Kendal slams into the railing of the ship with a rack, metal bending and splintering under his weight.
“Right,” Falst snarls, perching on the wheel’s railing, as Alinua looks on in distress.
“And now–” the Champion starts, his light-blade forming again as Tess leaps up from behind him, fist drawn back and sparking with lightning.
The Champion glances back, noticing her. A skeletal light-wing slices out from his shoulder and cracks into Tess, sending her flying towards the stern of the ship.
Sorry I’m so late, I was on a trip and the internet and the b&b was horrible
I wonder if that means he’s a glass cannon. Might be time for our speedy melee lad that’s been having a few self-confidence issues to get his time to shine.
As an aside, I’m wondering if the success of his initial attack against Kendal indicates that light dragon energies are part of the make up of his body (given his resistance to Void Dragon energy was due to it’s absence from his body).
Oh…that’s a very valid theory. For some silly reason, I thought Kendal was immune to the Glort’s psychic trauma attack because Kendal has ZERO trauma to speak of.
Which…is kind of stupid on my part. His god is as good as dead. He saw people he has perfect memory of get killed while he was helpless to save them. Boy has trauma.
YIKES they’re seeing just the worst side of the paladins. Like imagine the gang runs into Theia after this mess and finds out she’s one of them. They’ll shoot first and ask questions later 😬
don’t they already know she’s a paladin? She WAS the receptionist at the paladin library. they might not recognize her at first with her new haircut though, I know I’ve done that. either way, I completely agree on the negative perception of the paladins they’re gaining- theyre going to be very wary in future depending on how this is turning out.
OOF you’re right my b. Second point still stands tho. This guy threatened their friend, rebuffed their attempts at diplomacy, swatted them like flies. Falst is punching the next paladin he meets.
“Ruunaser ! What the hell did you do to my protoype ?!”
“Here, read my test drive report”
*report is just “PALADIN PROOF IT NEXT TIME” written in big scrambly letters
“Look, if the boat isn’t rated for dramatic melee fights involving at least 2 near-demigods during a storm then you really shouldn’t have handed it off to me in the first place. Really, the boat’s destruction is your fault if you think about it.”
I gotta say I love how Mike’s powers seem to be just an extension the white dragon herself. I love the idea of like an ultra powerful from of his being a spectral dragon surrounding him.
That’s an amazing concept! I don’t think we’ll see anything of the sort right now, and I doubt Red would let any non-god character get that powerful, but it’s still a really cool idea for some hyper-climax battle for arc 6 or 7
Uh…not really. Even Tynan’s fight was just a bunch of independently guided attacks. Erin’s one plan fell apart the minute Tynan assumed dragon-form, and Alinua bailed.
Welllllll…Alinua and Erin did pretty well working together to get our favourite shiptease out of cave-crawler-central, but then Dainix nearly burned Alinua and got eaten by the Glort, Alinua exhausted herself trying to rescue him, Erin was distracted trying to keep Falst alive and promptly got trauma-zapped when he (re-)entered the fight, then was rendered useless by getting slimed, and Kendal and Tess had to come save all their asses.
…so I’d say we’re still a solid D minus on teamwork. But we can only go up from here, right? Right?
Kendal hits the metal rail with a crack!
It buckles with the force of the blow.
A wing erupts, striking Tess, thwack!
As she leaps at the stranger below.
Art wise, lovely use of shadows to give Tess and the Champion menace in panels 3 and 5; Tess looks furious and the Champion feels cold. And while this conflict plays out, the lovely art of the storm is still raging around them; you could almost forget it, and I wonder if some gang members already have, with this situation going on.
The Champion’s not just beaten back both big guys, he’s done so easily. That claw had enough force to push the heavy Kendal and crack the metal boat; that wing knocked the also heavy, and likely angry, Tess aside. The two characters I was banking on doing most of the fighting are already down. They’re not out, and in Kendal’s case he was taken by surprise, but they are down after just a few seconds.
I guess it was foolish of me to think Falst would just stay at the helm while his friends are being attacked. He was willing to change course against Erin’s orders to, in his eyes, save them; of course he wouldn’t let the Champion’s actions slide. While short term it won’t be a problem, the longer this fight goes on, the greater the chance of the ship going somewhere it shouldn’t. Crashing into Rakhn? Going too far south and accidentally reaching Grimside?
Prediction for next week: Falst, maybe Alinua and Dainix too, join in to try and stop the Champion. They won’t succeed but that should give Kendal and Tess time to recover and start fighting for real. Then things might change.
The unknown factor right now is Erin. He’s watching all of this, everyone’s already given up on listening to him, he’s too busy with the spell to help, and he can’t maintain said spell forever. Will he keep channeling as long as he can, or will he try something with the magic to help?
Hhhhokay. That looked rather painful for both Kendal and Tess. And Kendal’s still recovering from that injury, as far as I know. I think they’ll both get back up, but yeah, this is gonna be messy.
Falst is abandoning the helm to fight. No one is steering this ship anymore. Erin is stuck trying to maintain the shield from the storm, and this situation is just asking for him to overextend himself further, whether by trying to maintain the shield or by trying to fight. Or Michael will punch through everyone else long enough to force Erin’s hand into defense or knock him out…
I’m definitely betting my virtual doubloons on some kind of shipwreck–either crashing on Rakhn or capsizing.
