Steven's Notes Ch 213-216
Added 2022-05-15 07:02:00 +0000 UTCnote: these are in completely random order, because Apple is butts
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“Once I was at what I judged was a safe height, I blasted away, using vibration magic to sculpt the shockwave away from the people that were standing down below.”
Boom! Neo style departure.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
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May 8, 2022
Post
“if there’s something like godhood waiting for you at the end of this, would you be god of Earth as well?”
“Ugh, I hope not,” I replied. “I mean, on the object level, yes, I would prefer that Earth had a nice, loving, caring god, rather than no god at all, or, I guess … the Dungeon Master as a god.” I frowned. “Ah fuck, that would mean that the Christians were right all along.”
I don’t think it makes the Christian’s in particular correct, but it does mean religious people were onto something and he’ll have to eat humble pie. ;)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“I’d get upset because I could hear mom and dad screaming at each other through the walls, but then I would go to bed crying because I was thinking about these poor unfortunates who were largely half a world away, who I could do nothing for.” I chewed on my lip for a bit. “Maybe it was just a coping mechanism, a way to equate my own pain to this other pain that felt larger and more important, to co-opt it. I don’t know.”
Spoken like a dude with high WIS. 
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“They were a motley crew, made of different species and wearing wildly different outfits, with a suit for the gnome, Figaro, a plain, austere dress for the vitric, Alcida, and traditional garb for Ferst and Bragg (Ferst with a sweeping neo-traditionalist dress in orange and white, Bragg with a gray suit which prominently featured a thick wrap around the waist): they were both sharp-beaked likoni.”
By eyes are glazing over the clothing descriptions, but I love how the different POVs have different voices.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
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May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“I would rely on my ability to pulse magical sight, trying not to do it too often for fear of building up a penalty that I would have to wait on.”
Doesn’t he just have to use his Breath and he has a little meter for that, right?
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 5, 2022
The Endless Toil
“I had virtually no hand in killing the dragons. I think there’s a real opportunity to do good in the NLEZ, but it’s the kind of frustrating, abstract good that doesn’t satisfy that primal part of me that wants to physically punch evil into submission.”
My read on them was right last chapter. No doubt my picture wasn’t complete, but I understood part of it.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“It was at that moment that I arrived on the scene, ignorant of pretty much everything, including the identities of everyone that Amaryllis was talking to. I’d gotten, at most, the last few sentences, and didn’t have enough context. I wasn’t floating, as much as I wanted to be, and I had shifted my armor to be a non-threatening steel.
The gnome has the gold. Get it from him.
I looked at Figaro Finch, who was looking at me with a faint grin.”
Nice camera shift. And this is gonna be great. “Ey bro, sorry for the trouble, but can you give me everything in your pockets?”
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“If I had to go back like that, to return to fifth period English class with only a slowly fading memory of what had happened … It was a haunting thought.”
What note was he passing?? Who passes notes anymore? And he’d burned bridges with all his friends, so who was it for??
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“So, no democracy then?” asked Grak.
“Lord no,” snorted Amaryllis. “Self-governance is important from both a pragmatic and ethical standpoint, but the form that self-governance should take is
absolutely not
democratic elections, or worse, direct democracy. Take the temperature of the room, sure, but we’re not going to foist a new system of governance on these people from the word go, and certainly not one that only works, when it does, with an educated and culturally cohesive population, which this is not.”
“Er,” I said. I sometimes forgot that Amaryllis was royalty, not that it necessarily impacted her views too much.”
Best thing about this is that I’m pretty sure Eneasz agrees with everything Amaryllis is saying so he can’t put this on his list of why he doesn’t like her for her noble heritage.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“so you would need work crews rather than a rotating shift, and that’s simply to account for the replacement of a single zombie.” I could feel, more than see, a smile spread across his face. “I am, of course, ready and willing to help with whatever solutions to this dilemma your team can come up with.”
Hmmm… he’s fully aware of the fact that he’s too big to fail. He probably didn’t even need half as many human children as he has, but he knew they’d make a perfect trump card. He probably has a hundred dead man’s switches to deliver the news to the larger world that someone damned millions of children to death and eternal torment if he gets killed.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“My eyes had landed on the two patches on the shoulder.
One of the patches had a cob of corn, and on either side, what I assumed was a team or division name, “Corn Squabble”.
The other patch was the flag of the United States of America.”
