The Fall by Ryan Cahill

Chapters: Whole book, it's short. 

The Fall is a novella best known as the prequel to Ryan Cahill's Of Blood and Flames and second-best known (by psychopaths) as the sequel to the exact same novel. 

We've chosen to be adherents to the Svidarya path, and hot damn is it paying off. This book is a genuine banger -- Four POVs, four tragedies, and zero farm boys preparing for a quaint harvest festival. 

We've got Auntie Alvira, a goon squad of Achyron Knights, a dragon egg rescue mission, and Eltuar, the most suggestible man in all of Epheria, who committed genocide for reasons he absolutely has not thought through. 

We can't wait to see what Cahill is cooking next. Follow along, and please send us any suggestions at booktwoisbetter@gmail.com! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Water. Fire.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

And the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

What the hell are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 0:15

You'll get it. It's a bit. It's what us it's what us editors do. You wouldn't understand.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Oh, it's just an editor joke. You wouldn't know, host. Just an inside. You're just the facey guy. You're just the Spoilers for of Blood and Fire. We forgot to discuss the fact that the Fayed let Kalen go when he found him with the hatched egg.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

What's up with that?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

It seems like a bigger deal. You just kind of let it slide.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

It seems like you should kill it then, right? Like don't report back to you know, you're sometimes your boss, like, check in with me, but other times like get the work done, you know?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

The one counter thought I had, because I did think about it, and I was like, maybe Feynmorton and crew are actually really just greedy and they're doing some villain malpractice, and they're like, we're gonna turn him to our side. He's the last newest dragonborn.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

That's a classic. Alright. What are we? We're we're one minute in. That's a classic Wheel of Time move. I was gonna say it's a classic Sith Lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

It's a Sith Lord.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

It's a you were supposed to destroy the Sith Anakin. Yeah. Another news. Um on Crypto King Island in Tomodachi life to Living the Dream. Ooh, excellent. Um How's Hadrian? How's Trey Anastasio? Elphaba and Trey Anastasio are in love. No. And they moved in together. Hadrian, somehow, most charismatic guy on the island, I gave him a set of maracas, and he's just shaking those things out in the park. Um, and we're trying to set up Peter Ansbach from Goose and uh Glinda the Good.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

This is a sneak peek of what would have happened to Hadrian if he actually found peace in his first negotiations with the Cielsen.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

If he became the spice trader?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah, if he actually went with Janon and traded spices.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah. This is a cot yeah, the opposite of a cautionary tale. Don't pursue genocide, pursue maracas.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Give up on your dreams. Find a nice woman, settle down.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Settle down. Stop trying to change the world. Let the world change you. Yeah, man. Preach. Zet. Try to figure out if there's any wisdom there. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Speaking of speaking of wisdom, uh, I discovered a new pet peeve uh last night. Wow, it's been a really busy week. Which is uh singers explaining in too rich of detail the genesis of their songs before they sing them.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Who did this to you?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

This was a a young woman with a very good voice named Xenadelphia, who is some like TikTok singer that Angela took me to.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Who's actually from Philadelphia?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

She is from Philadelphia, yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Um This is a song about how my grandma got blown up by a bazooka.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Rappy my granny. Uh the she okay, to her credit, very good singer. It was a pretty fun show. But this girl is like 23 years old, and she started every song with like a full speech about this. Song is about when I was anxious in my project group in college and I had a crush on a boy, and I was really wondering how it was gonna work out. It's just like, yo, you have not have enough lived experience. Yeah, tell me what your song is. And then the other one was like, This is I was feeling really bad last year because I thought my whole life was already behind me. I'm like, shut the fuck up. You are 18.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

I'm sitting here so tired because it's a weeknight, and your life is very much in front of you. Mine is dead.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

I will say, for an older gentleman as I am, compared to these Gen Zers, uh, I went to two shows on weeknights this week. Pretty proud of myself.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Kind of incredible.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Shout out DJ Tony holding it down at the Boston Nova Civic Club. Woo.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Does Tony listen? No, he doesn't listen. No, of course not. Okay, that's fine. Not over friends, too. Um yeah. I'm going back to Xenadelphia. As a a 34-year-old white man, I was watching an interview with David Foster Wallace. As one does. And yeah, yeah, I was late. I was high. And uh he said he did the opposite of Xenadelphia. He was sort of talking about his books, and he's like, man, me just like explaining what these about these are about really feels dumb. And I think maybe just read the book.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

That's kind of how I felt. I'm like, let me listen to your song, and then I'll try to figure out what it means.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

And it's I don't know, man. I've written a little bit, and it's like usually, usually like the themes of a book are pretty simple, but they're given some color by like the characters and the context and all the action and shit. But if we but just saying, like, this is a story about friendship. It's like, all right, well, I don't think I'm doing that justice here.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Imagine like Dylan explaining the plot of Hurricane before he sang all eight minutes of hurricane. Just like this is the story.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

There is a boat on Lake Superior called the Edmund Fitzgerald. It was 1892. It was a big storm. You wouldn't think there'd be a storm that big on a lake, but there was. Anyways. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Um anyway, where book two is better. This is the fall.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Five 530 in. It's not that bad. We've done worse. It's in the time. You clicked it.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

And it's this, I feel it's the third episode we've done on our boy Cahill. So I doubt anyone's jumping in here.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

So maybe tolerance for the Well, unless they are unless they're in the um Oh shit. Not Faronseal or whatever order we're in.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

What's the name of the other order?

