Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 53 (Patreon)

Chapter 53: A Frozen Calm

(Original Chapter Title: Strategic Positioning)

The instant I finished editing this chapter and saw its original title again, I hated it. It just... doesn't fit. Yes, they talk about strategy, but it has nothing to do with the actual meat of this chapter. Whispers of War was briefly considered, but one of the beta readers talked me out of it. After that, I... went through a lot of options before I landed on A Frozen Calm. Yes, the bulk of the chapter is about the calm crumbling, but I didn't want to highlight that before anyone ever read anything.

We learn that, yes, Avyna absolutely rushed out of her shop straight to Ranthia when she learned what her words truly meant. As certain and intentional as the elf usually is, she can be just as flighty as anyone else when truly flustered. Fortunately, the current staff of Remera are quite fond of Avyna and treated her shop with respect, even in her absence. That may or may not be important soon.

Remus is about fifteen years into the war, but that's not enough time to get used to just how extreme the environment can get on 15+ year peaks. Remus itself is warm and lush and would have been some of the best land on Pallos, but for the Dead Zone; which is why their armor and clothing proves to be ill-suited to more extreme weather. Unfortunately, even as the problem becomes increasingly obvious and important, getting meaningful change remains a slow process. But hey, at least they have some very watery wine they can heat up!

This is one of the more obvious examples of Remus' Legions struggling to adapt to their new war and situation. It's part of why the faction that favors slowing down the war has come into power; it gives them time to remedy issues and shore their armies up. It's a belief that stems from the (blatantly speciesist) foundation that humans have greater potential than any of their enemies and they just need time to realize it. Even though it was popularized mostly through preying upon Remus' disastrous early war efforts and promising a better solution.

But whether or not they operate under a doctrine of passive resilience, it doesn't take long for the next crisis to find them. The problem with being one of the most aggressively positioned major bases is that a routed Legion has an accessible port to shelter in when they bite off more than they can chew. Unfortunately for them, the leadership of their incoming allies has an ego problem, so they aren't expecting Remera to do anything except receive them and let them take over.

That doesn't seem to be what's happening.

Ranthia manages to get her way on how to respond when their enemies arrive, but that isn't enough to banish the worries in her heart. Honestly, having to wait after learning that multiple enemies that you struggle against are inbound is somewhat cruel. The seeds of doubt are watered by time more readily than anything else.

This isn't entirely relevant, but I wanted to share this for fun, just for anyone that thought I was exaggerating when I said I screwed up Ranthia's third class HARD in the OG draft. Here's the stat changes to this sheet between the OG draft->current:

Str: 32844->33810 (+966)

Dex: 94202->71572 (-22630)

Vit: 89524->72006 (-17518)

Spd: 85894->70063 (-19461)

Mana: 59783->52577 (-7206)

M.Reg: 74518->64725 (-9793)

MP: 60796->54309 (-6487)

MC: 47897->43383 (-4514)

Oh, and don't forget, Ranthia is currently higher level in 2 out of 3 classes (she had 585/600/193 in the OG draft here).

I love having to sanity check everything Ranthia does, to make sure it still fits. </s>