Links and Accomplishments, 10/18/15 to 10/31/15

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Witness my sad crying glitter pumpkin…

Links

I love the Victorian era. So I decided to live in it. Apparently this article caused a kerfuffle when it first came out? I dunno, I unironically loved it. Yes, the tone comes off a bit condescending at times. Yes, I’m sure there are many, many ways they are still benefiting from the advantages of the 21st century — how did the author write this blog piece, after all, without a computer? But I would love to be able to do this for a few days, a week, a month — just to get a taste of an era I find fascinating.

Friendship’s Frequency. This rang very true for me. I have been Busy Betty in many friendships, and I’m still learning how to manage the thinly-cut slices of my social pie.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Edited Lioness chapters 8, 9, and 10 to send to writing group
– Wrote 767 new words on Lioness (which turned into 340 due to the edits I did)
– Submitted “Remember to Die” to Shimmer (yeah, I know, flash is a hard sell with them — see below for my inevitable rejection. I tried because I read Rachael K. Jones recent flash story and was like, hmm, okay, that’s sorta the same thing I’m trying to do. It was not).
– Wrote blog post “A Tale of Two Janes (or, September Book Mini-Reviews)”
– Wrote two new poems

Reading
– Read “Anna Saves them All,” by Seth Dickinson, Shimmer #21
– Read “The Law of the Conservation of Hair,” Rachael K. Jones, Shimmer #27
– Finished reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
– Read/listened to Tremontaine episode one, by Ellen Kushner and a bunch of other cool people

Other Media
– Watched the RiffTrax of No Retreat No Surrender
– Watched the RiffTrax of The Night That Dracula Saved The World
– Watched a bunch of new-to-me Vincent Price movies: Master of the World, War Gods of the Deep, Last Man on Earth, Comedy of Terrors, Scream and Scream Again
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 34 and 35
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.42 and 10.43

LARP
– NPCed for Cottington Woods 3.4
– Wrote NPC PEL for Shadows of Amun game 10

Crafts
– Painted a checkered pumpkin à la this tutorial, which turned out… well, judge for yourself.

Health
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 2
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 1
– Had a massage

Rejection Log

– “Remember to Die,” Shimmer

A Tale of Two Janes (or, September Book Mini-Reviews)

I don’t write full reviews for every book I’ve finished — most, in fact, don’t have a full post’s worth of things to talk about.

So here, let me write a few paragraphs for a bunch of books I finished in September.

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The Price of Valor, Django Wexler. Five stars. Many of you know I am often Django’s alpha reader and always number one fan. This book, the third in the Shadow Campaigns series, made me a little sad that I had rated the two earlier ones so highly, because I felt like this one blew it out of the water.

I like all of the characters, but Winter is superbly awesome in this one; the conflict between her love for Jane and the importance of her career in the army is deeply felt, and masterfully done.

Oh, and we get a return of the characters who spent last book on a boat: Bobby, Feor, Give-em-Hell and Preacher. I love the new characters, too: Andy, Viera, etc.

Janus continues to be Janus. He and Winter have some really powerful interactions in this book.

I love Raesinia, and I’m okay with her burgeoning romance with Marcus, which begins to be felt in this book. It lends Marcus some dimensionality, too.

Also, Sothe is a badass, which is a given.

Having read the outline for the series, every time I write about these books, I have to avoid shouting, “I KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON’T KNOW” in a Carol-Kane-as-Ghost-of-Christmas-Present-in-Scrooged voice.

All that said, sometimes the books still surprise me. See: all of Jane’s actions at the end of the book.

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Moving on to a very different Jane, we have Without a Summer, by Mary Robinette Kowal. (Four stars). This is the third book in the Glamourist Histories, continuing the adventures of Jane and Vincent in London, creating a glamural for a *gasp* Irish Catholic lord, and trying to get Jane’s sister hitched — all against the background of the famous Year Without a Summer.

While I had enjoyed the earlier two books, I was never as excited about this series as I wanted to be. This book changed that by being supremely engaging. Mostly, I feel I connected more with the characters than I had previously.

