Afterword - Book 4 - Chapter 43 (Patreon)

Chapter 43: Meeting Her Peers

(Original Chapter Title: Meeting Her Peers)

I didn't raise this in the prior chapter, but in the OG draft Night himself showed up to fetch Ranthia. It was fun and it let Ranthia get some details about what was going on early in, but um... Yeah, when I revisited the scene I couldn't get past the question about why he would bother; the man is busy. Sure, Ranthia hadn't been to Spearpoint before, but she's a proven wayfinder and it's a mostly straight shot with ample tall natural formations to climb to check her position. She was fine, he knew she'd be fine, and she wasn't the only Sentinel on her way to the base.

So when I started editing these chapters, he sent a message.

I do still like this line from the original though: The bloodsucker really had a knack for saying rude things that came across as reassuring, Ranthia had to admit.

The bones of this chapter really didn't change much from the OG draft. Sure, I rewrote/polished damn near everything, but many of the conversations and actions were already present in the OG draft. That said, I did cut a few things. In the OG draft, Night (somehow) travelled to Ranthia, gave her time to pack, met with her base commander, and then they arrived in Spearpoint while it was still early into the night. Because past me was bad at comprehending time, I guess? This left Ranthia time to sleep before the meeting, but she decided to go to bed hungry for unstated reasons (seriously, why?!) and so Sentinel Grey woke her up with food to shut her stomach up. Ranthia also avoided Solace not because she was creeped out, but because she didn't want to sleep with a coworker—which was more than a little presumptive.

I did like the "Ranthia wasn’t the sort of hero that one should meet." line from the OG draft, but frankly, Ranthia had made far too much progress with her [Mind Healer] for me to keep it.

So yes, I do remove things from the OG draft when I find it necessary; I'm not just adding! Ignore the fact that the OG draft version of this chapter was approximately half the length. Though, in my defense, I was starting to rush at this point because I was close to finishing it; there were definitely parts of this chapter that felt far too brief to read before my editing.