Evelyn stood in the middle of a dirt trade road wide enough for two wagons to pass side by side. There were trees on both sides of the road, but they were too far away to help her. Facing her were three men wearing the armor and uniform of Duke Rudhale. Each man wore some kind of necklace with a charm hanging from it. Two of them held crossbows pointed at her, already cocked and ready to fire, while the third one had his sword drawn. They were about 20 feet in front of her, which was close enough that there was almost no chance that the crossbow bolts would miss if she tried to run.

“We know you are on the run from the Magelight Academy for dabbling in forbidden magics.” the soldier with the sword said. He seemed to be the leader of the three men. “If you come with us and agree to work for the Duke, he can shield you from them, protect you, and even give you resources to continue your research. He wants a good mage to work for him and isn't afraid of the Academy's rules. In fact, he appreciates a mage who is willing to...cross some lines.”

From what Evelyn had read about the Duke, the kind of lines he would want a mage to cross are much darker than anything she would be interested in.

“If you refuse, then we are to kill you and bring your body to the Academy for a reward. The Duke wouldn't be as pleased about that outcome, but would still be happy to take the money.”

Evelyn lifted her wooden staff, and with her mind, reached for the mana in the world around her. If she struck fast, she might be able to take out both crossbowmen before they had a chance to shoot her. But she hesitated; they should know that, and it was clear that they knew she was a mage. Why weren't they afraid she would strike them down?

“We know that the only form of mana attunement that you have mastered is fire, and we are well protected against that. Please do not try to fight us, or we will kill you.” The men didn't move; the leader seemed calm, but the two crossbowmen seemed very nervous and twitchy, to a degree Evelyn worried that they might shoot her by accident.

Evelyn activated her magic sight, and most of the world went dark. She could clearly see the charms that each soldier was wearing around their necks glowing with mana. A kind of mana she was very familiar with; mana attuned to fire. And with her magic sight she could see that the necklaces were carved with protection symbols. They were probably telling the truth.

They clearly knew a lot about her and were well prepared to capture her. Duke Rudhale must have more need for a mage willing to dabble in forbidden magics than she had thought.

They weren't quite correct that fire was the only kind of mana attunement she had mastered, though.

Evelyn whispered a prayer under her breath, “Ikar, I ask for the Gambler's Blessing. Please aid and guide the foolish thing I am about to do.” The Gambler's Blessing was the only divine spell she had yet been granted as an Acolyte of Ikar the Many-Faced. It was said that it had a chance of improving the outcome of a risky action you were about to take. It was said to be most effective when you were about to do something very clever or very foolish or both, but even then, it did not always seem to work, there seemed to be a high random factor.

She called on the mana around her, and instead of channeling it into fire, she channeled it into the other kind of magic she had recently attuned herself to. The truly dangerous one, the one that had been forbidden in every civilized part of the continent.

Wild magic.

It was said that the ancient wild mages, the few who survived long enough to become masters of the art, could channel mana into wild magic and then shape it into any form they wanted to do almost anything with it. But the first use of wild magic that most people mastered, if they were foolish enough to take that path today, was the Wild Surge, an uncontrollable burst of chaos and raw magic that might do nothing or might do almost anything. Wild Surge was also the spell that killed most wild mages, and sometimes everyone near them.

She tried to shape it, like she had the few times she had dared cast it before, but with her mana sight she could “see” the threads of magic quickly slip out of her control, and the wild magic snapped into some kind of ball or spherical shape. The most she could do as far as controlling the spell went was to mentally push the growing ball of chaotic energy towards the three soldiers.

This Wild Surge was an incredibly stupid thing to do. The most likely outcome was nothing, or something minor and random that wouldn't impede them significantly. The crossbowmen were clearly nervous about trying to capture a mage, and at the slightest weirdness were likely to shoot her. Or the Wild Surge itself might just kill her. Or she might blow up half the forest. Or worse.

But Evelyn would rather blow up herself and these soldiers than serve the Duke, if it came to it. So, she fed more and more of her own mana into the Wild Surge, and it got stronger and stronger as the tangle of chaotic energy flew through the air towards the soldiers. Something was going to happen, at least. Something big. She could feel it in her bones.

