Spider and Royce's antagonistic but fruitful writer-editor relationship goes back many years; at the time of the War of Verbals (a heated exchange between two powerful English-speaking nations (presumably the United States and Britain) and France over keeping French as the national language of the latter). Royce was only an assistant editor and Spider was not yet at the peak of his notoriety. However, after Spider became involved in political journalism and released a reportage book called "Shot in the Face", his popularity reached its peak. Unfortunately, all of his creativity dried up afterwards. Unable to write or function in the City and adored by the very people his writing decried, he retreated into the Mountain to escape the pressure to perform.