Fodder Story Plan - The Original Notes Part Two

 And here we go again, continuing from last month's blog with the second half of my behind the scenes original story plan for a single book called Fodder. Big fat warning here folks - this part of the plan does venture into territory covered by The Taskmaster so if you haven't finished reading it yet, this is an official SPOILER WARNING. It's not exactly as it turned out but it's close enough! This is also the section that reveals just exactly how out of control this story got - in case you think as you are reading through that I've missed a chunk of notes out somewhere, nope - it is indeed the case that the whole second half of The Merry Band, the entirety of The Narrative and a large chunk of The Taskmaster were not part of my original intentions. It's fair to say I may have got carried away. ;p

Fodder Basic Story Plan - Continued

[Part Five as go into mountains, pre crone and ruined city

Official Taskmaster Summary: The Ring of Anthiphion: Part Five

 

An old crone points them in Vagg’s direction, but warns them of a monstrous dragon that lives in the hills and hungers for the taste of human flesh. As they head into ominous forests and pass through a ruined city, they are attacked once more by creatures and lose each other in the ruins/forest. The princess and Erik find themselves trapped in a cave where an enormous dragon attacks them – Erik’s powers burst into life and he defeats it, before escaping together on Erik’s horse who found him instinctively. It is then that Eldrigon reveals his destiny – he is in fact Erikhelion, the last descendant of Avikhelion and his own other daughter, the Seeress Mydrella, who was murdered by Craxis too when she prophesised his downfall. Young Erik is the only one who can use the Ring against Craxis and has inherited the magic of Eldrigon’s line. Having saved Islaine, he and the princess grow closer as they pursue Vagg into Sverdin and find an enormous battle is about to begin. Sir Roderick and Halheid ride off to rally their forces and lead them, leaving Zahora, who had come to love Halheid in spite of his gruff ways, forced to wonder if she will ever see him again. After Islaine and Erik share a kiss and declare undying love for each other, Eldrigon has Zahora take the Princess safely back to Nyolesse and charges her to protect her with her life. Then with Slynder, Eldrigon and Erik set off behind the battle lines for the fortress of Craxis.]

 

Make it into the Wild Forest where they find themselves at the hovel of Cackle the Crone – Squick is waiting for them there – the DPs live in the Forest – and tells them that he’s under orders – he’s been banned from fixing them – Shoulders, with his head under one arm, protests, but Squick says he’s sorry but it’s more than his job’s worth. He explains that the quest has adapted – they’ve become henchmen of Sleiss, Treptapus has been seduced by the Dark Lord into helping and stealing his bride, and Gort/Gruffly died as planned in the fight at Salty Port – the intention is to get the quest back on track in time for Bumpkin to rescue Pleasance from the dragon  - even Thud might get back on Page as his own twin brother in the battle) – the princess meanwhile, is rather taken with Dullard’s swashbuckling (says he learned to test the properties of various armour and weapons he forged in his free time), but is still determined to get away – tells them if they let her go now, it’ll all be okay – they can go back to their old roles and Dullard will have an interesting new sideline in villainy – but Fodder has a better idea – asks Cackle to delay MB and send them the wrong way – just to give them enough time to reach the dragon first – they head into mountains and Dullard turns out to be a brilliant mountaineer (says he learned to study the rock formations) who gets them to the dragon’s cave ahead of the page – they meet Maw the dragon and try to persuade him to eat the Princess on Page…

 

(Dullard isn’t sure about getting the Princess eaten:

“Don’t worry, it’s not like it’d kill her!”

“But being eaten by a dragon – it can’t be easy to put yourself back together after that. Is it even possible?”

“Of course it is. Haven’t you ever wondered why we have the same cow for dinner every Sunday? One of the Duty Pixies pulls it back together and replaces the bits we’ve digested. Simple.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve never really had much to do with the livestock. But a person…”

“It’s been done. Why, Shoulders here was eaten by the ravaging Swamp Monster once during an ambush gone wrong. Remember, mate?”

“Sweet Lord, don’t remind me. Do you have any idea how unpleasant it is to sit there and wait to be reconstituted from a pile of Swamp Monster marsh dung?”)

 

 

“Okay. Let’s try this again. You want me to eat her?”

“Yep.”

“On Page?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re not going to fight me?”

“Nope, we want you to do it. Aside from anything else, she’s a pain.”

“So, no fighting at all?”

“Nope.”

“No calling me names?”

“What for?”

“No zapping me with spectacular magic?”

“Haven’t got any, mate.”

“And you’re not going to set a Boy of Destiny loose on me with a big sword so I can be killed in an unexpectedly easy manner?”

“Do any of us look like Boys of Destiny to you?”

“So you just want me to eat her?”

“Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

“But I’m not supposed to succeed! I’m supposed to be thwarted at the last moment!” Sighs “I’m getting a headache.”

“But this time you won’t be thwarted. You can eat her. You win. We surrender.”

“But that’s not much fun. Just eating her… I mean – raw?”

“You can cook her if you like. Firebreathing and all…”

“But eating people is always so messy! The Duty Pixies have to spend hours picking through my leftovers for bits they can recycle in the rebuild! They root through all my waste and everything! And look at her! She’s skin and bones! No meat on her at all! And all that hair will get tangled in my teeth, not to mention the dress – it’d be like eating a curtain!”

