25 KiB
[RT][WIP] Worth the Candle, ch 77–78 (Lies and Damned Lies/The Sacrifice)
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Author: u/zzlzhou *
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URL: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/31535751
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Score: 143
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Created: 2018-02-18T20:41:20
Post:
Comments:
u/SkeevePlowse [+31] (an hour later)
“But of course it’s too late,” I said. “You’ve seen everything.”
I sincerely hope I wasn't the only one who imagined Juniper putting on just a touch of a British accent here.
u/I_am_your_BRAIN [+25] (an hour later)
I hope someone has insight into the man in the Hoodie, because I'm dying to know what's about to happen. I guess the obvious guess would be it's the DM, and more specifically (but with much less confidence) it's Arthur. I don't remember enough to tell if the characterization matches for older-Arthur, although I suspect with the buildup in his description it's someone the reader could recognize from prior descriptions and thus probably Arthur?
u/None [+29] (an hour later)
Could it be the MC but older?
(I won’t belabor my physical description. My friend Greg had once said that I looked like someone had chosen ‘default’ for every option in the character creator, which I’d tried to laugh at but cut kind of deep. I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t ugly, none of my features were very prominent, my eyes were blue, my hair was brown, average build, average height
u/akaatnene [+26] (4 hours later)
Ever since the title drop chapter that confirmed the MC's in a emulation, I've assumed the DM is post-Singularity Juniper, who for some reason dumped a memory-pruned fork into an immersive RPG. As for why, I'm guessing for entertainment or therapy.
Looking forward to seeing how accurate I was.
u/xachariah [+25] (10 hours later)
Wild speculation time -
My theory is that Juniper is dead and this is a test for him.Not in a metaphysical sense, but like a unit-test for a recovered personality. My guess is that he died (possibly killed himself) but was preserved via cryonics. The real world is post-singularity, and his personality is being emulated before it's put back into a body (or maybe wherever it is that ems live), and this place is running error checking on his personality. Everything being pulled from his subconscious because that's the easiest way to run it as well as giving insight into the personality by seeing what it dredges up.
His mental state is kinda shitty as proven by the state of the world (and again, I think he likely killed himself). So this place is designed to fix him. The entire leveling up mechanic and adventure serves to give him a "hero's journey" so at the end up it he'll be a well adjusted human being.
u/I_Hump_Rainbowz [+1] (a day later)
That sounds like an awesome idea. It would give him a reason for going back out into the world and stop trying to go against the narrative.
u/mojojo46 [+3] (6 hours later)
Which chapter? How did it confirm emulation?
u/akaatnene [+19] (9 hours later)
From Chapter 36, when Juniper bumped his MEN to 7 and got this notice from the game layer:
WARNING: COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT HAS CAUSED PERSONALITY NETWORK TO EXCEED HOLISTIC INTEGRITY THRESHOLDS. REVERSING AND REFACTORING EMULATION TO WITHIN HOLISTIC INTEGRITY THRESHOLDS. ENABLING TRI-STRATUM PSEUDO-INTELLIGENCE INJECTION SETTING TO COMPENSATE.
u/kaukamieli [+1] (2 days later)
It could be playing on his expectations too.
u/I_am_your_BRAIN [+3] (2 hours later)
Oh snap!
u/JackStargazer [+6] Primordial Apologist (3 hours later)
It could be the Author.
u/sharikak54 [+8] (6 hours later)
The story is a self-proclaimed self-insert, so if Dice Guy's the author then he's Juniper.
u/Atilme [+2] (2 hours later)
Searching for all the elements in his description in the full work doesn't bring up a match. I don't think Arthur ever got a description, not that I can find at least. The only guy with a beard is Grak, and a guy that was getting a tattoo early on. Amaryllis, June, and Dice Guy all have Blue eyes Brown hair, not that that helps much.
u/AurelianoTampa [+3] (19 hours later)
Amaryllis, June, and Dice Guy all have Blue eyes Brown hair, not that that helps much.
