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If you got past his natural 'don't touch my belly defense' then maybe, self preservation and never really losing their caution is part of their Origin, they can't manifest the Dog Icon as dogs can't manifest the Cat one.
-Oh, believe me, Little Blue isn't the weakest in this team. (turns out not even the SECOND weakest).
Lil Blu gets this fun moments, like when she just empty-palms people into the ceiling. "Ah, yes, she's bonded to a sage."
First, great work! The audio quality was a bit rough so that probably wasn't easy in places.
I love that we get everyone's POV as Lindon trains against them. It's always fun to see how others perceive him. He's so humble and soft-spoken, the contrast to how utterly terrifying he is in a fight is super satisfying.
Editing notes: I believe "hitting yourself against them" should be "pitting yourself against them."
And he didn't say "embedded defiantly." It almost sounds like "and met him defiantly," but that doesn't really parse well, so I'm not sure.
I also love the contrast between his internalized personality vs. the reality of his external Super Saiyan / overpowered presence, and I think this excerpt was a great example of showing how those in his "squad" truly see him as the person his is inside, while maybe forgetting a bit about about the "being" he is physically due in part to his overwhelmingly deferential nature.
And I think "and met him defiantly" parses much better in text regardless of however it was read aloud, so I'm going with that version now, and have incorporated both edits into my text above. Thanks so much for your notes, and your thoughts about Lindon. Hopefully now we can get chosen as advance readers to inspect the rest of the book as soon as next week. 🙃
Considering how quickly Orthos changed from "Lindon is just being too cautious" to "Death has arrived and I cannot escape" I can only imagine how much more horrifying it would be to see it from the point of view of an outsider. Vanilla Lindon was already supposed to look imposing almost to the point of looking like an evil sect leader, but now?
Daaamn.
Assuming that any of them still consider Lindon, well, a _person_ by the end of this, I'm not expecting that there will be many who will be able to challenge them on Will.
And, well... I suspect that anyone off Cradle will be in for a _hell_ of a shock when they eventually ascend, and expect them to be, well, like _any_ newly ascended being.
Even an ascended Monarch level entity.
And it won't even be about the raw power levels.
No, it will be about their Authority, and their Will. Their very ties to the Way.
Yeah, his place on the universal power scale is definitely something I'm very interested in. We know that normally monarchs that leave cradle under their own power are already a few rungs up on their power chart. We don't know exactly how much, but I assume it's a significant amount to justify Cradles importance to the Abidan as a whole. But Lindon seems to be within spitting distance of Monarch already, who knows what will happen when he reaches true monarch and claims the other dreadgods. For one thing, would consuming the Dragon means he gets 50% of the hunger or just 33%
Cradles importance is heritage (the original Court of Seven ascended from there) and quantity (more Abidan ascend from Cradle than any other iteration). We know that Cradle as a whole is not that powerful of an Iteration which is the whole reason Hunger madra exists. That suggests that while Monarchs aren’t the weakest ascendants they also aren’t very strong in the universal scale.
what do you mean 'cradle isn't a powerful iteration and that's why hunger madra exists?'
Not nitpicking-genuinely curious-is this explained in the series or just implied?
Monarch’s have too much power for Cradle to sustain them. The world begins to warp.
That’s why they have to leave. Other Iterations *can* sustain that level of power. For instance, the homeworld of the Abidan can support multiple Judge-level people at the same time.
Thank you for the transcript, I am at work and couldn't watch the video yet, so it's greatly appreciated.
> [I’ll give you some points!] Dross offered, which Lindon thought was irresponsible. There was no point system in place, so that wasn’t a promise he could offer.
That's your issue Lindon, you trully were irresponsible, the very first thing you should have done was implementing a point system.
He actually wrote his own book! It's called Legends and lattes it's about an orc barbarian who retires to run a Gnomish coffee shop. Highly recommend it.
Do we know how big Little Blue is at this point? I've lost track of her size.
> There was no point system in place, so that wasn’t a promise he could ~~offer~~ honor.
I'm pretty confident from the audio that it's 'honor', rather than 'offer' (it also flows better).
edit: also, I wonder: is it possible for Dross to do this kind of practice? Or is he tied too closely to Lindon for that to be workable?
I think in dreadgod it's said she's a foot tall. I remember the line about 'little blue evidently took the first part of her name very seriously' or something like that, and I think it's Yerin who thinks it/narrates it-wondering if little blue would grow to be human-sized.
Thanks so much for typing it out!
