unfortunately, i did see that coming 🙁
Merlin would have an easier time of explaining Arthur’s “death” (i imagine he has an heir??)
But i wonder if Nic is going to tell the people of Dreamland that thier king was murdered by the same horrible humans he wanted to bring into Dreamland.
YAY! First!
Stinking nightmare wraiths – so it WAS Nick’s idea all along ….
Is Dreamland supposed to exterminate the Nightmare realm? Or are they supposed to coexist?
Nightmares are natural inhabitants of a dreamworld. “Evil” creatures or not, would you really care to see our “good” people genocide an entire kingdom of sentients?
I’m not so sure it was ol’ Nics idea. The wraiths may have planned it, and this one may have been making a rhetorical comment. They may go to Nic with the results as a fait accompli?
I was going to ask how the sword knew all this, but then I remembered it is with Arthur!
Now, can’t wait to see where they stash the body(ies) of Merlin both in Camelot and Dreamland!!!
That’s assuming Nic new that interrupting the spell would kill (OK, ban forever) his King. And that Nic got the information about the magic procedure in advance and had no opportunity to discuss it with Arthur.
Until proven wrong I see it like this:
Wraith: Nic, we got intelligence that Arthur is making the spell right now
Nic: dammned. Can we stop it before it is too late?
Wraith: Sure, we can go there and disable the magicians on both sides
Nic: OK, do it.
I really want Nic to be not evil at this point. And to be corrupted by regrets (“I should have been more persuasive”. A decade later: “He would never have listened”, Then: “He was stubborn and rightfully kicked”, Finally “I did not do anything, really. He did it onto himself. Let’s correct history”) and power.
That would add real depth to the story, going beyond stereotypes of TBG (The Bad Guy).
the second the centaur explained that if either of them stopped chanting, Arthur would be stuck, i was like “uh-oh”
but yeah, how DID the wraiths get into the waking world? they could’ve just killed the centaur and 1 side would still have stopped, right? what’s the difference between 1 person stopping vs 2 people stopping?
and i didn’t know ppl dies in this story T_T
Also in response to Aileen, just like Scott said a few days ago, and as it was repeated by some of the comments wraiths have the hability to travel between worlds (I couldn’t find the original phrase). And also, It’s always better to have a backup plan, if the guys on dreamland for any reason failed to stop the enchantment and there was no one on *this* world trying to do the same thing, then it’d be wasting the best chance they could have. Of course they could have failed in both worlds, I mean, the could ahve been zapped by… the ghotsbusters?
Anyway, since it’s my first comment in HISTORY, I guess I should say I really like this story, and even though I was reluctant to accept this 3D illustration, I’ve grown rather fond of it.
So keep it up Scott! And don’t worry if you can’t upload somedays, here’s hoping you’re doing just fine.
Aww poor centaur. And poor Arthur. He was just trying to help his kingdom, and now he’s stuck between worlds. I wonder if Alex is going to have to free him, and if he does what happens then? Will Arthur be king of Dreamland, or will Alex?
Wait! Doesn’t he get a Concentration check to maintain the spell?! And I thought centaurs had racial hit dice! He should have way more than enough HP to take one hit!
I can see how some would think it would add depth to the story if Nic weren’t all bad, but one must also consider that Dragons are supposed to be pretty brainy. If he didn’t know what the wraiths were going to do, it would make him out to be a bit of an idiot. If you send trained pitbulls out for quarry, do you really expect them not to take a bite? No, it makes more sense to see the dragon as a member of the nightmare realm all along, masquerading as an adviser for the good of the king. Leaders rarely assume the role as double agents so in the originality of that concept, I don’t think Nic fits the usual stereotype of other villainous masterminds. For me, there is actually an added depth from that perspective. Course, that’s IF this is really what’s happening… 😉
You can see a human body beneath the cloak in the third panel, so I assume they have a similar history to the Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings: they were once human who sold their soul to darkness, perhaps willingly as these wraiths clearly have their mind and intelligence where as the Ringwraiths’ whole purpose was to get the Ring for Sauron and not obey their own wills.