Although we know from chapter 77 that Amaryllis is a natural redhead and just dyes her hair brown to remain hidden:
Amaryllis’ hair had grown out slightly, more of a pixie cut than the close crop it had been. She hadn’t re-dyed it; I could see red at the roots.
u/WalterTFD [+3] (17 hours later)
I don't think there is a need to look past the obvious here. This is the DM.
u/dalitt [+1] (22 hours later)
Sure, but that begs the question. The DM might be someone we know, e.g. someone from one of the flashbacks.
u/WalterTFD [+1] (23 hours later)
I don't think the 'person' June is seeing is an actual human. I think 'The DM' has just assumed this form to interface.
u/Makin- [+21] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (4 hours later)
I gotta say, I was slightly panicking when Amaryllis was explicitly selecting the most boring locations, because that reasoning is a slippery slope that will eventually just make the story boring.
But that last scene makes me fully expect the DM will address what I'm thinking and make Joon stop playing it safe one way or the other, so that's good.
Also, a warning: the story SHINOBI: the RPG was ruined when it introduced the DM as the main antagonist, because it was handled horribly. Please please please don't let your DM ruin WTC.
u/abcd_z [+2] (10 hours later)
While I personally agree with you regarding Shinobi, I'm rereading the audience responses to the chapter that revealed Victor, and they were pretty evenly split between "this is really good" and "this is really bad". If nothing else, it was a polarizing chapter.
u/Makin- [+4] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (14 hours later)
Well, even if the reaction was split it did lead the author to give up writing it for a long time and close the thread, so I don't think I was exaggerating its ruining the story. Even now, the author is rewriting a whole bunch of the story to avoid the same thing happening again.
u/abcd_z [+5] (16 hours later)
As I understand it, the author's frustration was that he rushed the story and wasn't happy with the results. In the new iteration he's stated that he's much happier with the results now that he isn't rushing it. I'm also pretty sure he still plans to include Victor when the story gets to that point.
u/PanickedApricott [+19] (4 hours later)
this might actually be the worst possible time to have a chat.
u/nytelios [+12] (7 hours later)
This is one heaping pile of opportunity cost. Assuming game time isn't paused in the DM (?) chamber. Though theoretically Joon can do this again.
u/kaukamieli [+3] (20 hours later)
Depends if it's outside of time or not.
u/None [+16] (6 hours later)
Just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed your story thus far. The recent author reveal made me like it even more, because you managed to instill an entirely different tone than all your other works, which to me speaks to your skill as a writer.
Normally I'd make a paranoid post about how how trusting Val the social AI to self restrict the use of her abilities and not manipulate the party is asking for trouble, but instead I'll just comment on how heartwarming it is to see how Jun internalized some the values that Tiff tried to instill in him and is doing his best to apply them despite his damage (avoiding the whole "infantilized girl needs a white knight" trope in favor of treating her as a person with agency, etc.).
These interludes of his past DnD group prior to his breakdown have implied how much of an effect they've had on Jun the person. It's great to see how even though Jun's circle of friends may be dead and gone, and even though he's saddled with a ton of baggage from that time, he's still carrying forward their teachings and that memory of better times.
u/icesharkk [+2] (a day later)
Breakdown... I've been assuming this whole time Joon is dead and this is some post mortem purgatory routine. Maybe he's just in a hospital and mentally ill.
u/Noumero [+16] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (17 hours later)
I'm still wondering about the devils. Are they not communicating? It's implied they are immortal beings, since quite a few of them have millennia of experience. Older ones shouldn't be expected to die very often, especially not on outings to Aerb, yet Valencia consumes them with unnerving regularity — more than that, she seems to be able to reach into the hells and grab herself a devil whenever she desires. Wouldn't they notice that, eventually? Amaryllis mentioned that they're bad at coordination, but are they that bad? I would think that it's actually the main danger here: Valencia attracting the attention of a powerful devil after eating one hell denizen too many. Would be a fun quest.
