94 KiB
[RT] Worth the Candle, ch 101-104 (End Book V)
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Author: u/cthulhuraejepsen Fruit flies like a banana*
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URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/34463565
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Score: 217
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Created: 2018-06-08T23:17:41
Post:
Comments:
u/XxChronOblivionxX [+85] (3 hours later)
Oh my god Valencia is writing Harry Potter fanfiction starring her friends, she is so precious.
u/xamueljones [+35] My arch-enemy is entropy (5 hours later)
Clearly we need a spin-off fanfic of the Council of Arches attending Hogwarts.
u/Clipsterman [+27] (6 hours later)
For a second I thought you meant a spinoff where the crew played a tabletop game where they went to Hogwarts with Valencia as a DM, and now I want to see this really bad.
u/Trudar [+9] (21 hours later)
I would read THAT fanfic!
Oh gods, so many level of in-character meta
u/SkeevePlowse [+6] (13 hours later)
High School AUs are always worth it.
u/matematikaadit [+4] (3 days later)
I imagining that Joon, Fenn, and Grak sorted to Gryffindor, Mary to Slytherin, and Valencia to Hufflepuff. Bethel as the Defence Against the Dark Arts' professor, and Solace (and the locus) as Herbology professor.
u/ZeCatox [+5] (5 days later)
I'd rather put Solace as the ever so wise and criptic headmaster.
u/matematikaadit [+3] (5 days later)
That's actually... fitting I guess. And instead of phoenix, the headmaster has magical doe.
u/Cedrices_Diggory [+6] (6 days later)
Fenn could be Slytheryn. She's brave sure, but she only fights for the people she cares about. The insecure-style devotion to the people she loves is very un-gryffindor. Then there's early-book Fenn being immodest just to get a rise out of Joon. Just because she could. Because it was fun.
Most convincingly, she'd totally be willing to kill someone if Joon or Mary asked her to. The reasons why might interest her, but only in an academic sense.
She's like a cute and sarcastic Goyle.
u/pje [+2] (11 days later)
Poor Valencia. Wants to be Hermione. Doesn't realize she's EldritchPower!Luna.
u/Alphanos [+72] The Bright Powers (3 hours later)
When I came to, they had me pinned down. Amaryllis was fixing my soul; she had intuited, correctly, that it was no longer a change I could make on my own, not after what I had felt.
Well that is alarming.
It now seems clear that the degree to which level-ups affect Juniper is growing at a significantly-greater-than-linear rate. This seems like a very big problem, since he has rapidly become one the most powerful individuals on the planet, he is still getting stronger, and at any moment he could be driven unexpectedly insane by a future even-stronger level-up. What if this happens later when his other party members aren't around, and he wakes up and just starts murdering everyone he can see in the hopes of getting experience for it? If Arthur faced a similar challenge, then I think that should increase our sympathy for his situation.
Hopefully the group will place a high priority now on finding some kind of solution to this problem.
Edit: Some further thoughts.
So on some level, this portion of the level-up mechanic seems intended by the GM to drive continued adventuring and questing. Providing a powerful incentive to avoid just resting on their laurels.
I will propose that the extremity of the effect this last time may have been affected by some combination of two factors:
Juniper's attempts to reduce the level-up's influence on his thinking with soul magic.
The fact that he was "relaxing" for two months in the time chamber for their recent quest.
This raises the question:
Is this a semi-automated process that the GM isn't paying that close attention to?
Or is the GM purposefully trying to "punish" Juniper for some combination of the two points above?
u/TwoxMachina [+12] (15 hours later)
I'm thinking.... it's resetting his Level UP important score in hit soul, equal to his new level.
Because he has been suppressing it, it spiked all the way up, in a short time, making it super addictive.
It's going to get worse everytime he suppresses it.
u/HPMOR_fan [+18] (14 hours later)
I haven't figured that passage out yet. This part feels like a straight-forward description of the experience:
My brain splattered across the ceiling of the universe, becoming stars in the sky, each neuron a swollen red dwarf, the hyperspace connections between them engorged with the pleasure feeding through them. There was nothing like awareness to me, only pleasure so vast that I couldn’t hope to feel anything else. It was reductive, stripping away the thinking part of me and leaving only the animal,
While the end is the aftermath:
When I came to, they had me pinned down. Amaryllis was fixing my soul; she had intuited, correctly, that it was no longer a change I could make on my own, not after what I had felt.
But in between seems like a mix of both:
pinning me down and fucking me, a fist thrusting straight into my brain, thick fingers manipulating my internal wiring.
Is he feeling Amaryllis working on is soul here, but thinks it's part of the level up experience?
u/Trudar [+8] (21 hours later)
I'd wager it's the DM by proxy of the level-up mechanic, he set up in the first place.
u/RMcD94 [+4] (15 hours later)
Definitely feels like the latter to me.
Which will probably make the GM even more annoyed at their reaction.
u/Fresh_C [+2] (3 days later)
Seems like the DM is being contradictory if that's the case. On the one hand he tells them to ignore the narrative aspect of the world and treat this as seriously as real life.
On the other hand he's giving him a super-heroin addiction that can only be satisfied by pursuing increasingly difficult goals.
It really seems like an unnecessary step at this point to make the Level Ups more and more addicting. It feels like he's putting his hand on the scales much harder than he implied he would. But I suppose this was already a mechanic of the game before they had their conversation, and if it was something that Arthur had to deal with as well, then it would be inconsistent to change it at this point.
u/Law_Student [+2] (6 days later)
Another thought, Arthur isn't known to have been a soul mage in his time. He might not have been able to suppress the effect the drive to level up would have on his thinking. If that was the case it might explain a lot of why he was constantly adventuring and unable to attend to his wife/kids/court properly. Or maybe even explain his disappearance.
u/Alphanos [+1] The Bright Powers (6 days later)
I had thought that when Juniper explored possible exploits of soul magic, he found many of them already excluded. He had suspected that some of the exclusions seemed specific to the sort of RPG-stat-view that he has, and thus that some of them might have been caused by Arthur.
u/Law_Student [+1] (7 days later)
Quite possible.
u/SpeculativeFiction [+62] (an hour later)
“A man comes into Coeus Hall looking for information on a disease contracted in the Risen Lands, and gets in a fight with Larkspur Prentiss. A few days later, that same man is selling unicorn parts in Boastre Vino, and gets in another fight with Larkspur Prentiss later that evening. It doesn’t take a genius to know why a man with a serious, unknown disease would want to kill a unicorn. The real question is how the fuck he managed that. Do you understand?”
So, this investigator knows this group of four people took out a unicorn, one hundred flying tuung, and a battlegroup that deployed via helicopters...and he tries to corner part of this group alone, and threaten him?
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+45] Fruit flies like a banana (4 hours later)
Compare Valencia's outlook on the fight ...
She could kill the first two or three before they even knew what was happening, assuming that entads weren’t in play and a few varieties of magic were off the table. Sadly, in a firefight with no foreknowledge, those always had to be a consideration. Velocity mages to dodge the bullets, still mages to stop them, brutes in entad full plate to stop the damage, revision mages to reverse it, a gold mage if they could secure one … and those were just the obvious things, what you expected as standard, before you even started bringing in the esoteric.
... to Juniper idly declaring as the first paragraph of the next chapter that of course he could easily murder the man from the division responsible for rapidly responding to and containing various esoterica across Aerb.
u/eaglejarl [+19] (10 hours later)
Juniper and his team have quite a lot of esoterica of his own, and a track record of dealing with other people's esoterica. I'd give him pretty good odds, actually -- for one thing, it's very unlikely that anyone is prepared for Bethel's ability to apply 5 pounds of force to the inside of your brain. Perhaps a still mage could handle that, but perhaps not.
u/Izeinwinter [+22] (15 hours later)
I dunno - These are the people the empire send out to deal with bullshit, they know what happened to the helicopter strike team... and they still came. I give it high odds they have something completely bullshit. A bone-mage with a arsenal of unicorn bones or worse. Or perhaps this is the social-fu team, and the horrifying kill-team is just on standby.
u/None [+24] (16 hours later)
Or perhaps this is the social-fu team, and the horrifying kill-team is just on standby.
I like this explanation. The Uniquities want Amaryllis on their side, and therefore they went with their diplomatic guys first.
u/Halinn [+3] (20 hours later)
I'd say that Bethel has experience in dealing with those kinds of people
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (12 days later)
Yeah, but at some point you get the guy with the "Disintegrate everything in a sphere around the designated area with an adjustable radius, no saving throws" entad and then you're kinda screwed.
u/eroticas [+9] (a day later)
Juniper's overconfidence aside, an unprepared Valencia did fight them all off to what was essentially a tie. Why didn't they bring more firepower to this task? Diplomacy?
u/AweKartik777 [+4] (2 days later)
They probably didn't expect Valencia's skills as she's one of a kind. In that scenario even Juniper or Ama or Fenn (assuming only one at a time like how Valencia was solo) would have failed before they got to the diplomatic part.
u/sparr [+2] (a day later)
Juniper is prepared to deal with a lot more types of opponent than Valencia, right?
u/adgnatum [+6] (4 hours later)
See also: Batman not routinely killing all his enemies. Neither does Valencia.
u/sparkc [+59] (53 minutes later)
“The illusion,” said Bethel. “I produce it for the sake of convenience, so others can imagine me as though I am one of them.” “I dye my hair,” said Valencia with a nod.
