Fiction Spawning of Bob - Short and Sweet

I was inspired by Scalenex's inspired Unauthorized Spawning of Bob Parody to finally release the next piece:

Completely Anonymous in the Unnatural Realm

It was written as a second entry in the July L-O story comp in 2015, but I didn't release it because I was led to believe that the jokes had lost their currency as people were moving on in their acceptance of the AoS changes.

10 Months later, I feel like it has aged well, like the cheese at the back of the fridge which was never meant to be blue vein, and you would frankly prefer not to deal with at all. Just leave it there. You will eventually move house, or the End Times will come.

For reference, the Totally Anonymous Characters are @Scalenex's completely original creations from the January 2015 L-O story Comp and they reappear in the April 2015 Comp.

You have been warned.

 

Completely Anonymous in the Unnatural Realm

“Well, after recovering the Eggshell of Invulnerability and dealing with “The One Theme”, what should we do next?” Robert, the unusually attractive saurus warrior asked his companions.

Moe, his almost identical, but not quite as attractive, spawn-twin replied, “What we have always been doing – prosecuting the Great Plan, silly.”

“Prosecuting the Great Plan?” snorted W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm, the Skink Priest and Mage of Heavens. “So far we have been letting it off with just a caution.” He was not unattractive for a skink, but clearly not in the same league as Robert, even though he was wearing the very smart looking Eggshell of Invulnerability on his crested head. “The Great Plan is quite simple. We are meant to be gathering the diverse races into their rightful homelands and restoring order to the chaotic domains of magic. It’s not rocket science.”

“Well it wasn’t rocket science. Not until the bit when all the Temple Cities buggered off into space and left us here,” observed the fourth member of the party. He was Hen’ry Mc’Coy, a kroxigor. He had the kind of looks that make milk curdle while it is still in the cow, but in the egalitarian and accepting lizardman society, he was respected and treated as valued member of the community. “Where is here anyhow? A little while ago we were in the Fungus Forest of Athel Sporange, a place with a detailed history and robust fluff background. What is this unnatural realm we now find ourselves in?”

“Oh, Hen’ry Mc’Coy,” laughed Moe respectfully. “You stupid, fat, ugly kroxigor. This is obviously a “lavishly designed and constructed” “wildly fantastical landscape” and the dawn of a bright new era.”

The Kroxigor looked around the sparsely define terrain and wandered over to a substantial looking boulder, which he poked with one finger. It was made of flimsy cardboard. It promptly fell over. Then it crumbled to dust. Then it caught fire. “ ‘Lavishly designed and constructed’?”

“Well, that’s what I was hoping for,” replied Moe sheepishly.

W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm had also looked around. Now he was looking up. The sky was changed, and there were a number of disconnected realities floating around in a way which pretty largely defied physics, and probably metaphysics as well. “I would say it is more like an aimlessly drifting domain of illogic which will soon spiral into the void of oblivion.”

“That’s just ignorant scaremongering,” Moe snapped. “What makes you think you are an expert on astrophysics and predicting the future?”

The skink priest silently handed over his membership card for the Hexoatl Amateur Astronomy and Divination Club.

“Well, I don’t think we should be hasty in judging this place anyway,” said Moe. “Why don’t we go over to that dark citadel that we hadn’t previously noticed and ask what is going on. Someone over there is bound to tell us what they want us to hear.”

“I wonder whose dark citadel it is,” mused Robert attractively.

“Obviously it is not Chekhov’s dark citadel,” noted W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm. “It looks like the kind of dark citadel that would house a malevolent lord, like that famous tower, Ba’ad Ide’uh from Middle Earth. That one had a big eye’s hole at the top.”

The citadel was nestled against the crumbling edge of the flimsy domain where it soared to an arrogant height. At its top where two prongs which looked like a pair of fingers. They were raised to the world like… well, not like a victory salute, anyway.

