The Quantum Wanderer

We all portal to Leopold’s office.

“Hi, how are you? How are things?”

“Everything is about the same…”

“That’s not what my little birds have been singing. First, the mother and daughter of a certain inn, that moved to another city with your letter of recommendation. And then, the coincidence… The son of one of the Justices disappeared. And there has been some problem among the Justice from Arthuria and the Justice from the Holy Kingdom. You wouldn’t know anything about that, right?”

Cecilia was laughing.

“Nope. How are Akiko and Hikari doing?”

“They are settled, and their new inn is working without hitches. They actually choose another noble vacation city, this one with beaches.”

“Thank you, I appreciate the guild’s help on this matter.”

“No problem. And then, I heard that there is a new religion among the demons. Apparently, a god of knowledge descended upon them. And he brings some revolutionary ideas. I hear the school project is really taking off.”

I laughed a little. Siratra turns to me.

“School project?”

“Well, when I was last there, visiting Rajesh, he had a crow problem, and asked for my help. We went to the church, and there is a orphanage by the church. I suggested that he educated those orphans, so that he could improve on the quality of the population. Apparently he liked the idea.”

Leopold laughed.

“I believe he did. With all the things happening at the demons empire, should I start learning their language? It would probably be useful in the future.”

He laughed hard, I only chuckled.

“I think I may even change my religion. I even managed to get hold of a sacred memento.”

“Oh no, please tell me you didn’t.”

He laughed harder.

“Yes I did.”

He brings out this 12 inch wood statue of a person, with one crow in each shoulder. I hold the bridge of my nose. Siratra, that has not been there for some time, is astonished. Cecilia picks the little statue up and gives a close look. She whispers in my ears, “apparently, some worshipping is in order…” I cough and laugh at the same moment. The dragonesses, apparently, think that this is all just normal. Leopold snaps it back from her hand.

“Hey, this is a sacred figure from my new church. Hands off!”

If I were in a normal state, I would have laughed, but Cecilia knows how to push my buttons.

“Do you think the human lands know anything about this?”

“Just the upper echelon in the guild. I was given this by them. By Edward, actually.”

“Do they have a book as well? I was curious.”

“Not books, but the spies informed that crows are apparently sacred now. They have laws against having them in cages, and killing one…”

“Yes, that was part of my last visit. But I think that I may have scared a priest…”

I told them what happened. The visit, the crow population issue, the orphanage. At that point, Leopold scratched his chin.

“You could give us the orphanage idea as well.”

“I just did. Go ahead. For all I care, you can suggest that to any king, emperor, boss you want. Oh yes, you guys have a pope in the Holy Kingdom, right? You can tell him as well.”

“Now you are just being an asshole. You do know that it wouldn’t work for humans.”

“Well, it’s not like humans have less orphans, kings or teachers.”

“Yes, I know.”

…

…

“Just out of curiosity, how are things with Akiko’s new inn? Does it have a lot of guests?”

“I don’t really keep a lot of tabs on it, but last I heard it has a lot of clients. They kind of have this foreign feel to it in the place, so things ended up well.”

I could feel that he wanted to tell me about the new situation in Vaporvale and the country.

“Ok, and how is Vaporvale?”

“They are at a civil war right now. The Justice from Arthuria is accusing the Justice from the Holy Kingdom of having killed his son, imagine that. And then the funny thing is that the countries are taking out their support, and there is not really a military force around. So they are hiring mercenaries. Now with this unstable situation, the nobles stopped going there. I wonder how much longer it is going to take for them to go bankrupt. The country will not survive without tourism. The Three Greats are trying to stay out of it, specially with the war with the demons going around.”

We chit chat a little more, until we decide to go home for the day. That night, we decide which place we are going to visit next, and we decided to go to Ironhold, to get to know it a little bit. We could also visit the Holy Kingdom, Leopold told us the churches there are beautiful, but I won’t be able to walk around with Muninn and Huginn. If they are not welcome, I don’t consider myself welcome. Cecilia is kind of disappointed with this, but we try to find a compromise later.

I go there on my almost orbital height portaling, and then pick a place in the border of the forest, and do the thing, I portal to the girls, and then portal back to the forest. The first thing I noticed is that I had to go a lot more inside the forest to keep us out of other people’s eyes. There were a lot of soldiers around the main road leading to the city. Of course, there are a lot of people outside the walls. We go to the city gate, present our tags, and get in. Again, the city is busting with life, but now I am paying more attention.

