NaNoWriMo 2009

[Autumn]

I was tired and spending all of yesterday reading TVTropes so now I'm a day behind schedule :(

 

[Darksong]

I started at about midnight on November first, and somehow managed to get 6183 words in the first day. o_O

Since I'm halfway through now, with 26,440 words already, I'll edit the story and add chapters in the last half of November, along with starting to read Full Metal Alchemist again.

My novel's titled the Celestial Hourglass. It's from the point of view of a wolf, which is why it mentions claws and such.

Profile: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/449036

Excerpt:

All of a sudden, the wolf leading Uzura stopped, and Uzura screeched to a halt, his claws digging into the soft, damp earth below him; only then did he realize the ice cold drops beginning to fall from the sky. Shaking his head, he shivered. How he hated the rain… but somehow, this shadowy wolf with the mysterious glow around its neck seemed not to notice. He just sat with a perfectly straight posture, exposing the fine, almost delicate, shape of his muscular body. Uzura’s shape was thin and starved in comparison, but it wasn’t that hard to explain; this wolf almost seemed like a deity!

Suddenly, the surroundings darkened, as if the wolf ahead of him were absorbing everything and making every piece of bark, every little branch, his exact color. But, almost impossibly, the surroundings reached a color even darker than this wolf, and the only thing that illuminated the two figures of Uzura and this mystical wolf was the light of the gold chain around the wolf’s neck. But it seemed almost impossible to Uzura; there had to be some light to cause the necklace to glow so brightly, but there was absolutely no source of light here… meaning that the chain radiated its own light. His ears went up in awe, and then Uzura noticed that the wolf was perfectly still.

Unexpectedly, the wolf ahead of him pivoted on the very tips of his toes, and the wolf’s ears flattened as his red-orange eyes gazed directly into Uzura’s, piercing his body thoroughly with fear like the bite of a snake. “Do you not know where you are headed?” the wolf growled, the light around its neck becoming brighter to reveal its white chest fur. “Do you not know what could happen if you do not carry on?”

Uzura’s ears tilted to the left, and then his head; he had no idea what this stranger was talking about. He never knew where he was going; was this wolf trying to tell him that he was heading somewhere he had been before, and he had merely made a circle while he was running. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He sat down slowly, his tail curled over his paws with his head still cocked in exactly the same way. Uzura’s eyes narrowed when the mysterious wolf became silent.

There was a large flash of light, and the wolf was illuminated for just a second – but it was too short for Uzura to see what the wolf looked like. He could only see his own gray-brown fur and the silver light that his earrings cast onto the right side of his face, and then the light faded again, leaving Uzura in the almost perpetual darkness. With a slightly annoyed sigh, he looked ahead again, only to discover that the white-and-golden wolf had disappeared. Uzura’s tail lashed as he stood up and whirled around, stomping in the other direction. But the voices still surrounded him, as if many wolves were talking to him at once. “Don’t turn back! Don’t leave everything behind!”

 

[nothing to see here]

26,000 already!?!? Holy crap!

Anyway... I finished Burger King vs. Super Macho Man last night before I went to bed, and then today I finally got Celes vs. King Dedede finished (about half an hour ago.)

I ended up including his partially-mechanical hammer from Brawl, but since he uses a fully-mechanical hammer later on in Super Star Ultra, I figure that's not really much of a problem (unlike using Brawl-exclusive moves for other characters, which is just completely wrong... especially for Ness/Lucas, who don't even have more than one or two of their own moves in SSB.)

"Whuh? Whoa!!"

Dedede backed away as quickly as possible, only barely managing to avoid the brunt of this sudden burst of strength. Even so, his kingly robes were being torn to shreds by the near-misses, and there was only so much space left in the arena for backing up.

Finally deciding not to back up any more, King Dedede instead chose to block the next attack, raising his hammer up in front of him. Celes jumped forward, raising her sword up high and slicing downward with all her strength as she came down.

She had expected the simple-looking wooden hammer to split in two, but instead her sword stopped and clashed against it after only cutting through an inch of the wood on the outside. A sound of metal grinding against metal filled the air, and Celes gasped.

"What is this!?"

Once again, Dedede laughed.

"You thought this was just your regular everyday wooden hammer, huh?"

