Last week started with the dedication ritual for archnobles and archduke candidates. Gentiane and Rozemyne decided the joint research would focus on revival of old religious ceremonies. During the ritual light arose from the statues of the gods. Rozemyne received permission from the Zent to use some of the gatered mana for the library. On the way to the library she notices the magic circle in the sky is now shining. After providing mana to the library’s foundation, Schwartz and Weiss urge Rozemyne to provide mana to the statue of Mestionora. While supplying mana to the statue, a magic circle appears in her mind after which she finds herself in darkness.
Upon lighting the room with her mana, Rozemyne finds herself in an illusion of her greatest desire: being surrounded by books. She meets a golden shumil who leads her to the Garden of Beginnings where she meets ‘Gramps’. Gramps mistakes her for someone else and believes her to be cursed due to her small vessel size. Anwachs—the God of Growth—assists Gramps with expanding Rozemyne’s vessel, causing her to physically mature rapidly. At Gramps’ behest Rozemyne forms her schtappe, speaks the words given to her in the shrines, and prays to receive the wisdom of Mestionora.
As Rozemyne absorbs the unorganized knowledge of Mestionora, she realizes that Gramps is Erwaermen, a former subordinate to the God of Life. She also realizes that Georgine could somehow steal Ehrenfest’s foundation, but is unable to dwell on the issue while absorbing all the information. The knowledge of Mestionora is found to contain the memories of previous Zents and aubs which are added upon their deaths. Rozemyne is disappointed to discover missing gaps in thirty to forty percent of the knowledge she received. After discussing this with Erwaermen, it is determined that Rozemyne is marked by Ewigeliebe and has very similar mana to Ferdinand due to him dyeing Rozemyne’s mana when viewing her past memories in her shrine maiden days. It is learned that Rozemyne was mistaken for Ferdinand by Erwaermen who can only see mana, that Ferdinand had received the thirty to forty percent of Mestionora’s wisdom Rozemyne is missing, and that his true name is Quinta. Rozemyne rejects Erwaermen’s suggestion that she kill Ferdinand to obtain the missing knowledge from his feystone. Rozemyne then leaves the Garden of Beginnings.
After such a pivotal part last week, the story has many different directions it could lead. Where do you predict the story will take us this week?
I think it could go like this: Hildebrand locks the door to the farthest hall. Roz is stuck and needs help. Sends ordonanz to Ferdinand „Quinta, We need to talk, come fetch me, I am stuck”. Then they ctrl+C ctrl+V the G-book.
and then they start morbin all over the place
Seeing all the reactions to her new form will be interesting.
I bet that Hartmut is going to see this as yet another sign of how beloved Rozemyne is by the gods and he might even start a spontaneous prayer on the spot, the moment he sees her. The same goes for Clarissa, if she’s going to run into Rozemyne unprepared, before Hartmut has a chance to share the happy news.
I wonder if this is outlandish enough to make even Angelica react, or if she just takes it in stride, not even trying to make sense of it.
Cornelius is probably going to come close to having a neveous breakdown, as will Wilfried, while Charlotte will likely be in awe.
And Sylvester is probably going to rip out his own hair, or bash his head hard enough down to break his desk, when he gets the news. With Rozemyne not having finished her classes, I do not think they can pull her from the academy right away though. They can hide this issue from the other duchies maybe for a few days, by pretending that Rozemyne fell ill from the exertion of the ritual, but I expect the cat’s going to get out of the bag before she can be whisked away back home. Besdies, it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway, whether she’s going to be exposed before or after her absence. They can’t keep her away from the Academy all the way to the archduke conference, where her adoption will be announced, so might as well bite the bullet and have her finish her classes on schedule.
It’s almost a shame that Lestilaut is no longer at the Royal Academy. His reaction could have been very interesting indeed and I would love to see what kind of portraits he’d have been inspired to draw over it. ^^ Oh well, we might still get to see that come the Interduchy Tournament, but that surely won’t happen in this volume, much less the next pre-pub bit.
I wonder if this will put a dampner on Hildebrand’s romantic pursuit, due to makeing him feel the age gap after all, or if it’s going to motivate him even more, due to her now more alluring shape triggering some hormone releases.
My guess is that along with Rozemyne’s physical changes that she’s also obtained mana sensing. Considering she never had interest in romance before, I’m interested to see if she now views other mana compatible people with mana sensing in a new light.
Considering how she already had an unusually high mana capacity, even before having her vessel grown further by Anwachs, I wonder if there are even any people her age, that have enough mana for her to sense them. The chances of anyone outside the royal family and the archducal families of the greater duchies being in her range are really, REALLY small.
Frankly I would not be the least bit surprised thanks to the growth spurt, she now left the several years older and royal Sigiswald so far behind, they are no longer in range to sense each other’s mana.
My predictions:
- Time stopped after Rozemyne provided mana to the Mestionora statue, similarly to when she visited the shrines. My reasoning is that she probably would have received an ordonnanz if everyone was looking for her. She’ll still be older looking when she gets out though.
- The first thing she’ll do is try to get back to the dormitory without being seen by other duchies.
- An emergency meeting with Sylvester will take place.
- They’ll probably come up with something like “There was an accident while joint researching ancient rituals and that’s why I look like this” as an excuse for everyone.
- She’ll spend some time going through the information she learned while making notes of things that might be important.
- She’ll need to do some extra whirling practice to get used to how she’s physically changed too.
- She’ll withhold most of what happened from the royal family until she has time to correspond more with Ferdinand or maybe until her adoption is finalized.
- There will be an epic lecture from Ferdinand when he finally finds out that Rozemyne has been a Zent candidate, is due to be adopted by the royal family, and has received most of the Grutrissheit.
I wouldn’t necessarily count on Ordonnanzes to be an obvious sign. We only know that they can get into the tunnels, not whether they can also reach into the Garden of Beginnings. Not to mention that with how insistent Erwaermen was on Rozemyne doing nothing that would distract her from the transfer, I would expect him to block anything and everything from the outside that might distact her, which naturally includes Ordonnanzes.
Personally I think that the “library” with the shumil might have been in a place outside of time, but the Garden of Beginnings was the actual place and all that happened in real time. After all she has to walk out of the Farthest Hall, unlike with the Shrines, which either dumped her right at her place of origin, or were just simulated inside her mind, with her body never actually leaving the spot where she touched them from the outside.