Though for two shaman/wizard types, they didn’t take into account one of the basics of big spells:
HAVE GUARDS.
Any interruption was potentially disasterous. Both knew there were elements that could potentially want to stop the spell. Why did they not have the foresight to have some trusted guards watching their backs? A couple of centaurs standing guard in dreamland to protect their shaman, and a couple of knights standing guard to watch merlin’s back…..and it would have been a battle (and in my opinion, more dramatic (if a few extra pages) end. Just as the spell is reaching completion, one of the wraiths sacrifices itself so the other can get in a shot in BOTH worlds, one throwing a dagger into the centaur shaman’s back, and another getting past the knights to reach Arthur, and Merlin frying him to protect Arthur….but at the cost of Arthur being trapped between worlds.
It would have added a few pages, but would have made the event seem a little less anti-climactic to me.
Still, I’m betting the wraiths did this without the knowlege or consent of Nic. They knew Nic would not support such an action. Nic is a politician…..yes, a huge, powerful, and scaly politician, but still a politician. The wraiths will claim there was no time for subtlety, and they had to act. And since they didn’t have time to consult Nic, the felt they had to act. Of course, they arranged it that way…..and Nic will be angry, but will side with them that it had to be done. (hopefully he’ll smack a few around first….for taking matters into their own hands without consulting him first.)
Nic will come to see the act as the only alternative to a dreamland civil war, and as that progresses, he will come to view humans as spiteful, greedy, arrogant, and even potentially evil creatures (from his viewpoint) that have no place in Dreamland, only excepting children as fodder for the nightmare realm (and somewhat reluctantly at that.)
Is it just me or in the second panel does it look as though the centaur has a hooked scar that goes down his right arm (left to our perspective)?
Super sad (but not surprised) that the centaur was killed. I, too, am curious as to what will happen with the body(ies) in the waking world and Dreamland. Will his waking world body wither away and die? Will his Dreamland body be able to maintain some sort of stasis?
I think the reason they didn’t have guards is they felt that secrecy was more important. If they had guards Nicodemus would know that they were up to something.
Hmm…on closer inspection I think that the ‘scar’ is actually one of the centaur’s fingers. It just blends into the rest of his body due to the lighting in the scene.
I am going to complain for just a moment, please forgive me.
The overuse of flashbacks to explain what is happening in the present is a pet peeve of mine. Flashbacks should be short, concise, and leave questions. This one feels like it has gone on to long and tries to answer ever little thing. It just ruins the pacing for me and tarnishes the mystery in a plot.
Is there anything to say but WOW? This page gives me shivers!!!
Apparently there is more to say. It really seems like this plan was not terribly well thought out. I guess secrecy must have been essential, cause otherwise why no bodyguards for the spell casters? Then again, the wraiths are the ultimate assassins, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered.
Just a thought for the movie though, Arthur had his knights and centaurs are not exactly weaklings. There probably would have been back-up. It still would have ended up this way so why not make it a little more solid by having the back up and just having them killed first. You know, a montage of shadows with glinting knives and falling bodies, then the events of this page.
Sorry for putting my oar in like this, but it would just seem to make more sense. This is Arthur and Merlin we are talking about after all.
I agree somewhat. But when you think that a first time reader online or in book form will probably blow through the entire flashback sequence in a few minutes, it is actually fairly short. It just seems excruciatingly long due to the posting schedule – a page per day instead of a page per few seconds.
Hope you have people you know who are good with computers, cause this isn’t looking so good, no Antivirus warnings anymore, but the page won’t let me navigate anywhere without this one javascript file. If you want a hand I write code for a living, so I could help, just an offer.
Kick the malware’s butt into oblivion, Scott. We who read you from across the seas salute you and send you your best. Warm hugs and the best wishes, dude.
