The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

After rescuing Wyrm, John and his companions arrive at Yazad’s preserve. Yazad welcomes them joyfully and serves stewed apples. As Ealstan recounts his survival, Sefawynn approaches John with reverent thanks, calling him Great Prince. John is uncomfortable with her deference, lamenting that it has ruined their playful rapport.

With his memories now restored, John reflects on his failures: his tumultuous relationship with Jen, his disappointed friend Ryan, his humiliating boxing career, and his distant family. He rates his life as zero out of five. Yazad brings him food and readily accepts John’s explanation that he is from the future, framing it as a blessing from Ahura Mazda. When John confesses that he feels like a charlatan, Yazad points to the genuine joy of those John saved and says that saving even one person is an infinite good.

John decides to go to Maelport to find Ulric’s portal and escape. He thanks the wight aloud, and it responds in his ear, addressing him by name. When the group looks to him for direction, Ealstan misinterprets John’s plan to leave as noble self-sacrifice and vows to accompany him. Sefawynn joins in. Tired of hating himself for the last 15 years, John decides to try stopping Ulric instead of merely giving up.

After Yazad’s farewell, John, Sefawynn, and Ealstan leave Wyrm at the preserve and depart on horseback. John tries to restore his easy relationship with Sefawynn, but she remains formally reverent. When he asks how she knew about the wight, she reveals she was born with the Night Marks—three birthmarks that let her see wights as shadows in her peripheral vision. She lives in constant fear that seeing one directly will cause death. John tells her this proves her power is real, but she feels it only highlights her failure to meet Woden’s expectations. John learns about their mythology. Their suffering is Woden’s punishment for his wife’s death and accepting writing from the goddess Logna. Sefawynn believes their suffering and devotion will one day earn his favor.

Thokk joins them after hiding on the roadside. John confronts her privately, and she explains she plays up the persona of a witch because locals assume an old woman traveling alone must be supernatural, giving her freedom and safety. She warns John about bandits ahead. As he questions her, armed figures emerge and surround the group.

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Twelve bandits surround them. Thokk warns John they are desperate men who cannot be scared and advises him to stay quiet. John follows her advice. A bandit leader demands a bribe to pass the road. Sefawynn identifies herself as a skop, and the nervous bandits immediately grant her free passage. The leader demands the horses as toll, allowing them to keep one for the skop. Ealstan reluctantly complies. John considers fighting but decides against it without his chest platings.

John recognizes the bandits’ methods as similar to modern mafia tactics, where they leave just enough so victims can be robbed again later. As the bandits walk away, John remarks on the familiar shakedown. The moment he speaks, something slams into him from behind, and everything goes dark.

John wakes up in a shack and realizes he was hit with a blackout grenade which forced his nanites to reboot. He believes the bandits must be working for Ulric, targeting people with his accent. Worried for his friends, he pries loose a board and escapes into the forest. He discovers that the moving shapes he sees in darkness with his naked eye become invisible when he uses night vision, confirming that wights cannot be detected by technology.

He approaches a bonfire and sees Ealstan sitting unharmed, eating soup. Sefawynn is also fine, chatting with another woman. Thokk laughs nearby. Mistaking the situation for a hostage scenario, John identifies a leader in an ornate hat and decides to attack. He dashes toward the camp, then sees the leader’s face when the man turns at the sound of his approach. It is his best friend from his old life, Ryan Chu, dressed like Robin Hood.

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John is shocked to find Ryan Chu leading the bandit group. They walk away from the fire to talk privately. John explains he randomly stole one of Ulric’s dimensions to escape his life. Ryan reveals this is the one dimension Ulric actively uses, and the thousands of others on the list were decoys.

Ryan explains he has been undercover investigating Ulric. A week ago, he sabotaged Ulric’s portal and beacon, which should have trapped him. Ryan’s own reinforcements never arrived because, he now realizes, Ulric must have a second, more powerful beacon overriding his weaker one.

John tells Ryan that one of Ulric’s men, Quinn, mentioned a check-in team arriving tomorrow. Ryan resolves that they must capture Ulric’s beacon to call his own backup and keep Ulric trapped.