Badly, but I think Erin or Falst will have a cool moment. Tess and Kendal being knocked down means they *probably* won’t be able to beat him, and Alinua and dainix can’t really fight too well. On one hand, this chapter seems to be about Erin, on the other, Falst’s presumed paladin powers, (though that isn’t canon yet, I believe) might come into play.
Dainix will probably be out of it quickly cause he was cracking last time and now we haven’t seen him so something might be happening in the background. Everyone else is probably going to have to figure out how to properly teamwork when all anyone can really do here is minorly inconvenience the paladin. So there probably all going to come in kinda waves and just try to overwhelm the paladin so any of their attacks land and might use dainix’s flash and maybe smoke bombs so they can really annoy (and actually hit the paladin). Of course what’s going to happen with Erin (as in whether Walter shows) is anyone’s guess. Also I think the point of this fight might be to make them figure out teamwork.
There are so many checkov’s guns it’s not even funny. But also checkov’s bubble already belongs to Falst’s air bubble. And also I forgot to mention this early so I’ll put it here but some theories on how this fight will end: collector (if that’s who the ghosts warned of), boat wreck, the storm just getting exponentially worse, mermaids (Kendal accidental encounters them and convinces them to help?), Argist intervening, or after everyone is exhausted, spent and half dead! Even Michael who pauses for a moment to rest on the railing! Tess, who gets knocked unconscious at some point and was subsequently forgotten, proceeds to electrocute Michael into unconsciousness :).
I think Falst will attack next (he looks like he’s about to jump in that panel) and get bodied. This will either trigger Ali to once again say “Enough!” and explode, or Dainix will go “No, my boyfriend!” and explode. They do that in either order, then Kendal gets back up for a proper attack, and then Michael turns his attention to Erin, finally. Who knows what will happen then, but it won’t be good for the floof squad.
Another instance of Die or Fly with Falst’s Light powers or Erin’s Void powers.
The catalyst may be the same. Mikey stops pulling punches and really hurts somebody, maybe someone gets lost overboard (prob Kendal) and they lash out with their dragon powers: Falst unknowingly out of raw desperation and Erin intentionally because its the only element he can cast freely as his hands are otherwise occupied.
And Theory about the cover: Erins not actually going overboard. Drowning could be a metaphor for slipping into unconsciousness and the tail around him is The Void Dragon moving in to take over.
I’m of the opinion that this Champion figure will actually join the party.
Or rather, I was, until I saw the chapter art for Torrent
But still. It might be a delayed thing. Not every antagonist can pull a Falst.
i just spend waaaaay too much time on TVTropes lol, and with how many powerhouses this team has it was only a matter of time before SOMEONE got Worfed.
Good point, let’s just ask him kindly to take a hit like a man and see if he lets us punch him a bunch.
That or maybe we can use that snake that Falst Thunderchucked into the atmosphere.
Or maybe panick because those powers he’s reliant on don’t seem to have a way to get around them.
We’ve only seen Dainix once since the chapter began. It’s been stated that he goes Crucible when afraid or under stress. What if he goes Crucible now and sets the ship on fire?
Also
Is anyone else worried that the Champion’s attack on Kendal damaged the ship’s structural integrity?
Dammit, Terry Pratchett was right. A good man *will* kill you with hardly a word.
Seriously, all the villain antagonists – Tynan and Jolon and the Collector et al – loved them some monologuing. The Paladin is the only one who feels like he wouldn’t pause to gloat.
I mean, in fairness, he actually DID have a big ol’ monologue when he FIRST showed up (“I’ll be able to apologize to his family”, and all that). It’s just that he got all of his polite explaining out of the way in one go, and now he sees no need to explain himself further!
I was thinking the same thing through this whole section! If Michael were evil, everyone would’ve had an entire monologue to respond. Kendal could’ve quickly seen he was impervious to reason and taken a tactical approach, and the crew could’ve shown him their stuff. Instead, yep. The wisdom of Pratchett is proved yet again.
…I think this is supposed to make us realize in just how deep of trouble we are.
Tess is normally our plucky punchy gal who seems to be able to handle a LOT. If you think back to the Tynan fight, she held her cool basically the entire time and wasn’t injured severely.
And here she is being taken out (for at least a moment) in a single hit.
Plus Kendal who’s generally the team’s tank instantly getting pummeled.
If the Champion can handle the two strongest (by brute force standards) members of the team that easily, I think that signals we’re in for a load of hurt.
(Then again, was that chapter cover any doubt?)
Michael is standing directly between Tess and Erin at this point. If she had shot lightning at him, there’s a good chance he could dodge it or deflect it, and she might hit her brother instead.
Going off the alt text of “he’s got a spidey-sense, but only for when people are striking cool poses behind him”
His archnemesis is known as “the World’s Ugliest Fighter”. Not because he’s hideous or anything, he’s actually a solid 7. 8 if you get him in a suit.
It’s that he fights the way Elaine Benes dances. He’s won more than one bout simply by his opponent giving up, unable to handle the second hand embarrassment. Some of his moves include “Ol’ Creepy Hands”, the “Wobblin’ Knee”, and “Fury of the Ragdoll”.
