Kim found the time to critique chapter ten. Then, JUST to get back at me for complaining how slow she is, she finished eleven as well! How dare she! I mean, fantastic!

So let’s hurry through this. Here’s the summary of the chapter first:

Mean, Dark, Trisk, and Darrow are contacted by the Jesian government. Lord Ley Tecker, specifically. Since Mean assumed that Dark WAS Tecker in a suit of armor, she is now horrified that Dark led her on.

Mean runs off in a rage through a hex door. She arrives at the abandoned hotel she’s been using as a garage and home. It is there that Mackaba ambushes her with his new odd-water-based powers.

• Darrow rushed through the entryway, where two ragged ends of a yellow banner hung above the passage.
• Kim – Is this banner important? Not sure what the banner is for. Yellow for caution?

Hilo Water Plaza has a banner that reads “Hilo Water Plaza.” Mackaba takes this banner and wears it around as a sash. It’s the source of his water magic, too. None of this is on-page or explained; I just wanted the reader to have fun figuring it out. Maybe I do need to explain it though. Let’s see how the rest of the chapter goes.

That description above also doesn’t seem like the banner was taken now does it?  -_-

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• He swept his arm in a half-circle, revealing a grid that wrapped in a full cylinder around his body.
• Kim – Not sure what this grid is. Like metal mesh? A force field?

Here Mackaba shows off his new powers. I already told you that I wanted to be vague. Keep the reader guessing. But since we see so many weird powers in fiction these days I might need to be more precise. I discussed this further with Kim and she was getting all these strange ideas about ‘water bouncing’ or whatever from that Avatar: The Last Airbender show.

I can’t have that! The only solution is to have Mackaba go into… EXPOSITION MODE!

“I can create a three-dimensional area marked off by a grid surface. Odd water will appear inside the grid, but it will spread no further than the boundary I have set. I have such confidence in my powers that I will tell you ahead of time what I’ll do! Ha,ha,ha!”

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• Mean drew her legs up and placed her feet on the flat side of the iron, pushing off and bursting through the back of the watery pillar.
• Kim – Where’d the iron come from? Or is this part of the cauldron?

Here Mean is manipulating a cauldron and flying it around to help her escape from Mackaba’s water prison. Only I keep calling it a ‘pot’ or ‘iron’ and I forgot to mention it was even made of iron in the first place. I’ll learn one of these days, Kim!

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• “Why is this happening to me!?”
• Kim – Possible to change this dialogue?

Mean has been having a rough chapter. Not only was her trust betrayed by Dark, but she was trapped in a water blob and shot with poisonous darts. As she is crawling away from Mackaba while on the brink of unconsciousness she cries “Why is this happening to me!?”

Then she stops moving and Mackaba hangs her from a chandelier.

But Kim thinks the line is too cliche. And I’m inclined to agree with her. So I’ll put down some ideas, and you vote for your favorite in the comments! Yes, this is what I’m doing AGAIN. And we’re going to do this EVERY blog post until someone ACTUALLY VOTES or comes up with a better line. So here we go:

1. “Dark….”
2. “Help….”
3. “Police officers used to be my friends!”
4. “Last-minute rescue? Trisk? Anyone?”

Or maybe she just shouldn’t say anything? Ha, ha,ha.

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“I mean, the Lords Ley picked me, so I have to do it!” A steady spattering came from Mean’s wet clothes. Mackaba dropped his hand, rose it again, then let it fall to his side.

“Yuh-–you deserve this. You––you––” he swallowed hard and blinked away from her blank eyes and pale face. He stared at the floor, where the light played on the puddles and the dripping grew louder.

Kim didn’t write a note about this part, but I talked about it later at her house. She liked how Mackaba was feeling guilt, but she suggested that I have Mean cough up water and gag instead of just having it drip from her clothes.

I gotta say, that sounds more disgusting. It’s in!

Now I must hurry onward to the next chapter! I can’t take Kim’s hasty work for granted! On to the Tower That Spans the World!