It seemed that Roger had only just returned. Apparently, the children hadn’t made any mention of me yet, so he had been a little worried when I had shown up at his door. But once it was clear that I wasn’t a danger to him, or to either of the children, then he greeted me quite kindly, and asked me what my name was, and what had happened in the last few days.

After that, I took a moment to introduce myself, before the three of us told him about how Aaron and Lily had gotten to the forest in the first place, and how I had helped them the rest of the way, and what we had been doing out in these woods since then.

After we had finished telling our story, the old man nodded his head, and gave a small, gentle bow in my direction.

“Well, I can hardly thank you enough,” he said. “I am glad to know that the children have had someone like you to look after them. I wish that I could have more easily made it back here, but… I’m afraid that these last few days have been very, very challenging.”

Then, Roger began to tell the three of us about what had happened.

Apparently, after the guards from the City of the Red Tower had stumbled into the escape attempt, it hadn’t taken long for all sorts of other regiments to swarm in to provide support. The end result had been that nearly a quarter of the slaves had been taken back into custody, and about half of the people who had been trying to rescue them had been led into prison as well. All of them had been taken for safe-keeping to a nearby fort – a place by the name of Fort Lysia – where the slaves were to be kept in waiting and questioned, while the captured rebels were to be interrogated, at first, then killed.

The time of their execution was to be in a single week, after which the slaves were also to be returned to their masters.

And so, there had been no choice but to try to make a rescue attempt as soon as possible.

It had taken about three days to plan the attempt. In that time, about half of the remaining members of Roger’s group had been put in charge of searching through the surrounding area for escaped slaves. Meanwhile, the rest of Roger’s party had been stationed just outside of the fort, where they had been memorizing the routes of the soldiers along the walls, searching for secret passages, and discovering how supplies were transported in and out of the fortress.

Eventually, after they had taken some time to prepare, Roger and his friends were ready to make their move.

And so, late in the evening, the final preparations for the attack began.

Some of the party hid in supply wagons that were being carried deep inside of the walls of the fortress. Others crawled in through secret passageways and sewers. Still others waited outside, and prepared to launch a direct attack at the front of the gates.

Once they were in position, they waited until about an hour and a half after most of the soldiers in the fort had gone to sleep. Then, at a signal that they had agreed to in advance, the whole host of them suddenly burst out of their hiding spots, and began to attack.

Dozens of fighters swarmed at the night patrolman from a hundred different angles, and before the soldiers of the fort could even begin to figure out what was happening, many had been struck dead, and the battle had been nearly decided.

A little while later, the affair was complete. Every single one of the abducted slaves had been restored to freedom, and nearly all of the captured members of Roger’s group had been rescued from the stronghold as well.

It was a stunning victory, and it was probably more than any of them could have hoped for.

Afterwards, Roger had stayed with his friends for a day and a half, doing his best to heal the wounded on both sides. But as soon as he was done, he had rushed back towards the house in the woods as quickly as he was able, eager to help each of the children, and to ensure that they would be safe.

The three of us listened with a great degree of interest to everything that he was saying. I think that we were all a little amazed by his story, and by his own role in the attack.

After he had finished telling us about what had happened, and once we had each had a chance to respond, the four of us then began to pull out some chairs in the living room, and to relax together in peace and quiet. The children then started to talk about the things that they had been enjoying, and about how happy they were to be free, while I talked a little about my time inside of each of the dungeon, and about some of what I was working towards in the future.

Throughout our conversation, I was really struck by just how warm, patient, and kind Roger seemed to be. His manner of speech was slow, and careful, but not reserved in the slightest, and his whole bearing was profoundly gentle and polite, without seeming inauthentic in any way at all. He seemed to have a real attachment to conversation, and he listened to everything that we said with a great degree of attention. It seemed clear that he took a real interest in our own affairs, and that he had a warm and genuine curiosity about our lives.

Before I had met him, I had been worried about how he might feel that I was staying in his home. But now that I had gotten the chance to know him, I found that I was very comfortable around him almost at once, and I felt as if I could trust him quite a bit, without needing to hold all that much back.

The children seemed to feel the same way, too. Because, after only a little while, they were each as relaxed and as natural as I had ever seen them, and they were sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings without the slightest fear of judgment, or the slightest degree of shame about their own natures and emotions.

Since we all seemed to be enjoying the time that we were spending together – and since we each had a fair number of questions for Roger, given that he seemed to be something of an extraordinary man – the four of us ended up talking for rather a long time, well on into the late hours of the evening.

Right when he had first met me, Roger had told me that he had once been a member of the Guild of Knights. But apparently, he had been one of the youngest members to have ever been admitted to that prestigious guild. He had come from a very poor family out in a little town on the border of the Wild Lands, and he had proven his extraordinary prowess and gifts at the tender age of thirteen, when he had defended his whole village from a raid by a local tribe of goblins. From that point on, he had been a knight-in-training to an older man who had heard about his tale, and he had ended up proving himself in so many different circumstances – and with such extraordinary acts of valor – that he had been given the title of Knight at the almost unheard of age of 29.

