All Comments on 'The Bonding Chronicles Ch. 16'

Out Fucking Standing!

Another fantastic chapter! My biggest complaint is that there's not another chapter ready to read already!

Hope your doing OK in life and congrats with being a father. I wish you best of luck with that. I love your writing as well. I hope you do well and hope this book comes out complete no matter how long it takes.

Good luck.

Kronos.

I know that fatherhood is claiming some of your time,

thus, I really appreciate this new chapter.

Be well, mon ami.

Wow, that was intense. Fantastic chapter. Please, please don't make us wait so long for the next one.

oh wow what a tale you weave . up way to late reading this chapter -- so worth it. thank you , can't wait for more.

Thank you for continuing this excellent story!

Please, just let this stupid overpowered wolf die already I mostly skipped this chapter just to see him finally get put down and not "mysteriously" vanish into thin air.

An excellent chapter as always. I do wish to see an end of that damned wolf though, but I'm sure it'll be taken care of soon enough. Keep up the good work!

congrats on the new baby :) they are the real joy for any parent to have

Awesome chapter. Switch back and forth between perspectives really at up the pages I really wanted more at the end. Oh well, really looking forward to the next chapter

This is really starting to just drag on. You can only read so many pages of "the wolf was seriously wounded... but it managed to get away and heal itself!!" before it starts getting boring and repetitive. Please for the love of god kill off the wolf early in the next chapter and move on to another plot thread already.

Love this story. Hate that wolf. Cant wait to see where you take the story. Keep up the outstanding work

Believe me, I understand everyone's frustration with the dire wolf, and just how powerful it is. The problem is, the damned thing is kinda overpowered, and they have no way to counteract its healing factor. That is ultimately why Andrew's plan was about the only thing he could think of that might work -- to try and kill it in a single stroke.

I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that Wildfang will not be back for a long time, and that it will be revealed early on in the next chapter that he is no longer in the forest. There were allusions in a previous chapter to a faction that has taken an interest in Wildfang, and I will leave his disappearance at that. Forces continue to circle in around Andrew, and the Celestials are not the only ones who are trying to decide how best to use, or abuse him.

Anyways, ominous portents aside, I hope that you found something to enjoy in the story, and that if nothing else it serves as a litmus test for just how dangerous confrontations with supernatural beings can be. Keep in mind, Wildfang comes from a land full of creatures that possess his ability to heal, and there are other beings with equally challenging gifts to overcome, that Andrew and his family will have to learn to deal with as time moves forward.

I looked and looked each day hoping I hadn’t missed this installment. It took so long. I hope the next is sooner. I love this story.

Killing it in a single stroke isn't the only thing that would work. They could also exhaust its energy reserves until it could no longer heal itself (assuming I'm interpreting correctly). And this nearly happened multiple times, except right when it was running low some deus ex machina inevitably happened and it escaped and healed for the billionth time.

But the real problem here isn't that the wolf is overpowered or that it has plot armour, it's the repetitive nature of their encounters with the wolf. Spreading a battle over an entire chapter is fine, but not when the battle is split across multiple encounters that all follow the same general template.

The battles against wildfang all have the same pattern and it really isn't credible that every time something happens that surprises our heroes or prevent them from finishing him off. It really made this chapter not enjoyable for me, and I absolutely loved the story so far.

That is a great point, and I totally understand what your saying.

Now, to be defensive for a moment, I was not saying that there was no other way for them to kill Wildfang, and as you pointed out Sara and Tani'm had gone there with the intent to burn down its power and kill it, much like Sara had done to Brandon. The problem was, the wolf kept escaping, and if you pay attention it never really ran out of power. It allowed itself to look more and more weak, choosing to consume muscle instead of magic to lull them into making a mistake. It was Sara who finally fell into that trap in the end, even though it was just to save what she thought was Andrew, and not a result of Wildfang's treachery at all.

What I said in my previous statement was: "Andrew's plan was about the only thing he could think of that might work" and what I meant by that is pretty clear. He was heading there with the intent to kill the wolf on his own, and he knew he was not as strong, fast, or capable as Sara or even Tani'm, so he decided that his best bet would be to kill it in one single attack. A sound tactic, and logical cource of action given who he is, and how he thinks.

