I’m more inclined to think she means “day”. It’s much more intuitive and relevant to the timeline. 40 years is longer than any of the Floof Squad have been alive. And frankly, even forty days is oddly long, considering it hasn’t even been 30 since Vash’s destruction all the way back in Arc 1 Chapter 1. One might wonder why the heck were there dragons assembling at the Snowfast even before the Light Dragon relayed the intel on Erin to Stefan.
there was some discussion about how long it has been since vash was destroyed on the tumblr community so i did some calculations back then so i went forward and did some calculations on how long it has been and i had closed on abour 30 days
that said the comic does have some unspecified timeskips that could bump that count up a few days, specifically the one between end of arc 1 and start of arc 2 given how far zuurith is from argist and the existence of a city(kev) between them the dragons uniting at snowfast 40 days ago(wich would put vash’s destruction at 45-46 days ago) is definitly possible if not plausible
Slept on it and I agree with the day metric. At this point, it’s been 19-20 days since the comic began and about two weeks since Erin got possessed, so I too am wondering about this six-week mobilization.
According to this, a “turn” in this context is a merfolk-specific descriptor of a seasonal change in the underwater currents, because day and night don’t mean a lot this far down.
So it looks like “turns” does indeed refer to how long the Snowfast has been around, it’s just probably less than 40 years.
Alinua is back to her chapter 5 look
now, i’m imagining Primordial Life being like “don’t forget your gills!” and instantly fish-ifying her every time she goes into water
🧝🏾‍♀️: Bye Life I’m leaving for the ocean 🧬: Not dressed like that you aren’t young lady! 🧜🏾‍♀️: Better? 🧬: Yas bitch slay!
It’s real unfortunate that, realistically, this actually will probably be a solo adventure for Alinua. They absolutely can’t bring Erin, even if he was at 100% and not in desperate need of a “stern talking-to” by his big sis. Tess isn’t exactly suitable, plus she needs to give him that “stern talking-to”. Dainix struggled against a single dragon, so he’s probably not up to the task of blasting them all, even if he was inclined. Also, he realistically ought to stay behind and therapize Erin (and keep an eye on Walter).
At least she’s got Stealthy Boi Falst to back her up from the inside.
Alinua seems to have figured out the switch from surface-to-underwater-bodyform pretty well. Now I want to know if she did it for the others (assuming they’re willing), or are they waiting in an air bubble nearby, or on the surface somewhere? Pretty sure Dainix would prefer being on the surface, though that raises the question if there’s a safe place to wait, what with the nearest land currently being in liquid form.
I assume she didn’t transform them, since she said earlier that there are a lot of very deep changes required. She would need to shatter another person’s soul barrier in order to do it to them (according to my understanding of the lore).
This is actually one of the reasons why I (and probably others) think that her initial transformation wasn’t Life doing anything, but her own magic going by instinct. After all, not only does Life not want to shatter her only companion, but she also doesn’t want Alinua to channel her full power unless absolutely necessary. Besides, Zurrith now has a tree as its primary landmark instead of the mountain that was there, and that was all Alinua because Life refused to get involved.
yeah, I agree, think it was all her. I am very curious about how she changed back here. she said she didn’t know how, so she must still be depending on her reflexes to do it. did she force herself to stay underwater until she was about to drown? or has she learned how to transform now that she has done it?
it’s also interesting that she is an elf capable of this feat, as I think historically only groups of humans (ignans, sekrai, metal-caste, etc) have shown this level of adaptability. she is basically passing for a human right now, all she needs are stripes and no one would be able to tell she is not a sekrai. if she’d been forced into the volcano, would she have developed the same adaptations as an ignan? I assume so.
Hm, Pagos. As another worldbuilder who likes to use Greek because his D&D players don’t speak it, I see what you did there! (In my case Pagomenia is the Antarctis-equivalent.)
I would love to know how Alinua changes back and forth from Gills to No Gills when she is awake. Also, if she gave herself gills right in front of the others, how did they react? (Erin especially)
My thoughts exactly. I kind of hope she just walked back into the water while her body shifted, while Erin’s brain exploded like “YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT.”