Uther had it made for nostalgic purposes? A DM good to mess with Uther back in the day? Hmmm… 
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“A fuckin’ trillion people in the hells,” I said. “Even if we can save them, even if I’m ever allowed to be god … the actual
experience
still happened, even if the memories are erased, or whatever we’re going to do about it.”
“You do what you can, then you move on, to do whatever
else
you can, and try not to look back, try not to glance at the horrors that can never be undone,” said Amaryllis.”
Just dropping wisdom left and right in this chapter!!
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“We need more information,” sighed Amaryllis. “But I think we’re close to cracking this.”
There’s gold near.
The voice of the call of gold was eminently unwelcome.
Leave the complex, now.
“There’s gold near,” I said. “I need to get going.”
“We’ll handle it as much as we can,” said Amaryllis. “We’ll look for the cracks and follow the breadcrumbs.”
So the Call can just detect gold too? Pretty handy. I wonder why the DM wants him out of the conversation at this point. They’ve been this close to whatever gold for a while now but it chose this moment to make Joon chase it.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“Status?” asked Amaryllis.
“No new calls from the gold, the second generation is good to go with some logistical and cultural issues to figure out, I invited Esuen to the meeting apparently just to get her depressed about her children, whatever, it’s fine, where am I going?” I said all this at a rapid pace, because I didn’t want to get bogged down in any of it.”
I love how he runs past the bummer stuff. Plus he can fly like a badass now. :)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 5, 2022
The Endless Toil
“(There was, of course, an alternate etymology, a folk understanding of these men and women as
wailers,
possessed of the kind of lunacy necessary to pull up massive creatures from the deeps. Having met a few of them, I was willing to give that meaning some credit.)
”
I love these little asides. Joon/AW giving us one here makes me hopeful his mood/day has gotten better.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
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May 9, 2022
Post
“The result would be that almost everyone involved would feel good about themselves, and the deaths of millions would be swept to the side with people breathing a guilty sigh of relief.”
“Is that a threat?” asked Blue-in-the-Bottle. His zombie’s eyes narrowed, but his face was still.”
Love it. Let’s see if he gives anything up when backed into a corner.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“while I have full faith and confidence in all of you, what’s being proposed is basically using a prototype to build a second prototype before the first is even finished.”
“Argument from uncertainty and risk,” said Liam, with a nod, labeling it without condemnation or judgment. “Both have been addressed to my satisfaction.”
Man, they’re like super duper dedicated. I don’t want to say this level of fervent devotion to the cause is literally impossible without some amount of immoral indoctrination but I don’t see it that often from places that aren’t propagandist hell holes.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Post
“It can’t be Earth though,” said Amaryllis.
“Why?” I asked. I somehow felt like we should have been on different sides of this conversation.
“No, I understand,” she replied. “If the Dungeon Master is capable of creating Aerb, then he’s also capable of creating Earth, but — there has to be a higher level of reality.”
Ah… that’s why she objected to the idea of it leading to Earth. She can’t accept the idea that it’s turtles all the way down.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“a special machine was being hooked up to his opened veins to manually pump blood through his body and out an artery into waiting barrels. It was pretty grisly, but I was a bit numb to gore at this point in my career, perhaps helped by high WIS, which was supposed to help with not freaking the fuck out about things.”
Indeed. The very wise rarely freak the fuck out about things.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“Aerb didn’t have a term for parasocial relationship, but that was what she’d cultivated, trying her best to be as authentic as possible.”
I’ll have to google that at some point.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“I tried not to think about it, because that way lay, if not madness, then at least a seven hour conversation with Amaryllis.”
Lol. Well put.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 5, 2022
The Endless Toil
“But the call of the gold was asking me to basically just sit in place and make sure that no one stole any of the dragon parts, which was
incredibly
lame, a 0/10 quest if I had ever heard one, unless we were going to be interrupted by a theft or a fight, which I didn’t think terribly likely, and was trying my best not to hope for, no matter how bored I was.”
I’m so glad he has an opportunity to be bored. He’s been too busy and stressed lately. He’s much more fun to be around when he’s like this. :)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“Well, it’s done,” said Amaryllis. “We’re not leaving and telling Blue that we’re fine with him continuing operations after all.”
“We’re not suggesting that,” replied Ragusa. “But you have no authority here.”
“I do,” said Amaryllis, staring him down.
“You do not,” replied Ragusa.”
Oh boy. *cracks knuckles* Amaryllis is gonna have to slap them down - with social skills!
