Have you come to ask for help? Help them?
She knew exactly who to call. She knew which world to access.
She knew how to access it. This does not seem, at least to
me, like it was a first time encounter.
It truly never occurred to me that the factions might be
between the Princess. That makes way more sense.
So sorry guys, I told Ronnie I had a banter topic.
So now she's eagerly waiting to hear what the banter topic is.
Have you watched or heard of Off Campus?
I never hear of anything TV related until you tell me to be
clear, but I did see it in the discord this week as it retains
to heated rivalry relations. This is why I'm so excited
because this is actually a timely relevant banter topic
because I'm pretty sure this show came out on Friday.
Maybe I don't know what day of the week it came out last week.
It's Sunday. We're like on top of it, which
is pretty good. I put this timeline on Instagram
but basically same as you. Friday morning I woke up having
no idea what off campus was and then someone pinged about it in
the discord and I was like I'm bored.
I'll look up the trailer for off campus.
I was like, I think I want to watch this.
Should I look it up right now? You should like it up right now.
But Derek was playing a show. Not only was Derek playing a
show, Derek was playing a show from 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM, which
you know, I'm not going to go to.
There's no way I'm going to that.
Sorry babe, love you. I'm not going to that show.
So I was like, yeah, I have a whole night.
I have a whole night to myself. I'm going to watch this show.
I watched 5 episodes in a row of Off Campus.
I cannot remember the last time I watched 5 episodes in a row
of. Anything.
Oh, another hockey situation. OK, so it is a hockey situation.
It's a very different hockey situation.
This is straight hockey, not gay hockey, which, you know, it's so
far it's a pretty straight show. Have finished it at this point
in time. I loved it.
I loved this show. So good.
Like, OK, so I guess it's based on a series of books.
I haven't read the books. I guess I should just put that
out there. Like, I don't, I don't know
these books, but the men in this show, the hockey team in this
show. Houston is in this show.
Josh Houston is in this show. Josh Houston, our listeners will
probably know as the man who is rumored to be playing Zaden.
I got to say, Josh Houston plays a real asshole in this show.
So I'm kind of like, oh, I kind of hope he's not playing Zaden.
Josh Houston is in it like the, I guess the main characters are
a hockey team. Like my understanding of this
series is that there's these four guys who are on a hockey
team and I think there's four books and each one of them is
basically like their love stories, basically.
I love these men. I love the relationships they
have with each other. I love the friendships they have
with each other. Like I love the emotional
maturity of these men. And of course, they're all
supposed to be in college. And this is the same thing I had
with. Zeta, remember when we read 4th
Wing and I was like, this man is 42, This man is not 20.
Like he does not have the emotional maturity of a 20 year
old. But it's the same thing where
it's like their friendships are like so much deeper than what I
would think of as 20 year old male friendships.
Like they talk about real shit. They still struggle.
Like they absolutely still struggle with opening up to each
other. But I'm just like, Oh my God,
like these boys. These boys are so so.
Good and the same thing. There's like basically two
female main characters and their friendship is so sweet and like
the romance is great, but I'm like, Oh my God, the friendships
on this show. Yeah, so good.
Love them. So I highly recommend if you
haven't watched it, you should watch it.
It's really fun. You specifically I think would
like it. I don't know if you have time to
watch it, but you know it's really fun.
Hold that one. Why not?
I'll watch. I'll watch during Slice Sunday.
Tonight, slice and salad. Exactly, I will say Derek had no
interest in watching it when I showed him the trailer, so I'm
not sure if Connor's going to be all about it, but he might be.
I actually feel like Connor is way more romance.
He inclined he got hooked by heated rivalry, I will say.
Yeah. Well, so did Derek.
I mean, heated rivalry really grips you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Really. Oh, sorry, I forgot.
This is a podcast. Yeah, Abby was clenching her
fists. Yeah, he also gets hooked by
like, like romance reality TV shows.
So I feel like there's hope in that regard to I'm trying to
think what else romancey he gets.
He got hooked on. I mean Wuthering Heights,
honestly. Got Derek hated Wuthering
Heights, so yeah. Oh yeah.
I think Connor could like it. He could like.
And I'd actually love Connor to watch it because I'd love to
hear Connor's take on it. Like, what I actually loved
about this is these are guys on a hockey team and they talk
about their hockey, but like, they never talk about sports.
Like, you know how guys are always talking about sports?
There's only one conversation, a guy having a conversation with
another guy about sports. And it's actually supposed to
show how distant they are and how unconnected they are.
And I was like, I actually love that they put this in here.
This is fucking brilliant because guys talking about
sports is such a true. So well done.
Well done. Yeah.
Cool. It's good.
I have a I feel like I have a
lot to just like, catch up on on the world, like in, in the
television realm. Like I haven't, yeah.
I haven't even started thinking about when I'm going to see The
Devil Wears Prada too. I've heard is actually I've I
don't know. I've heard mixed things.
I've heard I've heard mixed things too.
I'm certainly not as good as the first, which like to be clear,
the first has such a high bar. It's like one of the most iconic
ROM com. Would we call it a ROM com?
I mean, I guess it's not ROM, but it's certainly COM.
Certainly COM, but I'm not sure I'd call it ROM like.
I would say the romance is third string at best in that movie.
But I feel like the ROM is with herself.
A self ROM com. Yeah, but it has like I would
put it in the bucket of like it's a feel good.
I'm watching something for feel good purposes.
Girl power. A movie about choosing a career
to work for the most toxic person ever ever.
A boy who loves you. Yes, that is a feel good movie.
I guess in the end she does leave her but.
I am who I am isn't making sure that anyways.
No, Leave it in. Leave it in all right, what I
was going to bring up, and I do think this is fair on our TV
topic is the 4th wing was just announced officially a go at
Amazon Prime, which is also part of why I washed off campus
because I was like, how do they do?
Yes, we're very excited about it.
I actually didn't even realize it wasn't officially a go.
And then I was like, I guess this was like a maybe situation
having washed off campus. I think Amazon Prime could
actually do a really good job with this.
Like I'm, I'm really excited about it.
OK. Do you know boys of Tamen, has
that come across your like algorithm?
That was exactly what I was about to bring up.
I'm very nervous, OK? Do you watch it?
Do you do? Did you read it?
I haven't read it but I did scroll like furiously scroll the
comments on the casting announcements like on TikTok on
Instagram and people are mixed at best.
I would say not happy about the male castings.
And I am of the opinion. I'm allowed to express my
opinions. I think I'm of the opinion.
Is our podcast. We all need to chill the fuck
out. Like we all need to calm the
fuck down. I think especially, especially
with forthright right, like I think we've gotten heated
rivalry. We've gotten off campus.
I think they've both been huge with for the romance genre,
right? I agree.
We are out here champing at the bit for these shows to be made
right. If we are out here like being
like, Oh my God, we want a fourth wing show.
We love it, we want it. We cannot freak out about
casting without seeing the show, right?
Like that's just that's just my mindset at this point that it's
like we cannot both be we need this show, we need this show, we
need this show. And then as soon as the cast is
announced be like, what the fuck?
This isn't how I saw it in my head.
Right. Like I agree with you, and I
also think many people who who have read 4th Wing have either
had a reignited love for reading or they are just finding their
love for reading. And I think like you and I and
many people who are listening to us and many people who have read
4th Wing have been reading books that have been adapted for a
long time. And like you, the people who
have been doing that, myself included, have seen actors who
when you look at them, you're like, OK, like wouldn't have
been my like, not how I envisioned them in my head.
You, you like, see them bring it.
Like, you see them embody the characters in a way that maybe
you wouldn't have necessarily picked.
But like, it is an adaptation. I like.
I hate to keep coming back to Harry Potter, but Harry Potter
was one for me. I was like, this is not.
This is not how I imagine the characters in my brain.
I think they did a nice job like they did a nice job.
They took on a new persona of that character for me, for me.
I think this is actually so funny.
I had I had this crazy self ROM experience so to speak like a
self moment of reflection. Someone commented someone
commented on our Nesta deep dive like this was from so long ago,
but someone commented on it and was like, I could really see
Emilia Clarke playing Nesta, who of course played Daenerys
Targaryen. But I have I had completely like
for a moment I was like Emilia Clarke, she's so sweet, she's so
bubbly. I don't know that she could pull
that off completely forgetting that she had played Daenerys
Kurt Targaryen, mother of Dragons, like completely
forgetting it. And this is when I'm like, OK,
we need to trust the casting process because I would never
like the Emilia Clarke. Like we see now the Emilia
Clarke on Instagram. It's like you don't look at that
and think Mother of Dragons, but she fucking brought it.
She was so good, right? So like, anyway, that's my
slight rant for the day. I just think we all got to got
to trust we I am just I'm going to be very disappointed.
The 4th wing casting announcements are met with just
like, that's not sated, that's not violent, you know, like just
think, just think we should all. Like I will, I'm going to get
crucified. I know that I'm going to get
crucified. Don't come for me.
I know you're going to. But like I, I can see Josh
Houston personally, I can see it.
I can see after Dune that show the show I didn't watch it.
They would like to watch it. I can see it with some, with
some good acting and a good opposite.
I could see it like actors. There's a reason they're actors.
I'll say that I agree like this. Is what I'm saying.
If it is Josh Houston, do I personally think Josh Houston
would be better for Bodie than for Zaidan?
Absolutely. On looks alone, of course yes.
But if it is. Josh Houston also on other
things to be clear also also his also the way that he acts I
think. Well, yeah, now that I've seen
him, now that I've seen him in of campus, I'm like, what is the
name? He could be off.
Campus. He would be like great whiny
bitchy Bodie. That is essentially the
character he's playing. That's like he's that is
basically it is basically an audition reel for Bodie.
But love that. Also, guys, sorry if you haven't
read 4th Wing and you're just here for Crescent City.
Sorry, we're talking about Fourth Wing so much.
They do cast him. I trust that there's vision and
that there's a reason for it, right.
I just I'm going to trust the professionals to do their job
here. That's just I guess the the
thesis of what I'm trying to say.
But with that, hi, I'm Abby, I'm Ronnie.
This is Drag is in the Details, the podcast that helps you
better understand your favorite fantasy books through a series
of deep dive episodes. This season we are on our third
deep dive of this season. We are covering Crescent City.
This episode will contain Crescent City and ACOTAR
spoilers. This episode is being published
in May 2026. So that is all 5 ACOTAR books
that have been published so far. We are not in actor 6-7 or eight
territory yet. If you are there, if you are
listening from the future, I hope the books are good.
All right, second disclaimer. This podcast is rated R.
These are spicy books. We curse.
We are spicy people. If you want to listen to your
with your children, feel free, but you have been warned.
Each week we dive into a specific topic in depth.
This week we are diving into the world of hell and it's cutest
Kitty. That's cute, Prince Ada.
We come with receipts. We have quotes to back up our
theories so you can follow along if you're skeptical.
Ron, do you want to make any announcements?
Yes, as always, deep Dive music is brought to you by Shwoodly
that is a real artist. You can find him on Spotify.
So if you like our deep dive Jingle, check him out on
Spotify. We have a new thing we're doing
this season with our fun questions.
So you might know in our episode outlines, we always ask a fun
question before we get started coming up with those questions.
Hard work. So that's your job now?
So we're lazy guys. Yeah, we love to outsource.
So if you if you would like us to read your fun question on
air, please submit your fun question to us via TikTok or
Instagram DM or in the contact form on our website
thatsdragonsinthedetails.com. And we'll read your fun question
on an episode. We do try to keep them thematic.
So it would be good if you could make your fun question somewhat
related to Crescent City at Qatar.
If it's just about us, like we'll answer, we'll answer you,
but we're not going to we're not going to answer it as a fun
question because we're trying to keep these topical.
So fun questions, submit those. We want to read them.
We want to answer your fun questions finally, And this is
if you're, if you're not new here, you know this by now, but
it really helps us out when you subscribe to us on whatever
channel you listen on, when you like our episodes, when you like
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We want to do more of this for you guys.
We are working on bringing more of this to you in various forms
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but we get a lot out of it when you like our stuff.
So please like follow, comment. We love it when you do.
I actually read something recently that the biggest, the
actual one of the biggest factors for growth of a podcast
is the number of ratings it has on Apple podcast specifically.
So even if you do not listen to us on Apple podcast, if you
wouldn't mind throwing us a star rating, doesn't matter how many
stars it is, it can truly be any but and you don't need to lead a
written review. You can just, you can just do
the star rating. That would be hugely helpful.
We would greatly appreciate it if you, if you like us.
If you don't, it's fine too. So thanks in advance back to
you. All right, fun question.
So this is from Violet the emoji.
The question is which house would you want to be in and
which house would you actually be in?
I am assuming these are Crescent City houses.
Yes, Crescent City houses. That was my that was my
assumption by let the emoji. You did not specify, but we
assumed that was the case when we answered.
I mean, typically this is a question about Hogwarts houses,
but this is the Crescent City. Yeah.
Also, I think, I mean, we have a mostly mass first page at this
point. So it would be kind of, I would
be surprised actually, if somebody were asking about our
Hogwarts house, to be honest with you.
Oh my God, but this does this does remind me quick aside slash
cause of apologies. So the last last episode I
believe we had a question about would we rather go dancing at
Rita's, go to the White Raven or go to the Yule Ball?
Yes. So Swizzy, who was the
originator of this question, did write it to us and said, oh
crap, I meant the Yule Mass Ball, not the Yule Ball, which
we probably should have. Hot is a slight throne of glass
spoiler that there's something called a Yule Mass Ball.
My answer remains unchanged, though I would still rather go
to readers of those 3, but I just wanted to call that out.
So thank you, Swizzy, for letting that be known that it
was not meant to be a Harry Potter reference.
That that's our bad too. We probably should have.
Called. That does make more sense.
The Eulness ball makes more sense.
I might. Certainly makes more sense.
I would attend the Eulness ball. If I were invited, yeah, sounds
fun. I can see Rory's butt.
It's very cute right now. All right, do you want to start
with this fun question? I can I can start.
OK, So the questions are the questions are what would I want
to be in and what would I actually be in?
I would want to be and to be clear, they are different
because my what I want to be is actually different from who I
know that I am. So I'll just start there.
But I would want to be in Earth and blood, definitely.
I just want to be in earth and blood all to all the people I
like I feel like are in earth, earth and blood.
But I know that in my heart of hearts I'm in probably flame and
shadow, maybe sky and breath on my best day.
I think that's the case. I always thought it was
interesting that the shifters and the fae are in different
houses, right? Given that at the end of the day
they are actually the same thing, it was thought that was
interesting. I agree with you.
We would both actually be in flame and shadow.
The difference is my answer is I would also want to be in flame
and shadow. That's actually the house I'd
want to be in. I don't want to be with the
shifters. I think the shifters are fucking
cool. Oh, the Wolf Pack sucks.
They suck. But Lydia?
I don't think she's hanging out at the house, Judge, but yeah.
I mean, she could also. She could feasibly end up in
flame and shadow, but we'll see. She could.
Yeah, I could. See her in Flame and Shadow.
