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Thresholder, ch 141, Expulsion
🕑 Added 2024-09-03 21:07:24 +0000 UTCWell, the good news is that the editing for Thresholder vol. 1 is finished. It's about 30K more words, and reorganized so that everything is in chronological order, and I'll have it to you as soon as the copy-editing is done. Aside from the extra world 1 and world 2 stuff, there are some changes to Teaguewater, but maybe less than I thought there would be. I hate that sort of thing, because it's so hard to know whether I'm actually making it better. I did make it better. I think.
The bad news ... I never really know what they mean when they say "executive dysfunction", in spite of talking to DaystarEld about it a lot, and sitting in on a talk he gave about it. But I think that might be my problem at the moment. I've been trying to use the tools I have to deal with it, though I think that when I go hard on writing sprints and trying to force some tunnel vision it leads to burnout and anxiety. I have mostly been trying to take as long as I need, which ... there have got to be some limits on.
There's also this feeling that the longer the delay gets, the better the chapter needs to be to make up for that, and I think that's stupid, and also makes me want to just not spend a bunch of time on this chapter that cannot possibly justify such a delay.
Anyway, thanks for the support, the battle against my brain continues.
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“There are all kinds of ways that magic can fail between universes,” said Eggy 6. “I mean, obviously, right? Because they all use different what-we-call physics, and you wouldn’t expect that all of the ways for things to be ‘magic’ would just fold up neatly.”
Eggy 6 was the only one who was numbered. It was their idea of a joke, though she was actually the fifth one out of the cloning machine and the sixth total. They were in a room that was being called ‘second bridge’, which had the feeling of being in a remote location. Kestrel had been offered a spot on the bridge proper, but hadn’t really felt like he would have that much to contribute.
The second bridge was a lot more casual than the primary bridge, with a feeling more like a coffee shop than a place where missions were being conducted. All the people there were clones, which meant a lot of Mettes and Eggys, because they had been the ones that were most eager to do the whole clone thing. Perry and Kestrel had, by mutual agreement, not cloned again, though there was a question of whether they would in the future. Everyone had alt universe equivalents of iPads and smartphones, with a few laptops, and there was a large display on one wall that gave vital information, as well as a view inside the main bridge. There was a countdown to Third Fervor’s attack, which only had minutes left. After that, it was likely that they would be in the dark, or maybe just probing at the edges of the battle.
“So there are different failure modes,” said Kes. “And you don’t know ahead of time what’s going to fail.”
He was in private conversation with Eggy 6, over in one of the corners, at a table for two. She had taken a special interest in him, for whatever reason. He suspected that the clones had a scheme of some sort, because they often conferred with each other. If that was the case, she had been sent to woo him, and he wasn’t entirely sure whether it was for science or some other reason.
“More importantly, you don’t know how it’s going to fail,” said Eggy 6. “You go to the next world and an important piece of ship infrastructure is dead? That’s a problem, sure. But if it’s going to stay dead, even when you go to another world, that’s worse. Some magics will flourish back to life, there’s something in how they fold up when they die that lets them unfold. We’re … still not entirely sure on that right now, it’s an area of active research, but the research only happens when we move between worlds, and a lot of stuff just stays dead. And of course how it dies is another issue.”
“You don’t want pressurized canisters where the walls are made of exotic force fields,” said Kes. “Not unless you want to bomb yourself.”
“Exactly,” said Eggy 6. “And you wouldn’t necessarily know that you have a proverbial pressurized canister. Your sword has a lot of power in it, right?”
“I guess,” said Kes. It wasn’t actually his sword, but he didn’t want to say that.
“I mean, it can potentially get you to a fraction of the speed of light,” said Eggy 6. “But yeah, most likely that’s just a physics whoopsie, as we call them, different frames of understanding interacting with each other, not a hint that the sword is connected to some deeper well of power. That’s another cross-magic thing.” She had a fruity drink, something stark red that smelled like artificial strawberry and pineapple, and she swirled it around. “But if it was on this ship, rather than with the other you, then yeah, we would worry a little about it blowing us up.”
“Seems like a dangerous way to live,” said Kes. “Has that happened?”
“The ship hasn’t blown up, no,” laughed Eggy 6.
“You know what I mean,” said Kes. “Is there precedent?”
