Annotated 36-6
“For months as you measure time.” My rule of thumb for “how much time has passed in Guilded Age since…” was to convert chapters to days if it’s Sepia World, weeks if it’s Arkerra. Obviously this does not work on a micro scale: this whole chapter is taking place 36 hours at most after Chapter 34, and running more or less simultaneously with Chapter 35. But I figure there have to be some relatively dull periods, even in this realm of adventure.
Flo explained Byron’s shout here with an interesting insight into his psychology. These are arguably his worst enemies, but when he loses it and shouts at them, it’s a warning. His real worst enemy is the Berserker. And even though he knows the Cultists and what they’re about, some core part of him can’t believe that someone would deliberately release the Berserker and all that it is. These are children playing with matches, unaware how fragile their basement is.
I like the little parallel of Homon and Tom both pulling long stabby things out of their robes, with Tom going more old-school. Incidentally, I’ve always been a little phobic of needles: not enough that I haven’t gotten the jab or anything, but it’s a mild neurosis of mine.
I actually caught that about Byron’s shot back in the day, and appreciated it. It’s nice for a character who cares about people and carries guilt about those he’s hurt to still have that in a moment of panic. Good to know it was intentional.
*shout
Another thing I have been wondering, do the cultists need Byron specifically? Or would any human sacrifice do and brother Tom is just a bit obsessed with Byron because Tom has foreseen that Byron will be the one to kill him?
Think it’s two fold, Tom single out Byron because he is a sadist that know this this will be painful on multiple levels but also is aware Byron, the last survivor of Battleshire, is one hell of a fighter thus the best biggest threat as a berserker. I’m sure HR also had a say as he was clearly making this very personal beti him and the Five.
Brother Tom would be fond of the circular logic that he saw Byron berserking and killing him in his visions, so he made Byron go berserk and kill him, proving/causing the vision to be correct. And he loves the poetry of being killed by someone he inadvertently “created” twenty years prior.
But what if… Byron had never come back from Souff Kural?
Byron is the only being we’ve met who’s lived with the berserker curse as an ongoing condition up to now. Not sure if he’s the only one in existence: we know the Cultists spread the Madness often enough that it’s part of their indoctrination, though survivors are fairly rare. It may be that a “berserking virgin” wouldn’t serve as the “carrier” Brother Tom needs for the ritual he’s performing here. But in general terms, I’m sure he’d come up with something else if no other recovering berserkers were available.
Being scared of needles, at least a little bit, is absolutely the normal reaction to have. “This won’t hurt a bit” must be one of the most obvious lie in anyone’s childhood. Of course it will hurt, it’s a needle piercing your skin. I never let it stop me from getting a shot or donating blood, but getting stung by a needle never became banal.
I can’t look at a needle piercing skin, not even on video or in a movie (for reference: I find some scenes in From Dusk Till Dawn uncomfortable, but was still fine watching it three times).
I’ve developed a routine of looking away and taking a deep breath when getting an injection, and I can stay pretty calm. Except sometimes the person who is giving me the injection misinterprets that and gets nervous/annoyed themselves. So started warning them that it’s just the look that’s a problem for me, and since then, it’s been pretty easy, including blood donations.
Except last time I got a blood test, when I think they missed the vein at first, or at least it felt really uncomfortable. But because I can’t look, I have no idea what was going on and started imagining things … that took several more deep breaths.
Yeah, just saying straight up that I’m always phobic about needles seems to help (I give to the Red Cross, so this comes up fairly often). Some people who administer the shot feel a lot of pressure to put their donors at ease, which can make things awkward if I just tense up without warnimg.
I was absolutely terrified of needles…until I was diagnosed as a diabetic at 8.
Then I was STILL terrified of needles, they just had to drag me off the top of the hospital bed three times a day to make me take insulin injections anyway.
I eventually got over it by necessity, but it took YEARS. Even if you have to take injections multiple times every day, it’s still not trivial getting over that particular phobia.