ColumbusGuy

Tusind tak min kaereste ven. Wealth has always furnished a person with a quiet exit when possible, so why should that change in the Three Worlds? Only the 'thals seem to have avoided that particular avenue. Now, what is this other plan going on in the background that was hinted at between Matthias and Hartmann? Unlike his brother Ernst, the only things Hartmann seemed interested in were computers and the future of space travel.... Who knows what Matthias' dreams are?

Yep, I did miss the note. My narrator reads every little bit of stuff like headers and links, so I often skip down to the chapter title and go on from there. I sometimes read along but that's harder after my surgeries in 2016, so I get lazy sometimes. :) Glad to hear we'll get more in due course, my friend!

Like the others, I too want more of this pair, but then an author should always leave us wanting more.... Even so, northie...please give us another slice of this relationship.

Hey, I only had about 500 words when I sat down yesterday to work on this, and it just came gushing out for some reason, though Matthias had been floating around in my head for three or four days with no real idea how he might fit in.... So it appears Harman is part 'thal...but why, and why the addition of an even older parallel species? Guess there're still questions out there....

Oh, you may be right as the old adage about the only two unavoidable things are Death and Taxes isn't always true...I'm retired and only have my non-taxable disability income, so I've missed one of those for the last decade. I'll be working on the other one until the end.

“And who are you supposed to be?” The red-haired man ran his fingers through his long hair and frowned. Every inquiry said that the Daedalus Foundation went out of business three centuries ago, having liquidated all their holdings and assets—and yet, one of their products had been used to create the body of Harman Halveg. It might just have been possible that some items kept in storage had been rediscovered, but the records said all such biological assets had been accounted for as being us

Man, Maynor is in deep dragon doo-doo for sure. You don't come between a boy and his dog--err--a Realm Lord and his Construct. Once the High King realizes his bacon has been saved by Kieran, there'd better be some gratitude. Maybe Kieran will take over? I think kieran can restore the Portal to the human realm if it has truly been broken in Agleron's need for defensive power.... I keep having to tell myself 'Patience Grasshopper' until the next chapter comes. @NoSkis I have enjoyed Palantir's works for years, and sci-fi/fantasy isn't his only source of gems. He's a great guy and we've emailed often and he quoted me as a reviewer of his 'Mparntwe' book...totally amazing and a great friend. Waiting for the next Terran Diaspora story, but this one is a nail-biting adventure until then....

Some very odd events here that muddy the waters a lot; is Ty a runaway? Ratty clothes aren't a guarantee of that, and his having an epi-pen still on him seems to make that unlikely. But why is he in the city away from home? Maybe his mother moved there, but doesn't know her ex lives there too.... I'm almost certain this is his son, but the chances of them being able to end up happily ever after seem slim with the divorce agreement and the less than stellar job he now has. Anchovies have no place in a person's diet, but with this story I'm starting to appreciate them my friend. :)

Maynor is going to be in for one big surprise when he comes back to visit Ranevargar...and where is this new energy coming from if not the Nexus? Does this new realm have some heretofor hidden source like Ranevargar's groves? Who knew dragons had seat belts?

I'm definitely all in for another book! Considering I read all but this one straight through at TSL, I'd say I'm hooked. I guess Andrew grew out of his visions?

Thanks glennish! So much has been lost in the name of progress. When was the last time we talked with someone face-to-face, with no phones handy, and talked about real things beyond idle chat about the weather or gossip? Even families seldom do this these days. Where's that EMP effect when you need it? :) Oh wait...I couldn't write or read anymore...never mind. The promised event from my own school days is coming up next, I swear even if another character decides to butt in.

Well, what boy hasn't experimented ...but only Willem knew the truth. I'm not sure when/if his secret might be told, maybe some hints could occur over the coming Summer... I almost did another Jerry story related to a Challenge pic at another site, but ran out of time--maybe I'll do that one soon as it's set in his high school years. Still toying with a way to work the Pinsel idea in.

