Aye, the minutes vs erkers thing was an argument at the beginning of this story. Bhav/Tobar/Arreck believed found it too confusing, so we opted to go with human time measurements. I imagine we'll explain twassecc time in the appendices, though.

Hi, it's me, the toelno reviewer at your service! _

Yay, Acar's ship is rebuilding itself! Moving on with the current story. . .

Nylari is quite the assertive twassecc now, perhaps she's following more to her stereotype than usual. And Sedik is plainly the coolly bad yet good guy fighter: unpunctual, unfair, and understanding a lot more of the world outside Nylari's.

More juicy descriptions, like the new Huma and the dialogue inside was cool, though 'growled menacingly' seemed a bit redundant. And now Nylari's world expands with the supposedly ugliest part of the city, though it sounds like the urbanized slum outskirts.

[The whole way, she avoided touching the turret controls as if they were covered in crinn excrement.] - Pure awesome sentence.

[The roofs of several buildings had been somewhat damaged, and a long shaft of metal (quite possibly a piece of a Wavebreaker) protruded from the ground where it had been forcibly shoved.] - 'Forcibly shoved' may be redundant too, since 'shoved' implied being done with force, unless you want to emphasize how much of a force was in that shove.

And the whole situation with Akiir kissing the pavement, Chuara bursting out with realizations about Akiir's necklace which would be a major point later on, and this sentence: [“Ha! Like he’d know. Us three are going to pursue the draft transports,” Sedik stated, still aiming the gun at various objects in the room and blatantly ignoring Nylari’s motions imploring him to be silent.] - priceless. _

Sedik's excellent deduction skills (aka Sherlock's) just makes him even more likable as the military and possibly love interest guy. *tries to imagine Sedik and Nylari together* And Chuara joins! Yay!

Hmm, why am I always a chapter late? Well, it's a short chapter, but a sweet one. One thing, though: I thought Nylari would use erkers instead of minutes, but then again, maybe you don't want to bombard future readers with more alien terminology.

Until next review, from your toelno reviewer!

Spell ya later!

Another late review:

Well, looks like the ship is still alive. I wonder whatever happened to Acar. . .

Moving on, I liked the first two pieces of dialogue. Makes me wonder if the characters are the only humorous part of the story, lol.

Wait, are Huma crafts the only vehicles the choeroed citizens could use? Maybe the other vehicles are yet to be introduced. Anyway, it seems like the city's wholly movable, like an extendable rod of a car and that's a concept I haven't seen in a while.

[...but she smiled at the thought of the frail white stone of choeroed buildings snapping like toothpicks under the weight of a giant wave.] O_o, is that Nylari's dark side or twassecc pride? Probably both.

Yeah, now we get more details about Wavebreakers and I could imagine how cool they look, despite their practicality. Being an Engineer must be highly risky, so I guess they must be paid a lot for their professions, or not. I can't really comment much on your descriptions, which are generally and extensively vivid - except that you seem to like using "powerful" and "violent" and turning them into adverbs as well. You could have used other synonyms so as not to sound too repetitive, but it's your writing anyhow - so I'll skip to the story.

Woah, Nylari survived a wave! Yeah, it's not a big deal, but it makes me see the twassecc in a different light. I mean, to watch an introverted female risk her life for the city is like a peeling the layers of an onion.

Oh, there was another engineer on No. 18? I didn't notice, but I suppose that one came a little later than Nylari. And now the storm passed and that salute she did now made her seem like a soldier now, and it doesn't seem to be any different from an engineer.

[Nylari mumbled a thank you and drug herself towards her armor.] I think it should've been "dragged".

[Remembering how sad and desperate for freedom he had been brought new resolve to Nylari, and she quickened her pace as she strode into Lower Chethaltha.] - Another sentence I liked that depicted a protagonist's goodness. _ Now she's thinking with her head as well. Yay, it's the stingy bar barely mentioned from Chapter 1!

Kiylad's Bar: sounds authentic. What surprised is that bars have gladiatorial dueling rings. O_o I suppose it's an improvement, seeing the long human history of bar brawls and all.

