The Sorceress - Enigma [Discuss]

[+Oltux72 he/him]

So the book tells us who and what she is and what means she uses for her defense. And it shows us her hobby. But what is she doing there? Why is anybody who desires so much security that she turns a whole ocean into her guradian so conspicious? Why does she settle on an inhabitated planet at all if she wants to live alone on an unhabitated island?

[+robardin he/him]

We’ve seen Riina named as one of the Ire plotting to acquire the Shard of Preservation for the Ire in Mistborn: Secret History, but she appears to be on Lumar here by herself.

At the end, a restored Hoid thinks to himself as he makes to threaten her with a “zapping” (I guess she doesn’t know about his Dawnshardic curse that makes him unable to “harm” another person): She’d come to this planet because nothing here could threaten her. Then she’d found a dragon living here. Then I’d arrived.

She wasn’t hiding here, really, as she wasn’t keeping a low profile or working under a disguise or an alias. She comments about how “unimportant” this planet is, while taunting Tress about her hair. And by Ulaam’s assessment, Hoid is the only person on the entire planet other than the dragon who could challenge her powers.

She then hightails it outta there right quickly and easily when Restored Hoid shows up to do just that.

What does this mean for her purpose in being on Lumar? Sadly, it appears to be no more than an epic scale of bullying.

Edited January 2, 2023 by robardin

[WhatFace]

4 hours ago, robardin said:And by Ulaam’s assessment, Hoid is the only person on the entire planet other than the dragon who could challenge her powers.

That does make me wonder though: Was Riina/the Sorceress the one being on Lumar who Xisis mentioned fearing?

Because we already know it’s not Cephandrius/Hoid. But why would a dragon as powerful as Xisis be afraid of any old member of the Ire? Unless she’s really leveled-up in the hundreds of years since “Mistborn: Secret History”…

[+Oltux72 he/him]

4 hours ago, robardin said:

What does this mean for her purpose in being on Lumar? Sadly, it appears to be no more than an epic scale of bullying.

Then why not land on an inhabitated island and turn a tenth of the population into flatulent slime moulds and make the rest lick clean marble statues of her?

[+robardin he/him]

19 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Then why not land on an inhabitated island and turn a tenth of the population into flatulent slime moulds and make the rest lick clean marble statues of her?

It's no fun unless they know they're being tormented, eh?

But seriously. What do we see her doing on Lumar, that might indicate her reason to be there, other than what she does in doling out curses? Let's assume that's merely her sadistic pastime - what is her proper business?

According to Fort, she set up in the Midnight Sea because it's accessible only from the one side (behind the dangerous Crimson Sea), and thereby "controls trade through the passage that connects the planet". Which must mean trade with off-planet partners (through a Perpendicularity on the Midnight Moon, or its Lunagree on Lumar, perhaps?).

Only her ships are allowed to sail the Midnight Sea without being attacked by the enormous monsters she's able to bind to her will from the Midnight Essence in the aether spores, and the reason the Verdant King is waging a rather one-sided war with her is because he "doesn't want to pay the tariffs" she levies to work that trade route.

So what trade would go off-world from Lumar to elsewhere in the Cosmos? We already see what comes back - Tress is a uniquely naive person on Lumar, from having grown up on the Rock. Many other people are casually aware of other planets and people with strange powers thereby, such as how easily the crew of The Crow's Song accept Dr. Ulaam (he makes no secret of his off-world origin), the fact that the dragon Xisis arrived about 300 years ago from off-world, Fort stating he traded for his writing board from a "wizard from the stars", and so on.

My guess is the spores, packed in aluminum containers, are quite valuable as a way to access aethers without having to find or to become an "aetherbound" like Pransanva in TLM.

Edited January 2, 2023 by robardin

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

It's no fun unless they know they're being tormented, eh?

Of course. I completely understand that one needs a hobby. But if you are into the evil overlady stuff - and I refuse to comment on whether that increases her allure - you 'll have to wear black leather and have some slaves to command and torment on hand.

1 hour ago, robardin said:

But seriously. What do we see her doing on Lumar, that might indicate her reason to be there, other than what she does in doling out curses? Let's assume that's merely her sadistic pastime - what is her proper business?

According to Fort, she set up in the Midnight Sea because it's accessible only from the one side (behind the dangerous Crimson Sea), and thereby "controls trade through the passage that connects the planet". Which must mean trade with off-planet partners (through a Perpendicularity on the Midnight Moon, or its Lunagree on Lumar, perhaps?).

