Working on my third book now and I need someone to challenge Danica. It took me awhile, but I finally came up with someone. The inspiration came from Alucard of the Castlevania series.

One of the problems (I feel) with the Drizzt series by Salvatore, is that the main character started off normal, but his opponents had to be ramped up to ridiculous proportions. Drizzt was simply too bad to be had, and soon his opponents became outlandishly big demons or giants and he still beat them all easily enough.

I want to keep Danica grounded in reality, but I also need a challenge. This time she'll meet the Gilded Prince of Drakkenoir, Kerris Thorne. He's kind of tropey with his handsome looks and better than everyone else attitude, as well as his penchant for seeking out all the pleasures life has to offer. Unfortunately for Danica, he had the best duelist trainers money could and a desire to become the best until he couldn't find an opponent to beat him.

As for the title, I was frustrated these last few days.

Image generation doesn't always give you what you ask for.

The original.

I really liked it in general, but it was also completely wrong. They also put Danica in a dress, But I decided to work with that. For the next few days I tweeked promts to no avail. It could get close, but always messed something up really bad. At one point, the editor turned Danica into what appeared to be a blue goblin. I finally got something decent after way too much time spent on it.

As you can see, there's some weird stuff going on. At this point, it's easier just to load up GIMP and manually fix the image.

I'm satisfied. Now I have a reminder of what I'm working towards.