Well, it's been a couple years since I updated this thing, huh?

The usual thing happened.  I was in a schedule of writing a little bit every day, but then one day I was really tired, and I didn't want to do my daily writing, so I skipped a day.  And then, once I had allowed myself to take a day's holiday, I thought why not take 2 days off?  After all, I had already broken my streak of daily writing, what's another day?  And then it was 3 days off.  And then 4.  Et cetera.

I was always meaning to get back into the habit of writing.  Once my normal life had settled down, and once I got caught up on my to-do list, and I finally had time again.  But of course, that time never comes.  You just have to decide to make time for it.  Now that a couple of years have gone by, I've decided I want to give this another try.  

So that's the first update--that I'm going to try to get back in the habit of working on this story again.

The second update is about AI.

If you follow me over on my main blog, you'll know that I've been making a lot of use of the Google Gemini Storybook feature in my English lessons.  

One day, out of curiosity, I decided to see if Gemini Storybook could illustrate chapters from this story.  So I fed it chapter 1.  My original hope was that Gemini Storybook would keep my text completely intact, and just create illustrations to go with it.  (Gemini Storybook is a bit unpredictable.  Sometimes when I feed it a prompt, it keeps my original text more or less intact.  Sometimes it modifies the text a lot.)

In this case, Gemini Storybook modified my original text a lot.  You can view the storybook at this link here, and the chat at this link.

Anyway, Gemini Storybook misunderstood a lot of the story--which is unsurprising.  It is just AI after all.

But I couldn't help but notice that despite getting some of the story elements wrong, the prose that it did produce was better than my own prose.  And there suddenly appeared a temptation to borrow some of the AI generated prose in order to improve my own writing.

I am, like most people of my generation, suspicious of AI, and worried of the impacts that the widespread use of AI will have on society.  (A subject that I have touched on many times over on my main blog--for example HERE.)  So I doubt that under normal circumstances I would ever have tried to modify my own writing with AI.  But in this case, I had only intended for AI to create illustrations, and AI had modified my writing by itself.  And now that this modified prose was sitting right in front of me, I thought it would be silly to discard it just because of... because of what?  Ethical considerations?  But what was the harm?  I'm not a published author.  I am writing this story simply as a hobby.  As far as I know, no one else is even reading it instead of me.  Who would be harmed if I used AI to improve some of my prose?

So, I've decided I'm going to experiment with using AI to modify my writing.

At the same time, because I don't want to give into AI brainrot, I'm not going to give over the reins to AI entirely.  I will still write the first draft myself, and then only use AI to improve my writing once I've reached the limits of my own abilities.  And just for the sake of transparency, I will make it clear on this blog which versions of the story are written entirely by me, and which ones include modification by AI.

We'll see how this goes.

Update March 30, 2026

[As promised, here is Chapter 1 again, but this time time with some additions that come curtesy of Gemini Storybook.  

...although, actually, as it turns out, in the end I borrowed very little from the Gemini Storybook version.  Most of what Gemini Storybook wrote was just different enough from my story that the sentences didn't fit into my version.  Of the sentences that I could steal, upon closer inspection, I decided that maybe they weren't all that great after all.  They were a bit over-written--too heavy on adjectives, and unnatural words.  In the end, I decided that in most cases, it would not be an improvement to import the Gemini Storybook version.  (Which is not to say that there aren't flaws in my prose, just to say that upon closer inspection, having Gemini Storybook rewrite it was not the quick fix that I thought it would be.)

To the extent that this version differs from my earlier version of Chapter 1, most of that it just plain old-fashioned human editing.  Upon rereading, I noticed that there were some bad sentences, and I revised them slightly.

Nevertheless, I did steal a couple of sentences from the Gemini Storybook version, and my philosophy is that if you're going to have AI assist with your writing at all, even a couple sentences, you should disclose it.  So I'm adding a tag here for "contains AI additions".  

