“The tragedy of our time, of every time, is that while there is power in knowledge there can be just as much in ignorance.”
– First Princess Eugénie of Lange
I watched the Scorched Apostate sit in silence, face solemn, as the two healers from the House Insurgent finished seeing to the wound on his leg and moved to the larger task of his heavy burns. I’d had him brought away from where the last four survivors of the nameless village were being looked at by another priest. Grandmaster Talbot spoke with the priestess in question – a fair-haired Liessen girl in her late twenties – before trudging his way to me through boggy grounds. With his helmet removed, Brandon Talbot’s neatness was even more apparent than usual, all the more glaring for the contrast with his worn armour. He sketched a bow and I flicked an impatient hand to tell him to cut it out. I’d made my peace with a lot of the formalities having put on a fancy hat meant for me, but they had no place out in the field.
“My queen,” the knight said. “Sister Cecily says the survivors are physically healthy and without disease.”
If the boy was right about the seeded plague and his eyes were sharp as I suspected they were, he might have spared them for that very reason. Or it might be he’d simply missed them before exhaustion caught up with him and he ended up retreating to the temple.
“Send a rider ahead to Lord Adjutant, informing him he is prepare a quarantined tent for them,” I ordered. “Then have them sent back on some of your spare mounts, under escort.”
“By your will, Your Majesty,” he said, then hesitated. “Though it is unlikely they will know how to ride.”
“Tie them on, if need be,” I flatly said. “They’re in no state to walk and I’ll not have them rubbing elbows with this one.”
The last two words were married to a jerky nod of the head towards the young villain I’d found.
“Agreed,” Grandmaster Talbot said, tone heavy with distaste. “I’ll see to it.”
I let him handle the arrangements, gaze lingering on the Named. Two healers from the House Insurgent spent thirty heartbeats trying to heal the burns, but to no avail. There was less bleeding beneath the blackened skin, but no other difference to speak of. The charred ruin that’d been made of the Scorched Apostate’s face was not something Light or sorcery would be able mend, I suspected. I limped up to the three of them, the two priests ending their attempts as I approached and falling into deep bows. The House Insurgent’s priests always seemed to be trying to make up for the my significantly more nuanced relationship with the House Constant by open displays of esteem and allegiance, which I still wasn’t quite sure how to deal with. Over my years of ruling Callow I’d had good working relationships with a few brothers and sisters of the House, but genuine deference from people sworn to Above was still something I struggled with.
“A gallant effort,” I said, “but those are beyond Light’s ability to mend.”
The boy’s eyes betrayed no disappointment at my words, only a sort of cynical satisfaction. He’d not believed for a moment he’d be freed from the burns.
“I can only apologize our failure,” the older of the priests said, and seemed intent to continue along that line until I briskly shook my head.
“There is no need for that. It is a natural thing, and not unknown to me,” I said. “I once had such a scar as well.”
A long red cut that went all the way across my chest, where the Lone Swordsman had gutted me before leaving me to die.
“Once?” the boy spoke up, picking up on the implication. “No longer?”
“It took a death, but I was rid of it,” I agreed. “But you’re rather to young to be thinking of trifling with angels.”
It’d taken snatching a resurrection from Contrition to wipe the scar away, and I was not truly certain it’d been the angelic touch and not the victory before it that’d actually done the trick there. I’d ask Tariq to have a look at the boy regardless, just in case Mercy might feel like living up to the virtue it claimed, but his Name seemed like it might just resist the change tooth and nail: he wasn’t called the Lightly Singed Apostate.
“Thank you,” I told the priests. “I would speak with him alone, if you don’t mind.”
Deeps bows once more, and murmurs of agreement.
“Congratulations,” I told the Scorched Apostate. “You are Named, and the first of this spring to be brought into a treaty backed by almost every crown on Calernia.”
He blinked with his blue eye, uncomprehending.
“There’s a proper formal name for it,” I idly continued, “but most of us call it the Truce and the Terms.”
“A treaty about what?” the boy asked.
“Not hanging boys like you when we find them,” I said.
“I’m not a boy,” the boy insisted. “I’m fourteen.”
I did not betray my surprise. The burns had made it hard to tell his age and he was tall for a boy of fourteen. Especially a peasant one. Fourteen, I thought with muted grief, and already hundreds of corpses to your name. There were some among the Named he’d be rubbing elbows with that would be impressed by this. They wouldn’t even all be villains.
“That’s the part that trips you up?” I still asked, dimly amused. “Not the hanging, being called a boy?”
“You can call me Tancred instead,” the young villain said. “Or Scorched.”
I did not quite have the heart to tell him no one would ever call him the latter save as mockery, though I suspected even Archer would feel a little bad about making sport of someone so painfully earnest.
“Tancred,” I said, a half-hearted concession. “You are Named, and though there will be an investigation about what took place in this nameless village-”
“Marserac,” the boy interrupted, tone heavy. “It is called Marserac.”
I forced myself not to look at the burning wrecks in the distance behind us. Only a handful of far-flung houses would survive of what had been called Marserac.
“Do not interrupt me again,” I said, tone calm but firm.
Tancred bit the sole part of his lip that was not a blackened ruin, looking like I’d slapped him. I made my heart ache, but it needed to be done. I was not his mother or his friend: I was his patroness, and perhaps on occasion I’d be his teacher. Boundaries needed to be set from the very beginning.
“As the Scorched Apostate, you have been approached by one of the Grand Alliance’s high officers and extended the chance to sign and abide by the Truce and Terms,” I said. “Though what took place in Marserac will be investigated by my people, and your claim of a seeded plague looked into, even if you are mistaken in that claim you’ll still fall under the blanket amnesty that comes with agreeing to abide by the treaty.”
Tancred’s sole blue eye burned with indignation and he looked about to boil over, but he kept his tongue. My lips quirked in approval. Good. If he could master himself on this day, of all days, then he had some promise.
“Speak,” I said.
“That’s rotten,” the Scorched Apostate burst out before I’d even finished the word. “That I’d still get away with it if I’d just-”
He shivered, and I could almost see his mind shying away from fully looking at what it was he’d done today. There would be a need to nip that habit in the bud – failing to recognize what you were was a dangerous thing, for a villain – but even now I still had enough mercy in me to leave that for another day.
“- if it’d just been slaughter for slaughter’s sake,” Tancred forced out, “murder for sport. That’s rotten.”
The boy hesitated.
“Sir,” he hesitantly tacked on, half as a question.
“That’ll do,” I said. “And it’s not a pretty thing, you’re not wrong about that. The business of survival never is.”
The indignation had yet to abate, so I flicked out a hand in permission for him to speak once more.
“They say we’re winning the war, though,” the Apostate said. “Last summer the Black Queen and the Iron Prince almost took back the capital in Hainaut, and since then the attack midwinter was beaten back. Why does there need to be an amnesty for villains?”
