. The wind dragon dissipates, its message finished.
. “…I told him my name,” Erin whispers, face pale.
. “What’s the range on a spellbird?” Dainix asks as he hurries out of the cave, Erin leaning on him.
. “Only a few miles! They can’t be far!”
. “They’re not,” Falst hisses from in front of them. “Stop yelling.”
. “Can you confuse the spell? Send them off-course?”
. “Technically they track my exhalations, so if I could somehow hold my breath indefinitely– But I can’t disrupt them properly without a functioning wind channel!”
. “Or a hiding place the Paladins can’t reach,” Falst says.
. “Given that at least one of them can fly–! No,” Erin says, realizing something. “No, wait. You’re exactly right, Falst. Get me to the water–!”
. “DOWN!” Falst suddenly shouts, lunging at them, the trio falling to the ground as a blast of wind hits. A red dragon swoops by above, the wind from its passage tearing leaves from the tops of the trees.
Alinua chapter! Probably!
GUYS you can preorder Aurora volume 2 now!!! The cover is so pretty
I wonder if Falst still has that lacrima, or if it was lost with the ship? Also, even if he does, Erin can’t recharge it right now, so that gives the squad a time limit…
They might be too heavy to float, but I’d imagine they’re both strong enough to be able to swim by just muscling through it. It’s kind of like the difference between a blimp and a biplane – the former is less dense than the medium it’s in and thus can just passively float, using its engines to move around as needed, while the latter is more dense than the medium it’s in and thus has to put a lot more oomph into its engines to keep pulling itself forward so it doesn’t fall down to the ground beneath. In water, Erin, Faust, Dainix, and Alinua are like the blimp, being less dense than water and thus able to just float and use their arms and legs to shift around as needed, while Tess and Kendall are like the biplane and have to spend a lot of energy to go fast and avoid falling back down. That is, assuming it’s accurate they are both denser than water (Kendall is probably a given, humans aren’t that much less dense than water to start with and he’s got no small amount of starmetal woven into his body, but given Tess’s skin doesn’t actually seem to work like metal – otherwise it would either need to be visibly articulated or wouldn’t able to move – I’m not certain she’s actually heavier than a human of comparable size).
Re: Kendal in water, on 2.1.23 Tess, Falst, and Dainix are talking about Kendal’s apparent lack of need to sleep, breathe, etc and Tess remarks they should see how long he can stay underwater. I can’t find any mention in the transcript of Kendal’s starmetal bones affecting his swimming. Red has stated on tumblr that metalcaste have metal skin and hair, regular insides (linked at my username).
Re: swimming, I’m not 100% sure the blimp/plane comparison works in water, as planes have to be specially shaped to achieve lift (and boats have to be specially shaped to not sink), but I don’t know enough about water density and swimming to say for sure.
Yes, but Erin’s water channel is undamaged, so if Kendal and Tess were with him, he could move the water around them to keep them afloat. But the point is to go where the Paladins can;t reach them, so he’ll probably move the water to make an air bubble for them to walk on the ocean floor.
My guess is that they’re at least somewhat intent-based. I’d imagine they still go to the same person, but just end up infuriating whoever they end up deadnaming. Or maybe that’s just me looking for a writing use for this question.
Iirc some dragons are Water-aligned and fully or partially aquatic, and we know the Paladins have access to at least one Lightning dragon as well. I doubt going in the sea will be anywhere near as safe as Erin thinks right now.
Right, so a message does not need to contain the name of the addressed, or at least the one Erin sent to Tess in 1.14.25
That means the paladins really just put the name in the tracing message to also tell Erin “Hey, we can track you now” in case he didn’t get it. This has to be the magical equivalent of replying to someone online with their IP address.