These explanations concerning trade on the planet, while correct, are probably not worth the effort. She had ambitions to become a god. She is not seriously taking up extorting preindustrial primitives as a business. I'll consign them to the hobby category.

Now the spores may be valuable off planet. But the planet is known. It regularly gets visitors. Blocking trade with a valuable commodity is not conducive to your safety and health. This just is internally contradictory.

 

[+robardin he/him]

25 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Of course. I completely understand that one needs a hobby. But if you are into the evil overlady stuff - and I refuse to comment on whether that increases her allure - you 'll have to wear black leather and have some slaves to command and torment on hand.

These explanations concerning trade on the planet, while correct, are probably not worth the effort. She had ambitions to become a god. She is not seriously taking up extorting preindustrial primitives as a business. I'll consign them to the hobby category.

Now the spores may be valuable off planet. But the planet is known. It regularly gets visitors. Blocking trade with a valuable commodity is not conducive to your safety and health. This just is internally contradictory.

But from an off-world perspective she’s not blocking trade. She’s taxing it. Basically setting up a tollbooth.

I don’t think she necessarily came to Lumar JUST for the toll collection racket, but it seems to be the most tangible benefit. And the planet may be known but not well known - Hoid’s comment, She’d come to this planet because nothing here could threaten her. Then she’d found a dragon living here, suggests she may have thought she was the first powerful off-world person to arrive (versus ordinary worldhopper migrants, tradesfolk, and curiosity seekers).

As for any past ambitions to become a god: she was not the one tabbed to Ascend in M:SH - that was Alonoe. Riina was a presumably junior associate to Alonoe back then (one of the names Alonoe calls out to for help, while Kelsier-faking-Ruin spooked her horse and isolated her in a cognitive forest).

And if she was now a senior Ire, whatever they are (operatives? agents? conspirators? cadre?), where are the others? She’s all alone here.

Their attitude towards other Cosmere worlds in M:SH - “The powers of Threnody wish to join the main stage!” - imply they view expansion and domination of other worlds as a Great Game of sorts. Maybe they thought just one of them would be enough to capture and to hold a backwater “supply point” like Lumar. What she chose to do to maintain that hold, or to amuse herself while administering her control, was her business.

Edited January 2, 2023 by robardin

[+Oltux72 he/him]

9 hours ago, robardin said:

But from an off-world perspective she’s not blocking trade. She’s taxing it. Basically setting up a tollbooth.

Yes. That limits her profits. If she takes too much, either somebody powerful will come in and remove the obstacle, or the aethers are not so valuable and demand will dry up.

9 hours ago, robardin said:

I don’t think she necessarily came to Lumar JUST for the toll collection racket, but it seems to be the most tangible benefit. And the planet may be known but not well known - Hoid’s comment, She’d come to this planet because nothing here could threaten her. Then she’d found a dragon living here, suggests she may have thought she was the first powerful off-world person to arrive (versus ordinary worldhopper migrants, tradesfolk, and curiosity seekers).

OK, altered theory. The spores are valuable. So the spores must flow. This is an Arrakis situation. She is the neutral party the big customers have agreed upon to meet the spore quotas, as they cannot let one of their own control so important a resource.

 

[RedBlue she/her]

Is there any evidence of organised or regular trade between Lumar and other planets? It seemed to me that the crew of the Crow’s Song would be more aware of other planets, and the goods that come from them, if that were the case. The level of cosmere awareness they have seems more consistent with sporadic visitors than actual trade.

As for the original question — I don’t think Riina has a goal. She left Lumar far too easily for it to have been important to her to be there.

Not everyone is on a long-term quest like Hoid. Sometimes, someone’s ambitions are thwarted, and they give up. Some people just settle down, muck about and enjoy life. That seems to be what Riina has fallen into.

She’s a medium-sized fish who moved into a small pond so she could pretend to be a leviathan. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

1 hour ago, RedBlue said:

Is there any evidence of organised or regular trade between Lumar and other planets? It seemed to me that the crew of the Crow’s Song would be more aware of other planets, and the goods that come from them, if that were the case. The level of cosmere awareness they have seems more consistent with sporadic visitors than actual trade.

Trade between Lumar and the rest of the Cosmere as compared to trade between the natives of Lumar and other worlds are distinct concepts. For all we know Riina was running an awakend ship collecting spores and shipping them offworld with all the profits ending up in her pockets.

