The sewers! Roz's city cleanup has hoisted her petard it seems.
Also, Veronica sucks. Dayumn.
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm
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The temple was alrady connected to the sewers, before the remodeling, so it wouldn't have made a difference for Georgine's plans, if they hadn't done it.
Oh, it was? I thought it was only in the nobles' quarter.
Yes and no. In the noble's quarter, every living quarter had it's own toilet slime and sewer outlet. The temple does not have that, but it does have at least one communal outlet, into which the attendants pour the stuff gathered in the chamber pots. I wouldn't necessarily say that qualifies as sewer access, as we understand it, but it is enough for Georgine to infiltrate the temple by.
It would be wonderful if just at the moment Georgine starts her ascend through the pipe, someone were to pour a chamber pot into it... but knowing her, she'll probably send Seltier up first, and only come up once her servant gives the okay that it's safe.
Guess we're getting lots of side stories in this volume.
Rozemyne gets to see first hand how the inability to redraw duchy borders has made Werkestock's giebes incredibly desperate. Their excuses aren't likely to save them from prison though.
The epilogue was some interesting backstory for Georgine's character. Can't help but feel a bit of sympathy for what her parents made her endure and her motivation was just trying to earn their approval instead of actually serving the duchy. When Sylvester entered the picture and Georgine decided to adopt Veronica's methods is when she really started going off the deep end. Veronica really is the cause of so many issues for so many people in this story. Also didn't expect Georgine to use the sewers to bypass security.
I like Giebe Kirnberger. He seems like a guy that really thinks things through and has interesting insights. I imagine a lot more Ehrenfest nobles will soon share his concerns about the future of the duchy.
Prison? Well, if they can be tried solely as Ahrensbach citizens within their duchy and thus Rozemyne is able to decide their fates maybe, but depending on interpretation, the Werkerstock nobles might well be found guilty of treason against the crown, for working with Georgine. If the latter happens, then I'm certain that Trauerqual will have no choice, but to execute them, just like back during the days of the post-civil war purge, and Rozemyne won't be able to help them either.
Rozemyne was already aub for two days when nobles treated as her citizens (even though they're probably still registered as Werkestock) attached another duchy, using weapons explicitly banned from warfare by the Zent. Both Sylvester and Trauerqual have legal rights to demand that Rozemyne needs to punish them harshly.
Certainly true, but Sylvester is very unlikely to do that, knowing fully well how averse Rozemyne is to hurting others. And Trauerqual made it very clear that in his opinion, everyone including the royal family should do what the holder of the Grutrissheit says, so I don't think he would make any demands like that. If they manage to convince the rest of noble society that this war was an affair between duchies and seperate from Detlinde's rebellion against the crown, there is a good chance I think, to allow Rozemyne to deal with it as she sees fit. But that's a really big if....
If however the public perception is that Georgine's attack was part of the rebellion, you are definitely right, that things are unlikely to stay in Rozemyne's control, albeit even then I don't think it'll be Trauerqual and Sylvester who'll be the ones to cause issues. The bigger issue is probably Klassenberg. After all it was the Eglantine's grandfather/adoptive father the now previous Aub Klassenberg, who was the main driving factor, behind forcing Trauerqual to enact the purge and he still has a lot of political power in his duchy even now, after stepping down.
Then there are also the people of Immerdink (I think), who suffered multiple dead children at the Ternisbefallen attack, who'll likely be clamouring for revenge, what with Werkerstock also being the place were the Ternisbefallen almost asuredly came from.
Cliff Hanger nooooo. Hope we get a Hartmut or Clarisa side story.
Georgine's SS was beautiful. Damn the Sly whining Georgine that he didn't want to be Aub. Must've stung to hear those same words coming from Wilfs mouth.
The ironic part is that if Georgine hadn't immediately bullied Sylvester, they could've teamed up to make her aub. Veronica wouldn't have been able to do much if Sylvester had told all the nobles "I don't want to be aub, Georgine is much better suited for it". But for some reason Georgine directed all her hate at the innocent kid instead of the mother who was actually responsible, and closed off that route herself.
