The Quantum Wanderer

In the next few days, the only thing of consequence is that I get the dragon map hung on the wall, with a metal support.  It works much like a gem is held on a ring, with bracers on it.  I help people on the last piece of it, by using some anti-gravity on the thing, so that it can be lifted easily, and placed on the right spot.  And the day for the dinner with Edward and Anthon finally arrives.

Edward arrives first.  His family now feels just like friendly neighbours.  Actually, that’s what they are, in my mind.  Rudolph is frantic with this dinner.  Way more than I am.  ‘This has to be perfect.’  ‘By the gods, the emperor!’  I am not really in that vibe.  Perhaps this is my Earth way of thinking, but the emperor is a human like us, he bleeds like us.  If I were in his position, I would get tired pretty quickly of all this brown nosing.

And when Anthon arrived, Rudolph almost passed out. Anthon this time came with his wife and his two sons, Cesar and Brutus.  Those names really tickles my mind.  I wonder if there was a reason to name.  It could have come from another hero, I guess.

Rudolph starts announcing the emperor, but I interrupt him.  I don’t need this in my home.  Sure, it’s not like we are going to receive guests in our underwear, but I don’t want all the protocol. Rudolph is absolutely shocked when I walk towards the door, followed by Edward.

“Hi Anthon, how are you?  Welcome.”

He actually laughed.  Rudolph is pretty certain that I am going to loose my head on the spot.  Edward laughs as well.  Andrea is kind of shocked.  The kids don’t care too much about the incident.  Edward is still laughing, when he turns to Rudolph.

“Do  you even know who your master is?”

“Milord, he told me he is a peasant.”

Edward laughed even harder.

“I am going to tell you a secret of state.  Your master is actually the highest person in terms of importance in this room.  it’s a good thing that he doesn’t really enjoy protocols.”

I kind of make a face, but Edward dismisses it.

“Oh, come on!  You are going to do a fly-by in a couple of weeks.  Do you  really expect complete anonymity?  And I am not mentioning your Wrax alter ego…  Who walks around with two crows on their shoulders?”

“You got a point.”

“Now let’s get to the interesting stuff.  Anthon, come with me, quick.  There is something I have to show you.”

Edward is actually pulling Anthon.  They look like two kids.  Anthon’s kids, around 7 and 11, follow them.  Addrianna comes by, and looks at me.

“Edward has been talking about your piece of art for the past days.  Sometimes it feels like he is Caius’s brother rather than father.  Come, Andrea.”

I follow the guys. Anthon is inspecting the map.  I get closer.

“You  can touch it, if you  want.  It is glass, actually.”

He gives a very light knock.  Of course, it is very  solid glass, albeit a little crude.

“What is it?  It looks like a map of sorts, but it would be a very wrong one.”

Edward couldn’t hold himself.

“I was told that it is actually pretty accurate.”

I ended the mystery.

“It is a map to Drakonia, the continent of Dragons.  And it was actually done by a dragon.”

Edward had a smug face, as if it belonged to him.  The faces of Anthon and his kids was absolutely fantastic.  He took a closer look at the marks and lines on the map.  Specially the ones the represented the mountains, inspecting the shape of what was used to punch those holes.

“How?”

“Did you already receive the intelligence about the dragons fly-by?”

“Yes.  Is it YOU?”

“Yes.  Opal, one of the girls, asked for it, it is a custom among them when a clan elder changes.  And I decided to indulge her.  I really value my girls, and they always ask for so little.”

Edward gestures me to keep going.  Anthon is kind of silent, looking at the map.  The boys are looking at me, their eyes are almost shining.

“So we went to Drakonia to check the places we have to fly over for the parade.  There, we called up on a dragon that is in my team, and we went to a beach.  I asked him to draw a map.  I thought he was just going to sketch on the sand, but he melted the sand before drawing.  And this is the result.”

“Fuuckk…” Anthon said.  Then he looked at me and Edward.