“Hella is pretty sure that’s what killed her original crew,” said Eggy 6. “They came into a new world and were immediately reeling, and yeah, it might have been because of some magic crystals they took with them, but it’s really hard to say. Might also have been a crash landing, because there wasn’t the mass predictor at that point. She was pulled from the ship by some locals and didn’t make it back for some time.”
“Never trust a crystal,” said Kes.
Eggy 6 laughed. “That’s funny, but absolutely do not make that joke around Hella.”
“I meant for it to be macabre,” said Kes. “Dark humor. Guess you’re right though.”
“I get it,” said Eggy 6. “I know I don’t look it, but I like black humor.”
Kes looked her over. She was wearing a brightly colored dress — all the Eggys were — this one green with a star pattern that grew more pronounced down at the hem. She was wearing a pop of red lipstick, and probably some other makeup. When he looked closer, he could see it, and he could also smell her. She had washed her hair with something coconut and honey scented, and her skin had been washed with something that was more floral, maybe lavender.
Of course, he didn’t know if she was actually flirting with him. Friendly, lively women were always the toughest for him to read, because every comment could be taken as an invitation or engagement beyond the norm. This was the fourth time she’d sought him out, but that might just have been because she had some science in mind. That would track with this being some kind of plan. Kes wasn’t averse to science though, depending on what it required of him. She was definitely curious about the werewolf thing.
“You don’t suppose that I’ll explode into pieces because I’m a werewolf, do you?” asked Kes.
“Very possible!” said Eggy 6. “I mean, from what Perry said, the Wolf Vessel contains energy, and in the normal course of things, what happens when it cracks open is that the energy is used for transformation, then for healing, partially fueled by consumption. What that means when we go to another world is anyone’s guess, but in theory we’ll be going to a world that Perry has gone to, and in theory, nothing special will happen to you as we cross our own border. But we know that our border crossing is a lot different from the punch.” She took another sip of her drink. “I’m excited to see what will happen!”
“It’s starting,” called one of the Mettes, who was watching closely. “Only medium probability that he wins.”
“He should retreat,” said one of the other Mettes.
“And leave those people to die?” asked one of the others. Kes couldn’t quite keep them straight. They had a very different approach to the clone thing, and hadn’t strongly differentiated themselves, except for the prime, who was the only werewolf among them, and on the bridge.
“Thirty seconds,” said another Mette.
“A lot of those people are going to die no matter what,” said an Eggy, one of the more serious ones, maybe Hernietta.
“He’s not going to retreat,” said Kes, who was the resident expert on Perry. “If she goes after people, he’ll be there to stop her, even if there’s some risk to himself.” How much risk was in question though.
“And he wants the fight,” said one of the Mettes.
“He wants to end it,” said Kes with a nod. But it was true, Perry did want the fight, wanted struggle and victory, the same as Kes did. Only one of them was going to get it though.
The view of the fair went black. Their ‘cameras’ were positioned far enough back that they could see an odd black bubble, like a black hole in their perception. It was attached to Third Fervor, and jittered as she moved and portaled her way through. Perry leapt down from where he’d been watching and went right for it. From that point forward, they would see only the aftermath.
The black spot was surprisingly powerful. It didn’t just apply to past vision, future vision, and present vision, but to what felt like comparatively mundane things like video cameras. A camera brought into the black spot would show only black, and even if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be able to transmit out. Sound could be captured, but only sound, and it couldn’t be transmitted while the blocking effect was up. The details were something they were still in the midst of figuring out. The one big exception to those rules was Marchand, which might have been because he was partly magical, or partly alive, since the blocking effect didn’t seem to impact humans at all.
“Now we wait, I guess,” said Kes.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Eggy 6. She frowned. “We were in a contingency meeting last night, and the prospects are grim with Perry gone.”
“I wasn’t in that meeting,” said Kes.
“It was the just the Eggys,” said Eggy 6.
“The Carton,” said Kes.
“I’ll have you know that where I’m from, Eggletina is a very respectable and normal name,” said Eggy 6. “In fact —”
An alarm blasted through the ship, and everyone froze in place.
“Well shoot,” said Eggy 6, looking up at the ceiling. She wasn’t moving into action though, apparently leaving that to the others, who were tapping at their tablets and laptops.
“What is that?” asked Kes.
“System we set up a week ago,” said Eggy 6. The alarm was silenced, and there was a great deal of conversation in the secondary bridge. “Maybe get ready to fight.”
