Revalkyrie (chapter two)

This review was fast lane comissioned by @ArlequineLunaire


In the first chapter of this Type Moon-inspired web novel, troubled teen fencing enthusiast Charlotte went poking around in her negligent father's secret babadook-infested basement. She found out that said father is a member of some kind of underground technomagic-using sect, and had an ancient device latch onto her arm after touching the wrong thingy.

As I said last time, review commissioner and story writer @ArlequineLunaire told me not to pull punches and treat this review like an editor giving feedback to an author. In that first chapter, it turned out I didn't have many punches to pull. Chapter two, "Charlotte's Starter Summon," unfortunately, is another matter.


After the device clamps itself onto Charlotte's arm like a buckler, there's a flash of light and she finds herself facing the ghost of medieval samurai Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who is here to serve her in whatever capacity she requires. He doesn't know why. The last thing he remembers is dying, but he's surprisingly not very choked up about it despite the dramatic and tragic details of his passing. The extent of his understanding of the modern world around him is...even less consistent than Fate's, at least from what I've seen of both thus far.

And, uh, before even sitting down to figure out how Minamoto got here and if she should believe his story about being the ghost of a thousand year old samurai, Charlotte tells him to help her break out of the basement she's stuck in. A paragraph early on makes it explicit that - unlike most of the Fate protagonists - Charlotte didn't know magic was real until a few seconds ago, but she's already asking him about what powers he has and how useful they might be for their situation.

Most of the dialogue in this chapter that isn't talking about how to escape their situation is spent on Minamoto expositing about Japanese history and Charlotte asking really dumb, really presumptuous, and really not-what-you'd-expect-a-person-who-just-learned-that-magic-is-real-to-be-asking questions about it. Like this:

"Hey look, if we still mess up it's all on you, I've never done stealth stuff like ever," Charlotte said, glossing over the contradictions in her words, "I mean, I put everything into fencing, not ninja training or whatever."

"Ninja? Another of your modern terms?" Yoshitsune had to ask.

"…The Hell, you seriously don't know what a ninja is?" Charlotte said, looking at him side eyed. Wait, shouldn't it have been translated for him, or is it cause the word's already Japanese? Or this translator thing probably has bugs in it. "Er, shinobi then, heard that word?"

"Ah, I see what you mean now," Yoshitsune said.

Or this:

"Fencer, you say?" Yoshitsune noted, before he produced another weapon, a sword that almost glowed with a bluish-green haze. "Then while we're making our escape, you may want to hold onto this for protection. Like most swords of my time it was designed for horseback, but you'll find it's strong enough wielded from foot too."

"Wait, y-you're just giving me this?!" Charlotte called out.

"Well, I don't have three hands, and what hands I have are already full with my fan and bow," Yoshitsune said, "So this'll at least see my sword getting some use, until we can find you a weapon of your own of course."

"No, that's not it," Charlotte said, "I thought with like samurai that- that your sword is supposed to be your soul! Isn't that what everyone says?"

Yoshitsune paused hearing that, then said, "…The samurai must have changed a lot since my time, I'd say our pride were our bows and horses more than anything. I mean, I do have a close companion who equated samurai with their swords, but he was as always the exception to any rule. Besides, I'm... not sure why that one sword was summoned with me. In short, it's not a weapon I consider myself worthy of."

I've seen the author claim that part of their inspiration for this story was disappointment at Fate's lazy and arbitrary handling of legendary figures and a desire to tell a similar story that leans much more heavily on mytho-historical accuracy. That's a good pitch. I like that premise.

But could you really not keep it in your pants for one damned chapter to wait for a more natural point for exposition?

Or, like, if you wanted to make this be all about the history from the beginning, maybe have the first Remembered Dead (as Fate's "heroic servants" are reimagined here) show up in a scene where it would make sense for him to be Children's Educational Programme-ing this shit?

The decline in prose quality and descriptive texture that I commented on at the first chapter's midpoint does not correct itself at any point in "Charlotte's Starter Summon." The basement lair they start the chapter in and the other Horologium facility they accidentally teleport themselves into a bit later are both described in frustratingly minimal detail despite supposedly being weird-looking places full of high magitech. And...here, have a look at their first contact with the enemy(?):

After that, Charlotte slowly stepped out and looked to either side to get a better view of this corridor. Or tried anyway, as she had to immediately duck back in. She saw there were at least two Agents on patrol, assumedly lower-ranked as their uniforms were less elaborate than Honoré's. "Hey samurai, any ideas? Best I can think of is we just wait here till those guys have moved on," Charlotte said.

