Sometimes it felt like despite making the best decisions I could at the time, life still somehow conspired to make everything more difficult for me. I had protected Penelope from the goblins, I had brought her to safety, and I had tried my best to keep myself safe and reveal as little as possible about myself.

And yet, somehow, I had ended being extorted into being… what? An enforcer? A mercenary? A mage for hire?

I was betting on all the above, and I wasn’t looking forward to wait awaited me next.

“Now I am to understand that you have made your home in my forest.” Lord Esmaraldis asked, still sitting coolly.

“Yes.” I said, reluctantly.

“I suppose I am willing to let that continue, with several stipulations.”

Frowning, I looked at him more carefully. “Stipulations? I would imagine that you would want me off your lands.”

Esmaraldis shrugged, spreading his hands as if to encompass the world. “When you look at it from a legal perspective, this entire village is my land. As long as I adhere to the queen’s laws, how I govern it beyond those laws is up to me. While normally I would prefer to have vagrants and vagabonds out of my forests, for certain individuals I am willing to make exceptions.”

“Certain individuals like myself.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what are these stipulations?”

“Oh, they’re nothing serious.” Lord Esmaraldis raised a single finger. “Firstly, you remain out of the way of the woodcutters. Their work is quite important for both my village in particular and the empire in general. Considering how I have not heard any mention of you until now, I don’t think this condition should be a problem.”

I shook my head. “I like to stay out of the public eye.”

“A wise decision.” He held up two fingers. “Secondly, you remain in contact with myself or my factors.”

“Factors?”

“Agents, representatives, what have you.”

I nodded grimly. “You want I should remain in touch so you can have easy access to my… abilities.”

“Correct.”

“And if I don’t respond to your people?”

He shrugged. “Then I’ll spread your description and name to the local towns, identifying you as a worshipper of the Hells and being highly dangerous. Either the militia or teams from the Royal Cabal will hunt you down.”

This was less extortion and now imprisonment. I didn’t know how truthful he was being, he could just be saying this to make me nervous, or angry. It was working, but could I really take that chance?

“Very well.” I said through clenched teeth. “Anything else?”

“Just one more thing.” He raised a third finger. “As you live in your little hut or cave or whatever in my forest, you will be on the lookout for any goblins. If you see them and can kill them, I’ll give you payment for sufficient proof. If you can’t kill them, I expect you to let me know as soon as possible so I can muster the militia.”

“Proof?”

He shrugged. “An ear will do fine.”

I felt sick. Wasn’t taking trophies off dead people a violation of the Geneva Convention or something? Then again, there wasn’t even a Geneva in this world, much less a convention on limiting war crimes that I knew of. And judging by his tone, he didn’t even consider to be taking ears as proof of killing them as a crime at all. Regardless of its legality, the very idea of cutting something’s ears off for payment was disturbing.

I had killed goblins, but at least that had been in self-defense.

“Fine.” I reluctantly agreed.

We would see if I actually had to fight the goblins, I had only seen them twice after all. Even if I did… well like he said, the ears were only for payment, and I didn’t have to collect them.

“Excellent. Then, let us celebrate our new agreement over some refreshments.”

He looked at Karsil and the footman nodded, and quietly left the room.

“So.” Lord Esmaraldis said in the silence. “What is your exact relationship with my daughter?”

I blinked at the non-sequitur. This was a sudden tone shift to be sure considering what we were just talking about, but I supposed it wasn’t unwarranted, considering I had pulled his daughter out of the woods.

“We’re acquaintances.” I said after a moment of thought. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends exactly, I haven’t known her for long. But she was friendly to me.”

Despite my distaste for this man, I at least owed Penelope her due.

The other man sighed and rubbed his forehead. “She is always friendly. Tries to adopt every stray that she finds, regardless of species. At least she seemed to have chosen well this time.”

I frowned at that last part, trying to figure out exactly what he meant.

“Well, no matter. As long as you remain “acquaintances,” or even friends, I shall be content.” His hard stare seemed to bore into me. “But if you try anything else…”

“I’m not interested.” I said honestly, then realized I should probably be picking my words more carefully. “That’s not to say she isn’t a nice woman and whomever is a relationship with her would be lucky, but right now I don’t think I should be getting into anything that complicated.”