On the other hand, I think he’s long since accepted that the limits of Life magic, as he knows them, don’t apply to Alinua. (And possibly trusts her with her life magic more than *she* does, which would be interesting. Recalling “A tree broke the–So that’s what’s taking Alinua so long” and “Possibly the best.”)
Life: Well insulated you say? No problem! One elf with 50 pounds of seal blubber, coming right up!
(Alinua’s body begins to glow green and steadily becomes plumper) Alinua: N-No- Wait! Not yet! They’re still exploring options!
I really dig that map and the sensible world-building of it. Having land as the boundaries instead of water is obvious, but also the emphasis on contour lines; maintaining proper ocean depth, shielding against the elemental energies one way and extreme water pressure the other, is vital for merpeople.
40 turns, and in the extra calendar lore numerous feast days are called ‘turns’, so I take that as 40 days. Sounds about right, as the activity around the Snowfast likely started when L.D. first possessed that Stormdrake and raised the alarm. Well, the gang knows where the Snowfast is and approximate dragon numbers, but nothing much on the geography, fortifications, or garrison numbers.
@DadyCoool does bring up an interesting angle, another party split, but one done purposely. The Floof Squad/Coterie of the Blade can’t match the Paladin’s sheer numbers and power, even at 100%, Erin after his Void/Light theorising knows he should stay away from them, and just one mind-read from any party member could be catastrophic.
Stealth is their best, maybe only, option to spring Kendal and help Falst, and will be best achieved with as few people as possible. Sorry everyone, but it may be time to break the Fellowship and let Frolinua go to Mordowfast alone.
I think the Hand of the Author would get confused if it had to draw too many Alinua designs, so this is probably the extent of her Adaptations.
Honestly, even if she were able to just start morphing her body to suit the environment, there’s not really any Adaptations she could do, besides growing gills. Just look at how many environments we, normal humans, are able to settle in without changing anything fundamental to our biology.
I could maybe see her growing claws to dig or wings to fly, but they’ve got Erin for any Stone-moving and “only birds and dragons fly” is very likely a mentality she wouldn’t be able to break unless she’s falling from an absurd height because a dragon picked her up or something.
To be fair, Alinua and Kendal did meet those winged harpy like people in that town way back at the beginning, so she knows humanoids can fly. I do think though that it’s more for instinctual survival purposes, not casual shapeshifting for every purpose.
Cloudchildren in Windscrest! I wonder if Alinua would be able to alter her form fast enough to save herself from a fall. The average person falls (on Earth) at around 10 meters per second PER SECOND, which is NOT a lot of reaction time! (after 1 second they’ve fallen 10 meters or about 4-5 floors of a building, after 2 seconds they’ve fallen 20 more meters for a total of 30 meters if my math is correct)
Another thing to consider: when they met Falst, he wanted to permanently alter his form so he no longer looked Ferin. I think Alinua would try really hard to not let him know she can do this, because she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings, even though none of this is her fault.
To be unhelpfully theoretical, I could imagine Alinua someday being able to break the rule against casual shapeshifting for the heck of it, but I can’t imagine why she’d *want* to, so it doesn’t seem likely or particularly relevant. As has been said, if she somehow ends up falling to her death, then yeah, she’d probably grow wings for a hot second, but other than that, her body’s reaction to most other scenarios would probably be invisible. Unless Ali has to navigate the Arctic for a while, where she *might* need some…blubber…and…fur…? That sounded weird. It would be a bit odd if Alinua never shapeshifted ever again, but we’ll have to see where Red goes with the idea. As with the whole rest of the comic, it’s sure to be thematically interesting and artistically stunning!
wow ok nice cool map awesome! this new mermaid looks really cool, might motivate me to draw fanart! anyways now at least we sort-of know where the snowfast is… i wonder where the rest of the group is besides Alinua. are they in the city, on the surface, if theyre in the city is there some air pocket or do they just have to use the air mask thingys? if its that last option, how is Dainix doing? gahhhhh i must know moreee
You know, Tarren could get the team there in a day – they might use a frankly egregious amount of explosives and give Erin seventeen types of anxiety heretofore unknown to science, but they’d get everyone there for sure for sure
Merfolk! Send your fastest scout to Argist! We need our chaos inventor! They did say they should start working on things for the next time Erin’s desperate…
Pagos? Dragons? Ohhhh geez…. I’ve heard enough about what goes on in Eureka to be worried…. (this joke brought to you by FFXIV; there’s a side exploration area that you can do that has a zone called Pagos, in which is a notoriously feisty dragon best avoided until you’ve gotten your level above a certain point).