One possibility here is that devils don't control when they possess non-animas at all, they just randomly find themselves in their bodies from time to time. It explains, partially, their poor coordination, makes what Val does a little less irregular, and is also rather amusing.
Alternatively, there's extremely many devils, and they don't have distinct identities and/or don't form connections of any kind with each other, so it's entirely possible for one or a few dozens of them to disappear without anyone noticing. Hm, if they're perfect actors who could fool even each other, it would indeed be hard to keep track of them...
“I’m the self-appointed court jester,” said Fenn.
Ah, a fellow self-appointed court member! That's an interesting development.
u/i6i [+4] (2 days later)
Devils have a concept of personhood that doesn't apply to non-anima so it's not far fetched that it doesn't apply to other devils. Otherwise it's plausible they'd be stuck in a perpetual loop of trying to frustrate one another.
Coordinate relies on them being able to predict each others actions and reactions and if the only tool they have for doing that to humans is one that immediately drives them to sabotage said actor it's plausible that they deliberately nerf their own ability to understand each other to avoid it. That or trying to analyse schemes ala you-know-I-know-you-know is too frustrating to deal with so they use dumb brutes when they have to and sidestep each other when they can.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
[deleted]
u/Noumero [+3] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (2 days later)
[Valencia had] been debriefed after informing us that the devils and demons died as she used them up (ate them, in her words)
It makes sense, too: if it weren't the case, she would be an enormous information-security hole. In fact...
“<...> Not unless we figure out a way to deal with the possession problem. Every time you speak to her, or even speak in her presence, that’s information that goes to a large number of devils intent on causing whatever pain and destruction they can.” —Chapter 67
"A large number of". So there is some information transfer between devils. Hm.
u/Keshire [+2] (2 days later)
It's likely that they are out to get each other just as much as they are out to sow chaos in the human world. If they are constantly jockeying for position, knowing their competitor got eaten is amusing if anything.
Plus who's to say that they know which non-anima is eating devils and demons?
u/Noumero [+1] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (2 days later)
If they are constantly jockeying for position, knowing their competitor got eaten is amusing if anything
It's useful, I'd say. If all devils are constantly at war with all other devils, it's nearly a certainty that they would be very interested in this new way to kill their competitors, once they learn of it. Or, looking at it from another perspective, they would be very worried about this new unknown threat.
I suppose it's still better than if they were coordinating, but not positive either.
Regarding knowledge about which non-anima is eating them: fair point. They wouldn't be necessarily even aware that it's a non-anima's doing. But perhaps they could somehow investigate it.
u/Kishoto [+11] (an hour later)
Oh. My. God. Who the fuck is that and why can't I wait to find out?
u/abcd_z [+18] (2 hours later)
“But of course it’s too late,” I said. “You’ve seen everything.”
Val nodded, then frowned. "And now I'm seeing a kid wearing flamboyant clothing." She shook her head once or twice, as if to clear the image. "Weird."
u/Threesan [+8] (7 hours later)
Hm. My money's on it being a reference to a Patrick Stewart bit from Extras. Seems to fit better.
Well, it fits better thematically. The wording seems closer to your source. Maybe it got jumbled together?
u/nytelios [+8] (9 hours later)
What if I told you...
Matrix and existential dilemmas aside, I wasn't expecting this meeting so soon. Assuming it's Essentiaism 100 that gives him access, what do you ask your god-self-DM amalgamation in 6 minutes?
u/Noumero [+12] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (15 hours later)
“What is the ordered pair whose first value is the best possible question that I could ask you, and whose second value is your answer to it?”, obviously.
u/ceegheim [+1] (a day later)
(“What is the ordered pair whose first value is the best possible question that I could ask you, and whose second value is your answer to it?”, 42)
u/Noumero [+3] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (2 days later)
Not this again, Ana. It depends on whether God would define "the best possible question" as "question you should expect to maximize your utility" or "question which does maximize your utility". If it's the latter, recursion doesn't occur since such an answer would be useless -> not something utility-maximizing. If former, we're likely dealing with a literal genie, which isn't something we should do at all.
