54 KiB
[RT][WIP] Worth the Candle, ch 72-74 (Tripartite/Amaryllis/River) (End Book IV)
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Author: u/cthulhuraejepsen Fruit flies like a banana*
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URL: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/31229859
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Score: 188
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Created: 2018-02-07T16:58:32
Post:
Comments:
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+63] Fruit flies like a banana (7 minutes later)
My apologies for how long this took, but in my defense it's 20,000 words across three chapters. I don't plan on doing that again in the future, mostly because the rereading and editing takes so long that I basically skip a day of actual writing (and this is still like 1/4th the length of a novel, so will probably have loads of errors).
u/CannotThinkOfAThing [+28] (2 hours later)
Don't apologise, you're giving us a free awesome story! (Speaking of which, do you have a tip jar or a patreon?)
Now to be totally disciplined and not just binge read all three chapters...
u/CannotThinkOfAThing [+18] (4 hours later)
Whoops. I accidentally read it all. Got any more?
u/nineran [+4] (10 hours later)
The good news is the “doesn’t normally take breaks between books”. 😀
u/nineran [+10] (9 hours later)
- Free awesome writing = please never apologize. Tho on the other hand, it’s nice to know you understand the pain of waiting :)
- This has been asked before and will be again, but I’m adding my voice to the crowd- do you have a Patreon?
- I am a tech writer and editor. If you need a beta, let me know.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+11] Fruit flies like a banana (10 hours later)
I don't have a Patreon, and have been thinking about that for a while now. I like not being accountable to anyone, or having a set schedule ... but there's a value to be placed on those things, and I kind of feel like I've been past the point where I rationally should have set up at least a tip jar, if not a Patreon.
Beyond the implied author/reader contract that gets heightened when money is involved, a fair amount of the stuff in this story is personal, and while I've made some effort at disguising it for the eventual day that anonymity was broken, I'm not sure that I can ethically accept payment without at least some weakening of anonymity.
I'll figure something out, and probably have a decision at the start of Book V in a few days. The smart way of thinking about it is that by not accepting money, I'm basically paying money to be independent/anonymous ... and while I might be able to justify that at $20 a month, I don't think that I could reasonably go higher.
u/notgreat [+24] (12 hours later)
AFAIK you can do Patreon based on chapter releases instead of monthly if you want. Prevents the need for some sort of schedule.
The other concerns are definitely still in effect mind you.
u/knite [+7] (a day later)
We’re suggesting Patreon because we have a sneaky ulterior motive - we want you to keep writing! If Patreon will help sustain (or increase) your output, that’s great. If subscribers would feel like a burden, none of your readers want that.
Worth the Candle has hundreds, or maybe thousands, of fans. Right now you’re doing us a favor, writing a wonderful story without asking for anything in return. Your readers want to support your writing. Whatever keeps you motivated - Patreon, votes, commentary and praise, tweets - just let us know!
u/Makin- [+10] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (19 hours later)
The introduction of Patreon has slowed down every single serial I've seen except Wildbow's (Mother of Learning being the most glaring example). I think introducing structured payment tends to ruin the mindset of quite a few serial writers, since then it feels like a job, as you said.
I think a tip jar is the best solution, but of course it's up to you. You can set up a company Paypal if you want to hide your identity, and I don't understand your ethical argument. You are delivering a great service anonymously so why shouldn't you get some voluntary reward in the same way? Even if you go the Patreon route, a ton of game developers there stay anonymous all throughout, in my experience.
u/nytelios [+11] (a day later)
MoL actually sped up after Patreon. It used to be monthly. It's probably easier if an author had an existing schedule before introducing Patreon.
u/Makin- [+5] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (a day later)
Huh, I could swear it got noticeably slower, maybe there was a hiatus around that time?
u/nytelios [+6] (a day later)
You can see the author's target date for each chapter in his fictionpress bio. A few chapters were late; no hiatus. Now it's ~3 weeks.
u/Wargen-Elite [+2] (a day later)
It was probably the few late chapters which I think happened at the beginningish od the Patreon. IIRC a bunch of people over on /r/noveltranslations were freaking out (myself included) hoping something bad irl hadn't happened to the author and then the next chapter got released. And again.
Makes sense though. Usually when a Patreon starts up there's a learning curve on how to use it efficiently/figuring out rewards etc, etc, and it slows down the Patreon owner having to figure it out.
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u/Jokey665 [+9] Worth the Candle (a day later)
Wildbow
I'm still not entirely convinced he isn't just an extremely advanced AI designed to write incredible stories at a ridiculous pace.
u/akaatnene [+4] (a day later)
Rather than Patreon, have you considered selling the completed books? Amazon has a lot of self-published works nowadays.
u/Makin- [+2] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (a day later)
Amazon has some weird exclusivity clauses but if those aren't a factor I'd definitely pay for a book version.
u/Kishoto [+4] (6 hours later)
In line with what someone else already mentioned, if you'd like some assistance with re-reading/spellchecking, I'd be happy to help. I've acted as a beta reader for a few stories on fanfiction.net and would be willing to give it a shot if that's something you wanted to explore; this story is awesome! :)
u/Morghus [+1] (6 hours later)
Would you like some help in that, I've got some idle time here and there.