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Uh Falonseer? Falanseer is what we're in. Felonseer is what we're on. Is it like Savaldier or something like that? Yeah, yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Okay, I'm asking because I actually have a placeholder in my summary to make a joke about this wall deer.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Uh is it is it because it's literally just one book changed with the other?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

I was thinking about that again.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

I will I'll give the Cahill audience some credit. Uh, they feel I feel like if they read Will of the Mini, they'd understand what chapter they were in.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Well, they can read. Yeah. I'm convinced. I bet you couldn't find a an audience with a higher like audiobook to paper book ratio, Will of the Mini. Because I'm convinced almost none of those people can read. Again, no disrespect to iLinkedin.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

No, we had a lot of fun. On the other hand, the Cahill subreddit has been lovely. Unbelievable. We did our little announcement post today. This is they were recording, and everybody was so nice. Thank you for all the kind words if you're listening.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah. Regardless of how we feel about the rest of the series, we feel great about you guys.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah. Number one in our books.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

I'm I'm feeling real confident about me loving this series. Oh, yeah. This is uh let's let's do a little bit of a little bit. This book slapped. This was great, and I'm so glad I read it seconds.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Just like four tight 20-ish page sections. Yeah. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Read one of them like multi-POV.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Who knew it could be a thing? Great. Yeah. Not one genocidal 600-year-old freak who loves poetry in Rome. Just four different people. Crazy. Um, yeah, this was sick as hell. Um and uh yeah, I can't imagine reading this without the context from book one. Although I'm sure people have enjoyed it without, but uh yeah, this was so sick just to get like the barred version of this story and then to go back and get it in like full 3D IMAX.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Yeah, and I love the novella. I mean, I was thinking like, could this fit in as a an extended prologue to book one? Because book one's not that long, I mean like 450 or something, and this this would just attack another 80-90 on it. But uh, it is it feels too long to be a real prologue. So I actually like I really like this path that we chose, and uh yeah, it just added a bunch of fun action to the whole story and a bunch of historical context.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, it is like a cool thing that I wonder if it's something he's only really able to do because he was self-published and like has this direct line to his audience. Yeah. Um, I know Sanderson does it too, like he puts out the novellas, but I feel like or maybe that's just a great thing about fantasy is like you have just this giant canvas and you can just pop out like a 90-page novella to flesh things out. But um this is like such a fun thing that he gave away for free. This is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

That's what I was gonna say. He gave it away for free. Apparently, as I was kind of looking through the series order, I think there's at least one, if not two, other novellas. Yeah. Um so it's it's great. We're just gonna go big book, little book.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, and I saw they're doing the um broken binding like special edition of the fall is coming out soon. I was on Cahill's Instagram and he showed uh a video of him signing like 600 books in two hours or some shit. Sando mode. I think it's disrespectful to Brandon Sanderson's audience that he signs autographs while podcasting. He is incredibly can you not give us your brain for fucking 30 minutes a week?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

It does, it does put off this vibe that like I literally don't have time to eat, you peasants. Like, there's no time in my week.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

And there's no way it's not affecting you, right? Right. You're losing definitely five, maybe ten percent of your brain power by signing, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Just by by and also just the when you see the volume at which he's signing, it does to me, it would cheapen it a little bit. No, again, no disrespect. It's also I would love a sign Brando Sando, but it's not like a collector's item the way a rare signature would be.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

So you're so you're more a fan of the$10,000 edition of Red Rising. Yes. Yes. Completely agree, completely agree. Capitalism is here for a reason. Bingo. And that's why we love Sun Eater. Hey, um do is it summary time?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Yeah. Um, would you like to read our uh message from our sponsor?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

