The Quantum Wanderer

His wife brought a glass of water.

I centered myself.

“Well…  I actually did it.  The goblins are no more.  But I need help with the women.  The goblin’s cave is in the forest, about a mile from here.  I need help transporting the women here.  Some of them can’t walk, and some of them are in a bad shape.”

The old man got a lot less old at that moment.  He ran outside, and shouted “Julius, Julius!  Gather as many as can, and also crop carts.”

“Adventurer, can you escort them?”

“Sure.  Also, some of them are malnourished.”

The wife went out the door, almost ran over the chief.  She was fat, but she moved quite fast, it was like seeing a tank walk. 

She went to the neighbours, and started organizing a big cookout.

The trip to back to the goblins’ cave was uneventful.  The goblins had been hunting around, so there weren’t that many monsters around.  And there were a lot of people together, so no problem happened.

The reactions on meeting the women were really mixed.  Some reencounters, and some just weren’t.

One of the farmers left the caves, he was crying.

He came over to me, yelling,

“WHY???  WHY DIDN’T YOU COME EARLIER?”

He grabbed be by my armor, and shook me with all his strength, but in this world a level 12 is not going to move a level 24 by shaking him.

Two friends of his removed him, and a third one came along.

The grabber was completely lost in his despair.  His friend slapped him, and he kneeled down on the ground.

His friend kneeled besides him, and said, “I am sorry for Cath.  But we can’t complain to the one that came.”

Amongst the women that were being rescued, the reactions also varied a lot.  Some of them just had no reaction.  They breathed, but just didn’t react to anything.  Some of them cried of happiness.  And some of them were just screaming, “take it out!”

One of them, that could walk, was being escorted out of the cave, when she passed by the 4 dead guards and the kid.  She grabbed one of the knives on the floor, and stabbed her own stomach with it.  She started loosing blood, and four guys placed her in grain cart, that looked like a wheel barrow, but made of wood.

I got close, and told them, “I can help, but you guys have to promise me that you will never speak of this, to ANYONE.  Can I have your word?”

I could see that everyone was phreaked out.  And for someone to be phreaked out in the world, that says something.

I put her to sleep, so that she wouldn’t feel the pain, and did the proper procedure.  I opened her stomach, and removed the fetus.  Being able to close the bleeding and the wound with magic goes a long way.  Once I was done, I let her wake up.  She thanked me a lot.  Too much, actually, I was feeling kind of off place with it.

All the women that were conscious started to beg me for help, and I couldn’t deny that.

I spent some time doing that.

After that, I checked the women that were not conscious, and all the women to make sure that none of them was pregnant of a goblin.

With that done, we started the trip back to the village.

There was food already prepared in the main court in the village.  I waited a little, and the old lady of the chief came with a bowl of stew.  I wasn’t hungry, but I forced a little.  Then the hunger came, and I ate the whole bowl.  She looked happy, and went away with the bowl, only to come back five minutes later with another one…  “Eat, eat, you need it.  You’re too skinny.”

I ate that one a lot slower, and told her that I didn’t want any more.  She had this grandma vibe to her.

The sun was starting to set at this point, and I went over to the guild to check if I could get a room for the night.  I was exhausted.  The door was locked.  I tried to knock, but no one answered.  I tried to look around, and some guy actually looked at me, lifted his pointing finger, kind of signalling “got it”, and went towards the people.

Some minutes later a young woman comes up, cleaning her hands in her skirt. 

“I need a bath and a bed.  I am too tired to go back to the city.”

“Sure.  By the way, I can receive the proof of kill, and provide you with a certificate.  That way you don’t have to keep carrying those things to back to the city.”

She opened the door for me, and told me that she would see that a bath was prepared in the back room.

I gave her my back pack with the ears and the heads, she place this behind the counter and went out.  Sometime later, she said it was ready.

I wake up next morning, my body is a little exercise sore, but I am ok.  The whole thing on the previous day seem like a bad dream, but I am feeling a lot better.  I start to rationalize that even Earth had some messed stuff in terms of animals, some insects actually place larvae eggs inside other insects.  When they eclode, they get eaten from the inside.  It doesn’t matter if I agree or not.

I get down for breakfast, and the guild is kind of empty.  The woman from yesterday tells me to sit and gets breakfast in a little while.  She is smiling.  She serves the stew, and sits opposite to me.

“Good morning, hero.”

“Hey, good morning.  But I am no hero, I am going to get paid.”

“You do know that you would get a lot better pay if you had waited another two weeks, right?  Probably around double?”

“I have been told that.”

“My name is Cecilia.  What’s yours?  Unless you prefer being called hero?”

“Marcelo.”

This woman knows how to make me uncomfortable, apparently.  Although I don’t dislike it completely, she has this air to her.  Damn you, extroverts!

