Editor's note: The apparent source for the underlying motivations of the Aspirant Knight, Suero Paulo Cortez de Figueroa de la Iberteria, was determined to be a forgery some time after Andrew of Longthorn's passing. Today it is unclear if that determination itself is correct, as later purges of historical documentation mean that there are no copies of 'Diaries of Her First Knight' extant that predate Andrew of Longthorn.

Tension filled the air.

"No?" asked the Magistrate, incredulously.

"I can't say what my second Class is," the impertinent, brash, and utterly foolish young man sitting in the defendant's chair said in reply.

Suero's hopes sank as he sat next to the Magistrate.

Had he wasted his Elixir?

Elixirs were issued every two years to Knights assigned to frontier posts or sent on deployment. Everyone thought these were a bonus, as well as a last resort. Elixir was a magic tonic, produced in utmost secrecy by only the top Apothecaries of the Kingdom, that could restore a person to perfect health, even from the very brink of death.

The Aspirant Knight had seen it with his own eyes. He had found the young man before him while on a patrol in the mountains, clad in the most amateurish armor he had ever seen.

Also the most mangled and destroyed armor he had ever seen.

The poor lad had been out of his mind, barely on his feet, swinging a disturbingly powerful, but also poorly forged, war hammer at anything that got close to him. He had been missing a hand entirely, some monster or accident having crushed his left arm, and only his armor pinching shut the wound had saved him from bleeding out.

There had surely been other life-threatening wounds, but Suero had wasted no time examining the dying boy. He and the Adventurers accompanying him had removed the broken armor and given him the Elixir immediately.

Suero was due to receive another Elixir shortly, just before his posting here in Corto ended. Most frontier Knights auctioned off their spare Elixirs, if they didn't hoard them just in case, for fantastically large sums of money.

But not nearly enough to cover the cost of a full set of Enchanted gear.

Which the boy in front of him had been wearing, despite the low quality and amateurish design.

The enchantments were even unusually strong, upon examination.

It would have been simple: rescue the poor, lost Enchanter; save his life; get him to acknowledge the life-debt; and make him a retainer. Knights were part of the nobility, if the absolute lowest rank, and so it would have been reasonable and easy to arrange.

But the Enchanter had been carrying a Lost Legendary Artifact.

And so now he was on trial for theft, technically. Which meant that his haphazard swings in Suero's direction had to be classified as assault rather than swept under the rug.

The Knight Suero, his Steward Sebastian, and the Magistrate had met earlier this morning to plan the trial. The trial was unavoidable, given that the Bag of Holding needed to be returned to the Royal Family and there had to be an explanation for how it had turned up in the mountainous frontier near Corto. The plan was almost simple: charge the boy with crimes, interrogate him, get the story out of him, and then Suero would offer to take custody of the boy as a retainer, and ensure he faced no further charges.

There was no way the boy had actually stolen the Bag, of course. It had gone missing over sixty years ago.

And now the foolish boy was going to get himself executed for lèse-majesté!

The Magistrate next to him was grinding his teeth as he glared down at the self-professed Smith.

"You can't say what your second Class is, or you won't?" the Magistrate said.

"Both."

Suero slumped in his seat.

If he was the crappy Smith who had made that armor and hammer, then he can't have been the Enchanter. Given the boy's state when found, the Enchanter was likely dead already. And if he refused to state his second Class, it was probably something like Thief, or worse.

The Magistrate next to him raised his voice, threatening the boy, but the boy continued to stubbornly refuse.

Suero had nearly lost all hope when his Steward cleared his throat, interrupting the Magistrate.

"If I may, Lord Magistrate?"

The Magistrate leaned back in his chair, and nodded.

The Steward turned to the Smith.

"Smith James, do you understand the situation you're in?"

James took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Focus, focus.

He met the older man's eyes directly, and spoke.

"Not entirely, no. I don't know where I am, nor where my home is. I'm accused of assault, which I don't believe I did, and theft, which I'm certain I didn't do."

Three sets of eyes stared at James for a long moment.

"Allow me to explain, then. You are in the County of Corto, in the Kingdom of Iberteria, and you sit before the Lord Magistrate who directly represents Count Corto, who is empowered by the King of Iberteria to dispense justice in His name.

"You were found in the mountains on the kingdom's border carrying the Bag of Holding, which was stolen from the Royal Family of Iberteria sixty-four years ago. When found, you were wielding a war hammer, and attempted to strike the Knight Commander, present here next to the Lord Magistrate."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

James flicked his eyes to the man, then back to the Steward, who continued.

"Despite your assault, which was witnessed by some half a dozen Adventurers, the Knight Commander saved your life by using his Elixir. Without it, you would surely have died on the spot from wounds you bore from before you were found."

Suero sat up a little straighter when he saw the blonde-haired young man in front of him make a note on the papers he had brought in. Hope rekindled in his chest that perhaps the stubborn ox wasn't just suicidally stupid.

The Steward waited for James to finish writing.

These were the missing puzzle pieces. James' mind raced, putting them together, Intelligence boosted by his Enchanter Class.

The man sitting next to the Magistrate was the Knight Commander, who James was accused of attempting to assault, and who also had had the Elixir and saved James' life.

That was where the debt lay.

That was James' leverage.

Once James finished writing, the Steward concluded.

"So it is that you were brought here, and you stand accused of theft and assault. You are also directly insulting the Lord Magistrate, and by extension, the King himself, by refusing to answer questions. Execution is a possible sentence. What say you?"

