Chs 24, 25 and 26: Sam escapes

Chapter 24: The Spitting Image

Draegor sits back in his seat and watches a circus being performed in front of him. Or, to put it the book's way,

Dinner was consumed. Now the entertainment had begun. Flautists played as Draegor sat back in his seat enjoying acrobats who dangled, spun, flipped, and twisted on sashes suspended from the ceiling.

Draegor just sounds like a bigger and bigger asshole the more we hear about him. It just makes me think of people who party and don't care about anyone else, like dictators who throw lavish parties and chill while not giving a damn about how many deaths are occurring under them. Draegor is a douchebag dictator.

Once Sam, being pulled behind by Dain, enters the room, Draegor eventually notices him and stops the music and the partying.

Dain pushed Sam forward. "Wh-wh-what about this one?" he asked.

Draegor stood, checked his reflection as he passed a window, and walked to Sam.

My god he's vain. He makes the awful Captain N version of Simon Belmont look downright humble. This guy just can't stop looking at himself. It's like his fetish or something - he just has to have paintings of himself, statues of himself, and mirrors to get off on. What is he, Kim Jong Un?

"The spitting image. I'd know you anywhere," he said to her.

Oh look, a chapter title drop.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam protested.

"My niece. Samantha, don't you have a hug for your uncle?" He stepped toward her. She backed away and slipped on a stray olive on the floor.

She's... the niece of that guy?! And then we get comic relief right before her obvious pending execution when our hero slips and falls on a frigging olive. (Yes, falls. Two sentences later, it says that she's struggling to stand up)

He tried to cover his anger with sickly sweetness, "Can't we be friends?"

In order to do that, she'd have to forgive you for killing Peeper. And, um, all the other things he did.

"I have no children of my own, Sam. You have great powers. together we could conquer all."

"Join me. Together we can rule the galaxy as father and son!" I'm not even a Star Wars fan and I'm thinking this sounds strangely familiar.

Samantha points out that Draegor put her mother in the hospital, and he promises to make her better if only she will join him.

"Trust me. Save your mother," Draegor urged. Oily. Slick.

Sounds trustworthy to me, what with those adjectives.

"You'll make her better? Restore her memory?" Sam asked.

Wait, he can do that? Or is he promising her everything just so he can win, even if what he's promising is impossible? Either way, Draegor promises he will, if only Sam will join him and use her power to help him. The power that she, from what we've seen, sucks at using.

Sam asks about the other girls, and Draegor promises to release them, but Sam says she figures he'll just use them as hostages to get what he wants.

Draegor drops all pretenses and dives at her, reminding her that he's her uncle as if that's supposed to mean anything.

Sam shouts, "Potentia movere!" and vanishes.

Draegor stumbles, notices Sam is gone, and demands his underlings look for her.

"B-b-b-but where?" Dain asked.

Honestly, a good question. This noob who has no idea how to teleport could have put herself on the moon for all we know.

Chapter 25: Murder

Sam had not quite mastered the nuances of QM. She was able to escape Draegor's grasp, but she had no idea how to control where she ended up.

Called it. (Helps that I've read the book before :P)

When next she opened her eyes, she found herself underwater in the ocean off the coast of Aerynon. She had not prepared and had not held her breath. Before long, she gulped in a lungful of salt water and closed her eyes. What a way to end this adventure, she thought, Drowning like an idiot.

Yeah, Sam, you drowning dummy. How could you drown like an idiot?

In all seriousness, it's a strange thought process for a kid who immediately expects to die to have.

The mermaid, Gwenyth, shows up, grabs Sam, and pulls her to the surface right away. Sam sputters and gasps and coughs until she can breathe again.

"You have failed me," the mermaid scolded.

Looks like Samantha Stone has failed The Mermaid's Quest.

"I've been taking lessons, preparing," Sam gasped.

Sam sure seems to be taking these sudden changes of scenery and situation quite well. She's adapted really well to the weirdness of the story.

"There is no more time. Did you see how weak the people were at the Festival Femineus? Many moons ago, they would have been able to defend the girls against the attack of the Orcus with little effort. Now, with the Light of Aerynon absent for so long, their weapons lose strength, their energy flags."

Without waiting for a response or an excuse from Sam, Gwenyth pushed her toward the shore.

"Now go," Gwenyth commanded, "find the light."

Damn, our Exposition Mermaid is pushy. Also, I gotta ask, how the hell is Samantha supposed to find the light? What clues does she have to go on?

The scene switches to Captain Tithers, Malachi the parrot, Donum, Arstaef, Caelum, Isolde, and several Knights of the Old Order planning around a table at the beach. In other words, pretty much all the major characters we've met here in Aerynon so far. Willawogs float around them serving as makeshift lamps, giving them the light they need.

Captain Tithers, being our resident badass, complains "We're wasting time," and Donum insists on just going. Going... to what or where isn't stated.

Just then, a bunch of them start laughing, and as others turn and look at the sea, they start laughing too. Why? Sam, still alive, is walking towards them.

Smiling, with a sparkle in his eye, Caelum asked, "What took you so long, child?"

Sam coughed, caught her breath, panted. "The traffic," she said, "the traffic was murder."

I could actually see a kid making that joke.

Chapter 26: A Close Call

This chapter has a weird layout. It shows one scene with the bad guys, then switches to one with the good guys, and keeps going back and forth eight times. Yes, eight times. Here, I'll count:

1. Draegor's underlings run out of the Imperial Palace toward their kallion stables.
2. Back at the beach, the Old Order members crowd around Sam and warn her that where they are now is the first place the bad guys will come. Isolde commands, "To Aldur."
3. The bad guys gallop through the jungle. Yes, it's just one sentence describing that.
4. Sam and the Old Order head towards Aldur, the giant tree. Isolde casts the spell "Abscondere!" and the tree opens up.
5. The bad guys continue to gallop through the jungle. Yes, just one sentence, and not a descriptive one either.
6. Sam and the Old Order rush toward Aldur. Yes, just one sentence.
7. The bad guys tear through the jungle and get even closer to Aldur.
8. Sam and the Old Order manage to escape inside the giant tree, and the bad guys rush past just after the door closes. The bad guys completely miss our heroes.

I see what the author is doing here. The scene feels like it was written for a movie rather than a book, as if the camera was meant to keep switching back and forth between two scenes for the sake of suspense, showing the heroes rushing into hiding as the bad guys get closer and closer, until the bad guys miss them just at the last second.

Still, this is an odd way of doing it. It just doesn't quite flow in writing the way it would on the screen.