The only positive part of their day was when they found their horses just after nightfall, not far from where they’d tied them up in the first place. They were even still breathing. Danaria’s mare was completely unharmed, but Lucas’s gelding had grizzly claw marks on one of its flanks. Still, he'd been sure that they would both be dead, so this was a real improvement.

The two of them walked their mounts back, even though Danaria offered to let him ride her horse. Lucas wasn't about to show that sort of weakness in front of her, though. Instead, they walked home, causing an immediate uproar as soon as they walked into the yard.

Lucas had planned to keep the whole thing kind of low-key, but as soon as the watch on the rear yard saw him returning injured, he sounded the alarm. Lucas couldn’t really blame the kid for that, he supposed. That was what they’d taught him to do. Just the same, he was more than a little annoyed as everyone sprang into action.

Kar’gandin immediately sent someone to the village for the herbalist and the veterinarian. Hura’gh wanted to send parties down to track the hobgoblins back to their source. Danaria insisted that he do nothing but change out of his bloody clothes and allow himself to be tended to. Worst of all of them, though, was Gerwin and the look that he gave Lucas when he saw the state of Danaria’s dress.

He immediately started to read Lucas the riot act for putting her life in danger, and honestly, Lucas didn’t even try to stop him. The old man was only saying exactly what he was feeling, and Lucas endured it with all the dignity he could muster.

Eventually, it was Danaria who stopped him. “I’m fine, Gerwin; I promise I am,” she explained. “Lucas was very valiant in his behavior; I wish you could have seen him.”

The servant sputtered but said nothing, which was enough to make Lucas laugh. That, in turn, opened up several of the shallower wounds on his chest again, causing Danaria herself to take a turn at chiding him.

His favorite red-headed herbalist came within an hour, and after applying several very painful poultices to the worst of his wounds, she pronounced that he would be fine, “though he should spend the week in bed, just to be safe,” she clarified.

“No, can do,” Lucas said, not bothering to sit up since he knew that one woman or the other would push him back down. “My carriage is coming the day after tomorrow to take me back, and before I do, we have to go out to look for more—”

“Out of the question,” Cassara said as Danaria almost yelled, “No way!” This time, it was Gerwin’s turn to smile before he left the room.

Lucas tried to negotiate, but neither woman seemed especially interested in hearing it. Eventually, they agreed that he would probably still have to take the carriage back, but other people would have to gather any herbs that still needed to be gathered.

“Fine,” Lucas sighed heavily.

He didn’t like to be ordered around like this, but he remembered well how badly the healing process had set him back last time with the owlbear. So, he reluctantly went along with it this time, even if it was a waste.

All he wanted to do was use his strange power to locate interesting ingredients, and now he was stuck describing the plants that he was most interested into his best gatherers. No one had a problem with that when he gathered them together later that evening, even if they thought it was pretty strange to be going out this time of year.

“How’d you even find all this stuff under the snow anyway?” someone asked as Lucas went through his haul, instructing them.

That gave him pause, but only for a moment. “Man, you think the only way to find these things is by looking at them?” he lied. “With an attitude like that, I might as well promote you to guard duty. You should know the appropriate growing conditions for most of these plants by now. You should be looking there, at the right spot for them to exist, and most of the time, you’ll be right.”

It wasn’t true, of course, and now that it had been brought up, it made Lucas lower his expectations for the day’s haul even further. Everyone believed it, though, and that was the point. Still, as he lay there once everyone else had left, he reflected on the lost opportunity.

By morning, Lucas felt a lot better and thought that the concern was entirely overrated. At least that was the case until Mort helped him change his bandages, and he saw how much puss came out of the wounds overnight.

“Those things are disgusting,” Lucas said with a shake of his head.

“Yeah, but better out than in, right?” Mort volunteered.

“No, not the bandages,” Lucas laughed. “The hobgoblins. I can’t believe how filthy they are!”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Mort laughed at that, not sure what else to say. Lucas thought he was a fine kid, but he was a bit shy, and the whole encounter had thrown him off of his game.

After that, he left to assist in the wild goose chase that Lucas had assigned all of them. Then, once Gerwin helped make Lucas decent and presentable, breakfast was brought to him, and eventually, Danaria joined him.

Really, almost everyone joined him at one point or another that morning, except Adin. His absence was notable. That was not to say that was unwelcome or unexpected, but it was notable. Lucas could hear the man several times throughout the day from some other part of the house as he made the final preparations for his wedding.

