The Quantum Wanderer

After we stop laughing, we drink a little more. Brokkr clears his throat.

“By the way, master Marcelo, why weren’t you wearing your armor during the adventurer event?”

I look at Brokkr, my dear looking at headlights expression probably proved my culpability. But then I try to go around this.

“I might have. How can you say such a thing without any clues, even?”

“The spies’ reports don’t really mention much about lord Marcelo, he is just mentioned as someone that decided not to fight. But it doesn’t mention which armor he was using.”

“Exactly.” Brokkr crosses his arms. “Show them the armor!”

I take the chest plate of the armor out of the holding bag. It goes around the table. Dávrin exams it first. The way he is looking at it, not even he had seen it. He giggles, and passes the chest plate over to Rajesh. Rajesh looks at it really close. He passes his fingers. He examines the back. He looks at some details very close to his eyes, and then he passes it to Sidhu.

Sidhu holds it as if it were made of egg shell. He examines every detail, every engraving. He closes his eyes, I can sense him extending mana towards it to help identifying what it is made of. He sighs and gives the armor back to me. Muninn shakes his head.

“Yes father, if you were using that, we would know. Not even I can pretend to explain otherwise.”

I sigh.

“Master Brokkr, as always, it is so good that it would be in the way of my normal person disguise… I am going to use it on a more important battle, though.”

“Which one?”

“Why, my wedding…”

We all laugh. Brokkr raises his cup.

“You are most forgiven, master Marcelo!”

We laugh some more. I look at Muninn. I put my glass on the table, and tell him to have some if he wants. Rajesh stands up, and gestures to the guard. He goes outside the room, and the maid comes back in shortly after.

“Bring another glass of liquor for lord Muninn, and another one for his godliness.”

She goes away. Rajesh turns back to us.

“I see that you are referred to by master Brokkr, and you call our friend master Marcelo. May I inquire about the title?”

“Sure. Master is a short form for Master Smith. It is the dwarves’ version of court main smith. Master Marcelo was actually able to improve on my creations, hence him deserving the title. Even though his wife might be more dexterous in a forge. Have you seen her glass work?”

“I have, we even got one as a present. It is in a way more public space than this room, though. A couple of guards kneel in front of sculpture when they pass by it.” Rajesh answers, giving Sidhu a side eye. Sidhu doesn’t care, he has a satisfied expression to him.

I am genuinely having fun. Introversion is not about not enjoying other people, but rather not enjoying having to keep things on a lighter tone. This is fun.

“We still haven’t seen lord Muninn’s glory form.” Sidhu remembers.

“Sure, but he won’t fit inside this room. Perhaps those training grounds that we went last time?” I ask Rajesh.

We stand up, and we all go to the training grounds. There are some soldiers still training there. The instructor looks at us, and kneels.

“Your excellency, how can I help.”

“You can stand up.”

The instructor stands up. He is also big. And then he recognizes Sidhu.

“Pope Sidhu! Such an honor! Have you come to teach some young uns how to hold a sword?”

Sidhu smiles, and shakes the hand of the instructor. The students stopped their training at this point. The instructor sees the dwarves. He tilts his head. But then he bows to them.

“Honor met, sirs. If you accompany pope Sidhu, I am sure that you are not average in any way.”

Brokkr just waves his hand. He is as uncomfortable with all this stuff as I am. Then I come out of the dark. The instructor bulges his eyes, and drops to the floor, kowtowing.

“I am sorry, lord, I only saw you now.”

“You can stand up. We are not going to take long.” I say.

Rajesh gets closer, and whispers in my ear.

“My friend, this is your secret, don’t you want me to ask them to leave the room?”

“It’s ok. I don’t think it is going to be kept as a secret for much longer anyway… Specially with the first words thing and all…”

We go down to the arena. The soldiers that were sparring are now kowtowing.

“You can all stand. Please, open up a little space.”

They open some space in the middle of the arena. But a room worth of space.

“More, please.”

They all give a step back. I sigh.

“Alright, get close to the wall, please.”

Once there is a large space in the middle, I turn to Muninn.

“If you would, please.”

“Of course, father.”

