The Quantum Wanderer

“Lord Marcelo’s money is no good in the forest. His situation is kind of… unique. The seeds you saw before are our currency. They are highly magical seeds that cannot be faked. There are some levels of rarity among them. Dates, for instance, only start bearing fruit after a century. There are fewer of them around. Last time lord Marcelo’s household tried to buy something, the cash for the transaction just… Appeared.”

He looks down. He has a guilty expression to him. I remember Rudolph’s report on him almost being evicted from the shop. He is looking at the coins, though, but he a little afraid to reach for them. I try to calm him down.

“You can get this money. Nothing is going to happen.”

“Are you sure, lord?”

“Yes, I am.”

The sales clerk pockets the money, and thanks for the transaction. Edward places that lot of fabric in his bag of holding, and we start walking back to the herb shop. Is staring at me.

“What did you mean by ‘nothing is going to happen’?”

I laughed, imagining the scene.

“I had sent Rudolph there to get some fabrics for us as well. Thinking about that, I have to check with the girls who is going to do the sewing. Anyway, Rudolph was there. When he asked how much the whole thing was, the same payment plant came out, and dropped the seeds on the counter.

“The sales clerk then took hold of the seeds and tried to pocket Rudolph’s, actually mine, coins. According to Rudolph, the store started an eviction process against the sales clerk. The back room was closed, the whole shop started to undo itself.” I am imagining the face of the clerk, and I laugh a little.

“What do you mean, the shop started undoing itself?”

“This whole city is alive! It is part of the forest, it is a construct created by the trees. The dryads are the spirits of said trees. They live in harmony with the elves. Actually, the elves live in harmony with the dryads. Everything you see is kind of grown. With a lot of direction by the elves.”

“And the little girl in your house…”

“Yes, Ipê is a dryad.”

Edward and Addrianna are now walking a little mechanically. Edward is thinking about the concept.

“And when you said that she had allowed us…”

“The dryads are kind of connected to each other. I don’t think they have the individuality we have. I didn’t study it, though. I cannot say anything more than this.”

“Of course…” Edward extends the words, making it a sentence that takes sometime to be said.

We keep walking, and soon enough we are back in the condiments shop. Close to the door, with his staff, Autumnstart is under the shadow.

“Good afternoon, sir Marcelo! How are you?”

“Lord Autumnstart! Good afternoon. I am well. How are you?”

“I am well. I see you brought friends…”

“Of course, this is lord Edward and his wife Addrianna. They are friends of mine in the human Empire. This is Autumnstart, a friend here among the elves.”

Both men shake hands. Autumnstart clears his throat.

“Must I remind you, lord Marcelo, that you are considered friend to all elves?”

He lets out one of those politician laughs. He turns to Edward.

“Are you going to stay around a little while? Perhaps I could invite you to a dinner or some other sort of event?”

“I am afraid that we are going to be leaving your marvelous city in a little bit. And right now we are going to depend on our dearest friend Marcelo to be able to visit this city. I could send an embassador, though, should you be interested in having closer relations with the human empire…”

“What a pity… Let’s meet again next time you visit. If our friend Marcelo decides to bring you again on one of his visits. Then we can talk a little more on the stablishing embassies.”

I take a look at the time, it is around five. I use the Comm Gem to call the girls, and tell them to meet us back in our house. We go inside the store.

There are half a dozen bags with all sorts of ingredients in them. Each bag the size of a person. It takes us some 10 minutes to find Norbert. After we find him, Edward and Addrianna go to the counter, to pay for their goods. Edward opens his pouch.

“How much was it?”

“It is one gold and one silver, sir.”

Edward places two gold coins on the counter. Norbert sees the scene and drops some tears on it. I don’t quite understand the reason. The sales woman looks at the two coins on the counter, and picks one of them. Edward seems a little lost.

“I am sorry, sir, but I don’t have dwarven change. Let’s make it a single gold for the goods, then.”

I feel bad for the shop. I approach the counter, and I drop a dwarven silver coin. I whisper to the counter. “Please let me do this.”

The saleswoman is looking at the silver coin as if it were cursed. She looks at me. I nod.

“Please accept this. Believe me, there will be no problem.”

She grabs the coin, very slowly, while looking at the rest of the store around her. Edward starts laughing. Addrianna hits him with her elbow in his ribs. He stops. We go to my house. The girls are also arriving there.

We portal to Edward’s study. Addrianna, the girls and I go to my home. Cecilia is no longer in the living room. Muninn and Huginn are on their normal perching place.

