Comment by Ely

I wonder if Xira can just pick up languages super fast due to mind-reading immersion?

Reply by Shazzbaa

(which would be a SUPER useful skill for someone who trades goods between countries)

Comment by Kiri

Oh geez before I read the vote incentive I THOUGHT THE FACESTEALER WAS YELLING HAHA.............

Reply by Shazzbaa

omg I didn't even think of that OKAY HOPEFULLY THIS IS.... A LITTLE CLEARER xD

Comment by Glew

Now what on earth is going on there?! There are human figures down there, but are they villagers? Are they the demon hunters? And what are they doing? What is that pillar of light? And why is this place filled to the brim with aberrants?
At least there are no death aberrants there, right? hahahaha... OH WAIT crap, there are! D:
Heh, yeah I wouldn't be sleepy either.

Weird random idea that just struck me: So if Sev can turn into a dragon, that means there are wild dragons in this world, right? (d'uh) I hope we will see some in the comic.

Reply by Shazzbaa

HERE have a close-up! :>



And yes, dragons exist! Sev mentions off-handedly in page like.... 9 that they "live in the south," but actually it's pretty far south -- they're a monster native to Ilvanov.

Comment by Toanovu

...is it just me, or does it look like those people are actually summoning the aberrants? Because that is super creepy.

Reply by Shazzbaa

....it certainly seems to have attracted that facestealer....

Reply by EveryZig#EZ

By guess is that the light summons the aberrants then fries them like a bug zapper.

Reply by Glew

We can only hope. From the close up Shazz was cool to post in the comments, it looks it is the Agorath Order doing stuff. We saw them prepare it a few panels earlier.
So maybe for once they will do something right? Or maybe it will duplicate the aberrants or make them grow or whatever. After all, the subtitle of Runewriters is that "Magic can always go wrong" (or di I make that up???)

Comment by eoforyth

If the reveal doesn't happen beforehand, I can see one of the first things Jonan doing when his lips get free is 'How can you not KNOw the boy is a witch?!' He has certainly been trying to indicate there is more to Xira than meets the eye - and we all have yet to find out what his agenda is. But Sev is oblivious :)

I'm also wondering just what is up with all these aberrants, and is it related to what the order is up to or is it just coincidence that this started happening when Quentin started... whatever it is he has started - certainly seems to be more problems where there are more of them :p

Reply by Shazzbaa

omg this is incredibly accurate

"HOW IS THIS NOT INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS TO ALL OF YOU??????"

Comment by Ikwig

Hmm, I keep misreading Sev's last line as something about things being super creepy . . . which they are . . . However, my misreading may indicate that in spite of the extreme creepiness of this page I am, in fact super sleepy rather than "super not sleepy." Sorry, Sev, I think I'll just go back to sleep and let you guys deal with the aberrants.

On a side note, in situations such as this, Sev, if you find you are okay there is actually no reason to ask "why" - just rejoice that you are okay!

(And on a further side note, I actually am pretty sleepy, so please excuse the silliness. An awesome page as per usual! Will Runewriters ever be put out in book form, by the way? I would love to have a printed version of this story to proudly display on my bookshelves!)

Reply by Shazzbaa

Aw thanks! The first three chapter books are already out and in the store! :D Just don't forget to add shipping to the cart, because my store is set up kinda weird x3

There may someday be a collected edition of RW, but since each volume is set up to be over 250 pages, that uh, might be a bit of a wait. xD But I want the people who are buying books now to still get something special, so there's several pages of concepts and peeks at the process that are only available in the chapter books!!

Reply by Ikwig

Thank you so much for pointing that out (I visited your web store a long time ago, but had kinda forgotten about it, I'm afraid. ^^;) I've added them to my seasonal wish list now! :)

Comment by Chrysalis

Well, now I'm REALLY curious as to what the rune-activation phrases sound like! Would overhearing Xira's phrase here be enough for Sev to guess that Xira is also a Runewriter? Unless he was too distracted to notice, which seems likely.

Come to think of it, would mind magic even work on an aberrant? We know that facestealers are intelligent (or at least are capable of convincingly impersonating intelligent beings, which might not be exactly the same thing), but I have no idea what would happen if Xira tried to interact with one's mind. After all, we saw what happened when Sev tried to combine aberrants and shapeshifting. True, we don't actually know for sure that that was what got him stuck with the tentacles, but maybe it's just as well that Xira wasn't able to finish whatever he was trying to do here.

There are very few stories I've read that make me this curious about the mechanics of the magic in them.

Oh yeah, and there's an army of aberrants outside, that's probably important too.

Reply by Glew

Come to think of it. Have we ever learnt how aberrants are "born"? Do they just pop out of nowhere? Do they multiply? Do runewriters turn into aberrants? Or are they, I dunno, "stray magic from a miscast" or whatever?

Reply by Shazzbaa

Chrysalis:
Hmmm.... the words don't sound, like, inherently magical -- it's just a phrase in a forgotten language, and most runewriters don't actually know that language. I'd compare it to, if you know a single phrase in latin, and somebody else yells another phrase in latin. There's a possibility that if you're not in the middle of something you miiiiight be like "wait, was that latin?" but more likely you'd be like "oh hey I didn't know you spoke [insert common romantic language here]" because you don't know enough of latin to immediately recognise it without obvious context.

Glew:
We have not learned how/whether aberrants are born! The aberrant hunters originally believed Severian was becoming an aberrant (though they appear to have changed their minds since then), and Severian has insisted that doesn't happen ever. But that's all we've heard on it!