Lord Stefan: I am going to break down your mind and take what I need.
Kendal: You and what army?
Lord Stefan: What do you mean, what army? I don’t need an army.
Kendal: You sure about that? Stefan, meet Vash.
Lord Stefan: I don’t see any gods in here?
Kendal: I meant, Vash the City.
Citizens of Vash, wielding chains and baseball bats and tire irons: Charmed, I am sure.
Stefan, no, the first step after restraining someone is to disarm them (and ideally fly the sword somewhere very far away). Pulling them close to your face is the SECOND step.
Oh. Oh no.
React what I said on the last page, this is going terribly.
So glad that Kendal is immune, or at least resistant, to Light and Void.
Otherwise he would be fucked.
Also does this mean we’ll see Alinua soon?
Football commentator voice: And traditional “spikes of villainy” come out!
Second commentator voice: Followed by classic move, Jimmy! Restrain then mind reading? Truly, a classic for the ages. Let’s see how this is going to pan out!
Kendal should let him read all about The Collector (and just the Collector), then let him feel what all the souls of the people of Vash is experiencing. If that doesn’t blow Stefan’s mind, I don’t know what will.
Paladin 1: Sooo, should we be doing something? We’ve been standing here with our arms behind our backs, not helping, for a while and I’m getting a little- Paladin 2: Shush! We are helping! Our passive aura farming is aiding Lord Stefan’s stance. Paladin 1: But they’re not even looking at- Paladin 2: One must aura farm even when no-one is watching. That is what separates the amateurs from the professionals.
Yep, I knew escalation was next on the agenda; no way Stefan would have entertained Kendal’s “we’ll meet up later, trust me bro” idea. He’s stopped Kendal from retreating, and he can’t wield his sword like that, but Kendal should still be able to channel starfire. Maybe now’s the time for Falst and Tess to make their move, distracting Stefan and allowing Kendal to blast himself free.
Something tells me that reading Kendal’s mind will be … difficult. Surely Stefan knows about Kendal’s immunity to the diadem spell from Tam; maybe his status as “hornbearer” means his mental skills are the best, thus he’s confident he can do it. Or maybe he simply doesn’t trust Tam’s report, or abilities, 100% and thinks this is totally doable.
Stefan: Yes. I will read the mind of this totally average and mortal Swordsman. There is no other thing going on here, since the only thing I concern myself with is the work of the Dark Dragon.
*NEXT TIME on Comic Aurora*
Stefan: Da fuk iz dis? It’s like there isn’t a mind in front of me.
Kendal: Hey sir, you just broadcast your mind into mine. Did you mean to give me the location of all your resources, minions, and caches of lost knowledge?
(I know it probably won’t be that extreme, but this is what happens when you ASSUME you can brute force answers from the people that have survived traveling with the Champion of the Dark One. Better response from Stefan would have been to set his paladins to evacuate and demand to travel with Kendal himself.)
Ha. Yeah, that’s not going to work. We already learned from the diadem attack attempt that these kinds of mind attacks don’t affect Kendal, since Kendal has no Light element for those attacks to hook into. He’s like an entirely closed-off, offline system; no attack surface, no hacking vector. But Stefan has fully revealed his hand, and yup, folks were right to not trust him.
My guess is he’s going to discover he can’t pull information from Kendal the convenient way, and will instead take him prisoner and haul him off to attempt to interrogate him… and Kendal might let himself be hauled off because either a) he’s exhausted and Stefan has an army of dragons or b) he’s letting himself be held hostage and fruitlessly interrogated because it’ll keep Stefan’s attention away from his friends, at least temporarily. Or both a) and b).
I just really hope Tess and Falst don’t get caught. Stefan CAN attack at least one of them. Falst might be able to instinctively put up some resistance–maybe–but not Tess. If they get caught and have intel wrested from their minds, the rest of the Floof Squad is in serious trouble.
