Chương 152: Chapter 150: A quest from the maester

He'll start off with the far reaching dreams, like conquering the kingdom. But he'll pare it down pretty quickly. First he'll remind himself that we can say no to whatever he offers us. Then he'll remember that he'll probably have to pay us an appropriate amount of money for whatever task we do. Which will get him thinking about how much money he's willing to spend. He'll think of a few simple tasks, then dismiss them.

He'll reason that if it's a simple task, he can have his own men do it, and it won't cost him anything. He needs to think of something that he wants done, but that he doesn't want to do himself or have tied back to him. Something that is a bit of a long shot. He'll want it to be something that we might not survive. If we don't, then he won't have to pay us. But if we do, we'll be able to do something incredible for him.

So he'll want something that is good for him, very good for him, but that won't matter if it never happens. A dream desire. Something big. But still not the far reaching dreams. He'll start narrowing down his dreams. He'll eliminate anything that is too suicidal, because he'll think we won't do them. He'll also eliminate anything morally questionable, because he'll think we will refuse.

Then he will eliminate anything that involves us retrieving a treasure for him, because he'll reason that we might keep whatever we find instead of returning it to him. He needs to think of something that we won't find valuable but that he will. I watch him pace and imagine him coming up with hundreds of ideas, plots and plans that he has had in the works for years or even decades. And here we are, ready to help push those plots forward. We're the perfect catspaws.

He just needs to make sure that it's not something dangerous to know about, and not something easy enough that it won't interest us. He needs to think through this, several steps ahead. Will he try to kill us after the fact? No; he knows that we'll come back. So he can't kill us to keep something secret. Which means he can't entrust us with anything all that secretive. So, once again, no treasonous acts that can be traced back to him.

Maybe he could send us to destroy a political rival, but again, we might just refuse. He has to have us to something that, having been done, will eventually harm his political rival, without sending us against them directly. Maybe something that would make one of his enemies become our enemy too, though obviously without us being aware of that. I can almost see the gears turning in his head. His left wing twitches a lot as he's thinking, pacing back and forth.

It flicks a bit when he walks, especially each time he turns around. I wonder if he's worn through any rugs before; that looks like his customary pacing spot.

"Forgive me," he says again, finally coming to a stop and giving me a smile.

"I've been wracking my brain trying to think of a good quest for you." I smile back at him.

"We are at your leisure, my lord," I tell him. He seems to appreciate that. But I think he's already come to a conclusion. I think he already has something for us to do.

"There is a dungeon three day's travel from here," he says.

"It is inhabited by foul creatures. Some less than savory lords in the area use this dungeon as a way to execute people. They send them into the dungeon unarmed and unprepared, which is as good as hanging them. I would like you to go and clear out this dungeon. It is said to have great treasure in its depths. Go clear it, and keep anything you find there." Quest: Delving the dungeon. Delve and clear the dungeon of foul depths. Reward: treasure, 100, 000 experience. I have to stop myself from letting out a whistle.

Even if we have to split the experience, and I don't think we do, that would be enough to entice me to do it. All of that on top of whatever else we kill in the dungeon should be more than enough for me to level at least once. It might be enough for Gigi to gain two or even three levels. It's interesting that it's used as a method of execution. I feel like there's more going on than he's letting on. I mean, of course there is.

"Won't these other lords be mad that we took away their executioner?" I ask. Maester Cellin shrugs.

"They might be," he concedes.

"But you do not need to advertise the fact that you have done it. Simply do it, and let them find that they have to their own hands dirty for once." I suppose that's good enough.

"Do you have a map to where the dungeon is?" Ash asks.

"Of course," Cellin says. He snaps his fingers. A servant I hadn't even seen rushes out of the room, returning half a minute later with a map that she presents to Ash. How did I not see her? I know that a lot of people will ignore servants, but I'm not one of them. I don't ignore people because of their station. I don't care about that sort of thing. But she was completely hidden. How did that work? My awareness is 134. No one should be able to sneak up on me. No one should be able to hide from me.

But this servant managed to do it. That must mean that she's more than a servant. She's someone who is practiced in stealth. Someone who knows how to spy on a conversation without being seen. I wonder if she was using Blur. That would've made it harder to see her. How high is her sneak? I have to keep her in mind when we get going. She might be following us for some reason. Maybe just to make sure that we get the job done. Maybe for something more nefarious.

But if Cellin has someone capable of sneaking around us, then I wouldn't put it past him to send her after us to spy on what we do, or what we talk about. Ash takes the map and looks at it for a few seconds, then nods to herself. I think that means she just marked the place on her internal map. She thanks Cellin.

"We'll head there right away," she says. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"The hour grows late," Cellin says.

"The dungeon will still be there if you leave in the morning. Please, stay as my guests for the night."

"That is a generous offer," Ash says. She looks like she's about to refuse, but then makes eye contact with Gigi and with El. She looks at me, and I just shrug at her. But the other two apparently convinced her to change her mind.

"And of course we would be happy to accept."

"Excellent," Cellin says.

"I will have a meal prepared for all of us. Perhaps you'd like some time to get settled into your rooms before dinner?" I think he's telling us he needs a bit of time to make the arrangements.