“I would say that this dark citadel is a poorly designed and constructed edifice which is teetering on the edge of collapse.” Hen’ry Mc’Coy found he could not comfortably look at it without holding his head at an angle. “The parts of the structure dedicated to marketing and product design are top heavy and are not held up by the columns of consumer feedback and customer support. It is unbalanced. And look at that, large parts of the support base are breaking off and drifting away.”

“Teetering on the edge of collapse? What makes you think you are an expert on structural engineering and basic business theory?”

The kroxigor silently handed Moe his framed Masters Degree in Architecture, Temple City Construction and Corporate Management from the University of Xlanhuapec.

“Well, we should still check it out anyway.”

The lizardmen approached the gate, which yawned open invitingly.

“I’ll ask what is going on first. Hello!” Robert called. “What is this unnatural realm in which we are wandering so listlessly, and is there an eye’s hole at the top of this dark citadel?”

Against all probability and prior history, the questions he shouted at the citadel received prompt replies.

“Welcome, friends,” a disembodied voice replied. “You are wandering in the Realm of Farce, a “lavishly designed and constructed” “wildly fantastical landscape” which replaces the world-that-was-really-not-that-bad. This dark citadel has no eye’s hole at the top. We have a board of directors to fulfil all of the duties normally associated with an eye’s hole. Why don’t you enter the hobby, I mean lobby, to find out more. There is a free set of rules waiting for you if you enter the site.”

“Wait,” said W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm. “A free set of rules as bait to enter a hobby, I mean lobby? This could turn out to be a costly mistake.”

“Oh come on, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” Moe led the way through the menacing portal.

As promised, there were free rules. They were prominently displayed on a gold plinth, and an unseen orchestra played stirring marshal music in the background.

Moe picked up the rules and leafed through them. “Four pages. They are commendably succinct, I suppose.” He passed them on to W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm.

Robert had read the rules over Moe's shoulder. “I would say that these rules are a hotch potch of half-baked ideas and insider jokes which have been promoted as an evolution and enhancement of the status quo, but have actually turned out to be ill-conceived, poorly executed and a jarring contradiction to established conventions.”

“Ill conceived? What makes you think you are an expert on elaborate and over-long set-ups used to justify badly thought out and ultimately dissatisfying payoffs set in a written framework which is not consistent with community expectations?”

Robert silently handed Moe a list of his published works.

“Oh. Right you are. Carry on, then.”

W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm handed the rules on to Hen’ry Mc’Coy and addressed the mysterious voice. “If you are going to change something, you should make it better. Otherwise, what is the point?”

“What?” the voice replied.

“What is the point of the exercise.”

“The what of the exercise?”

“The point. The purpose, the intention.”

“Oh, now we see. Don’t use funny words we don’t understand next time.”

“Funny words? You mean like point?”

Hen’ry Mc’Coy had found he could not comfortably look at the rules without holding his head at an angle. ”What about balance?”

“What?”

“The balance of the game system. That is really important too.”

“Balance?”

“Yes.”

“That word you use, I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“This is stupid,” said W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm. “We should leave the lobby.”

The massive citadel gate suddenly clanged shut. “You cannot leave the lobby,” the voice scoffed. “Where would you go?”

The skink priest put his hands on his hips. “Who are you that would try to stop us?”

The inner wall of the lobby melted away like smoke. The illusory supporting wall of the citadel had been concealing a large group of evil, typewriter-wielding Games Workshop monkeys.

Robert slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead. “How could we have conveniently shown such genre-blindness? All this time, the dark citadel with its free rules and crumbling support base was some sort of metaphor! A twist so unexpected that even the sudden appearance of the Games Workshop monkeys, our recurring enemies, pales to insignificance in terms of shock value. I should be taking notes…”

W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm was uncowed and unimpressed. “You monkeys have ruined everything. How have you committed this crime?”

The leader of the monkey’s laughed. “Do you not see? Games Workshop magic typewriters do not create words, they create reality.”

“Rubbish!”

“OK, they produce rubbish, but you are still stuck with it, kiddo.”

