The Quantum Wanderer

We all raise our cups. Then Dávrin turns to Brokkr.

“Not you, you put that down!”

And he starts laughing.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!?” Brokkr screams.

Brokkr turns to me, excited.

“Show him!”

I scratch the back of my neck. I am apologetic.

“I had a mock battle with Ruby. She got stronger. I wanted to check with you if we can fix this.”

Ruby is apparently very proud. I hand the breast plate to Brokkr. He passes his fingers on the scratches. His eyes are bulging. He opens his hand over it, noticing that the pattern is one of four fingers in paralell.

His eyes bulge even more.

“FUCK! HOW? HOW THE FUCK?”

“I told you, she got stronger…”

“There hasn’t been a single account in history of enchanted adamantite being damaged after forged. It is just… “

He suddenly has an idea. He goes over to a drawer, and pulls out the blade of something that would be a knife, if given a handle.

“Can I see it? Please, just leave a mark for me.”

He hands the blade to Ruby. She looks at it, then looks at me. I nod. She puts the blade across her mouth, and bites a chunk out of it. The noises this produces is akin to an hydraulic press smashing some resistant metal. It gives me chills. The noise of metal against metals, something giving in. But loud. Really loud. Heard by the whole neighborhood loud.

She hands the blade back to Brokkr, and the piece she bit out to me.

I don’t know if Brokkr is just amazed or horrified to know that there is something that can make this kind of damage on enchanted adamantite. He looks at the other girls.

“Can all of them do that?”

Opal shakes her head.

“Right now, only sister can do that.”

Brokkr sits on the couch, with the bitten knife blade in his hand. Dávrin is shocked as well. The one giving less importance to it all is Davina. I keep having some sips of ale, while Brokkr recovers. Dávrin looks at me with puppy eyes, staring at the piece of metal that Ruby had bit off the blade. I clean the spit out on my shirt and hand it to him.

He holds it, and checks some edges that were created during the bite. He passes it on to Dyrgja, that also looks at it. They look at it as if it were part of a magic trick that they are trying to understand. Dyrgja passes the piece of metal to Davina. Davina looks at it uninterested.

“So what?” She asks.

“So what? You are looking at something that should not exist, and your question is so what? This is not rare… THIS IS JUST THE IMPOSSIBLE!”

…

“Brokkr, if another dwarf showed you this, what would your response be?” Dávrin asks his uncle.

“Why the fuck did a master spend enchanted adamantite on a prank?”

Dávrin continues.

“Your wife is redefining the dragon saying, friend.”

“What saying, father?”

“Where does a dragon lays down? The answer is, wherever he wants. In this case, it would be something like, ‘what can a dragon bite? Whatever she wants.”

Dávrin and Brokkr giggle a little. I let them have some fun, but I have to try to get it fixed.

“Master Brokkr, back to my breast plate… Can we get it fixed? I am prepared to share the necessary coin…”

“I will make you a new one… Just hand me that one, I-“

“No, it’s ok.” I cut him off. “I am attached to this one. It was the one that I wore in my wedding. It was scratched by one of my wives. I will wear it with the scratch.”

Dávrin laughed.

“Yes, yes, wear it proudly around.”

Brokkr ears were red. I am not understanding what is going on.

“What is the problem?”

“It is a shame for a forgers to have his work damaged in battle. The higher the material the higher the shame. In that case, I spared no material, I spared no excuse… Please don’t show this to others. I will make you a new one, master Marcelo.”

I hold the breast plate in front of me. I can do what Brokkr is asking, but I am still keeping this somewhere at home. I didn’t know there was all that honor thing involved in this.

Brokkr is scratching his beard, when he remembers something.

“Wait! What about that magic cover you place on the armors and weapons? Didn’t you have it on?”

“I did, but…”

Ruby smiles, while hitting herself on the head. Her teeth reverted back to the shark type teeth. Probably when she bit the dagger blade. I can see the chill going down the dwarves’ spines. I open my mouth and tap my front tooth at her. She feels her teeth with her tongue, and sets them back to normal. I continue what I was saying.

“She scratched through it. I only use a single layer, finding out how many layers would take to hold would take some time. And I am not sure it would.”

The dwarves keep silent. We all drink some ale. After sometime, I decide it is time to leave, I am going to let them do their things. We say our goodbyes and I open a portal home.

Once we get there, we fresh up and have our dinner.

The next morning, during breakfast, Muninn shares some images with me. Skylar’s platoon was marching forward, when they faced a small caravan traveling the other way. The caravan was composed of 3 carts, with some merchants and a group of adventurers doing the escort. They had my banner.

Skylar platoon’s is occupying the whole road. He directs his horse to his left, opening a passage for the caravan on his right. He holds his horse steady, and turns back to look at his soldiers. He points to the soldiers that are using the other side of the road.

