1.14.18
on October 15, 2021
at 3:00 am
and as we all know, erin has never been surprised by any new information ever
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
and as we all know, erin has never been surprised by any new information ever
Ah, so we’ve left the plot thread with Alinua and Tess and Falst on a cliffhanger.
Red, I can’t help but notice that the last few pages were only uploaded last month;
that doesn’t look like a “healthy” buffer to me :/ and I’m worrying it may be reflecting your current state.
Remember that you can always take a break from the comic if you need some rest or for any other reason, ok?
Take care.
Tess and Erin’s eventual meeting just got more interesting. https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-6-27/
Speaking of the seventh element, who else thinks that eventually there will be a homunculi character that will be made with that seventh void element, and thus be able to sustain itself and self-repair?
hey Erin
So, my guess is that if the Void Dragon is the “consumptive element”, and is noticeably consuming the six known elements, then the Light Dragon is replenishing those elements. Perhaps it manifests as the glowy effects whenever something is created with magic, and the Academy never noticed because they just take for granted that magic gives off light?
So I’ve started translating the text on the first panel on the right page of the book and here’s what I’ve got so far. Everything is in the way it is in the book, if it gets cut off that’s either cuz it’s out of frame or cuz Erin is blocking it. Letters in parentheses are guesswork.
PALADINS ANKT
RAVAGED BY NEPRO(mancer, like necromancer maybe?)
KNOWN AS HENE W
OVERWHELMED BY N
DRAGON. WE HA(had, or have. Maybe halted?)
If some stuff doesn’t make sense it was like that when I translated So I’ve started translating the text on the first panel on the right page of the book and here’s what I’ve got so far. Everything is in the way it is in the book, if it gets cut off that’s either cuz it’s out of frame or cuz Erin is blocking it. Letters in parentheses are guesswork.
Could someone help me out? This is up to the 5th line
PALADINS ANKT
RAVAGED BY NEPRO(mancer, like necromancer maybe?)
KNOWN AS HENE W
OVERWHELMED BY N
DRAGON. WE HA(had, or have. Maybe halted?)
If some stuff doesn’t make sense it was like that when I translated it.
Ah crap my comment glitched
Crap my comment didn’t come out right
This could end up being either a civil debate between academics with both sides calmly providing their points, or it will be discord discourse and they’ll both be at each other’s throats with sites and sources. (If it’s anything like being on the internet, my money’s on the latter)
Reading through large tomes
Seems it’s time for dragon lore
Ooh a pretty chart!
Jorlem, I was under the understanding that while the void dragon is the ‘consumptive element’, that’s still missing something in humanity – something protected them from the void dragon’s control, and is also protecting them from direct elemental manipulation. The 7th element is likely the soul.
Enjoy this civil debate while it lasts Erin, you don’t want to know what’s happening outside.
V.D.’s talk with Erin should have given him a clue that the Light Dragon exists but I suppose his life reared on academia is still against it. Maybe he does now suspect L.D.’s existence but with only Voidy’s word to go on, not a very reliable narrator, he may be on the hunt for something more solid. And the Junior Archivist could just give it to him.
I get the impression that the L.D. wasn’t involved in V.D.’s sealing and the creation of the world but, with the primordials dead, is involved in keeping him sealed. I think her presence would have come up during Voidy’s story; if he mentioned her giving the races souls why would he exclude her there?
One thing that intrigues me are those symbols in the last panel depicting the primordials sealing the dragon. Why are some of the elements coloured with white outline and other plain with a black outline? Stylistic choice or is there a deeper meaning? It also seems that the Paladins know what V.D.’s true name rune looks like, so Erin better keep his chest tat covered.
Next Week’s prediction: A (fingers crossed) civil debate between these two, Erin begins to piece together the nature of both Dragons and comes out in high spirits with new direction and possibly some alternative plans if the soulshaper monks turn out to be a dead end.
Only for his spirits to drop when he comes back to the embassy and find the, now expanded, post-shenanigans gang.
