Shirtaloon
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Chapter 928: Trouble Always Knows Where to Find Me
🕑 Added 2024-07-31 23:00:05 +0000 UTCCassandra Mercer wandered out of the jobs hall with two members of her team after dropping off a completed contract. Jiralla was the team frontliner, standing head and shoulders above the other two women. Henrietta Geller was another adventurer from back home. After bouncing around a few different teams without success, she’d filled a hole in Cassandra’s after they lost a member in the last monster surge. Her many summons and familiars made her a versatile addition to the group.
Cassandra wanted nothing more than a hot shower to sluice away the muck of combat. The bog monsters they’d been contracted to hunt reminded her of similar creatures common to the delta back home, although these had been silver rank, rather than iron or bronze. Some crystal wash would have been ideal to flush out the sticky mud that wormed its way into every crevice, but her normal suppliers had been sold out. Apparently the trade hall had been swept clean a week earlier, while they were still out on the hunt.
She was quiet as the other two chatted away, her mind elsewhere. She knew that they’d arrived in Vitesse, and maybe that was why she’d picked the contract she had. Normally the team would avoid a mission that meant trudging through bog mud for days on end, although it did come with a nice bonus. No one else wanted the mission either, so the jobs hall had added some nice incentives.
She hadn’t heard much since their arrival. A few people discussing the return of Team Biscuit to Vitesse. Their involvement in some city in the middle of nowhere being wiped off the map. They hadn’t sought her out, and maybe they weren’t going to. Perhaps she was a memory they had no interest in revisiting.
It was just as she was resolving to put them out of her head when she spotted him. He ambled across the park-like grounds of the campus as if he’d stepped right out of her memories. The ridiculous shirt. Gazing around like a tourist as he munched on a meat wrap, dripping sauce onto the grass. He ambled towards them like someone without a care in the world.
Her friends saw that she’d stopped walking and followed her gaze.
“Who’s that?” Jiralla asked.
“Her ex,” said Henrietta.
“That Neil guy she’s always talking about?”
“Not always,” Cassandra said. “And no. This was from before that.”
“Jason Asano,” Henrietta said.
“You know him, Henri?”
“He’s on my brother’s team. Been away a long time, though. Haven’t seen him in twenty years.”
“Isn’t that Neil guy on your brother’s team as well?”
“Yep.”
“Cassie, you should really consider expanding your dating pool. Are you going to go for Henri’s brother, next?”
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Cassandra said, then set off to intercept Jason. He threw a wave in Henrietta’s direction and she returned it before leading Jiralla firmly away.
Cassanda arrived in front of Jason. He looked different, yet the same. The eyes sparkling with amusement. The beard that failed to hide his jutting chin as well as he thought it did. His features were sharper and less boyish. He had the smooth, almost artificially perfect skin that came with high rank.
“Hey, Cassie.”
“Hello, Jason.”
“I thought we could catch up. If you would like.”
“How did you find me?”
“Your aura. The city isn’t that big.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I suppose. They get a lot bigger, where I come from.”
“You really spread your perception across the city without people noticing?”
“I’m sure a few did, but I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding it. Gold-rank tricks.”
It was more than just a gold-rank trick and they both knew it.
“You can’t be that far from gold yourself, right?”
It irked her a little that the man who hadn’t even believed in magic when she hit bronze rank had beaten her to gold. Not as much as Henri, who had been grumbling for months about being eclipsed by her little brother.
“It’s not easy, getting your head around how high-rank advancement works,” she said. “Or maybe it is, for you. Your whole team got there, right?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “We all had to find our own way, though. I’m sure you’ll find yours.”
They started walking, Jason falling into place beside her.
“Is Boko really gone?” she asked.
“It is,” he said, stashing his food in his storage space.
“I heard some things, but no one seems clear on exactly what happened. Your team was there, though, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You always did have a knack for winding up in the middle of things.”
“I’d rather not, sometimes, believe me.”
“So, what did happen?”
“The usual. Bad people trying to do bad things. Innocent people getting caught in the middle. Most of the population got out alive, but more than I’d like did not.”
“A messenger army and a destroyed city. That’s ‘the usual’ for you, is it?”
It took him a long moment to answer. She could see a shift in his body language, as if something was weighing him down.