Yeah, I would want to be in Flame and shadow, just hanging
out at the bar listening to Jazz with Jezza Buzz.
Just what I would want to be doing anyway.
So it's just going to be Flame and Shadow for me.
Unfortunately, we're not going to be doing that because she's
gone this booktube. Booktube, sure.
All right, that was a fun one. Thank you.
Violet, the emoji. All right, Ronnie, do you have
any? I do have a couple of casums. 1
is from Jen Lee so I'll paraphrase the comment but
started the comment with random thoughts sparked by today's
episode. Mention of if the autumn King is
actually star born and the question was basically is the
Autumn King rooms biological father?
What if Lauren was discovered by the autumn King when she was
already pregnant? And this kind of goes back to
like several several episodes. I feel like at this point in our
actor season, we have talked about the possibility of was
Lauren one was Lauren from Perthian 2 was Lauren Reese's
sister potentially 3? Was Lauren somehow on this like
starborn trading ring, like marital trading ring where she
was being sold out basically as an asset to the Autumn King?
And could she have been already already pregnant somehow from
Perthian, in which case she would have been a very, very
valuable asset to the Autumn King.
I think it's interesting in going back and searching for
anything supporting this, which admittedly we've already we've
talked at length about this. I've kind of looked for a lot of
evidence already found like very minor things like she puts out
citrus. Richard Reese's sent his citrus
and and salt. But I did find one thing that's
interesting and I'm sure we'll talk about it more later.
But this is in my opinion, one of the strongest things that I
have found for maybe Lauren is actually related to Reese and
that is in House of Earth and Blood Chapter 52 Runes.
Shadows swirled at his shoulders like a phantom pair of wings.
Oh fuck. Reese's shadows have done exact
like Reese's has had phantom wings under the mountain before,
right? Like that is very much like
that's that's how Reese's wings kind of like fade in and out of
existence is is through through phantom shadows.
So I like it. So wait, I have two questions.
Who would the father? Be anybody on Perthian.
Anyone anyone. OK I I saw someone suggest
Azrael was ruins father which I think would be.
So what I like because of of Azrael's reaction to Celine
looking like Reese's sister. I like it for that reason.
The reason that I don't like it is because Rune's shadows are
like Reese's and Azrael shadows are like Cormacs.
So if rune shadows looked like Azrael's, I'd be like, done,
done, deal. Like, yeah, that works, we're
done. But right now I I feel more, I'm
getting more and more convinced that Lauren is a close relative
of Reese's. Yeah, it's it's one of those
theories that feel so far fetched, like so many things
would have to happen for that to be the case, right?
Like Tamlin would have to be involved.
We would need a portal open to Midgard.
Like so much would have to happen.
And then you read a line like the wings line, and you're like,
Sarah, what are we doing here? What are we doing here?
Because like, we know that that rune is a descendant of Plano,
but like, that has nothing to do with wings.
That doesn't account for wings. So like, nowhere.
What's happening Room? Shadows swirled at his shoulders
like a phantom pair of wings. Everyone, that's the take away.
Yeah, it's exactly the same. So gently.
It's exactly the same. I don't know, but I like it.
I don't know. I don't know.
It's feeling. It's feeling hard to avoid.
Like they look exactly the same and room suddenly has phantom
wings. And I think we're going to talk
about that much more in our room, yeah.
We'll talk more about it. Second, second cosm.
It is not attributable to any one individual necessarily, but
I we got a bunch of comments on the prism stuff from last
episodes when Bryce's Starlight goes through a prism and it fans
out and it does not look the way that Starlight would look.
A lot of people commented about lasers and is this how lasers
behave? I want to respond to those
comments. Not really a monochromatic
laser. Sorry.
Quick science lesson again, it's not really how a laser behaves.
A monochromatic laser would just bend in a prism, right?
So it would just change direction and it would not split
into multiple colors. And a broadband laser like a
white laser, which is what Bryce's looks like, would fan
out into a spectrum like like sunlight would.
But Anastasia AKA puzzle bat no puzzle bat Anastasia on Discord
made a really fun video off the back of our theory on her TikTok
profile, which is at 7th level of hell classic on how it is
possible. There's no, there's nothing in
like our real life in terms of light that behaves the way that
Bryce's light behave through that prison, right?
Like there's no, there's nothing in in our real world that does
that. But she made a video basically
speculating that that could be like that behavior could be
related to exotic matter, which is theoretical.
And it's also required for the creation of wormholes.
And wormholes are a lot like winnowing and or world walking,
which would be really interesting.
So I would recommend checking out Anastasia's video on TikTok.
7th level of hell is her profile and it's very fun.
But that's not what lasers do. So that is my second second
shout out So. Shout out to Anastasia.
Anastasia also sent me this sticker.
I just want to show you I have one for you too.
I have a lot of stickers from Anastasia right here actually.
So thank you, Anastasia. Thank you, Anastasia.
I love that, love it. I have no notes.
I got so great, right? So I had because I don't have a
specific person, because a lot of people commented this, This
was about, I can't remember what episode it was, whether it was
like our re recheck in or if it was our star born episode.
But we were talking about the fact that Pelleas, I think it
was our star born episode, the fact that Pelleas can wield
touch the star sword and kills that with the star sword.
That is what we are told. We have been told that by the
Princess of hell. We have also been told that by
you Steri and the history books. A lot of people wrote in saying,
oh, maybe Pelleas can wield the Star sword because he got
starborn power from Thea when they were having sex.
The way we've seen with Hunt and Bryce and the way we think we've
seen with Cassie and Ernesta. First of all, guys, I totally
love dot connecting. That's what we're here for.
So great. I love it.
Keep it up. However, similar to Ronnie,
Ronnie with Ronnie, just stick with the lasers.
I don't think it works in this case for a couple reasons.
So I have actually gone back and scoured the books and I have not
been able to find, if you can find, please let me know, please
post it. I have not actually been able to
find any reference. Helius and Thea being lovers is
implied because in ACOTAR, well, in Silver Flames, basically when
they're explaining the history of Theon.
Also, I know there's a lot of ways to say Theon.
I'm going to keep saying it this way guys, because all of you are
telling me different ways to say it and at this point you know
who I'm talking about, so it's going to be Theon.
Apologies. They say that he was betrayed by
his queen and his general. So like think the implication
from that is that like Saya cheated on him, but it's never
said and it's never said in Crescent City that Saya and
Pelleas were lover. So I don't know if that's
actually in the books or if that's one of those things that
has just kind of like gained traction online.
I'm not sure. But even if they were lovers,
they're currently fighting on 2 opposite sides of the war.
I doubt they're having sex during that.
And I've always been under the impression, and this might be a
little more loosey goosey than than hard receipts, that any
kind of sex transfer of powers is like a temporary thing.
I never got the impression that that was like a long term like
oh that can last forever. Like Hunt specifically says he
can wear the mask because him and Bryce had had sex the night
before and she had transferred those powers over to him.
Like, it's not like, oh, I've been hooking up with Bryce.
So I'm becoming like, more and more Starborn, Right?
Yeah. So I don't think it works for
this one. They do love the theor Isaac.
And I do think we still have mysteries to uncover here with
the whole Paleocinthea thing. And we definitely will talk
about it more. Yeah, totally.
I mean, to be fair that my immediate thought was like, was
he having sex with anyone star born yet?
Because we know that he allegedly eventually did with
Helena, right? Like that was supposed to have
happened and it is. I mean, again, like I I went and
looked to like it's never said that Thea like slept with
Pelleus at any point, but they did betray Theon together.
So yeah, I don't know, maybe, but it feels very unlikely.
It feels unlikely that Helena and Paleus were having sex
because like it was very clear that he was like raping her.
So I don't know. I do feel like unless he was
raping her. Which?
I don't know. Thea's.
Thea's, like, warns them. Yeah, Thea, like, warns them,
right. It's like, and she's like, you
guys have to go back to Midgard because Paleus wants to force
children on you. Basically it.
Feels more likely that he got he got it from somewhere else.
But then again, it like the whole thing is the Asteri are
not supposed to be able to control the star Sword the way
that Thea's line can. That's the whole thing.
So yeah, I don't know. I have the same questions and I
think we will going to do, we're going to do many episodes.
We're going to do a dust court, quote UN quote episode.
We're going to do star sword episodes.
We will keep talking about this. This is not the end.
Yeah, great. Are we deep dive?
Let's deep dive. 222 all right. We did get a specific request
for old time's sake that one of us moxing the deep dive.
You got it, You got it. So glad that you did.
Ronnie. Let's start off Broad here.
What do we know about hell? OK, so Hell is a planet with
seven different levels ruled by 7 Princess.
So we've we learn very early it's common knowledge that that
this is a different place with several 7 levels and seven
Princess. It's not common knowledge that's
a planet though, which is interesting.
So in House of Earth and Blood chapter 12, we learn from Hunt
when he's talking about demons. They came in endless breeds and
levels of intelligence, ranging from the beasts that resembled
feline canine hybrids to the humanoid shape shifting Princess
who ruled over Hell's seven territories, each one darker
than the last. The hollow, the trench, the
Canyon, the ravine, the chasm, the abyss, and worst of them
all, the pit. So those are the seven levels of
hell. And then there's humanoid shape
shifting Princess who rule over all of them.
Hell is a planet and and we learned that through Atis and
it's not common like Hunt and Bryce learn it, which which
means like Hunt of all people would know that before if it was
common knowledge. So in House of Earth and Blood
chapter 51, Adis is saying the Northern Rift opens to other
places. Other realms, yes, but other
planets as well. What is Hell but a distant
planet, bound to yours by a ripple in space and time.
Hell is a planet, Hunt. Hunt's brows lowered.
Most of the demons he'd killed and dealt with hadn't been able
to or inclined to speak. It is shrugged with one
shoulder. It is as real a place as
Midgard, though most of us would have you believe it wasn't so
for whatever reason. The Princess and others other
demons of hell are not super inclined for folks to know on
Midgard that it's it's real, but it's it is also says.
The Northern Rift opens to other places.
Other realms, yes, but other planets as well.
What's a realm? What's a realm?
What are we talking about? What is that?
I don't know. Yeah, all right.
Like difference between realm and planet.
No, no. I mean, the only thing I could
think of is like the the death realm, but I don't know.
We'll see. But even that is.
Very intriguing. Yeah, right.
I think there's also like the space-time concepts like our
realms, like truly other, like fully other places.
Whereas planets are like we're we're still talking solar
systems here, like Midgard solar system has seven planets and
there are other star systems that we see in like the Orais
where it's just like other planets just are around and we
can just like see other planets or realm something more like
there's rifts in space-time that you can travel to that you might
not be able to just travel to through space as possible.
What's interesting though, is that like beneath, for whatever
reason, is described as a realm. Why, why don't know, I don't
know. All right, so that's a fun
aside. Another fun aside is that Atis
also, when asked whether he's rattling the northern rift says
that the lesser Princess do that levels one through 4.
But those of us in the true dark have no need or interest in
sunshine. Our plans don't involve such
things. So he's basically saying, all
right, these like these lesser Princess who are closer to the
surface, closer to sunshine, might rattle the rift, might
care enough to do so. But we don't.
We don't do that. We don't participate in that
activity, which is interesting. Like I don't know why the the
lesser Princess would, but interesting to consider.
Hell had been framed as the enemy of Midgard for centuries.
But we know through like a whole big series of quotes that span
the entire book basically that they were actually the enemy of
the hysteria and the ally of the creatures that the Hysteria
oppressed, specifically the fae and specifically the fae from
Prythian. And we'll talk much more about
that. But Adis and Thea were mates,
and they were ultimately Hell was ultimately the ally of the
Midgard Midgardian Fey in all of their endeavors.
So they were framed as hey, like Hell was waging war against
Midgard and we banished them from Midgard.
But actually, they were allies too in Midgard, and enemies of
the Osteria. We'll talk much more about that.
Black Salt allows anyone on Midgard to commune with Hell and
other worlds, but we mostly see it related to summoning beings
from Hell. So in a couple instances, Bryce
uses Black Salt to talk to Hell in one way or another.
And House of Earth and Blood. She uses Black Salt to summon
Atis. And that's chapter 51.
The quotes there. She crafted 2 circles with the
Obsidian salt. The one near the window is
perhaps 5 feet in diameter. The other was big enough to hold
herself and hunt. I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but
she says the Obsidian salt will. She's faking Hunt out.
She's saying I'm going to summon a demon.
Hunt does not know that she's about to summon Atis because
he's not like he's not familiar that she is familiar with Atis
and she says the Obsidian salt is going to hold this demon.
So we're going to be in this circle, we're going to be
protected because the salt is going to protect us, and then
that other circle of salt is going to hold the demon.
Hunt eyed the circle she made then side fine, even though
arguing with her was nearly as enticing his foreplay, he didn't
feel like wasting time either. But then the temperature in the
room began to drop rapidly, and as Hunt's breath began to cloud
the air as a humanoid male appeared, throming with dark
power that made his stomach royal.
Bryce grinned up at Hunt as his hard stop dead surprise.
She lost her fucking mind. He would kill her for this if
they weren't weren't both killed in the next few seconds.
Who is that? Ice formed in the room.
So also hell is cold. We'll talk more about that, but
Hell is freezing. When you summon Hell, things get
very cold. No clothing could protect
against the cold this demon brought with him.
It pierced through every layer, snatching the breath from Hunt's
chest with clawed fingers. A shuddering inhale was the only
sign of Bryce's discomfort as she remained facing the circle
on the other side of the room, the male now contained inside
its dark border. Atis.
She said softly. So black salt summons can summon
somebody from hell in a sort of like, not quite all their
format, but they also use black salt laced water to basically,
like de Mahdi, travel to hell in House of Flame and Shadow.
That's chapter 57. And Adis actually calls this a
dreaming draft. So there's a name for, yeah,
this salt laced water that Helena has been using to
converse with them for some time.
And that discovery, Bryce kind of puts it all together when she
sees that the caves are made of black salt, and she sees like a
drinking bowl on the ground, she says these faves are made
entirely of black salt. Bryce said she'd seen it as soon
as the ghoul had gouged lines in the wall, knew its smell, its
rotting, oily feel. A taste of it had confirmed her
suspicions. Hunt frown.
You think Helena was trying to summon her sister from their
home world? So again, black salt can be used
to talk to worlds other than other than hell no.
Bryce said, shaking her head. She sent Celine back to be safe.
She was an asshole, but she would never have done anything
to jeopardize that. So what is this place then?
Darien said it was Sathya who got it first.
It's to summon demons to commune with Hell.
Stunned silence rock the room. They were her only remaining
allies. Bryce explained that I'm
skipping a bit, but Sathya walked to the stream.
That water filter straight through the black salt, and this
chamber is thick with it. She met Bryce's stare, brows
nodding. Can you summon a demon if you
drink water laced with black salt?
And Hunt says, I've never heard of anything like that, even
during my demon hunting years. And then they're ruminating a
little bit more. And Bryce, Bryce realizes maybe
the salt helped her mind speak with hell.