@Will Hawkins I'm not sure I mentioned this anywhere, but this story has been hovering around in my head for nearly fifteen years, and it was just too involved to try to do until I got to GA and saw that Prompts might give me a way to do it in smaller pieces. Do I know what's going on in every instance? No, just a broad vision of some scenes far down the road. My Pompeii Passions is what was left of a nearly two decades long interactive story at a now defunct website using fact and fiction about Ancient Cultures. It languished after a start by some other people who decided to leave it, and some other guys there began to form a story involving what we'd now call 'gay' characters, but then weren't really anything special. Seven or eight of us had multiple characters in it, and would post almost daily with things the others could use in their own plots so long as we didn't kill off the guy or have him do something totally outrageous for him as he was portrayed. Talk about soap operas! Sadly, we had less than a month's notice that the site's host got hacked and went under rather than manage to rebuild, so it was a scramble to save anything. So, long term doesn't scare me, except I'm not getting any younger, and I'm working on the next fragment for this one right now....

Mini-skirts painful? Too right, having been plagued by three older sisters I often had to wait for the bathroom as a kid until they moved out. I can remember their bouffant hair-dos when they had their Proms...shudder. They went to my school in the early to mid-60s, and they had to wear skirts for the dress code, and they had to come down to the knees or be sent home. By my time in the 70s most girls wore jeans and blouses or skirts, though not minis, and none longer than to just above the knee that I remember. Jeans would be tight for both sexes, and maybe flared in the lower leg, and hair styles for everybody were longer, and it made boy-watching difficult because from the back it wasn't always easy to tell the gender of the observed prey. Marshmallows were awesome outdoors either over a grill or fire, but lame if you resorted to doing it over a gas flame on your stove like I did a few times in winter. Our wood fireplace was great for doing it too, but we only used it when it got really cold or the power went out. Something about the smokiness as well as the gooey sweetness just brings a smile. Confession time: I never had a s'more since I wasn't a Scout...I guess they were sort of like hot chocolate covered bon-bons, those dome-shaped marshmallow coookies with a graham base and a thin coating of chocolate....Those and Moon Pies were awesomely good.

I wrote the campfire section first, then the shopping trip...but when I read through it, it just didn't feel right, so I reversed them, and it just fell into place. Maybe that was what was interfering with my Muse, trying to get it to hang together with the rest of the story? The tech bits are still a puzzle; I just went through my copy again, and noticed some had come back when I applied my chapter style...too wide spacing. I remembered a trick to Replace some text things, so I put in the symbol for paragraph spaces that an old note here said could get doubled somehow...so I replaced the two symbols with one--and it worked, except for a couple I had to manually take out. I don't get it because that style says to do the spacing automatically, and it has done that prior to this with the equivalent of one line of text left blank...so I don't know why it screwed up this time. As to why earlier today the editor took out most of the breaks and ran the paragraphs together, not a clue, so I had to manually put them back. Any clues, Geron? You're the tech wiz.... I may work in Willem's surprise at some future date, but that could be in Book Two, or maybe a separate story. The Viet-Nam era was tough on kids too young to serve too; we saw footage every night of evac choppers and wounded soldiers in full color, and body counts nightly. My older sisters had pen pals among the soldiers serving there, and I found a set of earrings one sent back from Thailand in my mom's sewing box, and the gallery pic of me with a paper parasol was another of their gifts to them. I don't know if they ever came home, I'd hope so. That war affected the Beckels too, just like Korea and WWII...ever wonder why Mikkel lives in Canada? That could be another story yet to be told....

Thanks Will! It surprises me when I get notices of new responses to my stuff, thinking all those who might try it already have...but then, it's up until the Sun flares up, so I guess it could be stumbled upon same as I still find things I hadn't read before. I'll keep an eye open for your story--I don't think I've read anything of yours, but I could be wrong since I don't have nano-bots to repair my brain cells.

Okay, I missed something I didn't see until it was posted--the indents don't work, and I'll have to replace the text with the corrected version I just sorted, but I'm too tired now...I thought it was just paragraph spacing, but it was more than that. Screw it for now, most people don't worry about indents any more, though that's the way I prefer to read stories and chapters. I'm a bibliophile and grew up before computers, so sue me.

POV: Linda, Mikey It was like my thinking that shopping for a Prom outfit with mor would be a disaster was a premonition or something. ‘Difficult’ was an understatement: most of the stores we went to were either too fancy to suit my tastes, or the things I liked weren’t much better than things I already owned. Skirts this year came in three lengths, mini, midi or maxi, depending on how far down the lower hem fell. Mini-skirts came only part way down the thigh, and midis came to jus

In this case, I'm thinking the use of 'dad' is more a casual form of address than acknowledging a real familial relationship. From his musings in the diner, I doubt the man would turn his son out no matter the circumstances. This is a hard-hitting story that stands alone just fine, though it whets our appetites for more. Didn't check the status, so maybe there'll be more...but it's a bit of melancholia all on its own. Awesome, dude...hee-hee.