We get another another corporate sponsor this week. Yep. Thank God we can feel it. Just send that over to you. Can feed my cats this week. This summary is brought to you by Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll, thousands of shows about the power of friendship for people who have given up on making any Crunchyroll. And with that, we bring you a summary of the fall. The Fall is a novella best known as the second book in the Felonseer Reading Order for Ryan Cahill's The Bound and the Broken, and second best known as the first book in the Svaldier reading order for Ryan Cahill's The Bound and the Broken, which is not endorsed by the Book Two is better reading order committee. The Fall is the story of a hymn, the fall of the order at the hands of the chronically misunderstood mage and gentleman, Feynmortem. Unlike of Blood and Fire, which begins with three farm boys getting ready for some sort of quaint little harvest festival, the far the fall begins with armies of dragons puking fire under a blood moon while cooked out Urax ransack a city. The novel is broken Novella is broken into four parts. The first follows the leader of the order, Alvira, a badass warrior lady with a surprisingly country name. After a bit of ass kicking, Alvira and her dragon meet a tragic end at the hands of Elven Traitor and gullible idiot Eltawar. The section second section follows Brother Captain Kalinvor of the Knights of Archeon, who are a private police force acting under divine mandate. It's nice to finally see my own politics reflected in fantasy. Without blabbering things, Kalinvor and the rest of the KOA jump through a portal to defend the Order, get most of their people killed, then portal jump back home. Good work, fellas. Corin, one of the Order's Dragonriders, is the subject of section three. She gets sent on an Operation She gets sent on Operation Rescue Dragon Eggs, which is a tough assignment because all the eggs were already smashed when she went out to rescue them. One of her fellow Geralades with the very fantasy name Dylan loses his dragon in a tussle with a fade, Eltuar and his big chungus of a dragon, Helios. Dylan can't take the pain of losing his dragon, so he tells Koran to escape so he can die in a blaze of glory, and die he does. Eltuar is the subject of the final section. We are treated to an examination of what must must be the most suggestible mind in all of Epherior. He's feeling kinda bad about killing all of his former friends, but keeps assuring himself that the means justify the ends. Ends justify the means. What am I talking about? Do the means justify the ends? If I'm having a good time killing people, is that okay? Okay. Anyways, back to the summary. The Dralid cannot be subject to the orders of snivelling princes and petty kings. They must be liberated so they can bring true peace to the land. And then Feinmortem commits genocide. The end. Yay.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Fun stuff. The means do justify the ends.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

The means always justify the it's it's not it's not about the destination, man. It's about.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I hadn't thought of that. Journey before destination is the means justify the ends. It is. It truly is. Sanderson, answer for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

I always knew there was something wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Alright, so which had Atelier? Done with this shit?

unknown 13:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Dude, episode four, we get the whole Atelier town. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What a reveal.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Listen, you've seen someone shop for a for a wand. Have you seen someone shop for a pen?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

And okay, here's my biggest gripe with the episode. And I know there's many, but I wanted more hog like I wanted more shopping and whatever Dagon Alley experience that we got from Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Go wild with it.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, with all the wands floating around and choosing their person. This was just a dude milking a tree. He did, he did maybe have sex with the tree. And uh for any listener who has no idea what we're talking about, I don't care. I'm having a great time.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

No, I feel like the point. Watch Witch Have Telier on um our corporate sponsor, Crunchyroll's website. Wow. There you go. Okay, the fall, folks. Let's do it, baby. Should we start at the start? Yeah, I think so. Elvira!

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yo, Elvira, we hardly know her, but what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

She made quite an impression.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

She really did. She really did. Um I felt betrayed. I felt offended.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

I was betrayed. Yeah. Yeah. Um well, I know this isn't probably what is like first in order priorities, but goddamn, was it fun seeing Asen and Farda? You mean Officer? Officer Farda. Officer Ferda. Officer Ferda. They're old as fuck.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

For the this is 400 years before book one. Uh they're very old.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

That's nuts that Kaelin and and Dan and Wrist have been traveling around the world with two 400-year-old men. And they look good. They look good. They shouldn't be hanging out with 18-year-olds. Go find go play Mahjong.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Oh, did you see they're coming out with a Mahjong movie with like an all non-Asian cast?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Is it like the emoji movie? Yeah, it's like by Hasbro or whatever. Is it about people who play Mahjong or is it is it Mahjong tiles with personalities?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Dude, I don't know. I need to see. I just learned about this last night. I haven't done my research, but.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

The Queen's Gambit 2. Now freaky looking, Anya Taylor Joy picks up Mahjong.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

That's uh that's that's really gonna offend some communities. What? A non-Asian Mahjong cast? Get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah. Man, if you thought Scarlett Johansson being in whatever the fuck anime adaptation was bad. Who would you like? Who'd be the worst white person to cast in a mahjong movie?

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Dave Franco.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

No. Wait, why would you say Dave Franco when you could have said James Franco?

