1.22.51
on October 27, 2023
at 3:00 am
“Dear diary: when I set it on fire, it doesn’t seem to like that. More observations forthcoming.”
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
“Dear diary: when I set it on fire, it doesn’t seem to like that. More observations forthcoming.”
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: it’s been like a whole chapter since I let Erin figure out any of my worldbuilding LET ME HAVE THIS
Image source: gloating-1
Tumblr text: slowly scrolling through the elemental type matchup chart
I love that it’s called gloating-1 because that implies that he’s going to have at least a few more pages of this. I personally love when I can get an exposition dump on how a fantasy world works on like a fundamental physics level.
Heh. NERD.
So, just curious, what’s the normal behavior or crawlers, and what do they normally feed on? Just curious…
It seems like “Glort” here is multiple cave crawlers merged together, rather than an individual crawler that preys on whatever comes into the caves – is probably what Erin is thinking.
Although it also seems like amalgamation might be a way a way to “eat” from the way Erin is talking about it, probably by melting down whatever it catches into the goo it’s made of, and then using the useful bits as nutrients, I’d assume.
They eat HUMAN BEANS
Crawlers we’ve seen before have been emancipated humanoids that attack and try to eat anything and anyone they encounter, but they eat in the normal way ie. with their mouth.
Erin’s theorising that this thing is instead directly incorporating the matter of its victims into itself, like a gelatinous ooze.
Erin: Studies the glort’s form.
Glort: Studies Erin’s psyche.
Study is a bit of a broad term, I think we should probably go with dissect. Goope le grande gonna split him open like frogs on a table in a highschool biology class
wait did he use the lightning to paralyze it??? or
My guess is, at least right now he thinks it’s a cave crawler. And they hate light and warmth, so he blasted it with lightning and fire. And it seems to work fine enough for now.
Erin’s cape game is SO strong, I love it.
I also love his fantastic attitude and sciencey-ness. And yes, you can definitely have this! Moar Erin figuring things out is a fantastic thing!
And poor Dainix <3 Also, Alinua, you may feel powerless, but the fact that you are The Healer is very, very powerful indeed. You go, girl <3
:)))
No don’t tell him we want the lore!!
Has anyone mentioned yet that your username is fantastic?
I wonder where Tess and Kendal are..
They’ll arrive *after* the gloop starts laying the smack down on Erin
Probably
My guess is pages and pages away. Which could be only two but more likely four to ten or more. Not that I am challenging Red, I just know the storyteller and artist is VERY creative in her being/essence.
Yeah Erin give us informations on the Glort just try to not get traumatized by it please
Yeah! Trauma eyes, Erin doesn’t know — tragic backstory, here. we. come!
*pops the popcorn*
Eyes? What eyes? Stare riiiight at it buddy! Its perfect safe 👍
yes. yes. YES >:)
*joins you in making popcorn and starts pulling out pins and a corkboard
Don’t forget the red string!
You know, the way Erin is talking to/about Glort is eerily similar to the way VD talked to folks during the fight against Tynan. When he taunted Tynan for taking his form, and commented on Dainix becoming fire, and realized that Kendal has no void. The superior knowledge as he took his time, confident that whoever he was addressing was no real threat.
Erin and VD are way, way more similar than I realized. And that scares me more than anything else this story has thrown at us so far.
That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking! Even that stance in Panel 3 is so similar to VD’s attack against Dainix! Part of me wonders if inhabiting Erin’s mind has caused VD to pick up a few of his… well, his habits.
Mmm, and maybe their similarities make it easy for VD to possess Erin. When he “fixed” the rune stone in the storm, does anyone think he was maybe slightly guided by VD’s presence on how to release him? Also, VD definitely knows him well, but Erin can still be unpredictable like in the deep caves when he paralysed himself with lightning.
Oh they’re very much a case of Not So Different, down to VD Walter’s first words being mocking Kendal for wanting to “help”, and then Erin responding almost exactly the same once he was in control of his body again. Just one more reason I love their dynamic… and also why I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to see who’s going to turn whom
Oh, I am waiting for someone to point this out. Either VD with the “We’re not so different, you and I.” or Ali maybe or even Kendal (after all he was the one who said “that’s what it said too” or something like that) and Erin to maybe freak out about it or alternatively turn to glare at the person who suggested such a thing and calmly list all the reasons why he is Definitely Incredibly Different™ for the next full page.
So it can absorb elemental magic without taking damage… guess Elemental Mage, Life’s Vessel, Fire Crucible and Sky-Chosen aren’t the best choice… we have star metal sword and mysterious hidden power jnside Ferin left
To be early in comments is weird,
Erin’s inner monologue as he studies Jeff is tiered.
I’m trying a poem,
Will the eyes see better in the midnight gloam,
And will we see Erin afeared?
(Please excuse my butchery of the English Language and imagine this in an AABBA rhyming structure.)
“That’s one too many syllables there, bub.”