I mean Tam just concluded he was a mindless golem. Maybe golem’s have memories? But if he has Tam’s memories and doesn’t think Kendal is a golem he has got to have other theories right? Maybe he just decided that the dark god did some shenanigans and without the dark god guy here Kendal is a normal human?
If only he knew that would only be wasting time since attempts to get to Kendal’s mind are futile… Guess that part wasn’t included in what they learned from Tam.
Bad move Stefan. I really, REALLY hope that Stefan is about to have a mind-expanding experience … which may result in him taking psionic damage & maybe bleeding a bit from the ears. For best dramatic effect I hope that Stefan gets knocked back onto his arse & stays conscious … so he can realize his error & also tell his troops to get the heck out of soon-to-be-lava-land.
I don’t know a LOT about the deities & semi-divines from Aurora, but I truly believe that mortals trying to mind-ravage someone in that league ends badly for the mortal. Deities aren’t using mental communication, even if that might be more efficient – and Zuurith called Kendal ‘godling’, so even as Vash’s avatar he should be in that classification.
I am having a strong mental image of Gimli taking a whack at the One Ring [in the ‘Fellowship of the Rings’ movie] – only to decisively shatter his axe.
…You know, i’m getting an awful amount of flashbacks to Red’s “Damsel in Distress” trope talk video… and, well, the paladins might have a good few questions about Kendal’s immunity to their lady’s effects on the mind… just sayin…
If he’s lucky, this won’t work. If he’s *not* lucky, he may be about to get several centuries worth of memories beamed into his brain. As well as what it feels like to have your entire city murdered. Have fun with that.
Backswept hairstyles really are villainous by default. I know of two separate anime villains who reveal their true nature by changing to a backswept hairstyle.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA finally, some good news for the protagonists! Yes please, right this way, peer all through his mind! Kendal’s got the entirety of Vash in there. Care to experience the memory of a city god? If it’s not more than Stefan bargained for, it’ll be a solid defense and honestly fairly objective view for why Kendal’s on Erin’s side. Is this going to end well? No! The other commenters are probably right about it not working at all! But I think it’d be HILARIOUS if Stefan went looking for Erin and then got blasted by either [the collective city of vash] or the last 20+ chapters of Aurora.
Sidenote, I think the last time someone new associated/confused him for Vash was Tynan and Zurrith. Do the Paladins know what happened to the city? Did they have an outpost there? I feel like “entire city population is immediately wiped off the face of the earth” would be something the light dragon at minimum could feel, since people have souls. Even if they don’t know what happened, were they looking into it at all before Erin showed up?
Yeah, it is weird that none of the paladins recognize the sword. It’s possible they don’t know Vash was destroyed, but given how almost every single god we’ve seen so far knew, it would be weird if they didn’t. If the Light Dragon is aware of Vash’s destruction but keeping that information from the paladins, that’s a juicy plot point to unpack. If she doesn’t know, then there’s potentially many more chapters of Shenanigans involving Kendal and the paladins.
I love this idea. My immediate thought was that he wouldn’t be able to use his Light Magic to read Kendal at all, that it would go *pof*, but getting too much information he can’t handle, oh, that would be great.
Well done, Stefan! You managed to reveal your villainy while at the same time capturing the ONE member of the floof squad least likely to be vulnerable to your mindreading.
Also, I doubt you’ll be able to hold him for any length of time.
Stefan: Makes hard light constructs of horns that look like thorns shoot out of the ground to restrain an opponent.
Me, who has only seen his powers be mental/intelligence based: …I didn’t know he could do THAT!
Please let this be like when Tam tried a mental effect on Kendal, it would be so funny!
I actually think Stefan is trying this BECAUSE he saw from Tam’s memories that Kendal was immune to the Diadem. He knows Kendal is at least somewhat immune to Light magic prying into his mind, so when he notices Kendal isn’t willingly volunteering information during their conversation, he decides to go straight to the powerful mind probe, which isn’t his usual tactic but it’s special circomstances.
It’s not going to work, but Stefan doesn’t know that.