1 hour ago, RedBlue said:

As for the original question — I don’t think Riina has a goal. She left Lumar far too easily for it to have been important to her to be there.

Well, see, the problem I have here is that somebody who has a healthy sense of self-preservation would choose a world, where taking a deep breath can kill you, without a clear goal.

 

[Mason Wheeler]

15 hours ago, WhatFace said:

But why would a dragon as powerful as Xisis be afraid of any old member of the Ire?

It's what Hoid mentions in his narration towards the end about Riina: even if there's only a low probability that she could beat him, you don't live to an old age by taking a lot of low-probability risks that you might die.

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, Mason Wheeler said:

It's what Hoid mentions in his narration towards the end about Riina: even if there's only a low probability that she could beat him, you don't live to an old age by taking a lot of low-probability risks that you might die.

Right. Furthermore, Xisis states that he’d stay clear of The Sorceress but has no particular fear of Hoid, while she appears to take Hoid’s threatening pose while newly powered for AonDor seriously, which implies the dragon knows about his… limitations with respect to hurting other people, but Riina doesn’t.

[Brgst13]

Another interesting Sorceress-adjacent point I haven't seen mentioned yet: timing.  She arrived about 300 years ago.  The Iriali left about 300 years ago.  Coincidence?  Or something more?

[RedBlue she/her]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Trade between Lumar and the rest of the Cosmere as compared to trade between the natives of Lumar and other worlds are distinct concepts. For all we know Riina was running an awakend ship collecting spores and shipping them offworld with all the profits ending up in her pockets.

I agree that, theoretically, offworlders could be running some kind of interplanetary trade from Lumar without the natives knowing. But there’s no evidence of that happening in the text. If Riina were harvesting and selling spores, or doing any similar business on Lumar, it would be strange for Hoid not to mention it.

Here’s how he describes Lumar in chapter 42:

Quote

To me, it was a backwater planet drowning in the dross of the aethers, which are more useful in other incarnations—and far easier to harvest on the moons themselves anyway.

Granted, Hoid could be concealing the fact that someone is covertly selling Lumarian aethers. But that would be a missed chance at foreshadowing, which is unlike Hoid.

 

And as for Riina’s sense of self-preservation, the midnight spores aren’t a threat to someone of her level of ability. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

27 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

I agree that, theoretically, offworlders could be running some kind of interplanetary trade from Lumar without the natives knowing. But there’s no evidence of that happening in the text. If Riina were harvesting and selling spores, or doing any similar business on Lumar, it would be strange for Hoid not to mention it.

Would he know? Hoid is many things, but an engineer or merchant?

The thing is that those spores have rather obvious applications. If they hadn't the native ships wouldn't carry a crewman dedicated to them. And to a technologically developed world they would increase in utility. Fire without fuel. A godsend (well, aethersend) for the environment. No air in your space capsule. Zephyr to the rescue. Emergency food for a downed pilot. Verdant does the job. Need to observe the inaccessible inside of a machine. Midnight will do the job.

Why not sell them if you are literally floating in them?

27 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

And as for Riina’s sense of self-preservation, the midnight spores aren’t a threat to someone of her level of ability. 

And if Glorf had carried a bag of crimson spores on her person? She needn't even throw them. Inside her pants and ready for suicidal urination would be enough.

[RedBlue she/her]

38 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Would he know? Hoid is many things, but an engineer or merchant?

Hoid’s whole plan hinged on manipulating Riina to act exactly as he needed her to. There’s no way he didn’t do his homework.

 

44 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Why not sell them if you are literally floating in them?

As Hoid says, the aethers are more useful in other forms, and easier to harvest from the moons than the planet. If Riina’s primary goal is to make money, why is she here?

 

49 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

And if Glorf had carried a bag of crimson spores on her person? She needn't even throw them. Inside her pants and ready for suicidal urination would be enough.

What if a capable person turns up and tries to murder you? That’s a risk you run no matter where you are in the cosmere. The spores don’t pose a significant risk to Riina relative to the environmental hazards, visitors and locals she might run into elsewhere.

(If Riina were smarter, she would reduce the risk of revenge plots by being less awful to the inhabitants of the planet she’s settled on, but clearly her self-preservation instincts don’t go that far.)

