I've been doing a bit of editing lately, mostly making dialogue better fit with the personality of the character speaking, but there are a few other changes as well. The biggest change is moving what was formerly Chapter 14 to become Chapter 2, thus introducing the main characters in the first two chapters, like a rational human being would do.

I'm up to four followers at this point, thank you for joining! I've heard a similar bit of advice from a couple of different authors, most notably these two:

> I just give myself permission to suck.

>

> -John Green

>

> This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

> The first draft of anything is shit.

>

> -Ernest Hemingway

It's kept me writing, even when there are days I can't string two words together in a manner that doesn't grate on my nerves. It's gratifying to know that the story has still been good enough that a couple people want to keep up with it.

In other news, I promised myself I would get some character art to celebrate Chapter 20 going up. I haven't had funds to commission anything yet (might be a Christmas present to myself), but between Pixlr and GIMP, I've been able to produce a decent representation of Erasmus. The eyes and hair aren't right, but I'm not a graphic designer, so I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

B. Erasmus Holladay, aka The Popinjay [https://i.ibb.co/26qnPxg/popinjay1.png]