Editing Summary:The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

This page contains a chapter by chapter summary of '''''[[The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England]]'''''. We hope this summary will make it easier to find specific areas of the book, as well as providing a quick plot refresher for anyone who doesn't want to take the time to reread the entire book. This page only summarizes the main chapter text. For summaries of the handbook sections between chapters, see ''[[The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England (in-world)]]''.

Waking up, hanging upside down from the ceiling, John finds himself confronted by the young man and woman he was attacked by. The woman who is called Sefawynn, tries to use poetic boasts against him to nullify his powers, believing him to be an [[aelv]]. She sends Wyrm, her younger brother, to grab the lord of the village. John unsuccessfully tries to talk to Sefawynn, and instead pulls up a visual overlay display to see information about his augments. The lord arrives with Wyrm, and the three discuss John, believing him to be an aelv as he took one of the offerings (the page from The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England). John tries to convince them to let him go, and learns that the two visitors in the town are not looking for him as he thought. The two men leave and Sefawynn claims to know what John is.

Riding after Ulric and Quinn, John searches through the pages of the handbook looking for information about what year he was currently in. Ealstan believes they will catch up to them when they sleep, but John dissuades him this notion, explaining how they don't need sleep like Ealstan and Safawynn as they have stolen some powers of aelefs. Sefawynn does not believe John fully about not needing sleep, believing it to be a trick like what he did with changing the color of his arms. John keeps studying the pages and remembering his past, finding out he is in another dimension. He prods his companions for information about this dimension subtly, and sees similarities with his dimensions Norse mythology. He further finds out he is in something like The Norman Era, post Anglo-Saxon somewhere around five hundred, to one thousand AD. With this knowledge of roughly when he is in time, John tries to think of ways to impress his allies with his advanced knowledge and abilities, but fails until Sefawynn discovers his ability to draw in perspective.

Sefawynn gets Ealstan to look at John's drawings and he is just as impressed, though worried this gives John power over his soul. Ealstan is relieved to learn it doesn't, but struggles to understand the level of skill the other 'gods' must have if John's drawings are not that good. Taking a break from their hunt, John provides information about the people they are hunting to Ealstan while Sefawynn goes and bathes, explaining that they are tough to kill and have guns which are similar to slings, but more powerful. John asks how far to Wellbury, and is surprised to learn how close the towns are from each other, being only a day or so apart. Ealstan explains about the Hordamen, a people that raid the land from the sea. They compare the differences in their lands in regards to criminals, before Sefawynn returns, finding the leather strips and berries that she had left behind before her bathing, bound and gone alike. Overhearing horns from a distance, John and the others go to a nearby cliff to see three ships approaching to the dread of his companions.

John West, Ealstan, and Sefawynn discuss the Hordamen, runestones, and why Woden forbids writing. Ealstan asks John to help them with the Hordamen, so John West draws the Hordamen leaders in madder root dye and comes up with a plan to fool the Hordamen into thinking he is an aelv to get them to leave.

John West intimidates the Hordamen captain with his drawings, and uses them to bargain for both the Hordamen to leave, and to free Yazad. The Hordamen captain attacks John West, who then accidentally sets fire to the main Hordamen ship by drawing a rune on the deck.

After jumping ship, John nearly drowns, but Ealstan drags him to shore. Yazad introduces himself as a Zoroastrian who came to England simply because he enjoys sailing. They agree to let Yazad lead them to a preserve, and then they find burning letters on the ground, supposedly from Logna, complimenting John's efforts.

After sunset, the group arrives at Yazad's preserve, which is a small building next to a forest. Yazad explains the situation, and they make hay beds for everyone. While lying in his bed, John reads more of the handbook but finds it unhelpful. During this time, a nearby pile of rocks keeps getting arranged in pyramids and stacks whenever John looks away, and he keeps knocking them over. John eventually falls asleep.

John awakes early to find Sefawynn telling children the story of their encounter with the Hordamen. They go into the forest. They learn that Wyrm was dropped off nearby. Yazad introduces Thokk, who pretends to sell tinder. Thokk gives John the description of another "aelv" she met on the road. John draws him according to Thokk's description and realizes the man was Ryan, who John believed was his police partner.

The group discusses their plans to retrieve Wyrm from Wealdsig. Yazad and Easltan explain how Wealdsig once nailed himself to a tree to earn Woden's favor. Sefawynn recommends sneaking in. John feels shame and doubts about him being a cop, and then he talks to Sefawynn. She admits that skop boasts have no effect, and the two bond over how they cope with their lies. When they return, they find that John's "wight" had done favors more powerful than the local wight could have done.

The group goes to Wellbury. John remarks on the poor conditions of the town. Yazad departs after escorting the group to the town, but Thokk insists that she continues with them despite the groups insistent she stays behind.