This got a hearty laugh out of me. Valencia is adorable.
“You can do real-time false-color imaging of a person’s interior,” said Amaryllis. And here I was ready to mistake that look for a mother seeing her baby for the first time.
Never change Amaryliss.
Also, for those that got a kick out of Valencia's demon fueled analytical combat competence and devil derived social manipulation I strongly recommend the 'Prince of Nothing' fantasy Trilogy by R Scott Bakker. The protagonist is from a once monk like order who secluded themselves away from humanity in order to conquer their emotions, focus on reason and logic and having complete and utter control of their environment. Skip forward thousands of years of eugenics breeding programs and you have a sect of hyper competent individuals who are trained in various things such as emotional reading through flayed (living) human faces in order to study which muscle contraction combinations indicate which mental states. The protagonist is in many ways a Strawman Vulcan version of Valencia holding a demon and a devil at the same time except with just as much big picture awareness as situational awareness but secluded to the point that they have, almost literally, no knowledge of the greater world around them. The writing is also brilliant, packed with philosophy and the author writes my favourite battle scenes bar none with a switch to a wonderfully grand omniscient perspective.
u/Wargen-Elite [+10] (8 hours later)
Well, you've convinced me.
u/TheTrikki [+2] (2 days later)
Thanks for the recommendation!
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+51] Fruit flies like a banana (4 minutes later)
Patreon report for "May" is here, if you're into that sort of thing. tl;dr: 1954 words per day + Council of Arches
To answer a recurring question, this fic doesn't traditionally take a break between books.
Thanks for reading!
u/Clipsterman [+11] (6 hours later)
Thanks for making great content!
u/Trudar [+2] (21 hours later)
Your workshop is of great quality. Since the beginning of the story I have been absolutely shocked how quickly you're writing, and keep it at this level.
Thousands of people now really enjoy your brainchild.
Thank you for writing!
u/matematikaadit [+1] (7 days later)
Congratulations on reaching $400. Now it's getting closer to reaching the second goal.
u/FormerlySarsaparilla [+52] (12 hours later)
I feel like, as time goes on, Joon is slipping further and further away from being the protagonist of this story.
I mean, think about the last I dunno, 15 chapters or so. Amaryllis plans the modernization of her planet while pregnant with a druid baby and bonding, one at a time, with Grak, Fenn, and Joon. She has the more interesting conflict-connection with the newest cast member, the house. She has the weird big-sister relationship to Valencia. In the final meeting, she's the one proposing the plans and the methods used. Joon barely even speaks at this point except to give away the game to an agency that is, natch, hunting Amaryllis.
I don't particularly mind the Mary show, because I think she's got more interesting character motivations in general, but "The Mary show as seen by a kind of socially dim dude who's very wrapped up in his own shit" is a difficult lens with which to view it. It's like trying to read Worm if it was still abut Taylor, but for some reason told from Armsmaster's perspective.
u/adgnatum [+7] (a day later)
I can understand why 'most recent 15 chapters' is a useful benchmark, but large parts of recent events were boring and/or stressful downtime in the chamber (for the characters, but not for the readers).
Juniper/Mary is an important thread on the nature of self-modification and personal identity. I'm not sure it would be the same if we read about that as perceived by Mary.
Juniper's reckoning about Arthur might be part of what he's wrapped up in, but I wouldn't say it's not important.
Letter 15 advanced Fenn's character and all the relationships between Fenn, Juniper, and Mary. That said, it was Fenn-and-Mary driven, so I can see how it contributes to your count of times we didn't need Juniper to narrate.
I think you're right to say that Valencia and Amaryllis still have the more interesting dynamic than Valencia and Juniper, so far.
The dynamic between Bethel and Juniper, once it gets going, should be interesting because while Mary is Uther's descendant, Juniper is his analogue, and Bethel won't want to make the same mistakes twice.
Negotiations took hours, and I was thankful that my role in them was very minor. There were hundreds of things that needed to be hammered out, but Amaryllis and Valencia (with the most cunning devil she could find) were both up to it.
This... would not have been fun to read, I think.
Here's a question for you: do you think Juniper will acquire increasing social brilliance?
u/FormerlySarsaparilla [+9] (a day later)
A good question. I think it's up to the author, of course, but so far increasing Juniper's social stats has made him more aware of what others are thinking and feeling, without being any more competent at managing his own thoughts and feelings. A significant number of his issues seem to stem from his depression and inability to let go of the past, and the rest seem to come from his indifference toward his companions other than Fenn and Mary. He really hasn't put much if any effort towards socializing with Grak, Solace, or Valencia. To be honest, he hasn't put much effort towards anything including his own personal goals. Frankly I don't think he needs social brilliance, he needs to stop being such a frustrating non-entity in his own story and show some engagement with the world. For example, he has completely blanked on the Grak byplay during this several-month sidequest. Grak is now much more closely bound to Mary than to Joon.
I agree with you (and other responses) that the story wouldn't be the same if perceived by Mary. I can't help but feel like that'd be a good thing, because it might lend the story some direction. Mary is driven, in one way or another, and driven characters are interesting. When they overcome a challenge, it feels like a victory. Let me pose a counter-question: We just finished another book in this story. What was the climax, and what contribution did Juniper make to it versus Mary?
All of this could be authorial intent. The whole story is a unique window on escapism and depression and how the former doesn't cure the latter. But I don't feel like there's been a whole lot of emotional or character growth for Joon, or any opportunity for him to demonstrate the same. If anything he was substantially more active and engaged towards the start of the story than he is now.
u/adgnatum [+2] (a day later)
Juniper lost the vote on what quest to do next (chapter 76), although it turned out that accessing the time chamber was useful for saving the locus.
He contributed in the assault on Kuum Doona, but I am willing to guess we'd agree that combat is not character-driven to the same degree.
Juniper's main contribution was the soul mage shenanigans that brought Solace closer to a recoverable state. Moving those numbers around: not quite delivering the same in-universe emotional impact as childbirth.
As for Juniper's own engagement: Given
“I’m not talking about downtime,” said Amaryllis. “We’re in a pattern of reaction right now, we have been since I was taken by Aumann. You had the crisis of needing to save me, then the crisis of needing to cure me, then the crisis of needing to cure your own ailment, and now we have the crisis of Fallatehr, not to mention trying our best to save the locus. We need to break out of the cycles of crisis. We need to chart a path forward of our own accord.”
“Ah,” I replied. “That’s kind of hard to do when we’re still putting out fires.”
“I agree,” said Amaryllis. “The problem is that the fires multiply. They’re what I’m worried about, when I talk about stability. We need to keep our fires contained. Episodic.”
“The n-word,” I said with a grimace. “I’m not sure how we can do that.”
and
bumbling from crisis to crisis
I think the DM agrees with you.
I wasn’t going to do that though. If I was going to reject narrative, I was going to do it with all my heart. I kept thinking that Arthur must not have, that he’d let himself get wrapped up in it. If he made his choices based on what he thought the story wanted, it would explain so much about his failures over the years; they would make sense as sacrifice to the greater good, maybe.
Maybe the DM instigated their meeting to steer Juniper away from narrative and try to make him engage more. We'll see what happens now that the figurative bottle episode is over.
u/ceegheim [+13] (a day later)
"The Mary show as seen by a kind of socially dim dude who's very wrapped up in his own shit" is a difficult lens with which to view it.
I agree that the story kinda has turned into "The Mary Show". But I really like viewing it through the lens of "kind of socially dim dude who's very wrapped up in his own shit". Told from her perspective, it would run the risk of becoming "Mary Sue, boring"
This allows to keep us readers guessing about her internal conflicts (she also is kinda wrapped up in her own shit) and plans; just telling all is boring in comparison. For comparison, Tettletale would make for an awful PoV-protagonist in Worm, even though she is the secret protagonist of the first half. Or like, for good reason, Bakker's "Prince of Nothing" series does mostly not tell the story from the viewpoint of the prince.
u/coldinchitown [+40] (8 minutes later)
That doctor is great
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+41] Mouse Army (2 hours later)
Maybe hes a princess too and we can get him as companion?
u/rabotat [+17] (7 hours later)
Non-natus. The Unborn.
u/WarningInsanityBelow [+19] (10 hours later)
I guess he is based off Nonnatus, the patron saint of child birth. Sometimes Nonnatus is the son of a count, so sort of a princesses?
u/HPMOR_fan [+4] (9 hours later)
The perfect person to send their medical advances to.
u/LazarusRises [+1] (2 days later)
He just has to lay off slurping all that beet juice before coming to work!!
u/gryfft [+36] (3 hours later)
I wonder why Joon doesn't realize how close he is to losing Grak.
u/meterion [+37] (3 hours later)
Probably because Grak is the only Companion (or companion attached to a Companion) who isn't a cute
loliteenager and therefore instinctively is paid less attention to
u/None [+25] (4 hours later)
[deleted]
u/meterion [+20] (5 hours later)
Hey well DM hasn't given Joon a bad quest yet so clearly A Key For Seven Locks is the optimal way to raise group morale and he should just suck it up and suck :^)
u/gryfft [+27] (14 hours later)
Fridge horror: since the level ups are now so intense they singlehandedly wreck his priorities at the soul layer every time they happen, that means low-hanging fruit quests like say, sleeping with every member of the party are the kind of thing LevelUp'd!Joon might sieze upon with extreme prejudice if he realizes there's a chance it'll get him to the next level faster.
