The plot is really thickening now!  Awesome work!


 > "Oh, wow!  Carlina Val Cassanda?  She's incredible!

Heh.  Tighten that screw:  Usagi going fan-crazy
about Rei's long-time enemy...


 >      Whatever reply I was about to make died in my
 > throat as the shapes twirled easily in the air,
 > coming together.  I froze as something
 > began to take shape in the air, something familiar.
 >    The key.  They were forming the shape of the key.

This didn't quite work for me, somehow.  Maybe it's
that I can't quite picture this, but having Ranma
take off like a shot from this seemed weak.  You
might try reworking the description a bit; did the
succubi form an outline of the key?  A solid key?
Did it rotate, so that the Warden could see it from
whereever in the city he happened to be?
Alternatively, you might just have the real key give
Ranma a tug; presumably, once aligned with it, it
gives Ranma notice of outbreaks of the Dark or
something.


 >      Well, she had it.  But she wasn't going to be
 > able to handle it.

And this seems odd too.  When did Ranma get so
confident that he can see off the vampire by
himself?  He has every reason to think otherwise,
as far as we know, and in fact DID think otherwise,
back when he confided his trap plan to the senshi
rather than carrying it out alone.


 > He may have come here from beyond the Zero Limit."
 >     "Oh, my," Hild breathed, turning the full force
 > of her derisive amusement upon the girl.  "That's
 > the thread of hope you've chosen to cling to?  You
 > were there, my dear.  You saw space and time rent
 > asunder by forces beyond the control of even those
 > you served.  There are no longer any worlds beyond
 > this sphere's Zero Limit.  This is it, Peorth.
 > This is all that remains."

Interesting.  Similar to, but slightly different
from, the implications of Illianka's words from
chapter 18.  Illianka and Dragon believe that this
sphere is the only non-Dark place left; Hild believes,
or at least wants Peorth to think she believes, that
no other place exists at all.  Could Hild have
misinterpreted Illianka's breaking of the hyperlinks
as the total destruction of all else?


 > But Dragon is not at the pretender's side.

Heh.  So what's Hild's rationale going to be when Dragon
changes his mind?  Which, I think, may yet happen...


 > The circle spanned the entire width and breadth of
 > the cold stone chamber, blood red lines connecting
 > the contained patterns.  It was a work of the most
 > sublime art, a mystic design that incorporated
 > powers lost to even the strongest of this world's
 > magick users.

A magic circle?  The ONLY thing we've seen those
used for is to move between dimensions, so it seems
possible that Wynneth's plan involves opening a
hyperlink to someplace else, possibly my first guess:
Wynneth's plan has to do with Shadow, perhaps to move
something large from it to here (something, perhaps,
in the sky?  Something which, at Baniesti, occupies
the "same" space as something else of similar size
and mass?)  And the Voice's plan is darker yet?  We
don't know if the Voice accepts the premise that only
this sphere remains.


 > ...as she sensed the nearness of a familiar
 > darkness.  Yes, it should make landfall within the
 > quarter hour, providing the final impetus for her
 > spell.

Interesting...


 > She wanted those girls.  She needed them.
 >     It was time to set in motion the next stage of
 > her plan.
 >     She reached out to a knot of slumbering minds,
 > kindling them to full wakefulness, then to a roiling
 > maelstrom of rage.

These would be the wraithes which pour out of the
Sphere in the next scene...

Also, I'm not sure we yet know WHY wynneth thinks she
needs all the Senshi.  Presumably they play a part in her
plan, but in what way?  Previously we'd been given to
understand that Wynneth has specific plans for Hotaru.


 >      Hild would soon learn not to trifle with her
 > betters.

Now this is certainly odd, that a vampire, no matter
how old, thinks herself the better of the top demoness,
who should be the equal of any of the gods.
This does not seem to be the thoughts of the Voice,
either, given the lack of caution evident here.

In fact, where is the Voice?  Busy perhaps?  Its
attention preoccupied by, say, the prayers of its
followers, suddenly subject to a unprecedented
attack?


 > "His entire branch of the family died in that
 > incident in Haakan Province some years back

Heh.  Handy accident, that, if someone wanted to
assume the guise of someone else...


