The Quantum Wanderer

I settle on the current routine. Classes during the week. I keep extending time by reinforcing my brain during practical magic hours, I keep practicing simultaneous casting. I think I am doing well with it now.

It changed the way I cast the mandalas. Before I did something more conscious, it is now a muscle memory thing.

When I mix it with my knowledge and practice of superposition state, I can create the mandalas a short distance away from my body. When I cast with that it looks like a circle with me in the middle, and a lot of mandalas around, shooting as I wish. It is like each mandala is a finger that I can just trigger.

Of course, I only attempt this kind of thing in private, I was told that the most common situation is having a cast in each hand.

Everything is quite peaceful. We spend our weekends visiting the Elves, we often bring our friends with us.

Then a scream wakes us up in the middle of the night.

“NOO! THE BABY!”

There is already a portal opened in front of us. I am not well dressed, I don’t know what is going on, but we jump through it.

I look to the corner, and I feel the last residue of mana, before it dissipates. There is a stain of blood against the wall, and a bird on the floor.

The door opens, Akiko enters in her nightgown. She injects mana in a place on the wall, the light from a magic stone is on.

The big, colonial style bed is empty. Covers on the floor. The same happen with the crib that is at the bed’s feet. I try to investigate the traces of mana, but there is not much there. It is dispersing, whatever spell they used is no longer cast.

I turn to Huginn.

“Can we follow whatever it was?”

She shakes her head. I turn to the girls. They also shake their heads.

Akiko is frozen in the room. Some maids, then some guards, enter the room.

“HALT! WHO ARE YOU? What are you doing here?”

They take their swords out and step towards us. That breaks Akiko’s haze a little.

“THEY ARE MY SPECIAL SECURITY! LEAVE!”

The guards look at us, but they stop.

“LEAVE!” Akiko repeats.

One of the guards take a longer look around, looks at the bird on the floor, the stain on the wall, the condition of the crib and the bed.

The soldiers then put their swords away cautiously and step back. Each step back they take, Akiko takes one forward, showing them out the room. Once they are out the door, she closes the door. She walks slowly towards the bed.

I turn around, the girls are looking at the bird. Aquamarine reaches for something that looks like like a small patch of hair.

Akiko falls to her knees. Her eyes are empty.

“What is that?” I ask.

“The results of this child’s resolve.” Muninn says, looking at the bird on the floor.

Aquamarine smells the patch of hair. She passes it over to Opal. She smells the hair as well, and they nod at each other.

“What happened, Huggin?” I ask.

“A group of humanoids. They portaled to the room. They took Hikari and the baby. The bird tried to attack them. It managed to take some of the hair before it got slammed. It hit the wall. It was dead before it fell to the ground.” Huggin answers.

“Fox.” Aquamarine says. Opal nods.

“OF COURSE IT IS A FUCKING FOX! I HAD TOLD YOU IT WERE GOING TO BE FUCKING FOXES!"

She stands up. She is shaking all over. She starts walking towards Opal.

"AND FUCKING YOU! I HAD TOLD YOU WE HAD TO AVOID THIS! YOU PROMISED NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN!"

She gets close to Opal. Opal's face is a mix of emotions.

"I… I…" Opal blurts out.

Akiko starts hitting Opal. Opal doesn't flinch.

"OUT OF EVERYONE HERE, YOU TOLD ME YOU UNDERSTOOD!"

She hits Opal a couple more times. Opal hugs her. Wings grow out of Opal's back, enveloping Akiko.

"We are going to get your hatchling back." Opal almost whispers.

Akiko breaks down crying in her arms. The other girls are watching the scene, but they don't have a reaction.

I let Akiko cry out her worst for a little while. After that, I clap my hands.

"Well, we have a rescue mission to start. Let's go back home to gear up and pick up our things."

Akiko nods, and slowly pulls away. I turn to her.

“We are going to have sunlight in another four hours? Five?”

Cecilia takes a look outside. She raises her hand with two fingers up, tilting her head from one side to the other.

“Anyway, “ I continued, “we have to get stuff prepared. Clothes, armor. Perhaps some food. You too have to prepare, Akiko.”

Her head low, the hair undone covering her face, she nods.

I open a portal and we go home. They start picking some clothes in their closet, folding and putting them inside the bags of holding.

I do the same thing with my stuff. I put on my armor. I don’t know what we are going to face, but having something that will identify us as some nobles can always help.

The girls also put their armor on. The sun is rising. We go down for breakfast.

