The Quantum Wanderer

The next day, we play a little bit and then go down for breakfast.

“So, my villain, did you talk to the dryads?”

“Yes! Ipê gave me a complete lesson on the plant. Did you know that Roberta uses it on some meals?”

“I had no idea.” Cecilia answers.

I get curious on the amount of knowledge that Roberta would have on the plant. I ring the bell, Rudolph comes over.

“You called, lord?”

“Yes. Can you ask Roberta to come over?”

“Of course, lord.”

A short interval is past, Roberta arrives, drying her hands on her apron.

“You called, lord?”

“Yes. Just a curiosity, Roberta, have you ever heard about something called huacatay?”

“Yes. It is something we buy from the elves. I sometimes use it give a fresh flavor to the dish.”

“What else can you tell me about that herb?”

“I can tell you where it is located in the store we generally go. I would generally know the price, but with all the new coins the elves use, and our situation, I never really worried about learning the price. Do you want me to check with the girls? Since they buy stuff to re-sell, they might know the price in dwarven gold…”

“No, no need. Thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you.”

She goes back in the kitchen. After breakfast, we go through our normal routine, and I meet Edward in front.

“Good morning, friend!”

“Oh, hey, good morning Edward.”

“Humm… You seem… Off. Everything ok?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I was up late doing this work on huacatay.”

“Huacatay? What the hell is that?”

“Exactly.” I giggle a little. “It is a little known herb, apparently. But it is done, nonetheless.” I hand him the booklet, with the cover done by Ipê. The funny thing is that it says “Huacatay’s compendium, by Big Brother”.

Edward is looking at the hard cover book, trying to understand. He opens it, takes a look. Then he closes it.

“Is it a quest? In the guild?”

“Oh, no. It is home work that professor Curie asked for. To make up for the two weeks we took off.”

“I’M FUCSO WHAT?”

He kind of tripped over his words. The window to the driver and the knight that were seating in the front opens up. The knight looks at us.

“Is everything ok there, lord?”

Edward puts a hand on the bridge of his nose, and gestures the knight to never mind. As if he were shaking off a bad smell.

“Everything is fine, officer. Don’t mind this.”

The face disappears, the little window closes. Edward holds the book, then looks at me. He has a smile on his face, but I can clearly feel a devilish aura.

“So, mister Marcelo, if you don’t mind, I am going to deliver this to professor Curie myself.”

“Sure.”

He drops me off at the usual location. I go to school. I enter my room and sit on the table. I am a little tired.

“Hi, mister Marcelo, “ Dedi says, “ did you party again with your wives?”

“I wish! I was up some long hours, doing the paper for alchemy.”

Chet joins on the talk.

“Man, I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes. Do you know what you did?”

“I have no idea. I mean, other than the two weeks absence.”

“Have you tried talking to her?” Dedi asks.

“If it gets any worse, I will. It is still manageable.”

Muninn is, as almost always, on my shoulder. I look at him, I notice the disguised smile. Shortly after, a crow enters the room. He takes a spot high on the beam under the ceiling. Then we hear the scream.

“NOT FUCKING AGAIN!”

Lucas received a bomb from the other crow close to the ceiling. He starts to leave the room. At the door, he looks at me.

“THIS IS NOT THE END OF THIS!” Lucas says, pointing at me.

Muninn does that thing where he prunes my hair with his beak. We laugh.

“That was savage!” Chet says, laughing.

I just turn my head to the side.

“What, do you think I have anything to do with that?”

They laugh even more. The teacher comes in, and sees the commotion. He asks to a girl that sits on the front what happened, she tells him. He looks at the crow perked close to the ceiling, then to Muninn and me. He shrugs.

He starts the lesson, with some exercises on drawing runes. I pay attention, the lesson ends up pretty quick.

After the bell we have our usual talk, until professor Curie enters the room. She doesn’t have her usual large hat on. Instead, she is carrying a dirty black sunshade styled umbrella. She enters the room, and notices the crow close to the ceiling.

Another crow comes through the door, and it lands on a beam that is right above the teacher’s area in front of the room. She looks up and sees the bird. Because of all my levels, I can hear her muttering.

“You gotta be fucking me…”

She turns to the class.

“Good morning class.”

She looks at the students. She has a little bit of a defeated expression. She looks at us.

“Mister Marcelo, the dean has shown me your treaty on huacatay. You have an A on it.”

