[Relinquish, Defense]

  While I was busy kidnapping the Harris’s, Draco was busy back at the tower, learning more about Woody and the rest of the sentient trees' magical power. He wanted to know what other spells that they could perform. Did they have any offensive or defensive spells? Turns out they did not, all their spells are nature based. When he found the spell he was looking for and the two sentient trees that were most proficient in that spell. He flew to the farm, grabbed said trees one in each claw then flew them as close to the army as possible leaving one on each side of the road.

  Then he flew back and grabbed Woody and three other trees and flew them to a spot about a day and a half’s march from Wyldwood. Then he flew back and presented himself to Alvyn to see if there was anything that they could do for each other. Turns out they could. Bimble and sixty gnomes started a long double time march. Draco flew ahead and dropped three days worth of supplies.

  Meanwhile Lu, Dogberry, and I listen to abuse from the three Harris’s we’d captured. I floated Granny to the bottom of the pit trap. I jumped Lu and Dogberry back to the estate, where the gnomes had neatly stacked up the nineteen thugs that had been protecting the property. I authored a new world that I dubbed War World. It had farms and towns with stores and supplies but the one thing it was missing was people. I wasn’t going to subject the World of Tranquility Two with three hundred plus criminals. Personally I consider mercenaries as criminals and I was going to treat them as such.

  So I jumped us all to War World, while Lu and Dogberry unbound the prisoners I wiped their memories for five years. Then we sent them off each in a different direction. Then we jumped back to Hilltop, the middle aged male was crying, the middle aged woman was cursing and the granny was stonily silent. I just knew she was the strongest of the lot. I floated down the man.

  “How can we get the army to turn back? Tell me how and the itching will stop.”

  “It isn’t possible, we knew you might come for us, and that we didn’t have time to get away, so we paid the army up front and told them they could have the town, if they allowed our son to rule.”

  “You must be dumber than you look, why would they ever listen to your son when they can just do what they wish. I guess that’s what happens with inbreeding and generational wealth.”

  I turned off the itching on both him and his wife, I floated them all up and we jumped to Tranquility Two. They really deserve to be on War World, but I was worried that in five years time, when the criminals found out who they were, they might be killed in revenge for having the army banished to an empty fictional world. But they were not getting off scott free.

  I erased their memories for one year, made them servants and authored up an honest, kind, very well off man, with five children and made the three of them servants to the household. I’m sure that they will be better treated than they ever treated their servants. When their memories return in a year and they find themselves servants, I hope they get the irony. The wealthy family that wanted to control everything their fate now controlled by one nice man. Then we jumped back home.

  The next morning at breakfast, I learned that my allies had been busy. Draco filled me in on his busy night and told me my top priority today was to obtain an old wagon, sedatives from Lottie, and enough dwarven ale for three hundred dehydrated soldiers. It all has to be ready before noon.

  “Rose, you have to listen to me before you run off on Draco’s errand, Draco you too should hear this. I need someone who can create a magical field for more research, but what I know right now is that magical fields stop bullets when fired into. They have no effect on bullets fired within the field or fired in the field to a target outside the field. So as long as you can keep the muzzle of the gun outside the field. The bullets penetrate about a half inch but even if your hand was right at the edge of the magical field the bullet wouldn’t harm you, it doesn’t have enough momentum to break the skin. I tested that with the most powerful gun ever made.”

  Draco said, “Great work Maz, we can use that at the town gate, we create a magical field and have six or eight spearmen to keep the army outside the field, they wouldn’t be able to enter nor hurt the guardsmen meaning the gate and if you put archers behind the spearmen, they could pick off the army men. You need to run more tests this morning, first you need to test if all projectile weapons are affected, what if the army switches to bows when they find the guns ineffective. Next test what happens if a projectile weapon is launched from one magical field into another not overlapping magical field.”

  “Right that’s why I said I need someone who can create and see magical fields. I also have a question for you. Can you cast a magical field on a person because that would be a gamechanger. Imagine casting a magical field on Lu you could drop her in the middle of the army and she could potentially knock them all out.”

  “No using bows on the army, no killing. We have a world class magician and a world spanning scientist, and find a way to make this discovery useful without killing.”