The food is on the table, Rudolph approaches us.

“Lord? Is everything ok?”

I sigh.

“There is an issue with Hikari and her kid. We are going over to Akiko and from there we are going investigate. This could take some time.”

“What should I say should I be inquired?”

“Say that we are adventurers. So we have gone adventuring.”

“Of course, lord. Any expectation?”

“I have no idea. It could take a long time.”

“Very well, lord.”

“Is there anything you need?”

“No, lord. As I have already mentioned, the day to day bills are all covered. The additional things are generally provided by you, the meat in particular. But since you are not going to be here, it doesn’t matter.”

“Great, thank you.” I reach in my bag of holding, and I pull out a handful of dwarven gold coins. I put them on the table.

“Here. Just in case there is any unforeseen situation.”

“Of course, lord.”

“Just make sure you guys keep eating well. I don’t want to hear about the house having to save on food.”

“Of course, lord. Thank you.”

Charles turns to us as if he is about to ask something. He sees the tension among the girls and me, and gives up.

Once we finish eating, I open a portal to Hikari’s room. Akiko is already there. She is wearing a black tight clothing, with pants.

“Hi Akiko. Are you ready? Did your bag of holding fit everything you need?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where we can start?”

“There is a place, the Road of the Goddess. We can start there.”

Huginn assumes her large size. The room gets cramped.

“Think of the place, child.” She says.

Akiko lowers her head, closes her eyes. Huginn lowers her head, now the two of them are forehead to forehead.

Huginn gets to her small size and flies to my shoulder. A portal opens in the room. We go through it.

The place is different, the smell is very different. To our right there is this trail going towards a mountain, and a torii around it. We get closer to it, and it is possible to see several toriis, one after another.

To our left there is the back of a temple. There is no one around.

I inhale and exhale. We all turn to Akiko.

“Is this it?” I ask.

“Yes. Let’s go, no time to loose.”

We walk through the trail. We get close to the first torii. There is mana around it, but it feels different. It feels like the mana smells good. It is not the amount a ley line has, but just being around it brings out a feeling of peace.

We keep walking through the path. There are bamboo bushes on the sides. I extend my mana senses to help me understand the path, but it seems that the more we walk, the less mana there is. It feels… Wrong.

We keep walking, the scenary keeps changing to something wilder. Until we reach the last torii. I turn to Akiko.

"Is this it?"

She is looking around, frantic.

"The legends I know of say that this is the path to the land of the gods, honored guest…" She is distracted, looking for clues around.

"What if we ask for additional clues in the temple?" Cecilia asks.

Akiko slows down a little bit. We turn around and go the other way around. We go around the temple. Half of it is behind a wall, there is a more protected area. We go to the front.

We reach some stairs that go all the way down, we were in a plateau. We jump on the stairs, and climb them up.

There is a woman sweeping the patio with a bamboo broom. She is dressed with a miko vestment.

Akiko approached the priestess.

“Shitsurei itashimasu. Ohayou gozaimasu. Kochira no jinja ni otsukae no kata de irasshaimasu ka?”

The priestess stops sweeping, turning to Akiko.

“Ohayou gozaimasu. Hai, sayou de gozaimasu. Ikaga nasaimashita ka?”

“Kannushi-sama ni o-me ni kakaritai no desu ga, gozaiseki deshou ka?”

“Tadaima go-meisouchuu de gozaimasu, sanpai no kata. Go-den’gon o o-azukari itashimashou ka?”

“Kannushi-sama wa, ima mo Morita Asuka-sama de irasshaimasu ka?”

The priestess held the broom and tilted her head.

“…Dochira kara o-koshi ni natta no deshou ka, sanpai no kata?”

“Moushiwake gozaimasen. Nagaraku kochira o hanarete orimashita mono de. Morita Asuka-sama wa, ima mo kannushi-sama de irasshaimasu ka?”

“Osore irimasu ga, Morita Asuka-sama wa nijuu-nen ijou mae ni o-kakure ni narimashita. Genzai no kannushi wa, Takahashi Hiroshi -sama de gozaimasu.”

Akiko’s eyes open wide.

“Sore wa… yoi shirase de gozaimasu. Takahashi-sama ni o-me ni kakaru koto wa kanaimasu deshou ka?”

“Sore wa, shoushou muzukashuu gozaimasu.”

“Douka onegai itashimasu. Musume no koto ni gozaimasu. Akiko ga maitta to, o-toritsugi itadakemasen deshou ka.”

