The Quantum Wanderer

At this point, a plant starts growing from the counter. I am used to it, but the sales clerk and the trio are looking at it. It drops the seeds, and withers away.

The sales clerk pushes the two coins back to us. Lu turns to him.

“What just happened?”

“Oh, you came in with him and you don’t know?”

She looks at me, then turns back to the sales clerk. Cecilia has a little wicked smile.

“What?”

“He is the ‘friend of the forest’. His money is no good here. This here is our currency, it is paid.”

Aeson, Tar and Lu are looking at me funny.

Next stop is at one of the weapon’s shops. Aeson looses it when he sees all the bows and arrows available. Some arrows now with dwarven tips, some bows with jewels and enchantments on them. He is jumping all over the store. He ends up choosing something on the common side, a hunting bow and a hundred arrows with mithril tip.

I go to the counter, before I can place the gold coins the same process happens. After the necessary time of silence observing the payment thing, Lu turns to the sales clerk.

“Do you work with staffs? Anything for a mage? Or a berserker?”

He looks up to his left, and scratches his chin.

“There is a mage equipment store three stores down. You are going to enjoy new wares, some staffs have gems that help with mana focusing. They are also going to be able to provide you with robes. Now, for a berserker… We don’t have anything. This you would have to check with the dwarves yourself. As far as I know, they are going to be around next week. We generally don’t stock that kind of thing because there are no buyers.”

I turn to Cecilia.

“Don’t you want a staff?”

She thinks a couple of times.

“That is not a bad idea, but then I just might be able to get it a different way.”

I shrug.

“Ok. Suit yourself.”

We go to the mage equipment. They have several different staffs, of different, chimeric wood. A strong and dense outside, with lighter, mana conducting veins on the inside. There are all kinds of jewels on the top. Several different sizes, several different colors, several different transparencies.

They also have several different robes, together with padding to be worn on the inside. Clothing with thermal control, so that the mage is never hot or cold.  Enchanted rings, enchanted bracelets, pendants. All sorts of mage oriented materials on display.

Lu chooses a staff and some padding to place underneath the new robe she intends to get made with the spider silk. She says it is enough.

Same payment method.

We leave the store, it is already noon. We go to our favorite inn. The line on the door is absolutely huge. We keep walking along it, several elves put their hands over their hearts and bow to us. In front of the entrance Autumnstart is standing.

“Good afternoon, friend! Ladies, mister Charles and wife…”

“Good afternoon, Autumnstart. How are you?”

“I am well. How are you?”

“We are well. Not much to mention, really…”

The girls around me shake their head, indicating there is not much to say. Autumnstart lets out a giggle.

“I see you brought friends. Hi, I am Autumnstart.” He says, extending his hand.

“I am Lu, this is Aeson and this one is Tar. Our party is known as the Requiem Warriors.”

“I am always happy to meet sir Marcelo’s friends. Shall we?”

He goes in in front of us, he holds the chord for us. He sits with us, as always. Lu turns to him.

“Is this your private table?”

Autumnstart cycles through some expressions while the girls sit around the table. First he doesn’t understand. Then he thinks about something, then he looks at me. I don’t really get what he wants me to say. He sighs.

“No, this is sir Marcelo’s table.” He laughs. “Mere council members of the elves don’t have private tables in inns around here.”

“Really? How are you guys organized?”

“Well, our society is a lot more collaborative than then human one. We have hunters, but not really soldiers or guards. Each city has a council. When there is a national decision to be made, the councils each send a couple of people to bring in their opinions.”

“Is there anything above the council?”

He thinks for a minute.

“In a way, there are the dryads. Though they don’t really interact much with us.” He answers.

“The children generally solve their own issues…” The dryad answers. She is on a seat that is a little higher then the others. She has her face on her hands. It looks like she is swinging her legs under the table.

Lu, Aeson and Tar get a scare. Lu puts her hand over her heart. Autumnstart laughs.

“But there is always big brother as well…” The dryad adds, and she laughs.

The trio is looking at her scared. Autumnstart turns to them.

“You will get used to it.”

“By the way, the laughing in the wind is their work as well, you get eventually used to it as well…” I complement.

As if waiting for that, there is a laughter in the wind. Much like the one I heard in the forest during my first visit. The trio feel a chill. I turn to them.

“By the way, you should thank her for the stuff you got.”

“Why?”

