Next Alpha
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I would plan for next week.
This week I am actually going back over the current alpha and working on not only technical fixes that have been reported, but also working on the simpler of the bigger notes and changes.
Things like increasing Ruiden’s presence, trying to make him “not dissappear/forgotten” yet not break things that work. Exposing more of what Torean and Tiernon are up to and know. Visit from the Emissary of Chaos, inquiring as to “where’s my maelstrom?”
One thing to consider, and which I dropped the ball on: the KoC are toasted/gone/exploded and then sucked into Doom. So as far as the LoC know, the maelstrom completely vanished. Before they decide on vengeance, they have to know WTF happened to them.
As far as the last 20% or whatever amount it is, I am still trying to buy myself time in the book (not me, but the Storm Lords…they have to move a very large army in quickly and this takes days….so what is happening in the meantime with the orcs and D’Orcs and how to cover it without running out of space)
I also plan to reveal more of what is going on with the Alfar; I just don’t want to steal any oomph from Tal Gor’s battle. I see that as the big opening salvo in the Alvaran conflict. The easiest way to do this, and explain the Xtra-Dimensional booty call is to bring forward events with the *-nargoloths. Arg-nargoloth and the other commanders are actually a lot more complex powerful than we’ve seen. They are at least archdemon equivalents and I think it is time to show this.
I think your problem is more Torean than Tirnan. The clueless factor probably revolves around how omnipotent you wanto make them. What I question is this, unlife had been slowly flowing up to Tiernon and maybe poluting his well? Has this been acting like a corrupting agent like a poison? Is it like a kind of heavy metal poison that builds up over time and can kill you or like touching mercury that causes dementia. Torean probably hasn’t been corrupted by unlife? Maybe Tiernen doesn’t realise his problem and it takes an outside god to notice?
Hah hah.
That may even be a bit more obscure then decimate. Decimate was/is just one of those words that sticks in my craw, so to speak, because almost everyone uses it wrong.
Whereas very few people even know the wrong usage of sapience. I’m not sure they know it’s even a word meaning having or showing wisdom and sound judgement.
Of course, being the cynic that I am, I would argue this is understandable given that it is a quality that very few current leaders and role models seem to have. Certainly no one going viral on the Internet has this quality.
Probably don’t want to axe the orcs/D’Orcs as they are the ‘ostensible’ apostles of doom and the cover is almost done with them on it….
While I like to do some bait and switch, (see spoiler on the goal of Nysegard) I think there is a limit to how much I can do and not have people scream.
I really intended to have a LOT more in this book for Tal Gor etal. In my original timeline this is where they were really shining. But things started flowing differently and they got pushed back. In part this is because they are ground based and have to travel and the rest of the story is moving faster than they are.
As for the barons…I go back to the fact that by the alpha end, it’s been a week and a half…the barons live on the other side of the multiverse.
BIG thing to remember, we are talking IMMORTALS. They do not move fast, not as fast as Tom is moving right now. And that is a real advantage that Tom has, he can react far faster than the majority of his opponents.
He would be running rings around Tiernon if not for Hilda and her unorthodox manner.
Lilith can keep up, but that’s because that’s how she keeps her power, demons don’t have the sort of luxury of ponderings that gods do, since all of her enemies and most of her allies are plotting against her all the time.
Note how everyone is surprised at how fast the Alvar are moving. No one expects long lived alvar to move this quickly to thwart Tom. I need to play this up in the Nimbus…note to self.
Honestly, I feel like Ruiden probably never talked before. After all, nobody that Talarius knew knew that Ruiden was sentient, and I think Talarius would mention it somewhere, perhaps in a report or in confidence, that his sword could talk.
As for Ruiden’s personality, rather than child-like, I feel like it’s someone intelligent but simple who just had their worldview challenged. He lived all these years as an anti-demon sword, made by the greatest smith and used by the Forces of Good. Now, though, he finds that his maker/father is also friend with demons, that some demons are good, and that he was made in the Abyss. Thinking about him, I feel like he would be trying to leverage his sharp calculations to make sense of this new information, especially when Talarius talks to him and tries to get his input as well. They are actually very similar, even if Ruiden is smarter and less indoctrinated, while Talarius is more charismatic and socially adept. (Though, being more socially adept than a sword shouldn’t be that hard.)
[quote=EyeDeKay;4191]Yeah maybe some lenamare planning his grand escape or just various lower non mages who don’t know what’s happening questioning the council. [/quote]
I am seeing a lot of interesting Council sessions. Questions about evacuating women and children…but to where? If Exador got wind that they had evacuated people to nearby Council State towns he might use that has leverage against the Council. He might do that anyway.
All sorts of things along that line.
Of course, in reality, yes Exador is royally embarrassed pissed, but he 1) really wants that book and 2) his vengeance would be personal against the other Council members; all that being said if he could threaten other cities to get the Council to force Lenamare to give up the book….
???
Of course, what the Council does not know is that Exador’s threats are mostly hollow until the Storm Lords provide him resources. Sure he’s got a ton of demons and could wreak havoc on nearby towns, but with Lenamare and the wards, the demons can’t do much about Freehold itself…he needs the Storm Lords for that, so it pays to be patient until he can muster all his forces and maximally apply them.