A grunt was his only response, along with his efforts to try and weigh my sincerity. If he was hoping to catch me lying, well he would be disappointed.

Penelope was nice, and attractive I supposed, but the idea of a relationship just wasn’t particularly important to me right now. I didn’t know her nearly well enough for that, and there was just far too many things going on in my life to consider anything like a relationship. I was a necromancer and living with Ahn’Khareen, I would much rather be focusing on my studies into magic

Of course, now even the prospect of my studies was being sidetracked by the man sitting in front of me.

“A good enough answer for now, I suppose.” He said.

“May I ask a question?”

“You just did.”

I glared at the man, but he seemed oblivious to my distaste for him.

“How did you know I was a mage in the first place?”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Please. Your lot never make it difficult to tell. You are wearing robes, only mages in this day and age wear them. Maybe some more traditional clerics wear robes, but none quite as… simple as yours. As well, you could do with a better cover story than a naturalist, almost every mage claims that they’re a student of nature.”

“You’ve met many mages then?” I said casually.

Lord Esmaraldis eyed me over, and chuckled. “One or two in my time. You’re all the same where it matters.”

Before I could respond to that comment, the doors opened back up and Karsil and another figure came into the room. The other figure was carrying a silver platter with several porcelain cups of what smelled like tea, was just about as tall as I was and just as lanky and clad in a white dress and black. Their ears were long and pointed however, and I realized I was meeting my first living elf since I had come here.

My annoyance with Lord Esmaraldis faded away to some distant part of my mind, and excitement took over. I knew it was ridiculous, but this was a real-life elf before me, something I had only ever imagined could be possible, but knew was never going to happen until I came to this world. Oh, sure Ahn’Khareen was technically an elf, or had been one, but she didn’t really count after all.

The elf was female, at least I was pretty sure she was. Her face was androgynous, and it was only her body shape that lent any idea to what gender she was. Disturbingly her eyes were larger than normal humans, and her irises were dark and took up almost the entire eyeball, making them stand out darkly in contrast to her pale skin and sharp cheekbones. Elves looked a lot more alien than I thought they would, but that didn’t matter right now.

The elven servant placed the platter on the table, distributing fine porcelain teacups and saucers, along with a pot of some foul-smelling tea. I looked up at her and muttered my thanks.

“Shisua morlai.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the words and stared at me in shock. I looked over to see both Karsil and Lord Esmaraldis looking at me with similar expressions.

“What?” I asked.

“You… speak elven?” Karsil said, looking between me and the servant.

“Uh, well, yes, I suppose. I learned some in my studies.”

“Fascinating.” Lord Esmaraldis said, leaning in. “Oh, I know some of the scholars can read it for some texts, but I never really imagined anybody would actually learn to speak it.”

I furrowed my brows, why wouldn’t somebody want to speak elvish? Esmaraldis ignored me however to look at the servant instead.

“It’s okay, go ahead.” He allowed graciously, but the woman still looked anxious for some reason.

“My name is William.” I said in elvish, or at least the dialect Ahn’Khareen had taught me. “Do you speak Khareeni? Or, uh, Auriastrani? I can’t speak that as well, but I can try.”

“I can speak Khareeni, though not as good as my own tribe’s tongue.” She admitted. “I did not think any humans spoke it, not for many years.”

I smiled up at her. “I had a good teacher. What’s your name?”

“Emily.”

I frowned again. I seemed to be doing that a lot in my conversations with the Esmaraldis household. Emily? That didn’t sound very… elvish.

“Hah!” Lord Esmaraldis said, banging the table and making “Emily” jump slightly. “I can recognize that at least! You're asking her name, aren’t you?”

“Er, yes.” I replied awkwardly, trying to send reassuring looks towards the flighty woman.

“That was interesting, to say the least.” He said, then looked at the servant. “Well then? Off with you.”

She bowed her head and murmured something, picking up the platter.

“Nice to meet you!” I said to her, and she smiled briefly for the first time in the conversation, before she disappeared back into the door she came from.

“Well,” Lord Esmaraldis said as the door closed. “That was illuminating.”

I sipped at the tea and was thoroughly disappointed. I had never really been into tea before I came to this world, but with Ahn’Khareen never having heard of coffee I had learned about some more of the common kinds she had preferred to serve her living guests. I quite enjoyed the two-hundred-year-old teas, but it seemed that the Esmaraldis household preferred teas that I could only compare to smelling a wet dog.