Yeah, something tells me the Lost King may be in need of some significant soul repair when they find him.
u/KarlitoHomes [+9] (17 hours later)
Point of order, Key for Seven Locks is an achievement not a quest, so there's probably no xp reward.
u/Trudar [+2] (21 hours later)
It may become one if Joon wishes so. Reward would probably be minuscule.
u/gryfft [+1] (19 hours later)
Excellent point.
Hmm, he's only earned 15 achievements so far, too.
u/Xtraordinaire [+3] Team Glimglam (19 hours later)
Some achievements can grant material and prestige rewards.
u/lowercase__t [+1] (19 hours later)
do you have a complied list of those achievements?
u/gryfft [+13] (20 hours later)
I do now!
Achievement Unlocked: Down, But Not Out …
Made it to the ground alive after the airdrop.
Achievement Unlocked: Rambo
Impaled a zombie on a machete.
Achievement Unlocked: Full Disclosure
Told Amaryllis the truth about Earth.
Achievement Unlocked: Under the Moon of the First Night
Awoke under the moon and stars.
Achievement Unlocked: Thicker than Water
Unlocked blood magic.
Achievement Unlocked: Skin Deep
Unlocked skin magic.
Achievement Unlocked: Microhitler
Killed 6 people.
Achievement Unlocked: Tutorial Complete!
Escaped the Risen Lands.
Achievement Unlocked: Sticks and Stones
Unlocked bone magic.
Achievement Unlocked: Outside the Box
Escaped from Caer Laga in an unusual way, progressing in the Exit Strategy quest.
Achievement Unlocked: To Infinity and Beyond!
Fell with style in a rocket glider across the Datura Desert to land five miles short of Barren Jewel.
Achievement Unlocked: By Your Powers Combined
Unlocked gem magic.
Achievement Unlocked: Tenth
Reached level 10.
Achievement Unlocked: Petit Mort
Successfully romanced a lady. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.
Achievement Unlocked: Triple Kill!
Like it says on the tin.
Edit: formatting
Edit 2: Descriptions
Edit 3: formatting part 2 electric boogaloo
u/meterion [+7] (15 hours later)
That would actually be pretty terrifying--one could wonder whether Arthur may have had some kind of similar achievement lurking in his character sheet, having pined over his extradimensional crush for so long.......
Now that's something to think about, huh? Maybe his erratic behavior like falling continuously for days on end and creating a sentient entad were ultimately desperate attempts to get his next fix.
u/Xtraordinaire [+15] Team Glimglam (15 hours later)
And, uh, should he level up literal lockpicking skill for Bethel?
u/meterion [+5] (15 hours later)
oh god, what would that even be? foreplay???
i'm sure she'll regret eating the anyblade after that *eyebrow waggle*
u/LazarusRises [+2] (2 days later)
TOUCH BUTTS
u/sicutumbo [+13] (4 hours later)
He also hasn't spent nearly as much time with him lately. He spent 2 months with Amaryllis, and was spending almost all his free time with Fenn before that.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (11 hours later)
Do we ever learn Fenn's age? I don't think she's a teenager.
u/WarningInsanityBelow [+17] (23 hours later)
Fenn is 33 (ctrl-f 'thirty' in chapter 61). Also for the curious, this is inconsistent with Joon being dream-skewered!Nellan, who would be ~15 right now.
u/gryfft [+15] (a day later)
GAH who even mentioned that as a possibility AUGH
u/WarningInsanityBelow [+12] (a day later)
There were several things pointing in the direction, quarter elves look human, Nellan was raised by humans and Fenn only ever saw Nellan very rarely, if ever. This fits perfectly with Joon's bodies backstory, of which we know that it was raised by humans and nothing else. We also know that the DM has a tendency to arrange non-standard love interests for Joon, including a dwarf, a deer, and a house. It really wouldn't have been terribly surprising if the DM had set up an Oedipus arc.
u/gryfft [+7] (a day later)
It really wouldn't have been terribly surprising if the DM had set up an Oedipus arc.
Oh I know. The plausibility is where all the horror comes from.
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (a day later)
Still pretty far-fetched.
u/WarningInsanityBelow [+3] (a day later)
I know, which is why I sought additional evidence by checking whether Nellan's age matches up with Joon's, since they don't and boys tend to look very different between 15 and 17, I've rejected that hypothesis for the time being.
u/meterion [+7] (12 hours later)
I think she's mid-thirties? But developmentally she's still supposed to be (mentally and physically) an older teen.
u/thrawnca [+24] Carbon-based biped (7 hours later)
I'm honestly not sure that he should try to change that. Don't get me wrong, Grak is a huge asset to the group, and would be sorely missed. But recognising that he's close to leaving, and changing behavior so he doesn't, seems too much like the quid pro quo social interaction that Grak has already criticised.
If Grak would be happier going home, or wherever, let him be happy, I say.
u/Halinn [+11] (20 hours later)
Also, knowing that he's free to leave might be the thing that convinces him to stay.
u/gryfft [+1] (19 hours later)
I agree with you in principle, but I think going home would not make Grak happy at all.
u/thrawnca [+8] Carbon-based biped (21 hours later)
Well, he found a friend on the train...
u/akaltyn [+23] (5 hours later)
Despite his complaints about the intrusive game UI he is still pretty reliant on it for measuring his companions loyalty. So he probably assumes that the lvl 10 loyalty means that he won't leave
u/xamueljones [+12] My arch-enemy is entropy (5 hours later)
Joon probably should put his new points into social since the group would work so much better together if Joon was any good at noticing other members' problems/intentions/wants.
u/efd731 [+10] (12 hours later)
I don’t think he’s unaware, he’s just mostly unconcerned. Grak isn’t there for friendship murder and the betterment of aerb, he’s just a grumpy taciturn mercenary who happens to have some special significance attached to him by the game layer, in addition to spending some time being soul-fucked by fellahter before this, why would June be particularly concerned about him anyway?
u/JiggyRobot [+5] (17 hours later)
Was there a specific reason that Grak was close to leaving? I can't remember anything other than just vague implications that he wasn't really happy with things.
u/gryfft [+32] (19 hours later)
It's more that every time Grak has basically said "uh hey, I'm a party member too, with my own backstory, motivations, and needs" Joon has pretty much responded "Cool." It's been pointed out in the text a few times that Joon (at least in retrospect) recognizes on some level that he's neglecting Grak.
So from a munchkin perspective, yeah, having that 10 loyalty seals the deal. From a storytelling perspective, from a relationship perspective, Joon has been a bad friend to Grak, who has consistently been there for him. It's easy to say "but da's just in it for the money," except we know, specifically, that da needs the money for deeply personal cultural reasons. (Da also has no clue what to do with da nad life after da completes the penance. Da also is deeply uncomfortable with all forms of manipulation, perceived or otherwise.)
So even Amaryllis saying "fucking whatever, we'll put a hard date of 2 years on when we solve your problem" is doing more to address Grak's feelings and motivations than Joon has done up till this point.
“Return my body to Darili Irid if I die,” said Grak.
“You know I would,” I replied. “And if you fall, we’ll pay your penance.”
Loyalty Increased: Grak lvl 4!
[...]Grak and I weren’t exactly friends, not yet, but that was how you made friends, in my opinion; you committed to the friendship.
At this point, Joon gets it, and is treating Grak the way Grak wants to be treated.
“No,” said Grak, returning his gaze to me. “You are not the family I would pick, but you are also not like my father.”
Loyalty increased: Grak lvl 8!
I wanted to ask what it was about me, but that seemed like a conversation that would just irritate me. Count on a guy like Grak to sap all the enjoyment from having made a breakthrough in soul magic and fixing him.
By this point, in his heart at least, Joon is being a bad friend.
“You’d be making me blush, but I can control my bloodflow,” I replied. “But I am serious, the gap between Grak and I just seems so huge that there’s no way that I’m going to overcome it.”
“Bigger than you and the locus?” asked Fenn.
“Point taken,” I said. “You know, sometimes I wish that our party were just,” the Spice Girls, “more archetypally arranged, it seems like we’ve got a ridiculous, erratic spread both in terms of personality and utility.”
Ooooooff, Jooooooooooooon.
There were very few personal details I knew about Grakhuil Leadbraids. Most of those, I had learned from his biography. The only personal story he’d ever told me had been when we’d been at Weik Handum, a story that I thought was just him being incredibly blunt about weird stuff that I didn’t care about, by way of telling me not to sleep with Fenn. And my response to that had been to say ‘sure’, and then the very next morning Fenn had teased him, very graphically, about all the ways that we hadn’t had sex. Worse, I’d only really put effort into trying to raise his loyalty after learning about the Twinned Souls thing, which hadn’t really been my intention, but I could see how that looked.
“Fuck,” I said. I closed my eyes and scrunched up my face, trying to think of some response without the distraction of having to look at anyone. “Okay, I can see it now. I’m going to have to hope that I can explain what was going through my head at some point, but I want some time to think about things, how it looks from your perspective, and where our different cultures are getting in the way. And even if I could explain it perfectly, that probably wouldn’t be enough, because with you, I failed. I need to just … listen more, I guess, and focus less on the end goals, at least when it comes to our kharass.”
I opened my eyes.
Loyalty increased: Fenn lvl 22!
Loyalty increased: Amaryllis lvl 16!
