There needs to be way more focus on the brutal working conditions and high rents/ social standards, as it ties into the dystopia. I need to also have the Opalescent and Gracious and Cerberi make more appearances, as they're heavily important to the revolution sequence/ the ending.
Additionally, the Eldeer/Eldrits need to be explored in way more depth. There's not nearly enough time in my current outline to showcase them, and they're kinda essential to the overarching Behemoth storyline.
The main use of Bismuth's ability plot-wise is freeing Kamadhenu and the other revolutionaries. It's way way way too OP of a power beyond that, so I need to limit it more. I could see it being useful for the revolution as a whole also but that would kinda dampen the chaos of those scenes.
Bismuth was probably bred *specifically* to bring Kamadhenu back. That's kinda key to this whole story working.
The city is fallen from grace; its now full of labyrinthine corridors and failing infrastructure. This ties somewhat into the dystopian backdrop, as it's meant to imitate a kind of late-stage capitalism.
People have to go out into its labyrinthine and mad bits (like the nexus) to fix things. I'm not sure why exactly or *who* is doing the fixing. I just know I like these scenes and want them in there.
The Gracious and their Cerberi make more of an appearance. I think maybe they guard the entrances into the more sensitive areas so maintenance people can go in and fix stuff.
The economy is focused into a few areas:
People have to go out into the dark wilds to gather crystals and a lot of the food that the city uses. The crystals replace failing bits of the city or allow for expansion. The Opalescent also take a lot of these hauls for themselves to work on the Leviathan, to Seer with and/or for just general opulence.
People have to maintain the city's failing infrastructure to keep things working. This is where I can focus all of the material I've already built out and expand it.
People have to produce things, manufacture/refine materials, built and repair, etc. I'm thinking about switching things so that people are more likely to be freehand.
The dark wilds is super inhospitable, more than I've even explored here. There are attacks on the city and fields of quantum uncertainty that warp reality. If someone is killed in one of them, their soul signal gets scrambled and they Descend.
The economy works in a kind of top-down way. The cream of the crop with production gets money from the Opalescent which they're able to use to support their operations more in general. Money flows back to the Opalescent in the form of Rent -- facilities and houses both require some form of rent, and the size of a house or living space dictates the amount needed. Rents are paid weekly on Gratitude Day, along with taxes for poor social behavior (in their strict standards).
People are expected to work half days -- 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. Gratitude day is a day of rest in addition to its other goals. Low Opalescent will do anything essential on this day. There's also a lot of feasting and celebration -- the whole city kinda comes together on this day.
As the dark wilds is essential to the economy, an enterprising worm might go out there to gather crystals or fish extracts or plants of various kinds to make more money on the side. They'll typically spend a quarter day (6 hours) to do this or relax; because of enhanced breeding people only need a quarter day for sleep (6 hours).
The actual currency are ameths -- amethyst fragments. Amethyst is useful for communication and sending messages over long range will burn them into amethstone, so they're pretty useful as a store of monetary value. With power they can turn back into amethyst.
Power in the city is provided almost entirely by Lightworms -- people that are bred to put out tons of light. They're fed highly calorie dense foods like ghee, put out light, which is then captured by antixanths-- crystals that capture light and turn it into "power". This then flows through Bismuth and powers the city.
There are dedicated teams of maintenance people -- I guess Nat/Eld/Guildlaw are still in one of these. They'll pull freehands like Bismuth into their ranks sometimes, maybe eventually apprenticing them.
The Opalescent need to make *way* more of an appearance. I'm thinking that they're patron saints of various industries, save for the Yak one which was helmed by Lord Kamadhenu and is currently run exclusively by Knights. It's not seen as essential to the city so this has been allowed to stand.
Opalescent are also tightly wound around infrastructure and maintenance teams have to report to them at the end of a job. Lots of strictness here for dallying, so much of the Lady Vulcan scene can remain, though granted there would be a different Opalescent in charge there.
As for Bismuth, he's down around the bottom caste of society. There are Opalescent at the top obviously, followed by skilled workers (in their own hierarchies) bred genetically for their specific skillet, followed by freehands that do less skilled work to help the skilled workers. Natties and bred freehands tend to fit into this role -- there's mobility but it's pretty hard.
Bismuth also has the disadvantage that he doesn't start with a lot of knowledge of how the city operates as it's instead been replaced by Pathfinding stuff and things like Ziz Saday visions. So he needs some kind of guide starting out, which Fisher could again fill the role of.
A lot of the new structure of the book is based around Bismuth freehanding in various parts of the city. Along the way he encounters things like poor working conditions and upset workers that contribute to the dystopian narrative.
However, these sections need to do additional things or the book is going to be pretty boring. I'm thinking they should each have:
Some kind of interesting character.
They tell bits of their backstory and/or general role which seems disconnected but either loops back into the main plotline or foreshadows future events with the Opalescent/etc.
I don't want to make separate characters for each grind, so there needs to be a reason for characters reoccurring. Similarly, there needs to be some kind of plot device that dictates the specific jobs that Bismuth takes and why.
Rotation queues make a certain amount of sense, like different days will send a batch of freehands to different districts. This would allow them to see one another repeatedly. You could have Fisher and Nat as reocurring characters here as they're part of the same rotation.
Rotas are based around the five-day workweek (day six is Gratitude), so there should be five operating at any particular time. Maintenance tasks are assigned to different rotas when something needs to be fixed. This involves getting into the heart of the city (guarded by the Gracious) and dealing with stuff like mesh madness.
Five probably isn't enough; ten might make more sense with every other Gratitude being a Judgment. I could then go into a lot of different roles in the city:
1. Smithing
2. Lightworms
3. Mossers
4. Yakhands
5. Watchworms
6. Buildors/Drillors
7. Jewelworms
8. Arena maintenance
9. Market stuff
10. Couriers
Ideally I'd want to structure these different segments to build up the overarching plotline. Yakhands should really be near the end; their knight and subversive stuff is heavily alluded to and contributes to the ending.
Given this, there'd be ~24 chapters prior to the revolution sequence. One for each grind, two Gratitude days and one for each R&R quarter day which involves either books/partying/etc or doing stuff in the dark wilds.
There would also be a chapter for the initial Waking, which I'm thinking of renaming to Ankhworm.
Granted, some of these segments are going to focus more on maintenance tasks.
Outside of the Yakhand segment, freehands should report to Opalescent directly. This would increase their screentime, although maybe reporting to a King/Queen makes more sense so the Opalescent are built up more before they drop.
Oh wakeworms would definitely be a grind, and ideally the first one so Fisher could serve as a kind of guide as he has a reason to be there. That chapter would then explore a lot of the elements of the world without explicitly showing them, which is a good thing.
Everyone has some kind of vague dream of class mobility, a lot of which involves getting lucky in the dark wilds. Some people (like Guildlaw) are more jaded. Some just want to become guildhands instead of freehand.
The main point of the bismuth story is getting him to guide kamadhenu and the other revolutionaries back to the main world. I think I can keep his existing powers and just tease them out as he gets better at Seering. Seers are definitely a thing, and Nat is one so it helps to build up that skill.
His utility in the revolution arc should feel more natural and incremental. Maybe he's just helping his subversive friends at first in a really limited way.
As for *why* he exists, he was specifically bred for this role by probably Lord Antheia / Lady Lachesis / other opalescent in the aims of fostering a new revolution and/or bringing kamadhenu back. He's a tool for other interests, which can definitely be explored like it is in the old draft.
His story is still pretty weak though. I'm thinking maybe he was bred *into* being revolutionary which in the beginning is just taken as him not knowing a whole lot about how the world works because of bad freehand breeding.