“For heroes as well,” I plainly said. “We’ve no sole claim on bloody swords.”
It was somewhat refreshing not to have been recognized, I found, but this perception that we’d achieved anything but a bloody stalemate against the Dead King – the ruling champion of wars of attrition – needed to be put to rest. This summer we might just begin turning the tide, Gods willing or out of my damned way, but the sole front that could be said to have truly gained victories until now was the Lycaonese one. Those hard fuckers up in Twilight’s Pass were making all of us proud.
“There is a truce, Tancred, because that first summer offensive in Hainaut nearly lost us the war,” I said, tone serious. “Because the midwinter attacks would have broken through the defensive line if the Fortunate Fool hadn’t sacrificed himself to take out the Lord of Ghouls, or if the Witch of the Woods hadn’t flattened one of our own fortresses with two thousand of our soldiers still in it. Because we need every Named, even the worst of them, and each one that hides from us out fear might end up raised into the Dead King’s ranks instead if he gets his hands on them.”
The young villain looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. My assessment had been stark, true, but I’d wager that was not the reason: I was not speaking as an officer would, but as someone who had a seat at the kind of table where there were precious few warranting one.
“So crimes committed before joining the treaty are granted amnesty, no matter how foul,” I said. “Heroes and villains are to observe the peace of the Truce with each other until Keter falls, no matter past enmities. Should conflicts arise, or accusations need to be made about breaches of the Truce, they are to be brought to their representative under the Terms.”
I nodded at his inquisitive look, granting leave to speak. Indignation had gutted out, looked like, as it tended to when it was cast against the abstract instead of something you could see or hear. Curiosity was more tempting a mistress than arguing with me, at least for now.
“And who are they?” the Scorched Apostate asked.
“The White Knight, for heroes,” I said. “The Black Queen, for villains. Those who claim to be neither can choose who they would appeal to. A band was assembled under the Archer that has a degree of legal authority as well, but they are wanderers.”
Tancred slowly nodded, seemingly not unfamiliar with the Name. Indrani’s reputation had made it this far north, then. She’d be pleased to hear it, vain creature that she was.
“Under the Terms are also set out obligations that must be fulfilled to remain protected by the Truce,” I continued. “I’ll let you paw through the lot of them later – actually, can you read?”
Tancred looked away, then shook his head.
“Something else to see to, then,” I said. “They’ll be read to you in detail by a sworn representative until you can read them yourself. The crux of them is simple: follow the laws of the land and serve in the war against the Dead King. If there are lesser grievances or breaches, punishment will be meted our by your representative under the Terms.”
Quite a few of the heroes had howled at that last detail, a few like the Blade of Mercy and the Blessed Artificer even threatening to walk if it was upheld, but with both the White Knight and the Grey Pilgrim in my corner we’d had the clout to ram it through. Not that Tariq hadn’t had his reservations, but we were all aware that precious few villains would even consider Truce if joining it meant they were under heroic jurisdiction. On my side of the deal the trouble had been making it clear to the Named that I was actually serious about enforcing the Terms. The Pilfering Dicer hadn’t really believed me, and so Hakram had held out his hand on a stump as I hacked a finger off as chastisement. There’d been another sort of challenge too, unsurprisingly: two other villains had lost little time before trying to take my place as representative by force of arms.
The Barrow Sword had been pleasantly straightforward about it, telling me outright he intended to use me as a stepping stone to rise high enough he could bargain with the Dominion to be named as the founder of a line of Blood. He’d just as straightforwardly submitted when I’d struck him hard enough with Night to blast him through two carts and a palisade. We’d had drinks after, and while he was a ruthless bastard he was also halfway decent company if you didn’t get him started on the Silent Slayer’s line. The Red Reaver had not been so respectable in his ambition. He’d tried to slit my throat in my sleep only to be caught by Indrani while trying to slip through my tent’s wards, and after that I’d… made an example. A warning to anyone else who might have similar ambition and lack of sense. There had not been a challenge since, though I’d no doubt that the longer this war lasted the more I’d end up having to face.
“I will fight the Hidden Horror,” the Scorched Apostate solemnly said, “on that you have my oath. I will march north and face the dead.”
“You’ll be headed to the Belfry for a few months, Tancred, unless there’s a pressing need for your talents,” I drily told him.
While the smouldering remnants of Marserac behind us were testament to the power the young villain was capable of wielding, I had no intention of sending a mage so spectacularly untaught straight into the nightmare of the northern defensive line. That was a recipe for either losing a company to an uncontrolled blaze or serving up Keter a fresh Revenant. Named lost a great deal of power after the Dead King got to them, and some aspects Neshamah either could not or would not maintain in death, but a Revenant spellcaster with this much of a bite to him would be a rough ride to deal with even if he ended up having only one trick.
“The Belfry, sir?” the boy hesitantly asked.
“This isn’t the kind of war that can be won with boots on the ground alone, Tancred,” I said. “The Grand Alliance understood that well before it began mobilizing. There would be a need for fresh sorceries, for unprecedented warding schemes and artefacts. A safe haven would have to be built for those scholars who would study the Hidden Horror’s tricks and learn how to unmake them, too, one beyond his reach. And so the Arsenal was ordered raised.”
I let a moment pass, gauging how much I should truly say. There’d been some of us, at the beginning, who’d argued that the Arsenal’s existence should be kept a secret. Princess Rozala had been one of the more ardent partisans of that belief, arguing that against Keter the best defence was secrecy, and the Grey Pilgrim had backed her – which meant the Blood had as well. In private with me, Tariq had argued that by keeping the Arsenal secret now we would later get the benefit of revealing it when tipping a pivot one way or another, but I’d been unconvinced then and I was unconvinced now. As it happened Hasenbach and I had, for once, been in complete and utter agreement. Even if one was willing to write off the effects on morale that knowing such a place existed would have on the rank and file of the Grand Alliance, which neither of us was, the fact remained that practically speaking keeping it secret would be near impossible.
Too many people would be involved in its construction and its upkeep. Whether it be building the towers and laboratories, bringing in food by cart or even something as simple as making the beds in the rooms there would be a need for workers and servants to handle the labour. That we’d gathered some of the finest magical minds in Procer, Callow and Levant before going further by bringing in scholars, priests and artisans meant that numbers alone would make disappearances glaringly obvious anyway. And it wasn’t like the Dead King wasn’t going to expect us to have such a facility. No, better to lay false trails by the dozen and keep the location secret rather than attempt the improbable outcome of utter secrecy.
“There are two societies within it, the Workshop and the Belfry,” I continued. “The Workshop concerns itself with the making of artefacts, armaments and alchemies. The Belfry’s mandate is broader in scope: study of the Dead King’s creatures, war magic and warding, experimental research.”
