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Here is the new (and unbetaed) chapter 97 of The odds were never in my favour, titled The Death of Innocence.

I could blame the summer warm weather to explain why it's late, and it's certainly true in several aspects, but there's also the fact it is a rather big chapter...at least by The odds standard (I'm well aware the WO standard length is in a league of its own).

And yes, it is 18,800 words-long, so...good reading, I guess?

I am going to work on the corrections of the chapter 96 this afternoon, I will try to publish it on ff.net in its final version as soon as possible.

Bests,

Comments

Sebiraider11

All hail the Author for another great chapter. On a tiny sidenote: run for your lifes because the Exchequer managed the near impossible. They managed to recruit a militant Disney-Princess.

Lee Shilo

Confusion has joined the game - but what of Corruption? Not the same, surely that's an error? Death, Lust, War, Chaos, Confusion and Corruption were the six, or so I vaguely recall.

chubster

There's still no confirmation of Alexandra has seen the animated Lord of the Rings movie. "Where there's a whip, there a way" is more fitting than ever and I await this bombshell moment.

windoverwaves

Well, I'm not quite certain if 花(Hua) is her family name, it certainly wasn't mentioned anywhere in the poem that first mentioned her, and the word just meant flower. Which, in at least Cantonese theatre traditions (edit: apparently it's also in multiple other Chinese theatre traditions), what a female character in her prime, who was feisty, confident, optimistic and independent was called (花旦). And a quick wiki search told me tacking Hua onto her name was first done in the Ming Dynasty in a play, quite a while after the original poem was written. There is also many theories to her actual family name and where she was from. But, it's your story, your rules, just food for thought.

s22132

So, how long before Alexandra starts hearing harem jokes? ;) Another very good chapter, with more interesting world building and developments. I personally enjoyed the reveal of Mulan. This next Task promises to be the most chaotic yet; each faction is not exactly the most stable. It also amuses me that Neville can go from complaining about Falk's stupid ideas, which would break the Statute to pieces, to being assured that the odds are still in his favor because the other factions won't be able to use the spells they demonstrated in previous Tasks. He's underestimating his opposition, and I'm not even sure if Neville is entirely to blame, or if it's because of the influence of Fate and/or the Archmage.

Songy

It might be a red herring, as new characters introduced at relevant points in time tend to be, but I have to say the idea that the exchequer might manage to pass the champion of confusion onto the light court sounds like a great setup for shenanigans to occur. Cheers to the wordsmith!

Jeremy

So I know Dumbles has been one of prime antagonist… but I am starting to feel a smidgen of sympathy for him. He like Conde and de Riva is starting to to realize Ra is only gilded gold.

Bel

That was a fun chapter, thanks for sharing it around! I am starting to feel some small smidgen of sympathy for Dumbledore, even with as colossal a hypocrite he has shown himself to be. I"m sure with Ra more than willing to kill people for just questioning him, Dumbledore would suffer an 'accident' if he legitimately tried to withdraw the Order of the Phoenix from the alliance... I really do think that Neville is underestimating the other champions. Sure they will not be able to bring about their big magical guns, but most of the Dark Champions are legitimately skilled in more than throwing pure power at each other. The helping of the Queen is only going to compound that factor. The part about an unwilling sacrifice to seal the messing with the laylines to make Venice the core of the new magical era is intriguing and worrying. Definitely looking forward to more!

silversight1111

Poor Ra, he’s done more to damage his cause than anyone else. His menacing has finally started to push Alex off her fence. Until now, she has been biding her time working toward her own interests which seems to include being left alone to live and learn with her friends and Allies and now she’s at a crossroads. This is why we leave the fence sitters alone when they’re pushed off, they may not fall off on your side or in a way that benefits you, ie Humpty Dumpty. The light’s hypocrisy is really starting to shine though-trying to get Fleur to throw her life at a lost cost that they wouldn’t do themselves is spiteful, poor Fleur, even though she smartened up, if Alex doesn’t get her, Lily will. Is Lyudmila crazy or “crazy like a fox”? If she’s a psychopath she shouldn’t care about her Allies but she seems to, so? Even though she and Alex seem to prefer to play hammers in search of nails, shouldn’t their abilities have some subtlety? I thought Loki was a trickster god, so illusions and changing appearance should be a tool on Lyudmila’s belt? And death stalks everything, some loudly in a blaze of glory, and others quietly like a shadow in the night… I also want Montague to live a little longer now…. Just picturing his expression as someone called him Mr. Zero to his face would be worth it!

