Once Vulk had his fill of laughing, he wiped his eyes and slapped Lan on the back, almost sending him over the desk.

‘Oh Lan, just when I think you can’t get any more brilliant, you prove me wrong.’

‘Vulk, you rock brain, are you trying to finish what the goblins started?’ Sora shouted as he threw the dwarf in a headlock.

‘Ah, it was only a little slap.’ Vulk said as Sora started to rain ineffective blows on the top of his head.

‘Send up the next person!’ The Guildmasters voice called from the second floor. Lan looked around for who was next, finding no one who looked like they wanted to go.

‘I think you’re up.’ Locke smiled.

Looking around at the gathered faces that wouldn’t meet his eyes, Lan turned to head up the stairs.

‘Oh, and Lan.’ Locke called, making Lan stop and turn to find Locke and the others smiling at him.

‘Welcome back.’

Lan found himself smiling back, ‘Good to be back.’

‘Figures that a lucky bastard would keep getting lucky.’ Someone said just loud enough for Lan to hear as he walked up the stairs.

‘No wonder the Wisp didn’t give us any luck. He is taking it all for himself.’ another said to some laughter.’

‘That’s all it is, just luck.’

Lan didn’t pay them any attention. He was far more focused on what he would say to the Guildmaster.

In many ways, the Guildmaster’s office looked the way Lan imagined. A bay window gave the Guildmaster a view over the city and the Duke’s palace and let in all the light needed, giving Lan a good look around the room.

It was large, with a door on either side leading to what Lan guessed to be a meeting room on one side and the room he could only speculate about on the other. All around the room was sturdy furniture matching the large dark red desk and chair behind which the Guildmaster sat.

On the walls were weapons and bronze casts of many different beasts that the Guildmaster had no doubt played a hand in killing. And although all looked like ferocious monsters, none held a candle to the dragon skull that hung over the Guildmaster’s throne of a chair.

Standing to either side of the window were two sets of armours, the first the one that the Guildmaster had worn the first time Lan had met him and the second a much more extravagant dark red steel armour that looked like glass finished with gold and silver inlay with the Guild Crest on the shoulders.

And at the heart of the room, seeming as much to create the atmosphere surrounding the room as much as being a part of it, was the Guildmaster, scribbling away at something behind the mountains of papers on his desk.

‘Sit or stand. It’s up to you.’ He said before looking up and giving Lan an unreadable look. ‘It’s you…’

‘I’ll understand if you want me to stand,’ Lan joked, finding that he was the only one in the room that found it funny.

‘I want you to make your damn mind up,’ he said before going back to writing.

‘Right,’ Lan nodded and walked over to the chair on the other side of the desk, not realising how much he needed to sit until his legs gave out, and he fell into the chair, making the Guildmaster look up from his writing.

‘I thought I told you to come see me after the Guild Job?’ he finally said.

‘Right, about that. I…’

‘You forgot and got drunk instead.’ He sighed, clearly knowing his people well. ‘At least you fit in that regard. I was going to ask if, after some time, you still wanted to go through with this. Looking at you now, I think the question still stands.’

‘I do.’ Lan said. At this point, the question seemed surreal what else would he do. What else was he made for if not this? Lan realised he wasn’t even thinking about the Pact; this was how he felt.

‘If you say so, yet you still choose not to wear the title.’ The Guildmaster asked as he watched Lan’s reaction, a reaction that hid nothing as Lan’s eyes opened wide.

‘I haven’t earned that yet?’ Lan said without thinking. It was how he felt, yet it was only by being faced with it that he understood why.

‘The world seems to think you have earned it.’ the Guildmaster added.

‘but do you?’ Lan countered, not getting an answer. ‘Not that it plays much of a role in my decision… with respect. It was just before I joined. All I knew of adventurers was what all children know. After that, I got to see what real adventurers look like. Until I feel like I can live up to that, it doesn’t feel right to wear it.’

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‘That’s your choice to make. I thought you would say it was to not antagonise the others who may not like you, but I will say your answer is sufficient for now. Anyway. Let’s get down to why you are in my office. Are the Suns falling?’ the Guildmaster asked, retrieving a fresh piece of paper before looking up with a frown when Lan tried to decide if what he had to say was worse than the suns falling.

Resolving that he didn’t know enough about the shadow to make that call, Lan started to tell the Guildmaster about everything that had happened. From the lack of animals in the forest to the wisps having to gather around the glade as all sources of mana vanished, his fight with the Goblin Knight and running from its band. Lan told him about the battle in the hollow but not the incident with the Voice of the World. How something had shaken the beasts of the forest so much that they were acting against their nature.

The Guildmaster listened without judgement the whole time, the only indication of his attention being the scratching of pen on paper. That was until Lan reached the part about the Goblin Swarm. Then his head shot up before knitting his hands in front of him and watching Lan. Lan told him about the Goblin Mage Owrain and his plan to take over the city in order to hide from what the beasts were running from. Then Lan told him about the destruction of the Goblin Swarm and how Owrain was swept away, and the Goblin King struck down like it was nothing to the Dark mass.

At this point, the look in the Guildmaster’s eyes was that of an inquisitor watching for even the slightest hint of falsehood.