Shoving the weapon forward and throwing Celes onto her back, he raised it up and got into a fighting stance. Whirring and clanking sounds came from within the hammer, and the barrel-like head popped open slightly, revealing what appeared to be a massive engine inside a wooden shell.

"Nah, y'see... this here is my new hammer," he continued to explain. "Got sick 'n' tired of always gettin' the old wooden one broken, y'know? So I got somebody to fix it up like this."

The sounds of machinery from within the hammer grew louder, and then the flat part of the head snapped shut, once again hiding away the mechanical parts within.

I'm almost to 13,000 now; I'll probably catch up with Sunday's target wordcount before the day's over, if I at least get started with one of the next few fights (Mewtwo vs. Wolverine is up next, and then Riku vs. Terminator.)

 

[Karkat Vantas]

How did Macho Man kill BK?

 

[#1 bro]

My novel's titled the Celestial Hourglass. It's from the point of view of a wolf, which is why it mentions claws and such.

HIGH FIVE. ANIMALS.

You are the only other person I've seen, either here or on the NaNoWriMo forums, whose story is from the PoV of an animal. My novel is titled "The Adventures of Panda Bear, the Magic Talking Snake" so there you go.

wooo

edit: also, god damn it my novel is trippy! it seems the more of it i write, the more surreal it gets. take this gem for example:

"???????" Panda Bear muttered sleepily.

 

[Lorem Ipsum]

15,064 words, 28 pages, 7 chapters. ~1800 words today.

“The heat!” he screamed incoherently. “It’s burning my face! Oh, God, make it stop, make it end! I can see angels, but oh, God, the heat, the pain!” He carried on screaming and yelling for about two minutes in front of a shocked Sue, before finally he slumped further, and finally at peace, died. His body looked almost restless as it lay there, jerking slightly. Even though she wasn’t a crying person, Sue burst into tears at the sight of this. It was ironic, really, how she didn’t cry much at the sight of her dead sister, and yet this man, this stranger, she was crying a flood about. Sue closed his eyelids, covering those eyes that had the last throes of death and dementedness in them. Those eyes had scared her more than anything had done about the whole plague – it was the way that the dead seemed to look at you, as if they were begging you for something that you knew you couldn’t give to them.

Unsteadily, Sue picked up the man, and carried him over her shoulders. Quickly and quietly, she threw him over the side, watching as his lifeless corpse drifted slowly and calmly under the waterline of the river. She smirked grimly when he finally left the field of vision, as if she was happy that he had gone to a higher place. Sue didn’t know what to believe about God anymore. When everybody had been alive, she had called herself a non-religious person, although deep down, she had always known that that wasn’t true. But it was at times like this when she sincerely hoped that there was a God, there was somebody up there looking out for people and her down on the face of Earth. But the flu was making that hard to believe. How could any god kill all of his people, kill his creation to serve a higher purpose? There was always a way around death, always a way around killing people, innocent people. And the flu hadn’t discriminated. Children, babies, the elderly, the people who had never set a foot wrong, they were all dead, all waiting to be judged. Sue just hoped that those who deserved it were inhabiting Paradise; she just hoped that they were living the lives they deserved, free from plague and famine.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Got myself caught up today, and by today I actually mean "before midnight" for once. Oyey. Take that, little calendar progress word count widget thing! Try and mock me now! Mark Monday down as green, you little bitch, that's right, green. Even with the site going down you didn't prevent me from updating my wordcount in time for effing green. Ha. And ha ha ha.

...what.

Also, there was a write-in for my region (I don't know what on earth possessed me to join one this year) in a Starbucks right next to my school today. I just came home straight after class because I've been feeling a little less than stellar lately, but they're doing it again on the 16th and the 23rd and I think that I might actually try and go to at least one. I'm asocial and also hate coffee and most other things they serve at Starbucks so I'd probably go hungry the whole time, but I dunno, I get this feeling that somehow it will turn out to be awesome if I do go. That, and I'm hoping having a bunch of caffeinated strangers on hand to yell at me when I wander off to the internets might do wonders for my wordcount. :I oh god what's happening to my asociality come baaack T-T Curse you, NaNoWriMo, and your mysterious ability to give me something resembling a social life. Curse you.

