The Quantum Wanderer

Next morning, we are having our normal breakfast. Muninn hops towards me.

“Father… Did you notice already?”

I laugh at Muninn. I noticed alright. Someone, high level, stationed on the other side of the street. Not a place people would normally stop by. The person’s higher level sticks out as a sore thumb. There are guards around, specially around Anthon’s palace, but they generally stay within the palace. This person was apparently watching the sun walk.

“Just let it be. If they try something we will answer in kind. I can’t say that looking from the sidewalk is a crime. Let’s just keep an eye.”

Opal is shaking her head.

“You are really patient, my lord.”

I shrug.

“It’s not like there are many people that can do much… We are, at least in theory, in the safest place in the city. But, changing subject… I hear that the period in school is over. Did you already get your chair for the next?”

Opal was the one answering.

“Yes, my lord. We already got the registration for next period. We were told that the first 5 places for knight school and the first 2 for magic school would be on a scholarship. Not that it makes so much difference.”

They continue eating. Placing first at each school was just a matter-of-fact information. I turn to them.

“What do you want to do during the vacation time?”

“I don’t know, my lord.” Opal answers.

“I have some ideas, my lord.” Ruby looks at me, biting her lower lip.

Aquamarine turns toward her.

“Sister! Do you only think about that?”

Opal fans the air in front of her nose.

“I can even smell it!”

Cecilia shakes her head.

“I don’t have that good a nose, and I can already imagine what she is thinking.” Cecilia turns to Ruby. “Are you still under the effect of the dryad’s oil?”

Opal sniffs a couple of times around me.

“No, sister, the smell is gone.”

Shandon snorts.

“I think I have seen rabbits that have less time in heat than sister. Not even true heat! It is not like she is ready lay an egg!”

Ruby looks at her sisters.

“I am a married woman! I have NEEDS!”

“Yes, sister, you NEED to behave!” Opal answers.

They start growling at each other, then biting the air. After some time, they stop, they get back to eating. The rest of us are quiet.

After some time of silence, Huginn hops to me.

“Papa, the kids would like to come play… Can they?”

“Yes, same as always. Oh, that also reminds me of something.” I look at Aquamarine and Cecilia. I continue.

“I am going to ask you all to stay calm, this is not going to become a problem, we are probably going to fix it first.”

“What is it, my lord?” Opal asks.

“Do you girls know already how are marriages between humans?”

“Yes, my lord. You liked Cecilia, she liked you, then you both mated.” Opal answers.

“Yes. That is a love marriage. There are some marriages that are a contract between two families, where the parents decide the future of the children. Those are arranged marriages.”

“And…?” Shandon asks. She receives a stare from Opal.

“Basically, Edward and Anthon received a letter, from the Holy Kingdom and Arthuria to arrange marriage for 3 people. Anthon himself, Cesar, and Sophia.”

I sense that this doesn’t sit quite well with Opal an Huginn. They start emitting a little bit of anger in their mana, but they keep their mana faces. I stand up, I get behind Charles and Lucille, and I create a bubble of sanctuary spell, so that the disturbed mana does not affect them.

“That was the reason behind Addrianna’s issues yesterday. They just received a letter, and the letter contains some threatening language. Anthon’s army is not going to be strong enough to avoid this if they press the matter. The hero’s party is already as strong as an army, and that is not mentioning that the hero is going to be there. He might not be strong to us, but he is the strongest hum- sorry, the third strongest human in the continent.” I look at Cecilia. “I think you are already stronger than him, and I am strong than you both, so…”

“Who is the female hatchling supposed to marry?” Opal asks.

“The hero.”

The amount of angered mana pressure raises. I can hear the noise of mithril bending. Due to the magic metal quality, it produces this weird metal noise. Opal keeps a poker face, but the utensils in her hand get bent out of shape. I will probably have to order another set.

Huginn turns her head with a somewhat malicious look, her claws penetrate the table. I continue the explanation.

“Of course, I told Addrianna that something like this would not come to pass. Let us wait until they take some action on it, then we can react. But let’s not worry until we have to take some action.”

Opal sighs, Huginn relaxes a bit. Their anger slowly fades. I turn to Muninn.

“Talking about that, where is the hero right now?”

Muninn closes his eyes, and after a quick minute opens them up.

“He took over the capital of Romuela, father.”

“Great. From this point on, let’s keep an eye on him. A discreet one, though.”

“Sure, father.”

“Now, back to you, girls. First thing I have to say is that it makes me happy that you want me that much, Ruby. Love you.”

Her face turns red. I keep going.

“That being said, I love all of you. Now, my loves, what do you want to do? Perhaps a day on the beach?” I turn to Huginn. “We can take those kids, they already know about us.”

“What beach are you thinking of, my lord?” Opal asks.

