Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 39 (Patreon)

Chapter 39: Ranger Convocation

(Original Chapter Title: Ranger Convocation)

Ranthia has done it! Two years of effort, a big dance number, and more than a few frustrations have paid off and she's a Ranger! ...On the team that never, ever survives.

Starting with this chapter, in the OG draft, I was alternating between Ranthia's perspective and Leoios'. That, naturally, had to go during editing—I just don't use that as part of my writing style. And honestly it got confusing more than once, even for me while I was editing.

There's a plan in place, but clever readers might have noticed some inconsistencies in what Leoios said. He promised that this was a team of the best of the best that he hand picked, yet at least two of the team seem to fall short of that.

Also, did anyone notice we've seen Ranger Mettlea before?! No, he's not from BtDEM—but he did show up in Chapter 20! When I was writing Lacintus' demise at the hands of Rangers I realized I could cameo one of my own upcoming characters. To date I'm pretty sure no one caught it without me mentioning it, but it is a thing I did!

A wild Sentinel Hunting appeared! A mild confession: I never realized that Hunting's mission came off as a death flag until my beta readers got that chapter. I decided to leave it in place since I knew he'd be back—it's always good to keep readers guessing in the future (right?). And no, Hunting wasn't with Nature and Destruction when they died.

Relatedly: Their deaths being announced was new to the editing. Originally the changes in the Sentinel roster were quiet, just new names cropped up as they came up. Selkie's basically handed off this era to me (and the other authors that inevitably start in roughly the same era), so I had to go through and establish timelines... turned out these two would have died around the Convocation, so I codified it. It STILL feels weird—like I'm betraying something—but it needed to happen.

The shimagu are nothing like the formorians were. The war goes BADLY at times. And, frankly, Destruction was horribly suited to dealing with sapient foes. If anyone has any sort of mana sense he's practically a beacon of an obvious target. There will, eventually, be a discussion of what happened.

Hunting's ambush of Ranthia amuses me. I love Ranger HQ just being full of little secrets for those in the know like this. It makes a LOT of sense (and makes the building far more defensible), but Hunting uses them to mess with the closest thing he's had to an apprentice in an age.

Hunting offers another momentary glimpse at the plot that Ranthia missed behind the dance performance. He acknowledges that one particular thing she stumbled into wasn't her fault, and a future chapter will make it clearer what that had been.

Ranthia says her farewells to the people she cares about (...well her Guildmaster and her girlfriend, at least) and is ready to set out on what is sure to be a completely dull and average Ranger round.

Why are you looking at me like that?