The Quantum Wanderer

“Sir! You won’t believe it, but a huge bird is flying in circles around the city. It is HUGE! About as big as a Fenrir!”

I look at Aymon. He is not invested in anything that is happening, but his brows are still almost touching his hair. I can’t even fathom what I am looking like now. I stay in silence. The whole city is in panic. I can hear the noise from the streets seeping into the communication. The guild master didn’t even bother putting a silence spell.

“WHAT DO I DO?” The guild master asks, desperate, from the other side of the connection.

A voice with two different timbres, comes through the Comm Gem. It is as if several different people were talking, one over the other, but all of them saying the same thing. The sound is distorted, something that should not be.

There is a lot of mana in the voice. A deep horror imbues in me. I look at Aymon, he is as terrified as I am.

“YOU WANTED TO SEND US A MESSAGE… CONGRATULATIONS, IT WORKED!”

I throw the Comm Gem in the corner, an attempt to escape the voice.

BOOM.

The Comm Gem explodes. Aymon and I are both high level former adventurers, and I am really happy that I threw the necklace to a corner. Aymon and I are looking at each other. There is nothing to say.

“LEOPOLD! LEOPOLD! ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU OK?”

I pick up Edward’s Comm Gem.

“We… I… shit…” I take a deep breath. “Ok is a very strong word to describe how I am right now… Did you listen to the previous communication?”

“… Yes…”

The Comm Gems start shaking frenetically. Some more than others. I take a look at the map, the closest big city to Angelica is Aurora. Finally some small good luck on this cluster fuck of shit. It is about 20 miles out of Angelica. The way there is not a straight line, though, there are some hills that make the road a tortuous one.

I pick up Lancelot’s Comm Gem.

“SIR! THIS… THIS… “ He starts crying. A grown man, former military, crying. “I AM SORRY! WE DIDN’T KNOW! GODS! GODS! WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?”

“CALM DOWN, SOLDIER!” I put some mana on my voice. It has to have the effect of a slap, and I am not there. I am hoping that invoking his military past will help. “WHAT HAPPENED?”

“The night… Became day… The explosion noise broke all windows. The land shook. Sir… Are we damned?”

“Calm down! Send a party there to investigate. We have to know what happened.”

“Yes… Good idea, sir…”

The connection is cut. Sending a party to investigate is obvious. It is something that Lancelot would ordinarily do. It scares me that it is a good idea of a sudden.

Four fifths of the other Comm Gems are shaking. I connect to them one by one, saying that the guild is already investigating, that we are going to provide further information once we have it.

A couple of the other Comm Gems connect as well. The guild master flew the city with his family, they were attendants. I tell them the same information I have been passing everyone.

All of them have the idea that the flash of light came from the direction of Angelica.

The devastation was huge. Several cities had all glasses broken due to the sound that came out. Several roofs removed from houses in Aurora. And this is walled city.

Soldiers were plummeted to their deaths from the wall by the wind.

The situation calms down a little bit once more. I sit on the couch, opposite Aymon, sipping my liquor.

“Fuuuuuuuckkkk…” Aymon says.

I raise my glass to him. He does the same. We sip. He continues.

“What are you going to do now?”

I shrug.

“Try to bring the priests there to heal the survirors. What else?”

“How bad do you think it was?”

I shrug.

“You heard the reports… You have the same information I have…”

We keep seeping the liquor. Some time later, Lancelot’s Comm Gem shakes. Of course, I get the connection immediately. I hear a man crying on the other side. The sobbing makes it hard to make the words out.

“The whole city… Everything…”

I raise my brow towards Aymon. I pour mana on my voice.

“Can you take the survivors to Aurora?”

“HAHAHAHAHAHA…”

There is a maniacal laugh.

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT! THERE IS NOTHING! NOT EVEN DUST!”

Lancelot never spoke with me that way. He was always a sucker for order.

“YOU BETTER WATCH IT! Describe the scene to me.”

He sobs.