Now, to be less defensive :D

As I wrote this chapter I kept thinking about what each side would do, or think as they battled, and everything kept coming back to Wildfang and his experience. Like Thunderfoot, he has grown and changed from being in the PNW, which I tried to show through his ability to regenerate his magic through the consumption of other animals and his escalating madness. Recharging through feeding is something he had done in previous chapters, but has only gotten more efficient at the longer he has been in the rainforest.

That all being said, I agree that his healing was getting kinda old. My main goal in each of those conflicts was to give Thunderfoot a lot of growth as he stood up to Wildfang, and to help Tani'm/Sara realize just how underprepared they were. Tani'm had some idea from her previous confrontation, but underestimated just how much of an impact the guys with rifles had played in her survival, and unlike Wildfang, she did not really take to heart the lessons she could have learned from that first fight with Wildfang.

In the end, each battle ended up being about Wildfang trying to separate someone from the party, or kill one of them in a quick and unexpected attack. That is how it started, with his ambush of Tani'm, and then continued with the diversion from the bear, and so on.

Now, where I see the greatest failure on my part, which I owe this realization to you, is that I probably could have structured things differently, and made it more clear that Wildfang was never really in imminent danger, but was toying with them and playing the odds. Thunderfoot was the only one that even got close to killing him before Andrew appeared, and that was only because he kept tricking or surprise attacking the wolf.

Personally, I like how the characters grew (these are late teens, early twenty year olds after all), and where the battle ended (I love how Andrew dealt with things), but agree that the progression felt stunted and artificial. I explained my intent above, but feel that my personal life definitely got in the way of this chapters flow, probably due to only being able to write 1 or 2 pages at a time, and then having to come back a week or two later and try to pick up mid battle, or thought. That is an excuse, I know, but an honest one.

We are heading into a longer period of relative peace; Andrew will start to explore his gifts more fully, while trying to settle back into a regular life, Sara needs to piece her relationships back together, and Karen has to figure out where she fits into all of this. Ohh yeah, and Tani'm is there too, sucked into a family she fears but can't stop thinking of, while Thunderfoot struggles to find his way home, to a place that makes sense and a warren full of fresh baby jackalopes.

Caili will continue to be around, and all the other factions will continue to be explored as the pieces all move closer to Andrew and his family. Likely, confrontations moving forward will not be as drawn out as this one was, and hopefully the set pieces that do exist will feel more varied and "true". I hope that you can see the growth and escalation of events as each battle in this chapter worked its way into the next, with Wildfang orchestrating everything except for that last one with Andrew.

I really appreciate the feedback, and want to assure you that I have heard what you said, and will try to avoid these types of pitfalls as I move forward.

I swear you wrote this chapter while you were on something. It feels like that Wildfang's most favorite hobby is to tear away limbs. I have lost count, there were so many severed limbs. I have a habit of picturing the scene in my mind while reading, and all I can see now is a forest with trees strewn with limbs. And I see a wolf jumping around gleefully severing limbs of everyone around. I'm not going to eat a drumstick in a while.

I literally cannot stop laughing. That has got to be my favorite comment to any chapter I have ever seen. I might as well stop writing now, because there is no way anything I could write would ever result in a post as hilariously appropriate as that.

I am genuinely tempted to edit this chapter, and make the subtitle: “A forest of severed severed limbs!”

Thanks for a great chapter.

Thoughts 1 the other girl returns and Callie trying to protect Andrew attacks her, Andrew stops her bonding both.

2 Callie kills Wolfgang

3 explaining the girls to the parents should be fun

Looking forward to the next chapter hope all is well at home

When it said that his trail just suddenly ended, my first thought was that wildfang went back to the realm of magic animals. I was frustrated that after all the foreplay of wearing him down, there was no release of killing him. But then i found consolation in the fact that he returned, severely wounded and defenseless, to an entire realm of creatures as powerful as him. If i remember right, his packed exiled him for cruelty. So i can only assume there are a ton of creatures willing to pounce at that opportunity for vengeance...or revenge. Whichever, i hate that wolf

*fantasize about tiny woodland creatures celebrating as they torture and/or kill him*

Anyway, i love this story, and will eagerly await the next installment

PS: you know you create a true villain when everyone in the comments wants him dead. Maybe just a little less teasing in the future

Of an encounter with the wolf. Just waaay too long. Almost as bad for the story as the diaper. This series and your writing mystifies me a bit. Some aspects about it are good but then there’s bits like this that make me want to never pick it up again. Blah.