I'll continue doing this with the other chapters. (If for no other reason then that this process gives me a good excuse to review my earlier chapters as I prepare to get back into the habit of daily writing.)  But I guess at this point I won't expect Gemini Storybook to provide me with any massive revisions.]

 I posted this over on the main blog.  I should probably post it over here as well just to keep both blogs updated.  This is a fairly good summary of where I've been at with the story the past couple years, and where I'm going from here:

tl;dr I'm going to stop posting my story on this blog, and will only post it on its own blog.

The Long Version

A couple years ago, I made the decision to move my story from its own blog (The Castle in the Magic Forest) over to my main blog here.

I've now decided that this was one of my less inspired decisions, and so I'm going to go back to only posting my story over at its own blog.  At least for now.

When I initially decided to start moving my story over to this blog in 2021, the idea was that I was done fooling around with writing aimlessly, and I was ready to start working seriously on a polished second draft.  

As I said at the time:

I've now decided to go ahead and start writing that second draft.  And because the whole point of this second draft is that it's supposed to be readable by other people, I'm going to start posting those chapters here on this blog. 

But "second draft" was always a misnomer on my part.  It wasn't the second draft.  It was actually the first draft of the backstory. 

In my original story, the characters of Catherine and Carlyle were 65 years old, and the main story was about their children and grandchildren.  But as I was writing that story, I gradually began to realize that there was a lot of backstory to the older characters, and that it might make the story less confusing if I just went back to the beginning and tried to tell it all chronologically.  So when I decided to go back and write about Catherine and Carlyle when they were 15, I was moving the timeline back 50 years from everything I had written previously, and was essentially creating a whole new story.  

[I know I'm on record as saying prequels are awful--see, for example, HERE and HERE--but I think going back to explore the backstory while you're still writing is different.  Since the narrative is still in the process of being formed, you can, in theory, still smooth out the continuity so that everything fits together.  And in fact there are a lot of great novels in which the author realized somewhere along the line that the backstory was more interesting than the story--War and Peace, for example, or To Kill a Mockingbird.  

I'm not comparing my story to those novels, I'm just trying to establish some precedents for a general principle: writing a prequel to an existing story is a bad idea, but developing the backstory of a work in progress can sometimes be a good idea.]

So anyway, I wasn't polishing up an existing story into a second draft, instead I was writing the first draft of a something new.  But despite this, there was supposed to have been a difference in the writing style.  In the original story, I was literally making it up as I went along.  When I sat down to write my 15 minutes each night, I had no idea what I was going to write, and I just formed the story as I typed.

With the new backstory, though, it was supposed to be different.  I was actually going to plan out the whole thing, and have character arcs and a story structure.  And in that sense, it was supposed to be more presentable than the original story.  

I was inspired by one of Steve Donoghue's videos on writing, in which he said that if you're going to spend the time writing something, you might as well make a story that can be presented to other people.  The original story, because I was making it up as I went along, had a number of plot threads that were set up but not followed through.  But this time, I was going to plot it all out carefully.

At least that was the idea.  But it didn't quite work out that way.  I wanted to plan everything out in minute detail before I started writing the backstory (i.e. chapter by chapter, scene by scene), but I couldn't do it.  I sat down at the computer screen, and I just couldn't visualize the story in that much detail before I started writing it.  I needed to actually write the thing before I had a feeling of how it was going to go.  So I made a rough outline of the intended plot, but rough is all I was able to do.

Also it became apparent as I wrote that I didn't have a clear idea of the pacing.  Things that I initially planned to do in three chapters ended up taking me nine chapters.

On December 18, 2021, I realized my mistake, and switched the name from "the second draft" to "the first draft".  (The original story I then re-christened the "zero draft").

As I wrote at the time:

I've decided to do a bit of renaming on my drafts.  I'd been calling the draft I've been posting on this blog a second draft, but I've decided that's not really an accurate description.  It's more of a first draft on the backstory.  All the story in it I'm working through for the first time.

Plus, my so-called "first draft" isn't really a serious draft.  It's more just playing around (what Steve Donoghue refers to in his video as being a Pantsers).  So I've decided to re-name the so-called first draft as the "zero draft".  And the so-called second draft is now the "first draft".

