Just as a pine, both old and strong,
When struck by radiant lightning
Will split in two at nature’s fury
So her tree parts, the mountain tearing
And through the rended face the prisoners
See Alinua fall with Falst to catch her.
“Apprehend them!” yells the warden; Falst roars
“WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE”
The tree gets a whole verse to itself- styled after those similes from the classical epics.
I’m probably going to 2 verses more often- a ballad verse descends from two lines of epic, and we all know how much time they took to tell us anything.
YES WHY IS THERE A CHILD THIS MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH ARENAMASTER MORE (even though like the child doesn’t like duel or anything they’re in the other section thingie)(also falst will get arenamaster before i can so whatevs)
@Saint Bigfoot, splint=there gladiators, and also they might not be a child it is a fantasy world they could just be really short or a dwarf or something?
I hecking laughed out loud when I saw the last panel. I love Falst, best character next to Tynan. Also, the 2nd season of Green eggs and Ham came out today, does anyone watch that show?
I love the reaction of the people inside the prison.
@DeRokerij, so far the only small-people race is the bird people. (one of which is on the second floor of the prison)
however the small person on the ground floor is most likely just a normal kid jailed for petty crime like stealing.
I feel like this is the happiest we’ve seen Falst, like, ever. He’s really wanted to destroy this mountain guys. Aaaaaand then the Arenamaster had to ruin it. RIP.
Has anyone else noticed that, in the last two panels, we go from just rain in the background, to rain and specks of white? It seems like the spell Erin’s casting is finally starting to take effect
Overanalyzing time. One of the people on the ground floor of the prison intrigued me, the tall thin one with long hair. So after I went in for a closer look, I concluded that they’re probably a snake ferin: green skin (or scales, we can’t tell from this far away), a long neck, shrunken outer ears, and eyes that are almost completely orange except for slit pupils.
…i don’t know why, but for some reason the second last panel makes me so put off even though I enjoy the fact that Falst is smiling.
His face feels a bit too wide and the head-on perspective feels a bit too… jarring. I don’t know. I’m not saying Red’s artistry is terrible – I know better than to criticize without knowledge, and the only knowledge I have is the rest looks damn good – but something about it just… feels like it’s not quite right.
But also Falst is showing positive emotion for the first time in seven chapters so WOOO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (OR AT LEAST CHARACTER CONTEXTUALIZATION)!
TBH I’m kind of confused why opening the prison was a priority. It’s inside a mountain and honestly, being inside of it is probably one of the safest places in Zuurith right. Just retreat to the upper floors. Floods, while scary, aren’t strong enough to tear down mountains, and they aren’t that deep either. The mountain-prison should be more than high enough for the prisoners to be safe.
I know this is niche and weird, but I really like the moments where you deliberately don’t put punctuation on some screams. It encapsulates the same sort of joy I get from ‘Perfectly Cut Screams’ videos. Bravo
@StealthofAir, I think it looks a little off because we’ve never seen Falst smile genuinely before lol. We’re so used to angry Falst that it completely changes his face. I’m so here for the character development.
The mountain may have been strong enough to withstand the storm, but it was also hollow, had open windows, and nowhere for the water to drain from due to how it was converted. In short, the mountain needed to be broken open because it was going to flood and, the Arenamaster not giving a flying frick about anything aside from his own skin, everyone inside was going to drown.
(Which aside from the obvious horror of the situation, and the moral consequences of letting it happen, would also give Tynan a huge power boost)
To StealthOfAir:
It’s probably a combination of a few things–we don’t really see Falst’s face from this particular angle a lot, we’ve never actually seen him genuinely smile before (and it’s a relieved, oh-my-god-we-survived/accomplished-the-impossible expression, which explains why his eyes are wider than usual), and his features are probably a bit broader and a touch flatter than most people due to being a lion ferin–which again, because of the angle is a little more obvious here than it usually is.It’s probably triggering your sense of the uncanny valley just a little, until your brain gets used to it.
To Saint Bigfoot, Silver wolf, MOSSSSSSS:
It could be either, I think. Aside from the cloudchildren I don’t think we’ve seen any very short races, but there’s still a lot of this world we haven’t seen so it’s possible that we will later on. It could also be a very short adult, or a child (we also don’t know how tall the person holding them is, so it could be a matter of forced perspective is)–and honestly, given Zuurith’s intolerance for even the slightest “infraction” (remember why Dainix and Kendal both ended up in prison), it would not surprise me is there actually was a kid in there, especially if it was a case where their parent or caregiver got arrested and there was nowhere else for the child to go. It also could be that, depending on the circumstances, they were actually born there and as their parent hasn’t served their time, they have to stay, too. And, I’m not gonna lie, given real-world events right now and how there seem to be a few parallels going on (however inadvertently–we don’t know when this page was originally penned), it feels to me like is probably is a kid.
