Ladies and gentlemen, I present, for
your amusement and edification, the Three Act Structure:
NB: I realise this makes no sense.
Act 1:
The Scribblers are, as is their custom,
chilling in the Pit. Shift and Wraith are playing a game in the
training room in which Wraith goes into a room and hides, and Shift
has to find him, first as an animal with excellent hearing or sense
of smell, but increasingly as animals who rely on their vision.
Lyric is helping by constructing a series of exciting things for
Wraith to hide behind or in, all of which have strong scents or
natural sound mufflers.
A sound of an elephant trumpeting calls
the other Scribblers into the room, and Shift morphs into human form
again. She announces that she can't find him, and anyway she has
better things to do. Amity and Finesse, who can both perceive that
Wraith is hiding behind Lyric (he is wearing one of Lyric's old
jackets to disguise the scent) look at each other, but before either
of them can put Shift out of her misery, Chronal comes in.
He looks dark and forbidding as he
stands suavely in the doorway. He wraps a bubble of unmoving time
around Amity and Finesse, sealing them completely from the outside
world.
Act 2:
Inside the bubble of unmoving time,
Amity and Finesse talk. Amity informs Finesse that Chronal was of
completely sound mind when he did this, and wasn't even scared or
upset. If anything, he felt gleeful, excited, as before a game.
Finesse realises that this must because Chronal is the current Thumb
Master. She reminds Amity of the old custom of Thumb Master, long
since abandoned but, now she comes to think of it, abandoned on
Chronal's turn. The title means that at some point, whichever
Scribbler is Thumb Master must isolate one or two Scribblers from the
rest and work out how they would take them down if they needed to.
No notice or warning, just pick a quiet day. Finesse points out that
he has left it about three years, and Amity makes a quip about his
perception of time.
They decide to escape. Amity says
everyone outside is moving really fast compared to them. She says
she thinks it's probably been weeks. This worries them a bit, but
then they realise Chronal has probably speeded the others up too.
Finesse reaches out and stops Chronal so that he is in line with time
in the bubble. Amity makes him feel profound remorse and a strong
desire to acquiesce, and he releases them from the bubble and slows
down the rest of the room to normal. Amity then gives him a profound
desire to unburden himself of all his secrets, and he tells them that
they are right, he is exercising his Thumb Master powers, but that he
didn't construct or even listen to the rest of the plan because he
knew they would do this. He says when he left them to plan, the last
he heard was Shift saying something about a de-powerer. Amity
compels him with an unwavering loyalty to their team, and he places
another time bubble around them so they can move around the room
without wasting any time.
They find that the training room has
been turned into a crude prison, with old fashioned bars as well as a
more sophisticated electronic system. Finesse asks Chronal to age
the equipment to make it functionless and the metal rusty, but he
won't. She gives Amity a stern talking to about not playing the game
properly, and what would they do if it really came to this situation,
so Amity takes proper, if apologetic, control of Chronal's mind, and
he gets them out of the room.
At that moment, a mechanism activated
by the door opening causes a de-powerer to activate, blasting all
three of them. Chronal, freed from Amity's control, runs away.
Act 3:
As the two are deciding what to do,
they notice a woman leaning nonchalantly against the wall beyond
them. It is Eraser.
She starts a monologue about how lucky
she is to catch them under such circumstances but before she can get
beyond the mild early threats, Finesse fly-kicks her in the face and
she goes down, two teeth out and tongue swelling rapidly. Finesse
wraps a torn strip of her costume around her mouth tightly.
A Comic Scene follows, in which Eraser
attempts to mime her threats.
They march her to the outside of the
building, then throw her out to the army who are obviously waiting
outside.
They discuss the plan (though not in
front of the audience, for reasons of Suspense), then walk boldly out
of the door.
AMITY: (To the army and officials
waiting outside) That feeling you have now, that faint apprehension,
that is the feeling of my self-restraint. This is a trial, and you
are very lucky that this is a trial because as you can see, a real
threat has emerged. Did you think we stupid enough to
walk through that door all at once? As leader, Finesse went first
and now we have a woman who will destroy the world and you have
depowered the only person who can stop her. Give me the re-power
that you have certainly brought with you.
SOLDIER: Make us.
FINESSE: Is that what you want? She's a softie, that one. But she doesn't know who has the device. If you
want her to, she can compel you all to take your most precious
possessions and lay them at her feet. But this is just a game. We
would rather not generate the bad press.
They person with the repowerer crumbles
and gives it up, and Finesse and Amity immediately re-power
themselves and de-power Eraser. Then they both do a shameless dance
of glee. Amity compels the other Scribblers to come towards them,
while Finesse blocks the use of all their powers. Chronal hands over
the thumb master token to Wraith, and everyone looks a bit grim
because really they should be able to take down two members of their
team with the other two.