On another note, not having read the chapter, I'm grateful for your story. Thanks a lot, mate :)
u/Cifems [+38] (2 hours later)
I can't remember the last time I've felt such a raw sense of fucking betrayal, as Not-Mary turned in c72. Terrifying, breathless panic. There's really something visceral about watching loyalty being (apparently) forsaken, just like that. God. Thank fuck you revealed the ploy within the same release or... man, if it had somehow been an unresolved cliffhanger, I don't think I'd even be able to function.
And then (((this shit))) happened. I was still so shaken from the last chapter that I was sure this meant it was a post-mortem reconstruction of events.
u/adgnatum [+5] (14 hours later)
I felt it as a physical thing. Chilling, even though the heat was on. That's not a metaphor, I mean actual shaking until I noticed why.
I'm glad I didn't generate that other hypothesis of yours. Ditto to everything you just said.
u/Laborbuch [+1] (16 hours later)
The triple parenthesis and way the narrator/writer addresses the reader reminded me of Too like the Lightening, and perhaps that whole school of writing.
u/therealflinchy [+1] (22 hours later)
the writing is fucking fantastic, it was almost uncomfortable to read.
u/PurposefulZephyr [+32] (2 hours later)
Got to say- those chapters made me deeply uncomfortable with soul magic. More than I was already, anyway.
It's scary especially because it's becoming more and more likely to be a common thing in the near future, as technology (e.g. new drugs, magnets disabling parts of brain, greater and greater insight into human mind) and... infrastructure (everything collected on us got to give an edge to a future manipulative AI or someone) now can already achieve a large degree of that.“I’m trying to find the seam of common cause,” said Amaryllis, which fell just short of being a bald-faced lie. She remembered what it had been like to think that Fallatehr was all-encompassing, and that gave her a handle on how to frame her arguments here. True manipulation might come later.
“Fallatehr spoke of it in terms of stability,” said Amaryllis. “There’s nothing grounding what Grak feels about Fallatehr, so it should evaporate more quickly, if I understand it right.”
Honestly wondering to what degree does a soul modification change a person permanently- sure, unsupported changes revert, but it's a two-way pull, and new memories aren't erasable, and those often have the emotional component.
“No,” replied Grak without elaboration. I let him sit and massage where the ropes had been digging into him. “I was … I had purpose.”
“Serving Fallatehr,” I said.
“It wasn’t service,” said Grak. “It was wanting something more than myself."
Some insight into Grak's mind, which frankly makes me sad- being mind-raped making an improvement in some way suggest a really bad state of mind, which I can relate to.
“Okay,” said Valencia. Her voice was soft. She reached down and touched her dress where it had been ripped. “Are we going to be like sisters?”
It certainly doesn't help that Valencia is... her own kind of monstrous, mysterious and overpowered, and released upon world at large.
In fact, all of them are ridiculously overpowered, one way or another. One safety blanket are limitations of author's capability and willingness to torture our hero (or anyone, for that matter).Let's also not forget the fact that pretty much everyone in World of Jun shares certain character traits (relatively high emotional stability, easy grasp of rationality and self-control, the clear and almost clinical manner of speech (though it's conversational still- not really a criticism, just can't find more accurate expression)), which makes the setting even more dangerous.
Enjoying it overall, though. It's high-level play all the way through, laid with munchkinry, careful deliberation and healthy paranoia. Also good characters, in case I made a different impression.
Rambling, but yeah, some thoughts.
u/AurelianoTampa [+23] (2 hours later)
That wait was the worth it! (It being the candle, I suppose).
Wow, chapter 73 threw me for a loop at first. I was thinking to myself "Wait, have we ever had a chapter without Juniper as the narrator?" and was just about at the point of being worried enough to start flipping through old chapters when I reached (((the explanation.))) It actually made me laugh with relief!
It was a good end to the book and arc, but I'm left wondering if we're done with Parsmont. It feels like the team doesn't have any reason to stay, but the introduction of the Abswifth makes me think that the Bendon has to make an appearance somehow.
So, we've now solved an issue pressuring Juniper since chapter 27 (or really, chapter 25). Whew! Feels like forever ago! What will the next plot be?
Figure out a way to save the Six-Eyed Deer?
Find out more about Nellan?
Leveling montage?
Find a more permanent base of operations?
u/PeridexisErrant [+14] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (9 hours later)
the introduction of the Abswifth makes me think that the Bendon has to make an appearance somehow.
Or... maybe it just hangs over the story forever, this vague sense that the Narrative will make the Bendon show up eventually, and the longer it takes the bigger the event will be, but it just. doesn't. happen. and you constantly have to wonder if maybe that's next chapter...
This concept brought to you by recent in-story discussion of concerns about subverting narrative expectations.
u/ArisKatsaris [+9] Sidebar Contender (7 hours later)
Find out more about Nellan?
I'd guess Nellan to be Fenn's child. I think most readers probably expect this, as it'd then be natural for her to value Nellan more than Juniper. But she showed distaste at having children since they'd be hybrids that'd be treated horribly by both elves and many humans. So if not her child who else could Nellan be? A childhood friend that she feels more loyalty towards than even Juniper?
u/Laborbuch [+3] (16 hours later)
Well, the immediate next step will be dealing with the orgasmic glory that is level up. Beyond that I fully expect there to be more exploration (and showing off) of the world at large. More immediate, yes, dealing with Parsmont seems to be a thing. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if Joon went off elsewhere and the Bendon biting him in the buttocks later on as an unresolved plot thread.
u/therealflinchy [+1] (22 hours later)
oh fuck i forgot about those other big-time quests
six eyed doe, could be a really boring arc or could be really exciting, either way, get it over with quick?
u/sicutumbo [+23] (5 hours later)
The whole scenario of how Amaryllis was switched, why, and how Joon realized that the person he saw wasn't Amaryllis was really clever. When he noticed that Amaryllis wasn't using the immobility plate, I thought that she was simply waiting for Falltehr to turn his back before betraying him, but I like how it actually happened more.