I LOVE the way this chapter is building up the suspense and raising the stakes, and not in any way I’d expect at least! The Paladins feel very much like a real threat here, if only towards the Floof Squad. (Although their strategy here definitely violates the sovereignty of whatever peoples living where the Paladins’ prey is passing through. I do wonder…WHY are they so bad at diplomacy!? Serious question! Were they jaded by the world’s presumptuousness about their religion?? Do they have a superiority complex??? Do they see Walter everywhere???? …Maybe they were corrupted by Zuurithism. But then why did they ally with him whenever they did, and seemingly nobody else!? I doubt even Zuurith could boss them around. Mysteries upon mysteries…)
The Paladins don’t belong to any city or country, so they don’t need to parlay with them unless it’s stuff like logistics (say, housing an archive). The Rakhnans live in a volcano and have vacated the rest of the island because it’s uninhabitable for them. The Paladins won’t bother them, because it’s far more likely that Erin would hide somewhere on the island rather than in the obviously extreme environment that he’s in no way fit to survive in, much less take shelter in. The dragonflight doesn’t intrude on the volcano, hence they do not intrude on the Rakhnans. And so, the Rakhnans have no reason to bother them.
On a side note, I willing to bet the Paladins predates Zuurith the city by a good margin, their deal with Zuurith was basically “You receive: independent auxiliary forces to help defend your city. We recieve: a land lease to build and maintain an archive” and Zuurith agreed. The Paladins in Zuurith aren’t even beholden to him for that matter.
Tess: Guys, get your asses off the ground! The Paladins are here and they- (notices the cave/hut is empty) … And they already know. Ugh! This is why I like going solo; no need to reunite the party every 10 minutes.
You know things are heating up in Aurora when the SFX comes out. I like how that WHOOSH cuts into the second to last panel to imply the sound could be heard before the dragon is seen.
Also, while he’s angry at Caliban, Falst is still keeping the very useful scarf; I guess wearing it as a sash stops potential strangulation.
Limited range and tracks via exhalations, eh? Looks like their chances are better than I figured. That undersea route idea via the Northern Wyrm’s blessing would throw off their search, something Erin has already figured out here, and put enough distance between the gang and the Paladins so the spell loses it’s use.
Wait a minute. If it tracks via exhalations, does that mean Kendal can avoid them so long as he doesn’t breathe for talking and exercise? Could this become a plot point later?
I don’t think Erin has enough information to know anything about Alinua’s Adventure with the Northern Wyrm; I think he’s just heading to the water to hide in the shallows. Maybe wind message spells can’t penetrate water?
Yeah that’s what I meant, I should have phrased that sentence better.
I meant that Erin has figured out that by manipulating water, either into a bubble around him and/or an air pocket in a body of water, he would block the spell. The water would stop his exhalations from escaping into the air, thus the spellbird can’t track him.
See, this right here is why you never divulge personal information online. You never quite know whether or not that little bit of information can be used to gain even more information, like getting your location from your name. Depending on the name, all it would take is a general idea of where you live and they could get everything.
If auroran dragons can breathe fire, that scarf is going to come in real handy. The entire floof squad is now capable of handling fire! Assuming that Kendal’s body can handle elemental fire as well as starfire. And Alinua is fire resistant in the same way she is void resistant, meaning she will still feel immense pain if her entire body is set on fire by dragon breath. And you can probably do some awful body horror with a metal caste if a fire is hot enough to melt said metal. Ok they aren’t inflamable but at least they won’t die from the fire.
I will say that this dragon appears to be the same kind that was ferrying Tam and Septim Priora in an earlier chapter, which Red has confirmed to be a Fire dragon. Odds are yes, it has a fire breath weapon, or at least something functionally similar.
although erin telling tam his name was a blunder, they probably could have figured out the name of the elemental magus if they looked into it enough right?
I was gonna make a comment about hubris, but looking back (1-3-1), it seems that it was more out of a very weak attempt to cover for himself, so I can let it slide.