“We are still leaving the lobby.”

“You cannot. You have invested too much. There is no way out.”

“Really?” Hen’ry Mc’Coy poked his finger against the closed gate of the citadel. It fell over and crumbled to dust. Then it caught fire.

“Hey!” protested the monkey, “that was ‘lavishly designed and constructed’!”

The rest of the building began to wobble as the heroic lizardmen bravely fled outside in a blind panic. When they got a safe distance away, they turned around to watch the citadel’s complete collapse into a pile of smoking rubble. The kroxigor found he could finally comfortably look at it without holding his head at an angle. “I told them balance was important.”

Robert shook his head. “With the world-that-was-really-not-that-bad destroyed, and the citadel gone, where will the future take us?”

“We should make our own future. A brighter, more pointy and well balanced future,” stated Moe.

“But how?” asked Robert.

“With these four magic typewriters that I have just found, which we hadn’t previously noticed,” replied Moe.

“I wonder whose four magic typewriters they are,” mused Robert attractively.

“Obviously they are not Chekhov’s four magic typewriters,” noted W’yss’ans W’il’dfo’rm, “and who is to say that we will do a better job of creating rules that evil Games Workshop monkeys.”

Moe’s eyes lit up with righteous fervour. “We can do better than evil Games Workshop monkeys if we work together as one. We will get suggestions from the community, reach an agreement about what form the future world should take, and then with our -“

“Reach a consensus,” interrupted Robert.

“What?”

“You said ‘reach an agreement,’ but we should reach a consensus instead.”

“An agreement is fine.”

“No, it isn’t. Consensus.”

“Agreement.”

“Consensus!”

“Agreement!”

“Consensus!”

“Agreement!”

To be continued.
For a long, long time.

 

Phew. You missed all of the errors I am about to go back and edit.

 

I enjoyed it. I agree with Scalenex generally about parodies of parodies, however it can work with delicate handling (although I have a soft spot for meta-commentary so /bias).

 

...

Well that made me laugh, a bit of a heavy handed critique on AOS, but still a fun little read.
The amazingly attractive Robert and his only slightly less attractive brother Moe remind me of some characters from around here... I am hesitant to put my finger on it, but I think it was a couple of unnamed skinks.

 

That's the thing. It was meant to be a slightly-too-late-to-be-topical-parody of GW and AoS using the otherwise idle parody characters as a vehicle, not a parody of themselves. I had already done that while parodying the Lord of the Rings (again).

Aside from its lack of critical acclaim (not helped by me putting it away for almost a year), what saddens me most is that the best lines were given to me by Scalenex when I asked for inspiration for a AoS story.

This was in the context of him suggesting "Lizardmen meet a group of Seraphon."

 

Cold Commerce

The trader came to the rail of the Estalian caravel and spat a wad of brown material towards the jungle which wreathed the adjacent coast.

"What ails you, boy?" he asked of the richly dressed youth who leaned moodily beside him. "You are surely not seasick in coastal waters."

"My father hired you to teach me, not take me to listen to fairy tales in every tavern in Skeggi."

The elder scratched his graying stubble. "Your father apprenticed you to me so that I could teach you the art of trade."

"The only commerce I have seen you engage in has been the purchase of large quantities of strong ale for your tavern rats and a firkin of dried tabacc for yourself. Father should have taught me himself."

"He did not because I am the better trader."

"Hah! Father has amassed far more wealth than you!"

The trader rolled his eyes, then offered the youth a wad of his personal tabacc.

"No? Suit yourself." He bit off a generous chunk and started chewing thoughtfully. "If your good father is paying me for your entertainment then I am a superior trader. Or I am not, but I have managed to convince him to part from his gold anyway. Either way..."

"A risky investment, from my perspective."

The trader grinned and showed his yellowed teeth. " ‘Precept Nine: The risk and reward rise and fall in accord.’ It seems that you have learnt something during your three months in the doldrums of the Great Ocean. And don't revile me, boy. I admit your father is an able merchant, but that is not the same thing as a trader. He sells tabacc in Marienberg for the same price, ounce for ounce, as silver. But that isn't trade. That is a monopoly."