Lastly, Lan told him about Tyr, how she had been leading him and how she saved him from the darkness and brought him to the Tear of creation.

Lan finished, pulling air into his lungs smoothly as he silently thanked the countless hours of merchandise debriefing for the experience.

‘Thank you, that will be all.’ The Guildmaster said, catching Lan by surprise.

‘What! That’s it? I just told you that I talked to a Tear of creation, amongst other things, and you don't have any questions?’

‘You were pretty detailed in your debrief. I wish more of what I heard today was so.’ He said, scratching something down on the paper.

‘Yeah, but what’s next?’

‘Listen, son.’ The Guildmaster started, pinching his eyes closed. ‘I have heard over a hundred different reports of what is going on out there and triple that waiting for me from the other guilds. There is something going on out there, and moving too quickly without all the information will only come back to bite us later.’

‘But you just said that what I told you was pretty detailed.’ Lan tried.

‘Yes, it tells me that you have a good memory but no leads. You said the Tear disappeared.’ The Guildmaster continued before Lan could protest. ‘Where did it go? Who is trying to take it over? What’s the end goal? You gave me just enough to rush into the wrong decision.’

‘Look, I have a literal royal Wisp following me,’ Lan started, seeing as the Guildmaster hadn’t even raised an eyebrow at her despite Tyr flying around the room. ‘If that’s not enough, you saw my stats before, so you know that I wasn’t Light Marked back then.’

‘Maybe, I had other things on my mind back then.’ The Guildmaster looked pointedly at Lan. ‘The truth is whether I do or don’t believe you at this time, there isn’t much I can do. It would take weeks to blindly search the forest, and that would be if I didn’t have four other just as unlikely stories.’

‘If it is not, multiple different descriptions of lesser Dragons spotted. Undead skeletons watching people through the trees. On top of sightings of other greater Undead. Now I not only have word of a potentially failed hero summoning in Lecaea, but all this happens right around the time that the Duke is hosting their delegation. Who, I might add, seems to be trying to start a war.’

‘Hero summoning?’ Lan asked, making the Guildmaster frown for a split second before he sighed.

‘If it turns out to be true, you and the others would learn about it anyway. Hero summoning is an old and powerful ritual spell known only to the rulers of the world. The ritual is complicated and easily disrupted without the help of one of the Lords of Light. Only no kingdom has been given the guidance of the Lords for ten generations as it is believed that they are fundamentally against it.’

‘Why.’ Lan asked, sitting forward. With his recent change, he felt he needed to know more about the Lords of Light.

‘Because of what the ritual does. Once the spell is cast, the magic will pull a hero from the Tales into our world. It can be a Tale that we know, one lost to time, or even told in one of the other realms. As you can guess, the magic that goes into something like this is ancient and little understood. Meaning that most of the time, what comes forth is not a hero but something else. And the trouble only starts there. Just a character from a story or not, suddenly finding yourself pulled from your world and into this one wreaks havoc on the minds of those summoned.’

Lan blinked hard at that as the words hit him.

‘When a hero doesn't lose their memories. They often insist to a dangerous degree that their worlds are real and not just part of a Tale. Sometimes they never recover from this and spend their whole lives trying to return to them. And even when this is not the case, sometimes a hero was never meant to be a warrior, but seeing as summoned heroes are held to the same or higher standards than our Hero Title bearers, they don’t last long. That is why some believe the Lords no longer aid us in summoning and why we chose to no longer use the spell.’

‘But other Lands still do?’ Lan asked, already knowing the answer.

‘Some might still try it secretly, but only one is bad at hiding their failures.’

‘Lecaea.’

The Guildmaster nodded, ‘If they managed to bring something other than a hero and let it loose in the forest,’

‘Something that should only exist in stories could be behind all of this.’ Lan finished. Thinking back to what the Voice had told him.

The Guildmaster nodded again and didn’t say anything for a moment.

‘Whatever it is, the other guild masters and I are thinking of calling for an All Guilds Campaign.’ The Guildmaster said, seeing something in Lan's expression as he smiled. ‘So you know what that is?’

Of course, he did. Everyone knew what an All Guilds Campaign was. Half the tales ended with one being called, and how many lives were lost to bring an end to the threat.’

‘One thing the Tales don’t tell you.’ The Guildmaster said as if reading Lan’s mind. ‘Survival rate for new adventurers in All Guilds Campaigns is less than forty percent.’

Lan knew that the survival rate was low, just not that low. As he thought about it, Lan felt a pit in his stomach.

‘So I think this is a good time to think about if you really want to do this.’

‘What do you believe?’ Lan asked, changing the subject before Looking to the Guildmaster. ‘You said some people believe the Lords of Light no longer help in summoning because of all the ways it can go wrong. So what do you believe?’ Lan asked and was greeted by the older man's unreadable but piercing look.

‘You know,’ the Guildmaster started his answer in a way that told Lan he wouldn’t be getting an answer, ‘There was once a Sage who argued that if so many believe there to be other worlds wholly separate from our realms, then who was to say that they weren’t telling the truth and that we were just pulling people from their worlds and their lives?’