Loyalty increased: Grak lvl 10!
And see, with effort he can still find the right things to say to show how he should be changing his behavior.
“That would be telling,” said the Dungeon Master. He flashed me a smile. “And for now, I plan on being just the right amount of opaque. They weren’t set up to wait forever though. Amaryllis will get over you, if you let her. Null Pointer Exception will too -- she’s malleable.”
And Grak? The Six-Eyed Doe? I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. Better to keep assuming that Grak was just a straight dude that didn’t happen to have a penis.
That's such a horrible thing to assume! And it's the only time Grak came up in Joon's conversation with the DM.
My gut-level read at this point is that Grak is at least a little bit in love with Joon (da is a princess in Joon's harem,) Joon can recognize it with his enhanced social stats, but he's choosing to ignore it because he's uncomfortable with the idea of romance with a very male-seeming creature of non-human-analogous gender, and he's even more uncomfortable with the part of himself that's uncomfortable at that thought, because he irrationally wants his feelings to be fair.
u/None [+8] (23 hours later)
Great analysis! When I'll reread this story after it's finished, those will probably be the places when I'll be like "yea I should have seen this coming".
My gut-level read at this point is that Grak is at least a little bit in love with Joon
Wouldn't Joon have seen this when fixing up Grak's soul?
u/gryfft [+19] (a day later)
Great analysis!
Thanks!
Wouldn't Joon have seen this when fixing up Grak's soul?
I think it's plausible he did not:
When I finally got it, it was different from how I’d experience Amaryllis and Fenn’s souls. Those had been, in some respect, extensions of my own, governed by the same logic, at least from my point of view. By way of analogy, if my soul was an enormous sheet of paper, Grak’s was another sheet laid on top of it, this one without writing. I had to navigate between the two frequently, because his soul didn’t have the order to it that mine did. It felt like sitting in front of a television with a printed out sheet of paper, trying to follow an FAQ to a game, going from instructions to screen and back again.
At the very least, Juniper doesn't have the right "muscle memory" to intuit the structure in Grak's soul. He only found Fallatehr because he was specifically looking for Fallatehr.
On looking more closely at this scene, I think Grak is dropping some hints here that Juniper is (again) failing to follow up on at all.
“It wasn’t service,” said Grak. “It was wanting something more than myself.”
[...]“What happens when you take your thousand pounds of gold to Darili Irid?” I asked.
“Nothing,” said Grak, looking past me.
“I have a quest for it,” I said, but at that he turned further away from me. “I really don’t understand you.”
“There is not much to understand,” replied Grak.
“Sure,” I said. I was watching him closely. I wanted to say that all of this could have been avoided if he’d just been more loyal to me, or that I had been trying with him, was trying with him even now, and it was frustrating for it to not be paying any dividends, but that wasn’t the kind of thing that I thought would be helpful, and if I needed to vent, I would go vent about it to someone else.
Grak sure is acting the way someone might act if they were in love with someone they knew they didn't have the slightest shot with, who also happens to keep making attempts to be friendly to further their own ends and without genuinely wanting to help and then consistently refuses to get a clue even though they talk the talk about being a better person and a better friend all the time. Oh, and he tends to act like a pretty good friend to all the hot girls.
Just think of how many times clueless adolescent boys have asked "Why's she acting so weird?"
Also, the above happened at loyalty 7, just before getting loyalty 8, and Grak is now at loyalty 10. I think the only time Juniper has touched da nad soul since then was to make grak.bak, and he was in a bit of a hurry at the time.
u/Rorschach_Roadkill [+3] (a day later)
Superbly put. Joon has a terrible habit of shallowness in how he sees the people around him, and Grak is at the top of the list of people who suffer as a result (although Valencia, on the other hand, has really benefited from it).
I kept thinking throughout the last chapter how important it was that Solace and the Six-Eyed Doe were introduced relatively early in the story - if they had been the 7th member to join the troupe I think it would be much easier as a reader to partially dismiss them as "also that weird druid thing with them". You made me realize how crucial that was for Grak as well. Da's a very complex character who on the surface looks very simple, because da doesn't emote very openly and is explicitly in it for the money, and it would be very easy to treat [them] as just a straight male dwarf mercenary if we hadn't had time to get to know [them].
Uh, as an aside, /u/cthulhuraejepsen could you possibly give us an object form of Grak's prefered personal pronoun?
u/gryfft [+3] (a day later)
Ugh, good catch on subject/object form of the pronoun. I could have sworn the same word was used in both cases, but a scan of the work only turns up its use as a subject (looks like the object form was avoided through use of the passive voice.) It's also kind of sad that it's only used 24 times in the story so far, and only by the game layer.
I guess this is my appeal to /u/ale-- cough, /u/cthulhuraejepsen to canonize my misunderstanding so I don't have to go back and edit my posts (hey, at this point I've used the word only five fewer times than the story itself, haha.)
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+3] Fruit flies like a banana (9 days later)
Dwarf pronoun chart. I won't guarantee that Groglir is used 100% correctly in the story. The fact that it's ergative-absolutive makes it a lot more difficult, and it's always a pain when people speak it in-story and I have to type out a translated phrase.
u/gryfft [+3] (9 days later)
This is a thing of beauty and I've corrected my one incorrect pronoun use:
Mary went from trying to haggle da down, thinking of the utility of the obols
To the correct form:
Mary went from trying to haggle di down, thinking of the utility of the obols
(If I understand it correctly.)
Ergative-absolutive languages look crazy! Juniper's got a pretty awesome grasp of some cool linguistics.
Thanks for the worldbuilding, CRJ!
u/Rorschach_Roadkill [+2] (a day later)
Oh, I actually thought you were studiously avoiding doing that, I don't think you use it in the object form once in the comment I just responded to
u/gryfft [+3] (a day later)
On review it looks like I only did it once, but I'll wait for the ruling from WOG before I figure out how to rebuild that sentence, dammit.
(Side note to you (and anybody else who's come this far down this comment rabbit hole,) thanks for caring enough to get all the way out here in the weeds with me. This story is great and the conversations it inspires are often just as entertaining to me. Rationalfic is my spirit animal, and
/u/alexanderwales/u/cthulhuraejepsen is a good shepherd to that animal.)
u/Trudar [+5] (21 hours later)
Probably for same reason I don't understand. ;)
For a good deal of time I lost ability to track what's going on in Grak's head. With him bringing up the penance, I honestly lost and stopped getting anything at all. Anyone smarted than me care to explain what's happening here?
u/gryfft [+9] (21 hours later)
Grak basically screwed da nad clan by running away from an arranged marriage that stood to enrich them by the equivalent of a thousand pounds of gold.
Grak's primary motivation this entire time has been to restore da nad honor by repaying the debt. Da has no plans for what happens after that... it sounds to me like da could use a friend.
u/Trudar [+3] (a day later)
But what about that 'honor' thing and sudden renegotiation by Mary?
u/gryfft [+6] (a day later)
Grak frowned at Amaryllis. “I do care for you,” he said. He looked around the small room. “All of you. Some more than others.” That was characteristic dwarven bluntness right there. “I will not be subsumed by this group.” That was also a characteristically Grak way of saying things. He seemed allergic to the word ‘but’, so instead, he’d just give two statements of fact, one of which undercut the other.
“Fine,” said Amaryllis. “It’s going to cause us no end of problems with capital, because we’d be idiots to plan on paying anything out in the beginning, but I’ll personally guarantee you forty million obols within two years time, and if I don’t have it, we’ll go kill a fucking dragon and take its hoard or something, okay?”
Grak stared at her, then nodded.
It isn't about the money. It's about finishing da nad quest. Mary went from trying to haggle di down, thinking of the utility of the obols toward the goals of the Council of Arches, to setting a hard time limit and thereby acknowledging Grak's importance and status in the Council. Grak just wanted somebody to say, without prompting or quid pro quo, that they'd take care of da nad thing, not someday, but at a set time.
Mary (and Joon) are also ignoring that from a gameplay and narrative perspective, quests that involve giving up enormous amounts of dosh typically involve commensurate rewards-- not in coin necessarily, but in terms of politics, capabilities, items, and XP, completing that quest will probably have some kind of awesome consequences. (Although to be fair, if this was the reasoning behind assistance rendered, and Grak realized it, da would probably reject the assistance.)
u/Trudar [+9] (a day later)
Mary went from trying to haggle da down
I think that was the crucial piece information I missed. I honestly misread it as she was 'upping' the price, so Grak wouldn't leave after completing said quest. The time limit got to me.
Okay, now understand, and oh boy, that's sad. Yep, they are very close to losing Grak's loyalty...
Thank you for explaining!
u/gryfft [+3] (a day later)
Haha, my thoughts are colored by my own perceptions and understanding, but I'm glad they're coming off semi-coherently!
Yep, they are very close to losing Grak's loyalty...
I don't know this is necessarily the case. I can imagine Grak privately talking to Mary to excise da nad feelings for Joon, though.
Edit:
so Grak wouldn't leave after completing said quest.
Ugh the more I think about this the worse I feel for Grak. Da doesn't want to be bound to Joon by game abstractions. Da doesn't want da nad individuality to be snuffed out. Da doesn't want to pine after Joon in secret for decades. I'm starting to think da should get Mary to tamp down the feels, and maybe even the loyalty too.
u/Trudar [+3] (a day later)
Loyalty decrease in itself after this... Joon will ask - and that's what it will take, chain reaction, big argument, everything is over.
