Yeah, that was definitely a good one. Thanks for sharing, Raven!

It bombed? Dang.




Yeah, this story seems to hint that, as we've suspected in the past, there might be something more to Nas's prognostication than just reading the cards. The fact that The Poet is ominous to Nasperge without even having heard of Raiker before is pretty telling.


I think Raiker got just a glimpse that Nasperge is perhaps a bit more powerful/dangerous than he thought he would be, but I'll return to that in a few moments. As far as Nasperge knowing of Raiker, it appears that Raiker is new to Thorneau at this point in the timeline, so he wouldn't know him yet from here. And even if Nas had happened upon Venn's name on some other plane, there is no reason, necessarily, that he would have paid particular attention to it. It is possible, though, that Nasperge has heard of him and is at least somewhat aware of what is going on with him, but this is the first time that Raiker's ever come into his particular sphere of perception.


I think Nasperge recognizes that he's out of his weight class. I have no doubt that he wanted to help Claire at least somewhat, but he knows Raiker is Bad News with a capital "B" and a capital "N", and maybe even a few more capital letters, too. And while he was (or will be, technically) willing to tangle with Madame du Collet, even then, he leaves the entire plane afterward. Nas is highly non-confrontational, unless he's very sure he'll come out on top. And it seems like against Raiker, he doesn't think he will.

Of course, there's still a lot we don't know about Nasperge, so who knows what's really going on?


So, the way I pictured it, Raiker is reshaping reality, but he's changing the cards as Nasperge reveals them. So the cards, as Nasperge lays them out, has The Merchant at the Lake position. When Raiker changes the Upper Course, originally The Poet, into The Merchant, there are in that moment two Merchants on the table, the revealed one in the Upper Course and the unrevealed one in The Lake. Admittedly, I probably should have had Nasperge be a bit more surprised to seeing a card that had already come up, but at that point, he's basically figured out that Raiker is doing something, and Claire asking about The Ghost card distracts him a bit.

What's interesting to me is Raiker's reaction to Nasperge when the Magician goes on his short tangent about dreams and their "realities" changing with no "reason or rhyme." I think Raiker thought Nasperge would be unaware of the changes he's making, and this little comment tells the Poet that Nasperge is aware, which he "shouldn't" be. And that's why I said earlier that maybe Raiker is learning something about Nasperge here. And then as you say at the end, when Nas returns the cards to their original state, it suggests something potentially powerful about him.

Having said all that, though, I think it's easy enough to read all of those things as illusions, as I imagine both of these two people would be adept at illusions.


Thanks for reading! And enjoy the other one when and if you get to it.


Thanks, Aaarrrgh! I'm glad people enjoyed this one.

I always had the impression that Nasperge is incredibly powerful, but only in subtle and indirect ways. Which makes him a good foil for Raiker, who also operates in the subtle and indirect. The difference is that Nas is stuck there, while Raiker is just visiting for pleasure.

@Welcome to My Parlor, Said the Fighter to the Spy: Something must have spooked that spy terribly, back in Eshgar, but he seems reluctant to discuss it. I love his reaction to seeing a human, too. Meanwhile, Darah's spidey sense certainly plays well with the title; it might be interesting to find out whether it's unconcious magic, or seriously honed attention to the tiny sensations our brains usually filter out. I also wonder whether she wants to relive the glory days, or would be content to sit back and let her enemies take each other out.

@Little Runaway: Having been a bit closer than average to the foster care system, this kind of thing always hits me in the feels. I have to believe that those parents weren't always thinking of the bedtime story in terms of good or bad behavior, much less the orphanage sisters, but the effect on a growing young mind is devastating. And oh, my, that last line. I'd forgotten how much effort Trotter had spent teaching her, relatively late in life.

(One story kicking around in my head, that may or may not find its way out, involves a mother teaching her daughter to read. Probably inspired by real-life frustrations.)


And now I have half a picture of what happens when those survivors grow up, look at the Duchess-inspired society around them, and host a hell of a reunion.

@Reading The Poet: I wouldn't have considered the River for such a vague question, but I'm not the expert, and it works spectacularly here. It's sad, though, that Nasperge once again plays things so close to the vest that he allows a tragedy to unfold. Not that the young lady would have changed her course no matter what he said, but I'd still like to see Raiker taken down another peg sometime. Then again, he's all sorts of fun, and connected to most of what I've written here, so...