Maybe someone in hell can tell us how to kill the hysteria.
Polly and himself ate serious. Maybe he's had the answer all
along. And then Hunt has a little fit,
and Bryce almost has a fit as well.
But ultimately they decide to drink the salt lace water
together. And Bryce lifted the bowl to her
lips and drank. Bryce was falling backward and
yet not moving. Her body remained kneeling.
Get her soul fell, placing over into the dark, into nothing and
nowhere, a presence around her beside her, flickering with
lightning. Hunt.
He was with her soul falling alongside her.
And then they end up in hell so that black salt laced water
allows them to soul travel, soul travel de Mati travel to hell
while their body stays in Midgard.
You look like you want to. You know what I just realized?
Yeah, I I just realized something.
I never made this connection before, but you said that
they're they're soul traveling basically to hell, right?
And Hunt is flickering with lightning as he does that, which
is so interesting because when Ruin and Lydia talk in whatever
they are, but what seems to be like soul to soul, mind to mind,
right? Like they also appear as their
power. So is there something about this
that makes you did Hunt see Bryce in that moment as
Starlight right? Like is or is it something about
Hunt, about Bryce and Rune specifically that lets them see
people as like powers or? Rune also appears as as night
though, right? Like as stars and night.
So unless Lydia has something going on, which I know we kind
of both think she does. I mean, I mean, she knows a lot
of things. But yeah, I mean, either what?
Either way, I think it's an interesting parallel between
these two. The mind talking to the Princess
and what Rune and Lydia are doing right, I think.
I mean, these two chapters, this chapter of of Hunt and Bryce
going to hell is right next to and, and when they call it a
dream world, which we're about to talk about, is literally
right next to a chapter in which Lydia says, I want to feel you
here. Not in some dream world.
Like literally the words dream world are said referring to
where Rune and Lydia meet and hell in two chapters next to
each other, which Sarah doesn't do that by accident.
She doesn't do that by accident. Very interesting.
It's very interesting. And so this just around out the
black salt dreaming draft piece, they find that when they drink
the black salt, the way that they travel is basically
traveling truly as just their soul, right?
So they can't be harmed, right. So they're when when they get
there again. This is still House of Flame and
Shadow. Chapter 59.
Hunt lunged, intending to shove the Prince of the Chasm away
from his mate. He went right through the demon
Prince. Hunt stumbled and lifted his
hands. His fingers shimmered faintly
with a pale bluish light. Bryce had the same aura around
her. They were ghosts here.
And then Apollyon later in that paragraph says you will find
that you cannot harm us nor we you in such a state and ate us.
Later in that paragraph says Helena learned that black salt
would allow her to commune with us while protecting her mind and
her soul. So she's smart cookie.
I was she so worried about protection?
Is a question, yeah. What were their what were their
intentions? We are told directly but that
they as trust in hell was her downfall though.
Yeah. So we're talking about that.
It's all that. And then, I mean, we talked
about this already, but Adis calls it a dreaming draft.
He says the dreaming draft will only last so long.
So come into the temple, which is just interesting that they
have they have a name for it and the name for it is a dreaming
draft because they they go to sleep and then they're dreaming,
they go to a dream world. So Bryce describes hell as a
dream world, right? She says she didn't need to look
to know Hunt stood beside her in whatever this place was, this
dream world. And that's interesting, right?
Because Apollyon visits in dreams, that's what he does.
And Rude and Lydia have been meeting in a dream world for
quite some time. So just commentary.
More on that later, but go ahead.
I think there's a question and I don't know if you're about to
get into this, but I think there's a question on whether or
not we've even actually seen hell or if everything we've seen
is is just Polly and conjuring it right?
Because he conjures parthos, he conjures wherever the fuck him
and him and Hunt met in that dream.
Like is this just an illusion or is it?
Have we actually seen parts of hell?
I don't know, but I think. It's a question, I think it's a
very fair question because so much of what we see of hell is
reminiscent of real things that we've already seen #1 it's
totally empty #2 we're told, or I'll just summarize it here and
then we'll get into it. We're told that it's where the
dead go to rest. But then we also find that
that's not really true, right? Because at the end of House in
Flame and Shadow Shadow, we learn that there is an actual
land resting, and Adis does not know about it.
He's like, do you think I'd be allowed in?
So what is hell, Right? Like what actually is hell?
I think it's, I think it's a very fair question.
Well believe I didn't prep this, but I believe when Ethan is
asking for Connor soul and the Mystic goes down to hell and
they're talking to Thanatos, Thanatos said no wolf has like
roamed these lands for centuries or millennia right?
I why would a wolf soul go to hell?
I mean it kind of makes sense that it's it hasn't because of
what the asteria are doing with the dead and fucking with the
dead. But like, does that mean that
this wolf souls used to go to hell before they went to
whatever that eternal realm is? Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like what? What is the order of events?
What is the path here for a dead?
Yeah. Where does it go?
So my, my thought there we are told it's a city of the dead and
that it's where our dead go to rest.
That does not seem to be consistent with what we learned
and which is exactly what you just said.
So when Bryce and Hunter and Hell again still chapter 58 and
59, this is when this is all happening.
It's like a city of the dead, Hunt murmur, draping a wing
around Bryce. Ada's turned from where he stood
at the prowl. This isn't a ship that looks, a
boat that looks exactly like the one that goes to the Bone
Quarter, except for it's a stag skull with like, greenish light.
He just turned from where he stood at the prow, holding in
his hands a long pole that he'd used to guide them.
That's because it is. He gestured with a pale hand to
the buildings and temples and avenues.
This is where beloved dead come to rest with all the comforts of
life around them. But again, we then later see a
place of resting in the House of Lamb and shadow.
Chapter 99 This place was the opposite of where she'd gone
during the drop, rather than an endless chasm chasm, which is
one of the levels how seems intentional.
It was just light, soft golden light, gentle and easy on the
gaze. It was warm and restful and she
had nowhere else she really wanted to be except.
And then she thinks about thinks about Hunt.
Then she sees Danica, the pack in Lahaba, and she kind of blows
a kiss to Lahaba. And then through her tears, she
turned back to Jessica. How the second light.
And Jessica says it took their power.
But what is eternal? What is made of love that can
never be destroyed? So this what Bryce sees, she
sees Danica, she sees the pack, she sees Lahaba.
This is the actual place of resting, which again, we just
talked about. Ada seems unfamiliar with the
place of resting because Bryce tells him about it and he
wonders if he will ever be allowed in.
So this is a House of flame and shadow.
Chapter 101. His smile turned gentler.
Thea would be proud of you and of you.
Bryce said, the only gift she could offer to a Prince of hell.
She refrained from saying that they as pride meant shit to her.
Though. I think you might get to hear it
from her lips one day. Adis angled his head.
Bryce had told all of them about what Jessica had claimed, what
she'd seen in that land of glowing light.
You think a Prince of hell, she'll be allowed in?
Bryce walked up to him and kissed his cheek.
Icy skin met her lips. I think a good male, regardless
of where he is from, will always be allowed in.
Ada's eyes glowed bright blue with gratitude or longing or
love, she didn't know, but the Prince only nodded her then to
hunt and walk through the northern rift into the dark.
So he, like he's asking, would I be allowed in?
He's clearly allowed into hell, so it's not like it's not hell.
So like my question, my thoughts your exact point on like what is
the path of a soul that's dead If the souls of the wolves at
one point did go to hell because Santos says like a soul has not
been here in some time is hell. Like if they're living in the
comforts of life, is hell like a purgatory, like a temporary
place of resting for those who have like power?
Because Jessica's whole point was like it took their power,
like the whole second light situation was a destruction of
their power. But what is made of love, like
their actual, you know, they're like intrinsic being can't be
destroyed. So is that what this place of
breath and holds? I don't really know.
Well, it could be too right in classic.
Well, OK, so I was doing a little research on Norse
mythology for this and I believe in Norse mythology.
Sorry if I get this wrong. There's two places of resting.
There is hell and there's also Valhalla.
And I mean, this fits with heaven and hell in like classic
Christianity too, right? Like there's actually two
places, but like Valhalla, I think is for the honored dead
and hell is for people who die. Like the hell is for warriors
basically, right? Hell is for people who, like,
die of natural causes. But what's interesting is that I
believe Adis uses the exact phrase are honored dead at one
point, right? So it kind of implies that
that's not what this hell is. It's it doesn't quite line up
with that mythology. It calls them our beloved, but
yeah, our beloved dead. OK, so maybe maybe I'm wrong,
but yeah, it could be there's like a heaven and there's a hell
or there's a Valhalla and there's a hell that there's like
2 depending on who you are. But the idea that Thea would not
end up. It's hard to believe that is
what it. Is yeah, it's totally hard.
Yeah, right. I'm with you.
I don't know. Yeah, I totally agree.
And then to to your other point on have we actually seen hell?
I think that's also a fair question.
So there are there are two things about hell that we are
actually three things to explicit 1 and explicit in my
opinion, about hell that feel like they're actually just
conjurings of things that we have seen before, right?
So when Bryce and Hunt arrive in hell, they arrive in a city,
looks like a city that has a river and also has pillars and
buildings carved into Black Rock.
Sounds like we're we are told that it has a direct comp to the
Bone Quarter. Like the boat that that crosses
crosses the river to the Bone Quarter.
Yeah. But it also kind of sounds like
the human city, right? Like carved into Black Rock.
The city appears to be empty. And the Prince is kind of
implied that this is actually because they're just letting
them see, letting them see parts of hell.
And so this is in House of Lamish.
I have such bad allergies. Sorry but I keep itching my
nose. I'm currently on a double extra
strength dose of generic antihistamines because my skin
exploded in hives on Saturday. And I went to the doctor and
they're like, we have to reset your entire histamine system.
So you're going to go out like this crazy high dose of
antihistamines. I'm like, Oh my God, so.
Clearance, and I don't know what to do right now.
So that's appointment Shadow Chapter 58.
The black boat that Ada's LED Bryce and Hunt into was a cross
between the one that had brought them into a volun and the ones
that carry the bodies to the Bone Quarter.
So again, just like things that we've seen that exist in lieu of
stag's head, it was a stag skull at the prow, greenish flame
dancing in its eyes as it sailed through The Cave.
Eerie green light illuminated Black Rock carved into pillars
and buildings, walkways and temples, ancient and empty.
Bryce had never seen a place so void of life, so still in the
Bone Quarter had a sense of being lived in, albeit by the
dead, but here nothing stirred. So a few things here we're we've
got the boat obviously, which is of all and in the Bone Quarter
have Black Rock carved into pillars and buildings, walkways
and temples. That is very hewn city like
we've got the green light. That's hell and hell alone in my
opinion. And then we also have the temple
of chaos, which looks exactly like herds temple.
So this is in House of land and shadow.
Chapter 59. The temple of chaos is a sacred
place. A Pauline said sharply.
We shall never defile it with violence.
And then hunt in his perspective refers to it as a near mirror to
temples back home. Indeed, it's layout was
identical to the last temple. Haunted stood in towards temples
in lieu of the Blackstone altar. At the center of the temple, a
bottomless pit was the main focal .5 chairs of carved
Blackwood encircled it. But also not.
This just occurred to me, but it's like counsel of the High
Lords too, right? Like they're all sitting around
Fountain basically, but like. But it's a black pit.
Interesting. Yeah.
Yeah, same, same thing. Yeah.
So I think it's like it's fair to call into question like is
something going on from a like Damati perspective that is
actually just calling on things that Bryce and Hunt know and
recognize that is like making them see a hell that they know a
hell that makes them comfortable.
I don't know. I think it's a fair question
because everything that we're seeing is like called to
recognition in some other some other way.
Yeah, But also, maybe this is just writing.
Maybe we're just being told it looks like something else
because that's how that's how Sarah is describing it to us.
Think either one is fair, but I do think it's fishy.
I mean, I think it's undeniable that this is meant to make us
think of the Hewn City, right? And then it's just a question of
chicken and egg, right? Have the Princess of Hell seen
the Hewn City? Or was the Hewn City inspired by
Hell? Right, Yeah.
I mean, we will talk about Lord Thanatus guys, not this episode,
but we will talk. But not this episode.
We will talk about Lord. Bandages.
Not this episode, but we will fear not.
Yeah, yes. And then really go ahead.
Just one more little thing for this, and I wasn't even thinking
about it in terms of maybe this not being real, but I only
clocked this on my like 5th reread of this passage and I
kind of freaked out when I read it.
So the quote is Bryce pulled truth teller for this is when
they're all sitting in the circle, right?
Bryce pulled truth teller from the sheath at her side here.
At least the blades didn't pull at each other.
She has the Star Sword and she has Truth Teller with her, but
they're not pulling at each other in Hell.
Why? I don't know why.
I think that's very interesting though.
Like is it because none of this is real?
Or is there something about hell that calms them, that quiets
them? I did very much assume that it's
because they weren't physically there, but it is interesting to
think about whether it's because, yeah, because hell is
where they can just chill out. I don't know.
Yeah. I mean, it could be because
they're not physically there, but Bryce can pull Truth Teller
out, you know what I mean? Like it's like she can still
touch. It yeah, it is interesting.
Anyway, that's all we have to say about that for now.
OK, the only other things that I really wanted to call out that
we know about Hell is that Hell did have warring factions and
they overthrew the Asteri by uniting against them.
So we learned this when Bryce says and and she's so explicit
for us. And I know Hell once had warring
factions, but you sorted out your shit and marched as one to
kick the Asteria out of hell. A year later you haunted them
down across the stars and found them on Midgard.
You fought them again and it didn't go well.
That time you jettison, you got jettison from Midgard and have
been trying to creep back through the northern rift ever
since. So it's interesting to think
about, right? We see Apollyon, Atus, and
Thanatos more or less put up a united front at least Pauline
and ate a Spanatos seems like kind of a fucking wild card.
But like they generally seem pretty united.
At one point they definitely were not and they did come
together and overthrow the Esteri and then make a point to
hunt them down after they overthrew them to mid card and
lost. Truly never occurred to me that
the factions might be between the Princess.
It's obvious. Like, that makes way more sense.
Actually, given all the, like, kind of clues we get, that makes
way more sense. It doesn't necessarily.
I always assumed there was just like something else on Hell that
they were fighting against. But yeah, but this I.
Mean it certainly could have been something else, someone
else, but like the fact that they united to kick the Astiri
out makes it seem like they came together against the Asteri.
So it was either some other entity entirely that was not the
Asteri that they were fight that they were like warring against,
or it was each other. And it kind of feels like
warring factions would imply that it was each other, which
like Thanatos seems like a real. So it wouldn't surprise me if
that were the case, especially given there is a hierarchy,
right? So like Napoleon is the most
powerful, everybody below him, like all the other Princess are
meant to like kind of defer to him.
And I can see the 1st 4 Princess, like you can see that
power struggle come up, especially Thanatos being who he
is and Prince of the ravine. So I totally agree.
What else did you have? I had like a bunch of other just
nothing quotes but I can scan them while you you go on.
I'll have that much more. I think just a couple things.
We talked about the Northern Rift.