Then, in April of 2023, I went a step further and admitted that this draft wasn't ready for feedback yet, and I probably shouldn't even be posting it.  As I wrote at the time:

The prose and story is all still quite rough at the moment.  When posting the previous - chapters, I  - had - solicited - feedback from the readers of this blog.  But I've now decided that this was premature.  This story is still in its rough draft phase.  It's not ready for feedback yet.  Maybe I might get to the point where I'm ready to ask for feedback, but not yet.  

Arguably I shouldn't even be posting it yet.  (Most writers don't share their work when it's still so rough.)  But having started, I may as well keep going.  But now the purpose of sharing these rough draft chapters is just to let readers of this blog can see what I'm up to rather than to solicit feedback.

But after writing that bit, the quality of my writing has even further deteriorated.   

As I wrote in my notes for Chapter 8:

I wrote a lot of this while sleep deprived.  The basic outline of what I want to happen is there, but the prose is not.  Need to rewrite

And then more recently in my notes for Chapter 15: 

Yet another chapter that was mostly written when I was sleep deprived.  It needs some serious re-writing at some point to get it readable.

Now, to answer the obvious question: what am I doing writing when I'm sleep deprived instead of just going to bed?

And the answer is, I don't dare miss a day.  If I miss a day, I'll miss 6 months.  I know this from experience.  Oh, I’ll tell myself I’m only missing one day.  I’ll say to myself, “I’m tired tonight, and it’s been a long day.  I’ll just give myself one day off and then I’ll get right back into it tomorrow.”  But then the next day, I’ll say to myself, “Well, I already broke my writing streak by missing one day.  I'll just take another day off as well."  It happens every time--see HERE and HERE for past examples.  

So it doesn't matter how tired I am or how sleep deprived I am--if I haven't written my 10 minutes for the day, I don't let myself go to sleep until I sit down and write it.

But since I'm working 3 jobs and have two young kids, I'm always busy.  And because, like all writers, I procrastinate on my writing and leave it till the last possible minute, I'm always writing it right before bed, when I'm feeling sleepy.  Some days extremely sleepy.  And it's very hard to write anything that makes sense.

[As to the other obvious question--why am I doing this at all given that I obviously find it such hard work--well, I've wrestled with that question before on this blog--HERE, HERE and HERE, so I won't go through all that again now. ]

I still believe that crappy first drafts can have some value in a story's evolution.  (The prose may not be salvageable, but you can still get an idea of the pacing, the plot points, potential problems and plot holes, etc.)  So I'm going to keep pressing ahead.  But still, it's not the kind of thing you should be sharing with a lot of people.

If this is going to be just a crappy first draft that I write while mostly sleep deprived, and that is going to be mostly unreadable, then there's no need to post it here on the main blog.  I'll just keep working on it over at the other blog instead. 

I'm not hiding it completely.  If you want to follow my progress, you can still go to https://thecastleinthemagicforest.blogspot.com/.  But it just doesn't make sense to show this story prominently on my main blog if this is the state it's going to be in.

When I get to the third draft stage (if I ever get to the third draft stage) then I'll start posting the story over here on my main blog again. 

Zero Draft Story Summary

 The Journey to Castle Tauna

(1) King Trad dies, and leaves behind his three children: Prince Henry, Princess Grace, and Prince John.  But the children are in danger because their uncle King Richard has assumed the throne, and is planning to kill them.  (2) King Trad's old friends meet, and plan how to help Henry, Grace and John escape.  (3) The plan is put into action, and Henry, Grace and John are taken to the forest, where they are introduced to their guide, Robert, the son of the famous forest Ranger: Midor. (4) They escape into the forest.  Robert shows them some secret paths, and tells them about some of the various kingdoms that are in the forest.  (5) Being pursued by King Richard's army, they journey deeper into the forest.  They attempt to pass through the land of the Bear King, but when Henry refuses to kneel before the Bear King, the Bear King refuses them passage through his land.  They are forced to return back the way they came, and are captured by King Richard's army.  (6)  General Graten, the head of King Richard's army, orders their execution, but before the order can be carried out, Robert, Henry, Grace and John all escape with the help of Fulvio the mouse, who chews through the ropes.  They are able to hide in the underground burrow of some badgers.  (7) Robert then guides them to a river running through the forest.  They are carried by hippocamps down the river, and thus are able to get around the Bear King's kingdom, and also avoid General Graten and his army.

