The Cruelty...

Abagail and Kari quietly floated on the ice raft back to their horse, who was gently flying above the island they’d left it at. With the crocodile lying in wait next to the island it wasn’t hard to guess at why.

Fiona picked the crocodile up by the tail and swung it around, launching it into the middle distance.

“That never gets old,” giggled Meredith, who was sitting on Fiona’s shoulders.

Kari realized there might be an issue going forward. “Miss Meredith. I do not believe there will be room on this horse for all of us, especially with Fiona’s… girth.”

“Watch it,” Fiona growled.

Meredith took it all in stride. “Oh, don’t worry about us. We’ve got our own ride.”

“…We do?”

“We do!” She whistled.

The moss monster returned, floating from elsewhere in the swamp. “Eustace, time for a trip. Time’s of the essence, understood?”

A low, guttural noise escaped from ‘Eustace’. Moss began to extend from its form to wrap around Fiona’s shoulders. “What is going on?!”

“Nothing bad! Abagail, go ahead and start without us. We’ll catch up.” As Meredith said that, she was being hoisted into the air. The moss had lifted her by grabbing her robes.

Abagail and Kari kicked off, the horse taking them into the air. They ascended into the clouds before starting to make the journey.

The horse suddenly jerked to the right as a mass of moss darted by them in the air, flapping about in the wind as if it had wings. Wrapped in the underside of the moss were Meredith and Fiona.

“Hi-hi!” Meredith waved as the flying moss beast moved above them. “Isn’t this great? It’s so much less effort than broomsticks. More comfortable too. Isn’t that right Fiona?”

“AAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAH! MEREDITH WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!”

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Kyle struggled to get inside his cottage, pushing the door in.

He shuffled inside, met with the smell of a good stew cooking over the fire. York the dwarf was standing next to the cooking pot and stirring it regularly. “Laddie, ye get some strange stuffs around here. How’d ye come up with this malarkey?”

Benny was peeling the skin off some carrots and chopping them into pieces to throw into the stew. “I didn’t sign up to be a live-in carer. You’re lucky you made so much convenient stuff.”

Benny and York had spread the news of Demerius’s duplicity to what was left of the band of bandits. While there were not many of them left, those who remained were… well… thick as thieves. Kyle had made a good impression on them when he outdrank Benny, and they’d moved into the town to help out where they could.

The bandits really, really enjoyed discovering the wonders of indoor plumbing.

With Benny, York, and the bandits all joining in to help, the peasants were getting a bit better with their training. The bandits had a bit more experience with fights, meaning they knew their way around a bow.

That took some stress off of Kyle, who’d worried he would have to take on the archers and mages alone. Now it was just the mages. That meant fewer shots that he’d have to make and by extension, fewer containers he’d need to make.

Kyle flopped onto the bed, exhausted.

Benny tasted the stew, admitting it was coming together. “What’s that in your hand?” He moved Kyle’s arm, revealing a metal case about the size of a wooden block he’d seen the peasant keep on him.

“Magic storage.” Kyle smiled, rolling what looked like two copper pipes fused together towards him.

Benny looked at the contraption. “I remember that. You took out the mountain ogres with this thing.” He looked the sniper wand over, confused. There were two small metal discs attached to the bottom now. “What are these?”

Kyle showed him the metal case he was holding, which had matching discs on it. When he brought them together, they snapped together with an audible click. “Magnets.”

“Neat trick,” said Benny. “What’s the point?”

“When I cast spells before, I was pulling mana from the air to cast. And I can’t do that a lot before I’m tapped out. What this does, is it’s front-loading that step. I load the mana into this cartridge ahead of time and that’s what I pull from to cast with. Once it’s tapped out?” He detached the cartridge and put it back on. “Swap it out for the next one.”

York looked at the cartridge, intrigued. “If that’s the kind of container ye need as a base, I can handle making ‘em for ye. It’s an interestin’ idea but it looks like it puts the exhaustion up front too.”

“I’d work on that if I thought I had time to,” Kyle admitted. “But that’s beyond my skills right now.” He admitted if he had Abagail here, he could’ve doubled his production speed. Or if Kari was here, she might’ve helped him recover faster.

He did pull himself up from the bed, wincing. As imperfect a solution as this was, it was a solution. Given enough time, he’d have more than enough cartridges of stored magic ready.

The ringing of bells sounded throughout the village, with York and Benny looking confused. “The heck is that supposed to be,” asked Benny.

Kyle groaned, getting onto his feet. “Of course they pick now to do this. Can one of you get the door please?”

Benny and York followed Kyle out the door, the three seeing peasants assemble before Francis’s house. Francis was staring off to the side, barely restraining himself as a dozen men stood before his house.

They resembled the men who Kyle had seen manning the magic armors in the town around Castle Zoroman, only this time armed with batons and longswords. There was a collection of horses and carts with them, their leader standing in front of them holding an unfurled scroll. “Hear ye, hear ye! Your lord and sovereign Prince Demerius has decreed this is the hour to pay your regular tax of the harvest!”

If Kyle hadn’t known Demerius was a CEO in his past life, he couldn’t have imagined this level of precise cruelty. The Prince had decided to tax them one last time before kicking everyone off of the land.