1.19.15
on October 31, 2022
at 3:00 am
Happy Halloween! I got my wires a bit crossed – the vibe of this holiday is soul-crushing grief, right?
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
Happy Halloween! I got my wires a bit crossed – the vibe of this holiday is soul-crushing grief, right?
For mobile readers/
Alt-text: possibly the first page I’ve ever drawn with no visible eyes on it
Image source: sacrifice
Happy Halloween!
Nah, 1.12.1 (and maybe others, didn’t really check extensively) has no visible eyes either.
C’mon Kenny listen to the purple elf. Be a good boy and wake up now.
The effect Kendal has had on everyone around him is astonishing.
I miss the Haikus
If I do not write who will
I hope first comes back
“Can you care about yourself as long as it’s for someone else?” Damn, that is hard hitting.
Thank you Red and Happy Halloween!
“When I couldn’t find anything to live for, you gave me something to die for”
Damn, what a line
“This is my fault,” Alinua says to Kendal’s body,
“Because of me, Vash couldn’t fix you.”
She grinds a poultice to apply to his eyes.
“He doesn’t think you’re a weapon. Not like you do.”
“He didn’t want this. Is that enough to make you stop?
Can you care about yourself,
As long as it’s for someone else? It’s okay
I know what it’s like to feel like nothing,” continues the cloud-elf.
“When I couldn’t find anything to live for, you gave me someone to die for.
But YOU knew I was wrong. You fought me every step of the way.”
Applying the poultice she tells him, “I’m bringing you home.”
She gives him her hand to hold, as her healing light does spray.
I’ve finished CHAPTER TWO! You can CLICK MY NAME and read all of it, plus the beginning of chapter 3, ‘Sentinel’. It’s actually really relevant to this exact page. I even snuck a reference in.
Also, the clocks have gone forwards, so this comes out at eight o’clock for me now.
Hey Red, if you still did black backgrounds every time someone is distraught, you’d be saving yourself so much time right now.
Also, I love the detail of her growing the plant she grinds up. The art in this one is incredibly good, as well as the writing.
eh, close enough Red. i mean, it’s night, we’re hanging out in ruins (possibly haunted), there’s a witch brewing potions in a cauldron, she’s throwing up some sick green lighting, and kendal might be communing with the dead or maybe zombifying. either way, he’s kind of a frankenstein, right? i mean he wasn’t born, he was made, and he’s fucking beautiful (side note: have we already established whether kendal has a belly button or not?)
also no-eyed kendal and alinua look like floofy elden ring characters somehow
Aurora Question #4: Spooky Edition: What’s the scariest part of Aurora been for you so far? Mine is definitely the Chimeric Plague.
🙁
Question Master: I really don’t like the Collector. The fact that she gets stabbed and just won’t go down is somehow worse than any of the other icky, horrifying things in this world.
Question Master- While the Void Dragon is the obvious selfishly evil character, the spookiest looking panel has been been the eyes of the Collector as she asks where Vash was when he was gone. Cave ghouls? Threatening. Sentinel? Powerful. Chimeras? Savage. But the deep set, obsessed. hungry eyes? Chills me to the bone.
@Question Master: Cave Corruption! It might be contagious enough to end the world, but I hate zombies, especially ones that living people turn into. Getting lost and wandering down there, slowly getting hungrier and hungrier until there’s nothing left of who I am is the worst possible fate in this universe.
There once was a purple cloud-elf
Who was wrapped up in blaming herself,
But still gave a talk
To the unconscious jock
To get him to care for himself.
Young man you get back into the world of the living RIGHT NOW or I sWEAR
@Question Master: let’s seeeee… Well, the Collector didn’t really unnerve me much at first, but I think she grew on me with that page at the end of chapter 18 where she appears to be making eye contact with the reader or at least is close to it. Also, I think this question helped me realize just now what else is creepy about her- how she does everything with a smile. And not a vacant smile at all; she’s genuinely very happy doing these things, and what freaks me out is how it’s not for the reason that she has fun doing evil things. She’s just happy that she might be doing something that she thinks will benefit Life. It would almost be less creepy if she were fully evil.