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“On Aerb … even if I had to give up all my magical powers, and my knack for picking up new skills, and just be a regular guy going to a regular job — well, I was a multimillionaire, so I just wouldn’t have to, and my smoking hot wife who
probably
wasn’t just pretending to love me was effectively the leader of two, soon to be three nations — the deck was stacked in favor of Aerb, simply by my circumstances. But even if it hadn’t been, even if I were living as the average Aerbian, or some version of myself that had a parallel to what I would have been on Earth, I still thought that I would have liked Aerb more, just on its merits.”
He makes it sound like Aerb Joon would have loved his life here. If he was a millionaire with a hot empress wife on Earth I think he’d prefer Earth.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“Didn’t your father go to war in the Middle East?” asked Grak.
“He did,” I replied. “Gulf War I. But — look, lets not get bogged down in a few gaps in my knowledge about Earth.”
“Wait,” said Raven, “Don’t you literally have an entire expression about that event? ‘Never forget’?”
Right. Always never forget that. But you know, it’s more of an expression than a thing we’re supposed to actually remember.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“I hope you’re not put off by the body,” said Valencia, gesturing to herself. “It’s a form I wear for convenience, though not much suited to the current moment. My day-to-day life, up to this point, has not involved particularly much in the way of house calls.”
Pretending to be something other than what she appears to be. Just like she think Cap is doing. 
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“There were, contrary to the item manifest, four silvered surfboards set into special racks instead of just one. That wasn’t a huge surprise, given that when I’d made the item back on Earth, it had been in a set, given to the party at far too low of a level. The utility of them was questionable for my case, but it allowed for fairly rapid flight, so long as they all stayed near each other.
”
Nice! The fact that it was given to that at too low a level makes me wonder if that’s a nod to how he got this quest at a low level and, if they’d gone for it, they could have been flying around this whole time.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“I kind of got obsessed imagining all those other kids who had just gotten fucked by life. It wasn’t pity, it was this gut-wrenching sadness, like I was feeling the weight of every issue in the world, or as much as I could at the age of ten.”
“I know the feeling,” said Amaryllis, nodding. I looked over at her, and saw how set her face was.”
She’s the kind of nobility that Eneasz had better find room in his heart to like. ;)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“Why wouldn’t he?” asked Amaryllis. “It’s the logical thing to do. He could fill the world with versions of himself and cooperate in order to set up shell companies on the outside that would distribute his goods. Everyone would win.”
“He doesn’t care if everyone would win,” said Valencia. “He would only care that he wins. It would be about the risks and benefits of this imperfect, difficult duplication.”
His self centeredness is his ultimate failure too, just like Doris.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“I feel like you know me a lot better than I know you.”
“Well, the devil’s in the details,” Valencia smiled.
I gave her a glare. “Puns are the lowest form of comedy.”
Valencia laughed. “In that they're the bedrock upon which everything else should be built?”
“Have you gotten funnier?” I asked.”
Is she saying she’s rockin Devil Goggles right now? And her defense of puns was spot on. ;)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“Sure,” I said. “I trust your judgment.”
“You do?” asked Valencia, brightening.
I nodded. “You’re the subject matter expert. I would never second-guess Grak on wards. And … look, I’ve been practicing my forgiveness. The stuff with Fenn — so long as you understand my point of view, so long as you’ve changed the way you operate — at a certain point you just have to say that the past is the past, and the future will be the future. Because I really have missed you.”
Joon’s a good friend. So Val thinks this dude is too cool of a cucumber to be to the real deal? Sounds intriguing. I assumed he was just a little off his rocker.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“Narrative isn’t driving us, but it needs consideration,” said Amaryllis. “Let me ask you this: if you were a Dungeon Master and you included something like this in a game, what would the point of it be? How would you resolve it? What solutions would you accept from
players
attempting to resolve it?” She waited a tick after each of those questions, but I didn’t jump at any answers.”
Let’s be real. If Joon threw this at the party he’d tell them after they ran in and killed Blue and were partying at a tavern that night. Or the problem would be intractable if they knew about it before slaying Blue.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Post
“The notes are in Sable, I’ll put an Amaryllis on it next time I merge with Prime.”
“You’re not?” asked Raven.
“No,” said Amaryllis, shaking her head. “Prime is dealing with logistics right now. We’ll merge soon though, and I’ll do some other merges to put scholarselves on the Long Stairs”
She’s so nonchalant about how insane her life is. Classic Amaryllis.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“But I’m also not a narrator.” To my knowledge, anyway.”
