Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Chapter 16: Responsibilities & Secrets

(Original Chapter Title: The Ropes)

...Okay, now I kind of like the original chapter title more. Meh.

This is one of the unspoken curses of being a writer, eternal indecision.

The bones of this chapter may closely mirror its OG counterpart, but I think/hope that I've managed to capture the emotion better with my edits. Writing can be weird because sometimes I can feel Ranthia's misery but forget that readers can't.

This chapter heralds the return of an important non-character... the word 'patroned'! Ah, how my beta readers hate this coined word—nearly as much as I love it! Honestly, the English language really needs a better word for someone that visits a store, yet reflects the person's own will. 'Customer' is predatory on its face, and it doesn't really work well in this context. There are other words, but they all fit poorly or have unfortunate connotations. I humbly offer 'patroned' to fill this void in our language.

We also see a rare self-aware moment from Ranthia. She actively accepts that she's trying to distract herself from doing something 'scary'. She accepts that this is silly. ...Still takes her a bit to work through it though.

Naturally, this is immediately followed by a non-self-aware panic spiral, even as she chuckles at a 'kid' for doing the exact same thing. Oh, Ranran...

This isn't a mechanic from BtDEM, nor one I discussed with Selkie, but... well, pulling back the curtain a bit. The System operates under very clear rules. Yet [Stylists] have always violated them. It's a harmless sort of violation, but it always kind of low-key bothered me that they don't seem to run into the vitality defense. Hair has to qualify under the vitality defense—otherwise numerous classers could weaponize it against their opponent. So, I decided to split the difference. Plainly the System allows some degree of an exception for [Stylists], but what if it wasn't a total exception?

What if there was a point where you could have too much vitality for a low-grade [Stylist] to affect you?

This is one of those things that makes sense to me and can be handwaved as Gaia not being very good if Selkie ends up contradicting it at some point. It makes for a fun scene too.

Well, fun for everyone but those involved.

A few readers have given me flak for the standards of the Sentinels slipping so far. As if bruised egos weren't a common issue with Elaine's era of Sentinels? I think people forget an important difference: no one present can possibly brawl with Ranthia. She's a wall, far beyond their means.

There's a reason Night avoided speaking about what he did, even among Sentinels. And it's not because everyone was trying to hide things from Elaine.

Ranthia getting shown the ropes by Swarm was in the OG draft, but I heavily revised it for this chapter. Events got moved around to try to improve flow and impact. Elaborations were added.

And Ranthia got read in on Pastos. I couldn't not do it, once I learned how much of a meme that is with BtDEM readers. But more seriously, it also made sense. "Don't cause another Pastos" was in the OG draft and the plot rolled on with Ranthia left going 'Huh?' but... Well, that made no sense. Pastos was a major failing, they wouldn't hide from it. It's the 'Please do not do this' lesson every new Sentinel has inflicted upon them.

Which necessitated Ranthia being read in. And now we know too! ...Wait, what do you mean the camera feed cut out for a few minutes there?

Unrelatedly, Ranthia shrugging off the secret gigantic arcanite heart of Ariminum still makes me giggle.

Having Ranthia's Sentineling tutorial come kind of late was very intentional. It let me introduce her to concepts in the wrong order (more or less as she tripped over them, like the smoke and mirrors bit), and it made for a more interesting read—assuming I did it correctly.

Swarm's one of my favorite new Sentinels. He tries to play around, but his sense of humor fails to click with Ranthia. And he's still so very, very bitter about how he became a Sentinel. Yet he's personable. He was meant to take over Ocean's duties while Ocean was busy with the war, but Ocean proved to not have the stomach for slaughtering sapient beings on a massive scale (who knew?). So the two of them split duties. Swarm isn't a fighter (he might actually have the lowest combat capability of any Sentinel we've seen across either series—unless someone was improbably allergic to wasp stings and somehow their vitality didn't help). Poor guy had the misfortune to live long before the advent of modern wizardry. But he is an inscriptionist and knows things that he shouldn't.

...Including things his fellow Sentinels would rather he not.

There were two Night interludes that I ended up cutting. The relevant one to this point was in book one, after Ranthia met with a group of Sentinels after her first round as a Ranger. That chapter revealed that Night was going to oppose Ranthia as a Sentinel candidate, but... well, as I honed my writing, I came to realize that I really didn't like providing the audience with major plot information that Ranthia lacked.

I decided to keep events masked (except where I do broader setup, like the end of book interludes) until Ranthia finally learns of them.

Fortunately for her, Swarm talks to himself when he's alone. (Same as me!)

Now Ranthia learns that not only had Night opposed her as a Sentinel candidate, but he changed his mind due to an emergency. Putting things more bluntly, Night expected there to be a bloodbath if he didn't pull Ranthia beyond the direct reach of the generals (and, as those that read chapter 60 might suspect, the emperor). Ranthia had been on the fast track for being "disappeared," but she was powerful enough—and disloyal enough—that she would have fought back.

Things would have gone exceedingly poorly for her, but she might have crippled Remus' military efforts before she died.

But Ranthia doesn't quite know the full details, she focuses instead on the risk that she might have attacked the generals. It's a thread of thought that might lead to a greater problem and she's canny enough to realize it.

But will she follow the thread?