OUCH! I really didn’t expect you to go this dark, this quickly. Or at all, really. But I don’t think Danel (whom you left out of the cast list, btw) has anything to worry about. When Maeye and Fiet find out how he’s treating their Aryana, “somebody will do something”.
Personally, I was more bothered by the last panel of p9 — we see Aray restrained for easy access, surrounded by rusty torture tools, after seeing Hillarch wanting a conviction so badly he’s completely blinded to anything resembling truth… Torture in general is a touchy subject, and the fact that judicial torture was openly condoned in real life adds a special edge.
A trick oft used would be to replace the last panel with a view of the door, with the same speech bubble and scream. More menace, less bloodspray.
Something that would help is trying to get inside Hillarch’s head, and show hints of that, so we can at least feel like this is a comprehensible foe, instead of someone more slippery, like unto an unknown sniper in a belltower.
All that said… I dunno about Anifreik, but it’s not too dark for me. Could easily go there soon, but…
Not too dark, no. Just not what I was expecting here. It’s just that injuries from battles and adventuring are one thing, straight up torture is another. But I can deal. “Healing” scene might make it up to us. 😀
Yea – I am not a fan of torture either. Certainly do not enjoy torture porn, and that is absolutely not the point. The point here is this guy is a freakin nut job and Aray is in some serious deep shit.
I wanted this panel to show just how batshit crazy this guy is. I think it did the job. 🙂
Torture is a complete waste of time. There is no way to ever tell if someone is telling the truth or just saying what they think you want to hear in the hopes that you’ll stop turturing them. So Hillarch is not in this for truth, he’s just a sick fucker.
Hmm, vampires are, by legend, supposed to lure their prey by power of erotic arousal. And indeed, judging by this gal’s story, she is giving out what could be considered adequate recompense for a bit of a blood donation. Hardly worth getting creating an uproar over such encounters. hey, I’d donate a pint myself!
The vampire, if that is the correct term, hardly seems the real villain of this piece if these witnesses have accurate recollections.
Opps!! My bad; I had forgotten that some of those bitten didn’t survive the experience. Scratch that last comment about villains. There are at least two of them at work.
It was originally “most enjoyable” but that was giving me hell with the speach bubble placement so I changed it to “best” (in my mind) but I obviously cocked that all up. 🙂
Well, if anything, the vampire (or whatever) probably caused those deaths by accident; perhaps a victim was too weak or sickly to survive the blood loss. Those other turkeys are just sadistic goons, and we can sit and munch popcorn and cheer while the all femme rescue squad cleans their clocks.
Unfortunately, the kills seem to come mainly from the vampire persistently revisiting their, er, targets, until someone weakened by vampire attacks succumbs to one more.
OTOH, if these comments were intended as a deliberate exercise in DracoInLeatherPants, then please disregard O:J
What typo? The erotic experience was clearly just so mind-blowingly incredible that words failed the poor girl. She simply couldn't think of any adjective spectacular enough.
“Hillarch” or “Hillarc”? I’m guessing this is a typo, if Danel were trying to be insulting she probably would’ve said something more like “Hillarkey“.
Hm. Potential information-gathering issue: Did the victims really have mixed experiences, as “some sort of disorientation or arousal” would suggest, or is “disorientation” merely a euphemism used by those less truthful than Danel?
“Outside town and to the north” is distinctly more localized than “in the mist” is. If the townsfolk avoid that area during misty evening and night, will the vampire hunt elsewhere? It’s probably worth a shot, and if the town doesn’t know the attacks are north-y, revealing that fact could help show good intentions to the town.
These ladies don’t seem to’ve collected data profiling choice of victims. They also haven’t correlated disorientation vs arousal, although if it’s “disorientation” vs arousal that won’t help. More’s the pity.
Looking forward to the visit to the old watchtower — but there are so many things our intrepid investigators could find there… Do they know how often vampires need to feed? Could be a big nest if they feed rarely. Are the vampire(s) operating on their own? Are they in thrall to a necromancer or such, working toward some goal we don’t yet know? Is Hillarch working toward the same goal for the same master?
Man, typos abound in this page. I might actually have to fix this one.
Yes – most folks that just said disoriented are just too embarassed to say, “I was grazing my sheep on the north 40 and all the sudden had a raging hard on. Thank god that crazy bitey woman showed up, otherwise I may have had some unhappy ews in the flock.”
Lot’s of outstanding questions, and I do not mean to imply that they did not do some good research and learned everything they could learn, but there wasn’t enough room in the panel to have Maeye say everything. 🙂 And at this point, Maeye has the distinct feeling that Arayanna is in big trouble and is going to do whatever it takes to help her. As far as vampire lore goes, there really is none – just what Aray was able to tell Maeye. This is Prentil’s very first vampire.
And sorry if I gave the impression I expected answers in the comments — it’s more like I’m providing my own “How will our heroes deal with this one?” outro O:J
Yea, torture in general is a huge waste of time in my opinion. How could anyone possibly discern between actual truth and the poor torturee just spouting out whatever they think their torturer wants to here. Which is basically the point here – Hilarc (I’ve decided I am going to spell his name differently every time I write it now) is not interested in truth, he is just a sick bastard who likes to hurt people.