Unlikely, but i”m kind of hoping for Stefan to experience that dark voidy place where Kendal had his talk with the citizens of Vash. And have several pages of dialogue with them.
Oh… This isn’t great for Kendal, but since the diadem didn’t work on him, I’m hoping this won’t either. Also, I think Falst and Tess might come down to try and save Kendal, which would be horrible for the floor squad if they fail, but would give us some interesting flashback scenes, probably.
Oh this is gonna backfire so badly for Stefan. He’s about to experience some Lovecraftian shit, trying to mindread the vessel of a god.
Alternatively, it would be hilarious if he couldn’t see anything at all and thought Kendal’s brain was empty XD
This is NOT going to work as well as Stefan thinks it’s going to, I suspect. Which on the one hand is a good thing, since that might keep the rest of the floof squad safe. But on the other hand, if mind-reading doesn’t work then I’m guessing plan B is good old capture and interrogation. I’m just concerned that said interrogation might include attempts to forcefully decipher how Kendal works, since we know Tam at least, seemed to immediately lower how much of a person he thought Kendal is when his mental attacks/restraints didn’t work.
The problem with opening someone’s mind to take a look inside is that, sometimes, the abyss looks back. Doors let things go through in both directions.
I am super excited to see what will happen! Will he find nothing and come to the conclusion that Kendal is a mindless golem, like the champion did? Will it simply bounce off, and leave him to consider another option, leading to Kendal being flown off the island in the escape? Will it knock them both unconscious as it takes them into his mind, and Kendal has control of the mind scape, so can give him information on the collector and select memories of Erin to really show the merit of his plan? Or Kendal has no control / isn’t there and Stef just talks to Vash’s people? Are Vash’s people aggressive? Friendly?
I think Kendal is going to be flown off as an actual prisoner, though, given that being out of the wyrm’s ability to help. It would be funny if it was just him being raised from the water, but I think the stakes are higher otherwise, and funny is too much to hope for.
Obviously Stef won’t get an expected result. I think it or a very hard knock to the head has to render Kendal unconscious, or else he has been weakened more than I think he has been, because otherwise he wouldn’t be captured. But what happens to Stef?
One option is Stef thinks he is a mindless golem like the champion did
Or there is it simply bouncing off, or Stef getting overwhelmed and kicked out
What would be the most interesting is Stef entering the very vast mindscape of Kendal. And we get to see how Stef experiences that mindscape. I am super excited for that!
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: it’s not stefan’s fault that backswept hairstyles are the most villainous by default
Image source: open
Tumblr text: negotiations breakdown
Bluesky text: good morning gamers
Tumblr text: negotiations breakdown
Bluesky text: good morning gamers
Wait, I don’t think this will work the way he intends it to.
Ah well, I guess burning the background army of intimidating mooks is in the plan.
im just gonna read into your normal human brain and this will not cause any problem or difficulty
He just gets an image of all the citizens of Vash with like, baseball bats and tire irons lol
I hope that happens but it will probably just fail outright
Lord Stefan: I am going to break down your mind and take what I need.
Kendal: You and what army?
Lord Stefan: What do you mean, what army? I don’t need an army.
Kendal: You sure about that? Stefan, meet Vash.
Lord Stefan: I don’t see any gods in here?
Kendal: I meant, Vash the City.
Citizens of Vash, wielding chains and baseball bats and tire irons: Charmed, I am sure.
Now I am envisioning, like, the entirety of the City of Vash BEATING THE EVER LOVING SHIT OUT OF HIM!!!!!
Citizens of Vash: What did you do to our boy?!
KENDALLL LOREEE INCOMINGGGG
I have a feeling that’s not gonna work lol
Yes, interacting with Kendal’s mind worked out so well for the champion, let’s see how you do, “Horns”
Stefan, no, the first step after restraining someone is to disarm them (and ideally fly the sword somewhere very far away). Pulling them close to your face is the SECOND step.
Don’t worry, he’ll probably remember step one after Kendal the person introduces Stefan to Kendal the sword
Kendal is immune to psychic attacks and effects, right. Please?!
