Yeah same thoughts here. Being a deck dispatch pet sure is nice. Hope Lady Evagrey visits me often for some playtime. 
A SHRIEK OF ASH AND FIRE (WIP) [approx 50K UPDATE, 750K+ TOTAL-15th February 2025] (808K on Patreon)
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Bro is down badđâŠ
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Me to honestly
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Lmao seeing those posts makes me want to try that route faster just to see. Im guessing it involves the dexterous stats to obtain?
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Good to hear from you! There is less Krog in this one- but heâs in here somewhere, making a nuisance of himself in the background.
@HarleyQueen and @Ragil_Zarqoo
In the next update, as you start your new life in the crawler, every âprofessionâ will have its own opportunities, with occasional crossover. It will be the first proper âhubâ in this game so far. Those pledging to serve the Lord or Lady will find their new Dispatch job revolves much around them.
The escape route ends abruptly (as do all routes right now). There are several ways to hop onto it and there is a way to do without without relying on skill checks, since I didnât want to lock players out of a major branch so early in the game.
You can be very, very tough and, eventually, break the window in your cabin/cell. Or you can, in the tunnel when the clarion speakers stop hissing, use the ether to summon boggarts. If you are a goblin, you can unlock the drain using your claws.
Or, failing all this, anyone can break off a part of the tapâs piping to get a makeshift screwdriver. Using this, you can unscrew the drain over a period of days.
BUT- if you refuse to sign the papers and donât escape, you will end up in the ash land another way (if you donât die). Here, the escape paths converge to give you a choice between heading north or south.
EDIT:
Did you mean the Deck Dispatch path? That involves charm. Dex leads you to being a grease swab at the other end of the âsocial ladder.â
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The only one that matters, if you ask me, specially if you are a gobbo
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Like our dear author already said it requires charm. I was an elf, dunno if the race also plays a role with that. The Evagreys are also an elven species so maybe they wanted to own a âlesserâ elf in their eyes. 
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Ill keep checking back.
Curious though. If sera supposed to be the ethener, maybe I should pick a different path. I thought she was something else, not mage.
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Goblins truly donât give a hoot about all that etiquette stuff. A noble is merely a stuffy human with more gold to pinch!
Each race has their own favoured stat. Some options will be locked out to specific races, though both elves and halflings are well set to qualify as Deck Dispatches.
I think elves have the most balanced stats, except for a lack of mechanical ingenuity. They also make solid etherneers.
Sera wasnât even aware of her talents. Her skills are not the same as yours and your talents will be needed no matter what path Sera follows.
Cheers!
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Another round of typos. Actually, all I wanted to do was find out what happened if I stayed on that train.
Also, thereâs a lot of worldbuilding, but you might want to consider breaking it up into separate pages. Thereâs a lot of scrolling when playing on a phone. Choicescript might need a âjump to sectionâ feature, but we donât have that. 
Whatever you lineage, in a city as diverse as Grandardgard, in the almost equally diverse southern Ardland, few will give you a second glance as long as you act in line with civil expectations.
You, with a few Roachpedes, follow Gibleti through hatches and crawlspaces, into a twisted maze of pipes dribbling with humidity. You slide down poles, into the deepest underworks, where the ground vibrates with the constant grind of machinery. âYou all must learn,â chitters the goblin women. âKeep pipes clean. Climb walls and wipe, wipe wipe.â
Clearly, this group are a bunch of troublemakers.
You have joined the swab clans of the Royal Ash Crawler Despairâs Demise as a grease swab. Your duties are to climb and crawl through the cavities and underworks, scrubbing the pipes and engines clean of grim and obstruction. At times, you will be expected to initiate emergency repairs of the most hard-to-get-to mechanisms.
One of the Railway Republics, the Royal Rump is what remains of a region once called the Royal Road, a supposedly free land existing to facilitate trade across Behatland. After the fall of the Green Empire, following the shattering of the Granradgardian Empire, the Royal Road remained an ungoverned place rife with violence and banditry, except for the part controlled by Gymjim.