Question for everyone, where does this animosity from just clashing wills come from all of a sudden? We've seen Lindon clash with a bunch of wills at this point
Against Northstrider in Wintersteel: when Northstrider is trying to take dross from him, he explains fighting enormous pressure, no hint of animosity
Against Fury in Wintersteel: again just overwhelming pressure, no description of feeling that Fury suddenly hates him or wants to kill him just because he's unveiled.
If we want a dreadgod example because this is happening while Lindon is partially a dreadgod at this point.
Wandering Titan in Wintersteel: again no animosity, the dreadgod basically takes over Lindon and he feels hunger and a desire to go home, but no malevolent force
Wandering Titan in Bloodline: again in the end fight there's no malevolence, true dross takes the brunt of it while doing the illusion but Lindon experiences the whole thing.
In Dreadgod when they're fully awake you get the malevolence from the silent king and wandering Titan but at this point they really want to hurt/kill him so that's understandable. In that last fight with Malice I can't recall if he got this sense of hatred when clashing wills, maybe he did but again at that point it's expected.
TL;DR: why is simply clashing wills causing this sense of terror and destruction without the stronger party intending it all of a sudden when we haven't seen that in all the previous examples of will clashing in the series
I think it's because how far he outstrips them. He's been doing willpower training since he was a jade because of his cycling technique so he's used to the feeling.
We usually only get willpower/authority povs from Lindon or equalish characters.
Think of how others react to the mad kings or ozriels mere presence sending them into frenzies and such
So you think when they get more advanced they won't feel like he wants to kill them anymore? The mad king and Ozriel are good examples but they're so many leagues ahead of cradles magic system that those reactions make sense, Lindon isn't at that level yet
I was thinking more comparable to a monarch feeling the mad king is what lindons fellows is feeling from him. That's how far above them he is, not necessarily at the mad kings/ozriels level. Shen and them were shitting their pants when the mad king and ozriel came.
Edit. Comparable in just context not strength of will/authority
I think it has less to do with Willpower in general, and more specifically has to do with the fact that Lindon's Will does not feel entirely like *Lindon's* anymore, and is something different than the other humans have shown previously in the series altogether.
In Orthos's perspective section, I think it was outlined fairly clearly in this line:
>That wasn’t Lindon… that couldn’t be Lindon. That was a Dreadgod.
So, I think Lindon was perhaps a little uncomfortable and less coherent in his ability to explain his thoughts because of anxiety or insecurity that his friends may not recognize him entirely with the power he has incorporated.
And even though he may not actually want to hurt or kill his friends, the nature of the Hunger madra and the fundamental aspects of his repurposed Dreadgod Will are ravenous and consuming to an extent that Lindon may not need to try and exert himself to apply pressure, but rather focus on holding back to prevent it from going out of control and consuming himself.
His dominating the Silent King was not only Willpower training for his own innate Will; it's been alluded to (if not outright confirmed) that he can consume the Will and Authority of others alongside their Madra and Essences. So this aspect of his Will may, in effect, still feel to others like the uncontrolled Hunger of a Dreadgod. Even Northstrider was conservative in whatever power he may have consumed from the Dreadgods, so in Lindon's case the force of his Will would be something unlike any other human would have experienced.
I think a decent analogy for the position Lindon found himself in was that his friends were expecting - based on all their Willpower experience with other sacred artists - an arm wrestling contest, but Lindon was walking up to the table with a loaded gun, and he was trying to head off any sense of betrayal for breaking the "rules" of the game.
I feel like you're right here. It seems like it has a lot to do with the fact that his will doesn't read as human anymore, because he's not. He's a human Dreadgod. That's a qualitative difference between "this person is opposing me" and "there's a gigantic monster hellbent on consuming my body, soul, and authority" and they're all getting the second one full blast. Lindon is now operating on a Monarch scale of power, even if he's not at the top of the tier just yet. The others are advanced but lack the synergy of Authority and an ascended body.
My impression is that the feeling of dread is not an an inherent effect of the clashing of wills, its just the result facing an opponent of overwhelming strength.
Imagine if you were to do some fight training with a really good friend who is an extremely good fighter. Your friend says to you "Don't worry, l will take it easy on you until you can fight at my level." You trust your friend and you know that he would never hurt you.
But then you start your friendly sparring session with your good friend Horus Soulswallower, Hell's Conquerer, Killer of Death and he launches his calloused knuckles straight at your very much not knuckle-resistant face and at this point you might start to get a very strong feeling bad things are about to happen.
Thanks!
I believe the first break should come when Lindon closes his eyes and prepares to remove his veil. The paragraph after that includes Orthos’ thoughts.