 

More generally, the impression I got from Riina wasn’t that she’s an enterprising person with plans in motion. It seemed a lot more like she was hanging out and messing around. Because that’s all we see her doing, until she realises she’s facing a legitimate threat, at which point she runs away without a fuss.

[+robardin he/him]

4 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

Another interesting Sorceress-adjacent point I haven't seen mentioned yet: timing.  She arrived about 300 years ago.  The Iriali left about 300 years ago.  Coincidence?  Or something more?

Is that mentioned? I know Xisis the dragon is mentioned as having taken up residence under the Crimson Sea about 300 years ago, which would indeed coincide with the Iriali "disappearing".

...Ah, here it is. It was in the book that Capt. Crow was making notes in the margins of, regarding cases of being cured of "spore gestation":

Xisisrefliel lives beneath the spores in a palace that somehow exists on the bottom of the Crimson Sea. Though his age is unknown, he has lived in that same spot for at least three hundred years.

We don't know how old the book is, but we do know (from Hoid) that he was there before the Sorceress arrived to Lumar, who was surprised by the fact that there was a dragon on the planet. Whether that was one year before or more than two hundred years before, I don't think we know?

[+robardin he/him]

51 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

Hoid’s whole plan hinged on manipulating Riina to act exactly as he needed her to. There’s no way he didn’t do his homework. ...

As Hoid says, the aethers are more useful in other forms, and easier to harvest from the moons than the planet. If Riina’s primary goal is to make money, why is she here? ...

More generally, the impression I got from Riina wasn’t that she’s an enterprising person with plans in motion. It seemed a lot more like she was hanging out and messing around. Because that’s all we see her doing, until she realises she’s facing a legitimate threat, at which point she runs away without a fuss.

Bingo on all three points, IMHO!

But some insight on the first two are worth thinking about:

Hoid implied he'd made the deal with Riina, submitting to a curse he assumed he'd manage to get out of eventually, in exchange for something (a spell with a precondition?) that would result in his gaining access to AonDor (something he already tried to do in the extra post-epilogue scene in Elantris, but comically failed to do). I guess once he returned to the tower and stood on the image of the planet on the floor of her main chamber, he fulfilled the conditions of his curse and gained the boon?

As for trafficking in aether spores as a reason for her being on Lumar, well, it may be easier to harvest them directly from the moons, but also more dangerous? I dunno. But it did seem secondary to her pleasure in watching her curses at work.

[Mason Wheeler]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Would he know? Hoid is many things, but an engineer or merchant?

Given his long history of magical experimentation, all the way back to his origin as "guy trying to figure out how the local magic system works," I'd say he's at least somewhat of an engineer.

[Mason Wheeler]

1 hour ago, RedBlue said:

(If Riina were smarter, she would reduce the risk of revenge plots by being less awful to the inhabitants of the planet she’s settled on, but clearly her self-preservation instincts don’t go that far.)

Instincts are something very different from intelligence.  Take the smartest person in the world, put them in a high-adrenaline situation where base instincts take over, and they won't behave particularly different from anyone else unless they also have training on how to handle such situations, which is also a completely different thing from intelligence.

[Lightspine]

I think we've overlooked a potential line of reasoning in this thread, but it does hinge on one thing; we have no idea when Hoid got cursed. It's possible it was very recent. But it's also possible that it's been decades. (If any quotes from the book contradict this please let me know, I'd be happy to be proven wrong).

Riina and Hoid placed some sort of "bet" that Hoid won at the end of the book by returning to Riina's inhabitance. By winning this bet, Hoid seems to have become Elantrian or something close to it. During the entire final act, it's pretty clear that Hoid's proximity is what is making her nervous. It's possible that, to some extent, the extreme security measures that Riina put in place were for the express purpose of keeping Hoid out. After all, she's only become able to monitor Hoid directly since he happened to join a ship that had Fort's tablet. What if she was previously sinking every ship that entered her domain just out of an abundance of caution to keep Hoid out?

Quote

“I’ve crossed your ocean,” Tress said, “approached your island, passed your metal army, and gained entrance to your lair. I have overcome the four trials you’ve put before me, and have obtained your presence.”
“Ha!” the Sorceress said. “My four trials? I love it. You’ve been listening to Hoid. Tell me, how is Ulaam?”