“Shit, I said fuck! Screw it, I didn’t want to be emperor anyway…”  We all laughed a little.  By his and Edward faces, I see that this is an internal joke.

At this point, Anthon gets a platinum coin and passes it to Edward.

“What is that?”

“Oh, we did a bet.  You see, he is a very hard person to give presents to.  I mean, emperor, right?  I told him that I was going to show him something unique, that he would want, and that he would not be able to have.  But don’t worry, like I said earlier, we are not assholes.  At least we try not to be.”

I laughed a little.  These guys are alright.

Caius and Brutus saw the crow on Sofia’s shoulder and got close to pet it.  Now all three of them are petting the crow on Sofias shoulder.  I can feel Addrianna’s eyes throwing daggers at me again.

I go down to mingle with the girls a little, while Anthon and Edward spend a long time in front of the map.  Opal looks at Edward and Anthon, and then looks at me.

“My lord, you do realize that we can also do something like that, right?”

“Yes, I do.  And I realize that the only reason you didn’t was because you were not really familiar with the land as a hole, because you were kind of constrained.  But the cool thing about that is that it was unexpected, it just happened.  And my goal on keeping it is to have some mementos from our parade.”

“Our parade, my lord?”

“Of course.  It wouldn’t happen if you hadn’t asked.  As the mastermind, the parade is yours as well.  And since you all girls are going to be before the Elders, we can consider it our parade.  It is going to happen because we want.  And you can choose to participate.  The others, not so much, right?”

Cecilia whispered in my ear.

“If you don’t get it easy you’re going to get jumped in front of the duke and the emperor, lover boy.”

 I giggled.  And then I looked at the dragonesses.  I felt like prey for a second.  I decided to join the guys a little bit.  They are still admiring the thing.  Anthon is making some questions to Edward, and he is repeating what I had told him about the map.  When I arrive, Edward was saying that it was the ley lines.  They are both having a lot of fun.

They notice that I am closer, and gesture me to come over.  Anthon was the first one to speak.

“I don’t know how used to this all you are, but the time I spend here is most precious.  All of this is so refreshing.  And then all these surprises.  Just seeing new stuff.”

“Well, you guys are always welcome.  Just let us know beforehand, so we can get the food ready.”

We all gave a light hearted laugh.

“And I don’t particularly like nobles.  I even had trouble with one.”

“Really? Who?  Do I know him?”

“Nope, another court.  You see, I got my girls in different ways.  Siratra is actually a slave, she made an innocent mistake, but it ended up hurting her in the end.  And in this court, one of the nobles complained that he didn’t want a slave on the same table as him.”

“What happened?”

“Well, they were serving dragon meat that I had brought.  Muninn landed on his plate, so that he could not taste it, and Huginn landed on his shoulder.  You know that there is a reason for me to forbid them to land on the shoulders of any guest, right?”

I can almost see Edward remembering the mithril shield.

“And then, I did a war… talk?  I did a low war cry spell, but with some mana on it.  We didn’t hurt him or anything, but we had to change dinner venue…  The noble in question was not able to participate further.”

“Pardon my [demonic], but what an asshole.  But then again, I could see something like that happening with a couple of nobles, though.  Don’t worry, I know who they are, it is not going to happen on my watch.”

At this point, Muninn and Huginn land on my shoulder.  They both look to the same place, and caw.  I turn on my mana senses, and I can feel someone, pretty high level, on stealth outside the house.  I turn on silence spell around us.

“Do you guys have stealth guards with you?”

“No.  We actually left our guards by your gate.”

“Ok.  We have a possible invader and one in the lookout.  I am going to get the invader, and track the one in the lookout.”

I get ready, and wait for the invader to get to the corridor.  In spite of his or her stealth, the mana usage is very clear.  And stealth haven’t worked on me ever since I got such high levels.

