21 KiB
[RT][HF] A Practical Guide to Evil: Book 4: Chapter 11: Ballon
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Author: u/Zayits *
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URL: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2018/05/09/chapter-11-ballon/
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Score: 68
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Created: 2018-05-09T04:01:30
Post:
Comments:
u/Yes_This_Is_God [+27] (42 minutes later)
The Saint is anime af, I love it
u/None [+17] (7 hours later)
She literally have the power of gods and anime on her side
u/NotACauldronAgent [+18] Probably (11 minutes later)
The slow shift from Cat to Winter was really visible here. What was it Pilgrim said? Wounded her soul to make the world better? That, on full display.
Also Saint is badass and scary as hell.
u/Hoactzins [+12] (12 minutes later)
Oh, heck yes. A good, crunchy fight scene, Cat acting like a hell of a villain, and the Saint of Swords showing us all what a badass she is. Given that she's capable of cutting through basically anything (apparently?) I wonder if she cut through Cat's mantle or something like that?
As an aside, I love that her mantle forces her to act like a stereotype of an arrogant villain. The Saint screwing with that might be a blessing in disguise.
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+26] Father of Learning (24 minutes later)
The Saint really fucked up here. Winter was taking over, classic evil, just like it has for some time now and just like I called last chapter it got cut away from Cat. See, we know for a fact that classic evil loses, it's in Winter's very nature. She likely could have lost the war tonight, becoming the Winter Queen in full and forgetting everything Black had taught her, not to mention her own peculiar version of sanity.
Now, she's probably not totally free, but she has clarity again, and hopefully that's enough for her to realize that she needs to cut winter out of her soul if she wants any chance of winning this war.
u/notokaycj [+19] (7 hours later)
The hard shift in writing tone from Winter Bitch to Usual Cat when the Saint cut her domain was really interesting. The whole chapter felt so different than normal up to that point, which I think is a pretty great writing feat.
u/Razorhead [+13] (3 hours later)
Yep. The best case scenario for the Crusade was to actually let Cat win here, as that would've irrevocably turned her into a monster, a fully Evil insane cocky bloodthirsty Fae Demigod, but that would've set Cat up for an inevitable defeat later. Whether that required the Saint of Swords' death is even disputable, since she could've let Cat rampage for a while and then retreated from a rampaging monster.
Now that Cat has been defeated in single combat in her berserk form, she has been set up for an arc where she relies less on Winter, learns to controls it better and eventually perhaps even gets rid of it.
u/CouteauBleu [+14] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
Meh, I think she would have come back from the Winter madness either way. If nothing else, Heriophant would probably have tried something to get her soul back in working order.
But more immediately, the Saint breaking Cat's winter gave her back her sanity fast enough that she could escape before, say, the Grey Pilgrim showed up.
u/None [+3] (10 hours later)
Good job predicting this. I think she abdicates as Queen of Callow and forges winter power into Fae-Rule protection for the new Liesse Accords os I don't think cutting Winter out entirely is on the table.
u/panchoadrenalina [+23] (21 minutes later)
Great fight, Cat is learning the beauty of plots within plots. there are at the very least three different things happening in this incursion.
1 killing the commoner leaders of the crusade.
2 Stealing whatever Thief stole.
3 destroying even more the reputation of Amadis Milenan as a diplomat, first Arlington now the Daoine, The dude cant seem to catch a break.
I loved this line "...On the other hand, now it was four on one. My odds had just gotten a lot better." So badass.
We also discovered that Cat can make trinkets from the heroes she squishes. all the heroes she killed off screen gave her power.
u/Zayits [+10] (46 minutes later)
We also discovered that Cat can make trinkets from the heroes she squishes. All the heroes she killed off screen gave her power.
You think that's what it was? While relying on an ability to make artifacts is slightly better than relying on the artifacts themselves, it still will inevitably end in them failing her at a crucial moment.
u/leakycauldron [+9] Imperium of Man (an hour later)
Pretty sure she's just New Taking them into physical form.
u/leakycauldron [+3] Imperium of Man (an hour later)
For sure, the reason she can bruise again is because she snapped into a Name as a Rule of Three started with Saint of Swords.
u/panchoadrenalina [+5] (an hour later)
if she became the squire once again she is screwed, even with the pattern of three i canT see a squire defeating the saint.
edit missing letter
u/Sarkavonsy [+9] (3 hours later)
Did she become the Squire? Or something new? The Saint of Blades is an old hero, and the Heavens don't seem to like to keep the same old stories going. I think this pattern of three will be the death of the Saint of Blades, in the process leveling Catherine up in terms of narrative threat level and making her the true final boss of this Crusade. Cat, of course, has to break this story before it ends in her inevitable defeat.
