Time for a new chapter! Confrontation in Pinada Wing! Kim, you’re killing it; I’m getting one done a week now! Keep it up!
Now for the summary:
Mean and Trisk have been training at Tenny’s Tower for one month. Parlay, after watching Darrow through a hex door camera, realizes that Tome is actually a spirit. As we all well know, spirits can be trouble, so Parlay decides to call Darrow and his friends together so he can determine who this mystery person is.
Parlay meets them in the Pinada Wing of the Brinkland National Museum. (Kim will probably get upset now because I don’t mention the museum’s name in the chapter at all.) He exposes Tome as the Traitor Sing, a criminal that caused a comet to crash into the planet. Darrow defends Tome and Parlay smashes the crown that Tome was using to communicate. As Parlay attacks Darrow himself, Tome possesses Parlay for a brief moment to stop him. Tome speaks through Parlay’s body and apologizes for not telling him the truth. Darrow forgives him. Parlay escapes.
At the start of the chapter Parlay peeks through the hex door camera.
- Parlay slammed his fist on the desk. “Two! There are two people there! Pyramid, analyze all pattern activity at that location. Search for visual deceptions, magicate spoofing, and vein tampering.”
- Kim – Right word here?
Kim’s note was pointed at ‘magicate spoofing.’ And I even added that line before I gave the chapter to her. I figured that since Parlay is an original inhabitant of the planet, I should have him use some more technical terms for how magic works. Tome uses ‘magicate’ earlier in the book too.
Weird that Kim didn’t question my use of the word ‘vein.’ That term isn’t explained until a later chapter.
Now Darrow, Dark, and Tome arrive at the museum.
- Darrow looked at the statue on the right, which was surrounded by a glass case that was square on every side.
- Kim – Not sure what this means. Is it just a square glass case?
Yeah. What’s confusing about that? I could just call it a cube-shaped case I guess.
Darrow starts to describe the area to Tome so he can figure out where they are.
- “He’s wearing glasses and winter clothes.” Darrow read from a pedestal plaque: “‘The Hero Pinada.’”
- Kim – If he’s just going to repeat what’s in the narrative, could just make the description all dialogue for Tome’s sake.
See, before Darrow says that line, I have a paragraph of narrative that describes Pinada’s appearance at length. His coat, his scarf, his fingers too. Kim just wants Darrow to say all of that himself. But would Darrow go into that much detail? Maybe Dark would. I’ll think about it.
- “This one’s called ‘The Traitor Sing.’” The face of this statue sneered over at the likeness of Pinada with a chin thick with stubble and baggy skin around his eyes.
- Kim – No reaction from Tome at all during this scene?
Ha,ha, no! Tome won’t react because… Tome IS the Traitor Sing! He’d give himself away!
Wait, did you put that note there before you found out? Or after? Did you want Tome to gasp or something?
- Darrow reached over and felt the wool coat. “Why doesn’t this Traitor Sing statue have a case around it?”
- Kim – Does this ever get answered?
Zounds! What a mystery! Don’t worry, Kim! Encyclopedia Mean is on the case! After the thrilling saga of the missing tower cushions she’s ready to solve the Secret of the Vanishing Museum Case!
- “And look at this!” Dark cried. He shot up and ran into the cavernous room past the hallway.
- Kim – Wait, how does he see this from way over where they are? Like he can see the ceiling of a cavernous room down the hallway before he runs to it? Does he have special vision that Darrow doesn’t have?
He can see the ceiling from where they are. I thought I made it clear that the statues were near the end of the hall. I’ll check again. It still works because Dark is interested in astronomy. And Darrow is more interested in wool coats and the lack of glass cases around statues.
- An engraving on the ceiling read ‘Comet Fragment.’
- Kim – Doesn’t have any special name? Just Comet Fragment?
Oops, I didn’t name it? I remember looking up how comets were named and everything. They usually go by the first person to discover it. Well, any ideas?
- Dark gasped. “No way. The comet? The one that struck this planet? They preserved a piece of it?”
- Kim – Wait, this is an actual comet fragment? How is it still billowing gases while hanging up on display?
Dark doesn’t know that it’s the real thing; he’s just guessing. It is a real comet fragment though. The gas is a magical special effect for the tourists. What should I call it? Odd gas? No, that would be stupid. I know! Wacky gas™.
- Darrow called out from the hall. “Hey, look! Mean and Trisk just got here!”