At first I thought that ironic enough, had Sylvester and Georgine teamed up to make her Aub, it would have been great for Ehrenfest in the short run, but catastrophic for the country and thus also Ehrenfest in the long run, since the kingdomw is on a course to self-destruction, that seemingly only Rozemyne was able to turn around. And Gerogine being Georgine, there would have been no chance for Rozemyne to become a noble and get the country into the right direction again.
But then I considered how early in Georgine's formitive years this would have been. If she had gotten into a loving sibling relationship with Sylvester, chances are that she might have gotten along great with Ferdinand too, when he came into the duchy and with two loving siblings, she might well have turned out a considerably better person. Not to mention that with her as the Aub being on good terms with both Ferdinand and Sylvester, on top of her foresight, intelligence and pragmatism, Rozemyne might still have been adopted into noble society and ended up the saviour of Yurgenschmidt.
Or she might have already been too corrupted by Veronica's (metaphorical) poisons and turned into a horrible tyrant, who'd have caused a civil war in Ehrenfest or some other catastrophe. ^^
You could write multiple interesting what-if fan ficts with the Georgine-Sylvester team up as a starting point. ^^
Agreed. In her position, I'd have tried to assassinate Veronica, not Sylvester.
A weird shower thought. Could Grausam be to Georgine like Hartmoot is to Rozrmyne?
- Both name sworn
- Both over devoted to Lady
- Very good at plotting (Hartmoot Roz Saint, while Grausom may have help spread Georgine's image as the only stable option).
- Willing to go against Dutchy (no examples with Hartmoot but it's a possibility......)
Idk if I'm looking to deep into things 🙃
Nah, no overthinking. Considering how we just learned that Grausam was already devoted to Georgine, before giving his name and unlike many of his peers gave his name voluntarily and eagerly, I think that's a good observation. He's nowhere near as fanatic as Hartmut I'd wager, but then Georgine only distinguished herself through simply being better than a, at the time, whiny spoilt brat who actively tried not to become Aub, and the shared Ahrensbach ancestry. Meanwhile Rozemyne is showing genuine signs of being god-sent.
I mean Hartmut probably ain't even wrong in assuming Rozemyne is sent by the Gods given her reincarnation, which makes his fanaticism so much funnier to me
Before he got to know her better he was thinking that she should've used Wilfried's debut incident to eliminate the competition instead of saving him.
Somehow in my head I have to fix that Giebe Gerlach is now a wholly different person and not Grausam. There were a couple of times where I got confused about who was doing what to whom until I realized there was a new person in that office.
I think Georgine was the reason that sylvester was able to get the archeduke education to rule somewhat effectively. Ryhiadra probably learned how to deal with him from her.
Also the dominoes that Myne caused with her adoption and subsequent letters that were unsent but nontheless delivered has caused the True Ditter to spurr out between duchies.
“Stay focused, Rozemyne,” Ferdinand said. “By stealing mana on such a large scale, Georgine has forced Ehrenfest to deploy knights here and in Illgner. Assuming her plan was to weaken the guard around the Noble’s Quarter, she must be close to the city of Ehrenfest or already within its walls.”
Couldn't they use a similar technique that Bonifatius used when Rozemyne was in a coma and just spam ordonnanzes at Georgine to find her—perhaps taunting her all the while?
Not a bad idea. Apart from being able to visually track the birds, Bonifatius loud voice could be heard quite far... but I strongly suspect that there are ways to block yourself from Ordonnanzes open to nobles. And even if there aren't, Georgine is clad in silver cloth, which I am quite confident will block an Ordonnanze's tracking.
I find it ironic that Rozemyne wasn't considered a bigger threat to Georgine's plans than Ferdinand or Bonifatius. It's possible that they believed Fraularm's rants about her being dead or at least too ill to be of consequence. They must not have found out that Rozemyne was the responsible for ruining Viscountess Dahldolf's plans either. Georgine is a cold calculator like Ferdinand and can guess what moves he'll make, but she'll never be able to foresee the actions of the chaos gremlin!
