Chương 73: (B2.9)

9) Merchant Ellen"Are you sure about staying?" Ellen asked as she heaved the box into the cart. Two other Ellens were helping her, since she needed to get on the road as soon as possible. Hopefully nobody would ask about the crate with the bodies. Explaining one would be easy considering the gossip about the death, but they'd had to pack three corpses in there. Better to bury them with the rest rather than have to explain a local burial. It was going to make the trip back very unpleasant.

"We work together well, and if someone was willing to kill us, there's something going on we should know about," Whisper sighed.

"We'll see what we can do here for a while, and head back to Onroc once we know more."

"Just leave it to us, yes!" Stage Ellen raised a hand, her face smiling brightly in a weird contrast to Whisper's stoic resignation.

"I'm not sure what's going on, but I'll dig up whatever Whisper here needs and she can figure it out! It'll be fun, don't worry! And with me around, I'm sure we'll run into Uncle Anroll and have a chance to explain everything before he sees you!" Ellen squinted at her other self standing there, beaming at her. Suspicion bubbled up within her. Not that she thought Stage Ellen was lying to her… but she had some suspicions she would regret this whole decision.

As if reading the expression on her face—which she probably was—Whisper shook her head.

"Don't worry, I'll keep her out of too much trouble. We just want to find out why they'd go so far as to try to murder the owner of the dungeon. It's not like that would help them."

"Well that's why you need to figure it out," Ellen replied.

"Still can't believe you two already reached Level 11," Bookkeeper grumbled from behind Ellen, shuffling about some of the boxes in the cart. Neither she nor Ellen was close, but they hadn't had the chance to practice their various mercantile skills while tracking down the killers. Ellen suspected Bookkeeper was especially grumpy since she'd very nearly let the third conspirator get away. Whisper had scolded her for that, and Bookkeeper was not very happy with the situation. Ellen could understand that.

They were merchants, not spies… even if Whisper had gotten into the espionage game with aplomb despite sharing their origin. She did admit it had been fun seeing the expression on that guy's face when he'd noticed her, though.

"I'm not sure even you can keep this one out of trouble, Whisper," Ellen sighed.

"Just try not to stab anyone, Stage." Stage Ellen grimaced as if offended.

"Why would you think that? I'm a friendly girl, you know that! We all are! Nobody wants to stab anyone here!" Even Whisper gave Stage a sidelong glance at that, and Ellen gave Stage a flat stare.

"Considering how much our Class seems to change our behavior, I'm just being a little wary about the Ellen that chose a Class called Blade Orchestra, sorry."

"It's for juggling!" Stage insisted. Whisper brushed a lock of hair back behind one ear.

"I will do my best to make sure she doesn't do anything we'd all regret. She's going to be very visible, we don't want any charges of breaching the peace or attempted murder messing up my plans."

"You all know I'm standing right here and can hear you," Stage complained.

"I'm not going to attack anyone without good reason! I'll just be Whisper's bodyguard, okay? Relax!" Ellen did not relax, but there wasn't much she could do about Stage right now. Internally, she wondered at the different approaches. After seeing the Adventuring Party she had thought further splitting might lead to something like that… but Stage and Whisper weren't just wildly different from one another, they were very different from her as well.

For that matter, Bookkeeper was similar to her in direction at first, but had no interest in handling the Settlement Interface. Ellen had brought up the idea of both of them taking the Founder Class, but Bookkeeper had waved off the idea and selected her name without even considering it. She'd offered to handle anything as a "backup Ellen" in case of Ellen's absence or untimely death, but claimed to have other interests.

Maybe I should have thought more carefully about what I would do if I died, Ellen thought to herself ruefully. If she had considered that, she might have understood some of the strange decisions her other selves made in their Class development and personalities. She briefly wondered if the interim Ellens that had died so quickly may have something to do with it.

One of them had been caught largely unawares while the other had put up a struggle, but she couldn't remember since they weren't alive long enough to have memories. They were lucky that banked experience seemed to carry over even after death. Starting at Level 0 with no banked experience, even with the first time bonuses, would have been miserable for getting to a decent Level. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Did you find out anything useful, Whisper?" Bookkeeper interrupted Ellen's thoughts with a question after securing the last of the cargo. The espionage-oriented Ellen sighed and shrugged.

"The guy who murdered us in the room was telling the truth. I checked. If we had Village Ellen here maybe we could figure out where he's from. I'll see if I can keep tabs on him… think you can convince her to head down here? It's probably not something she'd want to do, but I could really use her nose here." Ellen shook her head.

"I will ask, but even if she says yes, she may not come down right away. You know how she is." She didn't need to explain further, since Whisper knew just as much about Village Ellen.

"If we actually died, wouldn't the dungeon just go to the crown anyway? I doubt they'd want to give it up to anyone else if they got ahold of it," Stage grumbled.