“Where are the children?” I ask them.

“They have just been bathed, they are now taking a nap in the guest room, papa.”

I look at the couch that Cecilia was on. Muninn is the one to inform.

“She was really tired after our session, father, so she is sleeping upstairs. She is going to sleep a lot. It is going to be good for her.”

“Thank you.”

Addrianna turns to me.

“Can I ask the help of one of my guards? I am going to ask him to carry Caius.”

“Sure.”

Addrianna steps outside the door, puts two fingers in her mouth and lets out a whistle. Her guards, that were left by the guardhouse close to our gate, look at her. She signals for them to come close. The four guards approach the house. Once they are in front of her, they kneel down.

“Yes, your grace?”

“Justin, the kids are asleep. I am going to carry Sophia, I am going to ask you to carry Caius.”

“As you wish, your grace.”

The guards stand up. Addrianna comes back inside, but she turns around. She noticed that all guards were going to accompany her. She raises her hand.

“The rest of you can wait here. Only Justin will enter the house.”

I turn to Rudolph.

“Can you please lead them to the kids?”

“Of course, lord.”

We all go up the first set of stairs. In the middle, in front of the glass map of Drakonia, we split. The girls and I turn right, while Rudolph, Justin and Addrianna turn left. The girls and I go to our room. I hadn’t expect so much happening in the day. We wash up. When we come down, Addrianna, her kids and her soldiers are already gone.

We have dinner and retire for the day.

Next morning, after him and me are done eating, Muninn gets close to me.

“You are going to want to see this, father.”

I close my eyes. I am looking at some sort of very rich castle, from the outside. The view includes a balcony. The doors to the balcony opens up. A man comes out. He has long, red hair, and decided to check the view while naked.

He looks back at the room with a face of someone that has a bad taste in the mouth. He jumps high in the air. 500 feet high. He turns back in a dragon, and starts flying east. It is amazing how the view from birds have a very good sense of direction embedded in them.

The image is gone. I turn to Muninn.

“Where is he going?”

“He is leaving the continent, father.”

“That is good. A lot less things that can go wrong.”

Muninn starts laughing. I look at him.

“What?”

“Oh, the hero’s party is now only 5 days away from Elator’s capital…”

“Your sense of humor is fucked up.”

“I know, right?”

Cecilia is looking at us. She ate a lot, up to this moment she wasn’t really paying attention.

“What do you think is going to happen now, my villain?”

“I don’t believe the hero’s party is just going to come back. They are going to expel Romuela from Elator. The hero’s party is stronger than any other army in the land. Apart from us, naturally. Whether they are going to stop after they free Elator remains to be seen. Anyway, it is too far from us, it is probably not going to affect us.

“On another note, how are you feeling?”

“I am still a little tired, but now I understand what the portals are. There is so much knowledge involved. It is amazing. The cross of math with natural phenomena is amazing… Right now I think that Ambrose is way short of how he should actually be. The whole thing is amazing. Orbits, fields, matter, the formulas describing reality…”

I raise my index finger, indicating that there is something serious I have to talk about.

“Just please remember what I told you. Those things are not to be disclosed. People are not ready. People in my land was not ready. It is dangerous.”

“Of course, Marcelo. You can trust me.”

She uses my name to make the point that she is talking serious. Charles is curious.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember the magic that Marcelo used to allow you to travel large distances?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the one.”

There is a little bit of silence. I was wondering what I could do with my day, but Dávrin’s Comm Gem vibrated. I connected with him.

“Good morning, master Marcelo.”

“Good morning, Dávrin. How are you?”

“I am fine, friend. How are you?”

“I am doing very well. How can I help you?”

“Brokkr has asked me to invite you to visit.”

“Sure. When?”

“What is the best time for you?”

“I don’t know, I am not that busy.”

“How about the afternoon, then?”

“That works.”

We close the call. I go to the kitchen, to find Roberta.

“Hi Roberta.”

“Good morning, lord.”

“I am thinking of visiting Dávrin. I was considering taking some cookies, but only if there is any difference to them because of the stuff we got from the elves. Specially if we use their purple pepper, I imagine the dwarves would love that thing.”

Roberta laughs.

“I can bake something, lord. Let me see what I can put up together.”

I feel that there is something she wants to talk about, but she is worried.

“What, Roberta? You can say it…”

“We still have condiments, but I would be needing to go back there in some days to get more. These are not something we can keep too long; they loose their freshness.”

I scratch my chin.

“No problem. Today I am going to visit Dávrin, but we can go there tomorrow. That way you also have time to list what you need.”

