How can I save the world if I’m no longer the hero?

Joan looked over the battle lines, her stomach doing small flips at the sight before her. The valley between the two sides was long, filled with ash, arrows and bodies of the slain. The side closer to her was filled with all manner of humans, dwarves and elves, though primarily humans. There were also a few banners of mercenary companies as well. While she doubted any of them were offering the entirety of their forces, in this war every little bit mattered. She remembered seeing these lines so long ago, as the Hero.

It had felt so different then, the monsters on the demon’s side had felt so small in comparison, she could barely understand why it was such a threat. Now she knew why, though.

Now the great demons, monsters that were ten or even twenty feet tall, with thick hides and claws that could tear apart a horse in seconds didn’t look like a ‘fun challenge’ like they did when she was the hero. They looked like horrific monsters that she hoped she’d never have to face. There were only three of them they could see from this position, but there was no telling how many of them could be drawn to these fields over time. The only real advantage they had against such monsters were that they were big, slow, quick to lash out at anything including other demons and required a lot of support to keep from going wild. She wondered how many soldiers it took just to kill one of those beasts. Hundreds of arrows, the strongest spells. War machines designed to slam into and bind the monsters up while they were torn apart.

Even then, though, the greatest threat was probably the more humanoid demons. Those that had human, elf or dwarven blood inside them. They were more than just beasts, they were so much stronger, faster and more powerful than a normal member of their original species. Enhanced by pieces of the greater, terrifying demons. Even the simplest and weakest of them likely took two or three soldiers to slay and their greatest of warriors often earned their highest honors by being able to slay one or two of them alone. The Hero had slain them by the dozen, but Joan wasn’t even certain she could hope to kill more than two or three before her own magic would wear out. That was only if they came at her one at a time.

Further to the north, in the dwarven lands, a similar battle was being fought. The key difference there was that they had a great wall to help hold the demons back. Up and down the country there were so many small forts and towers, ready to send warning of any secret attempts by the demons to sneak more of their forces in. It was far from perfect, but it was the best they had.

There wasn’t any hero to come help them now. When she saw the battle lines drawn up like this, she couldn’t help but understand why they had been so against the idea of her taking Searle past them. The chosen were needed, desperately. They held the numbers advantage by a wide margin, at least five to one judging by what she could see. On top of that, they held a good defensive position, with strong walls of stone and wood, woven from magic. Even then, they didn’t dare try to attack, instead waiting. If they could hold the line until the chosen were all found, then pushing back these forces would be possible. Maybe.

Joan felt a small surge of guilt embracing her. They never had done that, though. Instead the Hero and chosen had been constantly running from challenge to challenge, attempting to stem the tide of what felt like an endless horde of foes until, finally, many of them had been cut down and even the gods had been pushed away. While, in the end, the demons had been broken without the Demon Lord to support them, the war had never ended. It had just gotten easier and they had been pushed back a little bit more. How many of these very people had lost their lives after that, separated from their gods and their hope?

Joan leaned forward and rested her head against the back of her horse’s head. Once again she felt the full weight of all that was at stake if she couldn’t stop all that was coming and it felt overwhelming. A part of her wanted to turn and flee, to escape all of this and just let someone else deal with it. But who could? There wasn’t any hero who could come and save them or prepare them for what was to come. On top of that, if the Inferno God awoke, nothing would save any of them. Even if she fled to the corners of the world, across the sea, it would all boil away under that god’s power.

There was nothing she could ever do to escape this weight. All she could do was try and fix it and save everyone who was crushed under it.

A hand on her back made her glance up. Searle was smiling down at her, his hand soothingly tapping her back. A part of her wanted to push it aside, to snap at him that she didn’t need his comfort. Another part of her wanted to lean into it and even hug him, plead for him to fix everything on his own even though she knew they couldn’t. Another part of her just wanted to curl up and cry.

Instead, she focused on what needed to be done. “The wards will be the hardest part,” Joan said before reaching out her right hand. With a simple gesture she cast the spell, allowing her eyes to see the magical wards placed around the camps. Domes of translucent green seemed to appear around the camp and a good hundred feet or so away from it, as well as different domes set across the battlefield. “If we touch any of them, then we’ll be noticed in a second.”

“So, any ideas?” Bauteut asked.