(probably some envious loser who can’t appreciate good art did it… keep on strong!)
Though right now (11PM PST), this is the fastest and smoothest the site has ever ran for me. I cringe at the idea of a lot of superfluous stuff slowing down my browser and making my computer sound like a crashing harrier because of the overload.
But having guards in the physical world would be good right? unless they appeared right there in the room or managed to get thought the guards somehow, magic? A wizard did it!
I put a lot of work into 2.9.2 of comicpress (which this is using) which speeds things up quite a bit, not to mention the external scripts, advertising and everything are not all loaded yet.
Wouldn’t it be nice if advertising could be localized, heh.
Is it just me, or does it look like to you that the centaur gets stabbed to his neck…?
I mean, it would be more convincing that he would get stabbed to his back… Though stabbing through his arteries that run in the neck may kill him faster…
If I were a wraith bent on stopping inter-world travel, I’d definitely try to take out both magicians. They’re the ones with the expertise, after all, and they might try again with a new partner.
Are the wraiths talking to Nicodemus in person? If not I was expecting someting like: “It is done” or “Nicodemus will be pleased”. But this one suggests that Nic was watching! And that would mean the end of my tiny bit of affection for the dragon.
What are they going to do with the body? Let me guess… a secret cave + a tombstone = RIP
PS: I was yelling in bed: “Begone flies!” to the little beasties that were bugging me. Sadly no dramatic lightning effects appeared. I’ll try again tomorrow.
The plot unfolds!
Merlin is spared so he can protect Arthur’s body.
The magic bracelet is formed in the wake world.
And maybe the body and the bracelet were put together by Merlin in order to be preserved and protected.
The last panel raises again a question:
Is Nic aware of what’s going on and the Wraiths just talk to themselves?
Or Nic is behind all these and watching hidden behind a shadow? (remember how he present himself when the boy Alex drew the Sword)
ah ic… thanks for the explanation =) My bad for not reading comments these past couple of days ^^; But so not fair! So wraiths can already travel freely btwn worlds and they’re stopping humans from doing the same? So selfish! ><
I actually did take that into account it’s a matter of the volume of material covered. When your flashback becomes it’s own encapsulated story in it’s own right its too long. The secret to story telling is knowing what to cut after all.
Dragons are brainy and arrogant. It is the second part that gets them in trouble. that arrogant streak tends to make them not bother double to check if they be suckered, because they believe themselves to smart for “lesser” beings to out think.
Scott, sounds like you are living the “When it rains it pours” life.
Good luck getting it all up and running again. Some times things 9computers) run better when you have to start over from scratch, gives you a chance to clean out some deadwood by only installing what you are currently using. I help folks get rid of malware/virus stuff on the side, so I can relate to what you guys are going through.
Hang in there, and know that we are looking forward to your return!
Alas, the lost time spent cleaning up after others…
Yet another proof of the fallen state of humanity. I sometimes can’t blame Nicodemus for not wanting more humans wandering through Dreamland to cause problems.
The only beef I have with him is the means he took to get his end.
After all this time you still deliver a great story and awesome artwork. Thank you. As for the pacing of the story, well i’ve read alot of books in my time, mostly fantasy and sci-fi and I have to say there are alot of parts in any of the books that slows the story down a bit. I think, if done right it helps adds to the story because it give the reader a chance to digest everything and absorb it versus just charging through it. I personally like to imagine a story as i read it and so far i can see the characters in this story coming to life. What i do is if i think the pacing of a story is to long i wait a few days inbetween when i read it, sometimes going a couple of weeks at a time that way it doesnt stall for me. If i find it to long and boring for me i stop reading it. Sometimes the story just has to say hold it i need to explain this.
Ok, well. Wow. Not expecting this one. Seems like all the webcomics I read are getting twisted right about now. Just learned something really surprising and unexpected in the Phoenix Requiem by Sarah Ellerton. Not saying what it is, in case any of you all read it and haven’t seen the most recent update. Anyway, keep up the good work Scott, I really love the comic. It’s nice to be able to read something that doesn’t get boring due to entire pages of descriptions.