When Tress tells Riina that she "won" because she overcome the trials set in her way, Riina assumes she's been listening to Hoid. However, the details of the trials actually came from Huck, and Hoid never mentions them. This is a false assumption that Riina makes because of the terms of the bet with Hoid; if Hoid overcame these trials, he would indeed "win." It might be a bit of a leap to say that the trials were built specifically for Hoid, but it's certainly possible.

[RedBlue she/her]

27 minutes ago, Lightspine said:

I think we've overlooked a potential line of reasoning in this thread, but it does hinge on one thing; we have no idea when Hoid got cursed. It's possible it was very recent. But it's also possible that it's been decades. (If any quotes from the book contradict this please let me know, I'd be happy to be proven wrong).

Hoid says this about Tress making progress toward breaking his curse (Chapter 42):

Quote

After only a few days of trying, she’d discovered more about helping me than Ulaam had in our year together.

That implies Hoid had been in that state for about a year. (Assuming Ulaam was part of the plan from the beginning, which seems reasonable.)

He also says this about his plan to gain Elantrian powers (Chapter 64):

Quote

Turns out that to get this particular set of powers to work, you couldn’t simply fake Connection. You needed an invitation and adoption into a very select group. My only chance had been to find one smart enough to be a member of that group, stupid enough for me to toy with, and sadistic enough to trade membership for the opportunity to see me cursed.

It sounds like Hoid came to Riina, not the other way around. So whatever Riina is doing (or not doing), Hoid is not the reason she went to Lumar or set up the tower. 

[Lightspine]

2 hours ago, RedBlue said:

Hoid says this about Tress making progress toward breaking his curse (Chapter 42):

Quote

After only a few days of trying, she’d discovered more about helping me than Ulaam had in our year together.

That implies Hoid had been in that state for about a year. (Assuming Ulaam was part of the plan from the beginning, which seems reasonable.)

Ah, I did miss that detail. You're right, that does mean the defenses Riina set up weren't for Hoid specifically. Slight correction though, it seems like Ulaam came and found Hoid after he was cursed:

Quote

“Granted, the rules of the curse prevented me from giving any direct explanations of how to break it. But I really expected more from him. As it stands, after coming to find me and then discovering my…ailment, he’d just taken up residence on the ship. He’d always fancied becoming an explorer. “For the sense of adventure, hmmmm?” he’d said.”

(Chapter 18)

Quote

“Technically, yes,” Ulaam said. “But I haven’t the faintest idea how Hoid did it—I found him like this after I arrived on the planet in response to his letter.”

(Chapter 22)

But I doubt it took Ulaam very long to reach Hoid upon receiving the letter. We have no idea how long interstellar travel takes, but I doubt it's on the scale of decades. So, even if it's been a bit longer than a single year Hoid's curse appears to be a recent development.

Now I am starting to wonder if it has any time correlation to the recent war though. Maybe her getting more aggressive after cursing Hoid is what lead to the escalation?

Quote

“Because of the impending war, every second captain is a smuggler these days. So you shouldn’t feel too bad for falling in with some.”
“The war?” Tress asked.
“With the Sorceress,” the rat said. “She’s been sending more ships in to raid, and the king has been building up his forces—commandeering merchant vessels like a child reaching for treats. Seeing how easily you can find yourself conscripted these days, it’s no wonder so many sailors are having a bout of prolapsed morals, so to speak.”

(Chapter 9)

 

[RedBlue she/her]

27 minutes ago, Lightspine said:

Slight correction though, it seems like Ulaam came and found Hoid after he was cursed:

Good catch. That must have been a fun letter.

“Hey Ulaam, by the time this letter reaches you, I will have been cursed on purpose by a sadistic Elantrian as part of an elaborate scheme to get awesome glowy powers. Please come bail me out!”

 

 

32 minutes ago, Lightspine said:

Now I am starting to wonder if it has any time correlation to the recent war though. Maybe her getting more aggressive after cursing Hoid is what lead to the escalation?

Good question. I think the timing is a coincidence, seeing how nonchalant Riina is about Hoid. She seriously underestimates him.

As an aside: I don’t think the ‘war’ was ever really going to materialise. I think the king is blustering for political reasons. There’s no way he can fight the Sorceress with the level of tech available to his armies, he doesn’t have people like Tress on tap, and anyone actively governing can’t be stupid enough to pick a fight they will lose so badly.

[+robardin he/him]

16 hours ago, Lightspine said:

I think we've overlooked a potential line of reasoning in this thread, but it does hinge on one thing; we have no idea when Hoid got cursed. It's possible it was very recent. But it's also possible that it's been decades. (If any quotes from the book contradict this please let me know, I'd be happy to be proven wrong).

