scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/7dz6kj.md

[RT][WIP] Worth the Candle, Ch 61, Animus

• Author: u/cthulhuraejepsen Fruit flies like a banana*

• URL: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/29122692

• Score: 93

• Created: 2017-11-19T07:34:38

Post:

Link to content

Comments:

u/SvalbardCaretaker [+37] Mouse Army (5 hours later)

Its somehow immensely funny to me that /u/cthulhuraejepsen 's severly reduced writing speed is still high for a webfic author. They got reduced from faster-than-wildbow speed to mere mortal.

u/None [+2] (6 hours later)

[deleted]

u/SvalbardCaretaker [+14] Mouse Army (6 hours later)

Seasonal affective disorder, eg winter depressions.

u/EliezerYudkowsky [+8] Godric Gryffindor (15 hours later)

Oh. /u/cthulhuraejepsen, did you try building a https://arbital.com/p/lumenators/ ?

u/cthulhuraejepsen [+16] Fruit flies like a banana (19 hours later)

I have SAD (mostly) handled now, through a combination of different remedies. I'm (mostly) mentally/emotionally back to how I was before. The big problem is that I'm sleeping two extra hours a night (from 5-6 hours during summer, up to 7-8 now), which directly cuts into my writing time, because that's where the slack in my schedule is.

I was planning to cut back on sleep a half hour at a time to see whether that's one of the important interventions ... but I'm currently sick, so that experimentation will have to wait until I've recovered.

u/sharikak54 [+1] (3 days later)

I just binged the story over the last few days. What's the update schedule look like?

u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (3 days later)

currently 1 or 2 weekly. Dont know about specific days.

u/cthulhuraejepsen [+21] Fruit flies like a banana (5 minutes later)

From the age of nine, Juniper Smith began filling notebooks with his worlds, at first places of fantastical imagination, but later with each as an expression of some theme or idea that momentarily grabbed his interest. Over the course of eight years, he shared these worlds with his friends through twice-weekly sessions of tabletop gaming. Now at the age of seventeen, he finds himself in Aerb, a world that appears to be an amalgam of those many notebooks, stuck trying to find the answers to why he's there and what this world is trying to say. The most terrifying answer might be that this world is an expression of the person he was back on Earth.

If you want to read the first chapter, click here, and if you want the whole thing on one page, click here.

This story is now available on topwebfiction, click here to vote or here for the works page if you want to see reviews and ratings. There's also a TVTropes page here.

u/I_Hump_Rainbowz [+1] (7 days later)

Have you read Mother of Learning? If not the author has side chapters that do world building and it is usually common knowledge things or drawings of creatures and stuff.

I think you could do this also, maybe have junipers notes on some of his campaigns or monsters that may or may not show up or even books that juniper has read while in the simulation. I know you explain things very well with the side characterization of the dnd group.

Anyway I absolutely love your story, it is equal to HPMoR and MoL. Keep up the good work, if you have any suggestions for other good lit RPGs i would like them to.

u/EliezerYudkowsky [+18] Godric Gryffindor (15 hours later)

I'd have tried for "Just to be sure you're willing and able to teach at all, tell me the simplest exercise I'd do to learn the smallest piece of soul magic, even if it doesn't lead anywhere and will take me weeks and anyone else months."

u/Makin- [+12] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (3 hours later)

“The prison is not warded,” said Grak with a furrowed brow.

“It is an innate feature of this place, not a ward,” said Fallatehr.

I have no idea how that is meant to work. God-related? Aerb naturally has places where teleporting is impossible, for some reason, so a prison was built there?

This is the first time I've felt like something in the worldbuilding was awkwardly and suddenly put in there just to amplify the challenge, so I hope we'll actually get an explanation. If would be bad if every single arc there was some new convenient reason they couldn't just teleport out.

That said, I loved every other part of the chapter (does Fenn even know how old Joon is, btw?), and I assume we're going to see how a soul mage fights next chapter, which should be interesting.

Incidentally, is there absolutely no fanart of this story? I would be willing to donate some money so you can eventually commission a cover/banner or whatever, this story absolutely deserves it. If you have a donation link available, hook me up.

u/SvalbardCaretaker [+17] Mouse Army (4 hours later)

I'd understood the non-teleportation effect to be a property of the entad-prison. Just as Graks warders monocle was unable to see the animating magic of the statues, the entad magic doesnt count as ward.

u/serge_cell [+15] (5 hours later)

It's an age old question "Should detect magic detect magical or supernatural creatures?" Because there is no definte answer it's up to author how to interpret it.

u/nytelios [+1] (13 days later)

Incidentally, is there absolutely no fanart of this story? I would be willing to donate some money so you can eventually commission a cover/banner or whatever, this story absolutely deserves it. If you have a donation link available, hook me up.

I was thinking about contacting an artist to make a banner for topwebfiction on a sub like /r/characterdrawing where they do pro bono work. But a commission might be way easier.

In my mind's eye I had this high quality banner of a d20 DND die on a piece of old parchment with the title 'worth the candle' imprinted into dripping wax from a nearby candle. Something along this line, with a darker candlelight cast.

u/sneakpeekbot [+1] (13 days later)

Here's a sneak peek of /r/characterdrawing using the top posts of the year!

