This Life of Sin

Heroes

Larasta itself seemed to be largely unaffected so far, but apparently that was to be expected. From what Sally had told me a week ago, generally the incidents begin in the out lying nations and make there way inward to the central kingdom of Larasta. She also claimed that she would not be surprised if the Queen ordered the priests to summon forth the heroes any day now. According to her, if the queen didn't act soon there may be a revolt amongst the citizen ship in both Larasta and in the kingdoms themselves.

And so, I wasn't exactly confused when I saw the massive crowd around the notice boards when I left for the market square this morning. People were huddled in whispering circles or other wise shouting excitedly to each other. I bobbed and weaved through the crowd so I could see the cause of the hubbub myself, already confident at what I would see.

Sure enough, there was a massive poster on the bord, covering much of the usual posts, and I saw the official seal in red wax at the bottom of it. In huge, stylized lettering, at the top was the heading: Five New Heroes Arrive, The Queen Puts her Faith in their Strength.

Oh, she does she? I resisted the eye roll. No mention of there being any sort of home-grown heroes either. Like I guess I could understand their need to summon heroes, just a little... but was that an excuse not to at least attempt to train your own soldiers to do the job. If only to help these summoned heroes. Once I learned about my own stats, I sort of understood the need for the summoning. No doubt there were few if any in the kingdoms who had such high numbers without ever even training. I didn't know the stats of the other Earthlings right now but if they were any like most of my own that we were all probably many times stronger than the average knight or adventurer. I could only imagine how strong we could get with some time and training.

It made me a little fearful of this Demon King for the first time. Maybe the people of this world really did need the help of those from Earth. I didn't much like the way they go about it but I'm sure they didn't exactly have a vast variety of Earthling summoning spells, right?

"It makes my head spin," said a familiar voice from behind me. I turned and saw that the Commander, who I now knew to be named Commander Steven Rice, standing like the monster sized man he was. "Knowing that I live in these historic times."

"Scarred?" I asked with a slight smile.

Rice grunted. "Amazed and, yes, a little afraid. If not for myself than for my people."

Somber, I nodded. I had come to like many of the people in this city and I would not want harm to come to any of them. "But we are saved!" I said with some small sarcasm. "The heroes have been summoned."

Again, the commander grunted, now looking at the royal proclamation again. "We will see. This notice only says that they were summoned, not weather or not they are competent."

"Have they been before?" I asked, glancing at the large statue of Lect which was surrounded by excitable city folk. This was the only time I had seen so many poor and well-off people mingling together. I hadn't seen too much of the noblemen. Mostly only in passing. For one thing, I was usually out of town on jobs, and for another I was told that they didn't like mingling with the common folk. They preferred to stay in the northwest part of the city.

"Eye." Said the stoic man, looking worried around the eyes. "In the previous summoning there were five summons. Most know many tales about Sir Lect, Lady Anna, and Sir Francis. They were true and noble heroes of that age."

"The other two?" I had only ever heard of Lect. I hadn't been to the cathedral yet to see the statues. It had slipped my mind. And I didn't ask about the heroes, I figured that it would draw attention to my ignorance.

"Many these days may not even know their names, not unless they decided to look it up or paid close attention to the statue's placards in the cathedral. "He explained. "If I remember correctly, one was named James. I don't recall his given name. Any story you do hear about him would be ones told by jesters. He went down as one of the most useless heroes in all Larasta's history. He spent his days lazing about, flirting with women and expecting the people of our nation to serve him hand and foot."