“I-I… I am sorry, sir… Angelica… Angelica is gone. There is a round crater where the city used to be. It is slowly getting filled with water from the affluent of the big river that went through it…

“The four roads that went to the city are kind of preserved, there is a ramp in front of them… Probably used to seal the gates before whatever this is happened.

“The forest closest to the city lost the leaves… Wait, the mountain… It has what looks like a crow’s profile on it…“ He starts sobbing.

“I know this was a hard mission, Lancelot. Congratulations on fulfilling it. The information you gathered is invaluable.”

“Sir… Are we doomed?”

“No, of course not…” I lie. “But in order to avoid it, you have to keep your cool. Keep me informed of anything else that happens.”

I close the connection. I take a look at the Comm Gem to Edward, the connection was still up. I pick it up.

“Did you hear it?”

“I don’t know. It is all so fantastic that I am not even sure. A crater. How big was Angelica?”

“I think it was around one mile from one gate to the other. At the bottom of a valley, not many pathways to get there.”

“So, a one mile crater. Apparently, one spell. I wonder what happened, and what stopped.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I can guess that the crow purge was the reason, either directly or indirectly. But if they were this pissed, why stop after the first city?"

…

“Anyway, “ Edward continues, “this is not important, in the sense that it won’t change anything. We have to accept that we are spectators on this play. And that our friend is somewhat pissed with what the Holy Kingdom did.”

“What do you think is wise to do?” I ask him.

“You? I have no idea. My cousin is right now sending out orders to close the borders for anyone from the Holy Kingdom until we discover what refugees we can accept.”

“That sounds a little harsh.”

“That sounds like survival.” He laughs on the other side. Not humor, but pure nervousness.

I close the connection. I drink the liquor. I wonder what the new day is going to bring.

***

Anthon’s POV

I am already laying on my bed when I hear the knock on my bedroom’s door.

“Your majesty! It is his grace, lord Edward! He says he has a very urgent missive.”

I get up. Edward has never done something like this. I open the door. The guards kneel.

“Bring him to my study!”

I walk towards my study. The more I think about it, the more urgent it looks. I speed up. At some point, I am running in my pajamas to the study.

Edward is already there, glued to a Comm Gem. He casts a silence spell around his hand and sits down on the sofa. I sit opposite him. I cast a silence spell on the room.

“The Holy Kingdom made our friend sneeze.”

He gets up, and fills two glasses to the trim with hard liquor. He lays my glass in front of me.

“How bad was the sneeze?”

“Remember how Angelica was the capital?”

“It still is, right?”

“It is no more.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“The city is no more. It became a crater on the ground. Apparently, a mile wide crater. I heard it is becoming a lake.”

I take my time digesting this information. There are strong spells, generally done by groups of mages, that can kill a lot of people. Hundreds, even. The biggest ones are on the low hundreds of feet. Sometimes 150 feet. And that is already an accomplishment.

Just like everything, it is outrageous.

“What did they do?”

“They decided to post a quest to get druids. They collected all the crows in country, then burned them all at the same time.”

“That seems fucked up, sure. But…”

Edward shrugs.

“Just before the city was destroyed a crow, as big as a Fenrir, flew around it, and told them that their attempt at sending a message to Wrax worked…”

A chill goes down Edward’s spine, he shakes a little. He takes a sip of the drink before he continues.

“And I heard that report through a Comm Gem to Leopold, that heard it from the guild master in Angelica. *I* almost soiled my pants. Good thing Leopold threw the Comm Gem away, it exploded. And that was on the other side of a Comm.”

“Shiiiiiit…”

“The crater information came from a guild master from a nearby city. Good thing there were hills around Angelica. Even then there were earth tremors and the blast of the explosion hit the other city. If it were close enough, it would have been caught in the blast.

“The poor guy’s mind is very close to cracking.”

Out of reflex developed with my military action, I end up asking.

“Casualties? Number of survivors?”

Edward takes a sip. A big one.

“Casualties? Everyone. I believe they had… What? 700 thousand? 800 thousand? About survivors… The people that fled with the animals. Did your ambassador contact you?”