"We do have the option of conversing with them," Yoshitsune said, "Far as I'm aware, you've done nothing intentional to slight Horologium thus far."

"What? Hell no, these guys have totally been spying on me and my whole town! Like I care to play nice with them," Charlotte snarled, arms folded.

How does she know that these two (men? women? monsters? I have no idea!) guards are "Agents?" What do their uniforms look like? How are they less fancy than Honore's?

For that matter, how does she know that the organization this all belongs to is called the "Horologium," or that the samurai she summoned is a "Remembered Dead?" All of those words got overheard by Charlotte in the previous chapter, but the context didn't make it even remotely clear what they meant.

...well, okay, to be fair if you heard someone talk about "summoning the Remembered Dead" and then playing around with their equipment conjures a ghost, then I imagine you could put those two together readily enough. But the other terms still have this issue.

Also to be fair, that above exchange immediately precedes this darkly funny bit:

"What? Hell no, these guys have totally been spying on me and my whole town! Like I care to play nice with them," Charlotte snarled, arms folded.

"I see. Well if that's how it is, fret not, taking out a guard or two is a simple matter," Yoshitsune said, as he then pulled out a bow from… somewhere, presumably from wherever he'd stowed that tengu fan. "Oh, this?" he pre-empted any questions Charlotte could have, "If I am a ghost, my one bow would be one part of my, hmm, 'spiritual essence' you could say. If I am but a memory, this'd be one of many bows I'm remembered using. Not that those are any more than guesses right now."

With that, Yoshitsune was able to snipe both guards, with a bit of altering the wind to make his arrows hit just the spot. Charlotte then moved out to inspect the fallen guards, then went pale and gasped, "You, you just killed them, didn't you?"

"No, merely caused enough blood loss to leave these two unconscious," Yoshitsune said a little quickly, "Outright killing them would only set this Horologium's sights on us all the more."

Yes, he caused enough blood loss to knock them out instantly while preventing any more blood from being lost after that point. With an arrow.

I'm not sure why he felt compelled to tell that particular lie here (from how Charlotte had been talking up until then, I'd more expect him to go "wait, why did you not want me to kill them? You just told me not to go easy, didn't you?" rather than immediately trying to cover it up), but still. Darkly funny, as I'm sure it was intended to be.

...though it in turn makes this following bit a little hard to parse, character-wise:

The two slowly headed through the base, a map they'd picked up from a collapsed guard showing they were at least heading towards some sort of exit. They reached a larger chamber, akin to a glass hangar but without any vehicles, well not now anyway. As Yoshitsune shot more guards and cameras, Charlotte tried slowly walking up to a guard to spring a surprise sword slash on him. Lifting Yoshitsune's sword up and bringing it straight down, Charlotte froze when she saw just what she'd done. The sword had sliced right down through the guard's torso, meaning what she was now looking at was a dead body. Dead because of her…

I'm having trouble connecting this paragraph with those previous ones. Like, she has all this hesitance about killing both right before AND right after sneaking up behind someone and chopping them in half in a single blow? Even with Charlotte's very clearly telegraphed antihero status (seriously, she decided this organization was evil and started using lethal force on them based purely on a) them having hidden cameras around her hometown for unknown reasons, and b) her father who she doesn't like being a member), this just seems all over the place.

There's a highlight from early on, when Minamoto is musing on his own ghostly nature and whether or not he should find a priest to exorcise him, that will stick with me in a good way. Other than that, this chapter is all pretty forgettable at best.


I remember the first 2/3 or so of the first chapter being fairly engaging and well-written, when it was just Charlotte and her thoughts dealing with a painful school, social, and home situation. It dropped off when the weird stuff started, and so far is remaining off for as long as the weird stuff is center stage. I have a hunch that things will get better again when Charlotte returns to some version of her normal life and has to reconcile the science fantasy stuff with it. The author seems to have very clear strengths and weaknesses. In "Charlotte's Starting Summon" though, the weaknesses are almost all that shows.