“Does talking displeases you?”

“I don’t talk much.”

“Sure, but does it displeases you?”

“Not particularly.”

She stares at me for a little bit.

“What?” I ask.

“Tell me, why did you pick this quest?”

“Well, I saw the description and since goblins generally live in group, I thought that I would be able to make a couple of gold due to numbers.”

“A couple?  That’s a way to put it.  You got 157 of them, plus one shaman and one king.  You also destroyed a nest, top to bottom, that is going to add some more.  I made sure to add that detail to the proof of kill.  You’re going to make some gold.  How much is the capital paying?”

“I don’t know about the nest bonus, but one silver for goblin, one old for shaman and…  5 gold for a king?  I think that sounds about right.  It feels to me like all of this took weeks, not a couple of days.”

“I will let the village know, thanks.”

“Why is this important?”

“That shows how much the baron values, or not, our little village.  The goblins might present some trouble in the future, but the most immediate danger right now is to this village.  You could see that all the women that were taken back were from here, right?”

“Sure.  I mean, if you say so.  I don’t really know them.”

“The quest has started with our guild, obviously.  The village put together a reward, but villages have little money.  Due to the amount of disappearances, and the sightings, we estimated that the nest would have around 80 goblins or so.  So our part on the reward was set to 2 large copper per goblin.  We didn’t calculate for shamans or kings.

“The difference in the reward is the part that the baron is covering out of his pocket.  The kingdom may have chipped in as well.  Adding funds to these in particular tend to make them seem very charitable.  I don’t think they imagined there would be this amount of goblins, though.  But you’re going to get your money.  Hence the expression, ‘honest as guild’.”

I looked at her, and saw that she was not having breakfast, she was only sitting in front of me.  And someone watching me eat was strange…

“Are you not going to have breakfast?”

“Are you inviting me on a breakfast date?”

And smiled.

“Huh…”  I have never been too good at these things.  Even on Earth, I have always been introverted.  I did somewhat ok, but it was because I would actually hack my behaviour.

She got up, went to the kitchen and brought herself a bowl, sat in front of me, and said,

“Date with the village hero it is…”

The way she said it…  How serious is that?  One of the main things I struggled with was telling when people were lying or saying something literally.  I remember a friend of mine, an extrovert, once explained to me, ‘if it is something not serious, assume they are lying/playing with you.  People tend to tell the truth when it is important’.

My enhanced senses could also help me in those situations.  The mana and the soul would actually change when someone was lying, but only if the lie was something of value to them.  So I was still lost if it was something like ‘I saw a pig flying yesterday’.  If the person is not vested on the lie, if the lie is not important enough, it would not register in the mana network or the soul.  This also made me aware that there was a possibility that someone might actually bypass this lie detection of sorts.

She sat down, we ate.  As we finished, she put her bowl aside, placed her two elbows on the table, put her head on her hands, gave me this big smile, and said, “What now, hero?”

Nothing.  My mind went blank.  I could see that smile, the freckles.  But that would not be for me.  It never was.  Now I could put down a beast, and fight bandits, but this…?  I don’t really know what to do with this.  I really miss my fight with he plated rhino.

“Huh… “  Yes, that was the only sound I could do.

She rose up, laughed her head off, collected the stuff and left for the kitchen.

I collected my stuff.  Having the proof of kill as a letter instead of ears and heads was really good.  I have to remember that in the future.  It was actually a sealed letter.

I run all way back to the city, leave my stuff, and go to the guild.

I go over to Alice’s counter,

“Hi!”

“Hi, how are you?  How did you do?”

“I actually did the job.  At least, some of it.  Since I don’t know if it is actually possible to kill all of them.  Here.”

She grabbed the letter, with the seal.  She inspected the seal, “Wait here.”  And she went out from behind the counter, and up the stairs.  Some time later, she appears, and asks me to follow her.

We go up to the third floor.  There is a single short corridor, and 3 doors on it, one to the left, one to the right and one straight ahead.  We take the one to the left. She opens the door, and I enter.  She closes the door behind me, staying outside.

I look around me.  The place is clean.  Everything in it is of very good quality, the sofas seem comfortable, the coffee table seems sturdy.  But everything is simple, pragmatic.  No stains anywhere, though.  Really well maintained as well.

A man is sitting behind a table, the proof of kill is in front of him.

He is using it and writing stuff on another piece of paper.

“Wow, Mr. Marcelo, I think you’re going to bankrupt us!  I couldn’t be happier!”  He said, with a very large smile.  He is wearing some civilian clothing, but he looks strong.  Not so much physically, but he irradiates that confidence.  He seems to be in his forties.

He stands up, and gestures me to sit on the sofa, my back to the door.  I sit down, he grabs the proof of kill, the paper he was using and a pen.  I looked at him, really intrigued.

