The Quantum Wanderer

The next few days I spent on visiting Leopold, Andrew and Rajesh. I am taking a couple of days off from showing my face again among the elves. I am considering even going to a different city, but I am kind of happy with the one I keep visiting. They don’t have many cities as big as that one.

Muninn has mostly accompanied me. Huginn is generally with the girls, but one of those days she stayed behind to take care of the kids. Sophia wanted to do a play date again.

Cecilia informs me that the schools are going to start the following year tomorrow. I ask them where they want to spend the day, they say they want to go to the beach. The dragonesses got a taste for volleyball with the increased gravity, and Cecilia enjoys getting some sun.

Roberta provides the splendid food. I tell her that they may also enjoy a little beach if they want, but Rudolph and Roberta stop the suggestion. They think that we already provide them too much, it might create issues with the maids.

Once we settle on the beach, I notice that the church we used to get married is still there. I decide to take a look.

Amazingly, it is spotless. Not even saltpeter accumulated on the glass shapes that are there. The breaking on the wall was apparently fixed. I wonder who has been taking care of this. Other than missing the cushions, mattresses and the like, the place would appear ready to receive people.

I turn to the one in our group that might know this.

“Muninn, do you know who is keeping the church clean?”

He closes his eyes, and concentrates.

“Father, the dragons look very similar to birds. They can’t really say who it is, but a dragon gets here ever so often. He assumes human shape, then casts a torrent spell, then he dries the place up with fire breath.”

I do have a guess that this might be Troggar. I have to check this later, perhaps reward him. I go back to the girls.

We don’t stay too much on the beach, the timezone difference eats up several hours of sun. We go back home.

Next morning, the girls go to their schools. Since I have the time, I practice the short quantum tele transport. I try to keep my self in the quantum superposition state.

The feelings are weird. It is like some of the information around me flows straight to my consciousness. I exercise expanding the area under my cloud of possibilities, little by little. It sucks the mana away, but I replenish it.

It feels like a soul muscle I am exercising. Something that I have been using too little, so far. When I stop the meditation, I immediately collapse to the place I was in.

I reload my mana actively, with a small portal to a ley line and a sanctuary spell. It works like a charm.

I am going to keep doing this until I can lower the mana usage.

When I look outside, I notice that I have just spent the whole day meditating and working on this. I go to the living room, to check on the girls.

Sure enough, some time later the portal opens, the girls come through. I notice what they are wearing.

“Girls, are you wearing your armor now to the knight school?”

I scratch my chin.

“We are, but we are saying that this was something that we got for our mithril quests. Don’t worry, we are not mentioning that his is enchanted adamantite to anyone.”

I sigh, but the cat is out of the bag already. I don’t know if I should worry so much.

“Ok. Just please let me know about something like this in the future.”

“Did we do anything that displeases you, my lord?” Opal asks.

I smile at her, I approach her. I lay my hand on her face.

“I am not displeased. I am just asking to be informed next time.”

We all go to our room and wash up for dinner.

During dinner, they comment that their armors were the subject of the academy, even if many of the other students were thinking that those were armors that looked better than protected.

For the following days, I keep on meditating. The area under my consciousness grows little by little. No jumps here, no cheats, apparently. Though this thing could already be called a cheat, I guess.

A week goes by. I managed to improve the area I can extend my consciousness to. Even if I did advance a lot in terms of percentual, I did not increase much in terms of absolute distance.

When I started hitting other people’s consciousness things felt weird. I became harder to maintain myself in the superposition state, but then I could also influence a little of their perception.

I go through a lot of mana daily.

A portal in the living room opens up, the girls jump through it. Cecilia and Ruby are exchanging notes about their relative schools, while Aquamarine, Shandon and Opal are talking about some things said in the school.

On the second year, they start having some basic classes on resource management. Notions on assets, materials, disposables, civilian management.

We are having our dinner.

“AAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!” Huginn cries out. There is pain in her voice. A lot of pain. She passes out on the dining table. I extend my mana senses to maximum. She feels feverish, but I don’t sense any infection anywhere. I sense something wrong with Cecilia’s parents, though. I look at Charles and Lucille, they have their hands against their ears.