I stand up. I open the door and address one of the guards that is there.

“You. Find the external affairs minister. Tell him to try to contact our ambassador in Angelica, and to come here. Drag him if you have to. Bring him here, FAST!”

We both wait in silence. There is not much to say. A whole city, gone. First, the animal’s stampede. Then this.

We keep drinking. I lift the silence spell around the room, I want to hear an eventual knock. The silence is loud right now.

A knock on the door makes me jump a little, I am probably a little on edge. I tell them to come in.

Joseph, the exterior minister, enters the room. He has a Comm Gem pendant in his hand. He kneels.

“Your majesty, your grace,”

“It’s alright. Just grab some liquor and sit down.”

He goes to my bar, pours one finger of distilled liquor, turns to us.

“You are going to need more than that.” I say, almost laughing.

He turns around and doubles the dose. I think he still is going to need more than that, but I don’t correct him this time around. I gesture him to sit on the couch. I cast a silence spell.

“Did you manage to contact the ambassador? Did he obey the evacuation orders?”

“Your Excellency, the order came from you. Of course he obeyed. I have been trying to stablish contact, but so far no luck. I can feel the mana being consumed, so I assume the Comm Gem is shaking on the other side, but so far no answer. Did something happen? I mean, after the whole animal running thing?”

“Yes. Angelica is no more.”

“No more what?”

“No more. Last I heard it is becoming a lake. A crater. No more.”

He stares at me. I am pretty sure he is not calling me crazy because I am the emperor.

“Are you sure, my lord?”

Edward answers.

“Yes. I heard the last words of an agent I had in there. The Comm Gem exploded. I got in touch with the guild, they sent a party to investigate. The lake is filling up with water. It might be already filled up, but that is not important.”

“How? Why?”

I laugh. I stare at Edward.

“Well, I can tell you that the last words of the agent were… ‘A crow, as big as a fenrir… The crow said that their attempt to send a message to Wrax worked…’”

“That’s all?” The ambassador asks.

“Well, there was also the ‘AAAARRGGHHH’.”

I laugh, before I stop myself. I turn to Edward.

“Really?”

He shrugs. I shake my head. He never grew up.

“Dark and stupid humor aside, that is what happened.”

The minister is scratching his chin. The advent of a new religion really changes things around. Specially the demise of higher clergy from the church. I look at him.

“Don’t stop ringing the Comm Gem for the ambassador. The evacuation order should have given him a couple of hours to try to escape. Of course, there is no way to foresee something like this, but there is at least some chance he escaped the blast.”

“What about cities around Angelica? How are they faring?”

Edward answers it.

“I have heard that a city that is one day of travel away, Aurora, had all the glasses shattered because of the wind caused by the blast. Tiles from roofs, soldiers fell from the wall… Good thing it wasn’t in the direct line of sight.”

The minister keeps pouring mana on the Comm Gem.

“Your majesty, can I get my personal assistant in? She has more mana than I do, she might be able to increase the attention on the side of the Comm Gem.”

“Sure.”

He stands up, opens the door, talks to a guard, and comes back to the room. There is not much to say. The minister takes a sip.

“We should probably get a group of people to investigate this, your majesty.”

I gesture him to calm down.

“Don’t worry about it too much. I have a feeling that we already have most of the information we are going to have in a long time.”

“What do you mean, your highness? This is all *huge*. The gods are real. At least, Wrax. And the crows are his messengers. BY THE GODS! WE DON’T HAVE A LAW TO PROTECT CROWS YET!”

The poor guy is breathing hard. He didn’t say anything wrong, though. And I prefer a smaller, unorganized religion taking hold of the people. The Holy Kingdom always made me nervous.

“It is ok. I received revelation from Wrax, our country is safe.”

He looks at me incredulous. Then at Edward. Edward goes with it. As in the saying, ‘half leadership is plan, half is luck.’ Edward gives the last push.

“Why do you think he ordered the embassy evacuated? Specially the way he did?”