I take a look outside, and we took our sweet time during breakfast and… Before it… If we take too long, we are not going to have too long because of the time zone.

“Isn’t there a desert beach we could go? In Andrea?”

“Most of them are going to have a lot of monsters. We would have to clean them up.” Cecilia answers.

“What about the ones in the demon empire, my lord?” Aquamarine suggests.

That is actually a good idea. Because of the arid climate, there are a lot less monsters there, the lack of vegetation provide them less cover.

“Since the hatchlings are coming, do you want to invite the adults as well, papa?”

“The more the merrier. How many people are we talking about?”

“Less than 20? Assuming you want to invite the dwarves as well.”

I turn call Rudolph.

“Rudolph, how bad would it be to have a beach party for 20, in a couple of hours?”

“Lord, that is about one tenth more than what we do daily! I am sure Roberta is not going to mind!”

“Can you please check with her?”

Rudolph sighs. He goes into the kitchen, shaking his head. He comes back shortly after.

“Lord, I checked with Roberta, there should be no issue.”

I grab the Comm Gems, I start talking to the several people involved. I didn’t expect everyone wanting to attend, but then those things happen.

I visit Rajesh, he points me towards a beach, a little bit to the south, that should be deserted. He cannot guarantee there are not going to be any caravans, but it should not be an issue. Specially with the girls and me there.

I do some portal hopping and take a look at the beach. There is the piece that touches the ocean, and then there are a lot of dunes after it. It is a desert that ends on the sea more than a beach. I open the portal, first for my wives. They come in, wearing bikinis. Cecilia has a bag of holding in her hands.

I take a look at the sea. Muninn and Huginn assume their normal forms. I open a portal home, to our dining room. Rudolph comes over. After him, some maids bring in a portable table. They place some refreshments on top of it.

After talking to Roberta, I create a pit with earth and fire magic. The inner part of the pit is made of sand, it has a couple of holes on the sides. Rudolph brings some wood that he places in the middle of the pit. I light it up for them, to help the speed of the process.

They bring in also some sunshades, as well as some chairs. They all stop for a second to look at the girls playing their flash volley. They don’t freeze, though. It looks as though they are already used to it.

Charles and Lucille also jump through the portal. They have more conservative clothes.

I wonder if there is any kind of sport that we can do. I thought about beach volley, with a rule against jumping, but we have already tried that, it didn’t work. I have an idea. I ask Brokkr to bring 500 pounds of steel with him.

The guests let me know through the Comm Gems when they are ready. I open the first portals. Aquamarine comes close to me and tilts her head.

“My lord…”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to invite the elf?”

I think for a minute. I pull out the new Comm Gem, and I get in touch with Autumnstart. He is willing to come. He asks some time to select his clothing.

Edward, Addrianna, Caius, Sophia, Anthon, Cesar. Then Rajesh, Aisha, Rutra, Sidhu, Lakshmi, Viraj, Sitra. Next ones are Brokkr, Ildra, Dávrin, Dyrgja, Dalvina. Brokkr delivers me a bag with the steel in it. I create two poles and a ball of solid steel.

I place the poles to the side, and place the net in the middle. I make a thread of steel, it goes through the top of the poles. I fix it on the poles.

I mark the court. The girls are looking at me with an incredulous expression. Once I am done, I concentrate and cast a spell.

“Girls, I think it just may work now. At first, let’s not allow jumping. But let’s see how it goes. Opal, Ruby, Shandon, Aquamarine, do you want to try?”

Ruby is the first one to enter the court. The rest of the group is looking at them, with some curiosity. Edward comes close to me.

“What is this, friend?”

“It is a game from my home land. The goal is to pass the ball to the other side. You cannot hold the ball. The ball cannot hit the ground.”

I look at the people staring at the court. I raise a barrier around them, just in case. The first step Ruby takes inside the court, her foot sinks in the sand. She looks at me, and opens a smile. The other girls do the same. Once they step in the court, their feet sink. They step on the side.

Opal has the ball, she goes outside the court to serve. She hits the ball with a lot of strength. There is a sound, akin to a bell when she hits it. The ball goes very fast. Intuition would tell me that the ball would just fly out to the forest. But the gravity increase holds it down. I increased the gravity by 100 times. A low level human being would die just for being there. Nevermind standing up.

Every place the girls step their feet sink in the sand. Still, they are moving fast. Slowly but surely the sand keeps getting compacted inside the court.

The timing of the game is increased. The bell sound from hitting the ball is closer to a machine gun, until the ball fall on the ground.

The court has now compressed sand, the court itself is around 10 inches below the surrounding area. Edward is looking at the scene.

“The way the ball is falling feels weird. What did you do?”

“I increased the weight of everything on it by 100 times. Because of that, anything in there is going to fall a lot faster.”

“A hundred times faster?”