Wow, as someone suffering from some extreme anxiety and depression this page really spoke to me. I’ve been going through quite a few large life changes recently that have really hurt; and Alinua talking about caring for yourself as a way of caring for others around you is amazing… Thank you Red for crafting such an incredible story. You’ve lifted my spirits a bit today.
Happy Spooky Season everyone!
TL;DR: Stop trying to die, you idiot. None of your allies want you to.
@Question master: I think I agree with you. Those panels of people getting wildly messed up by exploding life magic is freaky man.
I can’t help but wonder what is physically wrong with him? I don’t see a lot of cuts or bruises, so it’s got to be something more internal. Did he get too many knocks to the head and get a concussion? Does the starfire actually burn him when its lit, and he’s suffering from his bones basically cooking his muscles? That seems like a terrible design for a body, and I can’t see Vash doing it, but the starfire is fire-like enough to burn clouds away, so maybe it does burn and Kendal is just fire-resistant. Alinua did grab Vash’s shoulders while he was still burning, though, so maybe it doesn’t burn. Maybe Kendal is sick because Vash tried to heal him and couldn’t, like Vash’s healing and Alinua’s healing are fighting over his cells.
So many theories! Throw me a clue here, Red!
@veggiesnake we have seen him shirtless multiple times so probably
“Time and again, he walks into the jaws of death for you. …And he will never ask you to save him. How can he, when he does not think himself truly alive?” Some of my favorite lines in the story so far. Erin’s dream summarized Kendal most succinctly, I think.
Saga:
If starfire can burn a cloud, then it can burn a hand; I just think Alinua didn’t care, she wanted to get her point across to Vash. She could heal herself afterwards. And considering all the sh*t he’s been through, I think we can establish at this point that Kendal is everything-resistant. However, he did sustain numerous serious injuries and tried to surrender his soul while injured, so perhaps this comatose state is his body thinking he’s dead even though his soul appears to be intact… I don’t know, I’m throwing darts in darkness here. I don’t know what’s actually going on with him.
@Saga I imagine it’s a combination of internal injuries and stabbing himself in the gut.
@ Question Master Personally, Tynan’s introduction is the scariest part. He knows how to spread fear.
JUMPING UP AND DOWN NOOOOOOOOOO SOMEONE GICE THESE GUYS A HUG A BOWL OF WARM SOUP AND SOME THERAPY
I think this is a good time for us all to appreciate how great Red is at her job, like damn this hits hard.
smh protagonists never learn. here’s to hoping kendal stops being an idiot.
also happy halloween
Adding my bit to the Light Dragon theory: what if she’s connected to starfire?
Soul energy is blue – so is starfire. Red’s said that the primordials – minus Light and Void – were originally stars. Starfire’s not Fire, so maybe it’s connected to soul?
@Alleyyy Arguable the most dangerous sort of evil of all: doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons.
See also “Hell, road to, paving”.
Regarding starfire and cloud burning: keep in mind that the clouds in question were linked to a manifested spirit at the time. That might make a difference… or it might make no difference at all. Not sure if we can draw much of a conclusion there yet. The other alternative is that soulfire, being an aspect of the soul, might be “target aware” and only burn the things the soul sourcing it _wants_ to burn?
SHIP SHIP SHIP
@Question Master aside from Falst on the previous page, you mean? The thought that Red will kill off Kendal so that the party will stop at nothing to kill the Collector
Okay, I did some more research and I have a new theory. I think Alinua can heal basic flesh wounds and broken bones really quick and easy, so it has to be something more complicated, something that the body itself has a hard time healing. I was thinking brain injury made sense to cause a coma, but then I remembered that Kendal actually got struck by lightning a number of times in that fight. According to Wikipedia (the fount of all wisdom and knowledge), effects of lightning strike include “muscle pains, broken bones, cardiac arrest, confusion, hearing loss, seizures, burns, behavioral changes, and ocular cataracts. Loss of consciousness is very common immediately after a strike.” It can also cause burns inside the lungs, as well as transient paralysis known as keraunoparalysis. Symptoms “include lack of pulse, pallor or cyanosis, and motor and sensory loss in the extremities.”