Holy shit! Tess got warfed!… Sorta, cause like I literally thought. “Oh shit, he took down Tess in one hit. This is bad.” As I understand it, the warf effect only applies when a writer pulls that to many times, and suddenly your powerhouse doesn’t feel like a powerhouse anymore. So like, Tess got warfed, and it worked? Cause this is the only time Red has used this scene structure.
..I think I overanalyze when nervous. Please be careful everyone!
Fine fine well Tess is a large, shiny, metal lightning mage. She’s not exactly subtle. He could’ve glimpsed movement in his peripheral, heard lightning crackling above him, saw her shadow, take your pick.
Nah. I think snake is on to something here and also this is the boring answer! Even if it’s wildly wrong part of the fun of theories is seeing how out there you can make them while still having them make sense! Also in the panel before he wingslaps her his eyes have a weird shine thing coming from them so I think he does have some sorta extra sense! Also the alt text explicitly points that out despite several reasons that Michael should have theoretically been noticing which is odd. Also there in the middle of a massive storm with lightning nigh constantly striking from the looks of it so Michael noticing any of those things is kinda unlikely.
My question isn’t how long Erin can hold his spell, it’s how long he can keep it controlled when he’s stressed. Watching his friends get pummeled trying to defend him is, I think, going to be a lot harder than he’d like to admit, and he’s mentioned that magic can run wild if you cast from emotion.
Does it seem to anyone else that the champion can only use one form of the light projection magic thingy at once? Wings dissolved when he made the sword. sword dissolved when he made the claw thing. so on and so forth. With the wings in the last panel he has no sword. Group attack could be more successful?
nevermind checked chapter 7 and he can use both wings and the sword at once theory failed. So why is he only doing one thing at a time here?
Well, the claw and sword are both hand-based, so it would logically follow that he’d only be using one at a time against a single attacker. But in general I think this is because he only *needs* to use one thing at a time. They’re attacking him one at a time right now, and so far they’ve all proved to be fairly trivial for him to dispose of. Also, he’s not trying to use as much force against them as he is Erin— he probably thinks they’re just trying to defend someone they thought was their friend. He called them “innocents” earlier, so he’s just trying to get them out of the way.
that alt text has some serious foreshadowing vibes, a chekhov’s gun if I’ve ever seen one. cannot wait for a tragic death in 20 acts with a stab from behind.
SHIT HE’S GOT A LIGHTSABER PATA
For real though, that is a sick and very practical magic weapon he has, can’t wait for him to show how well he can use it! Not so much for the floof squad’s losses brewing on the horizon… Good luck my fuzzy friends o7
It’s interesting that we never really expected Michael to be able to stand up to the Floof Squad this well…
I notice that the one-at-a-time thing has some realism behind it: everyone is backfooted by the paladin’s sudden arrival in a moment of crisis; then Kendal tries to de-escalate, so naturally he approaches alone; then Tess is emotional about her little brother, and isn’t thinking “tactically.”
I wonder if Red is doing some kind of commentary on the whole one-at-a-time, conservation-of-ninjutsu gag. What was it Elliot Spencer said? “So, what, they work on hourly, you work on commission, is that it? …if you’d have worked together, this would’ve ended differently for you. You gotta learn to *share.*”
Oh now you fucked up real bad Michael. We can’t save you now bud, you’ve gone too deep in the trenches
Someone get me a coffin and a shovel. He’s not coming out of this in one piece.
Goku’s way of doing things is fun, but this is the downside. When you’re going up against someone who isn’t playing that game comes along, you can get your shit wrecked
can we just take a minute to appreciate that little ‘riGHT’ from Falst? The way his instant reaction to a friend getting body slammed is to abandon the wheel and come over the railing to end a bitch? I love him sm
He’s the best. He loves his friends so much but would rather die than admit it. He rushed a dragon-god to defend Erin. He fought a caustic eldritch horror from the dawn of civilization for Dainix. Of course he’ll fight a pseudo-demigod for Kendal.
Could be possible.I mean it would be cool to see a sea elf, Actually I’ve never seen a sea elf in any form of mass media.*Victorian/Athenian gasp* This might be the first sea elf in existence
There are almost certainly more primordials out there.
First, Walter refers to killing the Six as “some of my finest work.” If there are no more primordials, this would have been his only battle to the death ever. The language used implies more fights of somewhat comparable scale. Ergo, more primordials.
Second, when asked in the reddit, Red has said the primordial lore is some of her favorite she hasn’t shared. This seems to imply more complexity than currently shown, and likely by more than one extra player.
Third, the Six sacrificed themselves to stop Walter. Typically sacrificing themselves would have to be FOR something. It’s possible their psychology is too inhuman for this to apply, but from what we’ve seen of Walter and Life this doesn’t really seem to be the case. Thus, I suspect their sacrifice would only be worth it for another of their kind (The Lady?), for an object important to their kind, or for a creator of some sort (The Lady?).