That might be the most meta sentence in the story. He didn’t say the second part, he thought it in the text. 
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“I need to get going,” I said.
“Good seeing you,” said Figaro Finch with a wave.”
Love this fuckin dude. :)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“There was something nauseating about the circles you could end up going in, if you really wanted to, and I wondered whether religious people ever felt this way, like the Christian God was just constantly testing them, putting out signs that might not be signs, maneuvering the world in ineffable ways. If I broke down the doors and found nothing but the loot we expected to find, would that be because that was what had been set up here, written down in some yellow legal pad long ago as a payoff to a risk I could take, if I wanted to? Or would it be a
message,
a
sign,
permission to go after Fel Seed?”
Yeah… easy to go nuts thinking about that sort of thing. I’m glad they talk about it in the story, but I feel like a hamster on a little wheel when I try to think through these possibilities.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 5, 2022
The Endless Toil
“Dragons were one of the most intensely magical creatures on Aerb, and while there were some supposedly exciting applications of Mome Rath and the Momenagerie, the uses for dragon bone, dragon scale, dragon blood, dragon teeth, and so on, were well-known and decidedly less speculative. ”
Niiiice. Get some gold dragon scale armor!
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“Incoming,” she called out, and the twin fireteams that formed Amaryllis’ guard boxed her in to protect her.
Two seconds later, with a
zwrish,
six people stepped into being not far from the manor.”
Uh oh…
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“By far the best part of being a gold mage was being able to fly.”
It is pretty badass. Even Uther teleported and rode (presumably magic) horses.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“Ah,” said Amaryllis. “When has propping up the mujahideen ever backfired?”
She said it sarcastically, and I raised an eyebrow. “Not familiar,” I said.
She stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “Are you fucking serious?” she asked.”
In his defense, I can’t say I’m familiar with the term. I just looked it up and it’s the kind of thing I should I have heard about but… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Post
“Actually, that directionality was a part of it, with magic increasing as you went down, so … I guess if the Long Stairs
were
woven into the patchwork of Aerb, and Aerb was the endpoint, then it would get easier as you went along a path back to Earth? Meaning that all the challenge was front-loaded, which is, uh, not how things are usually done.”
My guess is that - assuming any of this is on point - then the difficulty rises as you go through it regardless of which side you enter through. Still doesn’t explain how some random muggle (maaaaybe a soldier or something, but the little emblem makes me doubt that) made it through.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“cut a few of the exclusion zones that were actively creating misery, make a few updates to sapient rights, eliminate the hells so that soul power wasn’t a moral problem, things like that. It wouldn’t take much work, for a god.
I wasn’t going back to Earth, when it was all over.
”
Oh damn. If I’d been asked to guess earlier I probably would have leaned toward him wanting to stay, but he’s way more nonchalantly resolute than I would have thought.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“Okay,” said Amaryllis. “I know you don’t like to talk about narrative, but — Juniper, this might be really important.”
“It’s not actionable,” I said. “I mean, it’s even less actionable than regular narrative theory, because for all we know we might be side characters, or the story might be all out of order, or — it’s
pointless.”
Agreed! Just keep doing your thing, find Arthur, rip the DM’s dick off, and call it good. :)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“because Terrence wouldn’t
be
him, he would just be —
Well, I couldn’t properly argue that it wouldn’t be him, because I didn’t actually believe that, but if I’d been Blue, I would be worried that I wouldn’t come out the other side quite the same.”
I think I hear what Joon is saying and I agree. I’d choose an imperfect copy over oblivion, but Blue is way too self centered to risk a loss of fidelity in the copy.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“And … how are things?” I asked.
“Great!” she replied. “But I’ve missed you all a lot, and it feels good to be back, even if it’s only just for now. Amaryllis has scheduled me for two nights of partying before I go back, in between interviews.”
Two nights of partying? When everyone else is working their asses off to save the world? I can’t shake the “Devils are talking through” Val vibe.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“Except that then we have no idea what base reality looks like,” said Amaryllis. “That should alarm everybody.”
“If there even is a base reality,” I said. “Which there might not be.” I waved a hand. “Try not to get too bogged down in it, or if you’re going to, get a clone to do it.”
“Will do,” replied Amaryllis.”