Joan nodded. “Sort of. Two ideas I can think of but neither of them I really wanted to ever do. Searle, they’ll both depend on you.”

“Me? Why?” he asked.

“Because you’re the only one of us with enough magic to pull it off,” Joan said with a small sigh before climbing down from her mount. “That and you’re the shield. There’s two ways we could do this. The first depends on you trusting me a lot, but…” She took a slow, deep breath. “There’s a not insignificant chance it could kill me.”

“Oh, well then, seems like we have a winner,” Bauteut said with a roll of her eyes. “What plan is the less suicidal one?”

“I mean, it’s not guaranteed,” Joan said quickly. “I’ve done i-- I’ve seen it done before. Just, err, it wasn’t with Searle. Just hear me out. I know how to setup a teleportation array. If we worked through the night, we could bypass the entirety of both forces. In theory.”

“In theory,” Bauteut said. “How would that kill you? I’m not even going to ask how you’re able to do teleportation magic in the first place, I know they weren’t teaching that in the academy. Another secret, I suppose?”

“I don’t have the amount of power needed for such things,” Joan said, ignoring the last part of Bauteut’s comments. She then glanced back to Searle. “Searle likely would, but magic like that wouldn’t really fall into his talents.” To be entirely honest, she’d never seen him do any magic like that in ANY of her lives. The only ones who had in their group was Korgron, who was incredibly talented in that kind of magic, and Andreas, who had managed to learn how to do it just with himself.

The most worrisome part of the idea was that she, as the Hero, had only ever done such magic with the aid of Korgron. Before the demon had joined their side it had been always done by other mages, if at all.

“But there are other risks with it,” Joan said softly.

“Delightful,” Bauteut said before shaking her head. “They are?”

“Once we do teleport, there’s a good chance they’ll know what we did,” Joan said softly. “It wouldn’t be very precise, either. We’ll just be going forward, more or less. We could end up in the middle of a patrol or who knows what else. So once we arrive, we’ll need to be ready to fight. On top of that, while Searle can help me, I can’t guarantee that I’d be able to do it entirely safely. The amount of magic we’d need might be incredible.” She clenched her right hand and her mind drifted back to her fight against the Troll of Reflections. She’d almost destroyed her arm forcing such a spell. What would a teleportation spell do to her? There was a reason it normally took three or even four mages for such spells. If she made a single mistake it could end up burning her alive. Worse than that, she’d be trying to channel all of it herself. Perhaps if she was older it would have been easier, but as she was now it felt reckless and dangerous. “However, I would say it is our best bet. So long as you’re able to stabilize me quickly after we arrive, there wouldn’t be much risk. The other option is just kind of a theory, but teleporting would--”

“We’re certainly not letting you almost kill yourself like that,” Bauteut said before climbing down from her mount. “Agreed?” she asked before turning to Searle.

Searle gave a nod before climbing down as well. “I don’t know why you even told us that plan, it’s a bad plan.”

“It is the plan with the best chance of success,” Joan said, her cheeks burning a little bit before climbing down as well. “I’m just trying to give you guys all the information we need to succeed.”

“Still a bad plan,” Searle said. “What’s the other plan?”

“Well, that one is special. But it’s just kind of a theory. Searle, you’re the shield. That’s more than just an instrument for blocking weapons. It can also block other things. Sights, sounds. It is, possible, that you could use it to block us out from the wards.”

Searle nodded before glancing down to the shield on his arm, now far smaller so it didn’t interfere in his movements. “Really? How?”

“I have no idea,” Joan said before crossing her arms. “I hadn’t really thought about it because I hadn’t realized it would be needed,” she said before glancing back towards the camp. “But the weapons of the chosen are the basic embodiment of what they are. The shield is, well, a shield. It can block the hammer of a god, it can block out a simple ward like this. I’m just not sure how you’d go about doing it. Are you sure don’t want to try the telepo-- grk!” Joan was cut off when Bauteut reached out and snagged the back of her tunic, tugging her back hard.

“We’re not doing that. Searle, I’m sure we can figure out. Can you setup a ward for him to practice on? Oh, look who I’m asking. Of course you can, Joan. You can do anything,” Bauteut said with a roll of her eyes before tugging her back a second time. “Come on, let’s go get this started. Searle, could you bring the horses while we do this?”

