The Making of the Monarch Papers

**The Making of the Monarch Papers** is a podcast by CJ Bernstein and Simon Arrowsmith, with Simon's husband Johnny appearing as a guest in some episodes.

## Description

The Making of the Monarch Papers released its first episode on October 8, 2017, starting with Episode Zero. The podcast goes over one fragment per episode, with the exception of Fragment Four, which was split into two episodes.

## Episodes

### Episode Zero

Episode Zero

### Episode One

Episode One

### Episode Two

Episode Two

### Episode Three

Episode Three

### Episode Four A

Episode Four

The group recalls how growing readership affected the design of the puzzles in this fragment. Concerns that readers would complete tasks too quickly ended up creating puzzles that were too difficult instead. The massive amount of content in the fragment challenged both readers and creators with puzzle fatigue. The creators also discovered that introducing “flavoring” materials during a puzzle that played no part in the puzzle’s solution proved confusing, rather than intriguing, for readers.
In explaining Fragment Four, the group also breaks down some of the most unique puzzles in the entirety of The Monarch Papers. Tasks the readers completed during the fragment’s first half included re-assembling the pieces of a “proto-futuristic Blade Runner” RPG with Steampunk elements, creating original art, and finding a mapped location using directional audio tones. CJ also recalls how the first live events brought their own set of challenges, including scheduling, Central Park at night, spiders’ nests, and observant readers catching inconsistencies on camera.

### Episode Four B

Episode Four

The group discusses the many difficulties of live events, including uncontrollable issues with pre-recorded phone messages, locating working payphones, live streaming from public buildings that prohibit video, and a distinct lack of cell phone service in library buildings. CJ describes the added difficulty of observing issues from a distance but being unable to intervene.
The end of the Fragment also introduced the first Magimystical Assessment, a test given to recruits after every four fragments to produce a key for the Book of Briars. The group describes the original interactive choice-based setup, and the modal multiple-choice replacement that became “the bane of the Mountaineers’ existence." Plus, CJ reveals how the titular Monarch Papers developed after Phase 1.

### Episode Five

Episode Five

By solving this puzzle (not entirely as intended), the Mountaineers were able to access documents and emails between the Cagliostro and Lauren. Lauren was introduced as the new assistant to the Cagliostro, attempting to scan the third volume of The Monarch Papers. CJ and Simon also discuss logistics (and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) – how they worked to balance out the excitement of the Mountaineers’ snooping with keeping the Cagliostro an intelligent and engaging antagonist, as well as the timed unlocking of the journals. Simon also discusses his research on Anne of Brittany, starting with the unicorn tapestries. From this point, Anne was woven into the plot, with the revelation of a secret eighth tapestry and the introduction of the Paths of Wool and Silver.
Phase 2 also saw Deirdre drawn into the puzzles with the arrival of her father’s journal. Deirdre hears from her Aunt Monica and receives the journal, the pendant, and the wool scarf, which all reappear at the end of this phase and again in phase 3. Fragment Five ended up being important for other major character introductions and growth as well. The Cagliostro, Lauren, and Martin are still loved, all these months on. The unified plotline of this fragment helped keep the readers engaged and motivated, leading into Fragment Six.

### Episode Six

Episode Six

CJ talked about the creative utility of saving good ideas, whether or not you know how you’re going to use them. This was the case with Bernard Sleigh’s 1918 map of Fairyland, as well as Anne of Brittany’s unicorn tapestries. Later, when certain works of art were needed to tie the story together, it made perfect sense to involve these historical characters in the Magiqverse. CJ noted that, in the creation of the clues, he enjoyed learning more about children’s stories which were well known at the time of the creation of the map, but have since faded into obscurity.
Jonny and CJ talked about how clues, including poems written by Jonny (such as The Chicken and the Fox, and a poem about Ulysses), were planted in Sullivan Green’s journal. Sometimes she would be able to find them, and sometimes she wouldn’t. Gradually, readers determined that the clues were tied to certain locations on the Fairyland map.
This fragment was planned out in greater detail, compared to the earlier phases. Because of this, CJ, Jonny, and Simon agreed that this was one of the more successful fragments. Unlike in the planning of some earlier fragments, in Fragment Six, much planning took place which was never used in the puzzle. For example, at one point, the guilds were assigned to different parts of the Fairyland map, though readers were never told about this. On the other hand, there was less puzzle solving in subsequent fragments, and so this sort of intensive planning wasn’t never necessary again, afterwards. The decision to focus more on character development and less on puzzles was in large part determined by the strong reader response to the aforementioned character development, during this fragment. Also, as CJ pointed out, neither he, Simon, or Jonny are puzzle-makers by profession, outside of Ackerly Green. Therefore, it was agreed all around that, while the puzzles had been successful, it was more creatively invigorating for them to focus on characters, henceforth. CJ felt that after this fragment, readers began more deeply to understand that the wonder and fantasy of the Magiqverse is grounded in our actual world, unlike other universes which are in totally fictional worlds. This is because Bernard Sleigh, among other characters, are real historical figures.

