Demon's Bane, Chapter 7 (Spoilers!)

[Fiferguy]

Fel,

Great new chapter. You know that we're just going to clamour for more now, right?

[Texfire]

Okay I'm curious why we didn't end up with a mortal Tarrin and a Divine Tarrin when his soul was split. I know that the mortal soul had a vessel so it was able to move into the body. The divine soul was without a vessel since the created one dissipated when it's connection with the Firestaff was severed, but wasn't the divine part of his soul transformed by Ayise into one of her children? What was missing? A body for the soul on the plane that the gods dwell on? Or was it that he had become a Lesser God and without worshipers ceased to exist? Too bad, imagine what his inclusion to the pantheon would have done to spice up the divine dating scene. You think that having Jesmind, Mist and Kimi competing for Tarrin was exciting enough, what happens when Niami, Ahiriya and Fara'Nae start manuvering for position with the new eligible bachleor god?

I'm glad that he became a mortal again and could come back to Sennadar, unless of course his stewardship of the Firestaff requires him to maintain control of it lest it return, but wonder why he couldn't become one of Ayise's children in full extent during the transformation, after all even as a god, Ayise could destroy him since he is now once again one of her "creations".

Tex

[Brounks]

i think that it had to do with it being a divine soul in a mortal plane as the mortal tarrin had control of the firestaff the divine soul had nothing to stop it from being destroyed.

[Fel]

Well, I guess she could have rescued the divine half of Tarrin's dual soul, but it wouldn't have been very useful. After all, he would be a lesser god, and would therefore require worshippers in order to survive. Even if she saved it, it would have withered away and died very quickly.

Tarrin had her do that, strip the Firestaff's taint off of a soul that was doomed from inception, for a very specific reason. Tarrin had to utterly purge every trace of the Firestaff out of him, even a part of him that wasn't meant to survive. Just to have that half of Tarrin die the way it was would have simply made that part of him the dead child of the Firestaff. Tarrin had to completely undo what he had done to himself, he had to no longer be a child of the Firestaff. Since he could not transform his entire soul into a mortal, he instead split his soul into its mortal and divine halves, then had Ayise burn every trace of the Firestaff out of the divine part of him to make him a pure and complete child of Ayise.

The reason for this is something of a spoiler, so if you don't wanna know, stop reading now.
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Tarrin's ultimate objective is to destroy the Firestaff, not just move it to another plane where it can continue to wreak havoc. Thanks to the book that Sashi (the flat-chested barmaid) gave him, he knows that ONLY a child of the Firestaff that is no longer a child of the Firestaff has the power to do this.

Specifically, it can only be destroyed by an object of its own making, wielded by the hand of a mortal who succumbed, and then was saved, from the Firestaff's curse.

This is why Tarrin needs his sword. It is now the only object in the entire multiverse with the power to destroy the Firestaff, and the only hand that can cause this to come about is his own. Tarrin created the sword when he was a child of the Firestaff. He has been saved from its taint, but the sword remains, and is now a creation of the hand of a child of the Firestaff who has done the impossible, who has reversed the curse that made him a god.

Just being a god that was purged of the taint wouldn't be enough, before you ask about that. Tarrin began as a mortal, and for Tarrin to succeed, he had to be a mortal again. He had to return to what he was before the Firestaff tainted him.

The only reason Ayise could transform Tarrin's divine half is because he was willing, and he was a pure, unfettered divine soul within the bounds of Ayise's domain. Tarrin could have done it in Sennadar, or he could have done it in Ayise's home domain out in the Outer Planes. But to transform his soul into a mortal soul, he could ONLY do it on Sennadar, because no god had the power to do that. Though the power came from Ayise, only a Mi'Shara could pull off a stunt like that...so Tarrin needed his mortal body in order to pull it off.

