Yowza, it took a LOT longer to come out with this chapter than I thought it would.
It’s sad that the only thing keeping me from releasing this chapter for well over a month was TWO lines that came out of Ihrie’s mouth near the end. It’s basically an explanation for why she was able to turn things around, but since her entire explanation is compressed into two relatively vague lines, I had to put in a LOT of effort to make sure I wasn’t misinterpreting anything and I wasn’t overlooking some other explanations. I actually moved on to chapter 5.9 looking for additional context to draw from (I didn’t want a repeat of that whole fog fiasco).
In other news, I’m one month away from being college-debt-free! Losing half my paycheck every month for more than half a year… ugh… I’ll be glad to finally put those funds into good use. Like console gaming and commissions. Wait, no… that’s… Ah, whatever.
Like I said though, I started on chapter 5.9. Made decent enough progress on it… 4.5 pages out of 16. I hit another stumbling block. If I skip it and push forward I should be able to have a majority of the chapter done within a week or two.