Sorry it just confused me xD, its a really good story 
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I really enjoyed the demo so far! Not gonna lie, I’m upset Callum turned out to be a complete asshole even though I knew it was coming, especially cause I chose the “we were in love” backstory. I’m definitely hoping for an explanation of why he betrayed MC at some point 
I definitely found it strange that he disappeared when shit started to hit the fan on the day of the festival… was he one of them even back then?! I was also kinda surprised by how TRASH of a person he was back then too though lowkey. Like when he used the same line to convince his lil girlfriend to go to the festival as he did MC and when he made fun of … Frederick? & broke that weird thing he gave MC… Little shithead. Plus insisting MC go with him and his lil girlfriend… it was almost like he WANTED to see that conflict. Maybe he liked knowing he was at the center of it? Maybe I’m just mad at him? Idk. But either way, not cool, Cal, not cool 
In other news, Cortez is an ass, but for some reason, I still like him lol. Valerie gets on my nerves with all her rambling too but he doesn’t have to be so mean about it. Sheesh. I mostly see her as kinda like… an overexposed kid at a theme park or something lol.
Anyway. I hope you update soon!
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Well…I have good news for you.
Today is the first day of school in my hometown
Truly a day for celebration.
Today, we celebrate the intellectual invigoration of our imminent youths; the judicious building of their character, that they might become more seasoned adults; the sublime forgery of bonds that will last a lifetime and—
…Yeah, no, I’m screwing with you. School sucks.
(Also, nobody in my hometown is actually going to school, because, you know, pandemic. So there’s that.)
But it’s okay! When the trials and tribulations of school life get you down, everyone knows the perfect escape, the panacea of the soul, the one thing that can make everyone feel better:
Fake school.
Instead of studying real textbooks to study topics relevant to real life, you could be reading fictional textbooks about the minutiae of my very arbitrary magic system! Instead of dealing with real life relationship drama, you get the privilege of jumping in the middle of drama between emotionally unstable fictional characters! And instead of being a social outcast in real life, you could pretend to be a literal ghost incapable of being held, understood, or truly loved!
Escapism in its purest form.
(Also no I don’t know why schools start in the middle of the week over here, it’s weird.)
In other news:
I now have a Ko-fi! Just in case, you know, you feel like I deserve money for disappearing for two months and then coming back with an update that is literally about school and drama.
Or if you actually like my work in general for some reason. (???)
And now some info on the update itself! This update contains a hefty (but not record-breaking) 22,000 words, including a ~5100-word textbook—much like the one from the previous subchapter—detailing the twelve schools of magic, as well as a few other magic disciplines. (And for those of you who aren’t into the worldbuilding, don’t worry—this will be the last one until Chapter III-2.) In total, this brings the total word count up to ~165,000 words.
One thing that I think is worth disclaiming right off the bat here is that this update is relatively light on choices (or at least it felt like it while writing; I didn’t actually go through and count them). There are a lot of character introductions and conversations between NPCs in II-2, and not as much action or direct interfacing on the MC’s part; a lot of that is being saved for II-3. In the meantime, I hope you like lots of dialogue!
Speaking of II-3, the next update is tentatively planned for mid-September—I have a specific date I’m shooting for, but as always, I have no way to predict when or to what extent my work ethic will crash and burn for several months for no particular reason. So take that with a grain of salt!
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TAMW MC tried, but failed, to ghost punch Cortez. I was even gonna be honorable and do it to his face 
Speaking of ghost punching Cortez, out of curiosity, do you know what the max relationship stats we can have with him as of now? Curious if he’s just that difficult or if I’ve made my MC too prickly to bond with him lol…
So… Camilla might be shady. But also, that doctor… also potentially shady since we didn’t get more details about the experiment…
At this point, I pretty much only trust Cortez… I just feel like he’s too much of an asshole to be sneaky/scheming.
Meanwhile, Valerie is taking out her anger on me and like, I get the frustration but I was also wishing for a “Oh, fuck you, I didn’t ask to be here” type response cause like… ma’am, you tethered MC’s soul to your body. My MC was ready to die. Look I to the light. Perish. Whatever. Now you gon act like MC is taking advantage?! IM JUST TRYNA DIE (again, kinda?) IN PEACE 
Saw some typos here and there but didn’t keep track or anything for this first read. Will read again sometime soon and point em out.
Still loving this.
Still like Cortez even though he’s a little broody mcdouche. I’m thinking he’s kinda like an onion so we just gotta wait until the layers start getting peeled…
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Fun fact: I never finished reading that book that you can read when Valerie is asleep because halfway through the book I already feel like dying.
