Annotated 21-23
Phil revised this from a totally different (short) narrative and left the note, “I don’t usually favor direct repetition of any of our incantations… but ‘Graiya’s Prayer,’ as it were, is the only one that I think would benefit from it.” I thought that was pretty funny, since we’d already repeated that prayer once… not sure if he didn’t remember that or just thought, hey, Rule of Threes.
The way that prayer fades out at the end there got some people nervous. As the most recent addition to the group, Fr’Nj was also the one whose death would least derail existing plots. So you might reasonably expect her to die here–and that was exactly why we didn’t want to kill her.
Seniority bias creeps into adventure series a lot, and it’s a pet peeve of mine. I mean, I understand that the readers’ deepest bonds are going to be with the characters they’ve known from the series’ start, and the importance of the Five was baked into the Guilded Age concept. So it’s not like we could totally defy the “oldest matter mostest” rule and end with E-Merl, Rachel, Sundar, Hewie, and Sumnugi (“some new guy”) avenging their fallen comrades by killing JJ Berten. But that didn’t mean we should be so obvious about following that rule, and we could at least work in an exception or two (Bandit’s reduced role in the last quarter, Shanna’s importance despite her late entry).
There will be a sacrifice here, it’s just not going to be Fr’Nj’s life. More on what that sacrifice could have been in tomorrow’s installment.
The roots brushing off E-Merl’s hat for him is a wonderful little detail.
Ha! Thank you for pointing that one out, I’d miss it otherwise. Though my personal favourite thing on this page is still the look on E-Merl’s and Rachel’s faces. :D
It strongly resembles Dr Seuss.
Just above that, the roots are retrieving Byron’s axes.
And Rachel’s … schoolmaster ruler?
Thank you! Glad you like it.
Glad someone noticed. ;-D
I appreciate the lengths you’ve gone to in order to avoid name collision!