Actually spellguards would have been the most effective method. Physical guards wouldn’t have done much since the wraiths could appear “shadowy” until they needed to attack. We’ve seen such spellguards in the beginning where only a human could enter the tomb (probably had been ordered to be done by Nic). Guarding the tomb that way would have been much better, however, their current spell might not have worked (depending on the properties of the spellguard and the spell they were casting).
All the hackers I know are Ethical Hackers: they get paid to break into systems/programs, tell the client how they did it and what they need to do to patch it. In some cases, they will even help ya fix it…for an additional fee…
The guards could have been posted outside and not told what they were guarding. This way this page wouldn’t change at all. You would just need another one before it to show the guards being killed. But maybe this did happen and the sword did not see it. It seems likely though that Arthur would have thought Merlin would be safe (becuses arthur didn’t know about the wraths power) and that Nic wouldn’t do anything against the king’s wishes.
Because of the complicated nature of this spell I think that the centuar was considered helpless, thus it was a coup de grace with sneak attack damage, and he failed his fort. save (death ending the spell). Merlin is obviously an epic level wizard, so he took an epic feat to keep from being helpless.
Almost all done putting the site back together.
I should hopefully be able to post an update tomorrow afternoon at the latest.
Thanks for your patience while we deal with this.
As we can see from the panels the bracelet is gone form the hands of Arthur in Dreamland.
We can’t see what’s going on in the real world.
If the bracelet is formed in the real world i can suppose that maybe Merlin will use it to travel in Dreamland with the body of Arthur in order to protect it there!!!
Looks like the wraith got the abdominal aorta to me. You looks consciousness pretty quick from one of those. It takes only a few minutes to bleed to death.
I’m assuming that part of a centaur’s anatomy is comparable to a human’s.
Ouch, did not see that coming! Then again, he was concentraiting on the spell. And so begins the eval reign of Nicodemus
lol wnt back to yesterday’s comments.. now I see why I am the FIRST to post! An event unheard of in the history of Dreamland! 🙂
unfortunately, i did see that coming 🙁
Merlin would have an easier time of explaining Arthur’s “death” (i imagine he has an heir??)
But i wonder if Nic is going to tell the people of Dreamland that thier king was murdered by the same horrible humans he wanted to bring into Dreamland.
YAY! First!
Stinking nightmare wraiths – so it WAS Nick’s idea all along ….
Is Dreamland supposed to exterminate the Nightmare realm? Or are they supposed to coexist?
Nightmares are natural inhabitants of a dreamworld. “Evil” creatures or not, would you really care to see our “good” people genocide an entire kingdom of sentients?
I sad for the centaur. Those creatures are some of my favorites.
I’m not so sure it was ol’ Nics idea. The wraiths may have planned it, and this one may have been making a rhetorical comment. They may go to Nic with the results as a fait accompli?
I was going to ask how the sword knew all this, but then I remembered it is with Arthur!
Now, can’t wait to see where they stash the body(ies) of Merlin both in Camelot and Dreamland!!!
Wait, how did the wraiths get into the waking world?
That’s assuming Nic new that interrupting the spell would kill (OK, ban forever) his King. And that Nic got the information about the magic procedure in advance and had no opportunity to discuss it with Arthur.
Until proven wrong I see it like this:
Wraith: Nic, we got intelligence that Arthur is making the spell right now
Nic: dammned. Can we stop it before it is too late?
Wraith: Sure, we can go there and disable the magicians on both sides
Nic: OK, do it.
I really want Nic to be not evil at this point. And to be corrupted by regrets (“I should have been more persuasive”. A decade later: “He would never have listened”, Then: “He was stubborn and rightfully kicked”, Finally “I did not do anything, really. He did it onto himself. Let’s correct history”) and power.