Remember that the vast majority of the country, believes that Rozemyne was merely proped up as a figure head and that all her accomplishments, were truly Ferdinand's. And in the year, that would have proofen that she was the real deal, she disappeared before classes even started.
You could even argue that the very first year in which she was deprived of Ferdinand's support, her streak of first-in-class stopped right away... granted, that was due to absence, but why complicate your narritive with facts, when that would mean you might have to admit you were wrong, all the times you shit talked the girl and her "upstart" duchy.
Most duchies students or aubs have witnessed dedication, starbinding, or gather spot renewing rituals performed by Rozemyne. Pretty sure they know she's the real deal.
With "the real deal" I didn't mean her mana capacity, or performing religious ceremonies, that is beyond dispute. I meant in terms of inventing, coming up with things, making decisions and all that. It's hard to consider someone a threat, who you believe to only ever have followed the instructions of Ferdinand and who supposedly has no combat potential, due to being just a kid, who's not even in the knight's course and of poor health.
Also while witnessing her doing religious ceremonies might have been a real stand-out initially, keep in mind how by now Charlotte and Wilfried also held Dedication Rituals, the Dunkelfelger pre-battle ritual is producing true blessings and nobles performing gathering spot healing rituals has become relatively common. Furthermore even Wilfried used a divine instrument in the bride-stealing ditter (which is literally on video, thanks to the Dunkelfelger fan-gallery by the way), and thanks to the research we know that Dunkelfelger has been transforming schtappe into a divine instrument (the stuff of the post-ditter calming ritual) for ages. So none of those things really contradicts the narritive that Rozemyne is just doing as she's been told by Ferdinand.
The only really unique thing about her, would be that she's firing off blessing unintentionally, but that could also be an elaborate act, as far as nobles of other duchies are concerned. Rozemyne had to work hard to convince people she didn't intentionally steal Schwartz and Weiss's mastership and only accidentally released a blessing in music class after all.
So to sum it up, there are plenty of ways for stubbon and ignorant nobles to cling to the notion of her being a fraud, maybe a particularly mana-rich one, but still a fraud. We know better, and the number of nobles who does too, is ever growing, but there are still plenty of either naturally or willfully ignorant ones out there too.
Oh and I just noticed: When Georgine and Detlinde put their plans in motion, Rozemyne was still missing, extremely ill or potentially even dead, as far as they knew. Rozemyne woke up only what, one or two days before the attack on Ferdinand happened after all.
There's something that surprised me in Georgine's memories. First her father goes out of his way, to arrange for a marriage that will keep her chances to become the successor alive, only to then make a 180° heel turn and even go so far as to tell her to marry a local archnoble, to support Sylvester. That seems too drastic a change to be natural. I wonder what Veronica did, to get her husband to do this. Could she also have used trug or some other mind-altering drug, like her daughter would do years later, or used some kind of blackmail?
I'm also a bit confused as to why the sewer system even has any access from the river. Does this mean that rather than essentially vaporizing the sewage, the toilet slimes are actually working "only" like water purification systems, filtering out only the bad stuff, or transmuting the bad stuff into water and thus require and outlet for that water? Either way, why are those outlets made big enough for a grown Human to pass through? If it was me, I'd let the water out only through pipes, too small for Humans, and keep all the maintanance tunnels only accessible from within the city.
Either way, it's almost a shame the slimes work so well and Georgine didn't have to wade hip-deep in acutal sewage...
I've wondered about the sewer pipes as well. Perhaps these are actually the pipes that were placed for future water purification?
“Ferdinand, what do you think?” Sylvester asked. “Could we use water-purifying magic tools on the river?”
“In the long-term, it would use far too much mana; the magic tools would need to be redesigned to be usable. However, if the water will only be needed in the future, perhaps we could add only the pipes for now? Those alone would not be a significant burden.” - P4V4 (The Archduke Conference Approaches)
Good point. If they are meant to purify large quantities of river water they would naturally need to be big... and since the tools aren't in place, currently unused. And even if they put grates over the openings, Georgine can probably break through them.
Rozemyne wanted the purified water for paper making which might mean that the pipe connects to the temple workshop too.