Dang it, you're leaving us with another freakin' cliffhanger. You just love doing this, don't you, Gavin? ARGH!

Well, as you can tell, I'm really looking forward to what'll happen next. Of course, it'll be another twenty chapters or so before we find out, because our surprise guest will probably get skewered by a falling stalagtite just as he begins to explain. After everything else that's happened, I'm sure you're just scrambling to find another way to keep your readers begging - no, screaming for mercy. Gavin Luper, the man of a thousand tortures. Catchy.

This was another great chapter, despite and perhaps partially due to the annoyance of the cliffhanger. I never would've guessed the truth about the ferocious Lunanine's appearance; very nice. Simple and yet surprising. Gavin's behavior, while also unexpected, seems to actually fit with his personality. Great piggyback rides... heh.

There were still a couple of things that I think could have been a little better grammatically, and that's ignoring the parts that were likely due to differences between the dialects of the U.S. and Australia. Not that they're big things... or anything beyond isolated incidents... but still!


If Gavin was being abducted again by the Union, surely he must be flooded with terrible memories?

“must be” is a present tense verb; since you’re writing in the past tense, the narration verbs need to stay in the past tense. Following with the word “flooded” doesn't change the tense of “must be”, unfortunately.


In the empty, drawn out wait, it became one of those things: once she noticed it, all she could do was focus on the discomfort, the pressure building in her head.

“one of those things”? If you could find a more descriptive (and thus more powerful) word or phrase to use than “things”, this might have a bit more force behind it.


“ And another thing, when you get picked up from the cave … tell the people who pick you up that I’ve got the O’Malley file and all it’s contents, except the third chapter, can you remember that?”

The word “it's” needs to be changed to its homonym twin, “its”. Also, I'm not sure about using that many commas to connect that many thoughts without conjunctions, even given some artistic license. There was a second sentence I jotted down that had the same sort of comma issue, but it's not important enough to necessitate another quote and suggestion.


On the other hand, your work is without question one of the best on TPM. The multiple ways in which you used the setting during this chapter were great, as was the irony of the surprise visitor at the end. I'm curious as to exactly how he thinks they have "all the time in the world", too, as that doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now. I suppose I'll just have to wait and find out next chapter. Well, I'll see you then!


P.S. I apologize for listing almost every single thing in the chapter that I thought could have been better. With some writers, that's the only way I have anything to talk about. You're at the top of that list.