A vibrant culture of colourful silks and fragment spices, ruled by the Viper Empress, the Nagarese do not follow the Ardland pantheon of gods. Their serpentine pantheon, often seen as demonic by other humans, promotes the use of magic over technology. This is not to say the Nagarese do not utilise steam, for they have recently begun constructing their own ash crawlers for expeditions in Zthullu, but that their technology has a greater infusion of magic than their Ardland counterparts.
Since those times, Behatland showed little interest in the events on the far side of the ocean as successive orc emperors cemented their rule. However, with the fall of the Green Empire, a few tentative voyages sent to the Dragonlands resulted in nothing more than never-seen-again ships. It seemed that Drekiana I;s successors had little intention of involving themselves with the affairs of a foreign continent after the fall of orcish dominion.
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I thought anyone could use the ether? My halfling gadgeteer has used it effectively a couple of times now. She wasnât able to use it to escape her cell, but like NE said, break the pipe and you get something you can use as a screwdriver, so it didnât matter so much that she couldnât get the ether to give her any help there.
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Its more of a party of adventures, the fighter, the rogue and a mage is what I expected at first. Crossing lines is ok. I was thinking of swapping for the lineup.
Sera is fine with me being ether user. Though the one guy kept saying âespecially Seraâ. Made me think maybe I should go with the roguish as strong suit instead. Party makeup is all it was about. Sera can be, just didnât expect, mine was 70%+ for ether.
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Ah. Didnât realise that was the lines you were thinking along (although I have been guilty across multiple game systems of stacking mages. Even when it doesnât make sense to. And nearly caused a revolt as DM when I specified only mages could be built. That was fun. Mean, but fun. Everyone ended up cursed, it was hilarious.)
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Thank you! This really helps, ChanceOfFire. I usually plop a dayâs worth of writing into online grammarly just to hunt out those red underlines. The next day, I reread what I have written too but I just cannot catch them all!
EDIT: Due to working on the next update, and the fact that I have changed a few things, the corrections will be uploaded when the next update is uploaded. Also, you are right, there is far more long sections of text here than in my previous game. Iâll endeavour to add a few more page breaks.
Originally I wasnât going to add a âtough guyâ option as I wanted sneaky types to be the focus. But it just didnât feel right not to have an analogue of a warrior mixed into the thievery and magic.
Your MC may find themselves in situations without aid, or among enemies. I would like a player to find whatever type of build they want, in the constraints of the narrative. Keep in mind that your old friends also have their own issues to deal with and may sway from the path of friendship to follow their own concerns.
Sera has âissuesâ with her magic. Something is not quite right thereâŠ
Everyone has the potential to manipulate the ether, except most dwarves. However, not everyone has the ability to activate it or excel with it. At present, I have tried not to shut off too many options, since it is the very start of the game.
My main concern is to provide a world where the player can have fun and find validation for their choices. We donât need to think of a âparty-buildâ- but if you remain tight with your old friends, this wouldnât hurt. But there is no âwrongâ build that will prevent you from reaching the eventual conclusion of the game- although there will certainly be bad choices to make, depending on that build, which will lead to a sticky demise.
I love the idea of a curse fight!
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Yeah it was the deck dispatch as the other poster answered as well thank you for those tips as well. 
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All those cursed mages, thatâs hilarious! @AnneWest
I will stick with a âsticky mageâ? Im very curious. Naughty but curious! @NumberedEntity
Glad to hear NPC opinions and choices are good in story too.
Also have multiple of same âclassâ types in various games I had ran or played in. They can be fun!!
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I really like the concept of playing as a sneaky thief, so I was already interested after only reading the summary. I loved the world-building and the overall atmosphere of the story, and itâs nice having different starting paths to choose (my favorite so far is refusing to sign the contract and then getting thrown out of the train lol)
Looking forward to the next update!
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Good catch! I forgot to put an *ending there. Canât let these things clog up the machinery for later.
I hope you continue to enjoy the game as it progresses. There is much more in store for your sneaky MC!
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Does that most mean there are actual non-runic dwarven mages?
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On the political map page, it is mentioned that the dwarves of Forn Skaoi indulge in necromancy. Perhaps it is only a rumour? As far as Behatland knows, dwarves donât do ether-summoned magic. No one has seen it.
Yet.
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Another great work from you and so soon , sir i feel positively spoiled.
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