Kes had a handgun holstered on his hip, though if there was someone on the ship who wasn’t supposed to be there, he didn’t suspect that the gun would do a lot of good. Perry had all their best weapons.
“What’s the alarm?” asked Kes.
“We can’t track Fenilor,” said Eggy 6. “But we can track when we’re being blocked. So we have one of the ‘cameras’ set up pointed inside the ship, and if it ever gets blocked —”
The view of the main bridge went black.
There was silence in the room as people saw the screen showing nothing, then Kes got up from his seat and raced out the door.
He didn’t have a good plan. If Fenilor was on their ship, that was a major problem, and it was one that had no real solution. There were weapons they thought might be effective, but using any of them inside the ship had a high chance of killing everyone aboard. Not all of Fenilor’s armors could shrug off bullets like they were nothing, but if he was here, how long would it take him to shred through the crew?
When Kes opened the door to the bridge, half the crew were already dead. Fenilor was dressed in a shiny black vinyl outfit that bunched up around his joints with a fish bowl helmet. In his hand was a dagger that was dripping with something shimmering green.
Kes raised the gun and shot him three times, close range, center mass. Kes had been putting in time at their improvised gun range with both rifles and handguns, and it proved entirely unnecessary as far as hitting a target twenty feet away went, and also entirely ineffective, as the bullets vanished against the shiny black vinyl with a ripple in the material, leaving no trace the gun had even been fired save for the ringing in Kes’ ears.
Fenilor threw his dagger at Kes, and Kes raised an arm to block it. The dagger gouged him across the forearm, cutting through his shirt, and Kes felt a blossom of pain. He grabbed the dagger off the floor, and when he looked back up, Fenilor had a long blade, something that looked like a fencing sword, thin and slightly flexible. He was advancing on Hella.
“I need some information from you,” said Fenilor. “How is this ship accessed?”
“Eat shit,” said Hella.
“I’ve seen the doors you use,” said Fenilor. His voice was even. Kes gripped the dagger, waiting for his moment to strike, but Fenilor seemed fully aware of exactly where Kes was. “I don’t think there’s a need to kill everyone aboard this ship. But if that’s the way of negating this advantage, that’s what I’ll do. Tell me how he gets back aboard.”
Hella hesitated, and that’s when Kes knew that she would crumple. He glanced at the crew. Eggy Prime was dead, Mette Prime was slumped back in her chair, and the lizard guy L’onso was sprawled over his desk. His extra tongues were drooping out of his nose. But Cark and Nitta were still there, down on the ground with their hands over their heads, and Hella would try to save them.
“There, that console,” said Hella, pointing at it. “Destroy it and it will take us a week to rebuild.”
Fenilor nodded. He could tell truth from lies, or close enough that it didn’t matter. He went to the console and pulled a hammer from nowhere, then wound up to bring it down.
Kes had no particular plan, but if they couldn’t open up a door for Perry, it would be hours until Perry returned. Hopefully someone was already sending out a message to Marchand using the technopathy console, but for all Kes knew, that was located in this room and not able to be used from over the ship network. They hadn’t expected Fenilor to simply walk right onto their ship, however he had done it.
Kes lunged, using the knife, and found that his body betrayed him. His hand lost its grip and he collapsed to the ground. He was having trouble breathing.
“It’s a paralytic,” said Fenilor. He held his hammer in one hand and the foil in the other. He barely spared a glance at Kes. “They’re dangerous things. If you paralyze the diaphragm, the lungs will stop working, and if you paralyze the heart, it will stop beating.”
He brought the hammer down on the console, then dismissed it and turned back to Hella.
“Do you believe that renders you incapable of summoning Perry?” asked Fenilor.
“I do,” replied Hella.
“Hrm, a lie,” said Fenilor. “Unfortunate.” He reached to the side and the ghostly line of weapons appeared. It hovered there as he made his selection. He picked a gun and shot Cark in the head. Cark had already been on the ground, and his body jumped slightly, but he was quite dead. He hadn’t been cloned; they would have to get his blood, and soon. Hella had closed her eyes at the moment the gun fired. When she opened them and looked at Cark, she seemed sick to her stomach.
