Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Chapter 10: Setbacks and Disappointment

(original chapter title: N/A)

First, I wanted to note that the chapter afterwords have been removed from the Book 1 collection and added to the new Afterwords - Book 1 collection. One of the Patreon supporters requested this to make it easier to find and read the chapters. If there's anything else I can ever do to make life easier on you all, please feel free to let me know on here or on discord.

You guys are helping me stretch out my savings so I can keep writing, so I always want to do what I can to show my gratitude!

Onto the afterword:

Yes, we're still on Passings from the OG draft, now finally on page 4.

So, things have gone Wrong(tm) for Ranthia. The ambition to walk a difficult path doesn't always make for a smooth road, and I thought it was important to have Ranthia stumble. This moment was in the OG draft (even if it lacked any weight since I skipped around so aggressively). I hope her progress feels hard won now, so the bitterness of the setback hits like it should.

In a lot of ways I was a bit railroaded by Ranthia's decision to reset, but here I wanted to explore more on what Ranthia's options were. [Brilliantly Blinding Beauty] (ah alliteration, I blame Dominic Deegan for my love for it) was new to the revision, but it was actually an interesting class build to consider. It just wasn't Ranthia.

The cave of How On Pallos Did This Brat Set So Many Thrice-Cursed Traps In Less Than Eight Days (I'm 80% sure this will stick as its official designation for years to come) was also completely new, and it was fun to write. My writing style is more like DMing a ttrpg, I come up with obstacles then throw them out. Then Ranthia figures out how to resolve them. By happy coincidence uh, I mean, expert planning on my part, it was a situation that required Ranthia to use her classes in a way that was directly contrary to her plans. It set up the failure VERY nicely.

Ranthia's chosen to continue to stick with her path. Will things go better for her from here? ...Okay, yes, at the time I'm writing this, all but one of you already know! But let me pretend that only time will tell!