The first is actually demonstrated a bit here: To compel. Judicial torture was to compel confession, or from a more-generous perspective to see how hard it is to compel confession. Compelling a pattern of menial activities can even be used to convert, via cult methods. This one’s easier, and works on a single victim.
The second requires torturing a bunch of people, getting each to spill a bunch of answers, and seeing what correlates. A big enough heap of answers, even if they’re all lies, describes the “possibility envelope” surrounding the truth. This is especially useful when looking not for one truth, but for a family of related truths, like the deployment pattern of stealthy troops. And, of course, if every victim answers with one truth and a bunch of different lies, then the common thread is the truth…
Since you mentioned fixing the page, I’ll point out Maeye’s last speech bubble.
Is there somewhere up there that someone could shelter and hide during the day.
Is there somewhere up there that someone could take shelter in and hide during the day
Is there somewhere up there someone could use to hide during the day – to make it fit
Please keep up the good work. It’s a fun and interesting story.
yes, it can be a verb. But then the somewhere would be sheltering the someone?
Is there somewhere up there that could shelter someone and hide them during the day?
Or just go straight to it:
Is there any shelter up there that someone could use to hide during the day?
Where are those english teachers when you actually need one.
That would be using “shelter” as a transitive verb — but it can also be used as an intransitive verb, in which case it switches voice :S English is messy. A quick check through dictionary.com turns up only two intransitive senses, that one and one metaphorically derived from it.
That said, I’m not opposed to Maeye’s line changing, except that it flows better if a word like “somewhere” is used. It functions like an unresolved cadence, which Bekha’s line then resolves.
OUCH! I really didn’t expect you to go this dark, this quickly. Or at all, really. But I don’t think Danel (whom you left out of the cast list, btw) has anything to worry about. When Maeye and Fiet find out how he’s treating their Aryana, “somebody will do something”.
Ack. Sorry! Hope it’s not too dark for you. It’s all going somewhere…I promise.
Personally, I was more bothered by the last panel of p9 — we see Aray restrained for easy access, surrounded by rusty torture tools, after seeing Hillarch wanting a conviction so badly he’s completely blinded to anything resembling truth… Torture in general is a touchy subject, and the fact that judicial torture was openly condoned in real life adds a special edge.
A trick oft used would be to replace the last panel with a view of the door, with the same speech bubble and scream. More menace, less bloodspray.
Something that would help is trying to get inside Hillarch’s head, and show hints of that, so we can at least feel like this is a comprehensible foe, instead of someone more slippery, like unto an unknown sniper in a belltower.
All that said… I dunno about Anifreik, but it’s not too dark for me. Could easily go there soon, but…
Not too dark, no. Just not what I was expecting here. It’s just that injuries from battles and adventuring are one thing, straight up torture is another. But I can deal. “Healing” scene might make it up to us. 😀
Yea – I am not a fan of torture either. Certainly do not enjoy torture porn, and that is absolutely not the point. The point here is this guy is a freakin nut job and Aray is in some serious deep shit.
I wanted this panel to show just how batshit crazy this guy is. I think it did the job. 🙂
Torture is a complete waste of time. There is no way to ever tell if someone is telling the truth or just saying what they think you want to hear in the hopes that you’ll stop turturing them. So Hillarch is not in this for truth, he’s just a sick fucker.
Hmm, vampires are, by legend, supposed to lure their prey by power of erotic arousal. And indeed, judging by this gal’s story, she is giving out what could be considered adequate recompense for a bit of a blood donation. Hardly worth getting creating an uproar over such encounters. hey, I’d donate a pint myself!
The vampire, if that is the correct term, hardly seems the real villain of this piece if these witnesses have accurate recollections.
Opps!! My bad; I had forgotten that some of those bitten didn’t survive the experience. Scratch that last comment about villains. There are at least two of them at work.
Well, some of them died, but we do not know exactly why, now do we…
Uh, hate to be that guy, but fifth panel:
“…I have to say it was one of the most romps of my life.” Missing word, much?
Damn, two whole pages without a typo. Oh well…thanks for pointing it out.
! *am* that guy, but StarSword and Seth down there beat me to it…
Though I didn’t a word was missing, just ill-chosen – using ‘best’ for ‘most’ would probably be the easiest fix.
It was originally “most enjoyable” but that was giving me hell with the speach bubble placement so I changed it to “best” (in my mind) but I obviously cocked that all up. 🙂
Well, if anything, the vampire (or whatever) probably caused those deaths by accident; perhaps a victim was too weak or sickly to survive the blood loss. Those other turkeys are just sadistic goons, and we can sit and munch popcorn and cheer while the all femme rescue squad cleans their clocks.
Unfortunately, the kills seem to come mainly from the vampire persistently revisiting their, er, targets, until someone weakened by vampire attacks succumbs to one more.