Chapter Index First Draft

Google Drive Folder HERE

(See also Chapter Summaries and Character index: docs, pub)

1. The Attack in the Night (storybook)

2. Chopping Down Trees (storybook)

3. Finn Departs (storybook)

4. Catherine, Carlyle and Alfred Go Out (storybook)

5. The Age of Monsters (storybook)

6. Catherine Asks for Help (storybook)

7. The Age of the Gods (storybook)

8. Brian Returns Alone (storybook)

9. Brian's Story (storybook)

10. The Robbers Attack (storybook)

11. Assistance is Obtained (storybook)

12. The Battle on the Mountainside (storybook)

13. The Meetings (storybook)

14. The Robbers are Subdued (storybook)

15. Carlyle Comes Home (storybook)

16. In the Goblin Caves (storybook)

17. Alfred is Missing (storybook)

18. The Battle in the Tunnels (storybook)

19. Grinthal, King of the Goblins (storybook)

20. Brian Enters the Forest (storybook)

21. The Children are Freed (storybook)

22. Brian Meets Risoart (storybook)

22. The Meeting with the Bears (storybook)

24. The Battle Against the Ogres (storybook)

25. The Battle Against the Four Monsters (storybook)

26. Brian Makes a Plan (storybook)

26. Risoart Meets Margaret

27. Carlyle is Captured

Chapter Summaries and Character Index First Draft

This is a work in progress.  Check the Google Doc (docs, pub) for the latest update. 

