Chương 153: Chapter 151: Chatting with El

While I'm thinking about this, there's a knock at my door. El opens the door without waiting for a response.

"You decent?" she asks as she pushes the door open. I stand up. I'm still fully dressed. I smile at El. She looks at the small ring of dirt and grime by the wall.

"I see you've already Refreshed," she says. She looks clean too. I know she already used Refresh when we finished the battle, so that she wouldn't be covered in blood when we got back. But she looks cleaner even than that.

"So did you," I say. She shrugs.

"It's one of my very few spells," she says.

"But I like it. Magic doesn't always suck."

"Didn't want a bath?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"I don't trust one," she says. She sees my raised eyebrows and answers the question before I can ask it.

"There's something fishy going on here," she says.

"I can't put my finger on it, but I don't trust the maester or this quest." I nod.

"I know what you mean. Did you see the servant he sent out to get the map?"

"Yeah. But not until he sent her out."

"That was my thinking too. And it bothers me. I don't like that she was in the room that whole time and we didn't see her."

"She was hiding in shadows, and her clothes were dark grey. She blended in pretty well." I shake my head.

"Doesn't matter. I still should've seen her. No servant is that good at hiding."

"You think she's an assassin?" El's eyes are almost glowing as she moves to sit down in one of the chairs.

"Like his personal assassin or something like that?"

"She might be," I say.

"It would make sense for her to be there in a kind of bodyguard capacity. I think she might follow us when we leave the castle."

"So more than the walls will have ears," El says.

"The road might, too." I nod. And I realize that we can't really talk freely here. There might be someone listening behind a wall that looks thicker than it is. Damn it. Why did we have to get involved in a lord? There's politics going on, and I hate politics.

"So what do we do?" I ask her. She just shrugs.

"We do the job, we just keep our eyes open and our necks on a swivel." I guess there really isn't all that much more to do.

"Do you really think that taking a bath is dangerous?"

"We don't know where the water would be coming from or what would be in it," El says.

"I've seen movies where people think they're taking a bath and end up getting poisoned or paralyzed and drown in the tub." I've seen movies like that, too. Are we just being paranoid? I suppose that depends on whether or not we're right. If we're wrong, we're just being paranoid; if we're right, then we're being cautious.

"Should we stop Gigi?" El shakes her head.

"I don't think that's worth a worry," she says.

"It wouldn't make sense to try to kill just one of us. That would bring the rest of us down on his head. And Gigi is the weakest of the four of us, at least as far as hit points are concerned." That's true. And hit points, along with level, should be the only things that maester Cellin can tell about us by looking at us. Gigi is the weakest on both of those measures. So it wouldn't make sense to try to kill just her. Still, maybe we should check on her before the hour is over.

"Let's give her some time to enjoy the bath, then go check on her," I say. El nods.

"In the mean time, what do you want to do?" The way she says it makes me think that she means sex. Of course she means sex. El has made it abundantly clear that she wants to go to bed with me. She's been as subtle as a nuclear bomb about it. I know she's consenting, even eager. But I'm still not ready. I'm not sure what, if anything, will make me ready. She's my friend, and I do love her in a way. I'm definitely attracted to her. I'm attracted to all three of them. But I still don't feel right doing it.

It's like they're my cousins, I guess. I love them, and while I may think they are objectively attractive, that doesn't mean I'm attracted to them. I'm not about to sleep with my cousin. Is that the wolf in me, seeing them as pack? No, that doesn't make sense; wolves mate within the pack all the time. So then it has to be my human side that doesn't want to do it. Why not? Am I gay? Would I be more interested in sleeping with Vincent? No, thinking about it, I'm not attracted to him at all.

I'm not opposed to the idea of gay sex; a penis doesn't scare me. I have one of my own, and it doesn't bother me in the least. I'm not opposed to another one being involved in sex. But I'm just not attracted to Vincent. Does that mean I'm gay but not into Vincent, or does it mean that I'm not gay but also not repulsed by homosexuality? I don't know.

"How do you think Vincent is doing?" I ask her. El's shoulders slump a little bit, but she nods.

"I'm not sure," she says.

"They've been going for almost a week now. Maybe they found the island and stopped to have a rest."

"I hope they're careful if they do," I say.

"That dragon did not seem to like visitors."

"Maybe she'll make them get her more statues." El says.

"Just for being on the island, I mean." If they did make it to the island already, they could be to the coast in another day, maybe two. Not that long. Probably not long enough for us to get to the dungeon and clear it.

"Should we wait for them before we go to the dungeon?" She shakes her head.

"I don't want to wait around for them," she says.

