Black Sword, if you want to read it, I'm not going to tell you
not to.
It may be a tad more enjoyable if you have prior knowledge of the characters, though. Everyone else - thanks for the feedback, you guys are the best!
"Soul of Steel" is one of my favorite quests in the game (and Montague and Elenor are two of my favorite characters) and I thought it was awesome the first time I played it through (and didn't even see the "real" ending), but damn, it's hard not to get frustrated the third or fourth time Ult gets away. I tried not to dumb her down in the story too much.
I also sort of saw Montague as not only being overly involved in his research (as Sue points out to him), but as the type of person who is so incredibly brilliant at some things, yet rather clueless when it comes to others (social cues, not realizing that getting involved in a covert military operation could be a BAD idea, etc...).