Rolling along….
Today was a great day for writing, other than the thunderstorms that rolled through about 2pm. It rained like a bucket was pouring on my house. In Colorado that’s a very good thing.
I finished Chapter 7, turned Chapter 8 from a concept into something that will probably be even better with the next edit, wrote a short Chapter 9, and started on Chapter 10. Wow! I’ve never been that productive, but a good day shouldn’t go to waste.
Chapter 7 takes Eislen (a local on Refuge) to meet the outsiders for the first time, at least indirectly. It doesn’t go well.
Chapter 8 explains how Eislen comes to be with the outsiders.
Chapter 9 introduces two new characters, Merik the Adept and Alarin her apprentice. Merik doesn’t do anything particularly evil in the chapter, and indeed she’s not evil for the sake of being evil. But you get a distinct feel for her character, and it’s not warm and cuddly.
Chapter 10 puts Sarah Dayson and Eislen face to face for the first time. I’ve just started it, but the concept is there. The chapter is told from the point of view of Eislen, not Sarah, so there is a lot of confusion on his part.
Here is a sample of Merik, and her interaction with Alarin as she first notices the alien ships in the sky over Nula Armana, which is the native tongue for New Home. Once the outsiders get that translated, that should tell them something.
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“Oh, Alarin, you’re only subject to my cruel whim. This sky demon has me concerned. Only the master Adepts can see it, at least so far, but what if it keeps growing until it consumes us all?”
Keep in mind that Merik and Alarin come from a society that is about as technologically advanced as Medieval Europe, and does not have any real access to metal other than copper and that is as rare as silver on Earth. Copper is insufficient for making much more than arrow heads and jewelry. There is a bit of iron in the crust, but it’s as rare as copper and the inhabitants of Refuge simply have not unlocked the ability to smelt iron from what very small bit of ore there is.
Earth is saturated with iron in our crust by comparison. We can thank the ancient impact with Thea that generated the moon and dispersed heavier metals through our crust. No such impact occurred on Refuge, so the metals are in the core and they are less frequent to begin with.