I grab one plate, fill it with cool water, and I place Huginn laying in it, her head outside, of course.

I am stunned. I look at Huginn. Muninn is lifting her head with his beak, she doesn’t react.

We are all looking at her. I look at my girls. They are as stunned as I am. I look at Lucille and Charles, they are bleeding from their ears. I cast a healing spell on the both of them, and return my attention to the limp bird on the table.

Rudolph enters the room. He sees Huginn passed out on the table. He puts his hand over his opened mouth. I can sense his terror through my mana sense. Cecilia also notices him, she gestures him to go back into the kitchen. He obeys.

I didn’t even notice when this happened but we are all standing up. Ruby comes closer to Huginn. Muninn looks at me.

“WHAT IS GOING ON, PAPA? PLEASE!”

I look at her, then I look at him.

“I… I don’t know.”

I sense a mana boom coming from the girls. It is a mana radar ping as well as an announcement. We are going to find out what is going on.

I look at Opal, she is a little distraught.

“Did you sense anything?”

“No, my lord.”

I examine her. I take a very close look, to the point where I almost look at each cell in her body. The brain looks ok. The heart, lungs, blood, everything seems to be working well.

I take some deep breaths to try to calm myself enough that I can sense her mana channels. I take a very careful look at her mana, and at her soul. Everything seems to be in order. The tree of mana is irradiating from her soul normally, as it should.

“So, how is she?” Cecilia asks.

I shrug.

“I looked at her body, everything looks good. Her mana channels are apparently healthy. Her soul is also looking good. Muninn, can you check her mind?”

“I have been trying that while you were examining her, papa. But her defenses are too high, even unconscious. She is just stronger than me.” His head are down.

I turn to the girls.

“Did you sense any attack? Anything out of usual?”

The five shake their heads. They are all worried with Huginn. I am pulling my hair back.

“Err… Vet?” Charles murmurs, very shyly.

I turn to him. I am still out of it.

“What?”

“Vet. You know, to treat them when they get sick. Don’t you have a doctor to call? A druid, perhaps?”

I am still stunned by all that is happening, I look at the girls. Aquamarine lifts her head.

“The dryads! They might be able to help.”

I nod. Cecilia gets Huginn in her arms very carefully. Muninn looks at her as if she were holding the most precious and most fragile thing on the planet. We can all agree with his feelings.

I open the portal to our home at the elves.

Ypê is in front of table. She has a sad expression.

“We were waiting for you, big brother. You can place her here.”

We place Huginn on the table, and turn towards Ypê that is looking at Huginn very closely.

“WELL?” Muninn asks.

Ypê sighs.

“She is mostly ok, she suffered excess feedback. We felt that as well. But in our case the load is spread among my sisters as well. This happened during sunset, right?”

“Yes.” I answer.

“SO?” Muninn asks, a little impacient.

Ypê is shaking. I can feel the fear, almost papable, coming from her.

“For the past weeks, the Holy Kingdom has been collecting shamans and druids specialized in birds. They were spread on the bigger cities, and they attracted crows in large numbers, very large numbers, to these huge nurseries in the center of town.”

I look at Muninn. He is looking up. His eyes are empty. Ypê continues.

“They burned all of them during sunset in a bonfire. This happened throughout all the country.”

“Is there anyway to help her?”

“Well, big brother, she needs to just rest. Some place with a lot of mana would help.”

I open a portal to a ley line on top of her. We change the water she is in, it already got warm. I look at the girls. They are all worried about our little daughter. It feels like time has stopped.

Weird… Where is Muninn?

***

Leopold’s POV

I am enjoying one of my rare days off. The Equinox is a national holiday no matter where you go in Andrea.

The festival is going on as normal. There are all the stalls one would expect. The one where you hit a target, and someone dressed as Wrax, with a very modeled crow on each shoulder, falls into a big pool of water.

It is a good thing that gods don’t worry about previous names they used to carry. I know Marcelo tries to deny it, but I am almost sure he is Wrax. It is like giving another name to flower, with a round shape, with red petals, that smells exactly like a rose, then saying that it is completely different.

