I stared down at the woman unconscious against a tree, and really wished that I had taken that first aid class when it was first offered back in college. There was a little blood matting the hair on her forehead where she had taken a cut from a nasty fall, and her pupils had seemed a little too wide. I was pretty sure that was a concussion, but I just didn’t know what to do about it.

Did I let her sleep, or did I wake her up? The movies and books always had different things to say about it, and I wasn’t sure which I should let her do. Leaning back down, I gently poked her arm.

“Penelope.” She didn’t react, so I poke her again a little harder. “Hey, wake up!”

Solidly asleep. Another minute of trying to wake her up didn’t result in any better results, so I decided to let her sleep for now.

Well shit.

I couldn’t take her back to Ahn’Khareen’s lair, I would be flayed alive if I let another person know she was still alive. Or undead, as it were. That was why I had asked her where she lived before she passed out, hopefully I could find a doctor there to help her.

I was just relieved that Ahn’Khareen’s network of undead birds in the forest had spotted Penelope and I had gotten to her before the goblins could kill her. How and why Ahn’Khareen had a network of undead birds in the forest serving as spies was a completely different question that I meant to ask about, but it could wait until Penelope was okay.

A terrible smell wafted over to me, and I wanted to throw up as I turned around, remembering the goblins. There were four of them still laying on the ground, dead. My stomach churned, but I didn’t flinch at the sight of their corpses. I was so used to throwing around Force Bolts at Ahn’Khareen, I didn’t realize how powerful they actually were. A single shot had been enough for the small goblins, and it had been as natural as breathing.

Ahn’Khareen trained me well. The thought wasn’t exactly a pleasant one, but it was true, nonetheless.

After all that time thinking and questioning myself and my motives, if it would be okay to hurt or kill something with my magic, when it came down to it, I guessed I could kill. I hadn’t even thought about it, it had just been instinct. Ahn’Khareen had taught me how to kill, how to use magic to win fights, and as soon as I had seen that goblin on top of Penelope, I didn’t hesitate. Truth be told I still felt a bit numb from it all, and would probably have to process this later, but right now I had a strange and slightly uncomfortable feeling of success.

I was a good mage. I used my magic to defend people who couldn’t defend themselves. When it came down to it, that was all that really mattered, didn’t it? I didn’t want to think about what it meant if it wasn’t. There was still a person I had to help though, and I put away my thoughts on the nature of killing and goblins for a later time.

I did stop to grab one of the goblins’ arrows however, just in case somebody doubted my story. After all, even I would admit it would look awfully suspicious to be carrying her around with no proof of a goblin attack.

Reaching down, I tried to grab Penelope to carry her back home and realized I had made a serious mistake. Penelope wasn’t a particularly large woman, in fact she was quite small and relatively skinny, but that didn’t mean she weighed nothing. The problem was that while casting magic helped burn calories and keep you in shape, it didn’t make you stronger like exercise did. Upon trying to carry her, I quickly remembered that the last time I had been to a gym was months ago, and even back in the other world I hadn’t been a weightlifter.

I spent another few minutes walking with Penelope in my arms, my legs wobbling and sweat pouring down my body the entire time. Eventually I had to give up, letting her down gently to the forest floor to catch my breath. There was simply no way I could walk all the way back to her village this way. Looking around I tried to see if I could find something to help carry her, maybe a litter or a sled of some kind? If I dragged her along behind me, she might bump into the roots and rocks and probably hurt herself even more. If only I had some kind of-

“I’m an idiot.”

That was really the only way to describe it. I was being idiotic, ignoring the most important thing about me at that time. I wasn’t a weightlifter; I couldn’t do a lot of physical exercise. Even running to get to Penelope was painful. But I was a mage.

Flipping through my grimoire I quickly found the Shield spell and determined that my plan would probably work. I closed my mind, adjusted the spell matrix in my head, then cast the modified Shield spell near the ground to create a floating, near-invisible plane of force. Instead of serving to block any incoming attacks however, I had adjusted it to lie horizontally, parallel to the ground.

With a burst of exertion, I managed to haul Penelope up onto the shield, and held my breath to see if it held. The spell wobbled a little bit since the matrix wasn’t exactly meant for exactly this purpose, but it held.

“Yes!” I crowed, dancing around in a small circle. “I love magic!”

With the new magical stretcher in place, I modified the spell matrix once again, having it follow me just like a Mage Light spell could, except floating at about knee-height.

I was still worried about Penelope, but a concussion was a relatively minor injury, at least I thought it was. People got concussions all the time, it was only when you had a lot of them that it was a problem. Right?

“I really should have taken that first aid class.” I moaned.

--##--

An hour later I finally reached the edge of the forest, exhausted and practically drowning in my own sweat. As it turned out, while I had gotten quite used to casting shield, every time I had it move with me costed a little bit of extra mana. Considering the walk I had to undergo to get here, even that little bit added up over time. It had been a terrible feed-back loop, as I used more mana I got more exhausted and walked slower, which costed more mana over time. By the time I finally got out of the damned forest, I was almost falling over. The sight once I got out of the trees, however, was spectacular.

