Chapter 5.21 E

Chapter 5.21 E
Chapter 5.20 G	Chapter 5.22 G
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Chapter 5.21 E is the 23rd chapter of Volume 5, and the 1st chapter of Book 8, Blood of Liscor.

tl;dr[edit | edit source]

Laken impresses the visiting nobility with his trebuchets. He declines to sell them at this time. Bethal and Thomast depart. Rags' tribe enters his domain.

Day 98–100. Following the previous day’s fae-visited feast, the nobility receives demonstration of and plays with Riverfarm’s trebuchets. Lady Bethal is particularly enamored with them. Lady Bevia tries to finagle Laken’s past out of him, but Lady Rie intervenes. Laken senses the Flooded Waters tribe entering his domain. Wiskeria is still angry with Sacra. Sacra negotiates on Lady Magnolia’s behalf with Laken, exchanging temporary halt of any trebuchet trading for cessation of hostility, recognition of sovereignity, and support.

Laken organises a response to the Goblins, and in the interest of a response to Magnolia holds private audiences with the present nobles, playing politics. Of note is Lady Bethal, whose request for any trebuchets he insistently denies, and Lady Bevia, whom he borrows a mage from.

The next day Laken has an epiphany of what Riverfarm has to offer for all these nobles: not [Engineers], but engineering, which is not the same thing. Skills, in contrast to skills, hoble development by providing instincts instead of knowledge, short-circuiting any learning. Laken’s epiphany boils down to acquisition of knowledge and skills, supported but not supplanted by Skills, and teaching those, democratising and breaking the monopoly on rare classes.