Riina and Hoid placed some sort of "bet" that Hoid won at the end of the book by returning to Riina's inhabitance. By winning this bet, Hoid seems to have become Elantrian or something close to it. During the entire final act, it's pretty clear that Hoid's proximity is what is making her nervous. It's possible that, to some extent, the extreme security measures that Riina put in place were for the express purpose of keeping Hoid out. After all, she's only become able to monitor Hoid directly since he happened to join a ship that had Fort's tablet. What if she was previously sinking every ship that entered her domain just out of an abundance of caution to keep Hoid out?

When Tress tells Riina that she "won" because she overcome the trials set in her way, Riina assumes she's been listening to Hoid. However, the details of the trials actually came from Huck, and Hoid never mentions them. This is a false assumption that Riina makes because of the terms of the bet with Hoid; if Hoid overcame these trials, he would indeed "win." It might be a bit of a leap to say that the trials were built specifically for Hoid, but it's certainly possible.

Well, let's list the key known events in a relative timeline and see if we can figure this out.

[NOTE: I've edited/updated this with text in blue following observations/corrections made by @RedBlue and @Oltux72 after my original post.]

After being cursed, Mad Hoid became the "cabin boy" on the Crow's Song - Captain Crow made Fort "trade for him", and in the same conversation, told him about the Sorceress' curses: She heard about his curse and his trip to the Sorceress. Getting him was a poor deal, since his former shipmates were happy to be rid of him. Captain insisted though.

When Tress first spotted him after being allowed to stay on the Crow's Song, of all the strangers to her - the captain and its crew - she recognized Hoid as the "cabin boy of the Whistlebow" - evidently the name a ship that had pulled in at The Rock, for her to be familiar with their cabin boy and "his gangly figure and his pure white head of hair".

In fact, yes, he was named as the one who gave her the first of the five cups that Charlie sent back to her before being sent off to the Midnight Sea: "a beautiful porcelain cup, without even a single chip in it." At which point he'd still been sane (hadn't yet been cursed), inferred both from the fact that Mad Hoid probably wouldn't be trusted with delivering precious cargo, and that "his former shipmates" on the Whistlebow only wanted to be rid of him after he was cursed. Plus, Tress wouldn't have thought Hoid was acting weirdly if that was how she'd met him in the first place.

Ulaam says he came to Lumar and "found him like this [cursed] after I arrived in response to his letter". After which he convinced Captain Crow to take him on as the ship's surgeon after she shot him a few times, to no effect, except for him to say he found it "invigorating". So Hoid was already on the Crow's Song.

So I would say the order of events is:

• Hoid goes to Lumar, intending to upgrade to accessing AonDor via Riina...
  • Apparently, an Elantrian "inviting" or "formally adopting" someone else in a specific way, can transitively extend the necessary Connection to AonDor
  • He had sought her out because he knew her sadistic pastime was Creative Cursing, and would relish the idea of cursing him in particular
• Hoid writes/sends a letter to Ulaam telling him this, asking Ulaam to come to him (I guess to help him deal with the curse, whatever it is)
• [Sane] Hoid becomes a "cabin boy" on the Whistlebow
• The Whistlebow makes a visit to The Rock while Tress is there, waiting for Charlie's cups.
• Hoid strikes the deal with Riina (curse him, but where undoing the curse results in Connecting him to AonDor) 
  • How he gets there is unknown - I doubt he traveled through the Crimson and Midnight Seas on the Whistlebow!
  • But, he does return to the Whistlebow after being cursed.
• When Capt. Crow hears of the Whistlebow's cabin boy having been cursed by the Sorceress, she makes an effort to acquire him on board.
  • Not sure what the point of that was - her goal was to visit Xisis in the Crimson Sea, and not the Sorceress beyond it?
• Ulaam (finally) arrives on Lumar, joins Hoid on the Crow's Song, and mostly just watches Hoid with amusement.
  • "That's the problem with immortals - they get used to sitting around waiting for problems to work themselves out."
• Tress ends up on the Crow's Song, and you know the rest.

This means the timeline for Hoid arriving on Lumar and wandering around cursed is pretty tight: it happened after Charlie had already been gone long enough to send back the first cup, and for it to reach Tress (by his own, sane hand).

Edited January 4, 2023 by robardin