. The vine quickly grows, snaking through the rock and holding it steady.
. “I see an opening!” Selach cries. “Hold it together!”
. “I-It’s working–” Alinua gasps, eyes screwed shut as she pours her power into the plant. She glances back at the Northern Wyrm as it looms to the side, enormous mouth open. “So why did it hurt her?”
. The Wyrm lunges forward, barely missing them and snapping the vine. Alinua and Selach are flung away as it slams into the ceiling again. . But Alinua gets too close, and the Wyrm’s skin splits open, revealing swirling green flesh beneath.
I’m not exactly sure what’s happening in the last two panels, hopefully we’ll get more information on Wednsday. I’ll come back and revise if needed.
Thwip, thap, thwap, thup; I see an opening, don’t let up!
I like that spiralling upwards magic and plant effect in the first panel; makes me think of bindweed and other climbing plants. Panel 3 is terrifying, giving me big Dragon-Tynan fear vibes, no matter how dynamic and heroic Selach is posing with the spear.
Oh! This isn’t a swinging vine, or a bungee vine; it’s a binding vine to keep the ceiling intact. Alinua’s certainly had experience using plants to break through stone while keeping it relatively intact, only this time, SHE’S the one at risk of falling rocks, among other things. Who knows? Maybe these falling rocks with vines could be the key in restraining the Wyrm.
I get why Alinua’s confused; if her plant shaping is working just fine, why did her touch cause such an adverse reaction earlier? Why has her simply knocking into the Wyrm in the final panel opened such a large gash?
Maybe the Wyrm is trying to de-incarnate but the life magic is preventing it, so when Alinua disrupts said magic the body starts breaking apart. Maybe it’s a failsafe the Collector added to prevent the Wyrm from attacking her.
I wonder… The Collector’s stated goal is to free all of Life from its various incarnations. She’s starting, logically, with beings who are bound up with a lot of Life energy. I guess swatting flies doesn’t free up much. She’s found the soul barrier to be a problem. But she has her soul knife now and is slashing away.
What if the Northern Wyrm is a failure of hers, an experiment that didn’t quite work? She was able to damage the soul barrier but discovered the Northern Wyrm was bound up in her people as much as Vash was bound up in his, and The Collector in this case didn’t — couldn’t — kill all the mer-people and so forth first? So the Northern Wyrm would be dead if she were ordinary, but she continues because her people continue.
Hence she looked for a place where she could drive all a god’s people into one place and kill the god’s connection to this world… and settled on Vash. Meanwhile, she just dropped the Northern Wyrm, losing interest when that attempt failed. She doesn’t care what it would do. But she would very interested if she saw what Alinua’s touch did.
If any of that speculation is correct, then the Wyrm’s life or death will be in the hands of her people.
From the looks of it and the panel before, Alinua was brushed/whacked against the side of the Wyrm, and that seemed to open up that green wound. Looks like Alinua doesn’t even need to consciously use her powers for her touch to cause harm to it.
Did Alinua touch it and disrupt it again, or something? At first I thought the Wyrm had caught them, then I took a closer look at that second to last panel, and it looks like Alinua and Selach just glanced off its face…
Ok, new probably-not-correct hypothesis: part of Alinua’s Become Aquatic Now transformation is the ability to deal massive damage to the Wyrm specifically, because it was attempting to eat her when the transformation kicked off and so that was another thing that Life decided to prevent. Again, this isn’t a very strong hypothesis, but it is An explanation.
Is this one of those “healing magic harms undead” situations? Did the Collector manage to make something with, like, inverted Life energy? Or at least something so messed up that normal healing just destroys it?
I think it’s probably something like that. It seems to me like chimerae function like normal bodies, but because the soul is prone to reject mutations and thus change the body back, a chimera needs loads more life energy at any given time to not break apart. Presumably a chimera that big and that mutated thus needs quite a lot of Life energy running through it at any given time to function. And Alinua disrupts the flow as a soul with compatible channels, especially now that she’s channeling. So this change means the mutations aren’t getting “recharged” and the body starts breaking apart. But this is all theory, so the deeplore people may want to interject.
Sing a sad song can’t think of a joke
~ sing a sad song and hope you don’t drown ~
Nice 😉
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: alinua’s in a survival horror meanwhile the northern wyrm is playing pacman
Image source: why
It’s really more like Snake, isn’t it?
Well… Alinua CAN hurt it just by touching it, so Pacman is pretty apt
tumblr text: :V
(Fine, I’ll do it myself.)
Bluesky text: this is fine!
. The vine quickly grows, snaking through the rock and holding it steady.
. “I see an opening!” Selach cries. “Hold it together!”
. “I-It’s working–” Alinua gasps, eyes screwed shut as she pours her power into the plant. She glances back at the Northern Wyrm as it looms to the side, enormous mouth open. “So why did it hurt her?”
. The Wyrm lunges forward, barely missing them and snapping the vine. Alinua and Selach are flung away as it slams into the ceiling again. . But Alinua gets too close, and the Wyrm’s skin splits open, revealing swirling green flesh beneath.
I’m not exactly sure what’s happening in the last two panels, hopefully we’ll get more information on Wednsday. I’ll come back and revise if needed.
only ever heard that “you had a bad day” song from that Alvin & the Chipmunks live-action, thank you for reminding me of that blursed movie
They’re almost through, and start pondering why
When the Wyrm cuts off, leaking glowy green dye
I think, at least? Is the Wyrm’s body dissolving?
