9 – 35

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“Oh, fuck you.”




“Yeah,” Toby said, nodding.



Ruda laughed so hard she nearly fell over.



















Silence stretched out while they stared, until Gabriel finally spoke.



“Who the fucking what?” Ruda exclaimed.













Gabriel blinked in astonishment. “Captain Rouvad?”


“You work with the Church now?” Toby asked.





“Wait a second,” Trissiny exclaimed.
































“Your priorities are on point as always, Juniper.”
















“What truth?” Fross demanded.




They all stared at him in silence.











“Give them to me.”



Shadows swelled around Vanessa and Malivetted, then instantly dissipated.


Vanessa emitted a thin keening sound of pure panic.




Vanessa was crying openly now, practically vibrating with tension.


Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut, whimpering.








The warlock fainted.



“Most?” Toby said sharply.






For several moments they could only stand in stunned silence.



“Most of them, apparently,” said Shaine.


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36 thoughts on “9 – 35

  1. I think Joe will finally curse. 😀

    I wonder what Arachne will have to say about all that. The archpope didn’t make any friends today.


  2. The more I read about the Black Wreath the more I cheer for them and the less I like the supposedly good guys ” Paladins, Malivette etc”


    1. Wait you actually believe that there is good guys? Cute. The closest to good guys we get I think would be the children and that is mostly because they are too innocent to have started developing hteir own agendas.

      Liked by 2 people

  3. Let’s sum it up:

    Justinian is still suspicious, surprise surprise, and his team in the Badlands is (almost certainly) a diversion. Or possibly he only learned later the Skull was elsewhere.

    Darling’s team *might* be a diversion. If Justinian knew the Skull was elsewhere, Darling also might’ve.

    Embras, and by extension Elial, is playing a dangerous and cruel game with the kids. Again, surprise surprise. Meanwhile, The Wreath seem to still be the place for people down on the luck, judging by what Embras alluded to the Church doing to Vanessa.

    Finally, Malivette seems to be almost as ruthless at Tellwyrn, but also seems to be as generally good-hearted as her.


  4. That was fantastic. I love that Vette was bluffing about her fear of the valkries the whole time.

    One thing I’m not sure of- why didn’t Gabe hand off Ariel before they went in for the concluding catacombs chaos confrontation like was discussed previously? Was it decided that three paladins together were enough to prevent a chaos misfire in the magic that allows her to exist? (I could see Gabe or the others forgetting she was vulnerable, but that Ariel didn’t remind him was a choice).


  5. Typos:


    (although I am sure Embras feels ‘Malivetted’ right now)



    I didn’t think there was a Friday update, but I checked this afternoon just in case and got a nice surprise.

    Holy sh** the implications of this are insane…

    Justinian had a strike team prepared, with advanced magical artifacts, and knew the location well enough to send the party well in advance. Justinian’s adventurer group were sent on a wild goose chase. Given that none of Khadizroth, Shook, the Jackal, and Kheshiri like being jerked around, that’s not going to make them happy. Given that they were planning on double crossing Justinian anyway, this is just a double-double-cross and Khadizroth at least is likely to get philosophical about it.

    Darling’s adventurer group were either sent on the same goose chase or just followed Justinian’s group instead of doing full fact checking themselves. This strongly makes it look like the two groups of adventurers were set up to kill each other, i.e. Justinian’s original plan – those who won’t work with him get killed. Whether he did it or not, Darling will fall under suspicion. A traitor is a useful thing to have around, as long as you know he’s a traitor – in this case Darling is the traitor to the Universal Church. I don’t suspect Darling of attempting to kill the adventurers as a primary goal, which means he is going to be severely pissed off, after he finishes admiring the trap.

    As Embras noted, Chaos cultists were unlikely to have actually planned a successful operation like this, so it looks like either Malivette or Justinian as the likely culprits – Malivette only because she is local and can apparently operate far more widely, quickly, and powerfully than previously indicated. Justinian is still the primary suspect.

    And the open question is whether the original collapse (earthquake?) that set the whole thing off was an engineered event.

    Apparently you can teleport near Chaos artifacts as long as deities are suppressing the aura. Apparently you can actually teleport the artifacts themselves with some additional controls.

    Justinian now has the skull. Yes, Salyrene clerics are technically in charge, but Justinian has functional control. Well fu**.

    Malivette knows Embras.

