2.1.41
on April 26, 2024
at 3:00 am
when all you have is a chain whip everything looks like a grapple check I guess
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
when all you have is a chain whip everything looks like a grapple check I guess
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: we only have three data points but technically yes he does greet all his guests that way
Image source: ultimatum
tumblr text: here’s how diplomacy can still win this
Twitter text: see you on monday!
tumblr text:here’s how diplomacy can still win this
tumblr text: here’s how diplomacy can still win this
Damn I wish someone would post the Tumblr text
Ha
I’m assuming that’s a joke because like 4 people have written the tumblr text
You assume correct
What do you think of this? Should I keep doing it? Would Red be fine with this?
Also- on the original document that I wrote this on, the text and highlight is the god’s speech-bubble colors in the comic, and they don’t have quotation marks, but because the colors don’t work on here they do have quotation marks.
Zuurith stares at her in confusion for a second, then his eyes widen in recognition. “…!” He whips around, throwing his chain and wrapping it around the Collector, standing up as he does so.
“Do you greet all your guests like this, or has my reputation preceded me?” the Collector asks.
“You will collect no souls here, god-taker,” Zuurith growls. “Remove yourself and your chimeras from my city, or I will kill you where you stand.”
“An ultimatum! What a novel idea,” she exclaims. “Let me try one. Tell me how Vash came here, or I’ll reduce you to rubble and feed your children to mine.”
That escalated quickly…
No, that escalated by an appropriate amount, given the immediate danger 😛
It was still quick. Appropriate, yes, but still quick.
Zuzu’s reaction was at least somewhat appropriate, yes, but the collector went straight to threatening genocide
Wait…Zuzu?
His name is Zuurith, and Red’s entire generation are terminal AtlA stans. What did you expect?
We’re not terminal stans, AtlA is genuinely that good.
that is acurate, it is that good
“Oh shit, that’s an anti-tank rifle. OH SHIT! THAT’S AN ANTI-TANK RIFLE. “
Nice Hellsing Abridged reference
S-tier reference, 10/10
Oh dear. Zuurith certainly values his people and city more than he does Kendal’s secrecy. And the Collector, as noted, is very hard to kill.
I feel like he might still refuse her cuz he is an arrogant and prideful idiot who thinks he can take her, and doesn’t like being threatened
Hopefully he’ll act smart and not anger her further.
Gleicann’s words continue to be born out: Because of her human nature, the gods can barely even see the Collector, which is how she’s able to so easily sneak up on Gul Zuurith here. I doubt he’s going to cooperate here, as he has never once done so before, and so his comeuppance is going to be delicious to watch. It sucks that the people who chose to stay are about to become Chimera-Chow, but in the game of thrones the peasants always lose I suppose.
It may be just a trick of the lighting, but is the Collector’s skin a lot more sallow than before?
I’m weighing Zuurith’s possible reactions- she’s mortal, hard to see, how dare she test the gods, “I’m Zuurith I’m strong like the mountain I do not yield” but he also has basically no reason to protect Kendal’s location, plus has started realizing he wasn’t really protecting his citizens with his laws. And his very public “I do not yield” from (what day is it in comic) a couple days ago (?) did not go well for him or his citizens. Current best guess is some citizens die or get injured before he says a vague direction and that only Vash (not Kendal or the others) is mentioned.
I’m thinking the Collector’s eyes are what’s making her look more shallow. They’re not excited like usual.
I’ve been wondering myself, whether the Collector’s skin is updated character design or some sort of transformation
Zuurith throws his chain around her body,
“You will collect no souls here, god-taker.”
“Remove yourself or I will kill you where you stand,”
Warns the city maker.
“An ultimatum! What a novel idea,” she grins,
Chimera pouring forth with claw and spine.
“Tell me how Vash came here, or I’ll reduce you
To rubble and feed your children to mine.”
Remind me to call Alinua “mountain-breaker” next chance I get. Also, the Chimera with spines is just off panel to the side. Shame you missed it really, it looks super cool.
Maybe it’s time for an epithet inventory for the gang:
Kendal: The Divine Blade, Godling
Alinua: Life’s Chosen, The Weeping Shadow, Mountain Breaker
Erin: Elemental Magus, The Dark Avatar
Dainix: Crucible, Demon, Caliban’s Champion
Tess: Stormbreaker
Falst: … Yeah, I got nothing. He may need to work on those fancy light powers before he gets an epithet.
Would “Aseran princeling” count?
Also, when was Alinua called “The weeping Shadow”? That ‘s a cool one, but I don’t recall it?
