Brand New Day

Well, I'm back. Back-ish, kinda. I'm going to be running around a lot for the foreseeable future and may even head off traveling again so I might just up and disappear again soon. Basically, what I've been up to is trying to find a job. More of an occupation, really. Something I won't be embarrassed to bring up at any of the upcoming family picnics instead of the various stopgaps I have and haven't been pursuing lately.

Still, it's a new month for the year and a new era for the blog. I think I will continue to write less and post more sporadically for the time being.

While I've been gone, lots of stuff has happened.

The Pistons lost. I hate to say it but the way they played they really deserved to, especially with the clunkers they laid in games 3 and 6. Flip Saunders got fired because of it. About time, if you ask me. It's not that Saunders is such a bad coach that he had to go (I personally think there are only a few coaches in the NBA who actively add to their teams win totals especially in the post-season - coaches like Riley and Jackson. Then there's a steep drop-off to the caretaker coaches who basically don't mess up a good thing. Saunders is squarely in the bottom of that tier not great but not bad, either.) but more because it was time to shake the team up. In a lot of ways. Looks like they're going to trade at least one part of their big engine block of a core.

The Wings won. Once they went up early it was only a matter of time although the Penguins made a game of it just like they made a series of it. But, then, it wouldn't be the Wings if they didn't make us fans sweat it out for a while. Zetterberg got the Conn-Smythe although I think if the series had lasted a few games less it would have gone to Ozzie - who's now the worst goalie ever to win two Stanley Cups. Parade is downtown tomorrow although I think I'll skip the event. Been there, done that, literally bought the shirt before and the prospect of standing around, jostling for position to watch some cars drive by and then hear people who have no business being public speakers mumble through their remarks to a crowd in the middle of what's supposed to be blistering heat tomorrow somehow doesn't appeal to me. Also, outrageous parking fees, no doubt.

The Tigers still stink and the Lions are still not playing so I can go back to not caring about sports now.

The Michigan delegates got seated. Took the Democrats months to strip half the vote just like the Republicans did in the days leading up to the primary. I got pretty sick of people trying to claim my homestate's stupid decision to disenfranchise ourselves for various purposes so I'm glad that's over.

Also in the "glad it's over" column is the whole nomination process itself. As looked certain for months now, Obama took it. And showing the same dignity and class I've come to expect from her over those long weeks, Senator Clinton managed not to concede. Which gives me an opportunity to post this link.

What else? Kwame's still being Kwame, arguing that black might be white but it doesn't matter because it's not in the City Charter. Or something. I'm pretty tired of him, too.

Massive update to Kongai finally went live today. I'll be talking about that a little later, hopefully, and working on updating The List tomorrow. One word review: good. But, sigh, now I have oh so many cards to check through again...

I've wrapped a bow around my creative project for last month. I didn't mention it much but I was working on a set of expansion cards of my own for Kongai. I got a bit bogged down when I decided to write up a quick little background vignette and include M:TG-esque flavor quotes for each and every skill (Why? Because I'm insane.). Also, I wante dot work up each card into a post I could throw up sometime around Novemember. But the actual crunchy bits are done. I mean, it's nothing like balanced and, at this point, I could use more eyes and opinions to figure out where to go next but I have twenty cards, twenty items (I decided to forgo adding more universal/general items. Why? Because I'm not that crazy.) divided equally between four groups and all the assorted values and elements those entails. Not that you'll get to see them any time soon because, well, just like every waiter and busboy in Holywoodland has a script of a headshot in their dreams if not within arms reach, every gaming blog writer or serious message board warrior secretly fantasizes about what it would be like to actually make the games instead of only talking about them (I know a few people who do - indeed, even some who've made the jump from fan to staff - and the answer, like everything else you could ever wind up doing with the possible exception of official chocolate taster, is "Probably not as great as you think it would be."). In short, there's a small possible outside chance that someone might look at this seriously one day and I don't want to ruin it by having already publicized the information - I could use the money, if nothing else. If by some strange and wonderous quirk of fate, the fine folk at Kongregate ever come up to me and ask me to hop on board then you can be sure that I'd push as hard as I could to have as much information as possible put out there as early as possible but until then, if you're interested I'd talk about it in e-mails or if you catch me in game I might be willing to talk about it, too.

