The Quantum Wanderer

“Sir Marcelo! Good morning!”

We walk up to her. There are some groups around her that are talking among themselves, but keep a side eye on us.

“Good morning, lady Guina. Can I assume you are the one leading the expedition?”

“Yes. My past as a sword saint sometimes bring these kinds of responsibilities. Care to join me in the tent? It is where we are strategizing.”

The crows land on my shoulders. I can sense some smirking among the closest adventurers. If I am not mistaken, most of the adventurers close to the center tent belong to the Holy Kingdom, while the ones on the outside would probably be from other places. To a side of the encampment I can also feel some weaker adventurers, but on a larger number. If I had to guess, there should be around 40 mithrils from the Holy Kingdom, out of some 60 mithrils. Then there is another force with around 80 steels. That is a lot of adventurers.

We get inside the tent serving as command center. There are about a dozen different people in there. There is a big foldable table, with a map. It contains our position, and some 10 miles north it has another circle. Lady Guina points to the circle in the map.

“This is the nest. These monsters are very aggressive. They can work with simple strategies, they have some, albeit limited, intelligence. Of course, they are still beasts, and it is our job to cleanse the area to make it safe for civilians.”

“What are these monsters?”

“They are a distortion on horses, a vile race of murders. They kill humans for sport. You will know when you encounter them.”

“How do you want to do this?”

“If you would, sir Marcelo, I would send your force first, then the mithrils would deal with runners, to make sure none escape. We then send the other adventurers to clean up the nest, to make sure everything is safe afterwards.”

I don’t feel lying in her voice. At least that.

“Ok. When do we depart?”

“If we were on our own, we would do this at the break of dawn. But considering you are here, we can do this by noon. If you don’t mind, of course.”

I look around at the girls. They shrug and nod. They are way too strong for anything that may be lurking there.

“Sure.”

“Great.” She turns to the others in the tent. “Let’s start phase 1! Go!”

Everyone leaves the tent. The guys that were there spread throughout the encampment, towards their respective forces. The girls and I are left alone, close to a fire that was probably put out this morning. Cecilia looks around. I decide to cast a silence spell around us.

“She gives me the chills.”

“I agree with you auntie. Something is not quite right.” Huginn mentions.

“But she didn’t lie.” I mention.

“Yes, father, but that doesn’t mean she told the whole truth. And it doesn’t mean that what she said was true either. It only means she believes that.”

This was a very deep statement, but not much can be done about that either way. I shrug.

“Let’s go cautiously. That’s about all we can do.”

“Why don’t we go ahead and take a look?” Ruby suggested.

“I don’t see why not. Let’s go.”

We start going towards the forest. The other adventurers see us going, but they are still getting organized. We walk towards the circle of the nest.

After some time walking, we reach another clearing.  A centaur comes out from behind a tree on the other edge. He has an arrow on a bow.

“HALT! Who are you, and what are you doing here, human?”

I put my hands up.

“We come in peace. I am sorry, is this your territory? I am an adventurer. I was told that there was a monster around these lands…”

He lowers the bow, and tilts his head to the side.

“What monster? We cleared the whole area.”

His lower body adjusts his position, a couple of steps to the side. I look at him, intrigued. Then I realize it. I extend my mana senses. Behind him, there is a village. According to my senses, a lot of centaurs. Some children, if I go by their levels. And the position matches it.

“There are some adventurers behind us coming this way. Please go to your village, we are going to let them know that we should not be here.”

He can feel my blood boiling, and realizes that it is not towards him. Ruby turns to me.

“What is going on, my lord?”

 I am so angry that I take a couple of seconds, Cecilia is faster than me.

“This is a centaur extermination expedition.”

“Aren’t centaurs humanoids?” Ruby asks.

“Yes, they are. But not so much for lady Guina, apparently.”

“What are we going to do, then?”

I turn to them.

“We are going to let the adventurers know that this expedition is under false pretenses. Even if the Holy Kingdom were to enter war with the centaurs, this would not be a guild matter. They would have to use their own soldiers.

“That being said, there are a lot of centaurs in the village. They would fight back, and they are stronger than an average man. Soldiers are generally weaker than adventurers because of how much less exposed to experience they are. And most soldiers are in the fronts fighting the demons.”

