The Quantum Wanderer

I wake up, I see an ceiling, comprised or wood and a very simple round tiles.  I am on top of a bed, with a white sheet.  I sit up slowly, back against the wall.

I am in a simple room.  There is a wood bookcase against the wall, with some stuff in it.  Lamp, some tools, but it is mostly empty.

I look at the bedside table, there is a piece of bread there on a wood plate, and a cup with water.  I drink the water slowly.

That kind of wakes my body up, and then I take a bite on the bread as well.  I never imagined that bread with water would taste so good.

I get full really fast.

I look at myself, like I haven’t done in a while.  I am way thinner than I used to be, and not in a good way.  I am clean, though.  I smell myself, I can’t feel any actual smell, though I don’t think I would be able to actually sense any smell at this point.

The whole thing still feels so weird.

I get off the bed, go over to the door, open it, and start saying “Hey”, each time louder.

I hear some steps coming up the stairs, and see an old man.  He is wearing a long shirt, with some pants.  He has short white hair, with some bald spots on top.  He gets in front of the door of the room, and says “Witaj mój przyjacielu.”

I tell him, in portuguese, that I can’t understand him.

He looks shocked.  And soon, I would be too.

“Do you speak English?”, he asks.

“Yes I do.”

“Are you from Earth?”

“Yes.  But who are you?  How come you speak English?”

“Well, I am Andrew Mckenzie.  You can call me Andrew.  Let me fix you some food, you look like you need some.”

We go down the stairs, he goes over to a fire oven, made of clay.  He puts some wood in it, and then sends a widespread flame from his right hand.

The wood lights up, he places a small cauldron on top of the flame.  “This is going to take a little bit to warm up.”

“Who are you?”

He looked at me with patience and answered “I am Andrew.  Now, you probably have a lot of questions, specially since you don’t speak [wspólny].  That is the name of the language that is spoken around here.”

My head just starts spinning on the amount of questions I have, I kind of freeze.

The soup in the cauldron starts smelling really good.  Because of all the weird stuff, my jaw is kind of down, and with the smell of actual food, I drool a little.

He looks at me, and laughs.  “I never thought that I would live the day when someone would actually drool because of my cooking.  They really messed you up.”

He grabs an iron cast spoon, passes his hand around it, and stirs the soup a little bit.

He grabs a bowl, and pours some soup in it, and hands it over to me.

“Careful, it’s hot.”

I pick the bowl very carefully.  Right now, gold would not be more precious to me.  I smell it.  Very slowly, I try to have some soup, straight from the bowl.

He is watching everything, paying attention, with a smile on his face.  I can’t help but relax a little.

I eat a little, but I get a little sick, and then stop.

I clean my mouth on my arm.

“Are you better now?”

“Yes.”

“This is really weird.  You have the energy of a baby.  I mean, those are the only cases of level 1 that we see.”

“Level 1?”

“Yes.  Try to think of yourself, and try to see your status.  Imagine you are looking at a chalk board written about yourself.  Saying ‘Status’ may help.”

“Status.”

A transparent screen appears in front of me.  It is in Portuguese, my native language, and it says:

Attribute

Value

Name

Marcelo Souza

Titles

Level

1

Health

15/30

Mana

0/0

Strength

5

Agility

4

Intelligence

15

Defense

3

I look at this, and I am blown away.  Of course, I had played RPG, but I didn’t expect this to happen.

He then continues “Even children, just because they train with sticks, or imitate adults, end up having a level 2 or 3.  Civilians are generally in level 10 to 15.  Soldiers are generally around level 25.  Some adventurers reach some higher levels, some reaching 45, 50.  It’s not common to see much higher than that.”

“What about you?”

“My level is not important.  I have lived a long life, so it is ok, but you don’t have to worry about it.  It is enough to live in these woods.”

“These woods?  How did I come to end up here?”

“You were in cart-prison, a pasiasty-niedźwiedź apparently attacked the cart you were in.  You were actually lucky to be caged.  The conductor was not so lucky.  Neither were the horses.  I saw that you were unconscious, so I brought you to my home and treated you.  Now you’re up and about.”

I just couldn’t hold my curiosity, “Do you bring anyone you meet like that here?” 

“Not really, but since you’re a level 1, you are not a threat.  You are not able to harm me, and I could kill you with a slap if I needed to.  That being said, what happened?  How did you end up on this land?”

I told him the whole tale.  He listened, with some remarks here and there.  In particular, he did not know what Entropy was, and the name he gave to the god was Chaos.  He even joked that, in the land, they thought that Chaos would be the black one, and order the one associated with light. 

I told him about being imprisoned, and the cart thing.

I asked him about his story.

“Well, I was an American soldier, American Expeditionary Forces, Sir!”  He gave me a sarcastic salute, and continued “let’s just say that I wasn’t lucky in France.  The World War.  It’s not all that is cracked up to be.  I left a wife behind, with a bun in the oven…  That was the last thing I got to think of when I was lying there, on the mud… “ His eyes were shiny…

He looked at me, with some resolve, and continued “Let’s forget about that sentimental applesauce…  Then I went through the same process as you did…  I met the gods of Chaos and Order, just like you did.  When they asked me what I wanted, I went for power.  I had already experienced what happens to weak soldiers, no way I would go over that again.