This month's project, though, is another stab at Unbound. If you'll remember, that was my second attempt at a script in the original Script Frenzy. If you don't, it's your basic fantasy story of a young mage trying to escape being "bound" - a process that allows her to channel mystical energy more safely but at the cost of any personality or independence - with the help of a guard whom she may or may not have cast a spell on set against the backdrop of a rebel plot to keep a Princess, the true heir to the throne, from marrying the leader of the foreign invaders who've conquered the country. I've finished it a few times since but never exactly been happy with it so I'm going to take another crack at a revision now that I think I've been able to strip the story down to what works and to take away what doesn't.

Which I really should be getting back to.

Frenzied Scripting: Lack of Progress Report

Time to check back in on my script. Since it's only been a few minutes blog-time since I've posted about it but a few days since I actually wrote those words.

And, sadly, I don't have much more to report. Haven't written word one since I've gotten back from my trip. Oh, I've written plenty of words but they've all been swallowed up by the great big delete button in the sky, leaving me with nothing.

I've hit the dreaded Writer's Lock. Not the more common Block where I can't come up with anything to write. I never run out of ideas. No, I run out of time. I'm caught trying to decide which of several options to take, unable to make up my mind, leading to a lack of energy and a surplus of apathy, that makes forward progress impossible. My script somewhere in limbo. I haven't written much of it because every time I sit down, I start flipping through my mental outline and I keep stumbling on this one little snag in the plot that I'm not sure, yet, how to resolve. I mean, I know what leads up to it, I know what happens afterwards, I just can't figure out how it happens itself. Let alone how to write it, the feel, the tone of the scene. And it's really bugging me since it's a pretty pivotal event that affects everything to come afterwards.

So, in lieu of writing my current script, I've been engaged in preproduction for numerous others. I'm not sure why, but I seem to prefer planning out and preparing to write a script much more than I do actually writing one. Probably because with a finished product, I can't say it'll be better once I put some more effort into it – A script, no matter how good, will never match the sterling example of writerly goodness and artistic merit that I have in mind when I first set out.

Frenzied Scripting: Progress Update

This is a bit out of date since it was lost somewhere in the ethers but on getting back from California, I thought I'd give a brief update on my script's progress. During my sojourn out west, I took my old, creaking, “of interest to technological anthropologists” laptop along. Not to, you know, blog, since my laptop predates new-fangled concepts like wi-fi and ethernet cards – the power of my internet connection with the thing is best expressed in terms of tin cans with strings attached to them. But I figured I could work on my script and some other writings while I was in the passenger seat. Determined, I was, to get the thing done on the way there so I could wander around Hollywood with an honest to goodness struggling writer with an unsolicited script. It's been a dream.

I was, to put it mildly, overoptimistic. I'm, to also put it mildly, weird about writing. I find it really hard to do with someone else in the room and that apparently encompasses sitting in a speeding car with my brother at my shoulder. Go figure.

Just unable to get much done. Everything I wrote was off, was forced, and is better off forgotten. Instead, I worked on more outlines and summaries and scene details. Everything but the actual script to the point where I'm running out of ways to avoid writing it. Which is really what I've been doing all along.

Always don't have the time to really sit down and hack out this act or that scene. Always need to get this or that out of the way first. To think about why this scene isn't working. To come up with a reason for that character to act that way. Always an excuse. Because I've got this script. I've got it in my head where it's perfect, where it's amazing, where it's this sparkling jewel of creativity. But as soon as I put it down, it's not going to be so perfect anymore, it's just going to be this ruddy thing full of mistakes and flaws – a lump of coal that I might be able to press down into a diamond one day. But it's not going to be as good as I want it to be. As good as I know it can be. And I know it can be.

So, yeah, it's not going well at the moment. My goal is still to be finished by the end of the month. And there's still plenty of time to make it. But I'm in a funk right now.

Frenzied Scripting: Excerpt Machine, Go!

One of the benefits of going through so many revisions is that I've really gotten a handle on the character. I've been doing the front half of the script, mostly (At least when I don't have to dash off to some other section because I've gotten a good idea I need to write down), and that means it's a lot of banter setting up the relationship between the Soldier and the Mage, the two main characters. It's the kind of dialog that really needs to flow and be natural if it's going to work well, and I think I'm writing it much stronger than I would have a month or so ago. The characterization shows through in the dialog a lot more, the little tics and quirks that I've built up are there to the point where, I think, you could take out the name tags and still tell which character was saying which line. Beyond even that nice little trick, tough, is how I'm summarizing a lot more. Everything a character thinks, everything they feel, isn't tumbling out of their mouth – and the same is going for what's taking place in the scene or the overall plot. Some examples? I thought you'd never ask.

