The Quantum Wanderer

The breakfast was electric. The girls were commenting on Huginn and Muninn’s powers more than the incident itself.

“What did you do to her?” Cecilia asked.

“Let’s say she had a nightmare, auntie.” Huginn replied.

“You were awesome, girl.” Ruby commented.

Huginn hid her face behind her wing. The thing about Ruby is that she is always sincere. For good or for bad. She doesn’t stay too long in this position though, she gets back to eating. It is a lot of strips of kraken meat to fill that belly. Cecilia turns to me.

“What do you think is going to happen in the Holy Kingdom now?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“They have lost most of their mithril adventurers.”

I shrug.

“I don’t really care. They are going to have to hold on the monster hunting a little bit.”

Cecilia sighs, like there are somethings that I am not quite grasping. I continue.

“What are the plans for today? School?”

“No, we have another tea party with Aisha. We have to check on dresses.” She turns to Huginn. “Daughter, will you come with us?”

I can feel a smile from Huginn, even if I can’t see it.

“I will… auntie.”

I can sense that she wasn’t sure what title to use this time. I guess that Cecilia is a crow tamer as well.  We end up talking about other stuff, when Rudolph comes in with an envelope on a tray. It is an invitation from Edward. It doesn’t mention a time, though.

“Rudolph, what time is this supposed to be? It doesn’t mention anything.”

“Lord, the courier just told me to it is at your discretion, sir. He mentioned that it is nothing too important.”

I turn to the girls.

“Sooner is better than later. What do you say we get dressed and go now? That way we keep the afternoon free for the tea party.”

We all go upstairs and dress in a casual style. We cross the street, and are taken to Edward’s study.

“Hello, sir Marcelo. Ladies. How are you?”

“We are well. How are you?”

“Busy…” He giggles. He gestures towards the sofas, and we sit. Huginn and Muninn prefer a high place, as always. He gestures to his butler that comes back with a maid, and some cold tea and some cookies. After they serve everything on the coffee table, they leave. Edward casts a silence spell.

“I didn’t expect your work to be so… Thorough…”

I shrug.

“It was a little worse than what we expected. What do the reports say?”

“The initial ones are mentioning that around 20 steel level adventurers quit. The report mentioned the sentence, and I am sorry, ladies, ‘fuck this’ being used a lot. The mithril adventurers were divided in two groups. Half of them left the city before any questioning could take place. The other 10 were demanding their payment in full, complaining that the guild allowed a bogus quest.

“There is a scene investigation that is going to happen today, the senior attendant said that the reports are not really trustworthy. What happened?”

“We go there, and Guina said that there monsters similar to horses. Once we arrive in the place, we find out that her ‘monsters’ were centaurs. They are humanoids, sentients beings. We get back to their main attack force, with this information. Their main force was composed of some 40 mithril adventurers… Give or take some, I did not particularly count.

“And that was that. After the battle, the centaurs showed up. They walked around the place, and we went back to report to the other two teams. Now here is some guess work by me. They were intending on having a strong force in front, that could kill the centaur warriors. Probably try to get me in the crossfire. Then the other two forces would encircle them, to try to avoid any escaping.

“There is a village there. Children behind a wood wall dividing their time between playing and learning how to farm the land, how to hunt. All of the centaurs are trying to make their lives work out of nothing. No commerce, no help, nothing. Guina’s idea was to erase them from existence. The guild doesn’t even do that with kind of extinction with monsters.”

“Thank you, a really appreciate your candidness.”

I see that he is looking in the distance, he is thinking about stuff. I am a little curious.

“What now?”

“The most immediate thing is to choose a new master for the Upper Echelon. We are set on Leopold.”

“For the Holy Kingdom?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t they have some dogmas on homosexual couples?”

“Yes, and that helped the decision. We want someone that is more detached from the country’s politics. We know that he is going to be extremely professional, and not hold their religion against them, while not ever being enticed to create a following like lady Guina. It is going to be healthier.

“On the other side, we don’t know what is going to happen. The shortage of people there is something we haven’t ever seen. Mithril adventurers are rare and expensive already. That quest in particular was a very expensive one, and yet it was only able to get almost twenty mithrils from other countries. I am not even sure if there is a guild to maintain there anymore. We are not making Leopold a favor.

“He is going to lead a broke guild, both in terms of money and in terms of people.”

I giggle. I am sure that Leopold is going to appreciate the challenge. Cecilia swallows a piece of cookie.

“What about merchants travels?”

“Either bigger steel groups, or soldiers. They should still have some high level people in the army. They could redirect them to policing work.”

I shrug.

