Honestly, walking to town is a bit of a time sink. In the past I always disliked commuting. It just was such a drag, having to focus on the road and stupid things like not crashing into other people or guard rails. As fun as driving could be at times I really don’t miss it.  The time spent on traveling would be better spent sitting at home reading or trying out new things. So you’d think I’d have the same reaction to walking for hours to town. But apparently, I’ve changed since then.

                            Despite my homebody ways I’ve always loved nature, but the woods just feel all the more vibrant than they have previously. The training Mary has had me doing made me a bit more aware of the life force, the mana flowing through plants, but I didn’t realize how much so until I found myself walking down this trail towards the town. Life was everywhere.

              Maybe at a subconscious level I had been somewhat aware of it. The air of excitement I’d feel going hiking had the same general feeling as I do now, and a short hike would usually have me feeling invigorated and ready to return to whatever work I had waiting for me. Mary said herself I have an aptitude for magic, and an awareness of this energy flowing around, even if not a conscious awareness, seems like a prerequisite for many of the things I had experienced in the past that I am now aware were related to magic.

              The feelings I’d get when there was something dangerous about to occur, the downright unnatural feeling I’d get in certain areas at my old workplace in the Marines, it all is connected to an awareness of these forces.

Come to think of it, didn’t some other people at my unit have similar reactions? Like Thorne, and that Cpl that got FAP’d out to do spooky shit with a different 3-letter than the usual we worked with? Maybe Mary’s conspiracy shit she spouted about the Government was right? Although based off the hard-drive contents of that laptop she got, it’s probably just a lucky guess from some conspiracy nut. I really hope the two of them are doing well, especially if the idea of the government playing supernatural fuck-fuck games is true

              Not that it affects me. That life is long, long past me. While I’m certainly not in a safer place than I was before, I’m far outside the reach of spooky stuff like that. I can even shout stuff like [redacted] all I want, and they can’t get me here. I’m probably even safe from the IRS over the taxes I forgot to file the past two years or so. Probably. Or they’ll just seize it from my estate when they inevitably declare me deceased in absentia. Fucking IRS winning again. I hope at least that my gun collection goes to my brothers rather than the thief’s tax auction.

              That actually makes me wonder, wouldn’t it be possible to get firearms here? I mean, it doesn’t exactly make sense to need guns in a world where you can cast destructive spells, but still, I always liked them from a technical standpoint. Mary even up and created mercury fulminate, so it’d be possible to skip a whole millennium of gunpowder weapons development and head straight into percussion or early metallic cartridge guns.

 I don’t have the technical ability to forge a lock and barrel from scratch, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand how they work. If someone sitting in a cave in the Kyber Pass can make a functional firearm, surely I can put together a working flintlock or caplock. Or maybe I’m just leaning too hard into my Jim Bridger fur-trade era interest? I guess it’s worth at least keeping in mind, considering it seems like Mary seems hell-bent on trying out every neat-sounding recipe she finds on that laptop of hers. I really have to wonder how many watchlists that things previous owner was on. At least as many as I probably was on.

I do have to wonder how the possibility of introducing firearms would work with a certain witch’s apparent distaste towards industrialization. For someone who loves playing with explosives she sure seems opposed to the idea of supporting the Tailors Guild in their quest to industrialize the textile industry in this world. But to be completely fair, firearms kind of predate industrialization. The medieval handgonne goes back to the Hundred-Years war, if not earlier. And it’s actually rather fascinating that Beretta, the company that made the side-arm that was in common use when I was in the military, got their start way back in the 1500’s making arquebus barrels.

              Really the makings of modern firearms manufacturing come after the industrialization of the textile industry, and are interlinked in more ways than the layman would think. For the longest time each gun was made by a craftsman and was mostly hand-fit with few interchangeable parts. The first person to try to make interchangeable parts for guns was Eli Whitney. Yes, that Eli Whitney. The one who, admittedly with the best intentions at heart, invented a cotton gin that made the harvest of Upland Cotton feasible and created the second Middle Passage, prolonging the trade of slaves that up until then was on its way out as an institution in the United States.

              It wouldn’t be as much of a stretch as many would think to say his invention was responsible for untold human suffering culminating in the deadliest war in American history. So maybe Mary really does have a point being wary of the textile industry here. A percussion lock, even in the form of a rifle-musket with minié ball, is rather tame compared to the damage that can be done by greedy organizations in search of cheap textiles, and even modern machineguns wouldn’t have too much of an impact in a world where mages casting explosions is the norm.

              Considering the person I’m apprenticed to walks around with a literal war crime in a bottle, me wanting a rifle really isn’t unreasonable at all. To think she calls it an ancestral weapon too. I mean, that raises questions on its own. She clearly must have had an ancestor from the Mundane world, my home world, who came over here within the past century. She must have, considering she couldn’t have been referring to anything other than the Winter War.

