Fort Black

Chapter 139

2008-04-23T12:36:00.002-05:00

Oh man. There is some majorly scary stuff happening down there underground. I mean I get creeped out pretty easy so I don't watch a lot of horror movies (the last one I saw was What Lies Beneath with Harrison Ford, if that gives you an idea.) But still, this is pretty creepy stuff!

Basically Hogwild gets possessed by the ghost of someone named Emily Allers. They meet a young girl in overalls and headlamp who explains what has happened to Hogwild. We don't learn the girl's name. Then she gives Hugo the eye and pulls out a picture of Allison! And then she asks Hugo is he knows The Hand!

What the frak is going on, as they say! I hope there's another chapter soon!!!

Chapter 138

2008-04-21T16:14:00.002-05:00

OK I'm getting a bit excited, it seems like some neat things are going to start to happen soon.

Hugo and Hogwild find the entrance to Old La Garra/Fort Black. Hugo has brought a bag filled with some supplies. They head down the stairway and through a tunnel. It's very scary and creepy and then the lights go out and they hear screaming.

OK I know that doesn't sound like much happened, but I liked how the author described it. You got creeped out like you would in real life, or like if you were watching it in a movie. I guess that just shows that he's doing a good job of being a writer, when chapters are kind of long but then afterwards you can't think of much that happened.

Chapter 137

2008-04-13T20:32:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody, over a month since the last chapter, but who's counting. If you recall what happened last time, Hugo gathered up Hogwild to set off to rescue Allison and get the magical piece of paper. The part that got me turned around was that we know that Hugo is going to the city buried under the other city (Fort Black), but Hogwild is just realizing it in this chapter, and I thought we'd all already talked about that in some previous chapter, but I guess it hasn't actually been mentioned at all specifically that that's where the action is taking us? If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to chime in in the comments.

Anyways in this chapter they are trying to hail a taxicab. A girl comes up to Hogwild and asks for money, but the money slips through her fingers and she disappears, so I guess she's a ghost. Then in the end no cabs stop and they decide to hoof it.

Chapter #136

2008-03-04T20:30:00.001-06:00

This is an all-dialogue chapter. There some code at the top, so it's probably what was recorded by the female cubicle robot while Hugo and Hogwild were talking.

Hugo explains to Hogwild the situation about Allison and Margaret Ball and the piece of paper. Hugo says that if they get the Document, then Hogwild can have it and use it to get a leg up in the company. They kind of have a nice little moment, then it's over.

Chapter 135

2008-02-28T20:44:00.002-06:00

I keep writing the chapter numbers wrong. Like I just did "153" and before that I did "143". What???

Hugo goes down and finds Hogwild. There's some kind of weird but attractive woman in a cubicle near his. It turns out she's a robot for spying on the employees. Hugo tells Hogwild that he wants his help in getting the document back.

Chapter 134

2008-02-28T20:40:00.001-06:00

So Hugo is in Glendenning's office now. This chapter is mostly conversation. As you know that is the main good stuff in this book, but unfortunately I can't quote it so it'll just have to a quick summary.

Hugo says he knows where the document is, he just needs a few supplies and then he can go get it. He's not going to just TELL Glendenning where it is, because that would probably be a dumb thing to do and he might end up dead. He needs leverage, you know? So Glendenning eventually agrees after much back and forth, and Hugo says maybe I can get a job here full-time if I do this job right.

(Also Hugo knows where Allison is b/c she used his equipment from the trunk to record the message, and in that way she was able to give him a secret hidden message with her address. Pretty neat.)

I thought it would be funny if at the end instead of saying "Serious benefits" Glendenning said "401k with company matching." Like actually listed the benefits. I don't know, maybe it's just the current political climate making me say that.

Chapter 133

2008-02-26T11:42:00.000-06:00

OK so now we go waaay back to where we left off at the end of Part 1 of the story. Hugo is chained up in a hotel room by China Sweet and the Valkyrie. The last thing that happened in that chapter was that they played a tape recording of a voice and Hugo recognized the voice as Allison! We continue on now.

There's some general talking and threats, then they listen tot he tape again. Allison represents Margaret Ball, they want Glendennig to release her sisters (the hidden secretary girls) with no funny business, or she'll release copies of the paper (the one Hugo is supposed to looking for!). She also uses the word "chokeville" which is the first time it's appeared in the story I believe. Although we're not quite sure what she means.

Then they listen to it again, Hugo says he can tell from the tape where Allison/Margaret are located, and they head out to Glendenig's.

Chapter 132

2008-01-24T14:56:00.000-06:00

Allison is trying to make her way towards Old La Garra. She finds herself at The Embers, where we've been before (Chs. 21-22), and our old friend Estra Maxie is apparently still slinging beverages behind the counter.