“I just can’t believe this shit!” Cecilia says. The dragonesses are not as emotional as we are, they are probably seeing a fight between ants, they don’t really care for any of the forces.

Through my mana senses I can feel that the centaur that met us is already getting back to the village.  He meets some others, and news spread fast.  I can feel that the centaur village is preparing for a fight. The weaker ones are being sent deeper into the forest, while the stronger ones are getting together.

The sun reaches the meridian, it is noon. I can also feel the front force of adventurers coming our way. We get close to the other edge of the clearing, so that we can see all of the adventurers at once.

The adventurers come out in the clearing, led by lady Guina. Once they are all in the clearing, I take a look. They are all from the group closest to her tent in the encampment. Of course, I can’t say that for sure, but it feels like that.

I wave at them.

“HEY!!! HEY!!!”

Lady Guina is looking at me suspiciously, but she approaches, until she is some 10 feet from us. The adventurers are behind her, and they start to spread out.

“THERE WAS A MISTAKE! BEHIND US ARE CENTAURS! THERE ARE NO MONSTERS!”

I can see some adventurers sneering. Lots of them have their hands on their weapons. Lady Guina takes out her sword, and points at us.

“YOU HEARD THEM! THEY ARE SIDING WITH THE MONSTERS! KILL THEM!”

The adventurers all draw their weapons, and assume battling position. Ruby looks me, she has a very large smile. I turn to her.

“Leave lady Guina and the other two behind her alive, please.”

To them, it looks like Ruby disappeared. They hear an explosion behind them, and a red mist raises up. Then another explosion, more mist. An adventurer starts shouting in terror, but the shout is cut by the sound of another explosion.

The adventurers in the front turn around to look at what is going on the in the back. The bottom half of an adventurer is falling forward, while there are two other halves still standing. Ruby was basically doing to them what she had done to the menhirs at the school exam.

More explosions. A lot more. Some adventurers try to run towards the forest, but the strangest thing happen. They run, but then they make this very wide turn, and get back to the same place. I take a look, and Muninn has his four eyes open. I take another look at the adventurers that were running, and they bump into a colleague and fall on their buts. The realization of what happened settles in, and they despair.

More explosions, it is starting to rain blood on the alive ones. Ruby is taking out from the outside in, making sure the alive ones are bathed in the blood of their friends. Guina and her friends start shaking, and look at us. They realize that just one of the girls are playing with them. The rest are still in front of them.

Ruby kicks a particularly strong adventurer, this one must be around level 55. He doesn’t explode in a mist of blood, but his body is thrown against a huge tree, and stays there. It made a person sized whole, still filled by a mass of what used to be a person.

Some of the blood fall on us. Huginn complains to Ruby.

“AUNTIE! You are getting us dirty!”

Ruby stops for a second, and looks at us. There are only another 5 adventurers at this point. Guina and her two lieutenants, and another two that are frozen, kneeling down. These ones have a necklace with an ankh cross on it. They are holding it with all their strength right now.

“Father, may I?” Muninn asks.

I am curious on what is going to happen. I nod. He opens his four eyes, and the two adventurers start screaming, louder and louder. They loose their voices, then pass out. We can feel their passing because of the experience that leaks. It is way too little for any of us to have any use for it, though.

Lady Guina is still holding her sword up, but she is frozen. She is trembling from head to toe. I can see the tip of her sword moving. The other two are looking at Ruby, completely terrified. They have their backs to us. I sigh. I take a step in their direction, but Opal holds my should.

“Excuse me, my lord, but I don’t think they deserve to be killed by you.”

I smile back at Opal. I place my palm on her face.

“It is ok. There is an experiment that I want to do.” I keep walking, and I get near to a lieutenant. When he senses me near, he tries to attack with his sword, that I take out of his hands, holding the sword by the blade.

“Now, you are not going to need this anymore.”

His eyes are bulging, and the other lieutenant and Lady Guina are looking at that.

“Now, who was the boss? Above lady Guina here?”

“I DON’T KNOW! I SWEAR I DON’T KNOW! PLEASE…”

I turn to the girls.

“It is always the same thing. They kill, they rape, they pillage. When it is their turn, it is please, not me.” I turn to him. “I told you that there were centaurs in there, right? What are you telling me? That they can die and you can’t?”

“P-P-PLLLEEASEEE…”

“Again, answer my question: who is the boss?”