That would add real depth to the story, going beyond stereotypes of TBG (The Bad Guy).
the second the centaur explained that if either of them stopped chanting, Arthur would be stuck, i was like “uh-oh”
but yeah, how DID the wraiths get into the waking world? they could’ve just killed the centaur and 1 side would still have stopped, right? what’s the difference between 1 person stopping vs 2 people stopping?
and i didn’t know ppl dies in this story T_T
Interesting. So does Arthur’s spirit remain in the tomb like an invisible ghost or does it remain elsewhere?
Apparently it’s a unique ability of theirs.
Any more details are just window dressing.
That wraith has an unexpectedly human-looking hand. I guess I was expecting something more … “monster-y” … but it works.
Don’t forget to VOTE! http://topwebcomics.com/vote/4274/default.aspx
Also in response to Aileen, just like Scott said a few days ago, and as it was repeated by some of the comments wraiths have the hability to travel between worlds (I couldn’t find the original phrase). And also, It’s always better to have a backup plan, if the guys on dreamland for any reason failed to stop the enchantment and there was no one on *this* world trying to do the same thing, then it’d be wasting the best chance they could have. Of course they could have failed in both worlds, I mean, the could ahve been zapped by… the ghotsbusters?
Anyway, since it’s my first comment in HISTORY, I guess I should say I really like this story, and even though I was reluctant to accept this 3D illustration, I’ve grown rather fond of it.
So keep it up Scott! And don’t worry if you can’t upload somedays, here’s hoping you’re doing just fine.
Aww poor centaur. And poor Arthur. He was just trying to help his kingdom, and now he’s stuck between worlds. I wonder if Alex is going to have to free him, and if he does what happens then? Will Arthur be king of Dreamland, or will Alex?
Wait! Doesn’t he get a Concentration check to maintain the spell?! And I thought centaurs had racial hit dice! He should have way more than enough HP to take one hit!
Maybe not if it was a critical hit with thieving or assassin abilities, (back stabbing at double damage)…
I can see how some would think it would add depth to the story if Nic weren’t all bad, but one must also consider that Dragons are supposed to be pretty brainy. If he didn’t know what the wraiths were going to do, it would make him out to be a bit of an idiot. If you send trained pitbulls out for quarry, do you really expect them not to take a bite? No, it makes more sense to see the dragon as a member of the nightmare realm all along, masquerading as an adviser for the good of the king. Leaders rarely assume the role as double agents so in the originality of that concept, I don’t think Nic fits the usual stereotype of other villainous masterminds. For me, there is actually an added depth from that perspective. Course, that’s IF this is really what’s happening… 😉
You can see a human body beneath the cloak in the third panel, so I assume they have a similar history to the Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings: they were once human who sold their soul to darkness, perhaps willingly as these wraiths clearly have their mind and intelligence where as the Ringwraiths’ whole purpose was to get the Ring for Sauron and not obey their own wills.
Hmmn…saw it coming.
Though for two shaman/wizard types, they didn’t take into account one of the basics of big spells:
HAVE GUARDS.
Any interruption was potentially disasterous. Both knew there were elements that could potentially want to stop the spell. Why did they not have the foresight to have some trusted guards watching their backs? A couple of centaurs standing guard in dreamland to protect their shaman, and a couple of knights standing guard to watch merlin’s back…..and it would have been a battle (and in my opinion, more dramatic (if a few extra pages) end. Just as the spell is reaching completion, one of the wraiths sacrifices itself so the other can get in a shot in BOTH worlds, one throwing a dagger into the centaur shaman’s back, and another getting past the knights to reach Arthur, and Merlin frying him to protect Arthur….but at the cost of Arthur being trapped between worlds.
It would have added a few pages, but would have made the event seem a little less anti-climactic to me.