Remember the small animal, big adventure story that Red put on tumblr? That was set in Aurora, right around the fall of Vash
As @NoName said, it comes from a prose story Red wrote set in Aurora, following the worldview of a very small sapient, Pip, in and around the fall of Vash. She’s done two such stories so far, link to both of them here: https://www.tumblr.com/comicaurora/732207127093968896/cough-exhaustion-was-what-eventually-shook-her
@NoName, @Evil Tree: Thanks! And thanks for the link 🙂
Could you provide a summary of the stories? I don’t have a Tumblr account so I can’t read all of them. Of course if it’s too much work you don’t have to. 🙂
@ACat-LovingStoryWriter Short summary: Pip is from a somewhat hidden race of telepathic small critters. Most of the charm of the story is in the way she percieves the world, and humans and such. However, there is a character named the weeping shadow (Alinua) who has insurmountable grief and it overwhelms any telepathic critters who come near her. Pip attempts to telepathically grasp Alinua’s mind, kind of succeds and I cant remember how the rest went but I think it was a reflexion on what she saw in Alinua’s mind? Anyway, its a cool story
thank you @xali 512!
For those that don’t have a tumblr account, I’ve found that this link: https://comicaurora.tumblr.com/post/732207127093968896/cough-exhaustion-was-what-eventually-shook-her still works, since you’ll be viewing it on desktop mode
I think it was what people called her when she was still out and about in the woods and they thought she was a spirit (would have been chapter 2 or 3)
I got one for Falst: Grumpy Pessimist (smile)
why do you write each comment like a 12 year old roleplaying on tumblr? it’s really weird
That was unneccessary, dude. Each person communicates in their own way, there is no need to be rude.
(If I’m misinterpreting this situation please tell me.)
Seconding OngoingConversationCouplet. I don’t know if you intended to come off as rude, but you did.
Wawin, I’m disappointed in you. People have different communication styles, and that’s cool and fine. Don’t be mean about an incredibly unimportant difference between yourself and someone else- it’s rude and, frankly, immature. I hope I won’t see you saying such things again.
Maybe something about his spellcarving?
My personal epithets for Falst are The Stronghold and the Angsty Powerhouse 🙂
falst: cat noir but it’s cat brun
Falst could be the [something] survivalist, since he’s good at thinking in those terms.
The self-deprecating survivalist? I mean, he’s got some self-esteem issues, and he’s funny (whether or not the instance of funny is related to his self-esteem and self-destructive tendencies)…
The thing Falst suggested Argist should give to them, to which Dainix said that Falst already was that thing?
Bit wordy for an epithet, but hey…
“Falst the indomitable, he who is heedless to death and pain” Or going with his earliest exploit “Life thief”
Falst: Orphan Stray, Spellcarver, Light-Clawed
Dainix is also a “Ravvan”
Dude, get a hint about power levels here.
Tynan beat you with contemptuous ease. Vash beat Tynan. The Collector had beaten Vash.
You are at least two levels below her in supernatural hierarchy.
I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s so simple as a contest of numbers – the Collector didn’t exactly let Vash use his starfire in their battle, after all, and Zuurith isn’t built on any convenient craters. Going *just by what we’ve seen so far,* he *might* have a chance…
yes but all of tynans people are currently being housed inside of a hollowed out mountain. a mountain she can easily un-hollow
They only just started doing that, and Pryderi will have a hard time convincing anyone to move into the mountain. If there is anyway for gods to communicate with their emissaries telepathically, then it should be easy enough to divert them away from the mountain. Provided the collected doesn’t provide her own encouragement in the matter
WOAAOOA VILLAIN ALERT
Ma’am please he just had some character development
lmao he deserves a break
Does he? Does he really?
omg he knows he knows he knows
she’s so terrifyingly calm, truly the self-styled herald of Life we know and run away from
and what the dog(s) doin
…Does Zuurith even know how Vash came here?
Well he knows about the Fluff quad and even more important, about Kendall being the vessel of Vash. WHile he doesn’t know the details, he knows enough to introduce yet ANOTHER pursuer into the mix
“Ooh, an ultimatum. I love ultimatums. Here’s one for you: either I kill them or I kill you and everyone you care for.”
Seriously, why does she have to be so charming in her madness?
There is nothing so chilling as a confident villain where it looks like you have the upper hand…
Swizt is quite the sound effect. I am not sure that the Collector can defeat someone capable of making such sounds.
You have your normal sound effects like “bang”, variations of “zap/tsssss/zzzzz”, “thunk”, etc…..
