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Questioner

Simon vs. Urzaia

Will Wight

The Nye essence gives Simon the edge here, but only at first. Honestly, based on the way Simon fights, he wouldn't start out a duel against an unknown opponent with an all-out offensive blitz. And that would be his best chance.

Urzaia can take a hit from Mithra. His weapons can stand up to it, and his Soulbound Vessel can stop it as well. On top of that, he has the strength to (more or less) match Simon and enough reaction speed that he wouldn't be completely overwhelmed by Nye essence unless Simon pushed it to the limit from the very beginning. Plus, he's dueled a hundred times more people than Simon has.

Given that Simon starts the fight trying to be conservative with his powers and then ramps up, Urzaia wins. If Simon knows how much of a threat he is and treats him that way from the very beginning, Simon MIGHT take it.

Questioner

So if I loose my horse while training for the Blue Ribbon Race, and I accidentally run into a elderspawn instead of the usual skunks and such, what should I do?

Will Wight

Now, this depends entirely on what kind of Elderspawn you've encountered.

If it has the spindly legs of a spider and eyes on stalks, you just don't want to do anything interesting. As long as it has no reason to investigate you, it won't tear you apart and rearrange your organs alphabetically. You should respond in the most boring possible fashion: by turning and running away, screaming as loud as you can.

This is the response it expects, and it will be bored and turn away. Usually.

If it looks like a frog the size of a human infant, dripping with luminous slime and humming with a high-pitched sound you can barely hear, you should kill it immediately. If you succeed, you have saved us all from an outbreak.

If you leave it alone for too long, it will consume anything organic nearby: grass, leaves, roadkill, garbage, small animals and insects. When it has eaten many times its body weight, it will give birth.

The hordes of Othaghor have devastated many isolated communities. No one has seen these Elderspawn in centuries, which contributes to many ordinary citizens considering them myths. They are not.

chrisisbest197

When Calder first meets Ozriel in OKAK I kind of expected him to be a little more...angry. I mean Ozriel and the Abidan literally imprisoned Calder and all the other humans with these hellish monstrosities for all of eternity, with zero consideration for their suffering. And then on top of that Ozriel threatens to wipe them all out if the Elders escape, which by the way would not permanently kill the elders so the humans still get the short end of the stick.

I just expected Calder to at least be more mad about it. Kinda like how he stood up to the emperor regarding the prison.

Will Wight

You know, I actually wrote a draft of this conversation in which Calder lost his temper and challenged Ozriel more directly.

I changed it because it didn’t feel organic to me, when I read it in context. It felt like he was powerlessly raging against something he had no ability to influence.

I also thought it read more like what the younger version of Calder might have done than the current Calder who’s focused on saving the world from an imminent crisis.

But I did consider it! And I do think getting angry at the injustice could have been consistent with Calder’s character.

I just ultimately decided the reaction in the final version was MORE consistent. But you be the judge! (Or the Judge...)

chrisisbest197

It's not that I think it wasn't consistent, it was actually a very cool headed response to someone who is basically a god, which shows some growth. It's just that I think it would have been interesting.

It could have even been Calder just calmly pointing out how badly the Abidan fucked the people of Asylum lol. Also now that I think about it, it also seems like a similar situation to the incarnations in Travelers gate.

Will Wight

Hahaha yeah, it is similar to the Incarnations. I like that mechanic of people going crazy with power.

I agree that it would have been cool to have Calder point it out to Ozriel’s face, especially since Ozriel basically agrees.

Questioner

Have you thought about writing short stories about the Emperor and the Regents (from EE)? Could you give us a hint what these might be like?

Will Wight

I have! Especially while working on OKAK, I thought that might be something I would have liked to explore.   I would like to show the Elder War at its peak, when the Emperor and his companions had to go into territories warped and shaped by a Great Elder and convince slaves who had grown up with decades of indoctrination to follow fellow humans instead of the alien gods who own them.   I think that could be cool.

Questioner

Valinhall vs. Elders and Estyr Six

Will Wight

Valinhall vs. the Great Elders is an interesting matchup because it depends entirely on which one they're fighting. Against Nakothi, for instance, a full team of Valinhall Travelers would do even better than the Emperor and the Regents did. They would tear Nakothi apart with minimal losses.

Same goes for Kthanikahr or Othaghor. The Emperor WISHES he had an elite team like the Valinhall Travelers when he was going after Othaghor, because he basically just spawns endless minions.

Against Tharlos, on the other hand, the Valinhall Travelers would just have their minds warped and go insane, or they would be turned into ooze or a lamppost or something. He breaks all the rules. Urg'naut's shadows would be able to kill Simon without him ever being able to resist, and Ach'magut would arrange matters so that it never came to a direct confrontation.

Versus Estyr Six...I guess it depends on how many Valinhall Travelers show up. All thirteen could definitely do it, six would be pushing it, three wouldn't be enough.

Questioner

What about Yerin with Valinhall powers VS. Calder with Valinhall powers?

Will Wight

Man, that's a cool question.I'll still give it to Yerin, for the reasons stated above. Calder has training in fencing and experience using a saber, but it's not like he was trained as the disciple of a wandering swordsman.If they can use their previous powers, Calder being a Reader adds an interesting dimension to the Valinhall powers, but it doesn't touch having an Iron body on TOP of the ability to call steel, plus Striker and Ruler techniques.

Questioner

In Asylum could the emperor have "Awakened" himself if he wanted to?

Will Wight

Commonly accepted Reader theory in the Aurelian Empire states that human beings are already Awakened. That's what makes us sentient and aware, and why Intent doesn't seem to build up in our body as we age.

Questioner

Metaphysical Great Elders can rip one apart on the molecular level. You said the strongest Cradle character could solo them. Do they have defenses against that?