I hope that Joon practices with modifying bodies on animals, because if he can get good at it he can fix any injury, or improve his body in any number of ways. At the very least he should be able to sharpen his senses, make himself more resistant to damage, and change his appearance at will. Depending on if Fenn wants to, he could shorten her ears so that she appears human, since I remember that she faces discrimination for being a half elf.
u/adgnatum [+6] (15 hours later)
ears
You've got me thinking about the scars again. Ears, scars, whatever.
From chapter 25
“The worst part was that it worked, for the space of about a week,”
and
the perfection of technique needed to do the scarring right
It seems plausible that the soft cap at 20 would stop Juniper from repeating the technique himself, even if he could undo it with soul magic (also not obvious).
But maybe not. I could sort of see it going either way. Since the soul magic is still a secret I can't imagine anyone else routinely redoing the scars.
u/None [+23] (3 hours later)
[deleted]
u/None [+28] (6 hours later)
They could have worked with him and come away richer for it, I agree. From how Fallatehr was talking to Mary it seemed like he truly did intend to learn about Jun in exchange for teaching him, after which they'd both go their separate ways.
However, a big problem (aside from Jun's entirely reasonable inability to establish trust/expose his neck) was that there was a fundamental, insurmountable wall between Jun and Fallatehr in terms of their values. Jun is a morally normal/above average individual. Fallatehr was, or at least came across to me as, a very charming/intelligent but still Mengele-esque sociopath.
Jun working with the guy in good faith would have required him to abandon certain of his core values, a big one being what he sees as his personal responsibility to not unleash evil/suffering on the world. This inclination was incompatible with letting Fallatehr continue to practice his soul magic.
IMO there was never really any other way this would have ended once Jun learned of how terrible a person Fallatehr was. Killing the guy was the the right course of action, barring a way to quarantine him or disable his soul magic. Not letting the guy gather more knowledge was also the right thing to do, because he couldn't ever have been trusted not to use it to attack Jun.
PS - Just goes to show how well the author wrote this villain, because I was also kind of rooting for him (in a visceral/knee jerk kind of way) all the way up until the end.
u/thrawnca [+18] Carbon-based biped (7 hours later)
I don't think a healthy working relationship was possible when Fallatehr was putting suicide switches in team mates to ensure he got his way.
If getting access to Joon was worth more to him than arbitrary numbers of lives - including his allies! - then it would never be safe to trust him. And learning soul magic without trust is, as has just been shown, very dangerous and failure-prone.
u/adgnatum [+10] (14 hours later)
A quest that I hadn’t actually seen pop up, now marked as completed, which was something to ponder for another time.
If we imagine quests are assigned at appropriate times, this one started with the breakout, so it probably wasn't missed while Juniper was in his own soul. Maybe the game just didn't want to force his decision by showing him the quest? That seems crucial.
I'm in the camp of readers who might be saps and still sort of hoped a mutual resolution was possible, but even if they could trust him, I think you're exactly right. They could never trust him to be good.
Probably just as well for all involved that he didn't try to enter the spire.
u/adgnatum [+3] (16 hours later)
From the previous chapter, with the impostor:
“We can’t just leave him here,” said Amaryllis. She glanced over at Grak, then back to me. “You understand that he’s a powerful, illegal, soul mage who knows our names? That was part of the deal we made with him, so that we would have less of an incentive to defect.”
Heh, talk about digging your own grave. Never mention the quest accomplished by the death of your leader. Especially if no one knows it is a Quest.
u/icesharkk [+3] (4 days later)
you dont have to be a sap to want the cooperation to work. having an antihero in the party is an opportunity for future intrigue. Like vegeta and piccolo in dragon ball z. They're both bad guys who could decided through pursuit of their own goals to work against the hero (and they do and its mostly awesome)
u/t3tsubo [+21] (2 hours later)
Brainwashing and value editing in stories always gives me the heebie jeebies like no other topic (Luminosity and Time Braid come to mind). That said, this was a great end to the book, even though I wish we got to see Fallatehr's reaction/perspective on Juniper's soul vision and related powers.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+17] Mouse Army (6 hours later)
Quest Complete: Soul Responsibility - You have killed Fallatehr Whiteshell, who you released from prison, before he could do much lasting damage on the world.
Wait what? What lasting damage did he do already? Did this weaken the soul magic exclusion? Has he got clones running around???
u/dalitt [+18] (11 hours later)
Presumably e.g. the damage to Grak's psychological well-being is included. It's possible that Fallatehr caused some trouble in Parsmont we don't know about, but it seems like we more or less know how he spent his time.
u/kaukamieli [+2] (18 hours later)
Doesn't mean he did. Means he had time to do some things, i.e. could. He was just a bit preoccupied with dealing with the protagonist.
