I know, I know, I should have worked on this yesterday. It was a long day, and I’m a whimp. *nods solemnly* Besides, I had fic from other folks that needed reading! ^_~ *grin*

Anywho…

Rise and Walk deals mainly with the resurrection of the Salamander. So, lesse, the steps for doing that are:

1. Binding the spirit.
2. Getting the egg from the spirit.
3. Sneaking into the Council of Houses.
4. Tromping down into the cavernous catacombs beneath the Council of Houses.
5. Gathering all of the bits of the Salamander back together.
6. 1 egg + 1 blood relative sacrifice = barely alive Salamander
7. Multiple non-related human snacks = happy Salamander
8. Thereafter begins the rise of the House of Fire and the kicking of butts of the House of Stars (who were the SOBs that killed of the Salamander in the first place).

Problems for our intrepid heroes:

1. Bound spirit is very much not-happy and wishes to kill you.
2. The House of Stars is trying very hard to kill off all blood relations to the House of Fire. Since it’s on the top of the Council Wheel this year, it pretty much gets to do as it likes.
3. The Salamander’s bones have been scattered around the catacombs, which are full of things that eat people.
4. You have a limited pool of blood relatives to kill off to raise the Salamander.
5. The instant you raise the Salamander, the other Houses will know and you will then need to hide someplace safe.
6. Salamander needs some free-range Soylent Green, and there are only so many drunks.
7. Once you have a healthy Salamander, you need the backing of two other Houses to petition for re-admittance.

Okay, so our heroes start with nothing and end with a little less, but a possibly stable future. Yay heroes! Sortof.