They discuss the local magic. Ryan theorizes it is a quantum probability effect, while John suggests actual invisible beings exist. Ryan reveals Ulric’s true plan to use the dimension’s magic to manipulate probability. He can fill out lottery tickets here that will win back on Earth, giving him access to infinite clean money. This would let him influence stocks, elections, and criminal operations with unprecedented power.

John understands the immense danger and agrees to help stop Ulric. He feels disappointed the fight is no longer his alone but then concocts a plan to use Ryan to repair his relationship with Sefawynn.

John brings Ryan back to the fire and deliberately provokes him by lying about their past partnership. Unable to let the lies stand, Ryan reveals John’s true history: He was a thief who worked for Ulric, threw a championship fight on his orders, and failed at everything he tried. When John mentions Jen, a sore subject, Ryan unleashes years of frustration, calling John a drain on everyone he knows and listing his failures and debts.

Hurt by the truth, John retreats into the forest. The wight speaks to him, explaining that people from his world emit an aura that is like poison to the wights. Ulric establishing a permanent base would destroy the dimension’s magic. This solidifies John’s resolve to stop him.

Sefawynn finds John in the darkness, and he confirms everything Ryan said was true. Seeing him hurt, Sefawynn jokes that he is practically a mortal among aelvs, and their easy, playful dynamic is restored. She takes his hand, and they walk back to the fire together. John feels genuinely happy and realizes his relationship with Sefawynn works because they both see themselves as screw-ups.

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Later that night, John approaches Ryan by the fire, and they agree to focus on the mission. Ryan shows detailed maps and schematics of Maelport, including Ulric’s safe room powered by a fusion reactor and protected by a motion-detection security field triggered by nanites or augments.

Ryan outlines the plan to attack on Wodensday morning. He has an inside contact who will let him in the back while John and Ryan’s men create a diversion at the front, deliberately triggering the alarm. When John objects to being bait, Ryan insists that he is the only one capable of disabling the beacon, so John must create the diversion. Ryan shows John a portable dimensional beacon so he can identify Ulric’s larger one if needed. He emphasizes that John’s role is crucial, as his augments will need to protect the bandits while they create the diversion.

Ryan criticizes John’s habit of rating everything. He thinks John judges everyone and has unrealistic standards for everything but himself. When things don’t live up to his expectations, John quits. John explains he started doing it to understand himself and figure out his preferences, but it hasn’t helped, and now he simply enjoys it. Ryan is puzzled that John doesn’t know what he likes. John privately rates himself five stars and doesn’t care what Ryan thinks of him.

Ryan gives John marshmallows, and they roast them over the fire. John confesses he was kicked out of the police academy and felt his life was a cascade of bad luck. Ryan concedes that his own confidence may partly be a product of good fortune. John admits he feels responsible for Jen’s death. Ryan absolves him, saying he never blamed John for it and that loving Jen was relatable. Ryan tells John this mission is his chance to escape the avalanche of his past failures.

The next day, traveling to Maelport, John teaches Sefawynn the basics of realistic drawing using Renaissance techniques of perspective and shading. She is fascinated by the pencil and smooth paper but stops herself from writing, as Woden forbids it. Ealstan and Sefawynn debate Woden’s nature; Ealstan believes the god wants them weak, while Thokk calls Sefawynn a fool for her piety. John comforts Sefawynn, who confides she feels like a fraud.

Ryan becomes impatient with their slow pace. When John makes a “carp diem” joke, Ryan explains in detail why the joke is bad. Ealstan and Sefawynn make a point of calling John by the name Runian. Sefawynn explains it is the name he asked them to use, and their respect for his wishes touches him deeply.

John spends the next hour drawing the skyscrapers, modern rooms, and Seattle’s skyline so Sefawynn and Ealstan can see his world. They are stunned by the scale. Sefawynn calls it peaceful, noting that many people can live together and never see death. Ealstan says living without killing is the mark of a strong society. John reflects on the brutality of their lives and wishes he could help them with technology without destroying their magic.

The playful dynamic between John and Sefawynn blossoms. John explains to Ealstan that Ulric took away some of his augments before his final fight, leaving him no real choice but to lose. When Ryan complains about their slow pace, Sefawynn pulls herself onto the horse in front of John, and they ride closely together. Ryan chides them, but Ealstan encourages them, saying joy is what he fights for. John feels pure happiness but immediately realizes he cannot stay with Sefawynn, as his continued presence is poisoning her world.