 > A sudden storm was bearing down on the city,
 > catching the Royal Weather Service with their pants
 > down.  That usually meant magick...

Wynneth's, to be specific, this being the dark item
she is awaiting the landfall of...


 > "The sphere was linked subspatially with a
 > subterranean source, deep under the city.  It looks
 > like the other source was within ... some sort of
 > structure?"
 >     "A tower," Hild sighed, a feeling of dread
 > settling over her.  "Silkaine's stronghold within
 > Vasta Min.  The rumours were true."

Heh.  Gee, why did we somehow suspect that Vasta
Min wasn't such a conspiracy theory after all?
So much for Mars' being the perceptive one regarding
ancient history...


 >      "Silkaine linked the sphere to his Halo
 > Generator, and now ..."  Hild stared pensively at
 > the last readings captured by Peorth's sensors
 > before everything had gone dark.
 >    "Wait.  Vasta Min?  These intact structures are
 > part of a Genrous stronghold?  And those readings,
 > if they are some sort of deep subspatial gate
 > system ... it was operational!  All this time!"
 >    "At a very low level," Hild conceded.  "But now
 > the destruction of the sphere has blown the damned
 > thing wide open.  If the human queen thought she
 > had monster problems before, she is in for quite a
 > nasty shock."

And now we know the purpose of all that musing over
where monsters come from in chapter 18...

But this seems to give the lie to Hild's earlier
pose.  She has known, apparently, that this gateway
to the Darkness Outside has been operational ever
since the Genrous, i.e. for a couple of thousand
years at least.  Or does she think monsters come
from as-yet-unmentioned dimension of this sphere?


 > Even back before the cataclysm that had stranded
 > them here, in this last, lonely sphere...

Again with the "only" sphere bit...  So Peorth
herself really believes it too, at least in her
pessimistic moods.


 > Records from the period between the disappearance
 > of the Keymakers and the rise of the Wardens were
 > sketchy, unreliable, as chaos had overtaken
 > civilisation.

Heh.  Nice echoes of Rei's and Ami's musings back
in chapter 9, except with a vastly expanded time
scale.  We're probably talking hundreds of thousands
of years here.



 > ...then this boy was something older than a Warden.
 > Something wilder.
 >     Takzvyrmishammir.
 >     Fist of the Tempest Dragon.

Heh.  Same name from chapter 18, where we understood
it to be the name of an Underlord.  Can the two
references be reconciled?

Underlords existed in this world earlier than the gods,
and were driven out by the gods, and cannot be summoned
back if their names are forgotten.  Ranma knows this
name.  Peorth's references are to entities who existed
earlier than the gods, at least in this world, and were
superceded by Wardens, whom the gods served.
And it certainly looks as if one has been summoned back to
Gaea...



 >     "Nameless," she whispered.
 >     "Majesty?"  Tam's face was ghost white, but
 > she had no time.  It was coming.
 >     "Raine!  CLEAR THE WATCH!"

My first reading of this line indicated that Kendra
was up on the Watch, alone, when it was riven by
black lightning, but that need not be the case.  She
could be saying "get everyone off the watch and down
into the shelters below the palace" rather than
saying that she's going to climb up to the Watch
alone to duel the Nameless with Galiraithe.  So she
may not yet be dead.


 > Those terrible lances of power momentarily formed
 > a pattern within the maelstrom, something clearly
 > artificial

So Wynneth summoned not just the storm, but something
inside it.  Something like, say, Crimson Thorn, perhaps?
Something known to the Queen as "The Nameless", at
any rate.  And, now that I think about it, the natural
supposition about Galiraithe's origin, given the
Queen's thought, is that it came from Desidinder,
but she doesn't say so.  It might equally well
have come from Crimson Thorn.


 >     And then V's world was filled with the sight
 > of an onrushing dragon, blazing with brilliant
 > blue fire.

Well, _maybe_ this is a dramatic development; but
given your last few cliffhangers, my bet is that
Fenrir is right behind V, out of her line of sight,
and Ranma is doing the old "aiming just over the
good guy's shoulder to hit the bad guy behind her"
trick.


Anyway, thank you VERY much for writing and
sharing, and I am very much looking forward to the
next chapter(s); whenever they may be coming out.






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