Grak must feel like shit now.
u/gryfft [+5] (a day later)
Loyalty hasn't decreased on its own yet without soulfuckery, but I feel like Joon probably has it in his power to put his foot in his mouth badly enough to flip the sign on someone's loyalty score.
u/Trudar [+3] (a day later)
Exactly!
I am NOT looking forward to this.
u/HaramDatingSim [+29] (11 hours later)
Fuck Joon forever.
I am seriously no joke disgusted by what he did to Valencia.
Couldn't he have molded her into an emotionally broken love slave, or a remorseless killing machine, or something? Just, anything more wholesome than a Harry Potter fangirl.
u/None [+25] (12 hours later)
[deleted]
u/meterion [+29] (15 hours later)
something tells me that Valencia getting a moral message about how friends manipulate their other friends to make them stronger is around the biggest BAD END flag you could possibly wave.
^a ^bad ^end ^for ^everyone ^until ^sufficiently ^convinced ^by ^valencia, ^of ^course... ^^shudder
u/CouteauBleu [+13] We are the Empire. (16 hours later)
Isn't the point of that line that Draco tells Harry "No, that is a messed up way of thinking of friendship"?
u/meterion [+6] (16 hours later)
To be honest I can't remember at all the context that line was said in, you're probably right. I couldn't remember if that was a "well you're not wrong but that's not the right mindset to view it" sort of line.
u/scruiser [+4] CYOA (2 days later)
HPMOR has the continuous problem that the literal message/moral given, the intended message/morale, the characters exposition, and the emotional message are often at odds with on another. I.e. Quirrel explains why fascism is cool and democracy sucks while being really cool and edgy, Harry fails to reasonably defend democracy, and Eliezer in an author’s note gives a weak reminder that Quirrel is a villain.
Harry’s view of friendship as manipulation is an example of this. The plot never really conclusively shows manipulating friends is bad, Harry is sometimes rewarded and sometimes punishes for it by the story. Even at the end of the story he is manipulating Hermione to take out Azkaban for him.
u/Makin- [+5] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (3 days later)
I think that last part is a bit unfair, the way phoenixes work means he can't be straight with her without ruining her chances. There's a difference between manipulation and knowing someone enough that you know they'll agree with you after the fact.
u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES [+4] (3 days later)
I don't think the author is required to debunk wrong viewpoints, else be "problematic." Harry doesn't have to win every political argument, just like goodness doesn't win every argument in real life. Taylor doesn't have to tell the E88 why they're wrong for the benefit of the audience. A lot of the time this makes for bad writing. Not only this, but the author's also left at least two author's notes and several reddit posts saying he doesn't endorse the villains of his story's viewpoints.
Also, after all, all you're really complaining about is the author not anvilling at you which viewpoint is right or wrong! In a work about rationality and science!
Though it should be fairly obvious to anyone who reads his work about "saving humanity and giving them the stars so they can decide how they want to live" that Eliezer is, like, the opposite of an evil terrible person.
(Also manipulating people isn't in fact inherently bad.)
u/scruiser [+2] CYOA (3 days later)
I can recall people arguing that Quirrellmort wasn’t really evil even after he AK’d a centaur. Some anvils need to be dropped.
If Wildbow made the E88 super cool every time they showed up, then he would need to spend time debunking this coolness.
u/Makin- [+4] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (3 days later)
That centaur was obsessed with murdering an 11 year old and was in the process of attempting it, I think that makes for some extenuating circumstances. I agree Quirrel got away with a lot, though.
And regarding the E88 being cool, I don't think Wildbow NEEDS to debunk their coolness, they are nazis. I assume knowing what a nazi is and why they are bad is part of the basic knowledge set of the average Worm reader, there's no need for Wildbow to hammer it in.
u/None [+10] (16 hours later)
I actually kind of want to see what she'd turn out like if they hadn't left her with Harry Potter, but, say, Atlash Shrugged. Or, *shudder*, Worm.
u/daydev [+2] (a day later)
When it described Valencia's attempts at fanfiction, at the first one I thought "oh, so the devil's influence is making Significant Digits".
u/1337_w0n [+1] (5 days later)
So are you saying in your ideal Worth the Candle fanfiction, Valencia would be Joon's Beatrix Black? (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
u/Escapement [+24] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (2 hours later)
This series of chapters was great.
Did Arthur pull these Uniquities from his ideas/memories from RPing with June, maybe?
Shipping, as of now:
Fenn x June (canon ship!)
Mary x Valencia (that Valencia chapter is adorable!)
Rope x House (obvious ship - Ropey had been providing the strap, and was wrapped around the staff with elaborate knotwork that struck me as a little bit too intimate. I was used to his knots being economical.)And that leaves Grak x ???, Solace x ???, and Six Eyed Doe x ???
Can't really see Grak with the Six Eyed Doe, to be honest. Solace... I feel like we haven't seen enough.
u/Nimelennar [+10] (2 hours later)
elaborate knotwork that struck me as a little bit too intimate
Huh. I had read that as "intricate."
u/None [+5] (4 hours later)
Mary is heterosexual, now? Her falling for Valencia wouldn't be possible without some soulfuckery...Which now that I think about it, may actually be possible. Don't know how I feel about Mary editing her soul to let her fall for Val.
Anyways, I doubt that will happen, because it looks like Valencia has the start of a crush on Jorge.
u/xamueljones [+20] My arch-enemy is entropy (5 hours later)
Her falling for Valencia wouldn't be possible without some soulfuckery
Actually it's already been briefly discussed that Amaryllis is likely to be asexual or lesbian with an exception for Juniper when she normally is repulsed by the idea of dating and having sex with a man.
From chapter 52 about her distaste for men:
“If you tried to kiss me, I would kiss you back, and if you wanted to fuck me, then I would --” she looked to me, “Endure it,” she finished, apparently not pulling any punches. “I would get through this thing that I didn’t want to do, and I would learn to like it, or at least learn to not visibly dislike it.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I’m aware of how that makes me sound,” she said.
From chapter 93 about how Juniper noticed her likely sexual orientation:
“No, you’re not,” I said. “Just … asexual?”
“Mostly,” said Amaryllis. She frowned at me. “Did you know before I did?”
“After our long talk in the bottle [in chapter 52], it seemed like one of the two likely options,” I said with a shrug. “The other being that you were lesbian.” I hadn’t wanted to pry or make assumptions, but I’d really been hoping that her revulsion towards sex with me wasn’t just because it was me.
Amaryllis gave a nonchalant shrug. “A bit.”
u/None [+5] (5 hours later)
Huh. I stand corrected.
My point about Jorge still stands though; there were a bunch of hints in this chapter that Valencia likes him. What will come of it, I can't say.
u/Croktopus [+11] (14 hours later)
I for one am in favor of the new love triangle being not Joon/Fenn/Mary but Mary/Val/Jorge. That sounds way less stressful.
u/meterion [+2] (a day later)
On one hand, that's a pretty "safe" romance choice to try and date someone outside of your work colleagues, so to speak.
On the other, it's kind of obvious she mainly likes him because he reminds her of Joon, with the train of thought of being
I can't date Joon because morality ethics mumble mumble
therefore, the next best choice is the next person I see who sufficiently resembles him
which miiiiiiight have some problems if that subplot actually goes anywhere, lol
u/HeckDang [+24] (9 hours later)
Joon not being able to work out what was going on between Mary and Grak but noticing Valencia's noticing it is funny. Similar also Amaryllis and Solace's interaction. It's weird that the story being from his perspective means that some stuff is (on the surface) opaque to him, if not necessarily as much so for the reader.
Incidentally, it's interesting that when it was time for Amaryllis' side adventures it was told from the perspective of Joon recounting how it was described to him, but Valencia actually gets to be a POV character for a bit.
u/Weebcluse [+2] (2 days later)
Nah, I think Val's adventure is been told via Joon after he learned the details afterwards just like Mary's POV. Joon did decide to ignore Grak in favor of listening to Val's story at the end of the last chapter. Looked like Joon didn't fell the need to commit on the story this time.
u/CaptainMcSmash [+23] (18 hours later)
OK So I got some serious foreshadowing vibes during that talk between Val and Jorge. Mary mentioned a reckoning and this has got to be the start of it.
Val's best protection against any sort of retribution from demons and devils was her absolutely anonymity, they can't hit back if they don't know what to hit back against right. But now that she's told Jorge what she can do, and he wants to use her against known devils up on the surface, that information is absolutely going to find its way back to Hell and they're going to do everything in their power to stop her eventually.
u/None [+17] (a day later)
This is an incredibly good point that I hadn't thought of. Valencia's identity should be as kept as secret as possible. Even more secret than that. While the power of the backpack is a huge game-changer for Aerb as a whole, Valencia represents an ability to change the status quo on an even more fundamental level. In a sense, her effectiveness is an even higher priority than Mary's uplift project.
u/adgnatum [+22] (5 hours later)
The one time Amaryllis puts her faith in the system, and a nurse gives it all away.
Anyway, friends in high places.
Special Liaison on Existential Emergencies
Maybe that's why Uniquities is so interested in her? But I don't really see it. The heart of Anglecynn? Maybe some effort to portray her as sympathetic? Her position is hereditary, so I'm not sure quite where the popular interest comes from otherwise.