He’s REALLY keeping the Law and Order as a peace keeper. City about to be destroyed in a floor, thousands left to die in a stadium, but sure, arrest these two people doing property damage, that should solve the city’s current problem.
@Silver well let’s be generous and assume that the rain and floodwater through the windows arent going to rise any higher than the first level or so. well, thats probably where most if not all of the exits are (and trying to go down a mountain from a higher exit during torrential rainfall sounds like a BAD idea anyway)
absolute best case scenario they’d all be stuck in there for a while. depending on how long, they might start running out of resources.
this is assuming that the water level doesnt keep creeping up. rainwater coming in through the windows wouldn’t flow out into the city. it’d just keep filling, like a bowl , driving the prisoners higher and higher and sweeping people up in the torrent. itd be increasingly crowded and slippery and everyone would start panicking, and depending on how high up the water gets they could all drown or starve
the whole point of the storm is to level the entire city. if the prisoners don’t escape now, they might never get the chance to
even assuming none of that happens, leaving a bunch of prisoners in a horrible mountain while everyone else gets to evacuate would be kind of terrible lol
@Silver the mountain is probably shaped like a pyramid on the inside, with the vast majority of prisoners on the lowest level, and only a few like Dainix and Kendal at the very top. as the whole valley floods, so too will the mountain, lowest levels first, and the prison is simply not built to accomodate that many people on the upper levels. there wouldn’t be nearly enough space. plus this isn’t a real-world flood, this is a fantastical flood caused by a god reknowned for destroying entire cities, and Zuurith is at a natural geographical disadvantage; the floodwaters might submerge the rooftops, so they would definitely fill the lower prison levels
THE PRISON IS BUILT LIKE A SERIES OF BOWLS. I seriously doubt that the mountain’s insides have adequate drainage to prevent it from filling up. Water is going to rush through each window and flood every floor simultaneously. That prison obviously isn’t built to keep water out, and isn’t built to let it escape freely, so that water is going to collect inside and rise much faster than it will in the open air of the city proper. The prisoners are lucky that Alinua acted before any noticeable flooding started in the streets, as that would have meant that it would already be too late for many of the prisoners.
Anyways, onto the comment I actually wanted to make:
I read Falst’s last line in SAO Abridged Kirito’s voice. It made his reaction so much funnier.
AHAHAHAHA FALST IN THE LAST PANEL IS SO FUNNY
Yes, just Falst: WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE
XD that made my day
Sooo, are the prisoners gonna attack the arenamaster? Would be kinda fitting…
She did it, hooray!
No time to celebrate though.
A.M is still here…
(Bonus)
Is this the first time
that we see Falst really smile?
Not a smirk either!
A smiling Falst! The legends were true after all!
Just as a pine, both old and strong,
When struck by radiant lightning
Will split in two at nature’s fury
So her tree parts, the mountain tearing
And through the rended face the prisoners
See Alinua fall with Falst to catch her.
“Apprehend them!” yells the warden; Falst roars
“WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE”
The tree gets a whole verse to itself- styled after those similes from the classical epics.
I’m probably going to 2 verses more often- a ballad verse descends from two lines of epic, and we all know how much time they took to tell us anything.
Good call HelloHaiku, cutting “Arenamaster” down to AM. Its a real struggle to fit that into any kind of metre.
Of course he’s still there. There will be ORDER. Do you know how many rules you just broke? The fine alone…
Falst’s smile is so beautiful
Finally, a genuinely happy Falst!
Also why…why is there like a young child with a splint in the prison????
YES WHY IS THERE A CHILD THIS MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH ARENAMASTER MORE (even though like the child doesn’t like duel or anything they’re in the other section thingie)(also falst will get arenamaster before i can so whatevs)
“Why are you still here!?”
I love Falst
ohmgoodness, falst’s little anarchist smile in the penultimate panel is so wholesome, today will be a good day because of that smile
Aw, Falst looks so cute when he’s smiling
haha! an arenaless master. with no arena to master, he’s just a greasy, grody old man who falst can deck
Falst is a big mood
@Saint Bigfoot, splint=there gladiators, and also they might not be a child it is a fantasy world they could just be really short or a dwarf or something?
@Saint Bigfoot im guessing its a smaller person/large person holding them, as for the splint, arena injury maybe?
I hecking laughed out loud when I saw the last panel. I love Falst, best character next to Tynan. Also, the 2nd season of Green eggs and Ham came out today, does anyone watch that show?
TL;DR: Those guys are the definition of persistence. Sheesh.
I love the reaction of the people inside the prison.