Thank you!


That makes so much sense. The question, then, is whether Nasperge would actively seek a way to make a difference, or just keep floating and fleeing.

I really like Null. I should expand on that character at some point.

Mostly, I just really like the title.


Yeah, this story really gets to me, too. I suspect that the belief that the bedtime story is related to Slue being "good" has some basis in reality, but was probably given disproportionate meaning in the poor girl's mind. It is probably something her mother said to her once or twice, but then just became a thing to Slue. There's a hint in the story that her father's refusal to read the story had nothing to do with the good/bad thing. She always asks him "through his door" and he "ignores her," but when she explains how the Sheriff knew her father had a daughter, he was described as having been there "every night from just after dinner 'til closing." I imagine that the father snuck out after dinner and went to the saloon every night. Slue assumed he was there, but ignoring her. Which is still not good parenting, but it fed into Slue's preexisting troubled sense of self.


Nice. I hope to see this.


Haha, yeah, that would be an interesting flash-forward, wouldn't it?


I liked the River here particularly as an avenue of a changing reading. Nasperge is an interesting character, and I think it is absolutely true that his perpetual inaction does endanger people. It's unfortunate, but it is his personality. As for Raiker being taken down a peg, I suspect that will happen, although I do not currently have an idea in what way that's likely to occur.

Thanks for reading!

I'm kind of curious to know what someone could do with the likes of the Opal Palace.

With the amount of activity we've had of late, and how busy and stressful our lives have been lately, I doubt I'll get any takers, but here it goes:

Write a story where one of the M:EM characters...throws a gauntlet!

I enjoyed this. Sharaka being almost giddy is pretty fun to see.

Thanks for picking up the gauntlet. And throwing it!

Oh yeah, I can tell she was dying to pull that off on someone, and it was all the best that the racist snob was the one to walk on it so cleanly

I did have an idea for that prompt, but unfortunately it was kind of rubbish.

I like it.

Did she do it because she saw someone else doing the same, maybe with a better gauntlet? You know, to add one more iteration

New Gauntlet: Raiker Venn going out of his way to save people.

...yes, I will elaborate.

Raiker has little to no remorse for his actions, but we have been shown that he does feel regret for some of his plans. In particular, I recall a piece in which he voiced in his mind the regret from a poem that destroyed an entire plane... because there was nobody left to really appreciate the tragedy. Also, while he is swift and unmerciful in punishing his critics, he does need his audience. He feels always superior, but it has been hinted at some point that he does need his inferiors, if only to be adored.

All this to say... Raiker wouldn't ever think to save a single life, nor a dozen. But he may appreciate a plane, or a series of planes, enough to put a spanner in the works of something so vast that is going to remove them from both his audience and his future writing material. Hence, my gauntlet.

Yes, I will keep throwing more because y'all can't stop me.

Donagut meets a fellow houndfolk after the longest time. They're bubbly, warmly affectionate, inordinately optimistic and, most tragically, dumb as a rock.

(Y'know, like a golden retriever?)

Thinking about the "Raiker saves people" thing... I think he might also save an individual if he has a tragedy planned for them that their untimely death would foil. Because you can't suffer in a delightfully artful way if you die in a stupid way first. So it might be a bit of "out of the frying pan, into the fire" when he does not allow someone to die. At least, not until they reach his ending for them.

Oh yes, that'd be a very fun prompt too with lots of potential. Diametrically opposed to my original intent, though

I will say that I have plans that are similar to the Raiker idea in the works, although with my current output being what it is, it is likely to be quite a while before it happens.

Also, during the time that he's away from Annalee but before he returns to Geonara, he might have saved people or planes. He does technically save Reeda, after all.

This had me thinking about an assassin that for pragmatic (anonymity) and psychological (doesn't trust themself in the darkest nights) reasons always sources and disposes different weapons for every hit.

There's a series by an author named Steven Brust that I very much love (though he barely writes any more and kind of burnt his characters to the ground for... A lot of complicated real life reasons) but his main character is an ex-assassin named Vlad who actually began cycling through weapons every week or so for the express reason of not letting them become too psychically close to him so they couldn't be used for witchcraft against him.

To build on your idea, an assassin who has a mind name wipe all details of a job from his mind.