Kes was on the ground, barely able to do more than blink. He wanted to call out, to distract Fenilor so that Hella could make a move, to do anything. He would have transformed into a wolf if he could have, but he had no ability to moon blast himself, and couldn’t feel the Wolf Vessel inside of him either. He tried to draw on some hidden reserve of heroic will that would get the transformation to happen, but there was nothing.
“How many of your people will I have to execute?” asked Fenilor. “You’ve been watching me, as best you could. You’re Perry’s people. You understand that you cannot lie to me, don’t you?”
“What do you want from us?” asked Hella.
“Answer the question, but try honesty this time,” said Fenilor. “What needs to be done to cut this ship off from Perry?”
There was no help coming. L’onso had been the closest thing they had to muscle and he was paralyzed or dead. Hella had superpowers, and had apparently been something of a superhero on her own planet, but either she’d decided that this was a fight she was going to lose, or she was holding it back to surprise him with. Half her crew were dead though, and if there was a time to act, Kes had to hope that she would know it.
“If you’re here, we’re probably already cut off,” said Hella.
“We are?” asked Fenilor. He approached closer to her, blade held forward.
“So far as we understand that form of magic,” said Hella. “It blocks almost everything.”
“But once I’m gone,” said Fenilor. “If I leave this ship to you and take my leave. I need you to be sufficiently crippled that you cannot become a part of the coming battle. Not permanently — I’m not cruel — but in the short term, the next few days, as Perry and I have it out without outside interference.”
“There’s a way of talking to him,” said Hella. “We can send messages to his suit, and watch the world down there, the future and the past, to some extent.”
“Show me the systems,” said Fenilor, nodding. “Those too will be destroyed, and you will confirm for me this has been done.”
Hella let out a breath. “I need access to one of the consoles. These systems are all completely technological, basal physics, which doesn’t fail often. If we needed to contact him now, that’s what we would do, transmit a message the normal way, though radio. You can’t destroy something in the ship to stop that, there are consoles everywhere, and it’s probably not working right now given that you’re here and the alarm means your block is up, but I can eject the transmitter if need be.”
She was talking a lot. Kes hoped that she was trying to stall him, because that would mean that she had a plan. They were up in space, in orbit so they wouldn’t have to use the engines much, and for all he knew they were on the other side of the planet from Perry. If she was waiting for the orbit to line up so that they would be overhead, so that a radio signal could be transmitted, then in theory someone could put in a command of some kind, one that would fire off the transmitter. He had no idea whether or not she was lying, but Fenilor didn’t interrupt her.
“Go to the console,” he said. Then, right as she moved, “Wait.”
“What?” asked Hella. “I’m doing what you want.”
“Your intention is to jettison this … transmitter?” asked Fenilor.
Hella let out a breath and then blinked just a bit too long. It was only because Kes’ face had landed in the right orientation that he could see it. They were going to move to a different part of the crowded bridge though, and he wouldn’t even be able to see.
“Yes, I’ll jettison it,” said Hella.
“And why does the ship need such a function?” asked Fenilor.
“The ship is designed to lose pieces of itself,” said Hella. “It’s a defensive measure. Do you want me to do it or not? Because I would be perfectly fine not losing a valuable piece of equipment that we don’t have a hope of replacing on this world.”
She was acting too calm, too casual, but Kes had no idea where she was going with this. She hadn’t lied yet, not that Fenilor could detect, and that was something, but there must have been a play, something that she and only she could do from the console. Fenilor’s black spot screwed with wifi, but surely everyone else in the secondary bridge had some access and hadn’t left all their ability to control the ship concentrated in this single place.
“This sword can kill swiftly,” said Fenilor. He demonstrated, extending the sword an extra six feet, which happened so fast that there was a sharp crack like that of a whip. It had struck the wall of the ship, and while it hadn’t done much damage, the threat had been clear. Fenilor moved the point of the sword, pointing it at someone, who Kes thought was probably Nitta, given she was the last remaining hostage aside from Hella herself. Kes couldn’t see her though, even if he could hear her soft crying. Cark had been her long-time companion, when they had been traveling the multiverse with just the two of them.
“Noted,” said Hella.
“Eject it now,” said Fenilor. “Slowly.”
Hella went to one of the consoles, out of view of Kes. He tried to move his hands, to reach for the poisoned dagger, but his fingers only twitched. He had completely lost control of his body, and it was a wonder that he hadn’t been put to sleep. The rage was boiling up inside of him, mixed with a clawing terror. His heart was thundering in his chest, and it wasn’t actually helping him to do anything, because his body was simply not responding.