Some creeped out old man tries to convince her not to go, blah blah whatever. She's going, get over it, Gramps. The waitress tells her where to find an entrance. But it does sound like a creepy place, for real, and nothing good ever happens there. So it's a little worrisome. But Allison finds the entrance and heads down.

And that's the end of part two, wow. I wonder how many parts there are going to end up being? Part of me wants it to go on forever and part of me wants it to be done already.

But overall I like chapters like this, I really like it best when Allison is sad but determined. That is how I feel a lot of times.

Chapter 131

2008-01-17T20:10:00.000-06:00

Allison is going to look for Nia Baako. Capital Sam has cold feet and won't be going with her.

Kind of weird because one scene (aka 6 chapters) ago it seemed like he was all up in her stuff. Guess he had a change of heart while she was chatting with Dr Manz.

*shrugs*

Chapter 130

2008-01-10T20:33:00.000-06:00

Ch 130.

This chapter was pretty good but confusing. Here Allison is in Dr KLF Manz's office. She delivers the news that The Hand is blackmailing him into helping Allison.

The blackmail situation in question is a bit complicated, having to do with a book Dr Manz wrote, which I guess only The Hand plus certain people who work at the La Garra Public Library know about, and it would be bad if everyone knew about? That was my take, anyway. Don't most libraries have their databases online now, so anyone can search through what books they have.

Then he touches her forehead and it burns and he says he's taken something from her. I feel like this was a reference to something that was mentioned earlier, but I can't find it. Probably back from Leona's time.

Anyways doesn't matter, he'll help. He explains that he works for Glendennig, and that one of his staff people had this paper and came to visit him and he helped her. Her name was Margaret Ball, and she's staying with a person named NIA BAAKO.

Then at the end he gives her a hug?

Chapter 129

2008-01-09T21:06:00.000-06:00

This was a totally good chapter. I feel like we are really cooking. Like maybe we are entering into the final act of the story, and everything will come rushing to a conclusion!

This chapter is mainly Allison talking with The Hand and his assistant Delfina. The Hand tells her how Hugo is special and important to the future of Fort Black. And also that he knows where Hugo is, but she has to do something for him first. (Of course!) He wants her to find the piece of paper that Hugo is looking for (Remember? The whole reason for the story???) and to find out more info he sends her to see "the doctor" which of course will be Dr KLF MANZ.

Contributing to this chapter was the fact that it even had some actual jokes in it, which is rare. Well maybe not jokes, but Allison had her old zazz back, you know?

Also note to self: Hillers is Son Hillers is The Fisherman is The Hand. For some reason I thought Hillers was not The Hand, just someone else at the game of Carrick way back when. No offense guy, but 4 names is a lot of names for just one hand.

Chapter 128

2007-12-09T07:49:00.000-06:00

So Aeo falls down from the sky and crashes onto Fort Black. This is noticed by ELLIS DOMINGUEZ, who is like a Brownie or Cubscout Girl, but they're called The Orienteers. While she's exploring around the city she finds a freaky severed hand that is still alive! It had been part of a body that got smooshed by a mermaid sculpture.

The writer doesn't just come out and say it, but we can tell that this is the hand of The Fisherman, who we also of course know as "The Hand" from when Hugo played Carrick. Probably the next chapter will be about what I just said, and I can skip an update for once. I could use the extra time to be honest, I haven't even started my Christmas shopping!

Chapter 127

2007-12-05T08:13:00.001-06:00

More about the history of Fort Black. The town keeps growing, under the guidance of The Fisherman. He's the total man in charge and he never dies or gets too old. Eventually it becomes a pretty fancy city, pretty big. And as Fort Black gets better, the sky city (which is called Aeo) gets crummier. Then, just as Fort Black is about to get larger than Aeo, Aeo falls down from the sky and a lot of people get killed. (We don't actually learn if something in particular caused the city to fall.) We also don't learn what was keeping it up in the first place!!!

Some notes: There's a reference here to a Maia Hilliers who gets killed up in Aeo. This is probably not the same Maia who is one of the archivist girls at the Fedema Global building, but again just guessing.

Chapter 126

2007-12-04T11:40:00.000-06:00

This is a long one, so if you're in a hurry bookmark it to read later.

First in this chapter there's a description of what La Garra city looked like when it was up in the sky, but it's all the speculation of a book known as The Aeo Atlas by E.L. Eng, who tried to piece it all together. Basically the city was pretty fancy, is all.