As far as Lucas was concerned, it was worth going back to Blackgate just to get out of that ceremony. The man was bad already, but the deeper his wife-to-be got her hooks into him, the worse he got.

Lucas didn’t let himself be troubled by that too much, though. Instead, he took it easy, spent time with Danaria, and made arrangements with his other lieutenants. The dwarf suggested he start carrying more weapons just in case. “Ye seem to be one for attracting trouble, laddie. You might need to bring something with a bit more oomph next time. Like that potion, ye made for Hura’gh to bust us out.”

Lucas stifled a laugh at that and decided not to explain to him that the potion in question would have killed Lucas dead. Still, he restocked his boost and healing potions and replaced his discarded knife. He would practice enough to be formidable, but he was never going to be a legendary warrior or anything. He paid people for that. Hell, his system hadn’t even awarded him experience for killing the hobgoblins, though strangely enough, it did seem to have awarded him a little for drinking them.

He tested that further, and by the end of the day, after two more healing potions, not only did he feel fine, but he did indeed confirm that the thing rewarded him for drinking potions. The only evidence that he’d ever been wounded were the bright red scars and some lingering stiffness.

Despite that, his very pretty warden would not let him escape from his bed for very long, and truthfully, he really didn’t want to. At this moment, being in his lab wasn’t nearly as interesting as laying there, playing some simple board game with her, or even holding her hand.

Don’t go soft on me now, he chided himself that night. This isn’t like you.

It wasn’t, but he still had no intentions of stopping all the same. He’d been single for a long time. Since long before coming to this world, and while he couldn’t exactly ask the pretty young noblewoman out on a date or start a friends-with-benefits sort of thing with her like he would have in his old life, she seemed like a perfectly reasonable match to settle down with. Except for the whole, you’re an awful drug dealer thing, he reminded himself.

“I can work on that,” he told himself. “A little longer, and I won’t be a dealer; I’ll be an illicit alchemist working at the direction of the crown. I think it has a nice ring to it.”

It was a thin fig leaf, but it was the one he fell asleep thinking about. In the morning, all of his things were packed, and they were waiting in the grand hallway just as he’d requested when the carriage arrived. His goodbyes then were necessarily brief, but only because he didn’t want to give Danaria the chance to get emotional where others could see.

“Remember,” he told her as they hugged one last time. “No letters for a while. Not until it gets warmer. Now that I know they aren’t abducting me, I’m sure they’ll let me send mail the normal way.”

“I promise,” she agreed. “No more cold nights out there. I’ll just have to practice my flying around here instead.”

“Good girl,” he said with a smile. Then he kissed her on the forehead and left before Gerwin could scold him for it.

The ride back was just as it had been every other time that Lucas had ridden in this carriage. He was still guarded, the men were still quiet, and the road was still bumpy. This time, there wasn’t any fear or anticipation, though. He knew that he was in no danger.

Really, these guys are more like Secret Service at this point, he decided after contemplating the issue. They just want to make sure that their golden goose doesn’t get got.

That suited Lucas fine, of course. He didn’t want to get taken out either, though he didn’t think that there were many people interested in hurting him these days. The Blind and the Red Lantern gang were both pretty much toast and other than Adin’s new in-laws, he really didn’t have anyone that might be pissed at him.

Well, except Adin, of course, he thought to himself, but he doesn’t have the balls to do anything like—

At the exact moment, somewhere deep in the woods, most of the way to Blackgate, while Lucas was sitting there, pondering how unnecessary these security precautions were, an explosion rocked the carriage. It was a powerful blast that sent him, along with everyone else who had been in the thing, flying in different directions. The screams of horses and men as parts of the carriage went in all directions.

Lucas was spared the brunt of the blast by his seat, or maybe whatever piece of luggage was behind it. That wasn’t immediately clear. All he knew was that whatever had happened had occurred behind him or perhaps beneath him.

Some motherfucker invented a car bomb before they invented a car? He thought to himself as he lay there, trying to tune out the ringing in his ears.

Lucas’s first impulse was to rise and see if everyone else was okay, but his second was to lay there and play dead. He did just that for a moment while he slowly returned to his senses, and then he did one better and focused, fading from view as he heard the sound of footsteps crouching through the snow getting closer.

Then, mindful not to lose his tenuous grip on that magic, he slowly rose to his feet and stumbled out of the flaming wreckage to try to determine what had just happened.