The minister looks at me with awe. He looks deeply at me, he is probably feeling blanks that do not exist with a new lore that he is creating in his head.

“That explains so much, your highness… How is Wrax? Is he pro humans?”

“He wishes for balance, for justice. For humans, and others as well…”

He nods slowly, as if understanding a fundamental truth about the world. He is looking up. His brain is going twice the normal speed.

One of the guards outside the room opens the door. The assistant enters the room, and kneels down. My training allows me to notice that she indeed has a lot of mana control. She is probably a mage as well. And well trained at that.

“Rise, girl.” I say.

She stands up. The minister shows her the pendant, then throws it at her in a friendly way. She grabs the Comm Gem. The minister doesn’t let her speak.

“Our embassador in Angelica evacuated, but we lost contact. I need you to really pour mana into the Comm Gem, to see if someone gets to it. We want information.”

“Yes, sir.”

She pours mana on the pendant. She doesn’t ask reasons. Orders are orders. This just might have saved the ambassador. Half plan, half luck. I just might get a plate with this sentence and put it over the throne.

She pours a lot of mana.

“You may sit down, girl. These are… Weird times.”

“Thank you, your highness. It is an honor.”

She sits down, notices that we have glasses with a lot of liquor. She looks at us inquisitively. I look at Edward, and nod. Keeping everything from her is useless. Edward clears his throat.

“What we are going to mention is going to come public later, but we already have the information. It cannot be released, under penalty of treason.”

She nods.

“Angelica is gone.”

“I am sorry, what do you mean, your grace?”

“I mean exactly what I said. The place it was in is now a lake. It is gone.”

“How?”

She asks it before realizing that she is around the sit of power. She covers her mouth with her hands. Edward ignores her expression.

“They sacrificed the crows in a bonfire. In all the major cities. The information was that they wanted to send a message to Wrax. It worked.”

She is slack jawed.

“Was it Wrax himself that descended?”

I look at Edward.

“No, he only sent a messenger. He cast a spell. It turned the whole city into a crater. It is now getting filled with water from the big river affluent.”

We have a moment of silence, and we hear a desperate female voice from the Comm Gem.

“My lord? Hello? Anyone here?”

“Hello, Renata. I must speak with your husband. Is he around?”

Her voice is broken, she is sobbing heavily.

“My lord… The light… We were behind the hill, and our closed eyes could see it. We held against the trees… We lost our ears, and we could feel the sound in our stomachs…”

“It was… It was…”

She starts sobbing. We give her time.

“After that, the healer with us started the healing… He placed my husband and his two attendants out of life danger, then gave me back my hearing…”

She starts sobbing again. When she calms down again, the minister press on.

“What happened to your husband?”

“He wanted to see what was happening to the city. I kept the kids and myself in the safest place possible. Behind the hill, inside the hollow of a tree. First the light, then the shockwave from the explosion.“

“How is your husband?”

“He is still unconscious, my lord. So are the two soldiers that were with him. The healer has no more energy to help.”

“Can you get back to the road?”

“Only some of us.”

“It should be safe for now. The monsters and animals are not going to be around, bandits are going to be as worried as us. I am going to send some adventurers from nearby to help.”

“Thank you, your highness!”

I nod at Edward. He goes to a corner, casts a silence spell around himself. He stays at the corner for some time, until he undoes the silence spell around himself. He looks at us, he notices the assistance is shaking.

He prepares glass with a lot of hard liquor, hands it to her and goes back to his seat. He sips some of the alcohol. She takes a big gulp.

The night is at the darkest hour. The time looks surreal, everything is so weird, I don’t have a way to measure the passing.

The Comm Gem Edward has shakes, he brings it close to his ear. He says an ok, then a thank you.

“Help is on the way. There is nothing more we can do.”

I nod at him.

“I think it is best we have some sleep. We are going to have to take some hard decisions tomorrow.”

“Sleep?” Edward laughs.

I raise my glass to him. I drain the rest.

“I don’t think this is something people will ever forget.”