I've been waiting for this update. It was good...

But one thing keeps this chapter from being great...

I don't like that you had harry enter into that deal so easily. I'm not saying eventually he shouldn't because I'm sure its part of your plot somehow. But just after being tricked by her once... it seems beyond foolish.

If nothing else you could have had him enter into a temporary truce as he ways his options, and then later on upgrade to this deal. You could probably use that as a way to extend your plot somehow.

But good job on the fight, I'm glad you didn't pansy out on the win and make harry make stupid mistakes. You stuck to your guns and made harry damned skilled.

 

I have to agree. Of course it is a bit hypocritical for me to complain about it considering what kind of deal Harry made with Aurora in BGP, but unlike my Harry your Harry knows exactly who and what he is dealing with.

 

Another great chapter. Clean, interesting writing. I truly enjoy how you seem to be engineering a confrontation/meeting between Aurora, Elaine, Dresden and Harry.

I actually disagree with that point. The Harry in Awaken Sleeper is incredibly confident. I interpret it as that he knows that these people are more likely to try to screw him over than not, but he feels that he can handle whatever comes his way.

 

That, and he desperately needs some powerful allies, considering that White Council and Venatori Umbrorum could be upon him in a second.

 

Still, the deal seems extremely open ended. Harry should have added more conditions. One in particular should have been "You will not use this arrangement to find some way to suck me of my powers that you have such a keen interest in, so you can take them for yourself."

 

Anybody who tells me I should have made an introduction first can go fuck themselves (unless you are an admin).

True, however I would have had Harry add an additional stipulation to the alliance. Something that says no bargain can be made between Harry and Aurora without some condition being met such as both parties stating the terms of the bargain then shaking on it. It would mean Harry wouldn't have to worry (or at least not as much) about being tricked into a bargain such as with an offer of food.

Edit: I forgot to mention I liked the chapter. On the whole Good work

 

It's a long shot, but I think there's a possibility Watermage had Harry trick Aurora.

This is his sole 'confirmation' of the alliance. Not exactly, 'yes, I agree to the alliance'; Harry's ambigous wording could give him the room he needs later on to more-or-less truthfully deny the alliance.

Its a long shot.

 

That would be a flimsy explanation at best, and you'd think that a high up faerie like Aurora would be able to tell when she enters a bargain/alliance, given how closely debts are ingrained in their nature.

 

It's possible that Aurora makes for a shitty lawyer.

 

I personally found that this Harry is waaaaay OP in this fight. Talos is established as being capable of counterspelling, so at the very least, Harry should not have been able to defeat him in this manner. Maybe with some creative transfiguration/animation/use of the environment, but not with a brute magical attack like that.

On another note, you'll want to edit your description of that blood whip spell. The way you wrote it, it reads like Magic Missiles: unavoidable. It's hard as fuck to balance that, and generally requires making the actual effect extremely weak.

Overall, not bad, just work a little on increasing the manipulativeness of the sidhe, esp the 6 queens whenever they're involved.

 

Now that you've mentioned it, I'm pretty much honour-bound to say it. Read the stickies, for politeness' sake if nothing else, dumbass.

http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=10026


Anyway, back on topic, I really enjoyed this chapter, it was well written, even if the fae that Harry fought seemed a little too quick to anger, etc.I doubt he would have gotten to such a high position if he was as dumb as you made him out to be.

Or I could be entirely missing the point, Idk.

Oz: No offense meant, I just couldn't pass it up. lol

 

I wanted to post this chapter mainly to get some feedback and see what works and what didn't work. I'll be editing this chapter later on to make it smoother. Mainly the fight and bits of dialogue. I agree with some of the points made on what kinda didn't work as far as the terms of the alliance or Talos. Regarding Talos, for some reason in my notes I jotted down while rereading Summer Knight for AW, I only have Talos=Power Ranger. All I remember is he had a thin sword and did some neat flips. I guess I have to read his scenes again.

 

His armor made him mostly immune to magic that is how he mimicked the troll.

 

He also had warding abilities, and was, more or less, an all around badass. Also, if I remember him correctly, the fact that he got angry that quickly (or, indeed, at all) was kind of OOC.

 

Having never read any Dresden Files book, and having read that chapter, I'd be willing to atleast name my first born child after you, Water Mage, if not outright give it to you.

 

This is an excellent story, top-notch and certainly one of the best things I've read in a while.

There are things you could work on though. The first is Aiden. So far he simply seems like a shallow character without much depth to him. We know that he's creepy, that he chose to be silent and that he has some sort of supernatural power. That's not enough to make an interesting character. So if he's going to be of any importance then you should focus on developing him.

The second thing is what others before me have already noticed - powerful beings in the Dresdenverse are usually well-versed in counterspelling whereas Talos did not attempt anything of that kind at all. While it might not have worked against Potterverse magic, you should at least explain that in the story.

As far as the alliance/bargain goes, Harry accepted the pendant from Aurora. If you can be bound to Faeries by getting something as simple as a drink then the pendant secures the alliance for sure.

 

Yeah, that's a pretty good explanation, and I was thinking about that before I posted.

But then I thought, about where this was taking place. Do you really think that someone in a position of power could get complacent? I understand that it's the Summer Court, but I still don't think the higher ups are above replacing useless underlings.

Just my opinion.

I also wouldn't have minded him being weak. Weakness can be missed sometimes. But he wasn't just weak, he acted like a total idiot.

Lets say he was in a position of power for a long time, and got complacent. (Assuming that Summer is a lot more forgiving than Winter. Or that they didn't notice) A person with the intelligence to get that high up really shouldn't have completely lost it like that.

Again, just opinion. I don't know that much about Talos.

 

I agree on the point that the higher-ups in Summer would not get complacent. Why? Because if they got complacent, Winter would do horrible things to them and then to their corpses, and be in charge. Don't forget that even before Summer Knight, Summer had an edge on Winter.