Here's a brief scene where the pair are trying to figure out how to steal some needed goods from an isolated farmhouse, shortly after they've escaped from the Academy where the Soldier worked and the Mage was trained:

SOLDIER

Can you, you know, do anything here?

MAGE

I could set the cottage on fire. Maybe.

SOLDIER

I thought you were out of magic.

MAGE

What are you asking me for then?

SOLDIER

You can set the place on fire?

MAGE

I could summon a spark, a small one, it might catch on the roof and start a fire. Get me a pile of tinder and I can do the same.

SOLDIER

And what good would setting fire to the roof of the cottage do?

MAGE

The roof looks dry. A fire would spread pretty fast. When the people inside rush out of the smoke, you can chop them down and then we can take whatever we want.

SOLDIER

Somehow, I think a burned out farmhouse and some bodies would leave something of a trail to be followed. You couldn't, say, make me invisible?

MAGE

You have no idea what an enormous expenditure of magic that would take. Besides...I'm not very good at the subtle things.

SOLDIER

Oh? Like a charm spell?

MAGE

Yeeeess... It was risky. But that worked.

Ah, foreshadowing and banter, without them I'd have nothing but a bunch of scene transitions. I also love the nonchalant (in my head, anyway) my lovely little mage decides she could torch the place.

Here's another, when they're just wandering around trying to figure out what to do and how not to strangle each other with their bare hands that's not really important but that I just like:

SOLDIER

Look, Amaneia-

MAGE

Amaneia Winifrex Schiah Almanou Mantrien deso Luna.

SOLDIER

That's a bit of a mouthful.

MAGE

That's my name.

SOLDIER

Not Amaneia?

MAGE

Amaneia Winifrex Schi--

SOLDIER

Alright, alright.

MAGE

It's my name. It's what you have to call me.

SOLDIER

I'm not going to remember all that.

MAGE

You have to.

SOLDIER

I think I'm going to call you Luna, then.

MAGE

My name is not Luna.

SOLDIER

Nope. But that's what I'm going to call you, Luna. Got a nice ring to it, don't you think?

MAGE

Luna.

SOLDIER

That's right.

MAGE

I'm from the House deso Luna.

SOLDIER

Oh? You're a noble?

MAGE

I...I think so, it's hard to remember but, I- yes. Yes, I am.

SOLDIER

Can't say I've heard of them. But you can't throw a stick without hitting some newly minted noble these days.

MAGE

My family goes back a dozen generations. And you will call me by my rightful name!

SOLDIER

You know, when I was a squire for the Baron so Marduk, everyone just called him Marduk.

MAGE

They did?

SOLDIER

Sure, nobles get called by their House all the time.

MAGE

I...suppose...

SOLDIER

Besides, look at it this way, if they're looking for us, they're looking for Amaneia Winisomething Whatever.

MAGE

And if you call me something else...

SOLDIER

It's like a disguise. Right, Luna?

MAGE

Right.

[Soldier tries to pat her on the back].

MAGE

Don't touch me.

SOLDIER

Alright, then.

You get a hint of my fictional naming system there, by the way. Nobility get all kinds of titles and names, as you can see in the Mage's full name, but the important bits are at the name because that's what tells you which noble house or clan they belong to. That's the “deso Luna” part which reads as, basically, “Of Luna”. I based the “deso” on the Japanese phrase “desu”, by the way, although as you might also be able to tell, there are different descriptors that depend on just how important you are. The phrasing “deso Luna” tells a listener (one from my fictional kingdom, anyway) right away that they're dealing with the first daughter - and, therefore, first in the line of succession which would be why they'd draw that distinction - of the minor noble house of Luna. While the phrase “so Marduk” tells you that you're dealing with the male version of the same (except for the House of Marduk, instead.). It's that sort of detail that drives me nuts and probably won't matter to roughly 9/10s of the intended audience, but it's the sort of thing I feel helps to build a living, believable world instead of just a bunch of quirky details.