At one point in time Jane realizes that she’s spent most of the book making a grievous error of judgment, and her mortification is palpable. The reader ends up feeling vindicated as a result, as the prose has simultaneously set us up to root for the wronged character.

What’s really beautiful about this book is how Kowal handles race and religion in the 19th century. Kowal’s magically-enhanced 1816 London includes Irish and Catholics, Southeast Asians/Indians, black folks from Africa and the West Indies — and, often, the ugly stereotypes about them. Jane navigates this setting, first with benevolent racism from a position of ignorance, and later, challenging her narrow-minded beliefs.

This book also had some moments of real tension for me, especially near the end, where I found myself asking how they could possibly get out of this.

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Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, Timothy Brook. Four stars. This book has a lot of negative ratings on Goodreads due to what I think is a misunderstanding. If you just read the title, you might think this book was about art history, and would talking about Vermeer extensively.

It doesn’t, really. As the author explains, he uses Vermeer’s paintings — and sometimes other contemporary pieces of art — as “windows” into the world of the 17th century. For example, we look at the skyline of Delft in one of Vermeer’s paintings, with the buildings of the Dutch East India Company visible, and we talk about the Company’s trade with Asia. But we don’t talk about Vermeer’s motivation in painting it, or how he managed to portray light in such a unique way.

The author is by vocation a scholar of Chinese history, so his perspective on history is more inclusive than I’m used to seeing. We hear a lot about what was happening in China in the 17th century, understandably; certain chapters also talk extensively about the Algonquin and Iroquois and their interactions with Samuel de Champlain.

To me, this was fascinating, and ended up giving me a lot of ideas for other books in the Lioness series. I found most intriguing this view of the 17th century as the “century of second contact,” the Western world becoming more dependent on products like furs from North America and porcelain from China.

That was September! If for some incomprehensible reason these reviews have motivated you to read these books, you can thank me by buying them through the affiliate links above.

Links and Accomplishments, 10/3/15 to 10/17/15

bittersweet
So pretty, and yet so invasive…

I’ve decided to do these only every two weeks — writing this up takes time I’d rather spend doing something else, and preparing two weeks doesn’t take significantly longer than one. Also, I bore you less often 😉

Links

My coworker Val turned me on to the joy of Craft Fail and Pintester, two blogs which are comfort food for people whose craft projects never turn out like the pretty pictures. (Protip: I am that sort of person).

10 Underrated Perks of Working for Someone Else. I think I like the title spelled out by the URL better than the final title 🙂 I’m pretty happy working for the Man most of the time.

Chivalry Isn’t Dead; You Just Don’t Know What the Fuck It is. Brought to you by Better Myths, the folks who offer entertaining explanations of many different myths and legends. Wise points about horses as medieval WMDs 🙂

Green Stain Fungus Fruiting. These are a lot smaller than TES IV: Oblivion led me to believe.

How Doctors Take Women’s Pain Less Seriously. You might have seen me share this on Facebook, but it made me so angry (and sad, and terrified) that I want to share it again. I want every doctor, every nurse, every person who has ever worked in healthcare, to read this.

Accomplishments

Reading
– Alpha-read the first four chapters of SC4 for Django

Other Media
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 32 and 33
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.40 and 10.41
– Reached VR5 with Falanu in ESO

LARP
– Wrote my NPC PEL for 5G Wrathborn 2
– NPCed for Shadows of Amun game 10

Social
– Went to the RiffTrax Live of Miami Connection with Adina and Brian
– Went apple-picking and to lunch at the Rail Trail with Becky K et al

Health
– Had a cardiac calcium scan
– Had a stress test
– Did 11am/3pm office exercises x 8
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 1) x 1
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 3
– 40min walk x 4
– Walked to the Stop & Shop and back, carrying groceries (1.4m walk)

Links and Accomplishments, 9/27/15 to 10/3/15

snacking chipmunk
There was a little too much of this in my life last week…

Links

A couple of codepens I did to try out Flexbox: Challenge #1 (row-based)| Challenge #2 (column-based). At some point I should probably add these to my portfolio and/or do a more comprehensive post with Things Wot I Learned About Flexbox.