So the demons, demons of hell, are scared of Bryce's Starlight.
We are told in Crescent City. One which is quote as Hunt had
no words in his head, his heart. As Bryce shoved the burning
Starlight into the gate, white light blasted from the gates
clear stone. It filled the square, shooting
outward for blocks. Demons caught in its path
screamed as they were blinded, then fled like they remembered
who it had once belonged to. The Starborn Prince had battled
their hordes with it. That's what we get in CC-1.
Oh, yeah. A lot of you guys have said can
you start referring to the books by their numbers instead of
their names? Because people just completely
lose track of their names. I'm going to honor that request
because I also completely lose track of the names.
So that was Chris and City one. OK.
Yeah, you can keep doing it your way.
It's OK. But that's Chris.
City 1 obviously this actually makes no sense.
It's on what we learned later right?
Because the starboard fae were allied with hell.
So why would the demons run from the starboard light unless it is
Asteri light is basically like it Just another point in the
Asteri direction is what I'm going to say here.
The other things we learn the asteri have trouble feeding off
Hell's magic. So the quote we that have for
that is this was in, this is when they're in Hell, and we're
going to put Hell in quotation marks now because we're not
sure, but the quote is. But how?
Hunt asked, fighting past that numbing, blissful chill in his
chest. Did you kick the Asteri out of
Hell the first time they had trouble feeding off our magic?
Santos said, a voice that was discussed.
And they found our powers rivaled their own.
They fled before we could kill them.
So for whatever reason, the Asteri can't really feed off
Hell's magic, which I thought was interesting.
So interesting, which we have not talked about.
Maybe we'll talk about in the hunt deep dive in that scene
when talking to the Princess has this like blissful colt coming
over him that Bryce does not seem to have.
I don't know if that's like related to him being of hell or
something else is going on here. But like he keeps talking about
this like chilling numbness may be meant to reflect his
emotional state. I don't know.
But I thought that was very interesting.
And that's pretty much all I have.
The only other, Well, we talked about the temple.
Did you you mentioned that it was a Temple of Chaos.
OK. I think it's interesting that
this is specifically the Temple of Chaos because I believe
Apollyon tells us that he and therefore I'm assuming all these
Princess were birthed from Chaos and the Void, right?
So I think it's interesting that they both have a temple to her.
They worship her and she is their mother.
And this looks like Urd's temple, right?
Like, are we getting set up for Urd and Chaos potentially being
the same? I don't know.
I did do a little research on to Chaos and we'll talk about that
later. But I I think the parallels that
are being drawn here are interesting.
That's all I have. For this, I mean, I think like
we'll talk about obviously Apollyon a little bit later, but
like Apollyon also claims to have the power of the void and
the boss, the void end of chaos. Their powers run in my yeah,
right. The fuck is the power of chaos?
Right? Like you have a temple for her.
I have ideas. It's interesting.
I'm trying to look at what I'll say.
I just have like evidence that Hell was framed basically.
So as long as you guys trust me that Hell was framed as enemy of
Midgard and then was later proven to be allies to to the
Fae, stalwart allies. If we're being specific, then
we're good. Cool.
Yeah. I mean, we spent two whole books
getting this story, I think. I think we're guys.
I think very. Hard to actually pull
evidentiary quotes that are concise or things like that
because we learn them over the span of literally 1800 pages,
but. Yeah.
They they, they were said to be enemies.
They're actually allies. And then Hunt is has a little
moment where he's like, oh, I'm proud to be a son of hell, which
I actually thought was very sweet.
I know. Very sweet.
I thought that was very OK. All right, Abby, what creatures
do we know are from hell? All right, so I basically
focused on you have questions later guys about the Crystallis
and Shepherd reapers. Wait, do we?
No, no, we have Crystallis and the Shepherd.
So I'm mainly focusing on lower class demons just to set the
stage there. All right so we get a a view of
kind of the general demons of hell in Crescent City one when
they are invading Lunatheon. So the quote we get is months
tense shoulders. She knew the horde was as
unnerving for him as it was for her.
Leathery winged horned humanoids that seem to be grunt soldiers.
Bone white reptilian beasts that crawled on all fours.
Hounds of war skeletal beings with two large jaws stacked with
needle like teeth that gleamed with greenish slime.
There were more, so many more things that slithered, things
that flew, things that surveyed midguard with Milky sightless
eyes and bade at the dissipated bloodless.
I'm sorry, I actually think that quote is from Crescent City 3,
but it's whatever. It's still describing the
general hordes of hell. Obviously she threw in leathery
winged there, right? Like she has to know what she's
doing. She also threw in sightless and
slithered and so many of these are blind.
Like I'm going to throw in the worm.
I think the worm is definitely fucking from hell.
I agree. I agree that it seems like the
worm is probably from hell. Yeah, so.
So that's kind of our general demons.
I'll just go over quickly. The vampires and the daemonaki.
I don't think there's that much interesting stuff to talk about
there, but we know. So the quote we have for the
vampires, Vampires, I don't know how it's said.
Apologies. The Vamps had worked hard to get
people to forget the tiny fact that they'd all come from hell.
Lesser demons themselves. That their ancestors had
defected in the Seven Prince from their 7 Princess during the
first wars and fed the Esteri Imperial legions vital Intel
that aided in their victory. Traitors and turncoats who still
had held a demon's craving for blood.
So we are later told by the Princess that the vampires and
the Reaper were actually the generals of their armies and
that they defected and went to the Esteri.
I don't know they were ever really told why though.
Told why the reapers followed. The reapers followed because the
vampires were their food, right? But I think there's a question
as to like, why would the vampires choose to ally with the
Esteri over being the generals in the prince's armies?
I think that's an open question. And then Damon Aki were
basically told our vainier demon hybrids, for lack of a better
word. So the quote we have for that
is. Hell was severed from them by
time and space, but still accessible through twin sealed
portals at the North and South poles, the Northern Rift and
Southern Rift respectively, or by idiots who tried to summon
demons through salts of varying powers.
It was why the creeps existed in their world at all.
Most have been haunted after those long ago wars between
realms, But every so often, demons got loosed.
Demons got loose, reproduced, usually by force.
The results of these horrible unions.
The day Manaki was walking, the streets were diluted, weaker
incarnations and hybrids of the purebred demons.
And how So? That's pretty icky.
There's an entire race of people there, Mount Fanier again out
there who are just demon babies by force, which we don't love,
and kind of dive deep into the Reapers.
Now, did you have anything else before I did that?
OK. All right, So the Reapers, I
think the Reapers are really interesting.
So we find out in Crescent City 2 that they're originally from
hell, right? So the quote we have is need to
tell me that there are reapers who can simply defect and serve
hell. From whence?
Good use of whence? From whence do you think the
reapers first came? Who first ruled them?
Ruled the vampires? The reapers chose Midgard but I
am not surprised some have changed their minds.
So that is I believe the under King speaking to Bryce about the
reapers. And then we get confirmation and
Crescent City three from the Princess that the reapers and
vampires used to be their general.
So this is the quote I was alluding to before Sanatose
picked up the narrative, resting his helmet on a knee.
The vampires and Reapers had defected to the Asteria.
They betrayed us, the cowards. From the shadows behind him, his
hounds snarled as if in agreement.
They've been our captains and lieutenants for the most part.
Our armies were in shambles without them.
We needed time to rebuild. So the person vampires were the
generals. They defected to the Asteria.
Now they live in Midgard. We find out in how the Reapers
fed on and ruled the vampires. And when the vampires defected
to this world, the Reapers followed their food source and
found other beings on Mid to be a veritable feast.
So they have left the vampires to themselves, feeding as they
pleased on the rest of the populace.
I think what's so interesting about the reapers?
What they eat and how they eat it, right?
So we're told that they eat souls, but that is also kind of
conflated with First Light, right?
So in Crescent City Two we have. Ethan might have continued to
lie there hoping some Reaper would come suck the soul from
his body had Bryce not rushed over.
This is when Ethan breaks the coffee table and is quite
embarrassed about his actions, as he should be.
And then in Crescent City 3, we see Sigrid eat the souls of both
the Prime and the Astronomer, which is pretty graphic too.
So with the Prime we get for Sigrid, we get this is Cigarette
literally leaning over her grandfather's body as light
flared up through the Prime's mouth, illuminating his hollowed
cheeks. And then Sigrid was breathing it
in, drinking it in his soul, his first light, right?
So she's literally eating his soul.
And then with Anatos we get it has been a long time since
Immortal fly buzzed all the way down to hell.
I will taste this one soul as I want to sit from them like fine
wine. So we have this idea of soul
eating. Then with the Prime we have his
soul, his first light. And I'm just throwing this out
there because this feels very Esteri, right?
And I do think I want to shout out Morgan on this.
I think she called this out right?
But like we have this idea of kind of creatures from hell
consuming first light and we have obviously the Esteri
consuming first light. So are they actually kind of
competing for resources potentially?
Like there's some kind of cosmic battle over resources here going
on that we haven't really been clued into right?
So what? They are the reapers.
So we have half lives. People called them humans and
Vainer who had once been alive, who had faced death and offered
their souls to the under king as his private guards and servants
instead. The cost to live forever UN
aging and unkillable but never again able to sleep, eat, fuck.
Vainer did not mess with them. And we do later see this with
Sigrid right? She chooses instead of to be
raised as based again by Hyperxia, she chooses to become
a Reaper and serve the under king.
This just kind of raised a lot of questions to me as to how the
under King is able to do this right?
Like how is he able to negotiate that souls can just be given to
him? He's a bear away, right?
Like he's a bear away. How is he able to do this?
I don't understand. They really don't like the star
sword, which this is when kind of Bryson Rune learned the power
of the star sword. So the quotes we have for that
are this is when they've abducted Rune in Crescent City
2. The reapers floated over the
sewers, river black robes drifting, Rune unconscious
dangle between two of them, the star swords still trapped on
him. Either they were too stupid to
disarm him or they didn't want to touch it.
One of the reapers drifted closer to Rune as they caught
him. The hilt of the star sword
brushed against its robes, hissed, recoiling.
I think so what's interesting is like these reapers won't even
like they don't even want to touch the hilt of the star
sword, right? Like the Autumn King will touch
it, but he doesn't want to touch it for too long.
Like, I think it's just interesting.
And again, we'll get into it, like, who can touch the Star
sword and for how long? And like what that implies about
them. And then we get, obviously,
Bryce kills a Reaper with a star sword.
So we get the star sword saying with light, her power flowing
into it, activating it. And nothing had ever felt so
right, so easy as plunging the blade into the Bony chest of the
wounded Reaper. It arced, bellowing, black blood
spurting from its withered lips. So obviously this is the first
time we see the Star Sword killing the unkillable, so to
speak, right? So this is when Bryce kind of
realizes what it is. I just think it's interesting
that Thea made the Star Sword. Well, we don't really know.
We don't really know, but we are basically told right that Thea
made the Star Sword and Truth Teller in the effort of
overthrowing the Asteri. But in that in that vein it is
also able to kill things from hell right?
Like why? Why is it able to kill things
from hell if the goal was killing things Asteri related?
Which I think is interesting. And with both the star sword and
Ataraxia, when Nestor kills Lanthus, both of these
unkillable things have black blood, right?
And we know that Vespers had black blood, but other Esteri
don't seem to have black blood. But like, what is the link
there? What does that signify?
This I thought was kind of crazy.
Oh, this is kind of the most wild thing to me that the
reapers can do. They are able to activate the
gate in the bone quarter, right? So this is when Hunt and Bryce
are in the bone quarter fighting the under King.
We get the crystal of the dead gate began to glow white, not
from her touch but as if the reapers were chanting awakening
the dead gate somehow right? We're basically told only like
the horn activate the power of the gate and the horn was a
trove item made by the Asteri right?
Like Bryce basically blows the horn, Micah blows the horn and
that and starboard power again which we think is a starry power
is able to activate the gates. Why are these Reapers able to
activate the Dead Gate? I agree with you on the gate
piece in particular, and I think it has, yeah, something to do
with the fact that they are from hell.
Like specifically that they're from hell.
And the reason that I think that is because of what we've seen
with Synth and its ability to help activate the horn and
Hellfire and its ability to activate the horn.
I think that there's something and like obviously we'll talk
about it later in this episode, but I do think there's something
very, very interesting going on with beings of hell and the
ability to open gates to other worlds.
And I think the Reapers have like the reapers probably have a
leg up or something else going on because they are they do have
one foot in one foot out on life in general.
And I really want, I really want to draw connections between them
and the surreal, but I don't have great other than the black
blood. Honestly, I don't have great
connections between. No, I tend to agree.
I would, yeah. I would tend to agree.
Yeah, yeah. Did you have any other
creatures? Well, I did have the death
stalkers. There are death stalkers.
They're creepy fucking pets of the Prince of the Pit.
We learn about them first in House of Sky and Breath.
Hunt recognizes them because he has been scarred by one of them
before, so he recognizes it's a Death Stalker.
Even the burbling fountain beyond them seem to quiet at the
name. What's that?
Lethal assassins bred by the Prince of the Pit.
He keeps them as pets. Athaler's wings rustled, Had a
shadow blast over the sun. I've only dealt with them once.
I've got a scar down my back from it and Napoleon kind of
acknowledges it later here and it's like, yeah, I'm like, sorry
about the scar. I acknowledge that.
You know, my one of my death Stalkers gave that to you.
Interestingly, in the final battles, Thanatos is kind of
responsible for the Death Stalkers and the army of them
and has kind of like not very leashed control over the army of
Death Stalkers. I don't think there's really
that much honestly to talk about when it comes to the death
Stalkers, just that they're another flavor of hound like
beings that are actually bred by appalling it, but seem to be
controlled by Thanatos. So we'll talk more about then
when we talk about Thanatos or I will.
I think the whole the main thing that's still just so crazy about
the hell creatures versus Steri creatures is the tight
similarities between them. They just like like a Death
stalker sounds a lot like a Daglin hound, right?
Like in my opinion, like they seem very similar.
So is that just writing style? Is that an intentional choice?
No. Yeah, I think the only other
thing may be worth mentioning here.
And again, we have no real evidence for any of this, but
all of the hell like creatures that are creatures of Midgard
recognized are in House of Lame and Shadow.
And so that begs the question, what is going on with the
wraiths, the Draki and the Dragons who are not confirmed
creatures of hell, but all have very hell like properties,
right? Wraiths are like shadows
basically that can inhabit other bodies.
It's very, very Prince of hell life.
What's going on with the Draki? Dragons have like the only one
of the only types of fire that can harm a Prince of hell.
How would you have that if you don't hail from hell?
In some regards the Dragons are by the Miss Well Ariatne.
It's used by the Mystic to protect against hell.
Now how well she does that I think is a question that is
worth asking given what happens. But yeah, and I think it's
interesting too with the race because obviously we have race
and Qatar, right. So if the race are from hell are
dwell and Serge went from hell, right.
All right, next question. All right, Ronnie, what is the
Crystallos? The Crystallis is a demon from
hell with a lot more to it than that, but the Crystallis is a
demon from Hell. The physical description of a
Crystallis is is kind is actually especially creepy.