Prediction: More Grak soon. For one thing:
I wanted to go ask him what was up, but I was feeling drained, and Valencia was describing an encounter at a tavern with considerable enthusiasm. It was easier to listen to her than to think about Grak, so I took the easy path.
I can't help but be reminded of a certain chapter of HPMOR:
Harry wondered if he might just be procrastinating, if his mind had just found a clever excuse to put off something unenjoyable-but-necessary.
He actually thought that.
And then Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres decided that he'd just talk to Draco Malfoy the next morning instead, after Sunday breakfast, and then talk to Hermione.
Human beings did that sort of thing all the time.
Grak might also be getting cold feet:
“We’re planning malfeasance?” asked Grak.
“We’ll be accused of malfeasance no matter what we do,” said Amaryllis.
Ok, now Valencia.
She moved one of her tendrils away from a target, through the layers of hell, until it was up beside her, in the same room as them.
I'm trying to search back through the full text: did we establish what sort of sensory ability she gets from a tendril? Can she see whatever on Aerb she would like?
Also, I'll mention that I was spooked that Valencia let her new friend have an Earth book. Not because they should be precious to her, but because the book's existence hints at another big secret.
u/akaltyn [+10] (5 hours later)
Her position is hereditary, so I'm not sure quite where the popular interest comes from otherwise.
For a hereditary government chosing the right leader becomes even more important because you have a limited pool of possible candidates and their effect is much longer lasting. If the uniquities are part of the "deep state" /establishment they probably have an interest in making sure that the best available heir takes control.
u/Noumero [+7] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (13 hours later)
the book's existence hints at another big secret
Not as such, I don't think. Someone plagiarized one of Uther's plays, it's not that big a deal.
Sure, they could conclude something from it eventually, but the Council of Arches will have to reveal its access to Earth resources eventually anyway, if they want to uplift Aerb. That was a relatively minor breach of OpSec.
u/boomfarmer [+13] Trying to be helpful (22 hours later)
The content of the book is less worrying than the fact of the book itself. Look at how it was printed with what materials at what size. Does Aerb have standard book sizes like trade paperback and trade hardback? What is an ISBN number? What the heck is Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data?
u/Noumero [+4] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (22 hours later)
Very good point, I didn't think of that. It'd indeed make the book immediately, and highly, suspicious.
Still, I think their first thought would be that someone dream-skewered recreated it using Earth's weird standards, or that it was pulled from a dream-skewered's memories, or something along these lines. Not that Juniper is dream-skewered, or that Earth is real and the Council can summon items from it.
u/Escapement [+13] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (a day later)
The uniquities seem like the sort of organization who might have looked into dream-skewered folks a bunch already. If they figure stuff out enough to show a Harry Potter book to one of the other dream-skewered, if there are any of those around, they'll get some right confusing reactions; I have no clue what conclusion they'd come to.
Remember, also, that in addition to Harry Potter, Mary and June each left her a dozen books to read. These are unspecified except at least one is Animorphs first book. So I figure we might have more than one other Animorphs book, and possibly a bunch of other Earth fiction too. If someone left an Earth dictionary for Valencia - which they might well have done to help her with Harry Potter - that'll raise tons of questions immediately too. If there's any more explicit reference material there, it gets correspondingly weirder from their perspective. If Mary was trying to further Valencia's education and provided her with a illustrated book of science from Earth, that'll puzzle them a lot.
But just from what we know was there -
Animorphs cover art might raise questions if they look at it closely - they were produced digitally using morphing software. And the inside cover art when you open the cover in Animorphs 1 is distinctly computer generated images of a lizard on a shoe in a locker which they also won't know how they were made - it looks super artificial and weird as it was from the early days of computer generated images. Like, it's got a very pixellated look to it, and if they go over it with a magnifying glass it might boggle them a bit.
Moreover, if they read the text of both Animorphs and Harry Potter, they will discover that they are two books both set on a fictional world that shares startling similarities. To start with, both mention nouns that have no meaning and aren't described at all that are very similar - Animorphs 1 mentions video games within a page or two, while HP&TPS mentions a video camera and computer games being given to a Dursley fairly early on too. The idea of whole classes of unknown, undefined nouns for a population large enough to have it's own literature, with those nouns undefined in the text because they're so much a part of their culture, that the Uniquities have never heard of before, might worry the heck out of them.
u/kaukamieli [+2] (a day later)
Also do we know if the books mention earth specifically? Or if they kinda are clearly in the same planet, referencing same places? Or referencing stuff drem skewered people tlk about?
u/Escapement [+4] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (a day later)
Animorphs 01 - Invasion is set in America, but it doesn't mention it much in that book as far as I can tell Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets references American plumbers in a Dursley chapter, and Goblet of Fire references a group of American witches from the Salem Witches Instiute with a star-spangled banner. Deathly Hallows references Native Americans once. It takes a fairly close reading to find these references (I don't think Uniquities will have the benefit of ctrl+F).
They clearly belong to the same culture but identifying continuous elements in the settings will be a product of time and close reading, rather than being immediately obvious. The more obvious things like sharing weird formatting and presentation details (ISBNs, copyright pages, etc.) will be a quicker tip-off that these are two artifacts from the same culture which is dissimilar to their own.
Still, it's probably worth June's time to try to get the books back before they are closely examined, if possible.
u/adgnatum [+5] (18 hours later)
If the book wasn't specifically Harry Potter I might have a harder time agreeing with you. Its background is our world plus a hidden, smaller world of magic users, so I suppose that the average reader on Aerb would see it as their own Harry Potter story being transplanted onto a weird alternate universe. (Such a reader might be confused that the book then kept so much of the original story the same, but the hypothesis space won't immediately narrow down to the truth).
Amaryllis had tried to extract enough from the backpack to be self-sufficient, so that integrating it away would not be a huge loss. From the outside that might not seem that far from a forge frenzy (if not "merely" a conventional discovery, which seems to have been outpaced by the otherworldly magic).
Demonstrating the summoning ability is also more difficult now that it's entangled with Bethel. Now you have to reveal the meta-entad, convince Bethel to do the thing, etc.
u/dabmg10 [+17] (an hour later)
Well that was an ominous ending, seems like the level up broke something. Valencia trying to write fan fiction is a fun little author insert. I expect to learn more about the iniqueities trough a did session on the conditioner men. So far there hasn't been any large time jumps though I suspect we will pick up next with the concil of arches a little more set up. Narratively the shady organizational will be hiding some dark secret that would need to be dealt with.
u/xamueljones [+24] My arch-enemy is entropy (5 hours later)
Well that was an ominous ending, seems like the level up broke something.
It's been obvious that each succeeding level up has been increasing in pleasure and before Juniper learned soul magic to lower the value/desire for level ups, he had been growing more and more frustrated that he didn't get a level up after combat. It's most noticeable when he's debating to fight a few more golems for the XP instead of escaping when the group were breaking Fallatehr out.
The most recent level up most likely was so intense in pleasure that he won't listen to any logic to lower his desire for level ups. Just like how the people Fallatehr soul-changed didn't have any desire to change back despite their memories telling them otherwise.
u/Rheklr [+6] (17 hours later)
It's only just occurred to me that level ups are, in essence, massive soul-fuckery. The knock-on implications of that are potentially bad.
u/xamueljones [+18] My arch-enemy is entropy (4 hours later)
For anyone who is curious, the name of the doctor, Nonnatus, translates from Latin to English as 'not born' which is not a name you want to hear right before a birth.
I'm also totally shipping Valencia with Mary after their hotel departure scene.
EDIT: I thought Nonnatus was a nurse, not a doctor. Thanks /u/rabotat for the correction!
u/mojojo46 [+19] (6 hours later)
That's the literal translation, but Nonnatus is also the patron saint of childbirth, so named because he was 'birthed' via a cesarean section.
u/rabotat [+7] (8 hours later)
name of the nurse
Isn't that the name of the doctor with burgundy teeth?
u/Adreik [+16] (5 hours later)
When I came to, they had me pinned down. Amaryllis was fixing my soul; she had intuited, correctly, that it was no longer a change I could make on my own, not after what I had felt.
Uh oh, that's not good.
u/MaddoScientisto [+6] (8 hours later)
Rereading it makes me understand that the level up value in his soul got so high that Joon wouldn't be able to have enough willpower to bring him down himself or even allowing other people to do it. He would have become a level-up obsessed person even worse than before
u/Noumero [+18] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (13 hours later)
Raven was the only one of the Knights from a species with a long enough lifespan to still be alive, and she’d been missing for centuries
Calling it now: the archivist girl is the last companion. She had more spotlight than any of the other Knights, in Bethel's stories, and now it turns out she is immortal and missing. She is probably searching for Uther as well; Juniper joining in her investigation would be fitting.
Ropey had been providing the strap, and was wrapped around the staff with elaborate knotwork that struck me as a little bit too intimate. I was used to his knots being economical.
Kinky. Their relationship progressed so quickly.
“If you die, I’ll find you in the hells,” said Valencia. “And then I’ll kill all the demons and devils near you, so it won’t be as bad.”
Aww. I missed Valencia.
“The whole time, up until I saw Joon, I wasn’t sure that I had done the right thing. I kept thinking that maybe I should have killed everyone.”
Precious.
Valencia snapped one of her tendrils through a lesser devil and crushed him in her maw. <...> She had discarded the devil’s parts from her reservoir. Thousands of years of the devil’s life had been used up just for that one little hint at what Mary was thinking.
