The Sorcerer's Progress (Page 40 of 62)

You have got your plot lines worked out and your characters fully drawn.  This new plot horror will be good for leading a good guy into serious mistakes (I'm thinking maybe Glaselle) and opening some interesting, foreshadowing questions (How do we tell history about this?  Maybe we shouldn't?)

But the culmination of the thread needs to wait until Hell comes for things, handbasket in hand.  I can't leave too much time to brood on this one, because folly-made disaster must follow fast and faster.

You didn't start writing your story 18 years ago and piddle around without a group for 16 of those years. So keeping up isn't really a worry. You got your story into the gate and joined an online group right away. Someone had to hit me over the head before I took their advice and joined TNBW.

I'll give you that! And yeah, it's not a competition, the only thing that matters is getting it done!

I beg to differ about the timing of hard spirits.  Here are a few sources...not the best, but something.

Proof that distilled liquor (in bulk) was in production as early as 1495 according to taxation records.   http://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/underst … ch-whisky/ 

Text about the history of distillation:
A major development in alcohol during the Middle Ages (about 500–1500 CE) was the discovery of distillation and the subsequent production of distilled spirits. However, there is no agreement as to exactly when or where distillation was first perfected. Authorities disagree as to whether it was in China, Greece, Italy, Arabia, or elsewhere (1). However, strong evidence suggests that it was in Arabia (28–30). What is clear is that Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) was the first person to clearly describe the process whereby distilled spirits could be produced (1).

Physicians, monks, and others slowly became interested in distilling alcohol as a medication rather than as a drink produced for enjoyment or other purposes. It was a professor of medicine, Amaldus of Villanova (d. 1315), who apparently named distilled spirits aqua vitae (water of life). He wrote, ‘We call it [distilled liquor] aqua vitae, and this name is remarkably suitable, since it is really a water of immortality. It prolongs life, clears away ill-humors, revives the heart, and maintains youth’ (31, p. 172). During the fifteenth century a German physician identified over two dozen conditions that he claimed distilled spirits benefitted or cured (31).

Source: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/1 … chapter-01

I mean not in the world (universe), and not just in that particular World.  None of these characters has even heard of such a thing, with the very slightly possible exception of Kirsey and Master Threckesrom.

Remember, in our world distilled spirits, even by your dates, did not become widespread untill the 1400's.

The only cross-world trade is what sorcerers carry.  Well, not quite  but I haven't developed that yet.

The correspondence isn't exact, but a World-dependent mix from the twelfth century to maybe the fifteenth, with some things ahead or behind.  (Kirsey's math is pushing the nineteenth.)

That's what I wrote!

I lost a page of notes and spent about three hours more or less reconstructing it.  I got a lot, and a few things I missed last time, but I missed things this time too.   This is a list of disturbing things that Merran finds in her first few hours at the Academy.  I've got three sequences to write for all this, and yes, I'm skipping ahead because a bunch bof ideas came together.

I'll work again this evening.

I created it.  Two and a half days later it was not with any of my notes.

I'm not sure they'll ever get fully reconstructed.

I just tested the naked circuit board for the redesigned/rebuilt LDO 12v regulated supply.  It doesn't work.  I know where the wiring error is, but I'm not going to fool with it now.  (It looks like there may be two complementary errors.)

Time to wash up and get to writing.

After this I have a long list of partially finished electronics.  The first couple of items on the list aren't too big a deal, although they may take an hour or two.  After that I have a somewhat larger project, though it should be straightforward (crosses fingers).

I meant the original ones would surface the moment after I put the last period at the end of the last sentence.

One and two done.  I have a version of three that should splice nicely.