*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.

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  “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.”

  AN: I have other stories! You can click on the buttons below to read more about them- or if you are desperate to read further ahead in this story, you can go to where Patrons are able to read chapters early (and get access to other interesting things like Character Biographies!)

  Note: Only the three primary stories have chapters available ahead of time on Patreon. This has to do with the layout of the Patreon website, and I do hope to have the four secondary stories chapters available to read early at some point in the future.

  Primary Stories:

  After spending nearly three decades of his life in school, Lucas has a doctorate in genetics and virology- and has just gotten a loan to start his own genetics company. Unfortunately for him, as he walks out of the bank he is summoned into a world of demons and magic where he has to rely on his vast wealth of biology knowledge to help humanity survive as its Hero.

  Releases: Sunday

  So I died and I met a god. Apparently, but oddly, I was a good enough person to qualify for reincarnation. Honestly, I did not think of myself as a ‘good’ person, but I was not about to argue the point. Resurrected as a Dungeon Core, I have no intention to remain as such. I will find a way to exploit this system, regain my body, and take all the powers of a Core with me when I do! But first I need to be strong enough to survive this new world.

  Releases: Friday

  Cass was an orphan on the streets of the Haj Empire’s capital city, but there is always something worse out there. After being arrested for attempted theft, Cass finds herself a slave and test subject for a magical experiment- the results of which get inked into her very flesh! Her unlikely survival puts thrusts this former orphan, now slave, into the middle of court politics as she harnesses her new power, learns magic, and desperately struggles to retain her sanity in the face of brutal and sadistic masters. Join Cass in her adventures through the dark world of Mystic Ink!

  [Content Warning: This story contains frequent depictions of cruelty including torture and rape. Some of these scenes may be disturbing to some readers, and reader discretion is advised.]

  Releases: Saturday and Sunday

  Secondary Stories:

  In the future, as governments around the world imploded one by one, incredible megacorporations seized power. Very few countries remain, and the ones that do have all lost the majority of their territory. The United States has been shrunk down to the original thirteen colonies, and the former territory is now the domain of various corporations. Freedom and Justice have been replaced with Business and Profits, and even with most of the world in their grasp, these companies hunger for yet more. Standing between those companies and the last of the States is R.A.D.E. Recon, Assault, Demolition, and Espionage- a special operations team whose ‘average work day’ is maximally deniable covert missions to buy the free world another week of freedom!

  Releases: Thursday

  Set in an alternate history Roman Empire, “Pathos” tells the story of Marius, son of the Governor of Germania Inferior in a world where one’s very emotions seep into the air around them. Where people travel and gather, those sleeping emotions form an “emotional atmosphere,” that can in turn affect the emotions of those living within it or be used as a source of power for magic and spellcraft! When Marius’s father leaves for a meeting in Rome, Marius is left in charge of the province as troubles come one after another. Marius must balance Imperial politics with the local relations, develop the land and guide it to prosperity, manage the emotional atmosphere of the province, guard the far flung borders of the Empire, and somehow survive storm that is now bearing down on top of him!

  Releases: Wednesday

  The steam engine was recently invented, and after that a plethora of steam based machinery and technology were created in this alternate history, steampunk, story. This new technology changed the world, making formerly labor intensive tasks simple through the power of steam and coal. Factories made use of automata to push production to new heights and travel became easy and affordable as steam powered machines took to the streets and seas. It was easy to forget those left behind as the world shifted, as steel replaced muscle for labor, many people found themselves without work- including the parents of Mary, one of the protagonists of the story. The other protagonist, Alan, is the son of a plant manager who oversaw the factory where Mary’s father worked. Their parents had been friends for years, and so had Alan and Mary- so when the orders came down from above, and Mary’s father lost his job- Mary was invited to come and live with Alan and his family. Thus starts a slice-of-life romance in the shadow of a great social upheaval as the city of London struggles with the consequences of explosive progress.

  Releases: Tuesday

  It is well known that most of the governments in the world could not manage a paper bag without multiple scandals and billions in waste- but the reality is that they are not even capable of doing that much. Politicians, not caring for anything but their reelection and unwilling to take action to solve an issue because they might have to actually take a position, are useless. Crime, poverty, mismanagement- the justice systems are overworked at best, overwhelmed at worst, and biased against many as a rule, government agencies have more red tape than actual paper, the military overspends on even basic tools nearly a hundred times what they are worth, and some people have had enough. Kevin Sterling is the megarich CEO behind one of the greatest internet companies in existence, and through various methods and strings controls many other well known and powerful tech companies. His peers are the shadowy leaders behind some of the largest companies in nearly every key industry throughout every country on the planet. With the world in chaos, these men and women are meeting with the agenda being to solve the world’s problems. Where the governments of the world fail and failed, they will succeed- they are the Illuminati, and they are the heroes that will save the world. Join Kevin as he manipulates, schemes, and manipulates the world to save it!

  Releases: Monday

  All releases are at 5pm UTC.

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