“The dryads are the ones that keep spoiling me. Basically, they paid for your presents.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Lu says, towards the dryad. The dryad just shakes her hand in front of her face.

Just like everyday, the rain starts to approach. The food here is very good. It is a pity that Roberta has spoiled my tastes rotten towards any other food on the planet. Of course, the atypical steaks help a lot.

The trio taste everything for the first time, they are all having those expressions of pleasure with every little thing they taste. And the plates are very varied.

At some point, Lu takes a look around, she notices that everyone in the place is looking at our table. She is closer to Autumnstart than me, so she turns to him.

“Why is everyone staring at us?”

He looks at her as if she was asking why rain fell down. He sighs then answers.

“If you were in a place and one of the your gods, the source of all your city, your connection to the forest, appeared… Wouldn’t you look? No other inn in the city has that size of a line outside. This one has it because when friend Marcelo comes, there is a high chance a dryad might appear.”

We nibble on some finger food, mostly nuts. Autumnstart mentions that the trial was the last big thing happening there. Other than that we have some chat about some light subjects.

The rain comes and goes. The bard takes the stage.

“Lo behold! The story of a god

“High in a throne of his own making,

“Answered to prayers, cryes in the wind

“Please save our souls…

This tale starts with a green forest, where beings are only allowed if keeping balance with life. The forest gave birth to souls that are the love from mother life.

But then an irresistible force of chaos swept down from the skies, deciding to feed on these souls.

The brave god tried to spare the cruel dragon, but in the end he was forced to kill it and its father.

The song has several different phases to it, the rhythm changes from something good, to sad, to happy. Aeson was paying attention to the lyrics.

“That is a nice story.” He turns to Autumnstart. “Is it a historical thing or just a legend?”

“Historical.”

“Oh, wow! Something from times of old when gods walked the land! How long ago was that?”

“Three months.”

Lu shokes on a nut, Tar slaps her back.

“That is fantastic! Who was it?” Aeson asks.

The dryad and Muninn start laughing. Cecilia giggles a couple of times. The dragonesses have an expression of ‘are you kidding’ on their faces.

The trio is looking at the dryad and Muninn. Autumnstart sighs.

“Do you really have no idea?”

The trio turn to Autumnstart. He points at me. I shrug.

“Things happened.”

There is a long silence among them. The waitress serves me another wine ale. I take a look at the cup, then I remember hearing that they don’t export wine ale. I turn to Autumnstart.

“Autumnstart, why don’t you guys sell wine ale to outsiders?”

He laughs. He looks at the dryad. I look at the dryad. She does a tee-hee expression.

“We miss the visits from big brother… Big brother can always come here whenever he wants to have some… The best fruit is always on the tree, big brother!”

I smile at the situation. Right now, my visits to them are not bringing any additional benefits, they still enjoy that I visit. I may be soft, but I remember a video I had seen once, with a guy saying.

“I want to be loved by people that will gain nothing from me. When I get old, someone saying that I give them a fucking huge amount of work to them, but they still love me.”

I can’t help but smile.

The rest of the day pass really quick. When we notice, it is already time to go back home, to have our dinner.

We all wash up and go down for dinner. We wait in the dining room. Cecilia is having a blast remembering the shocked faces of our guests, talking about that with her parents.

After some time the trio comes down. Their attitude towards me is changed. It is not so carefree as it was a little while ago. They are tense.

This makes me sad.

I wait till we are all eating the exquisite, and the added liquor helps them to relax. I turn to them.

“You know, I am the same person that you guys knew yesterday, right?”

They become tense again. Lu turns very slowly towards me.

“I am sorry, it is… It is a little too much. They said you killed two dragons!”

Ruby snorts.

“Ha! He killed a council dragon! Two little shits like that are not even a warm up!”

“Thank you, Ruby!”

“Of course, my lord.”

Cecilia is covering her face with her hand. I turn to our guests.

“You guys do remember that I know some weird stuff, right? I just got additional levels, and used those cheats… So… Things happened.”

“Things… Killing dragons…”

Ruby snorts again. I lower my head, that is never good.

“Dragons were the easy ones… Ask him about the kraken…”

“Thank you, Ruby! Again!”

Cecilia, Charles, Lucille and Muninn are laughing their butts off. Ruby is looking at them.

“What? He came back all fucked up!”

Tar looks at them.

“What the fuck is a kraken?”

Shandon answers.

“It is an aquatic monster, not even we challenge it. Dragons have no business going to the deeps of the ocean.”