She also did say time moves more slowly here than in the “real” world, so it could be further back than that. Her ancestors must have went native pretty heavily, considering they went from other-world transmigrants to nobility in such a short time. She’s still aware of her families pre-nobility surname well enough to readopted after giving up her noble rank, so the time frame on the shift is likely even shorter than I would have thought.

That her brother and niece have gotten to the point of being indistinguishable from other inhabitants here truly is impressive. Kind of. Her niece is a half-elf after all. I sure can’t imagine running into any demi-humans back in the world I came from. Even with the “slipping through the gaps in the world” thing I’ve lived through, I still refuse to believe the place I came from is that fantastical at its root. I know I just was thinking that there’s probably truth to Mary’s government paranormal conspiracy stuff, but even a witch’s apprentice like me needs some sort of hard limit on the crazy shit she’d believe.

              And as I walk, I feel a shift in the vibrant buzz of mana around me. The shift intensifies, until I begin to feel the same prickling of danger that I had grown accustomed to in the past. This at least seems to prove what I had thought about the premonitions of danger being based on a subconscious awareness of energy flowing about. Maybe it may als- actually, I should draw my sword.

              The usual buzz of the forest has already gone silent by the time I have my sword out and facing towards the threat. There’s nothing visible that I can see, but I can tell the direction it’s coming from.

              A flash of fur flies out towards me. As I step to the side and counter with my sword, I feel a now familiar sensation of heat rising up through my arm, and down into my sword into the creature that attacked me. There’s a flash and the creature bursts into nothingness. Or near enough. Thank God the flash seemed to emanate outwards away from me, because what lay beyond was just gross. And unidentifiable

Previously I had been worrying about my absentmindedness putting me at risk, but maybe I’ll be all right?

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

              Soon enough after the attack from the mysterious creature, mysterious because there really wasn’t enough left of it to let me identify it, I exit the tree line with the town of Porte visible past the farmland.

              A bit more walking later and I’m at the gate. This time there’s no merchants wagon blocking my view of the gate and the guard at the gate, the same one as last time, catches notice of me and scowls. While dealing with the current person trying to enter he signals towards the guard hut, and I catch a glimpse of a messenger running off. Ominous. Eventually it’s my turn to pass through.

“Madness Witch’s Apprentice,” he says, I’m guessing as an attempt at a greeting.

“Henry,” I reply.

“It’s ‘Heinrich.’”

“Likewise, it’s ‘Rose,’ not ‘Madness Witch’s Apprentice.’”

              He scowls, but seems too wary to argue. If anything he seems almost like he’s a bit afraid more than just wary. For a guard, and such a big one at that, he’s showing a fair bit of timidity despite his scowling.

“Mrs. Rose…”

“It’s Ms.”

Another scowl.

“Ms. Rose…”

“This isn’t about the entrance fee, right? I thought there was an agreement you all had with Mary about paying that.”

“No, not that. It’s just, it’s just that we have a request from the lords daughter for if you pass through here; that we’re to tell you that you’re to head to the manor.”

                Dammit, I knew Mary warned me for a reason. So this is about taxes. What other reason would the lords family want to talk to me? Out of pure interest in me as a person?             

“So, is this an order from them to me?”

“No, it’s a request from the Lady Elizabeth…”

“Good to know. See you later,” I exclaim, skipping by him. I have errands to run, after all, and I really don’t feel like having to deal with nobles. It’s more trouble than it’s worth, and if Mary isn’t paying taxes then there’s no reason I should have to pay them.  

………………………………………………………………………………………..

               It makes the most sense to hit up the tailor’s shop first. I might as well take care of the biggest money-sink, which will give me a better idea of how much I have left to spend on other products. Mary did say I could spend the leftovers, so it only makes sense to figure out how much I actually have to spend. Or I could even save it up, possibly to commission a smith to make a certain mechanical device I had been thinking about.

                I may not have the weathered face to pull off a Robert Redford’s Jeremiah Johnson impression, or for that matter the ability to grow facial hair… or anything resembling a masculine figure. But it would be cool to have a Hawken rifle while exploring an uninhabited wilderness like the forest that hosts my current home. It’s the thought that counts, and right now my thoughts are leaning towards getting a rifle regardless of how practical it may be in this world…but I’m getting off topic.

         The real reason for going to the tailors shop first is the hat. How could I, a bona fide witch’s apprentice, possibly walk around town without the symbol of my status, a floppy brimmed witch hat? It just would be morally reprehensible to abandon my duty to contribute to the fantasy atmosphere of this place by neglecting to wear such a piece when it’s in my means to do so. Sure it clashes with my other fantasy of wandering through the wilderness like Daniel Boone, but who could say no to a cute witch hat?

           I should at least grab chow first, so I end up stopping by the pie shop Mary took me to the first time she brought me here. It’s probably better to avoid spending too much time close to the lords manor, but the food there was good, and they probably aren’t likely to pick me out of a crowd. My meal was rather uneventful, and as I crossed the square afterwords I could almost ignore the strong, predatory aura I felt oozing from one of the windows in the lord’s estate.

Are they that hungry for my taxes? Surely none of the lords family could be after anything else from me.