The part I'm currently working on is more interesting than the quote I've got but it's also even crappier and not done so you get this later bit instead. Spoilertagged for people who might be interested in reading my story later (most of you probably aren't, but still) as it's a major plot point, and also for those interested in the games it's based on, because it reveals a little... stuff. Pretty early stuff, but stuff all the same. So.

...yeah like I said I'm sure most of you don't care so you can probably just go ahead and read it. :B

Spoiler

"Mithos Yggdrasill, Kratos Aurion, Yuan Ka-Fei and the rest of Exstar, or rather Cruxis; Igaguri Fujibayashi and his Mizuho Yakuza; and of course our very own beloved Commish Brute Lualdi and his crooked bulls... they all want Remy Levin, Genis. I'm damned if I know why just yet, of course, but they all most definitely want to get their hands on him. He might be a petty thief, but Remy Levin is looking like the most popular man in town these days."

"Yeah, I guess so," Genis agreed, "but I don't know that that does us a lot of good, is all. Especially since we don't know exactly what they want him for."

"That'll make itself clear in due time, I expect," I said. "But it does us a lot more good than you'd think." I reached into a desk drawer and came up with a sheet of paper, laid it on the blotter, then took a pen and started scrawling. Genis asked what I was writing. "I have an idea," was all he got out of me.

"You see," I said after a few minutes of me writing and him glaring irritably in my direction had passed, "Cruxis, Lualdi and the Yakuza all want Levin for something or other. Something quite important to each of them, at that. And I'm willing to bet that each of them is aware that someone's trying to cut in on their caper with him."

Genis still didn't get it. "But if they know, why aren't they doing anything about it? I mean, come on, Zelos... we're talking about two really, really powerful mobs here, not to mention the police commissioner himself and anyone else he's got on his side! If they thought anyone was interfering with whatever they've got in store for Levin, they'd have their competition rubbed out in the blink of an eye. They're all still around and kicking, so what gives?"

"That's precisely it, kid," I said, smiling and continuing to write. "Of course they'd be all for shutting one another down. That's the problem. They know someone's horning in on their games, but because they've all been so damned good at covering their own tracks they don't know who the someone or someones might be. I'm sure Yggdrasill, Lualdi and Fujibayashi are all chomping at the bit and going downright screwy, just waiting for a chance to sic their button men on whoever's got the guts to stand in their way. And they'll do it, too, the second they get the word--bump off the opposition and get back to their work with Levin as quick as possible. Of course, they've got their own eyes and ears around the city, and it's probably a sure thing that they'll figure it all out on their own given enough time... but that's time that we don't have, especially since we don't know what any of them are really up to." I stopped writing and picked up the letter so that I could look my progress over in a better light.

"So, then." The kid leaned an elbow on my desk and frowned, thinking hard. "Obviously we'd like to stop them before they get too far. But I'm not sure how--"

I cut him short. "So," I said, "it's bad for their respective businesses to run around blind with no idea who else is trying to pull the same con. They want to know who's been meddling in their work..." I put the letter down, wrote a few more sentences as I finished up. "Well, if that's what they want, I say we give it to them."

"What, you mean our investigation?"

"Close your head and stop being stupid," I snapped. "What, you looking for an excuse for them to plug you? No, not us, Genis... I'm just saying that I think it's high time we tipped a few mitts and showed them who they were looking for."

Now if you will excuse me, the evil witchery that is NaNo has caused me to actually care that Denver has a higher wordcount than Atlanta. I need to go fix that.

 

[nothing to see here]

Though the whole "site being down" thing means I have absolutely no idea what my wordcount is, I can say that I'm finished with Mewtwo vs. Wolverine. I thought I wouldn't get much work done today, but thanks to some Advil (to get rid of that nasty headache I had earlier) and boredom, I managed to finish a whole fight.

This time, Mewtwo was caught off guard. While trying to figure out exactly what Wolverine meant by "adamantium," the mutant had cleared the distance between them and swung at him once again with his claws. He moved at the last second, but not quite fast enough--the blades sliced clean through the tip of Mewtwo's tail, severing it completely.

Speaking aloud for the first time in the fight, Mewtwo screamed in pain.

"Rrrraaaaggh!!"