There is some silence around. Aeson is staring at Shandon for a long time. At some point, he starts saying it, in a low tone.

“Wait… We… dragons?”

Opal tilts her head. Aquamarine looks at Huginn.

“Did we fail to mention?”

“Yes, mama.”

“ARE YOU DRAGONS?” Lu asks, standing up.

Opal sighs.

“Kind of.”

Lu was expecting a yes or no, dragon or something else. Not a kind of. That gets Aeson curious.

“What do you mean, kind of?”

“After a long time eating kraken meat, we evolved.” Opal answers.

“What do you mean?”

“We got bigger and stronger.” Shandon answers.

“Bigger than a dragon?”

“Well, to tell the truth, there are bigger dragons than us. But not stronger. We are very big for females, but we are still a little smaller than an elder. We can still wipe a clan out if we want to, though.” Ruby comments. “All of this because of our lord.”

“Holly shit…” Tar murmurs.

They both fall back on their seats. There is a long pause.

“How powerful are you?” Tar asks Ruby.

Ruby turns to me.

“My lord, do you have a spare claymore?”

I take a look at the bag of holding. I have a spare everything. The vaults from the dwarven cities we freed had all sorts of weapons. I hand it to her.

She grabs it with one hand, and takes a look. She sighs.

“Let’s make it different.” She turns to Tar. “Can I see your claymore?”

He pulls out his sword from his bag of holding. Apparently they have their own bags of holding now that they are mithril level.

She hands him the dwarven one. She turns to Opal.

“Are we going to Shoria tomorrow?”

“We may.”

Ruby holds the blade, by the blade, in front of the trio. Then she cuts the blade with her nail. She then looks at her nail.

“That’s why I don’t like to do this.”

Cecilia intervenes.

“Don’t worry, we are due having our nails painted anyway. We can go a couple of days before.”

My guests stand frozen sitting around the table.

We retire for the night.

Next morning, we come down for breakfast. Our guests are a lot more calm. They even have their spirits light. A night of sleep does wonders.

As the humans finish eating the breakfast, Lu turns to me, in a humored way.

“What are you going to do today? Free a people? Hunt a dragon? Change the weather? Perhaps reforest the Sea of Sand? Create a new continent?”

I laugh. Cecilia is the one that answers.

“Today we are going to have our nails painted. It was going to be a couple of days from now, but Ruby ruined hers yesterday with her demonstration.”

Ruby is chewing, but she nods. She Lu her chipped nail polish. Lu opens a smile.

“Can I go too?”

“Sure.” Cecilia answers. “What does my villain want to do today?”

“I don’t know. Are you girls going to visit Akiko?”

“Yes, I had forgotten about her. Yes, we are going to pass by their house on the way.”

“In that case, I will at least go with you to that point. Other than that, I don’t know. What about you?” I ask Tar and Aeson.

“The plan was to go to the guild, to check out the quests. They just might have something for us, and we don’t have the coffers you guys do…”

We go to our rooms, and reconvene at the living room.

“Muninn, is our room in Shoria empty?”

“I think so, father.”

I open a portal. The room is pristine. We open the door and come out. We go down the stairs, we receive some confused looks from staff.

We wave the receptionist when we pass the counter on the way to the street, we go to Hikari’s manor. We announce ourselves to the guards, they guide us towards the main house.

Lu is walking closer to Cecilia. It looks like she feels Cecilia is more approachable than the others.

“Are all your friends nobles and kings?”

Cecilia giggles a little.

“No, it’s not… like… that…? I hadn’t thought about that till now. There are my parents, of course… Oh, there are two… normal… people… There are also some adventurers, some fellow students in the schools. Though my sisters are not really that friendly with outsiders.”

Aquamarine is listening to the conversation, she pitches in.

“It’s not like that, it is just that… We don’t really any… Gain…? Sister Ruby likes to fight, but she can only fight us. Sister Shandon –“

She gets interrupted by a butler that comes out the door, and courtesy us after hearing our identities from the guard.

“This way, ladies and sir.”

The same thing happens, but this time the girls are with me. We go to a living room, where we wait while Hikari comes down the stairs, with Akiko supporting her.

As they sit down, the Opal and Aquamarine tilt their heads. Cecilia sees that there is something that is unusual, she prefers not to risk on Opal’s social intelligence.

“By the gods, Hikari, you are *huge*! Any day now! Congratulations.”