I let a beat pass so the details could sink in. The part that mattered most I’d consciously split from the rest.
“The Belfry also concerns itself with teaching mages,” I told the boy.
It’d been a struggle to pull away Masego from his attempts to establish his proof of concept for Quartered Seasons and the other half dozen projects he’d picked up, but the results had been well worth the hassle: he’d trained up a few talented Proceran practitioners to what he called ‘acceptable’ scrying ritual standards, which was maybe two decades ahead of what anyone west of the Whitecaps had previously been capable of. That cadre now served as permanent teachers for the hedge talents the First Prince was sifting through Procer for, sent in by bands of twenty for teaching. The scrying network for the Grand Alliance was arguably the largest and widest-reaching on the continent at the moment, if likely still inferior in quality and reliability to Praes’. Communications grew harder the closer we were to active warfare against Keter, too, now that Neshamah had begun using disruptive rituals.
Adjusting our rituals so that the disruptions wouldn’t affect them was exactly the kind of puzzle the Belfry had been assembled to solve, though, so we’d see how long that lasted.
Getting a training camp running for war magic had been a great deal less successful, unfortunately. Even after lowering the bar of used sorcery to the standard of the Legions of Terror we’d proved incapable of reliably training up mages in that manner. We were running thin on instructors, true, but at the end of the day the unpleasant truth was that there was simply a limited amount of people in Procer with a Gift that was strong enough to be useful for war. The total number of mages living in the Principate was likely higher than that in the Empire, by simple dint of population, but the quality of those talents was the trouble. Massed sorcery remained beyond our grasp for now, though at least training up a handful ritual cadres had proved a workable alternative. Standardization remained the largest issue there, since no two cadres were capable of doing the same things and there was only haphazard overlap.
“Are you not going to teach me?” the boy quietly asked.
His face was hard to read, which I supposed was a feeble silver lining to the scorching of his face. His voice, though, his stance? He was fourteen and, Named or not, he’d seen precious little of the world. He might as well be an open book to me.
“There are things you’ll learn from me,” I said. “Magic, however, isn’t one of them. I don’t have the Gift. I do happen to be acquainted with a few of the finest practitioners of it alive, though, so rustling up a good tutor for you shouldn’t be all that difficult.”
Who to send him to would be something to consider. Masego’s interest in teaching could best be described as passing, though he was a rather able tutor when talked into it. Hierophant also had so much on his plate the meal could feed two and he’d lost the ability to practice magic. Roland might be a better fit, anyway, given that his tendency to be a generalist meant he always had common grounds with pupils. The Rogue Sorcerer was a hero, though, and the way he ended up saddled with the work that no one else was particularly good at meant his days were nearly as filled as Masego’s. The Hunted Magician owed Indrani a favour which I might be able to call in for this, but the Proceran villain was an enchanter for the Workshop and just… generally unpleasant. I’d rather the Scorched Apostate be taught by a Named mage instead of a Nameless one, but we’d have to see.
“But I will be sent to this Belfry,” Tancred said, hesitant.
“Not alone,” I replied, taking a measure of pity on him. “I’m to head south myself before long, and I meant to pass through the Arsenal. I’ll be accompanying you there, at least.”
Indrani had been riding me about physically setting foot at the Arsenal for a few months now, though until today I’d been on the fence about taking the detour there after the council. This settled it, though, since I’d want to settle the boy comfortably under someone able to teach him before moving on. Archer wasn’t wrong, either, when she said that it was sloppy of me to have never met so many Named on our side, including villains I represented under the Terms. How many were there nowadays, between the Workshop and the Belfry? Ten, twelve? Less than half of that were of mine, since it was harder to find villains willing to play nice with others than heroes, but even getting a good look at the currents of the place might not be a bad idea. If we lost the Arsenal, the war would begin a death spiral downwards in a matter of months: best to make sure it wouldn’t shatter itself from within.
“Good,” the Scorched Apostate said, perking up. “I have-”
I wasn’t riding Zombie this time so her discomfort could not serve as warning for the closeness of the Beastmaster, but the old trick I’d once taught Vivienne still worked. Someone had been looking at me intently, too intently. It’d been an attempt to sneak up on me, I decided, and there were few who’d attempt that against me in broad daylight.
“Beastmaster,” I interrupted, “have you grown shy? Come out properly, introduce yourself.”
The man bedecked in furs and leather let out a grunt and circled away from my back, only then catching Tancred’s notice. Only one hawk was still on his shoulder.
“Your pet witch sent word,” Beastmaster said. “She makes haste, as you ordered.”
“Have you called her that to her face?” I asked, morbidly curious.
I almost hoped he hadn’t, just so he might try it before me: it’d been too long since I’d seen Akua flay someone alive with her tongue. The Beastmaster spat to the side.
“Better to embrace vipers than speak with witches,” the Named dismissively said.
So, I thought amusedly, you’ve most definitely called her that to her face and the predictable ensued. Slow learner, was he? Not that he’d been the first. It never ceased to amaze me that some people somehow ended up thinking Akua Sahelian would be an easy prey for barbs or bluster just because she did not have a Name while they did. It was like sticking you hand in a wolf’s maw and expecting the teeth not to wound because they weren’t a bear’s.
“That hawk,” Tancred said. “I’ve seen it before.”
“She saw you,” Beastmaster replied.
Since apparently Ranger’s education in Refuge had not extended to basic courtesies – and Gods, I’d meant that as a jab but now that I thought about it – I saw to the introductions myself.
“Tancred, this is the Beastmaster,” I said. “He’s a former pupil of the Lady of the Lake, and now a mercenary in the service of the Grand Alliance.”
Paid not in coin, which I would almost have preferred. The Beastmaster had instead bargained for certain rights and permissions, as well as guides to be provided to show him paths to ancient places in the depths of Brocelian Forest. Coin meant little to the Named of Refuge, used as they were to barter instead, and the relative modesty of the man’s demands meant he’d gotten near everything he’d asked for. He’d simply been too useful an asset to be carelessly tossed aside, and even with Refuge having effectively collapsed it wasn’t like he’d not had other places to go. The fighting in the Free Cities was far from over, despite General Basilia’s streak of victories.
“Greetings,” Tancred said, though he was frowning.
“Beastmaster, this is the Scorched Apostate,” I said. “He has agreed to abide by the Truce and the Terms.”
The older Named looked the younger up and down, seeing no longer the villain who’d caused the blaze in the distance but a boy a fourteen with most his face lost to burns and clothes that were well on their way to being rags. He was visibly unimpressed.
“Another one plucked out of the mud?” Beastmaster said with a hard bark of laughter. “At least this one has fight in him.”
“Not half an hour ago,” I mildly reminded him, “you were wary of him. Did you boldness perhaps travel by foot, to be arriving so late after the rest of you?”
