Chapter 585

“Are you sure we can trust them?” the wind carried Isabel’s quiet voice to my ears, almost impossible to hear. If I hadn’t been sitting on one of the higher branches, watching the moon and stars in the slightly clouded sly, even my high Intuition wouldn’t have been enough to catch their conversation. But when I had heard Isabel and Daniel sneaking off, I had become curious and focused my senses on them. Sitting in my tree, I wondered whether I would hear an argument, a tryst or maybe even a conspiracy, only to hear that single snippet. No promises of love, no declarations of vengeance, only boring mundanity. Alas, that was life, boringly mundane, even in the magical realm of Mundus.

Hearing it, I wasn’t sure if I should be happy or disappointed, worry about our intentions was so predictably boring. Of course, they’d worry about bringing a group of reasonably powerful people, with a balanced mix of magical and martial abilities into their camp, if they weren’t I’d wonder if they had been dropped on the head as children. And yet, they couldn’t easily refuse us, as the potential upside was massive, gaining additional allies and avoiding insulting us, both important for the rebels.

“No,” Daniel replied, as if to confirm my thoughts, “But that Olivia, she seems sincere in her beliefs and convictions, no servant of a God could act in direct contradiction to the ideals of that God.”

“Eleutheria, of Freedom,” Isabel quietly mused, an almost sad note in her voice, “If only more people felt that freedom is the highest ideal, that Liberty is worth dying for.” The sigh followed those words said almost more than her words before. Yearning, mingling with hope and disappointment, the melancholy almost made my teeth rot.

For a few moments, there was nothing but silence, making me wonder how their faces looked in that moment. Were they exchanging deep, sorrowful glances, were there tears running down their faces? Or were they simply wondering what to say next, as I often did in conversations, staring into space as I hoped for my conversation partner to continue?

“Anyway, I’m not worried about her,” Isabel admitted, my ears perking back up. “That Morgana, there’s something wrong in her head,” she continued, my lips twisting into a snarl.

“And yet, she’s incredibly powerful.” Daniel let out another sigh. They seemed to like sighing quite a bit, maybe I should give them reasons to sigh, or cry, scream and moan. So many involuntary sounds I could rip from their throats if they continued mocking me. “Or maybe, because of that, she is insanely powerful,” Isabel let out a soft groan at the pun, though I had to hide a snicker. Insane and thus insanely powerful? I liked it. Maybe there was truth in advertising after all.

“And yet, you want to bring her into our camp?” Isabel asked, her voice almost mocking.

“Would you want to have her out here, maybe bored? She’s looking for excitement and you heard her, she’s a Traveller. They can’t truly die, so why wouldn’t they look for excitement. I wonder why the Gods brought them here, how could countless Undying beings, all with their own ideas, agendas and pursuits not destabilise our World?” Daniel complained, disdain in his voice, “As if there’s not enough trouble in this world, without some bored Undying adding to it?”

“Leonard is a useful ally, even you’ve got to admit that,” Isabel reminded him, her voice sounding like they were rehashing an old argument, one she was tired of.

“He can be useful, at least most of the time,” he admitted, “But only if he wants to be, there’ve been times when we needed him and he was nowhere to be found. I’d rather have an ally with less power, but one that I can rely on.”

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“So don’t rely on them, don’t trust them to have your back,” Isabel suggested, “Point them at the enemy and use their powers to preserve our own reserves. Why should our people die, if they can take care of that?” There was a brief pause and I thought I heard the rustling of leaves beneath boots as if one of them was pacing, “That’s what the nobles do, don’t you realise? They are promising the moon and the stars, privileges for the brief time they are here if they use their Undying existence to gain them an advantage.” she complained and while her words weren’t addressed at me, they made me wonder.

How would the introduction of effectively immortal beings, a lot of whom would focus on combat and getting more powerful, would change a world and its societies? And how did those societies came to be in the first place? Had they been made up from whole cloth by Pantheon Entertainment or had there been a procedural generation, an evolutionary algorithm that had created the world of Mundus in its current state from a defined base-state? If it was the first, the developers would have had to create each character in the world specifically which sounded like a lot of work for little gain.

But if it was made with an algorithm from a base state, where was the mental and emotional difference between the NPCs in the game and people? It was a question I had been pondering in regards to Sigmir but had never really cared to ponder in regards to all the other beings in the world of Mundus.

Either way, it sounded like the locals of Mundus were wondering how to react to the introduction of Travellers far more than Travellers normally thought about the natives. Thinking about it, that was to be expected, for the natives, the world of Mundus was their whole existence. For the Travellers, it was a momentary distraction and losing their existence on Mundus, their life so to speak, would be nothing but a temporary annoyance, if that. It didn’t have any real impact, the loss of a toy, a favourite toy maybe, but a toy nonetheless.

Sitting on my tree, still somewhat listening to the discussion between Daniel and Isabel as they discussed their decision to bring us to their camp, or rather to one of their camps, I wondered if I should start taking the World of Mundus truly serious?

Would that kill the enjoyment, the game aspect? If I started to treat everyone as people, what would that include? Beings like Ylva and Lenore made it obvious that even the ‘beasts’ could be spirit-beasts and if I remembered that bear I had attacked near Ladrin, which had simply used earth magic to wall off its cave and ignored me, actions which spoke of a certain intelligence and capability for cognitive thought. Back then, the idea of hunting and killing that bear had become abhorrent but what about chasing and fighting for a quest?

During our travels, we had mostly fought against things that attacked us, even fighting the manticores in the White Mountains had mostly been to defend ourselves. The exception to that were the undead in the Dorrian Mountains, but did undead count? I simply couldn’t say.

Now, I was considering jumping into a rebellion, a civil war in the making. If they accepted working with me and gave quests, they’d most certainly be along the lines of my talents, so magical mass destruction or sabotage.

How could I square that with the idea to take Mundus seriously, to treat the locals like I would treat people?

When was killing right, when was killing wrong? My mother had taught me to obey the law, that harming others outside of self-defence or in the defence of others was wrong and that I should only use necessary force to defend myself. It had been a major reason why she had wanted me to learn martial arts in the first place, to learn what “necessary force” was.

How did that apply to Mundus? If I judged that it would mean following the Empire’s laws, wouldn’t that mean turning the rebels in? The idea didn’t sit right with me, especially after talking to Olivia about the government of the Empire.

Maybe I should talk to Olivia and Sigmir some more, they might be able to shed light on my conundrum. Given that Mundus was their world, I probably should take their views into consideration, especially Sigmir’s.

Letting out a sigh, I realised that Isabel and Daniel had returned to camp some time ago and the forest had returned to its previous, quiet state. Looking up, to the moon high above, my mind started to drift once more, the previous thoughts quickly fading as the subtle surging of the Astral River filled my mind.