Adventure Brewing

Alice enjoyed going outside to train. She liked practicing various tactics with a stick. Left, right, up, center...
She walked even further into the forest and saw something very peculiar; a little old man hunched against a fire. She walked cautiously towards him, but then the old man spoke.
"You are Kirkland, correct?"
"Yes."
Without warning, Alice was being held in a stranglehold.
"Hey—let go—"
"Kirkland shall die tonight, Kirkland shall lose the throne. By my own hands."
His hands shook like mad and he unsheathed a dagger.
"Yes, Kirkland, come closer, closer, closer..." Each time he said 'closer', he squeezed Alice's neck even tighter. Alice tried not to shout out, but gave a shriek of pain.
"Somebody—anybody—there's an insane person trying to kill me!" she shouted.

"…Help…" Alice gasped again before passing out. This was bad, this was really bad. She had no weapons and no other ways of defending herself. What now? She hoped that someone would come and help her out, and couldn't help thinking; what if nobody is coming? No, no, no. Somebody had to notice she was gone…was that a good thing or a bad thing?
 Alice opened her eyes. She wasn't surprised that she was tied to a tree. Stereotypical captors... She felt a sharp pain in her left arm. I don't even want to look.
 All she could do was see what was going on at the moment…but how could she if everything was so…blurry? "Dammit!" she whispered. Her contact lenses must have fallen out in some way. Or got gouged out. That made her feel sick, the idea of somebody carefully opening her eyelids just so everything would look blurry.  
 The lump on the ground was probably her captor snoozing before he did whatever he was planning on doing to her. At this point, Alice would have cut herself free and maybe maimed him for good measure, but instead she was stuck here, looking like the stupidest sword user in the history of sword users. What is the point of owning a sword if I don't have it when I need it the most? she wondered. But then again, maybe someone will come and happen to have it with them. Yeah. Right.