The Wild Surge came to a stop just above the soldiers, a ball of chaos and energy hovering in the air above them that she hoped only she could see. She hoped it would strike them down with lightning or something, that was a known possible effect of a Wild Surge. But instead, the ball of chaos started to spin, first slowly and then faster and faster. It seemed to spin into a disk, growing thinner and thinner. A strange spiral pattern began in the air above the soldiers, and the disk started to glow with a strange yellow-purplish light.

“This is your last chance, Evelyn. Are you going to surrender, or...” the soldier started to say.

That was when a heavy wooden chair fell through the portal above the soldiers, followed by a very surprised looking man.

As Richard fell through the portal, he saw the heavy oak chair he had been sitting on fall and strike what appeared to be a soldier, striking his forearms and knocking the crossbow he had been holding out of his hands and onto the ground. Richard fell to the left of the chair, where two more soldiers were standing. Richard flailed as he fell through the air, and his knee struck the head of a surprised looking soldier who was holding a sword, knocking him unconscious.

The second soldier moved quickly, swinging his crossbow up towards the strange man apparently falling from the sky, but somehow a belt loop on Richard's left hip got caught on the end of the crossbow. With a twang, the crossbow went off, the bolt just missing his left hip by inches, and with his left hip hooked onto the end of the crossbow Richard's right hip swung down and to the right. A ripping sound went through the air as his pants yanked hard against the crossbow for a second and then tore, and most of Richard's weight came slamming down into the shoulder and upper back of the soldier, knocking him down with Richard on top of him.

When Richard finally hit the ground, he was lying on top of one soldier who was struggling to get up, his legs were lying across the back of a second soldier he had accidentally knocked unconscious, and the third soldier who had just had his crossbow knocked out of his hands was looking at Richard and trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The third soldier, the only one still on his feet, blinked for a few seconds before reaching for a dagger on his belt, but before he had gotten it out a woman had come running up the road and struck him across the head with a large wooden staff. She then slammed the stick into his already injured arms, causing him to drop the dagger, and then swept it up behind his legs, knocking him down.

The man under Richard had grabbed him by the shoulder and was trying to push him off without much success, when the woman ran over and struck him in the head with her staff as well. By the time Richard, wincing at the pain in his knee and hips, managed to get up off the ground, all three of the soldiers were unconscious.

3 human soldiers defeated (partial exp): 125 exp granted

Skill earned, Pratfall (2)

For your hilarious pratfall, you have earned +12 Humor points

He blinked, and the notifications went away. The woman looked at him with a concerned expression on her face.

“Are you ok? Where did you come from? Did I...uh...I think I may have...uh... accidentally summoned you from...somewhere?” She blinked. “I'm so sorry...I...uh...I'm Evelyn...”

Richard held his right hand up to stop, with his left hand still resting on his aching left hip, holding his torn jeans together so they didn't fall off. “It's ok. I think I was supposed to get summoned, although I didn't expect it to be quite so, uh, sudden.”

“You were supposed to get summoned? Who are you? Where did you come from?”

Richard winced. She's probably not going to believe this, but I don't have time to come up with a convincing lie. “I came from another world. Originally. And as for who I am; apparently, I'm supposed to be the Champion of Ikar, if that phrase means anything to you.”

Evelyn's eyes got wide, and then she quickly shook her head. “Ok. Maybe you are, for all I know. We'll deal with that later. Right now, it's very likely there will be more teams of soldiers searching for me, or maybe bounty hunters from the Academy.” She hesitated, “If you don't want any part of my problems, then you can take the road down to town, and just not tell anyone about me or these soldiers, and you'll probably be fine.” She explained, “I am an acolyte of Ikar, which might be part of how you got summoned here. If you really are who you say you are, you can come with me for now, if you want to. I will be able to test and see if you're lying.”

Richard looked at her. Evelyn had red hair, that was very short and cut unevenly. She had a narrow, long face, with strong cheekbones. She was wearing a red loose wool dress, over a white shirt. In her right hand was the wooden staff she had just used on the soldiers.

“I don't really know anything about this world at all. Why were those soldiers after you?”