At least that's my theory.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (14 hours later)
If so do you think she might be able to take the domain of self to REGULATE her winter self? (On phone so caps instead of markup)
u/Zayits [+1] (14 hours later)
Given that the motive of regulating the engagements first appeared in the talk with the Pilgrim, if she's becoming human enough to get a name then the regulating Aspect would be some kind of double-edged restriction.
That said, I hope that she'll go the less direct way and instead will act through other Named. Not in sense of directly bestowing abilities, but more subtly, like appearing in a vision of a hero-to-be about to accept a Role from an angel to put it in a new perspective. Maybe even shield a claimant to the Name from the retribution for a failed test, like one run by the Seraphim in Ashur.
u/Taborask [+2] (46 minutes later)
I suspect she's sewing their souls into the Mantle of Woe, or otherwise binding them, given her proficiency with necromancy
u/zero51423 [+14] (an hour later)
That's highly unlikely. Probably just taking (and mangling) aspects as they die. If she was manipulating the souls of the hero's she'd killed the hero's that could detect that kind of thing would be a lot more hostile towards her.
u/Taborask [+2] (3 hours later)
Yeah but she doesn't have Take as an aspect anymore, and it's possible whatever part of them that's being weaved into the cloak isn't enough to be detectable on an individual level
u/everything-narrative [+11] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (51 minutes later)
Ohohoho, an old story repeats anew! Cat is stripped of her power, and can now take up an full Name once more!
u/CouteauBleu [+9] We are the Empire. (2 hours later)
“Don’t resist,” I said. “It’ll be uncomfortable, but not painful.”
Unless he tried to fight me, but in this case the fear that trailed me as much as my cape saw to the matter. The man went rigid as a board. I breathed out mist and Winter crept through my veins. His soul wriggled under the tight grip of my will, as I rifled through vague memories. He had, I thought, a well-organized mind. Shame about the panic tinging it. I found what I needed anyway, the locations of the officer tent’s he’d found as he’d been told.
“You were thorough,” I said, withdrawing my finger. “Well done.”
Ahahahahah :D I love it when they do stuff like that!
u/Razorhead [+18] (3 hours later)
And then later.
The man shivered, though I was unsure why. I’d been very polite so far.
u/HallowedThoughts [+5] (19 minutes later)
Damn, Saint of Swords might be an understatement. I'm not sure I entirely understood, but is her domain basically having an innate sword that thus can't be affected by pretty much anything? Cause that combined with her reality slashing is pretty phenomenal
u/Zayits [+12] (53 minutes later)
Not to mention she can slash reality with already slashed reality. And an innate domain brings her up to elves' level of reality warping. We've already seen that those who have one can ignore one aspect of Creation at a time, to, say, make themselves invisible. The way she resisted Catherine's attempts to kill her is seemingly the same trick.
u/Twitters001 [+6] (6 hours later)
I would hazard a guess that one of her aspects is Cut and another is Sword. With Sword being the domain.
u/Hoactzins [+6] (8 hours later)
Eh, sword isn't an infinitive verb. Maybe Wield or something?
u/PotentiallySarcastic [+2] (11 hours later)
Sheath would make sense I suppose.
u/Weebcluse [+3] (15 hours later)
My money is on "Temper". The Saint forged her body into a sword tempered by the fires of battles.
u/None [+4] (10 hours later)
If on Saint's journey, Saint should encounter God, God will be cut.
u/TideofKhatanga [+2] (16 hours later)
She reached Heaven through Violence.
u/IDKWhoitis [+6] (an hour later)
Anyone wondering what zeze is up to? He isnt with Cat because this is a quick assault into enemy territory, but everyone else had a distinct reason for not being on screen. Thief was stealing something, Archer is part of advanced recon team, and Hak is coming back from previous mission.
So what type of magic bullshit is going to fall next chapter?