“Ok…?  How come?”

“Well, we were expecting a smaller amount of goblins, to tell the truth, and we didn’t expect someone to actually raid the nest.  Much less save captives.  We were expecting to get some intelligence on the matter. But you…  Nicely done.”

“Are you happy about going bankrupt?”

“Of course.  I can only go bankrupt if I do my job…  Imagine this, let’s say you have a company.  If your company is the one that pays more tax than any other…”  He gestured me to complete the sentence.

“Your company is selling more than any other.”

“Exactly.”

He scribbled some additional stuff on the paper, then said:

“157 goblins, 15 gold and 7 silver.  One king, 5 gold.  One shaman, 1 gold.  27 women rescued, 13 gold and 5 silver.  One den raided, 25 gold.  That takes us to…  60 gold and 2 silver.  Congratulations.  Tea?”

“Sure.”

I was thinking in my head what that meant.  That was a lot of money.  The party I had collaborated with would take months to make this amount of money.  They would use the same room in an inn so that they could save silver.  This was good.

He rings a bell, and it doesn’t make any sound.

“If it is not prying too much, can I ask, what are you going to do next?”

“I am thinking of taking some time off.  By the way, are you the guild master?”

“Yes.”

He wasn’t what I expected.  He seemed like one of those extrovert guys that would be the center of attention in a party, that would always end a conversation with a  joke.  But the amount of power I could feel, even though not using my mana senses, prickled my skin.

The door opened up, and a maid came in.  She brought a tray, and it had tea and cookies.  She served us.  I tasted the cookie, and it wasn’t really sugar sweet, it felt it was sweet, but a little off.  Not as good as they looked.  The tea was flavourful, though.

The person pulled out a bag, and from it pulled out another bag.

At that point, I used my mana eyes to take a look.  This guy was level 43.  And another funny thing, the gold bag was normal, but the bag he got the gold bag from was shining as a lamp.  Lots of mana flowing through it.

“I am sorry, sir, er..”

“Leopold.”

“Yes, Sir Leopold.  Can I take a look at that bag?”

“Oh…?  So you saw that this is a magic bag…?”

“Well…  yes…?”

I didn’t know where this might go, but there was no way I was going to be able to deceive him, might as well go with it.

“No.”

I deflated a little, and he continued,

“This has some stuff that is for guild’s eyes only.  You have a look at this.”

And he threw an empty bag at me.

I took a look at that bag.  It was a 20 inch long leather bag.  From the outside, it seemed common.  At the very bottom of it, on the inside, there was a gem.  I enhanced my eyes, looking for mana, then for structure.  The leather itself looked like came from something with scales…  A snake, or something like that.  On the inside, the leather had some mana fractals draw on it. 

I tried to touch the gem at the bottom, but my arm just went all in but still couldn’t reach it.  And I put my whole arm in it.  This felt so weird.

Then I looked closer at the fractals, at the mana structure that was being built.  So that’s the trick!  If something doesn’t fit within the dimensions, add one.

That bag could apparently add another unit on a fouth dimension.  That means that the space inside the bag would be multiplied.  That would consume magic, of course, hence the jewel at the bottom.

“How long for the next recharge?”

“Recharge?”

“Yes, how long will the gem hold it?”

“Oh, you’re funny.  This bag is going to last another 2 years.  Now, changing the subject, how much of this do you want to disclose?  The news that a den of goblins was raided by an adventurer are going to fly around pretty soon.  By the way, Cecilia thinks you’re a hero of sorts…  Cecilia and Marcelo, walking hand in hand, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”

“Leaving my name out would be nice.  I don’t care.”

He turned to a very serious, almost murdering stance, and leaned over the table. “Not even for the fact that there is an unaffiliated healer that can fight as a high thirties?”  He kept the position for a couple of seconds, relaxed his face and sat back on the sofa.

“But don’t worry, I will try to keep this under ta-abs.”

I felt a shudder down my spine.  I did what I could to get a smile.

As I thank him and leave, I meet the Requiem Warriors in the floor, taking a sip of ale.  I join them.

As always, Tar was the noisy one, “Hey, boy!  Nice seeing you.  How did the hunt go?”

“It was ok.  I managed to kill a couple.”

“Since you were close, did you get to meet the Hero of Frolk?”

“Huh?”

“Yes, the guy, in a single day, raided the goblin den, killed all goblins, including a shaman and a king, and rescued two dozen women.”

…

Aeson and Lu slapped their foreheads, bent their heads down and shook their heads.  Tar turned to Lu, “What?”

Aeson slapped him in the back of the neck.

Lu was the one to continue the conversation, “What are you going to do now?”

“Well, I think I am going to take some time off.  The guild master showed me a magic bag.  Those things are nice.”

