Again, sorry about the delay in getting to this.

In a message dated 7/22/02 1:37:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ibchu@global.net.au writes:

Hi. I nearly passed this up, but I'm glad I didn't. I really enjoyed this 
and after reading your last post to the list I thought I should get off my 
arse and actually try to do some C&C. I really liked some of your word 
choices and the fight scene with John was extremely well done: I'd love to 
see something like that in anime or CG. Anyway, some more specific things.

       I'm feeling a bit bad about letting my frustrations get away from me. 
It smacks of whining. Anyhow, I'm glad you liked the story.

        Some days after his emergence from his most recent hibernation 
Asmodeus discovered a fresh, unsoiled village of mortals, nestled in a 
dry valley at the periphery of his territory. He wondered briefly how 
such a delicacy could have escaped his notice, but dismissed it as 
irrelevant- his fractured, fetid mind possessed but little capacity for 
intelligent conjecture. He concealed himself on the valley's stony slopes 

through the force of his will and for three days watched the village 
inhabitants go about their routines, tending their fields of corn and 
patches of vegetables, maintaining their domiciles, raising their 
offspring. Sometimes he would send out his thought and follow closely one 

mortal or another for hours at a time, an invisible voyeur delighting in 
the observation of the most private and intimate moments of these tiny 
lives. Asmodeus masturbated vigorously several times during his watch, 
taking immense pleasure in the anticipation of the sport to come, when he 

revealed his magnificent, sublime presence. How he would glut and satiate 

himself on them...

I really like this introductory paragraph, it really captured my interest.

       Thank you.

        On the early morning of the fourth day, as the village men walked 
to the fields to begin their day's labor, Asmodeus exercised his will and 

transformed each kernel of corn into a locust. The newborn insects moved 
about as they pumped ichor into their wings, rustling through the 
stillborn corn husks, chirping lustily.

Another list member questioned the use of newborn here, but I think it 
helps emphasize the creation of the locusts.

       We'll see when I get around to revising in a day or so.

        Asmodeus ignored his new and sudden converts, turning his 
depraved attention to the fugitives. He reached out with his thought and 
invoked forth gnomes. Rude, inchoate forms burst from the ground before 
the runners and caught them in unyielding grasps. A few gnomes Asmodeus 
molded into earth-brown satyrs, as lusty and tumescent as their master. 
They threw down their captives, fell upon them and raped them. Shrieks of 

pain, terror and shame reverberated against the valley walls. Asmodeus 
brayed in pleasure, jumping up and down, stroking himself in glee- he was 

an ultimately infantile creature, almost monomaniacally obsessed with the 

most warped facets of sexuality. A depraved id, black, twisted, by 
unhappy chance given both divinity and flesh.

I like this description, but I'm not quite sure why. I get an image of a 
black monolith in my head when I read that sentence.

       With apes dancing around it and throwing leg bones, no doubt. ;) 

clumps. The woman rose to her feet, transformed, meeping and whining. Her 
red, rheumy eyes fell on her daughter and she leaped at the young girl, 
catching her up and carrying her into the huts. The girl screamed once, 
truncated by a gurgle. Wet tearing sounds and hideous slavering emanated.

I think this bit would work better without the semen drenching -it seems a 
bit...juvenile? But I don't think just the thrusting would work completely 
either. Maybe you can stick some sort of physical contact in there? This is 

all in my own opinion of course.

       I thought about removing it but I think I'm going to keep it. 
Highlights the depravity of Asmodeus. 

        Then, suddenly, without warning, silence, save for the braying 
laughter. Asmodeus stopped and looked around in confusion, his bulbous 
eyes blinking. The screams of terror, the moans of fear, the pleas for 
clemency, all so pleasing to his deviant sensibilities, had quieted. The 
villagers stood frozen in various positions and tableaus, unmoving as 
iron, statues of flesh. Bewildered, Asmodeus touched a nearby woman with 
his knobby finger. The color of her hair, her flesh, her clothes leached 
out of her in an instant. She crumbled apart, falling into a pile of fine 

soil. In chain reaction the rest of the mortals followed suit, 
desiccating into dust. The gnomes searched stupidly for their captives, 
the satyrs stood, seeking fresh flesh to ravish. With a confused snarl 
Asmodeus banished his minions. They became one with the dirt their prey 
had become.