Chapter	Summary	First Appearances	Issues
1. Chopping Down Trees	Finn chops down trees with Catherine and Carlyle	Finn, Catherine, Carlyle, Margaret, Jack (mentioned) Alfred (mentioned)	--Finn’s appearance is described, but not Catherine or Carlyle.  Should I put that in here, or wait for later chapters? --Catherine is portrayed as having loner tendencies here, and Carlyle is loyal to the group. Is this going to conflict with her being the more strategic one? --In later chapters, does the cold and snow get dropped?  Should I delete the cold and snow parts? --Need to later connect what kind of monsters were outside their house -- --There’s no chimney in this house.  Do they need to make a fire sometimes for the cold?
2. Finn Departs	Catherine, Carlyle and Finn eat lunch.  Alfred and Brian arrives, and Finn departs with Brian.	Brian, Alfred (appears)	--What is it that the robber’s steal from the bears? --Actually, in this fantasy economy, why would anyone want to steal anyway? --I need to figure out a better way to describe the difference between Brian’s sword and Finn’s sword.
3. Catherine, Carlyle and Alfred Go Out	Alfred talks with Carlyle and Catherine.  Catherine and Alfred fight, and Catherine accidentally burns Alfred	Lucas (mentioned), Kevin (mentioned)	--Still need to describe Carlyle’s appearance --I was originally thinking it would be better to tease Catherine’s powers gradually, but then I went ahead and revealed them.  Would it be better to tease this gradually?
4. The Age of Monsters	Margaret heals Alfred using her herbs and roots.  Carlyle reads about “The Age of Monsters” from the book	Themales, Cathandres, Stetheus, Menpha, Lieria, Scathia, Perexa, Servitus, Rasius, Cathandres (all of these are mentioned only)	--I need to go back and make the door consistent. Is there a bolt?  A latch? .
5. Catherine Asks for Help	Part 1: Catherine, Carlyle and Alfred go to meet their friends Part 2: Catherine journeys to the witch’s Coven, but they won’t help her.  Catherine also saves a Raven named Branoc	Lucas (appears), Kevin (appears), Marcus, Paul, and Shawn, Stella, Gabrielle, Lucinda, Molly, Abby, Branoc	--At this point, I’ve pretty much gotten rid of any mystery surrounding Catherine.  There was another version of this story in my head where Catherine’s abilities are only gradually teased
6. The Age of the Gods	Catherine returns and heads home with Carlyle and Alfred, who unsuccessfully try to get her to divulge where she has been.  To calm everyone down, Margaret has them read more of the book		--I need to decide how I’m going to capitilze the ages.  Is it “The Age of the Gods” or “the Age of the Gods”.  (I think I’ll go for the former.  This will mean I should go back and look at the previous draft again.) --I could probably cut this whole chapter, and not lose too much in the way of the plot.  Do I really need this chapter? --I could also make it longer, if I talked more about the battles between the gods and the sea-monsters.  Do I want to make it longer? --The beginning (where the group is breaking up, and Alfred and Carlyle are going home) could also be expanded
7. Brian Returns Alone	Brian returns alone, and reveals that Finn has been killed.  Catherine, Carlyle and Alfred run out to get Finn’s body, and bring it back home.		--Brian surviving the robber’s attack, and then just walking up to the house, doesn’t quite work.  But at the moment I can’t figure out what else I want to do, so I’m just going to have to leave it in here. --Now that I’ve expanded on what this herb does, at some point not I’m going to have to explain what it is, and why it affects magic like this
8. Brian’s Story	Finn’s body is burned on the Funeral pyre.  Brian tells the story of how Finn was killed by the robbers.  They discuss about the lost supplies and whether or not it’s feasible to make another trip down the mountain		--I wrote a lot of this while sleep deprived.  The basic outline of what I want to happen is there, but the prose is not.  Need to rewrite --Go back and set up that Brian is a really fast runner? --I need to spend more time figuring out exactly what supplies Brian and Finn were carrying up.  I’ve got food and iron, but what else did they need? --Ideally, there would be something more irreplaceable that the robbers stole.  Some reason why they can’t just chop down more trees and go back again --I need to make it clear from the beginning that the “mountain road” is just a path that is called the mountain road --Check earlier chapters to make sure that there’s no mention of swords inside the house. --Margaret says that the robbers are getting more desperate.  I’m going to have to make sure I follow this up later to say why.  (Or delete it, if I can’t think of a reason. --I’m not sure it’s consistent for Brian to be both badly wounded, and having outran the robbers.  Maybe I need to change one or the other --This may be too short to be a full chapter on its own.  Maybe I should combine it with Chapter 7 to make one long chapter? --Another option would be to expand the ending, and do more about the section from the book that they read at the end.  This would be an option if I’m looking to expand the mythology of the world more