So he got struck down before he had a possibility to cause a lot of damage.
u/DreamEcho [+18] (15 hours later)
Loved the prayer to the Dungeon Master. Absolutely loved it.
u/icesharkk [+1] (4 days later)
it really feels like that played a huge part in her success. not that she wasn't always capable, but that narratively wasn't necessary for her to save herself. But she's a party member and while that implies she should have been a PC (even if there isn't an earth-person controlling her like with joon) its nice to see she can get PC credit for participation in the story.
u/Krossfireo [+15] (an hour later)
I'm glad we got out of the Fallatehr arc! I enjoyed the mind games and the delving into soul magic, but I hated the villian (in a good way, he was written well and had intelligent motivations, etc)
u/JusticeBeak [+6] (9 hours later)
Me too, and as interesting as the mind games were, it'll be good to see the party reunited and whole again (not including the six eyed doe, presumably).
u/Makin- [+15] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (5 hours later)
I have to say this arc was exhausting, but this conclusion made up for it. I am now feeling very stupid about my theory, sometimes not everything is a clue and the obvious villain is actually the villain.
Also wondering if Parsmont will come back, it seemed largely irrelevant, considering.
u/adgnatum [+11] (15 hours later)
The Amaryllis chapter was quite a treat. I wasn't bothered by matched punctuation of any depth in this chapter. Watson justifies the point of view, but Doyle still gets to write from a different perspective. Good fun.
Juniper could save her.
Especially with lines like this. "I could save her" doesn't have the same kind of impact.
Dungeon Master, if I must be on your railroad, let me ride the train with good humor. If I must roll the dice, let it be known that I would not object to you fudging. Place a dungeon before me, and I will delve it. Place a dragon before me, and I will slay it. I am, above all else, your player.
I like to think this wasn't license at all and she recited this to Juniper perfectly in the debrief.
“Not sure I was supposed to rescue myself,” she said.
It is, of course, also satisfying to have her escape, but we then get the extra jab: she wonders if she was supposed to. I suppose that is an upper bound to how much effect this narrative talk has: not enough that she doesn't take care of herself.
A lot of serious topics in this set, but it's a resource and in turn is managed well. I can think of stories that got too serious and never let up; I wouldn't want to read sections of those again. I do not have this problem with Worth the Candle.
"I’m not sure what I’m reformed into," said Fenn. "Reforming, more like."
In that whole discussion I never gave myself license to think that the odds the author reads it are very high. On the other hand, maybe this was already planned and all we're doing is perceiving a feature of the text. (If a mathematical proof manages to convince, to the point that the reader is anticipating the next steps of the proof during the initial read, the credit still belongs with the author, not the reader.)
"There ought to be some limits to how much a single person can be to you," said Fenn.
Not that she necessarily needs help reforming.
u/nytelios [+7] (23 hours later)
'Amaryllis' is the longest chapter to date (I think) and surprisingly it's the first time Joon-as-the-narrator breaking the fourth wall stuck out to me (triple parentheticals: "I hope you don't mind" "Okay, back to the story"). The narrator is aware that he's giving the reader a narrative and in this case, an anecdotal history. But it's really the "I hope you don't mind" line that threw me off. It makes it seem like he's invested in creating a good narrative and I can't help but feel that it's a clue into the nature of the story (is the real Joon creating a fictional story within a fictional story based on a true story that involved playing out fictional stories?). Also addressed to /u/eaglejarl since I saw his comment during a re-read: it broke immersion for me as well and these were my thoughts as to why.
In that whole discussion I never gave myself license to think that the odds the author reads it are very high.
I'm certain the author reads the comments and they've left traces of influence in the story in the past. Though I'm not sold that Fenn's reforming is a response to that comment. Channeling the razor, it's easier to say Fenn grew attracted to Joon-the-sap and he's been a moralizing influence ever since. The tower would have accelerated her awareness of that.
u/icesharkk [+1] (4 days later)
but if every other chapter is told in real time why would the Mary chapter be different. This could be weak evidence that the entire work is a post mortem, a diary or or retelling after every plot has been resolved. Joon is literally telling us the story in this chapter so who is "us."
u/XxChronOblivionxX [+10] (15 hours later)
Thank the Dungeon Master that this arc filled with unease and paranoia is over. Falletehr was a really scary villain and was also in the camp of "fuck I don't even know if he is one". Then the whole party had that mutual distrust that they all agreed on but really strained their sense of companionship and that stuff makes me blegh. Amaryllis shined in her chapter.
u/Green0Photon [+10] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (16 hours later)
The real question is whether Valencia can use a dead person's soul instead of a devil's soul. It's a perfect solution to fixing the container and teaching Juniper more soul magic. Though, I wouldn't place F's soul in Valencia immediately. I don't know if he could still be dangerous.
u/Veedrac [+11] (7 hours later)
I really enjoyed this book, and this wrap-up was excellent, though I have this nagging feeling that Fallatehr's plan was weak and if he should by all means have won if he played it straight.
If Fallatehr expected to be seen through quickly, and it seems to me that he should have, and he was actually OK with indirect forms of learning, why wouldn't he have apparated to another continent with his hostages and negotiated indirectly?
