Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 39 (Patreon)

Chapter 39: What Goes Up

(Original Chapter Title: Two Meetings, What Goes Up (as in two separate chapters))

Ranthia really is just a magnet for trouble, isn't she?

This chapter starts out with Avyna being upset, which might surprise some readers. When chapter 38 released there were a few expectations that Avyna had been seduced by Ranthia's display of proficiency—a fair assumption, if you assume everyone knows what Ranthia knows. But Avyna hasn't really seen Ranthia in action, from her point-of-view Ranthia took a ton of damage, then shattered, before somehow winning.

It was not a fun watch, even if Ranthia was (despite all appearances) completely in control of the encounter.

But Ranthia explains things and, with the help of a bit of humor, the couple has endured another test! Enter Dimlit.

Dimlit was a shower idea back when I wrote the OG draft. It made me laugh, so I incorporated him into the story once I got back to the computer. Ranthia was an ideal mark—she's a dreamer who has an inherent tendency to trust other people. She was also well-positioned to agree without thinking too much because she was so done with everything at that moment.

Avyna has a better nose for scams, but she wasn't going to get involved. She wanted to see what Ranthia did.

The next morning, Ranthia has a Sentinel meeting where she learns a bit about where she's going! Oh, and she has an argument with Night, that happened too. It's easy to say that Night was crossing a line, but it was kind of a line he was obligated to cross. He is a man of conspiracies and intrigue and Ranthia is involved in something unusual to the point that it's legitimately alarming. Ranthia, on the other hand, is a private woman who is seizing her happiness with both hands and tends to react badly to the efforts from those that would restrain her freedoms.

She's also aware that she could get 'fired' from the Sentinels and still be just as happy as she was otherwise. She didn't need her badge to help stop the threat of the shimagu, it just gave her a more obvious/impactful way to do so. But Night concedes and Ranthia moved on to her other meeting of the day.

Sure, I could have made Dimlit not be a quack... but what would be the fun in that? Besides, Icarus is too prevalent of a story for me to let a roughly designed wingsuit work. Personal gliders are real (as are, improbably, wingsuits), but there's a lot of scientific progress and iteration behind the technology of flight. And, contrary to what we see out of Pallos usually, this is genuine technology. Just not a field-ready design.

"Ye flapped too hard!"

One fun thing about Dimlit is that, despite his age, he's worldly enough to have less of an accent than most dwarves. When he's calm and sticking to his rehearsed lines, it all but disappears—but it's more prominent when he's angry.

Fortunately for him, Ranthia decides against murdering him and leaves. Unfortunately, scientific progress has been set back, once again.