The chart in the last panel seems to be one of the standing storm, my bets are that the chart was made by the civlization that made the storm/pedestal and with the dragon documented on it chartit may be safe to say the knew about the storms nature and/or purposly created it. I don’t know if that made sense but that my thinking at 6:55
Master Hyperion- I personally don’t think the soul is the free will giving element, as we’ve seen that the humans being controlled by the dragon had some magic ability, and magic connections only form when someone’s soul develops in a particular way, I have a feeling that free will and souls could be from the same primal source (my money is on it being the sun) but I think they were implemented at different times
I love how Erin had to take a breather to be like “Come on dude, be nice, we can’t get kicked out for calling her god fake right now”
I’m very interested in what the Junior Archivist has to say on the matter of the Light Dragon, since Erin brings up a good point- if the Light Dragon is Voidy’s equal and opposite, where did she come from and where was she when he was fighting the six? Perhaps she was created/summoned by Voidy’s imprisonment? And is she also a primordial? I have a theory that she’s the EIGHTH primordial, one of soul, but so far that isn’t really backed up by anything but her meddling in Voidy’s people-making.
Also I’m glad we get to see Erin again. I’m glad he’s not being possessed and destroying the archives like some people predicted- or maybe not yet. I’m hoping that during this discussion he gets bonked in the head with a messenger birb from Alinua like “Hey Erin we’re being hunted by bounty hunters AND we have a new friend, we have no idea what to do help”
My theory: there isn’t an 8th element cus the light dragon isn’t in the planet. Like all the other elements come from the corpses of the relevant gods being under our feet. The light dragon wasn’t ever a part of that arrangement from what we know. Maybe she’s in the sun?
To be fair to Erin, he has a point. It’s impossible to test or prove something that cannot be somehow observed, therefore it is standard practice to work under the assumption that if it cannot be observed it does not exist. You’d think something as powerful as a life dragon would leave more footprints, or ether trails, or whatever.
Wait. So you know how the Twins make a lot of new stuff and hide it until it’s ready (it’s somewhere in the extra lore section). What if they made something to rival ol’ Voidy and it escaped. It’s not an element at all. And the Twins may have heard the Paladins and decided ‘hey that’s a great idea’ and made her.
This is a wild guess at It’s-too-late-I-need-sleep o’clock and I’m probably wrong but who knows…
Looking at that chart, I can’t help but think of a quote from The Wrath of Khan:
“He’s intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.”
I think the different symbol types divide the elements into physical vs. pure energy. Maybe the former have some link to VD and the latter a link to LD?
erin: now, i respect your beliefs, but…
Ah, finally, a scene change.
“They’re essentially living symbols of his truename.” So, we know that the Void Dragon commissioned The Twins to create the elder races to house magical power under his control. Perhaps he commissioned dragons for similar reasons? They could act as his agents on the surface world whenever he pleases. …That’s actually kind of a terrifying thought.
Evil Tree:
The elements with a white background and black outline on the chart are the material elements (stone, water, wind), while the ones with colored backgrounds and white outlines are the energy elements (fire, lightning, life). Material elements always have physical forms in the world, while the energy elements do not. (Life might seem like it has physicality as well, but in actuality, living beings are combinations of several elements with souls inside them; pure life energy, by contrast, has no physical form, hence its inclusion with the energy elements.)
ASBAO17:
The configuration of the elements in The Storm was different to the configuration on this chart; this chart looks to be a symbolic representation of the six elemental primordials surrounding and imprisoning the Void Dragon.
I just realized something: how do the paladins know the void rune? The Void Dragon made a big point to keep his rune protected and secret in the center of The Storm. However, a primordial voice, almost certainly the Light Dragon, tells The Champion (the title for the as-yet-unnamed flying paladin at the end of chapter 7) that “the trap is sprung, after all these millennia.” She knew about The Storm, and evidently its secret. She must’ve passed on the information on the void rune to the paladins.