9. The Robbers Attack	Robbers attack the house, but are fought off.  Catherine burns one of them up using her magic, and discovers that she enjoys the feeling.	Zed	Obviously this is the inciting incident in the story.  But it’s a bit muddled now.  Originally, I was planning to have the robbers attack the house.  But I changed that because it didn’t seem that the house was worth robbing.  So then I had the robbers kill Finn on the way up the mountain, and the plan was that this would incite Carlyle to try to get revenge on the robbers.  But then I changed that because it didn’t feel like realistic emotion for Carlyle to run out of the house and attack.  So now I’m back to having the robbers attack the house.  But, this means I now have two inciting incidents--Finn being killed, and the house being attacked.  Maybe in the rewrite I can clean this up so that there’s only one inciting incident?  Or does it work better this way? --I really need to go back and make sure that the door is unlocked and open in a consistent way in all the chapters. --the vagueness of Brian’s injury is now a problem.  What is the injury exactly?  How badly hurt is he?  How could he escape from the robbers? --Explain how Carlyle (and Catherine) learned to use the sword --Go back and make the weapons consistent --Go back and made consistent how the door opens.  Swinging (on some sort of hinges?) that swings back?  Possibly check this against how ancient doors worked back in the day? --go back and set up why the crossbow is cumbersome to load, and why it cannot be kept loaded.  Also set up that crossbow is hanging from the wall
10. Assistance is Obtained	Carlyle and Alfred go to get help from the group.  Catherine goes to get help from the wolves.
11. The Battle on the Mountainside	Carlyle, Alfred and the group battle the robbers.  Catherine arrives with the wolves.	Baldrick	At some point, I really need to map out where everything is on this mountain, and then work that spatial awareness into my chapters.  I’m not sure it’s clear in this chapter where everyone is coming from or going to, or how far things are apart.  “the group” feels a bit strange here.  They should probably be introduced a bit more fully before this chapter. “that old song that Finn used to whistle ” has been mentioned twice now.  I should go back in the early chapters, and establish at least one instance of Finn actually whistling it
12. The Meetings	Part 1: Catherine meets with the wolves, and re-establishes her control over them. Part 2: The group meets.  Carlyle wants to kill all the robbers, but Catherine insists that the robbers can be controlled and subdued	Balsamer	--if I make explicit that Zed was the one responsible for killing Finn, then that would help to solve the problem of avenging. --I dropped Alfred’s storyline here.  I should add a couple lines about him and his father’s relationship
13. The Robbers are Subdued	Part 1: The robbers Fraisaale and Blocare talk, before they are subdued by the group Part 2: The group attacks the robbers, and the robbers surrender	Bettina, Cap, Fraisale, Blocare, Verus	--If the “robber king” is going to be a thing, then I need to set him up in previous chapters
14. Carlyle Comes Home	Catherine and Alfred decides to sleep in the robbers cave with some of the gang.  Carlyle journeys back home, where he encounters a furious Brian, and a tearful Margaret		--It may make more sense to change this, so that only Alfred stays behind with Catherine.
15. In the Goblin Caves	Part 1: Catherine and Alfred discuss where to sleep for the night Part 2: Alfred is carried off by Goblins in the night Part 3: Alfred wakes up in the Goblin caves and meets Jack	Jack (appears), Anna (mentioned)	Yet another chapter that was mostly written when I was sleep deprived.  It needs some serious re-writing at some point to get it readable. --In previous chapters, there was some allusion to fighting goblins.  I should probably take those out now, because in this chapter it becomes clear that goblins only fight by swarming
16. Alfred is Missing	Catherine wakes up and notices Alfred is missing.  The robber king is summoned, and he reveals that the goblins have access to the caves at night.  Bettina the raven reveals that Alfred’s father is travelling down the mountain.  Catherine, Carlyle and friends find the secret goblin door, and Catherine uses her powers to open it		In the earlier chapters, I need to make it clearer that the robbers don’t sleep in the big cave. You have not acted as an enemy.  But neither have you acted toward us as a friend.  We will remember this.  If you wish to become our friend, you must do better.”--This needs to be followed up on in future chapters Once again, I wrote this when I was sleep deprived.  It will probably need to be rewritten.
			To do: --Door opening is explained --House is described --Carlyle is training with sword --enumerate the creatures on the mountains? --when enumerating the creatures on the mountain, I should probably go back and delete were-wolves.  Or maybe just de-emphasize them.  They can be confused with wolves, and besides they work best when they are associated with a person, not as a pack of creatures --Weapons in the house are described --Why is it so cumbersome to load the crossbow? --What is the deal with brian’s injury? --Where is Brian’s house.  Where does the group meet?  Try to map out everything. --Speaking of mapping everything out, in an early chapter I should probably give a feel for where the house is on the mountain, and indicate that there’s a lot more mountain above it --The transition of Catherine from scared little girl to confident machiavellian schemer is too abrupt.  But it could be alleviated with a passage talking about how the death of Finn had hardened her, how she now cared only for revenge, etc. --I think I should delete the part in the early chapters about how the treeline was beginning to peter out by Catherine and Carlyle’s house.  It’s now apparent I want this mountain to be filled with trees and vegetation --Speaking off which, in the early chapters I should somewhere explicitly state (or make a character state) that the various “woods” on the mountain are different than the great forest below the mountain.  --”the group” needs better characterization. Perhaps I can think of some people I know, and use them.