  “Rose, it already is useful for a magical field cast on the gate and the guard armed with spears. We can’t help it if the army runs onto a spear, but the spears should keep a normal sane person from charging the gate. Plus we get a healer to stand behind the gate and save anyone hurt. But I will think up a better non lethal alternative, I promise. I already have two non lethal operations running right now. But , I still need a wagon,ale and the sedatives before noon then this afternoon, and that will be my third non lethal plan already running. As such I need you to start jumping soldiers to whatever world you plan on placing them on. I also need Mossbeard for the day.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “All right, I know you guys can do this.”

  I portaled to the clinic. I told Bhizzie that I needed to speak to Lottie urgently. Less than a minute later she was back and told me to go right to Lottie’s office.

  “Hi Lottie, I’m sure you heard about the army headed this way. First I just want you to know that, if we can’t stop them, the night before they arrive, I’ll be jumping people who want to leave to other worlds. So you and Ryan, can go anywhere you like. But just know we are trying to stop them.”

  “Don’t worry Rose, Paula and Salome already offered to jump us somewhere else. So I asked Salome to jump Ryan if the soldiers do make it to town, they are both still kids and shouldn’t be here if it comes to fighting in the streets. But I’m staying.”

  “That’s great Lottie, thank you. We need a non lethal sedative to add to dwarven ale that could knock out or make it very hard for them to fight back, can you help us?”

  “Yes I don’t have any here but if you jump me to earth I can show you a picture of the drug. Then we can go to the pub together and determine just how much of it to put into beer while keeping it safe. Just so you know in a few rare cases the drug has the opposite effect, instead of knocking a person out or making them much less aggressive, it makes them hyperaggressive, but they are still impaired probably won’t be able to shoot straight.”

  So we jumped to London and I authored Lottie a phone, she showed me a picture and I authored a few thousand of the pills. Then we jumped back to the clinic and portaled to the pub. They had just opened only a few regulars, Nim and Lu were there.

  “Any volunteers for getting drunk to defend the town? I’m buying.”

  Three men readily agreed, they’d planned on getting drunk anyway, to do it for a patriotic reason made them feel like real heroes. Nim wouldn’t take any money for the kegs when we explained what we were doing. She had already heard how serious this was from Arthur.

  Lottie was carefully measuring the exact amount of liquid that a minikeg held. Then she measured another keg to make sure that the kegs held a uniform amount. The three volunteers were starting to get antsy and wanted a beer while they waited for Lottie.

  “No fella’s this is a test and if you are already drinking it’ll throw off the test, which means you are no longer patriots, which means you buy your own.”

  This worked and after a little more figuring Lottie had prepared her first keg. We poured the men three glasses. Which they quickly quaffed. They wanted another immediately. Lottie said it would be safe so we offered them another round with the admonishment that they sip, no more for at least fifteen minutes, but in fifteen minutes two were out cold and the third couldn’t stand up.

  Lottie made up another minikeg with the exact same dosage. I jumped to Juliet’s World and authored a wagon and I copied the dosed kegs to completely fill the wagon. Then I portaled the loaded wagon back to the road in front of the pub, where Lu promised to keep an eye on it until Draco came for it at noon time. Then Lottie and I portaled the three men to the clinic, so she could keep an eye on them, make sure they rehydrated when they woke up in a few hours.

  I portaled to the tower to find Maz. He was waiting for me, I left Doug and Elmer a message for Draco then Maz and I portaled to the estate and walked over to the Harris's. We needed a large area that wasn’t already enclosed in a magical field for his experiments.

  Maz was carrying the rifle again, I understood that we needed information, the only way to get the information about guns and magical fields is to try things out. But I didn’t have to like it. I knew that the things we learned here today would help save the lives of my friends, neighbors and loved ones.

  So I set up an eggshapped magical field about eight feet tall and then ten yards away I set up a second one with roughly the same dimensions. Inside this field Maz set a stool and on top of the stool a pumpkin. Maz stood in one magical field, fired a shot at the pumpkin. The rifle made a terrific bang but the bullet from the powerful rifle we found lying on the ground less than an inch inside the field.

  I bent to pick up the bullet but Maz yelled.

  Don’t Rose it’s red hot, just let it lie there. I’ll pick it up in a few minutes when it cools off. Next Maz had me create another magical field that overlapped the magical field with the stool and pumpkin. When he fired a shot at the pumpkin inside the overlapping fields the pumpkin exploded. I couldn’t help but think that might just as easily have been a human head exploding.

  Luckily just as I observed that Draco came looking for me, not a moment too soon. I left Maz to his experiments.