I unironically love pumpkin spice-flavored stuff, but I still think these are delightfully bad ideas: 16 Pumpkin Spice Products That Don’t Exist And Should Never Exist

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote the blog post “Starting my Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Re-Read”

Reading
– Read “Dying Young,” by Peter M. Ball, Clarkesworld, August 2015

LARP
– Wrote my NPC PEL for Shadows of Amun game 9
– NPCed for Friday night of 5G Wrathborn game 2
– Entered my info skill for 5G Silverfire

Other Media
– Watched the RiffTrax of Death Promise
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.39, “Q&A on Plot Twists with Kevin J. Anderson”

Health
– Exercised 3-4 times? I was bad about keeping track last week, but I know I did a decent amount.

Crafts
– Made 70 packets

Rejection Log

Interfictions, 45-day form rejection for “Powder of Sympathy”

Starting my Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Re-Read

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I’d hinted I was interested in doing something like this elseweb, and here I am doing it: re-reading Tad Williams’ late 1980s/early 90s work of epic fantasy, the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. This is in part because we’re going to get a new trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard, starting in spring 2016.

But it’s also because I have a history with this trilogy, one that leads directly to my writing fantasy today. These books turned me on to the sort of fantasy that is viscerally immersive and complex, extended outside the page with glossaries and language guides and in-world texts and gorgeous Michael Whelan cover art.

The Dragonbone Chair was first published in 1988, when I was eight years old. I didn’t read it then; I was around thirteen when I did. The final volume, To Green Angel Tower, was only out in hardcover when I started reading; I have the edition that is all one ginormous hardcover, rather than two paperbacks.

I read those first two books with the final volume hanging over my head like an exquisite promise. It was the name, you see: To Green Angel Tower. You know from page one that Green Angel Tower is the massive, vertigrised Sithi-built tower that still stands in the Hayholt, the castle where the story begins — and, as the title promises, ends.

(There’s a crash course in literary resonance, kids).

I remember distinctly the day I started reading The Dragonbone Chair for the first time. I was sitting on my parents’ bed in the loft of the log cabin where I grew up, the fan whirring loud and metallic beside me, as I read of Simon sparring with Rachel the Dragon, the fierce Mistress of Chambermaids in the Hayholt.

Last night, on a day that was not summer nor quite fall, with the moon in eclipse, I read the same scene again. I had scarcely opened the books since that day twenty plus years ago; I had replaced my battered paperback copy of The Dragonbone Chair with an equally battered library hardcover.

I perused the ephemera, which meant more to me now. God, Williams looks so damn young in his author picture. I can’t find it on the interwebs to share with you all, but he must have been the age I am now. It’s especially striking next to his current author picture..

The glossary was not as extensive as I recalled it being — but then, it does expand in future volumes, as does Simon’s knowledge of the world. But there are those delightful Qanuc sayings I loved, i.e. “if it falls on your head, then you know it’s a rock.”

And… well. I suppose I’ll just point you to my tweets from then on:


I only got about two chapters in before sleep overwhelmed me. It was no fault of the writing, I assure you, only the fact that I was coming off a larp weekend.

Although, speaking of the writing, it has a certain naive awkwardness you probably couldn’t get away with in fantasy today (omniscient third person, a lot of “as you know, Bob”-type conversations). But oh god, the descriptive language is fabulous. He was the Pat Rothfuss of his day.

Anyway. I invite you to join me in my re-read — even if it’s your first time through! I’ll be checking in here occasionally, as the mood strikes me, but primarily my musings will be found on Twitter at the #LiseRereadsMST hashtag.

Links and Accomplishments, 9/20/15 to 9/26/15

Indian Summer in New England

Links

A little bit short on the links this week… I haven’t been goofing off on the internet nearly enough.

New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy. The title is a bit clickbait-y, but the content is good.