And another new character! I wonder if he's been the one breaking up the generator; most likely it was the other one. I wonder what the flashy symbol on his black gauntlets look like. Hmm, and he sounds like a punkish-type of twassecc definitely different from Nylari. Hmm, opposites. I'm not sure if you'll have romance between them, though. I just thought of it because they're the same species and all. And Sedik gets really cool descriptions, makes me want to draw him. . ._ Broken alien goggles are cool accessories and maybe he used to be an engineer!

Yay! More dialogue from Sedik! Wow, he seems rather smart as well, unlike a certain, hyperactive choeroed friend. _ "Mechaneyes", cool nickname for Nylari.

Woah, now he seems like a bad boy now and in a way faintly reminds me of Nylari. Coincidental similarity? Maybe. And Sedik has sense of ethics? What about Nylari, who helped bugged a station, the "risk-taker"? But I guess her own sense of ethics is becoming more distorted the more the story progresses.

[“I can tell.”] - Lol, Nylari's being sarcastic, I just know it._

[If she avoided telling Chuara, the only people involved would be herself and Akiir.] - I bet Chuara would find out anyway. _

[Realizing that this could be the first pebble of a landslide to her death (literally), she nodded.] - Okay, I know you want me to cut less on foreshadowing, but this sentence is literally suggesting that there be a landslide (or her death) later on in the story, unless you were somehow referring to a pebble somewhere on the floor of the bar. ~_~ Sorry, could

Once again, I like your last sentence. Now I just wonder what she'll bring tomorrow.

Until next review. . .

Spell ya later!

Hey, Digi! Glad to see you're still reviewing. First of all, thanks for spotting the little time inconsistancy. Tobar and I will have to figure out which of those timeframes we actually mean.

I think you're going a little overboard on the foreshadowing predictions, however. Sometimes something doesn't have any meaning at all. (And even though choeroeds have a general pattern of behavior, it doesn't mean there can't be exceptions, though yes, that one is more like a twassecc's stereotypical behavior.)

As for your suggestions to change things, thanks, and I agree. We'll change those in our copy (but I'm too lazy to change the one uploaded up here)

Thanks again.

Hi TiJiL. Back from another load of homework.

You're really making the prologue all so suspenseful with these beginning tidbits. XD

Nylari and Chuara seem a bit more serious now. Well, for a little bit. I'm blinking because they had been repeating their conversations apparently. I know it's all human-like conversation, but it seemed rather generic and short. I would have liked to see Chuara attempting to plan to break Akiir out, but then again she's been in the Brig in a week before, so I suppose she could understand the loneliness of imprisonment.

The warden...er, was interesting in a way he's cliched. But he's a good cliche. _ The way you elaborately described his gesture seems to foreshadow another later meeting with him, or somehow to impart some importance in him. In a way he's not like the other choeroeds, calm, collected, maybe a bit smug, but definitely not obviously hyperactive. Like a twassec if I'm not mistaken. *looks back on previous review*. Gah, did I predict right? I'm very sure Nylari is *not* that laid-back.

Moving on, I'm surprised you managed to put humor in a dark situation. (She took the paper in hand and proceeded to fill it out. It wasn’t much; just their names and a simple questionnaire consisting of questions like ‘do you plan to help a prisoner escape?’.) Lol, I wonder how Nylari answered that one. To be honest, this story would make a great game, with all the descriptions and subtle hilarity you implanted. A card? Hmm, the endless possibilities. . .

Once again more place descriptions in those big, ol' paragraphs. The pair are acting like their normal selves in the hall, then you plastered the choeroed on the "monstrously thick windows" just so you have adequate reason to start describing. Food for thought: what were those windows made of? Ordinary glass couldn't withstand those kind of tidal waves, so...it must be twassec-made glass! (Heh, you expected me to say space glass, didn't you? *gasp* I talk like Chuara now. O_o)

Pointing out a redundant adverbs: (Indeed, they were only suspended thirty feet or so from the water below, and the occasional wave crashed violently/ into the windows, creating a thunderous boom that echoed /powerfully/.) Echoing, thundering boom might have sounded better.

Back to the story. Another minor character and I blinked because of this phrase: (“I don’t care. Take it off,” the guard said nervously, placing his hand carefully on the butt of his electric whip.) Poor guard, so ill-equipped in case Nylari turned out to be a threat, which is very doubtful. He's even nervous for a while.