Then there's a story about The Mayor's Wife, who cheated on the mayor, got pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. They mayor killed her and took the babies, put the girl in a giant terrarium??? and drop the boy down a hole called the Orifex. The boy dies from falling so far down and his body lands underwater on a statue of a giant hand of the God of the sea. Then he is ALIVE again, gets washed up on shore, and grew up to become someone known as The Fisherman. Can I just say WTF, pardon my language. There's more stuff about him, but I'm running out of room. Basically he becomes the main person in town, kills some pirates, and then his town is known as Fort Black.

A couple things to mention: the terrarium sounds like a place that was described in Glendang's office building. The place above where all the girls lived who took transcripts? I have to dig up what chapter that was. Also "Orifex" is a name that the author uses for some music that he records. I don't know if the music is actually related to this though. The statue of the giant hand gets mentioned when May goes underwater to find Hugo's trunk. And there's a restaurant called "Maxine's" mentioned, which I think might be a reference to a song called Maxine recorded by the author under his alter ego of whygodwhy.com. What the hell does that mean though, you got me.

This chapter is the kind of thing where you know you need to pay good attention because it's probably important later, but it's kind of lot to wrap your brains around. That happens a lot in movies, where you have to watch it a second time to understand everything. Not that I'm reading this book again! *sighs*

Chapter 125

2007-11-10T13:58:00.001-06:00

Allison and Sam catch a cab to The Hand's place. They chit-chat along the way. He says a little bit about how La Garra used to be a city in the sky, and Fort Black was down on the ground below it. That's about it.

The author has been hinting here and there for a WHILE now about La Garra being up the sky, and I still have no idea how the heck that would even be possible.

Chapter 124

2007-11-03T14:01:00.000-05:00

Sam takes everyone around La Garra trying to find the whereabouts of Hugo, to no avail. They end up at a gross place called The Ching Shih, where we meet Dezzetti, who Sam knows from playing Carrick with back in the days. They have a pretty funny conversation that I won't go in to here. (If you're ONLY reading these updates, and not the story itself, this is one chapter I'd recommend you head over and actually read.)

While they're there, guess who they meet. Blue Eye! You remember he was playing Carrick with the robot Hand guy and Hugo way back. They got into a whole fight about the Garrotte card and Hugo got beat up pretty badly? Well now Blue Eye is pretty spooked by Hugo, and afraid to run into him. And it's interesting that Allison now has two black eyes b/c so did Hugo at that point. So neat, I like it when writers do cool things like that.

So Blue Eye tells them where The Hand operates, so presumably they're all going to head there next, but first Blue Eye tries to beat up Allison. People save her, but ugh, she must be getting so depressed by now.

Chapter 123

2007-11-03T13:47:00.000-05:00

Kiepper Frico is back! Did I call it or did I not call it. (I called it.) That guy is still hanging out on the beach. Then May comes up out of the ocean, carrying the sword that he threw in. Allison and them follow close behind by boat. Kiepper tells them the story of Hugo and the chain, and now they all know that Hugo is alive, which is big news for Allison as you can well imagine. Everybody heads towards La Garra.

Chapter 122

2007-10-11T13:25:00.000-05:00

May dives down to search for Hugo and his trunk. Don't forget that Allison doesn't know Hugo is alive, she thinks he drowned. Although I thought they had some kind of psychic twin connection where she knew he was still alive. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Anyways May dives down. She finds a giant statue of a hand! And there's chain wrapped around the fingers. At the end of the chain is the trunk. And there's a black sword stuck into the trunk! What the??? Weird on top of weird.

There was a black sword mentioned earlier, see in Ch. 13-15. The Harmattan, Kiepper Frico etc. I wonder if it's the same sword because the guy threw that one into the ocean! I bet it is, it's crazy how everything in this story is connected. It's good, it's like a song where you hear different things when you listen to it a few times?

Chapter 121

2007-10-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

Everyone's back on the boat. May fixes Allison's broken nose. It's mainly character development, not so much plot. It's good though. The author uses the broken nose as a metaphor for Allison's soul/spirit.

Chapter 120

2007-09-25T16:10:00.000-05:00

Good chapter. The heavies are really leaning into Sam. And then all of a sudden Allison and a bunch of ladies from the Spire show up. And they're like superhero type women, like a ninja and a samurai and such. (I'm not telling you the exact types of people b/c I don't know if they're copyrighted.) But a lot of bad-ass chick show up and have the drop on the thugs.

But then it turns out they're most just for show and Mister Horn starts pounding on Allison. Then May Petroski helps her out a little and then Allison goes totally berserk and completely breaks Horn's face, basically.

This was a pretty violent chapter, but it felt tasteful, not gratuitous, the way it is with some some online novels.

Chapter 119

2007-09-22T20:09:00.000-05:00

OK this was a long chapter so let's get serious.