He took a huge amount of risk in order to soulfight Juniper, but then did very little to prevent the obvious countermeasure of stabbing. If you're going to sacrifice your strongest assets, eg. Amaryllis' loyalty, to engineer a face-to-face confrontation, you should have good reasons to believe that controntation is more favourable than you could have organised without the element of surprise.
u/None [+19] (12 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Veedrac [+1] (2 days later)
Also keep in mind that Fallatehr was fucked from the moment he altered Amaryllis. He had no way of knowing that Jun had a perfect counter to soul magic used against Amaryllis and may not have been convinced by any lukewarm words Grak shared about Narrative, but once that bridge was crossed he needed to either kill Jun or become Jun's ally. Both of those options are only available in person.
I don't see how Jun's soul communication stuff does all that much to help him if Fallatehr goes with long-distance bargaining; if anything it strengthens Fallatehr's hold by allowing him to prove that he is, eg., torturing his captors.
u/NoYouTryAnother [+1] (3 days later)
You are misunderstanding. Once Fallatehr has Amaryllis, he has a very different take on the Narrative than he got from Grak, and due to the soul link his options become closed off. The Narrative makes it clear that he cannot survive long term as Joon's enemy, and that he will almost certainly end up dead. His best hopes then are for an amicable resolution, which is exactly what he seeks in person. His last resort is to hope the Narrative does not give Joon guaranteed wins and that he can kill him, which is the path he is forced to take when negotiations fail. Unless Amaryllis is wrong (and he can see just how formidable she is) there is no middle ground. Even if Fallatehr's credence were only at 50%, that's not a risk you take with immortal life, not when he knows he has Joon beat and that they can work together. Given how Joon laments that Fallatehr really seemed earnest, I think we can assume that Fallatehr's credence in Narrative, whatever it was, was sufficient.
u/Veedrac [+2] (3 days later)
It didn't seem like he bought that, though.
“You both take it so seriously,” said Fallatehr. “The evidence seems weak. I wonder whether something else is at play that would more easily explain your joint delusion.”
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+15] Fruit flies like a banana (8 hours later)
It was more comprehensive in the original draft, with the various scenarios being planned for and argued about, but it felt like a lot of faff, especially because those scenarios would be revealed in 73, where there's zero tension, and I've never really found post-facto explanations to read that well.
Like, "Fallatehr was standing beneath the light specifically because that was a place that Grak had warded to protect him, in case of ambush" is all well and good, but if it's explained after the fact, and pointless to the narrative, rather than as a "turn" in the beats of the scene, what's the point? (The point is to show some cleverness, or make sure there's not a 'plot hole', but I kind of go back and forth on how much that's worth it -- I'm obviously not shy about including things because I think they're neat, even if they're not plot relevant.)
Fallatehr's perception/read is that he has literally all of Juniper's teammates captured and at the knife, and that the result will be submission and/or breaking to the strength of coercion ... but his last effort is to invoke the name of Amaryllis, and Juniper just stabs him anyway, despite this (from ch 73):
She had been the one to explain that she meant something to Juniper, that he might be compelled to act foolishly in order to save her.
But I've always believed that you can't defend a work on the basis of something that's not actually in the text, and this is stepping somewhat beyond my normal author/reader line, so I will go slinking off into the shadows once more.
u/Veedrac [+8] (9 hours later)
I actually understood most of that from the text; my disagreement persists despite it.
Fallatehr's perception/read is that he has literally all of Juniper's teammates captured and at the knife, and that the result will be submission and/or breaking to the strength of coercion
Fundamentally the issue is that, if this is your expectation, immediate direct confrontation doesn't give you anything that bargaining at a distance doesn't. Fallatehr could have stolen away every companion and traded them piecemeal; not doing so implies that Juniper would be more willing to submit in a short-term confrontation than over a long-term bargain from a weaker position. I don't see Amaryllis making that judgement.
This holds double given Fallatehr gained rather significant assets with, eg., the teleportation key.
u/raisins_sec [+1] (3 days later)
Fundamentally the issue is that, if this is your expectation, immediate direct confrontation doesn't give you anything that bargaining at a distance doesn't.
A remote negotiation would take longer and has other points of failure. He's overconfident, he's very curious about Joon and thinks his plan gave him the best chance to get to him.
His actual plan was basically reasonable so "he didn't want to" is adequate explanation for why he didn't use another theoretically better plan you've thought of. From what we see this guy seems clever and patient but also direct. He likes his proxies, but in the end solves all his problems the same way. Mind controlled minions followed by mind controlling the problem.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (a month later)
(one month late)
I think you're overthinking this a little. Fallatehr wasn't a black ops operative or a veteran crime lord, he was a researcher-turned-prisoner. His skillset would have been better for manipulation and bond-villain style "Let us have a polite conversation about why I'm going to mind-rape you" plots, than for arranging perfect murderhobo-proof ambushes.
That's an aesthetic I really like in this story and others, actually. If you live by the sword, there's no rule that says that you'll be clever enough to anticipate all the ways to die by the sword before someone gets clever and stabs you.
u/Veedrac [+1] (a month later)
I don't think you have to be particularly smart to realise that walking up to the nigh-omnipotent stabby guy is a bad idea, especially given Amaryllis would tell you as much. I also don't think bargaining at a distance would be comparatively hard for Fallatehr, or so far afield of his personality that he shouldn't have just sucked up and done it.
u/serge_cell [+15] (11 hours later)
Remote confrontation wouldn't be consistent with my read on Fallatehr character. He is not cautious chess player, he is gambler. If he would prefer slow accumulation of advantages he would stay in prison. Fallatehr went for direct confrontation because it was fun and allow for instant gratification by taking over Juniper in one hit. Also he didnt internalize how freaking strong Juniper is. Fallather was hundreds years old elf with immense luck and experince, and Juniper was Out of Context problem for him.
u/None [+9] (11 hours later)
[deleted]
u/dalitt [+14] (11 hours later)
My understanding was that because he held all the cards (some with dead man's switches), he assumed Juniper would do the smart thing and not kill him.
u/adgnatum [+8] (14 hours later)
but editing the registry had given me the same sweaty, anxious feeling.