Also, I wonder if Auger had any data on this, because this shit was planned. But at the same time, Cat's decision to go through with it was very quick and spontaneous, so maybe she was blindsided until it was too late.
u/Zayits [+6] (an hour later)
He's been casting the giant flaming sign in the sky in the last chapter.
u/Mountebank [+5] (17 minutes later)
I wonder if Two Knives survived that fight. Cat shoved a sharper into the stump of the Hero's arm. Is that survivable enough for the Priest to heal?
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+8] Father of Learning (32 minutes later)
It was mentioned the priest was healing them during the fight, but it's unclear if they will get their arm back.
u/Nic_Cage_DM [+16] (2 hours later)
Its gonna be only One Knife now.
u/tantalum73 [+2] (2 hours later)
Hah!
u/AurelianoTampa [+8] (12 hours later)
Wow, now THAT was a good chapter! I'd been somewhat disappointed in EE's writing style because Winter-Cat's personality so often seemed identical to non-Winter-Cat. But this chapter did a fantastic job keeping the two distinct and separate. Random thoughts:
Chapter 11: Ballon
Totally thought the chapter title was "balloon" at first. Oops!
I could not help but be thankful she’d chosen to whittle away at my trump card instead of trying to go after me.
I think this phrase is getting a bit overused, or at least it's getting used for enough things that it's confusing to know which is an actual trump card.
Chapter 1: Trump card refers to Ubua's scrying artefact that now is the centerpiece of the Observatory.
Chapter 7: Multiple unnamed trump cards are mentioned as a potential way to block the pass and stop the invasion.
Chapter 9: The "real" trump card is the fairy gates.
Chapter 11: Sounds like the trump card here is the Wild Hunt. There is also a reference to the "card" she and Masego cooked up at the Observatory. Absolute positioning isn't labeled by this phrase, but I'm unsure if it was in use during this sneak attack or not.
none of the unconscious markers the mage had used were markers I was familiar with.
I'm not positive I understand what this means, specifically the "unconscious" part. If I'm reading it right, it sounds like Cat was trying to find the officer tents' locations by using the mage's memory like an SQL database, but being unsure what primary key the mage used for "officer tent locations." And then trying to map those entries to her own mind's entries, which she brute-forced through Winter magic. Sound right?
Men shouted out in Chantant
What language is Chantant from, Procer? Alamans? What would be the likely real-world equivalent? I'm leaning toward German, but that's because German is "Alemán" in Spanish.
“You will make,” I said, “very useful artefacts.”
Sounds like between the last chapter's whistle and this quote here, we know what Cat is doing with the Named she's killed. I'm wondering how that is done - is it a Winter ability, or an outcome of when she stole Take from Diabolist?
Three of them.
I wonder if we'll get the heroes' Names eventually. I always like learning more about the Name system. Here we have a caster, a knife-wielder, and a priest. And it sounds like the knife-wielder used two Aspects, one a displacement and the other a haste-effect. There was also the plate-wearing hammer-wielder skipped previously.
That was no soul. It was a sword, and somehow more.
“You hold dominion,” I said.
“Only over the one thing,” the Saint grinned. “But that’s usually enough.”
All hail Shirou Emiya, the Sword Saint. “I am the Bone of my Sword..." and all that. Between this and the recent updates in The Erogamer, I feel like Unlimited Blade Works is popping up all over!
Thief had been on the prowl.
Hmmm, now that is interesting. Wondering if she went to steal, to kill, to spy, or to release a nasty surprise.
u/Zayits [+2] (14 hours later)
I think this phrase is getting a bit overused, or at least it's getting used for enough things that it's confusing to know which is an actual trump card.
Given that she also refferred to Aspects as trump cards instead of powers that she could rely on, it's more in the sense of tricks that will guaranteedly achieve their intended purpose (equalizing her power to the opponent's for Struggle, looking into other dimensions for the greater scrying bowl, getting the army to wherether she needs quicker than physically possible for the fairy gates), but don't necessarily win her the battle.
If I'm reading it right, it sounds like Cat was trying to find the officer tents' locations by using the mage's memory like an SQL database, but being unsure what primary key the mage used for "officer tent locations." And then trying to map those entries to her own mind's entries, which she brute-forced through Winter magic.
Sort of? It's like using the locations you pass by every day as landmarks for things you move or don't use that often: individual for people depending on their routine and focus.
What language is Chantant from, Procer?