The description at least is from House of Earth and Blood chapter
46. Sorry Crescent City 1 Chapter
46. And most of the Crystallis
involvement that we get is from Crescent City.
One has a grayish near translucent hide.
So it's giving like deep hell because near translucent usually
is associated with demons that don't see light.
It has clear blood, creepy, a clawed hand and crystalline
Talon. So it's called a crystallos
because it is it literally looks crystalline, which crystal in
this world is a conduit. So that's interesting.
Worth noting the crystallosis is blind and it also has clear
teeth. So crystalline talons, clear
teeth, clear blood, near translucent hide and blind like
sightless eyes puts together a very, very creepy picture.
It's venom negates magical abilities.
We don't actually learn it when Micah is downed, but it should
have given us pause when an Angel was downed and then Bryce
survived. Right?
That probably should have been a little flag in our brains.
But just for context for those who have forgotten because I
learned on my reread that I forgot most of what happened.
Crescent said he won he first meet the Crystallos in the very
beginning of House and Earth. House of Earth and blood.
I'll just like explain the unexplained at that point right?
Danica does herself in and everybody around her in through
synth and accidentally summons the Cristalos demon because
synth has Obsidian salt in it. So the Cristalos is summoned.
We meet the Cristalos demon at that point Bryce sees it, chases
it, thinks that the Cristalos demon is responsible for Danica
and the pack's death the entire time.
But later later we learn, no, it was actually the synth.
And the synth, because of its Obsidian salt content, summoned
the Crystallis. So let's talk about the
Crystallis in more depth. To be fair, real quick, not to
besmirch the bit dead, Micah did inject Danica with the synth.
She didn't do it herself, but yes.
Yes, Micah did murder Danica by injecting her with synth, and
Micah had also been summoning the Cristallis demon to try and
hunt down the horn for himself, which we will talk about more as
well. Like a bad dude.
Glad that Bryce vacuumed him up. Do not miss him.
Was everything in chapter 50 is when we kind of start
researching the Cristalos demon or one of the early days when
we're researching the Cristal's demon.
Have you come across any information about the Cristalos
negating magic days later? Hunt, this is Hunt.
He couldn't stop thinking about it, how it felt for his power to
just sputter and die in his veins.
No, I still haven't found anything about the creation of
the Cristalos, except that it was made from the blood of the
first star born Prince and the essence of the Star Eater
himself. Nothing about it negating magic.
Roon nodded at him. You've never come across a demon
that can do that? And I'm skipping a bit.
Not one. Which spells and Gorsian stones
negate magic? But this was different.
He dealt with both before they bound him.
Using the witch ink on his brow, they shackled him with manacles
hewn from the Gorsian stones of the Dolos Mountains, rare metal
whose properties numbed one's access to magic.
Skipping a bit again. Green motion to the ancient book
he left on the table days ago, still open to a passage about
the Starborn fae. If the Star Eater himself put
his essence in the Crystallis, that's probably what gave the
demon the ability to eat magic, just as Prince Pelia's blood
gave it the ability to look for the horn.
This is early days, right? This is before like we know a
thing about a thing. But in this early research, we
are learning that Apollyon allegedly creates the Crystallis
from Prince Pelia's blood and his own essence to hunt the horn
and so that the venom negates magic.
And when Bryce later gets the venom removed, because again,
Bryce does have an encounter with the Crystallis the night
that Danica dies, there is venom in her leg.
She never bothers getting it taken out.
Hunt staples her injury shot. He has like a whole guilt trip
about it. She never gets it removed
because she wants to feel the pain.
She and Hunt go to Hyperxia. I don't believe they know it's
Hyperxia at the time to get it removed.
This is in chapter 61. Again, you got to keep a lot of
stuff straight, straight in these fucking books.
It's it's apparent that the venom has actually been feeding
on her because it's been in her for so long.
So not only has it been kind of suppressing her magic, but it
has been feeding on her for the duration that has been in her,
which at this point has been almost 2 years, I think like a
year and a half or something like that.
With his wound the other night, the poison had not yet taken
root. With an injury like yours, deep
and old venom is a kind of Organism.
It feeds off you. It won't want to go easily,
especially after so long meshing itself to your body.
I shall have to use my own magic to pull it from your body.
And then of course, hypaxia does take the venom out of Rice's
body and it's a very sweet scene.
And Hunt kisses her and it's like kind of the beginning of of
their romance. This is used to create the
antidote. We'll get there when we get
there. So again, going back to what
Rune tells us about Apollyon breeding the crystallos, we are
told that it's bred to track the horn a few times.
And one of these sources is from the Faye archives, which is not
completely unreliable, right? And I kept kind of waiting
actually throughout the entire series for this to be disproven.
It's never actually disproven, which again, what is going on
with Pelleus? I think that the Crystallis was
bred to find the horn because the Princess of Hell say that
their goal was basically to open the Northern rift and they
needed the horn to do that. But the idea of it being made
from Pelleus's blood I don't think makes any sense.
But maybe you were about to get into.
That so in so in Chapter 21 of Crescent City One, the Star
Eater himself bred a new horror just to hunt the horn, using
some blood he managed to spill from Prince Pelleas on a
battlefield in his own terrible essence.
Beast, twisted out of the collision of light and darkness,
been swiped on his phone, and the next illustration appeared.
This is photos from the Fae Archives.
The reason he'd had her come here.
He had taken this gamble. Rice recoiled at the grotesque
pale body, the clear teeth bared in a roar.
You recognize it? Rune said softly.
Bryce shook herself as if to bring herself back to reality
and rubbed her thigh absently. That's the demon I found
attacking the Angel which was Micah in the alley on that
night. Hunt gave her a sharp look.
The one that attacked U2? Bryce gave a small affirmative
nod. What is it?
It dwells in the dark steps of the pit.
Rune answered, So lightless that the Star Eater named at the
Crystallos for its clear blood and teeth.
Athlar said. I've never heard of it.
Bryce contemplated the drawing it.
There was never mention of a fucking demon in the research I
did on the horn. She met us gaze.
No one put this together two years ago.
I think it's taken 2 years to put it together.
Rune said carefully. This volume was deep in the Fae
archives with the stuff that's not allowed to be scanned.
None of your research would have ever pulled it up.
The entire damn thing was in the old language of the fae and had
taken him most of the night to translate.
Throwing in the lingering fog of the mirth root hadn't helped.
So this, the artifact that he found that had the detail about
the fact that it was made with Prince Peleus's blood was in the
old language. Maybe the Autumn King wrote it,
in which case, yeah, like, then it would be bullshit.
Maybe other, like, misled, misguided Fay wrote it, in which
case it could very well be bullshit.
But it was clearly intended to be kept secret.
And we do learn that the crystallos is old, like, old as
fuck, right? Like has not entered Midgard in
a very, very long time. Hunt describes it as a type 6,
type 6 demon, meaning like a deep deep demon, and says we're
looking for information on something that hasn't entered
this world 15,000 years. The fact that no one could idea
it suggested might not have made it into many of the history
books, and only a handful of those books survived this wrong.
We find evidence of the crystallos in art from 15,000
years ago, but about 100 years post Pelleus, and this art was
on a vase from Parthos. The terracotta vase dated back
nearly 15,000 years after Prince Pelleus, by about a century, but
the crystallis hadn't yet faded from common memory.
She read the brief catalog copy and said it's at a gallery in
Mercium, which put it a sea and 2000 miles beyond that from
Lunathian. She pulled the computer to her
and clicked on the thumbnail. But these photos should be
enough. A good sign.
Hon pointed at the image rendered in black paint against
the burnt orange of the terracotta of a Cristalis demon,
roaring as a sword was driven through its head by a helmeted
male warrior. She leaned toward the screen.
How so that the crystals can be killed the old fashioned way?
As far as I can tell, there's no magic or special artifact being
used to kill it here, just plain brute force.
That's odd. It says the vase is originally
from Parthos. He angled his head.
I thought Parthos was a myth, a human fairy tale.
I'm skipping a bit. The space was made by a nymph,
not some mythical enlightened human.
Maybe Parthos hadn't been wiped off the map entirely by that
point. So this is again.
Old like pre parthos destruction.
So the Crystallis is old again. We still do not have anything
ironclad to indicate that it had made with Prince Pelia's blood
at this point other than like some old fae bullshit.
Because like the fae do believe that Peleus was a starborn
Prince. One thing that is interesting
though, Rune can track the horn as well right?
Just like the Crystalis, and that is from House of Earth and
Blood. Crescent said he won again
because Prince Pellius's star Warren power was woven into the
horn itself. And it's in my blood.
My father thinks I might have some sort of preternatural gift
to find it, he admitted. When I was browsing the archives
last night, this book jumped out at me, literally.
Bryce asked. Browse High, Rune said.
Just felt like it shimmered. I don't fucking know.
All I know is I was down there for hours, and then I sensed the
book, and when I saw that illustration of the horn, there
it was. The crap I translated confirmed
it. So the Cristalos can track the
horn, Bryce said, eyes glittering.
But so can you. And later, right?
He kind of like puts this all together and it's like, oh, I've
actually just been drawn to Bryce the whole time, right?
Rune has been drawn to Bryce. So something about Rune too?
Rune is star born, but that makes sense.
I think what doesn't add up to me here is the idea they used
Pelleus's blood to make the crystallis to track the horn.
Because by the definition that Adas gave us of Starborn, you
have to be a descendant of Thea, and Pelleus cannot be a
descendant. Yeah, right.
So. And when Pelleus used the horn,
he broke it, right? So I guess just thinking out
loud here like they could have used it.
Maybe it makes sense if it is what we're talking about, what
we've been kind of hinting at that Pelleus was gifted some
sort of a steri power when he died.
Sorry, he didn't die. I forgot he didn't fucking die
when we're told he died on the battlefield.
But like, right, if Pelleus was gifted some sort of a steri
power and then Apollyon injured him I guess, but didn't kill
him, and then that was used to create the Crystalis demon, that
makes a little bit of sense I guess.
But like this whole thing, nobody lies on top of lies.
There are a lot of lies on top of lies.
Something, something had to be true about Pelleus that he was
able to even partially wield this horn at all, right?
And So what I'm wondering is, was Pellius's blood actually
used? And we just like, I just don't
have a fully formed theory about like, what the fuck is going on
with Pellius's blood? We know something was going on
with him because he didn't die #1 and he used the horn.
So like what's going on with Pellius?
What's going on? I don't know, I didn't think
we'd have so much Peleus chat this episode, but I'm fine with
it. I'm here for.
And I think he would have had to have used this horn after he was
supposed to have been killed because he closed the rift.
Yeah, I think so. Right.
So if he like say he was resurrected, say he was brought
back and his blood was used. I actually don't know that
Pelleus closed the rift at all. We're kind of going down a huge
tangent here. Ijalis actually says that Celine
or Helena closed the rift, but we can get into that later.
We're going to do more Pelleus talk.
We'll figure it out. But anyway this.
Story. Story doesn't make sense.
Hypaxia reinforces that this is an ancient demon through her
tutors, right? She's talking to Rune and Rune
is like, you recognize this demon and she's like, I had very
old tutors. They required me to study
ancient texts. Very old.
Very old whoops and room just kind of like shakes it off.
I don't know why he didn't ask more questions at that point.
But anyways, back to the removal of the venom, which I definitely
want to talk more about, but we'll keep it brief here.
Hypaxia uses the Crystallis venom as an antidote for synth,
so this, this feels important. Right When Bryce goes to get
this removed, Hypaxia says. You said on the phone that you
received this wound from a cristalis demon and it was never
healed. The venom is still in you, yes.
Bryce said quietly. Hunt hated every bit of pain
that laced that word. And you give me permission to
use the venom I extract in my experiments as I search for a
synth antidote? Bryce glanced at him and he
nodded his encouragement. Antidote to synth?
Pretty damn important to have, she said.
So yes, you have my permission. And then later, later in the
passage says the venom, in order to be an effective antidote,
needs to be stabilized so it can interact with the synth and
reverse its effects. My healing magic, cypaxia, can
do that, but I need to be present in order to hold that
stability. I'm trying to find a way for the
magic to permanently hold the stabilization so it can be sent
out into the world and widely used.
I'm just going to paraphrase the rest.
So basically, she does successfully extract the venom.
I put this in a different section as you could probably
imagine. She extracts the venom.
She does successfully create an answer that is held together by
her magic at that point and it does neutralize synth based on
what we know now know about synth that it is created with
Obsidian salt and the cristalo steamens venom which negates
magic, neutralizes synth like neutralizes it completely.
I do think that this is a point for the Cristalo steam and
having something else about it, right?
Something else that's not just hell, that's not just a polyan
if it is neutralizing salt completely.
In it, not only is the antidote to Synth, it later becomes the
antidote to the Asteri parasite, right?
Because Hypaxia says that she used the antidote for synth as
the base as the antidote to the asteri parasite.
So is that just the eating magic ability of the crystallos?
Like is that, is that what this is or.
Yeah, is there something else going on here?
It's very, very. Confusing.
It's confusing but I honestly I think the like the fact whether
they're right or wrong about the pelleus part, I think there has
to be something as steri within the crystallos because of the
eating magic part. I think it could be.
Well, Hunt speculates that that might be from Apollyon, Right.
We, we the quote is if the Star Eater himself put his essence in
the crystallos, that's probably what gave the demon the ability
to eat magic, just as Prince Pelleus's blood gave it the
ability to look for the horn. So we have a Polly on on one
hand, and we have starborn power on the other.
Like, basically making this. Yeah.
Which is crazy. Like it's kind of crazy.
I mean, I'm the, I guess the Hysterian does also need to be
there because it's looking for a Trove item.
Yeah. The question is, is it Peleus or
is it not Peleus? I don't know.
I don't know, like it doesn't make sense for it to be anyone
but Peleus because this demon was created to hunt down the
Horn so that they could reopen the Northern Rift.
And Thea and Helena had the horn when they were allied with Hell,
right? So they wouldn't have needed
this demon like you would have. Felt like a Paulian wouldn't
have need to would not have need to have made this beast if Thea
and Helena. Helena really still had the
horn. Maybe it's Hellena's blood.
Maybe they just used Hellena's blood somehow, somehow.
But again, like, I think that Apollyon would have needed to
have created it, unless he didn't, unless Apollyon didn't,
which would be fucking crazy. But I think he would have needed
to have created it before the rift closed, because how would
be getting back to the rift? So why were the Princess?
So why were the Princess hunting for the horn?
Where else do they want to go? But how could they have wielded
it? Oh, because, because Thea was
going to go live with Ada's and she did want to conquer all
these realms. But they had the horn now, so.
There had to be a time right between when Thea was killed and
when Pelli is closed, or whoever closed the rift.
Closed the rift. Yeah, that time that like in
between, had to have existed. And I think that was that had to
have been the time that Apollyon created and released the
crystallos, I think. I think you're right, yeah, on
the. Other side of the rift and just
like waited for somebody to summon a demon and like shove
the crystallos through. There's cracks they can send
people like they sent the Thunderbirds through.