Sam and Mister Horn have words. Horn tells him that Frank Muto wants the kid who took his boat (Billy). Sam tries to wrangle some kind of deal (i.e. I give you the kid you give me X), but Horn's not having it and shoots Sam in the knee. And then all the hoodlums are about to beat him up.

OK, well it IS a long chapter, but it's mostly funny dialogue.

My main question about this chapter was why they were firing the cannon at the Spire of Ice? How did they know that Sam knew where Billy was? Was it just a lucky guess? Also I need to go back and read about Sam again, because why would he protect Billy? At first I was thinking he was kind of an every-man-for-himself type of pirate, but I guess he's pretty sentimental about some stuff? Maybe Allison softened him up somehow, you know how we women are.

Chapter 118

2007-09-11T10:47:00.000-05:00

It's Frank Muto firing the cannon! Or at least Master Billy says as much when he finds Capital Sam in the chaos. For a minute Sam is like "Ugh, how did I get dragged into this mess?" because Frank Muto and Sam don't have any particular quarrel.

Then the next part is a bit confusing. It's not Frank Muto firing the cannon. Someone named AL MACDONALD starts talking through a megaphone, telling everyone about a boat called the DREAM CATCHER which is available for rentals. Then someone named MISTER HORN takes the megaphone away from Al and talks about how the Dream Catcher is owned by Frank Muto, and Frank has loaned it to him (Horn) for the afternoon in order to track down the people who commandeered the Spire of Ice.

Basically he's saying he wants to see Capital Sam and Allison Hugo front and center, pronto. But not in so many words. And he's the one firing the cannon, OK? (I was wondering how well Frank Muto could really fire a cannon if he didn't have feet to stand on.)

Sam tells Billy to get back on board quietly* and have Allison prepare for departure. May is not really perturbed by any of this, she's got brass.

This story is actually getting pretty interesting, I wish the chapters were forthcoming a bit more fast and furiously.

*This part got LOLs out of me. There is something about secret disguises that is so funny. If you saw the movie Shanghai Knights then you know what I mean.

Chapter 117

2007-08-24T15:30:00.000-05:00

They dock the Spire at the Radio Tower (basically a radio tower in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by some wrecked ships tied together, like a little island town in Waterworld if you can imagine) to get some supplies and find a diver.

There he gets hooked up with a diver named MAY PETROSKI. (The scene where Sam announces he needs a diver made me LOL.) As they are heading back to the Spire and haggling a bit over money, someone starts shooting a cannon at the Spire. Then Capital Sam is trying to figure out who would do such a thing.

Chapter 116

2007-08-16T13:03:00.000-05:00

Allison is pretty sad (throwing up and crying) about Hugo being dead and figures her parents will blame her for it, so she's not going to go home ever, just stay on the Spire of Ice.

Chapter 115

2007-08-16T12:58:00.000-05:00

(Ugh! Recently my friend Meg told me about how she was reading some comic books and it was really difficult to keep up with all the histories and revisions and various universes, so she "was reading with one hand on Wikipedia." Now I now know exactly what she means!!!)

This chapter included all kinds of references to stuff from waaaay back when, that I only barely remember. Most of the time I was just like Wah? Master Billy? Huh? But thank heavens for this website because I think I've got it all under control now and hopefully this will make some sense to people in the future who read this.

Here are the things you need to remember in order for this chapter to make ANY SENSE:

The Black Bee -- See Chapter 106. This is Frank Muto's boat. Allison is hoping to find the Black Bee because she thinks it will give her clues to finding her brother Hugo. Her quest for the Black Bee is what got her hooked up with Capital Sam and why she's now driving the Spire of Ice.

Master Billy -- See also Chapter 106. As near as I can tell/recall, Master Billy was Frank Muto's 2nd in command. Or his Gilligan, or whatever. Back in Ch. 106, some guys confused Hugo with Billy, but the Billy in Ch. 115 is NOT Hugo.

Frank Muto/Mutt - Frank is more of a major character who you probably remember, but just in case, he's the guy whose feet got cut off after he tried to kill Hugo by throwing him off the Black Bee, which is what caused Hugo to wash up on shore with a chain wrapped around his leg (Ch. 1), and which Frank did because Hugo had put Frank's daughter Delia into a coma. More refresher on this in Ch. 105.

SO keeping all that in mind, here's what happens in this chapter:

They find the shipwreck of the Black Bee (in the middle of the ocean???) and rescue Master Billy. He now refers to himself as Cap'n William Smith, great. There was a mutiny on the Black Bee, Billy I guess threw Frank overboard but then all the other sailors got scared and took off leaving him alone. He's scared of running into Frank Muto, so he becomes the Spire's new captain. He's not actually able to confirm that the person Frank threw off the boat was Hugo, but Allison gets enough details to confirm it. So now I guess they're off to go find where the exact spot is that they went overboard.