It took me a while to start reading this story. Mostly because I didn't like the idea of reading original fiction ( I thought that maybe if it's not published its not good enough). And I was mostly right.

Don't get me wrong, this story starts out amazing. It was a combination of some of my favourite books. (Red Rising, Kings of the Wyld and The Red Knight), and while the story is original and fun at the beginning by the time I reached the ending of Book II I was bored out of my mind and it was a chore to read more.

The big problem with this story for me is that it doesn't have any fallback. People just don't die. And I mean important people. Only numbers die and we don't get a feel about those, we don't know them and we don't care.

Also every conversation between Cat and someone else always comes with her the winner. Or finding out what she wanted to find out.

So I've reached the battle of Liesse in book III, and I really can't go further. I would rather read about the Tyrant and Champion and the Bard then about Cat. Her motives just don't relate to me, they hadn't in the beginning and they don't now.

Be that as it may I really would like to know what happens from the start of the Liesse battle to the Epilogue in book 4. Things like who dies, new Names that appear, what happens with Black etc.

Can someone give me a summary for what happens til the Epilogue of Book 4? Pretty please.

 

Cat dies a couple of times, Bard is flirting with everyone, The Dead King unleashes his undead Horde and Indrani gets laid.

 

With?

So I won't miss anything.

 

Spoiler

Cat. It was great.

 

Book V is out it looks fairly tasty.

 

I'm reserving judgement until after Catherine's seasonal start-of-book curbstomp.

Well. Reserving further judgement.

 

Everything is on fire, Malicia and Cordelia look like they're gonna start bringing out big guns, and Masego is probably finally learning how to teleport.

On the bright side, Catherine's army of drow has popped out right next to the Tyrant and Hierarch, so that should give those two some good screentime.

 

So Extra Chapter first--it's good. This should come as no surprise, because the Extra Chapters and Interludes in this story all tend to be great, and this is no exception. While we're only getting the loose outline of the Pilgrim's story, it's a good story, and we get to see him both supporting his sister and promising to protect his nephew--the nephew, remember, that we know he later kills. It's good stuff.

Continuing that trend, the Prologue is very good as well, in terms of setting the stage. Cordelia is probably my favorite character in the story right now, as it happens, and quite possibly the most heroic, staying in the South to rally the banners and protect the people that she herself acknowledges have done jack shit to deserve that from her, even when it seemingly costs her relationship with her Uncle. As per usual, seeing her perspective on the current situation is a joy, even though the situation is terrible. She's preparing a 'corpse that is not a corpse' as her secret weapon, though I'm not sure what it could be, or if that's been mentioned before. Still, should be fun--it's just a shame that, yeah, Procer basically works under completely different rules from everyone else in the setting and just kind of doesn't matter at all.

Seeing Malicia and her utterly terrible situation was also fun, though Malicia herself seems to be going bonkers. As Ime rightly points out, armies don't matter anymore, except for Cat's army of demigods, and with Warlock gone, Praes is seriously lacking in firepower even before you consider what they're dealing with, and Malicia seems oddly both aware and ignorant of the fact that her empire is being held up by the hopes and dreams of unicorns. Even leaving aside the big '???' of why and how she thinks the Free Cities will fall apart if she just leaves them alone for awhile, she doesn't really seem to address the fact that if literally anyone attacks her, even half-heartedly, there's pretty much nothing she can do about it. Still, she's got a rebellion on her hands and is surrounded by Praesi fuckwits, so good times.

Also, Cat was there. Hopefully, she'll be interesting this book, though I'm mostly just waiting to see how the story deals with the fact that she's at the head of--or is the subordinate of the head of, I suppose--an army that has over a hundred members individually more powerful than any other army on the face of Calernia except the Dead Kings. Like, this was an obvious issue last book and remains a hurdle to be overcome now; there's a very short list of people that can really inconvenience Cat right now and I'm not sure how the story intends to deal with that fact.

 

Is it just me or are the new chapters shorter than in the last book? Might be good for the quality of them.

 

So I see one potential limitation to this Drow army: it's been hinted that perhaps they lose strength during the daytime or somesuch.

Interesting limitation, perhaps the usage of Night based skills is impossible during the day? Or maybe the entire army just disappears during daytime, into wherever Cat opens Gates to now.

 

This better not be a fake out.

 

I’d say read it. A nontrivial portion of the frustration was due to having to wait for resolutions, and there was decent flavor scattered throughout.

 

So, a couple months too late, but we finally got a good explanation for why the Drow caved when put in Arcadia. Since the weakness seems to apply only when in the sunlight, it'd be a strange thing for a species that hasn't known sunlight for ages. Would freak them out. Definitely explains how that one Mighty could've got killed by fae without royalty getting involved. The Mighty are still overpowered, but at least they now have a very exploitable weakness.

But more importantly, Cat's finally going to meet with Kairos. Can't wait to read about that in like a week from now.