She says this with the most lack of interest I have ever seen a professor have towards a student. One thing I learned in my college years, though, is never to question an A.

During the lesson she still looks at me with some anger, but there are no words. That’s a very nice improvement.

Soon than expected we go for our noon snack. We sit at our usual table. The gang can’t stop talking about the crows that are circling and bombing Lucas and professor Marie.

***

Edward’s POV

Fuck, I am pissed. I have already had a talk about the special circumstances involving sir Marcelo and his wives with the professors. These fucking morons are supposed to be the smartest people in the Three Greats, and yet it seems like they have wax in their ears.

I arrive at my office.

“Susan! Get me professor Curie in the office. NOW!”

Susan raises her eyebrows. She is used to me getting like this during the day, not starting it like this. I open a bottle with some liquor. Good thing I had a good breakfast.

Some moments later, Susan is back, with professor Marie in tow. I gesture for professor Marie to get into the office. I cast a silence spell.

“Do me a favor. Get some librarian’s help, you can pick any professor you want. I want to know if our library carries any information on a herb called huacatey.”

“I am sorry, dean, huaca what?”

I take the book out, and show her the name of the herb. She pulls out a small notepad, and writes it down. I close the book.

“This is urgent. I don’t care if you stop a lesson. I don’t want to know about the herb. I just want to know how much information we carry about this thing.”

“I will be on it, dean.”

“Thank you, Susan. Now excuse, I have some ear wax to peel.”

I undo the silence spell, and go over to my desk. I am carrying the book with me, as if it were a weapon.

“Good morning, professor Curie.”

She is a little agitated.

“Good morning, dean. What is going on? Is everything alright?”

I inspire, then expire slowly. At this point, through the open window, a crow comes in. It flies over professor Curie, leaves a drop on her hat, and perches on a bean close to the ceiling.

She felt the hit from the dropping. She looks at the bird, and extends her hand, in anger. I burst out laughing.

“REALLY? ARE YOU GOING TO KILL A CROW IN FRONT OF ME?”

She lowers her arm. She knows about the crow protection act recently passed. She calms herself down, and sits back down.

She gets hit by another dropping. I burst out laughing.

“How cute! I think he likes you!”

She is not amused as I am. I have to calm myself down, and regain my serious side to be able to talk with this moron.

“Very well. I have talked with all of you about eventual absences from sir Marcelo and his wives, have I not?”

She sees the book on top of my desk.

“Yes, dean, but…”

“BUT WHAT, YOU FUCKING MORON?!?” I slap the table. I try to relax, some breathing exercises to calm down.

“Sometimes I am amazed with your incapacity to listen. Ambrose and Tacitus are the smart ones. They see far. You? You couldn’t read new material even if presented to you. Do you want to see something funny?”

She looks at me, with apathy. She is scared to answer yes or not, at this point. And another dropping. I wonder how much that crow ate this morning.

I open the booklet. I read some of the pages.

“Huacatey, a herb that grows in high altitudes, closer to ley lines.”

“Ley lines? Where is that information from?”

I turn to the pages with the leafs. I open the booklet and show it to her.

“Look, an example of the leaf. There are even some leaves that could cause some confusion, with the differences listed.”

She is staring at the book that is just out of reach. Her fear is slowly transforming into curiosity. Her hands are reaching out a little bit. I close the book, and turn it back to me.

“Oh, interesting, there is a drawing of rough map and where to find the herb. I must say, our friend is not that bad with drawing the continent. It is very close to the maps I have seen…

“Hum… What do you know? There is a whole section on how to extract essential oils from the plant… With ways to infuse mana in the process.”

She is looking very happy right now. I can tell she is almost salivating thinking on what she is going to do with the book.

At this point, there is a knock on my door, Susan opens it.

“Oh, hi Susan. Was it this quick?”

“Yes dean. There are no mentions in the library.”

“Great. Thank you, Susan.”

I turn around. Professor Curie is stretching her arms, almost reaching the booklet.

“FUCK NO! YOU DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

She recoil back in her seat. I walk back to my seat.

“Perhaps I should make you research that herb, huacatey, using only the material available in our library? It seems reasonable, right? Perhaps a week without food or water, until you find it?”

She presses her lips. I continue.

“I mean, if it is something you are telling a first year student to research, you could do it in 10 minutes, right?”