I would be lying if I said that the encounter turned out exactly how I wanted, but if I wanted to deliver it before three months had passed since the last chapter, and I did not have time to go back and re-work it. Perhaps that is something I will do at a later time, but the length is likely to remain the same. Wildfang is way more powerful than our characters at this point, and the fight was always going to be one sided. They lucked their way through the confrontation.

Regarding your hesitation to continue reading, don't read it if you don't like it. There are a TON of stories on this site that contain content I don't like, or are written in ways I don't enjoy reading, so I don't read them. I am writing a story I enjoy, in my sparse spare time, and recognize that not everyone will not take pleasure from it, and it sounds like you need to decide if you are one of those people.

I am starting to really hate that wolf. Not because he is such a terrible foe, but because this character is becoming a focal point for everything that can go wrong in the telling of a story: he is (yet) unconnected to the actual plot, his entire motivation can be summed up as "chaotic evil", and even though his obvious purpose of bringing Tani'm and the crew together has been fulfilled we still cannot get rid of him because of a supremely improbable streak of sheer luck.

The problem here is that since I'm not invested in the wolf's character, fridge logic sets in much sooner, and what was made to look like a streak of luck immediately reaks of deus ex machina and military-grade plot armor. The entire scene felt cheap, unsatisfying, annoying even, and like it was just there to waste my time before we can finally get back to the plot arc that matters.

In fact, that fight felt like so many RPG sessions, where, after careful planning, meticulous preparation, epic stealth sections, and glorious battle against hordes of mooks, the party finally has the Big Bad surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered - when the DM steps in and pulls a Contingency: Dimension Door...

Bullshit like that can end real-life friendships!

Hello Anonymous,

I appreciate your well stated argument, and I agree with your assessment in many ways. Wildfang is a difficult character to make relatable, because he is so evil by his nature. There are reasons why he has become so vicious and callous, though I am not spelling them out directly. Like many aspects of this story, it is hidden in the development and has acted as a common thread through most of the characters.

More than bringing Tani'm and the family together, Wildfang has served a much more important purpose -- forcing them to realize how dangerous their lives will become with time. The escape of Wildfang was hinted at in a previous chapter, not long ago, and if noticed helps explain how he is now going to be much more tightly integrated into the machinations of one of the hidden factions that has been moving about Andrew and his family. He is a puppet, being manipulated, but will eventually serve a vital role in driving the main plot forward.

One thing I may do, before continuing to work on the next chapter, is do another aside after the Tani'm bond is formed, giving a bit more insight into how Wildfang vanished. I think that would help not only explain his disappearance, but make it more obvious his his escape relates to a previous event.

Thank you for your post, because I think that addition will greatly help this chapter feel less like a stab in the back.

The story said it was a plum then said it was an apple sitting om the seat with a bite taken out. Not aure if that was foreshadowing into him changing the broom to look like him or am error. Other than that, great story.

First of all let me say love the story arc,but could you make it so Andrew can get a legitimate power boosts rather than what is Linda pathetic. I love the parts where they talk about how his fighting skills are coming along and his strength too,but this last few chapters it feels like all of that halted and everyone else is getting stronger. I want him to reach his potential soon like how he is in the dream. Once again love the story just some concerns, but otherwise its phenomenal story.

Short people should stay in the closet.

Great chapter. They certainly had a task on their hands trying to defeat a magical direwolf with those crazy self-healing abilities. It reminded me of a Lvl5 character (or several characters) trying to take on a Lvl50 boss. It was never going to happen with their limited skills. I can see that the next time they meet they will work together more as a team and have a lot more tricks up their sleeve.

Kudos to the way you have developed these characters, not just the main three, but Tani'm and Thunderfoot too. Never thought i'd be upset about a bunny losing it's limbs!

Keep up the good work, i feel this story has a long way to go yet and i'm no hurry to see it finish.

Re: Plum or apple?