But then, yeah, so I did something that allowed it to
track the horn, and Helena was only sending herself there in
her brain. You.
Know the important thing here is that we know that the Cristalos
did in fact hunt the horn because Michael was summoning it
for some time to do that for him.
And the Cristalos venom does negate magic and was used to
create the synth antidote and later the parasite antidote.
Mostly it was the framework. I agree.
Tough so I would say that this is actually an argument against
Bryce being Bryce having a steri power because we are told the
Princess of Hal say that the cristalos venom does not work on
the osteri right? Like Bryce is like, why don't
you just stick the Crystalis on the osteri?
And I think a Polygon says their magic wasn't the Crystallis
couldn't eat their magic basically, right?
And we know Bryce had the Crystallis venom in her leg.
She didn't or couldn't summon her Starlight until it was
pulled out of her. She does later have a line like
the Crystallis venom, like hurt her magic but couldn't hurt her.
So I don't know, maybe there's a little wiggle room, but I would
say that's a point against and I do want to acknowledge the
points against the Bryce has a stereo power theory.
So that's a point against it. And the other interesting thing
too is that I think it's interesting that the hunt for
the horn was blocked by the Arkeesian amulet, right?
So the Arkeesian amulet was powerful enough that it could
throw the cristalo steam and off the trail of hunting this horn.
So I just but why? Like what is that?
Like what's the power of the Arkeesian amulet that it can
block this demon who was literally created to hunt down
the horn with the essence of Apollyon?
Like how powerful is this thing? I think it's kind of crazy
because they're they're said to be human made, right?
The Arkeesian ambulance were made by the priestesses at
Parthos, right? So what is this magic like, you
know, kind of crazy, right? That was world's longest chat on
the crystallos. Now let's talk about this.
I don't really have that. I don't really have any
theories. I mean it's like a fun verberous
comp. To keep it brief, I didn't
compare it to Cerberus at all, but we definitely, definitely
should have. All right, So real quick, high
level, we know that the Shepherd.
We know that the shepherd is basically a hound, a hell hound,
if you will, that Thanatos has created and that was left
behind, was left behind after the first wars or what people on
Midgard call the first wars to spy for Thanatos.
The Underking thinks it's his, but Thanatos actually created
it. So what I think, the interesting
things I think we have about the Shepherd is that we are
immediately given scale vibes for the Shepherd.
So the quote is the dog's fur, sleek and iridescent enough that
it almost resembled scales, float over bulky bunched muscle
claws like razor blades sliced dry into the ground.
Right? Again, as a reminder for Daglin
hounds, we get a writhing sea of black scale body silvered by her
light appeared. And then for the Illyrians,
obviously we have the scaled armor.
So again, it's like scale, scale scales all over.
It's immune to Hunt's lightning, which kind of makes sense but
kind of doesn't. Like we've seen Hunt's lightning
work on other demons, so why does it not work on the
Shepherd? So the quote we have for that is
Hunt struck again, forced lightning splitting the sky
before it slammed into the creatures back.
But it rolled once more, shaking off the lightning.
The fuck? Hunt panted, drawing his sword
and gun as he moved. And.
Well, once you understand Thanatos's attachment to the
Shepherd, making it immune to Hellfire would make sense.
Because he was worried that like, well, actually this gets
back to your idea of the demon wars, right?
If this was made by Thanatos and he wanted to make something that
would be good against Apollyon, if Paula, if Apollyon and
Thanatos were fighting, I think that that could make sense.
OK. And then we have which is
probably your Cerberus comp can peel apart.
So the quote we have is then the hound peeled apart first its
head split two other heads joining the 1st and then the
three headed dog really should have caught this continued to
separate until three halves sterled at them Three VS that
shared one mind one goal kill. I so dull.
I was reading I was like why did it stop at 3?
Why didn't it make 100 versions fluffy?
This is so stupid because it's fluffy all right.
Once again it's killed by the star sword right?
So we get Hunt screamed as Bryce left in front of his power.
This is when they're learning that they can charge each other
up. So as his lightning hit the
black blade, exploding from the metal, flowing up into her arm,
her body, her heart, light flashed blinding.
No, that was Bryce. Power crackled from every inch
of her, and from the star sword. She clenched in one hand as she
barreled toward the shepherd. It split into 3 hounds again,
and as the first beast landed, Bryce struck.
The glowing star sword pierced at the thick hide.
Lightning exploded across the beast's body.
I think this is interesting because it is basically Bryce
taking in Hunt's lightning, right?
She's being charged up by Hunt's lightning.
She's converting that into her Starlight or whatever the
Starlight is. But then the star sword is still
kind of being a conduit for the lightning, right, Because we get
light flash blinding. No, that was Bryce power crackle
from every inch of her and from the star sword she clenched in
one hand as she barreled toward the shepherd.
So that's light, right? Then we get lightning exploded
across the beast's body, right? So it's kind of an interesting
conversion of powers here. And once again, basically the
star sword is killing the unkillable.
And then later, of course, we find out the Shepherd was
actually a spy for Thanatos. So we get the underking said you
abandon it after the first wars. Abandoned or intentionally
planted. Great fantastic.
I had no interest in being as lunch.
Bryce said a Thanatos. His eyes flared.
Cost me a Keeling to Midgard at the Shepherd reported faithfully
to me on all it heard in the Bone Quarter.
The souls of the dead talk freely of their world, right?
So it can overhear. It can overhear the souls of the
dead, basically. Yeah, that's almost exactly what
I had. I mean, it's it is poetic of
Thanatos to put to put a Cerberus like shepherd of souls.
A shepherd of souls, he calls it almost exactly.
I think he does actually call it exactly.
A shepherd of souls for a Prince who peddled them.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think it said a shepherd of souls Prince who peddled them.
Yeah, yeah. In in the bone quarter.
And I think we also talked in our Danica episode about how
Axion's hellhound form looks. Looks like the shepherd.
Yeah, and it's like a lot like multiple heads or split into
multiple forms, but looks like a shepherd's big, big black hound.
I do think we know there are more of these in hell right?
Thanatos has hounds around him and how So this may not be the
last we've seen of a shepherd. I mean I think the question here
is right. Like what other creatures has
Thanatos created potentially put in other worlds?
Like is this it or does he have ears everywhere?
Is he running a master spy network much like Eris or
Azrael? Like given, he said left or
intentionally planted, I would start wondering about all of
these hounds that have been left in the Hean city.
I am. I'm wondering about them.
I am wondering about that. You mean the Daglin?
Yeah, the Daglin hounds. Like could one of them not be
not be a Dagwent town? Yep.
Yeah, that would be interesting. Makes sense.
OK, good. That was quick.
Well, right. Yeah.
Good for the next one. All right, Ronnie, why can't a
black crown hold? Or in so we are told by the
Princess of Hell, while in quote Hell that a black crown can't
hold a Prince of Hell. So this is again in Crescent
City 3 Chapter 59. Apollyon's eyes glimmered like
coals as he sent, as he said to hunt.
I am disappointed to see that you have not yet freed yourself
from the Black Crown, Orion Afalar.
Someone explained what the fuck that is.
Hunt snapped. Which is fair, because we've
heard a lot about the Black Crown ahead of this without
being told what it is. Of all the things he'd ever
imagined for his life, sitting in a circle with three Princess
of Hell hadn't been anywhere on the list.
The Black Crowns were collars. And Hell.
Thanatos answered darkly. His powerful body seemed primed
to leap across that pit to attack.
Hunt monitored his every breath. Spells crafted by the Etheria to
enslave us. They were a Binding 1.
The asteroid adapted in their next war upon Midgard.
Hunt turned to Adis. You seem surprised to see one on
me that first time we met. Why?
But before Adis could begin, Apollyon answered.
Because the Princess of Hell cannot be contained by the Black
Crowns. The asteroid learned that it was
their downfall. As you were made by Hell's
Princess, so it should not be able to hold you so Hunt notably
this is just additional context has had two black Halos right
one was put on him by which and the second one was marked by
rigeless himself. So we get the two of them kind
of compared. So what the first one we learned
about in House of Birth and blood Chapter 61.
He is asked does the Halo hurt you?
Hunt says only when it went on. What?
Which? This is Hyperxia.
What which inked it? Some Imperial hag.
Hunt said through his teeth. One of the old ones.
The witch's face tightened. It is a darker aspect of our
work that we bind individuals through the Halo.
It should be halted entirely. So Imperial hag put on his first
Halo, then House of Claim and Shadow.
Chapter 8. What a sorry state you're in.
The Prince of the pit perd. He remained hidden in the
shifting shadows. The demon Prince inhaled as if
tasting the air. What delicious pain you feel.
I'd be happy to share this is Hun.
A terrifyingly soft laugh. Your good humor, it seems,
remains intact even with the Halo inked anew upon your brow.
Hunt smiled savagely. I had the honor of having it
done by rigeless hand this time. Interesting that he would do it
himself rather than employ an Imperial hag.
Do you detect a difference? Hunts chin dipped.
This one stings. The hags Halo felt like cold
iron, this one burns like acid. And then later in chapter 37 he
says he could have sworn its ink seared him every now and then.
It had never done that before. But this Halo inked by Rigelous
felt different, worse, alive somehow.
So the witches is described as like a dormant iron like
restraint basically, where is the one that rageless puts on
like actively actively searing him almost as like he flares up
his own power. It's like no, sit the fuck down,
actually, like you're not going to use your power here because
I'm restraining you. We're told this is an old method
that the Osteria it's existed for millennia.
That's not super interesting. And then once Hunt actually
tries to destroy the Black Crown when he and Celestina have a
confrontation at the Northern Rift, he has no problem slicing
through it once he kind of decides to do it.
What's interesting, I think, is that he can also slice through
Isaiah's, which is not really something that Napoleon alluded
to him being able to do. Like, it shouldn't be able to
contain you. You didn't necessarily say you
can actually get it off of anyone.
So that was wild. But that passage is in chapter
79 of Crescent City 3. And he says a leash to hold
demons in check. It hadn't worked on the
Princess. He'd be damned if he allowed it
to keep working on him. Hunt let his power build and
build and build. The snow around him melted away.
Napoleon had given his essence, his Hellfire to Hunt, and if
that made him a son of hell, so be it.
Hunt closed his eyes and he saw it there, the black band of the
Halo imprinted across his very soul.
It's scrolling vine of thorns. The spell to contain him.
Everyone knew the enslavement spell couldn't be undone and had
never even tried. But he was done playing by the
series rules, by anyone's rules. Hunt reached a mental hand
toward the black thorns of the Halo, wreathed his fingers and
lightning and Hellfire in the power that was his and only his,
and sliced through it. The thorns of the Halo shivered
and bled. Black ink dripped down,
dissolving into nothing, gobbled up by the power that was now
surging in him, rising up. And then he does.
He undoes Isaiah's. So he sliced the line through
the Halo on his brow. Isaiah hissed.
Staggering back so he's able to get rid of his he's also able to
get rid of Isaiah's. Isaiah's presumably is still
done by an imperial hag. So again, I'm not too too sure
exactly what the difference is. There clearly is a difference
between what the witch put in. It seems like that one is use of
iron, which again we've been told hasn't like bears no
meaning here but seems to and Hunt has no problem just killing
it and he has no issue either. Why this is a question like why
can it not be contained? We are told in chapter 16 by
Apollyon that it basically is related to the same properties
that that link them to black salt.
So that quote is, if a violin is one of the stronger thin places,
why the hysteria even allow the fate to live here?
The black salt in such high quantity keeps them away.
They never realized that its presence drew us as much as it
repelled them. Napoleon said with satisfaction.
It has the same properties that made us immune to the thrall of
their black crowns. Here's what I think this means,
because the wording is actually pretty tricky.
It has the same properties that made us immune to the thrall of
their black crowns. And the.
It is the black salt. Yeah.
So I think what what Pauline is saying, I think is that the
black salt does something to a steri energy.
It repels or neutralizes it. It's essentially like anti a
steri matter substance. And Apollyon is saying that he
and his kind, like the Princess, have that same intrinsic
property in their nature that black salt has as a substance.
So whatever it is that black salt, whatever it is about black
salt that pushes Esteri away, is also baked into what Apollyon is
and the other Princess are. So black salt repels the Esteri
physically, magically away from a Volin.
And like other physical locations, Apollyon's nature
same repels the Esteri's thrall from his mind, his power so the
same like anti asteri property, two different expressions of it,
salt and the Princess innate nature.
So I understand it very. Clear.
Thank you, that actually helped me a lot because I was very
struggling with this. Amusing.
But what I think is interesting. A couple of things.
I was smiling while you were chatting because I it only just
occurred to me that Imperial Hag is like an official position
here. I thought it was just a mean
nickname, but I think there actually is a real role in the
Esteri art. Yeah, it's a true role.
So congratulations to the Imperial.
Congratulations. I think this is interesting
because I think it fits with what we were just talking about
with the cristalos and the parasite, right?
Because the way that this crown is described, when rigeless puts
it on as if it's almost alive, right?
Like that seems like the same idea as the parasite, right?
It's alive, It's sucking on Huntsman sucking on, it's
feeding on its magic. It's like it's, it's stealing
his magic, right? And then the antidote to that is
the Cristalos, which is made from Apollyon's essence and the
Ant and Hunt is not able to be held by a black crown because he
also has again, a Polygon. I don't know if it's a Polygon
specifically or just all hell whatever that is his, which I
think is interesting so. Here's where the crystallis as
the antidote kind of breaks down for me because I went exactly
where you went. But This is why I think that the
Cristalos has to have like when it has it has something hysteria
about it because it allows it to track down the horn synth has
black salt. That's the part where I'm like,
what? Like what is actually going on
here? Like the neutralizing, like the
fact that there's a Polygon and the fact that there's black
salt. Like those based on this should
be like and like, but we also have like we have to have
something asteria on the crystallo side.
If it's if it's tracking the horn, I think I don't.
Know if it's tracking the horn? I think so too.
And whether that's Peleus's
Starborn power or something else, I think so too.
So like all these people who inject synth and live, are they
immune to the parasite? Are they immune to a steri
power? Like if it has black salt in it,
like what's going on there? That might just be a fun fanfic
opportunity there. I don't know, just put that out
there since kind of dies and never comes back.
And I actually thought it was so interesting and I wish it had
kind of stayed. Maybe it'll be back in Book 4.
I don't know, since the fact that sin is what healed the horn
in my mind, what it has become for me is just like the Obsidian
salt of it all. And that's like, but I agree, it
needs to come back, Yeah. All right, guys, we are finally
getting to the ATIS part of the episode.
Yes, Abby, I told you I said this.
Is going to be so long. You're right.
Maybe the next one will be
short. All right, Abby, what are
Atis's? Power.
All right, it's not a short list, unfortunately.
That's OK, we'll go through it real quick.
All right, so Adis first thing seems to be able to sense
people's powers. So we've kind of talked about
this with the Princess of Hell, but the first time he meets
Hunt, we get a fallen warrior with the power of dot dot dot.