“The king that met me was the current one’s great grandfather…  The war with the demons was going on very intensely.  Monsters were everywhere, in particular because the soldiers were told to pay attention to the war.

“I was given a platoon to lead.  I told them I had never lead people into battle, apparently they listen to people today as well as they did in the past.

“I lived everyday of my life with those people, and learned about this world from them.  Lots and lots of mulligatawny around a campfire.

“We were forbidden to hunt monsters, they mollycoddled me; we should not risk our lives with petty stuff.

“Nevertheless, we were given some freedom.

“But there was war going on.  We fought, and killed many, many demons.”

He stood up, sighted, got a cup on a cupboard nearby, gestured over it, and it water fell out of his hand.  He gestured again, and some ice fell through as well.  He took a sip, and sat back down.

“You see, one thing to note is that, although they are named demons, and this is a soft translation, they are just other kind of people.  They change much faster than humans from father to son, and the families tend to be larger.  Their lifes are shorter, though.  They reach maturity at 5, and they live generally up to 25, some reaching 35.  You know that humans on earth generally go around 60, 65 and here it generally goes to 45 for plebeians, and 60 for nobles.  They don’t really have good medicine here, in spite of having cure spells.”

“How does that work?”  I got kind of curious.

“Well, the magic can help you recover an arm you lost in battle, but they don’t really understand the concept of bacteria, boiling water, etc.”

“Did you try to educate them?”

“I did, but when the people at the top think they already know everything, what is there to educate?”

“…”  I held my chin, thinking about the implications.

“Did you know they think that the brain is something used to cool the body?  They think that we think with the heart.  No only that, that the heart controls the rest of the body through air.  Yes, they think arteries are made to carry air.”

I laughed when he mentioned that.  Specially since this is what our world used to believe.  That’s why we have expressions like “learning by heart”, and arteries comes from root word “air”.  And it is true that *a lot* of heat is dissipated from neck and brain, so I can understand their conclusions on that case as well.

I asked him to continue.

“Well, back to the story…  The battles here are mostly fought in an old fashioned way…  Lots of people on one side, lots of people on the other, and then all sorts of magic flying around, lots of magical barriers, and people get closer until there is some swordfight.

“Some of the people specialize in missile casting, some in shield casting, some in healing casting, some in self-empowering.  The ones that specialize in self-empowering generally fight with swords or throw stuff.”

“What about you?  What is your specialization?”

“I have a good chunk of each.  Here: Status show”.

Attribute

Value

Name

Andrew Mckenzie

Air Magic

Master

Alchemy

Master

Armsmaster

Master

Axe

Master

Body Building

Master

Body Magic

Master

Bow

Master

Chain

Master

Dagger

Master

Dodging

Master

Earth Magic

Master

Fire Magic

Master

Identify Item

Master

Identify Monster

Master

Leather

Master

Light Magic

Master

Mace

Master

Necromancy

Master

Perception

Master

Plate

Master

Repair Item

Master

Shield

Master

Spirit Magic

Master

Trapping

Master

Staff

Master

Stealing

Master

Sword

Master

Unarmed

Master

Water Magic

Master

Titles

Hero

Sage

Strongest human

Dragon slayer

Giant slayer

Protector

Sword Saint

…

Level

100

Health

3000/3000

Mana

5000/5000

Strength

460

Agility

462

Intelligence

458

Defense

455

I looked at it for a little while.  Then the screen disappeared.

“Of course, there are skills that I have never used, such as necromancy.  It is a very no-no thing to have, much worse to use.  We are going to talk about your skills in the future, for now I would just continue with my story.  And yes, I know that my numbers look way better than yours.  But let’s move on.”

As I gazed on his statistics, I could not help but take a look at the statistics for intelligence…  “Just a last question on the status – wouldn’t a 500 intelligence make you a genius?  Why hasn’t this world developed?“

“Well, kid, it’s not *that* kind of intelligence.  It’s more of a magical oriented thing, in terms of understanding spells, memorizing them.  But not for solving particular problems with it.  Anyway, may I continue?”

“Sure.”

“As I was saying, there was the battle of biała rzeka, that’s the name of a fortress that the demons had captured.

“It has a mote large mote around it, and when we advanced, there was this big noise, and the floor gave up around us.

“The demons had actually discovered explosives, and exploded the bridge support.  Very clever, actually.

“I was the only one that survived, because of, you know, the numbers you have just seen.  But I was still messed up pretty bad, I kind of blacked out.

“I woke up chained to a table with several demons observing me.

“They were casting some inspection spells, and writing stuff down.  Among them there was this green skinned girl, and she wore glasses.  I looked at her, and she was the only one that did not display pleasure at having me chained.

“They interrogated me, trying to use mind control. I did not share any military secrets, but other stuff I just didn’t care.  I can turn pain off, mind control doesn’t really work, and I knew that I was already dead – there was no way they were going to let me go.  I just had to let the damage pile up, and I would eventually die.

