Paul SB - BackboneofNight sub04, 4409 words

[Paul SB]

Hello everybody,

 

It’s been two weeks and not a peep. Not encouraging, but I do want to keep this going.

 

This time we have two supplemental entries, meaning that they center around other characters than our hex of protagonists. The first is the mentor character, who parcels out assignments to our protagonists. It runs a bit long, so I would appreciate any suggestions for places it can be trimmed without denuding the chapter of its life and purpose.

 

The second introduces new characters for the purpose of showing the reader some of the chaos happening in the Meritocracy that our protagonists haven’t encountered personally, as they have been on vacation in the middle of nowhere. Now that I think of it, that could be accomplished with epigrams like newscasts, maybe even something like journal entries. These characters reappear in Book 4 and have more of a role, interacting directly with one of our protagonists. So their presence in this book isn’t strictly necessary, though it might feel like a bit of a treat to a reader who meets them in Book 4 and remembers their brief appearance in Book 2. If nothing else, it gives the (mistaken) impression that the author knew what he was doing.

The Backbone of Night

In last week’s episode …

 

Sub 01

Entry 02.01 — After the events of Volume 1, Amal and her hex have been taking it easy in Twilight’s Rift with Valirand and it’s mate and new baby. After Valirand invites Rey to be the first human to go inside the baby, Toona freaks out and attacks Rey using a telekinetic ability no one knew she had, then goes back into the cataleptic state she had spent most of her life in.

 

Supplemental Entry 024BFZ7//-008 — Archbishop Cyril IX, the nominal head of the Church of the Holy Flame, the only religious organization that openly exists in the Meritocracy, meets with his underlings to discuss two projects that the Church is implementing now that the Meritocracy is in a labor crisis. One involves a planet that they have set up as a pilgrim site, the other a program of assassinations. Cyril decides to send an agent of the morality police to the pilgrimage site under the pretense of concern over entertainments.

 

Entry 02.02 — The Hex transfer from V to M so V can stay home with the baby while M flies them back to Tel. space in the hopes that the aliens can figure out what’s wrong with Too.

 

Supplemental Entry 024BFF1//-006 — While President M is away on some mission, Mor. is in charge, and she decides to visit a cafeteria and pretend to be an ordinary employee to get an idea of what the unwashed masses are talking about (the old Henry V trick).

 

Entry 02.03 — The hex meet up with some familiar Tel. and find out that the human colony is not faring well.

 

Entry 02.04 — A & R meet the command nexus in charge of the colony and find that the situation is worse than they had guessed, and the leader is arrogant and hostile to them.

 

Bon Apetít!