 

So I've been kind of quiet lately, because it's early on and I've been waiting for the ball to get rolling, but it seems to have started, so here we are. I'm going to do something of a twofer, this time, and cover some parts that got me in the last chapter, too.

First of all, Cat continues to annoy me, for two reasons that are kind of big, but also contrary, so bear with me. The first is the fact that she kind of deems everything around her something she's going to one-sidedly crush and the second is that she's right, but is pretending she's not.

The former is in regards to how she's basically treating...well, everyone. 'The Pilgrim can live because he needs to to keep Levant on board, but I'm gonna murder the Saint.' 'Using Demons and Angels? Fuck everyone everywhere; they're gonna eat my Accords and like it.' 'I'm going to put together this Western Alliance; everyone in the way of that dies.'

And she's entirely capable of doing that, by all account, which is why it bugs me. Almost as much as the fact that she's treating that like something that would take, you know, effort? Because, see, the drow have a weakness, sure. They don't like the daylight. That's a big deal...except no it's not? Like, here's the thing--Cat still has her fucking portals. If things ever approached the point where the drow were in danger, the drow can just not be there. This weakness only really matters if they're trying to hold a location without just murdering everyone inside (which they aren't) or if they're forced to defend something of greater strategic importance than their army of demigods (which there isn't). There are literally individual members of her army that are stronger then every army we've seen prior to the Everdark--with the sole exception of the Dead King's literal army of Named--combined. There are individual Named that might be able to stand up to a Mighty in 1-on-1 combat, oh sure. But their armies are fucking chaff.

And this was something I kind of noticed awhile ago but held me tongue on until we actually saw more, but--are we just pretending that's not the case? Like, she keeps referring to and treating the drow as some kind of normal army or some shit, instead of some godless nightmare force with literally hundreds of people stronger then she was when she was capable of literally ripping a dozen heroes limb from limb.

Like, we get shit like this:

I'm sorry, what? Better soldiery? Is that what we're calling this? That's like saying Moses had better fucking soldiery when God started helping him out.

That was a concern I had with the previous chapter and the ones before it, but Furur just made me mad about it, because we start off by emphasizing--like it needs further emphasis--that the Procerans are witless scrubs that can't do cities right, or armies, or anything else, and then Cat turns around and goes 'But, you know, they're dangerous, really!' We get more of Cat going 'There was a reason I would have peace as set by the Liesse Accords or no peace at all.' But in this case it's because a united Procer could be as dangerous as the Dead King? What? I feel like you forget the part of their book where their armies were utterly manhandled by literally everyone, never won a fight, and they overwhelmingly proved that they sucked at everything and didn't live up to the hype surrounding them at all. Their armies and architecture are stated to be shoddy and outdated, their tactics were stated to be out of date, they have few mages and the ones they have apparently use a type of magic that's crap, they only recently began using priests in battle, and they're at constant war with two fronts that apparently have been able to casually annihilate them at will any time in the last three thousand years.

I'm sorry, I'm fucking confused here. Are we pretending that Procer matters now of all times? Am I supposed to forget the entire last book of them being worthless? Because if so, maybe don't start the chapter off with a reminder that they suck.

Also, just as an aside, I had to roll my fucking eyes when Cat went 'I wasn’t going to bloody Callow and its allies just to enable the latest imperial expansion of the ‘Wardens of the West’, as the rulers of this realm so arrogantly titled themselves.' Sorry Cat; not everyone can aid and abet the most horrible beings they can find at any given time; apparently Procer's just been hording all the balls for standing up to the forces of darkness for themselves, which just makes their complete inability to do so even worse.

Also, she says:

To which my answer is 'bwaaaaaaah'. I'm sorry, am I supposed to have forgotten the entire drow arc? Trust me, story, I almost wish I could, even if I liked the stuff at the end--but if you told me each of these guys was individually the equivalent of a small army, I'd say you were underselling them. Four Sigil-tier Mighty that were each individually stronger than Urulam before Cat gave them Mantles plus forty-eight Mighty arent the equivalent of a small army; this is, once again, probably a stronger army than anything we've seen outside of Keter, by a lot.

Cat goes on to try and say:

Which I'm sorry, but no. Remember how many times Heroes mattered were even vaguely useful against Cat? Once, with the Pilgrim's portal trick. Twice if you're being generous and counting the Saint's tricks that did jack-fucking-shit, but I don't, because of that. Okay, now remember how many times her crippling weakness of wards mattered? Literally one time, and only arguably. It mattered when Malicia put up a ward specifically for her...which she got through anyway, but at least it took special measures. Every other ward, she's just flat-out kicked down on her own. These are the weaknesses we're talking about here!? I'm sorry, but this story has done absolutely fuck all to make the forces of Good intimidating, or even to sell the threat of normal mages except when it wanted to make clear how worthless heroes are--it's too late to backtrack now.

And that's not even going into the fact that the moment Masego shows up, this 'problem' is gonna fucking evaporate.