### Episode Seven

Episode Seven

CJ recalled how this was one of the more difficult puzzles for The Mountaineers to complete. Though attempts were made to make the puzzles as logical as possible, certain roadblocks had to be inserted. Otherwise, readers would be able to solve the puzzle too quickly, once the system of logic was unraveled. CJ originally planned the part of the puzzle involving Cole going to The Morgan Library to be a live video event, though he realized a week beforehand that no video or photography was allowed in the library. But, as CJ said, “necessity is the mother of invention,” and by doing the puzzle live through the forum, it was carried out very successfully. As Simon put it, this made the live events more successful—it now depended more on imagination than on trivial circumstances of the real world. Henceforth, this is how all live events in The Monarch Papers were carried out.
CJ noted that there was a piece of the puzzle that The Mountaineers never found, but the ending of the puzzle had to go forward regardless, because a hard date for The Cagliostro’s performance had already been set. This ended up being for the best, though, because CJ, Simon, and Jonny were all severely exhausted and overworked, by this point in The Monarch Papers. This also resulted in Cole having a direct confrontation with Lauren, and Lauren setting the library on fire. This wouldn’t have happened, if the Mountaineers had solved the puzzle. This is an excellent of example of how The Monarch Papers responded to the readers’ actions on the fly. The readers seemed generally concerned for the safety of the characters, during this time, and this was another major victory for the realism of the Magiqverse.
The relationship between Deirdre and Cole also became more involved in the interactive part of the story, and strengthened interest in their respective characters. Before this, there were no concrete plans for their romantic relationship to flourish. Also revealed at this time was the fact that Cole was trans, though this had been planned in advance, so that it would feel more realistic, a genuine part of his character, and not simply an artificially-inserted plot twist. CJ and Simon were strongly moved by the reader reaction to this revelation. Many trans and non-binary readers strongly identified with and looked up to Cole, in the fragments that followed.
CJ and Simon reflected on the welcome surprise of Lauren’s growth of a character, and how this was largely based on a last-minute decision. Originally, it was planned that Lauren would die, and while she did in one sense, she did not with the originally intended sense of finality. One other possibility was that Cole would be kidnapped by The Silver, and disappear afterwards, for an extended period of time.

