yes, i bully you, and yes, it's because i love you :D

just finished rereading from the end of lut gholein. i'm pining for another update (aren't i always, though?). and i'll keep this, um, reminder /nice/ and not lose myself into the world of capslock like i usually do when i beg.

but seriously.

i love this so much. you really don't even know.

any way i can bribe you into an update? :D

-d/s

i mean:
-ykw

I like Areta’s character so far, she seems to be more in her right mind than the rest of the party atm. Are they seriously going to go challenge Mephisto with like half the party gone?

That would be really crazy, especially since the two people who need to kill Mephisto most (Areis for revenge and Nancy for some sort of atonement) are out. But w/e, you know more about the plot than we do ;)

““More than one life.” Raven injected, rubbing his collarbone uncomfortably.”
lol

Anyway, one thing I need to comment on: phrases like
““In other news,”
“just what we needed to complete our merry band of the mentally afflicted.”
“was if you had no legs and serious mental retardation.”

Those phrases are funny, but they kind of break the mood. You had this really cool scene going where Areta wakes up, and Isolede is helping, and Moraine is being her usual self, and then Moraine says, “the only way you could be dumber is if you were retarded”, and it suddenly kicks the whole scene to like 3rd grade. You know how to do comedy better than that.

I got the impression that this chapter was a little...rushed, it was kinda quick and short. I would rather see updates that have been worked on more (like your last chapter) even if they come less frequently than some might like. Good writing = more important than time between updates. I want that Mephisto battle to be EPIC even if it takes forever. Deadlines suck.

That’s why I’m giving you until Oct.20th. (jk lol write when you can)

point a: YAYAYAYAY.

point b (aka the actual review; it feels great to finally be doing one of these!!):

holy crap i so need to know what's going to happen! alright so most of my review is going to be speculation/wondering because this is sort of a leading chapter, but even though it's short you gave me a lot to think about.

but before all that fun (for me) stuff:
"“What a bitch.”" this wasn't meant to be funny, but i think that it summed up isolde's bluntness quite nicely.

"The only thing that could possibly make you any more useless to us, in fact, was if you had no legs and serious mental retardation." is it horrible of me to find this hilarious? the only real response to this could be in letter form:

dear moirae: i love you. ps: you know you're still bitter that she so kicked your ass earlier.

okay, WHOASHIT the stuff about nancy. yeah, okay, we knew that she slaughtered her family, but damn. and natalya idolised her! okay, yeah, natalya's a bitch and i completely love nancy, but i'm having trouble figuring out what exactly to think. moirae's right i guess in that natalya can't erase her bitterness or the seriousness of nancy's crimes... but doesn't natalya feel at least a little bit grateful? or maybe she's the teeny-weenyist bit able to see that nancy has reformed a little (right?), even if for not the best of reasons? GAH, damn you for making me love an insane demon-summoner that... wow. okay. skinning alive is particularly... just, wow. there must have been some serious daddy issues there. (that was a joke. not a very good one.)

and the AMAZON. i am totally stoked to see more of her, to see her real character after she gets over the shock of getting possessed/getting her eyes torn out/having her ass kicked by a woman that needs to get jumped by raven. i want to see how she's going to interact with moirae. and ahaha! of course her and isolde are already bffs.

OKAY YEAH so moirae is i guess logical in this whole "aries isolde almostdead!nancy amazon go back to town, i'll take raven and lil sis over here to the durance" but COME ON. how will isolde and raven jump each other in the aftermath of victory? but yeah yay! for aries carrying nancy. maybe some of his old "MUST TAKE CARE OF MAGIC-CASTER" mentality will come back a bit and they'll go all OTP on each other, or something.

"Your princess is waiting, my dear."

I AM READING SO MUCH INTO THIS LINE. first: does she know what happened to between aries and nancy? i wouldn't be surprised at all if she did. second: is it a call back to "moirae's story"? yes, and i am actually going back to the chapter in question and quoting: "The princess gets saved from a life of being a heartless bitch, of course. But I can’t really remember the end of it. Power of love, I bet." is it totally off-the-mark for me to draw a nancy/aries parallel into this? he'll save her from not being so much a heartless bitch, i guess, but an insane demon summoner? ALSO later in that chapter moirae talks about wedding rings blah blah left middle finger instead of center, but IN CHAPTER 25 (... you really have left me wwaayy too much time between this chapter and last chapter, i went a little crazy) but, okay, in chapter twenty-five nancy and aries have the ring on their left-center finger like it is "supposed" to be. now i've been wearing very heavy shipper-goggles lately courtesy of the big bang theory, but THIS MEANS THAT THEY ARE MEANT TO BE AND WILL HAVE ADORABLE, SLIGHTLY INSANE BABIES.