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I haven’t commented on this one yet so I just wanted to say first off that this is one of my favorite WIPs and I’m also deeply in love with Callum 
I know he’s not an RO (maybe?!) but he’s my honorary favorite (like ever) I just have a soft spot for jerks and he’s the best at it 
Anyway, as you already know I am loving this WIP! Its sent me on such an emotional rollercoaster that every time it updates I get weirdly nervous I love that the characters are all so real and flawed and gives everyone such intense opinions lol and ofc the lore and worldbuilding are incredibly in depth. Honestly, this is the only story where I actually read every word of the info dumps (mostly so I can overthink every sentence and convince myself that a certain someone is the secret RO, but it also really is interesting)
I really enjoyed this update, lots of things for me to read far too much into while I eagerly wait for the next one 
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Loved the update and that if we do read the books, that Valerie remembers that and while waiting actually gives us the book we had been reading before. I have to say, that at first I thought her very annoying but she definitely grew on me and is now among my favourite characters!
Also found a small mistake in the scene with Cortez and Valerie in her room, when Cortez silences her, MC has the option to successfully persuade Cortez to lift the spell to let her speak again, but after he finished his talk with MC, he lifts the spell from Valerie again, even though he already did.
I am not very good with determine spoilers, so I blurred it, just in case 
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Arrrgghh, I feel so bad for Valerie. I absolutely love her, but my mc is kind of cold and keeps being unintentionally rude to her. Which sucks, because I want her to be happy, but my mc could care less. 
Maybe I’ll do another playthrough with a nicer mc.
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I’ve been polling my Discord followers on their stat values and the highest stats I’ve seen so far for Cortez are 22 Fondness and 51 Respect (on separate playthroughs). The former stat is definitely meant to go up pretty slowly at this point in the game, but it is possible to raise the latter up a decent amount.
Well, that’s why they’re optional!
Seriously, though, you can absolutely feel free to skip 'em (I won’t be offended!). There’s nothing in these books that is necessary to understand the overarching story; they’re very much written for people with an explicit interest in learning more about worldbuilding/lore details that aren’t otherwise significant to the plot.
Unfortunately, you are correct. The secret RO is Alan Cortez.
I looked over the scene in question, and I’m actually not sure why this is happening for you. Picking the dialogue option in question should flip the valerie_hear temp, which later gets checked to determine if Valerie needs to be un-silenced or not. A quick test on my end seemed to work as intended, so…hm.
If anybody else gets this error or has some insight into why it’s happening, let me know?
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Hehe,I’d rather give a ghost kick in his crown jewels…
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Lol when you’re killed by your best-friend (or possibly lover) in a brutal way 800 years ago, everyone is suspicious… Don’t you think?!?
WoW 
,for me Valerie is a weird a$s naive character…
What 'bout Camilla Arcturus?!?
Oi, @CorvusWitchcraft nicely done, but don’t overwork yourself…
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Huh, replayed the part as well and now it was fine. No idea what caused it the first time, but all good now! Sry for the false alarm. Perhaps it was just a mismatch with my browser or smth.
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Huh… Really hope Camilla Arcturus is not the leader or something to that animation magic using terrorist group…
After all she’s supervising the crackpots that call themselves Prometheans and she clearly said that she approves and follows the same idea…
AND she has the animation magic medallion that killed MC which was used by Callum…
And maybe that creep (maybe Dr.Know-it-all) was behind building the animation magic bombs…
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[whistles] Lot of thought went into that magic system.
Also, my PC now cannot help but think that mages are very fond of the letter “W”.
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Too late. 
Well, worthy witches and wizards of the whilom world were.
Modern mages are a bit more sensible about terminology…but they still respect the wonted ways.
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great game though sometimes the narrative moved against the kind of character that I was playing as
example: you feel a twinge of regret at killing Callum. *me looking at all the past choices I made… “Uhhhh no!!!..”
Sometimes it feels like being railraoded away from what I’m trying to do with my character.
with that out of the way, this is super detailed, the writing superb and the characters interessting and worth getting invested to (calling it now Charlotte was or probably has the potential of becoming really close to us, possibly in a romantic sense of fashion. Which might expalin why we the MC don’t want to remember her or have difficulty. And I bet Callum has a hand in the shierkers arrival that day or atleast profited off of it someway. That guy is wrong in a fundamental sense. Either a sociopath or a psychopath I can’t put my finger on him but he is really scummy.)