“I don’t think what’s usual matters,” he said, the lightness in his tone now absent. “I had a bad day, yesterday. I finally went to join a guild, something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. The whole experience went very unpleasantly, and it got me thinking about being an adventurer. It’s something that’s been important to me, over the years, more so as time goes on. But what happened yesterday made me realise that my experience isn’t what other adventurers go through.”
“How so?”
“Taking contracts. Using them to build a track record and get better contracts. Joining a guild, building a team and travelling around with them.”
“You have a team.”
“Whose defining experience with me is waiting years at a time for me to come back. Wondering if I’m even still alive. After yesterday, I started thinking about how different my experiences are from other adventurers, and it got me wondering if I’m really one of them. I haven’t really done a lot of what normal adventurers do since Greenstone. There’s always some mad crisis, pushing me to the edge. Taking me away from my team and never letting me get back to basics. The last few months, I felt like I was finally living the adventuring life everyone else gets to, and then Boko happened. Reminded me that I’m not like everyone else. Then, yesterday brought home the fact that if I try to be like other adventurers, it’s just a performance. Playing pretend.”
“Jason, I’ve heard the stories about you. If even a fraction of them are true, you live a life that other adventurers long for. Walking with kings and gods. Wielding power most only dream of.”
Jason shook his head.
“Those things aren’t what matter. What matters is knowing that my actions have kept someone safe. Shielded them from something that would have ripped their life apart. But you know that feeling. Every good adventurer does. And that’s when I realised that I really am an adventurer. It’s not about having stories told about you, and it’s not about the milestones that regular adventurers have, but I missed. My first night in this world, Rufus Remore told me what an adventurer was, and I’ve realised all over again that he was right. Strip away everything else, and an adventurer is someone who puts themselves between the bad things and those who need protection from them. Everything else is just embellishment or a distraction.”
He flashed a smile, heavy, but satisfied.
“As long as we do that,” he said, “we’re adventurers. I think that maybe I’m a bit thick, since everyone else seems to realise that’s obvious. I second guess myself too much, I suppose.”
Cassandra gave him a side glance as they walked.
“I remember that night we met,” she said. “You seemed so free, so unburdened. You really aren’t the person I knew, are you?”
He flashed the impish grin she remembered, the impudent boyishness shining through.
“Oh, he’s still in there,” he said. “All said and done, I’m kind of happy that yesterday didn’t work out. It helped me with the ongoing process of accepting who I am, and letting go of who I’m not. The same as everyone else, I guess.”
“I’ve been struggling with that as well. Is that the secret to reaching gold rank?”
“Part of it, sure.”
“I don’t think I’m doing so well in that regard. I have trouble moving on from old history.”
“Neil is an idiot.”
“Neil is an idiot,” she agreed. “But he saw it in me. That there are things I couldn’t let go of.”
Jason nodded.
“He shouldn’t have handled things the way he did. He should have talked things through, instead of deciding for both of you and running away. He was so scared of losing you that he gave you up first. Like an idiot.”
“He wanted me to meet you. To see how different you were. As if that would somehow fix everything.”
“Which was extra foolish. I’m much sexier now, so that definitely won’t cure you from pining for my masculine embrace.”
She looked at him from under raised eyebrows.
“You haven’t completely changed, then.”
He flashed another grin.
“I told you that.”
“You’re still an idiot.”
“Hey, I thought we were talking about Neil.”
“You’re both idiots. It’s Nik I feel sorry for, growing up with you two as influences.”
“He wants to see you, if you don’t mind. He feels bad about his part in convincing Neil to end things.”
“That’s Neil’s fault for taking romantic advice from a three-year-old. I would love to see Nik again.”
“And Neil?”
“No. He hurt me, Jason. Even if he thought he was doing the right thing, he wasn’t really considering me. He hid his feelings instead of sharing them. He decided everything for himself and ran away before I had a chance to get my head around any of it.”
They walked in silence for a while. They had no destination, but the sprawling gardens of the Adventure Society campus gave them no shortage of places to wander.
“Could you tell me about what you’ve been doing since Greenstone?” Cassandra asked. “Maybe it will help me to, I don’t know, put down some old baggage.”