(Of course, “What answer to this question would maximize my utility?” is still a preferable alternative, but if I used that, I wouldn't have made a reference.)
u/PurposefulZephyr [+7] (9 hours later)
The meeting with... DM, I assume, would be quite interesting on multiple levels.
After all, Juniper complained several times about the various 'features' of this world, such as the achievement system, which encourages 'typical' gamer behavior.
Considering how... streamlined the interface handling this world is, I honestly think this Jun isn't exactly unique, generally. Perhaps even DM is only a guy using a completed product, instead of casting a massive spell himself, maybe.
It does pose a question about Arthur and what's the role of the bigger setting, but that's one of the reasons why this next chapter will hopefully be the special kind of insightful and informative.
u/Keshire [+3] (2 days later)
We don't know he's the DM. "Mr Dice Guy" could be exactly that, The manifestation of RNG.
u/icesharkk [+2] (2 days later)
depending on interpretation the DM is the manifestation of RNG. really good DMs make their rolls where you cannot see. Many DMs are the first members of the group to own dice/many players borrow from the DM. Anyway I look at it the result is the same. this is the guy who controls fate and outcome (You cant fudge numbers if you don't have a desired outcome).
u/zzlzhou [+6] (3 minutes later)
Typos for /u/cthulhuraejepsen:
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+7] Fruit flies like a banana (26 minutes later)
(Out to a play then dinner, will grab these later tonight, thanks!)
u/Kerbal_NASA [+1] (6 hours later)
ch. 77
which I’d have wager was probably a lot at the moment
wager -> wagered
[OR]
I'd have wager -> I'd wager
wouldn’t have faulted my for my desires
my for -> me for
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed those, thanks.
u/dalitt [+1] (20 hours later)
That was another difficulty that we’d anticipated; Fenn’s difficulty with getting a handle on all the magics that had opened up to her with Symbiosis was precedence.
I think this isn't a correct usage of the word "precedence" -- you might mean to say "was a precedent."
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
I think I've been using that wrong for years, fixed, thanks!
u/zzlzhou [+3] (7 minutes later)
77
The electrical systems were probably the mroe noticeable78
"My role is [to] tell the king the things that no one else can"
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed those, thank you.
u/Shaolang [+5] (3 hours later)
“You went from thinking of her as ‘the non-anima’ to, I don’t know … being like a sister. Or a mother.” I wasn’t sure quite how to characterize it. “You think I’m matronly?” asked Amaryllis with a raised eyebrow.
Shouldn't it be "Or a daughter." since it is referencing Val?
u/roystgnr [+3] (20 hours later)
Depends on whether you parse it as
"you went from X to Y" (in which case mother fits)
or
"you went from thinking of her as X to [thinking of her as] Y" (in which case daughter fits)
Ambiguous enough to need changing, but just changing "mother" to "daughter" wouldn't fix the ambiguity, it would just switch which half of readers get confused.
u/Shaolang [+1] (21 hours later)
Wow, it took me a minute but I see how mother works. I personally think it is the much less intuitive version, but thanks for your comment.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed to be less ambiguous, thanks for pointing that out.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (an hour later)
but [if] I could, for example, take a few of my unicorn bones, use them to reach into the soul of the unicorn,
at least according to my magically granted knowledge, and [all over] them were now locked away
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+2] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed, thank you.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (22 hours later)
Thank YOU! For a very enjoyable work.
u/sharikak54 [+2] (6 hours later)
There
waswere no text or numbers.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/Laborbuch [+2] (12 hours later)
The electrical systems were probably the mroe noticeable,
more
In a way, it was like having an apology thrown back in my face, that same feeling of someone gleefully explaining taking an admission of guilt or wrongdoing and rubbing your face in it.
