Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 33 (Patreon)

Breaking the format up a bit to say: You'll want to read this one!

Chapter 33: Academy III

(Original Chapter Title: Academy II)

This chapter was so intimidating to write, back many months ago. Beat-by-beat this version's pretty similar to the OG draft, just polished up. But this was where I found that I was forced to write popular, major characters from BtDEM for the first time! It was uncomfortable, but when I came to accept it was necessary... well, it got easier over time.

And now it's not even the first major character that Ranthia interacted with!

Night's still a bit intimidating to write though, he's popular and (Warning: spoilers for BtDEM Book 10 for the rest of this paragraph), unlike EVERY OTHER CHARACTER Ranthia interacts with... HE'S STILL AROUND. It's a bit limiting on how much I can describe and do with him, especially since some details are still, to this day, kept guarded in BtDEM. I'm sure as heck not going to try to lift the veil for readers!

Ranthia and Hunting's relationship is fun. He's transparently using her as a vacation at first, but he finally starts to take a real vested interest in helping her out and becomes a proper mentor. Meanwhile Ranthia is prickly and untrusting, yet she opens up to him because they bonded in a familiar way at first. None of that was planned, of course. Originally Ranthia was going to have more mixed feelings about Hunting, but I was once again surprised.

I honestly have no idea if Ranthia forgot Noise's title was Noise or if she was just mocking him. She can get weirdly focused on noses when she doesn't know someone's name.

But yes, Ranthia's penchant for tuning out the world has bitten her in the butt! She's the only Adventurer that ISN'T acting out of naked greed! Which is part of why all of them have made it so far. The Guildmaster chose them specifically for those he believed could take it, then lit a fire under them too.

I don't have a ton to say about Ranthia's courses. I wanted to give Ranthia a different Academy experience than the one Elaine got—and reflect that Remus is starting to change through the shimagu threat. Mental Exercise was my favorite idea of these; a course meant to help trainees learn to think on their feet, even if it's a bit abstract. And Ranthia finally makes more progress on dealing with her issues with reading and writing! Soon she might just be literate!

The biggest change I made during editing was that initially [Blade Dancer] had better stats than [The Final Knife]. When I went to edit it though, I really didn't like that! [The Final Knife] was what her prior class wanted to evolve into while [Blade Dancer] was the sidegrade. So instead, it became something painful that she had to give up on to pursue her passions. ...Which is so much better.

So, I think it's time to get into a TRUE behind the scenes.

NONE OF RANTHIA'S BUILD WAS THE PLAN.

[The Final Knife] was always meant to be her next class. Ranthia's [Warrior] class was meant to be basically an ambush-assassin style class.

See, waaaay back when, Ranthia derailed my plans utterly. When she encountered the (vampire) [Dancer] in Ariminum's nightlife, she was supposed to be entranced by the woman. I'd never even imagined Ranthia'd take an interest in her dance instead.

In my original plans (it's been about a year and I didn't have firm notes) Ranthia was going to approach the [Dancer] and get introduced to Remus' vampire population through her. This would have resulted in Ranthia getting wrapped up in the plots of one of the other Progenitors (not Night), getting in over her head, and ultimately being plucked out of a bad situation by Night himself. That was meant to be Ranthia's path to the Ranger Academy.

Instead, I got my first major panic when writing when Ranthia shrugged off the exotic [Dancer] and instead fell in love with her moveset. ...And yes, this was my first one.

The next cropped up during Book 2 and has dramatically changed my plans for Book 3. So... look forward to THAT unveiling in the future.