I'll try not to make too many excuses. Feel pretty crummy about the fact that it took nigh on a year-and-a-half to produce the next chapter.
The truth is that life was extrememly tough the last while, and I have done my level best to get this thing done, but it just kept going wrong and needed so much work to get it right. Even in the last week, I ran it through no less than three people before posting it, because I didn't even trust my own judgment at that point. Every word just seemed wrong and insufficient, and I kept having to go back and re-write things multiple times to even arrive at the scrappy chapter before you. It was supposed to be so many things: Longer. More exciting. More thematically dense. More intricate. Ultimately, though, a writer just has to decide that what's already there must be enough, and let go of the obsession. Nothing would justify this long a wait, but I hope this is enough to draw you back in.
That's it for the apologising. I'm back, and I'm energised. I can promise you one thing for sure: It will not, under any circumstances, take a year-and-a-half to put out the next one.