If the sacrifice was for others of their kind, that would mean “their kind” includes stars. They effectively sacrificed themselves to take down a serial killer with genocidal ambitions. This would mean the sun is likely the Lady. This explains why no sun god has formed, and what the sun is. It explains the Lady’s magic as being an additional element. It explains the Six’s motivations, and what other “work” Walter would have to be proud of. We have only seen Stone and Life, and if Fire and Lightning glow the right way in their natural states, they could possibly look right for stars. The major issue with this is that the planet (composed of six primordials) orbits the sun which is just one. It is possible the sun is smaller than the planet despite this (as evidenced by Walter being able to eat it), but if the sun is a stronger primordial, why was it not involved in its own defense? If this theory is correct, the Lady is the sun, and a primordial, but weaker than any of the Six. We could expect them to act deferentially or respectfully to Life if they communicate.
If the sacrifice was because the sun is important to others of their kind, the question must immediately be how. Perhaps in making new primordials? Possibly something to do with the soul? Maybe symbolic or religious? This theory does not answer what the Lady is, meaning they could be a being formed from severed bits of Walter, or another primordial who doesn’t like them, or even something else.
If the sacrifice was for a creator, that means the sun, and other stars are all either aspects of their creator, or tools of their creator. This would mean The Lady is likely in some kind of cosmic struggle with Walter, and has created primordials for this. Or alternatively, the Lady is another tool of the creator entity. The creator entity is almost certainly Walter’s Other. This would explain why the Six sacrificed themselves and it would explain what the Lady is. It would suggest that the Lady’s power might be soul related, as that is a phenomenon all of the Six share, and seems core to their existence but separate from their elements. It might also suggest that the granting of free will to humans meant the granting of souls. However, this might be separate, as the distinction between mind and souls is mentioned when the soul shapers were first explained. Though they did also say they were “inextricably linked”
I think the idea that there are other primordials out there is entirely accurate. These were just the ones living around this particular sun that the Void Dragon tried to eat. It’s a big universe with many more stars out there, of course there are more. We likely won’t get to see any (not in the next 5 years for sure), but they’re almost certainly there.
“Gather secrets that you keep –
Things for dreaming, things for play –
Things safe for a bloody day.
Now the metal touches skin,
Now the hunting will begin,
Racing after wild and blind,
Leaving home and heart behind. “
…Tess is gonna hit the railing and Kendal will be electrocuted isn’t he.
That’s whats going to happen isn’t it
I can just imagine what’s going to happen…
Poor Kendal
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: he’s got a spidey-sense, but only for when people are striking cool poses behind him
Image source: now
Tumblr text: everyone can get a little ragdolled as a treat
tumblr text: everyone can get a little ragdolled as a treat
“The only one who gets to strike cool poses on this ship is ME!”
…Which ALSO explains why he’s so intent on going after Erin, who’s magic-posing in order to deal with the storm! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!
Twitter text: everyone’s getting yote today
Kendal slams into the railing of the ship with a rack, metal bending and splintering under his weight.
“Right,” Falst snarls, perching on the wheel’s railing, as Alinua looks on in distress.
“And now–” the Champion starts, his light-blade forming again as Tess leaps up from behind him, fist drawn back and sparking with lightning.
The Champion glances back, noticing her. A skeletal light-wing slices out from his shoulder and cracks into Tess, sending her flying towards the stern of the ship.
Sorry I’m so late, I was on a trip and the internet and the b&b was horrible
*At the b&b
*groans in not-able-to-edit-comment-ness and why-didn’t-i-notice-this-when-i-wrote-my-first-reply-ness*
with acrack, metal
Oh crap he took out the Big Guy/Gal immediately
I wonder if that means he’s a glass cannon. Might be time for our speedy melee lad that’s been having a few self-confidence issues to get his time to shine.
As an aside, I’m wondering if the success of his initial attack against Kendal indicates that light dragon energies are part of the make up of his body (given his resistance to Void Dragon energy was due to it’s absence from his body).
It wasn’t corruption, just a really hard shove and his immunity to that slime crawlers psychic attack is solid evidence against it
Oh…that’s a very valid theory. For some silly reason, I thought Kendal was immune to the Glort’s psychic trauma attack because Kendal has ZERO trauma to speak of.
Which…is kind of stupid on my part. His god is as good as dead. He saw people he has perfect memory of get killed while he was helpless to save them. Boy has trauma.
He sure does have trauma, but he also spent the entire chapter getting therapy for it via communing with the dead souls of his city.
Damn you, lol… how dare you insinuate that Tess is being Worfed, by OSP Red, no less!
That is in fact, exactly what is happening…
Hopefully Tess didn’t put on her “Punch here to impress audience” shirt.
I don’t think they are down for the count just yet. And Kendal is owed some ass kicking. The “nobody messes with my friends” kind.
YIKES they’re seeing just the worst side of the paladins. Like imagine the gang runs into Theia after this mess and finds out she’s one of them. They’ll shoot first and ask questions later 😬
don’t they already know she’s a paladin? She WAS the receptionist at the paladin library. they might not recognize her at first with her new haircut though, I know I’ve done that. either way, I completely agree on the negative perception of the paladins they’re gaining- theyre going to be very wary in future depending on how this is turning out.
OOF you’re right my b. Second point still stands tho. This guy threatened their friend, rebuffed their attempts at diplomacy, swatted them like flies. Falst is punching the next paladin he meets.
I don’t Falst is going to wait for another paladin to start doing things ,but he might be looking for better options to score hits now…
NOOOOOOO TESS!!! All the glowy effects look really cool, and i like how the wing sorta slapped her, but NOOOO TESS!!!
