2.3.42
on January 3, 2025
at 3:00 am
WHEW!
Chapter’s done! We’ll be back in chapter 4 to find out what’s happened to everyone and how they’re gonna fix the various problems that have piled up over the course of this Chill Boat Downtime arc! In the meantime I’m gonna take a page out of Dainix’s book and handle my burnout with a nice, intense nap. Comic returns in a few weeks!
Hmmm… I spot (probably) Alinua just above the serpent’s tail, as well as what looks like two plant cocoons. Probably Falst and Kendal respectively. Interesting.
Is anyone else concerned about that giant crack in Tess’s metal skin? No? Just me? Okay
That’s the scar she got when she was hit by lightning as a kid. I don’t remember when exactly she says that, maybe right after Zurith?
Hi, just like to say that the giant crack came from her being chosen by the sky. Hope I don’t sound annoying, just trying to help 🙂
That’s actually a scar, not an open wound :3
Good eye!
Well that ain’t ideal
I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE A HELL CLIFFHANGER!! AAAAAHHH!!!
Before Tess’s wide and despairing eyes
A tentacle tears through the ship, huge in size
Well that’s one heck of a cliffhanger to end the chapter on.
I think that’s a tail, not a tentacle, but I could be wrong
Could be. It doesn’t have a tail fin though, so who knows? Would that make it the Evil Eel (TM)?
There’s only one silhouette
There’s only one silhouette
There’s only one silhouette
I think that’s Falst, but it could be anyone.
There are also, however, two little blorbs of green. Likely balls of plants, that Alinua wrapped around the others.
I’m betting Alinua wrapped herself and Kendal in one cocoon, Falst and Dainix (rock) in another, and the silhouette is the Champion
The champion blasted off someplace else a while ago. The hair looks like most Alinua’s to me.
The champion was thrown somewhere over Rakhn at the end of his fight with Kendal I believe
NO! Tess is sad! She can’t be sad, she’s never sad! 🙁
I like the sound effect in panel 1. It has a nice… font and color and texture (idk the right words)
With a mighty SMASH!
The boat is torn asunder.
Nothing Tess can do…
Note to self: next time, use the flying machine (but watch out for giant green eagles).
why didn’t they fly the eagles to helm lol #FLYYOUFOOLS
Cue Cellos
All hail kraken ship-render and scourge of the deep
Wow, when they split the the party, they really split the party. Looks the groups will be: Tess and Erin, Falst and his pet rock, and Alinua and Kendal. At least they have a destination to regroup at.
I love these pairs, but I feel like it always splits up into them.
I have to agree. I know we’ve had some interactions between other pairs, but they don’t stand out nearly as much.
One person is not wrapped and the hair in clothes look like Alinua’s. I bet this is how she is forced into growing gills or some other Life thing and those mermaids become relevant.
i’ll never forgive you for this cliffhanger, red
…yeah I will
I’ll get over it
At least Tess and Erin found a rock nearby. Complete even with a small cave for shelter.
You know it’s serious when Tess gets worried…. Red when I catch you
It’s time for Falst’s Odysseus arc
Take a look right here at this rock
It has the Crucible’s host all trapped
All you gotta do is just carry this rock
– Sounds too easy, what’s the catch?
Ha ha ha, GIANT SEA SERPENT
guys…why is there a humanoid silhuette among the cocoons…..
I think it’s Alinua.
Tarren (reading Erin’s notes, revision ? of many): … Yeah, I think making future ships “sea monster with tentacles/tongues larger than the ship itself”-proof is a bit much to ask.
Erin: What?! I never wrote that! Tess, is this your handwriting?
Art wise, first panel is amazing. Water frothing, the ship splintering, “Smash” SFX blending with the background; really hammers home the immensity and power of this creature, whatever it is.
However, the last two panels are really gut wrenching to me. Third panel showing how torn Tess is, wanting to help her friends, but knowing Erin needs her after he overchannelled and in case of V.D.. Her scarred shoulder is on display here for a reason, past trauma hammering home present trauma? It also shows her caring side, taking time to make Erin an impromptu bed, trusting Alinua and Falst to handle the ship evacuation.