“Only if you tell me about what you’ve been doing since Greenstone as well.”
“I’ve just been doing normal adventurer things. Nothing like what you’ve done.”
“Exactly,” Jason told her.
***
“…the wrong spell, and the hydra exploded. And I mean exploded, chunks flying everywhere. Being so big, we were drenched in its blood and guts. Because it was only bronze rank, it didn’t burn us, but it dissolved all our clothes away.”
Jason let out a laugh, then sipped from his glass. He’d pulled out some of his blended juices from Greenstone, giving Cassandra a taste of home.
“You know, I’ve had my clothes blasted off a time or three as well. I assume you had more to change into.”
“Yes, but it was right at that moment that the reinforcements arrived. And you know which church they ended up getting them from?”
“Lust?”
“Wouldn’t that have been nice? No, they were from the church of Chastity!”
Jason snorted juice out of his nose, then started coughing.
“How did that go?” he asked after recovering.
“Oh, about as well as you’d expect. Jiralla was the only one of us still decent, because of her heavy plate armour, but she kept complaining about it pinching and started stripping off. Right in front of the priest!”
“You’re kidding.”
“The woman has no shame.”
Cassandra noticed Nik sitting on a park bench and nibbling nervously on a biscuit. She stopped walking and Jason did the same. They turned to look at each other.
“So,” she said. “I suppose this is it.”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “I don’t know if this will help you find some closure, or come to terms with anything from the past, but I had a nice afternoon. It was good seeing you again, Cass.”
“You too, Jason. Tell Neil… I don’t know. That if I want to see him, I’ll come find him. Tell him not to look for me himself.”
Jason nodded.
“We live long lives, Cassandra. Too long to hold onto every mistake, but also too long to hold onto every person. Only you can decide if you want to forgive Neil, or forget him.”
She bowed her head.
“It feels like if I agree to see him now, I’ll be acknowledging that he was right. That he was right to hurt me that way.”
Jason nodded.
“As I said, life is long. You don’t have to decide anything now, just because we happen to be in town. We’ll cross paths again.”
***
Jason watched the flowering towers of Vitesse shrink away as the cloud ship moved further into Estercost. He could sense his companions in various places around the vessel, including Neil drowning his sorrows at the bar. After one last glance at Vitesse, Jason opened a portal arch to his soul realm and stepped through. He arrived in the forest city of Arbour.
The city remained largely uninhabited. Like Jason himself, the soul within his soul that comprised the city was still finding its way. When it first formed, the city had been a homogeneous place, basically flatland filled with sequoias and treehouses. There were now hills and valleys, rivers with castles set on grand bridges and gorges where buildings clung to the walls, covered in ivy.
Much of the city still held its original disposition, however, and Jason arrived in one of these areas. It housed the research centre for Carlos, and the accommodation for his test subjects. Jason’s power suppressed the magical influence that had brainwashed them, but only Carlos could free them from it entirely. The time was approaching for Sophie’s mother to go through the process, which was still being refined.
“Tomorrow,” Carlos said without preamble as Jason walked into his study. “We’ll be ready tomorrow.”
“You’re the man setting the schedule,” Jason told him. “Better to do it right than fast.”
“Better right than fast,” Carlos echoed. “Looking into that sword they attacked you with only slowed me down a little.”
Carlos had spent some time with the investigation team in Greenstone that was studying the attack on Boko. They were focused on Jason’s attacker, who had not been a messenger but wielded unusual equipment. He had rejoined Jason and his companions recently via portal travel.
“That sword was definitely based on the weapons we were developing at the start of the messenger war,” Carlos said. “We gave up on them back then because they weren’t cost efficient. The idea was to create weapons that would make less combat-oriented silver rankers more of an opponent to a messenger. The results were never worth the outlay, though, so we moved on. It seems that someone continued that work after we abandoned it, as that sword was made recently. It also showed some signs of having been advanced from what we created, but the improvements were marginal. Not enough to pick up the project again.”
“Someone obviously felt differently about that.”
“Yes,” Carlos said. “But unless you’re going to pull on that thread yourself, it’s for the Adventure Society to investigate. I’ve been away from my work here long enough.”
“I’m happy to leave it to them. We have enough going on without chasing after something others are happy to pursue themselves.”
