/lit/ - Literature

Hello, I need help writing my way out of a plot point I want to advance.

>Background
My story revolves around two characters, who are the leaders of what originally seemed like a ragtag group of ruffians and misfits that has turned into the main opposition force of the "Empire", which is the foreign power which controls the City in which the story takes place. (We'll call them "the Group", for now).

Character X's POV is set in the far north of the country, being lured by the enemy after an ominous message turns up, threatening his secret lover whose existence only he had knowledge of. He gets involved with the "Faction", a crew of pirates and smugglers that have caused havoc against the Empire since the invasion.

Meanwhile, Y is X's second-in-command and is now left of overseeing the Group's operation in the City until X returns and he gets embroiled in numerous conspiracies, navigating the underworld and the aristocracy of the City as he tries to set up the stage for when the insurrection is set to begin.

I'm numerous chapters into the story and Y is heading for his second mission; having heard reports of a terrible beast having escaped from an Empire terranium, he heads out into the sewers with three companions of his, hoping to slay it and present themselves as heroes, getting rid of the beast which has killed dozens in two weeks.

However, unbeknownst to both the Empire and the Group, the tales of the beast's terror have been manufactured by the Pirates, whose reach and influence is underestimated by both parties. I'm writing the chapter where Y ventures into the sewers in search of the beast, but I want to write it as a catalyst for the beginning of the end of Act 1.

cont