“Hm.” I said noncommittally, wondering how I could avoid ever drinking this brew again.

There was a knock on the door and Karsil went to listen to a report from another elf, this time a man in clothes that had the same 18th century aesthetic but in all white, then came back to whisper in Lord Esmaraldis’ ear.

“Ah, excellent.” The lord said, standing up. “My daughter is finally awake. Would you care to come have a talk with her?”

--##--

Penelope had been moved to her room by the cleric, who had already left by the time I had woken up from my nap, and it was a lot different than I imagined it would be. Oh, certainly I hadn’t been imagining anything like from my world, but what I found as we walked in was nothing like what I thought it would.

The dark wood floor was covered by a plush rug, and a large four-poster bed occupied most of the room. A vanity was set against one wall with a small mirror mounted to it, and besides that the only other furniture was a large dresser, a night table, and a chair set besides a fireplace.

It didn’t look the room of any teenager I had ever seen, it looked like a room from a history museum.

Penelope herself was lying in bed, groggily looking around with a glass of water in her hand and an older woman in a green dress sitting in a chair next to the bed.

The woman stood up quickly and bowed. “My lord!”

Lord Esmaraldis waved her back down into the chair. “It’s okay madame, no need to stand on ceremony now.”

Karsil leaned into whisper in my ear. “Madame Agnes is the family’s oldest servant. She took care of Lord Esmaraldis, as well as his daughter when she was born.”

I grunted in acknowledgement as the lord moved around the bed to look down at his daughter.

“And how is my darling daughter faring?”

“Papa?” Penelope said, brow furrowing in thought. “What am I doing here? I was… just going out for a walk. I must have- “

“There’s no need for that.” He said, cutting her off. “You don’t need to lie to protect your friend anymore.”

“My… friend?” She looked around the room, and her eyes opened wide as she saw me standing near the entrance.

I gave her a little wave and a tight smile. “Surprise.”

She stared at me for a long minute, then looked panicked back to her father. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life.”

I sighed; it may have just been the concussion but right now Penelope had a terrible poker face.

Lord Esmaraldis’ face clouded in anger, before being wiped clean to a passive slate, so fast that I almost didn’t see it.

“Do not lie to me child.” He said sternly. “I have already discussed the matter with him.”

She shifted awkwardly in her bed. “Yes father.”

“Now, how are you doing?”

“My head hurts, and my entire body is sore, but besides that I seem to be okay.” She turned a small smile on me. “Thank you, William. For saving me.”

I shrugged awkwardly, beginning to realize that if I hadn’t flagged down Yeoman Richard and his lumberjacks, then I would have been spared a lot of trouble. Of course, if I had just left her there, who knew when somebody might find her. Or if they found her at all. Maybe something would have found her instead.

“I’m a good Samaritan like that I suppose.” I half-mumbled, wishing to be pretty much anywhere else now.

I never really knew my own dad, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t exactly how fathers were supposed to treat their kids. Then again, this was a totally different world and society, there were still lords and ladies after all. Was I in a position where I could judge another culture?

“Yes, well, our friendly mage will be helping us from here on out.”

“So, you are a mage!” Penelope said happily, her smile growing much larger. "I thought you might be, but I wasn't sure."

“You mean you didn’t know?” Lord Esmaraldis seemed almost stunned, and he turned to look at me in confusion. “You didn’t tell her?”

I closed my eyes for a second, my headache flaring before settling down to a dull pounding against my skull.

“There’s not much point in trying to hide the fact that I’m a mage if I go around and tell people that I’m a mage.”

It still felt odd to call myself a mage out loud to other people, despite how long I’d had to use magic. It sounded silly, like I was at a renaissance fair or something. It had been fine when talking with Ahn’Khareen and didn’t that just tell me how messed up my life was when I was more comfortable with a lich than I was with other people.

“Hm.” The lord said noncommittally. “I suppose so, I had just thought- well, never mind.”

Penelope frowned at her father. “What that the reason for the gunshot I heard earlier?”

Lord Esmaraldis nodded. “I had to make sure he was a mage. Luckily, he managed to shield himself.”

“Papa!” She said, scandalized. “You can’t just go around shooting people!”

“Of course I can, I am a lord.”