His face darkened. I met his gaze squarely. Like Archer in the early days, he’d take any attempt at diplomacy as weakness and continue to push his luck. But he wasn’t Indrani, and I was not a Squire well out of her depth. I’d killed harder men then him and done it with a great deal less power than I could now call on. Confident in his strength as he might be, he’d be looking at the trail of corpses left in my wake and be forced to admit that were Named among the lot that would have butchered him without batting an eye. And so he backed down, or at least as close to that as his character could afford to let him.
“There is nothing left to hunt,” the Beastmaster said. “I take my leave of you.”
I could sting him further, but there would be no point to it save passing pleasure. Not that I’d let the retreat pass entirely without comment, lest he take that as relief on my part.
“By all means,” I replied. “The conversation was getting stale.”
Beastmaster’s lips thinned, but he strode away without speaking any further. I glanced at Tancred, who’d been following all of it with wide eyes and now was looking at me a little guiltily.
“I’m sorry,” the Scorched Apostate said. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“Trouble?” I echoed.
“Won’t he complain to the Black Queen?” the boy asked. “You’ve made an enemy of a powerful Named on my behalf.”
He seemed genuinely worried, which was a little touching.
“You seem to have misunderstood the nature of my relationship with him,” I said, smoothing away any trace of my amusement.
Tancred looked appalled, and a little sickened.
“I am sorry, sir,” he said. “I did not mean to insult your lover.”
I choked. Beastmaster, of all men? Gods, I’d rather sleep with the Mirror Knight. The man might be an insufferable prick, but at least he bathed regularly.
“He’s not my lover, he’s my subordinate,” I said.
In the boy’s defence, he seemed pretty mortified by the mistake. His embarrassment passed soon enough, though, and left behind only the latest hint in a series of them that’d been growing the longer we spoke.
“Those priests and horsemen,” the young villain said. “They were Callowan. And yet they bowed to you.”
“So they did,” I agreed.
My hand reached within my cloak to extricate the long dragonbone pipe Masego had gifted me so many years ago, then producing a satchel of Orense bitterleaf from another pocket. Sadly the bitterleaf enough had come to replace wakeleaf as my vice of choice as it was much easier to get your hands on this far north. The smoke was heavier than wakeleaf’s, and it was often mixed with sweeter herbs to take the edge of the sourness off, but it scratched the itch well enough when stuffed in a pipe.
“You implied you were a high officer of the Grand Alliance,” the Scorched Apostate continued. “But that’s not all you are, is it?”
I passed my palm over the pipe, flames flickering within through a twist of the Night, and pulled at the mouth a few times before spewing out a steam of smoke.
“Who are you?” Tancred asked.
“The Firstborn named me Losara, the Queen of Lost and Found,” I lazily replied. “To the Wasteland I was the Squire, the Carrion Lord’s sole apprentice. The fae knew me by many names, though the last I ever bore was that of Sovereign of Moonless Nights. On this side of the Whitecaps, though? It’s a simple name I am known by.”
“The Black Queen,” the boy whispered hoarsely. “The leader of the Woe.”
“Aye,” I said, with a crooked smile. “And now let’s find you some boots, because I refuse to keep wincing every time I look at your shoes.”
Please help EE out, and vote on http://topwebfiction.com/?for=a-practical-guide-to-evil .
The series also has a pretty active Discord server, https://discord.gg/Ad3D63W
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The Scorched Apostate may have burned the text but that’s no reason to ignore the resulting typos:
Did you boldness perhaps travel by foot, to be arriving so late after the rest of you?
Change you to your.
Plus some others. Are your eyes as good as Beastmaster’s with the hawk, to find them all?
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The “typo” you mentioned is correct already.
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And this is why Editor is a paid profession. Even when a typo has been pointed out to you, you don’t always see it.
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he is prepare
-> he is to prepare
rather to young
-> rather too young
I made my heart ache
-> It made
a handful ritual cadres
-> handful of
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When I click your link it says that my vote has been counted, but if I click “vote” next to pgte in the list, the timer for my vote wasn’t actually reset. So I’m pretty sure clicking the link you gave doesn’t actually mean you’ve voted; only going to the voting booth page for pgte (http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=a-practical-guide-to-evil) and clicking the vote button there actually registers your vote.
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Reminder to VOTE:
http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=a-practical-guide-to-evil
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i keep (somehow) forgetting btwn updates (while reading other stuff) just how awesome this story is. It really is some of the best damn writing I’ve seen in years (and i read a *lot*). So great! And yeah, i have a patreon feed running, ofc. 🙂
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oN gnirob gnitov rednimer esaelp.
EE sknahT.
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> I choked. Beastmaster, of all men? Gods, I’d rather sleep with the Mirror Knight. The man might be an insufferable prick, but at least he bathed regularly.
never change, catherine
never change
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a lot to chew over this chapter! quartered seasons, the arsenal and the belfry (which tbh seems like the alpha test for cardinal, or the research parts of it at any rate), Refuge no longer being a thing…
also cat and indrani are still sleeping together it seems like so probably no new romantic developments for cat
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after this chapter I expect Beastmaster to take a bath eventually and then…
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Ranger left to join Amadeus. Without her, there’s little to hold the rest there.
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The Apostate is a precious cinnamon roll- too good for this word.
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But he’s a viiiiilllainnnnnnn
I’m fucking dying @ what this classification is turning into, too beautiful~
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He did slaughter a village, men and women and children, on what can be technically described as a guess. He could have tried to tell someone instead, even if he did not know the army was nearby. Being tragic does not make you good.
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“What can be technically described as a guess”
No, he didn’t know the army was nearby, and if he’d left to go fetch someone else from further away they’d leave for the refugee camps and it would be too late.
He could reasonably expect his leaving to end up with, as Cat gently put it, “thousands dead, if we’re lucky”.
There is a difference between ‘morally good’ and ‘good at this particular job’.
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That is something correct you just said. I just struggle to understand why Cat said he is a Villain.
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Remember that Good and Evil are not good and evil. Heroism is more about obedience to the Heavens than moral fiber and Evil is more about an unwillingness to be trod upon than destructive intentions.
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The instant I posted this I noticed that I’d repeated “Evil” instead of saying “villainy,” but it’s too late to edit. Ugh.
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Because she wanted him to be, either because it was more convenient to her / played into her plans, or because she thought it was better for him than being a SoS-style hero, or both. Or because she confused herself, but I think intentinal messing is more likely.
^ My analysis of the whole system sparked by this discussion :3
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This analysis is genius, and I appreciate that.
It seems to fit with what EE has written so far, and that underlying genius in their writing is also appreciated
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Thank you ^^
I do fucking adore the genius in EE’s writing, that WAS the motivational force behind this analysis ❤ ❤ ❤
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Amazing analysis.
