1.22.8
on July 19, 2023
at 3:00 am
you can’t see it but Falst actually has had one of those detective show HUDs the whole time where it zooms in on helvetica-text observations about the stuff around him
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
Aurora Question #76: Who do you think is the final boss for Arc 1?
The gang’s inner demons hopefully but i think that might be a bit optimistic
Michael beybee
Maybe it’s some kind of fire or acid version of a cave crawler? The claw marks with the melted stone seem to indicate that.
Could it be obsidian ghouls again? Or whatever their name was.
The secret overlord of the crawlers: Shia LaBeouf.
That would ruin the surprise…
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: you can tell by how they’re handily color-coordinated
Image source: something
First time in months after being called out for not posting the alternative title where you’re not the first comment
I think a pit just dropped in my stomach. Doesn’t help that the only thought by brain could come up with was ‘Caves + Solid(maybe soul rock) + Motive + knowledge of ancients’ technology = possibly the collector???’
i mean, I’m almost certainly wrong but it won’t stop the anxiety of her being connected to all this and jumping out of that opening to the singing caves, no matter how much it don’t make sense. (most likely i’m thining it’s something largely unrelated, like someone breaking in and stealing some super important piece of Ancient tech/artifact for their own plans, who knows? i certainly can’t wait to find out)
either way, hehe spooky scary plot and overthinking make anxiety go brrrrr
I mean, the collector did use stone magic to close the crater of Vash. You can see her hand glowing gray when she did so (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-1-11/). I know that she claims she was simply healing Stone, but if that were so 1. her hand should have only glowed green for life magic and 2. how come Alinua has not presented this ability despite being way more in tune with Life than the Collector?
1. I believe “healing Stone” is a more poetic way of describing it, and when she’s saying “healed Stone” she probably refers to her returning the mountain to its original state. She doesn’t need Life Magic because Stone isn’t a living thing, it’s Stone. 2. Alinua is more in tune with Life Magic, unarguably, but as stated above, Stone isn’t a living thing and it doesn’t need Life Magic to “heal”
I guess what I am trying to reconcile is how a life mage is using stone magic. In page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-11-9/) she made it seem that on the scale of giant primordial’s life magic could be used to shape stone, that’s why Vash rather than Zurrith was chosen because the crater was a wound which could be healed, while Zurrith is built on a natural foundation. But, she wasn’t USING life magic, she used stone magic as her hand glowed gray. If she was using life’s magic to heal stone shouldn’t her hand have glowed green since it was life’s energy she was drawing from? This points to her either being a life and stone mage, or being a life mage using a stone lacrima in a way inspired by life, since as Falst has shown you don’t need to be a mage in that element to use a lacrima.
The reason I brought up Alinua’s powers is because she and the Collector purport to have the same power source (the primordial life) yet Alinua can not affect any other element while the collector can. That is why I think the Collector must have something extra going on such as some uber powerful stone lacrima buried in an ancient underground city perhaps?
I assume there are a few reasons Alinua has never shown that skill.
1. By the time she could’ve known about it, they were already travelling with Erin, who is handily very skilled in all elements.
2. It took the Collector likely centuries to figure it out, and Alinua was very careful with her magic until after she met Kendal. She had at best a few days to figure it out until Erin made it obsolete.
3. I don’t think Kendal told her, he was much more concerned with telling the group about the collector’s genocide plans.
I think at some point Alinua will find out that it’s possible and figure out how to do it. Probably in the big bossfight against the collector.
To the point of “She used stone magic”, on the page where she explains it, it seems like she’s using life magic to channel stone magic. “All mages revive tiny fragments of the primordials to do their magic.”
She’s using her nigh-unlimited life magic to revive bigger fragments of the primordials to do her magic.
Oh! Oh! It’s like that THING, idremember what it’s called anymore, where human senses can be activated by something other than what they’re supposed to measure with enough raw power! Easiest example being pressure to the eyes!
Have you ever sneezed and seen lightning? The short burst of physical pressure to the eye causes it to sense light when there isn’t any!
If you are saying that the Collector’s only source of power when destroying the city of Vash was Life, this would imply that the glowie magic hand colour is not based on the primordial power being drawn upon, but by what it is affecting, e.g. Plants or Rocks. Notice how in https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-1-11/ the collectors hands glow two different colours.
@Bibbly Bio, Yeah, seems like it!
Falst has a detective mode HUD? Maybe there’s a Riddler trophy under the dragon skull.
Ooh, it’s a Singing Caves entrance; yeah, let’s put that in the maybe pile. I get the feeling, especially from his face in panel 2, Dainix is avoiding the caves both because of the dangers, and to avoid triggering Falst any more after hearing his backstory. It’s also making me a bit fearful that V.D. might pull something once Erin and Alinua get down here.