And then you have “swizt”. I love it, and I think more things should have creative sound effects
This is the time to bring out the old nope-badger gif. The full version, from “What the…” to reckless dive from cliff and “AAAAAAAAA”!
You fool Zuurith! The glowing chains, a single hair loose, and “God-Taker” epithet only make her more evil and pretty!
I can see how she snuck up on Zuurith; it’s been established that gods find it difficult to tell mortals apart and Big Z was very focused on the arena demolishment. As for the guards and other citizens, I guess they’re also busy with rebuilding, and maybe the Collector hasn’t brought as many into the city as she had surrounding Vash.
If a sword through the chest wasn’t enough to kill her, I don’t see how Zuurith can do any better; as Tynan said “If you can’t make good on the threat, the rule becomes pointless”. Honestly though, if Kendal could talk to Zuurith right now, I think he’d tell him to spill the beans. Kendal went above and beyond to save the people of Zuurith, and knows what the Collector is capable of and willing to do to innocent lives; if Big Z can avoid those fates by telling her, I think Kendal’s “No one dies for me” mindset will win that round.
Predication for next week: Zuurith will initially claim that she’s bluffing, maybe even try and kill her, only for her to use a modicum of her powers to either hurt him or wreak more of the city. Faced with the very real ultimatum, he relents and tells her about Kendal. If I’m feeling hopeful, he only reveals the bare minimum about him, and nothing of his entourage.
I wonder how far he can throw her?
He should just throw her for a loop and say that Vash has a twin city God who came over to check out the scene. His name will be Vash’nt 😀
He should tell her that Vash vanished! Ofc, I doubt she’d buy it of he told her he had no clue where Vash went…
Ooo or that he possessed a random dude and he doesn’t know the possessee or the possessee died!
So Zuurith can’t kill her, but can she be contained? She’s still mortal, if effectively invincible – If all she has is life magic (and a bunch of chimeras) it could be possible.
Then again, we saw what the last life mage did to his prison, so perhaps not.
At least, if he knows to stay out of reach of her magic daggers, he probably won’t be taken, but how much did Kendal explain?
I highly doubt being restrained is any real obstacle to her. If a baby Life mage like Aliuna doesn’t even need dirt to cast, then an old, experienced one like the Collector probably doesn’t need to do anything more than exert a single thought to take complete control of the situation.
Honestly, I think it would genuinely take an army of Fire and Lightning mages to take her down. And maybe Aliuna to do some divine-level magic.
I will note that, though Alinua may be inexperienced, she is THE most powerful Life mage on the planet in terms of raw power and channeling ability, owing to her being a chimeric carrier aka Life’s vessel. What Alinua did would’ve been thoroughly impossible for any normal Life mage to do.
What the Collector has over her is her augmentation from Life’s First Invocation (she discovered Life’s truename, after all) allowing her to use Life magic on the bodies of the Primordials (e.g. she healed the crater Vash was built in).
The only way I can see to restrain her would be cutting off her magic. That could be achieved either through draining any ambient elemental energy, like Shirii the spelleater of Jolon’s chimeras, or through life magic sealing cuffs, similar to the lightning sealing cuff Shrike used on Tess.
However, given the Collector’s unique application of life magic, even these may not be enough to hold her. And even if they are, Zuurith doesn’t have either on his persons at the moment.
She doesn’t seem to be invincible actually, only immune to death. Vash could wound her, but she seemed unaffected by her injuries. She might not even feel pain (although if she does, her lack of response is actually creepier). I think she must have a Deadpool or Wolverine-like healing factor that keeps her alive, regardless of physical damage.
It does make me wonder about what types of damage she can recover from. She doesn’t bleed, but if one of Zuurith’s Sentinels stepped on her, would she be able to reconstruct her entire body, bones and all, from under it’s foot? If were vaporised in a volcano, would she recover? Does cauterization by fire prevent her healing, Hydra-style? Can she drown? Can she survive without oxygen? Can she freeze or otherwise be trapped in stasis? What if she was thrown into space at escape velocity? Would she drift through the void forever, conscious but helpless?
…now I’m imagining the Collector being thrown like a baseball-style by a big god/primordial into space.
Zuurith may have the appropriate leverage with his chain whip thing.
I have nothing else to say except that middle panel is gorgeous
We have progressed from “oh no” to “oh no oh no”
Soon it’ll be “🎵 Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, Oh no, Oh no 🎵”
> we only have three data points but technically yes he does greet all his guests that way
To be fair, all three data points had reputations that preceded them too.
Would love to see Zuurith just *looks up the name of the sport* hammer throw the Collector off into the distance.
Space aurora when?