"That way lies boredom. I don't like being bored." I'm right there with her on that one. El and I are of a like mind when it comes to stimulation. Without something to do, without something to think about and focus on, our minds tend to spiral to all kinds of strange places. Then we get bored, and then depressed, and then frustrated. Neither one of us likes being idle. I know what my diagnosis is, and I'm pretty sure she shares it.

But there're no drugs in this world, so we have to just deal with the different structure of our brains as best we can.

"Do you think we're going to become gods?" El asks after a few seconds of silence.

"Will we just add to the current pantheon?"

"I have no idea," I say.

"Maybe. Maybe we'll get our own world to build. Or maybe we'll replace the current pantheon."

"I never liked how some gods are good and some are evil," she says.

"I know not all polytheistic religions go that route, but a lot of them do. Some gods are gods of mischief and mayhem, and cause all the bad things in the world. I hate that. It's too reductive."

"I agree," I say.

"People can be good or evil. So can gods." You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Especially if the gods used to be people," she says. She bites her lip.

"I don't want to stop being a person," she says.

"What do you mean?"

"When we came to this world, we stopped being human," she says.

"But we're still people. We're still ourselves. We still have free will, still get to make decisions and mistakes and all that. But if a god is perfect, or is aligned with a certain aspect or morality, then they don't have free will. They have to act in a way that aligns with whatever role they play in the pantheon. They become more than people, but also less than people, you know? I don't want that. If that's the cost of being a god, I'm not going to do it."

"I don't want to lose my free will either," I say.

"Good. Because I think Ash would become an evil god."

"What? Why?"

"Because of her power lust. If it gets amplified enough, she'll put power ahead of everything. And that will make her evil. Then we'll have to fight against her." I don't like that idea at all. Ash is the closest thing we have to a leader. And I know she is also afraid of her power lust taking over.

"We'll make sure that doesn't happen," I say.

"Even if it means we don't become gods."

"It would make more sense if there were an even number," El says. I feel like I should have more trouble following the way she's jumping around the topic, but I'm following just fine. An even number of gods would be more fair. But if there is an even number, that either means that the five of us, plus Amanda, are going to replace the current gods, or it means that only five of us, including Amanda, can become gods to join the current pantheon.

That may mean that we have to kill one of the current gods if all six of us want to go that route.

"But an odd number prevents a deadlock," I point out.

"Maybe eleven is the right number. One neutral party who just breaks ties."

"That still suggests good and evil, or some other dichotomy, for the rest of them," El says.

"And I don't like that. Dichotomy suggests a lack of free will. If there are only ever two choices, are there really choices at all? Especially if half of us are bound to choose one and the other half bound to choose the other?" This is starting to sound a lot like American politics.

"We don't have to have a two party system," I tell her.

"We could have more than two parties. Maybe it will be every god for themselves."

"Maybe," she says.

"If that happens, I might be willing to do it." She bites her lip again.

"How much longer do you think we need to give Gigi?" I have no way of telling how much time has passed, but I doubt it's been more than ten minutes of us just sitting here talking.

"Let's give her a while yet," I say. I then realize that I do have one way of telling how long it's been. I check the cooldown on Refresh. It takes a half an hour for that spell to be ready again. It still has eight minutes to go. So if you include the time it took before El came over and started talking, that means Gigi has been in the bath for no more than twenty two minutes.

"It probably takes her at least ten minutes just to get in the bath," El says.

"What with all the armor she has to take off." I'm still wearing my armor. El is still wearing hers, though she doesn't wear much. She covers her vital areas relatively well, but there are large gaps where bare skin is visible, so that she isn't sacrificing any amount of movement for protection. She doesn't look like a video game heroine or anything; all her organs and such are covered with armor. But her arms are relatively bare, and there are gaps by her shoulders and her thighs to make sure she can move freely.

Like me, most of her defense comes from her agility, not the armor she's got on.

"Do you think we should take our armor off for dinner?" I ask her. She shakes her head.

"I'm not going to," she says.

"I'll keep my weapons in my spatial bag, but that's as much as I'm willing to compromise. I'm still not convinced that someone isn't going to try to kill us."

"I don't think Cellin wants us dead," I say.

"I think he really wants us to complete this quest. He's got enemies, and we're willing to take care of them for him. More or less for free, since he's just letting us keep whatever treasure we find instead of also paying us."

"It may not be Cellin," El says.

"It might be someone else. Someone who wants him dead just as much as they want us dead. We might be just collateral damage. We have no idea who else was eavesdropping when you were telling him our story." I do feel kind of bad for telling him everything. But there was just something about the man that made me feel like I could share everything with him. Now that I think about it, I don't like it. I feel like I've been manipulated, controlled a little bit. I don't like that.