It's like looking in a mirror. I recently made the "big step" of using the registry to rebind capslock...
Your body is back to normal, and under your control to a far greater extent than in your wildest transhumanist dreams, if you dare to risk fucking it up.
...which is to say, nah. No thanks.
u/abcd_z [+6] (18 hours later)
"If I give you two newbies system access like that, within five minutes I'll be rolling you all the way back to firmware, but you'll still be tasting key lime pie every time you scratch your ear."
-Petey, Schlock Mercenary strip for Thursday December 22, 2011
u/HaramDatingSim [+8] (a day later)
I know Aerb's rules for blood types & suchlike are more lenient than ours, but I still did not expect Joon to just go off and torrent bones off of some rando.
I was absolutely convinced that the quest "They Say You Can’t Go Home Again" was foreshadowing, and that he'd need to find his biological brother for a proper transplant.
u/serge_cell [+1] (3 days later)
torrent bones off of some rando.
Those are not bones. Those are mystical representation of bones in soul-space.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+8] Fruit flies like a banana (10 seconds later)
Typos here, please.
u/thrawnca [+7] Carbon-based biped (4 hours later)
how I'd experience/how I'd experienced
Fallatehr's eye were/Fallatehr's eyes were
Amaryllis body/Amaryllis' body
Amaryllis corpse/Amaryllis' corpse
u/Noumero [+8] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (5 hours later)
We need to vote this comment to the top, so that people who peek at the discussion before reading the chapters see these "Amaryllis' corpse" typos and freak out. Right?
u/adgnatum [+1] (4 days later)
Will they? "Where did she get all those corpses?"
(upvoted)
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (5 hours later)
Fixed all those, thanks.
u/Cifems [+2] (2 hours later)
c73
as Fallatehr’s eye were once
c74
My armor Anyblade was invested in me by Amaryllis
Count on a guy like Grak to sap all the enjoyment from having made a breakthrough in soul magic and fixed him.
Fixing?
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (5 hours later)
Fixed, thank you!
u/draykhar [+1] (3 hours later)
"She was fairly sure that he must constructed the wards around the bottle and then pushed them toward her, the inverse of what Aumann’s warder had done to let him set foot in Caer Laga without actually breaking the wards."
Must have* Ch 73
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (5 hours later)
Fixed, thank you.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (4 hours later)
figure out a solution to [the] restoring the locus.
shaped into something like a sickle [more] than a sword
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (4 hours later)
it would be [a] drawn out, incomprehensible mess
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (5 hours later)
every single rule designed to make thing[s] fair.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (5 hours later)
Amaryllis[´] had been taken to be worn by her double
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (5 hours later)
Fixed all the ones in this chain, thanks!
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (6 hours later)
The only idea I’d had thus far was that we['d]/][could] try to torment the answer out of Grak.
then over [the] Amaryllis’ soul, to make sure
if I needed to vent, I would go vent about it [to] someone else.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (8 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/Kerbal_NASA [+1] (6 hours later)
ch 72
despite the risk of appearing from thin over while the glove
over -> air
ch 74
then over the Amaryllis’ soul,
over the Amaryllis’ -> over Amaryllis’
I would go vent about it someone else
it someone -> it to someone
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (8 hours later)
Fixed those, thank you.
u/nytelios [+1] (8 hours later)
72
interstit(i)al history
74
I would go vent about it (to) someone else
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (9 hours later)
Thanks, fixed!
u/adgnatum [+1] (16 hours later)
“Okay, so I think I’ve got it,” said Fenn, sometime later. Grak was tied up, and gagged as well, though we’d tried to make him as comfortable as I could.
Her meaning is a bit unclear. Does she just mean that she got Grak further situated to her satisfaction?
u/Ace_Kuper [+1] (17 hours later)
Not a typo, but i felt wording was kinda out of place. Maybe i'm just crazy or this was intended.
in your wildest transhumanist dreams, if you dare to risk fucking it up
This feels like something Fenn would say, Juniper would say or just something a human would say. If we didn't have the system rebooting and adapting to Junipers increased intelligence, i would treat that sentence as a Human=DM speaking directly to me and writing that description on the fly. Maybe i just forgot, but older descriptions of any game mechanic felt like a system describing something or\and had fantasy adventure feeling to them. This reads like a conversation between DM and a player with former saying" Are you sure you want to catch a catapult shot with you bare hands? Suit yourself".
Maybe i'm just rambling and seeing what is not or was intended as the 4th wall break between DM and Juniepr in the first place.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (a day later)
This has happened before, see e.g. ch 43:
“You’re saying we kill him,” said Fenn. “Figure out a way to lure him somewhere, then slice his stupid head off.”
Quest Accepted: Slice His Stupid Head Off - You still have to worry about the Foreign Security Director of Anglecynn, Larkspur Prentiss. He’ll have you running like rats, afraid of the light, so long as he lives. Figure out a way to lure him somewhere, then do as the quest title says.