“On it,” Searle said with a light chuckle.

Joan tried to pull away, but before she could Bauteut yanked her closer and wrapped an arm around her neck, putting her in a headlock. “Joan? Stop that.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Joan said before trying to push the arm off her. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t sure how to escape the lock without actually hurting Bauteut. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt the girl right before then went into something dangerous.

“You know what. You knew we wouldn’t pick the teleportation plan, so why waste time with it?” Bauteut asked.

Joan gave a soft sigh and stopped struggling, letting the other girl drag her away. After a few moments she was released. Unfortunately, she didn’t expect that and let out a low squeak before she fell to the ground. “Ow,” she said. “You could have warned me.”

“Then you wouldn’t have fallen and I wouldn’t have been amused,” Bauteut said before giving a light chuckle. “My sister used to do the same thing. So, why tell us?”

Joan closed her eyes and thought for a moment. Why did she tell them? She knew they’d say no to the plan, it was just a waste of time to even consider it. So why? She wasn’t entirely certain herself. “I don’t know. It’s just the one that I would have picked, I guess.”

“Would you have picked it if it was likely to get me killed?”

“Yes,” Joan said, glaring up at the girl for a few moments before sighing and shaking her head. “Probably. Maybe? I don’t know,” she said before picking herself back up and following the other girl. “It’s really hard to say. It’s not really relevant, though. You can’t do what I can.”

“I can do a lot that you can’t,” Bauteut said with a small chuckle. “I’m older, taller, definitely more mature. Far less reckless, as well. Don’t forget, Joan, you are still a child.”

Joan rolled her eyes. “Of course you are. There’s just things I have to do, that only I can do. I have to accept that. Here, this should be far enough,” she said before glancing around for a moment. “Okay, I’ll need to setup a--”

“I can setup a ward,” Bauteut said before she started to kneel down.

Joan couldn’t help herself. She held out her hand and envisioned the ward in her mind. The simple method of making a ward was creating the outline by hand, as it gave the mind and magic something physical to follow. But she had made millions of them over thousands of lives. It was almost second nature to her now. She focused the magic for a motion and in a few seconds the ward was around them. It only covered about a five foot area, but that would be plenty for Searle to test with. “I can do it faster and better.”

Bauteut stared at the ground before turning back to her. “That was quite petty.”

“What can I say? I’m still a child,” Joan said with an amused smirk at the other girl’s fluster. “Besides, I thought there was so much that I could do that you couldn’t,” she said before glancing back towards Searle. He was gently guiding the horses towards them and she couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit annoyed at the smirk on his lips. “What’s so funny?”

“You two,” Searle said before her tied the horses to one of the nearby trees. “So how does this work?”

“Well, first step into the ward,” Joan said before motioning towards where she had placed it. He gave a small nod before making his way into it. She felt a low tingling in the back of her head, warning her that someone had entered the ward. “Perfect. Now, this part is where things get difficult. You need to try and block the magic that is alerting me.”

“How?” Searle asked.

“I have no idea,” Joan said before shaking her head. “Chase had a trick like this, he’d use his magic to make himself, how did he put it…” She closed her eyes and struggled to remember his exact phrasing. “Be like ice, he said. Let the magic flow over you, as if you’re not even there. That’s how he did it. Now, you’re the shield so I don’t know how that’ll work. I guess you need to block and deflect the magic around you in some ways,” Joan said with a shrug.

Searle nodded and held out his shield which grew into a wide circle. “How about now?” he asked.

“Nope,” Joan said, the tingling not disappearing.

“Now?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, how about--”

“I’ll tell you if I stop feeling you,” Joan said before walking to their horses. “Just focus on that, we’ll get ready to get going.”

Bauteut walked over to her, a concerned look on her face. “Are you certain you want us to leave our horses behind? We could go faster if we had them.”

“Too obvious,” Joan said with a shake of her head. “My spell can make us harder to see in the dark, but it won’t work if we’re too big. It won’t do us any good if he blocks the magical wards only for us to be seen by the guards themselves.”

Bauteut gave a small nod before walking over to stand by her and began to help her remove their gear from the mounts. “So what about the horses?”