Loss of consciousness and paralysis. Lung damage would be harder for the body to heal. Also ocular damage might explain what she’s doing on this page. Those symptoms seem to fit what’s happening, so that’s my new working theory for the moment. No information on how the effects change if your bones are partly made of metal, though. Someone should definitely add that section.
@Question Master
The panel where Erin’s in the cave, shocking his body with lightning to stop Voidy from doing anything and there’s a cave crawler RIGHT THERE. I think the horror of that panel has been the only thing that’s truly scared me in this entire webcomic. Oh and also Dainix’s eye getting slashed, that was awful.
We’ve all been assuming, along with Alinua, that she can’t heal Kendal because something happened when she lost control. After Vash said he didn’t know what had been done to his former body, and he was looking at the party/her. But…
What if Vash is just expressing cluelessness, not blame? What if Alinua’s self-blaming assumption is wrong?
What if the reason that Vash can’t heal Kendal’s body anymore is because *Kendal has a soul now*, and that soul barrier is blocking Vash’s full access to the body? We know Kendal is completely unprecedented, so Vash would have no reason to know why he can’t mend his former body’s wounds – he would just know *that* he can’t.
Doesn’t explain why Alinua is having such a hard time healing Kendal, but… it kinda makes sense as a twist. I’ll be interested to see if it plays out that way.
I’m really holding tight to the glimpse of hope that I got from something Red said in an early trope talk on character death: “I love my characters and refuse to murder any of them!” but now I’m not so sure about that…
@Hermit thrush: oh, my gosh I hadn’t even thought of that! That would actually be a really good explanation for why she would kill off Kendal (from a writing perspective that is)
@Question master: probably mutants, primarily life magic mutants, but that image of Kendal as a cave crawler in 1.6.17 haunts my dreams
@FightingHope I’ve actually suspected that the reason Vash couldn’t heal Kendal was because he forgot the soul barrier exists, and I’ve got some theories in the why Alinua is having so much trouble department.
Theory one: Kendal has Vash’s muscle memory right? So, maybe he tried to disincarnate because he was so injured.
Second theory: when Vash tried to heal Kendal he messed something up and now Kendal can’t get back.
This is my first time posting a comment but I’ve been enjoying reading them for a while. (:
Hey guys? I think Alinua is gonna sacrifice herself…
HEY RED? OUCH. MAJOR OUCH.
/vibrates in shipping these two even though she *knows* she shouldn’t/
I LOVE THEM
/vibrates more
“can you care about yourself if it’s for someone else?” OW OWCH OWIE
The way the bubbles are placed around the panels, it’s so damn good. Red’s really stepping up her game
I ran outta stuff to do this Halloween and started the comic, wow Red, I don’t know if you’ll ever see this comment but you’ve blown my mind, this entire story is amazing and witty and I love seeing the threads play out. You’re a fantastic writer, thank you for sharing this story.
Ouch. She hittin’ him with that ‘I’m not mad, just dissapointed’
@Stag
Welcome to the fanclub! *waves, trying not to look like a total nerd and like I’ve never done this before*
Page 587
Thinking back on the whole fight that led to this point and remembering that Kendal’s in such bad shape because he fought a highly trained and angry warrior/gladiator, immediately transitioned to battling a literal god, segued seamlessly into fighting a massive divine dragon, stabbed himself, got possessed by a god who lit himself on (star)fire, then ran out of town before getting unpossessed, which I’m going to count as at least a mile or two. It’s not even the wounds that’s impressive, it’s the endurance of it all. No wonder the healing is such a struggle.
Well I guess I didn’t need my heart today ?
I’m willing to bet that the only reason Kendal *still exists* is because of that explosion of life magic. Kendal hinted at that during his conversation with Zuurith.
I think the magic gave the errant soul energy a permanent life force of its own and attached it to the body, thus ensuring the stability of Kendal as a soul and individual being.
Holy crap this is quite possibly the hardest page in the entire comic.
“I’m bringing you home” YES YOU WILL ALI! GAAAAAH I CAN’T THIS ANGST IS WHAT I LIVE FOR!