At 04:28 PM 6/23/99 GMT, Gary Kleppe wrote:

Alan Harnum <harnums@thekeep.org> wrote:

Waters Under Earth

About time. We were about ready to send the wild dogs after ya....

Yar, do your worst.  ;p

Waters Under Earth at Transpacific Fanfiction:  
http://www.humbug.org.au/~wendigo/transp.html

You mean the page that *still* has the links to your old site?

They'll be taken down soon enough, I'm sure.  :)

    She was drowning.  Not in water - oh, what she would have
given now to drown in water - but in the dead.  They were
everywhere, rotting and yet horribly alive.  Bloated fingers and
bony claws grasped at her, raked savagely at her skin, dragged 
her under so that the carrion stench overwhelmed even the smoke of
the burning sky.  There seemed to be no end to the dead; each
time she tried desperately to find purchase, it was only upon the

There's irony for ya... Nabiki with all that yen but can't make a
purchase. :)

Ahh, Gary.  I've missed your horrible puns.  ;p

    Slowly, they rose.  The Guide helped Soun, who could barely
walk under his own power.  Akari had the same distant look in her
eyes that she'd carried since Ryugenzawa; it seemed as though she 
was not entirely here, as if she looked if into some more distant
place.

Hog heaven? :)

-.-;;;

    "Miss, not make that one angry."  The Guide's voice was 
soft, almost infinitely compassionate.  "He very dangerous.  We
go now."

If she has a son, she's probably not a 'Miss.' :)

I would use 'Madam', but that sounds even worse.  :)

    The brothers were dead now.  Both of them.  And that 
meant...

    Again my power is returned to me.  
    
    He turned, unable to resist.  The voice of the dragon spoke
like his own thoughts.  Her eyes were open, aching blue.  All 
the oceans were in there, swallowing him up, him and Ranma
Saotome both, down into the sea.

I found the action in this scene kinda confusing. Maybe it's just
because I need to reread the earlier chapters to remember all the
details on the players.

I'll see what I can do to clarify, if anything.  

    And then she felt Samofere die, felt his power smash down
upon her like a wave, matched by her grief.  Dead, her soul cried
out, my love, my love is dead.  

So don't join the fight or anything like that.... :)

The time for grieving is later.  

    For the second time in less than a day, she wished that she
were still able to weep, but

But? Was this supposed to just end abruptly like this?

Yup.

    And died, as a spear burning white-hot ripped through its
chest.  Mousse came down seemingly from nowhere, riding upon a
steed translucent as water.  He seemed nearly translucent as 
well, sunlight shining through him as he rode and killed

Okay, I guess these endings are intentional. Personally, I'd put a ....
but that's just me.

Well, I'm really going for one scene actually joining into another; I even
considered not using the ********** dividers between them, but decided that
was ultimately too confusing.

    She and her troops struck from behind, with spear and sword
and bow, killing half of the Joketsuzoku's attackers in a single

I presume you mean the ones attacking Joketsuzoku, rather that the
attackers belonging to Joketsuzoku. This confused me at first read.

Yup.  Will clarify.

    Ahead, he could hear the sounds of fighting, see the 
battling winged shapes in the air.  Rogen had organized and
readied the troops from both the married and unmarried men, but
the Musk would not move without orders from their king.  Which 
was him, now.  The pain of losing both his parents within days
was an everpresent, dull ache now.  There would be time enough to
hear the full story of his father's death after they had smashed
the invaders, but he had already been told enough to guess that
his father's hand had likely been the one to take his own life.

Well, it wouldn't be his own life if it were someone else's hand....
Suggest changing this to 'guess that his father's life had ended by his
own hand' or something else.

Will do that.

    One of the women - Yoko's guards, obviously - raised her 
hand and shouted a word that was lost in the clamour of the
combat.  Darkness shrouded her fingers and shot forth in a stream
of blades.  Wiyeed threw up her hands, and the blades broke
against her shielding.  The other guards were turning now, 
raising their own hands.  Sorceresses, then; easier to learn than

Sorceresses were easier to learn? Suggest rewording that.

Will do that as well.

    "It's me, Cologne," Happosai panted.  His eyes looked into 
hers.  "Found you at last."  He blinked.  "Have you been crying?"

    "He's dead," she muttered.
    
    "Who's dead?"
    
    "No one you ever knew or cared about."

Well, THAT doesn't narrow it down much... :)

Be nice.  :)

    "You are my daughter, and I should be able to forgive you.
But... what you did dishonours yourself and me.  I cannot."

    "Fine."

"But perhaps I *could* forgive you, for the right fee. How does eight
thousand yen sound?"

"This is for all those years I charged you to let you give me a goodnight
kiss, isn't it, Dad?"

    Rouge kicked him.  Hard.  He flew through the air, hit the
ground, rolled, and ended up crumpled against a stalagmite with 
his body aching.  

Is this human Rouge, or Ashura-Rouge?

Human Rouge.  The spirit from the Ashura-pool has possessed her human body
as of Chapter 36.

Well, it was worth the long wait. :) As always, the writing was very
vivid and evocative. It seemed like sometimes clarity of action was
sacrificed in favor of atmosphere, but it may be that I'm forgetting
things I should know about the NCs from the early chapters.

This is the problem of a series this long.  :/

Much of the chapter was meant to be confused and chaotic, however, to evoke
the confusion and chaos of a large-scale battle.  I did my best to make
everything as clear as possible while maintaining the necessary atmosphere.

Anyway, thanks for the commentary, Gary; now hopefully the next chapter
won't take as long.  ^_^

Ciao,
-Alan Harnum