The Quantum Wanderer

I laugh at the proposal. Then I turn serious.

“For this fucker, I will do it for free.”

Everyone around the table relaxes. Edward goes back in his study, and he provides us a letter, with the guild’s seal, the name and accusation of the two accused. He tells me that the guild attendant is trustworthy, she has been working there for a long time. Never had a complaint for embezzlement or anything of the sort.

We finish the breakfast and go back home. There, the girls eat their real breakfast, we are going to have a full day ahead of us.

We all eat in silence. Charles and Lucille stay around the table, but they notice the weird silence. We go up to our room, and dress up our armors.

That is going to be part of the theatrics.

Muninn’s little spies have been keeping tabs on the hero’s party. We choose a place, around 80 miles away, after the road turns right, to wait for them. That is going to give us a little over an hour. Aquamarine throws Huginn a look. She looks towards the dense forest, and throws a breath towards it.

I see that, but I don’t ask what she is doing. I just create a couch like chair out of earth magic, and sit on it. Muninn and Huginn land on the back of the couch. I take a look at them. Just the landing make their claws dig deep into the hardened earth material.

Muninn lets us know that they are getting close. The girls close the road. The large group, over 20 people in the party, turns on the corner, towards us.

They see the girls in the middle of the road, and try to just run them over, but the bicorns, monsters that are kind of related to horses, stop. They don’t dare. This causes some confusion, as the people in the back hit the people in the front.

Still, the monsters stop, the ones in front even try to force a couple of steps back. The group was not expecting this kind of reaction, everyone is thrown off. I stand up from the chair, I go to the middle of the road.

I take the scroll out of my bag of holding. I put mana on my voice. An amount that is going to make them uncomfortable.

“Cortez and Alexander. You have been deemed bandits, accused of rape. The guild demand your capture, dead or alive! Surrender now!”

This one person, in the biggest horse, passes his hand through his face.

“YOU TWO GOBLOK! FUCKING SERIOUSLY! AGAIN!?!”

“I am sorry boss…” Says another man.

“You do realize you are sinning, right? This is adultery!”

“It just happened, boss. We are sorry.”

I see two elves in the back. They stretch their necks and notice the girls in the middle of the road. They then look at the chair I was in, and notice Huginn and Muninn there. Their faces assume an aspect of terror. One of them mutters “Fuck!”

They jump out of their horses. They run towards the front, and kowtow in front of us.

“WE ARE SORRY, FRIEND! PLEASE SPARE US!”

The rest of the hero party is shocked at this behavior, they don’t say anything in disbelief. I turn to the two of them.

“You guys have been walking with criminals. You deserve judgement, but I don’t know your laws. You are to go to Autumnstart, at the city that is most to the south, confess to him and accept punishment.”

We hear a laughter being carried in the wind, coming from the dense forest to our side. They shake with the sound, but they don’t move.

“GO!”

They stand up, go to the back of group, mount their beasts, and leave.

Everyone in the hero party is looking at them. The hero shouts.

“THIS IS DESERTION! I WILL HAVE YOUR SKIN FOR THIS!”

They disappear in the road. The two guys that were chastised by the hero get down from their beasts. They come to the front, taking their swords out.

“I don’t care what the fuck is going on, but you guys are going to be sorry for pulling this shit!”

Aquamarine takes a couple of steps forward. She gets close to me.

“May I, my lord?”

“Sure.”

She waits for the first one to attack. She lets his swing pass by her, and throws his um in the air, 30 feet, behind our formation, while taking his sword. The second one attacks her, but she twists him. She takes his sword, and carries him close to the first one.

When the first one is standing up, she spits at him. The spit is fast as a bullet, and it dents the armor close to the shoulder. The soldier falls to the ground. We hear a howling from the forest.

The second guy is almost standing up, but she does the same. It hits him on the shoulder.

The hero’s party wasn’t prepared for this. They have never faced opposition before. When something that is too much outside reality happens, people don’t know what to do. They are all just watching it.

The two soldiers start standing up. Aquamarine is now past our line, close to them. They pull out daggers, and look at each other, nodding.

Then the attack happens. Fenrirs pass by them, taking out their daggers in the process. They fall on the ground.

The pack is big, it encircles them. Some of the of pack turn their heads towards us, growling. Ruby takes a step forward, but Aquamarine looks at her and shakes her head.

The biggest of the fenrirs get close to the two soldiers. It smells them. It is big for a Fenrir, and they are generally the size of big room already. The two freeze in front of a mouth that could fit them whole.

