Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Chapter 13: The Grace of Remus

(Original Chapter Title: The Grace of Remus II)

"This 6.6k chapter feels long and thematically blurred, I should split it and elaborate on a few sections I glossed over." -two over 7k word chapters later-

The devil is in the details, and that devil is joy.

That moment where Ranthia realizes that Sentinel Aurora's 'grand feat' was staged because she was too damned useful and necessary to wait. As a behind the scenes thing, Aurora's mostly a Sentinel because the Legions didn't have the mechanisms in place to dump absurd levels of resources onto a single person. The fastest way for the generals to get her ideal use out of her was to make her a Ranger, wait four years (Academy + 1 round) and Sentinelize her and get her deployed to the war with the full breadth of Remus' backing.

The Legion Ranger Commanders and the Ranger Ranger Commanders have been working far more closely now than they used to. Which is good because the Senate Ranger Commanders are bigger wildcards than ever, especially when the emperor is up to something.

The Dead Zone still sucks to enter, but... well it's kind of like entering a building with a slightly foul smell. When you first set foot inside, it's awful. If you're obligated to stay, eventually you stop paying attention to it—so long as it isn't getting worse or the source is mobile.

And Ranthia discovers that there are consequences to arguing with and insulting the woman that's chauffeuring you around! (And I slipped the tiniest Girl Genius reference in; I couldn't let someone being dropped go without a 'FOUL!')

Ranthia's feat of dexterity that follows was new. In the OG draft I tended to largely undersell Ranthia's stats (and, in my defense, at this stage Elaine hadn't started playing with high dexterity to show us what it can do). And who doesn't love a display of extreme competence, especially when it's recovering from a whoops moment?

I honestly feel sorry for Night in this chapter. His reaction might be extreme, but he also just had the two women Sentinels start a VERY PUBLIC fight—with Grace causing numerous disruptions getting there to start it. Then, the more he learned, the stupider it was. Aurora dropping Grace was childish and unprofessional. The fact that it stemmed from Grace insulting Aurora made it petty and even more childish. Then he learns it was because they got drunk and fucked? He has some regrets. It was in some ways worse than Elaine's indiscretion that he had a similar reaction to, because of how many layers of disappointment were wrapped up in this incident. It was like a parfait of stupidity.

And now, at long last, SEVENTY THREE chapters into Blind Chaos, we come across one of the downsides for Ranthia's shifting. Losing both skill gems and inscriptions is a huge blow and is yet another way that I balanced Ranthia. She'll discover why this is in the case in the future, so I decline to cover that here. But no, this wasn't a for ease of writing thing (which one my beta readers accused me of), this was planned from when I first started designing her shifting. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, there's detriments too.

No inscriptions to empower her armor to make up for her stubbornly absent armor Skill. No charged gemstones to give her access to ranged spells and other safety measures.

She doesn't get to take the easy way out of any combat encounter or crisis. She can't carry deus ex machina.

At least Ranthia finally gets some custom armor, which is genuine good news—even if it doesn't erase her disappointment at the loss of options.

Writing Sentinel Grace's reveal to the Ranger Convocation was fun. It was a moment where I got to pull threads back together. ...But it's also a moment where Ranthia came to understand just how long being gone for six years could be. Not everyone was still there waiting for her. And as much as I get accused of leaving things unresolved—that's fucking important.

Ranthia can't be everywhere. This is a consistent theme. She's strong, but she isn't superhuman.

Most tragedies in one's life happen out of sight, only to be learned of after the fact. Pallos doesn't have phones or other means of long-distance communication. Without someone to tell you, all too often you never know what you've lost until you reach for it.

(Yes, this topic might be a bit personal for me. Apologies.)

Changing topics. It was an intentional choice to delay Ranthia's character sheet until this moment. Thematically it felt like it had more impact to reveal her latest character sheet here. She's finally back in Remus, with a stat sheet that's practically unheard of by Reman standards.

I'm sure that won't be relevant to anything.