In the final panel, Tess is once again in shadow, and her normally upright and confident pose is hunched and defeated. She can’t leave her brother alone while he’s fragile, a scenario she likely knows all too well. Even if she did go out there to help, that monster is way outside her weight category, and she risks drowning for being a poor swimmer in a storm. Even at her lowest points, almost captured in Zuurith or tossed around by Tynan, she’s never looked so powerless or despondent as she is now.
However, all hope is not lost. Alinua was talking in 2-3-38 about coming up with something strong that floats, last page Falst was about to be enveloped in vines, and I see two vine cocoons at the top of panel 1, either side of what I assume is a flailing elf. Methinks Alinua managed to figure out a floatable plant construct to save the boys, and not a moment too soon.
However, Tess can’t see that, Alinua and co have been tossed high into the air, and the monster is still there and thrashing about.
Prediction for next … month, maybe?: I’m torn. Either a) focus back on the ship and Alinua’s vine pods as they try and make their way to shore while avoiding Nessie, or b) stay with Tess as she fully takes in what just happened.
That last one could lead to her despairing more; her brother is sick, her friends presumably killed by a creature she had no idea existed, she’s powerless to help anyone, and I can almost hear V.D. rearing his head to gloat.
On the other hand, if Alinua does more plant stuff, Tess might be able to espy the vine boats and become hopeful again. Maybe even leap towards them to give the monster tentacles a zap as a distraction.
I could actually imagine that next chapter starts with a quick cutaway to the champion discussing the important question “what the heck just happened???” with the Lady. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I think it’s a legitimate option.
I think we see Tarren/ the bounty hunters and the junior archive girl for next chapter’s open, or some other similarly vacant side character.
I wonder if Tess will be mad at Erin. She was against this whole trip from the start and now she presumably believes the rest of their companions are dead or injured at least. She loves Erin, but I wonder if she’ll blame him a little bit for their losses. Almost every concern that was brought up before the trip, came to fruition.
“Calling this one chekhov’s fish” and also checkhov’s Fun Lighthearted Conversation about whether Kendal would drown if submerged in water. Which Tess suddenly seems a lot less keen on solving for some reason!
That was out of nowhere. Bossfight logic says more fighting.
They just went through a boss fight, though. It usually takes a while before the next one.
I wouldn’t say it was out of nowhere. It was foreshadowed pretty heavily, both with the “SHE’S COMING” warning from the people of Vash that woke Kendal last chapter, and a warning from Life when Alinua’s diadem broke. We also saw it under the boat at one point
Oh whoops lmao, the warning from Life was the sneak peek of it. 2.3.21
AAAUGH. Leaving us HERE of all places D: (no it’s ok I’m glad Red is getting rest but AUGH THE CLIFFHANGER)
Well I guess that shows precisely how huge that danger noodle is, and the answer is FREAKING ENORMOUS what the HECK. Full disclosure, I was so distracted by the sheer horrific magnificence of the leviathan that I probably wouldn’t have spotted Alinua or the plant pods in the first panel, if others hadn’t pointed them out.
Agreed that Tess’s expressions here are heartbreaking. She’s distraught. I don’t think we’ve ever seen her so distraught. She has good reason to be, watching her new friends get smashed and, for all she knows, die while Erin is out for the count and in terrible condition.
Jeez. Okay, well, we knew that ship was getting wrecked. We knew that leviathan was coming. It seems like Alinua’s coming in clutch and safeguarding her friends with plants. Floof Squad will deal with this somehow. Somehow…
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: calling this one chekhov’s fish
Image source: smash
tumblr text: unsportsmanlike killstealing behavior from the kaiju
Hello, Zer0 W0lf! You’re late today!
Bluesky Text: the most important part of any shipwreck is to have fun and be yourself
It’s good to see you!
Yo shiihs they dead
There are two cocoons. It’s hard to spot but there are two. One has what looks like a piece of wood tethered to it (there’s a little line connecting them) but it could also be Falst getting yoinked to his cocoon and the distance and speed causing him to be a blur. I have my doubts about that though. Now I think only one other has pointed this out but there’s a silhouette of a person that’s likely Alinua and she’s flailing around in between the cocoons. So Alinua really needs to get a cocoon Falst will hopefully be inside his in time (or is already inside) and Kendals fine.