“At least the adventurers are going to get well paid.”

“Definitely.”

“Is there anything you wanted from us, other the learning what happened?”

“I was wondering if there is any cure for the two adventurers that are in recovery.”

I giggle.

“No. Their soul is gone.”

“What? They still breath.”

I shrug.

“They should not ever awaken. Not as themselves, anyway. The soul is this thing that makes you into you. It is the continuous thing that makes sure that the body that went to sleep is the same person that woke up. I was running an experiment on them, so…” I make an expression that they are gone.

Edward’s expression was a lot somber than I thought. The Holy Kingdom have just lost about 40 mithril adventurers, and he is worried about two of them. His math feels weird.

We chat a little bit about the marriage, that is now going to happen in less than 3 weeks. I learn that the girls are going to do a wedding dress fitting.  I ask them if they want me there, I receive a very loud no.

Once we get home, I call Rajesh on the Comm Gem. Besides the normal amenities, he asks me if we can invite Sidhu over, so that he can see Muninn and Huginn. I tell him that Huginn is going to stay with the girls, but if Muninn doesn’t mind, I don’t see why not.

After the girls refresh a little bit, we portal over to Rajesh’s place.  As we step out of the portal, Sidhu is kowtowing in front of the portal. I look around, and Rajesh and Aisha are standing up, but the two guards and 2 maids that were also in the room are also kowtowing.

“Hi, good afternoon. You may, huh, stand up…” I say. This level of reverence still makes me feel a little weird. Although a lot has happened, life has been so fast. 

Aisha comes close to us.

“Good afternoon, lord Marcelo. Girls.” She lightly bows to the me and the girls.

“Yo, what about me? Sure, fuck the crow.” Muninn says. Huginn jumps on my head, pecks him a couple of times on top of his. After a couple of ouchs, she stops. Still on top of my head, she clears her throat.

“I am very sorry for his behavior. Apparently he keeps the manners he had when he only had two eyes.”

I laugh for a little while. Cecilia’s face is red. Ruby is smiling towards the crows, while Aquamarine is trying to study the room.  Shandon and Opal are not fazed at all. Rajesh explodes with laughter, while the other demons are still bulging their eyes. With Rajesh’s laughter, I go back to laughing some more.

Sidhu was standing up when this happened, he just fell back into a kneeling position. The guards and the maids look at him, to get what response would be appropriate. He just stands up.

“Greetings, Great Adventurer.” He says, and he does a gesture that I don’t really recognize, he crosses his forearms, switching which one is the front one three times, and holds that position. I had seen something similar to it in a religious place in Rio, so I end up following the protocol I had learned. I bump the middle of my right forearm with his, then I bump the other one.

He looks at this, and his face lights up. He apparently liked it. Good for him. Aisha clears her throat.

“Good afternoon, sir…”

“Muninn, as father named me.” Muninn answers.

“Good afternoon, sir Muninn. What is her name?”

“She is Huginn.”

“Good afternoon, lady Huginn.”

Huginn does a courtesy, by opening her wings a little and then bowing her head a little. She looks at Muninn. He startles as if someone had jumped him, and does the same. Rajesh is removing a tear from laughing so hard. Aisha sighs.

“That being said, girls, we have a lot to talk about. Sir Marcelo, can I ask a favor?”

“Sure…”

“Can I ask you to open a… traveling magic to the dwarves’ palace? If you and the ladies don’t mind, I would like to invite lady Dyrgja and lady Davina to our tea party. They got in touch with us, they want to help with the wedding.”

“Sure, I don’t mind. Are they aware already?”

“Yes, they should be waiting for the magic buble, in the room that you generally use for such.”

I open a portal there. Shortly after, both dwarves come through the portal. They both bow to us. We bow back.

“Sir Marcelo, ladies-” Dyrgia starts, but gets interrupted by Aisha. “And crows.” Aisha says, giving a small step forward. She tilts her head to the side, but rolls with it. “ and crows, good afternoon.”

Rajesh and I start laughing again. Then Muninn joins the laughter. Huginn lower her head, and shakes it. After I stop laughing, I notice Sidhu in the room, and it occurs to me.

“What about inviting Sidhu’s wife for this as well? An additional pair of eyes can always help…”

Cecilia looks at Sidhu, and now he has puppy eyes. The funniest puppy eyes I have ever seen. This absolutely huge demon, above 7 feet tall not counting the horns, big as a door, doing puppy eyes. Aisha relents.

“Sure.” She turns to a guard. “Go fetch Sidhu’s wife.”

The amount of absurds that have just happened ended up numbing this guy a little bit. Aisha raises an eyebrow at him.

