straightforwardly | 275 | high rollers: aerois, episodes 34-38

More High Rollers: Aerois thoughts! For this update, I decided to type up my thoughts as I went, but to wait until I had a decent chunk before I actually posted this to DW, in an effort to avoid making 50 bazillion entries (since I’ve clearly been gaining a lot of momentum on my listening in the last couple of weeks), but also have my thoughts put down while they’re still fresh.

This batch covers episodes 34-38.

I did look up the effects of that Fairy Crown on DND Beyond, and I’m glad I did, because knowing those things enhanced both my enjoyment and understanding of certain moments. Like when Lucius switched so swiftly between a sweet “oh, we shouldn’t hurt them! that would be so unkind!” to low, threatening “but if they harm my friends, I will end them”.

(Also, lol at Skaldi looking at that scene & going “......maybe we should be a little bit more concerned about this obviously cursed item your companion is wearing”. A very valid reaction!)

I’m so delighted by Nova telling Lucius to sit and his immediately doing so!!! She just wanted to see if he would! But he trusts her so much and assumes she’d of course have a good reason for that order, and so he just does it, no questions asked! Lucius…!

(Honestly, that’s the kind of moment that would usually start me on the road of Femdom Het Ship, Yes/Yes Time, but… not this time, interestingly enough? I’m so into this friendship, but apparently it’s firmly in the realm of platonic friendship only for me.)

Lucius explicitly saying he doesn't believe in himself… ;_;

But also, so much excellent Lucius & Nova friendship content in that episode! (36, I think.) He’s her first choice for who should be responsible for putting the power source into the Midwife’s Forge! That moment when she gets paralyzed and he flies over to help her with the activation! Her turning the two of them invisible when the Attendant turns her attention onto them!

Also, continuing to pay such eagle-eyed attention to every hint Lucius drops about his home life. (Down to even little details like how he stops flying when someone (Aila?) asks what his Daddy would think about his transformation, despite the fact the topic only came up because they were discussing how the cursed crown forces him to think of it & its effects as a good thing.)

Sentry’s revival was so so good. It hit all the right emotional notes. I love how both Lucius and Nova straight-up collapse when they see her alive again, and how they’re all babbling and emotional and so happy to be reunited again. And then that, “Where’s Quill?”... oof. I was really struck by the gentle way Lucius handled that; how he takes her by the hand and leads her to him, and the way he prepares her as they go for what she’s about to see. And just, seeing Sentry react to everything that’s happened since she fell was so good. And her explicitly telling Nova that she’s glad it was she (Sentry) who fell, not Nova!

But also, it’s so funny to me to imagine Sentry essentially closing her eyes during the battle at the abbey, and then opening them again—with no awareness of how much time passed in-between—only to see that Lucius has somehow transformed into a fairy.

I’m so sad about Oriya clearly being on her way out of the story, though. :( I liked her and her interactions with the party so much! And I know that they’re both played by the same person, making this difficult, but their brief interaction made me realize that I’d actually really like Sentry & Oriya interactions… and am also potentially intrigued by the possibility of them as a ship.

The Cypher Academy has such shady vibes. But also, it does feel very Pyri if it turns out that he accidentally got caught up working for an evil organization and just. Did not realize it. Red flags, what red flags?

Loved the players joking about “what if Daddy Elenasto runs the Cypher Academy & the portal to Gusthaven actually opened up to Lucius’ bedroom, with bby Lucius assuming that the agents coming out from behind his bookshelf were ‘ghosties’”. AUs I would absolutely read….

Minor side note: I feel like Lucius having a sister has been mentioned before, but I don’t think we ever heard that it was a twin sister? Unless I’ve forgotten something, which, very possible, considering how many months ago I started this podcast.

Okay, I did not see the destruction of the Elenasto Estate—and the presumed death of all of Lucius’ family—coming. I thought we were working up to a very different kind of family conflict! I’m on the fence as to whether everything is as it seems (one option that I’m rolling over: Daddy as a big bad, maybe?), but even if they are all really dead, I’m quite intrigued about where this is all going.

Me and my love of grief/mourning does love the detail that his family received news of Lucius’ death shortly before they met their own ends. That delight is only hampered by the fact that I feel like we still don’t know, precisely, what kind of dynamic existed between the members of the family—which is one of the reasons why I wanted to meet them so badly!

But also, oh no Lucius, poor bby. That’s such a shock to have thrown upon you. His whole home—gone. His family—also gone. And it just occurred to me… there was a mention of servants having also died in the explosion. I wonder—was his old nanny the 19th century-style, attached to the household even after the children grew up…? Because that could mean she’s gone too… I can’t remember if it’s been mentioned if she was still in Lucius’ life, or only his childhood.

(Also, I'm very glad that the fairy crown got removed before this plotline started rolling, because... voice. Definitely would have clashed with the mood/emotions.)

Gotten further in the episode—noting that Lucius’ father is described as having withdrawn into himself after receiving news of the crash. Interesting, interesting… Also, kind of really delighted that we’re meeting people who know Lucius pre-campaign and who are now reacting to someone they knew & thought was dead being alive again. (aka, the prince, as well as that one rude guy who apparently bullied Lucius when they were children)

The party saying that they need to have Lucius with them again before they revive Quill, because he’s the one who wants it most… ;_;

Love how earlier, I was all, “huh, I wonder what happened to Lucius’ nanny during the explosion, maybe there’s something relevant there”, only for Lucius’ immediate reaction after he gets over that first shock is, ‘I need to find out what happened to Nanny, this is absolutely relevant.’

Lucius’ thrilled little “Go Nanny!” when he finds out about her having allegedly been meeting with a ~romantic partner~ is so fucking cute <3

So, while the whole “bodies couldn’t be identified by magical means due to there being so little of them left” does sounds suspicious, the fact that Lucius’ father was identified by not only his jewelry, but also a specific mark on his hand (a scar or birthmark, I assumed) does tilt the scales of my suspicions more firmly back towards him actually being dead.

The conversation with Matthias did stress me a little, but I liked his whole “part of a noble family, but outside of noble society” thing. And ahhh, the way he implied that Lucius was bullied by multiple other children as a child, not just that one jerk, and how Lucius is clearly uncomfortable/wanting to ignore the subject… ;_;

(He does that a lot, I’ve noticed—if someone brings up an uncomfortable subject/topic that he just Does Not want to deal with, he just… doesn’t. Either by redirecting the conversation (often after a notable pause, or a simple “...Yes. Anyway,”), or just reacting with a deliberate kind of dead silence.)

QUILL IS BACK, and his new ability sounds so cool and promising!! Both on a gameplay level and a narrative level. I love how it ties into the whole “ask the right questions” thing that ~~Hespah~~ H'esper* keeps saying in his dreams!!

*it’s a good thing I double-checked the spelling on that, because I was way off.

I’m really looking forward to more of the emotional fallout to Quill’s resurrection, but that’s next episode, presumably (unless it gets overshadowed by the investigation into what happened to Lucius’ family… but I hope not; I hope it gets its proper moment in the sun), and I’m not going to be starting on that today, so—this feels like a good place to stop and post this particular update? I think I’m going to be continuing with this style of sharing my thoughts; I found it worked well for me.