OTOH, if these comments were intended as a deliberate exercise in DracoInLeatherPants, then please disregard O:J
>>two whole pages without a typo<<
What typo? The erotic experience was clearly just so mind-blowingly incredible that words failed the poor girl. She simply couldn't think of any adjective spectacular enough.
🙂
LOL! Thank you! 😀
There’s also the misspelling of ‘arousing’ in panel 2. Or is it Talk Like a Pirate Day in-universe?
Aye, ’tis arrrousing indeed. Except for poor arrrrested Arrrayanna!
It’s always talk like a pirate day in the pirate camps. But we aren’t in a pirate camp, so I guess that was a waste of typing.
Heh, yeah, that reminded me of the moment in Night Court where Christine Sullivan is described as being “very… very.” O:J
10 points for Markie Post reference!!
Ooh, so very… very 😉
“Hillarch” or “Hillarc”? I’m guessing this is a typo, if Danel were trying to be insulting she probably would’ve said something more like “Hillarkey“.
Hm. Potential information-gathering issue: Did the victims really have mixed experiences, as “some sort of disorientation or arousal” would suggest, or is “disorientation” merely a euphemism used by those less truthful than Danel?
“Outside town and to the north” is distinctly more localized than “in the mist” is. If the townsfolk avoid that area during misty evening and night, will the vampire hunt elsewhere? It’s probably worth a shot, and if the town doesn’t know the attacks are north-y, revealing that fact could help show good intentions to the town.
These ladies don’t seem to’ve collected data profiling choice of victims. They also haven’t correlated disorientation vs arousal, although if it’s “disorientation” vs arousal that won’t help. More’s the pity.
Looking forward to the visit to the old watchtower — but there are so many things our intrepid investigators could find there… Do they know how often vampires need to feed? Could be a big nest if they feed rarely. Are the vampire(s) operating on their own? Are they in thrall to a necromancer or such, working toward some goal we don’t yet know? Is Hillarch working toward the same goal for the same master?
Man, typos abound in this page. I might actually have to fix this one.
Yes – most folks that just said disoriented are just too embarassed to say, “I was grazing my sheep on the north 40 and all the sudden had a raging hard on. Thank god that crazy bitey woman showed up, otherwise I may have had some unhappy ews in the flock.”
Lot’s of outstanding questions, and I do not mean to imply that they did not do some good research and learned everything they could learn, but there wasn’t enough room in the panel to have Maeye say everything. 🙂 And at this point, Maeye has the distinct feeling that Arayanna is in big trouble and is going to do whatever it takes to help her. As far as vampire lore goes, there really is none – just what Aray was able to tell Maeye. This is Prentil’s very first vampire.
Sweet 🙂
And sorry if I gave the impression I expected answers in the comments — it’s more like I’m providing my own “How will our heroes deal with this one?” outro O:J
Personally feeling that Hillastard has something to do with these attacks, either directly involved or is responsible for the creation of the girl
Hillastard! I like it.
And you are very close…
Rule One when being tortured: never agree to anything that they say, it’s simply a tra… oh, Aray figured that out already 🙁
Yea, torture in general is a huge waste of time in my opinion. How could anyone possibly discern between actual truth and the poor torturee just spouting out whatever they think their torturer wants to here. Which is basically the point here – Hilarc (I’ve decided I am going to spell his name differently every time I write it now) is not interested in truth, he is just a sick bastard who likes to hurt people.
Well, there’s two points to torture…
The first is actually demonstrated a bit here: To compel. Judicial torture was to compel confession, or from a more-generous perspective to see how hard it is to compel confession. Compelling a pattern of menial activities can even be used to convert, via cult methods. This one’s easier, and works on a single victim.
The second requires torturing a bunch of people, getting each to spill a bunch of answers, and seeing what correlates. A big enough heap of answers, even if they’re all lies, describes the “possibility envelope” surrounding the truth. This is especially useful when looking not for one truth, but for a family of related truths, like the deployment pattern of stealthy troops. And, of course, if every victim answers with one truth and a bunch of different lies, then the common thread is the truth…
Since you mentioned fixing the page, I’ll point out Maeye’s last speech bubble.
Is there somewhere up there that someone could shelter and hide during the day.
Is there somewhere up there that someone could take shelter in and hide during the day
Is there somewhere up there someone could use to hide during the day – to make it fit
Please keep up the good work. It’s a fun and interesting story.
I’m pretty sure you can use “shelter” as a verb. I think… 🙂
yes, it can be a verb. But then the somewhere would be sheltering the someone?
Is there somewhere up there that could shelter someone and hide them during the day?
Or just go straight to it:
Is there any shelter up there that someone could use to hide during the day?
Where are those english teachers when you actually need one.
That would be using “shelter” as a transitive verb — but it can also be used as an intransitive verb, in which case it switches voice :S English is messy. A quick check through dictionary.com turns up only two intransitive senses, that one and one metaphorically derived from it.
That said, I’m not opposed to Maeye’s line changing, except that it flows better if a word like “somewhere” is used. It functions like an unresolved cadence, which Bekha’s line then resolves.
(English teachers < linguists! :P)
Pretty much with English: if it sounds good enough, it is 😀