Dissolving body
As likely as anything
Or glowing green dye?
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT IN THE LAST PANEL
it’s gooey I don’t like it.
The Wyrm dissolving once in contact with Alinua.
Maybe its all the negative space, maybe its the sfx covering everything, but I kinda can’t tell what’s happening
Alinua touched the Wyrm again and it mutated again!
Might be supposed to
A mystery to discuss
Seems unpleasant though
Are we about to play by old school fantasy rules where healing magic hurts the undead?
Seems like it!
‘Old school’?! That’s rules I grew up- ….oh.
Thwip, thap, thwap, thup; I see an opening, don’t let up!
I like that spiralling upwards magic and plant effect in the first panel; makes me think of bindweed and other climbing plants. Panel 3 is terrifying, giving me big Dragon-Tynan fear vibes, no matter how dynamic and heroic Selach is posing with the spear.
Oh! This isn’t a swinging vine, or a bungee vine; it’s a binding vine to keep the ceiling intact. Alinua’s certainly had experience using plants to break through stone while keeping it relatively intact, only this time, SHE’S the one at risk of falling rocks, among other things. Who knows? Maybe these falling rocks with vines could be the key in restraining the Wyrm.
I get why Alinua’s confused; if her plant shaping is working just fine, why did her touch cause such an adverse reaction earlier? Why has her simply knocking into the Wyrm in the final panel opened such a large gash?
Maybe the Wyrm is trying to de-incarnate but the life magic is preventing it, so when Alinua disrupts said magic the body starts breaking apart. Maybe it’s a failsafe the Collector added to prevent the Wyrm from attacking her.
I wonder… The Collector’s stated goal is to free all of Life from its various incarnations. She’s starting, logically, with beings who are bound up with a lot of Life energy. I guess swatting flies doesn’t free up much. She’s found the soul barrier to be a problem. But she has her soul knife now and is slashing away.
What if the Northern Wyrm is a failure of hers, an experiment that didn’t quite work? She was able to damage the soul barrier but discovered the Northern Wyrm was bound up in her people as much as Vash was bound up in his, and The Collector in this case didn’t — couldn’t — kill all the mer-people and so forth first? So the Northern Wyrm would be dead if she were ordinary, but she continues because her people continue.
Hence she looked for a place where she could drive all a god’s people into one place and kill the god’s connection to this world… and settled on Vash. Meanwhile, she just dropped the Northern Wyrm, losing interest when that attempt failed. She doesn’t care what it would do. But she would very interested if she saw what Alinua’s touch did.
If any of that speculation is correct, then the Wyrm’s life or death will be in the hands of her people.
I think that’s pretty logical, seeing as she told Vash she’d never acquired the soul of a god and that she KNEW to explode his city first.
Yes, and call me an optimist, but I really hope this means they can save the Northern Wyrm.
I’m not quite sure what’s happening in that last “Splut” panel.
From the looks of it and the panel before, Alinua was brushed/whacked against the side of the Wyrm, and that seemed to open up that green wound. Looks like Alinua doesn’t even need to consciously use her powers for her touch to cause harm to it.
splutabbles are splutting, that’s for sure
I think it’s about release a chimera… That shape looks three pettled…
Do you think it’ll explode into a bunch of smaller ones? It would let it send them into the crevasses after them.
If the Wyrm is playing pac-man, then Alinua is a ghost and the Wyrm does *not* have a power pellet…
The line in the last panel is green, neat!
Did Alinua touch it and disrupt it again, or something? At first I thought the Wyrm had caught them, then I took a closer look at that second to last panel, and it looks like Alinua and Selach just glanced off its face…
…it mitosed???
Ok, new probably-not-correct hypothesis: part of Alinua’s Become Aquatic Now transformation is the ability to deal massive damage to the Wyrm specifically, because it was attempting to eat her when the transformation kicked off and so that was another thing that Life decided to prevent. Again, this isn’t a very strong hypothesis, but it is An explanation.
Is this one of those “healing magic harms undead” situations? Did the Collector manage to make something with, like, inverted Life energy? Or at least something so messed up that normal healing just destroys it?
I think it’s probably something like that. It seems to me like chimerae function like normal bodies, but because the soul is prone to reject mutations and thus change the body back, a chimera needs loads more life energy at any given time to not break apart. Presumably a chimera that big and that mutated thus needs quite a lot of Life energy running through it at any given time to function. And Alinua disrupts the flow as a soul with compatible channels, especially now that she’s channeling. So this change means the mutations aren’t getting “recharged” and the body starts breaking apart. But this is all theory, so the deeplore people may want to interject.
So what if the solution is for Alinua to let herself get eaten
(Insert “its skin is just as thick from the inside” joke here)
Oh gods, can you imagine how much more gory that would be? I do NOT want to know what a Wyrm dissolving from the inside looks like.
Screw it, it might get buried, but this is as good as any place to put my aurora meme:
https://i.postimg.cc/Y2dTzPH1/IMG-0243.png
And I think this should make the link clickable?
Click here
ngl i have no idea whats happening on this page
“Why do you have to look hot why you insult me?!”
Now the Pacman sound is playing in my head while reading this page