Grammar check: (“Just a precaution. You could have something for the prisoner in there, we can’t permit it.”) Maybe replace the comma with a semi-colon, so it doesn't look like he's speaking a run-on sentence.

Nylari embarrassed? Did she blush? Wait, do twassecs even have blood vessel beneath their cheeks? Maybe another culture check would be good here, like how twassecs act embarrassed, Nylari in particular.

Another block of paragraph descriptions and now I'm wondering if those baleen subs could be used to help Akiir. Crush a ribcage like a tin can? Character cliches, I can handle. But metaphors are another matter. XD In my opinion, metaphors work better if in context of the setting aka the universe everyone's living in. Unless tin cans happened to be very common household items, which could be plausible because of Akiir's house. Think about it: old houses, old items, obviously their civilization is rather similar to ours.

Yeah, finally a paragraph of well-needed explanations about the relationship between twassecs and choeroeds, and the system that's holding them together. And juicy dialogue!

Akiir's not doing too well. I wonder how long Chuara knew about Nylari's curse. Wait, years ago? I'm rereading this sentence from Chapter Nylari and am currently blinking: (In truth, she did desperately need all of the money she could get. Understand that Nylari’s background was a pleasant one, up until about a year ago.) Was the payment to the government what happened a year ago or was it the actual incident?

(Nylari wanted more than anything to say ‘I told you so’, but she found herself feeling sorry for the choeroed anyway.) It was probably her favorite quote. _

Another redundant adverb: (Akiir was /desperately/ imploring them to stay with him, demanding that they not leave him in isolation any longer, but even their kindest words would not console him.)

Oh, Windbreakers. _ Culture-plot goodness.

Currently liking the last sentence there: (“Hurry…” Akiir chimed weakly into the nothingness around him.)

Will be reading the next chapter! Until next review. . .

Spell ya later!

Another review:

Nylari is acting hilarious about the whole plan. (“Life imprisonment in the Deep Brig.” Nylari was hysterical.) Yes, really gut-achingly funny Nylari. _ I'm just as surprised as she is on how Akiir and Chuara could be taking the whole thing lightly. If all choeroeds were like that, I guess there'd be no choeroed law. Maybe we'll see a choeroed who acts nothing like Chuara and maybe actually like Nylari.

And Chuara's getting all rational now, despite her excitement and such. I'm a bit surprised Nylari knew how to make bugs. Was it a requirement in becoming a full-fledged engineer or something she learned in her spare time?

And yet another description about another place we've never known before. It seems like a cliche now for every chapter to have at least a few paragraphs describing every new place, but I suppose everyone needed to know anyway. Then again, you write very good descriptions about places.

And his own firearm project! I guessed right, _, well anyway. I wonder when he'll finish it, if he doesn't get caught. Gasp, Nylari has a dark side! At least it didn't inhibit her creativity in naming. Ayedra Mark I...I wonder if I'll see that name again.

Chuara has his amulet now? Maybe she'll tamper with it and find out its secrets. _

The waiting scene made me laugh even more with this line: (At one point she even raided Akiir’s stash of snacks. Nylari was disinclined to eat, especially after finding an expended shell casing in the crackers.) What kind of crackers, I wonder? The kind humans eat? _ No, I bet it's space crackers. I bet that's what Chuara would say if she were a human reading this story.

Woah, he didn't even hide his Huma. I guess Akiir isn't tactically smart. Gasp! O_O Hmm, it would have sounded better if the last sentence had been a paragraph to emphasize that fact.

Sorry I couldn't find much to critcize. Until next review!

Spell ya later!

Good to see you still reviewing, Digi. Aye, we've got a lot of variables. We did notice that there's some confusion of how Chuara and Nylari each got to Akiir's house, and I'm sure we'll go back and clean it up eventually.

I think I shall upload a few more chapters.

Constructing additional drones? Wait, so there's still something in the beginning? Gasp, the suspense!