@DeRokerij, so far the only small-people race is the bird people. (one of which is on the second floor of the prison)
however the small person on the ground floor is most likely just a normal kid jailed for petty crime like stealing.
Hey, how are the people on the higher floors supposed to get down?
I might be wrong but I think that this is the first time we’ve seen Falst smiling without a trace of irony or bitterness. Sadly it didn’t last long.
the wraith-like prisoners appearing through the mist in the second panel!
i’ll be waiting eagerly for next monday
Falst’s moment of bliss before getting ruined by the Arena Master
I love Falst’s smile
That smile is just too damn precious 🙂
What a nincompoop….
Ah, good to have an answer about the ads.
So Tynan’s discovered Kendal can not only wield the sword, he’s also got star metal in his bones. That means … Tynan can’t destroy him.
@Stark9865 they’re in less immediate danger from the flood and I’m sure they can get them down later
@Stark9865
I think there used to be stairs.
@The Registrar
We can add “destroying Falst’s smile” to the arena master’s list of crimes, then.
“WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE” I almost laughed out loud. Thank you red for the beautiful drawings and great story.
I feel like this is the happiest we’ve seen Falst, like, ever. He’s really wanted to destroy this mountain guys. Aaaaaand then the Arenamaster had to ruin it. RIP.
Has anyone else noticed that, in the last two panels, we go from just rain in the background, to rain and specks of white? It seems like the spell Erin’s casting is finally starting to take effect
He… smiled. He actually, genuinely, smiled.
Overanalyzing time. One of the people on the ground floor of the prison intrigued me, the tall thin one with long hair. So after I went in for a closer look, I concluded that they’re probably a snake ferin: green skin (or scales, we can’t tell from this far away), a long neck, shrunken outer ears, and eyes that are almost completely orange except for slit pupils.
…i don’t know why, but for some reason the second last panel makes me so put off even though I enjoy the fact that Falst is smiling.
His face feels a bit too wide and the head-on perspective feels a bit too… jarring. I don’t know. I’m not saying Red’s artistry is terrible – I know better than to criticize without knowledge, and the only knowledge I have is the rest looks damn good – but something about it just… feels like it’s not quite right.
But also Falst is showing positive emotion for the first time in seven chapters so WOOO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (OR AT LEAST CHARACTER CONTEXTUALIZATION)!
also that last panel is pure gold
“Apprehend them!” And what, put them in jail? The jail that’s now wide open? And where you don’t want to go anyway because of the flash flood?
TBH I’m kind of confused why opening the prison was a priority. It’s inside a mountain and honestly, being inside of it is probably one of the safest places in Zuurith right. Just retreat to the upper floors. Floods, while scary, aren’t strong enough to tear down mountains, and they aren’t that deep either. The mountain-prison should be more than high enough for the prisoners to be safe.
alt text: hey don’t be mad, technically this IS his job
Loving Falst’s case of When He Smiles
Hey Arena master they were having a moment, learn to read the room!
Somehow I don’t think that the arena master and guards are going to be able to do much as the prisoners stampede out of the flooding prison.
I know this is niche and weird, but I really like the moments where you deliberately don’t put punctuation on some screams. It encapsulates the same sort of joy I get from ‘Perfectly Cut Screams’ videos. Bravo
@StealthofAir, I think it looks a little off because we’ve never seen Falst smile genuinely before lol. We’re so used to angry Falst that it completely changes his face. I’m so here for the character development.
i laughed so hard on the last panel.
i also meant to post this yesterday, but i guess today works too:
alinua used frenzy plant!
it was super effective!
and this ones for today:
erin used blizzard!
its starting to be effective . . .
To Silver:
The mountain may have been strong enough to withstand the storm, but it was also hollow, had open windows, and nowhere for the water to drain from due to how it was converted. In short, the mountain needed to be broken open because it was going to flood and, the Arenamaster not giving a flying frick about anything aside from his own skin, everyone inside was going to drown.
(Which aside from the obvious horror of the situation, and the moral consequences of letting it happen, would also give Tynan a huge power boost)
To StealthOfAir:
It’s probably a combination of a few things–we don’t really see Falst’s face from this particular angle a lot, we’ve never actually seen him genuinely smile before (and it’s a relieved, oh-my-god-we-survived/accomplished-the-impossible expression, which explains why his eyes are wider than usual), and his features are probably a bit broader and a touch flatter than most people due to being a lion ferin–which again, because of the angle is a little more obvious here than it usually is.It’s probably triggering your sense of the uncanny valley just a little, until your brain gets used to it.
