Not many people I know live with their relatives this long. I… don’t really know many people outside of the theater. And ever since I’ve been performing in the capital, I don’t really see many people I know anymore.

But out of the few people I knew, none of them were like Walnut. I hardly knew her, and already she was much more odd than anybody I’d ever met.

She seemed completely okay just appearing here out of nowhere. I assumed maybe she had suffered the same fate as me. But I digress, it’s not like she annoyed me, more like she simply befuddled me. Quite an interesting person! Wish the script writers in the capital wrote better characters. More flare, more drama. It honestly is a crying shame that not even the best of the best can write a compelling piece of stage play these days, instead they just rehash the old stuff.

Either way, I’d discovered something about Walnut. Like… just now.

“So, we’re gonna go?” she asked, not expecting my reaction to her powerful magic, the likes of which I’d never seen!

That ludicrously heavy bed I’d spent a good half hour getting downstairs into my uncle’s basement years ago now was floating above us like a balloon! She held onto one of the long wooden legs as the rest aimlessly hovered in the air above us.

“How did you do that?! Just a pinch of dust, some words, and poof, you made it fly!?” I exclaimed, enamoured by this sheer brilliance. I’d seen mages before, but already Walnut had surpassed the simple spells they’d cast.

“Yeah? It’s pretty simple. Dunno why you’re so bedazzled, Jenkins.” she replied, deadpan.

“Who taught you?” I asked.

“Oh, my parents are warlocks. They teach many people.” Walnut explained. “Most people don’t know magic stuff. It’s like advanced mathematics… or physics… or all that other stuff I don’t get but probably should. Sorry… um, where was I...”

She trailed off, tapping her foot while holding the balloon bed. “Right! They are very smart and they run a college of sorts for aspiring mages.”

“If I’m correct, if they are warlocks, they have to have a pact with a patron, don’t they?” I knew a bit of magic trivia. But, I never had a real education outside of my uncle’s teachings, so magic wasn’t really high up on the list of things I learnt.

She paused for a second. Her face had that look on it where you can literally see the expressor’s brain processing what had been said. How could she not know what a warlock did? Especially if her parents were in that field. “Oh, yeah, they do.” she finished. “Hey, Jenkins? Why am I even here? I forgot.”

“You said some ‘ghost man’ told you my name, did he have something to do with it?” I asked, remembered what she’d said earlier. “Oh, also, mind if we get going now?”

“Yeah, I’m curious to see what your domain is like, Jester Man!” she smiled, beginning to trot through the woods, I began to walk beside her as we ventured to where I thought my uncle’s fields began.

“What was I supposed to say… oh, yes! A floating man came up to me while I was on the beach and asked for my help. I’m supposed to assist you with something.” she finished. I had to say, her memory was pretty foggy.

“Why would I need a wizard-”

“Magician!” Walnut interrupted.

“Magician... “ I began with a smile in her direction, she had quite a lovely energy about her, I thought. “To assist me? Assist with what, exactly?” I brainstormed aloud.

“If I knew, I would have said! I, unfortunately for you, don’t have a clue what he could want. He looked important though, he looked magic-y and sparkly and stuff.” Walnut explained. She seemed about as perplexed as I currently was. The mystery only grew my excitement further though! What had I been entangled in? Some strange plot? Who knew?!

For the rest of the walk back through the forest, Walnut curiously asked about who I was. I told her about my dreams of performance, my life with my uncle, and about how I even ended up here.

We approached the fields within minutes. It was a bit of luck and a bit of skill that I’d gotten us back there. Mostly luck! But I was certainly crafty too, I wouldn’t downplay that! The fields were barren and empty after Harvest Season. Uncle usually plants in Spring, so all Winter we have these massive patches of dirt to look at out the window. It’s usually pretty barren, but Winter normally promises snow, so it isn’t all so bland.

But it is cold. Cold as all hell.

It’s late fall now, and I felt the nipping already getting to me. Walnut seemed to not mind that much, although she'd probably experienced many warm winters if her parents were the prestigious owners of a college. I refrained from asking further on the subject, as she seemed to want to keep it private.

We kept walking, the house felt further than it normally was. We couldn’t even see it yet. Perhaps it was just my stomach messing with my head.

As we continued, the truth became clear. While not obvious at first, the crater in the ground did imply something I didn’t wish to think about. But the truth was there.

“You live in a hole in the ground?” Walnut asked, unaware of what had just happened.

“Hold on, I just need to scream for a second.” I said calmly.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!?” Yup. I screamed.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Well now I’m confused too.” she said, after I let my fury out.

