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Chapter Twenty Three

At the convenience store, Eric buys rope and butane lighter. In an earlier version, their trek through the catacombs was longer and required these items. As it reads now, he’s just being prepared.

I guess you can’t really call it research, but I ate a lot of brie and camembert while working on this section. Europe has way better cheese than America does.

A lot of my ideas are mapped out ahead of time, and a lot of them come as I write. This entire excursion up onto land is part of the latter, though I think that makes it better. Eric didn’t know where to go to find supplies—he didn’t know the city and he didn’t know the language. The fact that he’s wandering somewhat aimlessly, rather than able to go straight to the shoe store, works well—as does the fact that he ends up buying shoes from a waitress.

And maybe it’s the thirteen-year-old boy in me, but I think “Androids and Mayonnaise” is stinking hilarious. (However, I learned later that Andouillettes à la Lyonnaise are an acquired taste, and most people think they're really awful. Wikipedia describes them thus: "many French eateries serve andouillette as a hot dish, and foreigners have been disgusted by the aroma, to the point where they find it inedible... While some find that hot andouillette smells of feces, food safety requires that all such matter is removed from the meat before cooking. Feces-like aroma can be attributed to the common use of the pig's colon (chitterlings) in this sausage, and stems from the same compounds that give feces some of its odors." I didn't know that at the time I wrote the book.)

All the info-dump stuff here about the Illuminati was originally given by Isabella. Having Rebekah do it makes it slightly less detailed, but it was kind of fun to write it from a cynic’s point of view.

The poem on the wall is a real poem on a plaque in the catacombs. It’s viewable in the tourist part of the catacombs, not in the twisty, off-limits part where Eric and Rebekah are. But it fit the scene so well that I moved it.

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