. They swim in silence for a moment, then Alinua says, “…You told the Captain I was an elf, but you didn’t tell the others. Why?”
. “Did you want me to?” Selach asks.
. “No, not really. I think that would have made this all even harder to explain.”
. “I figured,” Selach says, twisting to swim past a large rock outcropping. “Besides, it’s not exactly a lie. The surface is as shallow as it gets. They might think you’re a little unstable — but all Shallows mages are like that.” She gets a slight smile. “Without the deep ocean protecting them, the energies can make them a little bit weird. Perfect cover, right?”
. “Right,” Alinua mumbles. “A little bit weird.”
. Alinua scans the ocean around them as they fall silent. Then she flinches, eyes widening, as Selach says, “So do you think you can heal the Wyrm?”
. Alinua stays silent.
. “We can talk about something else–” Selach starts.
. “No, it’s–” Alinua interrupts. She hesitates, glancing away. “…Selach…”
. Selach pauses, head turning to look at her, eyes wide, as Alinua says softly, “I think the Wyrm might be dead.”
A bit of a leap in logic there, but based on what Alinua knows about the Collector, I would seriously consider that as well. Although, can a god be killed without their domain being destroyed? I think the most likely option is one other commenters have said already, that this was one of the Collector’s experiments, probably trying to see if she could trap a god somehow before she came up with the Vash Orb.
I think alinua jumped to “if the collector has been here, she must’ve taken the wyrm (forget pronouns)‘s soul like she did with vash
I personally don’t think that is the case, as the northern currents appear to still be irritating rakhn and also causing the stormy conditions that erin had been warned about (and proceeded to soundly ignore)
also, the collector did say vash was the first god she’d taken, though we also know that mountain gods don’t count as gods in her mind. but the wyrm is kinda in the middle? they’re the god of both the northern currents and the deepsekrai and mermaids
Yes, i remembered after posting the comment that Alinua is not automatically Right About Everything, and that it may have been a leap of logic on her part xD
Everyone’s talking about Alinua’s conclusions and Nietzsche and other things.
Meanwhile, I read this comment and “Heavy is Dead” starts playing word-to-word in my head.
I think we already know the answer, though. I recall during the Gleicann chapters there was some commentary about how Life energy could cause a god’s form to become uncontrollable. That hasn’t been a problem for some particular deities because they don’t incorporate Life into their forms (see: we know what Zuurith and Tynan constitute themselves from, and I’d guess Gleicann is mostly made of Life.) The only issue is “why isn’t the wyrm coming back?” So either Alinua’s fears are correct, or killing the rampaging form of the Wyrm will allow it to reconstitute itself, back under control.
Perhaps this was an attempt by the Collector to get the Wyrm in her power but it failed. After all, we know that she started with nature gods, and then she wanted to upgrade to ‘full’ gods. She already knew that to take a nature god that was too strongly anchored, she had to destroy their domain (1.7.6). By the time she took Vash, she knew that in his case, what anchored him out of her reach was his worshippers – so they had to go first(1.1.11). When she absorbed Vash’s soul into the soulknife, she had to check if it had worked first, she wasn’t sure (1.1.18).
So perhaps the Collector tried to take the Wyrm, believing that she wasn’t particularly anchored to anything – an upgraded nature god. She attacked her incarnation like she did with Vash, but the soulknife failed. Then she realized the Wyrm was protected by her connection to her worshippers. Since killing all the worshippers of this water dragon was impossible – they would flee and then she’d have to go after them – she instead tried to break their worship, by turning the Wyrm into a monster that attacked her own people. Except this also failed, because some of the merfolk and Sekrai still believe (or hope) that the Wyrm herself is still around, and still cares, but has just… lost control of her incarnation. So with this information, the Collector then found a god whose worshippers she could easily take out of the equation.
Selach: Not like there’s anything shallower than the surface for where you came from.
Alinua: How about being born on a chain of flying islands high up in the sky?
Selach: Ha ha, nice one elf-girl! (a few seconds of silence) Oh Byys you’re serious, aren’t you?
Loving all these different shots and angles of them swimming; really helps solidify that they’re moving in three dimensions and not walking on a plane. The simple backgrounds not only emphasise the ocean depths feel, but also draws all our attention to these two. A sensible move given how their colour pallets could easily blend into the ocean depths.