Erin, you’re missing one important fact; the Light Dragon is still alive and free. The six Primordials died in the process of binding the Void Dragon, and the V.D. is imprisoned at the center of the world. The six elements are all around you, and mages can manipulate them through the soul-scraps of the primordials, the V.D. is bound in the center of the world and his essence is bleeding out into the world, we have no idea where the Light Dragon actually is, so we don’t know how often it’s essence even touches the world. plus, we know of something besides the void that can’t be manipulated by known magic: heredity. Mages have been creating Chimeras for centuries, but only one mage ever managed to create a form of life that could make more of itself. everyone assumes the Twins are responsible for that limitation, but that’s entirely conjecture and inference.
TheUnknownGame: oh….. that makes the alt text make mutch more sense thank you :>
alt text: see? we have a chart and everything
@TheUnknownGame Ah yes, that makes sense. The arrangement also fits in with the way each of the more ethereal elements meld into the others as discussed in the Magic extra lore page “Life dissolves into water and leeches into stone, lightning lurks in wind and water, fire seeps into stone and wind.”
As for Void’s rune, yeah L.D. must have some way told the Paladins in some way. How many of the Paladins know it’s true meaning and weight I don’t know; it’s possible many, like the archivist, could just see it as a symbol for the dragon and little else.
As a lot of people speculate soul might be the eight element, that kinda gave me an idea.
Erin states that if the Light Dragon really exists, it must have left visible traces. But what if they HAVE been seeing these traces all along in the form of soul but didn’t interpret it as an element because soul can’t be influenced by magic.
I mean, in theory the scholars know almost nothing about the void element and still assumed it had to work by the same or similar principles as the other elements and thus be also influenced by magic. So it makes sense for them that something that resists magic wouldn’t be an element and thus not be proof for an eight primordial.
I don’t know if I even got my point across, but just my two cents.
@master_hyperion, that’s an interesting prospect that seems to hold up pretty well
Isn’t there a whole thing about how only creatures with The Twins’ Blessing can reproduce? So any creatures made by mortal mages are infertile (Ferin being the one exception)? Is the Light Dragon’s ‘Eighth Element’ Creation/Preservation/Reproduction? Could only a ‘Light Mage’ create fertile, reproductive beings? Was the strange, wandering mage that created the Ferin a ‘Light Mage’ themself, perhaps?
Darn you, science.
Okay, so I know this is barely relevant, but here’s my theory:
You guys remember the mysterious glowy person from the end of chapter 7? (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-7-31/). Well, they’re contacted by obviously some sort of god, who they call ‘My lady’ (Ringing any bells?). And the text is much less of the brightly colored speech bubbles of the other gods, and a lot more like the text of the Void Dragon, but light. Erin does make a good point about this theoretical 8th element, but remember, this champion person is an ocean away, meaning Erin probably wouldn’t know about it from the academy.
But he does learn about it, from Voidy himself in chapter 7(https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-7-19/). He calls it Adamant, and even the Void dragon can’t destroy it (remember, this is basically the primordial god of destruction) which means it’s a pretty good candidate for Voidy’s equal and opposite.
Also, the god-primordial-light-thing says that, and I quote, “Our battle had raged since the birth of your species” Which seems like a way to say ‘a long time ago’ but there was definitely something before people, so it’s quite possible that it was an element that gave free will to people, or was born of the free will, but maybe I’m just reading into that line too much.
And that same god-thing knows that Voidy had chosen an ‘avatar’ long before anyone else, probably before Erin himself, which is weird since none of the other gods they met knew.
She also said Erin was shielded from her sight, meaning she knew because of the event, not the person.
So, yes, I think that this weird god thing is the Light Dragon, whose champion is based in another continent, and who had been trying to fight the Void Dragon since the creation of humanity, and the academy and therefore Erin doesn’t know about it.
Honestly, there isn’t a lot of evidence to go off of, but I think this theory works pretty well. On the other hand, this is like a cult or whatever, so all the evidence we have could be completely misleading.
I dont get why the light dragon couldnt be seen as the “creative” element. Only species “blessed” by the twins can reproduce but that just means that the 6 elements don’t have that power either.
OHHHHHHHH. So when Tess was fighting that Lightning Dragon out in the wastelands, it was The Lady/Light Dragon taking control of the Dragon that made it go all Avatar: The Last Airbender, start talking about warning the Paladins about the Dark Avatar, and fly away.