It was totally foreshadowing the broom and mop being used as diversions, the descriptions as she saw it as a plum were all about the soft tender flesh, juices and all the things you would think of when biting into an over ripe plum. But then, at the end of that section, as she is sitting in the car hearing the report on the radio about the men who had gone to the hospital from the first fight with the wolf, she looked over at the apple and hoped that Andrew's plan would work.

Her thought in relation to that apple is a direct reference to the fact that it once was masked to seem to be a plum, by Andrew, through a ward. Perhaps I could have made that clearer, but I often try to hide things like that in the subtlety of the scene. Often with mixed results :D

Re: Power Boost

Andrew's strength with always come from his intellect, and as the story moves forward, from the things he creates. His talent for engineering is something I have built into his character from the beginning, and IS ultimately the source of his power.

That is not to say he will not get more physically impressive, or offensively gifted, he will going to continue to grow, and get stronger, but it will take a lot more time than a werecat who is natural gifted in those ways. Sara, as described since almost the beginning, is truly his defender, and it was only in this chapter that those roles were reversed.

Things will continue to progress, and I hope you enjoy to see how he grows and changes as he comes into his power. For me, things are the most interesting now, because he is finally starting to touch on the true nature of his gift, and that is super exciting.

You make a wizard so strong that angels fear him and he can't kill a wolf are you fucking stupid

Actually, yes, I am super "retarded". ;)

I fear you have missed the reasons why the Celestials (Angels) fear Andrew, and all of the mages that are like him. It is not because of his ability to fight, and in many ways it's not due to the power of their magic. I'm not going to spell it out for you though, and will leave that for another reader, since I'm certain most everyone who reads this tale has a much better understanding of what is going on.

Dear Panther,

I am enjoying your story, (repeat, 'your story'), and as a contented reader, wish to encourage you to continue to tell it as you have been. It's unfolding nicely.

I believe an author is successful if he/she evoke the desired emotion in the reader. It's a ride for us readers. You're driving.

You have very, very successfully evoked a strong desire among the main characters and the readership for the wolf to die. To yank that away, and create the tension of an unconquered foe ... lurking ... is frustrating for some. And, some readers express that frustration using the simple, quick and entrenched vocabularies they're used to.

I was happy you bothered to respond to the reader.

In my opinion, when the wise instruct the ignorant, it's called teaching.

There are four things I like about this story.

Honor

Loyalty

Dignity

Humility

So far it's been a great ride for me. Keep on truckin' !

Regards,

albertajack

P.S. just kill the g#d d@mn f&ck%ng wolf!

(hahahaahhaahaha!) sure, make it sound like maniacal laughter if you want

Thanks for your comment, and I totally understand everyone's desire for the wolf to die, but his introduction has always been leading towards the next confrontation, which is several chapters away.

That having been said, I recognize that his disappearance could have been handled in a way less blue balls inducing, so over the last week I have been working, in my meager spare time, to write a short aside that will be added to the end of this chapter, explaining how he vanished, and giving insight into why.

I finished it last night, and while I would like to edit it more, I will probably post it to my Patreon publicly later today, so that people can see it without having to wait for the editing and approval process here on lit.

You can find my Patreon here:

https://www.patreon.com/panther_parabola

"Literary blue balls", should become standard terminology.

I like it.

I can see the coroners report.

Dr. Dan Brown of the City Morgue diagnosed Jack's death as a classic case of literary blue balls. Dr. Brown's first concern was whether to wear a red nose and painted clown face when he informed the shapely Sgt. Emma York of the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment.

Good times.

Nice extra. Victor will be an interesting character.

Thank you

albertajack

the characters and the world you created are really great and fun to read about, but the last chapter was just soo mediocre.

it was basically 10 pages of "look at all the plot armor i got" and "well there goes a limb, but we will fix it right back up"

the wolf has no motivation for his actions and no background as far as the reader knows and that makes him a boring adversary compared to brandon for example. brandon was a character that had less "screen time", but as a bad guy he was more engaging because of his motivations and background.

chapter 15 was really really good and i hope that 17 will be equally as good. i just hope that you dont go overboard with the new drama points you hinted at.

introducing karen's foster-son alexei back into the story as a wizard could be interesting, but i fear that it could be just a cheap plot point to threaten the bond between karen and andrew, which should be unbreakable according to the one person that knows about bonds (sara's father).

of course the author can always introduce new information through some deus ex machina and invalidate all past explanations, but that also cheapens all character growth and impact of the story, because technically the author can just reverse everything at his whim. which equals bad writing.

anyway really loved the first 15 chapters and cant wait to read no.17 on patreon!