To Saint Bigfoot, Silver wolf, MOSSSSSSS:
It could be either, I think. Aside from the cloudchildren I don’t think we’ve seen any very short races, but there’s still a lot of this world we haven’t seen so it’s possible that we will later on. It could also be a very short adult, or a child (we also don’t know how tall the person holding them is, so it could be a matter of forced perspective is)–and honestly, given Zuurith’s intolerance for even the slightest “infraction” (remember why Dainix and Kendal both ended up in prison), it would not surprise me is there actually was a kid in there, especially if it was a case where their parent or caregiver got arrested and there was nowhere else for the child to go. It also could be that, depending on the circumstances, they were actually born there and as their parent hasn’t served their time, they have to stay, too. And, I’m not gonna lie, given real-world events right now and how there seem to be a few parallels going on (however inadvertently–we don’t know when this page was originally penned), it feels to me like is probably is a kid.
falst’s smileeeeeee
He’s REALLY keeping the Law and Order as a peace keeper. City about to be destroyed in a floor, thousands left to die in a stadium, but sure, arrest these two people doing property damage, that should solve the city’s current problem.
@Silver well let’s be generous and assume that the rain and floodwater through the windows arent going to rise any higher than the first level or so. well, thats probably where most if not all of the exits are (and trying to go down a mountain from a higher exit during torrential rainfall sounds like a BAD idea anyway)
absolute best case scenario they’d all be stuck in there for a while. depending on how long, they might start running out of resources.
this is assuming that the water level doesnt keep creeping up. rainwater coming in through the windows wouldn’t flow out into the city. it’d just keep filling, like a bowl , driving the prisoners higher and higher and sweeping people up in the torrent. itd be increasingly crowded and slippery and everyone would start panicking, and depending on how high up the water gets they could all drown or starve
the whole point of the storm is to level the entire city. if the prisoners don’t escape now, they might never get the chance to
even assuming none of that happens, leaving a bunch of prisoners in a horrible mountain while everyone else gets to evacuate would be kind of terrible lol
@Silver the mountain is probably shaped like a pyramid on the inside, with the vast majority of prisoners on the lowest level, and only a few like Dainix and Kendal at the very top. as the whole valley floods, so too will the mountain, lowest levels first, and the prison is simply not built to accomodate that many people on the upper levels. there wouldn’t be nearly enough space. plus this isn’t a real-world flood, this is a fantastical flood caused by a god reknowned for destroying entire cities, and Zuurith is at a natural geographical disadvantage; the floodwaters might submerge the rooftops, so they would definitely fill the lower prison levels
Falst and Alinua have a big brother-sister relationship and I’m living for it
I already commented today, but I had a thought; if they do arrest Falst and Alinua, what are they gonna do? Throw them in the prison?
His smile is so cute, too bad the moment was ruined seconds later.
Just appreciating the sheer Edward Elric energy that Falst channeled in that last panel. It puts a smile in my face every time.
Silver, I went over this several pages ago:
THE PRISON IS BUILT LIKE A SERIES OF BOWLS. I seriously doubt that the mountain’s insides have adequate drainage to prevent it from filling up. Water is going to rush through each window and flood every floor simultaneously. That prison obviously isn’t built to keep water out, and isn’t built to let it escape freely, so that water is going to collect inside and rise much faster than it will in the open air of the city proper. The prisoners are lucky that Alinua acted before any noticeable flooding started in the streets, as that would have meant that it would already be too late for many of the prisoners.
Anyways, onto the comment I actually wanted to make:
I read Falst’s last line in SAO Abridged Kirito’s voice. It made his reaction so much funnier.
FALST’S SMILE IS SO CUTE AHHHHH
And then his reaction to the Arenamaster was absolutely priceless <3
@Goldfinch: …pffft *snickering*
Woah, one of the guys in the background has wings
The arena master is that one nocturnal that survives the apocalypse then tries to make you pay your (nonexistent) taxes
Nocturnal is supposed to be NPC, it’s 10 pm and I’m in a tent and it’s literally below freezing and THIS is what autocorrect does??
Welp, I think my comment got swollen up. If it isn’t, then sorry
Anyway, Nocturnal is supposed to be NPC
The last panel is the absolute best!
Unrelated but I wanted to share that since spring has come for me, my sad indoor plants are a lot happier, and that makes me happy
@Bluefire That’s good. Where I live it’s begun hailing.
The Aceassin:
Had a freak hailstorm yesterday, then the sun came out and it all melted. The plants were fine though.
I love Faust’s expressions here!
Love how proud of her Falst is in that second to last panel.
okay, falst is now officially my second favorite character. followed by Tahraim and Kendal, and my number one is Erin
that second to last and last panel are just so adorable!
I think Falst speaks for all of us here.
sorry but I noticed one background character carrying another and it’s so cute I’m literally dying help me ahhhhhhhhhhhh