Afterword - Book 5 - Chapter 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 20: Damned Accolades

Wise elves know that the greatest solution to misery is an unexpected and unrequested meeting with a very powerful person.

Wait, that can't possibly be a thing!

Okay, I want to make a quick admission here: I kind of never spared a single thought for the aftermath of the battle, in terms of the elves, until I reached this chapter. In fact, Anthelleon ending up wounded was a last second addition. Just a little more incentive to get Ranthia to dole out the potent potions that she carried. I don't necessarily believe that it was necessary to get Ranthia to do the right thing, but I also didn't want to write her dithering on. Thus, incentive!

And it was only after I described the wound that I realized I was delving into uncharted territory. Did I really want the potion to be able to heal bones as well? Eh, why not! Seriously, I'm not kidding. That was literally my thought process.

Future me might regret it. We'll see.

Generally, healing potions at this point in time are fairly lousy, at least when compared to a dedicated [Healer]. So renewing bone is more than a bit unusual, hence why no one was willing to trust the potion's effectiveness. Aegiomus might have been mortally wounded, but a stomach wound being healed is far more typical, despite being a more severe injury. Health stuff can be weird like that.

This chapter was largely a rare one where I managed to successfully predict Ranthia at pretty much every turn. I had hoped that she'd become fiercely protective of the Ilan fruit seedlings, I expected her to be moody, and I assumed she'd be a bit detached by the time her temper cooled. If anything, I slightly underestimated her, but she behaved closely enough to my expectations that I was able to use all of my plans.

Which I'm thrilled about, because I really liked the idea of her angrily chasing the elves away from the plants. The bit with her kicking the crate shut with sensibly excessive force? -chefs kiss-

And, even better, it kept her with the wagon to her next destination. A meeting that might have never happened, had Ranthia just done the sensible thing and gone home immediately.

I'll have more about that to say next time (which, due to my previous delays, should be right about... now).