Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 60 (Patreon)

Chapter 60: Minor Interlude – Emperor Augustus – Absolute Ambition

(Original Chapter Title: N/A)

Here ends Book 1, not with a bang, but with a heaping dose of setup and a glimpse at a major character we've only seen through the eyes of others.

This chapter needed to exist to serve as a transition between book 1 and book 2. It also serves to replace an interlude from another character (that would have come after Ranthia's first Ranger round) that I decided to remove. For the most part I prefer to keep the audience learning things as Ranthia does since letting either level of knowledge of events surpass the other is asking for trouble. But, unfortunately, Ranthia has no way to learn a lot of things and is somewhat politically unsavvy.

As an example, here we learn the core pieces of a plot here, where Ranthia was used as a pawn in a game that she knew nothing about, but I'll explain it further. Back during the big musical number (the Winter Solstice dance performance) Ranthia got caught up in a plot. Augustus commanded a performance that flew in the face of Night's suppression efforts and made sure the right people knew that he was acting to try to appease the fae because the Rangers/Sentinels weren't. The performance was alleged to be a last ditch effort to earn Sentinel Dawn's return. And yet a Ranger Trainee found her way into the performance. So Augustus had an iron necklace provided to her for the after party (remember when I asked who you thought provided her that necklace?), intending to frame the trainee for "sabotaging" his efforts—but that went awry too.

And here we learn not just the origins of the War Ranger program, but we see that Augustus' eyes have landed on a different prize. This may or may not explain a few things that come up in the future.

Changing tacks slightly, this isn't a chapter I could have written at this stage for the OG draft. It took me a long time to get comfortable using Selkie's characters in Blind Chaos (arguably it took Selkie themself to get me comfortable with it!). In the OG draft in this stage, outside Hunting and Night, the characters from BtDEM were nonspecific cameos—mere hints at most.

While I'm glad that I found my courage, writing Augustus proved to be a unique challenge. We just haven't seen enough of the man that all readers fully agree with any given set of personality traits. This chapter went through a few different revisions as I got feedback from my beta readers and tried to nail the right vibes for Augustus. He's a man of ambition—he was one of multiple generals that seized power, yet only he became emperor or was acknowledged by Night, after all—but he's also not an idiot. He takes measures to seem humble and to minimize the appearance of impropriety, but his control is absolute. He's no sycophant born into power and wealth, nor is he some ostentatious preening peacock strutting about. He's a military man that became an emperor. His rank meant he was no stranger to politics (and likely was born of pretty high station), but there's a difference between being an important military man and being the emperor. And the metaphorical devil is in the details of those differences.

I like how it landed, even if it was even more challenging than most forays I've taken out of Ranthia's head and into the minds and eyes of others.

But here ends book 1. It's a weird feeling. Like... yes, Patreon's been on book 2 for a while now—but that's patreon! Royal Road finishing a book always felt like a future thing. And now the future is here. I still, in a lot of ways, feel like I just began my journey of sharing Blind Chaos with the world, but we're only eight days away from it being five months since I started.

How time flies.

Seriously, thank you to everyone that reads these words. You haven't just enabled me to write a bit longer and helped pay for the art I continue to commission—you've given me the loudest possible vote of confidence: your hard earned money. Whether you sign up for the $1 tier for a month or you've supported me since Ranthia's journey began, you've helped me overcome my fears and doubts. Putting my prose out into the world is scary, before Blind Chaos I could count the number of people that have read what I've written on one hand. And Ranthia and her story mean a lot to me. It's a lot like baring myself to the world in a way I never have—I can be rather closed off in a lot of ways.

Selkie's prose gave me comfort when my former career began to come undone. But Blind Chaos isn't some rehash of Elaine's journey—it belongs to Ranthia. I do my best to chronicle her story in an engaging way to do justice not only to the world that Selkie built but for Ranthia as well. And for all of you and every other reader I've ever had or ever will have.

A full book, over 300,000 words. Gods and goddesses.

But that's book 1. Book 2 is well underway for the Adventurer Tier patreons. And soon enough Royal Road will begin to see it.

Book 3's main arcs and numerous other events are planned.

Book 4's core arc is planned. And there's some ambiguous plans ahead for the future. But Ranthia, for some strange reason </sarcasm>, isn't a character I can write detailed plans for. As always, I create hooks and events to throw her way and we see what happens. It can be annoying, but it makes for a stronger story I like to think.

This concludes Budding Rhythm.

Onto the Grace of War.