He retaliated almost instantly, not giving Wolverine enough time to follow up with another attack. His right hand began to glow with a strange purplish-black energy, and he lashed out at his opponent's chest, tearing away a chunk of his costume along with quite a bit of flesh and blood beneath it. Mewtwo then thrust both hands forward, launching the mutant halfway across the arena and repeatedly slamming him against the floor.

Finally, after the stones below him were thoroughly soaked with blood, he let Wolverine's body fall.

"Whoa... somebody's pissed off!", Kurb shouted down from his booth. "And it looks like Wolverine's in pretty bad shape! If he stays down much longer, I'll have to..."

As it turned out, Kurb didn't even need to finish his sentence. Mewtwo stared in absolute shock as Wolverine slowly brought himself back to his feet. The wound in his chest was healing right before his eyes, new flesh filling the hole within ten seconds and layers of skin covering it almost instantly.

"Yeah, forgot to mention somethin'," he said, cracking his neck and popping a dislocated shoulder back into place as if it was something he had done dozens of times before. "Rip my guts out 'n' smash my bones all ya want... I'm just gonna grow 'em back."

Yeah, Mewtwo uses Shadow Claw and Shadow Ball in here. I figure it would make sense for him to figure out how to use TMs if he ever happened to find one (he's smart after all), so Mewtwo knowing TM moves isn't really unrealistic at all... even without any help from a trainer.

EDIT: NaNoWriMo.org is back up! Turns out that Mewtwo vs. Wolverine pushed my total wordcount to 14,936. And adding the "Round 1, Match 8" text from the start of the next chapter bumps that up to 14,940... still behind Monday's 15,000 target, but not by enough to really matter.

I should easily blow past 15,000 as soon as I start Riku vs. Terminator, though I doubt the fight will be quite long enough to push me all the way to 16,667. Ness vs. Frankenstein's Monster (probably a short fight) is after that... so maybe I'll try to get 'em both done in the same day?

Also, once I finish Chapter 8, I'll probably start uploading this stuff to fanfiction.net. Everyone who's expressed interest in reading the thing should be expecting a PM when that happens.

 

[Darksong]

Day 9: Got 2420 words of progress today, adding up to...

*drum roll*

30,069 words!

Excerpt:
Suddenly, he flinched back as some kind of wave passed through Mortar’s body. Giving a startled cry, he watched as she began to twitch and squirm. Tomaru quickly stood up and stepped back, although alarm seemed to be rising quickly in her. Her eyes narrowed, and she spread her wings to shelter Mortar. Quietly, Tomaru growled, and Uzura cringed, trotting back up the slope. What had caused Tomaru to act like this? As he walked away, she looked down at Mortar, with her wings still angled so they were curled around the pup. Mortar let out a whimper so soft Uzura almost didn’t hear it; his startled expression transformed into a frown within seconds. There seemed to be something wrong with the pup, but how was he supposed to pinpoint it? He felt as hopeless as a fish outside of its pond when it came to this situation. He could only watch with his eyes narrowed in despair, and his gray-brown fur slowly being turned dark by the rain that constantly drizzled on them. Maybe that was why Tomaru was shielding Mortar – to keep the injured pup out of the rain. At least she had a good instinct to protect everyone; it was more like an actual pack that way, something that Uzura had never gotten to experience. At least, until now, and even though he was on the volcano, he actually felt more at home than ever. Being in a group just appealed to his instincts, he guessed.

The ground began to tremble slightly below his paws, and he jumped back, almost hitting his head on the cliff behind him. Tomaru seemed to be made even more anxious by it, and she almost sat down on top of Mortar, who was still squirming, but more intensely now. It was as if the earthquake affected her, even when she was unconscious – or maybe… did it have something to do with her? Uzura’s heart felt like it had skipped a beat as the thought occurred to him. He shook his head, trying to throw the thought out. But it stuck to him like a tick, and he silently growled to himself. How could he lose faith in this pup so quickly? She seemed quite innocent…

Suddenly, he was knocked to the ground by the force as the trembling grew harsher, and he yelped as his shoulder hit the ground. Again. How come he had to be hurt so often? And on the same shoulder, too… it just annoyed him. All of them were getting hurt, though… as if there lives were fungible when it came to pain… was one of them bringing bad luck?