Devils had emotions too, they were just really, really good at dealing with them.
The infernals weren’t supposed to die; they were scared.
Still, I maintain that her ability is both morally dubious and dangerous. It's nice that they're aware of that, though.
She always felt glad to have killed another of them, then always after that, a twinge of guilt at feeling happy that a life, however abhorrent and irredeemable, had been ended.
u/matematikaadit [+3] (a day later)
Calling it now: the archivist girl is the last companion.
Don't have any say on whether she will be a companion or not... but...
From Raven's perspective, Joon might be the key to find the lost king if it's still her goal.
u/FireHawkDelta [+35] ** (4 hours later)
Now WTC has a loli nudist for completely reasonable in-story reasons. No sexualization either... This is amazing.
u/HeckDang [+17] (9 hours later)
completely reasonable in-story reasons
I mean to the extent that "druid magic runs on bullshit and this just so happened to be what it threw up" is a completely reasonable in-story reason. But running on bullshit means she could have just as easily not been a loli had the locus' magic decided to work slightly differently.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
I think we're supposed to reflect that this is what the Narrative/DM thinks Joon wants. It may be right, or it may be that this is showing us something about the DM. Either way it fits with this harem that the DM has set up though claims he's been only giving "subtle nudges" on.
I personally think that explanation is a bit BS as early Joon was strongly following the game rules and he didn't think he was building a princess harem when recruiting Grak or Fenn. Additionally the disruption of the aging process is more DM fiat that anything Joon chose. So I'd say the DM is vicariously living through Joon more than fulfilling Joon's true wishes.
u/rabotat [+21] (8 hours later)
Oh my God, she's a naked teenager. She acts so much as old Solace that I didn't really picture it right. This does make it a bit creepy. I mean, when talking about anime I don't buy the "But she's actually a thousand year old dragon, so it's not weird if she is a sexulized teen!"
On the other hand, Solace is not being sexulized, currently. it could be a tricky issue, going forward.
u/Bowbreaker [+15] Solitary Locust (14 hours later)
Eh. It's text and not actually drawn out as it is in manga. You only "see" her as a nude and sexualizd underage girl in your mind if you actually put some mental energy into it. And at that point you could just as well have imagined any other fictional character in a creepy/taboo situation since cthulhujerpsen didn't actually describe any part of Solace's new anatomy other thanher height, skin color and voice.
u/JulianWyvern [+9] Wayward Wanderer (17 hours later)
I think it's because in most media, that Thousand Year Old dragon has either not actually lived to that point by natural means (Nowi was in stasis or something right?) nor show the life experience you'd expect from such which just devolves their character into "underaged playing as adult" and the character is more important then every other circustance I think
That said, Solace doesn't need to be a nudist! Give her skimpy bikini, which increases tittilation as by Theiss's Theory and technically gives her clothing, which should soothe the screaming mob (/s)
u/RMcD94 [+5] (15 hours later)
completely reasonable in-story reasons
I mean most loli characters have reasons that are at least similar in form to the reasonableness of this one.
u/Badewell [+15] (7 hours later)
I completely missed that level ups were getting progressively more addictive as Joon got them (as if they needed to be even more horrifying).
Kind of confused as to why level ups would be like this though. Even if level ups weren't particularly pleasurable at all I feel like Joon would more or less be doing the same general thing, he didn't need that extra carrot. Does that suggest that the game layer is a general thing and hasn't been customized to Joon, even if the individual companions and world both are?
Also, what would have happened if Joon hadn't gotten access to soul magic and had no way to manage the level up value? Is the plot on rails enough that he'll reliably get soul magic, or is the PC becoming solely devoted to leveling up at any cost the expected norm?
Maybe it's the game layer's closest way to represent the single mindedness of PCs in RPGs? But again, getting stronger to achieve goals seems like a perfectly valid in-universe reason for wanting to level up, why the addiction?
u/Adreik [+6] (9 hours later)
I completely missed that level ups were getting progressively more addictive as Joon got them (as if they needed to be even more horrifying).
But it's weird; this is the previous level up:
I laid both hands on my chest and concentrated my power, burning through bones on my left side in order to fuel the healing in my ribs. It would take some time to reset those bones, but that was now a solved problem. The changes came fast, first sensation returning to my skin, then a gnawing hunger from an appetite that was finally waking back up. I didn’t suffer from a sudden heart attack, as I had feared that I might, and whatever the soul’s conception of the body was at the boundary areas, nothing horrible like a rending of my flesh happened at my shoulders or hips.
The quest didn’t show up as completed though, and I slapped my forehead when I realized why; I’d drained bones in order to complete the healing. A quick dip into my soul was enough to fix that, and I came back out quick enough to see the notifications in my view, before they were washed away.
Affliction: Drained Bone Removed!
Skill increased: Essentialism lvl 23!
Quest Complete: Boneitis - 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.
Level Up!
And then the end of the chapter. No mention of how it felt at all.
/u/cthulhuraejepsen what was different about that level up? Was it that it happened inside soul-view?
u/WarningInsanityBelow [+10] (10 hours later)
My best guess is level ups feel better the more time has elapsed between them (Joon spent two months and change between level ups, rather than a couple of days). Another possibility is that level up not only heals all physical damage, but also all mental damage and soul magic counts as mental damage, and massively increasing sensitivity to a reward at the same time as receiving that reward feels amazing, but none of that happened the last time Joon leveled, so I don't believe that.
u/valeskas [+3] (13 hours later)
Yet another possibility is that if Juniper is underleveled for the hardest accepted quest, the game would attempt to encourage leveling. I am too lazy to check though.
u/eltegid [+3] (2 days later)
I think it's unlikely, because he accepted the Lost King's quest quite early, and he must have been pretty underleveled for that.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+12] Fruit flies like a banana (27 seconds later)
Typos here, please. (I have a bit of a backlog from previous chapters, which I hope to get to tonight.)
u/Nimelennar [+8] (2 hours later)
Ch. 104:
I don’t think she liked the idea of giving us free reign,
The expression is "to give free rein," meaning to hold a horse's reins loosely so the horse can travel at a pace it finds comfortable.
I'm pretty sure I've run across this one a few times in the story, but this is the first since I've caught up. Or maybe it was "reign in" for some of the other times, which should similarly be "rein in," meaning to grasp the reins and take control of the horse, or pretty much the opposite of "to give free rein."
Edit to add: the ones I've seen earlier might also have been "seize the reigns," which, again, should be "seize the reins," implying you're taking control of the horse from someone else.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+4] Fruit flies like a banana (3 hours later)
I screw that one up pretty consistently, I don't know why it doesn't stick. Fixed.
u/gryfft [+4] (a day later)
I was flipping through the achievements when I noticed that the
Level up!notification is sometimesLevel Up!
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+4] Fruit flies like a banana (3 days later)
I need to spend some time going through and making sure that all of the game messages are consistent with each other. There are a few other errors like that that are unintentional on my part rather than just the game being weird.
u/major_fox_pass [+3] (19 minutes later)
Ch. 104
Valencia nodded, then looked up at Amaryllis. “How much time has passed, would you say?”
Is Valencia supposed to be Solace, here?
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+3] Fruit flies like a banana (20 minutes later)
Yup, fixed, thanks.
u/natron88 [+3] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (3 hours later)
Chapter 103
Amaryllis gave a faint, vulpine smile. “It does make a bit more sense now. You’re not an incompetent, or an embezzler, just running rogue. And now you’re coming to me to make a deal with me.”
I'm only mostly sure including both "to me" and "with me" is wrong. Disregard if intentional.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+7] Fruit flies like a banana (3 hours later)
It's not wrong grammatically, but the repetition/redundancy is bad writing. Fixed.
u/GeeJo [+2] Custom Flair (3 hours later)
Chapter 102:
revision mags to reverse it
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (4 hours later)
Fixed, thanks.
u/thrawnca [+2] Carbon-based biped (7 hours later)
Chapter 101
Amaryllis belly/Amaryllis' belly
I had only sort of/I only sort of
something that I thought was something you wanted/something that I thought you wanted
Chapter 102
- Mary' insistence/Mary's insistence
he was a still mage/; he was a still mage
with only Mary'/with only Mary's
allowing the pieces of him flow/allowing the pieces of him to flow
component but troubled/competent but troubled
tantilization/tantalization
" Do you know - Extra space
Chapter 103
vidric/vitric (Or else chapter 91 got it wrong?)
gave Valencia was small/gave Valencia a small
Chapter 104
was mysterious: that was/was mysterious; that was
and sealing closed/and seal closed
u/Inked_Cellist [+1] (12 days later)
Thanks, fixed! Also, vitric is for glass magic, vidric is for the women
u/notgreat [+2] (10 hours later)
the better to portray her as a component but troubled young girl,
component -> competent
u/Inked_Cellist [+1] (12 days later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/Kerbal_NASA [+2] (13 hours later)
ch. 104
I don’t suppose you have my staff and cloak in that glove yours?
glove yours -> glove of yours
u/Inked_Cellist [+1] (12 days later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (37 minutes later)
101:
It was -[a] big and gnarled, and sitting at the top were tiny windows, with a little door, barely visible.
Unicorn
hornblood had us covered on that front though.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+10] Fruit flies like a banana (3 hours later)
Fixed the first.
Unicorn horn is actually correct -- they have an alicorn that they were going to sell in Boastre Vino, but were prevented from doing so by Larkspur showing up.