Internal continuity, save the boy
Oh. Oh no.
React what I said on the last page, this is going terribly.
So glad that Kendal is immune, or at least resistant, to Light and Void.
Otherwise he would be fucked.
Also does this mean we’ll see Alinua soon?
Thank God things were getting a little bit to peaceful with the religious fanatics there for a second.
I can see no way in which this could potentially backfire.
Football commentator voice: And traditional “spikes of villainy” come out!
Second commentator voice: Followed by classic move, Jimmy! Restrain then mind reading? Truly, a classic for the ages. Let’s see how this is going to pan out!
Whelp, the facade is broken. I didn’t think he’d agree to that plan, and his words have been slippery.
Though, I am not sure how much luck he’d have penetrating Kendal’s mind. Haven’t mental effects bounced off of him so far.
That’s interesting. He has dark scleras too, like Erin and Tam, the Champion. But they look… different.
I think it’s cause Stefan has no pupil.
Kendal should let him read all about The Collector (and just the Collector), then let him feel what all the souls of the people of Vash is experiencing. If that doesn’t blow Stefan’s mind, I don’t know what will.
Paladin 1: Sooo, should we be doing something? We’ve been standing here with our arms behind our backs, not helping, for a while and I’m getting a little-
Paladin 2: Shush! We are helping! Our passive aura farming is aiding Lord Stefan’s stance.
Paladin 1: But they’re not even looking at-
Paladin 2: One must aura farm even when no-one is watching. That is what separates the amateurs from the professionals.
Yep, I knew escalation was next on the agenda; no way Stefan would have entertained Kendal’s “we’ll meet up later, trust me bro” idea. He’s stopped Kendal from retreating, and he can’t wield his sword like that, but Kendal should still be able to channel starfire. Maybe now’s the time for Falst and Tess to make their move, distracting Stefan and allowing Kendal to blast himself free.
Something tells me that reading Kendal’s mind will be … difficult. Surely Stefan knows about Kendal’s immunity to the diadem spell from Tam; maybe his status as “hornbearer” means his mental skills are the best, thus he’s confident he can do it. Or maybe he simply doesn’t trust Tam’s report, or abilities, 100% and thinks this is totally doable.
Not that it’s gonna work since Kendal has neither dragon in him.
Stefan: Yes. I will read the mind of this totally average and mortal Swordsman. There is no other thing going on here, since the only thing I concern myself with is the work of the Dark Dragon.
*NEXT TIME on Comic Aurora*
Stefan: Da fuk iz dis? It’s like there isn’t a mind in front of me.
Kendal: Hey sir, you just broadcast your mind into mine. Did you mean to give me the location of all your resources, minions, and caches of lost knowledge?
(I know it probably won’t be that extreme, but this is what happens when you ASSUME you can brute force answers from the people that have survived traveling with the Champion of the Dark One. Better response from Stefan would have been to set his paladins to evacuate and demand to travel with Kendal himself.)
Ha. Yeah, that’s not going to work. We already learned from the diadem attack attempt that these kinds of mind attacks don’t affect Kendal, since Kendal has no Light element for those attacks to hook into. He’s like an entirely closed-off, offline system; no attack surface, no hacking vector. But Stefan has fully revealed his hand, and yup, folks were right to not trust him.
My guess is he’s going to discover he can’t pull information from Kendal the convenient way, and will instead take him prisoner and haul him off to attempt to interrogate him… and Kendal might let himself be hauled off because either a) he’s exhausted and Stefan has an army of dragons or b) he’s letting himself be held hostage and fruitlessly interrogated because it’ll keep Stefan’s attention away from his friends, at least temporarily. Or both a) and b).
I just really hope Tess and Falst don’t get caught. Stefan CAN attack at least one of them. Falst might be able to instinctively put up some resistance–maybe–but not Tess. If they get caught and have intel wrested from their minds, the rest of the Floof Squad is in serious trouble.