It may seem that everything he's doing is aimed at the Demon Lord, but that's actually not true. Everything he's doing is actually aimed at the destruction of the Firestaff. Destroying the Demon Lord is only a step along that path. An important step, but only a step.[/i]

[Fiferguy]

Ok...now I'm really, REALLY anxious for the next chapter. You're an evil, evil man teasing us like that. But I have to ask...with the end coming closer and closer, are there going to be more books in the Sennadar universe?

[Fel]

As of right now, I'm not really worried about what I do after Demon's Bane. I'll probably do some work on Subjugation, and then I have no idea.

I was considering a different book set some time in the future, which would center mainly on Dolanna's children, and where the main players from the Firestaff/Pyrosian books would only be minor recurring characters.

I really don't know though. There's lots of potential tales to tell out there, some of which I've never explored, or I never explained. There's also several old characters from the original Sennadar AD&D game world that would make interesting stories, like The Warrior, Mayajanni the rogue Sha'Kar, Emeris, Degrad Treestump, or Spyder herself (the ONLY original AD&D character directly brought into the books).

There's also things in the past to explore about the main characters, like Eron Kael's career in the Rangers and how he met Elke, or Koran and Camara Tal's stormy relationship, or Dolanna's travels and her beginnings in the Raintree Tower causing trouble with Alexis (yes, she was a real firebrand when she was a younger woman), or Triana's long, unhappy tale about the war between the elder and changeling Were-cats that caused the destruction of Triana's ancestors.

But truth be told, if I do any more fantasy-setting stuff, I think I'd like to try re-writing The Fox and the Hawk, the tale of Fox the Wanderer which is set in the Forgotten Realms AD&D world. I was ever fond of that story. Fox was one of my original AD&D toons (which is why I'm so fond of that name and always find a way to work it into every story I write). He was a cross between Eron Kael and Triana, a young-at-heart fellow who just happened to be 300 years old, with a pleasant personality and a laid back disposition who never wanted to stay in one place long (thus his title The Wanderer), but he was so old and so powerful that he intimidated everyone around him, and good lord, you did NOT want to annoy him. It was also quite fun to write about someone who managed to turn an entire region on its ear without even trying, oftentimes with no clue.

For the gamers out there, Fox was a level 34 human fighter. He was double specialized in throwing daggers and was a master of two-weapon combat. He wielded longswords for a long time, but then he got his hands on a pair of magical katanas when I played him in a Kara-Tur campaign as a gaijin (those darn wanderers can really get around), a frost brand and a flametongue that were cursed so that they always had to be together; if they were separated by more than 50 feet, the frost brand would start radiating a cold that damaged everyone with 10 feet, and the flametongue did the same with a heat aura. And this was why he wore a ring of warmth and a ring of fire resistance.

But it's been so long since I even looked at Forgotten Realms, my story setting would be like 50 years in the past, hahaha. Fox retired long before the Time of Troubles...he's old school.

[Texfire]

Thanks Fel, that's alot clearer now. And destroying the Firestaff is a worthy goal.

As far as additional stories, all the ones you mentioned sound like stuff I'd like to read, after Subjugation of course.

Tex

[Metatrone]

Fel you're a really really bad person, I have been looking forward to that battle for half a year, and now some tall punk comes along and spoils it.

Great chapter, thanks.

[Hearly]

Ok Fel, now you've really really confused/made it more complicated..

up until Tarrin made the deal with Ayise, she was totally against him period..

Now why would the GOG give a crap about Tarrin getting rid of the firestaff for Ayise, to the extent that he helped him, allowed him to attack his Deva, etc..

What is the objective of the GOG to provide Tarrin with the support he has?

You at one point said the Firestaff is as much a test of the elder gods as it is an artifact, so how does helping Tarrin destory it test the elder gods?