### Episode Eight

Episode Eight

Cole found the letter, and immediately afterwards, the readers gathered to cast the Calling the Corners spell, using six Mountaineers for grounding, each of whom used an object which had great significance in their lives, and in the process, they lifted the spell which had been placed on Deirdre to hide her from magiq. Cole was planning to go to Deirdre and tell her everything, once this was done, which he did successfully. After this, the Cagliostro’s final performance was all that remained.
CJ talked about how he’s long had a fascination with old magicians, and how this contributed to the creation of the Cagliostro. Simon talked about how during the creation process, he watched an old movie about the actual Cagliostro, and his role in the court of Marie-Antoinette. This was also a major source of inspiration. CJ and Simon had also wanted, for a long time, to create an Ackerly Green radio show, and to paint images in peoples’ minds, using audio. The final performance audio was the first concerted attempt to do this. A woman was fired on Fiverr to play Lauren, and CJ talked about how somewhere, there’s a recording of him playing Lauren, to try to convey to the actress how she should sound. Simon also enjoyed recording a new song (done in one take!) for this recording. An attempt was made to make the contents of the recording specific enough so that readers understood the ground rules of what was going on, and yet mysterious enough so as to leave behind a residue of mystery. For example, we still don’t know the details of exactly what the Cagliostro summoned. Simon mentioned that both he and CJ admire authors who leave out just enough detail so that the readers can build their own world on top of what is provided, and that this was their aim with this recording, as well as in the rest of The Monarch Papers.
Also, the second assessment happened during this period, and because Patreon was exploding by then, CJ was able to hire someone to create a 3D tetrahedron. CJ, Simon, and Jonny were also all together in New York for the beginning of this fragment, and so it was a productive and nostalgic period for everyone involved.
CJ then talked about how after the Mountaineers had successfully performed Calling the Corners, they were supposed to receive a word from the Book of Briars. However, at this point, it still hadn’t been established that The Book of Briars website would always release the next word. Therefore, it had to be arranged for the word (Caprathorn) to be revealed during the Cagliostro’s performance. In the end, it was subtly snuck into the dialogue near the beginning of the video. (As an interesting side-note, the decision was made at the last moment to add Simon’s voice as an undercurrent to Lauren’s, when she says “I am the Cagliostro,” to enrich the transformation.) Also, new viral ads centered around The Cagliostro were released around this time, and this brought in tons of new readers (by the end of the fragment, the readership had tripled!).
Deirdre then wrote a poem on her blog, to finish the spell, and to confirm that she knew the truth about magiq. Nobody knew what had happened between she and Cole, and where she was planning to go after that. The concept of The Low was also revealed, at this time. Some readers were interested in joining, but as CJ and Simon explained, this would be impossible, because they would have to write thousands and thousands of pages worth of ‘secret content,’ which The Low is assumed to possess.
After this, the second assessment began. Readers had to place six animals around the various faces of the tetrahedron, after which it would open. Unfortunately, this was the biggest mistake of The Monarch Papers: the rules used to open the tetrahedron didn’t work! Therefore, the readers had to perform a ‘leap of faith,’ and break the rules exactly one time, in order to open it. Interestingly, the readers never realized what had happened, and only became more and more frustrated and involved.
In the end, Phase Two produced three of the biggest fan favorite characters (Lauren, Martin, and The Cagliostro) and therefore was an enormous success. CJ and Simon ended the podcast by talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. CJ prefers season 3 over all other seasons, whereas Simon prefers season 6, though he is still reluctant to commit to a single favorite season.
In the next week, CJ and Simon will talk about Phase Three, and how puzzles became less important in this new phase.

### Episode Nine

Episode Nine

Returning to the puzzles, CJ explained that they were too creatively taxing, given the size of Ackerly Green. Additionally, due to a successful ad campaign, there were many new readers, and it would be impossible for them to collectively solve the puzzles in the same way that they could when there were fewer readers. At the same time, CJ started writing more of the original content. There were still going to be puzzles, but they would be more connected to the narrative. Around this time, CJ reached out to Fleb, a puzzle designer. CJ told him about some of the more complex ideas for this fragment, and offered to design the puzzle for Ackerly Green. Jonny came up with the constellation names, and the mechanics were assigned to Fleb.
Deirdre was also put on a journey around the world, during which time she would post on Instagram, but not post on her blog. Cole also took a break from the forum. This was all so that CJ could free up a few weeks, to adjust to the new structure of the company. He was hoping this new, professionally designed puzzle, would last for three weeks. As it turned out, though, the newly enlarged group of Mountaineers was able to solve it in two and a half days. There were over four hundred messages, in this time. This meant that it was hard for CJ even to keep up with what was happening in the puzzle. Looking back on it, CJ regretted that more artificial barriers weren’t inserted to keep the puzzle going for longer. Because Fleb wanted to design the puzzle so that all readers would see all relevant materials immediately, there was no chance of it lasting for three weeks (some barriers were eventually inserted, but this still wasn’t enough).
Narratively, this was after the Cagliostro era, and so Lauren had the book from The Morgan Library. It had to be figured out why Lauren would share the book with The Mountaineers. CJ and Simon had fun inserting the speculations of the Mountaineers into the actual lore of the Magiqverse.
After this fragment, the story became even more important. The idea of Kemetic Solutions came out of CJ’s love for magiq heists (his office is covered with posters of old magicians). This would provide an important narrative contrast with the tragic figure of The Cagliostro. Eventually, Deirdre also wrote a blog post apologizing for her absence. She was now, with full access to magiq, able to read her father’s journey, putting her on the path to discover Neithernor.
Questions and Answers:
Oracle
Q: How did Lauren know about The Mountaineers?
A: She had Telemancy, so she could read minds. Also, once she took on The Cagliostro, she gained the knowledge possessed by the previous generations of Cagliostros.
Five
Q:Was it difficult to combine astronomy into the puzzle?
A: As difficult as it was to combine flora or fauna. Google provided most of the basic information, and the puzzle elements were all delegated to Paul (Fleb), who is a very smart guy, and had a lot of knowledge about celestial phenomena.
Viviane
Q: How did the series of connected papercraft journal entries come to be?
A: CJ loves papercraft. Even though the non-papercraft puzzles changed over time, the papercraft ones were all planned at once, well in advance. CJ also wanted the writerly challenge of seeing if he could plant a narrative seed with the first puzzle, and have you not realize that Sullivan was at the heart of it, until the very end. Most people didn’t, which was exciting and surprising. He wanted the solution to seem surprising, yet inevitable. Whether or not this was a perfect success is still an open question, but CJ is very happy with it as it is.