So Nylari doesn't trust the Admiral, eh? I bet I'd be as confused as Chuara if she did, who by the way did a hilarious job of assuming everything Nylari was saying. “What if she’s right? Maybe it is a conspiracy!” Woohoo, you hit the proverbial nail on the head, or something close to it. If this is some sort of foreshadowing, then it's really rather obvious, but then again it's from Chuara and by now the average reader would be more likely to think from Nylari's point of view. Not me! *waves banner of Chuara*

Akiir's type is like one of those NPCs who give information about cultural stuff, but I like it as how similar he is to Chuara. And trigger-happy he was! I'd like to know more about him, especially after what the police told her...wait, they heard gunshots from the department? How close does Chuara live to the police anyway?

Regardless, it's great to check back on earlier characters like Darlek and his secretary, and I kind of recalled Nylari fixing the door a few chapters from before. And hooray for instrospection! Nylari's thoughts was certainly a refresher, aside from all the humorous events at Chuara's.

It might be best to show some special characters between the section with the secretary and Akiir's house. The descriptions of it, though were most vivid, as though I were reading the report of a house inspecter. Good to see some variety in the story. _

Hehe, a gun room. What else can we expect from Akiir? Maybe plans or blueprints of a supposedly secret weapon? _ Wait, how did Chuara get there? If Nylari had asked her for directions, then how..why...agh, too many variables, such as the distance of Akiir's house from Nylari's and Chuara's... _

Ooh, Nylari saw Akiir's secret. That amulet must be very important if it couldn't be sensed by twassec technology. How many more things must be planted before my brain explodes with too many speculations? _ But it's a good thing, regardless...

Woah! There's one big old paragraph in dire need of splitting! Other than that, I like learning more about Nylari and what the technology she's imbued with is truly capable of.

And good last sentence: “I have an idea,” she said. - Yee, our dear naive Chuara plotting something really good.

Well, thoroughly enjoyed this chapter! Until next review!

Spell ya later!

This is actually Bhav, having signed on as TiJiL when he wasn't looking. Thanks for the reviews, first of all; Second, I should note that the numbers you mentioned are footnotes in the actual Word document.

Digi here:

Hmm, it makes me wonder more and more on how Nylari and the ees incident would be related.

*scratches head* Unless the description of a courtyard rallied enough significance to be involved in the plot or just setting up the tone of this chapter, I'm not sure if you're coloring the story with vivid descriptions a lot more than necessary.

At least you have a lot more dialogue going on now. And more odd creatures you have going on here. Must have come from the ocean nearby, though I can't see why it has a mini-jungle on its back unless it was a land crab of sorts. Chuara's becoming my favorite character, she's becoming an odd creature herself. _

New character, and it's a paramedic. _ Wonder if he'll be drafted as well. Must be a good healer if he was. Great touch on more Choeroed culture, specifically their language and the abbreviations. I wonder what else they abbreviate.

Oh, you really extended Chu's characterization. Now she draws! _ Maybe later on she'll draw something of significance to Nylari and making it a turning point of the story. The possibilities are endless. _ And I can see she's a slave to computers as well. Really identifiable.

Espionage camera settings, huh? You're really planting a lot of stuff in the early chapters, aren't you? Chuara the chef, I can see it now. Or maybe fish-basher would be a suitable title.

Now the story picks up, with even three more characters to deal with. All planted. Why else would they have widely descriptive details in their own paragraphs. You even gave away a supposedly hidden personality of the Admiral on the last paragraph, if the word 'malice' was any indication of his personality, but I suppose he hid it really well if he had gotten the trust of the people.

Not really much constructive criticism, but there were two words with numbers attached to them: woopa juice2 and Kacian Treaty3. I don't know if this was intentional or not, so I'm just letting you know.

That's all I have to say for this chapter. Until next review. . .

Spell ya later!

Okay, another review!

After reading this chapter as a whole, it would have almost been mistaken as a filler chapter if it were not for a few sentences of actual plot development. Hmm, this Admiral is not as subtle as the drunkard, but it would seem he's going to be important as well, plotwise. How is he connected to all these mysterious drafts? Why does he assure the public when they don't know what he's hiding? When will I stop asking this overanalytical questions?_

“Ahh, ok, ok… I thought you could use some cheering up, so I made you a rainbow circle!” - Favorite line so far. I don't know if you meant to make Chuara go to the extreme end of the choeroed spectrum in terms of hyperactivity and lack of respect to rules, but at least you've made her an entertaining character. It makes me expect her to act even more hilariously in later chapters, perhaps as comic relief in the backdrop of a dramatic story.