[Edengrave]

Wow! As usual Fel, a little masterpiece. There's so much to admire that I won't even bother. Ever since I've started reading you, My own writing staled. 2 years without writing more that 10 pages. Not to worry, Sooner or later, my subconcious will come up with something worthy. this can't last. I hope.
Anyway Speculation is good guys, but why spoil yourself of future surprises by asking Fel directly? There's nothing quite like being deep in a chapter, analysing all the angles, Understanding all the intricacies, Sagely anticipating future actions, and BOOM. Evrything that you assumed is wrong, and what you expected doesn't happen, what you believed was complex, is childishly simple, and what you believed was simple is an improvable theorem. This is Fel's writing guys. and that's one of the reasons why I love it.

[Quindo Ma]

Ok Fel, now you've really really confused/made it more complicated..

up until Tarrin made the deal with Ayise, she was totally against him period..

Now why would the GOG give a crap about Tarrin getting rid of the firestaff for Ayise, to the extent that he helped him, allowed him to attack his Deva, etc..

What is the objective of the GOG to provide Tarrin with the support he has?

You at one point said the Firestaff is as much a test of the elder gods as it is an artifact, so how does helping Tarrin destory it test the elder gods?

Point is, so far anything the GoG has done (or had done by proxy) is something shrouded in mystery.
Tarrin got the information from the book he read, which could mean that he was always meant to destroy the Firestaff, or that piece of information was offered to complete a different goal.

As Fel has said, only the mortal Tarrin, the Mi'Shara can do what he is planning to do. But he was divine, therefor needed to become mortal again. This was done through the only power that could, druidism, in the only place he could have done it, Sennadar. Only, The All of Sennadar isn't some abstract power from outside, inside, or the GoG, it's Ayise herself, and had she wanted to, she could have stopped Tarrin from ever achieving the goal of becoming mortal again.
Tarrins offer to destroy the firestaff was one of very few reasons why Ayise would allow the transformation back.

You have to think about what this whole journey is. Why would the GoG care about a special artifact above some of his other problems? Outside of the need to keep it out of malevolent hands, and the trouble it had created and fixed the two times it was used, it really was just a problem of one world, one which in the end could have been fixed by the elder gods themselves, at a high cost, but fixed nontheless.

But there's a much bigger problem for the multiverse: Pyrosia
It's the only universe without an elder god. Without the primary driving force that controls it, that could save the world from outside incursion. Truly, if you have a loose car without a driver racing on the highway, wouldn't you want to put someone behind the steering weel?

Of course, could be just nonsense, but if I had to choose between an artifact that could cause some trouble, and a world with doors wide open, I do think my priorities would be with the unguarded world.


It does bring up the question of why and how the firestaff was created. Could all the trouble it caused be only to fix one universe? Gotta think about that.

[michaelsuave]

Ok, so spoiler:

Spoiler

Show

Since eron can nullify magic with his mi shara powers, tarrin should be able to do so too.

Can't wait for Fel to work that one in... of course, tarrin has yet to realize that yet. And since that power is not restrained by any world (such as sorcery on sennadar) he should be able to do that anywhere, pyrosia... the One's domain... And since it is an entropic power... it could even work in the core... maybe.

~Michael

[Spec8472]

Anyway Speculation is good guys, but why spoil yourself of future surprises by asking Fel directly?

What Fel says now, and what Fel writes 2 or 6 chapters from now are two different things

I've got IRC logs somewhere on my PC from last year, when Fel said that certain things would happen, only now that's apparently not going to happen.

Methinks he just likes to play with us, lead us in one direction, then suprise us when it doesn't happen.

[Wildcat]

Triana's past... Dolanna's past.... Eron's Ranger days.... and all the rest you mentioned. Wow, a book about ANY of those would be really cool. Or the one set in the future with cameos from our favorites. I hope eventually something else will come of this universe, because I'll be eternally wondering about everything left unsaid.

[michaelsuave]

I know you are against pay fel, but you should think about making one of those stories (the add-on/sequals to the main tarrin story stories...um, yeah, I hope you understand what I'm talking about) a be able to stand alone and then publish it through baen, or something similar. Get paid for your hard work, you deserve it!