He flies out of my shoulder, and glides slowly towards the center of the arena. He grows bigger by the second. He lands in the middle of the arena, with a big noise, releasing dust up. His head is also different, with the four eyes and the shape on the top of his head. He is facing away from us. He turns his head to look at me.

“Father, it is time for supper, right?” He then turns to face the soldiers that were practicing, with a lower head. “I am hungry…”

One of the trainees throws his wood shield and sword on the ground, walks towards Muninn, and kowtows in front of him. He has his eyes closed, and I can see that he is shaking.

“Don’t be an asshole…” I say in a loud voice. Muninn sighs. He didn’t expect one of them to actually offer himself as a meal.

“Fine!” He turns to the trainee, still kowtowing, and looks around.

“Very well, you deserve a present.”

The young soldier stands on his knees, and his eyes roll up. He then falls back, with his breathing ragged. Muninn tilts his head.

“This is the most I could for now. Don’t get too cocky.”

We go down to the arena, and Muninn walks towards us. He bows down his head to me, to make the others a little more relaxed.

The trainee’s friends grabbed him and positioned him sitting against the wall. Rajesh looks at the group of people around him, some fanning, some trying to provide some water. He turns to Muninn.

“Is he alright?”

“He is better than alright.” Muninn giggles. “Let’s wait him wake up and see.”

I go close to the trainee. I see that his mana is on the low side right now. I do a sanctuary spell, so that he can recover faster. After just a couple of minutes, he wakes up. He sees me, then he sees Muninn, and he kowtows.

Muninn is watching this intently. He giggles. He turns to the instructor, and speaks in [demon].

“Tukaram, a demonstration with your student is in order.”

The instructor bows to Muninn, and goes to the student, that stands up. They each get a wooden sword. The student is looking at his hand, as if there was something wrong with it, and with the sword.

They both assume fighting positions, one in front of the other. The instructor’s expression is now an inquisitive one. He circles the student, and tries to attack him with a cut from above. The student moves his left foot forward, and blocks it, while moving his right foot in a circle motion. The student then extends his sword, that is now pointing towards Tukaram throat, and stops before touching.

The peanut gallery is laughing. Tukaram’s face turns red. They both move to their first positions. The peanut gallery is really getting to Tukaram’s nerves. Sidhu is holding his laughter. The rest of us are kind of impressed.

Tukaram goes for another attack, and now he is serious. The students movements are economical, he walks around the fight, while Tukaram is running. The parrying is even being made with the wooden sword inclined, so as not to receive the full energy of the blow. At one point, Tukaram extends, and the student passes by the attack, parrying it with his hands high, his sword pointing to the floor, around him. He spins, and stops with his sword touching Tukaram’s neck.

The peanut gallery goes crazy. The student is just looking at his hands, and at the sword. He then looks at Muninn, and kowtows to him.

“Thank you great crow god!”

Muninn extends a wing to him.

“Don’t mention it. I mean it, don’t mention. If wifey hears about this, I am going to spend a couple of nights on a tree.”

Everyone laughs. Sidhu goes down the arena, to talk to Tukaram. They talk briefly, and Tukaram ends up agreeing on something. I see him nodding at Sidhu. Sidhu comes back to the group. The other guys are examining Muninn up close. Very carefully, though. Muninn is laying down, so that people can look at him up close. Even so his head is a lot higher than a human.

After some time, he gets bored. He stands up, and jumps towards me. When he lands on my shoulder he is already the size of a normal crow. We head back to the room.

The girls are there, they are on the couch, waiting for us. They are talking excitedly when we come in. Aisha turns to Rajesh.

“Did you boys have fun?”

“You have no idea.” And he laughs. “It is a pity that the day is ending. We have to do this more times.”

“We definitely have to.” Dávrin answers.

“We are going to need another meeting in four days, to do another fitting.”

“That works!” Rajesh exclaims, and looks at Dávrin. Dávrin does his boom laughing.

“Of course, that works for us as well.”

Aisha turns to Brokkr.

“Master Brokkr, you might invite lady Ildra next time.”

We say our goodbyes. I open the portal for the dwarves, and then the one to our home.

We wrap up a very full day.