“Thank you, lord.”

“Don’t worry about it, you are giving us these meals that out of this world. The very least I can do is provide the cooking ingredients.”

I go back to the living room. Rudolph approaches.

“Lord, Edward’s ball is going to be tomorrow. Please bear that in mind.”

“I will.”

I keep thinking about things that are about to happen. There is the ball, there are also the girls final exams in the schools. Although we are not very worried about that. They are going to pass easily their exams. Cecilia can probably fight a dragon right now, she has the same cheats I did when I was in her level. And the other girls…

I am happy. We are in a good place. I wonder what I can do for the girls. They were talking in the dinning room, the come to the living room. They see me looking at nowhere. Cecilia sits near me, she puts her hand on my lap. I look at her. Ruby jumps on top of me, her ever present smile. Aquamarine sits by my feet, Shandon and Opal by my side.

“What’s in your mind, my villain?”

“Not much. Just happy. Thinking about you girls.”

“Ahhhnnn” Cecilia says. Ruby kisses my lips, then she licks my face. A long, bottom to top. She is smiling once done. The other girls pile up on me. I laugh a little, we all laugh. This is fun. I am almost drowning in breasts.

After the pile undoes itself, and we have a moment of silence, I invite them.

“I am going to visit Dávrin and Brokkr today. I think you heard when I talked to Roberta, right?”

“Yup.”

“Are you girls coming?”

“I am sorry, my villain, but we have to go to Shoria. We can’t let Ruby’s nails stay like that.”

I laugh.

“Sure, have fun.”

I turn to Muninn, on top of the bookcase.

“Just you and me, pal.”

“Always, father!” He hits his own chest twice with his right wing.

I laugh a little at his gangster stance.

I go outside, and sit down beneath the crows’ tree. The soft sun, the shade. It makes for a soft day, a soft life. I am really content. I relax. The sun slowly crosses the sky. When it is close to noon, I go back inside.

I go to the kitchen, Roberta has a box of cookies. These ones are purple, a very odd color for cookies. I put the cookies in my bag of holding.

From my living room, I open a portal. Muninn and I go through it. We get to the room we usually do. I knock on the door and open it slowly. The guard outside straightens up. He was with a bored face, now he stays in attention.

“Good afternoon, sir! May I bring his highness?”

“Of course.”

“Excuse me then.”

The guard takes off running. I go back into the room. I sit on the couch. Muninn lands on the table. Shortly after, there is a knock no the door. I stand up, Dávrin and The Anvil enter the room.

“Good afternoon, master Marcelo.”

“Good afternoon, Dávrin, Andvari. How are you?”

“Things have been going very slowly around here.”

Dávrin looks at the room.

“Where are the wives?”

“They are visiting another place. They now keep their nails painted. It needed a fix, apparently.”

“Painting nails? Does it look good?”

“It actually does. They look a lot more feminine with it. I like it.”

Dávrin keeps passing his hand over his beard.

“What do they use?”

“I don’t really know. I know that they do that in Shoria.”

“Would you be able to get us a sample of the paint, master Marcelo?”

I shrug. I get the Comm Gem. I ring them.

“Yes, my lord?” Opal answers.

“Opal, love, are you guys at the nail painting place?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get me a vial of nail paint?”

“Of course, lord. What color do you want?”

I shrug. I look at Andvari. He thinks for a while. He mouths the word ‘white’ to me.

“White will do.”

“Alright, my lord. It will be done.”

“Thank you.”

Once I am disconnected, I turn to Andvari.

“Just a curiosity: what do you intend to do with that?”

“We have some people that are good with chemistry. We also have a lot of merchants. Our merchants deal with demons, humans, dwarves, even elves…” Andvari opens a wide smile. “They are the source of our wealth. Imagine when they learn that the wives are painting their nails. Do you know how many females, across several races, would start doing that?”

I laugh.

“You’re good.”

“Thank you.” Andvari thanks.

I laugh some more. I turn to Dávrin.

“Did you know he was going to do this business proposal?”

“Even he didn’t know. He just now saw the opportunity. That being said, can we go visit uncle?”

“Of course.”

We start our walk towards Brokkr. While walking, Brokkr turns to us.

“Can I ask what you have been up to, my friend?”

“Not much. We have been visiting the elves.” At this point, I remember about the cookies. I take the box out. I open it and offer to Dávrin.

“What is this?”

“These are some cookies that Roberta baked.”