and then the amazon says she still senses mephisto or whatever. is that from her being, like, directly on top of him (in a geographic sense, the other way is like srsly disgusting to think about) or is it coming from still-alive!nancy? because i already brought up the "child of mephisto" thing from last chapter. is nancy radiating mephisto? oh dear lord. i love that girl, and i am more and more unable to understand why. i'm starting to feel like aries. although i also suspect he's upset because he realizes that he was SO seduced by a cougar. (score for nancy!) even though the whole seduction thing wasn't like, for the sex at all, but, you know, because it was perfect. ah, hell.

i think i'm done here... all i have to say is that it is my prediction that even though raven, moirae, and natalya are going by themselves to the durance of hate, once they get to level three and get through those annoying first four rooms where the council members and dark lords or whatever sneak up on you and basically kill you and then you only have mephisto to deal with, BAM here comes (at least!) aries and hopefully isolde and they can be a reunited "merry band of the mentally afflicted"! it'd be awesome if the amazon and nancy come as well, but i'll settle for aries. and, hopefully, isolde. because, you know, the aftermath of victory with raven and whatnot.

I AM CONCLUDING THIS REVIEW.

PLEASE DON'T LET ME DIE WAITING FOR THE NEXT UPDATE.
PLEASE?

-ds

ps: sorry for totally stalking you.

before i actually review:

OMG YOU UPDATED I LOVE YYOOUU!! -insert very embarrassing dance here- AHAHAHA SCORE ONE FOR WAKING UP AT FOUR IN THE MORNING AND SPONTANEOUSLY CHECKING FOR AN UPDATE.

okay! off to read the chapter!

“Oh, you’re just trying to butter me up to get into my pants."

If I had not yet before died of laughing. I do believe I did just then.
I am typing with ghostly fingers. Yes indeed.

;P I can not wait for the next chapter. But before I go, to couple with the image of Andariel and kittens; why not Duriel and brightly coloured knitted woollen socks and matching beanie?

And now too-rah!

I AM KEEPING MYSELF SATIATED ON BIG BANG THEORY FANFICTION BUT SERIOUSLY GIRL YOU NEED TO UPDATE LIKE NOW. IT'S. BEEN. OVER. A. FREAKING. MONTH. AND DID YOU SEE THE SEASON PREMIER OF BBT? IF YOU UPDATE I WILL GIVE YOU MANY COLON-CAPITAL-DS. NOW I HOPE YOU'RE NOT DEAD OR ANYTHING BECAUSE THAT WOULD REALLY SUCK. I ENJOY YOUR STORY AND REVIEW REPLIES. ALSO, IF YOU UPDATE I WILL FINALLY LOG IN. ALSO, YOU TURNED OFF PM SO I AM FORCED TO HARASS YOU BY ADDING USELESS REVIEWS SUCH AS THIS ONE. OH AND BY THE WAY JIM PARSONS IS REALLY ADOR(K)ABLE, I'VE BEEN WANTING HIM FOR LIKE THE PAST MONTH. I THINK SHELDON SHOULD MAKE A CAMEO IN THIS STORY. THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. I THINK HE'D GET ALONG WITH ALKOR ONCE HE STOPPED FAINTING AT ALL THE DIRT AND GRIME. ARIES SHOULD CARRY NANCY BACK TO TOWN. RAVEN AND ISOLDE SHOULD JUMP EACH OTHER. THE AMAZON SHOULD HAVE GLOATING RIGHTS TO MOIRAE ABOUT TOTALLY CRIPPLING HER. I MISS PEPPY. AND CREST. AND BITCH. DO YOU HAVE A TWITTER? I THINK I'VE ALREADY ASKED THAT. HEY SO ARE YOU GONNA DO A DIABLO 3 FANFICTION WHEN IT COMES OUT? THAT WOULD BE SO VERY EPIC, PLEASE DO. IT'LL BE LIKE SECOND-GENERATION OF THESE WEIRDOS WE'RE FOLLOWING HERE. AND OUR WEIRDOS CAN MAKE CAMEOS. AND THEN SHELDON CAN COME IN AND TEACH EVERYONE TO PLAY ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS-LIZARD-SPOCK. OMG! EXCITED. СУКА, Я ЛЮБЛЮ ТВОЮ ИСТОРИЮ. SEE? I LOVE YOUR STORY BILINGUALLY. THAT MEANS YOU SHOULD UPDATE LIKE TODAY.