There are a lot of characters that are difficult to relate with, even as an adversary. Wildfang is the easiest and most obvious example of this, not just because he is a wolf with primal desires that often seem alien to us, but because he has a dark and greedy nature which has only gotten worse over time. His motivation is simple really, he wants to control the forest and make it his domain, and his alone.

The main piece of plot convenience I have used is making it so that he does not leave that area. That would be his easiest solution to his problem, and what any sentient being would likely do when confronted with the dangers that have stepped up to face him. But, like many conventions with fantasy stories, I have hand-waved that away in favor of saying: "Fuck it, he is evil and wants to prove he is the strongest."

Regarding Alexei and Karen, there have already been hints at his return (near the beginning of this chapter, in fact), and I'm still not sure what his role is going to be, but the risk he faces to Karen and Andrew are far different from what you are imagining. There are reasons she is not in contact with him anymore, and why she would not reach out to him in the previous chapter when she was missing him. All of which I hope will be clear in the not too distant future, but need to be explored more as he enters the scene.

It seems you are concerned about me retconning story and motivation away, trying to ignore things that have happened in the past. I have built this world slowly because I wanted to make sure that the pieces fit together, and that the nature of things remained consistent. Magic and supernatural beings all have a place, and the relationships between them are some of the more interesting aspects of this world, which I'm finally beginning to touch on.

If you think that I'm trying to change something, please let me know. It's possible I forgot about events from earlier, which invalidates something recently, but I have tried to maintain consistency and historical accuracy. There have been times when my readers have taken something a character has said as gospel, forgetting that the character is just that, a single autonomous point of conscience, prone to their own interpretation.

Never was that more clear than with Vivienne and Anita, where Anita thought that Vivienne knew about what they were, and accepted it. That piece of misinformation had a huge impact on Sara, and the reader, until it was later discovered that Vivienne never believed that they were werecats, and only sent Sara top the clowder because she hoped Xander could help her daughter.

Now, all that being said: This was the most difficult chapter for me to write because my life continued to get in the way, and that forced stagger to my ability to write was felt in the story. In previous chapters I have been able to sit down and bang out 10-20 pages a day, giving the story a better flow and more consistent feel. With this chapter, I was lucky to get a paragraph or two in each sitting, and when I did I was exhausted or frustrated.

For that I apologize, but I can tell you that everything that has happened is all heading in the same direction as everything that came before it. Wildfang's arc is heading in a much more personal direction, especially now that he has a real reason to hate Andrew and Tani'm. The aside which is still pending addition here on Lit, and was posted separately in Patreon, helps to explain what happened with Wildfang, and give some idea about how and why he will return later.

Once its live here, it will be at the very end of this chapter.

I'm not far into the next chapter, since I'm fighting with many of the same problems I had when writing this chapter, but so far it is about Tani'm and her personal struggle with what happened, and The Family trying to deal with the aftermath of everything that happened. It is the first time that Karen is mending limbs without outside forces fighting her, and Thunderfoot's first time in the glade.

Because I am trying to keep the window short between chapters, I may not be able to get into everything I originally wanted to cover, but we will see. Ideally, I would get through them returning to school, and Andrew starting to explore his gift more fully. Or at least discovering more about what his gift really is, which has yet to fully be revealed.

Your story becomes so boring.... 2 chapters of fighting is enough for me, I´m out

Thanks for the heads up! Good luck, and have fun out there.

So hell with these bathers posting. I'm totally involved in your story and can't wait to read more. It's your story and write it as you want, looking forward to more !!!

i am with homie keep wrighting your story it is a vreat story hoping to see more

Blimey, instead of giving your reply of 16th November you could have written another chapter!

There have been clear hints of a bigger story behind the immediate one of which the first part of this chapter is the biggest yet but I think you need to be careful to keep some grip on your range and the relevance of your original characters who were so brilliantly drawn. I think if you are ever to complete this you are going to need to focus back on your core characters and how this affects them. This chapter was too long and more than a tad repetitious. Keep making progress and we will all be along for the ride.