As long as the chapter though could have been said in much concise ways.
Not by me, I ramble just as much once I get going, mind. 🙂
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For me it’s this:
*“I do not beg for my life,” the boy said. “I do not quibble nor defend.”*
Justification only matters to the Just.
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His point in that context is that she should kill him.
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Most likely because he started it off by killing the man who disagreed with him that their was a plague/ need for a better healer.
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Because he slaughtered a village. Saint of Swords aside, that’s simply not a hero’s story. Same with the facial burn, that’s a villain’s mark.
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He almost seems like the villainous counterpart to Tariq. What’s interesting is that both seem to ascribe to the philosophy of Ultilitarianism, doi g the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people, at the expense of the unfortunate few. I always felt that the only reason Tariq was a hero and not a villian was he’s adherence to the choir of Mercy, and that had he followed the same path without them that he would be a villian in truth.
What is interesting is that the gods above and the gods below are diametrically opposed, but not along the lines of good and evil as so many in the story assume, rather the gods above represent order, rigid adherence to existing laws at any cost, obedience to your betters, and regular worship, the gods below on the other hand represent a far more hands off, mercantile point of view. Every request you make of the gods below is a bargain, an exchange of services rendered, a clear cut transaction. Where the gods above believe in the purest form of order, the gods below believe in near perfect chaos, where the only thing binding people to agreements is their word and whatever leverage you have over them.
Neither side is inherently good or evil, although if I had to pick I would say that the gods above trend more towards evil than the gods below, but that’s simply my belief that personal freedoms are more important than strict adherence to tradition, and thus entirely subjective.
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It’s rather like the difference between Law and Chaos in SMT
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The Scorched Apostate is a 14 year old boy. OK, it’s a world where that’s old enough to be treated as an adult, but even so, I sincerely doubt he has a considered philosophy. Rather, he was forced by circumstance to commit an atrocity for the sake of preventing disaster, and is still in the process of owning his own actions.
Note that he didn’t have the practical influence or magical training to do anything more subtle than slaughtering the infected — “telling someone” outside the town was clearly beyond his reach, and he couldn’t persuade the townsfolk nor dominate them either.
Given the nature of his his power (I’d guess he has at most a single Aspect), I suspect more such horrors are in his future. How he reconciles himself to that will shape what kind of Villain he turns out to be… and naturally, Cat wants her hand and her experience on the scales for that.
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He told the villagers. He explicitly told them to send for a better healer, instead of the local Priest who could not even call on enough Light to heal his as Cat classified: serious, but to a healer far from mortal wound. They refused to listen and intended to head for the nearest refugee camp.
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I choked. Beastmaster, of all men? Gods, I’d rather sleep with the Mirror Knight. The man might be an insufferable prick, but at least he voted for pgte.
http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=a-practical-guide-to-evil
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Ah, another hint on what’s been going on in the meantime. It sounds like we’ll be seeing Akua again soon, so that’s one more question to soon be answered.
Also: Go vote! http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=a-practical-guide-to-evil
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Thanks for the voting reminder.
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bless u
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Yeah, kid, this war is ugly. And you’re going to need to grow up fast.
But first, you’re going to school.
Masego will probably be interested in the Scorched Apostate’s emulation of Light.
Rogue Sorcerer, being a decent sort, will probably feel sorry for the kid, and even sorrier that he wound up a Villain – kid drew a very short straw.
The Blessed Artificer? Now that sounds like a potentially very useful sort of person in this war.
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Blessed Artificer is probably bound to a work station chair in the Workshop to keep working 24/7, hahahaha.
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“Hey, Arty, ‘nother Belfry class is graduating in a week, so we’ll need another batch of sparklers.”
“Godsdammit, why the ever living fuck do we need goblinfire sparklers every time a batch of new Named graduate?”
“Way above my pay grade. Not my fault the faculty want to twit the Black Queen. You wanna bitch about it, go bitch to the Grey Pilgrim and the White Knight.”
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Tancred endures
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Cat keeps saying she isn’t people’s mothers and yet…
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She’s doing her best, but her only role model is Amadeus…
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Who is the best mentor in the history of fiction.
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You take that back. No one beats Uncle Iron.
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Iroh. Dumbass autocorrect.
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If you hadn’t posted a correction I would’ve assumed you meant Papenheim.
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At this point in the game, Klaus Papenheim getting the Name “Iron Uncle” would be all sorts of cool. And strange. But mostly cool.
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Maybe not best mentor, but definitely contending for Best Dad.
Second place mentor after Uncle Iroh.
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Who knows, maybe her new Name is the Mother.
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The amount of her new Names theorised can feel a small book. The amount people got right so far is zero.
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I’m not putting money on it, but based on the end of Book 5 and other continuous references, I will be delightedly unsurprised if/when she comes into the Name Triumphant.
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They call it First and Only of her Name for a reason bro.
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I’m pretty sure Triumphant wasn’t a Name, but the epithet for the first Dread Tyrant (Emperor/Empress) of Praes.
If Cat does end up getting caught by a name, Mother of Night would be pretty badass.
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Well, if it’s Black Queen, I’ll be saying I called it.
Even if it wasn’t my favorite option in Book 5.
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I am pretty sure that unless EE deliberately went through every comment here, on Discord and Reddit, made a least of Names that were theorised, and then picked one that wasn’t in the said list, there’s still a chance that someone called it.
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Yep, I agree.
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Dude, you got me snorting and laughing hard at this one xD
Thank you
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“This isn’t the kind of war that can be won with boots on the ground alone, Tancred,” I said. “The topwebfiction understood that well before it began mobilizing. There would be a need for fresh votes, for each lasts but a week. A steady voting reminder would have to be built for those readers who would study the erratic’s tracts and learn how to support them, too, one week at time. And so the vote reminder was ordered applied.”
http://topwebfiction.com/vote.php?for=a-practical-guide-to-evil
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I have no other choice but to open my account and give you a like and vote, hope you are happy you bloody Clown
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Nicely done!
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Hah! It’s about time she got a Grey Pilgrim moment. This feels like the start of the series, but she’s Black this time.
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My thoughts exactly. A parent-child story has its roots planted.
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Pretty much what it felt like to me, too.
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Damn, Cat, you found a kid and you want to “settle down” at the academy, take him under you wing and give him shoes? That’s downright parental of you.
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Tancred is not long for this world. Cat is long overdue losing someone she cared for in the quest to defeat the Ultimate Evil.
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Introducing new characters to kill of instead of properly dealing with a loss of someone we knew for several books is a mark of a lesser writer.
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Well, losing both the apprentice and a longtime friend would definitely give Cat the narrative weight to fuck over the Dead King, so…
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So she would orchestrate it, because hard times and all the jazz?
