Graphic Novels
Connections to other Books
- Rylan's despair is at its highest here. Davoust betrayed them and armed cultists with their most powerful tech, his team is dead, his city falling apart, and now his only option left is to kill the last known remaining member of his team because of his orders. Rylan did not change and could not change, so he suffered a fate worse than death.
- Before Rylan goes down into the caves to his fate, he breaks protocol for the first time and takes the Commander's Sword from its place in the armory. It is his right as Commander, but it is rarely taken into combat. He takes it now and that is why he has it as the Red Hand Knight.
- Rylan learns firsthand about the addictive quality of Infusion and the effects it has, physically and emotionally, on the team.
- An Epilogue or prologue somewhere needs to be Rylan's (without naming him) dark journey to the Shadow Vault. "The creature did not pause as it entered the water. It remembered breathing air, but now under the waves, discovered it no longer breathed at all."
- I believe there is an opportunity here for an excellent misplaced sense of duty. Rylan does not have the courage to resign or disobey his orders for himself and his team to undergo infusion, but he does decide that he must go first. He uses the "bravery" of going first to hide the inability to be truly brave and say no.
- Rylan is asked about the supposed agent in the Servants and if they will be present at the meet. He responds that contact has been lost with the agent, assume all are hostile. His orders are to kill all the gangsters (he doesn't even know about Logan) and capture at least one of the cultists. A scene here with them getting jocked up would be cool. Charging their weapons. That would be a good scene. You can also see them watching the meet as the wares are laid out. The cult brings the charging station and weapons, Hilam has Logan show the lump of tralaticon.
- I am not sure if this should be in Davoust or Rylan's story, or both, but showing the ordeal of getting into the Census Office Vault with a requisition for pure tralaticon would be an awesome scene. They use almost all of it for testing infusion on Rylan's Sweep Team. After Davoust's disasterous first attempt, she concludes that pure tralaticon is the only way to reliably infuse people. Hence why they assault Hilam's meet.
- Rylan is distraught and haunted by the death of one of his team members. Have it be the first time in his life that he sent a soldier somewhere he feared to go. This shame blinds him to the descent of his organization and Davoust's duplicity. He also feels shame when he and Davoust are reporting on needing pure tralaticon. Davoust volunteers to test her theory on herself first.