I step a little away from Anthon and Edward.  I reinforce my brain, and then the rest of my body.  Time starts going very slowly.  I go to the person, and I check where the mana usage is.  I do a full scan.  A woman.  I knock her out.  I remove everything that has mana circulating in it, as well as all weapons.  I damage the mana channels that come out of her soul.  Pretty easy for someone with healing magic.  One of her molars is fake.  I can’t have that, I remove it.  I put all of her thing in my bag.

Muninn and Huginn arrive and land on my shoulder.  They look toward the open window. 

“Follow the other one, and let me know everyone he talks to.”

Muninn leaves my shoulder, and flies out when the person is looking around.  I bring the sleeping thief down the stairs, holding her by the hair.  She is unconscious anyway. 

“Rudolph!”

He comes running towards me, and he has a very strange face.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do we have a dungeon where I can lock this invader?”

“No, sir.  Why would we have one?”

“Edward, Anthon, what do we do with her?  I have a couple of places that I could imprison her.  We do have to question her to understand what she and her partner are up to.”

“There is another one?”

“Yes, there is a lookout outside.  I already set Muninn on him, I want to let him go so that we learn who he is going to contact.  If we leave the house with her, her partner is going to know that she was caught.  But he is going to realize that soon, anyway.  She had a Comm Gem on her.  I have her stuff in my bag.”

“This is serious indeed.  I wonder who sent the team.  What level do you think she is?”

“By the looks, somewhere on the forties…  Perhaps 45?  I wonder who she was going to spy on.  Hold on, I had an idea.”

I open a portal to Piotr’s cave.  He sees me entering his cave, carrying the person by the hair.

“Good evening, my lord.  How can I help you?”

“This person was trying to spy on me.  I need her alive so that I can question her, but can you keep an eye so that she doesn’t escape?  I will come back to pick her up later, perhaps today.  But I am not sure.”

“Of course, my lord.”

I portal back to the living room.

“Where did you drop her?”

“Oh, I have this one friend in the Nursery, he is called Piotr.  I left her in his cave, he will make sure she doesn’t die or escape.”

Anthon looks intrigued.  “Nursery?”

Edward touches his shoulder.  “We named it Land of Dragons.”

“Oh.  Oooohh.  Is Piotr a dragon?”

“Yes.  He has been very helpful already.  He is a nice guy.  Anyway, we can have dinner now.  Later, if you bring me to the dungeon, I can open a portal and bring her in.  If you want, I can also interrogate her.  I don’t enjoy doing that, but I am not bad at it.”

“Don’t worry.  We also have our methods.  We can just get her after dinner.  Let’s have some dragon meat.”  Anthon said, with a big smile on his face.

The dinner was pretty normal.    All the other kids had already tasted dragon steak, and were excited.  Brutus had this bored face.  When he tasted the steak, though, his face just lit up.  He lifted his plate.

“More!”

“No, hon, you can’t have more.  It is going to make you feel sick tomorrow if you eat too much.” Andrea said.  He made an angry face, but Andrea gave him a glance, and he undid the ugly face and apologized.

We chit chatted about several things.  They had several theories about the spies.  They thought that the spies might be from Arthuria, but Edward thought that they would not be competent enough.  No one had noticed those guys before, they had too high a level.

After we were done with dinner, I followed them and the guards to the palace, and we went to this very sinister dungeon.  It didn’t have anyone in there, but the smell was putrid.  Anthon sends in for a ‘special’ guard, but he is going to  take some time to get here.  This is actually good, because it is going to give me the opportunity fetch our prisoner.

When I get to Piotr’s cave, he is on the front of the cave, and the woman is crunched on a corner.  I inspect her, and I see that her two legs are crushed below the knee.

“Good evening, my lord.  She tried to jump, so I made sure that she wouldn’t be able to kill herself.”

“Thank you, Piotr.  I don’t have any meat on me right now to repay you…”

“Don’t think about that, my lord.  Being able to assist you is already good enough.  We are all excited to be part of the parade with my lord.”

