Page 24 of The Case of the Mummy Express recently posted, featuring some collaborative work on the part of the Wisps:

In early drafts of this story I had the Wisps simply teleport Doctor Baer and the sea cats to the back of the train. It wasn’t until the fourth draft that I remembered a line from the first book, The Case of the Two-Faced Statue:

Man, it would be really helpful if I wrote down a “bible” for this series.

But before rewriting the scene, I looked at this legend I put together waaayy back in 2012 or so:

(It’s interesting to me that they’re mentioned in plural here. As if there might be more than just these four!)

One of the influences that led to Doctor Baer’s Wisps is Metroid Prime, one of my favorite games:

Samus, the hero of the game, has four different beam weapons that she can strategically use to solve puzzles and beat bosses. They can also be combined with her missiles to create entirely new weapons:

Huh. I can almost see how these beams correspond to the four Wisps. You have to squint, but the influence is there.

So when I went back to my 2012 notes on the different types of magic each Wisp represents, I thought about Samus and her beam combos. Which led me to the solution of combining Orange and Blue’s respective magics to phase the heroes through the train and away from danger.

As I tell my students, adaptation is the name of the game!

I’m also thinking about Metroid because Metroid Prime 4 just came out. I haven’t played it yet, but I mean to. Don’t spoil it for me!