I can't really blame him; he might just have a really high manipulation score, and might do it without even trying. He could have a high charisma that does the same thing. I don't know. He's a higher level than any of us, so it stands to reason that he has at least one or two stats up in the hundreds range.

"I don't like how much I trust him," I say. She nods.

"Ditto."

"Do you think I should have kept things closer to the chest?" She shrugs.

"Too late now." She taps her heels on the floor, bouncing her knees under her hands.

"But maybe next time, just give the information that we can't be permanently killed and that we're not from this world. There's no need to tell all of our exploits. I'm glad you didn't tell him about the death cycle, at least."

"Yeah, I thought that would be a bit much." She smiles, her feet still tapping wildly. She looks around the room. Probably an old habit, looking for a clock. But there are no clocks in here. I think I saw one in the great hall. Clocks aren't super advanced technology, but they do require a certain level of engineering, especially to make small clocks. So there's a big one in the great hall, and that's probably the only clock around for miles. It's a sign of wealth. I don't remember seeing any of them in Elmspire.

They had other ways of telling time. Mostly by the position of the sun. Were there sundials? Probably. When were clocks invented? I know that Egyptians had water clocks around the fourteenth century BCE. I think the Babylonians did too. And maybe the Chinese? And Native Americans, too. So clocks themselves can't be that rare. But when was the first actual clock, like the clockwork clock? Was that during the quasi-medieval time period, or did that have to wait for the Renaissance? I'm not sure.

But then, I'm still not entirely sure what time period this continent is in.

"Did you notice the clock downstairs?" I ask her. She nods.

"Makes me wonder what other tech they have."

"There might be other clockwork things," she says.

"But I haven't seen any evidence of gunpowder or anything like that. I did see a crossbow, though." Crossbows are relatively new, aren't they? I think the Chinese had them a long time ago. But how long? I never went down that research rabbit hole when I was up late and bored.

"Times like this, I kind of miss the internet," I say. She scoffs.

"I don't mind not knowing," she says.

"But I get you. It was fun to chase down rabbit holes sometimes." She keeps bouncing her legs, and I know she's getting antsy. My Refresh cooldown is finished. Maybe we've given Gigi enough time.

"Do you want to go check on Gigi?" I ask her. She practically springs to her feet.

"Yeah," she says.

"I'll go check on her. Be right back." She leaves the room, closing the door behind her. I wonder what else was really going on with that conversation. I know that she originally was propositioning me. But she let that go pretty quickly. Still, there was more going on there than met the eye. El almost always has something else that she's dancing around, something that she doesn't want to talk about but kind of wants to talk about but doesn't want to bring up. It's pretty common, actually.

Most people tend to do that. But I know that El and I are both very neurodivergent, and that we tend to do it a lot. It's like when I'm hyperfocused on something. That subject is all I want to talk about, and I will happily talk about it at length. But I know that bothers people, and that people will get annoyed if I just ramble on about my current favorite subject. So I'll wait for them to bring it up.

If someone else brings it up, then I can talk about it to my heart's content, and it's their own fault for getting me started. But when no one brings up the subject, I have to resort to trying to inspire them to bring it up. So I'll bring the conversation in circles around the subject I actually want to talk about, so that they will bring it up and think it's their own idea. I've done it all my life. El probably has too. So what was she trying to get me to bring up? What did she want me to ask her about?

Was it about the dungeon? Was it about becoming a god? Maybe it was about Amanda. She did dance around that subject a little bit. Does El dislike Amanda? Is she jealous of her? Maybe she thinks that I'll sleep with Amanda but not with her, and that bothers her. That's kind of shallow. It's not all about me. Not every woman wants to sleep with me. Even if I do have a charisma of 136, it doesn't mean that every woman wants me. That's arrogant as hell. I don't know if Amanda wants to sleep with me.

I also don't know if I want to sleep with her. It would kind of make sense. I mean, she's beautiful, she's endlessly fascinating, and we do have a lot in common. I do feel like I could talk to her forever and never get bored with it. I feel like we could share a lot of our adventure with one another, find common experiences, and bond of them even though we didn't actually share them. I feel like Amanda would understand me better than most people.

Maybe not better than El, Gigi, and Ash, but certainly better than anyone else. And maybe better than the three women I travel with. Amanda and I think the same a lot of the time. Maybe just to the extent that I can predict her, but maybe also to the extent that we'd get along really well. Maybe to the extent that we could fall in love. Am I waiting until I fall in love with someone to have sex with them? Do I tie sex to emotion that strongly? I know that the girls don't. At least, I think they don't.

They all seem to be much more comfortable with sex that doesn't include emotion. Maybe I'm too sapiosexual. Maybe I need too much mental or emotional connection for the kind of casual sex that my friends keep offering me.