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Cat wouldn’t orchestrate it, but if it happens she’ll damn well take advantage of it.
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Yet more annoying hints about Masego’s inability to practice magic and yet he’s dangerous (according to Antigone the Witch of the Woods) and also able to teach mages (according to Catherine here).
Which doesn’t make a lot of sense. How can he teach mages unless he can demonstrate magic? How can he defend himself against a powerful untrained mage? Does he use just his Aspects to do so?
I want an update heavily featuring Masego in teaching mode so I can get to the bottom of this puzzle. I was upset when I learned he’d lost his magic, and I have no idea exactly how true this is.
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Remember, there’s Theoretical and Practical teaching, on top of the fact Masego can “piggyback”, for lack of a better term, another caster’s magic and make it his own.
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If he’s only able to wield/steal another’s magic, how would he be dangerous to Hanno?
Antigone clearly indicated that Masego was dangerous to both her and Hanno, not just her. So it doesn’t have to do (only) with other casters.
I don’t expect a really good answer here. Just expressing my frustration with not knowing exactly what is going on with Hierophant.
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I’d guess he can still imitate miracles without using sorcery for it. It’s less flexible than sorcery since it just leaves him with an array of specific tricks rather than a programming language, but in a fight…
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Correct me if I’m wrong here EE, but isn’t one of Masego’s Aspects Usurp? Or am I misremembering that from a quote? “Usurpation is the heart of magic” or some such?
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While I’m by no means EE, the aspect is Wrest.
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That is more than a fair correction. I was misremembering it and confused it with the quote.
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with the proper story backing his aspects can be very dangerous
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Consider if he figures out Hanno’s trick of using a bit of light to redirect a working entirely…
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He can still throw a fey sun at Hanno, that’s technically not magic as in his now lost Gift.
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Masego may not be a sorcerer, but neither was Amadeus, nor are Ranger, Cat herself, Pilgrim, the White Knight, the Mirror Knight, etc. By which I mean that even without his sorcery, he’s still a continental-class Named, who furthermore retains his unparalleled knowledge and experience in sorcerous matters.
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Let us not forget the time he Ruined the Skein’s whole demiplane. He can destroy any Named that misstep near him, and he can do it with a single word. Zeze is still dangerous.
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This is correct. Even though Masego can no longer wield magic of his own, he still has his insights. Insights he can share with mages. Think taking an exam on Complex analysis with the Professor standing next to you whispering instructions on how you can go about solving the problem at hand.
If that fails he can simply instruct the mage to begin casting and then guide their magic so they can see how it suppose to…”flow”?
…
I don’t know how magic works in this setting. I really wish EE would release his notes on how magic functions in his world. Or failing that, just state the fundamental laws which are invariable and hold everywhere, like the conservation of mass and energy in our world.
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I think that while hard magic systems have their place, soft magic is much more “magical”, but harder to pull off consistently, without resorting to asspulls.
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By which I mean “No, don’t release the rules, it’ll take out the charm”
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He has the theory down and he can wield/steal magic, is more like he can’t produce his own, think of it like he is only a conductor rather than a batery xD
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How does anyone ever teach someone about electricity or gravity without the ability to wield the fundamental forces of the cosmos? By explaining them, with metaphor or visualization. Masego is like an expert mechanic who lost the use of his hands, he still knows an awful lot on the subject and can tell people what they’re doing wrong.
As for how dangerous he is, he’s still a Named themed around dissecting and stealing the use of miracles. He still has Ruin, Witness, and Wrest for Aspects. So he can corrupt/destroy, see the past, and usurp command of any magic in his vicinity. That’s all plenty dangerous.
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God i loved this chapter, brillian way of introducing world exposition using Tancred as an audience sustitute for our questions, plus i am liking him, i would have liked him for everything so far including the way he and Cat interact (like how he obviously arouses protective feelings in her) but he jumped right in my top five characters with that Cat x Beastmaster comment xD, i just laughed at cat so hard then.
I can’t wait for other interludes or extra chapters to see more of what happened and is happening first hand either, and lastly i wonder what happened in refuge? It could be some problem but i bet is just that without Ranger there for an extended period of time the whole thing disolved into true anarchy with a good dosis of slugfest xD
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Aaahh seeing Cat do the famous elder villian thing is cute. She learned so well from when Black did it to her. Complete with the moment of ‘oh shit *that’s* who this is’.
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TBF Amadeus’s identity was called out like 5 seconds after he arrived on the scene. He didn’t get nearly this good an opportunity.
Cat, now, Cat’s been milking the ‘you can’t guess who I am mwahahaha’ thing since War College.
Poor Tancred missed the hint Cat provided in “You’re not one of Hanno’s but one of mine”. Then again, he probably doesn’t know the White Knight’s Name ;u;
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* name. Jeez, fingers,
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Wow, Scorched is so “young protagonist” that it almost hurts.
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”Gods willing or out of my damned way” and ”I am sorry, sir, i did not mean to insult your lover.”
I cant decide which one of these i like best. Both of them are just amazing.
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They’re both cool, but I still like “…. he wasn’t called the Lightly Singed Apostate.”
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Tancred’s just so adorable. He’s about as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as you can get for a newly-minted Villain. Not even Catherine was this innocent when she started out as the Squire.
As mentioned elsewhere, it really does feel like it’s Catherine’s turn to be Black to a young, new Villain. And considering just how nurturing Catherine really is (though she’ll deny it very very loudly) just how far is this relationship going to go? I can foresee a mentor-student relationship, but I can just as easily see poor little Tancred finding his first serious crush in Catherine. I mean the poor guy’s lost _everything_: he’s already said his mother died to the plague, and with the destruction of Marserac we can posit that he’s lost any meager belongings he might have still had with most (but probably not all) of the remaining shreds of his innocence. He’s so emotionally fragile that he’s already reaching out and latching onto whoever will provide him any sort of human touch.
If Tancred does end up in any sort of medium- or long-term interaction with Catherine, basic training at the Arsenal notwithstanding, then I can’t wait to see how the Crows react to him. Might they see him as a postulant under the wing of the Priestess of the Young Night?
And speaking of training, what’re the odds that it’ll be Akua Sahelian who ends up instructing the lad in magic? That, right there, is a scary proposition.
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Random horrid thought: what if it’s Vivienne Tancred ends up having a thing for? That would be the Vader/Padme echo to end all Vader/Padme echoes.
Right now Vivienne is basically being an unpowered princess punching above her weight class, so if Tancred’s first words to her are anything resembling “are you an angel?” and the Black Queen ends up being Qui-Gontherine to his Anakin, then we know the war against Neshamalpatine is going to go to bantha poodoo.
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Literally every single thing about this comment triggered me. That’s impressively thorough.