PLEASE.

DS

deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead
deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead
deaddeaddeaddeaddead

you are seriously killing me. do you have a twitter or something i can bug you at? please?

WILL NOT have internet for like a week and a half after this friday =(

Oh, that was beautiful Phreno.
Really, truly, you wrote this chapter well. The chaos and the death realm, you wrote it into life.

I really, really can't wait for the next chapter. I should probably tell you to stop writing so well so I stop reading and pay attention to my school work, but I would be lying. ;P Keep writing.

IT'S BEEN ELEVEN DAYS. AGH

this is me getting off your back about updating all the time?
(too lazy to log in)

OH so yeah about sheldon... i am marrying him. just giving, you know. the wedding notice and whatnot.

okay so basically i'm the most hypocritical reviewer ever? sorry this took so long... i guess i should get off your back about updating all the time.

IN MY DEFENSE, i've been busy. well, sort of. if you define "busy" as "completely obsessed with the big bang theory and sheldon cooper," which is kinda what i've been doing. but seriously. if you haven't seen that show, you should definitely get on that.

OKAY. onto the review.

alright so are you in a phase where each character gets their own kick-ass chapter? because i think nancy and isolde need to form like a club or something. so what's with this dragon guy, trang'oul? i'm assuming he was the scaly-sort-of-form sitting with cuideag in this ever-elusive cave. (btw i /so/ called the cuideag thing.) HAHA i like how he was like "HEY. stop backseat driving my champion!" okay questions about him: is he his own god, or a form of God? was he really filling nancy with his spirit and person, if you will ("Her name was Trang’Oul"), or just granting her power? if she was his champion does that mean he was "with" her, so to speak, from the start? i'm /assuming/ nancy is getting brownie points for turning "away from devils to worship Gods." because it would suck for her to die just to go to hell back with all those people she sent there. (watchmen and rorschach come to mind, except i don 't think nancy will be able to defeat their collective asses in all of Hell like rorschach was able to in jail.) okay but earlier: "'You’re not Trang'Oul.' ... 'Call me an angel. A guardian angel.') so was it trang'oul? or wasn't it?

btw i found this funny: "Her name was Trang'Oul. ... 'No it's not.' ... 'Stay out of this, Cuideag.'" hahaha it’s like 'oh, get over yourself, nancy!'

okay, so nancy was able to kick the high council where the sun don't shine (GOD those guys are a pain in the ass), but at what cost? I SWEAR YOU KILL HER I WILL MAKE DIABLO LOOK LIKE A TWILIGHT FANGIRL.

HONESTLY.

(actually, i guess i can't do more than make my next review in all caps.)

(but then my review would look like it was /written/ by a twilight fangirl, so. yeah. beware.)

so i have to say that i really like the way you described the passage to death or whatever it was—the river. "Children, crying for their mother. Soldiers, reflecting on their sweethearts. Souls, alone. Obsessed over their final isolation. She let them go. Final thoughts. Always regrets. They made her heart ache. What would her final thoughts be?" and "'They’re so strong.' He didn’t see her. He was just echoing his last moments." SO beautiful and perfect. will the party remember her from that, well, time? when she told them to not leave? or will they wake up and be like "wtf happened" much like a night after heavy drinking? because there was that part where you said aries kind of recognizing her.

while on the subject of aries, ARE YOU GONNA LET HIM DEFEAT MEPHISTO? because he deserves like a chance to reconcile his soul and goodness with his wayward religion. actually, i vote they go to town and get healing potions first. 'cause. you know. they kinda need it.

oh! question! okay. so the high council called nancy “child of mephisto”. when she went all crazy on her family she didn’t help, like, mephisto regain his power, right? RIGHT?

alright i never thought i'd say this but OMG i can't wait until we get to hell! haha i want to see how you characterize halbu and... um, that-woman-who-draws-the-symbol-thingy-in-the-air. at the pandemonium fortress. AND TYREAL. OMG aries is going to ji...

nevermind.

will not reference the lonely island.

unless we're talking about raven and isolde, in which case raven won't be doing anything /in/ his pants. as the pants would be off.

because him and isolde would be jumping each other.

which they should do, you know, soon.

-ds

Wow. That . Was. AWESOME!

Very good description of the river Styx, that’s pretty neat how you are involving more of the lore behind the Necromancers. All of your description in this chapter was awesome, great, everything was so cool.