That dawning realization of “oh shit, I gave my enemy the means to track me” in panel 2. Their faces say it all. Now, let’s see how well Erin takes the earlier realization of “I asked my friends to trust me and didn’t trust them one inch myself” to heart! He doesn’t really have much choice but to trust them to protect him right now, with his current condition, but he might still angst about it. Or do something stupid with his unsealed channels if cornered. Said teammates aren’t exactly in the best state themselves.
Also, oooo!!! Air bubble under the water to hide? Does that wind lacrima Falst used on the ship still have any juice? More importantly, does it have enough juice to hide them until the rest of the party finds them?
Also, not sure if this was already shared elsewhere, but just in case anyone’s having issues viewing comments, the comments do seem to be cached based on when you first load a new page. If you post a comment and don’t see it, or don’t see any new comments after revisiting the page a couple hours later, try adding “?anyrandomtexthere” in the address bar to bypass caching and get the latest comments. It needs to go directly after the last / in the url, before any #. Change the text after the ? each time you want to get the most up-to-date comments.
we see erin sending a spellbirb to kendal in 1-15-31, though we don’t actually see it arrive (unless I missed it).
This could either be because it just got hidden by everything else that’s going on, or because it can’t track kendal. Although he does breathe when he’s fighting as Dainix points out in 2-1-23 (and in fact the birb does follow him as Tynan takes him to a new location. So yeah. In case anyone else is as obsessive about the fact-checking.
If they had Allinua she could encase him/his mouth in a plant that is quicly photosynthesizing air for him. So they could not track “his” exhaust.
She could maybe also mutate his airways? But I doubt she would be willing to risk that.
The second panel is possibly the most bone chilling evocation of the “names have power” trope I’ve ever seen, and it’s not fae mind control or posession or anything like that. It’s just, “They can find you now. Wherever you are.” Absolutly terrifiying, thank you Red.
Yknow this does make me wonder if the aquatic peoples of Aurora have a spellbird equivalent using elemental water the same way, tracking exhalations through gills
So it WAS Tam! Time to go “under the sea”
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: did I just hear a whoosh?
Image source: name
. The wind dragon dissipates, its message finished.
. “…I told him my name,” Erin whispers, face pale.
. “What’s the range on a spellbird?” Dainix asks as he hurries out of the cave, Erin leaning on him.
. “Only a few miles! They can’t be far!”
. “They’re not,” Falst hisses from in front of them. “Stop yelling.”
. “Can you confuse the spell? Send them off-course?”
. “Technically they track my exhalations, so if I could somehow hold my breath indefinitely– But I can’t disrupt them properly without a functioning wind channel!”
. “Or a hiding place the Paladins can’t reach,” Falst says.
. “Given that at least one of them can fly–! No,” Erin says, realizing something. “No, wait. You’re exactly right, Falst. Get me to the water–!”
. “DOWN!” Falst suddenly shouts, lunging at them, the trio falling to the ground as a blast of wind hits. A red dragon swoops by above, the wind from its passage tearing leaves from the tops of the trees.
Alinua chapter! Probably!
GUYS you can preorder Aurora volume 2 now!!! The cover is so pretty
Tumblr text: everything is fine!
Bluesky text: ok so the background music has started integrating frantic violins but that’s fine we’re find (sic)
everything’s fine, everything’s normal
New favorite alt text just dropped
it’s probably just a really close-up bird
These people sure do overreact to a lot of stuff, don’t they.
No, Erin, I compared you to Odysseus last page! DON’T get in the water!
(Also, nice, an explanation how these spells work! Exhalations make a ton of sense for wind magic.)
Well, he is being hunted by airborne pursuers…
WOW , this is a totally different vibe I’m feeling from aurora
And just like that, Erin’s got a plan!
It’s time for chekhov’s wind or!!
The rare 2 shot variant.
Chekhov’s boomerang
I wonder if Falst still has that lacrima, or if it was lost with the ship? Also, even if he does, Erin can’t recharge it right now, so that gives the squad a time limit…
We were so close to having the party back together. I’m beginning to think that Red doesn’t like drawing them all in one shot.