OK.
First: That is an awesome merfolk design, and makes me think of other awesome merfolk ideas (betta fish! triggerfish! wobbegong!)
Second: Does Captain Valia ever get a replacement helmet?
Third: Can Alinua consciously transform now?
Fourth: Where is the rest of the Coterie?
00000: for the last time, . . . . . – . – – / . – . . . . . – .
Two notes: I had to put slashes where the spaces were in the “dot dash” text to have them show up in the translated code and I had to use the standard iPhone dash key (no holding down) to make the dashes readable for translators.
guess again. Try taking blocks of dots or dashes as letters.
I know I suck at this. You’ve got to be the best-known commenter here; you don’t have to waste your time on this crap.
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: this mermaid is based on a black goldfish!
Image source: map
It IS a very very nice design!
Tumblr text: can I offer you a nice fishy lady in this trying time
Bluesky text: remember to press 🔼 to access your map anytime!
Assuming a “turn” is a year, the Snowfast might not have existed for a super long time. And it must be quite close to the northern tip of Helm.
Actually, scratch that. From what the mermaid is saying, it looks like the Snowfast is north of Helm on the edge of the polar ice.
I’m more inclined to think she means “day”. It’s much more intuitive and relevant to the timeline. 40 years is longer than any of the Floof Squad have been alive. And frankly, even forty days is oddly long, considering it hasn’t even been 30 since Vash’s destruction all the way back in Arc 1 Chapter 1. One might wonder why the heck were there dragons assembling at the Snowfast even before the Light Dragon relayed the intel on Erin to Stefan.
Turn is definitely a day. If you look at the “Calendar” extra lore page the word ‘turn’ is used in the name of feast days.
there was some discussion about how long it has been since vash was destroyed on the tumblr community so i did some calculations back then so i went forward and did some calculations on how long it has been and i had closed on abour 30 days
that said the comic does have some unspecified timeskips that could bump that count up a few days, specifically the one between end of arc 1 and start of arc 2 given how far zuurith is from argist and the existence of a city(kev) between them the dragons uniting at snowfast 40 days ago(wich would put vash’s destruction at 45-46 days ago) is definitly possible if not plausible
Slept on it and I agree with the day metric. At this point, it’s been 19-20 days since the comic began and about two weeks since Erin got possessed, so I too am wondering about this six-week mobilization.
Turns out we were both wrong!
https://comicaurora.tumblr.com/post/832996090944077824/im-assuming-a-turn-is-roughly-equivalent-to-a
According to this, a “turn” in this context is a merfolk-specific descriptor of a seasonal change in the underwater currents, because day and night don’t mean a lot this far down.
So it looks like “turns” does indeed refer to how long the Snowfast has been around, it’s just probably less than 40 years.
If turn is year/season, then this is definitely unrelated to the Paladins.
But getting dragons might be their best chance to getting to Kendal quickly.
Alinua is back to her chapter 5 look
now, i’m imagining Primordial Life being like “don’t forget your gills!” and instantly fish-ifying her every time she goes into water
“It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this!” *Slaps gills on her*
🧝🏾‍♀️: Bye Life I’m leaving for the ocean 🧬: Not dressed like that you aren’t young lady! 🧜🏾‍♀️: Better? 🧬: Yas bitch slay!
It’s real unfortunate that, realistically, this actually will probably be a solo adventure for Alinua. They absolutely can’t bring Erin, even if he was at 100% and not in desperate need of a “stern talking-to” by his big sis. Tess isn’t exactly suitable, plus she needs to give him that “stern talking-to”. Dainix struggled against a single dragon, so he’s probably not up to the task of blasting them all, even if he was inclined. Also, he realistically ought to stay behind and therapize Erin (and keep an eye on Walter).
At least she’s got Stealthy Boi Falst to back her up from the inside.
Mermaid planner points out a Pagos bay
Anomalous counts of dragons there stay
Promise to Alinua they’ll find a way
Huh. I guess the Snowfast isn’t on Helm.
Ooh! You’re pretty.