### Episode Ten

Episode Ten

Martin Rank played a big role in this fragment. Though CJ and Simon knew that Kemetic Solutions would be featured in Fragment 10, Martin’s role in the infiltration was expanded, once he became a fan favorite. CJ also noted that he and Simon had always been big fans of the ‘evil organization infiltration’ scenario from movies and TV shows, and were happy to be able to include it in The Monarch Papers.
Martin went to Kemetic Solutions to take photos of the outside of the KS building, and the readers pulled apart the images for clues. There were a lot of clues hidden in the images themselves. This was so complicated that even CJ hardly remembers how to solve it, now. One image was a gif, and hidden in the photo was the word ‘zip.’ When they converted the file to a zip and put in a password, it turned into a rich text file called “patience.rtf.” The text inside only said “63 minutes.” Also, if you went to the Kemetic Solutions website and watched their animated logo for 63 minutes, it would redirect you to their creepy promo video.
Simon’s big project for this fragment was the promo video. He said he just found a lot of stock videos of sciency things and wheat fields, and overlaid some vaguely 70s-ish music over it. Then, CJ’s voice was overdubbed with some creepy effects. CJ and Simon agreed that it was very important to make the video eerie, yet believable. Maybe if you were an innocent person stumbling across the promo, you would genuinely believe that they were trying help people. The video was also very influenced by films such as Scanners.
Meanwhile, Deirdre was in Istanbul, trying to figure out clues from her father’s journal, to follow the Path of Wool. Deirdre told the readers that she needed help with various art-related clues. Simon was influenced by the BBC 4 show, Only Connect, which is about trying to find obscure connections between seemingly unrelated clues.
After this, CJ explained that the two of them were having trouble remembering a lot of this fragment, because they were simultaneously working on three others. Simon said he looks forward to reading the book, so he can appreciate it in a new way.
Going back to Deirdre, these artistic clues were triggering emotions in her, which unlock different parts of this volume of the Monarch Papers. Meanwhile, back on Basecamp, a user named Aether was editing some of the Mountaineers’ posts. From these edits, the Mountaineers were able to find another clue in the Kemetic Solutions promo video, which temporarily changed. It was arranged so that he could only communicate while being experimented upon by Teddy Fallon (the most hated TMP character). Teddy kidnapped Aether and has been experimenting on them ever since. The Mountaineers by this point understood that Kemetic Solutions was experimenting upon magically inclined individuals for some malevolent corporate purposes.
Eventually, the Mountaineers discovered Constance, a friend of Aether’s. They found her Tumblr account, and made contact with her. Constance told them she would only talk to them if they safeguarded their forum. Constance then told them about the Joradian Non-Material Safeguard, which became a very popular spell for the remainder of The Monarch Papers. In the spell, they had to choose 6 ‘elements’ which related to them and performed a number of rituals around them. Many of the readers who were involved got sick afterwards, from which they invented the concept of “spell-sickness.”
After that, Constance joined the forum and told them about The Low. She has very limited access to it–The Low had to seem like an enormous collection of websites, but it could never be fully revealed, because then they would have to be created. Constance then told the Mountaineers the rest of Aether’s story, and showed them his blog. Meanwhile, Martin continued to investigate. Eventually, after Aether’s video stream, they were able to find the constellation, Gladitor, which was Fragment 10!
Though it was stressful to create such a complicated fragment, CJ and Simon agreed that it was important for the puzzles to get harder, so readers would care about the characters more and more.

