The Blog of Roon

Alan yanked the carpet out from under us in truly spectacular fashion last week, and he intends to keep yanking.

Renate got shanghaied into taking the gang into a little pocket-dimension, chasing after her brother who was in turn being chased after by local mad magic maven Keph LoCaine. Mad as in barking, raving psychotic. And incredibly powerful. Even if you’re on the outs with your brother, you don’t want Keph LoCaine getting a shot at him.

Said mini-dimension turned out to be inhabited by a well-known group of banditti, led by one Ralph Hartman (remember the name, O Best Beloved, and you will eventually understand why I am kicking myself for not paying more attention to it—especially given my own onomastic leanings).

Renate’s brother was after yet another of the ancient power-stones that Dark Eternal has been adding to his hoard; she’s about to go after him and try to keep him from getting it. Aryk got himself mired knee-deep in solid stone courtesy of LoCaine.

And Rien? Rien has been taken over by his heretofore-quiescent third personality: Dark Eternal his own self. And what’s ol’ DE’s game? Wiping out the dragon whose betrayal kept DE from winning the Ilium Assault. Said dragon’s name is Heartbreaker—and now you see the name coincidence that I bloody well should have seen long since. And now you know why and by whom Renate got shanghaied into this—DE wanted Rien in place.

I’m not giving Heartbreaker/Hartman very good odds in this one (the name of the chapter is “Heartfall,” so how can I?), but if Renate gets back down there in time, she’ll defend him with her life. (Or possibly something else. We’ll see if Alan is going where I think he may be going. Or we won’t see. Whichever.) Of course, to get back into that action, she’s going to have to get hold of that stone and keep it away from her brother, and that could get ugly.

Then Renate faces her would-be lover’s betrayal (and possibly worse). It would be one thing if Rien had no notion that he and Dark Eternal were linked in any way; at that point, it’s pure Dark Eternal evil, which Rien can’t be blamed for.

But Rien is Dark Eternal’s foster child. Rien knows this. And Rien never told Renate, afraid (not without reason) that she would reject him. That changes everything; how is Renate to know Rien didn’t consent to becoming Dark Eternal’s spy? Much that he’s done—trying for her love not least—supports such a conclusion.

Rien should have told her. I told Adrian repeatedly that Rien should tell her. Sabine told Rien he should tell her, even not knowing what it was he had to tell. Oh, well. Now for the consequences.

Unbelievably, things only go downhill from here. Check out the Dragonhunt logs page and scroll down to the description of Chapter 6. “Gah. In what parallel universe?” I asked when I read it, deeply and thoroughly appalled.

But now I see possibilities. I do hope Dark Eternal recognizes the necessity for a certain amount of ceremony in appearances-mad Ilium, because Renate has a bit of a surprise prepared for the occasion. Thereafter, whatever is making the Seven Stars sell out (and that does seem to be what they’re going to do) will have to be dealt with first, of course; I assume it’s not pure greedy treachery, as that isn’t the Seven Stars’ style.

After that… well, I am given to understand that previous Noble Children have amassed very large armies, quite possibly to retake their homeland. (Plot may not in fact go this way; we’ll have to wait and see.) I don’t think that’s Renate’s style, though she certainly won’t stop anyone else from doing it. Renate, as I’ve said before, is a guerilla warrior, a passive resister, a populist. She’ll do very nicely in a Robin Hood role, touchstone of an oppressed people—making all the under-the-radar trouble she can while protecting her people, saving as much of her culture as possible from Dark Eternal’s onslaught, building support for her demigoddess patroness Lyria (patron saint of lost causes!), and laying the groundwork for widespread rebellion.

I’ll have to dust off some of those pseudonyms, maybe invent a few more. They’re about to come back in fashion, methinks.

I wonder if Wrenfall style lends itself to dance? I think Northrock needs something along the lines of capoeira, and damned if Renate isn’t the one to invent and spread it.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 20th, 2004 at 10:46 am and is filed under Dragonhunt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.