Hunter

Hope the next story chapter you plan to work on is WE.

Darkarus

I do have to say that Neville is demonstrating a possibility fatal lack of imagination thinking that the Champions of the Night Court lack subtlety. I am also pretty sure that at minimum one person on this list is dead before the end of task 4: Henri, Falk, Malatesti, Montague, or Poliako.

GAMB42

Awesome new chapter with plenty to think and discuss: - Neville thinking that the Night court is disadvantaged is incredibly naive. They literally have the most powerful champions all on the same team and are lead by the most pragmatic, level headed and sneaky/cheater one among the champions. Alex is probably the best amongst the champions to actually blend in with the muggles. That's one hell of an advantage. - The Mulan reveal was incredible, and "wushu" reveal's made me read his lines in the third task chapter thinking of Ed Murphy voice. - Anthony, can you reveal what was the last artifact trinity beyond the ark of the covenant? I'm wondering if they were Christian themed and if they should include a certain shroud and a certain spear. - The reveal Ra's main plan is something of a board reset is well in line with his extremist views, and the fact he does not actually care about losing his army, the trinity or even the entire light forces side. As it is I can't undestand why the light side is not being harrassed/pressed outside the Tournament.

Jace

Wow! Knight Summoner had to be someone amazing, and man did it deliver! Looks like there's still Knights Priest & Herald yet to reveal their public identity, and Knights General, Executor, and ??? still waiting in the shadows

James Smy

Thanks for the chapter :)

Sebiraider11

So now that I have a bit more time on my hands than yesterday after reading the chapter the first time, I'll do my part to gleefully gush over this chapter. - Osiris Jones Sr seems to have his calendar booked out with searches for old, lost light artifacts and ensuring that they won't ever become a problem again. Problem is, that we do not know how effective he is ... - We have the Ark of the Covenant ... I have the feeling that this thing will show up before the end of the story ... together with Alexander's Tomb (and perhaps even his ghost) - We now have an inkling of why Alexander's dark daughter was evacuated by Nidhögg, not only because he was an available Mercenary at the time, but because the baby would survive Ra's plague just by being near him ... Alexander clearly trusted the right people with his daughter's life - We see another puzzle piece that slowly shows us the Exchequers plan and motivation: They want to return Magic to the world ... They plan the end of the Statute of Secrecy for the 4th task and they intend to do it with a bang ... with a big bang and expected tiny ripple effects in tsunami size ... And because that is only the start that we can see, one has to wonder what they have planned for after that - Neville gets sockpuppeted and complains to Dumbles, who is slowly realising that Ra is bad news ... to late and not enought to do anything about it, but hey, he seems to learn a bit, which is progress - We do see fractures in the Light and it will totally cost them even before the 4th task truly begins. Dumbledore being unhappy with Ra and listening to Alastor Moody is one thing, but we now have three light Champions, which are somehow looking for greener pastures. Yes, Fleur's decision to go Doge was very surprising and wonderfully explained with her being the pov of this decision. De Conde is certainly unhappy and I do not think all that much needs to be said about Eleonora, who like Fleur is a priority target to get back in the Light line. - Then we had the reveal of Knight Summoner aka Mulan of the Hua aka the Disney Princess aka the Exchequer's crazy cat lady (can anyone not see her having a great menagerie of critters that would make Hagrid take slow steps back? and now imagine her glomping and cuddling these beasts into submission for shits and giggles). She is number four of the Exchequer's multi millenial members, with Osiris (Jones Sr), Lady Morgane, Iztli Yupanqui (Knight Diplomat) and considering that we do not know their entire roster there may be even more ... while I believe that the Light will have enough nasty surprises waiting for the coming war, they most likely have only Ra and the currently imprisoned Merlin that reach that age. - The Teams for the 4th task are fun ... We have obviously Alexandra's Team which is the best personel wise, with 4 of the 5 top scorers as well as two certainly talented additions in the form of viktor krum and Ambre de curtois. This is the one team which has the skill and power to win. Longbottom's team got sabotaged by Falk and Malatesti gave a potential victory away when he angered Lyudmilla. - And last but not least we have Alexandra moving a bit closer to the Exchequer, because of the threat that the Chalice of Plagues represents, not just to her, but to everyone. That too was well written.

Mel

I do have a question that's not really specific to this chapter, but more related to Champions in general. I believe there was a Champion of the Dark called Arali, who by process of elimination is the Champion of Corruption, mentioned in previous chapters, yet he hasn't shown up yet. Is it spoilers asking what happened to him, or if he's part of the subsitute champions?