The trader gestured at the brooding jungle and spat over the rail again. "The tabacc plant grows throughout Lustria. One day, some dimwit will get it to grow in the Moot, or discover that it is a slow poison. What will your father do then? He will end up in the poor-house. A master trader, on the other hand, can sell anything to anyone, in any season."

After a long pause the trader spoke again. "I am also sorry you didn't enjoy the fairy tales, but what can you now tell me about these Lizardmen of Lustria?"

The youth glared at him before answering. "There are different kinds. Some are stronger than a man, some faster. They all kill without mercy. They have an intelligence beyond that of beasts but they do not speak any tongue of men."

"And most important of all, what are they worth?"

"Worth? Your adventurers say that they possess rivers of gold."

"Excellent, boy! You have unwittingly followed Precept Two."

"Wait! You came to trade with monsters?"

"They have rivers of gold, boy. Who else would I trade with? Now, back to your lessons, boy. Recite the Nine Precepts of Trade, in order, if you please."

"Must I?" the youth groaned. "Precept One: ‘A trade well done is a happy one.’ Precept Two: ‘Know your customer, his ways, and the coin that he pays’. Precept Three..."

*****

The pair studied the gravel beach and the brooding jungle behind it from the safety of the caravel's deck.

"Why are we here? Your tavern rats said that no treasure seeker has ever returned from the Cove of Shrunken Heads with anything of value."

"My tavern rats said that no treasure seeker has ever returned from the Cove of Shrunken Heads. That is all they said. There is a difference."

"Yet you sent two sailors ashore armed only with an incomplete impression of a tablet and a chip of stone from its corner."

"Precept Five, boy: ‘Show your wares to the world, let them come with their gold’."

*****

The following morning the strand was quiet as ever before, but now it was decorated with the neatly laid out and decapitated corpses of the two sailors.

The old trader stood over the bodies in silence for a moment before allowing them to be dragged further ashore and buried.

As the remaining crew wailed to their apparently deaf gods, the trader placed his hand on the shaken youth's shoulder. "Don't fret, boy."

"But this loss was for nothing."

"No! Not for nothing, and nor have we shown a loss. They returned with neither the impression nor stone fragment.

"You monster! Are you saying their lives were an outlay?"

"Not at all. Their lives were an expense. The item appears in a different column of the ledger. I suppose a military general would call it "acceptable losses."

"Why do you consider the deaths of two men acceptable?"

The trader shrugged. "Why do you think I hired an Estalian crew?"

*****

The caravel stood off shore for eight more uneventful days. On the ninth morning the beach was no longer empty. A small army of lizardmen had formed a broad semi-circle above the high tide mark.

"A great risk. What of the reward?" the youth breathed. "What is the tablet worth?"

The trader screwed up his face and dredged his memory. "The outlay for the tablet was two silver coins..."

"You came with a worthless trinket?"

"Despite my earnest effort, I sometimes wonder if education is wasted on you, boy. Total expenses were a gold coin for the tale of an attack on the port of Skeggi which did not end until a certain ship sailed for Marienberg. Forty more for a quiet look at that ship's manifest which revealed one unique item: a worthless trinket, according to you. As I said, it was worth only two silver coins to its previous owner. After that, further expenses included hire of this fine ship and crew, the price of enough rough Skeggan ale to gain knowledge of our customers and locate one of their nests, and a firkin of dried tabacc."

"To that you must add the cost of two men's lives."

"Technically no. I've already accounted for those in the cost of their hire, which now will go to their families. However all of this is irrelevant to your question, to which you already have an answer. Recite Precept Four."

" ‘A ware is worth what comes out of the purse’. Meaning you don't even know what it is worth."

"Indeed, I have no idea. But I know it is worth more to them than the cost of an extended military campaign against Skeggi, and that, as you have noted, those who wish its return possess gold aplenty."