In interlude Stairway Klaus Papenheim indeed refers to Chantant as the Alamans language, though his own Reitz is the closer equivalent to German, considering that in the Holy Roman Empire analogy for the Principate of Procer the Licaonese principalities are more or less Prussia, and Rhenia is Brandenburg: more an army with a country than a country with an army and all that. Chantant is likely the calernian equivalent of French.
I'm wondering how that is done - is it a Winter ability, or an outcome of when she stole Take from Diabolist?
She stole Call, which is now a whistle. Take is either the Aspect that was mentioned to grow beyond what an Aspect should be or, more likely, gone after her transformation, considering that Fall is the Aspect she still can use the remains of. Making objects out of souls is a fae thing: the invitation to Skade in Fletched, the barrier in the fortress of Dormer in the chapter 45 both were made out of some unfortunate mortal's soul.
I wonder if we'll get the heroes' Names eventually.
Unless one of the split armies would get into a pitched battle where Catherine has to devote enough focus to its Named, unlikely. Thief already mentioned that she found out some of the Names, and Cat only displayed interest in the Saint and the Pilgrim. Given that they are likely to split too, both are probably going to overshadow their respective sidekicks, not leaving enough narrative space. Well, that, or Catherine has some plans that dont include straight up conflict, in which case she may need to trick them or predict their reactions.
“I am the Bone of my Sword..." and all that.
Nah, not really. I mean, Nasuverse has some body-locked Reality Marbles too, and Shirou's "My face hasn't turned into swords yet" line made me laugh back then, but the closest thing we may be able to see is Catherine getting lucky and pulling off an Unlimited Lost Works. Otherwise the Saint is closer to Guideverse's elves.
u/werewolf_nr [+2] (15 hours later)
Given her ability to cut anything, she's closer to (either) Shiki from the Nasuverse.
u/werafdsaew [+1] (21 hours later)
While both the Sword Saint and Shirou are human shaped swords, the Sword Saint focuses on destroying evil while Shirou focuses on saving people. They're very different people.
u/Zayits [+3] (an hour later)
Ballon is the appearance of being lightweight and light-footed while jumping.
A leap of faith, huh? Well, the Saint certainly brought her back to the earth. Also a quote from the previous chapter:
“They’re keeping a close eye on the Watch,” the Special Tribune said. “There’s a hero on them at all times, and the two old timers visited a while back. Not sure what happened, but no fighting aftewards. They didn’t relax the surveillance either, though.”
What are the chances that at least one hero did follow through the temporary gate? And speaking of the gate, why not have the Thief sneak into the camp the regular way? Catherine may have been distracting the heroes for her to take something they'd otherwise be nearby, by can't recall what it could be.
u/panchoadrenalina [+2] (an hour later)
i think the hero keeping watch over the watch was the dude with the hammer that tried to hit Zombie.
u/Zayits [+5] (an hour later)
We carved our way out of the Alamans army camp, scything through the company of fantassins that tried to form up in our way. Men and women were trampled by horses, terror blooming again in the wake of death as the corpses rose and chaos spread.
“You will go no further,” a man’s voice announced calmly.
He's described to have been within the proceran part of the camp.
u/Zayits [+2] (7 hours later)
Reorienting myself was the hardest part of figuring it all out, since none of the unconscious markers the mage had used were markers I was familiar with. Masego and I had figured out a way around that through the Observatory with the card I’d been keeping up my – heavily armoured – sleeve, but I was without the benefit of Hierophant tonight.
Another hint about absolute positioning, it seems. Hierophant is evidently needed to cast... whatever she'll need to get her bearings, but I'm at a bit of a loss to how the subjective memories could connect to a multidimensional scrying tool. At least the military applications of this can be linked to the ability to open gates with precise positioning and timing, though that doesn't seem so different from what she's currently doing at the first glance.
u/TideofKhatanga [+1] (16 hours later)
To me, it sounds like Masego invented a magic GPS.
u/Oaden [+1] (6 hours later)
It seems a bit easy if Saint just killed winter (plus she can still open portals so she's still fae) so what did actually happen?
u/Iconochasm [+11] (9 hours later)
My guess is that losing the contest of domains wounded Winter rather than killing it. Probably something like setting it back a fair bit in it's takeover of Cat. Which is narratively kind of critical, since Full Fae Cat who was fighting the Saint there probably didn't have the sanity to ever even want to come back to something the readers could genuinely root for.