The landscape arrayed in front of me was almost as peaceful and idyllic as I had ever imagined it could be. Rolling hills covered in long plots of farmland and scattered groves of trees were almost as picture-perfect, with small farmhouses casually letting thin streams of smoke from cookfires into the air dotting the landscape. And directly in front of me there was a village placed along the banks of a river, perhaps sixty or so houses and other buildings. The river slowly turned the wheel of a mill, and there was even a big stone building that looked like a church near the center of town.

“Okay.” I wheezed. “This is worth it.”

Gently I lowered the Shield-stretcher to the ground and let it disintegrate, letting Penelope rest on the grass. She was still sleeping and breathing, I had made sure to check every few minutes on our way here. Penelope would probably be okay for another few minutes.

Stretching out and feeling my joints pop, I took another look around, Penelope had mentioned the first time I met her that… there.

A group of figures off to the right were busy scrambling in and around the trees, and even though they were a long way off, I could still hear their axes thudding into the woods. They all quickly vacated the area, and with a surprisingly loud crash one tree slowly toppled to the ground. I had found the woodcutters, and now all I needed to do was catch their attention.

I wasn’t exactly happy with the idea of letting everybody know that I existed at all. Penelope had told me that the forests were illegal for most people to enter, and I was taking a big risk in letting others know that I was living there. If they decided to search the woods, they could possibly find Ahn’Khareen’s lair. It was a slim chance but even still…

There was no other choice. If I just left Penelope here, somebody would probably find her, or she would wake up and find her own way back. Then when questioned about why she went into the woods, she would tell people about me, and then they would go looking. It would end the same way as if I told them about myself, except I wouldn’t get the chance to explain myself before they found me.

It was lose-lose situation, and I just hoped I could manage to get ahead of it all. If worst came to worst, I would rather let myself be put in jail rather than have Ahn’Khareen’s lair be found. It was only fitting payment, considering she had saved me from death.

I didn’t want Ahn’Khareen to have to kill anybody, which while I still had doubts about, I knew she harbored no such compunctions on killing to protect her interests. No, jail was better, and besides I was a mage, I doubted the village could hold me for a long time.

“Hey!” I shouted, waving my arms to little effect. “Hey, I need some help!”

Nothing. They were just too far away. I looked down at Penelope and sighed. “Stay there, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Making sure she looked relatively comfortable on the ground, I set off at a slow jog towards the woodcutters. I wished I could have run faster, but the simple fact of the matter was that I just wasn’t physically fit enough. By the end of the second minute, I was panting like a dog, and by the end of the fourth I was ready to pass out.

Thankfully by then somebody in the woodcutter group must have seen me, and I could see heads turning and barely audible words of alarm.

“Help!” I called, and the people started moving faster. “I need some help over here!”

Three figures set off towards me, and I stopped moving to catch my breath while they made their way across to me.

When they finally got close enough for me to make them out clearly, I was starting to wonder if I had made a mistake in my choices. They were all shorter than I was, maybe the tallest was about two inches shorter than me, but each of the three men were significantly bulkier than I was.

They each were wearing thick pants, a sweat-stained shirt, and a waistcoat despite obviously having been working. I guess overalls weren’t invented yet. Floppy felt hats that looked like they belonged in a western topped their heads, and they were also each carrying an axe, which worried me more than anything else.

“Who in the hells are you? And where did you come from?” Their leader, the bulkiest man of the three who also had a magnificently thick beard, demanded.

“My name’s William, William Amsel.” I said, still a bit breathless. “I just came from the forest.”

The big man started to speak, but I cut him off.

“I know I’m not supposed to be in there but that’s not important! Back there,” I pointed towards where Penelope was lying. “Is Penelope. She was being chased by goblins and took a nasty fall, is there somebody in the village who could help?”

The three men exchanged looks.

“Goblins?” A slightly skinnier man asked skeptically.

“Yes, goblins.” I pulled out the arrow from the pocket of my robe, giving him the nasty black-fletched weapon.

“Shit.” The big man said and spat to the ground. “Penelope? Lady Penelope Esmaraldis?”

A deep sense of inevitability fell over me. Of course, she had to be a lady. It couldn’t have been simple, and while I had always thought that she was rich, the fact that she was nobility just made everything more complicated.

“That’s not the name she gave me, but it’s probably her.”

“Double shit.” He gave me a hard, flinty stare. “I don’t know who you are stranger, but your gonna show us where the lord’s daughter is. If you’re making this up, you’re gonna pay, understand?”

He hefted the axe, and I gulped at how sharp it was. My shield could probably stop it, but I’d never had to fight more than one person before today and shooting a bunch of goblins with Force Bolts was not the same as a bunch of lumberjacks with axes.

“I’m not making it up, I promise.”

He gestured with the axe. “Then show us where the girl is.”

It took slightly longer to get back to Penelope since we weren’t running the whole way, but thankfully she was still there, and more importantly she was still breathing.

“Triple shit.” The man breathed. “That’s her alright. Alright, Devon, you grab her. Careful, she’s the lord’s kid after all.”