“You! Give them space to pass!”

The soldier looks back at Skylar, not understanding why he is telling them to let the caravan go through.

“Why?”

Skylar sighs. He dismounts and walks slowly to the soldier. His friends are not that close to him, apparently, for they leave him facing the dragon by himself. The horse starts to get nervous.

The horse doesn’t have time to get too nervous, Skylar’s breath turn soldier, horse, weapons, everything to ashes.

The other soldiers spread out, trying to avoid the intense heat.

Skylar gestures towards the road.

“Let the caravan pass!”

Now the effect is immediate, the soldiers crowd on the left side of the road, opening a space for the caravan. Skylar goes back to his horse and gets makes it start moving forward as it was doing. The driver in the first cart of the caravan is visibly shaken, but a woman by his side slaps his leg, and he hits the reins on the horses, that start moving forward slowly.

The two groups cross each other. Once the carts pass the last soldier, the merchant caravan picks up a little speed. They are talking a lot amongst themselves.

The military company are going towards another stronghold in Elator. There is nothing of note after the incident. I am happy that Skylar is doing more than we agreed upon. I comment with the girls what happened.

Cecilia starts laughing hard. Opal is looking with an inquisitive face.

“My lord, are all soldiers this stupid?”

I giggled a little.

“He didn’t realize the situation he was in, apparently. Much like your colleagues in knight school. They have no idea on the difference in level. Talking about difference in levels…” I look at Ruby. “From now on, you are going to have to go easy on your sisters. The difference in strength is too great, you can really hurt them.”

Between one bite and another, Ruby extends me a thumb up.

“When do you think we are going to evolve, my lord?” Shandon asks.

“I don’t know. I see that you all are getting there, but Ruby was a first.”

Shandon pouts a little, while Ruby smiles. I turn to her.

“Don’t smile too much. Your sisters are going to evolve eventually, and then things are going to get back to the way they were…”

She stops her smile a little bit, and nods at me.

I throw them all a kiss. Cecilia has finished eating, she is playing with her fork. She is mumbling.

“So fucking unfair…”

I turn to her.

“Hey, you are the fourth strongest human on the planet! Don’t be like that.”

Ruby stops eating a little bit.

“Yes, sister, don’t worry, we will protect you!”

That did not have the effect Ruby was expecting. Muninn giggled a couple of times.

At this point, Rudolph arrives with a letter from Edward. It is an invitation for a ball. It is going to happen two weeks from today. It is supposed to be a fund raiser for the army. The invitation explains that due to instability in neighboring countries, there was a need to improve the army forces to protect against external and internal enemies.

I don’t quite understand what this thing about enemies is about, but the girls enjoy balls.

“Girls, do you want to go to a ball two weeks from now?”

Cecilia is happy with it, the other girls are kind of indifferent. They end up deciding to go because of Cecilia’s lobbying.

There is another letter in the tray, with the invite. It is another invitation, this one for a casual dinner tonight with them.

“By the way, Edward invited us to dinner in his house as well, tonight.”

“My lord, isn’t it going to reduce our appetite?”

“It is a dinner, right?”

Aquamarine is the one to answer.

“We can just ask Roberta and eat before we go. Then we just pretend a little bit there.”

Shandon and Opal agree with her. It is decided, apparently.

The girls get ready and go to school. The house gets a little silent again. Charles and Lucille don’t really make much noise at all.

I sit with Muninn, he starts sharing some additional scenery from Skylar’s battle. His platoon surrounds the exit of another fortress. The fortress has two gates, one to their side, and another one in the back. There is a moot with water around the fortress.

The captain moves towards the main gate of the fortress, and places mana on his voice, so that he gets heard.

“Attention, future Romuelans! Our king has recognized that this land was part of Romuela since time immemorial, and should be annexed back! Lay down your weapons and surrender the fortress, and you will be allowed to live, and thrive, under just Romuelan rule.”

“Go back to where you came from! I don’t know how you went past Borderhold, but I don’t care. You have exactly one chance before we come out and finish every last one of you!”

The messenger gets back to the platoon in front of the fortress. He gets close to Skylar, that now has a permanent bored face on him. He kneels down.

“Lord Skylar, excuse me, can I ask your favor?”

Skylar sighs.

“You can ask.”

The soldier clears his throat.

“Please get their gates down. We are going to need the fortress after we have taken over, but we need an easy way in.”

He takes a long look at the soldier, then a longer look at the fortress. He sighs. He stands up and start walking towards the fortress. He walks toward the gate. Arrows, magic missiles, fireballs, lightnings, rocks, ice spears, all sorts of bombardments are hitting him. He gets close to the gate, and they drop a tank full of a black oil on him. Weaponized tar.