SPEAKER_01 16:53

I I kind of pretend James Franco doesn't exist at this point. Man.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

There were signs. His creepy NYU professor self. We should have known sooner.

unknown 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Mm-hmm. Anyways. True that. Back to Elvira.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Elvira. Uh interesting facts we learn in the first couple of pages with her. One is uh Dralids cannot detect blood magic, uh, although they can detect other forms of magic. So fades and the like are quite difficult opponents for them. And also spirit magic, we learn kind of our first usage of it can soothe emotions.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, what's up with that?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

But it is spirit just gonna be the like well, that's what they're using for healing.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, healing, or I think the s uh like a soother like in the Cosmere.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah. Yeah, that'll be interesting. I wonder fingers crossed for some good uh lower corner with a wrist in magic school in book two. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be great. Um it's also I feel like I can already see that Kyle's got a pretty good imagination for like applying his own magic system. And also just like this this book is so much wilder and freakier and more fantastical than the first one, and it just makes me way more excited for the rest of the series because he seeing him like unconstrained here um was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

So yeah, it's such a fun fast-forward of what we can imagine the characters in book one to be at their the full heights of their power. Like we get this flashback to the ancient powers, and yeah, his creativity is amazing. Like the earth magic is OP, he's splitting people in half with caverns that they create in the grounds, like lightning shooting everywhere. It's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, just turning the floor to mud, then freezing it again. Yeah, I would be pranking people 24-7 with that. Just some three stooges.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Oh, sorry you broke your shins. Banana peel, banana peel. Oh no, is there a rift beneath your bed? It's it it feels somewhat limitless. I think that's where I'm interested to see how he develops it more practically. Is it's like the only limit right now is your energy, you know. But yeah. If if you're well, I don't know, if your uh fitness age is is young, like or you just have unlimited power, like what's what's the deal?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

But don't give R don't give Dan unlimited magical power. I kinda w I want him to have I want him to have some cool powers. Yeah. Alright, maybe hook him up a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Um, okay. Any I feel bad that I don't have a tremendous amount to say about Elvira's section, other than just like a nice introduction to the order. Um she seemed cool, wish you were still wish she were not dead.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yep. I think the only couple big things, right? Uh we get a little lore corner about the gods of the universe. Yeah. Uh I will read the bad boys. Varen and Haraya, mama and papa, gods. Uh Elyara and Archeon. Akira Acheron. This is I I wanted to read this so that people get mad at me for it. Wait, is it Archeon?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

It's Archion. Acheron. What did I say in the summary? I don't know. Oh, I blew it. I'm sorry. I went from memory.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Acheron also is the ship in Master and Commander that HMS Surprise ends up entangled with.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Fun fact. It always comes up, doesn't it? It's a great movie. Uh Fish and Master and Commander are our two most reference other media empires.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yeah, they're fantastic. Uh great. That's the Maiden and the Warrior Gods, uh, Hephaisir and Neron, the Smith and Sailor, and Efialtir, the traitor god, who betrayed the others at the dawn of creation.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

What was Efialtir's deal before he was the traitor god? I tried to figure it out, but in this book it just says He was the cobbler god, but really went nuts.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

It said that he betrayed them at the dawn of creation. That's all we get.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

So he's just bad from the jump.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah. Yeah. I thought there was gonna be like a fallen. So did mom and papa make a traitor god? I dude, there was just like eight statues. I'm reading as much into it as I can.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

I don't want you guys to get too comfortable, Shepherd God. We made a traitor god. He's gonna fuck with you.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Um, but anyway, Alvira walks into the big room with the big statues.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Oh, Barbara.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yep, and figures out that her boy has betrayed the council and murdered them and hung them up like puppets from the ceiling, which is really wild.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

So, I got a question. Did El Tuar hang him up from the ceiling? It seemed like that feels inconsistent with the El Tuar we saw later. I don't know, man. He does a lot of murder. He does, but I feel like he wouldn't showboat, you know? He's like, We're doing this to fix the order, we're gonna bring, you know, peace to the land. But that's Doesn't mean human chandelier. But he hates the council.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

This was specifically the council.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Anti-bureaucracy.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

What did they do to him? I have this question for the whole thing. Like, what is so bad that a few bureaucrats did?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

You kept sending me on side quests.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

I know. Actually, he does break it down. He's like, they invaded a country just for its gold. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

But well, I don't know. You made me bring you 15 iron ingot for no reason. Yes. Um. Yeah. Well, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Question. Did you just think about lightsaber duels during the Soul Blade battle?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

No. I did not.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

They're different colors and they pull like pull them out like a fucking lit up line.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

You probably should have got a little mace windu purple.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Yeah. The bad guys are red and black. The good guys are blue. You know?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yeah. And some of the boys have green, a lot of green stuff, which has always been my favorite. I was always a big Qui-Gon guy, obviously. Rest in peace. Um, yeah, and the green rift. That was really that was really doing it for me. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Um that's pretty much it. All right. Let's move on. Let's move on. Brother Captain Calendvor of the Knights of Akuron. What a bunch of masochistic little freaks. These guys simply did not get the job done. Pain is the path to strength. Yeah. Why did it do why did they have like 14 sayings like journey before destination? They just run in spouting quotes, scramble around for 10 minutes and then dip. I'm gonna come in, quote the art of war, get killed, ripped out. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