IT ALLLLLLLLL MAKES SENSE NOW
me thinks tess might be the light dragon
Ok, so if belief creates gods (as Erin implies the light dragon came into existence) as well as shapes them (like the forest god) and you believe that a god always existed, doesn’t that make the god always existed ? Because the alternative is either a god that thinks it always existed though the other gods that were around for longer can prove them wrong, leading to an existential crisis, or the god knows that they haven’t always exist and are deliberately deceiving their followers.
Or the light dragon could just always have existed and the Academy is wrong.
Oh, they will have an Academic debatte!
Maybe there are only 7 primordials, and the void dragon and the light dragon are 2 halves of 1 being.
@Master_Hyperion Soul is really more the Anti-element. Like it both attracts and repels every element in certain ways.
Maybe the White dragon is the sun. And the primordial’s protected it when it was in danger, so now it sheds light to repel Void’s influence. Just a thought.
What if the 8th essentially surrounds everything, metaphorically? Not just an opposite but something that fills the spaces around everything? I think if it was an exact opposite it would be more visible.
BlackCat:
The Void Dragon stated, pretty explicitly, that adamant is the fused material created from the six elemental primordials, not the Light Dragon. Whatever power she’s got going on, it’s got nothing to do with adamant.
good the void dragon is like my mother evil and made of super neoliberalism. I fear my inheritance from my mother’s side.
What if the 8th Element is Soul Energy? It’s the only thing that DOESN’T make sense in their world of six (now seven) Elements. Also, I think the reason Water, Stone, and Wind are outlined in dark is because they’re the physical Elements; while Life, Fire, and Lighting are the more energy and sink into the other three.
@ KromactheRave:
That’s a very good point. I’d never considered that before, but now that you mention it it makes a ton of sense.
Imagine if she found out V.D. lives inside of Erin
TL;DR: I just want this ancient parasite out of my head but all I’m getting from your sacred texts is confusion AAHHHHHH!
@james, do you mean you think she’s possessed by the light dragon, like erin is the void dragon?
if so i can see where you are coming from but it still feels a bit shaky, like for example, in the scene where she’s fighting that dragon, and it says ‘THE DARK AVATAR HAS RISEN, WE MUST WARN THE PALADINS.” she probably would have been the one saying that don’t you think?
but also, i just kinda feel like she’s more likely to be a generic paladin, or maybe actually might be able to hear the voice of the LD sometimes, but i don’t think it would be the same situation as with the VD & Erin, full on possession of someone with free will and a soul, it just doesn’t seem quite her style
Yes! Perhaps soul magic is the 8th element!
Maybe the Light Dragon is staying in the sun? Who knows. Let’s World build some Lore
So my two guesses for what the Light Dragon represents:
1. Soul. A mysterious energy that is a part of living things and interacts strangely with the other elements? Hmmm…
2. Matter itself, and by extension, creation. I feel like this would be a fitting opposite to Void; presence rather than absence, creation rather than consumption. Maybe Light needs Void’s consumption to create. Maybe they’re partners and a great many stars in the sky are their children, born in the wake of old stars being consumed. Maybe I’m overthinking this.
Of course, these aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe Soul is a manifestation of Light’s powers over matter, that keeps living things structured in such a way that they can exist and continue to survive.
It’s worth noting that the Light Dragon *could* just be a God. If the Void dragon can’t get anywhere near his full power free, then a God might be able to oppose it effectively?
What has Erin learned? Will he show the class what he’s found in the big boy books? How long has he been given this free access to the archives? Is this the most excitement the Junior Archivist has had since being posted at the library? How will her supervisor react when they find out what she’s doing? Will they revoke her library card or give her a promotion? Will Erin receive a messenger borb from Alinua at the least opportune moment containing rather compromising information that Erin will need to explain to the Junior Archivist? Has he achieved his secondary objective, finding and memorizing the backup copy the recipe for Temptations cat treats currently in the Paladin’s possession?
Tune in Next Week and Find Out!
Why do I hear Blue when I read Erin’s dialogue?