        "Where are they?" Asmodeus yelled in a shrill, whining tenor, 
like that of a petulant child denied his want. "Where are my toys, my 
diversions, my sweetmeats?" He stretched out with all his senses, seeking 

and prying- cutting through veils of reality with nigh omniscient 
perception. The crude wood walled, mud plastered huts around him wavered 
and dissipated, shimmering out of existence like heat-wrought mirages. A 
hum filled the air, resonant and crackling. A dome of translucent, 
prismatic power encompassed the grounds of the illusory village. Asmodeus 

screamed in outrage; this imprisonment was not of his will. "What IS 
this?" he shrieked out in demand.

I could see the last two paragraphs very clearly, from the village becoming 

dust to the dome being revealed by As' fury. Well done.

       Thanks. 

        Asmodeus whirled at the sound of the deep, hoarse baritone. An 
unfamiliar god stood before him, broad, massive, a good half foot taller 
than he. He wore an outfit of red and black, trimmed with gold, his flesh 

was tanned bronze- a striking contrast to the toad's belly pallor of 
Asmodeus. Strong looking arms were folded across a broad chest. His hair 
was a thick, wild shock of black, bound in a ponytail that fell to his 
lean waist, thrown over a shoulder. He stroked at it with one hand as he 
looked with stoic contempt at Asmodeus with piercing, icy blue eyes. A 
momentary apprehension fluttered in the Mad God's chest, a short-lived 
butterfly, killed as insanity reasserted.

There were comments about John's appearance from others that I agree with. 
From this description I get the impression of  some opulent, arrogant 
Roman god that would be the sort to have a grand marble house, feast every 
night on eight different kinds of meat and get serviced by his slave girls 
-not a star weary wanderer.

     That settles it, I'm going to revise John's appearance. 

        "So," he whinnied, leering at the stranger, lolling his long, 
sinuous tongue. "I might have known another god was interfering. I've 
never seen your like before. You have a strange... scent about you. It is 

sharp and chill, alien yet familiar. I think you are an expatriate, one 
of those who made exodus to the stars so very long ago. Why have you 
returned, and what have you done with my morsels?"

        "They never existed," the stranger answered, ignoring the first 
question. "They were simulacrums molded from the earth, like your 
abominations. They were bait, nothing more, existing only to excite a Mad 

God's lust."

        "I see. You are powerful... or at least... subtle... to be able 
to fool me so well. But it shall avail you not." Asmodeus lunged at the 
stranger, transforming as he leapt. His outline wavered, stretched, arms 
shriveling and retracting, legs merging together. He became a gigantic 
serpent, his coils as thick as an ancient oak's trunk. Venom bubbled 
along his fangs, smoking in contact with the air. His scales were jeweled 

hue, shimmering, hypnotizing, lambent in the sunlight. He became the very 

incarnation of Damballah, and with lighting speed wound around the 
stranger, catching him in a crushing grasp. The stranger did not flinch, 
did not even make an attempt to dodge, but simply stood still, 
expressionless, unbowed by the great weight of the serpent entrapping 

him.

        Asmodeus giggled, an obscenity begot by an obscenity. His bowed 
his blunt nosed, arrow shaped head to his captive's ear and whispered, "I 

have you. You are trapped, encompassed by both my form and my will. You 
can neither escape nor defeat me. But I am merciful, and will offer you 
salvation. Swear fealty to me, sacrifice a tithe of your power, and I 
will use you but gently and briefly, then let you go. What do you say?" 
Asmodeus was lying, of course. He was no more capable of forthrightness 
as he was of chastity. The stranger did not answer. He looked out at the 
far horizon, emotionless and unwavering.

The dialogue between As and John is great. As' lines especially give us a 
tantalizing glimpse of the world and into his head.

