Chapter 38

“Sorry to hear that. Thanks for the help though, I’ll try your suggestion.” I replied before turning and leaving the building.

I sighed. That makes seven inns now with no vacancies. I underestimated this challenge. Of course there’s not going to be any vacancies when there’s a giant festival starting in a few days! The city is filled with merchants and every citizen of the empire that could take the time to travel here to attend. It’s a wonder that the inn I got a room at had an open space, even if I did only get it because of Tilly’s introduction. It looks like I’m stuck with that as my only option. I’m still a bit suspicious that that inn owner keeps aside a few rooms for acquaintances in need. Regardless, Tilly had left immediately after providing me with the needed introduction, saying something about resuming her duties at the cathedral. Despite my suspicions, I don’t really have a choice, I don’t feel like sleeping outside.

It was already evening, and I’ve definitely wasted enough time. I doubt there will actually be a room at the the inn the people at this one suggested I try next. I’d followed the trail of suggestions this far and gotten nowhere. The only good thing about this spent time is that I got a decent idea of the layout of the city now. I had seen the ‘Grand Cathedral’ that Tilly mentioned, and it was definitely grand enough. It reminded me of an image I saw once of the Notre Dame cathedral. I was a bit surprised that it was in the commoner and business level of the city, rather than in the area for the upper levels of society. I wonder what that says about how the church and religion is seen in this society?

The other bonus is that I know where the slums are too. Odds are good that that will be where I’ll find some information about that organization. Criminals love slums and criminals usually know each other. I think it’s also the best place to start looking for some kind of information broker. Don’t know why, but information brokers usually love those kind of places too. The seedier the better for some reason.

The biggest issue about all this is what Huvreck said about the organization eliminating people and worried that even giving me the name would get him knocked off. If they’re on that much of a hair trigger then even just dropping the name should get them looking at me. I don’t think any people they send at me, though, will have any affiliation with their organization. It will be people from outside with little to no details about who hired them.

I’m not after fighting them or anything. I don’t really care what they’re doing here in the empire. It’s not any of my business. I just need to acquire that information from them about their dealings with the dark dwarves and the dwarves’ location. If that means I have to make some kind of deal with them to get them to give me that information, as long as said deal doesn’t involve giving up my tech or revealing my abilities, then I’ll probably accept it. Like I told Rie earlier, sometimes you just have to work with evil because it’s the only option available.

So how do I get a secretive group to actually look into contacting me for something other than getting rid of me? One of the answers would be to make myself look as much like a potential worthwhile recruit as possible. The problem that arises from that is that I have not the slightest idea what kind of recruits they would be looking for. All Huvreck said was that they’re involved in all levels of society. I, in my persona as a wanderer, have no affiliations whatsoever except as a registered adventurer which could be seen as either a plus or minus. My personal strength would have been seen as weak until this event with the bandits happened. Now that that’s out there that changes greatly. I’ll have people looking at me for that for sure.

I am curious about what they even do with this setting they have in place? Control policies? Make ridiculous amounts of money? Pressure other nations? What do they get from being in the shadows here in the empire? What is their goal? Do they even have a goal beyond having the empire marching to their beat?

None of these questions help me any, but if I knew the answers to some of them I might be able to figure out a good way to get in contact with the group. I think the best option for now is to look for the group, but do so in a way that makes it clear that I’m interested in making some kind of business arrangement with them. I believe that should limit at least some of the hostility that will appear towards me, though I guess it depends on how whoever runs the show here wants to see it. If whoever is in charge decides against me then nothing I do will probably change their minds. I hate having to let my opponents make a move. I might get the first move by putting the word out, but after that it’s entirely up to them to choose their response.

As much as I wanted to go immediately and start working on that, I felt like there was something much more imperative that I had to do tonight. I needed to have a certain discussion with Lynn. I haven’t had time to chat with her for a few days because of the kids and there was questions I really needed answered. I’ll start on everything tomorrow, hopefully. Maybe I’ll even go to the Adventurers’ Guild and see if there is information recorded about the dungeon.

I made my way back to the inn. I continued my examination of the city as I did so. It was marvelously clean. I had seen workers going around picking up garbage off and on as I wandered today. Whether that was because of the big anniversary event starting or if it was normal I couldn’t say. From how it looked though, I think it was a regular routine. There was even dumpsters around for people to throw trash into. The city was marvelously modern in some ways. That fact made me wonder why the other cities or towns don’t follow suit. I do have to admit that Knightvalley wasn’t that bad, but that town where I met Myura and Fiona wasn’t that good either. Well, it was still better than that first town I visited over in the kingdom. Was there a reason for it? Maybe something to do with expenses that they can only justify it for the capital? Or maybe it has something to do with the founder. Do they keep this capital perfect like this as some kind of memorial to him? I mean the place is called Tevalon’s Rest. That sounds more like the site of a tomb than as a name for a capital city.