You might have just read this. Edis's groomed brows lifted and
surprised. His blue Opal eyes narrowed to
slits, then simmered like the hottest flame.
What are you doing with a black crown around your brow?
Right, so like he meets Hunt and he immediately fox this guy has
hell powers, which is interesting right?
That means they weren't like keeping an eye on hunt.
They didn't know who Hunt was. Hunt just was kind of out there
and now they're like, oh, this guy, This is.
More evidence for that they were maybe at odds with each other
because Apollyon seems quite attuned with who Hunt is, Atis
is. And Apollyon at one point was
like, I don't, I'm not responsible for the motions of
my brother. Like I don't know where he was.
But hi, Orion, like are you fulfilling your purpose?
Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point.
Polly on seems to know exactly who Hunt is and how to talk to
him in dreams, which we will talk about next episode.
All right, so Adis can, and we were told that all the Princess
of Hell can, but we only see this with Adis, sneak through
cracks in worlds. So the quote we have for that is
Jessica told me that the Princess can sneak through
cracks in either rift, making the form of common animals, but
then they're confined to those forms with none of their own
power save the ability to speak, and they can only stay for a few
hours at a time. So it's Crescent City 1 chapter
51. So we're told this is all the
Princess, but we only see it from it is.
I also want to add here, they almost certainly learned how to
do this from the Asteri. The quote we have for that this
is from that Asteri timeline is a dark, cold world with mighty
creatures of night. They saw through our lures.
Once warring factions, the royal armies of hell united and
marched against us. We were overwhelmed and
abandoned their world, but they gave chase.
Learn from our captured Lieutenant how to slip between
the cracks and realms. This was an originally a steri
power that it seems like the Princess of hell not only
learned how to do, but can do. And I feel like we're just like
circling around this the whole episode.
Like there's a lot of fucking overlaps between these two
powers in both the way they are the same and like the way they
are opposite. So like she seems to be building
towards this idea of like we get we get it a lot like made and
unmade light and dark matter and antimatter.
Like these two are kind of at the opposite ends of the
spectrum. The and the Princess we also get
some tension reading think, which we don't really talk about
much in the mass first but has popped up as a power and other
series we've covered. So he says to Bryce when he's in
her apartment. We have what sort of cat visits
an Oracle winning first words. Ada slid his hands into his
pockets again. I did not know what you might
prefer. And now that you are grown.
So he either assumed, he either just assumed like a 13 year old
girl would want a talking cat as a friend, or he could like read
something about Bryce and say, oh, like you're going to want to
talk to a cat right now. And then we know he like kind of
senses her emotions. So the quote we have for that is
Atis. Atis Ada's tilted his head to
one side. You were very sad then as well.
So he knows when she's 13 that she was very sad, knows now
she's very sad about Danica, right.
So like, is he just an empath or can he actually like read her
feelings, read her emotions like some sort of I wouldn't call
even mind speaking or mind reading, but just like I can
sense your emotions type thing. I'm do everything I just said
because then we see him in a Polygon, have a wordless
conversation in the dungeon cell.
So we have the Princess of hell. This is when Adis and Napoleon
are hooked in shadow. The Princess of Hell looked at
each other, some wordless conversation passing between
them. Right, So wordless conversation
there and then. This I thought was really
interesting. He knows, seems to know, that
the Asteria are planning to kill.
Run. This is again in the dungeon.
Fragilis has come and said one of your companions is going to
be killed tomorrow. He somehow knows that it's
ruined. So the quote is I am sorry that
one of your companions will die tomorrow.
Fuck, Hun. Said Horsley.
The idea who they've picked. Atis angled his head, more
feline than princely, like he could hear things that Hunt
couldn't. And then he says it's going to
be ruined because ruin matters more to both you and Bryce.
So like is he mind reading here? Is he listening to thoughts?
Like I mean Apollyon later says to Hunt right?
Like your, your thoughts are broadcast to me right?
So it's really not that crazy think.
What's a little more interesting is what he cannot do or what I
don't have proof that he can do, which is shadow wielding right?
So the first time that Hunt sees Aidus in the dungeon, he's in a
shadow, he's with Apollyon. So the quote for that is a
Polygon appeared again, a second shadow at his side, taller and
thinner, with eyes like blue opals.
Where is Bryce? His the Prince of the Chasm,
which is Atis. I guess we should have mentioned
that Atis is the Prince of the chasm.
But the second time, the second time Atis appears, he's on his
own. Napoleon is not there, and he's
a cat again, right? So we have Orion Atis's voice
sounded in his head in the chamber.
It's pretty. They're mind speaking right
there, right? Also, if he's a cat, how is he
talking to any of these people? I think it's got to be mind
speaking. All right, Orion Atis's voice
sounded in his head in the chamber.
A cat with eyes like blue opals crouched on the floor amid the
blood and waste the same form rigeless had used to deceive
hunt months ago, right. So I think it's really
interesting that the second time he comes back, he's not coming
back as a shadow. He's coming back as a cat right
and I think obviously the reason that this is interesting is
because if hypothesize that the shadow wielding ability of the
starborn line might actually be from Atis, but I don't know that
he has that power. I don't know that it can come
from him. So the other thing that I think
is interesting is that we, he cannot win a we like actually
have confirmation of this because in the final battle
against the Osteria we get Adis unsheathed us.
This is a tongue twister, it is unsheathed a shining silver
blade that seemed to glow with bluish light by turn.
The demon Prince said, the dry breeze whipping his pale blonde
hair. He asked Bryce a ride.
Hunt had only a moment to glimpse the worry, the fear in
her eyes as she grabbed Adis's hand, then Hunts and teleported
them with the power of Thea Star.
It barely took a moment, barely seemed to dream her.
So as Crescent City 3 chapter 90, so Adis can't widow on his
own, he's asking Bryce to winnow him right, Which I we had
speculated in the starborn Faye episode that that is actually in
a Steri, a world walking power. I think that's confirmation here
and again, we get that the Princess of hell can slip
through the cracks in the realms, but not that they can
like open portals themselves. So I just think that lines up
with. Yeah, then they just would.
Yeah, if they can world walk, they wouldn't need it.
They wouldn't need the horn, Yeah.
So I'm not sure on shadows and definite no on the winnowing
everything else probably Dame Audi.
I think I'm with you on not sure on shadows because rune we we
get the direct comp of rune cloaking Lydia as well as they
move through the and. Azrael, Quoks, Cloks, Pharaoh in
the king of hybrid camp. We already know for sure that
shadow walking is not only something that you to yourself
like you can also do it to others if you can't do it at
all. So I agree with you exactly.
Yeah. Anything else on?
Aid assist. I mean, you did mention, but I
think it's just worth mentioning.
Like he is the Prince of the fifth level of hell, which is
the Prince of the Chasm, and it's not really a power.
But I do want to talk about his raw form because his humanoid
form we know very well, which is, you know, he's blonde, blue
eyed baby pretty boy, I think is the exact description.
Slender, pale skinned, pretty boy.
Thank you, Hunt. But his true form, right, the
Princess are all kind of described this way, at least the
ones that we see. Creatures of darkness and decay,
mouths full of sharp teeth, leathery wings displayed like
the Princess themselves in their true form have leathery wings,
including Adis, which is which is interesting.
Yeah. I'd also like to nominate him.
I know that it's not exact, but I'd like to nominate Adis as
someone to add to the camp of blue eyes that glow.
I know that they're lighter, they're more Opal than sapphire,
but in hell they are literally described AS2 blue lights as
they're approaching. Like not even eyes, they're 2
blue lights. And like that is it's like very
consistent even when he is in in his shadow form in his true
form. So I just, I think it's
interesting, that's all. I agree it's a big, big episode
of. I think it's interesting.
That's kind of hell for you. I think it's interesting,
interesting place sounds. Lovely.
All right, next question, Ronnie.
What does Ada's know about Prythian and when did he find
out? OK, we're almost done guys.
I promise. During Celine's recounting of
hers and Thea's and like her family's life at the beginning
of House and Flame and Shadow, she describes Ada's alleged
first words to Thea says, have you come to ask for Hell's help
then? And those are not first time
words with no familiarity, so let's discuss those.
So context for that quotes House, Flame, and Shadow Chapter
20 My mother had kept the star map that the Daglin had long ago
annotated, and a world on it had caught her attention, a world
like ours that had overthrown the Daglin.
In an elaborate bedroom, standing before a desk with her
two daughters, Thea waved a hand as if she pulled them from that
pocket of nothingness. The harp and the horn appeared
on the desk, glimmering alongside the star sword and the
knife. They had nodded once, slowly, as
if making a decision. So she's been thinking about
this and then played the horn in the harp.
A portal between worlds swirled. It's solidified an archway to
nowhere. A handsome golden haired male
stood before it with eyes like blue opals.
Bryson Hale sharply. Prince Adus only asked my mother
one thing when she opened the gate to his world.
Have you come to ask for Hell's help then?
So the way Selena's describing this story is like Thea had been
researching, Thea's aware of this world, it caught her
attention. She, after a long time, decided
to reach out to them. But like, she knew exactly who
to call. She knew which world to access.
She knew how to access it. This does not seem, at least to
me, like it was a first time encounter, despite what Celine
may have described in the subsequent texts about Atis and
her mother kind of developing a connection over the coming
months. But I think we get an important
hint from her in that story that she tells immediate after
immediately after, and that is that he had been tracking the
Asteri conquest since they failed to conquer Hell.
Celine says Adis is the Prince of Hell, blah blah blah.
Using rare summer insults to facilitated communication
between worlds, spies and Midgard had kept him well
informed since the Asteri had failed to conquer his planet.
Adis had been assigned to hunt for the Asteri ever since.
So that they're evil might never triumph again on his world or
any other. So let's go back to the timeline
to figure out what the fuck was going on here, because spoiler
alert, it does not really make sense.
How's this kind breath? Chapter 72 Hell lost AE17001
Yeah, once warring factions, the royal armies of Hell united
marched against as we were overwhelmed, abandoned their
world. But they gave chase.
Sure. So this is again in the Asteria
Archives in Dusk we learn that they lost hell in 17001, they
found us on Midgard in 17002 and this they are calling Adis in
that moment was supposedly from Midgard after she learned shit.
We actually just walked into this world in which the Asteria
are actually in power. So and then and then we learn we
lost a third of our meals to them or lasted until nearly the
end of 17003. So if this timeline is all that
there is to ponder, then we only have two years of Adis keeping
tabs on the Asteria, right? Which doesn't leave tons of room
for Thea and Adis to get familiar with each other.
So until nearly the end of 17003 they were defeated and sent back
to hell. Far too dangerous to allow them
to access this world again. So this should imply that Adas
had been hunting for the Asteri for only two years before the
end of the first wars, where they were kicked out via the
rift. Before this though, on Prythean,
Thea and Theon ruled for centuries, says centuries, and
the Daglin had been there for millennia before that.
So according to this right, like according to that timeline, Edis
would should not have been watching over Perthian since
hell was conquered during that time because hell was conquered
in like 2 years before the 1st wars ended.
And so just for evidence of the centuries quote.
And with the Daglin gone, as the centuries passed, as the tide
was no longer demanded of us or the land, our power
strengthened, the land strengthened, it returned to
what it had been before the Daglins arrival millennia
before. But I think we do have reason to
believe that Hell and Edis potentially were involved and
aware of Prithean before this, and This is why.
And we've talked about this a little bit, but I'll keep it
snappy. But first we we know that they
didn't have children for centuries with Vien, and then
she suddenly did, right? That, combined with the
familiarity with which Edis greeted her and the shadowy
Damani powers of her offspring make a pretty strong case that
she and Edis did know each other.
Or like, could have been meeting in secret and potentially bore
Celina and Helena, potentially. That's all theoretical.
It would also kind of explain how she so easily killed BM if
she like, knew that she loved somebody else.
And that quote is after centuries with an empty womb, My
mother bore both my sister and me within a span of five years.
My father was fading by then. He was centuries older than my
mother. Second, while Celine doesn't go
into detail, she says that her parents told her that they use
the trove and the Cauldron, the Dagwan's own weapons, right to
fight the Dagwan. And when that's all she says,
she doesn't say much, but she says they fought the Daglin and
won. She went on using the Daglin's
own weapons. They destroyed them.
So what would that actually entail, right?
You would wear the mask and you would have an army of the dead.
You would have the crown and you would control anyone, but not
made people so not be a steri. And then you would have the horn
and the harp to open up to another world.
That's like what the horn and the harp do if you're using the
nag one's own weapons, like what are you doing?
This also would work, right? Because they talk about the
cauldron and we have this is a plug for our cauldron episode.
The cauldron has tons of hell influence.
If they were fucking with the cauldron and using the cauldron
and they were in league with hell, is that how the cauldron
ended up so helly? But this is the damning, the
damning point, right? Third, and a court of silver
flames, Emery tells us. Of a key battle about ancient
beings who oppressed the fae, in which Annalius held the pass
until allies came right long ago.
So long ago they don't even have a precise state for it.
The Great War was fought between the fae and the ancient beings
who oppressed them. One of its key battles was here
in these mountains. Our forces were battered and
outnumbered and for some reason the enemy was desperate to reach
the stone at the top of Ramiel. We were never taught the reason
why, I think it's been forgotten, but a young Illyrian
warrior named Anaulius, who we know was living at the time of
Vesperus, right because she mentions him as a traitor, held
the line against the enemy soldiers for days.
He found a natural archway of stone.
Natural archway which has been connected to portals amongst the
tangle of boulders and made that his bottleneck.
He died in the end, but he held off the enemy enough for allies
to reach us. We all know that this was a
battle against the Asteria, and Bespherus knows that Annelius
was a traitor. So who?
Like who were these allies? We've talked about this before
right? It feels like it would be hell.
So none of this holds up with Adis has been tracking the
Asteria since they threw them out of hell.
Because that was supposed to only have happened 2 years
before the 1st wars ended. But if all of that is true, like
I think that we have a lot of reason to believe that Hell was
interfering with the Daglin's presence in Prythian, which was
millennia before that. So I think that hell, even if it
wasn't Ada's exactly, but Ada seems to be ageless.
The Princess of Hell seem to be ageless.
Like, could they have learned things about the Daglin in that
battle? Could they have been the allies
to Prythian? And like, could he have met Thea
then? Because like, Thea was the
ringleader. Thea and beyond were the
ringleaders of overgrowing the Daglin at that time, and they
did not do it alone. We know that they didn't do it
alone. That's very theoretical, but I'm
curious what you have. Yeah.
I talked about this in our reread episode.
So first thing, we know that it's 5000 years that the Daglin
ruled. We have the quote we were slaves
to the Daglin for 5000 years. Our people, the High Faye knelt
before them. That's in Crescent City 3
chapter 18 with Celine's Ted talk.
So the rough timeline that we should have here I put together
assuming a AE is a calendar year, the way it is here on
Earth, which I don't know, we can confirm that, but basically
around 11,500 AE Steri conquer Midgard, then around 16,500 AE
steri loss Midgard. And then I'm saying I'm guessing
a couple centuries means I'm just guessing 450 years.