The priestess could probably fell the desperation on Akiko’s face. She bowed slightly and went back into the temple.

“Here, father, I feel bad having you with such a blank face…” Muninn says, between giggles. Huginn sighs, and flies towards Cecilia’s shoulder.

Muninn touchs his head to mine. The language knowledge starts flooding in. It is a somewhat different one. The structure is different. Instead of subject, verb and object, the verb comes last in the sentence.

My head hurts a little, while adjusting to the new rules.

Another piece of information that I can immediately realize is that the language is divided into levels of formality. There is a subset that is expected if you are talking to a boss, there is another one for equals, and another one for subordinates. And don’t get me started on sufixes.

Although I can understand [Big South] now, I can’t say I remember Akiko’s speech enough that I can understand what was already said.

“Akiko, what did you talk about?”

“This is the temple I used to be part of. The head priest at my time, that used to be a father to me, has already passed away.” She sighs. “I had already made peace with it. The new head priest is called Takahashi Hiroshi. In our language, the family or clan name comes first.”

“I have asked the priestess for a meeting with Takahashi-san. We have to find the path of the goddess to be able to reach her land.”

“Isn’t this the priest that had proposed to you, all the way back?” Cecilia asks.

Akiko puts out a small smile.

“The one and same. Let’s hope he can help.”

After sometime, the priestess comes back. She is accompanied by half a dozen monks. They are all wearing the same kind of clothes, almost like an uniform. Something that looks like a kimono, with light blue hakamas, a trouser that has some plates going up the back.

I can sense their movements are precise, they have had martial training. The priestess looks at us and feels a little uncomfortable. She demonstrates her dislike when noticing the absolutely huge sword that Ruby carries on her back.

“Excuse me, guest, but this is a place of prayer, not of war. Can you please put away your weapons?”

I look at the girls. I put my katana in the bag of holding. The girls do the same. Ruby is the one with the strongest distaste for doing that. She looks like a kid, sighing for every little action, and looking at me to check if she really has to do it. She takes the scabbard from her back and looks at me. She sighs. She takes out her bag of holding and looks at me. She sighs. She puts her sword in the bag of holding and looks at me. She sighs. She finally puts the bag of holding away.

The priest group gets just a little less tense. The encircle us, and the priestess lead us.

After the patio there are, to the side, some constructs. There is something that looks like a two feet high, six feet long wood parallelepiped, 45 degrees, and the top is comprised of wood pieces, creating a crate, also 45 degrees. On the side, there is a thick rope, tied to a bell.

To the left of that there are two poles made of bamboo sticking from the ground, with wires across them.

We are led through a side path, outside what seems to be the main temple, to a construction behind it. We pass through a gate, into a walled area. The wall we had seen from behind, apparently.

Inside this area, there are wood paths that seem to flow above a sand pit. There is a big house to our left and another right in front of us. To our right, there is a little stream.

I hear the noise of some wood hitting something. It is a mechanism with a bamboo that fills with water, then drops down, hitting a stone. This empties the bamboo, that rises again.

There is a sense of peace coming from this place. I can hear a very faint sound of some athletic shouting, it must be coming from somewhere hidden from view.

The path to reach the main house is long. It feels like 150 feet. At the end of the path, close to the door, there is another priest. His trousers were purple. He has a smile on his face, but his eyes are sad.

“Lady Akiko! It really is you!” He nods his head.

Akiko bows in a 45 degree angle to him..

“Nice meeting you, Takahashi-san. I am happy to see the responsibility you now carry.”

“Yes, yes. A lot has happened. Specially on that period… Twenty two years ago? Twenty three?”

I can feel that Akiko tenses a little bit.

“But that is a long tale. Come, let’s have some tea.”

He turns sideways, making the door a lot more visible.

Akiko enters the room. There is a single step, then a wood floor. She takes out her shoe from one foot before stepping on the wood, then takes out the second one. She then places her shoes facing out. I follow her example, and the girls do the same. The priest does the same, passing by us. He stops for a moment, taking a longer look at the dragonesses, and then at Muninn and Huginn.

We follow him to a wide room, with a coffee table with some pillows on the floor. No chairs. He sits down on a pillow, on the head of the table. Akiko kneels and sits on her ankles, on top of a pillow.

The girls and I sit on the ground, crossing our legs. The other priests are also in the room, but standing up against the wall.

