Author’s Note: This chapter marks the end of our time in Gem! I’m excited by how much more of the world we got to see here and to give Kalara a chance to shine as a character rather than an observer. I hope you enjoyed the new material as much as I have enjoyed creating it! Gem is an amazing setting and I hope to revisit it in a future short story sometime.
I’ll be taking a break to ruminate on how all of these small changes I’ve made in Gem will affect the rest of this tale and to give new Beta Readers a chance to catch up. Plus, now that we’ll be entering a different location, I’ll be creating a new visual guide for Chiaroscuro to help wrap my brain around all of the locale’s subtleties and how I want to envision it for this story. (If you missed my visual guide to Gem, you can check it out here!)
My gratitude to everyone who has made it this far in the story! Your thoughts and feedback have really helped it improved with every iteration.
RATING: PG
- Mature setting.
Reading Alternatives:
- You can comment over on Google Drive instead. You can save this chapter in an ebook file format for any ereader at the link. Click File>Download As to download in your favorite format.
- Access the entire Google Drive version of Beta chapters here.
And thus on Plentimon’s Day did the dice roll again. When Kalara returned that evening in a rush, she was prepared to make several excuses as to her tardiness, not to find Farook at home with an unfamiliar man seated at his table.