She is now looking at the floor. I sit on my chair. I look at the ceiling, at the crow. I take a deep breath. Perhaps I am going soft. Perhaps Addrianna made me soft for the past couple of days.

“Very well. Let’s end this charade. Consider yourself on parole. I don’t want to hear any other bullshit coming from you towards students. Mister Marcelo in particular. I don’t know what is your problem, and I don’t care. But the students are not your private punching bags. DO. YOU. COPY?”

There is some silence, after which she finally mutters.

“Yes… Dean…”

“Great. You can go. You still have classes to teach for the day.”

She stands up, head down. She takes another dropping on the hat. She walks towards the door. She opens it, and turns around. She sighs. She points to the booklet on the top of my table, without much conviction.

“…What about the treaty…?”

“Well… First, I think it deserves an A, do you not?”

She nods. I continue.

“Great. It is going to be a very nice addition to my personal library at home.”

She opens her mouth, but says nothing. I continue.

“You can go.”

She leaves the room. The crow leaves through the window. I think she has a new friend.

***

Marcelo’s POV

The day proceeds uneventful. Professor Curie and Lucas are now using umbrellas indoor, so as to avoid bombings. His meditation gets interrupted here and there with a pebble being thrown against the umbrella.

The practical magic lesson goes out normally. I try to create start practicing more than one mandala at a time. My mandalas are pretty small, so they are not too tiresome. But it requires some muscle memory to do it. It is akin to a piano player that has a hand playing a different part.

The professor senses my attempt. “

“Mister Marcelo, come here.”

“Yes, professor?”

“You are going to sit on this chair, like this.” To demonstrate what he wants, he sits down. He continues.

“You are going to tap your feet on the floor, alternating them. Each time you tap one foot, you are going to hit your other leg with your other hand. Like this.”

He shows me. It is really easy for him, apparently. He stands up, allowing me to sit. On my first attempts, I fail miserably. He opens a smile.

“Did we find something you are not gifted in?”

I smile. I keep trying that for the rest of the class. The mechanics is not automatic, and this feels a little wrong, but I keep on it.

Some other students look at us. Lucas in particular snorts.

Once the lesson is finished, I go back to the front of the school, and I get a ride with Edward. I enter the carriage. He looks at Muninn and starts laughing.

“That was savage, my friend!”

“What?”

“The crow that kind of fell in love with professor Curie… She is going to have to wash her hat. Do you believe that she was about to shoot it down in front of me?”

We all laugh. Including Muninn.

I was going to ask him why he would meet professor Curie, but I remembered that he delivered the homework to her.

I go home. The girls are already there, obviously. We wash up and go down for dinner. After the brâns, Cecilia and I finish eating, Huginn approaches.

“Papa, I think that it is time to wrap up the Holy Kingdom.”

“Really? Why?”

“Their forces are already centered in Nergalea. It was very nice of them to put all my targets in a single city. Most of the soldiers, all the high knights, the bishops and a couple of cardinals that got lucky previously. They are so considerate…”

“Are you going to get one by one?” I ask.

“No, I grow tired of this. It is getting boring. I might just pull a Muninn on them.”

I think about the situation. This time there is not the hot bloodedness, but on the other hand, everyone that wanted to leave and abandon the leaders have had their opportunity. The city became a military target.

Up to now, Huginn has kept a more cruel revenge than Muninn, but she also has kept her attacks localized to a smaller number of people and areas.

I nod at her.

***

Morrigan POV

I am assembled with my advisors. They are former guild members, most of them participated in the cursed quest involving the crows. Their loss, my gain. I look around their faces, they are somewhat worried.

My mind wanders a little bit. The priests always made sure they had monopoly on the healing process. Healing without the church’s approval is heresy, they say. It is only possibly by using the blessings from evil energies.

But weren’t the herbs created by the same gods that created us? Why wouldn’t they allow us to use herbs to cure fever, to avoid infection on cuts.

My village paid dearly when the inquisition arrived. Women with knowledge are witches. I still regret that we couldn’t help more.

I regretted it a lot more later. My husband fell ill. The church healers were too expensive. How can people die from a labor accident, when a single gesture could save them? And we always paid our taxes. They were never shy to appear when they were due.

I never expected to be crowned queen. Much less the way it happened. A goddess looking like a crow descending from the skies, after having laid waste to a capital, decided I am the queen. My goddess. I smile at the irony. I will make sure she is proud.

