The Quantum Wanderer

We meet Autumnstart in by the door, he has his wife with him.

“Good evening, friend! Ladies…”

“Good evening, Autumnstart. Lady…”

Autumnstart goes to the side, the girls enter the place. I let Autumnstart go ahead of me. We all sit on our private table.

“How are you, friend?” Autumnstart asks.

“We are all well, thank you. What about you?”

“Very well. I have never seen the forest so green… And, on our side, things improved as well.”

I smile.

“I am happy to hear. What happened?”

“We stablished a whole new commerce with the dwarves. They are selling metal work and devices that really help us. We are good on some things, but they are good on others. The price on Comm Gems have also dropped, and those are so useful!”

The rain starts. It has a soothing, relaxing sound.

I smile. It makes me happy that people are getting together, exchanging goods. Each people have their way of contributing to the whole.

Most of the goods are still destined for nobles right now. There is a lot of concern of loosing national sovereignty, and being able to survive by oneself is always a good thing. But still, prices are dropping, meaning people are becoming more expensive than food or goods.

“Congratulations! Seems like it is a win-win.”

“Win-win? What do you mean?”

“It is something that some people would talk about in the land I come from. Whenever you have commerce, you can have a party gaining advantage on the other. That is called a win-loose situation. You can have a situation where something happens, and both sides loose. That is a loose-loose. And when everybody improves their quality of life, it is called a win-win.”

“Why not just say what happened? Why would you have terms for that?”

I think for a little bit. Words have meaning, words have power. If you manage to insert meaning, you can subvert even sentences where everyone would agree.

“If I can guess a little bit, I would say that it is a way to tell new merchants to also care about the other side is getting out of the deal. If you force a bad situation on the other side, so that you can get away with a win-loose, then the other side is going to remember it. They will stop doing business, even if it becomes a loose-loose by doing so.”

I look down the table, Cedro is nodding while smiling. The bard is on the stage, preparing his lute. I start paying attention. I wonder which song he is going to play today. After tuning his instrument, he starts with his melodical voice.

“Lo behold! The story of a god…

“High in his throne, dispensing blessings

“When false prophets of a dark god

“Decide to sacrifice a whole species…”

The song tell a tale of a country of wicked priests that intend to create a sacrifice of pain and suffering that may be taken to heavens, to attack the benevolent god.

It is amazing how he wins the crows. After the first verses, it is noticeable that the audience is angry at that wicked.

The pain and death is toxic to the benevolent god’s messengers. The forest begs for clemency against the sinful, and the result is that their capital is destroyed.

The audience applauds the attack on the wicked. I am pretty sure this bard could sell sand in a desert.

Once he finishes the main song and applause dies down a little, he continues on with other songs in his repertoire.

I move my chair a little bit to the left. I am at the head of the table, obviously. I turn to the dryad.

“Cedro, can you come here for a minute?”

She shrugs, but then she comes over. She sits down while a chair appears from the floor for her.

“How can little me help big brother?”

“Explain to me why you guys thought of this griffon thing?”

“Nothing too particular, big brother. I mean… You enjoy humans, you enjoy dragons, you enjoy demons, you enjoy elves… We just though you might enjoy… You know, just trying to help…”

“But I am married. Happily married at that.”

She murmurs some sounds, shaking her hands with the palms up, back and forth.

“You didn’t look too worried in the festival…”

“But that was something arranged by my wives!”

“Ooohhh… So that’s what we are doing wrong! Got it.”

Cecilia, at this point, is almost falling off the chair. The dragonesses are interested in the talk, nodding at each question and answer. It looks more like they are in a classroom.

“Besides, are they sentient? Can they assume humanoid shape?”

“Those questions are hard. WE didn’t know dragons could assume human shape. It’s not like we ever saw one giving lessons in philosophy to an adventurer…”

Now Cecilia is slapping the table. I am trying to keep a straight face. Autumnstart is sweating bullets to keep a serious face. Muninn and Huginn… They are just rolling on the table. The dryad ignore them all.

“And everyone always says they are beautiful. Elves, humans, dwarves, they look at them, open their mouths, and say ‘how beautiful’… I mean, I’m just saying…”

“And why do you to help this so much? Is there *anything* in there for you?”

She looks down, doing this guilty expression. She has her hands closed, just the index finger extended, and she keeps putting them together. She murmurs something, and I ask her to speak a little louder.