“On that, I agree. If possible, I’d like to get all the Order of Redeeming Light members treated before heading for Earth. I’m hoping to use my time there to explore the medical knowledge of your world, and its potential applications for my work. How long do you think we have before heading to your home universe?”
“I think that depends on how scattered the people from Earth are, and how many even want to go back. I’m not going to force anyone who wants to stay. We’ll get more information on them in Cyrion, and go from there. Once we’ve rounded people up, it’s back to Rimaros to finally complete the bridge between worlds. Clive thinks that will be relatively quick. I imagine that we’re looking at heading to Earth in weeks, rather than months, assuming that nothing goes wrong.”
“You’re just going to say that out loud? Aren’t you asking for trouble?”
“Trouble always knows where to find me,” Jason told him with a malevolent grin. “And it knows what it gets when it does.”
Comments
mzetqbbtyf
This chapter felt like an episode of 90210 from the 90s.
Asterrahl
Ha, I knew crystal wash was bound to come up soon!
Joanna
We’ve seen a few glimpses here and there, but only Jason has gotten any official updates as yet, and even those are kinda minimal
BloodStorm
Nah I don’t think so. His birthing tree/world has messengers
Zera
I thought that as long as he knows a thing he can just conjure it in his soul realm and take it outside. Even if that isn't true, wouldn't he be able to just pop in his soul realm, take a shower and pop out.
AfroMocha
Will Jason's birthing tree make more of Nik?
ABTelford
I was checking every 5 minutes around the hour you post…only to realize it was Thursday instead of Friday. I was so bummed! Lol! That means Shirtaloon is doing a great job with the writing! 😎
mainiak
I think once he teleports with bunch of golds (his team at least and maybe some extras?) + the earth folks (I wonder how many will stay behind) + maybe some more messangers? wouldn't that be like 100+ people-ish? Anyway, nothing sends message better than you suddenly appearing with big(ger) army behind your back (+ all messangers on earth revealing themself to be allied with Jason) maybe he can preemptively make messanger bases all around the world for "peacekeeping" (like certain big country) prior his arrival
mainiak
So ... I know there are several threads about Jason's crystal wash empire (not sure why it does sound like car was in my head, but anyway) ... but now Jason has 10k unemployed (read: without astral king brand) messengers, maybe he can suggest that if they need purpose they can work in his crystal wash infinite factory ... and be "happy" little bees, er birds working 9-5 ... project code name: Hell 2.0 (but keep it secret from The Reaper as it might infringe on his authority) also I hope the baby angels are safe ... or they are in the astral space next to elemental city, but not on the planet in astral kindgom, with the naughty ones? will there be civil war as there might have been hidden few unorthodoxy ones? are there any golds? p.s.: few thoughts for crystal wash marketing ideas - Marketing brand "Hegemon" - slogan: "you know you want it my way - Hegemon"
santiago villa reverte
Neil es right
StarkRG
She didn't do anything to Jason, furthermore, they already reconciled following their forced break up. (At the symphony after Jason's encounter with all the gods following the Reaper trials)
AfroMocha
What if Jason has the messengers spread his message of return lmao 🤣😂
Dexter Vex
Do we have a current understanding of the teams abilities now that they're gold rank? Like how we used to get system notifications when they leveled up
ABTelford
Hahaha! That would be brilliant! 😄
Tim
The brainwashing purge IS the seal most likely, since its an expression of soul. For example, if she had been a painter, his interface would have shown Order of Reaper Painter, since thats what she was. However, the "purifying flame" was a forcible change to identity, sealing her self under layers of what Purity/Deception wanted her to be.
R
Wonder if we are going into order of the reaper stuff now before Earth. The ending of the last two chapters made me think we may be going this way, with the inference from Roland, and Melody's brainwashing being addressed. Back when Jason fought Melody in the underground complex, his interface labeled her, I think, as "Order of the Reaper infiltrator (sealed)." Wonder if the brainwashing purge undoes the seal or there will be something else later. There is obvious precedence with his interface and foreshadowing, specifically Landemere and him being labeled as "builder cultist."
jacob butler
I feel like he thinks it just is not the same as someone else making it
Tartlet
I want all of team biscuit except soph and hump to be lonely-break-up-drinking on the lonely hearts cloud ship bar and soph and hump come in all “we got married in magic vegas!”
