Chapter 21: Infinity
Added 2024-01-15 17:00:13 +0000 UTChttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qx4XfDKWsJtQc1thdFHbevADuA-FZ-d9w-vMbGV3G0o/edit?usp=sharing
Stay tuned for a Behind the Scenes post regarding this chapter. It's scheduled to post about 30m after this one. It was a bit too long to do as a comment and I wanted to give it a bit more visibility than just a docs link.
This is what I consider to be the end of part 1, but not the end of the actual book. Next up is a short interlude with Tristan / Corona and some new people we haven’t met before, then we launch into part 2. This is the second and final arc of the book, and it’s where things start to get crazy.
Because the next chapter truly is an interlude I’m going to be posting it as a bonus chapter on RR, so I will likewise post it as a bonus chapter here. You’ll get it on Thursday and patreon will briefly be RR+4, but will drop back to +3 when RR catches up to this point.
Comments
I'm ok with people people not picking up on the nuances of all this instantly. In fact, I really hope people like the book enough to re-read it and find more easter eggs. It is a genre based off gaming, so I feel like it should have some replayability. :P What I do want them to pick up on first time are all things that are explicitly stated, and most will be re-stated in future chapters just to be sure. It's not really necessary to realize that the internal conflict is "digestion of the soul" at this point. It can just be struggles with gender identity and that works fine too (it's just a bit slow for RR/serial publication). There's a lot of stuff where both / all interpretations are valid and intended. There is also one more thing that won't come up for a little bit, but is impossible to miss once it does. :)
T Seris
2024-01-16 07:54:05 +0000 UTCgood chapter. Looking forward to the resulting dungeon crawl with all of Infinity's new abilities. I personally have very much appreciated the entire nuanced take on the merging of two souls being a complicated internal conflict that took a lot of time, at least from the perspective of the reader. It wouldve been all to easy to cop out if it, had a vauge descriptor scene with 'it took 3 days for the merge to finish' and have a new character come out of it. that wouldve sucked, for many reasons, but primarily casue this early we wouldnt have know who the two orginal charaters were, and thus had no basis for comparison. This was done much better. However, I find that i didnt really understand the nuances/ intentions of this writing until I read through your BtS post after this chapter. Im not really sure theres anything you can/should do to help at this point, depending on the following chapters. Let me explain. I think i didnt fully appreciate the magnitude of the merging, just because the only payoff we've seen so far is the re-intruduction of attraction to women. I would normally suggest renieforcing this, as it very much felt subdued in comparison to Tavi's initial reaction to seeing a naked hot man, and is our only current metric. However re-reading the section I belive that to be intentional, and balanced for lack of a better word. If in future chapters, the new lack of internal conflict is noted, I feel that would reinforce the magnitude of the change in the same way to drive home that a new character has emerged from the conflict. If it is, the only issued is I havent read those future chapters yet. If its not noted, i think the implications of this scene might go over some readers heads, like it did mine at first.
Inv7ctus
2024-01-15 23:25:11 +0000 UTCOh yeah, I agree (and appreciate the nuanced take). It's why I think the serial format hurts the book at this point in the story. There's so much setup to do that the entire front half of this book (plus some) is just setting the foundation of what's to come. You'll have to be the judge on if it's worth the wait. There is significantly less introspection past this point because the reason for it is largely done. Not none, but way less. There is still mechanics and shopping (Infinity has to spend some of those tokens) and that sort of thing, but the stuff related to Infinity's identity falls off hard here. The remaining questions can wait for future books. I don't want to talk too much about what's coming for fear of spoiling the impact, but we'll get a hint of what's to come in the interlude later this week. 😉
T Seris
2024-01-15 22:53:58 +0000 UTCI do love some good worldbuilding and foreshadowing , they are the foundation of your story, and you promised and overdelivered, but i think i speak for a good portion of your reader base that i really hope you will ease back a little the bombastic revelations and introspection in future chapters , not because i dont enjoy them(i find them delightful) but because we are 500 pages in and the story feels like it has slowed to a crawl. It has been 3 in-story days since the prologue, and if you discount the many gains Infinity has made at a breakneck speed, the story so far can be resumed in 3 lines : Infinity arrives on Tavi's body, Tavi's prior actions send Infinity to prison, Infinity explores a portion of the prison dungeon. The part of me that enjoys a good plot and mystery are sated, and there has been some nice progression, but not much has happened in th "overworld" so to speak, and only 2 fights in 500 pages is a worrying trend in a litrpg that is not stated to be aslice-of-life. Again, you have yet to steer us wrong , and i will trust in that.
Pedro Henrique
2024-01-15 22:17:17 +0000 UTC