YESSS ERIN’S BACK ERINING!!! -takes a deep breath to calm down- Anonymous Aurora Question #28: Do you want to See the Adern mage Academy? And what do you think it would look like? Who would WE meet there?
*Aseran mage Academy
I feel like we won’t pay them a visit until their little elemental entity possessions are fixed, because the academy would definitely want to study Erin (VD); Alinua (Life Prim); Kendal (Vash); Dainix (Fire Demon); and Falst (Ferin). Erin confirmed the academy would keep at least him in custody to magically dissect or something like that.
I do, actually. I’d like to see them try to detain this completely busted team, and I also wanna see the place where Erin learned hubris from.
I feel like we won’t pay them a visit until their little elemental entity possessions are fixed, because the academy would definitely want to study Erin (VD); Alinua (Life Prim); Kendal (Vash); Dainix (Fire Demon); and Falst (Ferin). Erin confirmed the academy would keep at least him in custody to magically dissect or something like that.
It takes a while for the comment section to update, so if you don’t see your message immediately, it’s probably just waiting in the ether somewhere. I give it a few hours before deciding that something simply han’t worked.
I suspect we’ll see the monks first, but I imaging at least running into someone else from the Academy will happen before too awful long and Erin will be trying to hide VD from whoever it is.
Erin… I get that you like research, but most researchers conduct their studies behind a pane of glass or something, not within stabbing range…
I wonder… the obvious next move of the Glort is to eye-blast him. But Erin is not alone in his head. There might be a significant risk of the Void Dragon responding in some way. I don’t think Voidy is at risk of harm, he seems well versed in mental attacks, but he might take offense to the Glort even trying. After everything this thing has done this chapter, I wouldn’t mind seeing its psychic attack backfire 😛
Oh, but a field experiment is so much more realistic! A controlled environment produces controlled results; if you want true-to-life data, an authentic case study is your best option!
oh?
THERE’S a thought. Imagine VD gets hit harder with the psychic damage, and we get to see his tragic backstory?? Or what he *considers* to be his tragic backstory? And so does Erin, since they share a mind?
Highly unlikely, but oh man do I want to see it now.
I think it may just be his isolation, feeling the passage of time. Eons upon eons in a single moment. For my addition to this, I think erin will see what VD is being forced to experience, so he too comes out of it, but he also feels the years in that time.
I’m guessing this exact behaviour is what caused Erin and Tess’s mother to stop leaving Erin unsupervised.
Doesn’t know about the eyes huh? Well I guess hes about to LEARN. Also you think the eyes will effect both passengers?
It will be interesting to see, but also I secretly assumed Alinua + Life Mum were gonna be the ones to get smacked with this since they have approximately a dozen eyes between the two of them. Then again, that might still be in the cards if Alinua does a diving save…
Oof I mean *Affect (dont tell my English teacher)
Erin: *spouts complicated magic/science jargon about the Aurora monster of the section*
All of us, frantically scribbling down notes: haha what a /nerd/
Falst’s arm is getting heals and Alinua’s too distracted to chew him out; we’ll get him next time.
Well, a combination of fire and lightning seems to have hurt it; maybe the problem isn’t that it’s immune to damage, just resistant to most forms of damage. Attrition from attacks by the whole gang may be the way to destroy it, slowly but surely.
A cave crawler that consumes via assimilation instead of eating? That would explain the glort’s amorphous body and how it could absorb Alinu’a plants, but it doesn’t explain it’s psychic damage technique. Either it absorbed something else with that power and now uses it for itself, or it’s not Erin’s rare/old mutation hypothesis.
Despite the dread I believe is coming to Erin next week via trauma vision, Alinua and Falst’s interaction is a gem. Him in disbelief at Erin gloating at the monster that caused him and Dainix so much trouble. She implying Erin’s scientific curiosity is worse that his hubris, which looking at how Erin got possessed in the first place isn’t far off the mark.
Prediction for next week: Someone shouts at Erin not to look into it’s eyes. He replies “What eyes?”, then they open up right under his life magic fuelled magnifying glass.
The saga of Pip continues!
You shouldn’t need a tumblr account to read it, since I’m using the desktop version.
“Is he gloating?!” “Oh, no. I think he’s taking notes.”
Eh why not be both ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Would that be gloatating?
Also, your name gets me every time.
Also from Tumblr, apparently there was a time when the sky glowed gold and the stars disappeared for a day. When they came back, the night sky was completely different. The theory going around is that Yanna (the possibly real sun god) moved them to the center of the galaxy for unknown reasons.
Oh THATS what what they were taking about! I was so confused
Something fun I just noticed: Erin changed his shirt from white to black before Voidbending for the first time. Is this significant? Probably not, but I WILL be watching his outfit choices from here on out, just in case they do represent a gradual ‘turning to the dark side’.
I think it’s currently gray, with the lighting on this page making it look black. It was changed shortly after his first one got destroyed during the Tynan fight. Aka when VD first fully possessed him. So yes, very much a turning to the dark side type shirt. (I love character design stuff like this so much lol I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed)
I like his thought process that having this more powerful mutation must mean that it is an older variant, and that younger ones don’t have that ability.
