You know, it's funny - I feel like I'm behind with this chapter because... well I don't know I think it's because this is a very difficult chapter to draft. When I look at the calendar though, it's still well ahead of the 5 week mark since I started the project. Maybe it feels like it's taking longer than it actually is.

So in case anyone's curious about Ch5, I pulled another late night last night cramming in the event details. So after finally getting to the stopping point for the chapter, I feel pretty good about the events. The story is picking up the pace, and the seeds for the main mystery are firmly planted. There are zebras, finally!

So what I have to add now to the chapter is all the relationship building dialog and banter that needs to be there to make the chapter feel like the rest of the story. I'll also fill in the environmental details which I rushed through. These things are relatively easy compared to deciding exactly how I would introduce the zebras.

One thing I should probably mention is that this story is about to get brutal. it's going to have explicit and savage brutality , similar to the original fallout story. Not gratuitous though - I think there's a difference between extreme violence and gratuitous violence. In my mind, gratuitous is like when you portray something brutal "just because", for shock factor. Like a typical slasher horror movie or a certain slasher fic I refuse to read. Everything I'm putting in the story has a specific purpose and is meant to portray a serious threat in a realistic and terrifying way.

I've also added a new function to the PipBuck, and if anyone can find a way for this to make sense, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to give Nyx the ability to "mark" a location with it. The canon PipBuck had a map and knew the locations of things "magically", but I don't think we've ever seen Littlepip actually marking a location on it. Without satellites, it doesn't really make sense but it'd be nice to describe how it works a little bit rather than just saying it works.

If you want to stick with Fallout canon, the Pipbuck can only mark 1 custom location at a time :)