While I let my mind drift along with these idle thoughts I arrived at the inn and sat down to a mostly quiet supper. The inn had a comfortable atmosphere and the other guests were all more interested in talking about the events coming soon than in bothering a person eating alone. One event that sounded kind of interesting was that there was going to be a ‘Midnight Mass’ held in the cathedral on the eve of the anniversary tomorrow night. It was going to be notable because a new Archbishop would be the one conducting it. I wonder if I can go to that? Probably not, but I am interested in how this church behaves and listening to some sermon would give me some decent intel. Of course, I could just research it once I get in the library, so it’s not a real issue.

Other than that particular piece of news, the rest of the conversations were mostly about the tournaments in the colosseum. Some of the other guests were making friendly wagers between themselves on who would win what. I wasn’t interested in that at all. There was no way I’d bother entering one of those competitions and watching people fight is boring. Sure, it might be a valuable experience in giving me more of an idea of capabilities of individuals in this world, but I still find it hard to motivate myself to consider going. I guess I could try to get to the magic user competition at least. That would be the most potentially beneficial one to watch.

Once I had finished eating and listening to the gossip, I retired to my room. It was about on the level of quality of the one I had in Knightvalley, so it probably was a somewhat upper middle class room? Something like that anyway. Overall, it meant that if I was truly stuck with this for the next month, at least it was a cozy room. I got ready for bed and made sure my pack stayed near my reach.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

With Rie’s presence warning me of the possible existence of other psi users, I took my nightly preparations much more seriously. I slowly and methodically set up my psi like a multilayered net barrier that started just outside the door to my room and then covered my room. If anyone came up to my room and opened the door, I would get tugged out of sleep immediately. The outermost layer was especially designed and woven in such a way that another psi-user would have immense difficulty detecting it. They would have to be on my level or beyond to do so. The inner layers of the barrier were more for capture purposes, like that of a spider web. My hapless prey will intrude on my room and get caught and will only be able to struggle helplessly. I’ll be free to interrogate them about why they visited me.

With that accomplished, I set up a mental alarm to wake me up at about seven in the morning. The other bonus of setting up my net was that it let me analyze the whole room for any kind of magical sources. The only one I felt was the one on the lamp. It felt very similar to the other lamps I had encountered, so I was quite sure it wasn’t some kind of surveillance magic. I was actually pretty impressed with my progress at determining the type of magic through my psi. If I advanced that further, I’d have a very helpful tool against mages.

I sighed. It had taken me a while, but I was now ready for bed. Not like I was going to bed yet though. “Lynn, we need to talk.” I whispered. My serious tone was dampened by how quiet I was.

“Yes, Mistress?” Lynn’s reply was instant as usual.

“Lynn, how much of me is still me?” I asked simply.

“I’m sorry, but what Mistress?” Lynn answered, sounding puzzled.

“How much of me is Seri and how much of me is still Aaron? It feels like my Aaron self is slipping away and that I’m more Seri now. I still have all my memories as Aaron, but I just don’t know. I feel like recently I keep doing things that are out of place for me, but I’m already doing it before I am even conscious of it. Like the event with the bandits. I was so filled with rage that there was no way I could have stopped myself from carrying out that massacre. Not that I regret saving kids or anything, but I’m disgusted at how vicious I was. I was a monster.” I lamented.

“Mistress has always had a soft spot for kids. As for how you feel like you’re less ‘Aaron’ and more ‘Seri’, I think Mistress is over thinking that distinction.” Lynn stated.

“What do you mean, Lynn? I definitely feel like something is wrong with how I’m behaving lately!” I complained.

“Mistress, from my point of view, even from the time we landed on this planet, your behavior has been one hundred percent aligned with how Mistress would normally act, with no deviations other than your episode back on the ship two weeks ago. To be honest, even that episode wasn’t too far out of the norm. There are times when Mistress has broken down like that. The deviation was due to the bizarre story you told me, not the act itself.” Lynn explained.

“So what does that mean? Everything I’ve done is exactly like Seri would have done? I clearly felt an uncontrollable rage that felt totally unreal when I heard about the kids though!” I replied.