The slightly skinnier man, Devon, nodded and carefully picked up Penelope.

“She fell,” I explained again. “She hit her head; I think she has a concussion.”

“You better be telling us the truth here.” The big man said, pointing his axe right at me. “And don’t think you’re just going to slip away. No, you’re coming with us.”

I sighed and held up my hands. “Take me to your leader.”

--##--

The woodcutters weren’t exactly the friendliest of travelling companions as we made our way towards the village, and for the entire walk it was almost entirely silent. I wasn’t in much of a mood to talk, considering there were at least two of the men had axes that were ready to try and cut me in half. The big man had introduced himself as Richard, and the third man was Geon.

The last name was different than the others I had heard, but by the way he was glaring at me, I wasn’t willing to ask him about it.

The only real amount of talking that was had during the journey was at the very beginning, when the lumberjacks had decided on where they should take me and Penelope. At first, they had been planning on taking us to the church, but after some hushed conversation that I wasn’t allowed to listen in on, it was decided that we should be brought to the manor-house of the village instead, to meet with the lord of these lands.

It didn’t particularly matter to me; as far as I was concerned, I was in hot water either way. If Penelope would be helped, I was relatively sure that I could get out of any sticky situation with my magic.

So Geon ran to tell the other woodcutters what was going on while Richard, Devon, Penelope, and I began to make our way towards the biggest house in the village.

The manor certainly was impressive, I had to admit. It was perhaps three stories tall, which meant it was the tallest structure besides the church, and the latter was only larger thanks to its steeple. Small glass windows dotted the face of the manor, and it was shaped like a capital “L”. The lower floor of the house was built from the same kind of grey stones that had built the church, but the upper two stories almost looked like they could have been a house in Germany, with white plastered sections showing between exposed timbers. Beautiful wood shakes covered the roof, while white smoke lazily rose out of several chimneys, and I was once again struck by how quaint it all seemed.

A strange sensation like somebody was watching me slowly prickled the back of my neck, and I gazed around nervously, but nobody was looking directly at me. With a dawning sense of horror, I realized that I’d felt something similar before, when Ahn’Khareen had been scrying on me the first time I met Penelope.

Oh shit. Ahn’Khareen had told me over an hour ago that Penelope was entering the forest, and she was probably trying to scry me to see what was going on.

The idea that my teacher could just violate my privacy with what was effectively a security camera at any point wasn’t exactly a comforting notion at the best of times, and right now it could be incredibly dangerous.

Slowly I shook my head, trying to make the motion visible enough to Ahn’Khareen while not alerting the lumberjacks. It didn’t work as well as I hoped it would, but thankfully Richard only gave me a weird look before turning away.

Please. I thought desperately. Please see that I’m okay, don’t do anything rash.

The prickling sensation vanished, and I could only hope that she had gotten the message and wouldn’t come out swinging. The fact that our small party finished the trek to the manor house alive and without incident seemed to be a good sign.

“Now you behave yourself.” Richard said, gesturing vaguely at me with his axe. “Lord Esmaraldis is a good man, understand?”

“I’ll be cool.” I said, keeping my hands away from my body.

Richard leaned his axe up against the wall and used the brass knocker to band against the thick wooden doors.

The door opened, and a dazzlingly dressed young man stepped out. He couldn’t be older than sixteen but carried himself with a surprisingly amount of dignity. His clothes were quite the sight however and looked like something out of eighteenth century. A long green coat with yellow cuffs and a yellow collar covered an embroidered yellow vest, over a white shirt and black neckcloth. He wore a pair of green breeches that ended just below his knees, and his calves were covered by a pair of stockings, one green and the other yellow. If the circumstances had been any different, I would have laughed at the fact that his black leather shoes even had buckles on them.

“Yeoman Richard Woods.” The young man said, bowing his head before giving the rest of the party a look of deep consternation. “What is the meaning of this? Who is this individual, and why is Sirrah Devon carrying the Lady Esmaraldis?”

“This man,” Richard shoved me forwards a step. “Claims to be one “William Amsel.” He’s admitted to illegally living in the woods, but he also brought the young lady out of the forest, and she was already in this condition. He says she was being hunted by goblins, and she hit her head.”

The other man’s lips compressed into a tight grimace, and he beckoned us into the house. “Yeoman Woods, please direct Sirrah Devon to carry the Lady Esmaraldis to the smoking parlor where she can rest on a divan. Do you know the way?”

“I do. Come on Devon.”

The two men and Penelope disappeared into the manor, leaving me and what I could only guess was the manor’s footman alone.

“Please step back.” The footman said kindly, and I reluctantly took several steps back.

The footman reached above the door, and pulled down a weapon, making my throat close and my blood run cold in recognition.

He was holding a musket, like the kind you saw in the old Revolutionary War reenactments and movies. It was five feet long at least, a heavy looking beast of metal and wood, and its barrel was pointing directly at my stomach.

“Now then, you will come with me, and we will discuss the circumstances of your involvement in this matter. Do not resist, and I will not be forced to kill you.”