“I’ll kill you and everyone on this ship if you go against me,” said Fenilor. It wasn’t clear whether he was responding to some provocation or if he was simply speaking to the air.
“Jettisoning now,” said Hella. There was a clattering of keys from the workstation.
The front half of the bridge exploded outward.
Kes nearly blacked out as he went into the hard vacuum. The planet was miles below them, with a scattering of lights in the darkness, but the water on his eyes started foaming almost immediately, and pain was coursing through his body. He was blind, paralyzed, and dying, trying not to pass out, which was a battle he knew somewhere in the back of his brain was one that would be lost within seconds.
But floating out in the vacuum meant something else: exposure to moonlight.
The change happened quickly. The moonlight was stronger than he had ever felt it before, the moonlight washing over his body, the moon stronger, no atmosphere to diffuse it. It was like having a spotlight on him, and his body warped into its wolfish form. His clothes shredded and his teeth snapped. With the full moonlight going, the poison worked itself from his body quickly, and he twisted around, looking for prey.
Werewolves were not particularly more suited to the vacuum of space than humans. He moved his paws desperately, trying to get traction on nothing. He was partially blinded by whatever was happening to his eyes, and he could feel the heat inside him rising.
His body was healing, drawing on the power of the moonlight, even as he gasped for air. Hypoxia was killing him while moonlight was healing him. The liquids on the surface of his body were boiling off, sweat foaming up in his fur and coming from his eyes. He was desiccating, the rapid healing from the unadulterated moonlight not up for the task of keeping his eyes wet.
He didn’t have the intellectual capacity to understand any of what was happening to him. He thrashed and tried to howl into the void of space, twisting his body around, sweeping claws through the blackness. He was dying, and knew that instinctually, but there was nothing he could do about it.
He was flagging by the time he felt a hand on his neck. His heart was beating faster than it had ever beat before, and he was roasting hot. It was impossible to say how long he’d been floating there, but it had felt like years of being blind and enraged. He tried to snap at the hand gripping him on the back of his neck, but it was strong and firm, like his mother’s jaws when he was a puppy.
He was thrown against a hard floor, and a gasping breath gave him actual air. He placed his paws against the ground, trying to move, but found that he was too weak to rise. He was healing back from the damage, but the moonlight was good, and once he could see again, he realized that he was inside a dome, jailed as he’d been before, with no way to claw through the shield. It didn’t matter much though, because with the moonlight gone, the transformation couldn’t last, and he turned into his human form.
Kes lay there coughing for a long time, spitting up what felt like chunks of lung, wet pink pieces of something. There was no one in the room with him, but he recognized the brig.
“Help!” he called, but his voice was strangled and weak. He had healed back when the transformation had left him, but there were after effects. He crawled slowly to his feet, unsteady. “Help!” he tried again, and it was at least audible this time.
It was fifteen minutes later when Eggy 6 limped into the room. She had one of her legs bandaged, and there was a cut on her face that must have bled a lot.
“You okay?” she asked. He was naked, and she glanced down, but said nothing about it.
“I seem to be,” said Kes, though his voice felt unnaturally deep. “What happened? Is everyone alright?”
“Hella blew up the ship,” said Eggy 6. She leaned against the doorway and closed her eyes. “Just the bridge, but it was touch and go for the rest of us for a while. We’re stable now.” A lot of the energy had gone out of her. She was no longer sprightly, just exhausted. When she opened her eyes, they were wet. A lot had happened. Kes couldn’t help but think about the water of his eyes boiling in the vacuum.
“Who rescued me?” asked Kes. “Perry?”
“We’re out of contact with him,” said Eggy 6, shaking her head. “We got a message out before everything went to hell, but the technopath method is completely shot, the radio transmitter is down, and it’ll be a few days before we can open a door again. The last resort is physical propulsion to get down to the surface, but in the state we’re in, we don’t really want to try it.”
“I’m surprised the ship has a ‘blow up the bridge’ button,” said Perry.
“It doesn’t,” said Eggy 6. She looked him up and down. “Hella used an overload function. The way she tells it, she had to jettison the radio transmitter to trick him — tell him the truth, that is — and then it was just a case of inputting a few commands. Now, we don’t have a blow-up-the-bridge function, but apparently she had figured out the overload weeks ago and scripted it up, just in case.”