‘explaining’ seems odd there.
It wasn’t clear to what extent this would be possible (or safe), but I could, for example, take a few of my unicorn bones, use them to reach into the soul of the unicorn, then retrofit them into myself in order to give me unicorn powers … fuck yes I’d do it.
but if I could
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed those, thanks.
u/SkeevePlowse [+2] (an hour later)
In chapter 77:
AI kept my mouth firmly shut.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed, thank you.
u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (15 hours later)
My role is tell/My role is to tell
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/ArisKatsaris [+1] Sidebar Contender (15 hours later)
"Here was the plan that we’d worked out, in three brief parts:"
And then four parts follow.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed, thanks.
u/alaxai [+1] (15 hours later)
or except for by some singular person
for by
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
Fixed, thanks.
u/sparr [+1] (a day later)
That would put all my PHY and SOC based skills under their caps
under? I think over.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (a day later)
Er, right, fixed, thanks.
u/lifelingering [+1] (a day later)
“Water over the bridge,” nodded Grak.
Unless this is some reference I'm missing, I think this should be "Water under the bridge"
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+5] Fruit flies like a banana (a day later)
This is a callback to ch 44:
“-- it doesn’t show her as a companion, not yet, which means that I can’t see what her loyalty is, and we know that those can start in the negatives.” I hoped that my pause didn’t entirely give me away. Fenn and I clearly needed to have a pointed conversation, ideally in private.
Grak sniffed at that, sucking air into his wide nostrils. “I assume that was me,” he said. “Fenn planned to betray me. It would have been foolish not to plot against you.”
“Water over the bridge,” said Fenn with a wave of her hand.
Grak is repeating Fenn's phrasing as a form of deadpan humor. Fenn gets the expression wrong there, and in ch 31 (when the same issue is being discussed), either through a deliberate attempt at tweaking people who care about the correctness of their expressions, to feign cluelessness, or because she doesn't have enough cultural exposure to have all the idioms down pat (kind of a character interpretation thing, so your choice).
u/Fredlage [+3] (20 hours later)
A question that may be dumb, please forgive me since I've never actually played tabletop RPGs (I know enough from cultural osmosis to get most of the references), but I didn't really understand the last part of the Monkish Warrior virtue, about re-rolling injuries. Can anyone explain, please?
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+11] Fruit flies like a banana (22 hours later)
In some systems, you roll for injuries on an injury chart, e.g. like so (assuming 1d100):
Number Outcome 91-100 Actually, you're fine. 70-90 Cuts and scrapes 50-69 Major bruising 30-49 Broken bone 10-29 Multiple broken bones 5-9 Life-long injury 2-4 Amputation 1 Death So if you have an injury in the lowest 5% of outcomes, you would get a re-roll on that chart that might make things come out better for you. (The "you keep any lower rolls" clause is a fairly typical clause for rerolling mechanics that means if you reroll a 4 and get a 1, you keep the 1, not the higher of the two.)
u/Fredlage [+1] (a day later)
Thanks for the explanation
u/nytelios [+1] (22 hours later)
My understanding was that, assuming damage rolls are using a d20, Joon gets to reroll any critical injury (5% chance of a natural 1). Or if it's a d100, anything 95 and higher gets rerolled.
The wording is a bit confusing. Maybe it was meant as "if they are in the
lowesthighest five percent of outcomes (you keep any lower rolls)". /u/cthulhuraejepsen?
u/MaddoScientisto [+2] (a day later)
I'm so glad this story doesn't have intermissions/interludes because this would be the perfect place to put one and annoy everyone who's been dieing to know what happens next
u/therealflinchy [+1] (2 days later)
WORST.CLIFF.EVER
u/kaukamieli [-2] (2 hours later)
Which one of you crashed the site? :s I just read 77 and tried to change chapters and boom.
edit: worked after a while and I got the 78 read. Was pretty nice.