Well if they go into the water they might meet alinua, so it would just be kendal having to catch up to them.
I’m not sure where, but I think the comic said Kendal is too heavy to swim. The same probably goes for Tess.
They might be too heavy to float, but I’d imagine they’re both strong enough to be able to swim by just muscling through it. It’s kind of like the difference between a blimp and a biplane – the former is less dense than the medium it’s in and thus can just passively float, using its engines to move around as needed, while the latter is more dense than the medium it’s in and thus has to put a lot more oomph into its engines to keep pulling itself forward so it doesn’t fall down to the ground beneath. In water, Erin, Faust, Dainix, and Alinua are like the blimp, being less dense than water and thus able to just float and use their arms and legs to shift around as needed, while Tess and Kendall are like the biplane and have to spend a lot of energy to go fast and avoid falling back down. That is, assuming it’s accurate they are both denser than water (Kendall is probably a given, humans aren’t that much less dense than water to start with and he’s got no small amount of starmetal woven into his body, but given Tess’s skin doesn’t actually seem to work like metal – otherwise it would either need to be visibly articulated or wouldn’t able to move – I’m not certain she’s actually heavier than a human of comparable size).
Re: Kendal in water, on 2.1.23 Tess, Falst, and Dainix are talking about Kendal’s apparent lack of need to sleep, breathe, etc and Tess remarks they should see how long he can stay underwater. I can’t find any mention in the transcript of Kendal’s starmetal bones affecting his swimming. Red has stated on tumblr that metalcaste have metal skin and hair, regular insides (linked at my username).
Re: swimming, I’m not 100% sure the blimp/plane comparison works in water, as planes have to be specially shaped to achieve lift (and boats have to be specially shaped to not sink), but I don’t know enough about water density and swimming to say for sure.
Yes, but Erin’s water channel is undamaged, so if Kendal and Tess were with him, he could move the water around them to keep them afloat. But the point is to go where the Paladins can;t reach them, so he’ll probably move the water to make an air bubble for them to walk on the ocean floor.
to the water??? we have friends there now!!
Aurora Question #59: How do you think the Wind Birbs would behave if someone changed their name?
Flap around in confusion and then go « this person doesn’t exist » and then vanish
“The exhalation signature you are trying to reach does not exist”
Imo, it depends on how they link people’s names to their exhalations.
Funniest case scenario? It either goes to someone else with the same name, or does something like flying in circles
My guess is that they’re at least somewhat intent-based. I’d imagine they still go to the same person, but just end up infuriating whoever they end up deadnaming. Or maybe that’s just me looking for a writing use for this question.
I also think so, but we shall see
oh golly me it’s dainix
Oh golly me it’s Falst
oh my golly me it’s Erin
oh my golly me it’s a FREAKIN DRAGON
Iirc some dragons are Water-aligned and fully or partially aquatic, and we know the Paladins have access to at least one Lightning dragon as well. I doubt going in the sea will be anywhere near as safe as Erin thinks right now.
There’ll be significantly less Wind, tho, and so it’ll be harder for them to track him
Right, so a message does not need to contain the name of the addressed, or at least the one Erin sent to Tess in 1.14.25
That means the paladins really just put the name in the tracing message to also tell Erin “Hey, we can track you now” in case he didn’t get it. This has to be the magical equivalent of replying to someone online with their IP address.
Who knew paladins were this petty? Everyone.
Ah, cool.