“All shallow mages are like that”. Were it not for tumblr lore expressly stating that Sekrai have poor resistance to the elemental winds, and prolonged exposure can adversely affect their minds, I’d say Selach was a little biased, maybe prejudiced. I get that there would be a feeling that shallow Sekrai are a bit odd, either due to the energies or their inability to move on after their people’s transformation, in the deeper merpeople’s zeitgeist.
“A little bit weird” Oh Selach, if only you knew just how weird the gang’s mages, and mage-like, members are.
Yeah, while I’m still hopeful the Wyrm can be helped, there’s still the very real possibility the Collector did succeed in taking her soul, and what’s rampaging now is a hollow shell. That may be why it’s still leaking life energy; without a soul to keep it together, the incarnation may need constant healing to continue existing.
Then again, I see no reason why the Collector would go to such lengths to keep an incarnation alive; maybe she’d do it for a while initially for her research, but why let it go on for so long? Plus it can still think and feel, being scared of Alinua during her transformation; I think you’d need some semblance of a soul to do that.
Oh. Oh dear.
I had hoped that Alinua would be able to help or rescue the Wyrm somehow (the soul, though perhaps not the incarnation), but it may well be the Collector destroyed her or damaged her beyond repair. That would tally with what she’s done to other nature gods…
The posing these last couple pages with Alinua hanging on to a swimming fish have been criminally underrated. I can feel the hug as they’re rocketing through the water. …Heck, all of the fish posing had been really good. And the fish designs. And- anyway I like this arc so far, can you tell?
I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen – when she did that the bear stopped rampaging, but it also *died*. At that point in the story, at least, Alinua only had enough power to put it out of its misery. Things might have changed, but a situation like the bear is probably exactly what she’s expecting.
alinua thinks the collector took the wyrm and presumably also took her apart, the way she took apart nature spirits and is taking apart vash. it doesn’t seem like the gods survive that, or if they do, they can’t really interact with the world anymore. the mountain spirit that she tried to put back together could barely hold an incarnation
Apparently I meant MARidia. Maridia is the underwater area of Super Metroid. From what I’ve heard, it’s a very well executed drop to the bottom of the ocean, and it has really good music.
Well, I got my copy of the published book, read it in a day, and then caught up to this newest page in the next three days! I love this story and these characters, I’m very excited to be sticking around for the rest of this journey now!
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: asking the tough questions (plot)
Image source: wyrm
The plot has caught up to us!
tumblr text: well SOMEONE had to ask
. They swim in silence for a moment, then Alinua says, “…You told the Captain I was an elf, but you didn’t tell the others. Why?”
. “Did you want me to?” Selach asks.
. “No, not really. I think that would have made this all even harder to explain.”
. “I figured,” Selach says, twisting to swim past a large rock outcropping. “Besides, it’s not exactly a lie. The surface is as shallow as it gets. They might think you’re a little unstable — but all Shallows mages are like that.” She gets a slight smile. “Without the deep ocean protecting them, the energies can make them a little bit weird. Perfect cover, right?”
. “Right,” Alinua mumbles. “A little bit weird.”
. Alinua scans the ocean around them as they fall silent. Then she flinches, eyes widening, as Selach says, “So do you think you can heal the Wyrm?”
. Alinua stays silent.
. “We can talk about something else–” Selach starts.
. “No, it’s–” Alinua interrupts. She hesitates, glancing away. “…Selach…”
. Selach pauses, head turning to look at her, eyes wide, as Alinua says softly, “I think the Wyrm might be dead.”
A bit of a leap in logic there, but based on what Alinua knows about the Collector, I would seriously consider that as well. Although, can a god be killed without their domain being destroyed? I think the most likely option is one other commenters have said already, that this was one of the Collector’s experiments, probably trying to see if she could trap a god somehow before she came up with the Vash Orb.
“Girl your God is dead and I am here to put down his corpse” is one hell of a bombshell to drop
That’s…. quite the sentence. Makes for a good writing prompt 😛
You know, if someone’s giving you a piggyback ride, it’s impolite to tell them that God is dead…
Nietzsche might disagree. (or maybe not…he never got a merfolk ride)
Well, now we know what might have changed Nietzsche’s mind on that topic!
Or, well, on saying it out loud like this.
To be fair, Selach asked first
Wait where are all the comments? It’s been a day since this released???