I have a bad feeling about the longevity of their boat
“Ruunaser ! What the hell did you do to my protoype ?!”
“Here, read my test drive report”
*report is just “PALADIN PROOF IT NEXT TIME” written in big scrambly letters
“I don’t have void magic!”
“Look, if the boat isn’t rated for dramatic melee fights involving at least 2 near-demigods during a storm then you really shouldn’t have handed it off to me in the first place. Really, the boat’s destruction is your fault if you think about it.”
I gotta say I love how Mike’s powers seem to be just an extension the white dragon herself. I love the idea of like an ultra powerful from of his being a spectral dragon surrounding him.
That’s an amazing concept! I don’t think we’ll see anything of the sort right now, and I doubt Red would let any non-god character get that powerful, but it’s still a really cool idea for some hyper-climax battle for arc 6 or 7
Attacking him one by one may not be too effective… teamwork, guys, we practiced this! We did practice that, right?
Oh and also, Falst, remind me again who’s steering this ship?
Uh…not really. Even Tynan’s fight was just a bunch of independently guided attacks. Erin’s one plan fell apart the minute Tynan assumed dragon-form, and Alinua bailed.
Welllllll…Alinua and Erin did pretty well working together to get our favourite shiptease out of cave-crawler-central, but then Dainix nearly burned Alinua and got eaten by the Glort, Alinua exhausted herself trying to rescue him, Erin was distracted trying to keep Falst alive and promptly got trauma-zapped when he (re-)entered the fight, then was rendered useless by getting slimed, and Kendal and Tess had to come save all their asses.
…so I’d say we’re still a solid D minus on teamwork. But we can only go up from here, right? Right?
Double worf
Dude wasn’t joking when he said “I’ll brook no delays”
Kendal hits the metal rail with a crack!
It buckles with the force of the blow.
A wing erupts, striking Tess, thwack!
As she leaps at the stranger below.
Michael’s face in that last panel?!
This isnt very power of friendship of you, light dragon paladin
Boooo, I wanted to see what Tess’s Big Punch would do!
What happens when a metal person goes overboard?
Since they’re lightning, they fly back out
and what if that metal person is Kendal?
HOLY SHIT TESS IN THE THIRD PANEL
I AM SO INCREDIBLY NOT NORMAL ABOUT TESS IN THE THIRD PANEL
Real
How could anyone be normal about Panel 3 Tess? That panel was Awesome, in both the colloquial and dictionary way.
[Everyone disliked that.]
Art wise, lovely use of shadows to give Tess and the Champion menace in panels 3 and 5; Tess looks furious and the Champion feels cold. And while this conflict plays out, the lovely art of the storm is still raging around them; you could almost forget it, and I wonder if some gang members already have, with this situation going on.
The Champion’s not just beaten back both big guys, he’s done so easily. That claw had enough force to push the heavy Kendal and crack the metal boat; that wing knocked the also heavy, and likely angry, Tess aside. The two characters I was banking on doing most of the fighting are already down. They’re not out, and in Kendal’s case he was taken by surprise, but they are down after just a few seconds.
I guess it was foolish of me to think Falst would just stay at the helm while his friends are being attacked. He was willing to change course against Erin’s orders to, in his eyes, save them; of course he wouldn’t let the Champion’s actions slide. While short term it won’t be a problem, the longer this fight goes on, the greater the chance of the ship going somewhere it shouldn’t. Crashing into Rakhn? Going too far south and accidentally reaching Grimside?
Prediction for next week: Falst, maybe Alinua and Dainix too, join in to try and stop the Champion. They won’t succeed but that should give Kendal and Tess time to recover and start fighting for real. Then things might change.
The unknown factor right now is Erin. He’s watching all of this, everyone’s already given up on listening to him, he’s too busy with the spell to help, and he can’t maintain said spell forever. Will he keep channeling as long as he can, or will he try something with the magic to help?
Boss fight time! With staggering ease
Michael throws off both Kendal and Tess in peace
They’ve bounced back quick from way worse
The 1.17.12 alt-text was right, you DO have to bitchslap (or wingslap, here) Superman into a wall at least once per fight
Hhhhokay. That looked rather painful for both Kendal and Tess. And Kendal’s still recovering from that injury, as far as I know. I think they’ll both get back up, but yeah, this is gonna be messy.
Falst is abandoning the helm to fight. No one is steering this ship anymore. Erin is stuck trying to maintain the shield from the storm, and this situation is just asking for him to overextend himself further, whether by trying to maintain the shield or by trying to fight. Or Michael will punch through everyone else long enough to force Erin’s hand into defense or knock him out…
I’m definitely betting my virtual doubloons on some kind of shipwreck–either crashing on Rakhn or capsizing.
The steering wheel can be locked, as we saw in 2.2.9. Hopefully Falst remembered to lock it.
No, Tess got Worfed!
Aurora Question #3: How do you reckon this fight will go? (My guess is not well judging off of this initial scuffling)
Badly, but I think Erin or Falst will have a cool moment. Tess and Kendal being knocked down means they *probably* won’t be able to beat him, and Alinua and dainix can’t really fight too well. On one hand, this chapter seems to be about Erin, on the other, Falst’s presumed paladin powers, (though that isn’t canon yet, I believe) might come into play.