I don't know that's that's like a total guess.
But around 16,950 AE Thea overthrows Fion.
We know her rule is short, short, don't know how short, but
we know her rule is short. So I guess that that was around
50 years, right? So then in basically 17,000 AE
is when they go over to Midgard. So we have what you just said
17,001. So basically 16 thousand 16,500
a steri loose Midgard, they make their way to hell.
There are also different groups of a steri.
Rajalis tells us that that there are different groups of a steri
throughout the land. So it does not have to be like 1
going to the other going to the other.
Like it could be overlapping should not necessarily work.
The timeline still should not necessarily work if it's linear,
right? Because the Asteria should have
lost toll on 17,000 and one AE and the Asteria should have been
on Midgard way but 5000 years before that basically, right?
Like if not more it shouldn't work.
But we talked about this in our reviewed episode We Debt.
We have a concrete piece of evidence that breaks all that,
which is the Esteri star map that Thea brings over from
Prythian, right? So the quote we have for that is
my mother had kept the star map that the Daglin had long ago
annotated, and a world on it had caught her attention, a world
like ours that had overthrown the Daglin.
We're not specifically told that this is how, but then she goes
and opens the portal to talk to Adis, right?
So I'm assuming that it's a fair call that I'm assuming that this
star map came over with them from Prithian because we're told
they brought star maps with them.
I'm doubt the Asteria are just giving or just giving the well.
Maybe they had spies, I don't know.
But basically the way it's worded, I'm assuming this is a
star map from Prithian and that hell is on there because Bryce
calls out that there must have been a stereo archives on
Prithian, right? Like that feels like important
information that's going to come back later.
There's also one other interesting piece of key
information here that has. I don't know what to make of it.
Vesperous has never heard of Hell, right?
The quote we have is what manner of creature is this Apollyon?
We call them demons, but you probably know them by some other
name. Your kind tried to invade their
world. Hell, it didn't go well for you.
Hell and this Apollyon shall pay for such sacrilege.
Vesperous hits. So she's never heard of hell.
There is a possibility that that is because the planet is not
actually called hell because Bryce later has a quote that
says we call them demons, but you might know them by another
name. So it's possible that they have
another name for hell or the timeline we've been given is
true when the and hell on the star map is an oopsie.
None of this makes sense. I don't know.
I hate for that to be the answer but like, I don't know.
Yeah, I guess she does explicitly say that it was a DAG
one that had annotated it. So I think there are some other
options here too and other things to look at.
And I just want to the question was, what does Adis know about
Prithian and when did he know it?
Right? That was the question.
So a couple of things. He definitely knows about
Prithian. He definitely knows about the
knife and the sword. And he knew that the dagger was
on Prithian. Like he knows that Prithian has
exists and he he has known that it existed for a long time,
right? So he knows it exists.
The quote we have for that Celine had this with her when
she returned to her homeworld. And now I've brought it back to
Midgard. Adis started at the site of the
dagger, right? So he is like shocked that Bryce
was able to go to mid Prithian, even though he had speculated
that maybe she would be on Prithian.
Like he's shocked. So he knows something there.
We are also told that Prithian, Midgard and hell, I'll run atop
late lines, right? So we have there are Ley lines
across the whole of the universe and the planets like Midgard,
like hell, like the whole world of the Fey top.
Those lines are joined by time and space and the void itself.
It thins the veils separating us right?
So timeline does seem fucked and doesn't really seem to matter.
But even if you took the Asteria out of the equation, what we're
told with these Ley lines is that potentially like Hell and
Prissian could be in contact anyway if Hell knew how to do it
right. I guess just like my only
question there and it's not great, but like as soon as as
soon as Ada's thought, as soon as Ada's realized that Bryce
didn't make it to hell and thought she might be there.
Like he didn't go, he didn't try and reach her and she was in and
play her. I hate to say it, given all the
theories we've had, but I think it's totally possible.
Ada's had nothing to do with Brethian.
I do think that's possible. Like it's totally possible.
I don't know, but I think what's important now that Prithian now
definitely knows about Aidis and Hell because when Bryce comes to
Prithian she starts screaming about Aidis and Apollyon and
how. So either way, I feel like we're
getting set up for a Prithian Hell storyline.
I just don't know. I just don't know how much Aidis
has been involved up till now. No.
All right. Anything else there?
All right. Throne of Glass omissions.
Do you have any? Spoiler, spoiler spoiler.
Oh yeah, all right guys, that is the end of our Crescent City and
Acatar section that we are now going to do a brief section on
Throne of Glass spoilers. So if you don't want to get
spoiled, we recommend leaving now.
Or you can just skip this chapter and go straight to our
precog because it shouldn't be too.
I don't think I precog too long. Yeah, my preroggs don't have
Throne of Glass spoilers. My precog does not have Throne
of Glass spoilers either, so if you have not read every book in
Throne of Glass, just fair warning, you might be spoiled
for the next however many minutes we talked about Throne
of Glass. So, Ronnie, any Throne of Glass
emissions? OK, I'm going to I'm going to
save my Valgan hell tirade for the next episode just because
this episode was getting quite long.
So I just have, I'm, I'm going to keep it to two brief ones
here that are like specifically pertinent to this episode.
The 1st is just that the Crystallis venom removal sounded
remarkably similar to Irene's removal of Kale's valg injuries.
Like a basically mini version of it in the House of Earth and
Blood chapter 61. And Kale goes like deep into his
psyche and like memories and goes through all these like
dark, dark, dark memories, right?
And so his is definitely more mental and deep rooted.
I mean, he's fucking paralyzed. So like that just is deeper.
But I like, I can't quite get the parallel imagery out of my
head of Bryce having like the experience of like acid.
Her skin was sizzling, bones melting away, like she can
barely breathe. Hunt is like they're trying to
like help her through it. And then she's got like, she's
got hyperxia who has a lot of parallels to Irene.
And we'll talk more about Hyperxia in the witches, of
course. But the witches in in at
Crescent City are very similar to the healers in Throne of
Glass. And the entire time that I was
reading that scene, I was just like, wow, the the parallels of
healing and removing of this crystallis venom, which is like
a physical thing that has been eating away at you, is very
similar to Irene pulling out a physical thing like a physical
valve injury that has been also eating away at kale.
So yeah, that was one just fun little parallel that I'm sure
we'll talk more about as we talk about hyperxium.
But it was related to the crystallis venom, so I wanted to
throw it in here. And then the second one was
about Obsidian salt. It is considered black and oily
again. Full valg hell tirade next
episode. But thou blood and power is also
considered oily all the time. All the time.
Crown of I think this is. I think it's Crown of the Night.
Chapter 45 Selena finds the blood of a valid creature under
the castle. She says 1/2 dried pool of blood
lay at the base of the door, so dark it looks like oil.
It felt as oily as it looks. She remembers it again later in
Air of Fire and she even calls it Obsidian.
She describes it as Obsidian, Obsidian, oily pool of blood.
And then in Empire of Storms chapter 15, she also describes
Wordstone as oily. She says iron as if the man
score was made of it and that oily hideous after taste dot dot
dot wordstone. And then in Kingdom of Ash
chapter 70, the pulse of air wants power slithered over
Dorian, so similar, so terribly similar to the oily power of
that valid Prince. The fact that we just talked
about the essence of the Princess of hell having the same
properties of Obsidian salt in that it repels the asterion.
It's like immune to asteria thrall.
Obsidian salt is described as oily and so is like literally
everything related to dog power. Word stone.
Dog blood is interesting. I also believe there is that
quote about the throne of glass gods.
Remember what book it's in about the throne of glass gods?
Like fearing Obsidian basically and don't think I can find it.
That's OK. All right, I'll see if I can
remember the quote and I'll bring it in at some point.
But there is a quote about I think it's about it's about the
gods and throne of glass. And it's it's clearly
referencing word stone. But it says like Obsidian they
feared the most. And if I'm wrong, you guys will
let me know. It's totally fine because I
didn't prep this at all. But it is a gap idea that I
mean, I do like, are you, are you going as far as to say that
Obsidian, that black Obsidian salt might be related to word
stone or are we just saying it's all very valk?
I mean, I think that word stone is either the essence of or is
created to mimic the essence of Valk, and Obsidian salt seems to
also be created to mimic the essence of the Princess of Hell.
So I think they're all linked. I agree.
All right, I don't really have anything that my Throne of
Awesome mission was that the Reapers bleed black.
We know that's we got it. It's cool.
It's all down. There, it's all right, all
right, pre. Cog.
OK. I I kind of yeah, I have one.
It's not really a pre cog corner.
It's kind of a mythology corner. So I just wanted to talk about
hell in mythology real quick because I think there's some
interesting parallels with what she's doing.
It's not necessarily a theory, though.
I'm just letting you know right now.
So hell in Norse mythology is both a goddess and a place.
So the afterlife location is said to be down and to the
north. Interesting.
That is to the north. Hello night court, hello huge
city right? It is said that it will play an
important role in ragnarok. If you guys don't remember what
episode it was, but we talked about the the Uroboros mirror
that Sarah looks into has a serpent that's eating itself
Uroboros, obviously, but that that has essence like seems to
be a reference to Yorman Gonder, who is a great snake that
encircles the world. And it's said that Ragnarok is
going to start when form and Gonder like basically stops
fighting himself, releases himself.
So we've now gotten kind of two Ragnarok mentions, which I think
is interesting. This is a description of a road
of the road to hell from the website and I quote worst
mythology for smart people. So it's for smart people.
So we get while he was living with Rang Kyles Ragnahild.
Jesus Christ, I should have looked up pronunciations.
I'm very sorry to all our Nordic listeners.
All right. While he was living with
Ragnahild, Hadding had another mysterious experience.
Woman appeared bearing some herbs.
Wishing to know where such herbs grew in winter, Hadding went
this woman under the earth. They pass through mists and then
through sunny, fertile regions where the herbs had grown.
Then they came to a raging torrent flowing with weapons.
Crossing by a bridge, they came upon armies of fallen warriors
locked in eternal battle. As they press forward, a wall
stood in their way. They could go no further, but
the woman tore off the head of a cock, meaning a chicken in this
case, not a penis, which she happened to have with her, and
flung it over the wall. Immediately the cock came to
life and crowed. So I think there's like a lot of
interesting parallels here to Bryce's journey through the
tunnels to get to the prison. Right?
So we start with the herbs. This is this guy's journey to
hell, the woman who appears bearing herbs, right?
That's where we start. When Bryce gets to Prithian,
Sarah specifically calls out the herbs in her dish, which seems
really strange. But she mentions that the herbs
that she gets with her meal when she's being held under the Hewn
City, I think are Rosemary. And she's like, they must have
herbs, the same herbs here or something, which I always
thought was like a really weird cop.
But now we have this hell story. Like, is it?
Is she trying to draw a comparison here?
And then they pass through the mist is the next.
This seems pretty self-evident. We've talked like, you know,
Misty Place, Thin Place. And then we have funny fertile
regions. We know that that's how the
prison used to be before the Daglin corrupted it.
So is this is kind of again a parallel.
And then we have this came to a raging torrent flowing with
weapons crossing by a bridge. They came upon armies of fallen
warriors locked in eternal battle, right?
We have Bryce crossing the bridge with where nest is like,
oh, you froze out there right when she sees the miningard
worm. We have Bryce crossing the
bridge. And then we have depictions
battle. So it's not an actual battle,
but we have these carvings that Celine has left that are these
pictures of the battle. And then as they press forward,
a wall stood in their way. They could go no further, which
obviously we have a wall, right? We have a wall with an 8 point
of star that Bryce touches and Nesta and then a door opens to
the harp chamber. So I think it's really
interesting that this is like it's supposed to be the road to
hell, but it's leading us to U.S. court.
Like it's so many if there's so many parallels with Bryces
journey to dust court. And we know that a violin is
like intricately linked to hell with the black salt.
We haven't necessarily seen that with the prison, but like if
they're all on top of each other, does that mean dust court
has? And I'm going to say vesperous,
like leave the Princess out of it, even vesperous at this
point, like does she have does dust court have stronger ties to
hell? Then we've kind of been led to a
leave us far right? I just think it's I don't know,
I just think it's interesting. Vesperous.
Seeming less asteri than any other story keeps me up.
I would agree with that. Not for today all.
Right. What's your precoct theory?
So I'm going to flip mine because you basically almost got
there to in this episode, so might as well do it here.
And this to be clear, this one, this one is crazy.
So I know that it's probably not true.
OK, but this is just for fun. It's for fun.
OK, So we have talked about how Bryce is star born and she seems
super different from all of the other star born Princess star
born lineage. She doesn't have any other
classic traits. She doesn't seem like she had
got anything from Celine and Helena, right?
Like the the dark colored hair, the blue eyes, the shadows, the
Dame Adi. She doesn't have that.
You also mentioned in this episode that we're not sure that
Atis can wield shadows. We haven't seen Atis wield
shadows. I guess we have seen him mind
speak, so there's that. But we have seen Atis appear to
Bryce basically whenever, right? Like we've seen him come to her
as a cat whenever it suits him, basically.
We haven't seen Apollyon do that, right?
Apollyon needs to come on the autumnal equinox when the veil
between worlds is thin, but he can come to hunt whenever, like
whenever he wants because hunt is tied to him right?
My question is, is it possible that Adis can talk to Bryce
whenever because he is family, he's he is parental lineage in
some regard. Like he and Thea did create a
line of sorts, but it's not Celine and Helena.
It's actually not Celine and Helena.
And Celine and Helena maybe are maybe they maybe they are
fiance, but maybe they have essence of Apollyon or somebody
who does have shadows, right? So they have a specific tie to
hell that is maybe not atasis. Maybe it's not Atasis tie.
And maybe Bryce specifically is tied to Atas and that's why she
has such a strong connection to him and he to her and does not
have as much in common with Celine or Helena.
It's because they have different different ties to different.
So my precog next episode is how I think it's actually a Polygon
who might be the father of Helena and Selena.
And I actually have a lot to go off of there.
Yeah. So that's why I was getting
there, because I also got there. It's really.
Yeah, I just. So what do we think?
Like Adis fucked Ember, Like I don't like what?
How does it work? You know, like what do we think?
How do we think Adis was involved?
But I think Adis could have started a line with Thea
different, just one different direction, different child that
we there could be 1/3 a third that we do not know about.
The precog theory that is crazy is that Thea and Adis have a
different. That went to Bryce.
So Adis's investment in Bryce is paternal.
Like literally like you are my family, I am looking after you,
I can visit you whenever because you are genetically tied to me.
Just like Hunt is genetically tied to Apollyon.
And that's why Apollyon can visit Hunt whenever.
You don't have shadows because I don't have shadows, but Celine
and Helena do because Napoleon's genetics are at play there, not
one. Yeah, that would be interesting.
But I look forward to your precog next episode to make more
sense of it. Yeah, OK, that is it from us for
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episode. We're going to talk about what
are their names, a Polygon and that Polygon and that spell
Polygon and Thanatos. That is it from us for this
week. Love you, bye.
Love you. Bye.