He stands there, and the tar is all over him. He takes the tar that is over his eyes, and looks up. The soldier that is by the big tank that was spilled over him freezes. Skylar jumps/fly and the next moment he is by the soldier.

The soldiers that have been watching him receive all sorts of punishment without any care are shaking. They are all stepping back. Skylar is now irradiating his anger. He gets close to the soldier, that falls down to his knees and raises his two arms, protecting his face.

Skylar grabs the soldier by the wrist, and goes inside the fortress. The lowering bridge falls down. Once it is completely down, Skylar can be seen, close to what used the device. The wheel used to lift the bridge, made out of wood, is completely broken. The body of the soldier that threw tar on Skylar is by it’s side, but in all wrong directions, and a lot of wounds. The bent armor is what is keeping the body together.

The soldiers everywhere are looking while Skylar is trying to scrape all tar from his skin using a dagger from the deceased soldier, with moderate success. He stops for a second, to look at the captain of his battalion.

“HEY!”

Skylar gestures with his head towards the open gate, breaking the hypnotic scene. The captain wakes up.

“CHAARRRRGGGEEEE!”

The platoon enters the fortress, while Skylar just stays at the corner, removing as much tar as he can with the dagger.

The defenders had lost their will to fight, while the attackers were pressed for a victory. Probably because of fear from Skylar. The attackers rapidly start dominating the fortress.

Skylar spits fire on himself, burning out the rest of tar that he couldn’t get rid of, particularly in his hair. The soldiers that are fighting above him start to slow down, some of them failing unconscious.

The attackers take control of the fortress in around an hour. Some officers and a small retinue escape from the back gate.

Skylar goes to the captain.

“Some of your prey is escaping.”

“Thank you for pointing that out, lord Skylar, but this is desirable. Next fortress we encounter, they are going to know that they have a lost cause, and they will surrender just by knowing you are with us.”

Skylar sighs. This is not the way he is used to do things in Drakonia. He doesn’t care much.

“This armor right now is uncomfortable, I burned the padding. Find me clothing.”

“Yes, lord Skylar. We are going to get you the finest we find.”

Skylar moves over to a wall and inclines against it. The soldiers start gathering the prisoners of war in the patio, with their hands tied behind their backs.

There are way less soldiers than the invading force. Some of soldiers in the keep are transporting bodies toward a pile that is by the side of the prisoners tied down and sitting on the patio. The bodies are placed in the pile after their armor and belongings are removed, brought to another pile. Skylar is observing the piling of bodies, bearing only underwear.

The captain is overseeing the operation. Skylar approaches the captain.

“Are you going to eat them?”

“What? No!” He looks at the person he is talking to. “Lord Skylar, humans don’t eat other humans. We are going to burn the bodies, giving them a fire funeral.”

Both of them stand beside each other. The captain is visible uncomfortable, but Skylar is just watching the scene. Another official, probably a lieutenant, comes their way. He stays as far away from Skylar as possible while getting within reporting distance from the captain. He salutes.

“All the dead have been collected, sir! We will be starting the funeral fire shortly.”

Skylar takes a breath, and spits a strong fire on the pile of dead bodies. It all becomes ash. I am not interested in what is going to happen next, I cut the connection. It was an interesting enough spectacle. A big part of the day went by.

Muninn and I go up to my room, I decide to have a long bath. It is relaxing. I put the water temperature just right.

Shortly after, the girls arrive. They are early. Aquamarine goes out of the room for a couple of minutes.

“How was your day, ladies?” I ask, from the bathroom.

The girls come over, they start undressing.

“It was a normal one, my lord.” Opal answers.

“It was fun!” Cecilia says, excited. “I have been practicing your chantless magic bullshit. That water thing you taught is amazing.”

I smile at her.

“So tell me, what further cheats can you teach me?”

“Do you need any cheats? There are a couple of heroes on the land, Andrew and the new one. I told you that you are only weaker than them, but you still have some advantages. They wouldn’t be able to hurt you easily. You have regeneration magic written on your bones. Your almost unbreakable bones. In a fight, you might even come on top. Specially if you use the carbon monoxide cheat.”

She thinks for a while. The other girls keep undressing. Opal hits the shower, while Ruby comes my way.

“Sister!” Opal yells at Ruby. “Wash up first! We all share that water!”

Ruby looks at her and changes her course. Aquamarine arrives back, and undresses. Cecilia also hits the shower, and comes over to the tub to join her sisters and me. I tell them about the battle that I had seen earlier. They find it amusing.

After just some 20 minutes in the tub, the girls stand up. I was hoping to grab them a little bit, but then Shandon says that if they want to have their daily kraken, they have to have it now because of the dinner at Edward’s.

