Afterword - Book 5 - Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Chapter 7: As Close as She'd Come

In which Ranthia fails at being a person.

My favorite bit to this chapter is easily Ranthia trying very hard not to look even remotely suspicious. Which, as anyone who's ever tried to do that can tell you, doesn't work. At all. It makes you super sus!

The easter egg with Selkie's book names wasn't actually planned. My original intention was to reference Ultima—I was planning to use Moonshade, Moonglow, and while I was trying to remember the original city's name from before Sosaria was sundered (Moon, it was just named Moon, very difficult), my fingers typed Moonfall. Once I placed it, I was amused, and I officially switched to using BtDEM books! Besides, I still had an Ultima (well, a LP of Ultima) joke in the chapter.

...Which ended up being a whole thing that I'll talk about in a future afterword.

But I want to talk about the Lodge more than anything! I don't hate Ranthia's time spent as a Ranger—there were meaningful arcs and her role in the war was an inevitability. That said? I was... less thrilled to make her a Sentinel. Narratively it made sense, which is why it happened, but she was never going to stay with the Sentinels indefinitely, no matter what form they took.

No matter what she tried to do, Ranthia's heart remained an Adventurer. She chafed under her expectations, even when she lacked awareness of it.

And this book was always intended to be her return to form.

Rowdy folk that face danger on their own terms? Booze and ribbings? A leader-type that makes Ranthia discover new things about herself? It was everything she'd missed, and the Legions had always been a pale substitute for what she truly yearned for.

The Hunters aren't Adventurers, but they were... as close as she'd come to where she belongs.