Ce-Ja Burke
I love that ending line
Jared McClure
wrong series?
Jordan Rogers
Mistake posted from wrong book series
Thomas Froehling
Hmm, I can't help but wonder: sure, it's been twenty years plus that Cassie left Jason and she must have heard how it hurt him. Yet, when they finally meet after all that time, there's not even a tiny bit of regret about that choice of hers (ok, their family, but still). There's a lot of complaint about how Neil droped her and how she felt about that. I do not know how long ago that was, but she mentioned he was following Niks advice when he was 3 years old, so it should be about ten years ago at least. So, Lady Gorgeous is still hurt by Neil and can't give a second thought about what she had done to Jason? Also, do we seriously believe she didn't at least date other people? In all that time? I believe there are more... physical interactions in any given monastery. On a completely unrelated note: I have to think of Max from the 'Sam & Max' comic every time dear Nik is mentioned... anybody else or is it just me?
JennP
Neil handled it poorly, but Cass also should do some hardcore apologizing instead of pretending she didn't also screw up. She really did.
Joanna
What chapter did you read?
Aaron Hill
The fact that Jason decided to badmouth Neil to his ex and pretend like Neil wasn't 100% justified and reasonable in walking away just so he could try to hook up with her again really reminds us that Jason is still a proper asshole sometimes. Can't be all character growth after all.
Addie
I'm already at Earth it sucks don't come here
Philipp Battenberg
"I imagine that we’re looking at heading to Earth in weeks, rather than months […]" Is that perhaps also aimed at us, Shirt?
ShieldWolf
Hahaha is your profile picture a magic/ police booth?
ThoMiCroN
It would be about time for Jason to learn the formula for crystal wash. That’s something Earth doesn’t know it needs.
Kalanaere
And insulting Neil
Valmorian
thanks for the chapter!!!!
Idan tal
So you say you don’t care for Neil.. legitimate, even Jason doesn’t.
Addie
Jason sees his ex girlfriend after 20 years and immediately launches into trauma dumping.
Joanna
It seems that Humphrey had pretty much just barely managed it by the time Jason returned to Pallimustus, which is about 15 years since he left to Astral Kingify himself and fix the Sundered Throne. All of the others seem to have ranked up faster than him, but no real specific timeline was given for exactly when. My best guess, it took them all something between ten and fifteen years from hitting silver to hitting gold
Malcolm
I’m be honest I don’t real care about any of this shit with Cassandra, like it is cool see Jason interact with people from the past but if Cassandra never comes back wouldn’t lose an ounce of sleep
mhaj58
The Mercer family has been scrambling to prove their value after Thadwick betrayed the world and turned into an energy vampire, Thalia hasn’t been seen or heard from since she saw her son as a vampire. Beaufort wasn’t even acknowledged when the team returned to Greenstone
Rina Lynn
V 1
Stephanie Washburn
But that's not nearly as stable as having the real thing! And he needs to know how to make it himself, perfectly, to be able to take it out of his soul realm.
Stephanie Washburn
Unfortunately he's been gone for too long and was never traveled well enough for that.
Sean C Jackson
You mean Cassie.
Justin
It’s cool to see he changed on “what could go wrong” or sayings like it. He used to be the one “omg I can’t believe you would even utter those words”. Great chapter. TYFTC! Also can we get some character sheets of diamond rankers? I wanna see what the Mirror King and Mr. Remore can do!
Sean C Jackson
Jason's back, back again, Jason's back, tell a friend, Jason's back, Jason's back, Jason's back, Jason's back.
John Durrett
Removing the glamour and getting it down to basics is very healthy
Hunter
How long has Jason and team biscuit been gold rank it’s hard to keep time? It’s just crazy how much of a freak they all are when it comes to their rank up speed. I know there whole generation is considered the best in memory but still.
John Durrett
Neil was Not an idiot. He correctly understood that Cass had baggage she needed to clear out before she could have a healthy relationship with others, not just himself. Neil didn’t hurt her, what hurt was hearing the truth. I’ve was in a relationship long ago where she was still aching over a lost love and I was there to support her emotionally. Then she turned around and started dating her Ex’s best friend. I found out a couple years later she ended up pregnant and single mom. We talked long distance and she openly shared she wished sometimes she had chosen me instead.