I don’t imagine crawlers have much ability to heal. The idea that this is the end stage of decomposition makes sense…
Uh oh
Predictions for next page: “Oh no, my hubris!”
Huh, seems lile he does know what it is! Or at least has a theory…
ah, classic hubris mcsicktats behavior, gloating and engaging in Scientific Inquiry right before he gets hit with a lovely D20 of Trauma Beam courtesy of our friend the glort. you love to freakin see it.
It has been 25 pages since Tess said “There’s nothing stupider than leaving Erin unsupervised.” She and Kendal will be here soon.
Also Red, I saw the drop down things for Arcs 1 and 2. You cannot silence me.
The beast is crawler as well as nightmare
And I’m guessing Erin’s in trouble o’r there
Giggling at Erin’s blase confidence and all-consuming scientific curiosity, as well as Alinua’s expression and “Oh, no. I think he’s taking notes.” Also sitting with other folks anticipating another shoe drop.
Oh good Falst is getting a heal, thank goodness thank you Alinua I really really hope they all get NAPS after this sweet cheezus–
Since it’s been identified as a cave crawler, how do we suppose it got that way? I predict that it was the Ancients shoving all the other elements in trying to push the void out which went wrong and probably caused the decomposition of the body
I wouldn’t be so sure it’s a Cave Crawler just because Erin says so. He’s an in-universe scholar, so he’s not guaranteed to be reliable. AND he doesn’t know about the Ancient Laboratory that this thing was probably made in, so he’s just assuming it came from the Singing Caves.
“Dear Dairy, Fire did not work. Will try others next.” Lets see……. When is Erin gonna try either
A) Mixing all the normal elemental magics to see what happens and if it has an effect
OR
B) Getting all of them with elemental to combine all the powers they have, So Alinua with Life, Dainix with Fire, Tess with Lightning, and Erin with all 6, because 1. extra power, 2. it would look totally AWESOME so why not???
OR
C) trying the void…….
I bet only the void will work….. just seems like its building up to Void being the reason for cave corruption.
ALSO where is all the ranting and yelling at Falst and Dainix about leaving??? Like BROOO I want the yelling!!!!! Also where the heck are Tess and Kendal throughout all of this??? I feel like they could help.
I mean… This isn’t Falst or Dainix’ fault. And they did let people know: “Hey, I’m going to patrol around a bit just to make sure nothing sneaks up on us while Kendal and Alinua are out of it.” And to get angry at someone who’s just been attacked by robots, cave crawlers, and ERROR_entity_not_found would be kind of… uncharacteristically horrible for any of the gang.
Likewise, Tess and Kendal are on their way, but the comic isn’t structured perfectly chronologically, so we have no idea when exactly Kendal woke up. They’re probably going to drop in as soon as Erin realises that he’s out of his depth for maximum narrative payoff.
what do you mean “building up to cave corruption being void”? Erin worked that out and proved it six pages ago. Do you mean building from?
It’s always good when Erin gets to show off.
Of course, extrapolating from his past screentime, this is just going to be the “I am a genius!” panel that immediately precedes the “OH NO!” panel in that one Gundam meme, and we’re all aware of this.
Still, the one page where Erin gets to be badass before getting inevitably smacked down to earth is always cool. Boy has style.
It’s been so many pages of dainix trying to warn everyone about the eyes and no one listening
I’m still not over why the tech thought Faust belonged there, especially since it now may be explained at the same time at the potentially ancient uniqueness of the Glort.
“Oh no, I think he’s taking NOTES” I’m dead.
Oh, man, Dainix, I am so empathetic rn. Guess who else has a sore throat? ME! But in my case, its because I caught a cold, so if i don’t comment much, its probably because my head is exploding.
TL;DR: Field researcher mode: Activated
Our boy is about to get trauma eye blasted.
What could the eyes possibly do to Erin? Like, I’m sure he HAS trauma, but he has had a better upbringing than any of the other cast. I’m just wondering if it’s going to be trauma from the dragon or something silly only he’d be effected by.
I’m more curious what the eyes WOULD do to VD.
Erin, I can’t keep swinging between “NERD!” (affectionate) and “NERD” (derogatory)
I too am sort of anticipating Trauma Eye Time. I’m positive Erin has PLENTY of things that he feels bad about, and I’m fascinated to find out just what sort of stuff he thinks matters enough TO feel bad about it. I’m much too familiar with the coping method of “compartmentalize EVERYTHING so I can deal with one packet of guilt at a time.”
Perhaps something to do with Tess?
ooooh…and what will voidy think of this? Surely that eldritch monster has no guilt or trauma as such, so – will VD protect Erin to some extent, in a continuing gambit to gull the boy into trusting it?
finally i caught up
Danix is very hung up about these eyes
Erin is doing the exact same thing as walter did with dainix and I feel its going to go the exact same way.