Demon's Bane, Chapter 7 (Spoilers!)

[Fiferguy]

No, she only had unpaid sleep between Axe of the Dwarven King and now...

I don't know how long, exactly -- but 6-12 months perhaps?

Details Spec, details...you get my drift. Even so, I disagree. If you remember Tarrin took the job for a couple of years. But She had been the guardian for millenia before. do the math. She would be refreshed, but she couldn't possibly recuperate all that lost sleep. odd that she has such a weakness. Its fiting in a way. She was just too well rounded.Anyway my point was just that given what she had to work with, that she managed to almost kill Eron is very impressive. I doubt she even experienced the total lack of magic before. Chosing not to use magic, is very different than your magic not being there in the first place. Yet she immediately adapted to the sudden disapearance of more than half her arsenal. Not to forget that Eron was stonewaling and playing for time. In a physical fight like in sport, when somebody decide to stonewall and play for time, you have to spend much more energy to find the holes in their defense. Energy that spyder was rapidly losing. And lets not forget Eron is a @#$ werecat! Now what mortal could have all that handicap and still do what she did?

Many thousands of Selani? Most Selani would be able to kill a Werecat in a one on one battle. Tarrin, and by way of family relation, Eron, had the benefit of being trained in the Dance. But most werecats wouldn't have that training, and would most likely fall to a Selani warrior.

[Lochar]

The only problem is the Selani don't use magical/silver weapons in battle. A werecat can eventually win by battle of attrition as Tarrin showed during his fight with Allia's father.

Of course, it'd only work for the first few Selani until they learned that you have to fight nearly completely defensively. Then it'd take a few more to realize that it's gonna take a few hundred lost arms and legs to wear out a Werecat's regen. And the Werecat won't be stupid enough to lose their head literally. Most likely figuratively though.

[Fiferguy]

But remember, take the head off and it'll die. Most Selani are fast enough to get a sword to the neck...course, they'd probably lose a couple dozen before they figured that out...

[Quindo Ma]

One: Why didn't the elder gods not just kill Eron ? as was explained in some of the earlier books, the elder gods had the power to destroy anything "they" had created, the only thing on sennadar not included in that was the persons the firestaff "created"....so why not just kill Eron and let Spyder deal with Tarrin?

When Ayise (the first goddess of Sennadar) created the other elder gods shared her power with them, she gave up a lot of influence, especially concerning mortals in many ways. That's why she was unable to interfere. Eron was from Sennadar, a mortal, and outside of her direct influence. Aside from outright killing him (Ayise is still the mother of all life), she couldn't do squat, and it would have caused far more trouble if she had interfered like that.


As for Erons and Spyders fighting prowess, and the heavy sleep, you have to realize that Tarrin had been the guardian for several years before Spyder took over again, which would have given her more than enough time to recuperate, especially after she slept for weeks on end when she first passed the amulet on.
But it has been several more years since they switched back, and any mortal body that isn't being kept awake magically would succumb to the much needed sleep when the magic was removed. Even a ten thousand year old Spyder.

Also, dispite speed, there's truly only one Selani that could have quickly and easily killed the average werecat, or especially Tarrin, and that's Allia. And that's only because she specifically trained Tarrin, and has learned his fighting style to a degree that gives her intimate familiarity with it. Any other Werecat, especially if not only using The Dance would pose a most severe problem for your average Selani, both because they wouldn't know how to truly harm a werecat, and because of werecats inherent traits.

Of course, Spyder's not a Selani, she's Urzani, and just her age gives her a gargantuan advantage: she has seen more combat experience than all of the other major characters of the Firestaff/Pyrosian Chronicles universe together. Including Trianna.
She's as fast, if not faster, than any Selani, has had more time than anyone to hone her fighting skills and perfect her body, and knows more about combat than Eron could have possibly learned since he left home, and would've whipped Eron around like a toothpick in a tornado under normal circumstances.

Now, Eron has had a lot of unarmed training over the years since he left his home, plus he's a werecat, and one of the strongest and fastest out there, dispite his young age. He still wouldn't have stood a chance in hell under normal circumstances.

It's simply that he never gave her a chance. He removed her magic, all of it, including anything from items, like the cloak or her amulet. And he's far stronger (physically) than her without her magic, and with the heavy sleep she lost more and more of her speed, attention, and focus during the fight. Spyder would have had to incapacitate Eron within a few seconds of their meeting, by the time she realized that, it was already too late.