The trader turned to the ship's master.

"Edmundo, the ship’s boat, por favor."

*****

Trader and youth took stock of the formations as a contingent of the crew reluctantly propelled the ship's boat toward the silent host.

"You've the better eyes, boy. What do you see?"

"There are three deep phalanxes of huge spear...men. Behind and between those are two groups of smaller ones. On each flank there are more of the small ones with shorter spears... no... javelins - they hold them with a reverse grip. In the deep shadows of the trees I see much larger shapes, but I cannot make them out."

As the ship's boat crunched ashore, the trader's apprentice was dismayed to realize that a simple call of the Lustrian force disposition hardly gave credit to the peril which the landing party faced.

The lizardmen on the flanks and between phalanxes were a fraction smaller than a man, but looked no less fierce on account of their stature.

The larger spear-bearers were terrifying, with their impressive physiques and their look of implacable hostility. The largest one of all stood five paces to the fore of the central phalanx.

"Hold the stone over the side for a moment, will you boy."

He did as he was told and examined the tablet again. The pattern of lines and pictograms meant nothing to him, and the stone they were carved on was drab and unattractive. He doubted he would have asked even one coin for it.

"Keep it still." The trader unstoppered a glass flask and splashed a little liquid on the very edge of the tablet. The liquid hissed and bubbled and that section of stone dissolved like a cake of salt.

"Oil of vitriol." He explained loudly as he corked the flask again. He had to raise his voice to speak over the sudden sound of hissing from the shore.

"You will be the death of us, you old goat!"

"Old goat, am I? Precept Eight: ‘Give incentive to buy, lest a chance pass you by’. Boy."

"An incentive is like a discount for a quick sale, or two for the price of one. Not an act of desecration in front of an army of cold blooded killers! "

"There are other kinds of incentives. This one is known as, 'deal squarely with us or your rock turns to dust'. Edmundo, disembark, por favour."

*****

The ship's master reluctantly came ashore with trader and apprentice. The older man placed the stone on the gravel at the water's edge and jabbered a series of instructions to the Estalian. Soon enough, Edmundo grinned, accepted the fragile flask of vitriol and held it above the stone. He seemed pleased to be the safest man on Lustrian soil.

"Where shall we begin, boy? The big brute?"

The trader bit off a wad of tabacc and strode forward without awaiting a reply.

As the youth caught up to him the trader asked, "What do you think it weighs?"

"350, maybe 400 pounds."

"Not the brute, boy! I mean its helmet. There must be fifteen pounds of gold in that."

The trader walked all around the monster, cataloging each trinket and gem in its regalia.

The youth stood back and instead noted its corded muscles, sharp teeth and its massive obsidian bladed cleaver. When his eyes fell to the brute's waist he gasped. The trader followed his apprentice's eyes to a pair of shrunken human heads which hung from the lizardman's scarlet girdle.

"Oh, it is Hernán and Vasco, and as pretty as ever they were. To think you said they died for nothing."

He spat out the wad of tabaca he had been chewing, and a lazy string of brown saliva trailed across the giant lizardman's taloned foot.

The monster did not move, but it made two sounds. One was a deep rumble which emanated from deep within its chest. The second was quieter but even more menacing. It was the creaking of the scales of its leathery claw as it tightened its grip on its weapon.

The trader sighed. "We've wasted enough time. Precept Three: ‘A broker is a curse, deal with he with the purse’. We must bargain with the cock of this barnyard."

"This is not the leader?"

"I would be speaking to you from over there if it was. And over there, and possibly over there as well. Did you not observe the brute glance at the rooster to seek leave to dismember me?"

"You took a stupid risk."

"Precept Nine again? Surely there must be a stupid reward on its way!" the trader grinned as he led the youth between the Lustrian lines to confront the "rooster".

The nickname was apt. The smaller lizardman had a crest of skin on his head, similar to its attendants, but that was almost obscured by a headdress of garish feathers. Completing the image was its cocky poise. The rooster radiated self assurance despite its bantam-like frame.