No, this one released this morning!
Oh wait fr? This is so weird
Brain glitch!
… it’s wednesday. Comic updates monday, wednesday, friday.
Welcome to the Time Displacement Zone.
Your [BODY CLOCK] has been displaced [ONE DAY] into the [FUTURE].
Please resynchronise immediate.
So it’s a sea monster-god-zombie. That’s, uh, pretty fucken metal.
Yeah, now let’s hope it doesn’t rust.
I’ll see myself out.
The god’s dead?!?!??!?
I think alinua jumped to “if the collector has been here, she must’ve taken the wyrm (forget pronouns)‘s soul like she did with vash
I personally don’t think that is the case, as the northern currents appear to still be irritating rakhn and also causing the stormy conditions that erin had been warned about (and proceeded to soundly ignore)
also, the collector did say vash was the first god she’d taken, though we also know that mountain gods don’t count as gods in her mind. but the wyrm is kinda in the middle? they’re the god of both the northern currents and the deepsekrai and mermaids
Yes, i remembered after posting the comment that Alinua is not automatically Right About Everything, and that it may have been a leap of logic on her part xD
Im too trusting
Plus, with the last chimeric mutant she dealt with, she found she couldn’t do anything more than put it out of its misery.
But she’s gotten a lot stronger since then, and maybe being a gods incarnation makes the wyrm more resilient.
From far away you can Friedrich Nietzsche laugh
Everyone’s talking about Alinua’s conclusions and Nietzsche and other things.
Meanwhile, I read this comment and “Heavy is Dead” starts playing word-to-word in my head.
THAT HEAVY IS DEAD!
huh. so alinua seems to think the fate that befell vash befell the wyrm
I hope she’s wrong. it’d be very cool to learn what happens when a vessel is chimerified with the god still inside of it
I think we already know the answer, though. I recall during the Gleicann chapters there was some commentary about how Life energy could cause a god’s form to become uncontrollable. That hasn’t been a problem for some particular deities because they don’t incorporate Life into their forms (see: we know what Zuurith and Tynan constitute themselves from, and I’d guess Gleicann is mostly made of Life.) The only issue is “why isn’t the wyrm coming back?” So either Alinua’s fears are correct, or killing the rampaging form of the Wyrm will allow it to reconstitute itself, back under control.
Perhaps this was an attempt by the Collector to get the Wyrm in her power but it failed. After all, we know that she started with nature gods, and then she wanted to upgrade to ‘full’ gods. She already knew that to take a nature god that was too strongly anchored, she had to destroy their domain (1.7.6). By the time she took Vash, she knew that in his case, what anchored him out of her reach was his worshippers – so they had to go first(1.1.11). When she absorbed Vash’s soul into the soulknife, she had to check if it had worked first, she wasn’t sure (1.1.18).
So perhaps the Collector tried to take the Wyrm, believing that she wasn’t particularly anchored to anything – an upgraded nature god. She attacked her incarnation like she did with Vash, but the soulknife failed. Then she realized the Wyrm was protected by her connection to her worshippers. Since killing all the worshippers of this water dragon was impossible – they would flee and then she’d have to go after them – she instead tried to break their worship, by turning the Wyrm into a monster that attacked her own people. Except this also failed, because some of the merfolk and Sekrai still believe (or hope) that the Wyrm herself is still around, and still cares, but has just… lost control of her incarnation. So with this information, the Collector then found a god whose worshippers she could easily take out of the equation.
uh oh
Panel Eight is another fine piece of art and expression!
They forgot to take the wyrm out of its little water filled plastic bag and it died…….
the collector really is a cruel, cruel woman…..
HAHAHAHAHA
Eat your heart out, Nietzsche.
Best comment so far, methinks.
Selach: Not like there’s anything shallower than the surface for where you came from.
Alinua: How about being born on a chain of flying islands high up in the sky?
Selach: Ha ha, nice one elf-girl! (a few seconds of silence) Oh Byys you’re serious, aren’t you?
Loving all these different shots and angles of them swimming; really helps solidify that they’re moving in three dimensions and not walking on a plane. The simple backgrounds not only emphasise the ocean depths feel, but also draws all our attention to these two. A sensible move given how their colour pallets could easily blend into the ocean depths.
