Alcingeria Chapter Two: The Plan

The Scorpions are planning a big heist, they plan to steal a large sum of money (fifty thousand dollars) from a wealthy nobleman in Relin named Jonathan Haywood. Can they pull it off?

Chapter Two The Plan:

Monday June 21^st 1690

Don, Macalister, Robert and I are in our hideout. We’re camped in the woodlands just outside of Relin. We planned on moving to a different location sometime in the near future, but the people of Relin are more situated and have more money than people in the other four provinces. This is probably because since Queen Mycta is a fair leader, and gives everyone a job, no matter how big or small. Our hideout is a humble one, merely an abandoned hunter’s cabin about two kilometers from where the province of Relin owns the land. Right now, we are technically still in the province of Delron. The geography of the provinces is as follows:

            Relin is to the far North, Fel is to the East, Yutsa is to the Southeast, Vulrock is to the Southwest, and Delron is to the West.

            In our hideout, Robert, Macalister, Don and I sat at a large round, wooden table in the middle of the cabin. Robert sat across from me. Robert looked all three of us in the eye before speaking.

            “Gentlemen, I’ve gathered you here for a meeting. I sent Don out on a scouting mission, and he and I put together a plan to steal a rather large sum of money from a nobleman in Relin.” Said Robert.

            “How much money are we going to steal?” Asked Macalister, cracking his knuckles.

Robert looked to Don with a question in his eyes. After a few seconds, Don nodded and Robert turned his attention back to the Macalister and I.

            “Well, I won’t lie to you. It’s a hefty total of approximately fifty thousand dollars.” Robert said.

Excitement blazed inside of me. Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money, it could buy almost anything we wished! Don smiled, Macalister chuckled. Robert looked expectantly at me.

            “That’s… a lot of money. Is it too good to be true?” I asked.

            “No, it’s not too good to be true. It’s very much the truth, and if we execute the plan that Don and I devised flawlessly, we could be bathing in gold by this time tomorrow.” Robert said, scratching his chin.

            “Tell us, what’s this plan of yours?” Asked Macalister.

            “I’ll explain.” Don volunteered.

We all looked at him expectantly. Don cleared his throat.

            “The estate of which we’re to steal the money is located in the North end of Arc. I assume you all know it’s the capitol of Relin?” Don asked.

We all nodded.

            “The estate is owned by Jonathan Haywood, a wealthy nobleman. Incidentally, the place is known as the Haywood estate. This heist should be simple, seeing as Arc is the closest city to the Relin-Delron border.” Robert added.

            “Well, I’m afraid that the heist won’t be as easy as one may think.” Don said, shaking his head.

            “Why is that?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

            “Well, Arc is the closest city to Relin’s border with Delron, I’ll give you that. The estate is, however in the northern most sector of Arc, where the palace is. The palace houses Queen Mycta, and Queen Mycta has guards stationed at every angle of the palace twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. That means that there is a possibility that we’ll be spotted by the palace guard before we so much as lay eyes on the Haywood estate.” Don countered.

            “We can go under the cover of darkness, where the guard’s visibility is poor.” I suggested.

            “No need.” Said Don, shaking his head.

            “What? Are you mad? We can’t off this heist in the light of day!” Macalister objected.

            “We’ll go into Relin, it’s not a long walk from here. When the border guards stop us, we kill them and take their firearms. When we’re past the border, we’ll travel to Arc, which shouldn’t take long at all. We’ll then travel to the Haywood estate and, order everyone out into the common room. We’ll order them to stay on the ground with their heads down so they won’t be able to stop us. Two of us will stand guard to make sure that the occupants of the estate don’t rise against us. That should be Macalister and Robert, while Redmond and I go for the money. When we have it, we’ll make our escape.” Don explained.

            “What will be our means of escape, Don?” Asked Macalister, shaking his head and frowning.

            “I overheard Jonathan Haywood making a deal with a trader. Jonathan promised the trader five gold pieces to act as a delivery service between him and some other trader. Jonathan has a shipment of goods coming from that trader at noon today coming in on a horse drawn carriage. That’s why we can’t pull this heist off at nightfall. We’ll wait until the carriage arrives at the Haywood estate, then we run out with the money, hijack the carriage, and make our way towards Yutsa. We’ll then hide the carriage ten kilometers from Yutsa, and walk another five kilometers towards the border. There, in the wilderness outside of Yutsa is where we set up camp. Then we’ll go to the province of Yutsa the next day and sell what we stole.” Don explained further.

We all sat there, awed at the elaborate and brilliant plan that was presented.

            “No one will see it coming.” Robert said with a  grin.

“It’s brilliant!” Macalister exclaimed.

            “I have a question.” I stated.

            “What is it, Redmond?” Asked Don.

            “I think that it would be a bad idea to go to Yutsa after the heist.” I told him.

            “Why?” Asked Don.

            “Well, King Desmond is wary of outsiders. If word gets out that the Haywood estate was robbed and King Desmond finds out that new people entered his province that very next day, he’s going to suspect that we were the ones who robbed the Haywood estate.” I said.

Just then, Don walked around the table and stood behind me. He clapped me on the shoulder.

            “Not to worry, Redmond. We’ll sneak into Yutsa. King Desmond will never know we’re there.” Don said.

            “When you put it in those words, it does sound like a perfect plan.” I said with a grin.

            “I know. Robert and I worked out every single detail. There’s no way this plan can go wrong.” Don boasted.

            “Alright, when do we commence?” I asked, putting an end to Don’s boasting for the time being.

            “Right now. Are you all ready?” Asked Robert.

            “I’m ready.” I said.

