Top of Day 12

12,317 words. The standard goal by the end of today is supposed to be 20k, so I'm kind of behind... I think my personal goal is just to reach a The End on Amulet II by the time I'm done messing with it, before I allow myself to move on to work on something else.

So, lessee, where are we...

1. Nathaniel and Mindy have made a deal, where Mindy will stand up and denounce Antoine at Adrien's funeral, in exchange for a rare book from Nathaniel's collection to give to Treehouse, who is currently blackmailing her for rare local artifacts. Nathaniel just wants to see Antoine's status undermined enough that he'll get called out of the area so he will stop trying to mess with the north anchor of the binding spell.

2. Allen and Thomas both went to visit the Eenin at the same time for the same reason. Nathaniel sent Allen; Chance sent Thomas. They met each other for the first time in Branitel. The Eenin are now alerted that the mages are going to try to sneak onto their lands to do archaeological digs without permission.

3. The mages are getting ready to try a translocation spell on the Hall of Trees. What they're seeing is actually the pearl. I need it to be unburied and removed from the Hall of Trees, so, I guess during Amulet II is when it'll have happened. Not sure yet how far the pearl is going to get - not all the way to the mages probably. Eventually it needs to find its way over to Janis.

Messing with the pearl will also mess with Thomas and the sentient spirit cougars.

4. Somewhere in all this I need to put the spirit wolves back into the story. They were part of the land dispute storyline the first time, but that's mostly getting moved to Triangle II, so now they need at least a cameo or some tangential references. Especially considering that it's their totem in the second point that the mages are in.

5. Somewhere in there, should throw in that all of the other faint points the mages see on their map are amulets bestowed by Hidden Glory that have been passed down as heirlooms for hundreds of years. I guess one of the mages needs to get ahold of one at some point and comment about this.

6. Hmm. Actually, the Eenin are getting ready to send a messenger to the king to strongly remind him that trespassers aren't allowed on Eenin lands. Maybe the messenger could be wearing one of the amulets.

7. I guess I should probably figure out some backstory to that lemming basket. It was lost and buried at the site of Mindy's farm some time back during (before?) Amulet I. At the moment, the king has it. Not sure what he's going to do with it. Frank collects such things, so maybe it just ends up in his collection.

8. Jacob is basically out of the story until the end. He's not going to want to go back to the university until Antoine has left.