*Terrasin deVon Almistraus*

There was a different atmosphere among the soldiers on the front line. Not a simple one either, it was quite complex as one would expect given recent events. On one hand, despite the strong push that the demon’s had suddenly made, human lands had never been more secure. But on the other hand, the actions, and rumors of actions, of the Hero had terrified everyone.

Even she had been frightened, Terrasin had to admit, though she did not like to do so. Lucas has always had a somewhat strange and aggressive personality, but on the whole she had thought he was a good person. Sir Forus had suggested that perhaps she had just hoped as much, but had not gone as far as to suggest that Terrasin was being delusional. She certainly did not think she was, rather, she sometimes had the creeping feeling that this was all her own fault.

She had been raised for the sole purpose of summoning and guiding Lucas as the Hero, after all. But more often than not, she felt like things were moving too fast- that she could not get a hold of each situation as it developed. Lady Versi was the only person who seemed to really understand, because she felt much the same apparently. However, Archi had no way to address the feeling, or grasp the events that now seemed to be spiraling out of control.

Every battle, Lucas revealed a new power, each one more horrible than the last. She had observed a battle, from a distance, where Lucas had not even shown enough mercy to kill his foes. No, instead all of the demons had- no, she did no want to remember that sight! Seeing those things emerge afterwards and tear the remaining demons to shreds was just nightmarish.

Terrasin had to shake her head to clear it. Rather than think about such things, she should instead think about how emissaries from all the border nations had flocked to obtain the seedling trees that Lucas had made. Several tweaks later, these new plants were not remotely dangerous to humans but would form an impenetrable wall to the demon hordes. In a few decades, there would be a forest on these plains and in a hundred years- according to Lucas- the trees will have reached maturity and his changes will have made them nigh impossible to remove. According to him, after a century of growth, the body and root system of the trees should be able to resist even siege weapons- so long as they were not as strong as the weapons he had designed himself.

In other words, while he had not retaken the northern human lands, Lucas had freed the southern lands from the fear of demonic creatures. There were only a few spots left where the hordes fought to keep humanity away and prevent the planting, but Lucas was visiting those pockets of resistance and breaking them with ease.

Terrasin was on her way to meet with Heidall now, and she did not think it was coincidence that he had asked to meet her when Lucas was away dealing with one of those pockets. Carsin Forus would also be at the meeting and so would Julian, they were all meeting behind Lucas’s back, and no matter how much she hoped otherwise she doubted that this meeting was about how to help Lucas.

She was certain that they wanted to stop him. The only question was how far they were willing to go to do so. No, there was another question- how far would they have to go to actually stop him?

Terrasin stepped into the pavillion where the meeting was taking place and found that she was the last one to arrive. She was probably the most reluctant to take part in this discussion, and had the most reservations about the possible results, so it only made sense that she would arrive later than those who were more eager. It seemed that they had started without her, but the conversation had stopped when Terrasin entered and took a seat. She could almost see them calculating how far they could trust her.

“I hope you can forgive me for my late arrival,” Terrasin spoke to fill the uncomfortable silence. “And I hope you will also forgive me for being candid when I say that I had an apprehensive feeling when I received the invitation. I know why I received it, and why we are all here, but I do not think I will be able to see eye to eye with the rest of you.”

There it was, out in the open. After another second of silence, Heidall let out a sigh.

“I- we- understand, Lady Almistraus,” he said, including the others at the table in his statement, but no one contradicted that inclusion. “But even you must admit that something has to be done before chaos erupts.”

Sir Forus leaned forward with a sneer, “I think most of us had misgiving when we first met him on the way back from the ruins of Uri, but the way Lucas is acting now is beyond the pale!”

“Sir Forus, your dislike of the Hero is well known.” It was Lady Versi that replied in an exasperated tone, “you did not like him when you met him, and your opinion has never wavered even now when Lucas is giving us the tools to push the demons back for good! The fact is that until recently, despite his bad attitude, Lucas has been a great help. The books he dictated might very well eliminate most of the hunger and sickness that plagues humanity as surely as the demons do, and those trees he made will save so many lives and resources that they are beyond counting.”

“But is that enough to excuse his actions?” It was Julian who asked this, a miserable expression on his face. He had learned a lot from Lucas, but he knew he was just scratching the surface. Lucas was mediocre at magic, yet was likely the most powerful human mage right now. It was because his knowledge of his world’s ‘science’ allowed him to perform feats that Julian would never before imagined, but those feats included…

“Criminals they might have been, but he stole souls! I have never been particularly devout, but even in my eyes this is blasphemy.”

“Blasphemy or not,” Sir Forus had regained his composure and joined the conversation again. “There is precedent for using criminals for magic, the Hero’s summoning is a perfect example of that- the real issue is his tendency to wipe out our own soldiers along with the demons!”

“If you check- I did- you will find it clear that Lucas is not going out of his way to attack them,” Terrasin had investigated herself. She had not really wanted to find an answer, but her thoughts and worries would not stop until she did. The result of questioning officers and soldiers who had been in the battles made it clear that Lucas was not killing his allies out of malice, but out of practicality. Whenever he judged that the damage he would deal to the demons would be worth the sacrifice of the soldiers that would be killed by his strike, he struck. He would never strike when it was not worth it, and everyone had agreed that Lucas had worked hard to save as many lives as he could whenever he could.

Terrasin told the others around the table as much, but she left out the part where the officers had confided in her their fear. Rationally, they understood Lucas’s actions, but in their hearts it was hard to shut out the screams of their subordinates who died horribly in the throes of Lucas’s magic. The soldiers saw Lucas not as a Hero or even a person, but as a calamity. A calamity that mostly struck their foes, but was still a force of nature that would obliterate any who stood in its way.

Unfortunately for Terrasin, Sir Forus knew as much and added those details to Terrasin’s report after she finished speaking.

“That is only to be expected, is it not?” Heidall sighed again, “but what I am going to say next must not leave this tent and is the reason I called this meeting. To be honest, I have been working up the courage to even speak about the issue.”

Terrasin frowned, that abrupt sentence was ominous- especially because it dismissed all the other concerns as secondary in comparison. Terrasin thought she knew about all the various issues that would come up, but since it was not about Lucas’s usage of souls, she really had no idea what could elicit this kind of reaction from Heidall.

Heidall took a deep breath and said a single sentence that stunned everyone in the room, his expression utterly serious and intense.

“The gods want Lucas dead.”