Accomplishments

Writing — continues to get short shrift in my life right now. ‘Tis the season.
– Wrote 262 words on Lioness
– Wrote blog post “Your quarterly reminder that I still play ESO”

Reading
– Read “Hair,” Adam Roberts, Clarkesworld, July 2015
– Read “Security Check,” Han Song, Clarkesworld, August 2015
– Read “The Servant,” Emily Devenport, Clarkesworld, August 2015. Highly recommend this one, if you dig stories about generation ships, class struggles, and the cycle of violence.
– Finished reading The Price of Valor, by Django Wexler

LARP
– NPCed for Shadows of Amun game 9
– Wrote my NPC PEL for Cottington Woods 3.3

Other Media
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 30 and 31
– Listened to Writing Excuses episode 10.38, “How Does Context Shape Dialog?”
– Finished week 3 of the Coursera course Learning How to Learn
– Finished the Rift Angler — and with it, the Pact Fisherman — achievement in ESO with Falanu

Social
– Had lunch with Alison at Welcome India

Health
– Made appointment with cardiologist (routine stuff, basically just to say, “Hey, I have horrid family history of early heart disease and arrythmias, what do?”)
– Walked x 3
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 1) x 1

Your quarterly reminder that I still play ESO

Yes, I still play Elder Scrolls Online. Because of course I do.

I still would love people to play with me, now that it is buy-to-play.

Recent observations and amusements:

The UESP guild is best guild. We don’t do much, aside from occasional contests and fishing tournaments. But it is a guild where you can make jokes about Crassius Curio and people will get it.

Falanu is V3, and working her way through Cadwell’s Silver, where you go and play through the content of the first of the two factions you didn’t choose. For her, since she’s Ebonheart Pact, it’s Daggerfall Covenant, and she’s just about done with Glenumbra, the first full zone there. SO MANY DAMN WEREWOLVES.

“Hey, did you mention to that guy you know how to defeat Faolchu?”
“I did, and I added that I needed to go to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters, too.”

Br’ihnassi is 36, and just reached Malabal Tor on the Aldmeri Dominion side. Which means she can stop sneaking into Velyn Harbor to turn in crafting writs, blessedly. (It’s a “hot” zone, in that you have to free the town before you can use its services. Of course, that meant that at level 26, she was sneaking in past guards ten levels higher than her to turn in some damn Cyrodiilic Cornbread).

She’s also discovered Legerdemain, and the newly-added justice system, and GOD DO I LOVE IT. Except there are no non-empty containers in Velyn Harbor for her to steal from, which is a bummer.

I found myself wandering Stonefalls again with Falanu in search of maple, since I decided to level Woodworking with her. Apparently since the last time I’d been through there, some bastard had decided there weren’t enough cliff racers there. Blessedly, cliff racers in ESO, unlike their counterparts in Morrowind, are passive scenery; they won’t attack you, and you can’t even target them.

But they MAKE NOISE. Suddenly, somewhere around Senie, I was gripped with this atavistic horror brought on by the spiraling coo and squawk of a cliff racer. No, multiple cliff racers.

DON’T THEY KNOW THIS IS TRAUMATIC TO ANYONE WHO PLAYED MORROWIND??

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After a while the horror subsided, and it was just like a swarm of flying monkeys was accompanying me to Ash Mountain. Which is… better, I guess?

No, seriously, I rather like that they added that. It’s really the only place in EP — or in the larger game world — that makes sense, being the same volcanic ashland as Vvardenfell, and it’s a nice scenic touch. I don’t ever need to be stuck in Molag Amur with cliff racers endlessly attacking me again, but I don’t mind them serenading me to my destination.

Links and Accomplishments, 9/13/15 to 9/19/15

Links

“What the Living Do,” a poem by Marie Howe. I was turned onto this by a Captain Awkward post about suicide. It is the kind of poem I love, about the sublime mundanity of choosing to live, day after day.

Kameron Hurley writes brilliantly about The Traitor Baru Cormorant and why she loved it in What Will You Sacrifice? I’ve got my copy of Traitor, though I haven’t started reading yet (other than the three free chapters I read on tor.com)

Authoring Critical Above-the-Fold CSS. Inlining CSS is anathema to the separation of content and presentation layers — but apparently invaluable for page speed.

