Comic for February 29th, 2012

[Nulono]

Not much of a cliffhanger.

[RedDwarfIV]

Could not the Barrel Dweller also be the unknown character that slaughtered the former arms General?

That character is not generally considered "unknown." It is generally agreed on the forums that the Arms General was killed by the Master Spy. The "alt text" on that image referenced him being "the tavern keeper," who was pretty obviously the Master Spy, and Tom is on record for stating that the Master Spy's disguise magic simply lets him appear to be something he is not -- if you look closely he's clearly not whatever he's supposed to look like, which is consistent with the Arms General's comments.

i may be wrong but doesnt lady Nora hint at having killed the Master Arms General? I'll relook at that chapter.

Lady Nora doesn't normally use a bipedal form. Also, she doesn't wear bandages. The Master Spy does, and in recent strips he's been wearing them on his right arm. When the Arms General is killed, the 'Basitin' who killed him is shown to have used extremely powerful magic, and wore a bandage around his right arm.

[avwolf]

Lady Nora doesn't normally use a bipedal form. Also, she doesn't wear bandages. The Master Spy does, and in recent strips he's been wearing them on his right arm. When the Arms General is killed, the 'Basitin' who killed him is shown to have used extremely powerful magic, and wore a bandage around his right arm.

Like the man says, Nora's capacity for shapeshifting into Keidran, Basitins, and Humans is pretty limited. Not only does she have trouble walking without a cane, she really has a lot of trouble getting the fine features right, like how many CG characters are recognizable as supposing to be human, but are obviously not "real." That plays into the Arms General recognizing that she wasn't a Basitin, but he probably would have noticed something wrong a lot earlier. Besides, why would she want to take a bipedal form? Being a cat would let her gain access to the cells, I'm certain, especially with her magic, and it's more comfortable for her. She wouldn't be easily recognized as not belonging there and raising suspicions the way the false Basitin did if she'd appeared as a cat. There's just little reason for her to shift into a form that's more suspicious and harder to get around in.

I agree with this, and pretty much everything in this post. What I am stuck on is that once she is discovered, assuming she is the stowaway, what purpose would she have in the plot? (besides stalking Keith and being generally creepy of coarse...)

I tend to strongly support the Lieutenant being established as part of a love triangle with Keith. Having competition will help drive Natani's path of self discovery (and her proto-romance with Keith). Just see how much Laura's presence caused Natani to become more introspective. I imagine Lt. Adelaide would do something similar. Besides, Madelyn will live as long as Keith and could have children with him, both things that Natani isn't capable of. It makes the competition for Keith's affection much more interesting.

Any good RPG GM should be able to tell you that being asked a context-less question like that is just begging to be answered in a way that doesn't help the interrogator at all, or at least not as much as they think it will. The biggest shock for the readership and for the other members of the party is for Evals to answer "yes."

What about the opposite case? At this point it doesn't seem likely that he did set fire to the ship, but still, that's a possibility. In "Did you set fire to my ship?" the "my" is italicized and in bold, signifying that Eric (or Tom) is emphasizing the word. So Evals could say "no" even if he did set fire to the ship – if for some reason he thinks it isn't really Eric's ship.

Oh, certainly. That would be another fine twisting of the words on a technicality, and if there was an indication that Evals was responsible, I'd support that conclusion completely. Eric left a lot of interpretation open in his question, so it's not nearly as cut-and-dried as he believes it is. Playing off those expectations is a classic trope.

[Sacredless]

Could not the Barrel Dweller also be the unknown character that slaughtered the former arms General?

That character is not generally considered "unknown." It is generally agreed on the forums that the Arms General was killed by the Master Spy. The "alt text" on that image referenced him being "the tavern keeper," who was pretty obviously the Master Spy, and Tom is on record for stating that the Master Spy's disguise magic simply lets him appear to be something he is not -- if you look closely he's clearly not whatever he's supposed to look like, which is consistent with the Arms General's comments.

i may be wrong but doesnt lady Nora hint at having killed the Master Arms General? I'll relook at that chapter.

... well then I retract this statement...
Where did that memory come from though?o3o

Pretty damn sure it's at least appearing like a Western Basitin, as it shows to have a slightly darker skin, which is how Tom described them before.

I'm pretty sure it's the 'inside man' though.


--Seriously--
There isn't any need to put spoiler tags around comic pages, and not just because it screws up the page rendering in some browsers (Firefox for one). Past comics aren't spoilers at all, especially when we're talking about posting in the current comic discussion. So please don't abuse the spoiler tag. There's virtually no reason to use it in the Comic Discussion Board at all.
-- avwolf

[RennisTora]

Hmm, I can see why Eric would go this far though I do agree that it's inhumane. I mean after all it's not only his ship but setting fire to the ship you're all on while it's sailing at sea?... Kind of a big no-no All in all, considering the alternatives to getting info out of someone the whole
free will crushing collar doesn't seem THAT bad in comparison does it.

[TheDragonfiend]

Could not the Barrel Dweller also be the unknown character that slaughtered the former arms General?