    Malivette claims to know the Wreath’s secrets. “You just might care more about the world and each other than any of the other cults.” That is not clearly the the secret as to why Elilial was kicked out, so perhaps this is another secret.

    Malivette can out-power several warlocks in close quarters, at least with the leverage of hostage taking included. Trissiny admits she couldn’t kill Malivette in direct combat. Malivette is willing to use vicious tactics, despite acting like Rafe a lot of the time. Malivette has all sorts of powerful divine artifacts and now has at least one disruptor. Malivette knows dangerous secrets. Malivette was already looking bad ass, but now she appears to be a really severe threat level.

    “I’ll be seeing you kids again soon.”
    Yeah, that’s not good. Embras is trying to corrupt all of the Hands.

    I have been thinking that Justinian’s action were not in line with what the Pantheon really wants. I now suspect that thinking – it is appearing more and more that Justinian acts, just like the official picture, with the full authority and intent of the Pantheon (or at least multiple members of it). What if the real picture is more like the official one – the Pantheon knows “a great doom is coming” and they are using Justinian to clear the board of troublesome variables, e.g. adventurers, Chaos skulls, and oracles? It is still likely that Justinian has his own agendas, but the main actions he has done visibly so far may well be fully backed by the Pantheon. The bullsh** he said about universal apotheosis may have been given as a red herring.

    The moments of comedy in here actually highlight the drama even more. “get laid” “BEHOLD!”


    1. What if some gods are working against the rest of the pantheon?

      What if the gods can’t interfere with the archpope because it’s part of their nature to protect him?

      What if the gods are misleading Justinian because apotheosis is only possibly every 8000 years and now that it’s coming again, they want to prevent anyone from replacing them, so they feed him false info? The Elder Gods used to be human too after all.

      What if the gods have to renew their godhood soon or they’ll lose everything?

      What if the pool of divine energy is limited and they’ll have to throw all kinds of artifacts in there to produce more?

      What if Justinian doesn’t care about the gods at all and is making a grab for worldly power?

      What if the gods are parasites that can only exist as long as they siphon off humanity’s energies, thus keeping them mortal and powerless compared to the other races? What if that was Elilial’s reason to betray them? Because they wouldn’t give up this power once they defeated the Elder Gods?

      What if I accidently spoil the story with my wild theories? I better stop now. 😛


      1. Ok

        The Archpope has been clear that he is after some sort of universal apotheosis.

        There is some sort of secret the gods scorch the earth to hide and the queen of the demons seeks to have found by humanity.

        Some deaths send you back to hell to be reborn and others seem more permanent ?

        I’m curious how that works.

        But sitting down and reading this start to today in the course of a week has been interesting.


      2. My comments got caught in the spam filter, so I’ve logged in where I can post them without that happening, and revise the way I make them.

        Justinian: faction//apotheosis for all.

        Elilial: faction//some sort of focus on a secret the gods kill everyone who gets close to/got her thrown out of heaven and the god of justice pushed into neutral territory.

        Malivette: faction//herself, with a large helping of bluff.

        Darling: faction//reader analog, lost, trying to figure out what is going on and do the right thing — within his own focus.

        Everyone: //pretty much doing what they think is the right thing, with drives they do not necessarily understand (like Trissey’s drive to act like an apex predator where demons/undead are concerned).

        gods: faction//all gods require worshipers (so if they lose them, they become spirits prey to being eaten or destroyed). Two sets of them were humans once (it is surprising that the elder gods were human once as well, that opens up a huge set of questions, as does the fact that they harvested and cultivated humans).

        technology: a force without a faction, but a huge force multiplier taking off … reminds me of our world where it took 30k years to improve flint flaking technology, another 30k to discover agriculture, but 10k years from agriculture to nuclear weapons

        3500 BC, humans discover bronze, 5500 years later, humans have nuclear weapons. Once technology takes off, eight thousand years gets you to places we haven’t dreamed of yet.



    2. Malivette does not outpower several warlocks, they just care more about their own then about the items. Which proably can not be said for many other groups


      1. Malivette outclasses pretty much anyone who’s not in Arachne’s weightclass or above (which means all the gods and dragons). In this story, most archetypes are severely overpowered compared to what we know from traditional fantasy. Just look at the dryads and dragons. Vampires are just more of the same.

