The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

After a brief rest, John and Ryan finalize their plans and lead the group on to Maelport. John’s nanites have partially recovered from the fight in Wellbury. They observe the city’s significant settlement with stone walls, 200 buildings, and active docks. Refugees stream toward the city, victims of increasing Hordamen attacks along the coast. Ryan tries to persuade Thokk to stay behind, but she refuses. Ryan verifies John’s internal chronometer and instructs him to begin the distraction at exactly 7:15 am. Ryan gives John his P-330 pistol, reassigning control to John’s nanite signature, and they part ways. Ryan heads to a sally port to meet his inside contact, while John’s group joins the refugees. John worries Sefawynn is no match for Ulric’s guns, but she insists on participating as a skop. At precisely 7:15 am, they enter Maelport.

A bell rings as the perimeter detects John’s nanites. Ryan’s soldiers grab their bows while Sefawynn and Thokk blend with the refugees. Ealstan spots enemy archers and moves aside. Janice Vault, one of Ulric’s accomplices, emerges from the crowd. John shoots first, killing her, then destroys her weapon and fires additional rounds into her body. Enemy archers fire from the walls as Ryan’s men take cover. Ealstan appears on the wall, attacking the archers. An unseen gunman with modern weapons fires at Ealstan. John identifies the sniper’s location and shoots at a window, stopping the attack. The whispering voice warns John that someone is approaching down an alley. John ambushes the shooter, Quinn, and forces him to surrender both pistols before destroying them. John assures him he won’t kill him, remembering that he has a wife, Tacy, and kids, but he declares Quinn under arrest. The battle appears won as Ulric’s forces retreat. Sefawynn reports that Ulric’s soldiers are gathering at the oceanside walls. Ealstan arrives with dire news: the Hordamen are attacking.

John, Ealstan, and Sefawynn climb the wall, bringing their prisoner, Quinn, with them. They see hundreds of Hordamen ships emerging from the fog. The invaders are a disciplined, well-equipped force. Lightning blasts destroy the gates. Sefawynn identifies the god Woden as siding with the Hordamen. Quinn reveals they need Ryan’s beacon to summon reinforcements from their world. John realizes Ulric lacks a beacon and set a trap to capture Ryan’s. He lowers his weapon, and Quinn flees. John understands Ryan is in danger. Sefawynn says Woden intentionally orchestrated the invasion. The whispering voice warns that bringing forces from John’s world would cause catastrophic harm beyond military conquest. Ealstan suggests sacrificing himself to appease Woden, but John convinces him to help instead. Sefawynn heads to the runestone to strengthen defenses with her boasts. John and Ealstan run for Ulric’s compound. John gives his wight a berry to unlock a window. Inside, he sees Ulric with Ryan’s beacon standing over a bound Ryan. Three people materialize: two armored soldiers and Marta, Ulric’s dimensional expert. Ulric orders Marta to repair the portal. John realizes Ryan walked into Ulric’s trap, delivering the exact device needed for escape. He spots another captive and zooms in with his optics, shocked to see Jen alive.

Quinn enters the bunker and reports the Hordamen invasion. Ulric orders Marta to hurry, then leaves with Quinn and his soldiers. John and Ealstan burst in, and Marta mistakes John for an ally. He pretends Ulric sent him to handle the prisoners and leads Ryan and Jen outside. Ryan explains that Rembrandt, the precinct quartermaster, gave him his beacon, and John reveals Rembrandt is corrupt and coded the beacon to only work for Ulric. John discovers Ryan and Jen have been romantically involved since the second week of John’s relationship with her. Jen explains she let John believe she was dead to spare his feelings. She couldn’t pass up the opportunity to travel to a different dimension to infiltrate Ulric’s secret organization. Ryan voice commands the pistol back to himself. He re-enters the bunker, arrests Marta, and activates the portal, setting coordinates for police headquarters. Ryan plans to abandon the mission and return later. Jen, Marta, and Ryan escape through the portal, expecting John to follow, but he deactivates it instead. Ealstan can’t believe that John considered these people friends and remarks that the aelvs may not be superior after all. They decide to find and destroy Ulric’s beacon. Leaving the building, they see Hordamen flooding the square. Sefawynn stands alone in the center, facing the invaders.