The group heads to the Wealdsig's manor. John breaks in with the help of his "wight" and then announces himself to Wealdsig. John performs some magic tricks. In one trick, he has Wealdsig point to an object behind a cloth. From the window, Sefawynn sees his choice and whispers it. Runian uses his hearing augments to hear the whispers. Wealdsig tells John where Wyrm is being held, and that Ulric expects visitors in Maelport in three days. Quinn then enters and recognizes John.

John learns that he had fallen into a trap meant for Ryan. Quinn reminds John that he was Ulric's door guard. John remembers that he dropped out of the police academy and eventually got a job with Ulric. He had meant to escape that life by stealing one of Ulric's dimensional beacon codes. John offers a berry to his "wight" and distracts Quinn while it disassembles his phone. Quinn heads to Maelport and lets John go. John hears Ealstan shouting outside.

John heads out to investigate with Wealdsig and his hearthmen to find Ealstan surrounded by soldiers. John begs for Ealstan's life, but the soldiers riddle him with arrows. In this moment, John remembers how Ulric had John's augments get tampered with to force him to lose fights. Not being happy with these memories, he blocks attacks from the soldiers, and tries to convince Wealdsig to work with him against Ulric. Seeing Ealstan in a poor state, John remembers he has nanites, and uses them to heal Ealstan. Wealdsig looks on in surprise, and finally comes around to John's side and lets him leave.

The next morning while bathing in the cold stream, he thinks about how Jen would know when heated plumbing would be invented. The group packs up and takes off on horseback. After a few hours, John is sore from not having nanos heal him instantly. He tries to talk to Sefawynn, but she doesn't think they can go back to the way things are. She is taking Woden's punishments in hopes their suffering will pay for ancient sins. Woden blames them for the death of his wife. John questions why they worship the god, but the questioning doesn't lead anywhere. Thokk hides behind a rock and tries to join them without anyone noticing. John asks her why. She tells him she uses her old age to get out of scrapes and becomes a normal old woman when in a group. She warns him about the bandits ahead waiting to attack them, but it is already too late.

The twelve well-dressed bandits are upon them quickly and stop their party. Thokk warns John that they are desperate men. The leader taps a tree and Thokk does the talking. Ealstan says they are taking advantage of the king's follies. Thokk tells him to keep quiet while the men are guarding the nice tree. They allow her to pass without paying the toll, but charge Ealstan double. John notes that the robbery is similar to his experiences with the mafia. He mentions it is the first thing that has made sense to him in that world. He is then knocked out from behind.

John wakes up in a dark room. He realizes they were watching for people with accents and that was why they knocked him out. He finds a loose board and pries it off to see he is deep in the forest. He turns off his visual augments and sees shadows moving. They disappear when he has the night vision turned on. He starts moving through the forest and finds the twelve bandits sitting around a fire. He starts to rush the leader when he realizes his friends are also sitting around the fire. The leader turns to face him, and he sees it is Ryan.

John is surprised to see Ryan, who came into this dimension to get Ulric. He explains that he jumped into a random dimension to try to get away from Ulric. The list he was looking at didn't have any ways of defining which dimensions where which. Ryan explains that is part of Ulric's plan to keep secret the only dimension found with actual magic. John explains how he has had a change of heart and has decided to help his friends. He has been slowly gaining back his memories since landing in the dimension four days ago. Ryan chides him for not using a dimensional stabilizer during the travel. Ryan says he blew up Ulric's beacon and portal to trap him in that dimension. He has his own beacon that was supposed to allow reinforcements to come help him when needed. Ryan thinks his beacon is being override by a larger, spare one Ulric must be using. John warns him that Quinn will be there in a few days to check on Ulric. Ryan plans to take over Ulric's spare beacon to call for backup. He has found that the magic in this dimension seems to be related to their own world. Ulric was able to get winning lottery numbers for their own world. Ryan asks for his help. John agrees since it is what he, Ealstan, and Sefawynn had been planning to do. He is a bit disappointed he has turned around his life just for Ryan to take over. He decides he can use that to fix his relationship with Sefawynn.

Back at the camp fire with the group, John tells his new friends that Ryan and his men are willing to help them on their mission. Ryan is a bit miffed by this and gets angrier as John keeps going on. He gets so frustrated that he ends up telling everyone that John wasn't ever able to finish anything. He ended up being a boxer that would throw fights while working for Ulric. While it achieved the desired affect, John is still hurt and goes out into the woods. The voice tells him the presence of people from his world hurts him and the wights. Sefawynn joins him after a little while and tells him it isn't safe in the dark. He tells her about the voice saying he is hurting the whights. When she asks, he admits that everything Ryan said was true. They now have common ground in being screw-ups.

*[[Venessa]] (mentioned only)