“We thought that a couple of griffons would be more… Beings eating in your house…?”

She is being honest, I can’t be angry with that.

“Ok. That is not the way to do any of this. First, I am not looking for additional people. Second, this is the kind of thing that you have to bring to the girls. I am a hypocrite. I don’t allow them to have other males. So any other females I have has to be offered by them. It is the least I can do.

“Third, things should go in a natural way, not like this.”

“Ok…” She looks a child that received a scolding. “Just don’t be mad at us, big brother…”

“I am not.”

“Ok, then!” She says, and disappears on the wooden floor.

“FATHER! FATHER! I think bullgoose are in heat! That is a permanent hard-on!”

Huginn grabs his beak with her paw and holds it against the table. Autumnstart and his wife sweat a little more. Ruby lets out a snort. Cecilia is almost falling to the ground.

I laugh as well. That was not bad. As always, the rest of the inn is half watching the show, half watching our table.

Huginn still holding Muninn’s beak, calls me.

“Papa, look.”

She points with her wing the two maids are by the door of the inn. I gesture them to come sit with us. The come in and sit in the table. The waitress comes over.

“Go ahead, ask whatever you want. My favorite here is the wine ale.”

Roberta gets curious, and both she and the helper order a cup. They enjoy the drink as well. Cecilia stops crying from laughing so hard, and we turn our attention to the pleasant music.

Autumnstart and I talk about some light subjects, since he doesn’t really have much more information than I do about the current state of things. He has some suppositions on how the war is going to tilt towards the demons, with the exit of the empire and the Holy Kingdom from it. The troops at the front already noticed a lack of communication, they are going towards their country to investigate. It is a long trip, though.

After the bard is done, and the day is close to getting done, we go back to our house. We then portal back home.

The two maids go straight into the kitchen. Shandon turns to me.

“My lord, quick question… Why did we get to our house in the elves before opening the gate? Don’t they know about it already?”

That is a good question. Opal turns to her.

“For fire’s sakes, sister! You are growing too spoiled! We should not question our lord!”

“Ahnnn… I don’t mind. Actually, I prefer if you do question. I understand where both of you are coming from, and I love you both for it. But I should be questioned, specially because one of you might come up with a better solution to a problem. That being said, I didn’t have to, you are right. But I didn’t want anyone else to jump through it either. Perhaps next time we can just portal from somewhere closer.”

We wash up and come down for dinner. We go to our room to have our short nap before the night.

Huginn wakes us up, we go to the next city. A big one.

This time, there are no soldiers inside merchant houses or inns. The news are starting to get out. People are noticing.

There is a camp of adventurers outside the town. The high clergy fled. The barracks still have a lot of soldiers, they are not occupying houses in the city anymore.

Huginn starts with the camp outside. Instead of locking people out, she increases the gravity of the area, by 20 times. Tents tremble and collapse over their now much increased weight. Lower level adventurers, on their level 30, have a hard time not passing out. Higher level adventurers can craw.

She starts her work. The flames are seen from the wall, the signal is given. Bells. The guards combust.

She flies over the barracks, closing it. The fire inside starts, from the walls to the center. Something that can’t be put out. That no amount of water can make supportable.

The cathedral is empty. She decides to send a message. She explodes it. Parts of walls and the stronger structures remains in a scene of destruction.

She flies back to the adventurers encampment, and start burning certain tents. She burns around 6 tents. She comes back to us.

“They are trying to run, so I am going to give chase to some. I will be hopping from portal to portal, papa. I don’t know if this is interesting.”

“Ok. Suit yourself. Muninn, you’re going to with her, right?” I ask the other brân.

“I suppose, father.”

We open a portal and go home. The start of the operation was quick. We get back to bed. Aside from a bullgoose, I don’t see much that can be thrown at them.

I am a little curious if this preparation only happened on this city or if the information is spreading already. There are a couple of things I noticed, though. The merchants immediately abandoned their protection, generally guards that were off duty.

The guards themselves were not sleeping in their own houses. They were all concentrated in the barracks. The high clergy trying to escape was kind of obvious. I wonder what they are attempting, and if Huginn is going to anything about that.

I don’t think I have to help her, though. If she asks, of course I will. But if she doesn’t, then I am going to let her do her own thing.