- Kim – Wait, Dark said “Look at this” and ran off, but Darrow never bothered to follow him and look at anything?
No he didn’t, ha,ha. You still seem to miss most of my Darrow humor. Do I need to point it out in an obvious manner like One Piece does? Here’s how it would go, just so Matt can understand too:
First you’d get a panel of Dark calling Darrow over to the comet room. Then the next panel would be a close up of Dark explaining everything about the comet.
Next you’d see Darrow from his point of view in the hall ignoring everything Dark said. Dark turns in the background and says, “I called for you to come see this but you just stayed there! WHHAAAAT!?”
Then you get a full panel with a close up on Mean’s face with her mouth open. Trisk says “You’re so oblivious!”
Would that help Kim? 😉
At least Parlay will call out Darrow on his idiotic behavior later on in the chapter, just for you Darrow haters.
Now Mean and Trisk appear at the hex door.
- “Yeah, hey!” Mean said. She walked down the hall ahead of Trisk. She was wearing tennis shoes, shorts, and a skirt over that.
- Kim – Um, no top?
I forgot it again didn’t I? Could she be wearing a top fashioned from old cushions in Tenny’s Tower?
- Dark cleared his throat. “It looks like a piece of the Hadmock Comet! Did you ever hear about it back on Jesice? It actually collided with this planet!”
- Kim – Oh, so it does have a name? Why wouldn’t the museum display the name? Sounds like a lazy archivist.
Ah, so I did name the comet. However, Dark is saying the name of the comet that Jesians came up with. This alien museum would use a different name. But since I don’t remember what it was I’ll just have the plaques call it ‘Sing’s comet’ or something.
- Parlay walked out from the ring of six angelic carvings, smiling in his tight vest and clean, silken sleeves.
- Kim – Are his sleeves going to be important later? A lot of focus on his sleeves and their current state.
Well they were dirty earlier. So now I’m letting you know he changed his clothes. I mean sheesh, if I DIDN’T mention his shirt you’d probably yell at me and claim that he’s roaming around topless like Mean.
Now Parlay tells everyone the story of how Sing was stopped by Pinada.
- Parlay held up a finger. “Or so they thought. But Sing had previously boasted of a devious ability: the power to abandon his own body and exist as an invisible soul.”
- Kim – Thought he was talking about Hellzoo here, not Tome. Got confused.
Well, Parlay is trying to figure out if the invisible soul is Hellzoo or Sing. He’s leaning toward Sing for reasons that should be more clear later. I guess if this story didn’t work he would have to meet everyone at the Hellzoo museum next and tell THAT story.
Parlay smashes the crown so Tome can’t speak anymore.
- “Tome!” Darrow cried. He fell to his knees, clawing at brown pieces and reddish fragments. “Tome!”
- Kim – “clawing at the brown and red fragments”? Or why are the pieces brown and the fragments red? Kind of pictured the crown just one color. It was brown with red decorations?
The red material was inside of the crown. I guess I should make that more clear. TOME!
Tome possesses Parlay and knocks him out.
- Tufts of yellow hair stuck up from his head and his arms remained sprawled and limp.
- Kim – New sentence here? Almost thought “tufts of hair were stuck up from his head and his arms” for a sec. got confused about how hairy he was.
Ha,ha yeah I can see why you’d think that. I’ll change it. But now maybe you’ll understand the importance of mentioning sleeves!
Tome leaves Parlay’s body. Parlay is quite angered at being possessed. I would be too.
- Hissing between his teeth, he pushed with his legs, scrambling away from from where Darrow knelt.
- Kim – Also had “hissing between this teeth” on page nine. Maybe a different murderous gesture?
What, Parlay can’t hiss again? How many other different murderous gestures are there? Bare his teeth? Stick out his tongue? I’d make his eyes glow red if I could, Kim!
Dring, who was frozen with fear the entire time this was going on, uses his hex door magic to escape with Parlay.
- “How are we going to find out what Parlay is up to? That kid’s magic is taking him everywhere so we can’t track them using the system of hex doors.”
- Kim – Oh, so the kid does have magic? Then why did they use the hex doors to get there? Couldn’t they track their arrival?
Dring can create a sending hex door with his pinky. But the destination hex door needs to be established already, like the one in the museum. But the sending AND receiving hex doors both need to be on the system in order to be traced.
Again, I should probably explain this in the book, shouldn’t I? Ha,ha.
See you next time!