It circles around the soldier that is lying on his stomach. When it reaches the soldier foot, itshortens it’s legs. Like a dog that wants to go below something.

When the soldier’s feet appear, he starts screaming. He cries. He begs. The Fenrir starts moving his hips.

The soldier to his side is terrified.

At some point, the soldier stops screaming. Then starts screaming again. The Fenrir does a final jerk, and the screaming stops. The Fenrir stands up, and nudges the soldier with his nose. The soldier on the ground is bleeding, there is every kind of liquid possible around him.

The second soldier looks at Aquamarine. He tries to beg with his eyes. She shakes her head lightly.

The Fenrir grabs him the shoulder. His grabbing with the mouth is apparently too strong, his fangs penetrate the soldier. He places the soldier lying on his stomach, and proceeds to do the deed.

The silence is complete. The scene is shocking on so many levels that faces are blank. They don’t have emotion. They don’t realize they are awake.

Once the Fenrir is done, it sees us. It bears it’s fangs. They are in front of us, the hero’s party is behind us. The mounts, at this point go berserk trying to flee the place.

It looks like a wild rodeo. The hero’s party is trying to control the bicorns, but they are jumping and kicking around. The way the group is packed, some riders get kicked out of their saddles by neighboring beasts.

Beasts without riders take off. Some go the way they came in the road, some just go inside the forest.

In front of us, the fenrirs have their teeth bare. Aquamarine just shakes her head. Their hair go up around their necks, and they run back towards the forest, towards the place they came from. We turn back to face the hero’s party.

It is still a mess. One of the mounts try to flee back. The rider holds the reigns, and pull on them. He really pulls. The mount stands on two legs and throws itself on it’s back, falling on top of the rider. The horn on the throat is a finishing touch. Blood gushes around.

The other riders are trying to force the mounts to calm. A lot of them fall from the saddles. They quickly try to leave the mess before they are stamped to death. Every mount that finds itself free flees.

A couple of riders turn around, and flee. They hit a branch of a tree, and fall on their backs. I think that the branch was not there previously, though.

After what looks like a couple of minutes to us, but probably is a lot worse for the hero’s party, they give up and let the mounts go. The hero opens up passage to the front of the group. I am smiling. The whole situation is comedic, I am proud that I am not laughing out loud. I turn to the group.

“Now-“ But the hero takes his sword from his scabbard. I can swear that he has a vein almost popping on his head.

“KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL! DEATH IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!!”

The group is apparently used to fighting together. Some paladins take the front, planting their shields on the ground. A barrier comes up. I raise another barrier, larger, around them. I don’t want any of them escaping.

They start with missiles of several kinds. Arrows, magic. It explodes against us, but given our skins it does absolutely no damage. Ruby turns her head to me.

“May I, my lord?”

“Just a second. Quick quiz. If this was a serious fight, who would you try to take out first?”

“The shield holders?”

I shake my head, Opal answers.

“The healers. They should be in the back.” She looks at me. I nod.

Half a dozen soldiers leave their barrier, and rush on us. Ruby opens a smile. She steps forward, they go after her. She side steps the first one, holding his wrist. When the second one tries to slice her, she uses the first one’s arm as a shield. She makes the soldiers cut their friend’s arm off.

Her movements are very fluid, she is isn’t even trying to overpower them. She is behaving as if this were the knight school exam. She even uses their own swords, instead of hers.

I get close to Cecilia.

“Cecs, this is a good chance to train the railgun. Go for the paladin on the left. Right in the middle of the shield.”

She gives it a shot. The barrier holds, but the paladin falls to his butt. He quickly stands up, and pours even more mana into the shield. His other two paladin colleagues stare at him, then at us. They have their determination renewed, and they also pour more mana into the shields.

The arrows, earth bullets, water shots, magic missiles, fire balls keep pouring on us, but this amount of attack is not able to break our skin, neither do any internal damage.

Cecilia pulls another nail. I hold her hand.

“You don’t pull the mana to do the shot. You concentrate the mana, forcing it out, while holding it in your mind. As if you were going to punch something, you get completely tense before releasing the muscles that are holding your hand back. It has to pop.”

Ruby is still facing the fighters. Cecilia raises her hand, aiming at the paladin. He has a determination expression, that starts to fade when Cecilia starts to concentrate the mana in her hand.

BOOM!

The shot breaks the sound barrier. Their protective barrier breaks as if it was made of glass. The paladin flies back, the soldiers behind him hold him. They lay him down.

