Through book two, there are a few times where the number of delves don’t line up to the amount of time passing. Is this intentional?

Sort of. I tried to mention that not everyone is going on every delve, or give reasons why they’re skipping a week of *literal magical power collection*, but overall, it’s just that I need time to pass for some things to make sense and delves take kind of a long time to write compared to things like conversations and other interpersonal interactions. Also, handwaving a delve as “and they went into the office and nothing bad happened” lets me kind of circle back later and imply they have orbs that weren’t seen on screen. Which is sort of an author cheat, but one I try to not lean on too much, and mostly use for comic effect.

What happened to Javier (the kid who first turned them onto the school dungeon)? He kinda dropped out of the story at some point.

He’s not dead or antimemed, I just haven’t found the right place to reintroduce him. I’m also not sure if he’ll end up being a frequent character; his methods don’t really line up with the Order. But I certainly will get around to showing what’s up with him at some point, and their paths aren’t done crossing.

What are greens? What do you get for absorbing them?

They’re orbs!

Can absorbed yellows push someone past a natural lifespan?

Kind of. I don’t think I’ve ever really explained this that well, and I need to put it into the text at some point. The yellows are the energy to create or sustain life. So, *yes*, they can keep you alive past what your body should allow; this is how James got himself to the hospital with a bullet lodged in his heart. But the more work they have to do, the faster they’re going to burn through their allotted power. If someone is in a body that’s so old that it’s falling apart in multiple ways, you’re going to have increasingly smaller returns on each orb. They can only go so far.

How long is your cheat sheet for skills and powers and stuff?

A few people asked this. I think because everyone’s starting to realize that I’m actually really bad at taking notes! In fact, I rely on one of my excellent readers to keep an updated list of all the character upgrades. And the list is getting looooooong. It turns out that when there’s no upper limit for yellows, there’s not much motivation for people to not just keep getting better at as much as they can.

Which of Hilbert's problems does Anesh think he's solved?

Ah! And here we get to a much, *much* deeper problem!

I have a confession to make; I am bad at math. I am actually bad at a lot of things! I don’t think this is a huge surprise; but it does loop into a big problem with writing The Daily Grind, a story where people frequently get sudden skill points in wildly different skills. See, I want to show specific knowledge about stuff that the characters are picking up, so that we can sort of have a set of guideposts for just how good they are. This includes with Anesh, who isn’t so much boosted by yellows as he is just *smart*. But writing smart people is a huge challenge when they’re smarter than you at specific things.

So I name-drop things that I can figure out as being important from under half an hour on Wikipedia. I would do more research, but at a certain point, I get diminishing returns. I try my best to not be outright wrong, and I edit actual factual errors whenever I have them pointed out to me. But unfortunately, despite what some people have suggested, I do not have access to Officium Mundi in real life, and I just don’t have the knowledge of all these skills whirling through my head.

Do you have access to Officium Mundi in real life, and this story is just a record of real events?

No. I’d be able to write so much faster if I had a skulljack, are you kidding? I’ve got so many stories that I just don’t have time or mental energy to put to paper. And ironically, if I was spending large chunks of my life dungeon delving, I’d probably have way more ability to write faster.

We haven’t seen a lot of Rufus and Ganesh in book two; what’s up with that?

Rufus and Ganesh are excellent. I love them a lot as characters. But their lack of high level communication kinda means that they get a backseat to characters who talk to each other, even if it’s just the camracondas that’re still learning language in general.

I did consider giving Rufus a voice through a skulljack, but it feels weird for some reason. Like language just isn’t something that he’d be comfortable with. Still, though, I’ll try to keep them involved on screen. Ganesh, especially has never really been obsoleted as a powerful delving ally. And they really are both cool dudes.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

What's the most alien viewpoint you currently plan on writing, and have we encountered them yet?

I think it might be the dungeons? But even then, they’re not really ‘alien’, are they? For all that they’re weird as fuck and have different priorities than people, I think it’s clear by now that those priorities are understandable, and are mostly about needs and instincts. Like, the camracondas have to supplement their food intake with security footage to get their full nutritional balance; but that’s just a *need*. Humans understand needs pretty well; we’ve got a fuckton of them.

And the dungeons are creatures of our world, just like we are. We’re all on this rock together, and as far as anyone in the story knows, there isn’t a dungeon on the moon.

So maybe the most alien voice I’ll write will be when I suddenly take a hard right turn with the story and make the plot about a literal alien invasion? Who knows.

What’s the hardest thing to write?

Idiots.