I LOVE the way this chapter is building up the suspense and raising the stakes, and not in any way I’d expect at least! The Paladins feel very much like a real threat here, if only towards the Floof Squad. (Although their strategy here definitely violates the sovereignty of whatever peoples living where the Paladins’ prey is passing through. I do wonder…WHY are they so bad at diplomacy!? Serious question! Were they jaded by the world’s presumptuousness about their religion?? Do they have a superiority complex??? Do they see Walter everywhere???? …Maybe they were corrupted by Zuurithism. But then why did they ally with him whenever they did, and seemingly nobody else!? I doubt even Zuurith could boss them around. Mysteries upon mysteries…)
The Paladins don’t belong to any city or country, so they don’t need to parlay with them unless it’s stuff like logistics (say, housing an archive). The Rakhnans live in a volcano and have vacated the rest of the island because it’s uninhabitable for them. The Paladins won’t bother them, because it’s far more likely that Erin would hide somewhere on the island rather than in the obviously extreme environment that he’s in no way fit to survive in, much less take shelter in. The dragonflight doesn’t intrude on the volcano, hence they do not intrude on the Rakhnans. And so, the Rakhnans have no reason to bother them.
On a side note, I willing to bet the Paladins predates Zuurith the city by a good margin, their deal with Zuurith was basically “You receive: independent auxiliary forces to help defend your city. We recieve: a land lease to build and maintain an archive” and Zuurith agreed. The Paladins in Zuurith aren’t even beholden to him for that matter.
Tess: Guys, get your asses off the ground! The Paladins are here and they- (notices the cave/hut is empty) … And they already know. Ugh! This is why I like going solo; no need to reunite the party every 10 minutes.
You know things are heating up in Aurora when the SFX comes out. I like how that WHOOSH cuts into the second to last panel to imply the sound could be heard before the dragon is seen.
Also, while he’s angry at Caliban, Falst is still keeping the very useful scarf; I guess wearing it as a sash stops potential strangulation.
Limited range and tracks via exhalations, eh? Looks like their chances are better than I figured. That undersea route idea via the Northern Wyrm’s blessing would throw off their search, something Erin has already figured out here, and put enough distance between the gang and the Paladins so the spell loses it’s use.
Wait a minute. If it tracks via exhalations, does that mean Kendal can avoid them so long as he doesn’t breathe for talking and exercise? Could this become a plot point later?
I don’t think Erin has enough information to know anything about Alinua’s Adventure with the Northern Wyrm; I think he’s just heading to the water to hide in the shallows. Maybe wind message spells can’t penetrate water?
Yeah that’s what I meant, I should have phrased that sentence better.
I meant that Erin has figured out that by manipulating water, either into a bubble around him and/or an air pocket in a body of water, he would block the spell. The water would stop his exhalations from escaping into the air, thus the spellbird can’t track him.
I worry about how Dainix will react to this plan, since he’s afraid of the water.
That dragon is so pretty. Extremely bad news, but pretty
See, this right here is why you never divulge personal information online. You never quite know whether or not that little bit of information can be used to gain even more information, like getting your location from your name. Depending on the name, all it would take is a general idea of where you live and they could get everything.
It’s funny he wants water after we see Alinua basically make the local sea god indebted for eternity, so they’d be extra safe under the sea.
Oh thats such a cool piece of lore, that the wind-bird spell things track people by their breath! 😀
I suspect it’s less lore, more YET ANOTHER CHEKHOV’S FREAKING GUN since Red seems so found of them right now
YES WE’RE GETTING AN EVASION LEVEL
If auroran dragons can breathe fire, that scarf is going to come in real handy. The entire floof squad is now capable of handling fire! Assuming that Kendal’s body can handle elemental fire as well as starfire. And Alinua is fire resistant in the same way she is void resistant, meaning she will still feel immense pain if her entire body is set on fire by dragon breath. And you can probably do some awful body horror with a metal caste if a fire is hot enough to melt said metal. Ok they aren’t inflamable but at least they won’t die from the fire.
Auroran dragons come in 6 different types, each one allied with a different element.
So yes, Auroran dragons do breathe fire, but these ones don’t necessarily
I will say that this dragon appears to be the same kind that was ferrying Tam and Septim Priora in an earlier chapter, which Red has confirmed to be a Fire dragon. Odds are yes, it has a fire breath weapon, or at least something functionally similar.
https://www.tumblr.com/comicaurora/775754593826160640/what-kind-of-dragon-is-carrying-tam-and-priora?source=share
They come in a lot more than six types…
Oh boy, time to meet up with Alinua!