We sleep a little bit, and wake up with the sun. We go down for breakfast a little later than usual, but then sleeping in was good. Huginn and Muninn are already back.

After breakfast, Roberta comes to the table with a maid in tow.

“Lord, this Maria, she is the one that is selling the condiments.”

“Hi Maria.”

She immediately bows.

“IAMSORRYLORDPLEASEFORGIME.”

“Huh? Calm down. Everything is ok.”

“Roberta told me that you found out.”

“Yes, but Huginn has known about the hooded maids for a long time...”

“Eeek” She straights up, acting robotically.

“It’s ok. She actually kept an eye so that you wouldn’t be jumped on the streets.”

“Thank you, lady Huginn.”

“Sure, no problem. When I asked them help with it, they all volunteered. You know, we all notice kind souls. It pays to feed a crow.”

“That is my pleasure. They are so… Cute…”

Huginn laughs out, her musical laughter. Maria is looking at her, probably wanting to pet. I tap the table, calling Huginn. She hops close, I pet her on the chest.

“Father, please, don’t touch my wife’s tits!”

I take out the hand, out of reflex. Muninn gives a little pause, and starts laughing, together with Ruby, then Charles and Lucille. He got me. We all laugh. The two maids try to keep their composure. They do a courtesy and go back into the kitchen. Shortly after, there is some laughter from the kitchen. I sigh.

“Anyway, what are the plans for today?”

“Not much on our side.” Cecilia says.

“What about you, Huginn? Are all the cities already in the know?”

“Some are, some are not. Some of the information has reached through merchants that have Comm Gems to other places. I am keeping an eye on all the harbors, these are the main transportation they can use right now.”

“You are going to have a lot of work then.”

“Yes, papa. If only I wasn’t such a hard worker…”

“Did you already start with the boats?”

“There were a lot of ports. Around the targeted cities, though, there were only around 30. I visited them and burned all the army’s boats.”

“What about the other ones? They can try to use the merchants’.”

“Papa, have you ever heard the expression superstitious as a sailor?”

“I can’t say I did.”

“Sailors are very good on connecting the dots. Specially when some of them decide money is not more valuable than lives.”

I just nod. This kind of gets me curious about what legends they are spinning.

“Oh, my, this is going to be interesting.” Huginn says all of a sudden.

“What happened?” I ask.

“A group of adventurers is arriving in one of the cities that has not been processed yet. He is going straight to the guild.”

“What about the city from yesterday? They knew what was happening, right?”

“Yes, but the information came from soldiers. The people camped outside didn’t really know what was going on. The bishop from that city and some high level commanders kept the information to themselves.”

“The preparation we saw was because the gossip did not reach the adventurers. The guards that stayed were not quite believing the tales. The cities are spread out over a very large area.”

The three great nations were huge in size. Each of them were thousands of miles wide.

“There is a lot of movement inside the guild. People are banging on tables. I can’t make out what they saying, though. The guy that came into the city is on the stairs, saying some stuff. Oh, guild master is by his side.”

Cecilia and I are looking at Huginn.

“Can you place a bird there?”

“I will try, papa.”

We sit on the couch, while Huginn prepares for the show. After a few moments, she starts projecting in our minds.

We are looking in from high above. The bird is on a beam close to the ceiling. Some people is still looking at it with some concern. One of the guys in the stairs claps his hands, calling everyone else. I would guess that he is the guild master, his clothes are more towards nobles than adventurers. He is not wearing armor. The other guy on the stairs is.

“Do you think this was a one time thing?”

“Master, I don’t think so. I think this is going to happen everywhere.”

Someone in the back of the room asks a question.

“What if we run?”

“I saw some that tried. They didn’t make it far.”

“But we could start right now…”

“Be my guest.”

“If adventurers were targeted, how come you are alive?”

“I don’t know. Some adventurers were targeted. The places they were caught on fire.”

“Master, is the guild going to allow us to rent weapons?”

“I don’t know. The upper echelon has been silent for some days now.” He turns to the guy on the stairs.

“Were the adventurers that were killed part of the quest for the Holy Kingdom? The one about the crows?”

The guy on the stairs stops for a moment. Someone starts speaking, but gets hit on the shoulder. A strong hit.

“I… I think so, master.”

The guild master lowers his head and closes his eyes.