I stared at that message, then blinked it away.
“Something happen?” asked Fenn.
“No,” I said. Just the quest text quoting the two of you. Are these being written on the fly or are the talking points being inserted into the conversation by the Dungeon Master? Really hoping that it’s the former. “I got a quest to kill him.”
u/Ace_Kuper [+1] (a day later)
Cool, means i just forgot. At least it feeling like it was written on the fly was not my imagination.
Triple ((( already felt like 4th wall break from the author aka you, so i thought maybe this couple of chapters were just taking a direction into heavy meta territory.
u/adgnatum [+1] (4 days later)
Greetings from Chapter 10.
The big ones, the Zombies Voltron,
Zombie Voltrons? Zombies' Voltron?
I got a shot off, thwip , right before it started moving on
There's an extra space after your sound effect.
'moving on'? It was going to go away?
Frick .
Those spaces again
I now had a four stats sitting at zero
'a'
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (5 days later)
Fixed all those, thanks. (Kept Zombies Voltron because that was deliberate - I thought it was funny. Back when HPMOR was ending, the community decided that the correct plural was "Cedrics Diggory", mostly for humor value, and that was what was on my mind.)
u/adgnatum [+1] (5 days later)
Right, yeah, it was jogging my memory. I was deeply unsure if it was even an error. Cheap for me to ctrl+v though.
u/Agnoman [+7] (14 hours later)
The Amaryllis chapter was an interesting deviation.
Once it was explained what was going on there was a fun little game of trying to work out what parts of the chapter were pieces that Amaryllis had told Juniper, and where the chapter was giving us Joon's opinion of her. Same thing with the actual prose itself really, some of it felt very much like Juniper, some of it was him imagining her (and some of it felt like it was straight up Amaryllis' voice).
I'm not sure I like the third-person-by-proxy-of-first-person as much as straight first or third, but it was certainly fun.
u/adgnatum [+2] (15 hours later)
I didn't mean to echo your comment, it just happened naturally. Then I refreshed and your comment was right here.
u/None [+5] (4 minutes later)
[removed]
u/Watchful1 [+3] (4 hours later)
I'm just glad he didn't leave it on a cliffhanger.
u/i6i [+5] (8 hours later)
I worry soulfuckery will become a trap where editing and discussing the as of yet unrevealed excel sheets full of data is going to take up time from everything else that's going on (I was worried 40 skills + unknown amount of virtues was going to either lead to too much fiddling with the character sheet or basically ignoring a host of options and to be fair Joon has yet to make proper study of what blood magic was said to be able to do).
u/EligibleNarwhal [+4] (8 hours later)
Is there a reason juniper’s essentialism increased to 23, over the usual cap of 20? Or am I missing something?
Had a lot of fun reading this!
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+15] Fruit flies like a banana (9 hours later)
The usual soft cap of 20 applies to "amateur training", which is theorized (and so far consistent with) this reading in ch 37:
Being capped at 20 because of how I was training was shockingly bad for me. It meant that I couldn’t just train up my Dodge skill against Fenn and hope that our Twinned Souls would allow her offensive power to keep pace so that she was a challenge. The word ‘amateur’ implied that a professional could still help me train, while the word ‘training’ implied that I could still get skills from actual combat, or maybe from other methods. I tried not to dwell on that too much, but it was bad news at a time when my morale was low.
Meaning that if you're actually doing something with the skill, rather than just trying to grind it out through repetition, you can pass 20, as well as if you make the effort to seek out a good teacher who can give you better, more intensive training (though we haven't seen the teacher hypothesis tested yet).
(There are a number of tabletop games that have some mechanism like this in place, though from what I've seen it's usually just GM discretion on whether to award a player for trivial actions, because any rigid definition will immediately be gamed by the player in a way that's usually detrimental to play.)
u/GeeJo [+1] Custom Flair (a day later)
Makes perfect sense to me. There has to be a way to raise skills above 20 without teachers, or how did the teachers get their skill that high?
(Other solution: the world was generated with a set number of teachers of high skill, and every single person in the today's world can trace their post-20 skill levels through a lineage back to them.)
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (8 hours later)
Maybe the cap was removed because he technically had a teacher to get over the threshold?
u/nytelios [+1] (8 hours later)
Fixing Grak and fixing his bones to quest completion. I'd assume skills increase faster when it's directly narrative relevant and/or novel usage (as opposed to amateur training/grinding).
u/MultipartiteMind [+3] (12 hours later)
Word-choice comment--
"After five minutes had passed, I checked my skills, and saw that Bows was still down a point, and One-handed Weapons had reverted to 21, which confirmed that the times multiplied"
Each frequency is (1point)/(10min); multiplying would give 1/100, whereas adding(/'compounding'?) gives (2points)/(10min), which an interface could present either as (1point)/(5min) (this case) or 2 points lost together after 10 minutes past (not this case). (Edit: Just the times multiplying would still be 100 minutes(^2).)