“GO!”

The guard goes running out the room. Aisha sighs, and turns back to us.

“That being said, shall we go? We have a lot of things to check today.”

Dyrgia steps forward, and turns to us, the guys.

“We were under the understanding that you guys are going to convene while we work on the wedding plans… May I ask if there is any secrecy involved?”

I shake my hand, pushing my lower lip up. Nothing comes to my mind.

“May we invite Dávrin? He would love nothing more than participate in your circle…”

Now she is the one doing puppy eyes towards me. I look at Rajesh, and she focuses her puppy eyes on him. He laughs.

“Never EVER a dull moment! Sure! The more the merrier! A lot better than having to mingle with idiotic nobles! And I have the best excuse ever!”

Out of the portal, with his boom laughing, comes Dávrin. I look behind him, I can see that Brokkr is there as well. Not really my place, but I decide to go with the flow.

“Care to join us as well, master Brokkr?”

He comes jumping through the portal before anyone could change their minds. Dyrgia is shaking her head. Aisha sighs again.

“Anyone else?”

“No.” Dyrgia responds.

“In that case, shall we?” She gestures towards the door. The girls all leave. We the boys stayed behind in the room.

The girls all leave the room. Rajesh gets to the maid, that is still kowtowing on the floor. She only stood up for a short while, when Muninn talked she went back to kowtowing, and was in that position till now. He touches her shoulder.

“You can stand up.”

She doesn’t move. Rajesh sighs. He gets closer, and whispers in her ear.

“If you don’t stand up, you are going to leave the Great Adventurer thirsty.”

Muninn and I laugh a little. The maid stands up. She takes out a little block of paper from her pockets, and a pencil. Rajesh turns to us.

“What are you having?”

Everyone is silent, I am the first to go.

“There is that liquor that is delicious.”

“Gem fruit liquor for his holiness…” Rajesh then points to Sidhu.

“Some dry leaf juice?”

“Seriously, Sidhu? Not even today? Come on, perhaps a light ale?”

Sidhu sighs. “Ok, light ale.”

Rajesh repeats the order for the maid.

“Lord Dávrin?”

“We need something with a spunk!”

Rajesh thinks for a moment.

“Get three distilled amarandia. I will have one as well. I am feeling that I am going to need it.”

The maid leaves the office, with a hurried pace. Rajesh turns to us, and gestures towards the sofas. We all go towards them, and Rajesh sits on one, still having a couple of giggles.

“Your spirits seem high, lord Rajesh!” Dávrin starts the conversation.

“I have been laughing for a long time now, lord Dávrin. You should know, there is never a dull moment around our lord Marcelo here.”

I shrug.

“It’s not like I search for these things, they just happen. Cecilia made the same comment some time ago.”

“And what happened?” Rajesh asks.

“We got attacked by something. I don’t even remember. There has been so much happening…”

“Yes, we are aware…” He giggles. Dávrin looks at him.

“What happened?”

“With lord Marcelo? You have to be a lot more specific… Since when? Where?” Rajesh giggles.

Dávrin and Brokkr laugh as well. Brokkr is the one to answer.

“The stuff on our side would make a book already.”

“Really? What did he do on your side? I know that the dwarves are gone from the surface. Our cities used to have some as well, but they all just decided to leave at around the same time.”

Dávrin looks at me, as if asking for permission to talk. The situation is a little unusual, but I am not really keeping secrets from the group here. I just shrug. The intel is more his than mine.

“He cleaned a nest of ants that had invaded one of our cities. By himself. In 15 minutes or so.”

I laugh.

“Not by myself, the girls were with me. And also not even close to 15 minutes. We spent hours on that.”

Rajesh laughs.

“By the gods! Now it makes sense! You spend half a day! Now it seems feasible…” He is laughing. He turns to Sidhu.

“Sidhu, my friend, how would you go about a nest of ants?”

“I would have to make it a war of attrition, starting with the workers, working with traps, and then going my way up. It would have to be a whole army effort. At least 3 months…”

“And how long did it take you, lord Marcelo?”

“A little less than two hours…?” I say, trying to defend myself, but I realize that it is a little bit above normal.

Rajesh is laughing, slapping his leg. Dávrin clears his throat.

“But... What has happened, lately?”

“Have you heard about the guild bogus quest in the Holy Kingdom?”

“The news have reached us, yes. It is said that the centaurs decimated a group of dozens of mithril level adventurers… There another papal edict, condemning violence against fellow humanoids. If I am not mistaken, something saying that humans should keep Nergal’s clemency in their hearts.”

Rajesh has a smile on his face.