       Thanks again.

        "Then suffer for your stoicism," declared Asmodeus. "You will beg 
me for mercy, before all is over." He began to constrict, exerting a 
strength that could break the bones of the earth in time. The stranger 
exhaled sharply, closing his eyes. Asmodeus giggled sibilantly, and 
applied greater pressure. He suddenly felt the flux of an energy pulse. 
The stranger transformed himself into a statue of solid, burnished 
adamant, blazing in the sun, inviolate and indestructible. Asmodeus 
goggled. This was impossible. The stranger was entrapped both physically 
and spiritually. There was no way he could be able to perform such a feat 

of power.

        Then the stranger exuded razor-sharp spikes from his metallic 
body, impaling Asmodeus in two-dozen places. The Mad God hissed loudly, 
more from shock than from pain. The spikes grew barbs. Asmodeus writhed, 
agony coursing a lighting trail, from nose to tail and back again, all 
thoughts of impossibilities banished from his mind.

        The spikes began to rotate, twisting in their wounds. Asmodeus 
screamed. The sound of the Mad God's pain split the open the valley 
slopes, shattered stones to powder. In desperation he transformed, 
converting from solid to gas, becoming a cloud of mist that wafted free 
of the ripping spikes. Pain receded quickly from his consciousness, until 

all that remained was a bitter memory of humiliation and a burning anger. 

He hovered above the stranger, cursing him with silent thoughts that 
nevertheless charged the air. The stranger retracted his spike, 
transparent reddish blood sloughing from them, and looked up almost 
casually at the cloud of vile black vapors hanging above. Asmodeus 
transformed again, gas transmutating into liquid; an acid, one hundred 
times stronger than any natural to this world. He rained down on the 
Earth, but not on the stranger- he vanished into thin air.

I said it at the beginning, but I'll say it again: VERY nice battle scene. 
I actually saw the blades rotating around the statue at first, slicing up 
serpent As, but now that I reread it, it seems that the blades were 
actually spinning in place.

       Yup, they rotate on their axis.

        They were crystalline in composition, and varied in form: 
spindles, decahedrons, rectangles, multi-faceted spheres and more. They 
glowed with a subtle light, silvery and chill, akin to starlight. 
Satellites in miniature, they swiftly orbited around him, caught by the 
gravity of his power. Asmodeus snatched one from the air and it burned 
him with a coldness that made the pain inflicted by the stranger's spikes 

the lightest of discomforts. He released it and shot a force bolt to 
obliterate it. The bolt split into shards, each flying to a stone, which 
absorbed the energy unharmed. Each stone glowed briefly, emitting an 
almost inaudible hum of contentment.

        Asmodeus knew now he was trapped, immured by a crystalline prison 

more secure then any subterranean dungeon. He was rendered impotent, 
another situation novel to his existence. Asmodeus could not help 
himself; he began to laugh. Low chuckles first, graduating to loud 
laughs, then to ear splitting peals more hysteria than mirth. He was 
screaming now as he dashed his head against a stone embedded in the 
ground, splitting open his head, spilling out his blood and brains out on 

the dry earth, his skull knitting back together and his brain 
regenerating as fast as he could crack and spend them.

Showing the Ioun stones as having varied shapes was a nice touch. Also, 
watching As bash his head open again and again is a great way to show his 
power and his insanity and the same time.

       Well, I can't take much credit for the ioun stones, they've been 
around for years. 

I found the background info that follows very interesting and made me want 
more. One thing I think it could of used was a mention of how the Mad Gods 
interacted with each other.

Are you planning on writing anymore of this?

       I have some story ideas, but I'm refraining from writing them down 
right now. As I've stated I'm going to send this story out to various fantasy 
magazines, starting with Weird Tales, and I want to see if it can find a home 
before I devote energy to sequels. On that note I hope the story is 
self-contained while being open-ended. I think I've succeeded but then I'm 
not the best judge of my own work.  

-Bobby

       Thanks for your time and tolerance,

 Jeremy Harper



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'