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Yeay, Early today... Good

ough. The war is begining, that's not good at all

I'd like to be in this dreamy forest.

Hmm... something tells me that Zen hasn't been entirely honest with his king. "Continue following Trace" is a lot different to, say, "continue travelling with Trace". And thinking Trace might be useful... if Zen has been watching the entire time, and had told the full story, the king would know that Trace comes in two flavours. There's the one that will blast him into oblivion for sending assassins after Flora, and there's the one that will blast him into oblivion for being Keidran.

"Do not forget where your true loyalties lie." He sounds pretty confident that they're with the Wolf Keidran. They may be leaning towards the neutral party containing the tiger Keidran that saved Natani's life, and the Basitin she's falling for. Not to mention that crossing the most powerful mage of the three races (who's good friends with a dragon to boot) is not a decision to be taken lightly.

War? Looks like the ego of the Wolf Keidran have gotten them into trouble. Wonder if they dragged the other clans into it or not...

Hrm. Tom's drawing Zen and Natani with different fur colors now. I think that's Zen's 'soul self', even though someone's speaking through him - it has Zen's injuries.

Very impressive stuff. War? Rats...

Um. Now, Tom seems to have been careful to draw Natani from the neck up here, except in the second-last panel. Is it my imagination, or is Natani's soul-self looking particularly male? On all aspects, the eyes are male eyes, not female eyes, like when Natani was a child. And the chest in the second-last panel there is lacking curves where females definitely would have curves.

(You can see the difference in eyes between here, earlier, and today's.)

The war started... this can be a problem the humans need Trace to finish to final tower. It's their weapon that will warranty them the victory without that the war will be long and with heavy in both sides. My guess is that this is the Blood order (We learn about them in the history section of the masks)that started it. They probably wanted to destroy the humans before they find back their Grand templar and finish their ultimate weapon.



We know that Trace is the more powerful human mage and that Basitin haven't mage (or at least this seem the case) but we don't know how powerful are the elite mage of the Keidrans. This is not because that they need mana crystal that they are less powerful. Trace could even meet his equal.

Ça serait une bataille à ne pas manquer.

S.P.P.

hm, something i just noticed:

natani's eyes are diffrent colors. i just now see she has had them all along. could they just be natural, or maby tom is drawing them to show her almost "split personality"/whatever you want to call it... the issue with her acting like a guy most of the time, and acting like only recently he/she was "put" into a girls body...

it just seems wierd is all... or am i reading to deeply into the comic? :P

War you say?
Why do I get the feeling the current situation is going to get a hell of a lot worse before anything gets any better.
(I don't see any difference in the eyes, and to my knowlage they have always been different colours)

The discussion's been had - it's been shared that else-board, Tom's revealed that Natani is blind in the gray eye. Though, of course, it's not canon till it's in the comic. You'll also notice that when Natani was a youngling, Natani had two brown eyes.

She's blind in one eye, we know thanks to inside information. We've read far too much into the symbolism already in earlier discussions before we knew that, especially when the comic that showed Natani as a kid (pup?) rolled around. (kryss beats me to the punch. Blasted young'uns are too spry)



I noticed something seemed odd, but I had to wait for you to point it out to realise what it was. Let's break out the multiple choices. Theory Aye, it's based on her self-image. She sees herself as male, therefore her mental self is male. Would explain Zen's bandages, because he's fully aware that he's wounded. Theory Bee, it's an image of their soul. That would go along with the transgender/transformed party, but it wouldn't explain the bandages. Physical wounds wouldn't show up on the soul. Theory Cee, they're chatting while Natani's dreaming.



Very good point. In fact, the mana stone approach to magic would allow for a lot more firepower. Trace can only store so much, then he can only suck up a limited amount of mana from the ground before he gets to the black gunky stuff and starts going nuts. Mana stones mean you're only limited to one spell per marble you can carry. Marbles ain't that heavy.

The questions remain, can Trace use mana stones? I'd say so. And how difficult is it to whip up one?

As to Trace vs Top Keidran Mage, seems to me it'd go as such: Trace and TKM exchange spells, Trace burns through all his mana, gets smacked around a bit, gets desperate and soaks up some black mana. Then Old Trace feeds TKM to his pet pseudo-dragon.

ooh... never saw that topic/part of topic :(

and yea, thats about what would happen with trace vs tkm... :P

This does remind me of the famous quote, attributed to several people:

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

Natani's personal exposure to Trace and Keith may well modify her loyalties somewhat. Especially if she and Keith become "special friends" (or whatever euphemism you prefer). She may have a test like the one that changed Flora. Keith, Trace and Flora have all treated her a lot better than the folks back home, who just consider her an expendable tool.

.....TWIST!...I think...

Yeah, pretty shure...

TWIST!

Well, I'm just glad she wasn't ordered to kill anyone but I guess it's only a matter of time before she has to choose between the gang and the Wolf clan. Something which probably won't be easy considering she's getting pretty well along with the gang and that she's being watched all the time through that mental link. Which again raises the question whether or how Natani can control that link.

This is probably something I'm supposed to know since no one has mentioned it yet but what is Natani actually talking about in the 5th panel when she says: "Zen should have told you weeks ago I can't - "?

Here is to hoping that when she has to choose that Natani chooses Keith and everyone else over the clan. I believe that she will becuase by that time her relationship with Keith and her friendship with Trace and Flora will be much stronger... This of course is mainly my wishful thinking becuase I want Keith and Natani to be together desperately.

Remember that there's a "wild card" on board that none of the characters knows about: Lady Nora. She just used her mental powers to persuade Trace to give up on his magic and get into bed with Flora (and perform another kind of "magic" ;-)). She is clearly here for a reason, not just entertainment. It wouldn't be any sort of surprise to find her messing with Natani's mind, to interfere with her link to Zen and maybe also help persuade her to get closer to Keith. I'll bet we'll find that she's an interested party in this war, and is guiding our gang toward some political ends.


And the response was "We know. Your objective has changed." This without hearing what Natani was saying she can't do. They're probably assuming she meant that she can't kill Trace or Flora or Keith because they overpowered both her and Zen once, and now she's alone without the power she needs. This would pass for a pretty good excuse for her reluctance to kill. They don't really need to know that she can't do it because her loyalties are shifting. It's best that they learn that too late.

And what can they do to her, really? She's far at sea, heading for the Basitin Islands. Their only power is through her mental link, and Nora is sitting somewhere nearby listening in on the conversation, ready to interfere. They could banish her, but they already did that, and that's why she's where she is now.

They technically have't banished her yet.

...war was beginning scares me though. "With who?" is my big question about that, though.