Dainix will probably be out of it quickly cause he was cracking last time and now we haven’t seen him so something might be happening in the background. Everyone else is probably going to have to figure out how to properly teamwork when all anyone can really do here is minorly inconvenience the paladin. So there probably all going to come in kinda waves and just try to overwhelm the paladin so any of their attacks land and might use dainix’s flash and maybe smoke bombs so they can really annoy (and actually hit the paladin). Of course what’s going to happen with Erin (as in whether Walter shows) is anyone’s guess. Also I think the point of this fight might be to make them figure out teamwork.
Oh. Chekhov’s flash bombs. Maybe Chekhov’s bubble? You’ve got something there.
There are so many checkov’s guns it’s not even funny. But also checkov’s bubble already belongs to Falst’s air bubble. And also I forgot to mention this early so I’ll put it here but some theories on how this fight will end: collector (if that’s who the ghosts warned of), boat wreck, the storm just getting exponentially worse, mermaids (Kendal accidental encounters them and convinces them to help?), Argist intervening, or after everyone is exhausted, spent and half dead! Even Michael who pauses for a moment to rest on the railing! Tess, who gets knocked unconscious at some point and was subsequently forgotten, proceeds to electrocute Michael into unconsciousness :).
I think Falst will attack next (he looks like he’s about to jump in that panel) and get bodied. This will either trigger Ali to once again say “Enough!” and explode, or Dainix will go “No, my boyfriend!” and explode. They do that in either order, then Kendal gets back up for a proper attack, and then Michael turns his attention to Erin, finally. Who knows what will happen then, but it won’t be good for the floof squad.
Another instance of Die or Fly with Falst’s Light powers or Erin’s Void powers.
The catalyst may be the same. Mikey stops pulling punches and really hurts somebody, maybe someone gets lost overboard (prob Kendal) and they lash out with their dragon powers: Falst unknowingly out of raw desperation and Erin intentionally because its the only element he can cast freely as his hands are otherwise occupied.
And Theory about the cover: Erins not actually going overboard. Drowning could be a metaphor for slipping into unconsciousness and the tail around him is The Void Dragon moving in to take over.
I’m of the opinion that this Champion figure will actually join the party.
Or rather, I was, until I saw the chapter art for Torrent
But still. It might be a delayed thing. Not every antagonist can pull a Falst.
Tess got Worfed HARD there, oof.
Panel 3 looks INCREDIBLE though!
and that’s three mentions of the Worf effect in the comments, no sense in adding my fourth
…Red taught us (or at least me) well on this one
i just spend waaaaay too much time on TVTropes lol, and with how many powerhouses this team has it was only a matter of time before SOMEONE got Worfed.
oof. even tess’s dragon-punching abilities can’t ohko our resident dragon channeler. something tells me brute force won’t be the answer here…
Tess: 2
Dragons: 2
Uhh Falst, what are you doing? Leaving the helm unmanned seems like a REALLY bad idea.
Oh no worf!
It may be too soon to say but Michael seems very reliant on his powers to protect him, one wonders how much of an actual hit he can take
Good point, let’s just ask him kindly to take a hit like a man and see if he lets us punch him a bunch.
That or maybe we can use that snake that Falst Thunderchucked into the atmosphere.
Or maybe panick because those powers he’s reliant on don’t seem to have a way to get around them.
Thunderchuck is my new favorite word
He’s probably mostly human durability like a dragon-controlled Erin
We’ve only seen Dainix once since the chapter began. It’s been stated that he goes Crucible when afraid or under stress. What if he goes Crucible now and sets the ship on fire?
Also
Is anyone else worried that the Champion’s attack on Kendal damaged the ship’s structural integrity?
Dammit, Terry Pratchett was right. A good man *will* kill you with hardly a word.
Seriously, all the villain antagonists – Tynan and Jolon and the Collector et al – loved them some monologuing. The Paladin is the only one who feels like he wouldn’t pause to gloat.
Panel 3 he’s getting out his cave crawler-killing sword Dude is NOT playing
“I-I’m sending you to God, it’s as simple as that.”
I mean, in fairness, he actually DID have a big ol’ monologue when he FIRST showed up (“I’ll be able to apologize to his family”, and all that). It’s just that he got all of his polite explaining out of the way in one go, and now he sees no need to explain himself further!
I was thinking the same thing through this whole section! If Michael were evil, everyone would’ve had an entire monologue to respond. Kendal could’ve quickly seen he was impervious to reason and taken a tactical approach, and the crew could’ve shown him their stuff. Instead, yep. The wisdom of Pratchett is proved yet again.
…I think this is supposed to make us realize in just how deep of trouble we are.
Tess is normally our plucky punchy gal who seems to be able to handle a LOT. If you think back to the Tynan fight, she held her cool basically the entire time and wasn’t injured severely.
And here she is being taken out (for at least a moment) in a single hit.
Plus Kendal who’s generally the team’s tank instantly getting pummeled.
If the Champion can handle the two strongest (by brute force standards) members of the team that easily, I think that signals we’re in for a load of hurt.
(Then again, was that chapter cover any doubt?)
Probably would have gone differently if Tess had, you know, shot a bolt of lightning at him. Sadly, punching was not the move here.