There is a moment of silence. Not an uncomfortable one, just waiting for something. I follow the strange culture and wait.

A back door slides open. A priestess, on her knees has a tray with a pot and several clay cups around it. She puts the tray on the inside of the room, and does this weird walking on her knees. I had never seen something like this, but she can walk pretty fast on her knees. She closes the sliding door and approaches us with the tray.

She places one cup in front of each of us. She then pours the tea in the cups, going around the table. Always on her knees.

Once she is done, she proceeds to leave the room, with the same ritualistic manners. She places the tray on the floor, slides. Slides the door open, puts the tray outside, does her weird knee walking. The door slides shut.

The priest looks at us at length. He drinks a sip of tea. Akiko drinks, and we follow her mannerisms.

After analyzing each one of us, including Huginn and Muninn, the priest sighs.

“You guys can leave.”

“But kannushi-sama...”

The head priest shakes his head. He looks at the girls and opens a smile.

“One ant, seven ants… Perhaps not even seven stomps.” He turns to the priests. “Just go. Everything will be alright. Or it won’t. But then it doesn’t matter.”

The priests make no sense of the grumblings of the head priest. They leave the room from the front door, going outside the construction.

The head priest sighs.

“I never expected you to still be alive, Akiko-san. Much less for you to have such interesting… friends.”

“A lot has happened.”

The head priest takes another sip. So does Akiko, so do everyone else. There is a lack of urgency, a ritual to this conversation that gives it an unnatural quality. I am pretty sure that Akiko is trying to get the information as fast as she can, though. The priest again turns to her.

“What is it you are seeking right now?”

“I am looking for the path of the goddess.”

The priest looks intrigued.

“What do you expect to gain from that?”

“It is a private matter.”

The priest looks at Akiko up and down. His face hardens a bit.

“In that case, so is the information.”

Akiko sips on the tea, this time before the priest. She lets out a sigh, before she continues.

“They have taken my child and grandchild. Please, Takahashi-san, I beg you. For everything we meant to each other in the past.”

The priest’s hand on the tea cup trembles. He breaks the cup in his hand. He closes both hands into fists.

“You want to mean for everything you meant to me, right? You, you gave away the highest honor a woman can give a man, your womb, to another! And you come here to ask for favors?”

He laughs, then passes his left hand through his hair, with a wicked smile on his face.

“But that doesn’t matter. We don’t have that information anymore… The shogun now carries the sacred texts. Morita-sama paid for your betrayal, a lot of our lore went to the afterlife with him.” There are some moments of silence, after what the priest continues. “Now if you would excuse me, I apparently have to get treatment for my hand.”

Akiko lowers her head. The tears drip across her face. She cleans it up. Then she looks at us, and tilts her head, indicating that it is time to leave.

We all leave the way we came. We put our shoes back when leaving the house. We reach the outside patio. It is already close to noon.

Akiko stops, we stop around her. Tears are falling from her eyes, but she forces herself to ignore them. We are still pressed for time. She turns around.

“Honored guest, we are going to need those books.”

“The sacred texts?”

“Yes. If anything can help us, it is those texts.”

“Do you know where those texts are?”

Akiko raises her eyebrows, tilting her head towards the fortified portion of the temple.

“We could just steal the books.” Cecilia comments.

“Which ones?” I ask. “Do you think he only has those? We have to first discover where they are.”

Opal sighs, like she is saying the most obvious thing in the world.

“Why not just go there, burn the army and ask him, my lord?”

I think a little bit about that. I don’t know what skills and level of power these guys might have. I also would like to avoid civilian deaths as much as possible. But I am not a hero. I will not place the interest of others before mine. But there should be a balance. I sigh.

“Akiko, tell us what you about this shogun guy.”

“Well, honored guest, he is the leader in the region. Our country is divided into regions. Each region is commanded by a shogun. Shoguns are part of a samurai army. A samurai is someone that serves the emperor with his sword.

“They are armored, and very skilled with the sword. They keep the order, and also fight wars.”

“Not different from the northerner’s soldiers. Should we assume then that the shogun’s house is fortified?”

“Yes, honored guest.”

“How strong are they?” I ask Akiko.

“I am not really well versed on that, honored guest. The common knowledge is that the shoguns are the strongest amongst the samurai, and their lieutenants are the second strongest. They are educated in a group of subjects besides the sword, from flower viewing and poetry to tactics.

“It is said that battles happen with armies, but they are decided with shogun and lieutenants.”