“No. The weight is a hundred times heavier, but the time something takes to fall the same distance is going to be ten times faster. Which is still a lot.”

The girls keep playing. It looks like a comically accelerated animation. Like a bad martial arts movie that would speed up the action to make it look like the actors were superhuman fast. They don’t draw a sweat, which amazes me. Cecilia comes closer to Edward and me.

“My villain, do you think I could play in there?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I could play in there without getting hurt if I don’t put the cheats on. I don’t think it is safe…”

Cecilia gets a little sad, but she know that her sisters are monsters in terms of difference of strength. I turn to the sea, I inspire the marine air. I take a look around. Sophia is talking to her mother about something. She nods, then she sprints towards Huginn. She courtesies in front of her, and asks something. Huginn closes her eyes for a second, I sense a mana discharge. Then Huginn answers something to Sophia. Only then the girl runs towards the water.

The water is crystalline. The other kids turn to their respective fathers. Sidhu and Rajesh look at Huginn. She nods, and the fathers nod back at the kids.

The kids go to the water. The adults don’t let the kids out of their sight, though. The kids play of splashing water on each other. The demons use their feet and their tails to splash the water.

Aisha takes a couple of steps forward, and shouts to Rutra.

“YOUNG LADY! BACK TO THE SHALLOW RIGHT NOW!”

Rutra pouts a little, but obeys. The kids stay in a not so deep area, the water reach their armpits. It looks like they are having fun, though.

I get closer to Charles and Lucille’s sunshades. I make myself one of those sand beds, but instead of using my foot, I just throw some earth magic. Magic can really make the life a lot easier.

Rudolph, a couple of maids and Roberta are doing something that looks like a brazillian barbecue. They place meat on sticks, add coarse salt, and place it on a fire that is now a lot lower, but still very hot.

When they start serving the cuts of meat, the girls stop playing their volleyball game a little. The meat starts flowing around. Of course, kraken meat. I advise for the lower leveled people to go easy on it.

Autumnstart pings me on the Comm Gem, I open a portal for him. He comes over, accompanied by his family.

He looks at the scene. He waves at us, then goes to the table set up with food. He opens his bag of holding, he has a small wooden keg with him. He hands the keg to Rudolph and the maids, then comes to talk to us.

“Hello, friend! By the gods, this is beautiful!” He waves at everyone else that is already there.

I take a look at the sun, it is around noon already.

“Good morning! How are you?”

“Oh, never better. I brought you a keg of wine ale, by the way.”

Dávrin approaches us.

“Good morning, sir!”

“Good morning! How are you?”

“Very fine. Everything is going well. I heard you mentioning that you brought some wine ale?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It is just a curiosity. Andvari told me that he negotiated some commerce with you guys, but apparently wine ale was something that you just would not allow to be in the deal… We have been cracking our heads for the longest time… Would it be rude if I asked why?”

I notice that Edward is looking at the children in the sea, but he is keeping an ear up on the subject. I smile. That is not my secret, and they could be a little more careful with it if they wanted so.

Autumnstart tilts his head and gives Dávrin a yellow smile.

“I also don’t know. It is something that came from the dryads. You can ask them, if they ever talk to you. I don’t believe you are ever going to have the chance, though. Even though they appear a lot around our friend, that is not the rule… It is actually the opposite.”

“Are the dryads the real leaders behind the elves?” Dávrin asks.

“No. It is hard to explain, but they provide us with protection and means of survival. Our cities, our goods. They are the start and end of life in the forest. We are… guests? Tenants? I don’t even know what we are…”

He laughs a little. More of ambassadorial laugh than a joke one. Then the laugh becomes a genuine one.

“I mean, we do have exceptions, right? Our friend here has a title that has not been given out in millenia.”

Edward approaches.

“Yes, I know what you mean. Everything around is just ridiculous.”

“Really? Pray tell…” Autumnstart replies. Dávrin is interested as well. Rajesh and Sidhu approach as well. Edward looks at me.

“Can I tell them about the entrance exam in the knight school?”

All that is kind of public already. I nod at him. He turns to the new audience.

“You all have already heard about the knight school, right?”

Everyone around nods.

“The way it works is that there is an entrance exam that mandatory. We had already had some information on Marcelo’s wives… Strength, so we created a test for them.

“It was destroying a menhir. I assume that you all know how strong a granite menhir is, right?”

Autumnstart is looking with a ‘I have no idea’ face at Edward, while the others are nodding. Edward notices, turns to him.

“A level 60, with a mithril sword would be able to chip it. That being said, you could have either destroy a menhir or fight an instructor. Of course, everyone else was forced to fight the instructor.”

Brokkr and Dávrin look up and nod, confirming Edward’s assessment.

“Lady Opal takes out her sword, and cuts the thing in the diagonal. A clean cut! The rock doesn’t even break, it is cut! Of course, this requires a monstrous strength with an equally strong blade.

