At 01:48 PM 7/18/99 -0700, Patrick McClanahan wrote:

    Rune continued.  "Your companions from Earth.  The three
priestesses as well, if they are willing to forego returning to
their sanctuary for a while longer."

	"Oh, you know, all the main characters. I'll throw in some
red-shirts in case there's trouble."

"You will, of course, have an entourage of servants who are perfect for
sending to investigate strange noises, dark caves, and mysterious smells."

    Heart-Slayer paused a few steps from Nahato, and then began 
to back away.  The flakes of stone upon the floor were drawn to 
him again, and became his skin.  He stepped back into the wall.
The debris of the fallen stones vanished.

	Nice scene. Very nice scene.

Thank you.

    "We're too weak to fight another war of conquest," Jinnai
mused.  "And a guerilla war isn't my style.  We definitely need
some sort of weapon to tilt the scales in our favour.  Got any 
more Demon-Gods buried somewhere?"

	Yech. Unbidden visions of the 2nd OVA series. Granted, a scene like
this was pretty much inevitable anyway.

<nod>

I haven't seen the second OVA series, and don't really want to.  I'm trying
not to step too much into the territory it covers, but it wasn't really
avoidable here.

    He had meant it mostly as a joke, but Deva nodded seriously.
"Yes, I suppose."  A note of bitterness entered her voice.  "The
Demon-God and myself are sisters of a sort.  We are both products
of the Great Holy Wars."

	Now that's a good plot twist.

I think it to be pretty plausible, as well.

    "God's will be done," Jinnai said.  Frankly, he didn't know
for certain if God existed or not.  But if He did, He was quite 
definitely on Katsuhiko Jinnai's side.

	Hehe.

Adorable little megalomanical psychotic, ain't he?  ^_^

	Throughout this scene, Deva's adoration of Jinnai seems a bit too
strong, given the obvious defeat he's just been dealt. 

Well, she still seemed quite pleased with him near the end of the first OVA
series.  For the queen of an empire, Deva is pretty bloody naive.

Her character always

seemed to fear him more than like him. 

Hmm... I'll have to say that hasn't been my impression.  She seems to be
quite attracted to him on several occasions.

Unless there's something going on

under the surface with her, which wouldn't surprise me.

Deva's still clinging to the hope that Jinnai is going to be the saviour of
the Bugrom.  Considering what the Eye of God did to the Bugrom homeland,
she doesn't have much else to cling to.

    Somewhere along the line, Shayla had gotten a fourth cup of
wine.  "You know what the problem is?"  She banged her fist on
the table.  "Men are intimidated by women with power, that's what
it is.  They want some little tart, or someone they have to wind
up with some sort of big key, or something... they can't stand 
you being independent.  That's why we're all going to end up
bitter old maids.  Men are jerks."

	"Someone they have to wind up," indeed. A perfect line for an
inebriated Shayla.

She needs to rationalize her statement that men don't like women with power
with the fact that Makoto is in love with Ifurita.  :)

    Slowly, the clouds of sand settled.  The bubbles left in the
wake of the rising disappeared.  The fish returned to the 
trench, and business resumed as usual at the bottom of the sea.

	Whoa. I just saw a 3D IMAX film of the sea floor yesterday, so this
scene was WAY too vidid for me. Freaky coincidence.

Coincidence?  Yes, that's right.  That's all it was.  A coincidence... 

	An excellent second chapter, all round. It feels more like an
extension of the first chapter, really, which seems to set the stage for a
fairly large bit of work. Is there an end in your head?

Yup.  A fairly detailed outline of the plot as well, and plans for possible
sequels.

Thanks for the comments.

Ciao,
-Alan Harnum