Welp I guess Alinua and Kendal and Falst and Dainix are all dead. Sea monsters. What can you do. I’m very confident that Tess and Erin will be able to resolve all remaining plot arcs by themselves though
The Collector, when Erin and Tess show up to save Vash: Didn’t you used to be more blond?
Tess: Fish mishap
Collector: What?
Erin: Fish mishap
…….
The page loaded and I just stared at that first panel and said “oh.”
I mean we were all waiting for the sea snake serpent thingy, but…
I guess Red was just really sick of the boat.
(It does make me VERY happy to see Tess and Erin on dry land. Dry land…it’s been the better part of a year…how I’ve missed you.)
So…um…how long do we think a few weeks is?
*Insert sick The Kraken Organ solo*
There once was a monstrous noodle
Who didn’t want others to canoodle.
It came up from its lair
Into dark, stormy air
And smashed the whole kit and caboodle.
Certainly one of your better ones, friend! And this is indeed a danger noodle. Perhaps you could even call it the most dangerous noodle?
Once again, this proves that you do not lend the hero group (in any story) a vehicle and expect to get it back.
Have a great break Red. Love the comic.
The Gilded Galvanic Goku Girl will be out for blood
NO MY POOR BABY
TESS LOOKS ACTUALLY SO SAD AND TORN,,,, she can’t leave Erin but for all her knowledge the others might be dead. …Storms, volcanoes, sea serpents, and a light champion. This group really does have a penchant for attracting Trouble with a capital T when they attract it, don’t they?
I’m pretty sure Alinua and the boys are okay (silhouette & plant cocoons), but Tess doesn’t know that. I’m not sure if someone else has already pointed this out but… How’s Alinua going to find Tess and Erin? Maybe Alinua will grow a giant plant as a signal flare?
p.s. Is anyone else going to re-binge the comic, or just me?
Erin still knows that messenger-bird spell thing, so as long as they’re still within range, he can probably just cast that and use it to guide him to them. He’s used it for that twice now. But there’s no guarantee they’ll actually still be in range, and who knows how long he’ll be out of commission without Alinua there to heal him (and if his magic will cooperate with the damage to his arms – I think the sealing tattoos are fairly robust, but he got cut up pretty good there). Technically he could assume they were dead and not bother with the spell, but I really don’t see him doing that without at least trying a spell of some sort first.
Fish mishap, a fishap if you will
I love that. A fishap. I’m using it next time my we go fishing
All they had to do is just open the bag
smh
Considering Falst is going to have to carry Dainix all throughout the next bit of this story, it brings a whole new meaning to “Keep Your Friends Close”…
Loan your new boat to Erin, they said. He’ll take good care of it, they said…
Nahhhhhhh, Tarren knew that they weren’t going to get it back, it’s fineeeeeeeee
I’M SURE THAT’S FINE
I hated the way that boat looked, but I never wanted her to go like this. RIP Tarren’s Masterpiece, you did your job well.
How rude. Didn’t have the decency to swallow the ship whole.
It has to chew, It can’t digest big chucks of boat, right?
But yes, I agree it has no table manners.
Maybe it’s using a tentacle thingy as a knife? I think that would be excusable, but the fact that it had to smack the boat in the air is not. It’s like cutting a(n) [insert fancy food here] and then tossing it into the air while trying to catch it in its mouth.
That’s definitely fine.
I’m sure that will buff out.
Note to Self: Never board a ship in any campaign Red is GMing. Not even (or especially) if the boat is really cool.
If the silhouette is alinua, am i not wrong to say that she gonna mind control the kraken? Has she mind control animals before? I don’t remember anything like that. Maybe i should revisit the beast arc.
Nope, no mind control that I remember. Maybe I just have bad memory though.
She kind of empathetically bonded with a chimera and it let her drain its Life, but not outright mind control I don’t think.
The closest thing was talking a chimera into allowing her to put It out of its misery, needless to say i dont think this is going to work here
i see two green pompoms and an Alinua, so I shall assume she wrapped up Kendal in one and Falst+dainix in the other and they are not immediately dead 😀
Tess: My brother…is never going to get the deposit back on that boat…
TL;DR: R.I.P boat.
Welp, RIP to artificer friend’s boat!
Oh, “Chill Boat Downtime arc”, is that what we’re calling this!? >:|