### Episode Eleven

Episode Eleven

In this phase, the Mountaineers continued to face off against Teddy Fallon, the head of Kemetic Solutions, and assembled a drawing from a little girl named Portencia. At the end of Fragment 10, Aether escaped his body, and was now inside the internet, trying to communicate with The Mountaineers. Mountaineers also discovered the website of a real mental health institution, called Go-Getters, where they found Augernon.
CJ then stopped and told a strange side story, involving his assistant Devin and Go-Getters. When Devin caught up on the TMP story, and discovered that Go-Getters was involved, he was confused, and asked CJ if they had discussed it before. As it turned out, Devin’s Mom had worked at Go-Getters before he was born, and CJ had just happened to pick it out of thousands of similar institutions, just because he had previously said that Augernon was from Maryland.
In any case, Aether was trying to lead the Mountaineers there, and Martin Rank discovered that it was because of Augernon. At the same time, Aether unlocked a website called The Lost Aetheneum, which was connected to The Low. Readers received a username and password that gave them access to parts of the site. It was impossible to give them access to the whole site, because then virtually endless webpages would have to be written. They were then given a spell called Consolatory Teatime for Misplaced Memory, which they would have to use on Augernon. Marty went to meet Augernon and, using the spell, got lots of new information. Readers learned that The Silver had been wiping out The Mountaineers and Monarch’s Mountain every time the Book of Briars attempted to return to the world. The Mountaineers have been trapped in this cycle for many years.
This fragment brought over 1500 posts on the forum, and so it was important to be more careful than ever with the establishment of the lore. The Low Report podcast was released in the midst of this, as a means of giving the last clue to readers. CJ and Simon created a number of different characters, with different accents, for the podcast. CJ noted that it was a low-stakes way of enriching the world. As Simon said, the description of a world should start with the writer and end with the reader. It’s a two-way relationship, and this was another step in that. The listener had to build the visual side of the podcast in their own minds. Simon talked about how sound is a fantastic medium for this. CJ talked about how he had a record of the sounds of Disney’s Haunted Mansion when he was a kid, and how this created a similar effect.
In this fragment, the readers learned more about the internal workings of Kemetic Solutions, both from Fallon’s journals, and from Whistler (Sacha). Whistler would always come across as a puppet of Fallon’s, brining sympathy. Also, logistically, the readers had to be given an inside source, so they would have all the relevant blueprints, etc. necessary to carry out a heist, if they decided to (which they did, thankfully).
Readers also learned about Sweeper and Wanderer. Wanderer was Fallon’s son, who had the power to trade items with other time periods. This was necessary to set up the fact that Deirdre’s father had been sent to the 1800s, and was still alive. Kendrick was also introduced. Kendrick was an employee of Kemetic Solutions, who was in the room when experiments were carried out in ‘the chair.’ If Teddy Fallon had killed Aether’s body, which was one possible scenario, Aether would have inhabited Kendrick’s body. It was important, in the end, to give readers the victory of saving Aether, since they were about to lose the Book of Briars.
This was also the fragment in which the Council of the 18 Gates was revealed to readers for the first time. They discovered the Last Oracular Eye, in closed form. When the sun set over Central Park, the eye would open, and offer you a choice of two of the following choices: hope, illumination, and despair. Then, it would tell you your future in terms of those two choices. Aether brought it to the Mountaineers, and readers chose hope and illumination. CJ found a video of a fiery eye on a loop, which was used for this. CJ also set up a chat channel with the eye, and for some reason, it didn’t load properly, so that the readers couldn’t message it. Instead, CJ had to communicate with them directly. The eye revealed for the first time that magiq was fading from the world. It also revealed the nature of The Council’s protection. They also learned that no group of Mountaineers had ever been closer than this group. They learned that the storm was coming, and that it had come for the previous group of Mountaineers at the end of Fragment 12.
Lastly, Deirdre travelled to Israel and Montreal, met Colby, learned the truth about her father and mother, and received one final test from her father. Also, the doors came knocking for her, setting up the imminent appearance of Neithernor.
Questions and Answers:
Robert
Q: How concerned were you with the chance that we might actually contact the real Teddy Fallon, or get ourselves committed to Go-Getters?
A: Very worried! Someone actually called Teddy Fallon and Go-Getters. This was because new people wanted to find a way to make their mark. This is when CJ created The Cabinet and started contacting readers when he wanted to stop them from doing something.
Vivanne
Q: Were you hoping for a different response to Teddy Fallon and Kemetic Solutions? I ask because it seems that some of Teddy’s logs were meant to garner sympathy for him.
A: Originally, The Devoted was meant to be just another secret organization. However, because they kept hurrying The Mountaineers, and came off as cold and clinical, the Mountaineers considered them an enemy. The same thing happened with Teddy. Teddy was a very conflicted character. However, all interesting villains have a degree of humanity. There was even a topic on the forum where people debated whether or not he was a good person, which was really exciting.
So, at the end of the fragment, they found Durkonos, and Aether released the Low Report through Youtube, tagging the megahertz and gigahertz onto a page that lead to an email from one of Martin’s old friends. This lead Martin to explain how he has let down many people in his life, included Brandon Lachmann. This was around the time it was decided that Martin would narrate the novelized TMP.