I've enjoyed your story since chapter one. I like the detail you've provided. Keep up the good work.

Re: Retarded

I'll rise to the bait since no one else seemed to (or if they did, I missed it skimming): The celestials fear what he has the potential to become, should he choose to use his power for evil, not what he is today.

Re: The end of this chapter

I'm assuming that I read the edited version of the chapter and that "Darkness Moves" was the bit that was added. I think it was a very good addition and needed to be there. I can definitely see how people would feel teased, or even somewhat betrayed, without it.

Anyway, looking forward to the next installment. Hopefully real life will leave you enough time to work on it.

Hello jlmn,

Pretty spot on for the Celestials.

That Darkness Moves section was a welcome addition, and helped to soften the bruise from Wildfangs survival.

Life has been beyond difficult over this holiday season. My wife has been sick for a month, and my daughter and I have been sick for two weeks. My little girl has been throwing up and eating very little, so we have seen the doctor a few times and could not be more worried. Then, the other day we got food poisoning, so at this point I'm starting to wonder if I should check the house for a curse or hex that might be working against us.

We had to cancel a family trip down to OR for Christmas, to see distant and beloved relatives, which was a difficult decision that had to be made. Our Daughter, on top of the illnesses, caught pink eye from her daycare, and that was just too contagious to endanger everyone else with.

What a crazy adventure life can become!

For those interested, the first two major sections of the next chapter (about 30 pages) is already posted to Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/panther_parabola

I enjoy your story very much and hope you will continue.

That said, I will send as much positive energy to you as I can and hope the universe/God will deliver it to you and your wife and little girl as gently as possible.

I hope that you continue this story. I also love reading about familiar areas as I live in Washington state.

I'm enjoying this series but, that battle with the wolf was way too long. I mean how times can they keep doing stupid stuff over and over again? Sara is annoying as fuck. Hopefully I don't have to read another segment like I did this in this chapter.

Can I just say as a combat marine how stupid they all were. Out of all the gifts they possess, that was the best plan they could come up with? Seriously? All the time he spent with his Legend parents in the Corps. Until I got to the back half of this chapter, you had my undivided attention. Please do better in the coming chapters.

The 'Little Racals' fuck and fight and then, one of them gets kidnapped and they fight and fuck and then fuck and fight a tyrannosaur using toothpicks and then fuck some more. Then, the head and one leg of the monster drags itself off to come back another day! Seriously? Its actually a great story that should be a bout a forth as long. You can't roll every scenario on earth into one story!

PN

But I'm a little frustrated by the little grammatical errors that keep popping up through different chapters. I mean, it's not a deal breaker but it's an annoyance when reading that I have to keep filtering out incorrect words or figure out what was meant. Just from memory there are various missuses of "bit" and "bite", "hid" and "hide", "slid" and "slide", "woman" when "women" should have been utilised, the classic "to" when "too" should have been used and "shined" when you should have used the term "shone"; this being the past tense of "shine". I know I noticed other issues that should have been picked up by a proof reader/editor but to be fair, I just edited them in my brain and read on as I was enjoying the story.

Again, the writing and story is really enjoyable but I think you would really benefit from someone proof-reading your work to pick up any errors left behind.

Is that this 30k+ word chapter was at its heart just a group of people hunting a wild animal. A magical group of people against a magical wild animal for sure, but a normal hunt nontheless. Which isn't what we signed up for and it's frankly boring. To go deeper into it, while the role of the wolf might be important in the future of the story, we cant see that as readers. If we cant see it, all we see is the boring hunt that took way too long. The same applies to the important character development. That development might be interesting, but peppering it over a boring 30k+ word description of a wild animal hunt is not the way to do it.

So, they nearly lost to *just* the wolf... realistically, what hope do they have against even Victor let alone Acheron...?

I love the story so far, looking forward to getting these next few chapters read. I agree with the comment about the grammatical errors, but I realize just how hard it is to find an editor here. Keep up the great work

Story is still going great. My only criticism is that your editor needs to learn the difference between "began" and "begun", it's the only issue that I've seen repeated over multiple chapters.