This feels like everyone is just consecutively failing their Initiative Rolls.
What was Tess supposed to do, NOT punch the dragon?
That’s what Tress does: Punch Dragons!
Tess: 2
Dragons: 2
Michael is standing directly between Tess and Erin at this point. If she had shot lightning at him, there’s a good chance he could dodge it or deflect it, and she might hit her brother instead.
Off, classic establishment of new baddie: both the big guy, and the big girl have been immediately bodied.
If YOU’RE attacking the paladin… and I’M attacking the paladin… who’s steering this ship?!?!
This is the first time I can think of that Tess has taken a single hit, devastating
No one! But don’t worry, we’ve locked the steering wheel! (We first saw this in 2.2.9.)
And here comes Tess with the Steel Chair!
And there goes Tess with the Steel Chair!
this is objectively the best comment here, everyone else go home
But then I can’t read the comic 🙁
NOOOOOO!!!! Not tess!
Also, he got Spidey senses.
Going off the alt text of “he’s got a spidey-sense, but only for when people are striking cool poses behind him”
His archnemesis is known as “the World’s Ugliest Fighter”. Not because he’s hideous or anything, he’s actually a solid 7. 8 if you get him in a suit.
It’s that he fights the way Elaine Benes dances. He’s won more than one bout simply by his opponent giving up, unable to handle the second hand embarrassment. Some of his moves include “Ol’ Creepy Hands”, the “Wobblin’ Knee”, and “Fury of the Ragdoll”.
It sounds hard to draw, but I want someone talented to draw this so much
Holy shit! Tess got warfed!… Sorta, cause like I literally thought. “Oh shit, he took down Tess in one hit. This is bad.” As I understand it, the warf effect only applies when a writer pulls that to many times, and suddenly your powerhouse doesn’t feel like a powerhouse anymore. So like, Tess got warfed, and it worked? Cause this is the only time Red has used this scene structure.
..I think I overanalyze when nervous. Please be careful everyone!
It would be nice to see the big claw again, because I don’t see how Falst could make a difference otherwise
NO! SHE’S BEEN WORFED
Can he see the future or sense hostile intent?
No, he’s got spidey senses, as the alt-text so helpfully states 😀
I do not care for this, I am questioning how he anticipated her punch
Fine fine well Tess is a large, shiny, metal lightning mage. She’s not exactly subtle. He could’ve glimpsed movement in his peripheral, heard lightning crackling above him, saw her shadow, take your pick.
Nah. I think snake is on to something here and also this is the boring answer! Even if it’s wildly wrong part of the fun of theories is seeing how out there you can make them while still having them make sense! Also in the panel before he wingslaps her his eyes have a weird shine thing coming from them so I think he does have some sorta extra sense! Also the alt text explicitly points that out despite several reasons that Michael should have theoretically been noticing which is odd. Also there in the middle of a massive storm with lightning nigh constantly striking from the looks of it so Michael noticing any of those things is kinda unlikely.
oooooh if Tess is out than we’re all out
Big ouch on this page.
My question isn’t how long Erin can hold his spell, it’s how long he can keep it controlled when he’s stressed. Watching his friends get pummeled trying to defend him is, I think, going to be a lot harder than he’d like to admit, and he’s mentioned that magic can run wild if you cast from emotion.
And his sister just got bodied.
Does it seem to anyone else that the champion can only use one form of the light projection magic thingy at once? Wings dissolved when he made the sword. sword dissolved when he made the claw thing. so on and so forth. With the wings in the last panel he has no sword. Group attack could be more successful?
nevermind checked chapter 7 and he can use both wings and the sword at once theory failed. So why is he only doing one thing at a time here?
Well, the claw and sword are both hand-based, so it would logically follow that he’d only be using one at a time against a single attacker. But in general I think this is because he only *needs* to use one thing at a time. They’re attacking him one at a time right now, and so far they’ve all proved to be fairly trivial for him to dispose of. Also, he’s not trying to use as much force against them as he is Erin— he probably thinks they’re just trying to defend someone they thought was their friend. He called them “innocents” earlier, so he’s just trying to get them out of the way.
Props to Michael to being the only character in-universe to actually head the metallic monolithic thunder mage sneaking up on him.
Hear. I meant to say hear
that alt text has some serious foreshadowing vibes, a chekhov’s gun if I’ve ever seen one. cannot wait for a tragic death in 20 acts with a stab from behind.
SHIT HE’S GOT A LIGHTSABER PATA
For real though, that is a sick and very practical magic weapon he has, can’t wait for him to show how well he can use it! Not so much for the floof squad’s losses brewing on the horizon… Good luck my fuzzy friends o7
It’s interesting that we never really expected Michael to be able to stand up to the Floof Squad this well…
I notice that the one-at-a-time thing has some realism behind it: everyone is backfooted by the paladin’s sudden arrival in a moment of crisis; then Kendal tries to de-escalate, so naturally he approaches alone; then Tess is emotional about her little brother, and isn’t thinking “tactically.”
I wonder if Red is doing some kind of commentary on the whole one-at-a-time, conservation-of-ninjutsu gag. What was it Elliot Spencer said? “So, what, they work on hourly, you work on commission, is that it? …if you’d have worked together, this would’ve ended differently for you. You gotta learn to *share.*”
TL;DR: This very one-sided fight is really rocking the boat…
Erin is not going to respond well to that….