Which in the end, was the whole point. Never face a superior opponent without taking away his advantages. As Fel said, Eron never beat Spyder, she did it herself. If she hadn't been wearing the charm that kept her awake at all times, if she had had a good nights sleep before Eron showed up, well, you can guess...

[SparkTiger2]

i don't know how to do the thing where it shows what people wrote about before but earlier on fel was talking about books he would like to write and i just wanted to know if you were thinking about doing anything more with the alpha project story. that one seems like it could be a really good story[/quote]

[Fiferguy]

Also, dispite speed, there's truly only one Selani that could have quickly and easily killed the average werecat, or especially Tarrin, and that's Allia. And that's only because she specifically trained Tarrin, and has learned his fighting style to a degree that gives her intimate familiarity with it. Any other Werecat, especially if not only using The Dance would pose a most severe problem for your average Selani, both because they wouldn't know how to truly harm a werecat, and because of werecats inherent traits.

Even Tarrin has trouble with some Selani. In Axe, Tarrin admits quite openly that given another shot, Allia's father would probably beat him. And when it comes to person to person combat, there aren't any Were cats that are more trained or better at it. But for a normal were cat, they wouldn't stand a chance against most Selani. Even in the Battle of Suld, when faced with so many undead, the Selani were gaining the upper hand before Kravon used the artifact to raise their own dead around them. They lost some, but once they figured out how to kill them, they started winning.

It's a moot point, though, cause the were cats and the Selani are on good terms. So it doesn't matter.

[Lochar]

What he had of it were almost like half-formed recollections, as if they were part of a story that was told to him, with important facts but not extraneous details.

Gee, Mother Wynn wouldn't happen to be one of those extraneous details, would she?

[michaelsuave]

I don't know about anybody else, but I would love to see Mother Wynn get into a magic battle, or pull an assist on a tarrin battle. Ok, so here is a "woman" who can knock out a solar and a planitar... now picture her wielding destructive magic...

That would be cool...

~Michael

[Fiferguy]

I still hold to the belief that she's either the GoG or a direct representative of him. If so, there wouldn't really BE a battle. It'd be something like:

Random bad guy: Die Mother Wynn!
MW: Oh really?

And the bad guy just ceases to be...completely. Body, soul amulet, memory they were ever in any plane of existence...gone.

[michaelsuave]

I still hold to the belief that she's either the GoG or a direct representative of him. If so, there wouldn't really BE a battle. It'd be something like:

Random bad guy: Die Mother Wynn!
MW: Oh really?

And the bad guy just ceases to be...completely. Body, soul amulet, memory they were ever in any plane of existence...gone.

Yeah, like I said, I think it would be awesome...

[Quindo Ma]

I highly doubt that it would ever come to such a situation, as who or whatever Mother Wynn is or symbolizes wouldn't let anyone even thinking about such an action ever see her. The only person to ever do that was Tarrin and the maid that helped her.

Besides, the figure she represents is merely there to point Tarrin in the right direction, and to make sure that he can continue with what he's doing by intervening at just the right moment, with the least amount of intrusion possible. Think of the fight against the solar. She didn't help Tarrin escape by moving him away, it was merely a 5 minute localized time freeze that just happened to affect 2 beings.
The whole point of being in such a form as Mother Wynn symbolizes the desire to draw as little attention as possible. Assuming that this really is the God of Gods, this entity could most likely just do whatever it wished to do on its own, but the interference would be tremendous. So instead it acts through agents, and even they rarely get more than a shadow of a hint what to do.
Free will and all

[Fel]

It may be that I should reread the firestaff, but this chapter confussed the hell out of me.

One: Why didn't the elder gods not just kill Eron ? as was explained in some of the earlier books, the elder gods had the power to destroy anything "they" had created, the only thing on sennadar not included in that was the persons the firestaff "created"....so why not just kill Eron and let Spyder deal with Tarrin?

Two: I was greatly distuirped by how ineffective spyder was, I seem to recall Tarrins "sister" (the seleni) beeing able to stun or even killing Tarrin (if she wanted to) with her bare hands? or was it a knife, in any event seperate the spine around the neck area (the part where Tarrins go balistic after he finds out who "took away his choic, about beeing either human or were-cat" that beeing his devious daughter Jasana(?)).
But Spyder did virtualy nothing...I can't help but be a bit disapointed from all the praise Tarrin has been heaping on her, she was a great disapointment, at least to me.