“Aymon to Leopold!”

I smile at him.

“You have were distracted. Work?”

“Not really. I was thinking how they would react if they *knew*.”

He laughs.

“It is all so… Outrageous… I think it is easier to tell get committed to a mad house than any of them believing…”

The sun going to set in another hour. Perhaps less. Once the sky is dark enough, there are going to be fireworks, release by half a dozen fire mages hired by the baron. People look forward to this all year long.

I feel one of my guild’s Comm Gem shake. I really didn’t expect any work today.

“Dear, I have to pick this up.”

He laughs.

“That’s the boss life! Go ahead, I will wait for you here.”

I go to the back of an alley, looking for a more silent place to talk. It is a guild master from a city called Aurora. He tends to be on the efficient side, he used to be in the military. He generally doesn’t call just to chat.

“Good afternoon, sir. I don’t know if this is important or not, but… We have had a bogus quest.”

“Bogus quest? What happened.”

“The church had posted some quests recently, to hire druids and shamans to collect birds for a great flocking, as something to provide a show for the Victory Festival. Turns out they attracted crows. Lots of crows. They are in this huge cage, in the middle of the main square… I don’t think they are planning on releasing the birds…”

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. Fuck me a million.

“How come I am only hearing about this quest now?”

“Do you really want to be notified of every quest we post?” He laughs. “In that case, I will require more people.”

He is right. I only pay attention to big quests. Something small, like a quest for a party to recruit druids, would not show in a map.

“Please check with them what they intend to do, and then notify me.”

Would Marcelo care about this? He likes crows, but is this big enough to piss him off?

I grab another Comm Gem, this one to the guild master in Victoria, another city in the Holy Kingdom.

No answer. The holiday.

I pick another one, no answer. The third one, no answer.

The bottom of the sun touches the horizon. I have a bad feeling about this. Lancelot’s gem again gets my attention. I connect to him.

“Sir… They lit the wood inside the cage into a big bonfire! They are burning all the crows. I think the whole city can smell it.”

I sigh. There is not undoing to this. I am holding the bridge of my nose. I hear some noise through the connection. The noise gets louder. I shout through the Comm Gem.

“WHAT IS GOING ON?”

“Just a minute, sir!”

A couple of minutes pass.

“This is weird, sir, but the animals… I am looking at the main gate, from the observation post in the guild… The animals are all fleeing the city. I can see dogs, cats, rats, horses. Some of them really hurt. They are berserk. One of the guards in the gate didn’t manage to get out of the way in time, he was stomped by the animals. I can hear some noise from downstairs. Just a moment sir.”

The Comm Gem of another guild start shaking. Then another. Then another. I go back to Aymon at full speed.

“Something *bad* is happening. I have to go.”

“How bad? Go where?”

“The guild. I don’t know how bad yet.”

“Do you want me to come with you? If you have to fight something, I can help.”

“You may, you already know the worst state secret there is, but it is not going to involve fighting.”

We both run to the guild. I open it, and we go to my office. The guild in the holiday has this weird air, a place that is normally so noisy completely quiet. Almost haunted.

I lay down a silence spell. I put all the Comm Gems on the couch. All of them are shaking, as if pleading to be answered to.

I pick one at random.

“Sir, the animals inside the city went crazy.” “Sir, the dogs, cats, horses, rats, they are all taking the streets and running.” “Sir, I have never seen something like this.” “Sir, the horses broke the stable and ran.” “Dogs are chewing their leashes and running.” “Some horses died hitting the door with their heads, trying to escape.”

The reports are more and more frantic. I pour myself some hard liquor, and drink it. Aymon looks at me.

“What are you going to do?”

I start laughing.

“There is not much I can do. I they were smart, though, they would be running with the animals. The beasts apparently know something we do not. Haven’t you ever heard that the beast get unrestful before an earthquake?”

The reports continue frantic for some time, but then the urgency start to become less and less. One of the guild masters connect.

“Sir, I have a druid here with me, to try to understand what is going on.”

“Thank you for your initiative. What can he say?”

“Excuse me, lord, but… Even rats, something easy to control, had their minds blocked. It’s as if they were in front of death itself. In front of… I don’t even know. I couldn’t reach them. Neither could I reach dogs or cats. Or horses, for that matter.”