Man Pal, just enough to whet our appetites and then get us buzzing over new possibilities, and it's over for this week! I'm sure your readers will be back for more regardless with this intriguing tale of mystery and mayhem, but a nice little chapter where we get some answers and a little break from more nagging questions would be nice. :) Maurice is to rule the Unordered Realm? If I read that right, then I think there's more at work here than anyone knows. And Kieran can access the Nexus by himself? Maybe as the High King's son that's possible, but you toss in rumors of an ancient power user thought extinct... You know I'm not gonna get much sleep until the next one, right? Hugs, my friend!

How do you distinguish a first love from an infatuation? That's difficult especially for us from the days when our love wasn't acceptable and all we had were longings and dreams and wishful fantasies. I discount all those we would never meet like film stars or television actors however much we yearned for them. So, someone in our school or town who we'd see often but perhaps not interact with for that very fear...can it be love if it's one-sided or unspoken? Was it my real Jay from school as I paint in my story? We talked, the initial incident of a note happened and yet I feared being more than a casual friend. Maybe it was my first sexual partner--a friend who once the subject was broached of my first coming out, offered to guide me, only to later marry after several years? Over the years there were chances, but none worked out until the most unlikely came into the picture. A friend's friend met in a group one evening, being warned off him as being unaccepting...then having him appear at my doorstep months later asking to be friends, that later turned to more and lasted over a decade though the big L was seldom said but mutually understood. So, I guess I'd have to say, my first was also my last, for once he died, the spirit was gone. Memories can be bittersweet, but also a wonderful reliving of life's best moments shared. Was it a Grand Romance? I don't know because we were together and sparks flew and energized us, and that was enough for me. Miss you still, K.

So things seem to be taking more energy than Ranevargar thought...do we know why the Dead Realm is dead? The opal came from Wurowa's people, so how did they get it if it is a realm stone? Might they be an older race than the elves? Maybe this was their original home and they were driven out by the elves.... A lot of questions come to mind, but who has the answers? Burremul? Next chapter please, my friend!

Okay, I wasn't expecting such an abrupt ending, though it does wrap up the main plot. I'd like to see a sequel sometime too. I've posted at IOMFATS too, but not yet at Awesome Dude. AD's companion site Codey's World has some of my stories, but for me, everything I do appears at GA first, then StoryLover.us, then the other sites in time. GA and TSL have the advantage of allowing us to post things ourselves and we can go in and edit later if needed, while other sites don't. I answer all emails from readers, but GA has had by far the most reader interaction since it occurs onsite. I've read at various gay fiction sites for twenty plus years, but GA was the first I posted my own efforts. I am loyal to all the sites I appear at, but the only site I've gotten any major feedback from besides GA is, surprisingly enough, Nifty. That site has to do it strictly via email, so in a way it's quite gratifying to hear from readers there as it takes more effort. Either way, I love all my readers and answer every comment as soon as I can, and though my output has slowed due to eye surgeries in the past three years, I'm still going, and new chapters will be up soon for my two main stories. James, please try your best to get more done...it can be a great source of therapy for events from the past, as I know. I'm looking for ward to hearing more from you.

I can't say I'm surprised or shocked by Marina's actions; she clearly puts more value on appearance and dogma than love of family, so she'll end up with no family when she finally dies. Typical reaction from an organization that puts more emphasis on rules and structure than the essential value of the message God Is Love. No money in that, so lets bury it in ritual, structure and hierarchy, and do it by having our own schools to perpetuate it through the centuries. The Reformation didn't go far enough...it should have abolished religion completely in favor of a social movement to care for those in need rather than shift to a supposedly less corrupt set of doctrines I've got my fingers crossed for Gianni, but even if Angelo wants to be a friend, it's too late for that now thanks to the zealous Marina..

James, the last scene is improbable, but it's written, and not impossible so I can live with it...my main concern is for Gianni now. He's trapped in the middle of a Roman Catholic world that views his sexuality as a mortal sin, on top of his refusal of going to church. I don't see him getting any sympathy from his grandparents, nor from Angelo's family since they saw his surprised reaction. Anna may remain his only haven, or perhaps Sergio. I can see Marina now forcing him to go to church, and Angelo drawing away so he won't appear to be similarly tainted as Gianni now is. Running away is possible since he has some access to money, but will he disappear at random or perhaps go back to London?