The Quantum Wanderer

He sighs. “Such is life. I really wish I could punish whoever caused this issue with the dwarves. But sometimes it is very hard to disperse real justice.” He laughs at his own joke, and gets back to his circle of nobles.

At this point the sun reaches the zenith, it is time to have the the procession, as I had been told. The bodies are placed on top of a floating board, that serves as a cart. The servants use some hooks to handle the ice.

The procession starts. Hikari is at the front, being escorted by four guards. Akiko is right behind, with our friendly ambassador, marquis De La Salle. We were going to go next, but the other nobles just stepped in front of us. We wait until all of then move on, and then we follow the line.

The line leads to the back of the castle. I thought it was going to go somewhere else, but apparently their mausoleum is inside the mansion itself. We go down some stairs, until we reach this long and dark corridor. There is a line coming back already, the local marquis is at the head.

There are statues on both sides of the corridor, and caskets after the statues. We keep following the nobles. After sometime, we reach Hikari, with Akiko and the ambassador by her side. The ice casings have been placed inside caskets made of stone, with the same side. There are four statues behind her, depicting the four dead people. Then line moving forward makes a U turn in front of the widow and her mother. The people in front of me bow to Hikari, present their condolences, then bow to Akiko and the ambassador that stayed by her side. They then join the line coming back.

I take my time appreciating the spectacle. All being said and done, this must be tough for Hikari. She did love Julian. It is a pity he made such bad decisions in the end.

Being the less important person in the gathering, we are last ones in line. Cecilia hugs Hikari and whispers in her ear.

“Everything is going to be alright.”

After a little bit, she hugs Akiko, and courtesies the ambassador. The dragonesses imitate Cecilia. I bow for Hikari. I am about to do the same for Akiko, when she pulls me into a hug. I hug her back. Akiko, ever the rock, starts crying. She whispers in my ear.

“Thank you, honored guest.”

My girls are around us, looking at her candidly. We separate. I bow to the ambassador and he bows back. I offer my hand, and he takes it.

“Thank you, marquis.”

He looks at my hand with an inquisitive face, then look at me. I can sense that he is still trying to measure me. I smile. His curiosity is overcoming him. Not much he can do, though. The levels are just too different.

“Honored guest, please have dinner with me in the inn. There are some questions about the invitation.”

“Sure.”

As we leave the mausoleum, I see that dinner is not going to take that long. Hours were spent on this procession. We just go to the inn, to change into something more comfortable. Cecilia, while putting on her pants asks.

“Do you think they are going to be ok? That marquis gave me the creeps.”

“I think so, Edward and Anthon’s show of support should be enough. Besides, if things get too weird They can just sell the inn and go somewhere else. As successful as it is now, the inn is going to fetch a very high price.”

“Where do you think they are from?” Asks Shandon. “Their behavior is very different from the people around.”

Cecilia is the one to answer, I would have no idea.

“They are probably from the far south. There is a big desert that separates both lands, so people generally don’t cross it. It is said that their culture is completely different from ours.”

“Why would she come here, then?” Shandon asks.

“I don’t know. But she was trained, I can tell you that. Julian was a noble’s son, so my guess is that he would have some levels on his belt. Nobles hire adventurers to take them on hunts so that they can get leveled up. He never noticed Akiko until his throat was cut. I think he didn’t even understand what was going on fast enough to react.”

We go to the restaurant, for dinner. I step by the kitchen, providing them the meat to be cooked for us. I return to our seats.

Some time later, Akiko joins us. She still wearing the same clothes. She has a tired face on her.

“Hi Akiko.”

“Hi, honored guest. Excuse me.” She pulls up a chair and sits down.

“I want to apologize for the previous blunder, honored guest.”

“It’s ok. No one is bothered.” I look around, and the girls are nodding.

“I admire your protection of your hatchling, Akiko.” Opal comments. “I wish I had been able to protect my hatchlings the way you did…”

I remember that they had mentioned that Malagar had killed their hatchlings when he took over them. I never asked them if he had had other females, but I think this may be a sore topic.