Still, I’m betting the wraiths did this without the knowlege or consent of Nic. They knew Nic would not support such an action. Nic is a politician…..yes, a huge, powerful, and scaly politician, but still a politician. The wraiths will claim there was no time for subtlety, and they had to act. And since they didn’t have time to consult Nic, the felt they had to act. Of course, they arranged it that way…..and Nic will be angry, but will side with them that it had to be done. (hopefully he’ll smack a few around first….for taking matters into their own hands without consulting him first.)
Nic will come to see the act as the only alternative to a dreamland civil war, and as that progresses, he will come to view humans as spiteful, greedy, arrogant, and even potentially evil creatures (from his viewpoint) that have no place in Dreamland, only excepting children as fodder for the nightmare realm (and somewhat reluctantly at that.)
Is it just me or in the second panel does it look as though the centaur has a hooked scar that goes down his right arm (left to our perspective)?
Super sad (but not surprised) that the centaur was killed. I, too, am curious as to what will happen with the body(ies) in the waking world and Dreamland. Will his waking world body wither away and die? Will his Dreamland body be able to maintain some sort of stasis?
I think the reason they didn’t have guards is they felt that secrecy was more important. If they had guards Nicodemus would know that they were up to something.
I think that is his thumb. It does look rather like a scar though.
Hmm…on closer inspection I think that the ‘scar’ is actually one of the centaur’s fingers. It just blends into the rest of his body due to the lighting in the scene.
I am going to complain for just a moment, please forgive me.
The overuse of flashbacks to explain what is happening in the present is a pet peeve of mine. Flashbacks should be short, concise, and leave questions. This one feels like it has gone on to long and tries to answer ever little thing. It just ruins the pacing for me and tarnishes the mystery in a plot.
Sorry.
So, is Arthur still conscious? Can he see anything in either world? Or just a blank void that will surely drive him mad?
Holy. Crap.
So glad I was completely right. Whack the shaman WAS a great game of those times…
DISCONNECTED ERROR!
Error 629: The Port Was Disconnected by the Nightmare Creatures.
Is there anything to say but WOW? This page gives me shivers!!!
Apparently there is more to say. It really seems like this plan was not terribly well thought out. I guess secrecy must have been essential, cause otherwise why no bodyguards for the spell casters? Then again, the wraiths are the ultimate assassins, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered.
Just a thought for the movie though, Arthur had his knights and centaurs are not exactly weaklings. There probably would have been back-up. It still would have ended up this way so why not make it a little more solid by having the back up and just having them killed first. You know, a montage of shadows with glinting knives and falling bodies, then the events of this page.
Sorry for putting my oar in like this, but it would just seem to make more sense. This is Arthur and Merlin we are talking about after all.
I agree somewhat. But when you think that a first time reader online or in book form will probably blow through the entire flashback sequence in a few minutes, it is actually fairly short. It just seems excruciatingly long due to the posting schedule – a page per day instead of a page per few seconds.
Just thought I should tell you, a malicious url has wormed its way into your page. I keep getting alarms from my antivirus on your site.
Someone seems to have screwed up the site.
I’m trying to track it down.
Sorry.
backstab, and flatfooted for the centaur…. yeaaaa i’d say he can be taken out in one hit ;P
Hope you have people you know who are good with computers, cause this isn’t looking so good, no Antivirus warnings anymore, but the page won’t let me navigate anywhere without this one javascript file. If you want a hand I write code for a living, so I could help, just an offer.
Thanks Dan.
Most of what’s missing was done intenionally. We needed to remove everything.
Now it’s just a matter of putting it back.
Yikes.
🙁
But thank you again for the offer.
Hey all.
It seems we got rid of whatever mal-ware that was attacking the site.
But in doing so…lost a lot of the site’s design and functionality.
My buddy Phil Hofer is going to help me get it back to working order.
Thanks for your patience.
And if you know a hacker…please kick him in the grapes for me.
So sad! Favorite Dreamland Chronicles strip so far.