Yeah, this story line really sort of got sat out. This needs to get in pretty badly. Both on the Council side, Lenamare/Jehenna side and more on the Exador side.
Also, Randolf etal (now Lenamare) is still working on his archdemon trap, and trying to fortify Turelane.
Hypothetical question. Not that I want to see it happen.
In theory could Tom use his D’Orc making ritual and his link to grab Lenamare’s soul, drag it into the abyss, and make him into a demon?
I need to reread, but I think he was fantasizing about doing that, imagining it, he didn’t actually do it, but I will go verify.
In that case, wouldn’t Lenamore, once he believes that the demon tricked him into binding him, want to spite the demon/Tom by breaking the binding? I mean, the binding is only useful if it could be used to actually control the demon, which he doesn’t believe so anymore. Thus, the binding has no use, and in fact could be a liability, since Lenamore doesn’t know that Tom doesn’t want anything to do with him.
Yes, you are right in that he did follow the link back to her, even as Tom started to do.
However, that was a dream walking. Although that might not be clear, he invaded her dreams, but this is what incubuses do. They are very good at astral travel and can follow links to the planes of men in order to invade dreams.
So he was following her link and he got into her dreams. She had basically taught him to do this while he was in Astlan, so he now did ti from the Abyss, this turned out to be a good test. If she had an antagonistic relationship with him, she could certainly have put protections on her binding so he couldn’t do this, but given that she wanted him to practice following such things, she did not.
Tom could certainly follow Lenamare’s link if he wanted and probably see where he was, but Tom has no real training in dream walking, plus Lenamare’s bindings are going to be a lot more protective of such things than hers.
From memory there was a scene in bk1 (in the demon pub in the Abyss) where Tom first noticed the bindings and started to trace his own back to Lenmare…..didn’t he start to sense Lenmare’s surroundings before he pulled back???
Hasn’t it already been established (at least for the Tom / Lenmare binding) that it’s not one way????
Found the section in bk1 – end of Chapter 73
[quote]Carefully, so as not to appear too weird to Boggy and Rupert, who were lost in some tale of Boggy’s, Tom reached out and tried to touch the cord. It was rather amorphous, but he could almost touch it if he really concentrated on it. Thinking back to the things he’d tried with the link he’d formed to Tizzy, as well as to the time he’d traced the summons from the priest, Tom tried to concentrate on following the umbilical cord to its other end.
It was hard, much harder than the previous things he’d tried along this line, but suddenly he got an unmistakable impression of a tower room, and a presence in that room. A presence he recognized immediately. It startled him and caused him to break his concentration, bringing him back to reality. It was Lenamare on the other end! The black cord was some sort of link to Lenamare. Tom was stunned by this revelation.[/quote]
Well the demons can trace the bindings back to where their master is, they have to be able to in order to show up where they are called.
It’s just what they can do in terms of sending “through” the binding. For example, wizards can send pain spells down the binding, demons cannot send fireballs back up the binding, that’s what I mean by one way. It’s mainly locational from the demon’s end. And obviously if the wizard croaks they’ll know it.
A lot of it depends on what binding the caster users; there are a lot of different ones, some allow some things, others do not. For example that one that “Gastrope’ used to bind his demon Tizzy”
is a very old, very ornate, it probably has different properties than more modern bindings. We really don’t know what would happen going the other way. Clearly, with the power of Doom, the game has changed.
I think the big thing to keep in mind is that Lenamare is not yet aware that Tom is running Mount Doom. He just knows that he may have a very greater demon on his hands, possibly an archdemon. What he does know is that it appears that his wards were able to expel Tom, and probably Exador.
Right now, at this moment, though, he is much more scared of Exador than Tom. Exador has basically threatened to flatten Freehold and take the book. Tom is off missing somewhere; if he finds out much more, i.e. what Damien and Randolf now know? He’ll probably break the link.
I definitely need to get back into Freehold. People aren’t feeling a lot of tension in this book. Trust me when I say Freehold is VERY tense at the moment. I need to show that much more.
[quote=The Author Guy;4188]Well the demons can trace the bindings back to where their master is, they have to be able to in order to show up where they are called.
[/quote]This reminds me, Reggie was able to return to Astlan w/o being summoned because he followed the binding. This seems to imply that ANY demon could follow its binding back to its master and attack if it wanted. And yet there is nothing that seems to indicate this is so or has happened.
Is this consistent w/ books 1 and 2?
[quote=Malacai;4185]In that case, wouldn’t Lenamore, once he believes that the demon tricked him into binding him, want to spite the demon/Tom by breaking the binding? I mean, the binding is only useful if it could be used to actually control the demon, which he doesn’t believe so anymore. Thus, the binding has no use, and in fact could be a liability, since Lenamore doesn’t know that Tom doesn’t want anything to do with him.[/quote]
Exactly,quite true. Why it’s interesting would be his reaction/rage at people thinking he was but the puppet of a demon, that any demon could trick him or use him.
If I were willing to get in his head more, it could potentially raise qualms of self-doubt.
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