Can’t wait for the pages to start getting pretty orange
Oh, Stephan, l thought you had the memories of the Champion. You should know Kendal isn’t vulnerable to Light Magic.
I mean Tam just concluded he was a mindless golem. Maybe golem’s have memories? But if he has Tam’s memories and doesn’t think Kendal is a golem he has got to have other theories right? Maybe he just decided that the dark god did some shenanigans and without the dark god guy here Kendal is a normal human?
I feel like it is bad idea to look into a mind of a half-god but mayby he will manage to do it
If only he knew that would only be wasting time since attempts to get to Kendal’s mind are futile… Guess that part wasn’t included in what they learned from Tam.
Bad move Stefan. I really, REALLY hope that Stefan is about to have a mind-expanding experience … which may result in him taking psionic damage & maybe bleeding a bit from the ears. For best dramatic effect I hope that Stefan gets knocked back onto his arse & stays conscious … so he can realize his error & also tell his troops to get the heck out of soon-to-be-lava-land.
I don’t know a LOT about the deities & semi-divines from Aurora, but I truly believe that mortals trying to mind-ravage someone in that league ends badly for the mortal. Deities aren’t using mental communication, even if that might be more efficient – and Zuurith called Kendal ‘godling’, so even as Vash’s avatar he should be in that classification.
I am having a strong mental image of Gimli taking a whack at the One Ring [in the ‘Fellowship of the Rings’ movie] – only to decisively shatter his axe.
…You know, i’m getting an awful amount of flashbacks to Red’s “Damsel in Distress” trope talk video… and, well, the paladins might have a good few questions about Kendal’s immunity to their lady’s effects on the mind… just sayin…
stefan gonna open his mind and discover he’s interrogating like a 2-month-old
Your honor, he’s just a little guy
A 2-month-old with centuries of memories.
3 week old. It’s been just under 3 weeks since the destruction of Vash in-universe.
“I’m going to read your mind like a book.”
(*opens up House of Leaves)
That’s the book where the pages are out of order and there’s text that goes in a spiral on some pages and stuff, right?
The entire chat: Good luck, asshole.
If he’s lucky, this won’t work. If he’s *not* lucky, he may be about to get several centuries worth of memories beamed into his brain. As well as what it feels like to have your entire city murdered. Have fun with that.
Backswept hairstyles really are villainous by default. I know of two separate anime villains who reveal their true nature by changing to a backswept hairstyle.
And don’t forget about Zuko, who marked his character arc by switching from a backswept hairstyle into one with bangs
yeah I figured it wouldn’t be that easy. things were getting a little too chummy around here
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA finally, some good news for the protagonists! Yes please, right this way, peer all through his mind! Kendal’s got the entirety of Vash in there. Care to experience the memory of a city god? If it’s not more than Stefan bargained for, it’ll be a solid defense and honestly fairly objective view for why Kendal’s on Erin’s side. Is this going to end well? No! The other commenters are probably right about it not working at all! But I think it’d be HILARIOUS if Stefan went looking for Erin and then got blasted by either [the collective city of vash] or the last 20+ chapters of Aurora.
Sidenote, I think the last time someone new associated/confused him for Vash was Tynan and Zurrith. Do the Paladins know what happened to the city? Did they have an outpost there? I feel like “entire city population is immediately wiped off the face of the earth” would be something the light dragon at minimum could feel, since people have souls. Even if they don’t know what happened, were they looking into it at all before Erin showed up?
Yeah, it is weird that none of the paladins recognize the sword. It’s possible they don’t know Vash was destroyed, but given how almost every single god we’ve seen so far knew, it would be weird if they didn’t. If the Light Dragon is aware of Vash’s destruction but keeping that information from the paladins, that’s a juicy plot point to unpack. If she doesn’t know, then there’s potentially many more chapters of Shenanigans involving Kendal and the paladins.
I love this idea. My immediate thought was that he wouldn’t be able to use his Light Magic to read Kendal at all, that it would go *pof*, but getting too much information he can’t handle, oh, that would be great.