I look at the map in front of us. It is showing how our forces are distributed. The good news is that I don’t expect the priests to get any reinforcements. According to the intel, Arthuria is pinned by the demons, and the Empire is not going to aid the priests. I heard that they even enacted a law protecting crows.

I intended on doing that once we got rid of the priests. It is a pity they did it first.

I focus back on the map. The bad news is that we are spread thin. Too many cities, lack of a better organized military is going to cost us. Our chances are better than an average coup, but they are not as good as I would like.

Nergalea stands on a plateau, it is good to defend. Because of all the roads built around it for the peregrins, the forces there can pick cities and just push our forces.

The sun has set, the torches are getting lit all over the city. It has been a couple of weeks since the goddess last appeared. I imagine what other part of the world she is changing right now.

I leave the advisors, I go to the dinning room. My kids are already waiting for me there.

“Mama, mama, how was your day?”

“Busy, dear.”

“Look what I draw!”

He drew a crow in a piece of paper. The crow carries a crown of its own. I am drawn, smaller, by the crow. I smile at him.

“Very good, dear.”

“Do you think we can show it to her?”

“I don’t think so. She is very busy, you know. Imagine if everyone could talk to me about every little thing… I wouldn’t have time to…” I stand up, prowl up to him, and start tickling him. “ DO THIS!”

He is laughing.

At this point, I listen to a voice. It doesn’t come from my ears, it goes straight into my mind.

“YOU, WHO ARE FAITHFUL, KOWTOW NOW! I BRING A PRESENT!”

It is the goddess.

“What was that, mama?”

I get the kids off the chair, and I make each one of them kowtow. I look at the maid, the idiot is looking around. She heard the same thing I did.

“KOWTOW NOW, YOU IDIOT!”

The maid does so. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I learned not to disobey. We stay in that position for some time.

Then it happens. The night becomes day. I have no time to look, it is too fast. We are all flabbergasted with the phenomenon.

After some time, the explosion sound.

I know exactly what resides in that direction. What used to reside in that direction. Nergalea is no more.

***

Marcelo’s POV

This time, Huginn didn’t take too long. She stayed out for a couple of hours. I imagine that exploding Nergalea would be faster, no need for the additional time. When she comes back, I ask that to her.

“Huginn, why did this take so long? Not trying to be cruel here, but the spell itself is fast, right?”

“Yes, papa, but I told everyone in the closer cities to kowtow. That way, they would not be blinded by the explosion.”

It makes me happy that, in spite of the whole raining hell on them, she takes a little time to safeguard unrelated people around.

“Thank you.” I tell her. “Can I assume that this whole Holy Kingdom thing is done, now?”

“Yes, papa. I consider the matter closed.”

“That’s great.”

The girls and I retire for some fun before sleeping.

The next morning, after eating my part in the breakfast, I look at Huginn.

“Huginn, do you mind if I tell Edward that the Holy Kingdom chapter is closed? He and Anthon might be interested in having connections with the new government.”

“As I told you, papa, it is done.”

“I wish she had that much patience with me, “ Muninn says, “this is the third time she repeats herself. It it were me, I would be against the table for not listening.”

Charles chuckles at the joke. I giggle a little too.

We prepare and go our ways towards school. I board Edward’s carriage.

“Good morning, friend! How are you?”

“I am doing well. How are you?”

“I am well too. I heard that there was another big boom in the Holy Kingdom?”

“Yes, I was going to mention that. Did you know that they were concentrating their forces in Nergalea?”

“Yes, I heard that.”

“Huginn decided to end the chapter with another big boom. Nergalea is also no more.”

“Oh? Is she done, then?”

“Yes. She is satisfied, so she is not going to explode or destroy a city… They already did most of her work, anyway.”

“Hum… Good to know. Do you mind if I tell Anthon?”

“Not at all. That’s the reason I am telling you. Other than the usual, like bandits and perhaps some monster here and there, it is now safe to travel through the Holy Kingdom.”

“You mean Crow Kingdom…” He smiled.

“Are they changing their name already?”

“Of course. Thanks for letting me know.”

“No problem.”

“Do you already have plans for the weekend?”

“I can’t say that I do. What about you?”

“Not really. We have been invited to a couple of balls, but they are not really our thing… But that is just usual. We are always invited to a ball or two. If your wives want, we could go to one.”

“I am going to talk to them about during lunch.”

We talk about shortly about the school, and Edward drops me by the magic school.