She gives us a somewhat tired smile. Akiko turns to Cecilia.

“Thank you, honored guest! Yes, it is due anytime now.”

Aquamarine and Opal again frown at that, but we don’t poke them for the information. I gesture towards Lu.

“Hi, Hikari, Akiko. This is Lu. She is an adventurer that shared a couple of quests with me in the past. Lu, this is Akiko and Hikari. They are friends I met in another city. They are in the inn business.”

Lu shakes Akiko hands. She looks at Hikari.

“By the gods! Do you have names already?”

Hikari opens a wide smile.

“I was thinking of going with something from my mother’s land. Toshiro if it is a boy, Tomomi if it is a girl.”

“What pretty names!”

Akiko and Hikari smile, happy.

A maid enters the room, she serves us some tea and some cookies. Even though we are in a noble’s house, it still doesn’t hold a challenge to Roberta’s food. I agree that using elven condiments may be a little of a cheat, but still.

We all sit down. Akiko looks at me.

“Honorable guest, does lady Lu know you?”

That is a strange question.

“She does.”

Akiko shakes her head.

“No, I mean, does she know you?”

Cecilia answers.

“Yes. We trust her with some of our delicate… Characteristics.”

“Oh, how interesting!”

Lu laughs at the exchange. She looks around, to make sure she is out of range of any servant.

“Can I assume she is in some of the secrets?”

“I was in their marriage.” Akiko says, with some pride.

“Really? And you didn’t think of inviting your adventurer friends? Is that because we are poor?”

I laugh.

“I am sorry…? It just happened…?”

Lu sighs.

“How was it?” Lu asks Akiko.

Akiko looks at us, I shrug. At this point, I don’t really care.

“It was unlike anything you could ever imagine…”

Akiko proceeds on telling her about the marriage. She leaves out the incident with Sophia and the idiot. She describes the scene. The church, the dragons.

Lu doesn’t press for further details.

Noon arrives, and we decide to part, Hikari is getting tired. On the street, we part. The girls go to their beauty parlor, while I go to an alley and portal back home.

I go to the guild. I wonder if Tar and Aeson found something. They are dressed as adventurers, they are already on a table. I sit down with them. Griffin is not in the guild for once.

“Hey.”

They lift their cups, I sit down.

“Did you find anything worthwhile?” I ask them.

Aeson produces a paper.

“Yes, there is a escort quest. To a merchant caravan, going to another big city. It is the kind of quest we enjoy.” Aeson answers.

“We don’t like to stay too long in a place.” Tar adds.

“When does it leave?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“Don’t you have to get Lu’s opinion?”

“When you have walked together as long as we have, you already know how the others think. We are going to tell her today, but I don’t think she will object.”

I stand up, and get a mug for myself at the counter. I come back.

“Well, to your health, then. May the quest be easy and pay well.”

We all hit our cups together.

We stay inside the guild, talking about their new quest. It is a big caravan, but the whole thing is going to happen inside the empire, so they don’t expect much trouble. Apparently the roads here are much safer than Arthuria’s.

There a lot of new merchandise floating around lately, apparently. We talk about some other stuff, and soon enough it is time to go back home to wash up and have some dinner.

The girls come through a portal in our living room.

During dinner, after the humans have finished eating, Cecilia turns to Opal.

“Why did you look weird towards Hikari?”

Between one piece of steak and the next, Opal answers.

“Didn’t you notice? With her pregnancy it is a lot clearer.”

Cecilia sighs, impatiently. Aquamarine is the one to answer.

“Neither her nor her child are completely human. They are of mixed race. Didn’t you notice, my lord?”

“No, I didn’t apply a mana sense towards them. It would have been rude.”

“What are they?” Cecilia asks.

“Somehow, they feel a little towards something canine… But Hikari’s mana feels… Amputated, and the hatchling is inside her belly, so it is harder to see. It doesn’t make any difference, though.”

Cecilia is a lot more startled than we are.

Next day the Requiem Warriors leave to meet their new contractors, and we just decide to have another day at the beach, in Drakonia. We take Charles and Lucille with us. The girls really enjoyed their sped up volleyball. Cecilia prefers enjoying the sun.

Next day, after breakfast, the Requiem Warriors say their goodbyes. They go out to meet the caravan and start their slow travel to a city ran by a Marquis nearby. Aeson tells me that he is almost wishing for some bandits to come up so that they can test their new weapons.