“In the perfect world, we’d leave them tied up here and come get them when we’re done,” Joan said, but she knew that would never work. They’d likely be gone for days, not a few hours. “We’ll just have to let them go. If they’re lucky, they’ll run free and wild.”

“What if they go to the camp? They’re going to notice these new horses just suddenly appearing.”

Joan paused and glanced to their mounts. Finally, she shook her head. “I guess we’ll just have to kill them,” she said. “It’d be the correct thing to do, wouldn’t it? If they could reduce our chances of success, then we have to put an end to them before they can. Right?” she asked and, despite her words, she couldn’t really make herself believe it. If she was entirely honest with herself, the idea of killing the mounts, after they had brought them all this way, made her feel a little sick. Even if they did end up causing trouble by revealing their positions to the prince, was it really their fault? But they were just animals, how could they possibly compare to the importance of the mission?

Bauteut shook her head. “Do you really believe that?”

Jone sighed and leaned her head forward, resting her forehead against her mount’s side. It was warm, slightly damp from sweat. “No, I don’t. I mean, I believe it’d be the correct thing. The smart thing. But I don’t want to do it.”

Bauteut gave a small nod. “Really? Have you done it before?”

“Of course not. I just don’t want to take another risk and I don’t really know what else I can do,” Joan said. “I don’t want to kill them, though. They got us here, didn’t they? Doesn’t that mean we owe them? And it’s not a guarantee that they’ll put us in danger. If we just let them free, then--”

“They’re going to go to the camp,” Bauteut said before lightly rubbing the face of her mount. “They’re good, smart animals. They’ll go to where the food is. So if we let them go, that’s the first thing they’ll do.”

Joan gave another soft sigh. “So we have to kill them, don’t we? We can--”

“I didn’t say that,” Bauteut said before glancing back to her. “You always focus on the worst possible outcome, don’t you? Just because they’ll go there doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. So long as they don’t go there until after we’ve crossed the line, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“How about now?” Searle asked.

“I can still feel you,” Joan called back. “It hasn’t even changed yet.” She then glanced back to Bauteut. “So what happens, then? If we’re already through the camp, then it won’t matter. But it’s not like we can stop them.”

“Tie them up outside the wards. Or near one of the animal traps. When hunters go out in the morning to check for any fresh catches, they’ll find the horses. By that point, we’ll be long gone.”

Joan nodded. “I guess, that-- wait, traps? There were traps? Where were their traps?”

Bauteut stared at her for a long, long moment. Even in the dim light of Searle’s light spell she could see the look of pure disbelief on her face. “You didn’t know there were traps here?”

“Where? Why would there be traps? The demons are that way,” she said, motioning towards the front lines.

Bauteut shook her head and gave a soft sigh. “It is so fortunate for you that I’m here. Have you ever even studied any of this?”

Joan felt her cheeks going a little redder. “I know basic war tactics, formations, all of that. I--”

“It’s not just a battle, Joan,” Bauteut said softly. “It’s holding the line. They have walls built, latrines. They’re focusing on the long hold. For all they know, they could be here for years. Reinforcing their rations with fresh game not only helps keep them fed, it also keeps them scouting the local area in case any dangers creep up on them.”

“So have you seen any of these-- oh come on!” Joan said before whipping around towards Searle. He was standing straight up, his shield over his head as if it was trying to block off the moonlight. Sure enough, she couldn’t feel him at all anymore. “Step out and back into it, okay?” she said, though a part of her felt more annoyed than ever. They hadn’t even finished unpacking the horses yet. How could he figure it out so incredibly fast? But, sure enough, he was soon walking in and out of the ward without her receiving any warning at all. “Searle, I mean this with all of my care and affection. Sometimes I want to punch you in the mouth.”

“Sorry,” Searle said with a small grin that she suspected was a sign that he was not, in fact, sorry.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Bauteut said with a cheeky grin of her own. “Joan is just jealous that someone other than her can be super talented and able to do everything. How dare you be as good or better than her. Right?” she asked.

Joan flushed and went back to unloading the horses. “Come on, let’s finish this up. We’ve still got some more practice to do before we head out there.”

“See? Jealous,” Bauteut said. “Look at how red she’s getting, it’s adorable."

“I’m not jealous,” Joan said, her cheeks growing even redder at the teasing. Despite her objections, she knew it was true. She was so very jealous.