The shield has a tear. His friends open his arm to take a look at what happened. The hole on his chest is massive. They look at him, then they look at Cecilia. They are starting to understand what is going on. The two remaining paladins adjust their shields, and their barrier goes up again.

Cecilia grabs another nail. She extends her arm towards the paladin on the other side. She has an evil smile on her.

The paladin looks at his fallen colleague, then looks at her. He drops the shield, and starts running towards the back. Their barrier noticeably weakens. The barrier was initially powered by three, now it is only powered by two.

The healer gets close to the fallen paladin. He shakes his head after looking at the fallen soldier.1

“YOU FUCKING MORON! KEEP THE LINE!”

He just runs, full speed. Until he leaves their barrier, and hits his face in ours. Only then they notice that there is another barrier. Some soldiers in the back look at the scene, then at what is going on on the front. Ruby has already got rid of the half a dozen attackers sent to get her.

I get close to the Cecilia again, and I say it out loud for the girls to listen.

“Generally speaking, those barriers are going to filter out mana and matter, but it is not going to filter out gases and light. It is supposed to allow for gases, otherwise a longer barrier might get everyone dead because of lack of air.”

Then I wink at Cecilia. She focus on one of the mages that has been shooting fireballs. The mages are all in the very back of the line. I can tell that they can sense something, but they don’t know what is going on.

On his next attempt at casting a fireball, the flames from his hand engulf him as a whole, we hear a voom sound, like a slow explosion, but an explosion nonetheless. His clothes burn, he gets a lot of third degrees burns all over his body.

Cecilia grabs another nail. Ruby turns to her.

“Wait! Sister, can I test their barrier?”

“You can, but It’s only a third of the strength.”

Ruby sighs, and walks slowly towards the paladin. She punches him on the shield. The barrier breaks, he is thrown back, it looks like a bowling match. A lot of the people still there falls down.

The shield bends in, the soldier is protecting his arm. A healer comes out from the back, and starts casting healing magic on him.

“Yeah… I can see what you mean…”

“YOU COWARD! I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL! CALL YOUR BITCH BACK!” The hero shouts to me.

I laugh. Ruby takes two steps back.

“My lord?”

“He is all yours, Ruby. Have fun.”

Ruby opens a smile, and starts walking slowly towards the hero. She takes her sword out. Her sword is a claymore, she holds it with a single hand. As if it were a rapier.

One soldier tries to advance at her, she sidesteps him and cuts him in half at the waist. Another one tries to attack her, and this one she cuts in the diagonal. I hear some grunts in the back. The mages are trying to walk backwards, but my barrier holds them in.

The hero takes out his shield, places it on his left arm. He shakes his shoulders, and hits his sword against his shield twice.

That makes Ruby smile more intensively. Cecilia takes out nails, and kills two bowmen, on the side, with one shot. It goes right through. All her shots now bear the sonic boom.

She takes out her sword, and go join the fight with Ruby. The front attackers take a go at her. She is a little cruder than Ruby right now, but she is still faster than the attackers by a wide margin. That makes it a tough fight with the sword specialists she is facing.

But they also can’t hurt her. They manage to land hits, but those are stopped by the armor. Every once in a while those hit an unprotected place, but then it is not able to puncture her tough skin. I put my hands around my mouth to shout.

“Cecs! Remember the vibration on the sword.”

She lowers her head focusing her magic on her sword. She then raises her head, with a sinister smile. I can sense that the guys are worried.

The first one rushes her. She makes this huge arc with her sword. Completely obvious. The soldier protects himself with the shield, but she cuts the guy in the diagonal, shield, shield arm, everything.

Ruby kicks the hero on his side, he falls on the ground, rolling.

“That’s cheating, sister!”

“It’s ok, I am just having getting rid of these fuckers! You are the one pretending to be weak to play with the prey.”

“That may be, but I am doing it in style.”

The soldiers in the middle of the thinning group are flabbergasted at the dialog. There are three people in the group donning leather armor in the group. They try to approach Opal, Shandon and Aquamarine silently. They think they are somehow invisible.

“Really?” Opal sighs, while holding the soldier by the neck. The other two girls do the same. They break the soldiers neck like a toothpick, and throw the bodies, against the last bowmen and sorcerers.

Some soldiers are kneeling down. Some of them are on their hands and knees. They lost their will to fight. One of them looks at me. The begging starts.

“Please…”

Another soldier looks at the back of the road. The mages got tired of trying to break our barrier to scape. I look at my side, there is a healer kneeling over the hero, putting all his energies on him.