There are some moments of silence, then the waitress starts serving our food. After we start eating, the air gets a lot lighter.

“Honored guest, how am I supposed to go to the wedding?”

“I can open a portal for you. Where do you want me to open it?”

She thinks for a while before answering.

“Honored guest, I am going to make the room you are using permanently yours. You are going to be the only one using it. That way, you can come and go as you wish. We can meet there on the day.”

“That works great, I appreciate. But… isn’t this going to hit you in your finances?”

“Not at all. That room is empty most of the time, that was a flawed design. It ends up too expensive to normal guests, and nobility generally wants to stay at the mansion.”

“Ok, then. I am going to open the portal around 1:00 PM on the day of the wedding.”

“Great. After dinner, I will make sure to let the crew in the inn know about our arrangements.”

“Thank you.”

Sometimes I wonder if I am getting used to being pampered. But I did help her, I am thinking that her contribution may actually put her a little at ease.

We go to our room and enjoy the view a little bit. I enjoy the smell of sea in the air. We enjoy the room a little bit, and then I portal us back home.

We retire for the night.

The next morning, we have a normal day. Not counting the cakes in the breakfast, of course. I portal the girls to their dorm in the schools. I go to the tree outside, and sit down under it. I got myself a book on the history of the Empire. I start reading it, and I am enjoying.

Instead of a more neutral view on the thing, it obviously exaggerates a lot of the facts. The whole book is more of a big propaganda than anything else.

Then I feel it, a big pulse of mana. It comes from up in the tree. I look up, and Huginn falls from the tree, numb. I catch her before she hits the ground. Muninn lands on my shoulder. I take a look at her. I have seen this before. The guards at the post are looking at us.

I go inside. Once I close the door, I portal to the beach in Drakonia. I use earth magic to create a little stand of sand, and I deposit Huginn there. I feel another pulse. I check to see if she is in pain, but she is completely out.

Muninn is by her side, poking her.

“It is ok, buddy. You guys went through the same thing during your first evolution.”

I remove the neutron crystal scales and the regeneration runes. I don’t want those to interfere with the process. There is this big bubble of mana vacuum, she starts absorbing a lot of mana. I wonder if I should bring her to a ley line.

A couple of dragons show up. When they notice that I am around, they go into their submission pose. I look at them.

“You can stand up. There is nothing dangerous happening. One of my crows is evolving.”

“As you wish, Devourer.”

They stand around, looking still a little uneasy.

Another pulse, the bubble increases in size. It is even consuming some of my mana right now. I can sense that it is doing the same with the dragons that are on the beach. I turn to them.

“You can go. I will deal with this myself.”

I open a portal to a ley line over the ocean, just above Huginn. The mana starts pouring from above like crazy. The mana vacuum buble starts receding. Another pulse, Huginn’s body spasms. It starts shining. I can feel the radiation being emanated, I open a couple of portals so that I can send the radiation into space.

Her body starts growing, her weight flattens the surface she is in. Muninn flies to my shoulder. I am forced to keep stepping back. The eye on top of her head morphs into a kind of a plume that goes back in her head.

There is another mana surge, and her eye migrate a little bit up. Another lid appears beneath her eyes. The dragons that ended up staying are looking starting a her cautiously. I can see her breathing is ragged right now.

We wait for a little while. Her breathing improves. She is still absorbing a lot of mana from the ley line. We wait for some time, and she is improving. She is now the size of a room, about as big as a griffin.

She shakes her head, the plumes on top of it flow in a pretty way. She stands up.

“Hello, father, hubby.”

I am stunned. I did not expect that. All of us are stunned, actually. Even the dragons.

“Father? Hubby?” She turns her head sideways. I leave the stupor.

“I didn’t expect this change.”

“Which one?”

“Well, the size, the talking. The plumes look good on you, though.”

“Father! Behave! You already have 5 wives!” Muninn hits me with his beak. I turn to him.