Joshua Millins
Glad to see Jason and his ransacking of Crystal Wash is alive and well, you'd think that the producers would have learned to expand rapidly when Asano's name pops up in their corner of the hemisphere.
Victor Mijares
Don't know why but it feels like a game of thrones moment with Jason going to earth. It's coming, it's coming!
Ardin Helme
Ok, I get that Jason and the local crystal wash supply is a running gag, but you cannot convince me that he doesn't have an infinite supply of the stuff via his soul realm at this point.
Kelly
It’s odd how many people are saying that ‘talking about it doesn’t work’ regarding Neil and Cassandra. Neil made a unilateral decision for the both of them and it sounds like that was the first time he even brought it up. I love Neil, but he needs to do some hardcore apologizing.
Raves
Not just what he went through but also knows about the power level that he is now on and the complications that come with it.
Hunter
Also very happy Jason didn’t put a rekindling off feelings on the board in any way shape or form.
Hunter
Anyone who thinks Cassandra is the one in the wrong here is trippin trippin. Neil told her what he wanted, told her to figure it out herself, told her to come back to him when she figures it out and dipped. You thought she would just run up to Neil and fall on to her knees and apologize for all her supposed wrongs?
Hunter
Yeah it’s been more like a decade I think tbh 😂😂😂
ShieldWolf
This kinda upsets me. I see so many people on here blaming Cassandra when all she did was have emotions. It's like Neil said it wasn't the right time and I personally don't think either of them were wrong. It's been what 2 years since Neil left her and she is still chasing Jason in her head. If Neil stayed to talk it out instead of a clean break it would have only been worse for them both. She probably would have convinced him to stay and make things hurt more for both of them.
jacob butler
Is anybody else curious what is going on with Cassandra's parents? Am I wrong that her dad went to the builder cult in book 10? Is there any news of Thalia at all ?
BloodStorm
back to Rimaros to finally complete the bridge. Yes finally
Jon Stanfield
What a childish reaction. Did you even read this chapter or the one where Neil dumped her? The discussion wasn't about fixing the relationship by talking, though that could have been an outcome. Neil broke things off rather than confront either of their feelings on the situation. Cassandra doesn't want to talk because that would mean Neil was right to destroy her heart rather than end things more agreeably. How could Cassandra "consider the hurt she was providing him, or simply consider his point of view" when he made no attempt to share his feelings or situation. Neil saw a red flag in Cassandra and ran. That red flag was real, she admits it herself, but single flaws should not be the make or break point for relationships
Ira White
I'm torn, on one hand I like Cassy more then Neil so I agree with her but that's just because I like her more. On the other I've been with someone who wasn't over their ex and it torn me apart. Talking didn't didn't help, trying to work threw it didn't help, it grew like a cancer between us untill I couldn't deal with it anymore and I left. So if I'm being honest Neil might have been an idiot but Cassy was just as to blame and she only doesn't want to meet up with him because she'd have to admit she was just as wrong.
ShowBizGAL 1996
I prefer the clean version: Fool around and find out. :-D Cursing isn't ALWAYS necessary, I promise. I grew up reading Isaac Asimov, whose characters never swore at all. One of his characters went off on a rant and called another, "an illegal, immoral and highly improbably obsenity." Greatest non-swearing rant I can remember, to this day... and I'm 63 now. LOL!!! I try my best to forget the swearing rants, ASAP!!
Alex Cox
Great, now they're gonna get all set up with the bridge and about to cross over... the order attacks trying to make use of the bridge and the fact Jason finally built it
Max Lopo
Sorry, bur Neil was very right. It's not something you can fix by talking or ignoring it. Best it could do is grow like a cancer. AND her rection ❓did she use introspection and consider the hurt she was providing him, or simply consider his point of view ❓noppe. What matters is that she felt hurt so she ghosted him for a friggin decade. Unidirection. AND her reason for not seeing him now ❓she would feel that he was right and that would annoy her. Holy hell Neil, you dodged a bullet the size of a skyscraper. She would rather keep stomping on your hearth than even face the possibility she was even partially wrong in her rection. Me me me me. Run free my boy, next time pick è woman and not a brat.