40 Free (or Extremely Low-Cost) Things I Genuinely Enjoy Doing – and You Might, Too. From The Simple Dollar, the only frugality blog I still follow.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote 242 words on Lioness (yeah, sad, I know)

LARP
– NPCed for Cottington Woods 3.3
– Finished my 5G Silverfire 2 PEL

Reading
– Read “Bones at the Door,” John Wiswell (VP17!), Fireside Magazine September 2015
– Read Without a Summer, Mary Robinette Kowal

Other Media
– Played Mansions of Madness x 2
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 28 and 29
– Listened to Writing Excuses episodes 10.36 and 10.37
– Finished the Eastmarch Angler achievement in ESO with Falanu

Social
– Attended Mac’s writing night

Health
– Had an annual physical
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 1) x 2
– Did Hacker’s Diet Introductory Fitness Ladder workout (rung 2) x 1

Links and Accomplishments, 8/30/15 to 9/12/15

Making up for two weeks here, since I was in the middle of the woods last Sunday, and this week has been crazy…

Links

No girl wins: three ways women unlearn their love of video games

Was going through old email and found this link someone I ran into at Readercon sent me about smut and libraries, and smut involving libraries: Checking Out

“I have never turned heads”: What it’s like when you’re not the object of desire. I relate to this in many ways. I leave it as an exercise to the reader precisely which ones.

No Excuses Craft Tutorials: “how you can make a perfectly good LARP costume for less than the price of a burger at the event.” Admittedly, my larp costume expenses can be measuring in teraburgers, but I still found this interesting.

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote three blog posts:

– Wrote 2706 words on Lioness

LARP
– PCed Fifth Gate Silverfire game 2
– Wrote a (very tentative) character history for Crossover

Reading
– Read Vermeer’s Hat, by Timothy Brook
– Read “It Was Educational,” by J.B. Park (Clarkesworld August 2015)

Other Media
– Listened to Writing Excuses 10.35, “Breaking In, With Charlie N. Holmberg”
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin, episode 27
– Reached VR3 in ESO with Falanu
– Reached 35 in ESO with Br’ihnassi

Social
– Had dinner/went shoe shopping/book club with Jess

Health, a.k.a. Not Being Terrible About My Body
– Had blood work done ahead of my physical next week
– Sparred with Matt
– Walked x 2
– Did Hacker’s Diet fitness ladder workout x 3
– Went to the lake with Matt (not directly health-related, except maybe mental health)

Household
– Weeded by the side entrance
– Went shopping for supplies to finish the deck
– Put tar paper over the non-pressure treated bits of the deck (not by choice, mind… the crazy people who built this deck didn’t use pressure-treated lumber, and we can’t replace all of it without ripping the whole thing up. So we water-sealed and covered with tar paper what we could)

Crafts
– Finished chemise for Ianthe
– Hemmed Ianthe’s blue velveteen gown
– Finished cutting the pieces for a new Ianthe underdress mockup

I Went To Math Hell and All I Got Was This Colorful Marble

I’m back from Fifth Gate Silverfire game 2!

I’ve written about it else-web, so I don’t want to repeat myself excessively. But to elaborate on some things I wrote there…

We were once again at Zion’s Camp, the LDS camp in Raymond, NH. The site was in somewhat better shape, coming to it right after the camp season. The bathhouse in our camp (Lower Staff/Priesthood Pavilion) was functional, which was a big plus. It was full of spiders and their webs, which was less ideal. The cabin I stayed in (the same one as last time), was equally filthy, covered in rodent droppings and acorn shells.

There was also the small obstacle that half the cabins in our camp were still locked when we arrived on site, and that we didn’t have enough mattresses… but those problems was quickly resolved.

I made some changes to my costuming this game. I purchased this lovely velveteen dress in dark blue (seen above) from Sofi’s Stitches via Medieval Collectibles, and made a chemise to go under it. (I also had to hem it up like… eight inches, because I am short and it is designed to be floor-length, which is less than ideal while tromping through the woods). Of course, this weekend turned out to be very hot during the day, so I only wore it at night, and even then without the tie-on sleeves.

Overall I was very happy with this addition to Ianthe’s wardrobe. It kept me sufficiently warm, even at bird o’clock, and it is relatively easy to move in. (Only problems I had were getting up from sitting/kneeling on the ground; I kept getting tangled in my hem).

