Archon of the East - Gale

Welcome back to yet another weekly blog! This week, we’re finally having the fabled Gale deep dive blog, but a few other updates as well! Why? Because why not!

Who is Gale?

In the Sapphire Verdict, Gale is a twin-tailed, green shasheek roughly the same age as Sapphiria. She is sporty, outgoing, and known for constantly being late, even if the meeting is in her own backyard. Her infectious attitude is known for uplifting any atmosphere, and she works her tails off to try and prove herself as more than just a child, but things don’t always work out.

To the other Archons, Gale is the child among them. She is the youngest, and unproven, which is only compounded by the issues surrounding how she became an Archon in the first place! Archons typically get chosen by their predecessors after carefully picking through the population and finding the best candidate possible, but that wasn’t how Gale was selected. Does that mean that she is a weak Archon? Not even slightly!

Archons are who they are because of their powers, and Gale is no exception! She wields devastating wind powers that she uses to enhance her physical attacks. Instead of summoning a tornado to devastate her enemies, she enhances her speed to become a living bullet, and her power is only enhanced by her weapon of choice. Her staff is made from one of the sturdiest trees on the planet and is tougher than even the hardest steel! With her staff, she has more than enough power to drill through the toughest defenses, and combined with her upbringing under one of the most powerful wielders of all time, it’s easy to understand why she was a premium candidate as an Archon!

Friendship with Sapphiria

Gale’s friendship with Sapphiria started by chance one day after a freak encounter in Mercanta. When Gale was on her way to attend a meeting with the Archons, she accidentally ran into Sapphiria. Rather than move on, she got curious, and so followed her to introduce herself. At the time, she didn’t really understand the impact her friendly introduction had. Sapphiria had never had anyone be respectful to her, so Gale’s friendly introduction left a massive impact. As strange as it was, however, their personalities clicked with each other, and Gale was more than happy to become her friend afterwards!

Following that interaction, they have managed to meet a few separate times, and although their friendship is as long distance as it could be, Gale truly does see her as a friend. Whenever Sapphiria is brought up in conversation, Gale is extremely protective of her and is willing to even fight the other Archons tooth and nail on Sapphiria’s behalf. While it might sound out of place for Archons to fight for any reason, there is a bit of precedence, specifically with Gale.

The Council

Gale’s relationship with the council is a bit of a mixed bag. Of all the Archons, she is most friendly with Kaden who she sees as a sort of distant uncle. She interacted with him a lot as she’s grown up, and he’s always careful to keep an eye out for her. Whenever things go sideways, he’s there to get her back on course.

Next in terms of friendliness would be Thrissa. As the unofficial figurehead of the council, Thrissa does her best to keep a levelhead and make sure that no debate spirals too far out of control. While she is fair to Gale, however, she does not tolerate any foolish behavior, leading her to look down a little on the young wind wielder because of some of her more childish habits.

Gaoren is more or less aligned against Gale in terms of personality. He has a strict military upbringing and conducts his operations with honor and respect. This mentality is what makes him clash with Gale so often. He sees her childish behavior as unbecoming of an ARchon, and has little patience for it. He’s quick to snap at her for acting out of turn, and is arguably the harshest on her of all the Archons, but he still gives her respect when he thinks she deserves it.

Ostaren is the one Archon she cannot stand. All of the others she at least respects, but she hates Ostaren passionately. She believes that his adherence to tradition blinds him to common decency, and she hates most of what he stands for. They clash constantly during meetings because they are truly polar opposites, forcing the other Archons to step in all the time to get them away from each other’s throats.

Homeland

Gale hails from the eastern continent of Falador, but specifically the most interesting part! Her home was deep within the same valley that Caleia herself was born in! This valley is home to the largest trees in the world, and her village was built partially within their branches. As such, she grew up quite used to living in tall places and would frequently use her wind powers to get around so as to avoid the elevators and bridges. Additionally, her proximity to the mountains means that she has a high tolerance for cold and a fondness for snow, especially snow gliding! Snow gliding involves using a plank of refined wood to slide down a slope, and it remains one of her favorite sports!

Although Gale was outgoing, she didn’t have many friends as a child. She was able to find time for social activities with others, but because of the position of her father, she was largely shunned outside of these moments. After all, nobody wanted to be the one to accidentally cross the path of.. well, I’ll avoid that spoiler for now.

Speaking of her father, that is a bit of a sore point for her. Although she is very close with her father in the present, his absence as a child definitely had an impact, especially since he was so hard on her in terms of training whenever he was around. His high expectations for his own powers translated to his daughter as well, and he refused to accept anything but the best from her. He constantly pushed her to her limit, made her train around the clock, and was responsible for her breaking down on more than a few occasions. Eventually, however, he finally realized the error of his ways, and she was finally allowed to have the father she should have had from the beginning.

Global Impact

As Archon, Gale very much has her eyes on most of the world, but is most concentrated on Falador. She is responsible for overseeing the entirety of the continent, a very tall order given how much is going on around her. Between the most prized resource in the world, multiple aerodromes, and other things that won’t be mentioned yet, she has her hands completely overflowing and is arguably one of the most influential Archons despite her age. That being said, a lot of her focus in the present is on the rise of Murktreader attacks across the ocean.

Murktreaders are colossal ocean fish known for devouring even the most colossal of creatures. Though they have a history of ignoring galleons, attacks have massively increased in recent times for unknown reasons. Gale is the one responsible for tracking this down, meaning that she is constantly working with oceanic organizations and individuals to try and track down the cause.

Apart from that, she has the same amount of impact as the other Archons and is required to work alongside them constantly! Through her watchful eye, the world continues to turn without error, but she has no idea just what kind of impact she’ll have in the not too distant future!

Sapphire Verdict Updates

With that out of the way, let’s talk brief updates. Another round of cuts was done to the story to get a little bit more out of it, but that means that we are on the cusp of sending out our first wave of query letters! The final word count should be just below 125,000 words, so hopefully here soon things will finally get a move on!

Harmonizer Updates

The Harmonizer is continuing to make waves in my personal life. Vianna’s story is currently sitting at 26 chapters out of a planned 40ish, so we are probably two weeks out from being done or so! Once finished with the initial pass, an editing pass will be done, and then it’s going out the door! And when I say out the door, I mean OUT! It will be going directly to Royal Road and other electronic publishing centers and will almost certainly be free, because let’s face it, things are getting more and more competitive out there!

Speaking of competitive, working on the Harmonizer has made it clear just how far my writing has come since the Sapphire Verdict. Everything is much tighter and smoother, and it really does make me wonder what would happen if I could have written the Sapphire Verdict fresh today.

Conclusion

I think that’s more than enough for one week, don’t you? I have no plans at the moment for the blog next week, so expect some general updates. Oh, and I’m still working on art! I promise! It’s just been on the back burner, and I’m fighting some character related stuff at the moment. Hopefully it’ll be done soonish, but eh. We’ll see! Until next time, CHEERS!

The Flying Fennec