Frenzied Scripting: The Many Villains of Unbound

I mentioned the other day how I have five villains floating around my script. Some of them have large roles, some of them are barely cameos, but they're in the work because each of them has an important role to play in the script that no other character can perform. That's because these villains aren't just Generic Thug #3, they're fleshed out characters in their own right, who are serving important thematic purposes. I had a bit of an advantage when coming up with them because, if you'll recall, the original concept for Unbound began with as a story bible for one of my abortive attempts at a webcomic (Which is weird since that's how I got my idea for my NaNo novel as well. Go figure.). I was hoping to make something like Sluggy Freelance or Errant Story. Heavy on the plot but still with a bit of humor so things never got too bogged down in the melodrama – you know, a case of Cerebus Syndrome although I would be going for that mix right away. But to do so, I figured I needed a healthy stable of villains. More importantly, recurring villains. Antagonists who could hold their own against the heroes for a storyarc or two while weaving their way in and out of the plot. Several of them made the transition into my current script. Some radically changed, some not. A few others didn't quite make the cut, much to my sorrow, because aside from the characters there's not a whole lot that I've kept from the original plans.

That's why the villains made the jump to the screenplay, too, by the way. Characterization. Because not only were they fairly well fleshed out, each was also consciously designed to not only oppose a certain hero but to reflect them – the villains that didn't do that are the ones I've left behind. And by that I mean that the villains are set up to be thematically similar to the heroes. There's a hero who's a swordsman, for example, so there's a villain who also uses a sword as her chief weapon. But while the first is a knight in bulky armor, a dirty, gritty, pragmatic fighter, the villainous one is a lithe, graceful engine of destruction. If the hero is talkative, the villains quiet. There are similarities but there are also degrees of difference as each antagonist serves to highlight certain facets of the protagonists character. Hopefully, anyway. Even as each serves to exemplify a certain kind of villainy. I've tried to avoid some cliches while playing against each other but each villain is based on a template for the kind of behavior, the kind of person, who'd turn to evil.

I should say, though, that I'm not the sort of person who really buys into the whole good and evil dichotomy. Don't believe in cosmic forces for right and wrong. There are explanations, justifications that lead one down the rabbit hole and away from such simple minded clarity as “good guy” and “bad guy”. As someone once told me, part of my problem is that I'm a binary personality trying to view the world in shades of gray. I have two settings – on and off, fully committed or fully apathetic – and that makes it hard to deal with subtle gradations of morality and conscience. But if I had to put my admittedly nebulous concept of right and wrong into words, I'd say that there are no bad people, just bad actions. The results of the choices we make, their ramifications, are what determine the morality of our actions, not the other way around. My villains, then, aren't creatures spawned from the very depths of some dark, hellish place. My heroes, for that matter, aren't perfect either. Both have flaws, but they both have redeeming qualities, and it's the balance of those and what they do with them in service of the plot that determines where on my grayscale of morality they fall.

Here's a table I've whipped up to help me deal with it all:

Name	Thematic Role	Archetype	Opposes
Governor	Ruler	Authority	Princess
Bladedancer	Menace	Unknown	Soldier
Dollmage	Child	Impulse	Mage
Captain	Worker	Impersonal	Cavalier
Baron	Official	Opportunist	None

The names there are placeholders, by the way, as I find it saves me the trouble of coming up with names right from the start. The Baron is the only villain to lack a real counterpart among the whitehats but he's also the one who gets the smallest role, story wise. He needs to be there, I think, but he's there to kick things into action and muddy the waters, not to actually come into direct conflict. If anything, he's the opposite of the Mage's parents who are another pair of characters who've fallen away as I've pruned the script.

Anyhow, in case you don't remember, my script is set in a fantasy/midevil-type kingdom, called Fresk, which was conquered, a few years ago, by a large, exotic, and more advanced empire, called the Huan. The Huan have set up shop in Fresk, appointing a territorial governor and crowning a puppet king. The people don't exactly like it but they also don't like being executed for treason. Besides, the technological, magical advances the Huan has brought along with them do make things a lot easier for the average citizen. The story kicks off when a mage escapes from her training at a magical Academy and goes on the run from the authorities.

The Baron, is the person in charge of that Academy. He's a fat, chubby, effete little foreign person who looks like nothing so much as a Friar in a Las Vegas review. As I noted above, he's evil stemming from opportunism. Of the bad that arises from institutions, left to run unchecked. He's not evil in and of himself but he is working for a corrupt, evil system and he's taking full advantage of it. The Mage Academy is a plum position since mages are a key part of the economy and the Baron is using his important position to get nice and rich. As you might expect, he's not exactly pleased when one of his prize mages runs off, and his role in the story is to set the authorities chasing after the Mage.