The first thing I hadn’t noticed is that the streets are mostly clean, and there a lot of guards around. But upon paying attention, they don’t mistreat people. As far as I can see, these guards are a higher level than the ones in Arthuria, even higher levels than the ones in Orora. I don’t notice people looking at them in fear.

Some people look at me in fear, apparently. The visage of a guy with two crows on his shoulders apparently is not all that common. But people tend to soften up around my girls. Sure, the human is scary, the 4 dragonesses and the demoness are not.

Another thing that I hadn’t noticed was the higher amount of other races on the streets. Besides a majority of humans, some elves, dwarves and beast kin can be seen trading, sweeping, serving in inns, all around us. I see mostly dog kin and cat kin if I had to make a guess.

“Cecilia, have you ever been here?”

“Yes, some years ago, before I joined the guild.”

“How is this so different from Arthuria?”

“Well, first of all, the levels of corruption are a lot lower. And there is a lot of discipline to go around in the military. If corruption is not accepted on the top, this ends up carrying all the way to the bottom. The laws here are somewhat severe, the crimes are punished immediately.

“As in all countries, adventurers tend to be stronger, so they created a way to deal with it. If the crime is adventurer on adventurer, it is up to the guild. If it is adventurer on civilian, then the guild is responsible on catching them, and handling the adventurer to a court. If the crime is civilian on adventurer, the guild just has to report the crime, and the guild can punish the civilian. And civilian on civilian, the guards and courts decide.

“The empire had expanded before the current treaty in place because of the war with the demons. The previous kings are now nobles in the court. The emperor’s word is law, but the nobles do have some sway within their lands.

“The taxes are lower than in the other countries because the corruption is a lot lower, if comparing to Arthuria, and they don’t spend on luxury, like the Holy Kingdom does.

“As for the amount of other races, the Empire really is one of the few human kingdoms without much prejudice towards other races. In Arthuria, the chain of disrespect goes from king to nobles, nobles to peasants, peasants to other races. In the Holy Kingdom, humans are said to be the race chosen by the gods. They say that proof of this is the human heros that get summoned. It is funny, considering that the summoning generally happen in Arthuria.

“But the state in the Empire is very militarized and very efficient. They also instill a very patriotic sense on the citizens. They have several orphanages that are maintained by the state, a lot of them with children from dead soldiers. They sing the countries hymn every day, when they raise the flag. People passing by end up caught on it, and the whole thing helps booting this nationalist sentiment. Overall, life is good in the Empire.

“Besides the military itself, there is also a big academy, divided into three main courses. Magic school, with all sorts of magic teaching. Of course, taboo magic is not taught here. Knight school, for teaching people the way of the sword. And Command school, for officials, on battle strategies, logistics, and all sorts of that kind of knowledge. Generally, one has to go through either Magic school or Knight school to get to Command school. People that graduate from any of these are very valued.”

“Do they have anything that studies Nature? Something akin to what master sometimes teaches us?”

“Not per se, but some of this should be taught in Magic school. There may be some research by mages on the subject, intending on improving themselves, but it is mostly scoffed at by other mages, so not all that popular. But you can still find something there, probably. We can ask Marcelo to give a look at it.”

Siratra looks at me.

“Sure, we can take a look at it. I am really curious to how it is. Let’s take a look at the guild, and then we can go there.”

By the time we ended talking, we are in front of the guild, actually. The place is bigger than average. As with everything in this city, the lines are stern, almost like everything, straight to the point. But it’s easy to see that it is very well taken care of, no piece broken, and everything is quite clean.

We enter the guild, and again that silence falls on the environment. I am already getting used to it. As we are starting to walk towards the notice board with the quests, a guy stops in front of Cecilia. He is a mithril adventurer, according to his very visible tag. He takes a look at our tags and smiles. I am wearing my steel tag, Cecilia is steel as well, and the other girls are all iron.

How cliché.

“Hello, hon. Can I offer you a drink?”

She points at me.

“Nope. He can get me all the drinks I want…”

As she starts walking off, the guy grabs her hair.

“We are not done talking yet!”