“I am sorry, bud. It is just unexpected. And I am not hitting on her. Why don’t you go ahead and do you thing? You have to impress her all over again… Or she may find another crow…”

He flies in front of her, and lowers his head rhythmically. She does the same. Once they are done, she laughs. I laugh as well.

“Why are you giving him a hard time, father?”

“Males should always be kept on their toes…”

“Should I tell that to aunties as well?”

“More toes than this wedding? Don’t you pity your poor, tired father?”

The three of us laugh. I look at the dragons that were watching the whole scene. Huginn is still small when compared to them, but she went from a spec to something the size of an apartment. It is not something that can be ignored anymore.

“You can go, I wish to talk personal stuff with them.”

The dragons do their submission bowing briefly, and take flight inland. I cast a silence spell around us. Huginn is observing everything with her four eyes. Her two eyes are no longer round, they are slits, with another two slits beneath them.

“So tell me all about the evolution.”

She kind of shrugs with her wings.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell. I know what I can do, but unless you are more specific…”

“How proficient are you with magic now?”

“Very. By the way, papa, you can close the portal to the ley line now. Keeping it up for too long might have side effects.”

“Sure.” I close the portal.

“What new spells do you know?”

“I don’t know about spells in particular, but I am much more proficient with the elements. Everything just seems… easier. Sensations are hard to explain, specially because there is nothing to compare to. I can feel, smell, and sense in a way that was not possible before.”

I start looking at her. She is the big. I start thinking about fitting her in our home.

“Are you able to shape shift?”

“Like aunties? Sure.”

She jumps in the air, does a circle around us, and becomes the size she used to be. Then she lands on my shoulder, already the size she used to be. This is cool.

“Do you always have to fly to get smaller?”

“No, but girls like to show off…”

I am now dreading the time when Muninn evolves. I wonder if his assholiness is going to evolve as well. I take a look at him, and try to sense how close he is. His mana is bubbling under the surface. A couple of days, at most.

“Alright, let’s go back home.”

I open a portal to our room.

“Father, how do portals work?”

“There are some concepts that I would have to explain. If you don’t mind the time, I don’t mind the explaining. Can we start when Muninn has his evolution as well? I don’t know if he is going to be interested, but I would prefer we start this talk with both of you at the same level.”

“Father, he is never going to be my level…” She laughs. Muninn caws, kind of complaining.

I pet his chest.

“Bud, you are in for a wild ride.”

We go back home. I go downstairs, the whole crew is waiting downstairs. They see both crows on my shoulder, and I can sense the air get calmer. Everyone lets a breath out.

“Is he or she ok? Which one was it?”

“I am ok, thank you.”

Everyone freezes. I turn to her.

“You do realize that most crows don’t speak common, right?”

She covers her face with her wing. I can swear she is smiling under the wing.

“I am sorry, father.”

I turn to everyone.

“There’s that as well. She evolved, it was Huginn. Now she can talk.”

“What else can she do, lord?”

“I don’t know yet. We didn’t have much time to chat. You can ask her.”

Everyone turns to her.

“I also don’t know yet, I have just become like this. Well, not like this, but the space here is kind of small…”

“Anyway, please avoid commenting this to outside people. And you, “ I turn to Huginn “please avoid speaking in front of other people.”

“Sure, father. But I can talk to everyone in the house, right?”

I sigh. “Yes. Just avoid doing that in front of anyone else. Please.”

“Ahhhnnn… Now I understand why aunties would do anything for you, father.”

I am thinking that I am not going to the respect I wished for. I turn to Muninn.

“Dude, you’re fucked.” He lowers his head, pouting. Everyone is laughing at this point. Yes, no respect. At least it is fun this way. I turn to everyone.

“Alright, everyone already had their fun.”

Rudolph claps his hands, and they start to go their way. Some of them still laughing. I open the portal in the living room. Things are already public that I am not even caring. At least, not today.

The girls come through the portal. They are talking about some incident in the school.

“Really? Another one?” Cecilia asked.