No, he couldn’t think negatively. None of them were to blame for this. It was just bad luck that was brought by nothing. Or maybe, it was brought by the Celestial Hourglass.

 

[nothing to see here]

Done with Riku vs. Terminator, which brings me up to 16631 words. Which is not far off from Tuesday's target wordcount and a lot more than I expected to get out of that chapter... I guess the longer-than-usual pre-fight parts made up for the very short fight, though the fight itself did end up being a bit longer than I had expected.

Next up is Ness vs. Frankenstein's Monster, another relatively short fight. And then Scar vs. Dot Warner, which is going to be... silly.

Also, I should have the prologue and the first chapter (or maybe the first two, if I can think up a title for Rukia vs. Roxas) uploaded on Fanfiction.net sometime tomorrow. Everyone who's expressed interest in reading this so far will get a PM from me linking them to the story sometime after I post it... unless I forget.

 

[Darksong]

Forgot excerpt from last night; got lots of stuff to do.

Day 10: Yesterday, I made 1,739 words of progress (low amount for me. :<) and ended up with 31,808 words.

Excerpt:

But the wolf didn’t seem hostile as it finally entered view. It looked like it was trying to avoid a fight, even – or maybe it was just good at hiding its emotions. Because it looked like it had gotten into many fights. This was a she-wolf – her eyes were an odd creamy yellow with the slightest tint of pink, just like the dawn sky. Her gray fur was battered with many hideous injuries; there was a long, vertical scar from claws over her left eye, which was probably missing – it was squeezed closed. Her left side had been raked badly from shoulder to flank, and though the fresh wound looked painful, the she-wolf didn’t flinch at any step. Her ashen fur was torn in many various places, and much of her tail was also missing. However, her claws were insanely sharp, as if she had been fighting for all of her life – and by her appearance, that was what Uzura assumed.

Despite the ferocious outside, this wolf was calm. She sat down in front of Tomaru and dipped her head, speaking in a soft but cracked voice. “I mean no harm. I am only running away?”

Tomaru’s fur fell flat on her neck again. “Running from what?” her ears flicked towards the other end of the forest, which pointed to the human civilization. But Uzura didn’t understand what there was exactly to be afraid of there, other than the civilization itself. Then his ears flicked up as he noticed something else about this wolf – she was wearing a black collar, almost like Tomaru’s. But this one was ringed with silver spikes like fangs. What was that for?

Apparently, the wolf noticed Uzura’s questioning glance; she responded to Tomaru’s question at the same time as Uzura’s. “I was owned by a human who liked to make me fight with other wolves and dogs and such. And this spiked collar…” she indicated to it with a paw – “kept opponents from biting my neck to instantly kill me.” Her tail swished, and her eyes clouded as if she were remembering something. “I ran away because he said he would kill me for a loss.” Quickly, she licked her horribly injured side. “Which I did – I lost in the ring, so I had to flee before he killed me.”

Uzura tried to hide a grimace. This wolf was practically dead anyway – maybe she would even be better off dead. Luckily, the gray wolf didn’t notice his startled thoughts and unconscious lash of his tail.

“My name is Sunao,” she introduced.


I seem to be slowing down; I need to write a lot today.

Currently, I'm trying to build up a plot where my main character finally learns about the antagonist, but I seem to be delaying. Is this a good thing? Or is it a bad idea? Because I can type what remains in less than 20,000 words, even though I'd rather not. Maybe I'll just keep going after 50,000.

 

[Autumn]

I've just turned the in-universe representation of the author (a character who spontaneously appears and is responsible for the Deus Ex Machina that saved the two main characters from an otherwise inevitable fate) into a sadistic deity of sorts who holds blackmail over the two main characters and has just informed them that they will die on November 30th.

I decidedly like this story.

 

[#1 bro]

It seems this year that I will be doing 90% of my writing on the weekends. It's not that I don't have time after school... it's just that going to school drains me of almost all my motivation to do anything, let alone write.

Thanksgiving weekend will be epic. I'm hoping to maybe get 50K on that weekend alone. :0

 

[Darksong]

Decided I've typed enough for today.

Day 11: 2,448 words of progress, with 34,256 total.

