It was restless night for Lucas, memories from times past haunting his dreams. When he awoke, he was drained of energy. The conversation with Margaret shook him, but now it was time to face the truth. She was completely right, he did keep people and had a tendency to retreat whenever he felt it was getting to close to someone. He called his party members friends, but he still made sure he can get out cleanly if something happened. Michael’s betrayal really ruined his life and forced him to grow up, but he did it in a really bad way.

There was a lot of stuff he needed to do, first on that list apologizing to Margaret. He lashed out on her because she struck a nerve with the truth and that was definitely uncalled for. He had a long day ahead of him and he started preparing for it. The meeting between Bruce and Rose Leon should be well underway by now, Lucas expecting a call from Bruce as soon as he finished, hopefully deciding to put all the weight of Camp Hearth behind her. And he still had some training to do, but he felt the diminishing returns slowly kicking in. He would need real action soon, but the immediate vicinity of Camp Hearth was drained of real challenges.

He could always go deeper into the forest, hopefully finding some real dungeons or monsters to fight, or follow the plains that lay on the other side, going towards more civilized parts of the Earth, but potentially finding some opportunity in uncharted lands and even do some scouting and charting, correcting the maps Camp Hearth possessed. Whatever action he took, he was sure he would have to leave settlement behind for a prolonged period of time. That was something both he and Bruce knew would eventually happened and they made preparations. They even broached the subject couple of times, but between Adventurers’ guild stuff and blue – skinned invaders showing up, it was forgotten for a time. Seeing as the preparations were well underway, Lucas’s mind had once again started drifting towards that course of action. It stood to reason he must also prepare himself for the potential invasion and only way he could do that is to become stronger. Also, he was getting bored and whole point of having Bruce as his governor was so he was free to roam around. He stayed around in the beginning, seeing as there was much to be done, but his lag in obtaining the legendary skill was the first sign he would need to move on, as he doubted he would be able to find something so close to home yet again. He decided he will broach the subject with the rest of his party tonight, and he will talk with Bruce when the time for their daily briefings came.

“Before all that, I have to find Margaret” Lucas thought as he exited his house and slowly made his way down the street, approaching house that belonged to Margaret. His worries that he will wake her up were quickly dispersed as he heard movement from the inside, so he knocked. Voice belonging to the medic told him to enter and so he did, finding Margaret standing next to her stove, fiddling with her breakfast, while the mana core that powered it hummed softly.

“Hey there” Margaret greeted him “what brings you here in these early hours?”

“I came by to apologize. I should have done it yesterday, but you seemed so determined to get away from me and I respected your wish” Lucas said without any preamble. Margaret was silent for uncharacteristically long time for her, before speaking up.

“No worries, big guy. All is forgiven” she said “up for some breakfast?” she finished with the question. Lucas had to admit he was pretty hungry, forgetting to eat in his rush to right his wrongs. He nodded and Margaret went into her pantry, adding some more ingredients and continued fiddling with the breakfast.

“And here I though you rushed to declare your undying love for me” she said with a big smile. Lucas laughed and she continued “but alas, I guess I cannot compete with Maggie.”

Lucas face went red and he felt warmness spreading all over his body. Margaret noticed his reaction and laughed so hard she almost dropped the food she was preparing.

“For one so strong, you still act like a teenager when it comes to relationships” she said to him “you always speak about all the woman you caught on your tales about adventures, but I begin to doubt it”

“I still stand on what I said yesterday. It is complicated. But, you are right, we need to clear the air” Lucas said.

Margaret served breakfast and they eat, talking and laughing and generally having a good time. Sometime after they finished breakfast, Lucas said his goodbyes and went back to his house. There, he found a child, squirming nervously.

“Are you Lucas?” the child asked when he spotted Lucas. He nodded, prompting child to recite the message from Bruce, delaying their meeting until tomorrow. Lucas nodded and transferred some credits to the child, making him scamper back excitedly. Without his daily briefing, Lucas decided to get some training and prepare for tonight, looking forward to just spending some quality time with his party and generally having a night of rest and relaxation.

The day went by and Lucas stopped his training, unfulfilling as it was. He needed to get back home, get a good shower and prepare. His pace was swift, his passive helping him build - up even more speed and he was back home in record time. After taking a quick shower, he opened his wardrobe and looked at the abundance of clothes he had. A errant thought in his mind reminded him he hadn’t buy a new piece of clothing since he left Camp Hearth to go deal with the Scenario dungeon and subsequent events.

“Have I really changed that much?” he asked himself, looking at the variety of clothes he had, coming in all manner of colors and styles. He decided on some simple clothes, incidentally all black, trying so hard to go back to his previous mindset but failing. Sighing, he exited his house just in time to spot Margaret approaching.

“I would say that the drinks are on you, but we are already drinking on the town’s tab, so I get you are off the hook” she said to him. He softly laughed and they proceed to the central plaza, their usual meeting spot. There, they spotted the siblings and Chen already waiting for them. They greeted one another and then walked to their designated tavern, the one that now served as the headquarters for the spy network of Camp Hearth and the tavern that was near and dear to Lucas’s heart as the place where he spent his youth. Arriving and entering the tavern, Lucas went straight to the innkeeper while the rest went to the nearest table to sit down.

“Work at this late hour?” innkeeper asked when Lucas approached.

“No work tonight, only good time” Lucas responded “keep the drinks coming and don’t stop” he finished and then immediately transferred a large amount of credits, hopefully enough to last the night. The innkeeper was ecstatic by the sum and excitedly nodded his head, preparing the drinks. Lucas went and joined the rest of them and the fun started.

For the first few round of drinks, they simply talked and joked around but as they were getting more and more inebriated, so did their appetite for action. Unfortunately, other guests were sparse this evening, immediately shutting down Chen idea to do some parlor tricks for the crowd. Lucas had to be a little relived, as the last time he did that, they almost got into a fight as he took one of the adventurers to far, the man feeling humiliated. Ted, on the other hand was happily singing, to the dismay of the few people that were around, Chen deciding to make illusions of the bards providing music. Margaret was happily dancing alone to the horrible singing and she even managed to involve Maggie, leaving Lucas alone. That is when the chair next to Lucas was suddenly occupied by a figure fully cloaked.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have a situation” a figure said. Lucas cast a questioning look and the figure continued.

“Rosenborg is on the way, and he is bringing some muscle. I guess he thinks now is the time to pressure you”

“Fuck it, can’t the man get some time to have fun” the Lucas shouted, the rest of the party immediately stopping their actions and glaring, registering the figure that was now seated next to Lucas.

“The boss thought you would want to be prepared. A team is preparing and will be waiting if things go terribly wrong” the figure said, sitting up from the chair and leaving, the party looking at Lucas for explanation.

“We are about to have company” Lucas said with a heavy sigh.