Somehow, this post escaped me...lol. Well, it may be late, but here's your answers.

1: Ayise could do something like that, but the idea never crossed her mind. It never crossed her mind because, well, she was "encouraged" to not consider it.

The hand of the GoG is very long indeed, and he can easily to do his subjugant gods what the gods do to the mortals....

2: Here's what you do. Stay up for 1 week, go to a farm, then try to catch a chicken.

Don't laugh, I'm serious.

It only takes about 4 days of lack of sleep to totally break down your concentration and your hand-eye coordination and reflexes. Spyder had been awake for years since coming back from her vacation, and the sudden loss of the magic of the charm is like being hit in the back of the head with a really big hammer.

Spyder reacted about the way anyone else would. She had that initial surge of adrenalin, but when that faded, so did she.

It was also somewhat necessary. Given Tarrin's condition, I knew that there was absolutely no way he could ever hope to beat Spyder. Because he had to sacrifice what power he had left before he entered Sennadar, he had no tricks left, and if I'd have allowed that fight to happen, that would have been the end of the book. I had to find a way to get past Spyder without killing her (she's needed later on), yet do it in a way that's entirely believable and works within the framework of the story and the powers of the characters.

And don't worry, there WILL be a reckoning. If you want to see Spyder in her full glory, well, I've already got that on the schedule. Spyder is the most powerful being on Sennadar, even over Tarrin and Jasana. Not because of her raw power, but because she has 10,000 years of experience.

[Lochar]

Somehow, this post escaped me...lol. Well, it may be late, but here's your answers.

1: Ayise could do something like that, but the idea never crossed her mind. It never crossed her mind because, well, she was "encouraged" to not consider it.

The hand of the GoG is very long indeed, and he can easily to do his subjugant gods what the gods do to the mortals....

Also, as you said. Aiyse said Eron's a mortal and part of the ruleset that she placed herself in says she can't just up and kill a mortal.

Not to mention, Eron's trick might actually extend into the realm of godly power. A Mi'Shara using that could probably lock out the power of even an Elder God at least temporarily.

2: Here's what you do. Stay up for 1 week, go to a farm, then try to catch a chicken.

Don't laugh, I'm serious.

It only takes about 4 days of lack of sleep to totally break down your concentration and your hand-eye coordination and reflexes. Spyder had been awake for years since coming back from her vacation, and the sudden loss of the magic of the charm is like being hit in the back of the head with a really big hammer.

Spyder reacted about the way anyone else would. She had that initial surge of adrenalin, but when that faded, so did she.

It was also somewhat necessary. Given Tarrin's condition, I knew that there was absolutely no way he could ever hope to beat Spyder. Because he had to sacrifice what power he had left before he entered Sennadar, he had no tricks left, and if I'd have allowed that fight to happen, that would have been the end of the book. I had to find a way to get past Spyder without killing her (she's needed later on), yet do it in a way that's entirely believable and works within the framework of the story and the powers of the characters.

Heh. Spyder was still mortal and had access to her Mi'Shara abilities. Tarrin wasn't. So technically Tarrin could not access his own Mi'Shara abilities and stay at that level

And don't worry, there WILL be a reckoning. If you want to see Spyder in her full glory, well, I've already got that on the schedule. Spyder is the most powerful being on Sennadar, even over Tarrin and Jasana. Not because of her raw power, but because she has 10,000 years of experience.

What was the saying? Experience and treachery will always beat youth and guile.

[Fiferguy]

And don't worry, there WILL be a reckoning. If you want to see Spyder in her full glory, well, I've already got that on the schedule. Spyder is the most powerful being on Sennadar, even over Tarrin and Jasana. Not because of her raw power, but because she has 10,000 years of experience.

You just had to go and tease us, didn't you? You know, sometimes, we really hate you...but then you release a chapter and we all love you again.

The world hates a tease...

[michaelsuave]

And don't worry, there WILL be a reckoning. If you want to see Spyder in her full glory, well, I've already got that on the schedule. Spyder is the most powerful being on Sennadar, even over Tarrin and Jasana. Not because of her raw power, but because she has 10,000 years of experience.

You just had to go and tease us, didn't you? You know, sometimes, we really hate you...but then you release a chapter and we all love you again.

The world hates a tease...

Yep, thats right, Fel's the "flip-skirt" of online authors...