Hm, in that case: so when I start to organize an adventure story and pace it out, I usually think in terms of a multi-shelled system-- Location > Objective > Development.
Location is the widest and simplest shell, so it comes first: I try to figure out where the characters are going to go, in accordance with each major beat of the story. Let's say the party starts out by going to Cai's family home, then later they end up at UNS headquarters, and much much later they end up at Selestara's tomb. There are probably a lot of locations in between these three, but we can always fill those in later. ^^;
Then comes Objective: why are they going to these places? Determining the purpose of taking the story to these locations will help you start to figure out how much buildup it'll take to do so.
Family home: Let's say Cai will reluctantly return here, allowing the rest of the party (and the audience) to learn the details of his sad backstory
UNS headquarters: Let's say Cai's party gets into some trouble with the law, and there's a big fight here, to showcase how much they've grown with gray magic since the start of the adventure
Selestara's tomb.: Let's say this is where the 'final boss fight' happens with Alarik, before Selestara is finally awakened.
So the 'family home' thing could easily be a single 'episode' event; shouldn't take too much time to detour the story here, have the characters learn what they need to, and then move on.
The other two events, however, would be the culmination of several encounters with the UNS and Executives, respectively, so they'd probably take place over 'seasons'; i.e. multiple-episode arcs. We could dedicate an isolated chunk of episodes to each event, building up to it, addressing it, and resolving it before moving on to the next (easy mode), or we could use one arc to build up the other, weaving them together (hard mode).
For example, if we made the Executives crash the party at the UNS Headquarters, taking advantage of their enemies' infighting to ambush them or steal something from under their noses, that would be a simple way to use the event to build up to the next one.
Finally (this ended up being way longer than I thought it would...apologies ^^; ) comes the character development, nested within the other two shells. Now that we know where the story is going and why, how can we develop the characters along the way?
Family home: Maybe Cai is initially secretive and defensive about his backstory, and this event will force him to start opening up to his friends; accepting their help and support with more personal issues and deepening their bonds.
UNS headquarters: Maybe Cai's party and the UNS have beef that they resolve through battle; grudges and frustrations that they just have to work out through violence before they can see each other as equals.
If each member of the party has an agent of the UNS as a foil, this is a great place to compare and contrast their attitudes, showcasing their growth. For example, since Geordie is the 'funny one' who wants to be taken seriously, I'd pair him up with an agent with a similar desire for recognition, only maybe they're more aggressive and desperate for it. That desperation leads them to over-exert themselves and make mistakes during the fight...mistakes that, by now, Geordie has learned not to make, since he's become secure in his own worth.
Selestara's tomb.: Switching it up-- maybe Alarik's character gets explored here, as we learn why he's so committed to his grand master plan. Maybe this final fight involves him making a desperate last stand, giving up life & limb to show the protags and the audience just how far he's willing to go for his goals. Maybe he delivers a devastating blow to the heroes, possibly killing one of them, to show how much they could lose by continuing their fight, and whether they can cope with that reality.
...Anyway, in the end you'll have a list of Locations, each carrying story beats and character development within them, which you can mix, match, re-order, connect and extend. To slow down the pace of a section of story, you can nest more Objectives and/or Development into one of those shells, or add more Location shells in between them. And to speed up the pace, you can knock one out, moving its Objectives and Development to another Location to preserve them (if necessary).
Whether ^this list is super detailed or just simple bullet points, I think just having it makes it easier to know what needs to get done in the story, how many steps it'll take, and how you can add to or subtract from that.