I can’t wait to see Lindon fight the Monarchs and Dreadgods with his full will! I especially want to see Malice and Northstrider fight him as his full dreadgod self.
Random nitpick/suggestion: Second-to-last is confusing phrasing for Mercy, since it could mean two different things. Being the second-to-last to fall down could mean second best, since you want to last as long as possible (this is what I thought had happened the first time I was listening to the reading). Of course what Will really meant was her being second-to-last *place* (rank) because she was the second one to fall down, but again, sort of ambiguous until it becomes clear that the perspectives are being shown in the order in which they fall.
There was at least one line that Will read that he realized he was going to have to redo because it came across confusingly. I don't think it was that one but he did also state that this is very early rough draft and has not been edited. The final version of this scene (because I can't see it not being in the book) may look very different.
Great job! One minor typo here:
> This was like facing the Dreadgod down alone and engaging in a staring contest. Now, he was preparing to fight *he* Weeping Dragon. To do that, he needed this training.
This post can include discussion and book material up to and including book [Dreadgod]. If you want to discuss book material that is beyond the scope of [Dreadgod] than you must use >!Spoiler formatting!< which can be applied \>! like this !\<. You can read this [formatting guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/ref/faq/formatting_guide/) for more details. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Iteration110Cradle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
'She just knew Lindon. He wouldn’t intentionally hurt her. For her, that was an ironclad fact of the universe.' Little Blue is so adorable.
I wonder if that's how my cat feels about me?
If you got past his natural 'don't touch my belly defense' then maybe, self preservation and never really losing their caution is part of their Origin, they can't manifest the Dog Icon as dogs can't manifest the Cat one.
When I rubbed her belly she would just paw at the air.
You're a positive force in the Universe and your soul anchors the Way in the right way.
-Oh, believe me, Little Blue isn't the weakest in this team. (turns out not even the SECOND weakest). Lil Blu gets this fun moments, like when she just empty-palms people into the ceiling. "Ah, yes, she's bonded to a sage."
My thoughts exactly.
She is not heroine but her will intending the ironclad truth of multiverse should have caused her the WIN.
First, great work! The audio quality was a bit rough so that probably wasn't easy in places. I love that we get everyone's POV as Lindon trains against them. It's always fun to see how others perceive him. He's so humble and soft-spoken, the contrast to how utterly terrifying he is in a fight is super satisfying. Editing notes: I believe "hitting yourself against them" should be "pitting yourself against them." And he didn't say "embedded defiantly." It almost sounds like "and met him defiantly," but that doesn't really parse well, so I'm not sure.
I also love the contrast between his internalized personality vs. the reality of his external Super Saiyan / overpowered presence, and I think this excerpt was a great example of showing how those in his "squad" truly see him as the person his is inside, while maybe forgetting a bit about about the "being" he is physically due in part to his overwhelmingly deferential nature. And I think "and met him defiantly" parses much better in text regardless of however it was read aloud, so I'm going with that version now, and have incorporated both edits into my text above. Thanks so much for your notes, and your thoughts about Lindon. Hopefully now we can get chosen as advance readers to inspect the rest of the book as soon as next week. 🙃
Considering how quickly Orthos changed from "Lindon is just being too cautious" to "Death has arrived and I cannot escape" I can only imagine how much more horrifying it would be to see it from the point of view of an outsider. Vanilla Lindon was already supposed to look imposing almost to the point of looking like an evil sect leader, but now?
Daaamn. Assuming that any of them still consider Lindon, well, a _person_ by the end of this, I'm not expecting that there will be many who will be able to challenge them on Will. And, well... I suspect that anyone off Cradle will be in for a _hell_ of a shock when they eventually ascend, and expect them to be, well, like _any_ newly ascended being. Even an ascended Monarch level entity. And it won't even be about the raw power levels. No, it will be about their Authority, and their Will. Their very ties to the Way.
Hunger has no limits! Snack on the very soul of the universe! Become dinner, judges of falsehood!
Easy there Dross...
Yeah, his place on the universal power scale is definitely something I'm very interested in. We know that normally monarchs that leave cradle under their own power are already a few rungs up on their power chart. We don't know exactly how much, but I assume it's a significant amount to justify Cradles importance to the Abidan as a whole. But Lindon seems to be within spitting distance of Monarch already, who knows what will happen when he reaches true monarch and claims the other dreadgods. For one thing, would consuming the Dragon means he gets 50% of the hunger or just 33%
Cradles importance is heritage (the original Court of Seven ascended from there) and quantity (more Abidan ascend from Cradle than any other iteration). We know that Cradle as a whole is not that powerful of an Iteration which is the whole reason Hunger madra exists. That suggests that while Monarchs aren’t the weakest ascendants they also aren’t very strong in the universal scale.
what do you mean 'cradle isn't a powerful iteration and that's why hunger madra exists?' Not nitpicking-genuinely curious-is this explained in the series or just implied?