“At night, the girl would actually bring me food and good drink.  She would at least clean me.  She told me that she was the main researcher in their kingdom.  She was the child of their king.  Of course, in their language it had another designation, it was like the name of a legendary leader of theirs in the past.

“She told me that they favor strength above all else.  Women are not necessarily weaker than man in that mana is the main indicator of strength.  A woman that would have more mana than a man could be stronger, even physically. 

“However, Latina was born with very little mana.

“She soon learned the place she was in, and what the future would hold for her; she was in a place where the strong dictate, and the weak obey.  She had to be strong in some way, or she would just be a prize for some idiot.

“She started hitting the books and trying to learn about Nature really early, and came up with some really smart stuff.  You see, she actually was the first one that said that stuff should actually keep their speed if nothing else interacts with it.  She called it the Normal Natural Nature law, NNN law for short.

“Her learning paid off.  She came up with some really weird war strategies.  While defending a fort near sea, she actually got two hundred soldiers with mirrors.  The attack was during the day, and the ships were made of wood.  Believe it or not, when all the sun light of two hundred mirrors hits you, it gets *really* hot.  Fire starting hot.  And the ships were not even within magic range yet.

“Other thing she discovered was some explosive material.  Not only that, she studied how explosions work.  She discovered that, if instead of blasting a rock from outside, using magic, one does a small hole, puts the explosive, and then explode from the inside, you can actually turn a bad ass rock into dust instead of leaving just a burn mark.

“She loved talking about her discoveries.  Some of them were similar to stuff I had seen in high school on Earth.  While I hadn’t been a great student before the army, I still knew some basic math, and the math around here is way lower grade than the one at Earth.  She freaked out when I pointed out the thing about rectangle triangles square thing. 

“After some weeks, she brought me the news…  It had been decided I was to be executed.  She was crying, she tried to plea with her father, but matter of fact is that she did not really have any political power.  Most people could not recognize her value anywhere.  Most people would not understand the things she talked about.  One of her competitors even tried to do the mirror thing, but during the night.  Hahahaha.  Of course, it didn’t work, and they blamed her, if you can believe it.

“Remember, most of their culture is about strength and magic.

“Anyway, that night, she visited me as always.  She made me promise to no longer participate in the war.  She could not bear being responsible for her kind’s death.  It felt kind of weird, but I didn’t question.

“She placed some powder on all my restraints, and also some powder around the pillars on the door.

“She lit the powder on the restraints, and the place where they were connected to the table melted.  I pushed, and I was able to go free.

“She went close to the pillars, and, in a safe way, lit the powder she had placed.  The powder blew up, and the pillars broke, towards the door.  She had locked the door shut.

“Next thing she lit another powder close to the wall.  A piece of the wall exploded.

“We were high, something like 3 floors up.  She told me to go.  I looked at her, and asked why.  She said that she couldn’t see the only person she came to love dying.”

At this point, he looked down at the floor, and his arm flinched.  At the moment, it looked like his arm blinked, and I heard his wisper, “Tina, you had no idea how cruel you were.”  And turned back to me and continued his story.  There was a tear around his eyes, but something that had been swiped.

“I told her that I wouldn’t want to be apart from the person I came to love as well, so she should come with me. 

“She did come.  I held her and jumped down.  I carried her out, and we went into the woods.

“Camping and surviving in the woods was not all that hard.  Strongest human here, right?

“The information system around demon grounds was better than the human one, they are better organized.  Because of that, we decided to stay close to the human side.  She would never be able to see anyone, but she told me that she had made her peace with that.

“My baby doll and I walked until we got kind of close to a human city, and we stablished myself in the woods, with her, close to that city.  Not like you can find a kodak here, so it is easy to go unnoticed.  Specially if you grow a beard.  And several weeks imprisoned will do that to you.

“Some earth, fire and water magic can do wonders in construction.

“It was easy to become a guild member, exterminate some monsters and bad eggs.  I did have to keep our territory safe, anyway.  I assumed another name, and lived with my baby doll.

“We lived till death did us part.  Again, as I told you, their life goes by quicker than ours.  On another hand, they stay old for a shorter time.  She kept her prime, and then aged and died over 6 months. 

“Since then, I just haven’t seen any reason to leave it here.  I am just living a calm life.  Kind of tired, really.

“Anyway, I feel like you need some information on just about everything.  We can start tomorrow.  I got the food, you get the dishes – just the stuff we used.  Leave the cauldron as is, we are going to use it for breakfast tomorrow.”

I went over to the sink, and it had this metal solid pipe, with two bumps close to it.  The bumps were fixed to the sink. 

“Andrew, how does this work?”

He was already halfway up the stairs.  He looked at me, st first finding the question weird, then smiled.  “You pour a tiny amount of mana on either side.  Left side hot, right side cold water.”

“I don’t have mana, remember?”

He sighed, then just said.  “Ok, just go to bed, I will take care of it.”

We exchanged places, and I stayed to watch.  He touched the left one side, and a quite strong flow of water went through.  He poured the the bowls, and then, cleaned them, and then touched the bump again.

I had so many questions…  Where was the water going to?  What about…

“Andrew, where is the bathroom?”

“Outside, there you have the little house.” 

I just went to bed.