I grab his hand, and twist it, bringing him to the floor on a hand lock. And then push it, to break it. He should be able to find a healer here. And you can ask my girls out, I expect them to refuse you, but no one touches my girls without their consent.

We leave him on the floor, and continue going for the notice board. I can feel that someone healed him. He is getting up. He is taking a knife off. If you’re prepared to kill, you should be prepared to die. As he is about to try to attack me, he gets something to the head, apparently a piece of rock.

I turn around, and the guild master is midway through the stairs.

“I just fucking saw everything! Who the fuck is in his party?”

A healer and a mage raise their hands.

“Isobel! Get their info. They are banned from the guild for one year. If I hear anything else about anything relating to this incident, like a revenge or something, then I am going to get pissed off!

“You! Come on up.”

I look at the girls, I shrug, and we go up with the guild master. As we enter his office, he runs the guild’s silence spell. I am the first to start.

“Thanks for the saving down there.”

“Oh, no. I was saving his life, actually. And his friends’. It would be a small blood bath. I felt your kill intent, and that coming from a guy that appeared with a dragon corpse in his bag. And also… You feel different. Not only the crows, that are very different, but also… Are you stronger?”

“A level or two.”

“Sure, ok. Not my business. I was ordered to pass this to you.”

He handed me a letter, that said ‘To Adventurer Marcelo’. I opened it. It said ‘Please come to humble home, at Third Mannor. Edward.’

“This is an invitation. How do I get to the Third Mannor?”

“I was instructed to get a carriage or a guide, whatever you prefer.”

“If it is not too far away, I would prefer a guide. I would like to get to know the city a little bit.”

“Sure. Follow me, please.”

“Just a second.”

I turn to Siratra.

“I know that I said that we were going to the Magic school, but this came up. We are going there, ok? But if you really want, we can postpone this to later.”

“No, master, it is alright. The Magic school is not going anywhere.”

The guild master goes downstairs, and asks one of the girls to be our guide. We follow the guide, and we take our time to go to the noble district. This city has an additional school district, where the two school campuses reside. We take the main road, and she points a fork.

“If you go west, you are going to get to the schools. People from all over the continent come to study here. There are predominances within each race, as expected. Most elves come for the Magic School, while most beast kin come for the knight school. Humans can be seen on both. We have students from the Empire, Arthuria, and some other kingdoms.”

“What about the Holy Kingdom?”

“They have their own education system, it very secretive. They have a different kind of school of magic, their magic is religion based. They praise to their god, and receive the blessing.”

“Do their god actually exist?”

“They are certain it does, but no one has ever seen it. They try to prove everyone that it does, though. Beware if encounter one of those believers, if you ask that question, you are in for a two hour talk. They say that healing spells are only possible when it comes from Nergal. They also say that this was the god that enlightened human kind, and showed them how to summon the hero.

“Their religion is allowed partially, in the sense that they can worship, but they cannot bring soldiers from other countries.”

“How come then that the hero is summoned in Arthuria, not in the Holy Kingdom?”

“That question can drive a believer berserk. I have never seen one of them driven wise, though. Continuing, to the East we have merchants and general smiths. Leather smiths, metal smiths…

“The south is where we actually are.”

We get to the noble’s district. This one is a lot more fortified than in the other cities. But the work here is quite expedite, everyone seems to be working efficiently. I show them the mithril tag, and my girls show them their spouse tags, and we all enter.

On the other side of the gate, there are two big buildings. The guide pointed to the left, then to the right.

“This is the army barracks, and this is the army headquarters. In this headquarters they have training centers as well, and depending on how well you do, you can even have your Knight school tuition paid by the army. Provided you’re a soldier, of course. Officials level captain and above get sent to the Command school free of charge. And that is a very steep tuition we are talking about.

“The noble try to put their kids there as well. But although it is easy to place the kid in Knight school, or Magic school, if the kid can perform magic, Command school is a different case. And because it is linked to the emperor directly, there is no corruption around that. That is what I have been told, at least.”

We keep walking, and after the two structures, we see a now normal noble district. The main road ends in T, in front of it there is this big gate. We turn right, and continue walking.

“To our left you have the emperor’s palace.”

