Comic for Thursday, December 22nd
It seems negotiations did not proceed well. If it’s not clear, there is more than one dark armored fellow here – the one in panel 1,2,3 is different from the one in panel 5. The two halves the squad from earlier are both on site (minus the one that ran afoul of certain prototype…).
Kally probably didn’t need to see what happened to Naomi to want nothing to do with shenanigans from behind, though a ethereral shield is more effective against bullets than null casters (it is, in fact, not very effective at all against null casters). Kally is unsuited for the more point defense sort of magic, so tends to shore up her weaknesses. An animated ethereal tends to be somewhat autonomous. Kally does not, for example, need to tell the dragon “if some dude is coming at me, bite the that dude”; that’s built into the spell that summons it (intentionally or otherwise); though Kally can control it more directly, it tends to be more “go bite that guy” rather than the nuances of moving a dragon with four legs and wings and all. This is the same reason that Ila uses a hand – a hand can be commanded to “grab” or “flick” very easily as that’s the sort of things that hands do. Trying to do the same thing with an abstract shape would be much harder. I’ll get to cover a little bit more on this next page.
Your eyes are not deceiving you. The buffer is now at FOUR comics. That’s two weeks! If I can hit 6 by Jan, that means there will be no January break when I go traveling! I still can’t guarantee that, as I have to deal with Christmas and what not coming up, and don’t actually have the next week off work. It is actually a little offputting for me to update out of the buffer. I am always more excited about pages closer to drawing them, so drawing pages that people won’t see for weeks I don’t like as well (I’ll get used to it, but eh, I do like to complain!). We’ve achieved this progress through the deregulation of coffee. It is amazing how much more I can get done with more coffee, particularly in lifting the no-coffee-after-work ban (it was actually no coffee after 5pm, but it boiled down to the same thing most days). Minus Years will be getting it’s second page this weekend.
PS: I don’t know if I will get a chance to explain too much depth in the mechanics of null casters. I recommend it as a question for a future Q&A if there is curiosity.
I feel there was something else I was supposed to mention at this commentary, but it’s already sleepy time and… Zzz..zzzz…zzzz.
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This reminds me of something.
“This is not a fight… You are being stopped.” (still one of my favourite quotes of all time)
Haha, well… Kally is thinking around similar lines 😉
Now THIS is a dragon! ^^ This is also what I mean when I say that your artwork is improving. Q. as they say, E.D. 🙂
(Sorry about the silence. My computer died again, and I’m making do with an unfamiliar Chromebook. ><)
Welcome back! Well, hopefully webcomics are chrome-book friendly as you’ve been missed! (a whole comic without Delta-v, it was a dark age indeed! 😉 ). Is it time for a new computer or back to the repair shop?
I’m sure you’ve got quite the backlog with your reading list missing a day or two… 😀
New computer. If I get the same model, I may be able to salvage the old hard drive.
And, yeah, I’m still not caught up. I’m going most important first. 🙂
omg is this real life?? we got Ila with raindeer[sic^^] antlers?? you did remember me for christmas after all ^.^
you know what I am going to ask for now, right? pls pls~ ^^
Sigh. Done. So greedy! 😐
If anyone else wants an updated avatar, just let me know the character/scene or I can doodle up a new one (within reason). It’s just associated to w/e email address you use to post here for this site.
Hmm, can I have an avatar of Peter looking like he is thinking hard about something? A picture of Peter pondering?
How’s that? Couldn’t find a recent example of a puzzled Peter that’d be easy to isolate, so doodled one out. Hope you enjoy!
Perfect! Thank you very much!
Well you answered some of my questions about constructs and their autonomy, very cool. I would like to ask a clarification though, what set of information do constructs act on? Do they react to only what the caster can see/think is there or can they “see” for themselves and attack someone who the caster was unaware of?
They are not necessarily linked to the senses of the caster in the case that they have eyes/ears/etc. This is something I actually talked around a little above because it will… ah… probably come up in the near future 😉
I wonder if the area is evacuated? I would assume no. The level of destruction of the fight is definitely escalating with Kally there. Peter thought that she would not be able to go all out at Levenworth being the middle of the school, but this might be just as bad in the bystander/property damage column.
I think it’s safe to say Kally would probably avoid laying swath to a city block if possible… battle only requires one side to escalate though…
Yes that is definately the kinds of things a dragon named Fluffy would do. Hmmm, maybe Kally’s Liet Motif should be Black Magic Woman?
great now i have to drive over to my dad’s and find his record with that song on it…
fluffy… yeah thats a good little fluffy. and im surprised that naomi isnt “helping” the negotiations. yeah her arm is a tinny bit not working. but thats no excuse for not helping.
When Kally showed up she basically said “stand back, I got this.” Even if Naomi is not really the sort of “stand back” sort, she probably does not want to make a three way battle, especially as it sounds like Kally stopping the IDS is part of Peter’s contingencies (to convince Malsa the IDS is not unified and can be played against itself).
Of course, if Kally has trouble I am sure that some combination of Naomi, Ila and Mium (as he should be back online) will ensure that Peter’s narrative is followed and the CA/SC forces are beaten back into the hole they crawled out of.
I think there is a decent chance we will get the fight we were denied back at the parking lot, besides it will be Naomi/Kally/Ila vs a full squad of SC. A little more fair, but still not fair. If Kally even needs help. She has basically had “person of doom” warning labels the whole comic. She’s the only one with a title.
“Fluffy”? 😐
When the original question of the dragon’s name came up on the 12th someone (no need to point fingers) suggested asking Peter and it seemed to me the kind of name he would give him to annoy Kalli. You should put it on the cast page because I would so update the Leitmotif list and give him “Peter and the Wolf” as I suspect you are partial to classical music.
To address the gendering of magical constructs again see Peter, the deliberately annoying.