"Trying to kill us makes no sense. Did my Class make me forget something or am I right?" Whisper and Ellen both nodded. Whisper added, "You're right, it makes no sense… unless they're trying to frame someone else for doing it. Which is another reason to use these guys who are kind of amateur. Even if they failed—and by public account, they did—whomever supposedly told them to do it will be in big trouble. We'll have to dig deeper than what Cale said." Ellen hopped up onto the cart and turned to look at Whisper.

"Do you think you can handle it? What was your Class, anyway? You mentioned you got to Level 11 but we got interrupted before you could tell me what you got." Stage Ellen smiled sheepishly, since she had been the source of the interruption to talk about her Blade Orchestra Class. Ellen couldn't blame her… it was an interesting Class. A Performer -based combat class was not unheard of, but hers was unique. Ellen's only discomfort with it was how it seemed so suited for assassination.

Whisper cleared her throat and blushed.

"It's… pretty strange. It's just named Grey, but the very first Perk I took was called System Mask. I already had some Perks to help disguise myself, and then this one showed up and said it would change how I appeared when Abilities were used on me that would normally reveal things like my Class." Ellen lifted an eyebrow, and Bookkeeper poked her head out from the wagon's canvas covering.

"Yes, I didn't even realize that was possible," Whisper agreed.

"I can't choose what I appear as yet… right now it's showing me as a Maid, of all things. I'll need to put more development into it if I want to choose how it appears." Stage, who was now holding on to the Guild card, lifted it up. It said Forgewright 12 at the moment, but that wasn't the point.

"It even changes the Guild card, I checked!" Stage grinned.

"Once we're back in Onroc and you can view the Settlement Interface, I'm really curious what it will show. Will it show the fake Class or the real Class, you think?" Ellen let out a sigh.

"Just don't get too full of yourself, you could easily end up over your head again and we'll end up with more Ellens." Whisper nodded.

"We talked about that. We're going to just keep watch and let Stage be seen around town enough that when Uncle Anroll comes back, he'll know we're here. We'll get his advice on how to handle this, he might know something we don't. And he's really good at finding people."

"That's a good idea, yeah. Just be careful," Ellen warned. Whisper was a little worrying, with how quickly she'd taken to the role of being a spy sort. Meanwhile Stage reminded her of a less reckless Apprentice, which was… actually kind of nice. An Ellen who remembered how to have fun, without constantly in danger of walking into an open sinkhole or somehow falling onto a waterwheel-powered saw." You be careful," Whisper countered.

"You're carrying an awful lot of stuff, and some of it is pretty expensive. More weapons, armor, food, seeds… watch yourself on the road, neither of you are set up for combat." Ellen nodded, "We'll need to start moving with an escort. This trip will be fine without, but we'll be careful just in case someone spots us and tries another attempt on our life. Bookkeeper can keep me safe."

"Excuse me?" Bookkeeper peeked out of the wagon again, this time wearing a pair of small spectacles that got every other Ellen staring at her.

"Where did you get a pair of glasses?" Whisper asked, echoing Ellen's own thought. Bookkeeper just shrugged and adjusted them on her nose.

"Do you like them? I'm a Bookkeeper, I think they make me look fitting for the role. Really, they look good, don't they?"

"She didn't ask why, she asked where!" Ellen sighed, rubbing her face.

"Do you actually need them?"

"They do look really nice on you," Stage opined without a hint of narcissism.

"Oh, I should get some more costumes together!"

"No!" Ellen and Bookkeeper said this together, but Ellen was the one allowed to continue.

"We've already stretched our funds too far because we've duplicated so much. Wait until we have a steady income from the dungeon, okay?"

"I liberated them from the criminal I helped catch," Bookkeeper answered belatedly. Ellen sighed again.

"Look. One of us will be back in two weeks if you don't head back to Onroc before then. I'll see if Hunter or one of the villagers wants to be an escort. We should probably get another donkey and a bigger cart, Melissa can't handle the bigger loads." Hearing her name, Melissa snorted loudly and tilted an ear… but when movement wasn't asked of her immediately, the jenny lowered her head and sniffed at something on the ground.

She didn't care about the conversation, her only contribution being a brief but unusually loud incident of breaking wind. Stage giggled and Whisper smirked.

"I think that's your signal to get going," Whisper chuckled.

"If Uncle Anroll shows up we may be back before the two weeks anyway. Don't rush on our account. But tell Edmund and the other Briar Thorns we're here. If they come back before we leave, it would be nice to have more allies in the city who actually know what's going on with us. Bookkeeper ducked back into the wagon as Ellen took the reins.

"Fine. I'll see if you even count as residents once I can access the Interface again. I hope our death didn't mess things up."

"Get moving!" Whisper grumped. Ellen rolled her eyes, but started the cart forward.

"Good luck!" she called back.

"Bye!" Only one voice called out, and Ellen glanced back to see Stage waving a farewell, smiling. Whisper was already out of sight.