Name	Description	First appearance / Mention
Abby	One of the group of adolescents.  She is the flirty one	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Alfred	Son of Brian, friend of Carlyle. 14 years old.	1. Chopping Down Trees (mentioned) 2. Finn Departs (appears)
Anna	Disappeared at 5 years old and found in the goblin caves	15. In the Goblin Caves (mentioned)
Baldrick	a raven.  A son of Branoc	11. The Battle on the Mountainside
Balsamer	a raven.  A son of Branoc	12. The Meetings
Bettina	a raven. daughter of Branoc	13. The Robbers are Subdued
Blocare	one of the robbers	13. The Robbers are Subdued
Branoc	A raven who is loyal to Catherine after she saves him.  He is also head of a large family.	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Brian	Father of Alfred.  Partner of Finn.  (Originally named “Arthur”, but I changed the name because I thought it was too similar to his son’s name.)	2. Finn Departs
Carlyle	Twin sister of Carlyle	1. Chopping Down Trees
Cap	One of the surviving robbers who invaded Carlyle and Catherine’s house	13. The Robbers are Subdued
Cathandres	Also known as Cathandres the strong.  One of the ancient heroes killed by the monsters.	4. The Age of Monsters
Catherine	Twin brother of Catherine	1. Chopping Down Trees
Finn	Adaptive father of Catherine and Carlyle. Aging	1. Chopping Down Trees
Fraisale	one of the robbers	13. The Robbers are Subdued
Gabrielle	One of the group of adolescents.  She is the sassy one. (changed from “Gabriel”	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Jack	Friend of Catherine and Carlyle.  Something happened to him.	1. Chopping Down Trees (mentioned) 15. In the Goblin Caves (appears)
Kevin	One of the group of adolescents.  He is the tough one.	3. Catherine, Carlyle and Alfred Go Out (mentioned) 5. Catherine Asks for Help (appears)
Lieria	Ancient kingdom, ruled by Themales	4. The Age of Monsters
Lucas	One of the group of adolescents.  His father is a murderer.  He is a bit crazy.	3. Catherine, Carlyle and Alfred Go Out  (mentioned)
Lucinda	One of the group of adolescents.  She is the sporty one.	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Marcus	One of the group of mountain adolescents.  He is the clever one.	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Margaret	Wife of Finn.  Adaptive mother to Catherine and Carlyle	1. Chopping Down Trees
Menpha	Ancient kingdom. Ruled by Stetheus	4. The Age of Monsters
Molly	One of the group of adolescents.  She is the talkative one	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Paul	One of the group of adolescents.  He is the good looking one. (Originally named “Brian”, but once I changed Arthur to Brian, I had to change Brian to Paul)	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Perexa	Also known as Perexa the warrior queen.  One of the ancient heroes killed by the monsters	4. The Age of Monsters
Rasilus	Also known as Rasilus the swift.  One of the ancient heroes killed by the monsters	4. The Age of Monsters
Scathia	Also known as Scathia the conqueror.  One of the ancient heroes killed by the monsters	4. The Age of Monsters
Servitus	Also known as Servitus the law giver.  One of the ancient heroes killed by the monsters	4. The Age of Monsters
Shawn	One of the group of adolescents.  He is often a leader	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Stella	One of the group of adolescents.  She is the pretty one.	5. Catherine Asks for Help
Stetheus	One of the ancient heroes killed by the monsters.  Ruler of the land of Menpha.  Half brother to Themales	4. The Age of Monsters
Themales	One of the ancient heroes killed by the monsters.  Ruler of the land of Lieria.  Half brother to Stetheus	4. The Age of Monsters
Verus	The robber king	13. The Robbers are Subdued
Zed	Leader of a small group of 5 robbers.  He is incinerated by Catherine	9. The Robbers Attack