Surfacing Ch. 35

Any update on ch36 ????

Totally....WOW!!

I have finally caught up and am completely addicted. The cliffhanger you left on this chapter has finally hit me hard. I knew all the other ones were only very short pauses as I started the next chapter immediately, but now......I just dread any wait. I brought it upon myself by cram reading everything you had as fast as I could, like gorging myself on gourmet meals.

I await with strict anticipation to another chapter in the life upon Muirag and know ahead of time that all the waiting will be just a mere pittance of payment for the fine creation you shall bestow.

Congrats, Balthir ^_^

Glad you've caught up, and it was fun watching your progress (which also means thanks for the "favorites.") Now you can browse the website and the Patreon page to your heart's content and you'll have twelve new stories related to the story September 1st. Maybe you did gorge, but there's still dessert and snacks when you've caught your breath.

As well, target completion for Ch 36 is this weekend, and it's going well. Just longer than expected because...fucking characters won't stop taking sometimes. :P That, and the abstract/metaphysical scenes are harder (I can picture something significant going on without using a body to portray it, but is it more than fuzzy static to the reader??), and this chapter had several of those. Yeep. Well, back on it. :)

What he said

The words of Balthir66 seem to have been lifted directly from my mind. I have voraciously devoured your words, Etaski, and am rather happy to have discovered (after finishing Ch. 35, then discovering and reading the three side stories) you have already submitted Ch. 36 (insert happy dance). This epic tale is, in my honest opinion, as good as it gets, and the quality of your prose and character development is exceptional. Thank you for sharing your gift, Etaski!

Ch36 has not been posted
Is there any problem ??????

Nope, all's well

Laurel is just running a bit behind; I noticed a large backlog post yesterday. Almost five years of doing this and I don't worry anymore. She always comes through as long as I follow the process as usual and don't click on the "pending" button.

Although I saw that other comment again about a "septology"... that's a word I don't see often! ^_^ How long would it be in book form? (Goody, goody, excuse for math!) Back around Surfacing Ch 21 I'd crossed 1 million words by a fair margin and decided to see how that translated to the "average" paperback novel size on my bookshelf (about 120,000 words each, 300 words per page x 400 pages). It translated to 10 smallish paperbacks.

Now I'm within spitting distance of 2 million words and 5,000 pages of Word not counting side-stories. We've past 16 books of average paperback size. Having said that, printed books can be much thicker and the print smaller, and research shows you can pack 1.77 million words into five fat books as in "Game of Thrones." I'm at 1.97 million, so if we're talking fat books, we're somewhere in Book Six. Which means...yeah, septology is a pretty good guess, Anon. ;) Impressive estimation once we define what one book might be. ....and I'm such a nerd. :P

Although especially with e-books, I wouldn't split this into 16+ separate releases...that's just silly. Fantasy epics are some of the thicker books on the shelf for a reason. :)

Wellll

It doesn't look like all is well
It's been 5 days since you submitted the chapter
It doesn't take more than 3 and in extreme cases 4 days to post
Doesn't look like it's gonna post anytime soon

*shrug*

Sorry, guy, I know it's frustrating. I have seen it take this long before even when there are no issues; there's a real, red-blooded woman on the other end making things happen and even though nothing's ever perfect, she's only ever been kind to me.

At the polite request of an anonymous reader, I have made a polite inquiry to Laurel, but that is all I can do. I may receive no reply before the story posts as she tends to only reply when there's a legit issue; she's not here to reassure every user or she'd never get anything done. But I will update if I do hear something.

Ummm you have done everything you can do estaski
I am just disappointed with literotica because surfacing is one of the best stories on the site and they are delaying it for unknown reasons
Maybe you can send some of us who want in now in email
Send a PDF pretty please

Prompt reply from Laurel

The site admin confirmed my submission was stuck. She has given it a nudge and say it should show with Friday's posts. Thank you for your patience. :)

Where's the rest?

I know it's probably really annoying to hear about this all the time, but it really seems like this story isn't completed! Where's the rest?

"Exit stage left" is a time-honored tradition ^_^

This chapter ends here at 74,000 words and continues in Chapter 36. :)

Anon

Very well.written. I could not stop reading, took me a few weeks to get here.
But I seem to be missing the first battle with Sirana, Jael and the Illithids before this all.started. Can you tell me in which chapter it is?

@Anon

The first battle with the Illithids was all the way back in Sufferance Chapter 5, the first one of this series with some significant "mass" action. There, Sirana saw Jael fight for the first time, she saw three mindflayers controlling the entire force attacking them, and she saw the male battle mages (including Callitro) earn their keep.

The reason for that battle (which took a long time for Sirana to piece together): the Elder Mind was looking for a fairly old mindflayer (later known as Ullipmious) which the Queen and Priestesses had captured, trying to reclaim it. This was the Elder Mind's last effort to do so, but it was defeated and opted not to waste more resources.

The Elder Mind would have been fine if Ullipmious had died, as expected; it would hurt but would have healed. Ullipmious went insane from the isolation and seized on Kerse the Draegloth to aid in its escape however it could. They both centered on Sirana as the perfect tool for the job. After escaping Ullipmious returned to its Elder Mind and they "mind-melded" again. Then things *really* began to grow unstable among the conclave, and in this chapter, we meet what came out of it.