Honestly, detective Falst made a fair bit of sense. His past of living in the wilderness, tracking animals to hunt, looking for signs of monsters to avoid, dating tracks and trails; there’s a lot of transferable skills that makes him notice things other gang members might not. Dainix might have noticed these things too given his background, but it’s a little dark for him.
Oh no, I’m scared now. This whole chapter has been nothing but dumb enemies and I’ve come to accept that’s all there is; this evidence of deliberate movement says otherwise. Nice way to up the tension.
If I had to guess who did this, I’d say it was the Collector. A passageway to the caves, claws and melting on the dais that could be caused by her chimeras, no other obvious ways for people on the surface to get here; I don’t see anyone else who could do this. Now, what were the Ancients making that she wanted? … Oh gods, was it the orb that’s currently trapping Vash?!
if the ancients made the orb thats currently trapping Vash, then its possible that Lacrimas are made using extracted God Essence (Now available at a Deli near you!) and that is scary
That IS scary, but I have my doubts on that one – the gods specifically pointed out the Collector as a horrifying unprecedented threat, and she’s only been on her nonsense for a few centuries.
The ancients and their lacrimas are WAY older.
Ooh ok! Lacrima lore hehe. I wonder what Erin will think of the dais?
Falst is now solving mysteries like Sherlock Holmes or Batman. Usually, he just fights things like Brue Lee… or Batman.
Hey don’t forget Bruce Lee worked as Kato for the Green Hornet… oops my age is showing! (arrange shirt slightly)
Got to love the DBZ Abridged reference!
I am still waiting for a bord tp drop…
Bord tp?
A white message borb (since a spell & not a real bird).(smile)
I wonder what Erin would think of the Dias?
Yfel hyht hit hê tôgewunod sweltan
There once was a lacrima of stone
That in a circle wasn’t alone.
Something’s been made:
See where it laid!
But what it was cannot be known.
If those are the singing caves, then we might see the Void Dragon if/when Erin goes down there.
TL;DR: Now it’s a mystery. Pull out the detective gear!
I just want you to know, several months ago when you were still Somebody, you recommended the app Amaru. I was doing a reread recently, and was reading the comments (of course) and I thought that I’d try it out. Well I did, and it’s really helped.
I do not remember that or any app of that name but okay. Glad you’re alright.
There are some Caves, and something else
That left, of which the lacrima tells
I knew it! I knew the Singing Caves were involved!
I do believe this is the first time we’ve seen a stone lacrima. I wonder if any emptied lacrimas got dropped far enough into the Caves to absorb ambient energy and become void lacrimas… Of course, that scenario could only satisfy my idle curiosity of what a void lacrima looks like, since no runic spells are known for void magic, and trying to cast one would result in Void himself just hijacking the lacrima and imposing his will on his energy anyway.
In panel 6 Falst says there is nothing there where stone lacrima was but the pictures of a cracked sphere-not an empty depression. Is the description(dialogue) wrong or the picture?
I believe in panel 6 it states that the lacrima made something that is solid and missing, rather than that the lacrima itself is missing. I can see the confusion, though.
this marks 20 pages since the suggestion the message birb would 20 pages later bop Falst on the head during a boss battle.
we have been lied to
I love it when we get to see just how intelligent falst is. Thank you for making this!
my smart little guy
hmm honestly the only thing my brain goes to when I see a pedestal like that in a location like this is “aNcIenT sUpeRwEapOn??”
God dainax is so pretty
I thought the caves didn’t start crawlerizing people until after the ancients had died out – in which case it may have been normal humans and elves coming in through the opening that forced the ancients to abandon the place, and the crawlers didn’t come until later.
Then again, if the thing in this room was something to do with void, it may have crawlerized the humans/elves as soon as they stepped into the room – Falst and Dainix might have just dodged a bullet with this thing being gone before they got here.
press a to begin dragon bossfight
So that’s Falst’s superpower. Not his resistance, but his detective vission
I swear if Falst is standing IN the lacrima circle and it activates, I will—not do anything drastic, because this is a comic. However, I will be hit in the head by Apollo’s prophesy ball
I’d say it wouldn’t do anything drastic because this isn’t that KIND of comic (we think, remember the chimeric plague?). There are absolutely comics out there that can & will pull all kinds of horrifying effects on their protagonists at a moment’s notice!
(I mean, there’s an entire dark age of superhero comics – a phase of rebellion against the entanglement of medium (comics) and genre (generally family–friendly, even kids oriented) that went… maybe a more than a little overboard into bloody grimdark (but I’m just paraphrasing Trope Talk now (because it’s awesome, thanks, Red))
(that was maybe extremely a tangent of me oops)
Good luck catching that prophesy ball!
I love that their both extremely smart in extremely different ways