### Episode Twelve

Episode Twelve

At the end of the previous fragment, Aether’s body was disconnected from his mind, and he informed the Mountaineers that Kemetic Solutions had sent out a virus to try to destroy his mind, because they were worried about The Mountaineers trying to break into their offices. The Mountaineers had to find a way to reunite his mind with his body, or he would die. This was a big ticking clock for them, which created quite a bit of drama. Whistler wanted to tear apart KS, and Martin Rank explained that all The Mountaineers wanted to do was rescue Aether, and that they were mainly a humanitarian organization (he of course didn’t want to reveal the truth about magiq). Whistler thought she knew where Aether was, and then Teddy Fallon had her monitor the security system, letting her figure out the circumstances surrounding Portencia’s imprisonment. The Mountaineers were stressed out, because they didn’t know if they could trust Whistler, or get Aether back to his body in time. CJ explained that as a writer, he’s super-proud of this section, because readers cared so intensely for so many different characters, simultaneously. CJ and Simon then discussed how even if this drama was composed of tropes, that is nothing to be ashamed of, because that was the way to give readers what they wanted. Tropes are tropes for a reason!
CJ continued to say that a number of subtle lore dumps appeared in this fragment, which readers didn’t even notice (and CJ still isn’t going to say what they are), because of the sheer amount of stuff that was going on. Most distracting was the fact that the readers knew that previous generations of Mountaineers had never gotten further than this, before they were wiped by the storm.
Back to the story, Mountaineers became aware of the fact, via Whistler, that Portencia was being tortured by KS for 14 hours at a time, to try to open a door to a place where there is more magiq. Marty then took from this that the level of urgency had risen, and that it was time to reveal the truth about magiq to Whistler. A lot of Mountaineers were reticent to do this, but CJ had to force their narrative hand, because there was no other way to get Marty into KS without the story devolving into nonsense.
Augustus\_Octavian then asked what would have happened if Mountaineers hadn’t wanted to break into KS. CJ answered that they didn’t, because it was so narratively necessary that no other solution would have worked. Despite this, the actions of The Mountaineers still significantly affected how it happened.
Whistler, with the vision implanted in her mind by Portencia, then realized there was a way to drop internal security inside KS for ten minutes, so Marty could sneak in with Aether’s mind on his phone, and reunite him with his body, before anyone could realize what had happened. To do that, the Mounties had to create a spell (for the first time), so that the security officers at KS wouldn’t see Marty&Co. on the screen. He was also otherwise magically shrouded from sight.
The Mountaineers still didn’t know who Climber was, and they were in for a big surprise, when they found out that it was AlisonB, the Mountaineer who had been so helpful in earlier phases, and who up until then, they had assumed was a real Mountaineer.
As a side note, back in Phase One, Reader pickpocketed someone’s phone, so they could communicate with us. In this fragment, Whistler says she was able to get a phone, but it was disconnected, and she switched to email. This was a subtle hint that the methodology of The Devoted was coming back.
Aether streamed the audio of the break-in from Marty’s phone, while the Mountaineers performed the two spells they had created. CJ and Simon reflected that the idea of a magiqal firewall, which surrounded Aether’s body, was great, and inspired by certain 80s movies.
During the mission, Marty&Co. Found out that the whole mission was a trap, and tons of lore and character reveals happened: Whistler turned out to be Sacha, the head of the Devoted, Marty was a human well, Kendrick never had the last fragment of Portencia’s mind (Fallon did), and all of this was to bring Martin to KS, because a human well is so valuable. Fallon also knows that Martin has a charm on him, which made it so Martin had to come to him. Fallon previously sacrificed his own son to the Wanderer Project. Martin then surprised Fallon with the reveal that Aether had never left his earpiece, and had dropped the KS firewall, uploading gigabytes to an outside server. CJ said that if he had known that Marty was going to be such a big character, doing things like this, he would have given him a better last name. However, he says he can’t feel too responsible for what happens to these characters who suddenly become so popular, because so much of their development comes from the readers.