Penelope gave me an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” The lord said. “There is no reason for it. Nobody is hurt.”

“That’s not the point papa!”

He sighed. “It doesn’t matter anyways. Regardless, he will be assisting the village and our family for a while.”

They both eyed me, and then shared a knowing look between themselves.

“But first, maybe some new clothes.” She said, and her father nodded in agreement.

--##--

The new clothes weren’t quite as bad as I had thought they would be. A simple pair of brown trousers, white shirt and black neckcloth, dark green waistcoat, and a brown coat that fell half-way down my calves. They almost felt like normal clothes, or at least if I was wearing a weird kind of suit. I’d gotten used to the robes, but it felt nice to wear something else.

The converse didn’t quite fit with the rest of the outfit, but I didn’t really care. They were one of the few things I had left from my world, and I was not ready to go completely native, not yet.

Of course, I was feeling much better in general now, even if I didn’t like the Lord Esmaraldis’ attitude, I had to admit he treated his guests well. One of the servants had gotten a bath ready for me without nearly any time at all, and I had spent nearly twenty minutes in it, letting my fingers and toes wrinkle. I had taken bird baths back in Ahn’Khareen’s home and I had bathed in the rivers, but it felt like it had been years since I had a warm bath.

I didn’t know how they did it, but the water managed to stay at just the perfect temperature for the entire bath, never even growing a little bit cold. It was magnificent. There was even soap and shampoo, and I hadn’t felt so clean in months.

“Well now, you are starting to look better sirrah.” Karsil said, walking through the door.

“Thanks.” I replied coldly, my good mood starting to fade considering I still wasn’t happy with how he had tried to shoot me less than an hour ago.

“The Lord and young Lady Esmaraldis are awaiting you in the parlor.”

“Not in her room?”

“The cleric left instructions that if she was feeling better she could move around the house. It will be a week or so until she can truly return to normal, but for now she is okay to at least move around the manor.”

I… think that sounded right? One of my old friends, Greg, back in high school had a concussion when he fell while skiing and he was out of school for a week.

“What about my robe?” They had taken my old clothes away when Lord Esmaraldis had given me some of his son’s clothes.

I didn’t even know he had a son. Then again, I didn’t really know anything about the family at all.

“It’s being cleaned. You shall have it before you return to… the forest.”

His face twisted up in a brief grimace of disgust, before returning to his normal placid mask. I guess he didn’t think the forest was a nice place to live. If he knew the truth about the cave and Ahn’Khareen, well I’m sure he wouldn’t be making quite so many faces. Or more, possibly.

“Well then, lead on.”

We returned to the parlor in which I met the lord the first time, and both nobles I had met were taking some more tea, chatting idly. Emily was also present, standing in the back corner of the room, and I flashed her a quick smile and a hello in elvish, before walking up to the table. She smiled awkwardly, before fiddling with the empty silver platter she held against herself like armor.

“Well then!” Lord Esmaraldis said, looking me up and down before gesturing at one of the chairs at the table. “You are looking quite like a proper gentleman now, isn’t he?”

Penelope smiled. “Why yes papa, he does.”

“So.” I said, fidgeting with my clothes as I sat. “What happens now?”

“Can I see some magic?” Penelope asked. “I am quite put-out; I must let you know. We’ve known each other for so long, and you never told me you were a mage. How long have I been missing out on what you can do?”

It hasn’t been that long. I thought, somewhat incredulously. Only a couple of weeks.

Probably only a couple weeks anyways. My perception of time had been messed up living in Ahn’Khareen’s underground home without being able to see the sun.

Still… I supposed it was fair, in a way.

The safest spell, for them at least, would probably be Mage Light. I didn’t have to think, didn’t have to take any time at all. I merely extended my hand, directed my will, and then there was light.

Lord Esmaraldis and his daughter stared in fascination at the small ball of light, floating just above my hand.

“No matter how technology evolves.” The lord said. “No matter how many times I’ve seen I, magic still continues to amaze.”

He looked back at me, eyes twinkling with delight. “This, Magus Amsel, has the potential to be quite a productive partnership.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but the seeds of a plan were starting to form in my mind. If I could get some connections out of this lord, find people who might know more about modern magic and how I came here… well then, I might be able to find somebody who could tell me how I came here, and how I could go home.

Smiling tightly, I nodded at the lord. “I think it just might."