            “As am I.” Said Macalister.

Robert and Don were no doubt prepared. Anticipation was building inside of me. Robert walked across the room and grabbed a burlap sack from a shelf, presumably to keep the money in.

            “Does everyone have their daggers? They’re a crucial component of this mission.” Said Robert.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my dagger. It had a simple wooden handle with a blade that was around twenty centimeters long. I put it back in my pocket. I saw the other three at the table repeat the same process as I had a moment ago. Robert got up and went to the door. He opened it and stepped through.

            “Shall we?” He asked with a wry grin and a sweep of his arm in the direction of outside.

Author's Note

Please tell me what you think!

Reviews

[Barbara Tennyson]

Action doesn't start until this chapter. Most of what came before is an info-dump the readers don't need. Try starting here: _In our hideout, Robert, Macalister, Don and I sat at a large round, wooden table in the middle of the cabin. Robert sat across from me. Robert looked all three of us in the eye before speaking._ If any of the previous data actually matters in the narrative, mention it then, not in a tangled clutter at the very beginning.

Sentences like these: “Right now. Are you all ready?” Asked Robert. & “I’m ready.” I said. & “As am I.” Said Macalister. --are dialogue tag sentences. All of them are incorrectly punctuated and two of them are incorrectly capitalized. More correctly, they go like this: “Right now. Are you all ready?” (NO CAPTIAL LETTER FOLLOWING THE CLOSING QUOTATION MARKS) asked Robert. & “I’m ready(NO PERIOD IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE CLOSING QUOTATION MARKS USE A COMMA),” I(ALWAYS CAPITALIZE THE PRONOUN 'I') said. & “As am I,” said Macalister.

In a first person narrative, like this, how is the reader privy to another character's interior thoughts: Robert knew he was ready, and he knew Don was ready. Anticipation was building inside of me. --the reader knows what the Kid/Redmond thinks, but there is no way either the Kid or the reader has access to Robert's thoughts.

Now this whole chapter is telling, not showing. Try letting 'the Plan' unfold more naturally during the actual robbery. Isn't the reader going to see the plan in action in the next chapter? Don't tell the reader what the characters are going to do and then show the characters doing what you just told them. That technique bogs down the narrative. This whole chapter could consist of: "I have a plan!" followed immediately by the crime.

[Ryan Henderson]

I will admit that you have some good points here. I fixed the part where Redmond knew what Robert was thinking. As for your last comment on how the chapter is telling and not showing, this chapter is crucial for character development. Sure, I explained what the characters were like in Chapter One, but in this chapter you actually see their talents utilized. You see them utilized throughout the book, but I wanted to show the readers what the characters could do early on in the book.

[Barbara Tennyson]

That may be why this chapter rings so false: It's not really part of the story, it's just a display. If you can manage to keep the characters' individual traits in mind throughout the _action_, they might come across as more life-like than they appear so far. (Or as Mayer Alan Brenner has a character say: Action is also character.)

[Ryan Henderson]

Yeah, I keep their traits in mind throughout the story, I also went ahead and cleaned up the chapters from here on and made the flow tremendously better and took out some things that weren't needed, thanks for your input!

[Shawn]

This story is very well set up so far, with sufficient information on each character. One thing I noticed is that you make a connection between King Bunsen and Yutsa, even though in the prologue, you state that King Bunsen rules Fel and not Yutsa. I noticed that at times the dialogue can be a bit awkward, but that is easily fixable. Simply review dialogue from other peoples' books and edit yours accordingly. The plot is very interesting so far, and I look forward to reading more!

[Ryan Henderson]

Thanks for reading! I'll fix that error with Yutsa and King Bunsen. Thanks for pointing that out. This is the first draft of the book, but the dialogue gets more fluent as the book goes on. People have told me that the dialogue is clunky and awkward near the beginning so I'll fix that in a later update :D

[C. Rose]

I feel like I know the characters better now that I've seen them interact with each other. I'd like to see more physical description spread out between the dialogue. This will prevent the scene from feeling like "floating heads".

[Ryan Henderson]

Okay, thanks for the input!

[KeithKVH]

Liking the characters again. Their roles are fitting very well, Don and Robert as the suave ladies man and the plan maker are good together as the brains of the operation. I like the daring of their plan, though I feel a bit iffy about how solid it is. I understand they want to use the carriage that comes during the day to make their escape, but it's still very risky if they are spotted by the guards. Depending on the layout of the place and how quickly the guards come after them, the place could get surrounded and the carriage driver will spot the commotion and avoid getting close. Looking forward to seeing them in action though, Robert and his wry grin at the end was a nice touch, he seems cool.

Another thing, not a big issue, I just noticed what seemed like a difference in the currency. Is it dollars or gold pieces? Or maybe the pieces are gold dollars or worth dollars? I'm just interested in world building aspects and I thought it might be an inconsistency.

Everything is good for the grammar/spelling again except for one thing, which is in dialogue and that always is hard to review because I don't know best how your character talks. Still, here it is:

“The house of which we are to steal the money is located in the North end of Arc,

"The house we'll steal the money from is located in the North end of Arc,

This seemed like a safe choice. "The house of which we are to" just sounds rather off, adding "of" after money would make it better, but it just seems an odd word choice.

[Ryan Henderson]

Thank you for the review! I will return the courtesy asap!

[Laura Lynn]

How is this plan going to be carried out? It seems to be done in the broad light of day. It's a good thing Queen Mycta has guards stations 24/7

[Ryan Henderson]

It is explained how the plan will be carried out in this chapter, but the plan is actually carried out in the next chapter, I am working on the next chapter now, it is pretty awesome!