After that, he had stayed in the City of the Blue Tower for many years, fighting off the monsters who had threatened the peace, and helping to protect the innocent. For a time, he had been very happy in that city, and he had loved the Guild, and the work that he did for them. But, in more recent years, he had begun to have something of a change of heart. He had apparently felt more and more strongly that the neutrality of the Blue Tower was something of an evil, given the circumstances, and to believe that you simply couldn’t pledge yourself to protecting the weak and the innocent without being willing to step in and to help the millions of different beings who were kept in bondage as slaves.

And so – in an act that was almost more unprecedented than the way that he had entered the Guild – Roger had retired in excellent health at the age of 53, in order to devote himself wholeheartedly to bringing an end to the practice of slavery. Some time after that, he had moved into this little house in the woods, where he had been living for quite a few years now, and the last three or four by himself.

It seemed that he had once had a wife who he had loved very dearly, who had been his senior at the Guild of Knights – a bow-woman, who provided support for his swordsmanship, and who had always fought along his side. But she had been a little older than he had been, and she had died a few years back, leaving him all to himself. Since then, he had been spending his time out in these woods alone, putting his whole heart and soul into the creation of his beautiful paintings, and trying to rescue as many of his fellow beings from slavery as he possibly could, before he died.

Listening to his story, I felt a real sense of affection for him… and all three of us had many questions for him about the life that he had led, and the adventures that he had been on.

After some time, however, the hunger that we had each been putting off seemed to be catching back up with us. And so Roger proposed that we all make up a meal together, and to continue our conversation in the kitchen. That proposal was greeted with quite a bit of enthusiasm by each of the children, who hurried over towards the stove, and began picking ingredients out for the meal.

A little while later, Roger and Aaron were taking turns in stirring up the meat and vegetables, while Lily and I looked on with a great degree of eager anticipation. Then, with everything having been cooked to completion, the four of us made our way to the corner of the kitchen, where the two children sat down, and Roger and I stood in place, as we each ate our meals with great enjoyment, and continued our conversation.

It sounded like Roger had a fair amount more business to attend to, and that he would be leaving sometime early in the morning tomorrow. But, he promised that he would return in one or two weeks at the latest, and given the conviction in his words, I had no doubt that he would keep his promise. At the same time, none of us objected to staying here until then. Both of the children were quite happy here, and I had been expecting to stay for about that long myself, as I made my way through the dungeon, and prepared as much as I could before I left this town for good.

The only part that troubled me was that the children would probably have to stay inside for that time, and that there might be a lot of trouble if any slavers knocked on our door. But just as I was beginning to worry about that, Roger paused for a moment, then offered to remove the collars for each of the children, if they were ready to have that done now.

That offer took us all a bit by surprise. My understanding was that forging or removing collars was one of the most difficult acts of magic in this entire world, and that there were barely even a hundred people who were capable of performing it. How he had acquired that magic, exactly, I didn’t know. But the revelation that he possessed it gave way to quite a bit of excitement. And soon, the four of us were sitting together in a deep, peaceful silence, as waves of blue magical energy danced through the air, and a sense of tremendous and mysterious power radiated from Roger’s person.

It was the first time that I had ever seen magic being practiced in front of me, and it was absolutely astonishing – a little like a combination of the visual splendor of the Northern Lights, and the soothing, but powerful waves of the ocean rolling down along the shore, and crashing against the rocks.

Because of the sheer power of the magic in the collars, the whole process took quite a long time to complete. But, after about half an hour, I at last heard a loud *CRACK*, and then another, as the two collars dropped down onto the floor, and shattered into a thousand particles of light.

It took Aaron and Lily a few seconds to process what had happened. But, after that, they ran over to embrace one other, and whispered to each other excitedly, before turning back towards Roger, and thanking him again and again for everything that he had done.

After many, many years, the two of them were finally free, and would never have to work as slaves for a single day of their lives.

I think that, if it were earlier in the evening, all of us would have stayed awake for a long time after that, and talked together about what had taken place.

But, it had already gotten to be nearly two hours after the children’s bedtime, and it was only really the excitement of the moment that had managed to keep them awake that long to begin with. Now, however, they each started to yawn and to stretch their limbs, and it was clear that they couldn’t really keep awake for that much longer, no matter how eager they were to appreciate their newfound freedom. And so, after talking for a little while longer, Roger and I helped to prepare their bed, and said good night to each of them, as they curled up together, and began to fall asleep.

Afterwards, the old mage asked me if I would like to take a brief walk with him before the two of us went to sleep.

I still had quite a bit that I wanted to talk with him about, and it seemed that he had a lot that he wanted to talk with me about, as well. So, the two of us stepped out into the cool, darkened forest, as we walked a little on ahead.

Even though we were strangers, there was something warm and peaceful about that moment, and about walking by his side.

Slowly, and just taking our time, we made our way further on in through the woods, as we began to speak, and to deliberate together about what we would do in the days to come.