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Viv is a lot older than Tancred, and has been around the block a few times. I doubt she’d be falling for a disfigured and callow (ordinary meaning) kid.
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Isn’t Vivs supposed to be around Catherine’s age? If she’s mid-20s-ish to Tancred’s 14, then it’s within reach of the Vader/Padme age gap.
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I forget, I had thought she was a bit older than that. But she’s also a more restrained type, which is why even with equal ages, I’d still be betting on Abigail.
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I doubt her main objection to hooking up with a 14 year old will be his appearance.
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“Are you an angel?” the new Named asked her earnestly.
Vivienne shuddered as images inundated her. Of heated glances, and furtive kisses. Of fumblings in the dark. Of being with child. Of dying, a hole burned in her chest, as the Apostate screamed at her in crazed rage.
“Uh, no, I haven’t been on the side of the angels in a while. Hey, look, it’s the Grey Pilgrim.”
Vivienne pointed off to the side, and when the Scorched Apostate turned to look, she ran.
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Remember, (1) this is a world where that’s old enough to function as an adult — Cat herself was only 15 when she got her Call to Adventure. (2) He is also Named, not to mention blooded, and (3) Abigail isn’t that old herself, and has specifically mentioned her taste for younger men — though she usually prefers them “pretty”.
Upshot being that I wouldn’t bet too heavily against that ship.
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He’ll have an interesting relationship with Akua, I think. Probably hate her with the heat of a thousand suns. He hates himself for being a mass-murderer, and she did magnitudes worse and doesn’t even feel bad. He’ll compare and contrast and come up with ‘I’m unforgivable but she’s so much worse!’
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Calling it now, the boy is the Dead King in disguise. The face was burned so that nobody could recognize him, so that the Dead King wouldn’t have to work so hard to try to pretend to be who he is. That’s why the boy is a villain and not a hero.
This is just Neshamah working to get a free trip to the secret location.
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Oh, now there’s a thought no one has voiced yet. Probably not, but who knows?
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Neshamah would never expose himself like this. Anyway, Tancred was bathed in Light, so no necromancy
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Fake light made by sorcery.
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You forgot the 2 priests😉
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I thought that as well. But you get all the kudos if it works out that way.
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I’m pretty sure even a fresh body wouldn’t hide Neshamah’s presence from Cat.
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It’s a sharf in his head, just like when he was in Masego.
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Everyone’s getting caught up in Apostate’s comment on Cat x Beastmaster. Why is everyone getting caught up on that when… Nevermind. Of course everyone conveniently and luckily forgot the whole part of there now being a terrifying behemoth of a Revenant. Such is the power of the Fortunate Fool, that even his corpse can manipulate the audience itself to overlook his existence when convenient.
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All Katwas that he sacrificed himself to take out a Revenant, not that his body was lost to the Dead King. The one doesn’t necessarily follow from the other, his sacrifice could have been what was needed to turn the battle, with his corpse properly cremated afterwards.
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That’s what he conveniently wants you to assume!
Also in case it wasn’t clear my initial comment was drenched thickly in sarcasm and lightheartedness, no actual thought should be invested on putting this theory under scrutiny.
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Oh god, I can’t wait for the other members of Woe to point out Catherine’s obvious motherly actions that she loudly denies. When would we hear the ironic “Like mother like son”?
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How soon before we get a Tancred interlude where he finds himself referring to Catherine as “Mother?” 😛
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❤ ❤ ❤
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Took Cat about three years…
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Also, Tancred is going to meet with Hanno at some point, isn’t he? Thought of this gives me Berserk flashbacks.
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The momment the boy uses goblin fire TBH.
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“Because the midwinter attacks would have broken through the defensive line if the Fortunate Fool hadn’t sacrificed himself to take out the Lord of Ghouls.”
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
The endless loop of luck abuse between the Fortunate Fool and the Pilfering Dicer, gone before it could be abused even once.
There is no need of further proofs. Above and Below, all Gods of Calernia are cruel, heartless monsters which need to die. Every last one of them.
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Depending on when exactly had the Dicer been recruited, there might have been one opportunity:
“Dicer! This is the last of my Providence, take it from me!”
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FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!
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Amadeus needs to hurry up and bring Praes over to break this stalemate. I thought it would’ve been easy with Ranger on his side.
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Yeah, it’s strange that there’s no word on the civil war in Praes so far given that, with only Amadeus and Hye left, it was shaping up to be very all-or-nothing.
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I’d be very disappointed if all they did the entire time was lock themselves up in a room and caught up on old times.
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Actually if they did end up doing something like that, after perhaps letting one of Malica’s spies spot him near Ater, just to fuck with her and Ime, before disappearing again that would be perfect. Like, yeah, you summoned back, I’m here somewhere, good luck finding me, I’ll show up at court when I want to, with a plus one.
…Now I want to know if Ranger gives the door guardian demon sass or not like Catherine did.
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“What is it, Ime?”
“Dread Majesty, Lord Amadeus has been sighted in Ater.”
“Finally! So where is he, and what is he doing?”
“He was last seen in the inn on Flying Fortress street. With Ranger.”
*twitch* “So he’s come with Hye to murder me, has he?”
“If he has, he and the Ranger have been doing a lot of boinking in preparation.”
“Boinking?” *chair arm creaks*
“Yes, Dread Majesty.”
“He. Came back. To Praes. TO FUCK RANGER!”
“It would seem so, Dread Majesty.”
*chair arm cracks under Named strength, Malicia starts foaming at the mouth in jealous rage*
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To clarify, she’s jealous that *she’s* not fucking Ranger, right?
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Only if Malicia is into bloodplay. 😀
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Yes.
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Guys come on, 1 or 2 voting reminders are fine but 5? Please show a little consideration for people. I voted (followed the first link) but it was pretty annoying to have to scroll through so many comments that wanted me to vote, before getting to the meat of the comments. Besides EE isnt thst desperate for votes, seeing how he dominates 1st place
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Is it annoying? I’ve never really minded it or saw the problem with it. Sure this chapter had more than normal, but that feels like people wanting to get the Guide back up in the polls after the long break. And to a lesser extent jumping on this “change a section of the chapter to be about voting” bandwagon.
I kind of like reading the different attempts people make at the voting posts, if they are creative enough. Even with as many as were in this chapter it is still only five posts out of dozens.
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Sure some of them is creative, it is still annoying to scroll trough so many reminders, especially on the phone though. The guide is on the top with twice as many votes as the number 2 so its not cause people dont recognise this story for the piece of art that it is. Maybe its just me, but seeing so many comments saying the same thing just makes it a bit tedious. I dont want to step on any toes, just wonder if 1 or 2 comments demanding that we isnt enough? To vote shouldnt be a chore or something you have to, its just a nice thing to do for the author. The Guide have allready cemented its place as a cult fiction, i feel, so its not like it doesnt get the respect that it deserve. Would it really be such a big problem, to cut back a little bit on those types of comments?