The trader bowed to his potential customer without lowering his eyes. "Negotiations begin," he stated.

Then, to the utter bafflement of his pupil, the old man turned his back on the rooster.

"Come, boy! Stay out of the way!" he called as he weaved his way back toward the ship's boat.

On his way past, the trader reached up and rapped his knuckles on the brute's helmet. When he arrived at the prow of the boat he pointed into the empty hull. The rooster hissed a command and the giant lizard stomped forward and deposited the helmet. The youth and the crew gaped at the trader as if he were a magician. After a few moments of silence the rooster hissed again and the brute stripped off each golden and jewelled article he wore and duly dumped them beside the helmet.

Barely a dozen heartbeats later the rooster hissed louder and waved its ivory staff.

Not all of the lizardmen on the beach possessed gold adornments, but those that did formed an orderly queue and placed what they had onto a slowly growing pile at the delighted oarsmen's feet. Last in line was the rooster, who contributed a pair of arm torques and a solid pendant which portrayed a ruby eyed serpent swallowing a moon.

The trader cocked his head but said nothing. After another brief pause the rooster snapped another command to the brute. In response, the latter unhooked its brace of heads and dangled them over the boat. The trader held up his hands and pushed the gruesome items back.

"No no, good brute. You keep them. Precept Six," he said aside to the youth, " ‘Goodwill from gifts repay you tenfold whatever they cost you in silver or gold’."

The trader picked up the stone to place into the rooster's grasping claws.

"Wait! Surely it is of greater worth to them." the youth intervened, "Precept Four: ‘A ware is worth what comes out of the purse.’ They have only parted with what they carry. If we wait they will surely go back for more."

"Now is not the time for greed, boy. Now is the time for good will. Precept Seven: ‘A customer loyal gives rewards that are royal’. Do you imagine that this is the only such stone to have found its way to the Old World? We will find another, no doubt being used as a doorstop, and return with a larger ship. With good will and loyalty, our repeat customers will show us the depth of their purses."

"Edmundo! Are we ready to leave?”

The trader swung his legs into the boat. "Call me sentimental, but Precept One is still my favourite. ‘A trade well done is a happy one’."

As he helped Edmundo push the wallowing boat back into the water, the apprentice looked back at both brute and rooster. Neither had so much as blinked to betray a hint of emotion during the entire transaction.

"Master," he asked respectfully, "how is it that you know they are happy?"

 

Cold Commerce was my entry in the first L-O short story comp (Jan Feb 2015. Theme: Recovery of Lustrian Artifacts). I have edited it again, mostly cleaning up punctuation and messy phrasing. I also removed most of the Estalian words (which I now half regret for reasons I just thought of now).

This would be the first thing I wrote which portrayed lizardmen as alien (to a human point of view) and the first time I thought them not being able to speak / not being interested in speaking a human tongue. In the same comp, I wrote something with LM talking among themselves, then the next three comp entries had solo main characters who didn’t talk to anyone. The last one, The Harvest, had Seraphon using a magic trinket to talk with humans. This is proof that I find the language thing nearly impossible to deal with in “serious” writing.

Even without a shared tongue, very different peoples can have a shared understanding. The trader presumably believed that the principles of trade must surely be universal. This was a big assumption, given that no successful trading contact had been made before. I also believe that these LM would have had no internal trade either and no concept of personal possession.

The trader was so confident that he could sell his slab of rock that he funded a small expedition, and then specifically found a cove that no one had ever returned from – knowing that this indicated that there was a permanent LM presence nearby. Why stumble around an uncomfortable jungle when the customer will come to you?

The apprentice was along for the ride ostensibly to defray costs, but actually, because the trader needed someone to talk to in order to show his flawless logic. He wasn’t exactly going to pay top dollar to get a non-Estalian crew just for chit chat.