One big change related to my comfort was… anti-chafing cream. (Perhaps TMI, this). Given how hot it was during the day, I didn’t want to wear an extra layer under my day dress (the same blue/yellow silk underdress plus brown suedecloth corseted overdress), so I needed something to keep my thighs from rubbing themselves raw. I invoked the power of science!!, purchasing some anti-chafing cream Friday afternoon. I’m happy to report it worked well! I walked something like 50,000 steps over the weekend, and it kept me going without discomfort. At least, not from chafing…. (ow muscles ow ow).

Enough about that! How was the actual game?

Just as great as last time. This one was… maybe less fighty than the last one? There were probably as many field fights (two on Friday, two on Saturday, and one weird hybrid one on Sunday), but there was less roving pain, overall.

One thing I struggled with this game was staying in character. I felt like I never really fully immersed in the Ianthe headspace this game. I don’t know why that is. I started to immerse on Saturday, but something about the first field fight of the day plus math hell threw me out. After that, as I got progressively more exhausted over the course of Saturday (I’d been up until 5 or 6am, and walked all over the place, while fighting), it was harder and harder to stay in character. While working on a code, I described a symbol as “looking like an Up arrow on a computer keyboard.” I mentioned email. I found myself talking about my skills mechanically (“I used my event skill that fight”). My friends gently teased me when I did, which usually brought me around temporarily. I just hope I didn’t throw anyone else off by my lapses.

Let me illustrate some of my most fun plot moments, via quotes! (Don’t read on, Wrathborn players, if you don’t want to be spoiled with Silverfire stuff).

“Or we could just make awkward small talk.”

The Arcane Circle got to meet the founder of their Order, Avelina. She was delightfully awkward, and we were delightfully fannish about her. She and Scholarch Vexus visited late Friday/early Saturday to explain a complex field fight to us, which has gone down to history as Algebraic Battleship.

Basically we had to defend three points on the field, while simultaneously solving for x and y in equations written on slates. Once we had those numbers, we then plugged them into a second equation to determine coordinates to “bomb” — basically, deflecting Avelina’s tremendous power to destroy armaments being used against the wards of the Arcane Circle’s Academy.

We took heavy losses in this fight — there was a lot of confusion about what to do, and Silverfire Knights were attacking us even as we took the field. It lent a sense of danger to the proceedings which I probably would have appreciated more if it weren’t already stupidly late. As is, I do appreciate how simultaneously merciless and yet clean fighters the Silverfire Knight NPCs are.

“So we got this math puzzle down to about forty permutations, and then we had the Veiled brute-force the rest and soak the one damage for every wrong answer.”

Another… interesting mod was one that was designed for the Golden Temple and the Arcane Circle to work together. Demons (who are the antithesis of the angels the Golden Temple draw their Power from) were protecting a lockbox with mathematical wards. We needed what was in the lockbox to bind a pair of demons I heard variously called the Infernal Brothers and the Princes of Perdition.

This would turn into the chain of adventures we called “math hell.”

The first mod we went on for this wasn’t so bad — we fought off demons while we solved a puzzle to determine the combination for the lock. The problem was tricky — what four-digit number, when divided by 2 through 9, always has a remainder of one? The cleverer members of our Order determined that we only needed to figure 5, 7, 8, and 9 into the equation, as every other number was a factor of these, so they multiplied these together, got the result 2520, and then added one. Lo, the lock opened, and we received a chain, which we were given to understand could be used to bind the Princes of Perdition, with the proper ritual.

The actual “math hell” part came later. Next we needed to get sigils representing each of the four elements, in order to imbue the chain with power. This meant four groups went to do a very similar mod to the first — fight demons, get a combination to unlock a box.

Except there were complications. I was the first group, and we were tasked with an algebra problem with tangled wording. Despite all that, we found the solution fairly quickly.

But our guide had programmed the lock wrong, transposing two of the numbers.

We spent thirty more minutes banging our head against it before he realized it, and declared the lock opened by the power of Plot. I acquired the shiny yellow and black marble that represented Air (yellow for lightning, I was told).

Other groups faced their own challenges, some easier, some harder. Perhaps the most amusing one I heard of spawned the quote above!