“Oh, so you heard about it already?  That was fast.”

“Important news have very fast wings, my lord.”

“Sure.  Now, excuse me a little bit.”

The woman was watching us talking, and had a frantic look about her.  Each step I gave in her direction, the horror increased.  And I was doing nothing, just walking.  She started crying, ugly crying, saying please between broken breaths.

The thing is, she should not be in my home.  There is no excuse.  It’s not like she didn’t know that what she was doing wasn’t bad.  She is just regretting being caught.  And this world made me tough, apparently.

I grab her by the hair, and drag her through the portal, and close it.  I put her in the cell, and she is terrified.

Anthon calls his ‘vip guests’ guards, to be able to extract information.  I leave her in the cell, and I leave the cell.  The torturer go close to her, and take a closer look at the situation.

He comes back, and ask us to come to a corner.

“Your highness, she is currently too scared.  She actually showed signs of relief when I said that she would stay in my hands.  I have never seen something like that.  She is mumbling something about ‘please, not my soul’…”

Anthon and Edward looked at me.

“What can I say?  Piotr probably started the job.”  I giggled a little.  Apparently the joke wasn’t as good as I thought, no one else is smiling.

“What do you guys want to know?”

“Who sent her, where we can find the other people of her cell, what other jobs she has done.”

I go near the woman, and I put on my evil face.  Or what I think an evil face is.

“Hello.”

“Pl-he-hease.  I will te-hell ev-ery-thing…”

“Who sent you?”

“We do-on’t kno-ow hi-is na-ame…  We-e only kno-ow how to me-essage h-im.  M-y hu-usband has a Comm Gem… W-ee c-all, th-en mee-eet.”

I turn to Anthon and Edward.

“Did you guys hear that?”

“Yes.  Are you tracking her husband?”

“Yes, Muninn is on it.  I think he may get the help of some other crows along the way.”

The woman, that was looking down, turns her face to me, in a fast movement.

“Crows?”

“Yes.”

“By the gods… Wrax…”

She pukes to her side, and passes out, on top of her filth.  The torturer gives me a side eye, and gets close to her to inspect. 

Anthon and Edward are going to keep the woman.  I would like to be around her death, I would get some additional proficiency in Stealth.  If I am not mistaken, she is a grandmaster.  I might even raise mine to master. 

As I am walking home, Muninn lands on my shoulder.  I complain to him, that he should be following the guy, and he caws.  He looks at me, and opens his third eye.  He touches his head against mine, and something happens.  In my mind, as if I was dreaming, I can see the eyes of something flying nearby a forest, and down below is a man on a horse.

The scene fades, and Muninn assumes this proud pose.  Nice...  I compliment him.

***

Anthon’s POV

Last night was illuminating.  He is humble, and he is a well-rounded person.  But the thing with the spies gave me a couple of insights.

The first one is to realize that he can’t be defined human.  We had a seasoned spy, very high level, as high as it goes, and she was trying to flee him with both legs crushed.  I can’t even imagine the pain.  And according to what the torturer said, she was relieved that we were going to torture her. 

I have had this guy working for me for the past 20 years.  He was one of my first supporters.  He studied his profession, and he said that he had never seen something like that.

And now, things start to come up.  An insurmountable strength, and he uses his over-the-top crows to hunt people that offend him.  He keeps saying he is not Wrax, but perhaps…  A reincarnation?  Or was Wrax a hero in the past?  But we don’t have any documents on even heroes being this strong.  We had two legends of dragons being killed.  He rules over them.

I am pretty sure that the spy was going after him.  I wonder if he would like to have her back once we finish the interrogation.  I told the torturer to just threaten her to send her back to him.  He says that she is very close to breaking point, he is going to be careful.

Now I have to check the whole palace, to see if there is anything that shouldn’t be there.  And I can’t be open about that.  I will have a couple of mages inspecting it.  I will just say that they are going to verify the anti-stealth runes.