“And expensive.  The cheaper ones, just level 2, go for 250 gold.  The really nice stuff go for 1000 platinum.  Those are really rare, though.  And they have a life, meaning that you cannot pass one as heirloom.  They kind of die.”

“Why are they so expensive?”

“Materials and labor.  Very few people know how to enchant them, and the material has to be top notch to be able to receive the enchantments.  You also need a top notch gem to keep the reserve of mana.  The cheap ones are made of leather of wyvern.  The better ones, of dragon leather.  The top ones might be either holy beasts or titans’ leather.  Also, the gem has to be on those levels.”

“I saw that what dies is the gem, why don’t people recharge it?”

“I don’t know, it would probably be cheaper to do that, instead of buying another one.  But I never had a magic bag.”

Tar amended, “Hey, if you want one, you can rent one here at the guild.”

How come I hadn’t thought of that possibility?  They were expensive assets, and those generally could be rented out.  I could see a merchant renting one to drive stuff from one place to another.

“Do you guys have any idea of price?”

“I don’t know…  Some go for two gold a day, some go for a hundred…  It varies with the bag.  But you would have to get approved for them to loan it to you.  It’s not an easy process.”

“It might be worth, though.  Take a wyvern for example.  It is this huge thing, right?  How are you going to carry it back to the guild?  Not only it is heavy, but there is an issue of not existing carts, roads, or way to carry it.  It’s pelt is worth 10 gold, but bones and meat are another 15 gold.  If you work in a day, you can bag everything in a bag that is only going to cost you 5 gold a day.  So you can make a buck.

“Do you guys know where I can find bigger game around?”

“Deeper in the forest, near the mountains.  That’s like 200 miles.  There are more expensive game there, but it is also dangerous.  Depending where you go, you may find griffons, wyverns, and even dragons.  Those are not things people can usually fight.  Not even heros.”

“Don’t you want to join us on another escort?  We are leaving in another couple of days.”

 “Not this time.  Be careful not to get someone marked for death on this one.”

“Don’t worry, we asked around this time.”

I set out to explore the sprawling capital of the baronate, a city that bustled with life and vigor. The streets were paved with cobblestones, worn smooth by the countless footsteps of merchants, travelers, and citizens who had traversed them over the centuries. Magnificent buildings of stone and wood towered above, adorned with ornate carvings and vibrant banners that fluttered in the breeze.

My destination was the bustling marketplace, a veritable maze of stalls and shops where one could find goods from all corners of the realm. As I walked, the sights and sounds of the city enveloped me. The aroma of freshly baked bread and roasted meats mingled with the scent of exotic spices, enticing passersby to sample the culinary delights. The air was filled with the lively chatter of vendors hawking their wares, the clinking of coins, and the laughter of children chasing each other through the crowds.

At the marketplace, there were countless types of stores, each offering a unique array of goods. There were the fragrant spice shops, with colorful piles of saffron, cumin, and cinnamon. Nearby, the herbalists displayed rows of jars filled with medicinal potions and dried herbs. An armory glistened with polished swords, shields, and armor, while the leatherworkers showcased intricately stitched saddles, belts, and boots. The jewelers’ stalls sparkled with gold, silver, and precious gemstones, and the textile merchants hung bolts of silk, wool, and velvet in every hue imaginable.

I arrived at a large stall that displayed a variety of tools and construction materials. After a brief conversation with the shopkeeper, I selected several spikes and large nails, each one sturdy and ideal for assembling wooden houses. I secured my purchase with a couple of gold coins.

Beyond the marketplace, I ventured into the heart of the city where the grandeur of the baronate’s history was on full display. The towering castle, the seat of the baron, loomed majestically over the city, its walls covered in ivy and its turrets piercing the sky. Surrounding it were stately homes and lush gardens, a testament to the wealth and power of the nobility.

I paused by a fountain in the central square, where the crystalline waters sparkled in the sunlight and the gentle sound of flowing water provided a soothing backdrop. I watched as citizens went about their daily lives: a scholar engrossed in a thick tome, a group of minstrels tuning their instruments, and an artist capturing the vibrant scene on canvas.

As the day wore on, I continued to wander through the city, taking in the diverse architecture and the lively atmosphere. I marveled at the intricate mosaics that adorned the walls of the cathedral, the solemn beauty of the ancient library, and the bustling activity at the docks where ships laden with goods arrived from distant lands.

My stroll through the capital was a journey through the rich tapestry of the baronate’s culture and history. I felt a deep appreciation for the city’s heritage and the ingenuity of its people. With my pouch of spike and nails securely in hand, I returned home, ready to embark on my next project with a sense of fulfillment and inspiration.

Well, this was a full day.  Tomorrow I have some experiments to do.