        To put this into perspective:
        Trissiny, the Hand of Avei, more or less singlehandedly killed the demonic dragon from the hellgate incident. A monster said to be more destructive than normal dragons. She didn’t even get hurt.
        The same Hand of Avei clearly stated that she doesn’t stand a chance against Malivette, nor does anyone else in the group except Gabriel’s valkyries. A group that includes an archdemon, a demi-goddess, a priest, a mage with infinite energy and a brawler with an anti-magic weapon on top of the three paladins who are martial artists or mages themselves. This completely broken, overpowered group wouldn’t even be able to get close to killing Malivette.

        Embras and his posse never stood a chance, if Malivette had wanted to kill all of them, she could have done it. Near instantly, without letting a single target escape. Without breaking a sweat.

        Vampires are seriously bad news… unless they are cute and cuddly like Malivette.


      2. @Daemion Malivette is no standard vampire either, she had training at Unseen University. Regular vampires would likely could be killed by paladins, undead are weak to divine magic after all, but being trained to use her abilities to the fullest, Malivette is pretty much unstoppable by anything short of any army.


  6. I think it’s clear now, unless the author is REALLY messing with us,that the Black Wreath are in fact the good guys and the Church the bad guys . Not so much what they say, but their actions reveal their true nature – they way they treat their companions, bystanders, and yet more tellingly, their opponents.


    1. That is a valid interpretation.

      If I were to spell out how I approach the story, it would be more to say that even bad guys often have a good point, and good guys aren’t really a thing.

      But spelling things out is boring; reading about characters grappling with uncomfortable realizations is much more fun.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Well we knows that the Wreath keeps demons in check (contrary to the empire and the church), is more caring about mortals (Tellwyrn’s point of view and apparently malivette’s) and we also know that the goddess of judgment left the pantheon due to Elilial treatment.
      It should still be noted that we don’t see all the acts that the wreath is doing either and they really do have reasons to give a preferencial treatment to vadrienny’s friends.
      On the otherside we have the pantheon with a few gods with very disputable dogma and non affiliated gods who seem insane. So yes by comparison the wreath looks like saints, but we should remember that Elilial’s daughters seems to have commited their share of unsavoury actions if Sheyann reaction was any indication…


      1. It’s like real life. Anyone who has power had to dirty their hands at least once. It might have been for good reasons but in the end, no one gets anywhere by being 100% pure good.

        For this reason I doubt that there is anyone in this story who would qualify as truly good. Or to go by the D&D definition of lawful good. Not even the paladins make the cut, although they come pretty close.

        On the other hand, there is no absolute evil either. I don’t know how much of a comfort that is for the victims of antogonists who just didn’t care about collateral damage. Someone who is indifferent might cause more trouble than someone with evil intents.


      2. @Daemion I think Kheshri, and likely many other demons, are absolute evil. They manipulate and kill for the fun of it with no intention of making life better for anyone. Gold dragons may qualify as lawful good, although I may be forgetting details about them, and even if I’m not we don’t have a ton of information on them.

        Also, Fross is pretty good. I think she might count as lawful good too.


      3. Absolute evil? I think the children of Vanislaav come close but we’ve seen some working for the Black Wreath that kind of behaved themselves.

        Fross is learning which rules she can break, so lawful good is no longer on the table.


      4. Children of Vanislaav are don’t have the power to go on a murderous rampage, so they play the long game by working with the wreath. I doubt they are all intelligent enough to avoid being manipulated by the most skilled manipulators of the Wreath either, so they are often are likely ‘tricked’ into doing good things too. Although since they were at one point human, they might have some scrap of potential decency and not quite qualify for absolute evil. Vanislaav himself might have potential though, now that I consider it.


  7. I’ve just started rereading this story and as such wanted to point out a (admittedly) minor continuity error I just stumbled across. In chapter 1-2 Trissiny readily identifies the instrument Tanq was playing as an ocarina, while in 9-16 she had to ask what the instrument was when Mary/Kuriwa gave her one. Just thought you might like to know.



    At first I misread this and thought AVEI said this, and I laughed harder than Ruda!


  9. Holy CRAP. Inteeeerestiiiing…

    Really want to know just what Justinian is doing now. I suspected the skull was there ever since the kids said the blame was on chaos energies, but the Church, now, that’s just evil.

    I somewhat suspect that all we know about this world is completely backward. Elilial seems nice, mostly, and the Pope does… this.

    Plus, we’ve got Chekhov’s Dragons… Naiya is going to be upset about Aspen, so we’re perhaps likely to see an “infused” green, and I don’t know what causes the Arcane magic, but my gut tells me it’s Tellwyrn…


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