“What do you think is more probable? Centaurs that were not ever reported as a strong species, and were thought extinct, to decimate around 40 of the highest leveled adventurers in the Holy Kingdom, or lord Marcelo here deciding that they messed up?”

“Oh!” Dávrin says. He and Brokkr look at me. I give them a yellow smile. They both turn to me.

“So, what happened?”

“Do you remember the Esdohr incident?”

I am asking mostly Rajesh, that nods. Dávrin laughs.

“All of a sudden a group of dwarves come out one of those blobs, claiming that Wrax had come to liberate them! It took a lot of convincing to let them know that they had been saved by our friend.”

Brokkr is laughing as well.

“We now have a church! I am not kidding…”

“It took you this long?” Sidhu asked.

Rajesh giggles.

“This is his excellency Sidhu, the pope for the Great Adventurer church.”

Sidhu clears his throat, a little embarrassed.

Dávrin is passing his hand over his beard.

“We might exchange some Comm Gems to keep in touch. I am sure that Marcelo’s church leader would love to exchange notes with you.”

Sidhu nods.

Rajesh turns back to me.

“So there was the Esdohr incident. What happened?”

“The captain there was the only son of this lady Guina.”

“Did you know her?”

“I had met her before, but we were not particularly close. I am not particularly close to anyone in the Holy Kingdom. I do know a couple of people from Arthuria and the Empire, but nothing of note. Anyway, she created a guild quest to purge these monsters that were threatening people in Angelica.

“She never really mentioned the monster race, but there was this big expedition. In front of it there were some 40 or something mithril adventurers. She was probably intending to use this to take revenge for her son. That didn’t go as planned.”

“So you just killed them.” Rajesh said in a matter of fact demeanor.

“Actually, I didn’t do much. Ruby. She wanted the exercise.”

“The reports were almost suspicious. They mentioned that a lot of the surviving adventurers got away from there in the same day. Some of them started the process to retire from the guild.” Rajesh mentioned.

“I heard that someone had their spine yanked out of their body with their head!” Dávrin mentioned. Sidhu and Rajesh shiver.

“That was wifey. Boy, was she pissed!” Muninn mentions. Rajesh nods, but the dwarves didn’t know about Muninn’s evolution yet.

“You… talk?” Dávrin asks, his eyes bulging.

“Father… We have a genius here!” And he laughs.

I feel bad for Dávrin. I turn to Muninn.

“Don’t be an asshole!”

“Ok. “ He does a courtesy to Dávrin and Brokkr. “I am sorry.” He turns to me. “Better, papa?”

Dávrin nods. I answer Muninn.

“Yes, thank you.”

Rajesh is still curious.

“You mean that lady Huginn, the other… I am sorry, what are you guys…?  Did that…?”

“I would normally say that I am what you see, but right now I am shape shifted into this size, and I softened a couple of things. As for a name, I have no idea. There were no previous ‘me’. And yes, wifey did that. I tried it later with that screamer, but it just didn’t work right.”

Rajesh looked at me.

“After we had our misunderstanding with Guina and her adventurers, the centaurs popped up. I asked them to leave hoof prints all over. They had a bad face, but did it. Our group split up, and we placed the adventurers killing on the centaurs. Good for them, good for us. One of the guys in my group shout something like ‘for our brothers UUUUU!’ and went to the clearing. I sent Muninn to take care of him, so that the story would stick.”

Rajesh and the dwarves, Muninn and I  are loosing our breaths with the laughter. Sidhu is the only serious one.

“I am telling you, shit just happens.” I say. “Most of the time, I am not even the one doing the deed.” I turn to Muninn. “Remember the guard you bullied?”

“Come on, father, you laughed as well.”

Rajesh intervened.

“Yes, it was funny.”

I sigh. Rajesh is really not helping. It is already very hard to try to make Muninn less of an asshole. Dávrin and Sidhu are eating this up. Brokkr is enjoying the drink. I relent.

“I get out of this portal, Muninn on my shoulder. I turn to the guard, and I say something, the guard passes out. I can only imagine what went through his mind. Later on, we are walking around, and we see the same guard. Muninn gets the guys attention, opens his third eye, and then does this… “ I gesture like I threaten an attack. “ And the guy goes under again.”

Everyone laughs, I remain kind of serious.

“Come on, father… It was funny…”

I look at them.

“You guys are creating an asshole, and that is going to hurt you in the future…”

“No it won’t!” Rajesh mentioned.

“How do you figure that?”

“We just have to keep lady Huginn around…”

We all laugh. Except Muninn, that mutters.

“Everyone is a fucking comedian…”

We laugh even harder.