Now get in the water… GET in the water…
I knew I would find this here.
Or I’l raise the tides so high, all of Ithaca will die…
Mermaid chapter… 2!
although erin telling tam his name was a blunder, they probably could have figured out the name of the elemental magus if they looked into it enough right?
I was gonna make a comment about hubris, but looking back (1-3-1), it seems that it was more out of a very weak attempt to cover for himself, so I can let it slide.
That dawning realization of “oh shit, I gave my enemy the means to track me” in panel 2. Their faces say it all. Now, let’s see how well Erin takes the earlier realization of “I asked my friends to trust me and didn’t trust them one inch myself” to heart! He doesn’t really have much choice but to trust them to protect him right now, with his current condition, but he might still angst about it. Or do something stupid with his unsealed channels if cornered. Said teammates aren’t exactly in the best state themselves.
Also, oooo!!! Air bubble under the water to hide? Does that wind lacrima Falst used on the ship still have any juice? More importantly, does it have enough juice to hide them until the rest of the party finds them?
Also, not sure if this was already shared elsewhere, but just in case anyone’s having issues viewing comments, the comments do seem to be cached based on when you first load a new page. If you post a comment and don’t see it, or don’t see any new comments after revisiting the page a couple hours later, try adding “?anyrandomtexthere” in the address bar to bypass caching and get the latest comments. It needs to go directly after the last / in the url, before any #. Change the text after the ? each time you want to get the most up-to-date comments.
DRAG ONS DRAG ONS DRAG ONS! YAAYYYY DRAGON FIGHT!!!
And now it’s time for Chekhov’s air bubble lacrima that Falst created ohh so long ago to be useful!
DND 101: never and I mean NEVER give a suspicious eldritch entity you name.
Tracking Erin by a means he can only subvert if he stops talking for five minutes…devious…
So hold on.
Spellbirds track people through exhalations.
Kendal does not strictly need to breathe.
Who among us thinks this combination of facts may become relevant later? O3O
I absolutely believe we’ll hear about this again
we see erin sending a spellbirb to kendal in 1-15-31, though we don’t actually see it arrive (unless I missed it).
This could either be because it just got hidden by everything else that’s going on, or because it can’t track kendal. Although he does breathe when he’s fighting as Dainix points out in 2-1-23 (and in fact the birb does follow him as Tynan takes him to a new location. So yeah. In case anyone else is as obsessive about the fact-checking.
I thought of that too, but yeah, most likely he was just breathing heavily during the fight
If they had Allinua she could encase him/his mouth in a plant that is quicly photosynthesizing air for him. So they could not track “his” exhaust.
She could maybe also mutate his airways? But I doubt she would be willing to risk that.
“Alinua, I need you to grow me a new airpipe! Don’t worry, I believe in you! But I need it done in two seconds flat!”
“GET IN THE WATER.”
Ooo we’re going into the water? Could it perhaps be time for Falst’s bubble lacrima?
The second panel is possibly the most bone chilling evocation of the “names have power” trope I’ve ever seen, and it’s not fae mind control or posession or anything like that. It’s just, “They can find you now. Wherever you are.” Absolutly terrifiying, thank you Red.
Boys trip! *dives into the water*
Seems like people would be more careful about giving out their names in a world where your name can be used to track you!
Yknow this does make me wonder if the aquatic peoples of Aurora have a spellbird equivalent using elemental water the same way, tracking exhalations through gills
GET DOWN MR. PRESIDENT
That moment of “…whoops.”
Erin’s way ahead of Odysseus here though. At least he admits he hubrised himself into this mess.
When the page loaded for me the first time I thought the fading spellbird was saying “ASS” xD
Friday’s cliffhanger is gonna be BRUTAL