“What is going on, master?” Another adventurer, in the middle of the crowd, asks.

The guild master is shaking.

“They made me provide a list. I named the parties and adventurers that participated in that quest to the upper echelon.”

The crowd is slowly becoming a mob. Some of them are really pissed at the guild master, they are going up the stairs, slowly. The guild master go up one step, they also go up one. They are moving like predators, without hurry.

After three steps, the guild master runs and locks himself in his room. The crowd goes after him. Our point of view is changed. Now we are looking into the guild master’s office from a tree close by.

Some adventurers are leaving the guild. They have conflicted expressions. The door at the guild master’s office start shaking. Even with the incantations, there are a lot adventurers outside. They are really forcing it.

He has the Comm Gem to Leopold, he is frantically trying to use it. The door finally explodes. The adventurers pour in.

“YOU BETRAYED US! THE GUILD BETRAYED US!”

They start destroying the furniture. The guild master takes out a sword from his bag of holding. The mob is berserk already. They advance towards the guild master, that manages to kill 3 adventurers before being injured on his shoulder, dropping the sword.

A barbarian punches him, he falls to the ground. The crowd start beating him senseless, and it is hard to see what is going on, until one of them raises the head of the guild master, still dripping blood. They all celebrate.

One of the big ones takes a look at the desk and identifies the Comm Gem, apparently. Some mages come forward and pour their mana on it, making it shake that much harder on the other side.

Those guys are persistent. They keep always 3 mages on the Comm Gem, pouring mana. We are getting bored, and I am about ask Huginn to let it go, when we hear the voice from the other side.

“Yes?”

There is a lot of shouting around. Most of them cursing the guild, the upper echelon, the guild master. Most of it is just ranting. Some of them are starting to elaborate bigger sentences. They take a long time trying to vent their frustration.

The barbarian gestures everyone to calm down. He is apparently the leader.

“Why? Why did you snitch on us?”

“Because it is better to loose some than all.”

The noise grows back up. People are back to cursing. Some time passes, the barbarian gestures them again to calm down.

“Explain.”

“Have you heard that Angelica is no more?”

“WHAT?!?”

This time, no one in the room manifests.

“Angelica is no more. And I am not saying that it was overran by monsters. I am saying that it became a lake. A fucking lake. A mile wide lake.

“So I dreamed of a crow, accompanied by dragons. In the dream, the crow said to me ‘You can list the guilt, and I will judge them, or you can let them all perish.’”

“But you could have told us! We could go into hiding!”

“At what price? The ones around you that were not involved in the crow sacrifice… Should they burn in your stead?”

The crowd’s mood starts changing. Some people are looking at each other. The adventurers that participated in the crow slaughtering is perhaps a tenth of the adventurers in the city.

“But the guild provided the quest!”

“I didn’t approve the quest. The guild master did. Is he still alive? You can probably complain to him.”

“What do we do now?”

“Were you involved in the crow quest?”

There is a silence around. One guy in the room answers, stuttering.

“I-I was…”

“Are you a druid?”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry to hear that. Good luck. There are two problems with the whole thing. First, you all had a reaction of fighting for your lives, now that you know that they are on the line. If you had fought like that, you might have survived. And then, even though you have the connection to the wild life, and you were oh so sad that the Holy Kingdom did what they did… Did you try to help the chicks?”

“No, I didn’t think…”

“A fucking druid didn’t think that the animals sacrificed would have hatchlings? WHO TAUGHT YOU?”

“I – I am sorry I…”

Leopold is laughing on the other side.

“You better be. But it is not me you have to apologize to. I don’t think they are going to hear, though. Have you ever tried to negotiate with a dragon? With a god?” Leopold laughs, almost maniacally. He continues.

“Everything I did was based on the oracle I received in the dream. It’s not like I am the one doing anything. All I did was to make sure not all of you have to die.”

The silence goes around. At this point, someone points straight at us.

“Boss, that bird is looking weird at us!”

Another adventurer, a mage, starts casting. The barbarian throws him against the wall.

“ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID?!? YOU FUCKING MORON! THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY KILLED CROWS, AND YOU WANT TO FUCKING FRY ANOTHER BIRD?? YOU COULD HAVE US ALL KILLED!!!”

The people around him, that just prior the screams were not paying attention, now are very pissed at the mage. They start kicking the guy. I laugh a little.