Oh, not the centaur!!! 🙁
Kick the malware’s butt into oblivion, Scott. We who read you from across the seas salute you and send you your best. Warm hugs and the best wishes, dude.
(probably some envious loser who can’t appreciate good art did it… keep on strong!)
Though right now (11PM PST), this is the fastest and smoothest the site has ever ran for me. I cringe at the idea of a lot of superfluous stuff slowing down my browser and making my computer sound like a crashing harrier because of the overload.
But having guards in the physical world would be good right? unless they appeared right there in the room or managed to get thought the guards somehow, magic? A wizard did it!
I put a lot of work into 2.9.2 of comicpress (which this is using) which speeds things up quite a bit, not to mention the external scripts, advertising and everything are not all loaded yet.
Wouldn’t it be nice if advertising could be localized, heh.
Is it just me, or does it look like to you that the centaur gets stabbed to his neck…?
I mean, it would be more convincing that he would get stabbed to his back… Though stabbing through his arteries that run in the neck may kill him faster…
If I were a wraith bent on stopping inter-world travel, I’d definitely try to take out both magicians. They’re the ones with the expertise, after all, and they might try again with a new partner.
Plus the centaur was a mage — aren’t they all glass cannons?
Well, at least according to legend, Arthur is off sleeping on an island somewhere… right?
Ditto RE: pacing. Always have to remind myself of that when reading online for this story.
Are the wraiths talking to Nicodemus in person? If not I was expecting someting like: “It is done” or “Nicodemus will be pleased”. But this one suggests that Nic was watching! And that would mean the end of my tiny bit of affection for the dragon.
What are they going to do with the body? Let me guess… a secret cave + a tombstone = RIP
PS: I was yelling in bed: “Begone flies!” to the little beasties that were bugging me. Sadly no dramatic lightning effects appeared. I’ll try again tomorrow.
So the spell worked? The bracelet made it to the real world?
Does Arthur get trapped in the sword? What happens to his body? And how does the cavern end up sealed? Hm…
The plot unfolds!
Merlin is spared so he can protect Arthur’s body.
The magic bracelet is formed in the wake world.
And maybe the body and the bracelet were put together by Merlin in order to be preserved and protected.
The last panel raises again a question:
Is Nic aware of what’s going on and the Wraiths just talk to themselves?
Or Nic is behind all these and watching hidden behind a shadow? (remember how he present himself when the boy Alex drew the Sword)
ah ic… thanks for the explanation =) My bad for not reading comments these past couple of days ^^; But so not fair! So wraiths can already travel freely btwn worlds and they’re stopping humans from doing the same? So selfish! ><
I actually did take that into account it’s a matter of the volume of material covered. When your flashback becomes it’s own encapsulated story in it’s own right its too long. The secret to story telling is knowing what to cut after all.
Like I said it’s a pet peeve of mine.
Hiding in the shadow would be uncharacteristic of the Nic we know from Arthur’s time!
Dragons are brainy and arrogant. It is the second part that gets them in trouble. that arrogant streak tends to make them not bother double to check if they be suckered, because they believe themselves to smart for “lesser” beings to out think.
It always seems to surprise them when it happens.
Scott, sounds like you are living the “When it rains it pours” life.
Good luck getting it all up and running again. Some times things 9computers) run better when you have to start over from scratch, gives you a chance to clean out some deadwood by only installing what you are currently using. I help folks get rid of malware/virus stuff on the side, so I can relate to what you guys are going through.
Hang in there, and know that we are looking forward to your return!
XD
But the braclet was disappearing from the waking world and appearing in dreamland… so where is it now?
Ooooh… the Centaur rolled a natural 1… that’s gonna sti….
Yep…
Alas, the lost time spent cleaning up after others…
Yet another proof of the fallen state of humanity. I sometimes can’t blame Nicodemus for not wanting more humans wandering through Dreamland to cause problems.
The only beef I have with him is the means he took to get his end.