John rushes to help Sefawynn, but Thokk stops him and tells him to wait. She reveals Woden is her brother and that he sides with whoever appears to be winning out of fear. Thokk enhances John’s vision so he can see the city’s wights hiding in shadows, frightened of Woden. In the square, Sefawynn screams defiance at Woden. The runestone glows, and the wights focus on her. She delivers a powerful boast renouncing Woden. As a Hordaman moves to kill her, a wight disassembles his sword and then his entire body. Throughout the square, wights attack the invaders, dismantling weapons and armor, turning the tide. The Hordamen retreat. John realizes Thokk is actually the mysterious helper he thought was his wight. She clarifies she is not a wight but was hiding from Woden. She explains the poison of outsiders from John’s world weakens her and the wights, an effect that becomes severe when they remain in one place for too long. She cannot touch the machines which is why she was unable to stop Ulric herself. John promises to handle Ulric. Ealstan reveals he knew Thokk’s true identity as the goddess Logna all along. John and Ealstan return to Ulric’s compound, where John plans to destroy the portal while Ealstan guards the door.

Inside the bunker, John finds Quinn, who says Ulric plans to ally with the Hordamen. They begin a boxing match. John is disadvantaged by failing nanites and missing head and chest platings. Quinn reveals that Ulric used random numbers for John’s plating password and there was no way to recover them. Outside, Ealstan battles Ulric’s two armored soldiers. John thinks of all his failures and tendency to run but is reminded of Sefawynn’s and Ealstan’s bravery. Despite his despair, he smashes the portal control panel before Quinn tackles him. Quinn beats John until Ulric enters, stepping past Ealstan’s fallen, bloodied body. Ulric activates a manual override and connects his beacon to the portal. John realizes Ulric broke him years ago simply to demonstrate power over his crew. John bluffs that he figured out the platings’ password using the dimension’s probability-altering nature. Quinn believes the lie and falters. John defeats Quinn, wishes him a fresh start, and throws him through the portal to police headquarters just before crushing the override switch. He grabs the beacon, and Ulric shoots him in the chest. As Ulric aims at John’s head, John crushes the beacon. Ulric is shot and killed. Ealstan stands in the doorway, severely wounded but alive, holding a gun attached to a severed arm. He grins, explaining that the soldiers lacked bows.

An excerpt from Cecil G. Bagsworth III’s autobiography describes dimensional travel as lonely. He explains that knowing the vastness of reality while observing people in their limited dimensions creates inevitable solitude. He warns future wizards to prepare for this burden of knowledge, which ensures they can have no peers.

Hours after the battle, John and Sefawynn rest on the docks. His emergency nanites have partially healed him. Sefawynn assures him that facial scars are fashionable. John realizes his nanites had been blocking the warmth of human contact. He kisses her and tells her she is the most wonderful thing that has happened to him. Logna appears and confirms Ealstan is recovering. She says he should become the new earl since Ulric killed the previous one. John recognizes that Woden used his people as an example, just as Ulric once used him. Believing his presence will poison the land’s magic, John attempts to die by suicide by stepping off the dock into knee-deep water. Logna mocks his failed attempt and explains that his poisonous effect only occurs if he remains in one location for over a month. She reveals that his presence causes Woden pain, protecting Sefawynn from the god. John realizes he can stay if he keeps traveling. Logna helps him from the water and tells him to enjoy being someone he likes. John runs joyfully back to reunite with Sefawynn and Ealstan. John thinks about how many stars he would give his entire experience and decides to retire the whole rating system, having found what he wanted in life.

Months later, an invisible Logna watches John and Sefawynn perform a puppet show in Treewall, retelling Maelport’s defense. Logna reflects that she guided John to this dimension by sending him numbers through the Wyrd, a force of fate in this dimension, though she did not know the exact outcome. She knows the password to his platings but has not revealed it. She admits she subtly helped Ealstan by disrupting his opponents’ nanites. In their private chamber, Logna finds Ryan’s laptop, which John recovered to write his memoirs. She knows the passwords to Ryan’s encrypted files, including one containing the sum of human knowledge from their world. Despite the pain of touching the machine, she opens the locked files, reading a section titled “Dimensional Portals: Mechanical Schematics and Repairs” (364).