Excerpt:

Uzura could hear faint rumbling, but he ignored it. Tomaru didn’t seem to notice, however; she was suddenly running very fast. Like a burst of an explosion, she headed up into the sky, surveying the tree tops for any enemies. She searched carefully, but could not pick out anything in particular other than a large white shape. But that was probably just Tsuno.

What she didn’t know was that Tsuno was traveling next to Mortar and Sunao, not branched off from the group. As she landed, she raced along the forest floor to catch up with the others, expertly dodging trees. As she caught up with the others, she noticed Tsuno sticking by Uzura’s side, with Mortar and Sunao further ahead. He had probably just moved back towards them.

“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” she said, suddenly hearing a faint rumbling sound. But she ignored it; the volcano was probably quaking. But if it were to erupt again, they would be in trouble.

Uzura’s ears flicked as he pushed the thought of the odd rumbling out of his mind, and he sprinted ahead to catch up with the others; he had been slowed down by thought. But whatever was lurking in the shadows was still there, and watched them go.

It was a large, white, ape-like animal with large hands and feet. The animal sighed, trudging off. And the trembles caused by its feet grew steadily fainter as it headed towards Mount Hydra, wanting to camouflage in snow. It could probably be a danger to the wolf pack if it had headed their way, but luckily it probably preferred to avoid humans.


Now I wonder if anyone actually reads this. Chances are I won't type much tomorrow either, because the newest Naruto chapter will be out, and that tends to de-motivate me... luckily I'm at almost twice the goal for today.

Also, as a disclaimer-type thing, the above paragraphs were about a random yeti I decided to add in because I took a dare. :D

 

[nothing to see here]

Just finished a little "intermission" chapter between matches 8 and 9, which (in addition to showing a bit of what the fighters are up to between days) is a great way for me to pad my wordcount. Not quite into the 18,000s just yet, but I'll probably reach Wednesday's target wordcount once I get started on Ness vs. Frankenstein.

As the janitor robots moved in to clean up the arena for the night and the crowd began to leave their balconies and head back outside to the field of tents, Kurb's voice rang out one last time before he, too, left to get some sleep.

"G'night everybody," he shouted over the speaker system, "Thanks for coming! Well, I guess you kinda had to, since there's not much else out here besides, uh, sand... but thanks anyway!"

With that, the overhead booth vanished, returning to wherever it had been before it had appeared in the first place. As the last few stragglers among the crowd filed out of the balconies, the glowing orbs atop the pillars at each corner of the ring slowly faded. After several minutes, their light vanished entirely, leaving the arena in near-total darkness, lit only by the stars above.

--------------------------------------------

In the underground chambers below, most of the fighters had already headed off to bed. There were no clocks in the underground rooms, so nobody had any way of knowing what time it actually was; most tried to get some sleep as soon as possible, remembering that they only had twelve hours to do so before the fights would start again.

Mewtwo apparently didn't see any need to use the room he had been given; instead, he simply floated a few inches above the ground in the area where the fighters had gathered before, his eyes closed in either sleep or meditation--at this time of night, it was difficult to tell which.

In the other side of the underground area, below the right side of the ring, a tall, greenish-skinned man stood silently against the wall as another man wearing a long, black cape emerged from the nearby coffin. He laughed slightly, revealing a pair of sharp fangs among his upper teeth, and then walked off toward the stairs leading upward.

King Dedede had changed into a pair of light-blue pajamas with goofy yellow stars on them, hanging his tattered red robes on his bedpost and exchanging his red crown-hat for an old nightcap. A robot carrying a basket of clothes floated into his room and added his robe and hat to the pile, quickly zipping out of the room before the fat duck could react.

I guess it must've been pretty late by the time they started, since the sun was setting during Match 3 and it was dark enough for artificial lighting by the time Match 7 was about to start... and then after Match 8, it was time to let the crowd and the fighters have a few hours of free time (twelve hours actually, but... they're kinda expected to use at least some of those for sleeping!)

 

[Phoenixsong]

Um.

Richter Abend was the first of the band to leave, poking a head into the dining area to say his good-night's and then ducking back out to leave through the alley. I was just straightening my hat on my head of red hair and preparing to follow suit when Glen Siedel re-emerged from the back room instead of heading out from the back exit. He tugged at Thurman Bronte's arm, pulled him close, moved his lips like he was whispering but not long enough to look like he'd said anything of substance. Bronte certainly seemed to have gotten something out of it, though, because he looked a little worried and then said something to Kara Sewell and Hal Lynch, then to the Wonder Bartender.