 

-but the dragon can’t grasp the concept and thinks the rebuilding afterwards is just too disgusting – MB and Thud are close behind – In the end, Dullard says it wouldn’t really be fair on either of them – the dragon can’t understand and Pleasance didn’t really ask for this – (princess starting to get quite attached to him and is grateful) so Dullard suggests going for the big one – stop the battle – get the Dark Lord to relent and sue for peace!

 

[Part Six is pre battle

Official Taskmaster Summary: The Ring of Anthiphion: Part Six

 

Meanwhile the princess refuses to be left behind and, with Zahora’s help, disguises herself and rides into battle. The High Lord of Sleiss is Craxis’ general and he ruthlessly kills the King of Nyolesse – furious, Islaine rides forwards and defeats him in combat, saving the pathetic and outnumbered Tretapus in the process. But greatly outnumbered, all seems lost for the five kingdoms.]

 

As head down, find themselves at battle ground where people are gathering to be kitted out – word has spread and lots of the Disposables and Interchangables are on their side – they run across Froth the Berserker who’s finding all that going mental is giving him headaches and he can’t keep up the pace, and AFCs say they quite fancy not being ploughed down for once and maybe looking a bit less weird – even Thump and Clunny can now see the appeal of being rid of Preen and his shrill orders – Squick is there and relents, fixing Shoulders head back on - and even the Princess is weakening – tentatively says there are parts of her job she could do without – Bumpkin for a start! - he always slobbers so when he kisses her and it might be nice to try kissing someone else – glances at Dullard (who is oblivious and talking armour with an AFC!) – just for a change – work in Flirt and Fodder pairing up too but round up after action - but MB are catching up so they hurry through the Stinking Swamp and the Perilous Gorge to the Dark Citadel and find Doom the Dark Lord.

 

[Part Seven is raiding citadel

Official Taskmaster Summary: The Ring of Anthiphion: Part Seven

 

Meanwhile, Erik and his companions have reached Craxis’ citadel where Vagg has arrived with the Ring – they sneak inside with Slynder’s skill but they are discovered – Slynder kills Vagg but not before the Ring is handed on to Craxis. Eldrigon gets between Erik and Craxis and tries to hold him back but is killed. Distraught, Erik lets rip with all the power he has, shattering the Ring on Craxis’ finger and then killing the inhuman monster in combat. When he dies, his minions, built from magic, crumble to dust and the kingdoms are saved.]

 

The Dark Lord, the terror and scourge of so very many stories, was reclining easily in throne of carved jet as he stared in concentration at the ball-on-a-string dangling from the cup in his left hand whilst stroking fluffy white bunny with his right. He flicked it sharply but it missed, catching the wooden rim to dance away once more. As he sighed with resignation at this small failure, Doom glanced up and caught sight of the new arrivals. A broad beaming smile broke out across his face and he beckoned them enthusiastically over.

“All right there!” he proclaimed, his voice a homely, friendly bellow. “How are you folks doing?”

 

Doom is a big, friendly chap and since he’s almost never seen except for a heavily armoured battle at the end, the fact he was a huge, friendly teddy bear of a man didn’t really seem to matter in the job description – what mattered was that he has mastered the art of archaic proclamation, he can swing a sword in wild fury whilst wearing big armour and does a masterly sibilant hiss and deep boom of rage and that was all that he needed to know. His dramatic deaths were also unparalleled. The rest of the time, he plays with his bunnies, organises the Barren Wastelands Amateur Dramatic society and manages the AFC melee team, unbeaten in six tournaments. He immediately appreciates what they are doing but says they seem to be going about it the wrong way. They want to break the quest but they still have the quest in their heads and they’ve being trying to work with it and change it’s direction, not bring it to a halt altogether. Even deaths and peace talks can be written around. If they want real attention, they have to halt the quest in its tracks – Fodder says how – Doom shrugs and says that’s easy – stop playing – he’s learned from doing his plays that the show must go on if it can – but if all the actors sit down and don’t join in, what can they do? Shoulders says but if they just stop on Page, the MB will just kill them – Doom says will they? That would tarnish their noble, on Page image, slaughtering the defenceless – it’s the only way it’ll work – if they do nothing – so as the MB rush in, they all just stop – when Thud (playing twin of Thud) wants to kill them anyway, Pleasance intervenes in princess mode and says will they slaughter the defenceless? Is that what they have become? Stands firm and says they will do no more – they will not do anything and the MB cannot kill them in cold blood – so they’ll just have to sit here and wait on Page until the Taskmaster agrees to listen – finally Page dims to weird half light they’ve never seen before and Strut, the MB official, steps forward and says he has new instructions from the Taskmaster – the MB are to hold while the Page talks – Fodder explains his issues and in Page-Style there is a reply – the Taskmaster agrees it is rather unfair and this new way of looking at the quest is intriguing – likes the inspiration and says wants to start a new quest, their quest, the story of a rebellion of characters so determined that it halted a tale and built a new idea in its place. And that story will be called Fodder….

And end the story by starting an on Page version of the beginning….;p

 

Official Taskmaster Summary: The Ring of Anthiphion: Part Eight

 

On returning, Erik finds Islaine is now Queen of Nyolesse and, since genealogy, the prophecy and his unique ability to use the Ring has proved that his ancestor was Avikhelion, making him the rightful king of the Six Kingdoms, he is crowned High King of all the lands. Myhessia, freed from her duty, marries Sir Roderick and Halheid, who turned the tide of battle with his brave charge, marries Zahora. Astonishingly, at Erik’s coronation, Eldrigon’s ghost appears and blesses him with a long and glorious reign. Their first son is names Eldrigort in honour of those who gave their lives.

 

And they lived happily ever after….]