighter variant. She wasn't sure why the new girl was going out so poorly-dressed, though. Then Ellen paused and considered the possibilities. Supposedly, she should be able to figure this out.

"Endurance training over the accelerated learning period?" Ellen glanced at the two remaining girls of the new quartet.

"Of course!" Both answered in unison… then as one, they lifted a finger to their lips as they remained lightly dressed, and settled on the far side of the hearth. Ellen got the message immediately. The two wanted some privacy, likely so they could do some sort of training regimen of their own. Which left Ellen as the one who would need to prepare food for the day. Not that she minded. She was already headed to the kitchen area to get started on that, now that she'd identified a gap.

It wasn't like she had anything important to do this morning, and asking one of the new ones to do it would get in the way of their Level rush.

"Let's see if we can get the smithy and smelter working right," Smith said to the two builder-type Ellens. Mason sighed, "Hopefully the smelter didn't cool too much during the storm. I left the coals in there, but after last night it may have gotten so cold the lining was damaged."

"I'll just check for drafts and see if I can get the place partitioned." Carpenter Ellen stretched and threw on her cloak.

"We can't keep doing the prep work for the hides and meats in the smithy—it's going to be too crowded and not have a stable temperature once you go to work. We should have another workshop for that." Ellen looked up.

"The Settlement Interface has a town planning ability. Mason should figure out which foundations we can use for a workshop and maybe eventually a smokehouse."

"Does it?" Mason blinked and Ellen watched as her eyes went unfocused. A moment later, she frowned.

"Huh… so it does. I should explore this more, it has a lot of interesting stuff in it. Should I just place them?"

"Don't confirm, but come get me and I can take a look, we'll work it out together." Ellen waved her spoon in the air.

"Unless someone has a problem with it, I'm going to designate myself the town planner, just so we have one Ellen to run everything through. I don't think we'll have any conflicts, but better to be careful about it anyway. Someone else making the decision may not realize you need a certain distance from water or something." All three of the crafters nodded as one, seeing the wisdom in that idea.

Now that she was looking for it, Ellen was noticing all the times that different generations of Ellen synced up in a similar way to the quartet. Had they been doing things like that all the while, and only noticed it because Healer and Apprentice embraced it?

"I could really use some eggs," she muttered to herself as she carried the skillet to the fireplace.

"I bet we could raise chickens here… but we still don't have a farmer Ellen…" That wasn't surprising. It wouldn't be hard for a new Ellen to become a Farmer or similar Class, since she'd lived around them most of her youth, but it was less likely any new Ellens would be inclined toward that. Village Ellen, if she ever split again, might take that. Or one of the crafting lineage.

It was too far away from the adventuring lifestyle that had brought them here, and too close to home, for any of them to consider it right away. Though if Village Ellen ended up like the quartet… that probably wouldn't matter. And come spring they would need someone who knew how to do that… She shook her head. There was still too much she didn't know about the whole situation with duplication. She needed to focus on helping herself—all of herselves—survive the winter with hopefully no more deaths.

None of them knew the exact means by which they kept duplicating, but one of these days, if they weren't more careful, one might die and not come back. Every Ellen was precious. The three crafters had already left, and Ellen sighed as she was left with breakfast almost ready. She'd have to call them all back in, wouldn't she? All except Hunter and the new Ellen that went with her—presumably those two had known they'd miss breakfast.

She pulled up the Settlement Interface to see if the location functionality was working again. It was a little annoying, trying to use this system. The features it had seemed to change randomly, or at least with what Class various Ellens had and how experienced they were. When the previous Hunter had died, she'd lost a lot of functionality… but now that the new Hunter had managed to rush to Landkeeper in only a few weeks, it was back and arguably better than before.

None of it was clear, and there were no tutorials to work through to figure out why the features changed. Ellen sighed with relief when the map, even incomplete, showed all the Ellens. Of course it didn't label them with the same labels they used for one another, but it was easy to guess within reason. Hunter and the new one were in the forest, approaching the river. The three crafters were, unsurprisingly, in the smithy. Three in the longhouse, which included herself.

One behind the longhouse, likely the one in the quartet going for Fighter. She'd be training. Village Ellen was harder to find. The area covering the village below still had no name, and had stubbornly refused to clear up despite the slow rise of Trust. The fact that she wasn't anywhere else on the map was the confirmation she was in that mystery blob. Then Ellen snorted to herself. Right beneath the name of the city, Onroc Anroll, it had the Population field that had yet to update. Population: 1.

Technically true, she supposed. She glanced at the other side of the room and saw one of the two Ellens there speaking animatedly to the other, which just nodded her head firmly a few times. She wasn't sure what the two were doing, since they'd never shown the need to have in-depth conversations. Then it hit her. They were Leveling up. One of them must get experience from whatever she was saying to the other. Perhaps the listener even received experience for doing this.

Much like Hunter and Smith, they were just rushing their Class selection. Except they hadn't bothered to do anything before starting this, instead moving with such efficiency it was a little terrifying. Ellen shivered, then looked at the Population note again. She concentrated on it… and received a full list of the people living in Onroc Anroll.

Population: 1 Ellen Greylan (Level 11 Founder) Ellen Greylan (Level 12 Forgewright) Ellen Greylan (Level 11 Landkeeper) Ellen Greylan (Level 12 Woodwright) Ellen Greylan (Level 11 Hearthmaker) Ellen Greylan (Level 6 Fighter) Ellen Greylan (Level 7 Hunter) Ellen Greylan (Level 6 Acolyte) Ellen Greylan (Level 6 Scholar) That was a new feature. Would have been helpful before. What most caught Ellen's eye was the choice of Class from the two in the longhouse with her.

An Acolyte she could understand, that was probably the upcoming healer-type. What were they planning to do with a Scholar?