"What's up?" I asked, moving over to the huddled group.

"Glen says that some of his things are missing from the back room," said Bronte in a rumbling voice that matched the bass he played.

"Really? What things?" I asked him.

Glen Siedel didn't say anything, as per usual, and just looked at me with a level gaze and not much of a discernible expression on his face. Bronte continued to serve as his friend's mouth. "Not a lot," he said, shaking his head, "but definitely a pretty penny's worth of stuff. [insert real or made up brand name here] watch he got from his father, for one thing. Wallet's gone missing from his coat pocket. Few other things." There was no reason for Bronte not to share precisely what those other missing things might've been, so Siedel must not have told him. Gods knew why.

"Sh... sh... shtealing fr'm th' back roomsh," slurred the Wonder Bartender. He shook his head too, only bigger and more erratically. "On'y em... emproyeesh're 'llowed... 'llowed back there in th' back roomsh. Shame... shuch a d... damn shame, that ish, people sh... sh... sh.. shtealin' fr'm our privatest back roomsh what no... no one'sh 'llowed into, shame." He drained another glass of the house bourbon as if he expected the swig to make the theft a little less shameful, then poured himself some more from the bottle. "Sh... sh... shuh-huh-huh.. shuch a shame, that ish."

The others were looking at me like they wanted me to do something. "I'm just a private eye, not a copper," I said, holding up my hands. They kept looking at me, so I just shrugged. "I mean, eh... sure, I suppose I could have a look or something, since I'm here anyway. But only because you play a mean horn, Glen, and I appreciate good music." Siedel didn't smile at my attempt at levity. He just kept looking at me with absolutely nothing on his face. Then he nodded.

I took that to mean "thank you", and Bronte and Sewell and Lynch and the Wonder Bartender said their "oh, thank you"s out loud, though the Wonder Bartender's sounded more like "oh... ohhmm-mm... thshank yoush."

wonder bartendeeeeerrrr oh, I can't wait until I get to a scene where I can have some real fun with him. Also, I want an [insert real or made up brand name here] watch. I hear they're all the rage in Milan. Maybe I can buy Glen Siedel's fancy [insert real or made up brand name here] watch after it's been fenced.

And, um. I think it's safe to say that Hexxeh's nanobars are out for the count--at this point, if we're still interested in the war, I think we should just switch over to the official widgets and put them in the first post instead.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Sorry for the double post, but just popping in to say that I've gone and prettied up the first post for the word war. The only problem is that I don't have moon-panther's user ID so I can't add her to Team B's widget; moony, if you're still in on the war, could you post a link to your nanowrimo.org account so I can get the ID?

So there you have it. Team C has ~39000, Team B has ~47000 (sans moony) and the vastly superior team has ~58000, even without all the wordcounts in (psst hey Blaziking I know you have some of your writing done now update your damn wordcount). Get your acts together, losers who are not in Team A!

 

[Leviathan]

I can't do it. >XC
Senior-year workload is way too big, and combined with college applications...I just don't have the time. And even if I were to finish everything in the next couple of days (yeah right) there's no way I'd be able to get caught up at this point. This...really, really kills me, because I had been so looking forward to doing this since August, and now it's just going to be yet another year before I can actually finish the story. :c

 

[Sylph]

Um...yeah. I'd like to still be in the war...but I can't seem to find the post where you guys are getting these...IDs.

 

[nothing to see here]

Finished Ness vs. Frankenstein's Monster surprisingly early (actually got done around 5 PM, which is... waaaay earlier than I usually even start writing.)

But... despite the super-long pre-fight chunk (because I didn't want a whole extra chapter just for "everyone wakes up and has breakfast"), the fight itself was pretty short, so I'm still not quite to 20,000 yet. I'll probably get to that point pretty quickly once I get started on the next fight, though.

Um...yeah. I'd like to still be in the war...but I can't seem to find the post where you guys are getting these...IDs.

Just post a link to your profile on the NaNoWriMo website.

There should be a bunch of numbers at the end of the URL (like this: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/517740)... that's your ID number.