To be fair to Erin, he’s making well-thought-out conclusions based on what information he has (even though as an audience we’re aware he doesn’t have the full picture and is frequently wrong).
So my guess is that, considering how the void dragon’s element is void, the light dragon’s element is probably light, not soul
That would be super cool, but that would necessitate there being a mad scientist with enough knowledge of the void to make it, which so far the only person is Erin, so I vote for Erin accidentally making the next party member
I was looking at the page again and noticed something. Does the library have a floor? Or walls? It’s just starlight around them & the bookshelves, which is rather strange. Are the Archives in a different dimension or something? It’s especially noticable in the panel where we flip to the Junior Archivist’s perspective, and everything in front of Erin’s table is just… nothing. (you could say.. void :D). It’s too close to have a background fade-out, so I’m a bit excited to see if Red was doing something creative, & just hid it in the scene transition. Also I hope we get a birds eye view shot of the entire Archives.
Ok so how I see it:
The academy knows of the 6 elements that they can control, and the 6 primordials, AND they know of the 7th primordial, which they call the consumptive element. They don’t recognize it as the void dragon, but they are aware of it. Erin is saying that the academy knows and has known of the void dragon for several centuries, so if there was an eight element that corresponded with “the lady” it would have been discovered by now.
I have a couple theories
1. The light dragon does not have remains that are suitable for study. The 6 primordial’s remains literally make up the world, so those are easy to study. The 7th primordial, the void dragon has been studied by the academy and by paladins. The academy must see it as a destructive force, so they study it as that, even though the stuff they study is the dragon’s remains that they are unaware of. However, the Lady does not even HAVE remains to study, so they are unaware of it.
Theory #2. The light and dark dragons are one ands the same, in a way. This is basically the yin yang theory lol. But so far there hasn’t really been any references to eastern mythology so I don’t think this theory is rlly valid.
In https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-7-31/ the void dragon says “I am the withering” so perhaps is destruction and the light dragon creation
this also fits in with the whole consumption/reproduction thing and the evil/good thing they seem to have going on. Due to their allusiveness, the academy might assume that any observations were from a single other elemental rather than two and their theories would more closely resemble the void dragon as he is the one they can find small parts of physically. The light dragon inhabiting the sun also links into the reproduction thing on her part as the sun provides energy and thus is as essential to the continuation life as reproduction. Maybe also some sort of thought/feeling thing going on?
Funny how the chair in the last panel looks like a pair of black wings. I’m sure that signifies nothing.
I just finished transcribing the text from the first panel, and it looks like the same text is printed on both pages. The first line of text on the left page fits smoothly with the second line of text on the right, and the same holds consistently. So here’s what I’ve got (/indicates page break, [ ] indicates my best guess at partial or missing letters.)
The paladin sank t… ry was
ravaged by the pri… k dragon
known as Hene w… o was ove-
rwhelemed by t… [o]f the blakk
dragon we ha… [be]lieved pris-
matik drag[on]… protekted by
the light of… lady so we we-
re unp[re]pa[red]… assault and
many were l[ost?]… as the dark
one to[r]e t… the lady
plak… a bea-
st of… our
aid a… ou-
s Hene w…
[dr]agon
…nou…
I like that Red’s consolidated C and K into the same letter but kept the English spellings. Interestingly, we appear to have almost the full extent of the text for several lines, from lines 2-6. The lower portion of the text is nearly unintelligible, but I’ve included it anyway.
We all know the twins very well. They are not unknown. Do not question.
Consider this: the void dragon is the core of the world. The light dragon is the rest. Questions?
I now have a better(?) theory: the Light Dragon is the sun, and that’s whythe Void Dragon was trying to eat it?
OH, interesting! I guess the dragon Tess was fighting was Possessed by the Light Dragon?
Hear me out, the six primordials basically make up the planet, mages can invoke them to use their energy. The Void Dragon is trapped inside the planet, part of the world, but cut off, so the consumptive element is present but can’t be accessed by mages. The Light Dragon never died and became part of the world, so there is no natural element from the Light Dragon. Idk if this makes sense.