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I’ll take a look. There are definitely a few inconsistencies with the way the MC’s relationship with Callum is portrayed in the prologue; originally, it was meant to be a close relationship by default, before I decided to implement a dynamic where the MC doesn’t necessarily like him, despite the longevity of their working relationship. Obviously, there are still remnants of the former version.
Callum is more of a narcissist than a psychopath/sociopath. He is capable of caring about other people, including the MC.
He just cares about himself more.
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One thing that I feel a disconnect with is the way my MC reacts to the “authorities” in the modern world. Cortez seems to intimidate my MC and my MC seems awed by the others at the school.
My MC in reality wouldn’t feel that way. Respectful of their skills and their learning, but my MC should be intimidating these people. a 900 year ghost is almost uniquely rare. These people are the ones that would know what it takes for a ghost to survive so long… if they see my MC evolving, it should scare them to the bone.
But instead, my MC acts like a 1st year among graduate students and such. It just does not make sense to me.
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Can you be more specific about what you’re referring to here? It is definitely a concern of mine that the MC sometimes feels too passive—particularly compared to Cortez—but I’m not sure exactly what you mean when you say the MC seems intimidated. Is it the underlying fact that they often submit to his authority, or is it an attitude/narration problem? Both?
It’s definitely been a struggle figuring out how to balance the defined trajectory of the plot—which Cortez is currently steering—with player agency. I do want there to be some feeling of listlessness in these early chapters, since the MC has spent so long doing nothing and feeling disconnected from the world (I personally do not feel that it makes sense for them to immediately get back in the swing of things and remember how to best take command of the situation), but I also don’t want people to feel like the MC is completely impotent. If that’s a problem, I’m open to suggestions on how to improve that.
This part I’m not sure I agree with. Firstly, most of these characters don’t even know how old the MC actually is; even Cortez might not know the full story, depending on what you chose to divulge in II-1.
More to the point, though, it doesn’t take any special ability for a ghost to exist for as long as the MC has. It’s unusual for a ghost to last this long without decaying, but generally speaking, such an occurrence would inspire wonder or curiosity more than fear. Keep in mind that a ghost, on its own, is essentially powerless; it’s the MC’s bond with Valerie that allows them to fight back at all. And so far, the MC has not displayed any abilities that the most powerful mages you’ve encountered—Cortez, Rowan, Camilla—would register as a particular threat.
Well, my rationale for this is that the MC is being thrust into a world that they don’t really know anything about, with players on both sides that have abilities that they don’t fully understand or know the full extent of. As far as their understanding of magic goes—which is among the most relevant knowledge bases and skillsets in the current situation—the MC more or less is a 1st year among graduate students. Chapter II’s main purpose, besides introducing Camilla and the Prometheans, is to give the MC (and the player) enough of a foundational understanding of the magic world to participate in decision-making later on.
That said: I am definitely interested in figuring out ways to keep the MC from feeling too “green” in general. Again, I’m open to suggestions on how to alleviate that, if it’s bothering people.
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@CorvusWitchcraft – I’m not trying to dictate to you; please take my feedback as from my unique (and likely flawed) perspective.
There is a lot for me to digest, most of which I will address later, but I will attempt to lay the groundwork here with the following:
I get that the MC would be unsure of executing what they want to through Valerie’s link and I comprehend that as a magic user, my MC is green and at a novice level at best, and so is not a threat in this regard…
The disconnect I have is a bit more complex: the MC was a knight commander in a total war scenario for the majority of their life, dealing with life and death on a daily basis and convincing powers such as a king/queen to follow their lead.
Not only that but my MC lived through the Renascence, most likely following some of the greatest minds of that age in her pursuit of her goal to get back to her old life. And this is just one of the ages… no doubt, my MC hung around Edison and Telsa and other industrial age geniuses and perhaps leaders of import over the centuries.
Is Cortez so much more of a personality than De Vinci, is Camilla the rebel Galileo was? Does Cortez match up to the Pope’s Inquisitors?
My MC lacks the perspective that she should have when dealing with everyone … they would be in awe at one level, dealing with the magic and such … so going through the portal and experiencing the inside of the tower felt well written and fleshed out to me.
On the other hand – the stupid games Cortez plays when interrogating the prisoner with my PC would be something my MC would laugh and be totally unfazed about… instead she is like a kid detective playing with an overindulgent adult looking over her shoulder… and that is where the disconnect is. I understand Cortez not seeing the reality of the MC yet, but my MC would still have hundreds of years worth of experience to see through the games there.
I hope this helps. I’ll be back with more once I get caught up elsewhere.
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