“Was there any kind of animal left undisturbed?”

“No, my lord.”

“Thank you for the information. You may go.”

I wait until I hear the door closing behind the druid.

“Did you also have the quest for the bird flocking?”

“…yes…”

“Did they also burn the crows?”

The silence on the other side answered the question. After some silence, the guild master timidly asks.

“Do you think it is related?”

“Possibly. Probably.”

“What can we do?”

I laugh.

“If it were me, I would have left the city with the animals. But then again, it might be nothing.”

I can almost hear the guild master swallowing air.

Lancelot’s Comm Gem again requires my attention. I connect with him.

“Sir, the stables. Horses and mounting beasts and monsters entered a berserk state, they broke out. They are running through the streets, towards the city exit.”

Of course they did. Aymon brings me another drink.

“Lancelot, I want you to send someone, anyone, into the forest in the area around the city. Check for any signs of animal life. Anything. Report back.”

“Sure, sir, I will have it done.”

There are no instructions. The Comm Gems I don’t answer go less and less frantic. Weapons for adventurers are already controlled in the Holy Kingdom, their armies cannot access anything more useful in the battlefield. Now they have lost, if not all, most of their mount beasts. I don’t pity them, though. I am just worried on how much they are going to drag the guild into their problems.

This animal escape is going to be enough to fuck the country up. Merchants won’t have beasts of burden. If this is also happening around the farms, the food system is going to suffer. No beasts to pull the plow, to carry the goods to the city.

Also assuming that the animals are still running once they hit the forest, there is not going to be hunt prey available either. The hunters will have to go very deep into the forest. One of the guild masters was saying that the “church was making a statement for Wrax.” Apparently someone heard.

I get my Comm Gem that connects me with Edward. He always provided me guidance on this kind of subject.

“Good evening, mister Leopold.”

“Good evening, sir Edward.”

“Can I assume that you are calling me about the animal exodus… Is it real?”

“I don’t know what you have heard, but… I don’t anyone could give you the idea of what is going on. Every guild, on every city. The bag of holding containing the Comm Gems was walking by itself because of the amount of vibration it was getting. I have never seen something so… big…”

I stop myself for a moment. I have seen something this big, when the thousands of dragons flew in a show of force. Because the female dragon asked so. Fuck.

Edward was laughing on the other side of the channel. He probably thought the same thing I did. I continue.

“Anyway, I noticed that the whole thing is nation wide. I asked a guild master to send a party into the forest, just to check if they could see anything weird there, but…”

“But we don’t really expect anything to be found.”

“Yes.”

…

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“Tell the ones you that live in the Holy Kingdom to follow the animals? Anthon already told our ambassador to run. To not even get dressed up. A night in the forest will do him some good. He can always go back the following day.”

He laughs. I sigh.

“Do you know if our friend is involved?”

“There was a big disturbance in the mana when the sun set. Then everything became quiet. I went there, but I was told that the lord of the house was indisposed. I did not insist. You are welcome to try to pry some information out of him if you want.”

I laugh. Lancelot’s Comm Gem vibrates.

“One of my guild masters is trying to connect. The one that sent a party into the forest. I am going to accept the connection.”

I stabilish the connection.

“Sir, the party is here with me. They reported that the forest was silent. Completely silent.”

“Err…” I hear someone in the background clearing his or her throat.

“Speak!”

“Your lordship, sir, that doesn’t really describe it. I have seen undead lands that had more sounds than the forest is producing right now. Everything is gone. Frogs. Snakes. Insects. Worms. It’s as if it became a husk of what it was.”

“Thank for the report, Lancelot. I will get in touch with further instructions.”

I close the connection with Lancelot. The connection with Edward is still on. The Comm Gem to the guild in Angelica start shaking. Very strongly. The guild master is pouring a lot of mana on it.

“There is another guild trying to talk. Please hold on.”

I pick the other Comm Gem and stablish the connection.

“Sir! You won’t believe it, but a huge bird is flying in circles around the city. It is HUGE! About as big as a Fenrir!”