Dávrin picks one, and nibbles on the corner. Roberta apparently traumatized him with her pepper experiments before. When he tastes it for the first time, he lights up.

“BYTHEFUCKINGGODS!”

He puts the whole cookie in his mouth, and picks more of them. Andvari is looking at the scene, with an unapproving look.

“Your highness, you should not be behaving like this in public…”

Dávrin ignores his advisor. I giggle.

“WHAT DID YOU PUT IN THIS?”

“It is Roberta’s recipe. The secret is that the ingredients were bought from elves. They are really

“Hum…” Andvari is passing his hand over his beard. “Interesting…” He looks at Dávrin, then back at me.

“Can I have one of those?”

I offer him the box opened. He smells the cookie, then nibbles at the corner. He then puts the whole cookie in his mouth, and eats it. He puts his hand against a nearby wall, and leans forward a little bit.

“FUUUUCKKK. This is good…”

I nod at him.

“Roberta’s cooking was always amazing. But now… The girls also felt it. We are still trying to get used. And this is not even the mana intensive stuff. This is just something she baked in an hour because I was visiting. I asked her to make some cookies.

“The elves have something called purple pepper, it is apparently something that not many people has access to.”

The two dwarves stay behind. When I realize that I have been walking alone, I get back to them.

“What?”

“They have purple pepper? How much does it cost?”

I try to remember how much they were charging Norbert, but I fail.

“I don’t remember the exact price, but something like a silver? Perhaps some coppers? I ended up taking Edward there. It just happened.”

It is funny to see two dwarves, in full armor, almost wider than tall, making puppy eyes. I continue.

“If you want, I can bring you guys as well. We can make an expedition. I want to ask for permission before I do that, though… Did you know they accept dwarven coin? They don’t work with human coin, though.”

Dávrin has a smug smile on his face.

“Something the human leaders don’t understand is that the currency is a contract the leader does with his people. There is some profit to be made by diluting gold coins, but then people loose trust. Once that happens, the coin is worthless.” Andvari comments.

“Yup. If people has enough trust, gold coins can even be replaced by pieces of paper.” I comment.

They both look at me as if I am crazy, but we keep walking. We finnaly reach the inn and Brokkr’s new home. Dávrin knocks.

“Who is it? If you want to buy something, wait until I open the store!”

“It’s me, uncle!”

Brokkr opens the door. His grumpy face becomes amiable.

“Master Marcelo! Welcome! Come in, please. I was waiting for you.”

“Hi master Brokkr. How have you been?”

“We have been well. Not much happens when you are not close.” He gestures towards the sofas and couches around his coffee table in the living room. Everyone but Brokkr sits down. He doesn’t, he goes towards the reserved portion of his house. I turn to Dávrin.

“What is going on?”

Dávrin smiles. He makes a ‘just wait’ gesture. Brokkr comes back shortly after. He has a bag of holding in his hands. He sits down with us, reaches in the bag of holding and pulls out a breast plate. He passes it to me.

I look at the breast plate. It is absolutely stunning. The lower part has very tiny dragons. But their position is not the typical strong one. They are all in submissive position. One needs to take a closer look to really see this, though.

Above this, there is a human figure, rays coming out from the center of the figure. Above it, to the left and right, there are two crows. Each of them display four eyes. The level of details is amazing. The eyes are the smallest red shining gems. Around the human the human there is a smaller human figure, and 4 dragons. Matching my wives’ colors.

The breast plate is absolutely gorgeous. He has really surpasses himself.

“I appreciate the gift immensely, master Brokkr.”

He sighs.

“Yes, you can stop wearing the scratched one now. And please, please keep lady Ruby’s nails away from it.”

I laugh. I pull out my bag of holding. Brokkr has a disgusted face when he looks at it. Then he looks at it again, and shakes his head.

“Really? Why? That nice bag of holding, it looks like it was done by an amateur! You manage to make me happy and disgusted at the same time, master Marcelo.”

I smile. Dávrin tilts his head.

“What do you mean, uncle?”

Brokkr sighs.

“Take a look at his bag of holding.”

I hold it in front of Dávrin. He shrugs.

“So what?”

“So, if you have built the best bag of holding in the fucking world, you could have a better design, right?”

“The best bag of holding?”

“Yes, I don’t know if it even has a limit. If it does, I don’t think it will ever be reached.”

I shrug. Dávrin laugs while Brokkr is shaking his head. After some time, when Dávrin is done laughing, Brokkr stands up.

“Let’s enjoy some ale, now.”

We stand up as well. Brokkr leads us to the inn next door.