The Captain is the leader of the group that's chasing after the Mage, head of the guards at the Academy. He's a gruff, no nonsense mercenary, one who probably fought on both sides of the war to conquer the kingdom, depending on who looked like they were winning. He's determined to recapture her at all costs. And to that end he's been given some mystically enhanced hounds by the Baron. They can “smell” magic and they're to help him track down the Mage. He and his crack group of handpicked guards chase after the Mage and those with her for the first half of the movie or so before fading in importance as the almighty plot overcomes all. And, as noted, they're not a bad sort. Another hero – the Soldier – was originally part of them. But they're evil the way torturers are. Torturers, after all, are people to. They have lives, homes, families that they go home to every day. They might even have a “World's Greatest Parent” mug, help out the neighbors with their yardwork, and go to church faithfully. They're normal. They just happen to get up every morning and go to work which just happens to involve breaking a human's body and spirit into tiny pieces. They can do that because it's just their job. It's nothing personal. They're just one small cog in a larger machine and they just put their head down and get on with it.

The Dollmage opposes the Mage and she does so because she's wild where the Mage is all kinds of repressed and pent up. You see, in my little world becoming a mage isn't a walk in the park. It's a long, slow process that involves breaking down the will of someone with some magical talent and turning them, essentially, autistic before enslaving them to an owner who'll be able to order them around. That's just the kind of nasty the Huan are, of course. But it's not the only route to magical power. Those with magical talent who don't get training are called hedge wizards and are, technically, illegal. Partly because the Huan want a monopoly on magical power but partly because they're very dangerous. Knowing the arcane secrets that allow one to reshape reality makes a person insane, basically. And hedge wizards are a random, irrational lot that can cause a lot of trouble. And that's what the Dollmage is. And that's what the Dollmage does. She's chaos personified. There in the story to act as a third faction and stir up all kinds of complications. She's also, a young child. One with an enormous amount of magical power at her fingertips. One who's always gotten her way because no one's ever dared to scold her. Her evil comes from her rashness, her impulsiveness. She's the kind of person who'd break a piece of glass just to hear what it sounded like. She's called the Dollmage, by the way, because her big magic trick (Most hedge wizards have only one or two magical powers but they tend to be very good at it.) is animating objects. She can cause an inanimate lump of clay or stone or wood to come to life and control it like a puppet. Or a doll.

If the Dollmage is all about a lack of control, then the Bladedancer is the opposite. She's all about polish and grace. Economy of motion and emotion. She works as a bodyguard for the Governor, who we'll get to in a bit, and she's as big a physical threat as the Dollmage is a magical one – she's deadly with a blade. Bladedancers are, along with mages, one of the secrets of the Huan's success. They're highly trained, highly skilled fighters. They work in the shadows. As assassins, as spies, as special forces who can devastate an entire squad of enemy soldiers (They're not, I repeat, not ninjas. Really. Close, though.). And they get their name because when they're in action, when they're whirling and swirling around with their weapons, it's like some kind of beautiful, macabre dance. I've purposely avoided giving this Bladedancer, specifically, a name because I want her to be mysterious and exotic. An unknown. A force. As I noted above, she's evil as a menace. As the threat you can't understand, the one that leaves you panicking, in fear, as it works for your destruction. That's the role of the Bladedancer, she's a force of nature. She doesn't say much or, really, do much – I think of all the “major” characters she has the fewest lines and shows up in the fewest scenes – but when she does land in the story, she has a big impact.

The final villain is the Governor. He's in charge of the occupation of the kingdom which is far removed from the empire's core, giving him a pretty free hand. For all intents and purposes, he runs the country. In the story, he's set to marry the Princess, who's a minor member of the royal family a few steps removed from the throne. It's a common practice among newly conquered territory with the Huan as it solidifies their control. The Governor is a slick, cultured man. Intelligent, hard working, who's been steadily improving the condition of the kingdom. Of course, he's doing so because it's basically his personal property. And that's why the Governor is evil as it comes from authority. He's in charge, he's the leader, and without any check on his nearly limitless powers he can do just about anything he wants. Regardless of whether it's right or not. By the standards of the day, he's probably a very good ruler, but from our modern vantage point we can see that he's harsh and overly brutal.