“The qu-qu-quest wa-as lla-d-d-y Guin-n-a’s…”

I cast a soul absorption on him, and then, with a pulse of mana, I break his soul. I get a lot of memories… A whole life. His infancy, always with a sword. His training with the kids around, his going to the guild, his training in the church, his raising through the ranks. His dating with a girl with black hair, his marriage, his kids. The memories flood me. He really didn’t know.

His body falls limp on the ground, but still breathing. His eyes are open, he is drooling. The other guy’s eyes are bulging.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?”

This is the time to play the part. I show my evil smile to him, I need them to cooperate to get the truth.

“I broke his soul. No more reincarnating for him.”

The guy looks at me, and falls to his knees.

“Please, my lord Wrax, please, I will be your faithful. Anything but that.”

He kowtows. The dragonesses have a satisfied expression.

“Who is the boss?”

“Lord Wrax, I am under Lady Guina’s orders.”

“But you knew about the centaurs, right?”

He squirms. He remembers my previous speech.

“We didn’t know they were to be valued.”

I am tired with the hypocrite. I get close, and break his soul as well. He screams, and falls on the ground, the same state as the previous one. I turn to Guina. She drops her sword on the ground.

“I surrender.”

I tilt my head a little bit. I had yet to see a situation like this.  Huginn, no my shoulder, starts laughing. Human laughing. She opens her four eyes, and stare at Guina. Guina is now staring at her.

“YOU REALLY THOUGHT THIS WOULD WORK, YOU FUCKING SHIT MONGERING CUNT?”

Huginn’s eyes start to shine.

Guina is looking at the air around her, as if she were watching something flying in circles over her head.  Then she turns to her left, and looks in the distance. She extends her arm. Then she falls to her knees, and she scratches her own face, in despair. She is crying to the point of convulsing.

Huginn takes off from my shoulder, I take a step back from the power that she used to propel forward. She flies towards Guina, and rips her head and spine off. She is now some meters after Guina’s corpse, she drops the head and spine, and gets back on my shoulder.

There is a silence among us. Huginn is cleaning her feathers with her beak on my shoulder. After some moments of silence, she says.

“I am sorry for the potty mouth, but she got me angry, father.”

“MY GIRL!” Ruby exclaims.

I hear some noise behind us, and we turn around. There is a group of centaurs, they are armed to the teeth. They see all the bodies on the clearing, the blood. The one I had met earlier comes forward, staying between us and the others. They are silent. The image behind me packs an impact. They lower their weapons.

I raise my hands.

“We come in peace. Those were the adventurers I talked to you about.” I said talking to the centaur between us and their group.

“Quiron, they are the ones that warned me. They did not bring aggression.”

The leader nods to him.

“I am going to need your help to explain this to the others.”

“Others?”

“Yes. There are another two groups of adventurers.  About another 10 mithril and 40 steel level each. We can avoid the fight, but we are going to need your help.”

Quiron is considering. He looks at the field, and looks back at me.

“What is your idea?”

After some preparations, we split in two groups. Opal, Ruby, Muninn and me on one, and Cecilia, Shandon, Aquamarine and Huginn on the other. We enter the forest. Muninn gets the position of the adventurers from other birds in the forest. We approach them.

“Hello there! Who is leading this party?”

“You are the one that was in lady Guina’s tent, right? What is you name, adventurer?”

“I am Marcelo. What is yours?”

“I am Percy. How was the battle? Were the monsters already defeated?”

“No on the two accounts. First, there are no monsters around, just centaurs. We were brought here in a violation of guild’s rules. They are sentient, humanoids. They are not monsters. We have no right to be here.

“On the second account, Guina’s party was exterminated. Only my girls and I survived.”

I hear another adventurer, to his side.

“How come you were the one surviving?”

“I chose not to fight. We stepped away from the aggression, they allowed us to leave the battleground unscathed.” I look in the eyes of several adventurers. “Even though 40 high level mithril have just been killed in battle.”

I sense a shiver spread. The adventurers are not stupid, they understand the message. The battle was quick. Too quick. 40 mithril were gone. That is a country’s worth. They had a fourth of this force around them. The steel leveled adventurers would be meat shields at most, they would be useless in a battle that killed so many mithrils.

The adventurer that was leading this force is the only one not sweating with the information I have brought. He is actually getting angrier by the second.