#1: [LFA]Dragonborn Barbarian (more info in comments) | 38 comments
#2: Drew my Shadowrun group! | 33 comments
#3: [RF] Human Female Artificer for u/Dr_Thorne | 44 comments

---

^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^Contact ^^me ^^| ^^Info ^^| ^^Opt-out

u/ThatDarnSJDoubleW [+12] (13 hours later)

So the nonanima has to be a companion with a cliffhanger like that, right?

And given the name, it suggests she's... what? Soul-less? Lifeless?

u/MultipartiteMind [+2] (a day later)

(Somehow, especially given the last line, I smell a whiff of a possibility of a heartstring-tugging autistic-type(/robot-like) companion.)

u/TheGuardianOne [+10] (11 hours later)

Looks like a plan is starting to come together.

So both sides have something to gain from cooperating, yet are willing to (or at least considering to) screw each other over for a stronger negotiating position. It's an interesting situation.

Fallatehr is almost sympathetic. Makes it easy to forget just how dangerous he is.

“And you, quarter-elf,” said Fallatehr, addressing his attention to Fenn.

“You’re a half-elf?” asked Fallatehr. “Descended from wood elf stock?”

I think the implication is that Fallatehr doesn't consider wood elves to be "true elves".

As for Fenn's age... Juniper is 17, Amaryllis is most likely 17, my guess for Fenn's age was early twenties though 33 is not that suprising considering she's a half-elf.
I think I can share some of Juniper's experience in that it does affect how I think of her on some visceral level, and then I'm surprised at that because I don't think human cultural expectations of what age means really apply here.

u/GlueBoy [+10] anti-skub (14 hours later)

Wild-ass theory: Fallatehr is going to copy Joon's "gamer" skill with his soul magic and become his arch-nemesis.

u/sicutumbo [+9] (9 hours later)

Good chapter. I'm wondering if the Spirit skill on his skill sheet is soul magic, and if it isn't then how learning how soul magic will go. So far as we've seen, he hasnt tried magic that explicitly isn't on his character sheet, with the possible exception of flower magic. Would he still gain skill at an inhuman rate, but not get the bonuses from leveling it up?

I also want him to learn water and steel magic, or at least have them described a bit more fully. He doesn't currently have much in the way of combat magic, so even spending a week on those two would give him a few options. (I'm not counting blood magic currently, because it mostly just makes him briefly stronger or faster. The fire hand isn't good for much in an even fight)

He gestured behind him, where the others were standing. Some were talking amongst themselves, which I took as a good sign; they didn’t have telepathy, and didn’t work with unanimity of purpose.

That's a bad assumption to make with a smart opponent.

u/Fredlage [+1] (a day later)

I don't think he can read the faded Skill names

u/sicutumbo [+1] (a day later)

I don't believe that I implied otherwise.

u/valeskas [+1] (2 days later)

I think Spirit is something like an ability to overcome a sense of defeat. For soul magic I expect either Essentialism or no ability at all.

u/Izeinwinter [+9] (13 hours later)

So, is Nonanima a species designation? Some form of undead or otherwise just fracking terrifying? Or is Nonanima a proper name, that is, someone sufficiently infamous that it still creeps them out centuries later, like meeting Vlad the Impaler in person ? Either way, Narrative says: Say hi to your new party member ;) I wonder if that is how things will go down, tough.

u/cthulhuraejepsen [+5] Fruit flies like a banana (15 seconds later)

Typo thread here, please.

u/ivory12 [+3] (3 hours later)

At one point, Fallatehr refers to himself as "man for the job." Not sure if that's intentional, or, really, what cross-species idiomatic noun usage looks like on Aerb.

edit: my mistake, he simply calls himself a man. "The man you seek," to be exact.

u/Kerbal_NASA [+2] (5 hours later)

this seemed like the perfect place for a the ‘you find a locked up guy with skills who joins your party‘ trope to rear its head

a the -> the

u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (6 hours later)

Fixed, thanks!

u/Pandomy [+1] (13 hours later)

or failing that, the cell were Fallatehr was kept

where

“It doesn’t matter,” said Craig. “Joon can force the issue, and in-character there’s usually a reason to not let the snake oil salesman be the only one you talk with.”

“None taken,” said Arthur.

From Arthur's seeming non sequitur, I assume there should be a "no offense" in here? Or am I missing something?

u/cthulhuraejepsen [+5] Fruit flies like a banana (19 hours later)

Fixed the typo, thanks.

From Arthur's seeming non sequitur, I assume there should be a "no offense" in here? Or am I missing something?

No, this is just something that my friends and I find funny. Someone says something insulting, and you say "none taken", in the same way that if you do something for someone and they don't say "thank you", you might say "you're welcome" in order to imply that the other person should have thanked you.

u/mojojo46 [+4] (2 days later)

Cthulhuraejepsen, have you considered starting a patreon account or similar for this story?

u/nytelios [+1] (13 days later)

IIRC he said something along the lines of how he's writing the story for himself and doesn't want a patreon or to monetize it before it's done. This might have changed though.

u/ianstlawrence [+0] (4 days later)

I noticed that the huge brass statue and other golems' deaths were not a bold update in Juniper's interface.

What's up with that?

---