The soldier that is looking to the back of the road mutters something, barely audible.

“They knew…”

The soldier that started the begging turned to me.

“We were only following orders…”

I walk slowly to him. I hate the hypocrisy.

“What? Are you saying either your pope or your king told you to kill everyone in the Romuelans fortresses even if they surrended?”

The soldier looks down. The one that was looking back looks at me.

“No, but we were following the hero’s orders.”

I look at him, being healed while Ruby waited. She is tapping her foot on the ground. It is funny no one is noticing the speed she is doing this in. The hero’s face still show hope. The other healer also has an expression of hope. The two healers bear Nergal’s crest.

I turn back to the soldier.

“I hate the whole ‘I was following orders’ thing. You were on your way to try to enslave my wives. You rape, you pillage, with a savagery that none other display. Did you know that not even the fucking dragon that was with Romuela’s army killed like you do?”

“You knew about the dragon?”

“Yes. And you guys got so fucking lucky. You have no idea. If he had got bored just a couple of weeks later, you’d all have been decimated by him.”

I laugh.

“Who are you?”

“Oh, I am a nobody. But my wives are on your list. Didn’t you want to force the top 5 students of the knight school into the army? You have four of them here. Say hello.”

I laugh.

The hero was staring at Ruby. I take a look now, he is looking at me. Then he looks at Ruby.

“You are just a fucking woman!”

Ruby laughs.

“Actually, she is a woman.” Ruby points at Cecilia, that has soldiers’ guts all around her.

Soldiers that, in different directions, where cut in half. Cecilia looks at the hero. She does a sarcastic courtesy. He looks back at Ruby.

“What are you, then?”

Ruby looks at me, I nod. She looks back at the hero.

“My sisters and I used to be dragons.”

Ruby takes her gloves out. She changes her hand into a hand with red scales and claw. I walk towards her. The hero is looking at the hand.

I take my time. Everyone around is too stunned to move. I get close to Ruby, and I kiss her scaly hand.

“Beautiful in all your shapes.”

Ruby blushes. I turn to the other girls.

“All of you!”

Cecilia sighs.

“Really? Fucking here?” She looks at the dragonesses blushing and sighs. She turns to the hero.

“See what I have to deal with? Every once in a while. And he doesn’t even realize!”

I laugh. I go back to Opal, Shandon and Aquamarine.

“The charade went on long enough. Ruby, are you satisfied with the fight yet?”

“My lord, I am really disappointed, but I don’t think it is going to get any better.”

“Ok. Can we just wrap this up? I don’t want to be late for dinner. We have to get the bodies for the guild.”

Ruby smiles.

“Can I go Skylar on the hero?”

I laugh.

“Have fun.”

She turns to the hero.

“Stand up. I know you are healed already.”

The hero stands up, but he lost the will to fight. He does a half-assed attack. Ruby dominates him by the wrist, and puts him laying on his stomach, while holding his arm by the wrist. She places her foot on the hero’s back, and starts pulling the arm.

It makes some really nasty noises. Shoulder popping while dislocating. The hero’s scream in pain. After some second, she rips the arm out. Pieces of nerves, vases, dangling from the arm in her hand.

Three of the current survivors throw up with the scene. A healer passes out. The other pisses himself. Half a dozen cry. The hero is unresponsive. Ruby looks at the arm, then she sees that she has nothing to be beaten with the arm. She throws it to the middle of the group.

She kicks the hero’s body toward the group. She grabs the healer nearby by his garments and throws him on top of the hero. She prepares to release a breath.

“Wait!” I interrupt her.

“What, my lord?”

“We need the bodies. It is a present for Edward.”

“That again? Ok.”

She opens the bag of holding, and starts putting the corpses inside it. She stabs some of them on the heart to keep it clean.

I take a look at the scene. There are a lot of guts around. Muninn and Huginn approach me.

“Can you guys get some help with clean-up? I want to avoid any tags, pieces of armor or something else left behind.”

“Sure, papa.” Huginn answers. Her voice is kind of sad.

“What happened? Are you ok?”

“Well, papa, I was expecting to be able to, you know, help…”

“Oh, sorry. Everything just kind of happened.”

“No problem, papa.”

I take down my barrier, birds from the forest approach the place. Carrions start eating the guts, while some other birds capture metalic or leather pieces and bring to me. A couple of tags. A purse. I hand them over to Ruby, she puts it in her bag of holding, with the bodies.

I open a portal to our bathroom.

“Shall we?”