“All shallow mages are like that”. Were it not for tumblr lore expressly stating that Sekrai have poor resistance to the elemental winds, and prolonged exposure can adversely affect their minds, I’d say Selach was a little biased, maybe prejudiced. I get that there would be a feeling that shallow Sekrai are a bit odd, either due to the energies or their inability to move on after their people’s transformation, in the deeper merpeople’s zeitgeist.
“A little bit weird” Oh Selach, if only you knew just how weird the gang’s mages, and mage-like, members are.
Yeah, while I’m still hopeful the Wyrm can be helped, there’s still the very real possibility the Collector did succeed in taking her soul, and what’s rampaging now is a hollow shell. That may be why it’s still leaking life energy; without a soul to keep it together, the incarnation may need constant healing to continue existing.
Then again, I see no reason why the Collector would go to such lengths to keep an incarnation alive; maybe she’d do it for a while initially for her research, but why let it go on for so long? Plus it can still think and feel, being scared of Alinua during her transformation; I think you’d need some semblance of a soul to do that.
Selach explains their logic of ‘splaining
Ali wonders what yet of the Wyrm is remaining
And they were having such a romantic swim through the ocean
Oooh… I thought the merpeople were so water-oriented, they referred to everything that wasn’t the deeps as the shallows, including dry land.
Was also what I thought
Oh. Oh dear.
I had hoped that Alinua would be able to help or rescue the Wyrm somehow (the soul, though perhaps not the incarnation), but it may well be the Collector destroyed her or damaged her beyond repair. That would tally with what she’s done to other nature gods…
*thinks* it *might* be dead. Not a guarantee
The posing these last couple pages with Alinua hanging on to a swimming fish have been criminally underrated. I can feel the hug as they’re rocketing through the water. …Heck, all of the fish posing had been really good. And the fish designs. And- anyway I like this arc so far, can you tell?
I’m rereading the comic and JUST NOW realized red foreshadowed the wyrm’s connection to the collector lady back in February of last year
Oh no! I thought this would be like the chimera bear, pull the excess life out of it and it stops rampaging
I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen – when she did that the bear stopped rampaging, but it also *died*. At that point in the story, at least, Alinua only had enough power to put it out of its misery. Things might have changed, but a situation like the bear is probably exactly what she’s expecting.
Well, the chimera bear died when Alinua did that
He’s dead, Jim. 0 _ 0
Tumblr Text: well SOMEONE had to ask
Bluesky Text: it is wednesday my dudes
The action lines on the second to last panel are *chefs kiss*
You know… Maybe when you’re swimming with your new GF, that’s not something you wanta say.
have we ever gotten confirmation that Selach’s pronouns are she/her?
Gender the way we perceive it doesn’t quite apply to merfolk, so they all use she/they for simplicity’s sake, as confirmed by Red here: https://www.tumblr.com/comicaurora/742158876454109184/is-there-a-particular-reason-that-merfolk-use
Woah! That’s really cool, thanks!
I see the shipping has begun
although at this depth would it be submarining?
😂🤣 hahaha
Yup, I was ready for this, but it still sucks.
I’m pretty sure gods can’t die unless their locations are destroyed and forgotten.
alinua thinks the collector took the wyrm and presumably also took her apart, the way she took apart nature spirits and is taking apart vash. it doesn’t seem like the gods survive that, or if they do, they can’t really interact with the world anymore. the mountain spirit that she tried to put back together could barely hold an incarnation
I think some Miridia music would fit nicely in this arc, which is my favorite arc so far. Hats off to Red!
Apparently I meant MARidia. Maridia is the underwater area of Super Metroid. From what I’ve heard, it’s a very well executed drop to the bottom of the ocean, and it has really good music.
i like that the mermaids have different eyes due to having to live in the deep. it makes it feel more realistic 🙂
I have a sudden suspicion that Selach is somehow the Collector. Not sure if founded or just a conspiracy theory.
I thinks that one’s pushing it a bit, lol 😆
“Well, the last avatar I healed wasn’t fully usable by the god afterwards. But it turned out allright in the end.”
“The last avatar?!?”
Well, I got my copy of the published book, read it in a day, and then caught up to this newest page in the next three days! I love this story and these characters, I’m very excited to be sticking around for the rest of this journey now!
man i love mermaids, they’re so cool. Thanks red for drawing cool mermaid designs for me to look at