Of course, the problem with that is that she’d just come back, and there is no way he can prepare enough to deal with a full-scale siege by the Collector’s army. He might be too arrogant to realize that though, in spite of his recent humbling.
Zuurith’s FACE and REACTION AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HELP 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Also, I don’t think Zuurith could tell her much about anything anyway. He doesn’t know where they’re going, only their end goal. And he knows what Kendal is so that might be a problem but really only if the Collecter can FIND him.
Unless Zuurith keeps some kinda of record off page with their information and things, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Hold on, I just remembered that gods can tell where Kendal is due to his semi-divine soul.
What’s the maximum range of that? Can Zuurith tell Kendal is in Argist? Does the Collector suspect him to be able to do that?
If she does manage to get that info out of Big Z, it’s a good thing the gang are planning to set sail first thing tomorrow.
I imagine it’s only within the radius of their domains. Kind of like if you ate something rotten, you’d feel sick.
…Shit. Well, this is going well.
Did the Collector know about Kendal before now? I’m assuming Zuurith has put two and two together and figured out Vash came here by reinhabiting his former vessel, even if he doesn’t know how. But he wouldn’t know where they’re headed, so that may not be enough for her.
Here’s hoping she doesn’t have any chimera who can swim.
She won’t need them. Stone’s corpse is riddled with tunnels
She says that as if she weren’t going to do that anyway…
I am imagining this response;
Z: “Huh? Vash wasn’t here, just his body.”
C: “His Body? Oh! How delightful! This will be most interesting. Thank you for your assistance.” *poof*
Oh that’s funny
Zuurith, I’m begging you. Don’t be an arrogant fool and listen. I don’t want the fine people of Zuurith to die…
But at least it seems that all she knows is that Vash came here, and isn’t aware of Kendall yet.
Boy that excalated quickly… I mean that REALLY got out of hand. (He’s already done boys)
Zuurith has bie ‘Woe! Chains be upon thee!’ energy in that pose in the third panel and I can’t unsee this now
Does anyone else think her eyes have a weird sheen to them, like they’re glassy?
Oh, her eyes have definitely always been green; not just the iris, but the whole eyeball, white and all, is Life-coloured.
Yep. Eyes glow while using magic …which probably means she’s about to use magic for something large and impressively green. Zuurith be careful.
Personally, I suspect that in the Collector’s case, she’s just kinda…ALWAYS using magic, simply to keep her body alive. After the first hundred years or so, she probably stopped thinking about it altogether. I imagine that, to her, Life magic is literally more natural than breathing.
I think the difference is she doesn’t look excited like usual. She’s just kind of there.
I wonder how the Collector’s immortality would hold up against being crushed like a pancake under the fist of a Sentinel? For that matter, I wonder how her brand of immortality deals with other types of physical damage. Obviously, blood loss is no issue. But burning at the stake? Drowning? Exposure to the vacuum of space? Is it more Deadpool-type immortality or Death Becomes Her-type immotality?
You know I would say the Collector is looking very sexy in the last panel. if it was not for the fact that soft gleam in her eyes was due to her thinking of the look on Zuurith’s impotent face as her chimeras slowly rip apart his citizens one by one in front of him. Excuse me I just failed my sanity check and must run around room yelling in horror now.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
here to exacerbate your lack of sanity. You liked her look in chains. do with that what you will.
“They have failed the check! Send them to horny jail!”
“We can’t! The elf destroyed the prison!”
Would the prison really help or is “horny jail” part of the problem?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!(gasp)
There once was a god of jerks
Whose city had gone through the works.
But in the Collector’s eyes
To Zuurith’s surprise
A world of madness and danger lurks.
Those chains look courteously loose.
Might be his equivalent of a warning shot. We both know he’s going to regret it, though…
…Huh, does this mean Vash is currently unsupervised?
perhaps. Yet he still is bound as far as we know.
Maybe she sucked him back into the dagger again
“Tell me how Vash came here”
My smartass and also literal thinking ass: Well, he didn’t, his shambling corpse that absorbed the soul of his favorite weapon did. Also it self-actualized so it’s kind of its own person now
I should not be laughing at this as hard as I am
She is so darn creepy for someone who is wearing a total of 0 armor.
Yes, attack the evil lady who killed a god of about the same power level as you! It’ll be fine, I’m sure!
is it just a tiny bit concerning that the collector is going to follow the squad, destroying everything they fix?
What do you think of this? Should I keep doing it? Would Red be fine with this?
Also- on the original document that I wrote this on, the god’s speech are the highlighted and the text is their colors in the comic, and they don’t have quotation marks, but because the highlight colors don’t work on here they do have quotation marks.