Will Wight

Yes, they do have a defense against that. At a certain point, your spirit gets strong enough that your madra gives you essentially complete control over your own body. You can resist forces that would affect you directly.

Also, at that level, they have access to powers other than madra that can fight against the Great Elders.

Questioner

What is the most powerful awakened item in EE that doesn't have great elder intent in some way

Will Wight

Estyr Six's Soulbound Vessels have no Elder Intent. They're the skulls of ancient, powerful Kameira that she defeated in battle.

The Magisters have sealed away a spear that combined the powers of multiple ice-controlling Kameira, but it was too difficult to use. Their tests blanketed an isolated Magister facility in snow for years.

TwiceTested

So, had this weird dream where I read a Will released a post saying he was "So sorry" to his fans. He was sorry because he was releasing Underlord and still hadn't released OK&K's.

Will Wight

That would be weird if I hadn’t already done it...

...five times.

By now, there’s nothing weird about that at all.

OrgnlDave

With people being divided over the characters...       Which book you choose first is 50/50       In a book that combined the two stories, if you read for a while and it switched POVs to one you liked, you could get into it       But you're stuck with a bad taste in your mouth if you didn't like the one you randomly picked and probably won't try the other

Will Wight

Yeah, I’d have no problem believing that, but it doesn’t seem like a ton of people tried one and not the other. I’m not trying to figure out why people didn’t like Elder Empire—because by and large they did, at least in comparison to my other series—but why they didn’t try it in the first place.       I have some operating theories, but idk if I’ll ever know.

Walter

How the emperor’s original companions are still alive if the emperor had to bind himself to the heart just to live longer, and why nobody considers them like great elders at this point if they did the emperor. 

Will Wight

The Emperor's original companions were asleep in coffins designed by the Emperor to prolong their lives. They are awakened only when the Empire is in great crisis, and then put back to sleep.

Jeremy the Other One

Who's your favorite character to write the persepctive of?

Will Wight

Bliss, from Elder Empire. She's really fun. Pure fun, just enjoyable.

From Cradle, it is Eithan, hands down. It is easy and he gets to do whatever he wants.

Questioner

Simon vs. Shera

Will Wight

I give this to Simon by virtue of super-speed, but in "Of Killers and Kings" we get to see Shera using both her newly Awakened knife AND Syphren at the same time. In that state, she'd be able to give him a fight, and it would depend on several specific factors (that I don't want to spoil for fear of revealing too many of her new powers).In summary: current Shera dies.

Questioner

How intelligent can Kameira become? Are there any that can Read intent?

Will Wight

Kameira aren't like sacred beasts--they can't actually develop human-level intelligence, though many stories and myths suggest that they do. They are powerful animals, and there are none that can Read Intent.

Questioner

Is there a limit to how many Vessels can be bound to a person?

Will Wight

This is a subject of debate and research in the Aurelian Empire. The Vessel gets its power from the Kameira or Elder parts that went into its creation, but it's connected to the Soulbound through Intent. Basically, it has to be connected to you personally in order for a bond to be born.

The Magisters would see any claims of a Soulbound with three Vessels very skeptically. They would never believe a report of a Soulbound with four.

But in theory, the limit is however many objects you see as part of your identity.

Questioner

What is the deepest point in the Aion Sea (that's the Elder Empire sea, right? Forgive this one's idiodicy if he's wrong.), how deep is it, and what is the most horrible creature that lives there?

Will Wight

The Vebross Pit is a legendary location at the bottom of the Aion Sea, passed down through Navigator tradition.

No one has ever explored it--there are many shallow locations in the Aion Sea that have never been explored, to say nothing of the true depths--but many Navigators employ Soulbound with water-scanning and scouting powers. All of them report impenetrable depths around a general location near the center of the Sea, and that area has been referred to as the Vebross Pit.

The ocean seems almost dead around the Pit, with no sightings reported of anomalous events, Kameira, Elderspawn, or anything but natural fish. Therefore, the Navigators once preferred routes over the Pit.

But that only lasted a short time.

Navigator ships began to go missing. This is not in itself too unusual, but when it continued for three or four years and started to cost the Guild money, the Guild Head sent out an expeditionary force to investigate the Pit.

The Witnesses accompanying the expedition returned reporting a phenomenon that happened at night. As the moon rose, a vast humanoid face seemed to rise from the depths. It grew closer and closer, until the captain of their vessel realized that the face was big enough to cover the ocean for miles.

Their force escaped with no losses, and from then on, the Vebross Pit was classified by the Navigator's Guild as an Unknown Danger Zone. A captain plotting a course through such a zone must leave all Guild assets behind, as they are likely to be lost.

Questioner

Emperor vs. Emperor

Will Wight

The Aurelian Emperor COULD win this, but only if he had time to prepare. If they're both tossed into an arena without warning, the Blackflame Emperor takes it. His weapon and his sacred arts are always with him.

Walter

How is Reading advanced? Is it like on Cradle?

Will Wight

Reading isn't trained like the sacred arts because the magic system is a lot harder to quantify than the sacred arts. A madra technique literally starts to crystallize in the practitioner's soul as a binding, so there are measurable and observable effects. Reading is much more difficult to boil down to a tangible process.

Mierin

If the Emperor had been born on a world like Cradle where he could actually train and develop instead of having to hold back the Elders, how high would he or someone with his will/strength/etc. have been able to advance?

Will Wight

He certainly COULD have reached Monarch, but most of those with the potential to reach Monarch fail to do so. It requires so much luck and unique opportunity that it's impossible to guarantee anyone with reach Monarch, no matter how driven and/or talented. In the Blackflame Empire, he would have almost certainly become a powerful Underlord. With the right resources and chances, he could have potentially left the Empire and ascended to Overlord or better outside.