Next day we have a normal breakfast. The girls are all discussing details about the wedding. Huginn keeps putting her paw up, and staring at it. Then she puts it down. They ask about the previous day on the boys side. Muninn’s attention is fixed on me. I can almost hear his pleading. I say that we just chatted a bit, and the guys were impressed by Muninn’s normal appearance. Muninn was looking at me, and Huginn was looking at him. He is screwed.

After some talking, the girls dress up for school, and I portal them there. After that, I turn to the crows.

“Guys, I was thinking… Can you do with me what Muninn did to the demon’s historian? Perhaps you can absorb my knowledge. That way I don’t have to teach you directly.”

“Yes father, we can. Just please make it easy for us, so that we don’t get hurt in the process.” Huginn answers.

“What do you mean?”

“The other minds we have seen have quite weak barriers. We can just break these protections, without issues. But it is like punching something. If the thing you are punching is weak, you break the thing, but you do not get hurt. If you punch from an adamantite wall…” Muninn is the one to explain this.

“What is the best place to do this?”

“Wherever you feel comfortable, father.”

I start to see how different their personalities are. We go to my study, and I tell Rudolph that I am not to be disturbed. I sit on the sofa, in a very comfortable position.

“Just a couple of things. Some of what you are going to get has military value; I wouldn’t like this to be spread around. This world is not prepared for it. So I am sharing these with you. Not anyone else.”

“Yes, father.” Both of them replied. Muninn was a bit more solemn than normal, I am satisfied with his answer.

I sit on the couch. I start to relax. I have had some practice with this. I start loosening up my mind, I recognize my internal sounds, breathing, and put them aside from my consciousness. I start to let my mind float, I let things just show up on my mind screen. It is not an actual screen, it is more of a virtual experience, where I am inside the scenes, while knowing it is a scene.

Things start moving fast. Lessons about reading, lessons about writing, numbering, Things keep progressing. All experiences, good and bad. My childhood. My mother, my father. Memories of my upbringing. School, English courses. Some sports. My parent’s divorce. More school, first girlfriend. Being mugged several times. More school. College. Friends. Math. Calculus. Linear Geometry. So much.  My whole life flashed in front of my eyes.

I wake up to the girls around me. They are shouting my name. I smile at them. Cecilia is on top of me, shaking me by the shirt.

“YOU FUCKING MORON! WHAT DID YOU DO NOW?”

I sit straight on the sofa. On the couch the two crows are passed out as well. My mana senses tell me that their mana is depleted. I am still waking up, and I hug her. I pull her close, and then I kiss her. That calms her down. At least a little.

“I am sorry, but this wasn’t supposed to be any dangerous. I don’t think it was dangerous, actually. We just didn’t think it would demand this amount of… Energy.”

I open a small portal over a ley line on top of Huginn and Muninn, they absorb the mana like I had not seen before. After some time, they start waking up, their mana is not full yet, but it is enough for now. I close the portals.

“PUTA QUE PARIU!” Muninn shouts. The girls look at him. The dragonesses are particularly intrigued.

“What did you say?”

“Oh, sorry, aunties.” He looks at Huginn, also waking up. “I said ‘This was awesome’.”

Opal steps ahead.

“What language was that?”

Muninn looks at me. I shrug. They already know I am the failed hero, so I don’t really see any problem.

“That was father’s first language.”

The girls look at me. I nod. They look back at Muninn, Huginn is awake as well.

“How can you speak it?”

Huginn is the one to answer.

“Father granted us access to his knowledge… Obrigada, papai.”

The girls notice that this actually makes me happy. Opal is astonished.

“What does ‘Obrigd pp’ mean?” Her pronunciation is kind of close, just not quite there.

“It is just ‘thank you, daddy’. It carries a little more emotion than father.” I reply.

The room stays silent for some time. The girls calm down, we are all sitting in the office. My stomach rumbles.

“I am really hungry, what do you say we eat something?”

“We already have had dinner. You know, the time normal people eat.”

“What time is it?”

“It should be dawn in a couple of hours.”

I make a puppy face. I am directing it towards each of the girls. Ruby and Cecilia are kind of pissed with what happened. It works better with Opal and Shandon, but Aquamarine can’t even look me in the eyes. That’s the one. I put on a little sadder face.

