Should I do some trick flying or other bits for you, or is it going to be more than enough just cutting together the fights? If not, I'll go dig a bit more and sleep, and head out at sunrise to get everyone else. It might be a good idea to have the Shiny Things pre-prepared.

"I think an intro sequence where you're just doing tricks would work well," says a green. "You can show us your repertoire and we'll see what would be a good order to do them all in and then shoot in good light, it's a little cloudy today. Maybe one of the choreographed fights can have visual callbacks. And matching musical motifs."

"And at the end of the tricks something can catch your eye, and then we can cut to the scene were you see the lamp."

"Yeah, I like that."

"They don't want to pick out their own shiny stuff? I can place the orders if they just want generic stuff in good materials worth about three times as much as my bracelet per day."

Meksi took some videos of it the other day, that's most of my flying tricks. If you want me to do them again I can only do a few now. Trick flying is exhausting. We can put a little flying in the called fights maybe?. Strike from above! I think Seascale's fight should be most elaborate and Rose should be the one who shows off the thing.

...Most Draak don't like the concept of 'shopping'. It seems weird to me, too. As long as it's roughly five Shiny Things for Flicker and Thorn and maybe eight or ten for the other two, they won't necessarily care about the exact contents.

"Okay, I'm on it," says the yellow.

"What has you placing Rose and Seascale in those roles?"

Seascale is the better fighter and I think Rose might be prettier to Amentan sensibilities.

"That can be the tentative ordering, then."

Anything else? Tomorrow I'll go down to the conference and get them all on board with it hopefully.

"- hopefully? What kind of uncertainty are we looking at here?"

It'll probably be fine. I would be surprised if it doesn't work out. Couldn't put a number on it.

"Okay. Which kinds of Draak are all these, we know there's kinds..."

Flicker is another Ruby, like me. The diggy kind of Draak. Thorn and Rose are Emeralds, like the one called Bloom. Supposedly the best fliers on average. Because of the feathers. Seascale is a Sapphire, like the Seeker. They can swim really well and breathe underwater.

"We might want to set each in a different environment - Flicker in a cave set, Rose in the air, Thorn out in the open, Seascale by the lake, maybe."

Rose and I would fight in midair? That would be pretty cool.

"Is that not typical?"

It happens, but I wouldn't say fights that start, last several minutes, and finish in the air are typical. What will usually happen is one Draak attempts to pin or injure the wings of the other and get them to crash, gaining an advantage for a follow-up fight on the ground.

"Oh, that works. Start in the air then crash, near the macguffin."

Sure. That's a fun word. Macguffin. I guess you'll all want to go over the tricks video I already did and figure out what moves would look best for the intro, and tomorrow morning Meksi and I can both head to the conference to get everyone else to agree to all this and I'll be back in the afternoon, does that sound good?

"Yup, that works on our end."

This is going to be great fun, I am looking forward to it! For now, I will be digging.

He gets dinner from Meksi and digs. His tunnel is a fair bit bigger the next morning, when he flies off for the conference.

The Seeker's egg-shaped black ship is gone. Apparently Flicker is probably going back within a week or two, with the first Amentan visitors to go to the Draak planet. The other three are going to linger around the last ship, Ice Scale, which is staying until further notice, and happy to pick appropriate days.

He's back at the smaller studio an hour after noon.

They have tentative storyboards and have given all his tricks names and have a shooting schedule and are in progress on the sets! Here's a proposed schedule.

Looks good to him. All the other Draak agreed to show up but Seascale made some sarcastic comments so maybe expect slightly less cooperation with storyboarding than the ideal.

"We'll make it work. You up for a makeup test today? They want to see how they can get stuff to stick on your scales and how it'll hold up - might be nothing works, we need to know that early."

Makeup might be kind of uncomfortable, but you do have to try it sometime. Very well. Do you know about my camouflage skill?

The makeup test is mixed but they think they can get a prosthetic wound or fake dirt to stick if necessary, and that if they want to more strongly imply that the salt lamp is magical by having him look different when he picks it up they can have patterns appear on his wings, which are pretty cooperative. They probably won't do that since they have limited time with Rose and don't want to spend it on makeup.

Rose is vain enough she might be temptable into doing a second day if the patterns are neat enough.