And I don’t mean, like, people who don’t know things. I mean people who are willfully ignorant, or buy into far-right conspiracy theories, or are race supremacists or something. And it’s not like they’re hard to write because there’s a lack of reference material, sadly. It’s more that, if I were to go to the Twitter account of actual people who actually believe a lot of really absolutely moronic and hateful things, and I copied their tweets verbatim to form dialogue for The Daily Grind, then people would complain that I’m using strawman arguments.

This is a massive problem for me, because as some of you may have noticed, The Daily Grind is not apolitical. I mean, no art is apolitical, no matter what the authors of certain things want you to think. But here, both the characters and authors have opinions. And even when I don’t believe exactly what the characters are saying, I’m still trying to give them a fair shake. Which is *really hard to do* with people who are… you know… quoting Nazis and acting like that’s normal.

Alright, that’s about as soap-boxy as I’m gonna get here. Moving on before I get too deep in the weeds.

Are there any orbs you made that you realised afterwards were actually way too exploitable (perhaps because of comments) and so you had to slyly move on and hope everyone forgot so you didn't break the setting?

Surprisingly, not really. The diminishing returns effect on duplicated orbs means that even really powerful purples cap out eventually, and copying them requires a certain delay that makes it easier to write. Like, it takes time to ramp up ‘production’ of copies, so it tends to be one orb that goes to the entire Order once or twice, rather than one person getting a dozen orbs. And no specific orb or power or anything has been world-shattering, because all these powers are focused in a small group of people.

That said, James and Sarah being able to finagle the extra hour of sleep in their apartment between the two of them allllllmost makes for one human with no need for more than a quick nap every day. I think that might be the biggest gain.

Also, I fully *expected* the bonus to James’ jump height to matter at some point. Since writing that, he has jumped over exactly zero things. I’m a bit disappointed in myself, as an author.

So I guess the answer is “no, and I’m shocked it hasn’t”.

Last time you had some songs you used as a mental soundtrack. Are there different ones for book two?

The Garages - In The Feedback (Live at Desert Bus). This one is my opening title song this time, and I will pay a thousand dollars to anyone who actually makes an anime OP for The Daily Grind with it. I am not kidding.

Half Alive - Still Feel. Outro, naturally. I like the vibe this one puts off, it feels very ‘end of summer’ to me.

Vincent Moretto - The Liberation of Gracemeria (Metal Remix). This one is actually a really sick guitar cover of a song off the Ace Combat soundtrack, and it is awesome as a backdrop for any action scene. I listened to this a lot while writing the story.

Blues Image - Ride Captain Ride. For the epilogue. I first heard this song as the ending to a story that got me motivated to begin writing in the first place, and it still makes me cry.

Miracle Of Sound - Dream Again. I wish that I could find appropriate theme songs for every character I write, but I’m just not good at it. If anyone has any suggestions for what song embodies James or Anesh, or any member of the cast, please let me know. This one, though, is the one I know exactly who it's for. This is Secret’s music, and it always has been.

How long until book three starts?

Book three is now three chapters in for Patrons (at time of writing, I will never update this information). Once it’s seven chapters ahead, which is where I like to keep Patrons at, then I’ll begin public releases again. Which means in about a month, barring another health issue that keeps me from working.

Book one seemed to be about discovery and stepping into the role of the hero. Book two was about establishment and stepping into the role of the administrator. What will book three focus on? Is this an intentional theme?

Second off, no. I never really tried to have a broader theme, though if that’s your read on it, it is absolutely legitimate. I find it amazingly cool that people can look at the first two books and find that thread of connection there. That just makes me feel so satisfied in my author-brain.

First of all, from a narrative perspective, book three is going to be about the Order reaching out to the wider world. There’s gonna be more interpersonal stuff, and also more dungeon stuff. And more smooching. That’s all that’s in my notes so far, though.

Are you ever going to take the story down to sell an eBook?

No. I may make an epub version at some point, and maybe the site changes ownership or policies and that’ll push me to remove it. But I like my work being freely available. If you want to support me, I do have a patreon, but the grand majority of what I make will be out in the open.

How would you go about making the story more gay?

After all this time getting comments, reviews, and messages that were mad about James and Anesh kissing, it’s kinda nice to finally get something going the opposite direction. I dunno! I didn’t really focus on the romantic side of the relationship for most of the book, despite its presence being contentious. Maybe I’ll just dive into that a little bit more; the dynamics of how our main trio interacts. Maybe we’ll see a little bit of the other relationships that are forming in the Order. Some of them are bound to be at least a little gay. Hell, Deb’s dating a camraconda, that’s already a step in the right direction.

This isn’t a question, just a placeholder for a line break before I say...

Alright! Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I hope everyone enjoyed the ride that Book 2 has been, and I look forward to seeing you all back when the break is over!

As always, thanks for reading. I write this to be read, and your comments and questions keep me motivated through a lot of stuff.

So thank you. And I’ll see you all in a month.