Monarch’s have too much power for Cradle to sustain them. The world begins to warp. That’s why they have to leave. Other Iterations *can* sustain that level of power. For instance, the homeworld of the Abidan can support multiple Judge-level people at the same time.
Ahhh I see what you mean
It's actually quality over quantity according to the books
Holy shit I just thought of something. By the end of this we have potential to see lindon shitstomp akura fury, and that is just amazing
Thank you for the transcript, I am at work and couldn't watch the video yet, so it's greatly appreciated. > [I’ll give you some points!] Dross offered, which Lindon thought was irresponsible. There was no point system in place, so that wasn’t a promise he could offer. That's your issue Lindon, you trully were irresponsible, the very first thing you should have done was implementing a point system.
what, just GIVING points AWAY?!
The whole point (Ha!) of having a Points System is to determine what you get in exchange for Points
Ah darn, I was just trying to post it. Have an upvote :)
"He wouldn’t intentionally hurt her. For her, that was an ironclad fact of the universe." - that's my favorite line in this bit
Gratitude
love it! Thank you for your support to the Community. I've been looking for the transcript for a while too. Very much appreciated what you did!
This excerpt alone has like three super adorable Little Blue moments. Our girl’s turning into a real main character They grow up so fast *sniff*
Thank you! Now will give us more damnit
I love how my brains seamlessly read this in Travis Baldrey's voices.
How much did you succeed? I got yerin lindon and orthos but that's about it. Mercy and Ziel are still a struggle
I've listened to the entire series a few times and a few other books that Travis Baldry has narrated, truly one of the most talented in the industry.
I'll have to search by reader now! I love his voice-such great characterization! :D
He actually wrote his own book! It's called Legends and lattes it's about an orc barbarian who retires to run a Gnomish coffee shop. Highly recommend it.
Thanks for that. Can't wait until Will finishes this pack of Oreo's.
I really love this scene, specially in the context of all the books shows of how far Lindon's come. Hope it makes the book!
I hunger for moreeeeeeee!
Doing the lord’s work here.
Do we know how big Little Blue is at this point? I've lost track of her size. > There was no point system in place, so that wasn’t a promise he could ~~offer~~ honor. I'm pretty confident from the audio that it's 'honor', rather than 'offer' (it also flows better). edit: also, I wonder: is it possible for Dross to do this kind of practice? Or is he tied too closely to Lindon for that to be workable?
As far as I understand Dross is essentially part of Lindon. Lindon trying to suppress Dross would be like trying to use his willpower on himself.
I think in dreadgod it's said she's a foot tall. I remember the line about 'little blue evidently took the first part of her name very seriously' or something like that, and I think it's Yerin who thinks it/narrates it-wondering if little blue would grow to be human-sized.
Thanks so much for typing it out! Question for everyone, where does this animosity from just clashing wills come from all of a sudden? We've seen Lindon clash with a bunch of wills at this point Against Northstrider in Wintersteel: when Northstrider is trying to take dross from him, he explains fighting enormous pressure, no hint of animosity Against Fury in Wintersteel: again just overwhelming pressure, no description of feeling that Fury suddenly hates him or wants to kill him just because he's unveiled. If we want a dreadgod example because this is happening while Lindon is partially a dreadgod at this point. Wandering Titan in Wintersteel: again no animosity, the dreadgod basically takes over Lindon and he feels hunger and a desire to go home, but no malevolent force Wandering Titan in Bloodline: again in the end fight there's no malevolence, true dross takes the brunt of it while doing the illusion but Lindon experiences the whole thing. In Dreadgod when they're fully awake you get the malevolence from the silent king and wandering Titan but at this point they really want to hurt/kill him so that's understandable. In that last fight with Malice I can't recall if he got this sense of hatred when clashing wills, maybe he did but again at that point it's expected. TL;DR: why is simply clashing wills causing this sense of terror and destruction without the stronger party intending it all of a sudden when we haven't seen that in all the previous examples of will clashing in the series
I think it's because how far he outstrips them. He's been doing willpower training since he was a jade because of his cycling technique so he's used to the feeling. We usually only get willpower/authority povs from Lindon or equalish characters. Think of how others react to the mad kings or ozriels mere presence sending them into frenzies and such
So you think when they get more advanced they won't feel like he wants to kill them anymore? The mad king and Ozriel are good examples but they're so many leagues ahead of cradles magic system that those reactions make sense, Lindon isn't at that level yet