It is so good. It's like they accomplished nothing. It's also aren't there like fucking 12 of them? Yeah, no, it's it's not a I his squad is just like 10. And then I think half of them just get killed brutally.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Akuran. If you want to make you gotta make more than 10 of your guys if you really want them to matter. Those sigils are hard to make, man. For a god. You think it'd be a little easier, but surely 10 people can defeat all evil.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yeah. I want to know, I want to see their hideout, this like cave they live in before they hop through the rift.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Dude, it was the this is the most superhero fantasy has ever seen to me. I just felt like they were in the bad cave with the big screen, like, knights, shall we assemble and say our sayings?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

But it was like a superhero a la like invincible where everything goes wrong and the superheroes all die.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

I here's my prediction for the re for um book two. Uh they're still gonna be licking their wounds from this. Like they're gonna be like too ashamed to show themselves in public.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

The one that we've seen in book one is not cool. He's still not a cool guy. It's like your your typical dude cosplaying a knight, like a knight in shining armor.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah, is he here's your question. Is that guy like a full ass member, or do they have acolytes who are like, I am I'm a follower of the guys with sentinel armor?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

It would be funny if instead of it actually being like a continued secret cult that has the power of gods and stuff, it's just like dudes cosplaying.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

He's got a pajama pants and a cape. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Mom said I was big and brave and strong.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Oh, don't mind him. He just thinks he's a knot of Acuram. We let him do. He drinks out of drinks out of a bowl like a dog. His name's Braden. It's Braden. Just let him be. Um fun.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

My fun part of this is we meet the blood marked, the Urach freaks.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I'm so into blood runed Urax. Yeah. Big boys. Dream dream blunt rotation, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Oh whoa.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, those guys are like a lot stronger than the ones Kalen, Dan, and Rist killed in the forest. Yeah, these are our crushing machines. Who be making those? The god. The god directly makes them.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

So that's the funny thing, is that even like so spoiler towards the end here, but Fain Morton at the end is like, yeah, we don't even control those rocks. They control that stupid weird god. Yeah. I'm confused about the relationship because in part one, Eltoir wants to get like reborn via the bad god. Right. But they don't like the creatures of the bad god, but they work with them. So I don't know. There's a little tension there.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Do you like everyone you work with? Yeah. Officially, yes. Yeah. They're great. Um Yeah. I want them feigned, POV. Show me the deal you made with the devil. What are the terms? What are the terms? What does the trader god get out of this? Right? He just wants more His goal is to see a world filled with treachery. But filled with honor. Well, you have to have the honor to have the treachery. Indeed. Yeah. Can't can't shoot the shooter. Think about that. Um Yeah. Okay, what do you think of dragons, dude?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

This is our first dragon reveal.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Size matters, man. Yeah. Straight up. Helios, god of the dragons. There's some there's some Islington for you. These fuckers as big as the sun.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

I thought it was pretty, I thought it was pretty fun. Like, oh no, there's so many series where dragons have special little powers and stuff, and that's what it's all about. This is just like, yo, my dragon's big.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I was like, I wonder if there's gonna be like a toothless from how to train your dragon. It's like, nope, it's just small boys and big boys. High school fans.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

How to train your dragon.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Oh my god. We showed it to Kaffee's sister and she didn't like it. And and that's when I was like, damn, I can probably never recommend something to you again. Because if you don't like that, what the fuck do you like? I mean, that's just a gem of a movie. She said there's too much bullying.

unknown 28:08

But what the Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

People are mean to what's his name? Flick? Um He's got a Flick is from Bugs Life. Whatever. Doesn't matter. Toothless. Oh man, I saw some guy posting online and he was going to uh some sort of con to meet Toothless for the twentieth time. Whoa. And uh he was getting all of his toothless merch on, and he had like 20 plushies that he would like strap to his, you know, his the strap of his satchel and his shoulders and stuff. Um more power tool. More power tool.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

You like what you like, you know?

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Not here to yuck your yum. I'm not yucking your yum. Listen, unless it's the the will of the many subreddit where people have to color code the chapters, then I'm here to yuck it.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Oh part three.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Part three. Dragon bound. Uh Corrin. The dramatic heart of the novella? Question mark?

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Yeah, this this was the big journey. Like the rest were little snippets of action scenes. This was like a full emotional roller coaster.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yeah, this felt this this is great. So, okay, before I forget it, we're meeting Corin, right? Gotta be alive. Because she gets away and she's got the spark. Yep. I think she wouldn't meet. Oh. And uh, and her friend uh not Arwen. Farwin. Yes. Yeah, Farwin was cracking me up. Um so they're good. But yeah, they their quest is to go to the hatchery. Um Trader got to be betraying.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I I got sad because I really wanted there to be like an egg, like smuggling egg quest in the middle of this.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

It would have been great setup for future books to be like, actually, there's this crazy hermit lady somewhere out there who has a hundred dragon eggs. Turns out she got none. Yeah. Well. I want more dragon lore. Are there any out there in the wild? Well, I mean, we have all being ridden by freaks.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

There had to be an egg eventually, because that's what our MC got.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

The dragon or the egg conundrum?