"We appreciate your kindness," I say to him.

"Do you think we could beg an hour of time to make preparations for the meal?" He smiles at me, and I'm pretty sure I guessed right.

"An hour would be ideal," he says. He claps his hands together, and a few more servants come in to the room.

"Show these fine people to the guest quarters," he says as the servants enter. Then he looks back at us.

"Would you perhaps like a bath?"

"I don't know if we have time for a bath," I say.

"Yes!" Gigi says, at the same time. So we are brought to a set of rooms. We each get our own room. The room they bring me to is somewhat small, all things considered, but still has plenty of room for a large bed, a writing desk, and two chairs. One chair at the desk and the other chair just kind of sitting there in the room. Presumably so that I can take a meeting if I want to. There is a basin of water on a night stand, and a trunk at the base of the bed for my things.

I don't use it; all my things are going with me, anywhere I go. But it's good to know that it's set up so that someone can stay here for a while. The first thing I do when I get to the room is cast Refresh. It makes sure that I'm as clean as a bath would get me, maybe cleaner. I'm not stewing in my own filth. That always bothered me about baths. It's different with the public baths like they have in Elmspire. You get into one bath to clean yourself, then into another one to relax.

That way, the water you're relaxing in is clean, and so are you. Maybe I just don't like baths. I sit down on the bed, testing it out. It's a big bed, very soft. Easy to sink into. Probably meant so that you don't crush your wings when you lay on it. I notice there is also a kind of trapeze bar hanging from the ceiling. I'm starting to think that the angles have feet like hands, and can grip the bar while they sleep, allowing them to hang upside down. Doesn't the blood all rush to their heads?

They must have really strong hearts, especially if the hearts can pump enough blood for them to fly, even just short distances. Maybe they have two hearts. I've been weirdly interested in anatomy lately. I wondered the same thing about the dire lynxiths. I wonder where that's coming from. Maybe it's just a deeper connection to the world. Maybe I'm just seeing the world as more real and less like a gamified version of reality. Am I becoming more of a native of this world?

If I ever go completely native, will that change my relationship with death? It's something I've been wondering about the death cycle. Is there a point where we can go through the death cycle and just run out of new lives? Do we have a limit to the number of times we get resurrected? Most people might never reach the limit, but that doesn't mean that the limit isn't there.

I know that Amanda has died over a hundred times, and I'm not even close to that, so in theory I should have quite a few more deaths before I have to even begin to worry. But Amanda's deaths are all during the tutorial section. Only one of mine was during that time. What if the deaths don't start to count until you come into this world? I might be on my last life already. Or I might be close to it. There could be a random number of deaths, but that doesn't seem likely.

The world so far has been following a general law of fairness, and random number of possible resurrections wouldn't be fair to those who got fewer. But still, maybe I can't afford to die anymore. Maybe it's best to avoid it. I mean, I could definitely set my respawn to this castle, and then potentially die while clearing the dungeon, or after clearing it on the way back. A hundred thousand experience points will buy me back a lot of levels. Maybe even enough to undo the penalty of dying.

But what if that's my last life? What if I die, and then that's it? Might not be worth the risk. Or maybe I'm just borrowing worry. That's something I do a lot. Or, at least, I used to. I would live in the future, always worrying about what might happen, what might come to pass. I would imagine the consequences of actions in the most far reaching ways, thinking about how a conversation I had with a friend might change the course of my life five years into the future.

I would simulate what might happen to me if I didn't raise my hand in class when I knew the answer. I would imagine what might happen if I didn't ask that girl on a date, or what might happen if I did. I would worry about a relationship that never existed, and I would plan it out in detail. I was worrying about problems that I didn't have. My therapist called it borrowing worry, concerning myself with things in the future that might never come to pass. I've gotten better at it since I came to this world.

I live much more in the now, in the present. I think that's the wolf part of me. Wolves care more about the present, about survival, than about the past or the future. That might just be because they're animals and aren't that intelligent. It might be because their brains aren't complex enough to really conceptualize the future in any more than very broad and vague terms. That's not to say that wolves are ignorant of the future. The fact that they gorge proves that they aren't.

They eat as much as they can because they know it might be a few days before they find food again. They will keep coming back to the same carcass to gorge more if it remains available, because they know that their next hunt might not be successful. They travel around their territory because they know that food won't always be in the same place. Clearly, they are aware of the future to some extent.

Not in the sense of years or even just months into the future, but they know that the future will come, and that it's not guaranteed to resemble the past. They know about the future, they just tend to focus on the now, on survival at that very moment. Maybe that's why I'm better at not borrowing worry than I used to be. But clearly, I haven't shaken off the habit completely. I mean, if there is a limit to the number of times that I can die, what am I to do about it? I don't know what that limit is.

All I can do is stop being cavalier about dying. Which I think I've already started doing. I don't want to actively go through the death cycle again because I'm worried about the side effects that it has on my psyche and on my soul. This is just more of that. But if I die, then I die. And if I don't come back from death, then how will I know? Why would I care? I'll be dead. It will all be over, and I'll either move on to some kind of afterlife or I'll just stop existing.

If I move on to an afterlife, I'll have stuff to do there. If I just stop existing, I won't exist to lament that or any other fact.