We continue walking, and the street becomes more normal, with several manors on each side. Neighboring the imperial palace, there is this huge manor, with a gate and a guardhouse with to the side. One guard is in front of the gate, the other one in the guardhouse. We stop there, and show the letter to the guard in front of the gate. He passes it to the one in the guardhouse, which goes running to the manor.

After a little time, the gates open, and we enter. The garden to each side of the road is beautiful and well maintained. To the right, there is a fountain in it. The fountain is artistical, but in a pragmatic way. It has designs, but no animals or anything. Just waves and soft designs. Beyond the fountain, there is flower bed, with several different flowers, designing, apparently, a scene. From this angle, it wasn’t easy to see it.

To the other side of the road, there is another flower bed, this one imitating the design of a sun dial. This one was easy to see. Some flowers were open on one side, and on the other side the flowers were closed. This was a nice design. I pointed it to Siratra.

“Siratra, this alone may actually be worth our visit. See this field of flowers? I could bet that this is a flower clock. Each group of flowers open in a different time of day, and they use this to measure time. Not really practical, but a beautiful implementation, right?”

She kept looking at the bed of flowers to the left, admiring the design. Cecilia kept admiring the garden to the right. The dragonesses didn’t care much either way, really.

After a couple of minutes, we continue walking in this internal road, and we get to the manor itself. Edward is actually by the front door, looking at us. His clothes are a tad more elaborate than last time we met.

“Hello. Welcome to my humble abode.”

“Humble?” I giggle a little. “I should perhaps try to get a job in the guild…”

We both do a light hearted laugh, and we accompany him inside, and follow him to a living room. There is a woman sitting on a chair, and a pair of kids by her. She seems to be on her later twenties, way younger than Edward. There is a boy, that seems to be around 7 or eight, and a younger girl. They are both staring at us.

The boy is mesmerized by Opal. Her dignified manners, together with the otherworldly beauty she is, is causing the boy to stare, with his mouth open. And we are not even wearing fancy clothing, we just got into town, we were wearing our adventurer’s outfits. The girl is staring at the crows on my shoulders.

The woman stands up, and comes closer. The boy is by her side, and the girl is behind the woman’s skirt, still fixed on the crows. I salute them as best as I can.

“Good afternoon, madam, I am Marcelo. These around me are my family. Cecilia, Shandon, Opal, Ruby, Aquamarine, Siratra, and Muninn and Huginn.”

Cecilia does a salute, as if she was wearing a skirt, and salutes the lady, the other girls follow suit.

The boy gets close to Opal, slowly. He pull down at a strap of the armor.

“Will you marry me?”

Cecilia, Edward, his wife, Siratra and I laugh. The dragonesses apparently do not catch the joke.

“First, you have to win Marcelo in a duel. You still have room to grow, hatchling.”

The woman makes him bow his head and apologize. After that, he takes off running to the back of the house. Edward is almost crying.

“I would appreciate if you two don’t set the duel date so soon. Or ever.”

The woman plays with her fan.

“I am Addrianna, by the way. Since my dear husband is not that keen on etiquette. That was Caius, and this scaredy cat behind my skirt here is Sophia. Sophia, say hi.”

The little girl gets out from behind her mother’s skirt, does a bow.

“Nice to meet you, sir. I am Sophia von Akkad.”

And then she goes back to behind her mother’s skirt, never letting the crows out of sight. I turn to her mother.

“Is she scared of the crows?”

“No, she wants to pet them, probably.”

I go over to a coffee table, and tap on it. The crows land there.

“You can come close if you want, Sophia.”

The crows stand still while the child starts petting their chests. The mother looks at the crows’ feet, and notices that they produced a couple of gashes on the solid wood. She looks up to Edward. He just shakes his head, in a ‘everything is ok’ manner. I almost had a sense of deja vu with this.

The lady looks at me.

“Are they trained?”

“Not really trained, more like I got adopted by them. They joined the family, and just stuck together.”

Muninn cawed.

“I heard that crows are smart. How smart are they?”

“Muninn, how much is five minus two?”

Muninn cawed three times. Even though I have been around him a lot, I have to admit that this is a little creepy.

Edward giggled, and then boon laughed. He whispered in my ear.

“Don’t tell this to Addrianna, or I am going to spend a long time in the doghouse, but your crows might be more intelligent than the kids right now.”

I laughed as well. Addrianna made a face, I think that Edward is going to the doghouse anyway.