Songy

Just to write this down for a moment: This is a book spanning series, heavily altering canon to the point I would label it more "inspired by Harry Potter" than actually relying on it. In the fourth book, in the fourth of a series of seven tasks that don't even include everything else going on as well, you're going to introduce a plot that is probably going to be complex enough that other people wrote entire books about it. And I can read the most up to date version by throwing a euro at patreon you wont even see much of and everything else for free on ff. Please don't get we wrong, I'm thankful for the great hours I had reading your fictions so far and I'll go so far as to say I can see you're enjoying writing them too. This should be the main takeaway from whatever this is I'm writing here. I just cant help but ask myself why I had to search through ff.net to find your works and why you're restricting yourself to fanfictions you can't commercialize properly with your work ethic, both in output and story-structuring.

Lee Shilo

Just curious - is anyone willing to bet on Montague's survival of the next round, and if so, what are the odds?

Nicholas

First, great chapter thanks for all the hard work! Second, I think the conversation between Susan and Alexandra where they decide to support the Exchequer in the fourth task needs work because it doesn’t make sense. They start out discussing Malesti’s refusal of Romonov and then saying the Exchequer is OK with the teams that have developed because they intend it as a message to the Dark Champions. The message is you can’t trust the Light Champions. The problem with the conversation is that makes no sense. The points don’t follow from each other at all. The connection between Malesti’s actions and the Exchequer is unclear. I guess they believe that Malesti refused Romonov on the Exchequer’s orders. I see no connection between the teams and the idea that you can’t trust Light Champions. The only way I can imagine a connection is if Alexandra and Susan are expecting Eleanor to betray the Night Court at some point but as far as we know they have no reason to believe that. Either I missed something or something is missing. Third, two minor potential continuity issues. I don’t think changes are required but I wanted to point out what they are and how I think they are resolved. The first is the issue of magical vows. We learned in this chapter that Fleur has sworn to do Romonov three favors but back in chapter 63 we were told that the rules of the tournament said no one could participate who “had any sort of magical obligation.” I see two possible resolutions, first and most likely that rule applied at entry, if you are foolish enough to make a magical vow during the tournament that is your own fault and it isn’t prohibited. Second, Fleur made her vow to a Champion of Loki, binding magics are weird around them, whatever the judges are using to enforce that rule doesn’t register vows made to her. The second continuity issue is the triggering of the seals. Back in Chapter 85 Ra told us that the Colosseum was the only place where the seals could be activated properly. With this event taking place outside of it, it would seem that the seals can’t be activated during the fourth task, yet it seems clear some will be. For now I’m going with the assumption that Ra was simply wrong, he is wrong about a lot and it doesn’t seem beyond the Exchequer to have set things up so the seals could be activated anywhere within Venice. The fourth thing I want to say about this chapter is that I think Alexandra has been played. The Queen’s description of what Ra will do doesn’t feel quite plausible and the Exchequer is promising incredibly little. In addition, if you are looking at the good of the whole I suspect that turning Venice into an extremely magical place will be as bad for the people of Venice as Ra’s releasing a plague would be. The conversation is well done but the setup just doesn’t feel quite believable, I think the Queen managed to fool Alexandra with a mixture of lies and truth into acting in ways the situation doesn’t justify. Fifth, I’m suspect Alexandra was given enough information that she will be able to decide who the sacrifice is, which is likely why she is thinking of going along with this as doing Evil. People have suggested Neville for the sacrifice. I doubt that although it would let you be certain just how Fate is going to try and screw things up. The more amusing possibility, although it would require the active cooperation of Fate to make it happen, is Voldemort. The most likely possibility is Falk, followed by Fleur. Sixth there was talk of the difficulty of coordinating the teams. I agree it will be a challenge but think Alexandra has a clear advantage here. Krum and Ambre are mostly ignorant of the broader conflict and just want to do well in the tournament, as long as Alexandra has a plausible plan they will cooperate. Lucrezia is an agent of the Exchequer and wants Alexandra to succeed since she is working for their goals so she will cooperate. Eleanora will require careful handling, the Light has severely alienated her but if she figures out that Alexandra is working for the Dark she may betray the Night Court. I’m leaning toward not but it is impossible to be certain. Lyudmila of course will be a force for Chaos but she is going to give Alexandra some leverage to control her and so should be manageable with care and attention. Compared to the other two courts where the member hate each other (the Doge) or multiple people think they are in charge some of whom aren’t even in the tournament (the Day) Alexandra has it easy. Thanks again for all the hard work!