Bloodline 160
At last, page 160! Sorry for the lateness, there’s a lot going on this month. I’ll have a table setup at Furpocalypse this year in Connecticut, from October 28-30!
Unfortunately this probably means the next page will be delayed as well ><
Oh well, I’ll bring my tablet with me for the trip and play it by ear, I’d like to avoid skipping a week, especially while the story is this hectic!
Be sure to vote, New incentives every day until I make it through the 7 Halloween pics I drew this year’s stream! http://topwebcomics.com/vote/15334
Edit: Back from the convention! Boy an I exhausted. I’ve got a lot to do now that I’m back, including get the next page done and posted. Thanks for being patient!
Well, okay, fair is fair, that looks pretty bad. They did the whole checking for vitals and looking sad/distressed/offended thing. I mean, Sil’s eyes are closed, which is classically a thing that dead people don’t do, and the strike team might be close, and people can come back from some pretty scary things with medical care, but it looks bad. Also, romantic tension between minor characters, tried to be merciful in battle, being the sweet and innocent one of the group(with close competition from the stalker/political-officer mind you), and she was even the one that suggested camping early, which sort of caused this all to happen(although Veera was tracking them with a “message for Bernin” so she may have attacked regardless.)… Someone with more genre savvy than I would probably have seen Sil as a Deadmeat.
Poor Sil, hopefully she somehow lives 🙁
Personally, I hope Veera and Sil both make it out as active characters; they have a nice shadow archetype / foil thing going on :J
Veera and Sil going on to become rivals would be kind of cool. But Veera seems a bit to disciplined to have much of a rivalry with someone from the other team and Sil seems a bit too merciful to rival a demon. I am not certain if Cormac’s expression is “she’s gone for good” or just “this is really bad” or “better make this convincing so that the demon doesn’t finish her off” but things do look really bad for Sil right now, and Veera made the potentially fatal mistake of mentioning her father. Veera can die now while still giving the plot a new(Unless Flint is Veera’s father?) antagonist to work with.
Yeah, rivals would be unfitting — but “shadow archetype” and “foil” cover a lot more than “rivals”. (TVTropes links for those with time on their hands: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShadowArchetype http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Foil ) For example, if Veera doesn’t associate this with Sil personally, and Sil makes an effort to avoid Veera, they could never meet again and still serve as foils to each other.
But… I also said “hope”, and that’s because I don’t expect it to happen. Either of them could easily change enough from this encounter to become a shadow archetype(Veera) or foil(Sil) to Ember, and that’s at least more likely…
Please tell me Sil isn’t dead T_T
“Sil isn’t dead?” *sighs*
I am trying not to let my hopes rise. It looks really bad for Sil.
Narratively, Sil has another earring, which would be a shame to leave unexplored, but apparently anyone can use earrings, so that leaves it open for someone else to take it as a plot item for later. Reviving Sil would be a great way to show off the strike team that is probably due to appear soon, but it would be more effective as a motivation for Bernin who sort of caused this whole mess. Narratively it looks really really bad.
Practically, Sil’s eyes are closed, which doesn’t mean much in media. As a reader, she is magically attuned and trained and is very valuable. I could see her armour as being designed for mobility and not holding up to physical attacks, but the enchantments should be the best. This attack went through her armour with no effect upon it. Really, Sil should have been the most resistant of everyone to an instant metaphysical death attack(baring some sort of extreme weakness due to alignment or energy expenditure) so if Veera could swing these around at any time, why wait till now? But she could reasonably have been distracted by the others, and this was her first chance to focus on a single attack spell…
But hey, even if she doesn’t make it in canon, she can still live on in non-canon works!
I wouldn’t count on Ember saving anyone though. She seemed to be elsewhere and should be avoiding readers and greater demons. She also has some reason to avoid Bernin, though I doubt that she knows what he reads like…
Can anyone confidently read Cormac’s expression? I am sure that it is consistent with pretending to conclude that Sil is dead so as to mislead Veera… It is very well done, but sometimes expressions can be difficult to decipher.
Oh, and congrats to Veera for being scary. Taking down a whole(as if anyone counts Hillel) patrol plus Bernin without breaking character is quite impressive.
I hope that you are feeling well. Did the convention funk get you down?
Nope, just left me with a lot of work to do ^^;
But no worries, I’ve been working on that next page, and it’ll be done today or tomorrow. Then, we can get back to our weekly Wednesday updates! Story-wise, the timing for this convention break is unfortunate to say the least XD