“My house was here! But it’s… UP AND VANISHED?!” I shouted again, my voice flying across the fields as I held my head. I was always quite a drama queen.

“You done screaming yet?” Walnut asked sarcastically. She didn’t seem like the type that’d use sarcasm. But here we were.

I took a long, deep sigh. The ramifications whizzing past my head like arrows. Where the heck was my uncle? What had happened to the house? The outdoor stuff still stood there, a wheelbarrow, some rusty water pipes attached to a flimsy garden hose, the small flowerbed that I used to tend, forgotten, and a sundial that had stood here since I’d been sent to live at this place. The house itself though, it felt as if it'd been ripped from this Earth.

My panic had passed, and now I was staring at a colossal mess.

“Well…” I began shaking my head. “I offered you a meal, but I suppose that will have to wait, Miss Walnut.”

“Aww, that’s too bad. But understandable given how all your food probably was in there.” she replied, patting me on the back, trying to comfort my distress.

“What do we do?” I said. “I have no home anymore!”

“Maybe someone took it?” guessed Walnut.

“Perhaps, but what could take it? And why would something that strong want to take some random farm house?” I was puzzled. Was I really special enough that somebody would mess my life up this much? Hardly. I’m just a Jester for a king who doesn’t know I exist. I have no followers in the theater business. That’s about the lengths of my stardom here in the world.

“Probably the same thing that teleported your bed into the woods, Jenkins. I’m telling you, it was the ghost man!” Walnut said, quite a conspiracy theory, but right now, it’s my best guess.

“Well, I know a pub that could feed us, and maybe we can ask about any powerful magic users in town with the patrons. Honestly, I feel obligated to get to the bottom of this.”

“I feel obligated to help you, so lets make it a quest!” the magician beside me said, flashing her hands excitedly.

“A quest?” I asked. I knew what a quest was, of course. But was this really a quest?

“Yeah. Seems like the start of an adventure to me!” she smiled. I could guess she was a big optimist. I was too, don’t get me wrong, but she was on a much higher level than me. In a world like mine though, optimism was hard to come by, we always had a grim outlook. Not until the recent change in management. I, like a sizable amount of others, respected someone with cheer and joy. Although others assumed the happy to be rich. Quite a lot of envy had been traded around, safe to say.

“A little mundane for some epic adventure, but I appreciate the enthusiasm!” I chuckled. I never really had a friend before. I had acquaintances, but nobody seemed to hang around that long unless they were forced to. Eh, I should expect nobody likes a professional fool.

“Now then, where-” Walnut began, but stopped, viewing something in the distance. We both squinted to see it, but couldn’t quite make it out until it came closer.

A horse drawn carriage, painted black and a dark shade of purple, with elegant royal design and a formally dressed man at the driver's seat was barrelling down the gravel road toward my uncle’s Once-house-now-hole.

“We have to go… now!” Walnut yelped, breaking into a sprint in the opposite direction. Instinctively, I began to run too. I didn’t know why, but if she thought it a threat, it would probably hurt me too.

The horses, of course, were faster than us, but there was a tree line about 600 feet away I guesstimated. I wasn’t a math genius, but my gut told me we’d make it.

I was wrong.

The horses sped up, as if they weren’t already hitting their maximum speed, and they swerved around us. Two men I hadn’t seen on the carriage earlier jumped off, mages. Their hands ignited with magic, one used flame, and the other used some sort of blue energy I’d never seen before.

The cart was in front of us, the mages behind, effectively boxing us in. My heart sunk, whoever these people were, their maneuvers were extremely swift, and their magic was so strong, I felt the hairs on my back rise up.

The door of the carriage opened and a dark skinned figure stepped out. He wore dark patterned latex gloves, the first thing my eyes noticed. The second thing was the eyepatch, bearing some sort of crest on it with a cog on it. He wore a combat uniform, like that of a general of a military and had a long, but thin purple cape trailing him. The beret on his head covered up black dreadlocks, the same color as the sharp, commanding beard he had, cleanly shaven.

“That didn’t take long…” Walnut mumbled for me to hear.

“Trying to run away again are we, Little Walnut?” he said, making a hand motion to the mages to stand down with the magic. “I thought you’d outgrown that.”

“You know me, Worcester. It wasn’t my doing this time, I promise.” she argued.

“Oh fuck off, you still sound like a newborn babe. And look, you already made a friend who will now be promptly taken in.” he pointed directly at me. I gulped as two hands grabbed my wrists and cuffed me.

“Get in. Both of you. We are going to have a talk.” Worcester commanded, ushering us into the open carriage door.

What the hell is going on today…?