Plot Points for Jungle Planet

Remember back to over two years ago when I posted a story about colonists on a jungle planet that I'd experienced as a dream, and said "I might post the plot points/spoilers/whatever you want to call them at some point, but not now."?

Well, I happened to be reading back through old posts, ended up on the dreams tag, and re-read the entire thing.  Searched my hard drive and found the file where that same exact story text is, as well as the plot points/spoilers/whatever you want to call them that I'd typed over two years ago.  In fact, I haven't even touched it since then, the last modified date on the file is still the same as the date of the post.

Anyway, enough is enough.  Plot points/spoilers/whatever you want to call them, go!  The only editing I've done to this is adding formatting, all of the text is verbatim from the text file from which it came.  There is some stuff that's mentioned multiple times, deal with it.

The staff

• Mary and the old man can do with the staff what it took the chanting of the entire rest of the tribe to do
• The staff was responsible for the desolate area (hence why the old man was exiled)
• And that the person who did this was Mary, on the first test of the staff
• And that she's still upset about it
• Rather than fearing the staff because of its power she has the mindset that it needs to be kept out of the hands of those who would misuse it
• And for that reason decides to wield it herself

The old man in the store

• Jack and Audrey don't discuss him with the other colonists until after the first time he comes to their colony
• Over time he should instruct Mary in the use of the staff
• He is the one that uncovers that Mary is responsible for the desolate area being desolate
• Jack and Audrey, after consulting the rest of the colonists, decide to invite him to live in the colony

Mary

• The tribe wanted her alive and well because of her ability to use the staff, and so they took care of her
• Her clothes are tattered due to age and her growth, but she refused to wear the tribal dress anyway
• Jack and Audrey take her in after bringing her back to the colony
• She was 12 when she arrived and therefore 13 when Jack and Audrey rescue her
• Plenty of opportunity for flashbacks to explain her backstory

Jack and Audrey

• They're supposed to be adults, late 20s/early 30s.
• Jack is a marksman and Audrey prefers melee weapons
• This is the small bit of myself that's making it into Jack.  Basically I'm tired of how the ranged support characters in RPGs/movies/anime/manga/etc. are always female.
• Also I tend to like sword-wielding female characters, so it works double.
• At some point they take Mary to the charred remains of the old colony, because she wants to go and they'd never actually seen the area before

The colony/colonization effort

• Unclear how far away their home planet is
• Close enough that the news of what happened to the first colony (emergency transmissions) arrived before the second batch of colonists arrived, but far enough away that the news arrived after they left.
• The previous colonists arrived about 13 months earlier, bringing Mary and her parents with them
• Obviously from a much more technologically-advanced planet/society
• Modern weaponry, essentially.
• Mary wasn't the user of the staff in most of the tribe's rituals that involved it, and that it took the entire tribe chanting to make the staff do what Mary and the old man can do with it by themselves
• Mary was abducted, the colony razed, and the colonists killed
• Just to make it plainly obvious, she's the only remaining survivor from the first colonization effort
• Current colony not built at the same site as the razed one

The desolate area

• redundant points listed above
• was once jungle, much like the rest of the planet
• became desolate in the first test of the staff due to Mary's hatred of the tribe for killing her parents and abducting her
• after the tribe is defeated it should be restored
• automatically since the staff's effects end either after a certain amount of time or when a specific condition is met

The tribe

• Wakes up and finds the snow and related footprints
• Notices that both Mary and the staff are gone
• follows footprints to the store
• discovers colony at some point
• main antagonists?  would make the full story shorter and simpler...  could be good or bad.

Yeah, I'd thought out that much of it.  Present thoughts want me to change it so rather than Mary being eager to see the charred remains of the old colony, they happen upon it while exploring, entirely unintentionally, and Mary gets some kind of sad reunion when she finds evidence of her parents.  This evidence would of course be small enough to carry with her as a memento.  Also, why was the staff originally created?  For that matter, why are the old man and Mary the only ones who can easily use it?  Also, when razing the colony and killing the colonists, the tribe had to have known Mary could use the staff, or they'd have killed her too.

Also, I do remember that the dream itself at one point had a Skyrim GUI (when they were sneaking into the village, getting Mary, grabbing the staff, and leaving), and in general because this kind of thing happens in my dreams, everything was a bit more sexualized.  Also, something that failed to make it in (maybe I consciously edited it out?) is that Mary's green shirt was actually a hooded sweatshirt at one point.  Perhaps it still technically was a hooded sweatshirt when Jack and Audrey discover her, but it's just been worn down through all the time of wearing it and being a hostage, and therefore losing its insulation value against the snow Mary inadvertently causes after they leave the village?  I realize this makes her receiving the sweatshirt from Jack kind of odd... (but only kind of)

Also, I seem to like beginning sentences with "Also,".