Compost Pile

 scene from Avatar when Sully bonds the banshee and then bonds the Taruk (Last Shadow)

Jun 29: Compost pile: Talamhin cultures have generalised duodeca counting systems (base 12)

Jul 2: Compost pile: what kind of diseases would mundane humans introduce to Talamhin and vice versa. How does an artificers deal with disease?

Jul 6: Compost pile: Jonathan tries to get rid of the Chulchinor after the first time hes uses it because he thinks it's possessed by the devil.

Jul 8: Jonathan has a scar and a story from this process https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/hn8a72/til_that_george_washington_ordered_the_entire/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

I'm not sure exactly what to do with this part. Uncle William is dying, but slowly now, Ned is recovering from his injury, and Jonathan has this uneasy relationship with the Chulchinor. On top of that

Jayana's people are furious with her about going through the gate, she's trying to figure out what Jonathan can really do with the Chulchinor, and the automatons are causing destruction and mayhem in the kingdom of Ekolos (where Jayana is from)

So, one of the major issues the early army had, and officers like Jonathan especially is how infrequently they got paid. So, one idea is that Jonathan feels loyalty to the new nation that he helped to form with his blood sweat and tears, but he also resents congress for not taking better care of him Another idea is that Jonathan has had to have a side business to keep himself afloat, since he hasn't been receiving his officers commission

The Chulch gives a healing factor to whomever holds it, it can communicate and relay information, and one of it's hidden powers is passage along dimensional threads.

Jonathan's earlier attempts to use the Chulch would have lead to near dissaster, but the more practice he gets letting the chulch use part of his brains processing power the better the results

So there needs to be a scene for each individual magic, and they need to relate to either helping to defend Jayana's people or moving towards a health solution for Uncle William.

Things that could go wrong for Jonathan include a resource being aquired by Viltinor or Andarian before he can get to it

A suprise attack

A political wrinkle (Jayana's outmaneuvered by special interests that force the sorcerers to focus on something other than William's ailment)

A disagreement with the Chulch (Jonathan learns more about the nature of the ones that the Chulch is hiding from)

A monster

Famine

Plague

So to flesh out the rules of the Chulch a little bit, Jonathan can move an amount of weight along the threads that connect the different dimensions based on how thick and strong the thread is. If he can't find a strong thread than he might be able to only move himself, but if he finds a good one he can move a building. The more processing power in his mind he can set aside (i.e. the more centered and in the moment he is) the easier it is to find a strong thread

Jayana is barely holding her people together. Viltinor convinced the King of Voray to launch a preemptive strike against Ekolos ostensibly to weaken them before they could ally against Voray. But Viltinor's actual target is the Chulchinor.

Somehow Viltinor discovered that the artifact is intelligent and he means to negotiate with it in order to access the realm of the gods. Viltinor is convinced that he can elevate himself to godhood using the Chulchinor as a stepping stone. So he has his assets tying up the princesses fighting force and is using smaller beatle like automitons to search for the Chulch.

So, there are going to be a couple of battle scenes between Viltinor's forces and the princesses people There's going to be a scene where Viltinor discovers that Jonathan has the Chulch I know that I want scene 6 to be where Jonathan successfully uses the Chulch to find out where the next attack on the princesses force is going to be so that they can lay a trap, but I'm not sure what the twist should be

Also, I have no idea what Ned is up to I want him to be an important character, and his loyalty to Jonathan is something that helps to keep Jonathan going, but I'm not sure how he helps move the plot along He's this big fighter, so once he's healed up he starts focusing on how to combat the automatons. He's got the advantage of having a steal weapon that seems to work really well against them, so he starts training to take them on, learning how they fight and training to use the weapons that the princess has available to combat the arachs. Jayana's army has a limited supply of arm and leg attachments that allow the wielder to run faster, jump higher and punch harder, which would help Ned fight but since he's not an actual soldier in Jayana's army he can only train with them he can't use them on the battle field, because what ever high-powered arms they have have to be used by the regulars. Ofcourse Ned could stand by and wait for a pair to become availble during combat

So, one of the major reasons that the Chulchinor needs Jonathan is because of disposition, freedom loving, but skeptical of power. Uncle William knows Jonathan better than anyone else. He knows that Jonathan, though a bit salty, will do the right thing at the right time. The Chulchinor needs Jonathan to be willing to make an important sacrifice. Specifically it needs Jonathan to choose to save Jayana's people and the souls trapped in the arachs, over saving Uncle William, and William is the first one to realize this, thanks to some hints dropped by the Chulch.

This is where the story elements start getting a little complex. I know that by the end of the Shift section that Jonathan has begun to realize that he has to be more flexible. So there's going to need to be contrast scenes: unwilling to be flexible/ willing to be flexible Side note: we need some characters from Voray that are actually loyal to the king. While Viltinor is leading the assault, he doesn't care about the king because Viltinor's goals are to achieve more global power. SHIFT section

Scene one would be a good place to expand on some of the B characters that have already shown up in the story and move along what ever the side plot is So, scene 1: delve a little more into the lives of the B characters and the side plot

Scene 2: disaster for the side plot (maybe some foreshadowing for later events could go here)

So Jonathan still feels somewhat connected to the Chulch, and wants to go after Uncle William, but Jayana can not spare any means of rapid transport for Jonathan and Ned to go on a rescue mission so they have to procure their own transportation. That means making a deal with one of the political factions that Jonathan doesn't get along with. Ned wants to wait until Jayana can help them, but Jonathan isn't going to hear any of that.

Meanwhile, Viltinor discovers that Uncle William is communicating with the Chulch and starts prepping him to have his soul ripped out and turned into an automaton. In the planning for this story both Jonathan and Uncle William have been slated to die, with Jonathan being resurrected as an immortal. Since this is a novella version of the larger story, this scene really needs to be about Uncle William. Later on Jonathan can have his ressurection momment, but that story arch will have to wait.

In one of the latter books Jonathan suffers a head injury and he has to deal with temper mental disability

We need more info on troop deployment