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People can’t see if others have posted vote reminders until they refresh. Not everyone thinks to.
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That is an excellent point that i didnt realise. I would delete or the very least edit my other comments, where it possible 😛
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I see you understood the part of my point I didn’t say, too XD
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i feel dumb for forgetting ranger was the lady of the lake. amadeus is literally arthur.
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Only in this tale, he was the one giving a sword.
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ಠ_ಠ
Take my upvote, you damn savage.
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Hmm. I hope that when Cath killed the Barrow Sword she got some good Aspect-items out of the corpse.
Maybe she got some out of the Fortunate Fool, too. Who knows? Though really the Alliance should have some kind of general order to save any Named corpses for Catherine to loot.
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Er, the Red Reaver, I meant, not the Barrow Sword.
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It’s a shame that, iirc, Cat never got to grab an aspect from Saint. Can’t actually blame her, between Pilgrim being right there and the Crown running riot, but still.
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We can’t be sure she didn’t. She did return later to pluck out Piligrim’s Forgive, no reason for her to not get Saber’s aspect.
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Aside from having a Choir in the room — and Saint was after all a hero. Grabbing from Saint would have been seriously pushy in that context.
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But we don’t know what happened after she resurrected Tariq, so the answer should be “whatever plot demands”.
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Indeed, but what does the plot demand? We know that Cat prevailed with the Choir by invoking their own nature. We also know that the Choirs are immensely powerful, and all three times we’ve seen them stymied was by someone who had managed to attain a privileged narrative position.
Consider that by this point, Cat had already fought and bled for her position as “the moral Villain”, the one who gets to call out Heroes on their moral failings. Going for an aspect from Saint at any of the three possible points would have blown that badly.
First, Saint had gone off the rails, so when Cat fought her Cat had a massive plot advantage: Saint had fallen into the antagonist role in a story where the party had well and truly earned their win; Cat was not only the party leader, but she’d predicted the betrayal and prepared a weapon specifically for that opponent… and so she won — the extreme of calling out the wayward Hero. But immediately after that fight, there was another crisis at hand, the rogue Crown. Saint’s powers weren’t relevant to dealing with the Crown, so taking an aspect would have meant Cat turning her attention away from that crisis to rob the corpse for her own personal benefit. Whoops…
Iinstead, she did the “proper” thing, which was trying for the crown (and being stymied in that by the other two heroes). So then that crisis was settled, but robbing the corpse would still have been using necromancy on a Hero’s corpse for her own personal benefit, and there was still a Hero in the room to stand witness.
So, she goes to get a walking-stick, and comes back to face the Choir of Mercy. Because she passed the first two chances and turned down the Sword of Callow, she’s still the “moral Villain”, so the Choir doesn’t blast her on sight, and she gets to argue that “resurrecting him will greatly serve the cause of Mercy, surely you can overlook the necromancy and presumption…”.
But then turning around and doing the same necromancy on Saint, for her own profit, with the Choir still in the room… that would have utterly cheapened and disrespected Mercy’s forbearance, leaving her as just a powerful Villain robbing a Hero’s corpse — with both the Choir and their now-living champion in the room. That… does not sound to me like a good survival strategy, much less maintaining her “moral Villain” role.
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tl;dr it would be fucking rude of her
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Also, she’d get exactly one from each corpse. And she tends to use them upfront, probably because that leaves less room for “that artifact you were counting on has failed you”.
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I want to know what she got from the Stalwart Paladin. I *know* she plucked out an aspect when she killed him. She sassed an Choir for that trinket. This has been bugging me for nearly two years.
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Fine, I’ll admit it, he’s adorable.
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> … he wasn’t called the Lightly Singed Apostate.
LOL!
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Tancred is TOO ADORABLE AND PURE
I love his indignation at potentially getting away with being wrong… and worry about getting Cat in trouble…
Yeah, definitely a villain… definitely… it is definitely not just for the reason of Cat claiming him… no cognitive dissonance going on here at all~
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Hey, Tancred’s an orphan now, and they found him all alone, so does that mean he’s a foundling? 😀
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“Yes, I’m the Black Queen, Catherine Foundling. This is my student, Tancred Foundling – no relation – and we’re… what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
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“What is it, Mother?”
“It’s nothing, Tan… what did you just call me?”
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Maybe the only thing stopping her from legally adopting him into House Foundling is the political fallout of adding another villain to Callow’s very short line of royal succession.
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Also the fallout of adding a Proceran to the line of succession. Not to mention that she, personally, is still carrying the flag for “no Named rulers”!
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And Cat blows a raspberry to Above….
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…that would actually be really funny.
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Well this makes Black a sort of a grandpa doesn’t it?
If Tancred proceeds to have a college arc with Cat hiding his Name while putting him into school, I’ll have a good laugh.
Bet she wouldnt even see the parallels until Masego points it out. Or she would deny it repeatedly.
On another note, when will we see Hanno and Cat together again? Because that’s bound to be a fun chapter.
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That last quote gave me chills….literal chills.
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Want the story of the fortunate fool for next months bones
How would someone with that power even sacrifice themselves?
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Throwing themselves into things where even “luck” can’t help them.
Remember what happened to the Bumbling Conjurer? He was protected from Apprentice (and mundanes), but Warlock oneshot him seemingly casually.
There are limits to the amount of protection that kind of Name power can grant.
Maybe it was purely enemy action, maybe he stretched it too far from enemy action to survive an explosion in close proximity (maybe he ran up and grappled to plant a bag of sharpers on the Revenant or something).
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“Hah, fear the power of my Aspects: (I) Win, (you) Lose, and (rocks) Fall (and everyone dies)!”
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But you can only use that last Aspect once… 😉
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And so he did. 😉
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I wonder where that “commend is awaiting moderation” thing came from. >_>
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I cant wait for the boy to get a mission, something catches fire (probably goblin fire), and then everybody ends like “Just like Cat” even though it was not his fault.
Oh, and also some interactions of him and Abigail acting as an older sister that knows how ot feels to be teased by Cat.
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I wouldn’t bet on “older sister”, given Abigail’s known temperament. That would actually be a hilarious match, but poor Abigail! Bad enough she worries about being hung for desertion, but to get a lover who’s totally besotted, yet could still fry her by accident?
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Actually, I expect Cat to make some offhand comment to Abigail like “Look out for him, would you?” which will drive her to utter distraction. 😛
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Agreed, that’s also likely, though I’m pretty sure a Named wouldn’t actually be placed under the command of a non-Named human.
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I don’t think Abigil would go for a 14 year old.
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Ya, aside from all of the nope involved, that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that EE would write into any of the characters.
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Damn, she’s really enjoying this I Have Many Names bit.
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