“Yes, sister. Apparently they don’t like their balls.” Ruby replied, while coming through the portal. Opal, Shandon and Aquamarine come right behind them. I sit on the sofa, I want to have a front view to their expressions.

“Good evening, aunties.”

They stop in their tracks, and they start looking for the owner of the feminine voice. Opal is the first to notice that something wasn’t normal.

“My lord! Is this…?”

“Yes, Opal, Huginn evolved.”

“Evolved? Into what?” Asked Cecilia.

Huginn open all her eyes and stares at them.

“That is also not her normal size anymore. She is shape shifting like you.” I nod at the dragonesses.

“How big?”

“She is the size of a Fenrir.”

The girls are all speechless. Cecilia turns to Muninn.

“What about him? Did he evolve as well?”

“Not yet, but he is close. Very close. A couple of days. Perhaps tomorrow.”

“Do you know why this happened?”

“If I had to guess, it probably has to do with the kraken meat.”

“Do you think that works for humans?”

“I don’t think so. If we follow the generic rules that I have seen around, you would have gone through with some evolution yourself. You have been eating dragon meat for a long time, and you have been eating kraken meat for some time too. The difference in levels between you and what you are eating is really big, so it should have happened.”

“What about us, my lord?” Ruby asks, expectantly.

“It could go either way. The difference in levels between you and an elder is not the same as a crow and an elder. And now with the kraken meat, it may happen. It is even probable… However, it is going to take some time. Huginn not only is smaller, but her levels, even after the first evolution, were way lower than yours. That would make it faster. So, the answer is… probably but I am not sure?”

She just jumps me and kisses me. After enjoying that for a little bit, she gets down.

“How can we speed it up?”

“I don’t know if there is a way to speed it up. The kraken is already the most mana soaked meat I can imagine. It is something that is going to build up with time. I also don’t know how long.”

“Is there a way to discover?”

“If we compare your mana with some other female dragons, I might be able to have an idea. The build up is slow, and I haven’t been paying attention. Besides, I don’t know how to quantify this, so we can’t have a chart. It is kind of like the duration of a day.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I first came here – scratch that – when I was able to actually stop and think my arrival here, the first thing I did was investigate this world, and compare it to the place I came from. The years here a little bit shorter than in my original world – around 15 days shorter. But I had no way to compare the length of a day, because I did not have any device that would measure the time in the old place.

“Just like that, I did not keep notes, and I don’t know how to measure a slow evolution. Unless we compare you with someone that had the same levels you did when you came to me. But even then, if the build is small, it would be inconclusive. I can’t say the build is not there until we have time enough, like a century or so, and then measure again.”

“Do you have sisters that are your age, and that perhaps shared the same kind of food?”

Ruby was going to say something, but then Cecilia stopped her. She cast a silence spell, with me outside the range, and then they huddled up. After some time, they break up the huddle. I turn to them.

“Ruby, were you going to say something?”

“I…”

“She was going to ask if eating more meat would speed the process.” Cecilia interrupts.

“I don’t think so. Not in a significant way. But like I told you, there is a lot I don’t know about this.”

“Alright. Thanks, my lord.”

“Everything for my girls.”

They blush and we all go upstairs to wash up and prepare for dinner. We are having dinner, and Huginn finishes her meat really fast.

“Father, can I have more?”

“Of course. How much more are you going to want? We have to let the kitchen know.”

“About as much as an auntie…”

“Which one? Cecilia or Shandon?”

“Shandon…”

“You now eat 10 pounds of meat each meal?”

Cecilia is impressed.

“That is a lot…”

“You should not discuss what a lady eats.”

“Rudolph!”

He comes in shortly.

“I just learned that Huginn now eats as much as one of the girls. Can you ask Roberta to prepare another 10 pounds of meat?”

“Of course, lord.”

“Father, did you really have to tell the meat is for me?”

The girls and I laugh. In this dinner, Muninn tries to eat a little bit too much, he is really stuffed after dinner, can barely fly. I laugh at the attempt.

“You are very close, buddy, no need to force it.”

We retire for the night.