It would be disconcerting, but I’m with Joon on this. If there’s nothing you can do to break out of the matrix, don’t worry about it. She’s got that Bible quote to lean on about god granting her the serenity to accept that which she cannot change, right?
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“Barren bread is a possibility in the short term, though even then, it’s a tremendous cost and logistical problem, which would apply even if we set up our own operations in Barren Jewel with a direct line to Necrolaborem or wherever we end up settling these people. Narratively, that would be a good way to revisit an old location.”
Would I be mistaken to say that would be literally the only location they visited more than once? I’ll have to think about that. She’s so immersed in narrative thinking it comes to her without effort.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Post
“It’s the answer you were looking for,” replied Raven. She hadn’t touched the uniform,
conspicuously
hadn’t touched it, like it was radioactive, or laced with poison.
“Maybe,” said Amaryllis, frowning a bit. She looked up at me. “Does this help us at all?”
“In the scheme of things, no,” I replied. “If true, which it probably is, I think it tells us where Uther was going, and I think it’s not hard to understand why.”
I’d put some background thought into what bizarre curveball the glass fields could throw at Joon but this didn’t make it on my shortlist. ;)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“The defined breaks from traditional narrative would be things like stream-of-thought, random events that don’t fit in with narrative, playing with the expected narrative cycles or characterization … oh, and an unreliable narrator.”
Well we definitely get stream-of-thought and random stuff, but not stuff that’s totally out of place. And I don’t think he’s been an unreliable narrator, but it’s really hard to say at this point.
Most of this conversation is merely fun meta-chat/down time for me. I don’t know enough about stories to have an opinion on if this is pre-post-postmodernism.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“Interrogate Amaryllis on the location of Perisev’s vault.
The call of the gold in my head was unwelcome. There were too many requests, coming too fast. I had hoped that I would get a few days between errands, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen.
I caught Amaryllis’ eye, and began signing to her in Gimb. She signed back before I was even finished with the sentence; apparently, she’d anticipated this and already had a clone at the site, which was four hours' flight away.”
Fuckin Amaryllis is always ahead of the game!
Those books probably aren’t worth much, so I assume the DM has another cool clue in her hoard for us.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“The door was locked, and I spent some time trying to open it gently before finally giving up and blasting through.”
Nice of him to try not blowing it up.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 5, 2022
The Endless Toil
“The whalers had been making bank, given that this was mostly within their wheelhouse, and that there was a pressing need to get everything done before the less-stable parts of the body rotted.”
I meant to put this in my notes last week and say it on the air, but I don’t think they had a chance to bottle Tommul’s soul. Maybe Raven did.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“The tuung were, by far, the most successful project of their sort in the entire history of either Aerb or Earth.
This did not mean that they were without their flaws.”
Yeah, they seemed pretty impressive every time we got to see them on camera. I’m curious to learn more here.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“It’s a go/no-go test,” said Amaryllis. “If it goes off without a hitch, it’s a sign that the Dungeon Master agrees with the long-term plan of wrapping things up. If there are complications, but it ends relatively quickly, then that’s also probably a sign that we’re clear to move toward the end game. But if it spawns two more quests, and is clearly only the first step in a long chain, then we know that moving against Fel Seed is unlikely to produce the results we’re hoping for.”
Huh. Not a bad idea, as far as these things go.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“I didn’t stay for the entirety of the dragon disassembly, which was going to take anywhere from days to weeks, with the final sale of everything we weren’t going to keep taking even longer. It felt nice to have some alone time with Amaryllis though, before I had to go back to deal with the bigger stuff.
”
I’m also glad we had the down time to chat and have some light fun. Let’s get back to shit mountain.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Post
“You put forward a theory with lots of inference,” said Amaryllis. She was examining the patch up close. She looked up at me. “You know that we have access to an entad that could make something exactly like this?”
I’d considered that, but then why would he make this random garment and why keep it? If it was a memento he wanted, it could have been anything closer to his heart than a random uniform.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“Grak fixed Rilke’s Strap, so you can talk to me via the Fourfold Flask if you need to, unless I get killed, or have to run an errand for the gold, or whatever.”
“Are you okay?” asked Amaryllis.
“Yeah, fine,” I said.”
It’s hard to not sympathize with his attitude here. I’m reading it more as restlessness than something like impatience or resignation.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“Hrm,” said Amaryllis. “Are you?”
“You’re asking me if I’m an unreliable narrator?” I asked. “I mean, I haven’t lied to you, except those times I did.”