“Mistress, do you want to hear my theory? I have been pondering this after Mistress told me her story and other life.” Lynn said.

“What is your theory? Did you come up with some kind of explanation for everything that happened? Like why I’m here on this world?” I asked.

“On that front, I am in the dark as much as you are Mistress. My theory relates to who Mistress and Aaron are.” She clarified.

“And?” I prompted her as she paused.

“I just want to restate that this is just a theory and I have no way of knowing how right or wrong I am. On the face of it, I think this theory is completely preposterous, yet at the same time I feel like maybe it just might be correct.” She said.

“Will you just tell me already?” I told her, exasperated.

“Understood.” She spoke hesitantly. “I believe that ‘Seri’ and ‘Aaron’ are two parts of the same whole. It is possible that the game in your reality was merely based on some freak link into our reality. So when you made a ‘character’ as you put it, you instinctively made your character like your other self that lived in that reality. Like I previously stated, even from the start, without ‘Seri’s memories’ to influence you in any way, you were still acting precisely like how I would have expected my Mistress to behave.” Lynn described.

I was boggled by the idea she was suggesting, but parallel realities no longer seemed all that crazy. Hell, the idea that all our video games might have been based on parallel realities could even be true! “So what, you think that I somehow switched with ‘Seri’ and that she might be in my body? Also that doesn’t at all explain why I felt such fury a few days ago.”

“I don’t know about that. I think that both ‘Seri’ and ‘Aaron’ are in there, in that body. Right now the ‘Aaron’ personality is dominant, but again like I said and it bears repeating, you still act like how ‘Seri’ would. As for the overreaction to kids being at risk, I think that is explained by more of ‘Seri’ coming out at that particular time. While you are two parts of the same whole, you both lived different lives. My Mistress has a large soft spot for children given her own past. I believe her personality temporarily overrode your own control and influenced you enough to act how she would given the proper stimulus.” Lynn explained.

“If I fully understood your theory, Seri and I are merging together. Yet at the same time, we’re similar enough that that isn’t causing any drastic changes, outside of some different reactions to certain things. So in conclusion, I am Seri and Seri is also Aaron?” I sighed “That just sounds so crazy, Lynn. I don’t know if I can agree with that theory.”

“To be fair, I don’t know if I even agree with it! It sounds so patently ridiculous to me. I can’t believe I would even suggest such a notion! It’s just not logical at all! This world seems completely illogical though. I do for sure believe that ‘Aaron’ and ‘Seri’ are much closer to being the same individual than different ones.” Lynn replied.

“Your theory does make me feel better at least. Even if it does sound like nonsense. I had been over thinking the difference between Seri and myself, so it’s good to hear that we’re not that unalike. I’m still worried about some of the those memories that separate our very different lives. Specifically the ones from Seri’s childhood.” I said.

“I don’t want Mistress to remember those either. They were thoroughly repressed by the professionals that helped Mistress though, so it will be alright. Don’t worry.” Lynn assured.

“That doesn’t really comfort me, Lynn. That just makes me even more afraid! If they’ve been so repressed, I fear the backlash will be insane if they do come out!” I complained.

“If it does occur, then I’ll immediately fly and pick you up, and bring you back to the ship. Mistress will be in a familiar setting and I’ll be by your side the whole time. That has always successfully calmed you down in the past. If the absolute worst case comes to past, the ship carries the necessary drugs to medicate you. Mistress will descend into a peaceful and dreamless sleep for about a week.” Lynn said.

“I really, really hope that you never need to medicate me like that.” I stated.

“I don’t want to do that either if I can help it, Mistress. Like I said, it’s only for the absolute worst case where you’ve lost complete control of your psi. There was the possibility of myself being required to use it two weeks ago, but you were actually still in good control despite the damage you were wreaking on your room. You didn’t damage anything vital, after all. I’m not worried about the possibility of it occurring. It hasn’t happened since the time of your rehabilitation.” Lynn clarified.

“I suppose I’ll do my best to not remember.” I said sarcastically.

“That would definitely be the ideal scenario, Mistress.” Lynn replied.

I took my pillow out my pack. With my net set up, there was no worries of it being seen and replaced the inn pillow with it. “Alright Lynn, good night. I’ll talk to you more tomorrow. I think I’ll try to research the dungeon at the guild, so we might get lucky and there will be some written notes about it.”

“That would be wonderful, Mistress. Deciphering the written language is only a step away from completion.” Lynn answered. “Rest well Mistress.”

I smiled absentmindedly and went to sleep.