Also, hi Alinua!
Anyway time to sleep.
-Signed The Vessel Of A Glowing God
(aka The Princess)
Alinua seems to have figured out the switch from surface-to-underwater-bodyform pretty well. Now I want to know if she did it for the others (assuming they’re willing), or are they waiting in an air bubble nearby, or on the surface somewhere? Pretty sure Dainix would prefer being on the surface, though that raises the question if there’s a safe place to wait, what with the nearest land currently being in liquid form.
I assume she didn’t transform them, since she said earlier that there are a lot of very deep changes required. She would need to shatter another person’s soul barrier in order to do it to them (according to my understanding of the lore).
This is actually one of the reasons why I (and probably others) think that her initial transformation wasn’t Life doing anything, but her own magic going by instinct. After all, not only does Life not want to shatter her only companion, but she also doesn’t want Alinua to channel her full power unless absolutely necessary. Besides, Zurrith now has a tree as its primary landmark instead of the mountain that was there, and that was all Alinua because Life refused to get involved.
yeah, I agree, think it was all her. I am very curious about how she changed back here. she said she didn’t know how, so she must still be depending on her reflexes to do it. did she force herself to stay underwater until she was about to drown? or has she learned how to transform now that she has done it?
it’s also interesting that she is an elf capable of this feat, as I think historically only groups of humans (ignans, sekrai, metal-caste, etc) have shown this level of adaptability. she is basically passing for a human right now, all she needs are stripes and no one would be able to tell she is not a sekrai. if she’d been forced into the volcano, would she have developed the same adaptations as an ignan? I assume so.
Hm, Pagos. As another worldbuilder who likes to use Greek because his D&D players don’t speak it, I see what you did there! (In my case Pagomenia is the Antarctis-equivalent.)
Placeholder for when I’m awake enough to form real thoughts
I would love to know how Alinua changes back and forth from Gills to No Gills when she is awake. Also, if she gave herself gills right in front of the others, how did they react? (Erin especially)
My thoughts exactly. I kind of hope she just walked back into the water while her body shifted, while Erin’s brain exploded like “YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT.”
On the other hand, I think he’s long since accepted that the limits of Life magic, as he knows them, don’t apply to Alinua. (And possibly trusts her with her life magic more than *she* does, which would be interesting. Recalling “A tree broke the–So that’s what’s taking Alinua so long” and “Possibly the best.”)
Life: Well insulated you say? No problem! One elf with 50 pounds of seal blubber, coming right up!
(Alinua’s body begins to glow green and steadily becomes plumper)
Alinua: N-No- Wait! Not yet! They’re still exploring options!
I really dig that map and the sensible world-building of it. Having land as the boundaries instead of water is obvious, but also the emphasis on contour lines; maintaining proper ocean depth, shielding against the elemental energies one way and extreme water pressure the other, is vital for merpeople.
40 turns, and in the extra calendar lore numerous feast days are called ‘turns’, so I take that as 40 days. Sounds about right, as the activity around the Snowfast likely started when L.D. first possessed that Stormdrake and raised the alarm. Well, the gang knows where the Snowfast is and approximate dragon numbers, but nothing much on the geography, fortifications, or garrison numbers.
@DadyCoool does bring up an interesting angle, another party split, but one done purposely. The Floof Squad/Coterie of the Blade can’t match the Paladin’s sheer numbers and power, even at 100%, Erin after his Void/Light theorising knows he should stay away from them, and just one mind-read from any party member could be catastrophic.
Stealth is their best, maybe only, option to spring Kendal and help Falst, and will be best achieved with as few people as possible. Sorry everyone, but it may be time to break the Fellowship and let Frolinua go to Mordowfast alone.
Aurora Question #72: What other Adaptations do you think Alinua might be able to develop, assuming this isn’t a thing specific to being underwater.
I think the Hand of the Author would get confused if it had to draw too many Alinua designs, so this is probably the extent of her Adaptations.
Honestly, even if she were able to just start morphing her body to suit the environment, there’s not really any Adaptations she could do, besides growing gills. Just look at how many environments we, normal humans, are able to settle in without changing anything fundamental to our biology.
