It may be silly on my behalf but the first thought crossing my mind when reading the first panel was, right, so now we know everybody’s name. (I’m assuming Engine is the person in armour and Aura is the lady in white, but since the latter has a great big A on her torso it doesn’t strike me as a particularly hazardous assumption.)
By the way, the energy shrouding (the assumed) Engine’s fists, in what I’ve taken to call the “Hi there” page, looks very similar to the one that has been replacing the gutters for the flashback, and that we see around the Venerator’s fists in the first page thereof. Did Engine upgrade their armour to use a power akin to the Venerator’s? That’s for us to guess at, for now.
Oh, and Violet isn’t just a sorceress but has psychic powers as well? (Unless she simply has a Telepathy spell; a lot of RPG spellbooks have a variant of it.)
(How come I’m always so talkative about this? I guess I really enjoy this story. I hope no one minds.)
Three last things: one, decades ago I read A Brief History of Time and the notion that there are three possible endings for the universe really impressed itself on me:
– either the expansion goes faster than the universe weight and in eons the universe will reach heat death,
– or the expansion is slower and the universe will, at some point, stop expanding and start shrinking back into a Big Crunch (eventually times two),
– or both are exactly balanced and the universe will keep expanding, but at a slowing down rate. (When reading the book, I christened that scenario “OK God, no need to hide anymore”; but then I guess that if it’s what happens and we’re still around to accurate it, we’ll have grown beyond pondering about God and started doing Their good work.)
Apparently, Jonathan Silver is intelligent enough to have figured out a way to make sure the first scenario is the right one in their universe. (That’s something even Stephen Hawking couldn’t do in ours!)
Which brings me to the second point I wanted to make: this page, like the preceding ones, keeps ramping up the epic and awesome. Congratulations, sir. (Assuming you’re a guy, that is. Tell me if you’d rather be addressed as “lady” or “dame”. Come to think of it, why do we call men “sir” and women “lady” when the latter term is higher status? Ah well, I’m French, I’m ill-positioned to question any language about not making sense.)
Third and last remark: now that time travel of sorts is involved, I can’t help wondering if there will be a going back in time to stop the Venerator even before Cogniostro masters it. And if so, whether the story Majesty is telling is memories or what Jonathan Silver explained thereafter. (And if the latter, how much of it will turn out to be true…)
It may be silly on my behalf but the first thought crossing my mind when reading the first panel was, right, so now we know everybody’s name. (I’m assuming Engine is the person in armour and Aura is the lady in white, but since the latter has a great big A on her torso it doesn’t strike me as a particularly hazardous assumption.)
By the way, the energy shrouding (the assumed) Engine’s fists, in what I’ve taken to call the “Hi there” page, looks very similar to the one that has been replacing the gutters for the flashback, and that we see around the Venerator’s fists in the first page thereof. Did Engine upgrade their armour to use a power akin to the Venerator’s? That’s for us to guess at, for now.
Oh, and Violet isn’t just a sorceress but has psychic powers as well? (Unless she simply has a Telepathy spell; a lot of RPG spellbooks have a variant of it.)
(How come I’m always so talkative about this? I guess I really enjoy this story. I hope no one minds.)
Three last things: one, decades ago I read A Brief History of Time and the notion that there are three possible endings for the universe really impressed itself on me:
– either the expansion goes faster than the universe weight and in eons the universe will reach heat death,
– or the expansion is slower and the universe will, at some point, stop expanding and start shrinking back into a Big Crunch (eventually times two),
– or both are exactly balanced and the universe will keep expanding, but at a slowing down rate. (When reading the book, I christened that scenario “OK God, no need to hide anymore”; but then I guess that if it’s what happens and we’re still around to accurate it, we’ll have grown beyond pondering about God and started doing Their good work.)
Apparently, Jonathan Silver is intelligent enough to have figured out a way to make sure the first scenario is the right one in their universe. (That’s something even Stephen Hawking couldn’t do in ours!)
Which brings me to the second point I wanted to make: this page, like the preceding ones, keeps ramping up the epic and awesome. Congratulations, sir. (Assuming you’re a guy, that is. Tell me if you’d rather be addressed as “lady” or “dame”. Come to think of it, why do we call men “sir” and women “lady” when the latter term is higher status? Ah well, I’m French, I’m ill-positioned to question any language about not making sense.)
Third and last remark: now that time travel of sorts is involved, I can’t help wondering if there will be a going back in time to stop the Venerator even before Cogniostro masters it. And if so, whether the story Majesty is telling is memories or what Jonathan Silver explained thereafter. (And if the latter, how much of it will turn out to be true…)
Wow. How much more epic can this flashback story get???