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

I mean, I imagine they're not going to be able to do the eye.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah, are we gonna get more details about where they got that egg?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Well, they said there's like four towers, right? Because he's like, go to the north tower. Like, um, who is it? Her her uh her teacher, uh, who's a pretty badass lady riding the dragon, goes off to the north tower.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Um, is that like far away? It seems like it was far away. Yeah. Oh, okay, okay, okay. I for some reason thought that was just the other side of town.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Could be wrong. That would be cool. I figured they were like scattered towers, and what at least one of them you know ended up having eggs, and that's how we have eggs 400 years later.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

But I mean, surely we'll get something in book two about how they got that egg.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Well, the the dragon riders are coming straight to the castle in book two, don't forget.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Can I give you a spoiler for chapter one of book two? Yes. Correct. They're coming. Hell yeah. Yeah. Um Okay. And then uh our dear friend Dylan. Poor Dylan. Sad boy, sad boy. But this feels like a great setup for the rest of the series, seeing how horrendous um it is when your dragon dies.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yeah, and um Corin also defeats one of the turned draw leds or whatever and kills that lady's dragon. The lady's like, just kill me.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Like that was interesting. Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, a a very cold but very badass move to go around by Goren to be like deuces. Yeah. Alright, kill yourself then. And I'm gonna do it for you.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

So this does this little saga introduces us to the concept of the Rakina, Rakina, which are uh broken, I guess, former dragon bound folks whose dragons die.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah. And then what was that really cool quote in Blood and Fire about how the Elvish have a different term for it? They're like the broken, they're like those who it's not those who survived, it's something about like those who persevered or something.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yeah, it it's a bit more uh it feels more complimentary, I think. Yeah. I thought that was a cool yeah, and it it gives us some fun context into Ace and how badass he must be to have survived as a broken for 400 years.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

I was thinking if he feels even like a tenth of what I felt when Mr. Carrots died, then I don't know how he got through it. Yeah. Mr. Carrot's RIP. Worst day of my life. It was not the worst day of my life. That was a bad day. It was a bad day, though. It was a bad day. Ped in the basement so many times. So much pee in our basement. Almost made our house uninhabitable. But the man was a good loaf. The man, he liked sitting on you. Yeah. Good boy.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

I'd come visit in Portland and just sit on your couch for nine straight hours with carrots on me.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah, I have a really good photo of Travis sitting on my couch reading Malazan with Mr. Carrots' pissed boy right on his chest in the bust.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

This is how I get through a 1200-page book. This is it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Okay. Do we have more from corn section?

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Not much. I mean, no eggs. Um, this is where Earth Magic became really fun for me. That they start chopping dudes in half and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yeah, the opening the floor and cutting someone in half is really good. Really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Um, but that's that's pretty much it for this section.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah. And then uh okay, so on to Eltuar. This, I mean, I think less happened. Right. Yeah, obviously he fights Dylan and has a kind of freak out. You actually thought the like emotions were really well done here, where like obviously he feels horrible, but then like when Dylan starts pushing him, he lashes out, and you could sort of feel like his anger was coming from so many directions, like his anger at himself for doing what you know, this and what Dylan's saying, and it's just like the only way that he could express what he was feeling was through just fury. Um, yeah. That is really good, really well done.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

I agree. I mean, if you could actually feel him getting backed into a corner, and it's like you know, he's trying to defend these things that have he's talked himself into them being unshakable beliefs, and they have to be unshakable because of the actions he took. Like there's no waffling when you just committed this type of sin, you know, like you have to convince yourself you were in the right, and so eventually he just you know, for for lack of the ability to argue his way out of it, just gets to chopping.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

In for a penny, in for a pound.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Truly, and uh also just the regret I think he feels about the baby dragons was interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

We'll get to Fane, but interesting that Fane was also like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yeah, part of the plan. But I guess what it feels naive to me. This feels not fully fleshed out as a plan in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

I mean, yeah, I guess if you're telling me that someone expected the uh the uh blood runed Urax to closely follow orders and not have things get out of hand, then that does seem kind of like a dumb assumption.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Um I think we've we've heaped a lot of praise on the book. Let's end on a sour note.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Before we do, I'll give it one last flower.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Yeah, give it a flower.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Which is Cahill's creativity with blood magic is gonna make us very happy, I think.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Oh, can we yeah, can we briefly talk about blood magic? Yeah, you just build it. You build it by clearing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