Edit: Oh! Oh! I remember the term now! 'which confirmed that the rates stacked' ! (As how a stacking AC +1 and a stacking AC +2 give a total AC +3, but if they're non-stacking only give AC +2. Or was it -2?)
u/ProfessorPhi [+1] (2 days later)
It's an interesting idea to have some dump skills handy for points to get a temporary boost. Like having bows at 20, bump essentials that amount to be super good at it. And then relearn bows every so often.
u/Red_Navy [+4] (15 hours later)
I am glad that this arc is over. In a lot of fiction I enjoy the whole mind control element and how it impacts politics/interpersonal relationships, but Fallatehr just wasn't very engaging. I tend to like it in more emotional/character driven stories so maybe that's the issue. That isn't to say that I didn't like all the other parts of this arc. The action sequences and worldbuilding aspects were really fun.
I look forward to seeing what long term consequences this arc has. I kinda hope Fallatehr planted some 'bombs' in the Grak's and Amaryllis's souls, I can't imagine that a soul mage with centuries to hone his skills and who was one of the best soul mages in an empire with the best soul magic would limit themselves to only increasing his own value in their value systems (regarding the quality of the second empire's magic: ok, I'm not sure if this is literally true, it's just the impression I got and nobody in the story is in a really good position to check and see if the second empire had the best soul magic out there.). Regardless, I think that the soul magic will definitely have long term effects on Grak and, to a limited extent, Amaryllis. I also expect that Fallatehr managed to fuck up world politics in some (probably minor) way. Additionally, He probably had time to enthrall random people.
Moving on to a more exciting topic, Valencia. In many respects she's like a child. She's probably never before had the opportunity to make decisions and is learning how. I can't imagine that fight to the death going on right in front of her eyes helped her develop in a purely positive manner. It seems that she is in the process of developing her moral code/center. None of the other characters seem aware of this? I think mistakes will be made and I hope that they don't have disastrous consequences.
We haven't seen much about the locus/six-eyed doe yet. To be fair they haven't been part of the story for very long and haven't had much opportunity to act besides. I do worry that we are reaching the point where adding more companions just means that other companions won't be developed or their development will halt, which would be a shame. For this reason I hope that Valencia is the last member of their kharass (barring somebody like Arthur). Of course I could be underestimating cthulhuraejepson's skill, in which case I'm worrying about nothing.
u/adgnatum [+7] (15 hours later)
I don't think
Disney is going to go make Fallatehr: A Candle Story to answer our unasked questionsthere was a whole lot more going on with him as a character, but I thought he made for engaging scenes. Seeing how the party struggled against his threat was the point even when he wasn't nearby, and I thought it did that well.He was a cunning negotiator with Amaryllis, odious to Fenn, and a teacher to Juniper.
I haven’t known very many people. Most of them were Fallatehr.
The truth of that sentence is bad enough out of context. I bet he'll still have some impact through Valencia.
u/PresentCompanyExcl [+1] The Culture (a day later)
I also expect that Fallatehr managed to fuck up world politics in some (probably minor) way.
I wonder how?
There are some constraints. He could teleport anywhere - so no location constraint. But he has his immediate circumstances to think about: no "fixing the world" when he has to escape very soon. He wouldn't have access to random world leaders, but he might be able to get to Bendon since it seems like the two leaders of the city don't rely on guards.
Things that might be of immediate use E.g. scheduling cavalry to come later, or gaining some special resource (that he didn't immediately use).
I would have be some way of immediate (at least value). Perhaps
u/t3tsubo [+2] (21 hours later)
There's something about the slow reversion/decay of Soul editing that doesn't make sense to me... I though the whole point of soul editing was to change the baseline "normal" state of the soul - which would imply that the edit now becomes the new normal.
I can rationalize it partly if some changes are in conflict with some other changes, i.e. Amarylis' value on self preservation conflicting heavily with her Fallatehr boner - but that just seems like a poor editing job that created an unstable set of values. A skilled soul mage should be able to edit multiple values into a new equilibrium that doesn't decay - say by lowering the values which conflict with the intended edits. A ham-fisted way to do it could be by creating a meta value of "values the person/state I was in before meeting Fallatehr" and set that in the heavy negatives; whereas a more subtle way to do it would be to look at existing values in the soul that conflict and lowering all of them to a certain degree until a stable equilibrium of new values emerge.
Another way to do it would be to just wholesale copy over the soul mages' existing value system - delete or set to zero every single value in the poor fucker and copy over everything since you know that is a stable equilibrium.
u/nytelios [+1] (23 hours later)
We're not told much about the mechanism of the soul or soul editing except that it's simultaneously malleable and resilient. The best (imperfect) analogy I could find was shape-memory alloy. It doesn't make a new "normal" inasmuch as it distorts the shape, and the soul appears to have its own memory of its blueprint. Or like the immune system, any abrupt changes would be marked as abnormal and attacked.
u/therealflinchy [+1] (22 hours later)
yeeeeessssssssss
thank
u/ProfessorPhi [+1] (2 days later)
Did anyone think that amaryllis managed to bump her loyalty? That's why her. Blood magic and unarmed combat were so strong, she got boosts from joon's skill?
u/icesharkk [+1] (4 days later)
/u/cthulhuraejepsen I really want a hard bound copy of your works for my shelf. You have rocketed to the top of my re-reading list to be placed alongside works like "The Dresden Files."
u/akaltyn [+1] (24 days later)
Hey! I've been working my way through this from the start over the past 48 hours. Loving it a lot. And finally at a point where I can engage with comment threads.
re these chapters, it was really great getting to see things from Amarylis's perspective. Would be great to have things from the others as well. I liked the way you played around with the secondhand narrator thing