“She’s alive?” asked Perry.
“Who do you think flew out into space and saved you?” asked Eggy 6. “She was the only one who could survive the decompression event. Which is why it’s sort of shitty to set up a decompression event that’s going to kill everyone else.”
“I don’t know what her other options were,” said Kes. “Throw herself on the mercy of Fenilor? Cark was already dead. L’onso was probably dead too. Mette Prime —”
“Just paralyzed, like you,” said Eggy 6. “She was saved before you because of the thresholder thing. Nitta is in the infirmary, since she was grabbed and thrown into the exterior airlock in a handful of seconds. It’s not clear she’s going to make it. She had outer layers of skin on, which might have saved her, but we don’t really know, and there isn’t a doctor for her species within a dozen worlds of us — rhetorically, anyway, because we’re going to have to work night and day to get the worldhopper up and running again.” She let out a long sigh. “Not what I thought this was going to be, when I signed up.” It wasn’t clear whether she meant this world or the whole Farfinder mission.
“Any chance I can get out of here?” asked Kes, looking at the dome that surrounded him.
“Oh, right,” said Eggy 6. She hit a control switch and the bubble dropped. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” said Kes. He looked down. He was naked. “Clothes would be nice.”
“Of course,” said Eggy 6.
“And Fenilor?” asked Kes. “I don’t suppose he died?”
“Hella fought him for a bit,” said Eggy 6. “He’s just about on her level out in space. He doesn’t have the tools for locomotion, and she can fight at range, which is harder for him. I don’t know all the details. Some of it was on video, but most of it wasn’t. I think it eventually came down to either saving you and Mette Prime, or going after him, and she chose to save you. So far as I know, he made it back down to the planet the slow way. If he burned up on reentry, we think the portal would have popped for Mette, but obviously it takes a while. We think he had enough tricks in his bag to make it down.”
“Are you okay?” asked Kes, looking her up and down again.
“Fine,” she said. “Getting knocked sideways in a spaceship is a sign that something has gone really horribly wrong.” She touched the wound on her head, and her fingers came away sticky. “That one was a bleeder.”
“I meant more … psychologically,” said Kes. “I know they were friends.”
“They should have cloned,” she replied. She gave a very angry shrug. “Cark was adamant that he didn’t want a clone running around. He preferred there to be only one of him. L’onso was more on the fence, but we don’t have any of his blood, and even if we could, the machine has been destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” asked Kes. “By Fenilor?”
“We don’t even know how he got on the ship,” said Eggy 6. “We don’t know if the blackout happened when he appeared, or if he was here for a while, hiding so well that we couldn’t even detect him. We think he might have hitched a ride in with the queen, or that she brought some kind of attenuated magic item with her, but we have no real clue, which means that it’s possible that he can return at any time. The queen had nothing for us, but interrogating her isn’t a priority. For now, we’re assuming that he can’t, but he doesn’t really have a reason to, because the Farfinder is crippled, and it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to repair. He got what he wanted.”
“And Perry,” said Kes. “Did he win against Third Fervor?”
“We don’t know,” said Eggy 6. “We assume so. But Fenilor is coming for him, and probably very quickly. He’s going to have no backup from us.”
“We need to get down there, to the planet surface,” said Kes. “We need to help.”
“I’m sorry, but we’re licking our wounds,” said Eggy 6. She frowned at him. “You understand that you were in hard vacuum for multiple minutes? You survived only because Hella did her best to make sure we were in the shadow of the planet. And even then, if the moon had been in a different position, you’d have lasted seconds, like a normal person.”
“I know,” said Kes. “But if there’s a chance I can help, then that’s what I need to do.”
Eggy 6 sighed. “Not my call. But if you can convince Hella to risk what’s left of this ship, then you’re fine to spend your life doing what you want.” She looked down at his crotch. “Let’s get you some clothes first though.”
Comments
jarwain
Urgh executive dysfunction story of my life. Always happy to chat about it, although some of my methods for addressing it are a bit unorthodox
Jah
Great chap
Nick
We are so back. I mean, terrible for our protagonists, but it's good you're feeling up to writing again - take it easy.
iridium248
Fenilor really is the Man.
Leaf
Dang. That was a good chapter.
Daniel Keogh
Good chapter.