Eventually on Saturday night/Sunday morning we had acquired all four symbols, and needed to do a ritual. Kaelin Umber (Melissa C) drafted the structure of a ritual to imbue the chain, and she and Friedrich Von Nida (Stephen G), Kein Vyland (Matt B), and myself carried it out. We each got to say a few words about the power of our element, and then we united all the sigils in a circle formed by the chain. It was a small thing, but this is one of my fondest memories from the weekend.

“That crown [of the Silverfire King] sure is something.”
“Yeah. Somebody’s compensating.”

The meta-plot of this game was that the Silverfire King — yanno, the guy who declared us all traitors last game — wanted to treat with us. He would come with only a few of his barons and have a chat with us, but in return he gave us a list of hostages he demanded. We could send others, but for every replacement we had to send two Champions instead of one.

Rolant was on the list of hostages, but Ianthe was not, so I got to play out being the worried sister. “If you die, I’ll be waiting at the Gate to kill you again,” might have been uttered.

This played out after lunch on Saturday, and a looooong time was spent in talks with His Royal Cuckoo McCrazypants Majesty. He seems to be under the impression that Power was something he gave to us all 50 years ago, and that any stories of the Orders having Power before then are just “legends.” He also has a telltale left-shift to his eyes when certain questions are asked — I would have read it as just deception, but some saw it as him listening to an invisible voice. Like the Silver Lady we’ve all heard so much about…

The king’s offer was this: help him defeat the Order of the Bloodred Moon, which is a threat to us all, and he won’t ask the Champions to give up Power again until after that threat is eliminated. He seems to have backed down on disbanding Orders and warbands. Still thinks the Veiled should just give up their Power and stop existing, though!

I believe he agreed to stop avenging himself on innocents, but as it transpired later in the weekend, he has an interesting definition of “innocents.” People who share a source of water with Ebonfall? Farmers who provide food to the town? Clearly not innocent, in his eyes.

At the end, someone out and out asked him about the Silver Lady. He vehemently denied knowing anything, of course.

Some of this I witnessed; some I heard secondhand, as Ianthe bored easily of the King’s evasions, and after I while I escaped to fight the Bloodred Moon (who of course chose this time to attack) and hang out by the Gate with other Champions and discuss our relative ages.

“So… do you study genetics in real life?”

… is what James, the game owner, asked me before game, while everyone was still gathering in the dining hall. This is relevant because Ianthe has an interest in heredity; lacking, say, genetic assays, though, her study is mostly probabilities. I told him that I did not (aside from the very basics), but I did study statics. “Good,” was his cryptic reply, before walking away.

Of course, then I wondered when I would be sent on the mod that involved filling out Punnett squares…

A use for Ianthe’s knowledge of heredity did come up, however! For Reasons, there is a question of heredity which the Umber sisters asked her to probe, with her newly-acquired Divination info skill…

“All you people with straw hats look the same.”

One of the mods we did on Saturday night involved helping the Disciples of the Tempest protect a monastery from an attack by Silverfire forces. The mod was hooked by Beaker* as one of the Tempest abbots. The quote in question was uttered by me, when I failed to tell him apart from Kaiden, another tall Tempest PC, played by Rob C.

* I don’t actually know Beaker’s really name, but he fits his nickname very well. I know him as the guy wot plays the Silverfire King, mostly. Which has led to us wanting to make image memes involving the muppet Beaker with a silver crown.

This turned out to be a fun, challenging mod. It started as a line fight where we were protecting the path to the monastery. Then the Tempest folks broke away and did their own thing for a time; when they came back, Kaala (Hannah R) gathered our warband and went to another point on the field, which we designated South. There were three other cardinal directions, too, and at each one, a Tempest PC had to do a two minute kata, wait for the next group, do a one minute kata, wait again, and finally do a thirty second kata, and then run around the points in order, as part of the ritual to push back the Silverfire attackers.

While, of course, still being attacked.

It was challenging, fighting in small groups like this, and I blew through all my healing and my attributes, as did the other healer in our group (Renfield, Chris S’s Veiled PC, and the Heart of the Warband). But Kaala finally signaled that she was successful.

And that… that was not all, but it sure is a lot. I should save some of the floon for writing my PEL…