Also, THANK YOU for finally telling us who some of these voices are! You’ve dragged that out for 35 chapters and three years, THANK YOU for revealing it! Now I can die in peace, knowing who the Stranger is lol. Very cool who they turned out to be. Except, now you’ll have to give us some more backstory between Raven and Cuideag, which of course, you won’t do forever. But, that’s really cool how she’s sitting there (somewhere) talking to Trang’Oul and bartering for the fate of the world over a campfire. Now, you just have to tell us who Corvus is, and who all the OTHER voices in Raven’s head are. Like that’s going to happen. Ever.


As she spoke, bones had crawled up from the ground, twining themselves around her like vines. They hardened, taking on a gleam of metal. Bone hands gripped her head, a skull helm grinning at them inanely.

^Someone at Blizzard should read this description.


And...who is Percival, that she is sorry to call him? Why would that be? Unless…no… he isn’t a member of her family that she killed or anything? Is he?


Also, that was a very clever title. Since it referenced how Nancy was used AND the name of the plot device. Well done.



Her head was thrown back as the star inside her burnt out, white light so hot it burned cold, freezing her core, streaming out of her. She fell, fell down to the blood-soaked earth, falling through icy air and arid death and coming out the other side. She hit the ground of the Travincal, staring blinkingly up at stars. But they were real stars this time, far away flames of the universe, many of them long-dead but their light only now reaching the earth. Final wisps of power billowed out her nostrils, like two curling serpent dragons, pure light, pure energy. The serpents crawled into another realm, dragging back wayward souls with them and sealing them to flesh and bones. They coiled around wounds, around tears and cuts and bruises. And then they faded with a goodbye hiss.

^Very well written. Write more like that.

I only have one complaint. This chapter was epic and awesome, but it was too short! You went into such depth and detail with your description… and then it stopped! What happened? I had this great picture in my head of the light of long dead stars and lost souls and a river and the scaled might of a dragon with distant eyes…and then the music stopped, and I was left with only the jungle and the stones of Travincal. More where that came from, please!


One more time, awesome description!

i check like three times a day for your update. do you keep wanting to disappoint me three times a day?

ABANDON RESPONSIBILITY AND WRITE FANFICTION.

oh and put me up for innerfire's petition about aries, he's so cute he deserves some happiness. hopefully, something to do with nancy. (OMG a little nancy/aries baby--adorable! oh god i'm becoming waayy too much of a fangirl)

and i forgot to say in my first review, but here's another thing that made me laugh (although it probably wasn't supposed to): "I’m surrounded by people like you, and I’m sick of it. People who hide from what they’ve done. People who become obsessed over pointless things"

which i translated in my head as:
"HO. LY. FUCK. MY FRIENDS PISS ME OFF SO FREAKING MUCH THAT I KEEP WANTING TO KILL THEM BUT SINCE THAT'S COUNTERPRODUCTIVE I'LL SETTLE FOR YOU. HEAR THAT, RAVEN? HUH? HEAR THAT? IF YOU GET OVER YOURSELF I MIGHT ACTUALLY JUMP YOU. /GOD/!"

also known as: isolde is hilarious.
UPDATE.

Ok, I just have one typo that I’m going to gripe about here (I have been reprimanded for complaining about typos too much, so I‘m cutting back lately):

““Let’s get back to Kurast.” He said firmly. He glanced at Moirae. “We’re all finished here.”
It wasn’t really posed as a question. More a statement of facts.”

But. . .was it a question in the first place?




“That’s right… Nancy’s real (fake) name was Narkeasha. She suited Nancy far better.”
Lol that’s a good one


“In order to drink the dead king. He can’t remember why had had agreed to this either.”
Lol


You know, I just read from 27 to 33, and I can only think of one thing: are things ever going to get any better for these poor characters? Sheesh, Phreno, you just made Ares’ entire life a lie, made Nancy’s past catch up to her vis-a-vis she’s going to die, then you had the two of them sleep together and now they hate each other, and the only other thing that’s happened is Moraine is playing the peacemaker for once, which she hates doing. The only characters who haven’t gotten beaten over the head with the angst stick in these last five chapters are Raven and Isolede, who have both been hiding under a table together from your angst storm. But (as DS says), they are still prohibited from jumping each other.



Although, in that last chapter it was pretty cool how Isolede finally got to do something cool after having no real role for the last five chapters or so. And your description of Areta was, to put it mildly, AWESOME. Snake tattoos that make your hands look like vipers is pretty cool, but /pouring molten bronze/ into your skin? That’s hardcore. I’m so stealing that idea, btw.

Anyway, if I could petition to have just ONE nice thing happen to Aries that doesn’t blow up in his face, it would be nice. Just one. Poor guy.

Anyway, finish up this cliffhanger!