Chapter 40: Chapter 39: campfire philosophy

After Jo went to sleep, me and James sat around the campfire for a bit longer, discussing our experiences during the day, notably the bad premonition and Jo’s first serious fight. I think she did well despite the fact that we had to intervene a few times.

“I think you should go a bit easier on her.” James continues the conversation.

“Why?” I ask, not really sure where he is going with this. Sure, the golems are a fair bit stronger than her, but they are also slow and predictable.

“We don’t really know what it’s like to fight an opponent like this, we just did it in the game with no risk and no pain.” he elaborates his thought.

That’s odd, because I remember all that. All the way back to learning my first spell, aside from the starting ones. Not to mention the Abomination we defeated.

“What do you mean you don’t know? I remember every fight, from both perspectives, pain and all.” I say to him, hoping he will elaborate his perspective.

“You remember every fight? Cause I don’t.” James answers almost as confused as I am. That means our mergers are different, kinda worrying.

“Do you even remember dying all those times in the game?” he asks with a worried expression. Do I? Taking some time to look through my memories, I find that I do remember the fights that ended in death, at least to an extent. They are less coherent than their counterparts, but it’s not like I have perfect memory, so some of them are blending together with just the trends remaining. Not that different from regular memories.

I nod at him after thinking for a while, before clarifying that the deaths themselves are not present.

“How much do you remember, then?” I ask him in return.

“Nearly nothing from the perspective of Jools. Just a select few memories and the muscle memory.” he says before we both fall into contemplation.

After a few minutes of silence, James asks “Is that why you are so fine with a completely different body and gender?” 

“Yes, at least a significant part of.” I respond honestly.

At that point he just stares at me for a few moments, before uttering “Are you even George in there?”

I see, he’s worried that I’ve just pretended to be George. I already went through all the introspection, and I thought he came to the same conclusion as me when I gave him the advice. I guess not.

“Honestly, I don’t know if I’m George in Zena’s body, or Zena with George’s memories. Either way, the end result is that I’m not really either. I thought it was the same with you and Jools?” I elaborate.

“No, I’m quite confident that I’m James piloting Jool’s body, with some thing carrying over so that I can use the body.”

“That’s an interesting detail that I was unaware of.” David says sitting with us around the fire.

I and James are stunned for a bit by his sudden existence, but he continues unperturbed.

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“I worked with the assumption that everyone was mixed equally, but it kinda makes sense given that there was a lot more lore about Zena than there was about Jools. Still, I should investigate.”

His timely interruptions sort of just crashed our entire conversation. Kinda rude actually. So we just sit there watching him muttering for a bit.

“I didn’t really want to read your minds, this might have big implications for this world.” he says casually, causing a shiver to go up my spine.

Before we get to protest the intrusion, he continues “OH! I don’t have to do it, Stella just knew it already.”

Hang on, who is Stella? There were none on the dev team with that name, so I ask the question out loud.

“You would know her as Jane, but since the transition, she embraced the whole deity situation and changed her name.” David answers calmly, as if he wasn’t planning to dig through our minds to find the answers a moment ago. Hang on, did Stella already do it?

“Does that mean that Stella already read our minds?”

“As far as I’m aware, no. She took on the responsibility of managing the souls, and told me the mixing is obvious when you look at the souls. And I have to admit, she is right, your souls reveal it.” He casually confirms the existence of souls.

At this moment, James decides to interject “Hang on for just a moment, souls are real? Does that mean you know what happens after we die? Do we respawn as we did in the game? What about if we died on earth?”

All very good questions, and it only takes me a moment to realize that he can answer questions people have been clamoring for an answer for, since the dawn of time. I join in by looking at David with an expectant expression.

He sounds almost flustered, when he answers “Yes, souls are real. They are Stella’s responsibility so ask her.” before he disappears in colorful smoke that quickly flows into the ground.

After his hasty exit, we just look at each other for a moment, before asking “should we ask Stella?” at the same time. I guess that means that we should, but how do we do that? To get David’s attention, I have to pray to his godly name and title, so I guess I’ll have to use Stella’s name and title, but what were they? She apparently changed her name, did she also change her title?

After a bit of back and forth discussion, and a few failed attempts at reaching her, we come to the conclusion that we don’t know how to ask her.

James then decided to go to sleep, leaving me to watch the campfire until it burns out. If I really wanted to go to sleep I could just smother the fire, but I feel like just sitting here for a while, contemplating life. I’m less George that James is James, which sounds stupid when I put it like that. And I guess it makes sense since Zena was a lot more fleshed out than Jools. She had a family and a background story, whereas Jools was just a character from the game. As far as I’m aware, the only time he is mentioned would be as the victor in the tournament.

Souls are real, at least in this world, and presumably something happens after we die, though David didn’t want to disclose it. We might respawn like in the game, but then he would probably have told us now, so I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

By now the sun has fully set and the forest has gotten quite dark. It’s very relaxing sitting in front of an almost burnt out campfire. Maybe I should feed it some more, but in the end I decide not to. Do I have some more mead maybe? Yes I do. Not the same as yesterday, but probably about as good. The bottle is quickly magicked into my hand, and a class is just as quickly made in the other.

I probably sat there for another hour, just enjoying the environment and the mead, before going to sleep in my tent.