"First," James began, "I deny the charge of theft, at least from the Royal Family. The magic bag I took from a bandit called Coin, one of a group that had enslaved me and others.

He turned from the Steward to the Knight Commander.

"Second, to the Knight Commander, thank you for saving my life. I was wounded and trapped in a Dungeon. But I don't remember escaping the Dungeon, nor any assault."

And then he turned to the Magistrate.

"Finally, I apologize for the insult, but I still can't say what my second Class is."

The Steward sighed, and the Magistrate leaned forward with an angry frown on his face.

"And why not, Smith?"

"I swore an oath, on my parents' lives and my own, not to tell anyone what my second Class is."

"Preposterous!" the Magistrate shouted, but the Knight Commander leaned forward, raising his hand.

"My Lord," he said softly. His voice was deep, and more suited to shouting commands on the field than speaking softly in a courtroom, but the Magistrate paused and gave him leave to speak.

"The knave before us clearly doesn't know his place, but if there is an oath, both that matter and the matter of his second Class are easily settled. Let us call for the Head Priest, to determine the truth of this oath and examine his Classes directly."

The Magistrate narrowed his eyes, and after a tense moment nodded.

"We will recess until the Head Priest arrives." He stood and stomped out a door in the back of the room, clearly fuming.

The Knight Commander remained seated, and nobody else moved to leave. "We will remain here and wait for the Head Priest to arrive."

James was sweating, his shirt uncomfortably damp on his back.

He hadn't expected the Magistrate to get so mad, so fast. And over the one point on which he couldn't budge.

Everyone sat silently, and James made more notes, but his mind truly turned on the matter of his oath.

Was it worth getting executed for refusing to break it?

On reflection, he decided it was.

He had sworn on his life, for one. And more than that, on his parents' lives. And he had taken the oath seriously. Besides which, by all rights, he should be dead now anyway. He couldn't recall escaping the Dungeon, and he had been on the verge of death. That he was alive now was a blessing, a second chance, and not worth tarnishing with a broken oath. On top of that…

He looked at the Knight Commander, who was watching him silently with a neutral expression.

The issue of the magic bag aside, it was the Knight Commander who, possibly, had been assaulted, and who had saved his life with the Elixir.

He had also been the one to propose a solution to James', self-admitted, stubbornness.

If James was sentenced to death, it would be the Knight Commander's loss.

And Knights wore armor, and bore weapons. Armor and weapons that a Smith could produce. And Knights swore oaths, and at least in the stories, valued loyalty and duty.

There was a chance. A possibility that the interests of the Smith and the Aspirant Knight aligned.

Especially once they learned that his second Class was Enchanter.

James, though he was determined to follow his oath, had decided to play to his strengths. There was a possibility that the Magistrate would want to keep James for himself, but the Knight had a strong claim, having used an Elixir to save James' life.

Either way would work: serving the Lord of a town, or a Knight who had saved his life, both were better than being a slave to bandits, or lost in a Dungeon, and they would both have an interest in keeping him safe, at the very least, from more slavers.

There was still a possibility of execution. The Maid, Clara, had said his story was unbelievable, and apparently that frustratingly arbitrary magic bag was some kind of Legendary Artifact owned by the Royal Family.

He had never seen their name written on the thing.

He wrote down the potential outcomes on his paper: execution, imprisonment, service to the Knight, service to the Magistrate, total freedom and all his goods returned to him.

He snorted. Yeah right.

But if he could, he'd try to get his stuff back from inside the magic bag.

After over an hour of waiting, the Magistrate returned with a middle-aged man with thinning dark brown hair, wearing white robes with a bright yellow stole hanging from his shoulders down nearly to his knees. He was portly, and wore a jolly smile on his face, even as he walked into the courtroom with the frowning Magistrate. The Magistrate returned to the center seat, and the man walked around the elevated table to stand before the Magistrate, between him and James.

There was a ritualistic back and forth as the Head Priest swore to assist in the investigation and speak true, both men racing through the words as though they had spoken them hundreds of times. A few minutes later, the man turned to James, still smiling.

"Young man, you should know that I have Skills to know the truth or lie in what you say, and to directly examine your Classes and Skills. Do you still insist on refusing to answer the Lord Magistrate's questions?"

James nodded. "I swore an oath on my life, and on my parents' lives, never to say what my second Class is."

The Head Priest gazed at James for a long, tense minute. James forced himself not to fidget, merely meeting the man's eyes.

Suddenly, the Head Priest turned back to the Magistrate, looking up at him. "He speaks true, he did swear such an oath."

The Knight Commander's face didn't move a muscle, but the Magistrate's frown lessened. Less angry, more annoyed.

"Fine," he said, "I charge you in the name of Count Corto and the King to examine the man's Classes, and to present that information to the Court."

The Head Priest nodded, then turned back to James. He raised his hands over the seated Smith, and the light seemed to fade from the room, concentrating on the man as he activated whatever Skill would let him see James' Classes.

There was a flash of light that momentarily blinded James, and the odd sensation of something bouncing off of his soul.

The Head Priest staggered, eyes suddenly bloodshot. The light in the room returned to normal, and the Magistrate and the Knight Commander rose from their seats, concerned.

The Head Priest trembled as he turned and looked up at them both.

"He… his Class levels exceed my own, Lord Magistrate."

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