We’ve been Double-Worfed!
Oh no, they got Warf!
Oh now you fucked up real bad Michael. We can’t save you now bud, you’ve gone too deep in the trenches
Someone get me a coffin and a shovel. He’s not coming out of this in one piece.
Goku’s way of doing things is fun, but this is the downside. When you’re going up against someone who isn’t playing that game comes along, you can get your shit wrecked
V.D:Erin,personally I wouldn’t have let that one slide, You gonna do something or what
can we just take a minute to appreciate that little ‘riGHT’ from Falst? The way his instant reaction to a friend getting body slammed is to abandon the wheel and come over the railing to end a bitch? I love him sm
Yesss I will take a minute to appreciate it!
He’s the best. He loves his friends so much but would rather die than admit it. He rushed a dragon-god to defend Erin. He fought a caustic eldritch horror from the dawn of civilization for Dainix. Of course he’ll fight a pseudo-demigod for Kendal.
I love Tess so much. But I also love, LOVE wings of light ;u;
Falst might not care if you fry Erin Micheal but hitting Falst’s first friend puts you top of do dirty list for Falst!
I wonder Primordial Life will turn Alinua into fish like Mr. Limpet or a mermaid or sea elf so she won’t drown?
Could be possible.I mean it would be cool to see a sea elf, Actually I’ve never seen a sea elf in any form of mass media.*Victorian/Athenian gasp* This might be the first sea elf in existence
Idk he seemed pretty concerned in 1.17.15
There are almost certainly more primordials out there.
First, Walter refers to killing the Six as “some of my finest work.” If there are no more primordials, this would have been his only battle to the death ever. The language used implies more fights of somewhat comparable scale. Ergo, more primordials.
Second, when asked in the reddit, Red has said the primordial lore is some of her favorite she hasn’t shared. This seems to imply more complexity than currently shown, and likely by more than one extra player.
Third, the Six sacrificed themselves to stop Walter. Typically sacrificing themselves would have to be FOR something. It’s possible their psychology is too inhuman for this to apply, but from what we’ve seen of Walter and Life this doesn’t really seem to be the case. Thus, I suspect their sacrifice would only be worth it for another of their kind (The Lady?), for an object important to their kind, or for a creator of some sort (The Lady?).
If the sacrifice was for others of their kind, that would mean “their kind” includes stars. They effectively sacrificed themselves to take down a serial killer with genocidal ambitions. This would mean the sun is likely the Lady. This explains why no sun god has formed, and what the sun is. It explains the Lady’s magic as being an additional element. It explains the Six’s motivations, and what other “work” Walter would have to be proud of. We have only seen Stone and Life, and if Fire and Lightning glow the right way in their natural states, they could possibly look right for stars. The major issue with this is that the planet (composed of six primordials) orbits the sun which is just one. It is possible the sun is smaller than the planet despite this (as evidenced by Walter being able to eat it), but if the sun is a stronger primordial, why was it not involved in its own defense? If this theory is correct, the Lady is the sun, and a primordial, but weaker than any of the Six. We could expect them to act deferentially or respectfully to Life if they communicate.
If the sacrifice was because the sun is important to others of their kind, the question must immediately be how. Perhaps in making new primordials? Possibly something to do with the soul? Maybe symbolic or religious? This theory does not answer what the Lady is, meaning they could be a being formed from severed bits of Walter, or another primordial who doesn’t like them, or even something else.
If the sacrifice was for a creator, that means the sun, and other stars are all either aspects of their creator, or tools of their creator. This would mean The Lady is likely in some kind of cosmic struggle with Walter, and has created primordials for this. Or alternatively, the Lady is another tool of the creator entity. The creator entity is almost certainly Walter’s Other. This would explain why the Six sacrificed themselves and it would explain what the Lady is. It would suggest that the Lady’s power might be soul related, as that is a phenomenon all of the Six share, and seems core to their existence but separate from their elements. It might also suggest that the granting of free will to humans meant the granting of souls. However, this might be separate, as the distinction between mind and souls is mentioned when the soul shapers were first explained. Though they did also say they were “inextricably linked”
I need someone to lay out the evidence against this theory for me, because I am too tired to todsy.
I think the idea that there are other primordials out there is entirely accurate. These were just the ones living around this particular sun that the Void Dragon tried to eat. It’s a big universe with many more stars out there, of course there are more. We likely won’t get to see any (not in the next 5 years for sure), but they’re almost certainly there.
I’ve believed in there being more primordials since the start, its everything else that needs challenging
So far
Michel-2 Floof squad-0
Michael
Darn, he hit the metal lady.
“Gather secrets that you keep –
Things for dreaming, things for play –
Things safe for a bloody day.
Now the metal touches skin,
Now the hunting will begin,
Racing after wild and blind,
Leaving home and heart behind. “
Ooh, Mercedes lackey! Don’t think I’ve seen thier lyrics in the wild before
I hope they can calm this down before it evolves into either a full-scale boss fight or the floof squad getting hopelessly beaten up
…Tess is gonna hit the railing and Kendal will be electrocuted isn’t he.
That’s whats going to happen isn’t it
I can just imagine what’s going to happen…
Poor Kendal