After all this time you still deliver a great story and awesome artwork. Thank you. As for the pacing of the story, well i’ve read alot of books in my time, mostly fantasy and sci-fi and I have to say there are alot of parts in any of the books that slows the story down a bit. I think, if done right it helps adds to the story because it give the reader a chance to digest everything and absorb it versus just charging through it. I personally like to imagine a story as i read it and so far i can see the characters in this story coming to life. What i do is if i think the pacing of a story is to long i wait a few days inbetween when i read it, sometimes going a couple of weeks at a time that way it doesnt stall for me. If i find it to long and boring for me i stop reading it. Sometimes the story just has to say hold it i need to explain this.
Ok, well. Wow. Not expecting this one. Seems like all the webcomics I read are getting twisted right about now. Just learned something really surprising and unexpected in the Phoenix Requiem by Sarah Ellerton. Not saying what it is, in case any of you all read it and haven’t seen the most recent update. Anyway, keep up the good work Scott, I really love the comic. It’s nice to be able to read something that doesn’t get boring due to entire pages of descriptions.
so wait… king arthur slept in his boots?
At first I thought the wraith had just pulled the centaur’s hair really really hard.
But then he died, so that doesn’t seem to have been the case after all. :p
Actually spellguards would have been the most effective method. Physical guards wouldn’t have done much since the wraiths could appear “shadowy” until they needed to attack. We’ve seen such spellguards in the beginning where only a human could enter the tomb (probably had been ordered to be done by Nic). Guarding the tomb that way would have been much better, however, their current spell might not have worked (depending on the properties of the spellguard and the spell they were casting).
All the hackers I know are Ethical Hackers: they get paid to break into systems/programs, tell the client how they did it and what they need to do to patch it. In some cases, they will even help ya fix it…for an additional fee…
That looks more like part of their outfit or armor rather than a human body. Although the hand doesn’t seem right. Could be a weird gauntlet though.
Said “Be gone Cat” and the cat jumped into my lap
The guards could have been posted outside and not told what they were guarding. This way this page wouldn’t change at all. You would just need another one before it to show the guards being killed. But maybe this did happen and the sword did not see it. It seems likely though that Arthur would have thought Merlin would be safe (becuses arthur didn’t know about the wraths power) and that Nic wouldn’t do anything against the king’s wishes.
Remember what happened when Alex went to sleep in his boxers? You don’t look very Kingly padding around in socks.
He pulled his hair really, REALLY hard!
🙂
Because of the complicated nature of this spell I think that the centuar was considered helpless, thus it was a coup de grace with sneak attack damage, and he failed his fort. save (death ending the spell). Merlin is obviously an epic level wizard, so he took an epic feat to keep from being helpless.
Almost all done putting the site back together.
I should hopefully be able to post an update tomorrow afternoon at the latest.
Thanks for your patience while we deal with this.
Wouldn’t that just get you Grapes of Wrath?
As we can see from the panels the bracelet is gone form the hands of Arthur in Dreamland.
We can’t see what’s going on in the real world.
If the bracelet is formed in the real world i can suppose that maybe Merlin will use it to travel in Dreamland with the body of Arthur in order to protect it there!!!
cant wait to see what comes NEXT!
If you look carefully, you see a line of red (I’m assuming the blade’s point of entry) center in the small of the centaur’s back.
Not to be confused with the Grapes of Wraith[s] …
😉
But even a mage centaur starts with his 4d8 hit dice…
Looks like the wraith got the abdominal aorta to me. You looks consciousness pretty quick from one of those. It takes only a few minutes to bleed to death.
I’m assuming that part of a centaur’s anatomy is comparable to a human’s.
lose consciousness*
WAY too late after an 11 hour drive home.
Conga Rats on making that drive safely, and welcome home!
Wraith: “It is done, Nicodemus.”
Nicodemus: “No, it’s raw. Let me roast that centaur.”
It would be ironic, having something like that happen to a Native American-themed character.