Looking back at my notes, I just listed as many sales and marketing concepts as I could think of such as “know your market” and “high risk / high return” and “advertise” and then I circled the ones that could apply to anthropomorphic lizards. An early draft would have had him constantly explaining his actions to the boy, the idea of creating “precepts of trade came later” and then it took weeks of tinkering to get them all to rhyme (sort of). The numbering system would have waited until just about the last day, and I hope I didn’t make any numbering errors. (I went back and checked – nailed it. I delivered them in completely the wrong order because it would stretch credulity to have the plot following them one by one.)

The precepts were a helpful framing device. They tightened up the argument that trade and marketing are universal much better than the trader saying “see what I did then?” and the boy being able to argue in reply, softening the intent of the explanation. By making them rules and part of a lesson, the boy was forced to submit without a whiny argument on several occasions. He still got to whine a lot, though. The trader (and I) allowed him to present logical counter arguments, but only as long as they ultimately led back to a precept. Aren’t we good teachers?

I also wrote “Use Skeggi? Avoid Skeggi?” in my early notes, because Skeggi was the only human settlement I know the name of. The trader would not be able to avoid getting local knowledge, and I could have spent 1000 words describing him pouring ale into adventurers to get a series of contradictory tall tales. But I didn’t. Instead I used four distantly separated lines of dialogue to say why they went to Skeggi, what they did there and what they gained from the visit. In fact, the only thing they needed was to identify a place that no one ever returned from. In the process I got to explore the boy’s scepticism and define the distinction between trader and merchant.

Like usual, there was a bit of a plan and then a lot of lucky finds along the way. My process of luckily finding things is to write to a point and think to myself “what would the character realistically do / say / use in this situation?” Prime example: The chewing tobacco only came about because the trader needed to casually provoke the Scar Veteran. He spat on his foot, which would usually be taken as an act of aggression, not a casual insult. Hence the filthy habit. Having established that the character needed to chew tobacco, I went back to establish it as part of his character in the first line. Then I used tobacco as an example of a valuable commodity to explain the father’s wealth, why that wealth could disappear and his motivation in sending his son top learn the traders art as a back up source of income. All because I needed to upset a lizard a bit, not a lot.

Other lucky finds:
· Precepts can rhyme!
· Beheaded Estalians -> The Cove of Shrunken Heads -> the parting gift to the customers.
· The concept that Estalians have less worth than Empire men. Why is this good? Because it means my characters never got to converse with the crew = fewer speaking characters = leaner plot. Why Estalians? Because all Estalians are Manuel from Fawlty Towers. Now for my regret about removing the Estalian dialogue (the worst of it was “estás listo para ir” = “you are ready to go”). By showing the trader had a good grasp of languages we saw that he wasn’t using sign language / pantomime to communicate with lizards because of laziness or lack of respect for their sentience. Instead we showed that understood there was an insurmountable language barrier and that he would need to improvise.
· The names the Trader gave the lizards. “Brute” for the scar vet is simple enough, but the idea of the skink priest leader being “the cock of this barnyard”, getting therefore named the “Rooster” and actually being covered in feathers was a glorious convergence.

Two things I am iffy about. At the end, the boy speaks to the trader respectfully for the first time. I like that as an ending, but I don’t think it is obvious enough.

The second is that the story happens at four different points in time separated by *****. I even separated sections which followed each other sequentially the same way. What was I doing? I hate doing that. I hated doing it at the time. My justification now is that it served like a change of camera angle / scene in a TV show. What I got (hopefully) was clarity that the story was going into a new phase. The side effect is that it is a bit clunky. Did any of you find it jarring in the loss of suspension of disbelief kind of way?

Thinking about this being made into a TV has made me conclude that there isn’t enough story to justify the visual spectacle – CG army of lizardmen which just stand on a beach? I don’t think so. BUT it is so dialogue heavy that it would make for a lovely Audio Book adaptation – I can imagine the sound of seagulls and the creaking rigging, then the background sounds of the crew rowing the little boat and then crunching onto the gravel beach. I’ll put it onto my to do list.