“Macelo’s wives, of course, each destroy a menhir…” Edward starts laughing. “Lady Ruby initially grabbed a wooden sword and went for the exam with the instructor. We would have one less instructor if not for our friend here, that told her to just attack the menhir.

“That apparently got her a little angry. Lady Ruby kicked the menhir, and it just became dust!”

Everyone was laughing in the group. Charles approached as well.

“After the main exam, we have a ranking system. After the main part of the exam, we have a second round, so that everyone can know that there is no favoritism, where candidates that failed can have a duel with candidates that passed.

“I kid you not, one of the failed candidates saw Lady Opal cut a very resistant slab of rock, that he couldn’t even scratch. And his brilliant idea is to challenge her!”

Now Edward is laughing fully.

“The kid never had a chance. She spared him, but… Let’s say that he is know as little winter now.”

“Little winter?” Autumnstart asks.

“Yes. Lady Opal kicked him between the legs. The kid is little winter because in winter trees have already lost their nuts.”

Charles is the one that is laughing the loudest, competing with Brokkr and Dávrin. After they stop laughing, Edward continues.

“A couple of days later, there was a ball, and the little winter’s father challenged Marcelo to a duel.”

Brokkr laughs loud. “What a moron!”

“Yes!” Edward continues. “Sir Marcelo even contributed to a change in the law!”

“Really? Which one?” Rajesh asks.

“Even with a champion, if one looses the duel, one forfeits their life.”

Rajesh was holding his chin while thinking about it. He opens a smile.

“How much was the reduction in number of duels?”

Autumnstart looks at him, not quite understanding the reason behind the question. Anthon was the one answering the question.

“FIVE TIMES! Once the nobles started betting their own lives, the number of duels went down to a fifth!”

“I like it. Do you mind if I copy you?” Rajesh asks.

“Of course.” Anthon answers.

Autumnstart is looking a them. Elves have a much more egalitarian society, duels are not common occurrences for them. Edward explains to him how things work in human society. I can see that humans loose a piece of their value in Autumnstart’s eyes. I can’t say I disagree much, though.

We keep chatting about other stuff. Everyone around here knows that the hero has arrived at the Romuela’s capital, and that he is taking it.

Everyone agrees that the hero is probably going to give the country to the Holy Kingdom, his current residence. I can’t even say I disagree too much, Huginn is going to meddle into their political marriages. I don’t think it is wrong. They are imposing their will, by the use of force. They just don’t happen to be the strongest.

At one point, I excuse myself, I lay on the sand bed again. I keep looking at the ocean. Finally a very normal day.

I sense the sand to my sides also moving. The girls bring more towels, and lay around me. Opal on one side, Aquamarine on the other. We hold hands. Ruby lays between my legs. On the outside are Cecilia and Shandon.

People start relaxing on chairs. We enjoy some drinks that Roberta brings out.

After a relaxing day, we open the portals for everyone, and go back home.

We have dinner and retire for the day.

The next morning, Muninn informs me that the people watching our house are still there. I shrug. I tell him in front of everyone that we will deal with the problem when and if it becomes a problem.

The girls want to go to Shoria. Apparently the friendly game of volleyball with a solid steel ball wasn’t good for their nails painting. Huginn is going with them, the kids already had a lot of fun yesterday.

After breakfast, the girls open their portal to Shoria. I don’t know who is opening the portal, but I don’t really care. I turn to Rudolph.

“Rudolph, I was thinking… Do you guys want a vacation day? Is there some place in particular you guys would like to visit?”

He goes silent for some time. I continue.

“You know, even Shoria has beaches that allows for… I don’t like saying peasants, but that is the term. I can definitely part with some gold coins, you guys could have some fun.”

There is another period of silence.

“Lord, if I may completely honest… I don’t think that question was ever asked in this city… I have no idea.

“That being said, it is something that we can only offer some of the adults. Children would not be capable of keeping secrets. And that would invite trouble. Keeping secret on the back garden is already a tough one. We were forced to deny it to other butlers and maids that inquired about it. You know, children talk…”

“Sure, sure…” I think for a bit. “I would like to keep our secrets reserved, but know that if it happens to leak because of child or something like that I would not hold it against you. Of course, if some stranger tries to spy on us or infiltrate this house, we have a different situation in our hands.”

“Lord is way too lax with us. Thank you.”

I shrug.

“I don’t really think so. Anyway, check with the others. I can open a portal in the morning, and open another portal by sunset. That is the least I could do for you. I can also provide some gold coins for food and expenditures.”

“I will check, lord. Can I ask you a little bit of time to organize?”

“Of course. Just let me know when you have the group or groups set.”

Rudolph bows to me and retreats to the kitchen. I open a portal and go to visit the elves.

That ends up being my routine for the next couple of days.