Oh, speaking of questions about research, I have one for Hamartia.
What determines whether we can research/keep the bone charm? Is it just if you kill the Transplant or not?
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The Ivory Stake? Correct; whether the stake survives the Pact ritual depends solely on whether the PB murders the OT or not.
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I had a feeling that was the case. Thank you for confirming! 
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As someone who really loved your story and your the first ever IF creator im answering to .
I can’t describe how I like the magic system.
The. Characters ( Eleanor is adorable, Alice is interesting and pulls your interest immediately).
Now my 2 theories:
- !!<Alice Origins may be darker
So we know that Alice forced her gift to awaken such resulting to her adopted parents death . Could it be possible that it wasn't an actual accident? She did it on purpose . We learn how her adopted parents forced her to change her name to a modernized English one . She doesn't think much about them. Heck maybe she didn't do the same ritual as the pactbinder. Maybe the ritual is for her gift to awaken you have to sacrifice some one you love.
Maybe she wanted to give a middle finger to her bio parents , by accessing said magic . For them to regret abandoning her and know they will never have her back . >!!
- The Origin of the entity.
!!< A. It actually the light Bringer. AKA Lucifer. The mural showing that knight fighting the entity.
The six red stars symbolizing the 6 of the 7 sins bellow him . ( The First and Original) .
B. It is actually Cthullu. Im not deep on Lovecraft mythos but the basic premise is know is that when he awaken from his dreams, he will ends the universe into madness.
My barely very small clues? It described as having tendrils, the mural gives a love crafting horror vibe .
And he communicates threw dreams . >!!
- The 6 red Stars symbolism:
!! < Either like I said in theory 2A, it represents the 6 sins lower then the original.
Or the more obvious one . It symbolizing our group.
- Marcus : The soul
- Layla : Strength
- Eleanor: Knowledge
- Finlay: purity
- Alice: Magic ( im not sure About this one
) - PB : The one who will bind them. >!!
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Just so you’re aware your spoiler tags (if thats what the !! < is meant to do) have not worked at all.
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Is that lore discussion I smell?
A way too long Adelais discussion
Adelais seeking a path to awaken her Gift (or a Gift, to be more precise) is a plausible theory (and the one I’m inclined toward). Desiring to awaken her Gift to get a bit of revenge on her birth parents could have been implied by her response to the Pactbinder when asked how she felt about being sought out by de Mortemer family: “I think,” she says slowly, “that I am satisfied. It is a success. But a complicated one.”
Where I would diverge from your supposition is with regard to her adoptive parents. Any assumption about her feelings toward anyone is greatly hindered by her extreme reticence in expressing any personal feelings. When we approach the subject of her parents…well, I can only speculate that said reticence is higher still. Every time she is asked about sensitive matters, she employs either the usual stoicism, or the rarer joke (Adelais Style, of course). What she does give away ( a little hesitation here, a “yes and no” answer there) don’t dispel the mysteries surrounding such subjects by much.
This applies precisely to the matter of her two families. Even if she prefers her original name, the family associated with it isn’t that dear to her heart currently (though her statement quoted above implies that de Mortemer family still has a place in her heart). As for her adoptive family, she is even more tight-lipped. Whereas she opened up just the slightest bit when it came to her original family, with the Mortimers she’s very much tight-lipped. The closest thing to an opinion we get from Adelais about them comes in the form of a more-or-less serious question addressed to her, namely if she wanted to kill her adoptive parents. Her response? “Well, maybe just a little.”
Considering the recent nature of the events surrounding them, it is understandable. Nonetheless, If I were to take a position, I would say she didn’t intend to kill them. What we’ve seen so far of her doesn’t make me believe she would ever commit such an act. Of course, it depends on what kind of parents the Mortimers were (she did say she had little choice in the matter of keeping her name, after all). Still, the few signs we do get from her with regard to her adoptive parents push me to think their deaths were the result of her ambition vis-à-vis obtaining a Gift.
Or, if my mind is allowed to roam a little, it could be that her awakening was the result of the Mortimers. To die from Adelais’ premature awakening implies a degree of proximity, doesn’t it? Perhaps they were direct participants, either in a collaborative or forceful manner. My Doylist sense was tingling when reading Layla, Marcus and Eleanor’s opinions when talking about Witches and the death of the Mortimers. Or it’s just that they were close enough to Adelais to perish because they were trying to help/stop her. Oh well.
Nevertheless, she’ so secretive about such matters that many scenarios are possible. For someone who said she doesn’t have many secrets to reveal she sure has quite a few.
TL;DR Adelais is complicated.
I would add another instance of the number 6 being relevant to the Patron: Hightower’s number of…well, towers is six. As for the origin of our dear eldritch entity, I talked enough about it to not require another 5 pages of theorising. But I subscribe to the “Creator God” theory.
To add to your Azathoth parallel from the Cthulhu mythos; there is this statement the Patron gives us when asked about Its nature:“Your kind exist within only the narrowest aspect of Creation; a shadow dancing upon a cavern wall. We are an expression of all that lies beyond that aspect. The Form that casts the Shadow. The stone cast upon the surface of the lake. The beholder gazing upon the mirror. The slumbering godhead that dreams a dream of you.”
I don’t dare call It a sleepy fellow, since It likes to talk to us in Its ever cryptic fashion. But the signals are there. A Demiurge at the very least, I wager. Though It can be just an aspect of the One all the same (Holy Trinity style). If it looks like the God, acts like the God, and behaves like the God, then it probably is the God.
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What i can say . Lore stuff and theories are my butter and bread ( i literally skipped LoTR and the hobbit , for my first book because Children of Hurin was full of lore , tragedy and psychological analysis) . Though you make them more coherent then mine, my good sir 
.
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Thank you so much for the compliment - and welcome to the thread and forum!
I’m very glad that you enjoy the magic system, I really enjoyed designing it way back in October last year - I’m hoping C5 will be a really fun one for fans of that stuff, as we really get going with Gramarye classes for each subject. Some more adventurous PBs doing solo study and research might even be able to unlock a thing or two…
As always I’m going to stay quiet on theorizing, but I really enjoyed reading your thoughts (and Oreven’s!)
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October 4th Progress Update
Hi guys,
I almost forgot the fortnightly progress update, oh no! But I still have a couple of hours before it counts as officially Next Week, so I made it!
Another short mid-chapter-writing phase update, but all positive news.
- I’m deep into C5 now - as of writing I’m about 59k words in (+20k from last update).
- This means I only just met my 10k / week writing target, but I did meet it! And since I was ahead of my target in the previous fortnight, I’m a tiny bit ahead of where I thought I’d be at the start of October.
- I am now feeling very confident that chapter 5 will come out in 2026, though I’m still nervous about predicting an exact time. I’m starting to think that it might be a late November / early December event, though, rather than mid-late December.
As always - many thanks to the people who discuss Pactbinder on the COG forum, on Tumblr, or on other social media stuff, and who bring me feedback via any of those channels; I love hearing how you’re finding the story so far, and it’s super motivating for getting me back on track with writing when life is pulling me in other directions!
In particular, I’m deeply grateful for any constructive feedback that can help me to improve the story and your experience playing through it - especially thoughts on pacing, structure, characters (MC included), and sentence and prose flow.
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Big excited for chapter 5! But not in like an impatient “hurry up” way, just that where the story is headed has me very much giddy for what comes next.
I have so many theories on where certain story threads are going…
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Thank you! And no worries, I’m equally excited to get this one out. I think of each Pactbinder part as a shorter book unto itself, so it has been very interesting drafting what is in many ways the intro and buildup for ‘book 2’ of the story…
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