“We can’t let our lord starve…”  Aquamarine says. We end up going to the kitchen, and we have some meat with salt. I sear it, and cut the slices. That is almost a barbecue. Huginn, Muninn and I eat, and we go up. I wash up, and I lay a little bit on the bed.

The crows lay on top of the dresser, as usual.

I wake up late. The girls are already gone, probably to school. The crows are up as well.

“Good morning, kids.”

“Good morning, papai.” “Good morning.”

Huginn apparently decided to start using the portuguese word for father from this point on. I get dressed and go downstairs. I meet with Rudolph.

“Good morning lord. Sirs.”

“Good morning, Rudolph.” The three of us answer. I continue.

“Can I assume the girls went to school?”

“Yes, lord. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, Rudolph. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Permission to speak freely, lord?”

“Always.”

“The way they were… agitated yesterday, I didn’t think you would be able to sleep on a bed, lord.”

I laughed. “It wasn’t too much of a mess up, actually. It was supposed to be something safe, but it was just a tad more intense than what I expected.”

“Of course, lord.”

“How are things on your end, Rudolph?”

“They  are great, lord. Wife happy, kid is safe. I don’t know what else I could want.”

“I am happy to hear.”

“Lord…”

“Yes?”

“Myself and the others are a little worried about what happened yesterday. Are you sure you are alright, lord? Is there anything we can provide?”

“I promise you everything is alright, Rudolph. I really appreciate your concern. From all of you.”

“We are preparing a breakfast for you and the… Crows? How can we refer to them?”

“Crow is fine, Rudolph.” Muninn says.

“Of course, … sir.”

We go to the dinning room, and have some late breakfast. After I am done, I decide to check out for any news in the guild. I put on my adventurer clothes, and head down there. I enter the guild, order the ale I always do, and sit around an empty table in the corner. Most tables are full of people, they are talking way more than drinking today.

“Lionheart! How are you? Come on over!”

I am invited to an already full table. I bring in my chair, and squeeze it in. I sit down, and raise my cup. I get some ugly looks.

“What happened?”

I receive more ugly looks.

“What happened? Haven’t you heard about the situation in the Holy Kingdom?”

“Sorry. What happened?”

“Apparently the expedition that was posted all over was bogus.”

“Oh! I am sorry to hear that. What happened?”

“A massacre. Some people that saw the scene are saying that it was the stuff of nightmares. Fairy tales written in blood by the lord of chaos. Seasoned adventurers cried like children, and puked.”

“Shit. That seems bad.”

“Don’t get me started. You know how they were not mentioning the monster that was supposed to be hunted?”

“Yes…”

“Well, that was because they were trying to hunt centaurs! And no one had an inkling of how strong they are. They are apparently stronger than humans and demons combined. We heard that a single team escaped from the butchery, and that happened because they surrended before the fight.”

“Wow. Really?”

“Yes,  think about it. The first group of the expedition was formed solely by mithrils. That means everyone on their 45th level. Some might even be level 50! That is a number that you need a country to get. They are so few and far apart, that each of the three great countries only have around that number of mithrils… Of course, a mithril can go anywhere they want, but still…”

“How long ago did this happen?”

 “It happened three days ago.”

“How did the information get here?”

“The guild has Comm Gems. The information was provided by the guild masters. We should be getting more information in a couple of weeks. That’s when one of the mithrils that live here is going to be back.”

“Oh.”

This is not good for me. I am going to have to stop coming to the guild for some time. I have to avoid been seen by this guy and the mithril that was in the centaur mishap and this guy at the same time. I hear some more about the whole thing, I don’t want to make any impression right. I feel like I am trying to hide some secret identity like those cartoon superheroes on Earth.

After some time, I pay my tab. It is still shortly after noon, so I decide to go to the school. Perhaps Edward is there. If he is not too busy, I can always chat a little bit. I go to the school. By now, I already know my way around it. I pass the streets in the campi, and head for the command school where the dean office is. It is a sunny day, the weather is particularly comfortable. I reach his secretary.

“Hi, good afternoon. Is the dean in?”