ABTelford
hahaha! yea! I gotta say I love the running background joke about him buying out all the crystal wash wherever he goes! lol!!
Stephanie Washburn
Yeah! He's finally picking up some wisdom!
Stephanie Washburn
It really feels like we're watching Jason transition from being a young man to being a man. It's nice to see how he's growing into full "you could be a senator" adulthood.
ABTelford
I loved this chapter - the conversation with Cassandra was everything I could've wanted. and then the ending where we get, via natural conversation, info on the planned sequence of coming events. very nicely done, Shirt! ❤️ and yea... I'm expecting at least one more "troubling" event before they leave for earth.
Ken Sevier
Oh man feel for nik and Neil
Samuel Strode
Friday Friday Friday we need to see what happens
Landsraad
He's 3 years old. Dont be a wierdo
Scott McCarthy
Ah I the only one who half hoped Neil was drinking because Nik hooked up with Cassandra?
Preston Stokes
Trouble is bout to fuck around and find out.
brian phillips
Biscuits!
Raymond Lenihan
Can't he make it in his soul realm? I wonder why this has not been brought up yet, feels like something would do immediately on being able to
C D
I don't know why but this is one of my favorite chapters, thanks a lot.
Namorat
“We live long lives, Cassandra. Too long to hold onto every mistake, but also too long to hold onto every person.“ - this one was especially nice
Jay Doubleyou Kay
Jason is going to have a crystal wash empire back on Earth
Charles A. Pehl
The problem is any other series I would agree but like with how long they will live just as gold rankers plus even potentially diamond it's less of one you know?
Christian Sullivan
I miss dawn. Jason really needs a girl that understands what he went through.
Jason Hardman
Lives in a town named Havok.
Jason Hardman
“As I said, life is long. You don’t have to decide anything now, just because we happen to be in town. We’ll cross paths again.” Casually sets off massive death flag for Neil.
David Cooper
I've been waiting for Cassie to show up since the beginning of this book.
King Kards
Fkn crystal wash *jack sparrow voice* Why is the crystal wash always gone
Corac
Dang good ending line in this chapter.
Thomas Axtell
Nope, it's an alchemical product, not conjured. When added to his cloud house it gets mixed with water to help ration it out. The issue is the cloud house actively uses it too. Go to sleep in one of the cloud house beds. You wake up completely clean. Spill a drink on the cloud house carpet? The spill vanishes.
Jachin Nelson
Please tell me there is a God named Trouble
Cody Cahill
Yeah I’m pretty sure he can just create anything he wants in his astral kingdom and just walk out with it.
ByLAWphoto
I really feel like Jason needs to hire someone to just make Crystal wash full time. It would probably be more cost effective, too.
Pierce Hodges
Thanks for the chapter!
Benjamin Grant
Biscuits
Agent P.
Um can't Jason make Crystal wash now?
David
It’s going to be near. Probably at the landing site. Saying “near Rimaros at the place we..” would get annoying, very fast.
Aaron Schwartz
I’m not sure when this got said, but I seem to recall someone saying that he shouldn’t build the bridge in Rimaros…
mhaj58
Great chapter. The conversation with Cassandra was pure platinum. I feel sorry for Neil, but sometimes all we can do is accept the consequences of our own decisions and keep going. I hope that Melody will come through the experience ok, and I really hope that The Order of the Reaper doesn’t make the same mistake as the Builder cult, or the Order of Redeeming Light, or the Network, or the Cabal, or the Great Astral Beings. I can go on and on and on and on and on.
JonO
Yay Cassie update!
John Woosley
Thanks for the chapter
Connor
We don’t get to see Jason talk with Nik? 🥲
Brad Gammey
7th!
jackalsclaw
Didn't Jason have a crystal wash production facility built into the cloud house? At the very least, I have to imagine the Asana clan on Earth having prioritized being able to make it.
Darkdragon
Sadly you missed the first biscuits
John goode
4th Biscuits !!
Shup Idot
nuh uh
TimeDrawsNigh
Tftc
Darkdragon
Biscuits