There was a bit about unicorn blood not being shelf-stable (along with a whole meditation on how inventory in videogames tends to assume no decay or change because that's not very fun) that I keep putting in and then keep cutting, since it never seems to flow right. I thought I'd put it in this chapter, but apparently if I did, I cut it back out. Obviously that needs to go somewhere though, but it's been almost 300,000 words since it was last mentioned. Maybe in the section when they're in the time chamber and Amaryllis is talking about how they're eating food from Earth, since all the Aerb stuff that's not salted/cured/dried has gone bad? If that section wasn't also a victim of editing?
u/sicutumbo [+2] (4 hours later)
Maybe in the section when they're in the time chamber and Amaryllis is talking about how they're eating food from Earth, since all the Aerb stuff that's not salted/cured/dried has gone bad? If that section wasn't also a victim of editing?
That wasn't removed.
From chapter 93:
Most of the good stuff from Aerb is a few months old by this point, and while we have a few pallets of the bad stuff -- sterilized barren bread -- I’d rather pull from the backpack and have fresh food.”
u/nytelios [+2] (3 days later)
Does alicorn have the same healing properties as the blood? I also thought it was blood because I don't recall any mention of the horn's uses.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (45 minutes later)
102:
It was pragmatic to refuse to acknowledge that there was a person -[in] trapped in cycles of possession.
She ran her fingers through her hair, which was dyed black. They matched, and Valencia found that pleasing.
- unclear what "they matched" refers to. Valencia+Mary both have black hair?
The key would be to throw them -[a] off balance first, get them out of their war footing,
sitting on the bed, wouldn’t be too effective unless she were to exclusively shoot-[ing] them in the head
“Then I promise too,” said Mary.-[.]
so far as magic was concerned, she had -[no] virtually no will at all
sufus-[s]ed by the instincts and knowledge of one
measure of authority, though he [weilded] it awkwardly
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+2] Fruit flies like a banana (3 hours later)
Fixed those, thanks. And yes, they both dyed their hair a very dark brown that's "almost black" in ch 82, called black here for economy and/or as a difference in perception/vocabulary.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (an hour later)
103:
Most of what was exhausting was just the emotional component of +[the] thing
Alcida. You were one of Uther’s Knigh+[t]s.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+1] Fruit flies like a banana (3 hours later)
Fixed, thanks.
u/Crabtacular [+1] (15 hours later)
I noticed a continuity error in chapter 103 regarding Grak's arm and who's holding baby Solace:
“She did not enjoy bed rest,” said Grak, folding his arms across his chest.
“Yes,” said Amaryllis. “Can you ward us, please?”
Grak snorted, but uncrossed his hands and got out his wand.
He's supposed to be cradling Solace at this point but there's no mention of him passing her to someone else, or how she ends up back in his possession a few lines later.
Otherwise, fantastic set of chapters! Thank you very much. :)
u/efd731 [+12] (12 hours later)
Valencia as a character is adorable and obviously not mature enough to deaerge any derision for it, but she reminds me of too many twitter users, to the degree that I just wanna scream “read another book”
u/CouteauBleu [+12] We are the Empire. (13 hours later)
Stay tuned until the next book, where she starts reading Animorphs, geeks out about transforming into an eagle, and constantly questions the morality of killing the bad guys the group comes across.
u/efd731 [+3] (16 hours later)
I would probably stop reading
Not because I want to
But an irritation induced stroke tends to be inconvenient that way lol
u/CouteauBleu [+21] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
Well, a lot of weird things happened in this chapter.
Not sure I like the twist of the protagonists being sort-of-recruited by a rogue Imperial agency with great ideological aspirations and no oversight. It kind of reminds me of the beginning of Mass Effect 2, Shepard being recruited by Cerberus, and I think that was one of the symptoms of the game getting less grounded and more into "spy fiction adventure" territory (not that the same problems would apply to this story).
“You’re talking about me,” said Valencia. “That wasn’t a devil’s insights,” she added. She had discarded the devil’s parts from her reservoir. Thousands of years of the devil’s life had been used up just for that one little hint at what Mary was thinking.
The ecology-minded part of my brain weeps every time Valencia uses her power.
u/thrawnca [+19] Carbon-based biped (7 hours later)
The thing about this particular ecology is, depopulating it would depower Valencia but make eternity way better for billions of people.
u/abcd_z [+28] (7 hours later)
Yeah, but what were the demons and devils keeping in check? What are demons and devils the natural predators of?
... oh, right. Humans. Never mind, carry on.
u/RMcD94 [+9] (15 hours later)
And once there's no more devils everyone can just kill themselves and live happily for eternity in hell
u/sparr [+2] (a day later)
Have we learned anything about whether new demons/devils are created over time?
u/thrawnca [+3] Carbon-based biped (2 days later)
I don't think we know. If they are, then the "hell is sanitised, humans win" scenario may not be possible any more, but OTOH there's no need to worry about Valencia running out of soul food.
u/AStartlingStatement [+9] (2 hours later)
Superb. Thank you so much for this.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+18] Mouse Army (2 hours later)
Don't you mean Supaerb?
u/tjhance [+17] (17 hours later)
she’s going to need a lot of time before she’s ready to talk shop.”
Amaryllis stepped out of the hospital room, dressed in her immobility plate with the helmet off. She had a sword on one hip and her void pistol on the other.
had me giggling. This is so Amaryllis.
u/PurposefulZephyr [+15] (21 hours later)
So... everything got a level up.
The team got a level-up from a group of outlaws to a nation.
Social complications took a level up or four.
Joon got another level in his crippling addiction. Perhaps a permanent soul-fuckery would be neceassary? Or an automatically applied change?
I really wonder why is this a thing in the first place.
...
Oh god.
Joon is going to be contained by others. He's not a hero, but a very dangerous plot device.
After all, Mary is more and more of the protagonist, while Joon just stands and watches.
u/ceegheim [+7] (a day later)
Joon is going to be contained by others. He's not a hero, but a very dangerous plot device.
Secure. Contain. Protect.
They just managed to fool the Foundation's field agents, because they entered prepared for a mild recruitment chat ;)
u/Xtraordinaire [+6] Team Glimglam (8 minutes later)
But I was going to sleep! Oh well.
u/SkeevePlowse [+4] (14 hours later)
Oh, Joon. Grak is really not happy with him, and he just doesn't seem to get it.
u/Bowbreaker [+8] Solitary Locust (15 hours later)
He gets it. He just doesn't know what to do about it.
u/trimeta [+7] (7 hours later)
So, honest question: the title of this fic makes no sense to me. It's come up once or twice in the story, but it's clearly an idiom I've never heard of. Unless you made it up?
u/thrawnca [+23] Carbon-based biped (7 hours later)
Candles were needed to stay up at night, so it means that something was worth staying awake - and consuming a valuable resource - to do. It's not new.
u/ricree [+8] (9 hours later)
Is it a regional expression? I've certainly never heard it before this story.
u/dismantlemars [+14] (14 hours later)
u/thrawnca [+2] Carbon-based biped (10 hours later)
Don't know. I think I hadn't heard it before either.
u/hamnox [+1] (6 days later)
There's also a trick in D&D3 where you can use a Candle of Invocation to get infinite wishes. I figured it was referencing that too - bringing up the moral question of what you'd sacrifice to gain power, and to what ends ultimate power is worth using.
u/PornAcountTheThird [+1] (29 days later)
Specifically, the expression was "the game isn't worth the candle", as in it's not worth it to stay up and play cards because any potential gain is less than the cost of the light needed to play. More generally, if something isn't worth the candle, the gains are outweighed by the cost of the undertaking.
u/MadMax0526 [+3] (13 hours later)
Damn, Joon might be on the verge of addiction.
On a different note, anyone keeping track of how many times he's leveled up?
u/Noumero [+7] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (13 hours later)
It was twelfth level-up, by my count.
u/kreschnav [+3] (a day later)
I have to ask: is Grak's tree hand a TAZ reference? Cause if not, that's a pretty crazy coincidence.
u/NotCharAznable [+3] (3 days later)
I know the updates accumulate but what does the release schedule typically look like for this series? What is the usual gap between?
I do like the story Alexander, you've done a great job creating this setting. I read the whole thing in one go without reading your real name and I believed you were Juniper, funnily enough. The hombrewness of the world makes it very unique.
u/RMcD94 [+5] (13 hours later)
If giving birth as an elf or dwarf is easier I would have expected them to talk about the health risks involved prior to volunteering
u/kaukamieli [+2] (a day later)
They could have paid someone else to carry the baby too.
u/adgnatum [+3] (a day later)
Tricky, because that requires including that person in the ritual, which includes aspects of the soul mage thing and knowing about the last druid. I had a half-formed guess that Esuen was going to raise Solace a bit in the time chamber. This guess has some problems, not intractable ones, such as the operation of the time chamber as a long-term residence by a set of people that does not include Amaryllis.
Had the time chamber been used for long durations before? Between the forge frenzy and the haphazard addition of entads that may have brought it about, maybe no one actually had a good plan for long-term use.
The story already went over the big constraints: air, temperature, and food. I suppose there could have been other ways to address all three, such as the blanket of really long naps. Somehow those didn't make their way into the house though.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
Something they could have considered for sure. Could even have had a mindless body too.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
superb
u/Baljar [+1] (5 days later)
Headcanon: Jorge is Agent Coulson.