So spark like a spark. It's a limit beast or some shit. Yeah, you gotta do it. Spark draws from your soul. This one draws from souls of the dying. So as someone's dying, a la Taravangian. Um, you may take things from them that give you power.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

And I I imagine there's gonna be some uh horrendous uh death farms in the world filling up all of their uh blood magic gems. Yeah, because apparently you can store it.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

I guess like the good people or people who are quite skilled can store it. Um so you don't have to kill someone fresh.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

But I wonder, do you have to kill someone, or could someone just die? Can you just be like, I'm going to a nursing home? It's a good question before we recharge for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Yeah. Anyways, that shit's very cool. Um seems like it has a lot of the same limitations. You can kind of burn yourself out. Um, but yeah, more to come on that, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Yeah. And now to the part neither of us really liked as much.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Eltor, I think, is supposed to be a sharp guy. He's given a lot of thought to this. Has he not talked to Fane before? Because it seems like Fane is a fucking crazy person who's in league with the devil god.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Uh clearly Fain is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

All this talk about the greater good and freeing the order and helping. This does not seem like a man who's interested in doing that.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

No. No, this this was a big turn for me, and it was actually kind of hard to draw a clear through line of their logic and their actions. Of just, you know, there's this talk about like in the new world, honor is currency. Like, what the fuck does that mean? And then he just burninates an entire town. I promised the trader god I would destroy all these people.

unknown 37:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

That's what I'm not seeing. Fane whips his hood off. You know, it's just such a such a villain reveal.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

You know what's funny? I think this has come up in uh in this novella and in the first book. Kyle's a couple times said, like, though he was only six feet tall, he was still quite imposing. It's like, all right, King, are you tall? So you're trying to tell us, Kyle? We get it, man. You're fucking tall. But to say, but to imply that someone who's six feet tall is short is wild.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah, that is I actually I hadn't noticed that. That's a good pickup.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Yeah, it's not it's a pretty normal but not short height.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah, I'm trying to think about other heights. He said like dwarves are five foot and a half, and which is kind of rude. I guess isn't the average like person now like five seven?

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, that's you're telling me Tommy Fleetwood of the PGA is a dwarf? I disagree.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

The the the giants are at least eight feet tall, though. So that feels right. Yeah. The Jotnar.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Okay. So add that to the list of things to discuss with Kaho. Why can the people who are six feet tall not be in power?

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah, what do you what do you what do you guys think it's the short kings, man? What the hell? Yeah. Um, but yeah, this this conversation's weird.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

It do you think the the intent was that this is like a kind of sudden surprising pivot from Fane? Like El Tor didn't think he would do this sort of thing, and now he's like, oh fuck, I made a deal with the wrong guy.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Potentially, but also like the whole it feels like they've talked a lot. Like it feels like Fane and him planned this together. He was convinced that they're going to serve this new god. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why you would be surprised.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Yeah, it's just hard to imagine like planning an operation of this size and complexity without getting any understanding of the real motivations of the guy who's heading it up. Right. But maybe he's tricky.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

I don't know. Maybe he didn't expect Fane to just, I guess, break this pact that he had with the god so easily.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

So would love to know how pa how powerful Fane is on a day-to-day basis. He's got a big gemstone on his chest. Oh. And I did not think this was clear from uh the book, but I started book two, and there's like a little plot summary, and it covers the fall. And it says that Fane at that moment ripped the continent in half. Whoa. Did you know did you catch that from the novella itself?

SPEAKER_01 40:36

No, it it felt like it just burned. Um but I guess okay, a violent tremor ran under Eltoir's feet.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yeah, so he ripped the so if you look at the map, there's the dark wood and the burn clans, and those are the result of what Faint did. So now the continent is sort of like split in two by these two kind of impassable things. Interesting. That's kind of fun. That is fun. Very powerful. I bet that'll be spelled out like in the text of book two, because that was not. Also, did uh Eltuar unalive himself? Don't want to get demonetized. I didn't see that. Did I miss that? No, hold on. Let me let me pull up the very end of the book. I feel like it'll be clear why I thought that.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Right, he reached out to Helios, let their minds sink into each other. Everything was shared, loss, anger, pride, fear. It's a good paragraph. He opened himself to the essence within the stone and let him let it consume him, let it burn away his pain. I saw that more as like just letting the rest of the blood magic be evil, baby. Heal him and like take it, you know, he just gives in to the flow. I was wondering.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

It wasn't mentioned in the summary, the start of book two, but yeah, for for whatever reason, my read was that he was just like, I'm gonna let I'm gonna take in too much and I'm just gonna let myself explode. And because I cannot live with what I did. Um which I think was wrong. But that was a very interesting ending that I thought happened for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Yeah. And I gotta say, Kyle Hill's writing throughout this entire novella is really good, though. Um it's very descriptive, very emotional, very action-packed.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Yeah. Weird to compare to book one because they're such different projects, but it definitely feels like the work of a writer a little bit later in his career. Yeah. Um makes me excited for book two. Yeah, it gives me like such confidence that the rest of the series is gonna be great.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Yeah. Did you happen to catch the glossary of this one?