We sit down, the girls eat their fill. It is earlier than usual. After their early dinner, we go back up to get dressed. The girls and I dress casually and we had over to Edward’s home. We follow the normal protocol, and are taken inside.

We sit in the living room, while the dinner is getting ready.

“Edward, just a heads up… The girls already ate. They told me that they would not miss their daily intake of kraken meat.”

Edward takes a look at them, Shandon nods. I can sense his shivers every time he focus on Ruby.

“Is this related to lady Ruby’s evolution?”

“Yes. We all think that the ingestion of mana enriched meat is probably the key. We are not completely sure, but it is most probable.”

“So, how was it? I mean, what did you evolve into?” Edward asks while looking at Ruby.

“I don’t know. I… just am. My sisters seem slower when sparring in knight school. And our lord had to get serious to beat me…”

She puts her tongue out for me.

“How serious?” Edward asks me.

“Serious serious. I rested the following day.” I say between tea. “I had to get creative. She scratched my breast plate.”

“The leather one?”

“No, the enchanted adamantite one…”

“NO SHIT! CAN I SEE IT?”

I show him the breast plate that was in the bag of holding. He holds the breast plate first in front, then he sits down. He places the breast plate on his lap, and passes his fingers on the scratches. He looks at Ruby. She smiles, pretends to polish her nails on her dress, then extends her arm and admires them.

I nod at him, he is flabbergasted.

“That one was brutal.” I giggle a little. Edward turns to Ruby.

“How strong are you, now?”

She shrugs. She looks at me. I also shrug. I answer.

“I have no idea. Between her new speed and strength, and her new breath… She can probably take Skylar on.”

“The other council dragon?”

“Yes. The last time I fought a councilor, I used some normal enhancements. I didn’t know how, nor had the available mana control at the time. My warrior wife here would have my but handed to me on a platter. And she was in a small package at the point, if you get my meaning.”

Edward is looking at the breast plate.

“Are you going to fix this?”

“I tried. Master Brokkr told me it is not possible. I can’t manipulate the material either. It is staying this way. I don’t even think I want to fix it right now. It is a nice story to tell.”

I smile. I plant a peck on the Ruby’s cheek, she gets flushed.

The butler comes in, he announces that dinner is served. We sit around the table. Brâns and crow follow their normal position, where Rebirth stays on top of a lower place than Huginn and Muninn. Sophia comes in and courtesies Muninn and Huginn.

We all sit on the table. While the food is being served, Addrianna comments.

“By the way, Sophia’s previous nanny had to be fired. She had some attitude problems.”

I giggle. I remember the adjustment she received in the kitchen. Addriana looks at the girls, and comments.

“Do you believe she had the gal to try to complain to my husband after I had made sure she understood she was fired?”

Opal looks at Addrianna.

“How did she talk if she was fired?”

Cecilia realizes the confusion.

“Sister, fired in this context is just let go from the job. She wasn’t turned into ashes…”

Opal turns to Addrianna.

“Is Edward also mellow with the people in the house?”

Addrianna smiles.

“Basically…”

Edward and I giggle. After a little bit, I turn to him.

“So, what are the news?”

“The news that the flag will protect caravans from attack from Romuela’s army is the hottest topic in the guild. There is a story that a small merchant’s caravan was going to be bullied by their soldier, but then this guy with white hair came out of nowhere and imposed order. Apparently the army has one less soldier.”

I giggle at it. I had seen the scene.

“Other than that, they are moving fast. For a whole army, of course. They are about to hit the first big city in another few days. But now they know what happened to the previous stronghold, so they have time to prepare and choose their course of action.”

“What do you think they are going to do?”

“I can tell you what I would do. I would probably try to fight outside the city. Meet them with a force that should be able to halt them, mainly checking how engaged Skylar is to them. If he is under their control, I would surrender. If he is a bystander, then there is a chance of winning. But it would be a big risk.

“There is an undisclosed rule that if you resist a siege, then you had better come out on the top. If an army approaches the city and says they now own it and you surrender immediately, they are going to be nice with the populace, and the current nobles. There is not going to be any pillaging, any violence. If they have to put up a siege, and invade loosing soldiers, then things are different. A lot different.

“And against a dragon, nothing can be done. Except call you, but then I don’t think they have a Comm Gem to you…”

We keep talking throughout the dinner, keeping it light. We talk about the issue with the magic professor that now wants to meet me. She, Tacitus and Ambrose now are in the ‘hire professor Marcelo’s club’. We all have a blast with the story.

The girls end up eating some food, though a small quantity. They mostly played with it. Cecilia complimented it, and the girls followed her lead, but it wasn’t kraken meat. I try to focus on the sauce, to have something good to say, but Roberta has been spoiling me.

I tell them the story of Roberta’s dwarven pepper. We all laugh.

After dinner and some liquor, we go back home, and retire for the night.