Evelyn sighed. “I might as well tell you, since it seems like everyone else already knows. While I was at the Magelight Academy, I was caught researching forbidden magics. It wasn't because I wanted to hurt anyone, I just...I just needed to know more about what magic is and how it works, and I wasn't going to get that with just traditional spell crafting. I know it sounds crazy...”

Richard shook his head. “No, I get wanting to understand how and why things work the way they do. You could say I've spent most of my life trying to do that.” He paused and thought. “I could be wrong, but I don't think you could have summoned me unless it was the will of Ikar, so maybe this is where he wants me to be.” He looked down at the unconscious soldiers. “What are we going to do about them?”

She paused a moment, “I don't want to kill them, assuming we haven't cracked their skulls already, but I don't want them to wake up and come after us either.” After a moment of thought, “I guess let's at least take their weapons and see what they have.”

“Looting the enemy, I guess it's a gaming tradition after all. Alright.” She gave him a strange look but didn't ask any questions.

Both crossbows seemed to be broken, beyond the point where they could easily be repaired. When they decided they couldn't use them, Evelyn stacked them on top of each other, summoned fire from thin air, and burned them.

Richard looked surprised at that but didn't say anything.

“We can't fix them, but the Duke's army would be able to, and I'd rather deny them the weapons.”

It was more the summoning fire from thin air that surprised me, but I guess it shouldn't have. Richard thought.

Other than that, they took a sword and two good daggers from the three soldiers. Evelyn pulled off their necklaces and pocketed them, without saying anything about them. She handed Richard the sword and sheath for it, and they both took a dagger.

Each soldier was carrying a backpack, which had food, flint and steel, some other supplies, rope, and a set of iron manacles.

“I guess these were for me.” She hesitated. “Each one of them had a pair just in case. They really wanted to make sure I wasn't getting away after they captured me. We really should kill them, but maybe we could just tie them up and bind them with these.”

Richard thought about it. “How long would that hold them for?”

“This is a pretty well-traveled road. If we leave them by the road, a trader or messenger will probably be by in a day or so and release them,” she sighed.

“Ok.” It seemed like a really bad idea to Richard as well, but he didn't want to slit their throats while they were unconscious either, not without justification. “Are these soldiers...um...are they bad guys?”

She looked at him and blinked, “What do you mean?”

“Have they done terrible crimes, or hurt people, or are they serving someone evil and bent on world domination or something?”

“Not to my knowledge. I mean the Duke has a creepy reputation. There are a lot of bad rumors about him and he apparently really wants to get his hands on a mage willing to do forbidden magic. But most of his soldiers are probably just normal soldiers, who spend most of their time either on guard duty or fighting bandits and monsters.” She tilted her head to the left, “Are you trying to ask if there is a moral justification for killing them?”

Richard sighed, “I guess I was.”

She gave him an emotionless look “How about the fact that if we don't, we're probably going to end up regretting it?”

He shook his head, “That's not enough reason to murder someone, just because they might be inconvenient.”

She smiled, “Ok. Glad to hear it. Some champions of Ikar that the history has written about have been, well...frighteningly pragmatic. Usually for a good cause, but...”

He nodded. As he began to stand up, his jeans ripped further halfway down his left side, revealing his white underwear. She laughed, “Speaking of pragmatism...”

They also looted a pair of wool trousers from one of the soldiers that was about Richard's size, and he quickly put them on. They took two of the guards’ backpacks and most of their supplies, and Richard threw his torn jeans into his backpack. Then they tied the still unconscious guards up in a ditch behind some bushes, out of sight of the road, and chained their wrists up with the manacles.

“Ok, where to now?” Richard asked.

Evelyn sighed, “I was trying to get away from the Academy as quickly as I could.” She pointed down towards the direction of the road she was coming from, “but the Duke's soldiers came from the town up ahead, Wimborne, which is in his territory. The Academy must have sent out a message about me.”

“So, we can't go either direction down this road. What other towns are near here?”

She pointed at the woods in front of them, “If we can go straight west, and not get lost, we should be able to find our way through to the Old River Road, and then we can follow that to get to a different town outside of the Duke's territory. Hopefully without anyone recognizing me.”

Together, they walked off into the woods to the west. Behind them, they left three unconscious soldiers who were handcuffed and tied to a tree, and a massive oak chair lying in the middle of the road.