SPEAKER_00 42:46

No, because I kindled it.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

It's in the kindle. Uh so kind of interesting. There's obviously just some like character stuff in here, but they talk about the races. There's a couple good nuggets in here that I think are gonna be helpful moving forward. Um, humans. Humans first arrived on the continent of Epherius in the year 306 after Doom, fleeing from an unknown cataclysm in their homeland of Terrancia. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

You think same planet?

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Same planet, seems like. Question. Question? I don't know. It's a different continent. What is Doom? What was this cataclysm? Curious.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Yeah, that's interesting. I kind of thought, because they've referenced the Doom, I was wondering if that was the Fane thing, but obviously that's not the Fane thing. Yeah, some other well after the Doom. Yeah. What was this? This is like 2800 post-doom or whatever. 2682. Okay. Ha. Um this is 400-ish years before Kalen.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Yes, or in like 3000 something. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

We're gonna party like it's 3012 tonight.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Beep boop ba ba. Um, other fun fact the elves actually, after uh they were pretty much defeated by fame. And the new Lorien Empire actually split into two major factions, one of which hides out and is totally isolated, and the other uh is in the dark wood that actually fights actively against the Empire.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

So there's Setheran's part of the coward faction. Maybe walks around and sings songs.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Maybe. I don't know. Uh, but yeah, that that feels like it'll come up. And then that's pretty much it. Yep, they just described the other races, but there's not any good new lore in there. But uh, I thought that was interesting.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

The human lore, that's good stuff, baby. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

And then, oh yeah, Ephialtir. Uh the traitor god. Uh Ephialtir betrayed the other six gods at the dawn of creation. He turned his back on their ways, claiming his power, power through offerings of blood. That's all we get.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Alright. Well, more to come. More to come. That's always a weird thing. Yeah. Thinking about gods before creation. Right. They're just kicking it in mind palace.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

We should probably put something here.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Yeah. That was me before I downloaded Tomodachi Life and made Treastasio date Alphaba. Now you are the god of your own dumb hand. My the the the the meas refer to you. They talk to you, and you get to pick your name, and I am God Emperor. Of course. Of course you'll thank me, you know, for like when I gave Hadrian Maracas. He said, Thank you, God Emperor.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Thank you, God Emperor.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

For these Maracas. Yeah. Hadrian is quickly becoming a flamboyantly gay man.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Good.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

He walks around with uh with his kind of knees turned in and his hands out, and uh he does a very dramatic, courtly bow whenever you talk to him, which that that is like that's canon. He is the fucking best. I love me, Hadrian. And I'm gonna post him in that subreddit eventually. Once I I'm just waiting to acquire a cape. I saw that you posted from the podcast account in the fish subreddit with your me's. Stop monitoring our account. It's not for you. Oh man. Someone posted in the fish subreddit. I saw they've been playing Tomodachi. I got the notification. It's explaining for the audience. I had to go look. Because we have a lot of fish fans in the in the audience, I I presume. Of course. If you're a fish fan and you listen to this show, let me know.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Well, we're gonna let you know uh because I think book two, our first discussion of book two will happen immediately after we both see fish.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

If I had to guess, I would say that there are no fish fans in our audience, but two people have been to a show. You know, like with a cousin or some shit. That's fair. That's my guess. Okay. Um anything else before we go? Anything to plug? Um, nope. Yeah, Sam, this is my only thing. So that's all I got, man.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Uh, we're gonna try to do a YouTube, we'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Don't worry. Yeah, we're feeling incredibly boomery about this whole YouTube thing, but we're gonna give it a shot somehow.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

We want to get our content into your ears, maybe even into your eyes. That'd be kind of cool. Think about that. Okay. Um anyways, we'll be back in like a week with uh first part. I bet we're gonna do three.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

It seems like three. It's an eight, eight, or nine hundred pager.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Yeah, it's a chonky boy. Um, but yeah, we should be hitting you like a week after this comes out. So thank you all for listening. Um, and if you have any other Cahel fans in your life, please send this their way. Maybe they'll like it. And shoot us a note. Talk to us. We're happy. Yes, please. We respond to DMs really fast. We're both on our phones a lot.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yeah, we don't have lives.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Yeah, not anymore. Well, I'm I'm employed again. If anyone's worried that when I said I was unemployed, I had another job lined up.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

You know, I was just reflecting that this pod has lasted us through uh engagements, marriages, job changes, and well, I guess so there's a big three, but next, death.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Who do I replace you with once you die? I'm thinking Rob Schneider.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Rab Schneider is a carrot.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

All right. Goodbye.