I could maybe see her growing claws to dig or wings to fly, but they’ve got Erin for any Stone-moving and “only birds and dragons fly” is very likely a mentality she wouldn’t be able to break unless she’s falling from an absurd height because a dragon picked her up or something.
I agree, but I still like the picture of Alinua with like dark green glowing dragon wings
To be fair, Alinua and Kendal did meet those winged harpy like people in that town way back at the beginning, so she knows humanoids can fly. I do think though that it’s more for instinctual survival purposes, not casual shapeshifting for every purpose.
Cloudchildren in Windscrest! I wonder if Alinua would be able to alter her form fast enough to save herself from a fall. The average person falls (on Earth) at around 10 meters per second PER SECOND, which is NOT a lot of reaction time! (after 1 second they’ve fallen 10 meters or about 4-5 floors of a building, after 2 seconds they’ve fallen 20 more meters for a total of 30 meters if my math is correct)
Another thing to consider: when they met Falst, he wanted to permanently alter his form so he no longer looked Ferin. I think Alinua would try really hard to not let him know she can do this, because she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings, even though none of this is her fault.
To be unhelpfully theoretical, I could imagine Alinua someday being able to break the rule against casual shapeshifting for the heck of it, but I can’t imagine why she’d *want* to, so it doesn’t seem likely or particularly relevant. As has been said, if she somehow ends up falling to her death, then yeah, she’d probably grow wings for a hot second, but other than that, her body’s reaction to most other scenarios would probably be invisible. Unless Ali has to navigate the Arctic for a while, where she *might* need some…blubber…and…fur…? That sounded weird. It would be a bit odd if Alinua never shapeshifted ever again, but we’ll have to see where Red goes with the idea. As with the whole rest of the comic, it’s sure to be thematically interesting and artistically stunning!
wow ok nice cool map awesome! this new mermaid looks really cool, might motivate me to draw fanart! anyways now at least we sort-of know where the snowfast is… i wonder where the rest of the group is besides Alinua. are they in the city, on the surface, if theyre in the city is there some air pocket or do they just have to use the air mask thingys? if its that last option, how is Dainix doing? gahhhhh i must know moreee
You know, Tarren could get the team there in a day – they might use a frankly egregious amount of explosives and give Erin seventeen types of anxiety heretofore unknown to science, but they’d get everyone there for sure for sure
Hold up, that’s a good plan! And an excuse for TARREN to return!
Merfolk! Send your fastest scout to Argist! We need our chaos inventor! They did say they should start working on things for the next time Erin’s desperate…
YES I hope so I miss Tarren so much they’re my favorite character
Wait, I just noticed something– Why do the merfolk look like they have claws???
Because they do have claws?
Pagos? Dragons? Ohhhh geez…. I’ve heard enough about what goes on in Eureka to be worried…. (this joke brought to you by FFXIV; there’s a side exploration area that you can do that has a zone called Pagos, in which is a notoriously feisty dragon best avoided until you’ve gotten your level above a certain point).
We can’t see Alinua’s face because she’s probably giving them a look so intense that it would require Red to post a heart attack warning.
OK.
First: That is an awesome merfolk design, and makes me think of other awesome merfolk ideas (betta fish! triggerfish! wobbegong!)
Second: Does Captain Valia ever get a replacement helmet?
Third: Can Alinua consciously transform now?
Fourth: Where is the rest of the Coterie?
00000: for the last time, . . . . . – . – – / . – . . . . . – .
!!!!!!
dotdotdotdot dot dashdotdashdash dotdash dotdotdot dotdotdashdot
!!!!!!
EEEE E TETT ET EEE EETE
Two notes: I had to put slashes where the spaces were in the “dot dash” text to have them show up in the translated code and I had to use the standard iPhone dash key (no holding down) to make the dashes readable for translators.
guess again. Try taking blocks of dots or dashes as letters.
I know I suck at this. You’ve got to be the best-known commenter here; you don’t have to waste your time on this crap.
…. . -.– .- … ..-.
HEYASF
Are you sure your Morse Code source is correct?
No, this is what I meant to say. As for sources, I’ve used like 3, the way it types out here is just weird.
But-but… the team needs to be back together… we’ve just got them back together. I’ve missed the team dynamic. *plays with FLOOF squad dolls*
Is this shaping up to be another Alinua solo?