The story, after all, is set up to be a carefully concealed morality play. As I've mentioned before, I've tried to avoid some of the trappings of the fantasy genre but only because I want to get at the heart of the themes, the concepts, of good fantasy. The point of Tolkein writing the Lord of the Rings wasn't to tell a story about an epic roleplaying campaign. He had a point, a purpose, and, to me, that was to explore certain themes and concepts, especially moral ones, while playing around with the whole World War II framework. The question of good versus evil isn't very interesting to me, since I think it's overly reductive. But it's that kind of moral interplay that I want to work with, at least as a subtext. That requires heroes with the proper moral fiber who'll rise to the occasion. But it also means I need some good villains, with the right characteristics, to interact with them.

Script Frenzy: The New Script

In case you haven't checked out my profile at the Frenzy boards (And if you haven't, well, you're missing out on the ongoing mass movement towards...yeah, I've got nothing.) then you likely already know the answer to which script I've chosen to direct my energies into. The rest of you were left hanging by the vagaries of fate and power lines. Well, let me relieve you of the lingering tension, I've decided to go with the idea that prompted me to consider dropping my old script, the late unlamented “First Kiss”, in the first place. The first one listed in that “Ah, Decisions” post. The Fantasy one.

I've taken to calling it “The Pact” because, again, I'm horrible with names. If you checked out my profile you'll know the tagline, “The old king is gone. The last bastion of freedom already fallen. The last hope has died. But the people still can dream.” It needs some work, obviously, but I'm horrible with those, too. It's just not easy to condense my intricate and densely woven sweeping epic into 25 words or less, you know, while still trying to interest people and draw them in.

That tagline more or less establishes the scene as the story begins but it doesn't really hint at what's about to happen. Which is why it sucks. But, alright, the idea is that this story is set in your typical Medieval fantasy kingdom. You've got the knights and the wizards and the feudal system and all the other tropes of the genre. But you've also got the invaders who took over the country some ten or fifteen years ago (I'm a bit sketchy on the timeline but I know I want it to be distant enough to be fading in the memory yet still within a generation.) who are more from the steampunk genre. Or to put it another way, while the kingdom's fighting with mounted knights and wizards, the invaders were fighting with magically-powered firearms and wave after wave of infantry. They defeated the kingdom's ruler – the old king – and his army decisively at some famous battleground, opening the land to their forces. They installed a new king on the throne and made the kingdom the latest addition in their continent straddling empire. There was some token resistance but, by the time the story starts, it's been largely crushed out. There's some resentment at being conquered but the general populace doesn't mind too much because the invaders are technologically superior and are ruling more or less benevolently by the standards of the time (Which means they still put people in the stocks but they're not bastards about it.) and the average life has gotten noticeably better since the war.

That's, you know, the backstory. The actual story I want to tell deals with several characters who try to buck that system. How I'm going to deal with the magical aspects is a bit novel and, hopefully, I'll post some details sooner or later. But the gist is that the invaders have found a way of amplifying innate magical users but at the cost of their humanity and free will. They get to wield fantastic powers that wizards who don't go through the process can only dream of but only in service to someone else. They're walking weapons or tools, in other words, and carefully guarded and regulated by the state. What happens in the story is that one of those mages manages to escape before being completely converted and desperately flees being recaptured or killed. The mage manages to gain an ally by using magic to charm one of the soldiers guarding her. The two form a pair, like I've said, not unlike the Black Mage and Fighter from 8-Bit Theater. With one being a little clumsy and slow but eager to help while the other being ungrateful yet still dependent on that help.

I'm having a little trouble deciding exactly how I want the story to end but the movie should be about their flight from pursuit and, along the way, they fall into some of the larger things happening in the kingdom. So, it's something of an fantasy/action movie and, as you might tell from my word count, is proving to be a lot of fun to write.

One thing, though, I want to avoid with this is a lot of the standard fantasy cliches. My soldier isn't some destined hero. He's not the greatest swordsman in the land. He's merely adequate. Same for the mage. Although she wields a lot of power she's not the greatest magical powerhouse around. These are real - or realistic - people dealing with extraordinary circumstances. Rather than being destined for greatness, they're thrust into a situation where they might have a say in the outcome of a lot of things. If, of course, they choose to risk themselves doing it – which would be where I'm having trouble with the ending. I can't decide if I want them to do the brave but foolish thing or slink away and save themselves while damning the kingdom. I'm inching towards the later, at the moment. But, for now, I'm just enjoying writing out the big chase and fight scenes.