Fallon then escaped, as the storm descended, and Portencia used her powers to open the door to the future. Portencia and Climber climbed through the portal, and the whole facility was destroyed. The Mountaineers then found out that KS has been trying to close doors, not open them, to bar the Council of the 18 Gates from helping them. While the Council was protecting them, it emerged that the Book of Briars had been totally decimated, because the Council was no longer protecting it. Lastly, Fallon revealed that Itsuki had been an informer.
After this, CJ and Simon talked about why they made the decision to kill Itsuki. Endri was too loved, Eaves was also needed, and Bash was also loved, though they didn’t interact much with The Mountaineers. In the end, Itsuki was chosen, for another reason. Originally, the Campfire Chronicles were going to be turned into a book, consisting of readers’ stories. But because people were so into the main story, and school was in session, the initiative never took off. So, the Mountaineers weren’t being punished…per se. All the same, it made Itsuki’s story more tragic and interesting. He knew he was dying of brain cancer, and wanted to collect the readers’ stories, to give to his daughter. Since he died, Campfire Chronicles has really taken off, so it completely worked!
At the end of this fragment, Deirdre dreamed that she was Anne of Brittany, and with the help of Sullivan’s journals, realized the importance of the pin and scarf left to her by her father, coming to know that they were the original artifacts of the Wool and Silver. This made every door in the brownstone start knocking.
Questions and Answers:
Viviane
Q: I have a third assessment question. What was the process like for creating that crazy global constellation puzzle? Did you create the constellation shapes around that assessment design, or did the constellations come first, and you found a way to fit them into city landmarks? How much was the Myth of Elainnor influenced by all of this?
A: The myth came first. The plot of Phase Four was peppered at the end of Phase Three, and that’s part of why it felt so cohesive. We always knew Phase Four would be about time. CJ was very proud of this. Simon handled most of the constellation stuff. The shapes were roughly designed ahead of time, and interesting cities were chosen. Then, interesting locations were found within each city, and drawn on a map, and sent to CJ, so the constellations could be created. They sought to make each location have timeless historical significance. This left open the potential to insert them into our lore. Each city was hinted at by the previous one (there was a street in Mexico City called Paris, for example), but readers never figured this out. With all of this, they were able to upload their results to Fletcher Dawson’s website, earning them the third assessment.
Robert
Q: I seem to remember we never got the last piece of Portencia’s drawing. Was that intentional? We were collecting them, and then Teddy revealed that he had the last piece of the drawing in his head. Then, KS was destroyed, and we never got to see the last piece fill in. Was there significance in that last piece?
A: No. The drawing contained a mantra given to her by her father to keep her powers in check. We knew that since the last piece was in Fallon’s head, she would never get that final piece. This gave her the impetus to unleash her full powers, since she no longer had the mantra.
Augustus\_Octavian
Q: This fragment saw a big influx of new readers, from what seems to have been a successful run of ads. Did you have to do anything to handle the increased number of readers on the forum, in terms of things like numbers of posts, or in things like organization and spellcasting? It was a pretty big risk to leave us to our own devices. Do you believe that this worked well?
A: Absolutely. We ended up leaving you to your own devices more and more, because of how well it was going. CJ even stopped checking the all the time, so he could experience his own narrative as a reader. Having new people didn’t matter, that much, partially because only a few of them were able to catch up on the story quickly enough.