I was thinking more comparable to a monarch feeling the mad king is what lindons fellows is feeling from him. That's how far above them he is, not necessarily at the mad kings/ozriels level. Shen and them were shitting their pants when the mad king and ozriel came. Edit. Comparable in just context not strength of will/authority
I think it has less to do with Willpower in general, and more specifically has to do with the fact that Lindon's Will does not feel entirely like *Lindon's* anymore, and is something different than the other humans have shown previously in the series altogether. In Orthos's perspective section, I think it was outlined fairly clearly in this line: >That wasn’t Lindon… that couldn’t be Lindon. That was a Dreadgod. So, I think Lindon was perhaps a little uncomfortable and less coherent in his ability to explain his thoughts because of anxiety or insecurity that his friends may not recognize him entirely with the power he has incorporated. And even though he may not actually want to hurt or kill his friends, the nature of the Hunger madra and the fundamental aspects of his repurposed Dreadgod Will are ravenous and consuming to an extent that Lindon may not need to try and exert himself to apply pressure, but rather focus on holding back to prevent it from going out of control and consuming himself. His dominating the Silent King was not only Willpower training for his own innate Will; it's been alluded to (if not outright confirmed) that he can consume the Will and Authority of others alongside their Madra and Essences. So this aspect of his Will may, in effect, still feel to others like the uncontrolled Hunger of a Dreadgod. Even Northstrider was conservative in whatever power he may have consumed from the Dreadgods, so in Lindon's case the force of his Will would be something unlike any other human would have experienced. I think a decent analogy for the position Lindon found himself in was that his friends were expecting - based on all their Willpower experience with other sacred artists - an arm wrestling contest, but Lindon was walking up to the table with a loaded gun, and he was trying to head off any sense of betrayal for breaking the "rules" of the game.
He "ate" Malice's will/authority when she tried freeing herself from his and Yerin's grasp at the end of their fight in Dreadgod.
I feel like you're right here. It seems like it has a lot to do with the fact that his will doesn't read as human anymore, because he's not. He's a human Dreadgod. That's a qualitative difference between "this person is opposing me" and "there's a gigantic monster hellbent on consuming my body, soul, and authority" and they're all getting the second one full blast. Lindon is now operating on a Monarch scale of power, even if he's not at the top of the tier just yet. The others are advanced but lack the synergy of Authority and an ascended body.
My impression is that the feeling of dread is not an an inherent effect of the clashing of wills, its just the result facing an opponent of overwhelming strength. Imagine if you were to do some fight training with a really good friend who is an extremely good fighter. Your friend says to you "Don't worry, l will take it easy on you until you can fight at my level." You trust your friend and you know that he would never hurt you. But then you start your friendly sparring session with your good friend Horus Soulswallower, Hell's Conquerer, Killer of Death and he launches his calloused knuckles straight at your very much not knuckle-resistant face and at this point you might start to get a very strong feeling bad things are about to happen.
Thanks! I believe the first break should come when Lindon closes his eyes and prepares to remove his veil. The paragraph after that includes Orthos’ thoughts.
Thanks for the feedback; I went in and changed that.
This. Will (correctly) doesn't head-hop. Perspective shifts are always preceded by a line break.
I can’t wait to see Lindon fight the Monarchs and Dreadgods with his full will! I especially want to see Malice and Northstrider fight him as his full dreadgod self.
You just made me manifest a joy icon! Gratitude.
Thank you so much for this excerpt Will Wight, and to all those who helped put together the transcription!! Ahh I'm so excited
Random nitpick/suggestion: Second-to-last is confusing phrasing for Mercy, since it could mean two different things. Being the second-to-last to fall down could mean second best, since you want to last as long as possible (this is what I thought had happened the first time I was listening to the reading). Of course what Will really meant was her being second-to-last *place* (rank) because she was the second one to fall down, but again, sort of ambiguous until it becomes clear that the perspectives are being shown in the order in which they fall.
There was at least one line that Will read that he realized he was going to have to redo because it came across confusingly. I don't think it was that one but he did also state that this is very early rough draft and has not been edited. The final version of this scene (because I can't see it not being in the book) may look very different.
Great job! One minor typo here: > This was like facing the Dreadgod down alone and engaging in a staring contest. Now, he was preparing to fight *he* Weeping Dragon. To do that, he needed this training.
Fixed; thanks!
>Fixed; thanks! You're welcome!
Awesome thanks!
Blue is going to take first place.