Guys… is this suspension what the northern wyrm meant by ‘out of my control’? Just… hovering above the water?
That would be so funny!
Well done, Stefan! You managed to reveal your villainy while at the same time capturing the ONE member of the floof squad least likely to be vulnerable to your mindreading.
Also, I doubt you’ll be able to hold him for any length of time.
Stefan: Makes hard light constructs of horns that look like thorns shoot out of the ground to restrain an opponent.
Me, who has only seen his powers be mental/intelligence based: …I didn’t know he could do THAT!
Please let this be like when Tam tried a mental effect on Kendal, it would be so funny!
I actually think Stefan is trying this BECAUSE he saw from Tam’s memories that Kendal was immune to the Diadem. He knows Kendal is at least somewhat immune to Light magic prying into his mind, so when he notices Kendal isn’t willingly volunteering information during their conversation, he decides to go straight to the powerful mind probe, which isn’t his usual tactic but it’s special circomstances.
It’s not going to work, but Stefan doesn’t know that.
HAHAHAHAHA I MEAN GOOD LUCK DUDE IM TOTALLY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS
Gee, who could have foreseen this /s
There are so many ways this can go. I’m personally hoping Kenal can leverage his connection to Vash and give this guy a good old Brain Blast
This might go less well than he thinks.
Unlikely, but i”m kind of hoping for Stefan to experience that dark voidy place where Kendal had his talk with the citizens of Vash. And have several pages of dialogue with them.
Oh… This isn’t great for Kendal, but since the diadem didn’t work on him, I’m hoping this won’t either. Also, I think Falst and Tess might come down to try and save Kendal, which would be horrible for the floor squad if they fail, but would give us some interesting flashback scenes, probably.
Oh this is gonna backfire so badly for Stefan. He’s about to experience some Lovecraftian shit, trying to mindread the vessel of a god.
Alternatively, it would be hilarious if he couldn’t see anything at all and thought Kendal’s brain was empty XD
Ah yes, normal diplomacy situation… good sir, why are your eyes narrowed and glowing like that?
This is NOT going to work as well as Stefan thinks it’s going to, I suspect. Which on the one hand is a good thing, since that might keep the rest of the floof squad safe. But on the other hand, if mind-reading doesn’t work then I’m guessing plan B is good old capture and interrogation. I’m just concerned that said interrogation might include attempts to forcefully decipher how Kendal works, since we know Tam at least, seemed to immediately lower how much of a person he thought Kendal is when his mental attacks/restraints didn’t work.
The problem with opening someone’s mind to take a look inside is that, sometimes, the abyss looks back. Doors let things go through in both directions.
This is it; we’re about to find out reeeeeal fast if he’s been convinced. Either answer would be very, very interesting
I am super excited to see what will happen! Will he find nothing and come to the conclusion that Kendal is a mindless golem, like the champion did? Will it simply bounce off, and leave him to consider another option, leading to Kendal being flown off the island in the escape? Will it knock them both unconscious as it takes them into his mind, and Kendal has control of the mind scape, so can give him information on the collector and select memories of Erin to really show the merit of his plan? Or Kendal has no control / isn’t there and Stef just talks to Vash’s people? Are Vash’s people aggressive? Friendly?
I think Kendal is going to be flown off as an actual prisoner, though, given that being out of the wyrm’s ability to help. It would be funny if it was just him being raised from the water, but I think the stakes are higher otherwise, and funny is too much to hope for.
Obviously Stef won’t get an expected result. I think it or a very hard knock to the head has to render Kendal unconscious, or else he has been weakened more than I think he has been, because otherwise he wouldn’t be captured. But what happens to Stef?
One option is Stef thinks he is a mindless golem like the champion did
Or there is it simply bouncing off, or Stef getting overwhelmed and kicked out
What would be the most interesting is Stef entering the very vast mindscape of Kendal. And we get to see how Stef experiences that mindscape. I am super excited for that!