Aside from that, it was fun to see the Hierarch, as always, though I can't help but not that we're kind of abandoning the 'Free People' thing by mindfucking them into obedience. Then again, Bellerophon's laws have always been ungodly, terrifying, and awful, so whatever. We've always known that a world that worked the way the Hierarch wanted would basically be a hell in it's own right. It's still kind of fun to watch him work.

 

Main chapter: House keeping.
Extra Chapter: Hell yes I want more Pilgrim backstory

 

Hey guys I'm just starting book 3 but I just thought of a pretty good shitpost / fanfiction idea -



Name: Recyclops

Aspects:

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

 

So obviously we have more than just Tyrant magically fucking around with the area. It was one thing when there was just a scrying block going on, but now fairy gates are sometimes hell gates? And the Observatory is being attacked? Keep in mind that our newly minted pair of goddesses didn't want to try attacking the Observatory. Sure, Kairos is up to try, but wouldn't actually succeed. Doesn't have the capability to pull off something of this scale.

No, this is a real heavyweight at play. First option is always going to be the Dead King. He's capable of it, and you can see some motive, but it's probably not him. It doesn't fit. He's too remote, and this is gonna be a more local problem. After that, only other place on Calernia with the sorcerous power to pull this off are the Giants, but they're full isolationist especially with regard to Procer. Such aggression violates that, and they'd be way out of left field.

That leaves some divine intervention. Cat keeps saying how all this is about making things so chaotic that only a master of it could win. Yeah, that's Kairos' thing, but with the full picture that's obviously not it. It's a hit on Callow. Wait until their army commits, then kill the Observatory to end their communication/coordination advantage. We already know priests disrupt scrying for some unknown reason, a choir wouldn't have a problem doing the same. By disrupting fairy gates, they not only hurt the Army's ability to travel but also escape. Pilgrim's in the area, and has an unrevealed plan that seems to involve using Black as bait. This smells like his doing.

Well Cat, let's see if your wishing well does what you want it to.

 

I'm not sure I'd write the Tyrant off on that just yet--it's actually been noted several times at this point that either the Tyrant or someone close to him has a shocking grasp of magic, and he's long since been revealed to be a much bigger deal than he first appeared, and not just because he crafted a being who has an Aspect that stunned a major league goddess.

Even putting that aside, it's entirely possible that either of his revealed Aspects could do the trick. One is Rule, which is notable as the first example of armies not mattering to powerful Named, because Kairos butchered an army of twenty thousand with it; based on the fact that he seemingly waited for a storm to arrive before calling down the thunder, it presumably gives him power of existing things, which might apply to portals--again, notably, Akua did something similar by Claiming Cat's portal. His second known Aspect, meanwhile, is literally Wish, which not only lets him see what anyone he looks at wishes for, but also grants his wishes in some context; he used it to wish his way out of Arcadia after being trapped there, for example.

Given that the power of Named rises the more they fulfill their roles and given that 'Conquer the Free Cities and then lay siege to Procer' is literally the foundation of the Tyrant of Helike Name, I could see him leveraging either of those to do this, honestly.

 

All good points. Typically, I think claiming Rule over a portal would require some level of proximity, but Rule's a pretty flexible aspect. He can probably replicate Malicia's brainwashing effect and vice versa, though less refined. Being able to lay a domain over Iserre (territory he has claimed) that would invalidate portals is a big step up from his first appearance, but not unreasonable. And on review, portals opening up to Hells is more a Tyrant thing than what you'd get out of the Heavens.

The Observatory attack I'm certain is angelic. The drow have made a mockery of power levels, but twin goddesses >> ascending Tyrants, and if Komena and Andronike fear testing the Observatory's defenses then a Tyrant's Aspect will bounce right off. A temporary flux at best, but if the pools are evaporating then this is a much bigger deal. We know that divine entities kill scrying somehow, and a Choir is the only thing in the right weight class available. If it is an angel, they've got a bad day coming up. Masego's gonna kill whatever's messing with his tower.

This reads like an active entity of some sort, not a lasting effect set forth by Rule, Wish, or a ritual. He could've summoned one, but what? I had a different thing written up, but I realized that if this is anybody's aspect it has to be Receive. We have active use aspects (Swing, Take, Rise, etc.), and aspects with passive effects (Lead, Squire's Learn), but Receive is the only one with elements of both. Hierarch receives a near-constant stream of visions from varying sources, most of which are in the relevant area, but would Receive really kill scrying for the entire province of Iserre?

Kinda fits Hierarch's walking storm shtick, and it fits the general rule of aspects where slugging power increases with limitations.

His unnamed revolution-inspiring third aspect is limited by being situational, and Receive is completely uncontrolled. It's already a strong aspect, but if it inadvertently kills scrying in the entire area that's bullshit of the highest order. So I guess not impossible. If it's Tyrant it'd have to be that.