“BROTHERS! WE SHALL NOT TOLERATE THIS ATTACK ON OUR FRIENDS! LET’S SHOW THEM OUR RESPONSE!”

He raises his sword alone, and starts running towards the clearing I came from. I turn around to look at the adventurer running. I give Muninn a side eye, and shake my head. He flies to a branch on the tree, and stays there. The other adventurers think that I am sad that we are loosing another life.

“THIS QUEST WAS A BOGUS ONE! WARS ARE FOR SOLDIERS, WE ARE PROTECTORS! LET’S GET OUR COMPENSATION WITH THE GUILD! THEY OWE US GOLD!”

I actually get acclaimed when I mention that the adventurers are going to get gold. With my mana sense, I can feel that Muninn is gone from the tree branch, but everyone is turning back, to get back to the encampment. I go with them.

A steel level adventurer stays by.

“Hi, mister Marcelo! I want to shake your hand! You probably saved our lives today!”

“Don’t mention.”

“Wait. Where is your crow?”

“Oh, he probably saw a squirrel running somewhere, you know how they are. Don’t worry about him, he will find his way back.”

“Ok.”

We start walking towards the encampment. After a short interval, we hear the adventurer in the distance. He reached the clearing. First a shout. Something about pay. Then a terrible scream. I can feel another shriver through the steel adventurers. We head back calmly.

Because we walk so calmly to get there, we end up taking some time to reach the encampment. People that stayed behind already started a fire, the sun is going to set pretty soon. The cooks all around are starting to prepare dinner, with big cauldrons of soup. The girls turn their nose to it. I think it is kind of pretty.

We are just sitting close to the fire, where Opal and Ruby are teasing me a little bit. They are enjoying that it is just the three of us, so I have each one by my side, one hand on each girl’s leg. The steel level adventurer from before approaches. He is carrying a bowl with soup.

“Excuse, sir, but are you not going to eat?”

“We have had a late breakfast, so we are not hungry yet. We might even decide to get back to the city, or just start the trip back home today. Besides, the rest of my team is not here yet. Half of us went to the other group, to warn them against attacking the centaurs.”

Sure enough, some adventurers start arriving at the encampment. Their faces are pale. Some of them are muttering gibberish. I see that there are two stretches, carrying both guys that had their souls broken, they are taken to what seems to be a first aid tent.

One of the adventurers approaches us, extends his hands towards the fire. It seems weird, it is not that cold.

“Hi, friend, “ the steel level adventurer gets close to this guy. “What happened?”

The adventurer that just came looks at the bowl, and starts spasming, and throws up close to the fire. After throwing up on an empty stomach, he recovers enough to talk.

“Didn’t you guys check the battle grounds?”

“No, we just came back. What happened?”

“It wasn’t a fight… It was a massacre… Lady Cecilia told us that the centaurs have very powerful legs, the adventurers fell to their kicks… But… It was a scene of terror. Most of the adventurers are missing their top half, as if something violent just made it… Explode… The amount of blood made the earth soft, roof prints all over the place… Guts spread… Those two in the stretchers are just… Kind of gone. Lady Guina’s head, with her spine, separated from her body… Everytime I blink the picture just comes up on my mind… You have no idea…”

Then the silence. The adventurer with the bowl in his hands steps away from the scene. He looks at me a last time, and mouths a ‘thank you’, before turning around and going his way. Cecilia and the girls arrive. Shandon hugs me from behind, and Muninn and Huginn land on her shoulders.  Muninn then jumps to her arm, and stares at me. I understand what he wants, and I bow down a little.

I see Quiron talking, this is a memory.

“Sir, I don’t know what I can say to measure up to what you did for us. When you are available, please visit us, so that we can show you our gratitude.”

Then he turned around and left, and the memory is gone. Cecilia stands behind me.

“Never a dull moment around you, dear.”

“Right?”

She holds a laugh. The dark feeling around the encampment would make it look bad. Some tents are being taken down, even though it is going to be night. Some people can’t wait to get out of here, they are not even going to sleep the night.

“Where to now, my lord?” Opal asks.

“Let’s go a towards the city, but a little off. Once we are far enough from the others, we can just portal home.”

We do that, and then follow our routine. Wash up, dinner, and bed. The day was tiresome.