Zuurith stares at her in confusion for a second, then his eyes widen in recognition. “…!” He whips around, throwing his chain and wrapping it around the Collector. He stands up.
“Do you greet all your guests like this, or has my reputation preceded me?” she asks.
“You will collect no souls here, god-taker,” he growls. “Remove yourself and your chimeras from my city, or I will kill you where you stand.”
“An ultimatum! What a novel idea,” she exclaims. “Let me try one. Tell me how Vash came here, or I’ll reduce you to rubble and feed your children to mine.”
this is getting dangerous
TL;DR: The ultimate battle of ultimatums!
For the third panel I am imagining the most metal “thwip” ever. Zuurith looks so panicked!
oh no, i have a feeling that Zuurith’s newfound compassion for his people is gonna end badly for the floof squad. I don’t think he’s gonna choose sticking it to the Collector over saving his city, even if he is stubborn as all hell.
I’m kind of hoping that the Collector finds them, and then her and Alinua will have a little chat. And then V.D. will come out because y’know she’s probably gonna kill the whole band to capture and experiment on Kendal, because no way will they let her take him. And also because she wants to revive Life… actually hmm. I wonder maybe V.D.’ll be on her side because of the “Only the primordials could will themselves to separate” but probably not, V.D. will probably be against her. And then there’ll just be a V.D. vs. Collector vs. Life(Alinua) fight
She’s just so evil tho.
True, she’s done a LOT of horrific and “evil” things, but honestly I could see a redeeming arch for her (probably unfortunately either resulting in her death or an eternally tortured sense of duty to righting her wrongs. Then again I’m not creative, so hopefully Red has incredible things in store for her: she is consistently one of my absolute favorite characters. Call me a psycho, but she’s just so damn charming and spunky!)
I think she’s not inherently evil and I don’t think she’s trying to act evil either (like she doesn’t have bad intentions). I think she just believes that the ends justify the means, and she honestly believes that what she’s doing is Right AND Best
Agreed. The potential exists for her to, maybe not be wholly redeemed, but realise the error of her ways. Her whole motivation is based on what she thinks Life wants; if she could be shown definitive proof that the primordial doesn’t agree with her, that could be the vehicle to change her, either for better or worse.
However, the only way I can see this being achieved is with a meeting between her and Alinua; Alinua’s existence itself could be proof enough for the Collector to begin doubting her mission. Such a thing is risky however as we don’t know how the Collector would react. Would she become angry that Life has abandoned her? Would she see Alinua as the perfect tool to reconstitute Life and seek to capture her? We haven’t seen anything to indicate what the Collector would do in an unexpected situation like this.
I think the best possible case case for her is realizing Life is fine with things as is and ceasing her activities. Becoming the Collector seems to have cored her personality like an apple- we know from Pip’s story that she doesn’t really think like a regular person anymore. What kind of therapy can you do to help a case like hers?
The problem is that is not an idol threat. The real question is if he’s going to believe it is or not…
The problem is that is not an idol threat.
GAAH THAT’S SUCH A COOL VILLAIN LINE
if she gets any more of these she might surpass Tynan for “coolest villain lines”
“AND FEED YOUR CHILDREN TO MINE” CHILLS AS I SKITTER BACK IN HORROR OH NO
I’m surprised Zuurith knows of her, but I guess word travels fast amongst the deity-community.
I just realized a couple key flaws in this theory, but I thought it was cool and wanted to share. WHat if the collector was Lady Huracan? It is stated in chapter 11 that she used to have a name, but that when she touched Life’s mind, she didnt have room for it anymore. This, convined with the fact that both the collector and Lady Huracan are immortal and kinda similar looking, made for a decently good theory.
However, its wrong. Its stated earlier that chapter that her resistance to damage was a gift from life, so we can asume the same for the inmortality. Also, Lady Huracan is the ancient founder of the Paladins. I think she would already be too entangled in primordial shenanigans to ocupy herself with ANOTHER primordial’s issues.
And also I think that the Ancients couldn’t say the primordial’s true names – they used the Great Runes to use the primordial’s powers. But good theory, even though its wrong
OH NO OH NO OH NO ZUURITH DON’T DO IT YOU HUBRISTIC FOOL
Oh his expression as he realized who she is….
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again: Zuurith is so damn pretty
HOLY HECK SHE’S BACK
god those panels are beautiful
The Collector looks GREAT by the way… this comic has come a long way, technically, since last we saw her, and Red does not disappoint!
A chain unfurls as Zuurith notices who it is
The Collector doesn’t seem to mind the threat of his