That character is not generally considered "unknown." It is generally agreed on the forums that the Arms General was killed by the Master Spy. The "alt text" on that image referenced him being "the tavern keeper," who was pretty obviously the Master Spy, and Tom is on record for stating that the Master Spy's disguise magic simply lets him appear to be something he is not -- if you look closely he's clearly not whatever he's supposed to look like, which is consistent with the Arms General's comments.

i may be wrong but doesnt lady Nora hint at having killed the Master Arms General? I'll relook at that chapter.

... well then I retract this statement...
Where did that memory come from though?o3o

Pretty damn sure it's at least appearing like a Western Basitin, as it shows to have a slightly darker skin, which is how Tom described them before.

I'm pretty sure it's the 'inside man' though.

that "inside man" was the guy building the magic tower in the first place XD

"ima sabotage my own sabotage"

[RedDwarfIV]

That character is not generally considered "unknown." It is generally agreed on the forums that the Arms General was killed by the Master Spy. The "alt text" on that image referenced him being "the tavern keeper," who was pretty obviously the Master Spy, and Tom is on record for stating that the Master Spy's disguise magic simply lets him appear to be something he is not -- if you look closely he's clearly not whatever he's supposed to look like, which is consistent with the Arms General's comments.

i may be wrong but doesnt lady Nora hint at having killed the Master Arms General? I'll relook at that chapter.

... well then I retract this statement...
Where did that memory come from though?o3o

Pretty damn sure it's at least appearing like a Western Basitin, as it shows to have a slightly darker skin, which is how Tom described them before.

I'm pretty sure it's the 'inside man' though.

that "inside man" was the guy building the magic tower in the first place XD

"ima sabotage my own sabotage"

The Master architect. And I don't think we've seen him since the battle. Fairly certain he doesn't have glowing yellow eyes though.

[thebadman]

Master architect is dead, Trace killed him when was on his Killing frenzy.

http://twokinds.keenspot.com/archive.php?p=512

[primalcaller ergos]

yeah, i had thought so.

seems eric thinks that the only way he'll be safe is if he literally takes control of the situation.

well, that and it makes sense that he'd use that as a means of getting evals to tell the truth (even if he already was )
simply because i doubt eric would trust evals as far as he could throw him at any point, let alone one where his life was in danger.

so, you know, logical based on what he knows, even if still totally unnecessary.

[Onyxheart]

well i'm getting in here a bit late, but i wanted to put my own two cents in. i have to say i'm not surprised by handling things the way he's done. he is a slaver and controlling is his natural state of mind (even though he acts lecherous and easy going in previous strips; maybe thats all an act? to try and distract people from his profession and 'true self'?). though i was shocked at how affected i was by the way that so casually subverted another beings free will. i don't know where the comic will go from here, but it's getting pretty dark and i wouldn't mind a ray of light to brighten things up a bit.
(btw if you guys are making an unofficial eric-haters club, i want to join unofficially! )

[Ace5762]

Just a quick thing that's irritating me- 'Simplest' is spelt incorrectly.

[RedDwarfIV]

Master architect is dead, Trace killed him when was on his Killing frenzy.

http://twokinds.keenspot.com/archive.php?p=512

That would certainly explain it.

[Tiennos]

My prediction for the upcoming events would go like that :

: Confess !
: No, it wasn't me.
: Huh. Weird.
: See ? He's innocent, now take the collar off.
: Nope.
: RAWR !

Besides who started the fire, what I'm wondering about is what would anyone hope to achieve this way ?
The slaves might have wanted to do it to run away on the lifeboat, but I'm almost sure they didn't. After all, it was Mike who alerted everybody to the fire and if Evals planned to leave while the others were busy, he wouldn't have juste stayed there sleeping...
If it's the semi-mysterious general's killer, what the hell is his plan anyway ? First he helps the girls just so he can shipwreck them the next day ?

A yet-unseen new character could have his own reasons, so I guess it's the most plausible ? Unless Keith is a lot more depressed than he seems...

[Yumarii~wolf]

My prediction for the upcoming events would go like that :

: Confess !
: No, it wasn't me.
: Huh. Weird.
: See ? He's innocent, now take the collar off.
: Nope.
: RAWR !

Besides who started the fire, what I'm wondering about is what would anyone hope to achieve this way ?
The slaves might have wanted to do it to run away on the lifeboat, but I'm almost sure they didn't. After all, it was Mike who alerted everybody to the fire and if Evals planned to leave while the others were busy, he wouldn't have juste stayed there sleeping...
If it's the semi-mysterious general's killer, what the hell is his plan anyway ? First he helps the girls just so he can shipwreck them the next day ?

A yet-unseen new character could have his own reasons, so I guess it's the most plausible ? Unless Keith is a lot more depressed than he seems...

and wouldn't it be funny if it was simply an accidental fire?

[BadFoMo]

Just a quick thing that's irritating me- 'Simplest' is spelt incorrectly.

You’re right, there’s an extra ‘I’ in there. Unfortunately I think it’s a little late for Tom to go and fix it. Besides, it’s a simple mistake that any fan could fix for themselves.

and wouldn't it be funny if it was simply an accidental fire?

I’m not so sure about that. Given the way Eric has handled the situation and what has happened to Evals, I don’t think finding out that the fire was an accident would help lighten the mood.

Of course that’s if the accident wasn’t caused by anyone. If it was caused by the stowaway like several fans, myself included, believe, I personally hope the stowaway does something to help Evals. Like disenchant the collar or something like that.