Haha. I’m so glad he’s got time to be bored, chill, and make us laugh. :)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“Hold him down while I look inside,” I said.
“Wait,” said Valencia. She stepped forward and looked Terrence over. “Terrence, something was done to you by Captain Blue-in-the-Bottle, likely at a very young age. That fear and uncertainty you feel, that you felt long before we came here? We think that we know what’s been driving it.”
High five Val! Joon was ready to freak the shit out of this poor kid. They make a good team. We need to get the gang back together.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“I looked, and saw Valencia, who began running toward me with a smile.
“Valencia!” I called back as she met me with wide arms. I had known she was coming, but still found myself happy to see her.”
I wonder if I’m alone in not being overjoyed to see her? This reunion doesn’t feel appropriately toned. She unilaterally disappeared with their dangerous monster house for… weeks? I actually have no idea how much time has passed.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“I mean … the whole of Earth being on a roughly similar fictional level to Aerb actually resolves some questions that I had, like how some far-future civilization would be able to reconstruct Arthur once his brain was in the dirt. For
me
it made sense, because maybe at some point in the future my brain could be preserved, or this was some kind of reconstruction or regression built off of some later version of myself, but no, it ties things up neatly.”
”
Indeed. I was going to type out my own thoughts but Joon said everything.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“That’s more of a history lesson than we have time for,” said Amaryllis. “The point wasn’t actually about those attacks, or the wars that, by some idiot logic, followed them, it was about how allies of convenience can become incredibly inconvenient. It was a lot more pithy before it needed exposition.”
Most pithy things are pithier before lengthy explanations. There’s probably some kind of simple curve you could draw for length of message and pithiness.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“I didn’t like that. I also didn’t know whether she was telling the truth. Obviously granting Blue eternal life was a carrot we could dangle in front of him, but actually giving him that carrot at the end of it … blegh. Better not to lie, better not to break your contracts, in part just due to following sensible rules for life, but also because other people might see that you were perfectly willing to go back on your word.”
Joon articulates the solid reasons for commitment to contracts/promises!
I’d tell Blue we’d let him live till the end of time but neglect to tell him time I’d gonna end in single digit months when Joon becomes god.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“The room was small, I could see that right away, but there was something in the center of it, a matte black outfit of some kind that was unaccountably floating in the air.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) is this the armor Uther was wearing in one of the Bethel flashbacks??
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 6, 2022
The Endless Toil
“I don’t know what this would be like
internally,
from our perspective, but you can tell a story with time all out of whack, put the beginning at the end and the end at the beginning, thread different events however you want, constantly switch perspectives … you can do that in modernism too, but I think in postmodernism it’s partly to play with the form, partly to question the audience’s interpretation of events, all kinds of things.”
I get the feeling he’s not talking about books like GoT or WoT. Is it like those movies that record scratch and say “I bet you’re wondering how I got here, let’s jump back 2 weeks”?
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Bureaucratic Melees
“Where is the gold?” asked Figaro Finch.
“Nunya,” I replied.
“Nunya?” he asked, that fool, that absolute moron.
“Nunya business,” I continued.”
Ooooh snap! :)
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 8, 2022
Glass Houses
“The castle wasn’t too hard to find, because like almost everything else in Glassy Fields, it had been well-preserved. It wasn’t anything too grand, just a summer palace of Uther’s that he’d rarely used, which had been turned into a full residence by one of his descendants before the exclusion had hit.”
If this was Uther’s place (I think we might have known that but I don’t remember) then there might be something here for Joon. I’m also curious what caused the exclusion. Could the person responsible still be here?
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 7, 2022
The Endless Toil
“But since we’re likely to uncover things that might change the conversation, better to have that conversation later and focus on the groundwork now.”
Loyalty increased: Amaryllis lvl 27!
Loyalty increased: Raven lvl 5!
I took that as a good sign, but it did very little to lift my spirits. There was too much work to do.”
They like his pragmatism and focus on the immediate need of the people who need them.
Excerpt from:
Worth the Candle
Alexander Wales, cthulhuraejepsen
This material may be protected by copyright.
May 9, 2022
Post
“Without access to the soul, the spirit was a lot more complicated. I wasn’t exactly flying blind, not quite, but it was harder to make sense of what the individual threads were doing, because I couldn’t reference the soul for more concrete examples.”
I’m assuming/hoping the DM didn’t make saving this kid impossible by fucking Joon over with that Exclusion.