Relentlessly you bring such vivid details of the Rabid Clam and its workings, though I wonder if there's another purpose other than to bring to life and appeal a homey choeroed restaurant. You've also added even more information about the choeroeds and made it better by using even more characters to display and tell.

Other than that, small revisions can be made. You could put descriptions with character's name next to their description instead of above and attached to a dialogue of a different character like this:

[“Hey, I see that. Cut it out,” she scolded. Chuara quickly hid the small computer. In an attempt to dispel guilt, she quickly started a conversation.

“So, what’s new with you, Nylari? I haven’t seen you for at least a week.”]

And then there's Nylari's vocabulary. Since she's a twassec, I thought she would have a formal tone when it came to socializing. When she said, however, "That's weird", it somehow clashed with the rest of her sentence, especially when she was using long words near the end. "That's strange" or "Strange" might have been more appropiate in my opinion, unless you intended to make her sound plain and casual and somehow hide the fact that she's not ordinary in spite of her casual voice. Sorry if I'm nitpicking too much over these little details.

The last thing that bothered me was that last paragraph, explaining how ridding of leftovers would control the number of ulag(s) when it doesn't explain what an ulag is, leaving only the implication that it must be some pest that thrives on leftovers.

Other than that, I enjoyed that last bit of interaction between Nylari and Chuara, which affirms that they're an entertaining duo in their own ways.

Until next review, spell ya later!

Cool. Starting to worry no one would notice the update. Nice to hear from you, Digi, and thanks for the review. And by the way, you are astoundingly good at detecting foreshadowing.

Hi TiJiL! I'm sorry I haven't reviewed in a long while. Busy with school movie project and such. Well, back to your story.

Ah, we see more of Nylari now. I could imagine how she'd look with all that armor on her. And more on with descriptions of the backdrop of the story. I'm neutral when it comes to reading important yet seemingly unneeded detail. I might have enjoyed it more if it was told for Nylari's view, but then I like it how you add some occasional descriptive phrase here and there among the info.

At least you're giving us some more information while moving the story along. Drunkards, huh? That might be some foreshadowing of sorts, maybe an important character whom Nylari will get to know or I'm just guessing and overanalyzing.

Chuara appears! Once more adequate description, though it's like I knew her already from a few sentences you wrote about her in the preceding paragraphs. Looks like the exact opposite of Nylari. A great pair. _

And even more description, which was better now that you involved Chuara into it and how it applied to her. _ And dialogue, mhm, I like characterization here. Seems like Chuara's upbeat manner is infecting our rational Nylari a little bit.

And after more description, you finish it off with dialogue and a well-written sentence at the end. _

I hope this reviews makes up your day. Maybe now I could get on with this story. Until next review. . .

Spell ya later!

PS: Give my regards to RabbitDawg if you could.

Well, as for that, there is a particular reason why we didn't describe the ees' physiology well. While we could have, perhaps, written Nylari's disaster from her eyes (perhaps we still should) we generally decided that the entire story (except the prologue) would be 3rd person and Nylari-centric. We didn't want to hop from perspective to perspective at all in order to eliminate confusion.

Anyway, thanks for the criticisms. We're going to do some major editing soon, so we'll work on improving this chapter.

O_O'Um, this chapter turned out to be quite different from the prologue. And to be honest, not quite as well.'Maybe it was the fact that some paragraphs went on for too long, there were so many "informative" descriptions or simply the lack of exciting action, but I suppose not everything starts out so exciting.'In my opinion, it would have been better for the story if the incident that cursed Nylari was told through her own eyes like what you did with Acar, instead of showing a third-person view of it.'Even more so, you gave more description of the twassecs' physical appearance than the ees', which was only a few phrases or so.'Otherwise, it was great getting to know Darlek and Nylari. I wonder how he'll be important in the story later on, plotwise talking.'Well, moving on to Chuara, until next review. . .'Spell ya later!